Saints in Lamaze

Well, we just had our last lamaze class and we are official graduates with paperwork that validates this claim...Baby Flannery should feel safe coming into this world with Lamaze certified parents.  It was after watching the news following the Saints game a few weeks ago that we realized "John" from lamaze class was Jonathan Vilma, the Saints star linebacker #51. No one in the class seemed to notice or if they did notice who "John" was no one bothered him. Well this being our last week we decided to buy a baby Saints jersey and ask Vilma to sign it....and he did. Here's a picture of Baby Flannery's signed Saints jersey. What a great story we have to share with baby when he arrives. 

SUNSET

I was sitting in the living room updating my blog and I happened to look out the window and this is what I saw...so I grabbed my camera, went outside, sat on the porch and took these pictures. (Note: These have not been retouched)

I GOT THE BEST PRESENT IN THE MAIL TODAY

I got the most amazing gift in the mail today from my Uncle Ray. He sent me a bag of fall leaves and acorns. The first thing I did was open the bag...stuck my face inside and took a deep deep breath. I MISS THE FALL so much....it's my favorite season and it doesn't exist in Louisiana so having a bag of leaves made me jump around like a little kid in a candy store. THANKS UNCLE RAY!

Pumpkins + Louisana =

So 7 Days after carving our B-E-A-utiful pumpkins....this is what they look like. We learned our lesson that you don't carve pumpkins in Louisiana until a couple days before Halloween. Every time I look at these I crack up!  They look like old men with no teeth.

33 Weeks Pregnant

Here are some pictures of me at 33 weeks pregnant!

Don & Teri Visit

Don and Teri came in about 3PM on Friday. We sat and visited for about an hour and then headed to the French Quarter. We walked around and Teri and I shopped…well Teri got to shop…I’m too fat and pregnant to shop for clothes…it just makes me depressed. Teri got some really cute things at a store called Jackie’s!! All the walking around made us hungry so cruised over to Deanie’s and ate some stuffed crabs and shrimp and came home and crashed.


Saturday I had my work event so Stu and I headed downtown and took pictures for about an hour and then he took his dad and Teri to breakfast at the Blue Plate and then over to his jobsite (WWII Museum) and showed them around. Here are some great pics Teri took of the inside of the building.

Saturday afternoon we grabbed our camera and drove to Uptown. Uptown is full of vintage clothing shops and great art stores. Teri and I found a really neat French store and bought some soaps and candles. We stopped along the way and ate pizza at Theo’s (it was AMAZING). After pizza and full bellies we went back to the house and lounged for about an hour.

No one can come and visit without a trip to City Park…it is my favorite place in the city…so we grabbed the cameras and drove over to the park which is about ½ a mile from our house. Here are some pictures of the park we all took. I’m not sure who took which pictures, but they are beautiful.

Sunday morning Don and Teri left and Stu and I spent our day being lazy! We did however carve some pretty cool pumpkins.

Pumpkin Carving

Yesterday Stu and I decided we wanted to carve some pumpkins. It was nice and cool yesterday kind of fall like so carving pumpkins just seemed right. We cleaned them out and I baked the seeds and tonight I'm making a pumpkin pie.   Here are some pics of the pumpkins. I'm sure you can tell which one is Stu's pumpkin!  I finished carving mine in about 30 minutes....Stu's took a couple hours.

BABY SHOWER

On September 24th Stu and I drove to Indiana for my baby shower. The drive was lllllloooooonnnnnnnnggggggg. I bet I peed 30 times before we got there. I just couldn’t get enough icees. They tell you to drink tons of fluid (I think they mean water…I like icees better) to stay hydrated, but you pay for it by peeing every 10 minutes. Stu didn’t complain once and neither did the dogs who came along for the ride. Every time I peed they got to go for a walk. I think they enjoyed the drive up, but were not happy about the 2ft by 2ft space they had to ride in on the way home. Hey…the gifts had to go somewhere!! I wish we would have taken a picture of the Sequoia because we looked liked the Clampetts. We had stuff stuck on top and in every nook and cranny we could find. The worst part of the drive home was knowing that when we pulled into the driveway we had to immediately unload the vehicle or risk getting all of our stuff stolen….crime is bad here…and houses don’t typically have garages.

Anyway…I had the most amazing time visiting my family. I had a bunch of family come in from out of town that I haven’t seen in a couple years. My Mom, sister, Nancy and Teri did such an amazing job on the baby shower. It was by far the prettiest most creative baby shower I have ever been too. The decorations were AWESOME!! See for yourself:

 Peple seemed to be disgusted with my poopy diaper game...well me and Stu's Aunt Nancy loved it.

Oh and my friend Coutrney's little girl Olivia picked a raisin out of the "poopy" diaper and ate it!!

The baby’s room (yes…he is still nameless) is Dr. Seuss so the baby shower theme was Dr. Seuss if you couldn't tell.

Thank you to everyone who made my day special!! 

Tuesday Scare

Last Tuesday I woke up and felt bad, but I blew it off...heck being pregnant you feel bad most days. I got in the shower...got ready...and headed to work. I talked to my sister on the drive to work and when I hung up with her and got out of my vehicle I had the worst pain I had ever experienced. I wasn't even sure if i could walk to the elevator. I sucked it up and made it to my office. I guess I had "pregnant lady in pain" all over my face because when my co-workers took one look at me they made me lay down. After about 30 minutes I thought I felt better. I walked to the bathroom and on the way back down the hall the excruciating pain started again. As soon as I made it to my desk I called Stu and told him he needed to take me to the emergency room. My co-worker helped me down the elevators to meet Stu and we drove to the ER. Poor Stu was so worried about me his driving got a little crazy (if you have rode in a vehicle with Stu take his regular driving and multiply it by 2 and that was how crazy it was) and I was in so much pain I couldn't even yell at him LOL!! He even put on his hazard lights, which now when I look back it makes me laugh.

When we got to the ER they rushed me upstairs and I immediately was being hooked up to machines and poked and jabbed. I was having pretty hard contractions that were coming about every 7 minutes. They gave me three shots to stop the contractions. The contractions finally stopped, but the back pain was still crazy so they ran all kinds of tests and finally discovered that I have short uterine tubes and the pressure from the baby is causing them to pinch which is what is causing me so much pain in my back. All I can do are exercises and take Tylenol.

I saw my doctor Friday and she sent me to ultrasound so they could have a look at the baby and he is fine...he's measuring 2 weeks big and they said he already weighs 4lbs 3oz...and they expect him to double by 40 weeks. He's a big boy already. Stu was joking that we could have a preemie baby that weighs 8 pounds. My sister Julie's baby was born premature and our baby already out weighs her at 30 weeks. HA!

The good news is baby is fine. I have my overnight bag packed and in Stu's car just in case Baby Flannery feels like coming early and my next appointment is Oct. 22.

GARAGE SALES

Stu and I decided to go to garage sales this weekend to try and find some things we still needed for the baby’s room. Our adventure was interesting to say the least. In New Orleans most houses do not have garages, which is interesting considering crime is so high you would think you would want to lock your car up somewhere instead of leaving it in your driveway….anyway so back to these “garage” sales...I searched craigslist and came up with about 10 different sales around where we live.

Garage Sale #1: The first garage sale we went to consisted of one old man and one box of things (I remember seeing knives in this box) in his back yard…yes I did say one box of things. We found this to be creepy and left quickly.

Garage Sale #2: This one said HUGE SALE so we were definitely excited about this. The garage sale had more people sitting in lawn chairs with beer (remind you it is 8AM) in the driveway then it did items for sale. We are now laughing.

Garage Sale #3: Junk…I’ve never seen so many bird cages for sale in my life…all their birds must have just died because the cages still had poop and feathers and feed in them. Other than bird cages there were tons of doors and shoes. ???

At this point we are questioning our efforts…

We drive to another one…and it was like the heavens split open and sun shined down on us. Finally…a garage sale that wasn’t creepy and was selling items other than shoes and dirty bird cages. We bought a dresser and a bookcase. Stu was having fun haggling for better prices. We ended up with a dresser and bookcase for $46.

So we packed up the Sequoia…drove to Lowe’s for some black spray paint and hardware. Here’s how they turned out: