Spoiling the Baby!

This week was Teacher Appreciation Week at school. My LEAP students, in a coordinated effort, planned to shower the baby with gifts this week. Each day, the students from a particular grade level came to class bearing gifts for me and the baby! I was overwhelmend, to say the least. I was not expecting to be showered with presents and it was such a wonderful surprise to get gifts for the baby. I can't imagine anything I could possibly appreciate more at this particular moment in my life. I am so thankful to have wonderful students who love learning and parents who value teachers and education. God truly blessed me by giving me the opportunity to move into this wonderful job, and I thank him everyday. I enjoy my job so much and am reassured everyday that I made the right decision, by making the move from 3rd grade to LEAP. Here's a little peek of the gifts the baby and I received this week.

Baby Mauldin has been significantly spoiled!

16 Weeks

15 Weeks 16 Weeks

Pregnancy Highlights

How far along: 16 weeks

Total Weight Gain: 3.5 lbs

Maternity Clothes: Either my bella band with pants or maternity pants which I LOVE. Those feel the best on my waist. My little petite pants can't handle my blossoming belly. I wear a mix of regular and maternity shirts, but most regular shirts fit still but show my bump.

Sleep: I have been tired this week off and on. Some nights I want to go to bed at 7:30 and some nights I can stay up late. I'm having a harder time getting comfortable in bed.

Gender: 35 days away (can you tell I'm eager)

Movement: This week is the first point when I might feel something

Food Craving: Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Red Jellybeans

What I Miss: This weekend when we went out with friends, I missed not being able to have a drink at dinner.

Symptoms: I was really emotional this week. Thank god my husband is so understanding!

Best Moment of the Week: All the time I got to spend with friends....Baby Mauldin enjoyed MANY dinners out this week.

Sewing Saturday

I have had the sewing itch ever since I spent part of a day last weekend browsing through all the cute handmade items on Etsy. So last night I decided to learn how to embroider names onto fabric. I was also feeling over zealous, and thought I'd try to make a layette gown that I'd found on an adorable website. I came across these on someone's blog and am totally obsessed with them. I think this is partially due to the fact that I went to many stores during Spring Break trying to find these gowns and discovered that they are not easy to come by. One of the girls at school, Sarah, is having a little girl named Avery, so I thought I would try to make a cutesy layette gown for her shower on Tuesday.

Here it is....a much cuter version of the bland cotton varieties they sell in the stores! I have loved using my new sewing/embroidery machine since Christmas. It was the perfect present. I am definetely still an amateur seamstress and am often backtracking to correct mistakes. But each time I make something I feel like it gets a little easier. Hopefully I'll have some more sewing projects to share in the near future.

Rub a Dub Dub...

Finally, the Mauldin household will have clean plates without having to listen to the "Symphony of the Clanking Dishes" everytime the dishwasher is turned on. We now have a new dishwasher and it is AMAZING! After a couple hours of work last weekend, Nick installed our new KitchenAid dishwasher. Unfortunately I was of little help, but Nick loaded our clunker dishwasher into his truck, dropped it off at Lowes and picked up our new one. Here are a few pictures of him hooking it up. The hardest part was tightening the water line underneath the dishwasher after it was pushed underneath the counter.

What Will Our Baby Look Like

Nick and I were playing around on the computer today and came across a website called Morphthing.com. You put in pictures of you and your spouse and it will show you a picture of what your baby might look like. Could the future girl Baby Mauldin look like this?

or this one.....

Or will it look like this boy?

or this one...

I know this is totally goofy but we got a kick out of it. Even though you can see an outline in the background where our pictures were and they are have random hair shaded in, it's still makes you wonder if our baby will look like any of these pictures, or if they'll even look anything like us at all! Only time will tell.

Baby Bump Update

5 Weeks (Right when I found out)

7 Weeks

9 Weeks

10 weeks (It really just looks like I'm more full in the waist, but that's how the bump began)


Then BAM....I'm 13 and a half weeks

Amazing how much it grew in few short weeks. It really does just pop out all of a sudden. I went to the doctor today and everything is looking great. The baby's heartbeat was in the 150's which is right where it should be! I will go back at 17 weeks to do blood work which they can use to screen for genetic disorders and at 21 weeks I'll to do another ultrasound, find out the GENDER, and the doctor will take detailed measurements of the baby. It's MUCH later than I was hoping to find out, but apparently my doctor is adamant about not checking for gender until 20 weeks. I was disappointed at first, but I am going to count my blessings that we have a happy, healthy baby at this point! I can be patient and wait to few extra weeks to know if I'm going to be looking for baby girl or boy outfits, toys and other goodies.

Pregnancy Highlights

How far along: 14 weeks
Total Weight Gain: 2 lbs
Maternity Clothes: Either my bella band with pants or maternity pants which I LOVE. Those feel the best on my waist. My little petite pants can't handle my blossoming belly. I wear a mix of regular and maternity shirts, but most regular shirts fit still but show my bump.
Sleep: I have finally regained my energy, but now I have a hard time falling asleep at night again (this is very common for me in my non-pregnant life). Plus I wake up all the time to go to the bathroom.
Gender: Will find out the week of May 16th (it feels like it's so far away)
Movement: None yet...I can't wait!
Food Craving: Cereal, Milk, gummy candy (I try to resist) and Spinach Quesadillas
What I Miss: Coffee in the morning
Symptoms: Emotional at times, was nauseous but that has gone away almost completely, lower backaches
Best Moment of the Week: Hearing the baby's heartbeat on the Dobbler for the first time. It was the most beautiful sound. Also finding out that I am safe to travel to Hawaii in June with my hubby and our friends, Kristen and Craig. Woohoo!!

And A Baby Makes Three!

These past few months I have totally neglected writing on our blog, but with good reason. Nick and I have had big news to share and I was worried that I would let it slip out too early. We are officially expecting our first child. Little Baby Mauldin will arrive on (or around) September 25th. We could not be more excited and now that all of our family, friends and workplaces know as well, I feel like I can finally stop trying to cover up my slowly blossoming belly and spill the beans! We went to our first "official" prenatal appointment last week together and got a chance to see our little bean, wiggling around in all it's glory. It's amazing how advanced technology is today. We could actually see the baby's little eyes, nose and mouth and watch as it's tiny paddle-like hands shook up and down and covered up it's face. AMAZING! Here is the first official picture of Baby Mauldin. I promise many more to come!

We find out the gender either the last week of April or the first week in May (hopefully April...I can't find out soon enough). The baby has also already received some precious presents from family members and friends. I was so lucky to have my mom come to visit me the DAY I found out I was pregnant. We had planned the trip for a month and I had taken a pregnancy test and gotten a positive result the night before. I couldn't wait to call her in the morning and share the big news. I couldn't imagine a more perfect first week of pregnancy than having my mom here to share it with me. She was so excited she couldn't help buying up all the pregnancy books at Barnes and Noble for me to read and two precious presents for the baby.

Meet Lil' Peanut and Sweet Pea. The babies come out of the shells! We honestly just bought the lil' peanut doll first because my daddy used to call me "Peanut" when I was a baby. Then we couldn't help getting the other one, because we didn't want to be gender bias. So now we have the girl and boy version. They might make an appearance again on our gender reveal day at the doctor.

My Aunt Margaret and Uncle Bobby, who sent me boxes of books for every holiday and for every special occassion throughout my childhood, have already begun the time honored tradition with our new little one. On Valentines Day, a package arrived with a few surprises for our new little bundle of joy.

Three ADORABLE board books to read at Valentine's Day. I cried when I read You're My Little LoveBug outloud to Nick (which I love to do with kids books). It is so funny but sweet at the same time, plus it plays music and has a place to put the baby's picture. Being an avid reader, I am so excited to have storytime with my children and share my love of reading with them. This was the perfect gift to start their book collection!

The next weekend my parents decided to come up for a visit. They had been busy baby shopping already and decided to make a special Barnes and Noble run before they came. Many of the books that I really want to have for my children are classic books from my childhood.
The two books sitting on the table are actually Wee Sing CD's. Some of my fondest family memories are singing through these CD's with my sister and family when I was young. The two CD's here are Wee Sing Children's Songs and Fingerplays and The Best of Wee Sing. They have so many wonderful CD's for kids....I can't wait to collect them all. As you can see from the picture, many of these books are oldies but goodies! I really need a bookcase to start filling up soon!

On the day I got my ultrasound, my wonderful friend Donna, from Donald, gave me such a special gift. This precious picture frame which says "Now Showing" has a special place to hold an ultrasound picture. It is sitting in the counter in our kitchen right now and I can't help but stop and stare at the picture all the time! It was so touched that she thought of me and it really was the perfect present on a day I'll never forget!

The last weekend we had the chance to head to Longview, and share the exciting news with Nick's whole family. In the excitement I forgot to take any pictures, which is totally unlike me. Nick's parents had a fish fry and we got to tell many of his family members at once. I'm so happy to have the shared the news with so many people and not have to keep this big secret anymore!