The Countdown in On!

Only 18 more days until we find out if we are having a boy or a girl!! It is hard to believe that we are almost halfway into the pregnancy! I will be 18 Weeks tomorrow and I am still feeling great! I do tend to get tired a little more easily and I have to be careful not to get overheated....that's when I usually get sick...but other than that, I have felt really good!

Here are a couple pictures of the slowly growing baby belly. :)

17 Weeks....my belly always seems to look bigger when I wear dresses for some reason.

18 Weeks

I also had to include this picture. Seth performed his first wedding ceremony last Saturday! Yeah, I know you are thinking...WHAT?? It was for his second cousin...she asked him over a year ago to perform the ceremony. So, he couldn't say no. :) He did a WONDERFUL job. He kept it short and sweet, but it was just perfect! I am very proud of him!

Snacks and Cravings

Up to this point, only a couple foods have made by stomach uneasy just by looking at them. And I haven't had any REAL cravings. However, I do have some of my favorite snacks and such these days.

First, I have fallen in love with V8 Splash! We always ate pretty healthy before the pregnancy, but I wanted to make sure I was getting plenty of fruits and veggies into my diet. So, this has become my alternative to lemonade. Some of the flavors can have a little odd taste...but the tropical blend one is very good! At least in my opinion!

I have been trying not to eat many sweets. But some days, you just need a little something to appease the taste buds. Captain Crunch is constantly stocked in the kitchen right now. Did you know that all Captain Crunch cereals have 100% of your daily folic acid in one serving?! So, not only is it tasty...it is also very good for baby!!

The one thing that I have craved is Mexican food. I won't discriminate though...Taco Bell, Rosie's, Moe's...any of it will do!

Pre-pregnancy, I was a big fan of Mt. Dew. So, these days...when I'm craving something other than water or milk or juice...Caffeine Free Diet Mt. Dew!

I'm Still Here, I Promise!!

Wow! I have gotten so behind on posting!! Don't tell anyone, but I usually update this thing at work. And lately, we have been extremely busy. I have a few free minutes so I will try to give you a quick update on the past couple of months!!

First of all, Baby Bowen is doing great!! I have had a couple check-ups since I last posted and my doctor has been happy with the progress at each of them. I am almost 17 weeks along now. I was able to hear the baby's heartbeat a couple times...which was absolutely amazing! I have felt so good during the pregnancy (knock on wood), that sometimes I think...am I really having a baby?? But when I hear the heartbeat, it just amazes me that a human being is growing inside of me! My most recent check-up was yesterday and my doctor told me that we have a very active baby! We could hear him/her kick the ultrasound probe then just roll all around while she was trying to find the heartbeat. It was pretty funny. :) Our next appt. is the second week in June and we are supposed to find out if it's a boy or girl!! I told Seth last night that I really feel like it's a boy, but that could be because I want it to be a boy so badly for Seth. :) I know though that no matter what it is, that child will be given sooo much love! And as long as the baby is healthy, we really cannot ask for anything more.

Here are a couple pictures of my teeny tiny baby belly. I was 11 weeks in this first picture. Really, I was the only one who could tell a difference. Just looking at me, you couldn't tell I was pregnant.

I am 15 weeks in this next picture. (And I did not plan to have the same dress on in these pictures!) You can see just a little belly starting to pop out. :)

I guess the next big event to talk about was Easter. And honestly, there's not much to talk about, but I do have a few pictures!! The Easter Bunny came to see Seth as usual. :)

After lunch at Grandma's, the kids of course had an Easter egg hunt!



After Myles found his one egg, he was pretty pleased with himself and ready for something else! :)


A few days after Easter is when the storms hit Alabama. Our power went off Wednesday evening right after I finished cooking dinner. Seth pulled the mattresses into the hallway, which is where we ate our dinner...by flashlight. I know, how romantic! :) This picture does not do the situation justice (thanks to the flash on the camera). It was a very dark and eerie night. We spent the next few hours laying in between the mattresses, waiting out the storms. We were very fortunante not to have any damage. The nearest tornado hit hard about 10 miles north of us.

And finally, the most recent happenings..this past Sunday was my 27th birthday! It was a wonderful day! Sunday afternoon, Myles and I got in some much needed rest.

Sunday night, Seth and the in-laws threw me a semi-surprise party! Stacy made a beautiful and yummy cake. Eli was very willing to help me blow the candles out.

Even in this picture...he is still helping me blow out the candles...which were already out. :)

And I just have to include this last picture that Seth took of Myles...such a little sweetie!

Okay, I think that has you caught up on the few things that have been going on around here! Stay tuned for more baby information!! :)

Big News for the Bowens!!

It is hard to believe that almost three short years ago my big news was this:

I got married to my best friend. That was one of the happiest days of my life! Well, today is another one of those happiest days because I get to announce this:

That's right! We are going to be a mommy and daddy!! We are so beyond thrilled...as is the rest of our family! "Baby Bo" is due October 22nd and so far seems to be healthy and growing!!

We now excitedly await our next appointment so that we can see how much Baby Bo is growing and changing! I will do my best to keep the updates coming as we count down the days to Oct. 22!!

A Break from the Cold

Last weekend was an absolutely beautiful weekend and we filled it with plenty of activities! We drove to Birmingham Saturday to watch Caleb play baseball...our first game to see him play in college! He is playing for Motlow State.

Caleb got to pitch the last couple innings and the first game and did a good job! Seth was a proud brother!

We couldn't have asked for a more gorgeous winter day to be outside enjoying some baseball!

The next day, we headed to Nashville to see Shrek: The Musical. Seth and I saw this one while we were in New York a couple years ago. So we new that his family would love it. We took everyone except for Candra and Caleb, who were away at college...and Myles and Eli. We had a great time! The play was wonderful! Here are a few pictures that I was able to sneakily take during the play. :)

Life in the City

This week, I learned something about Huntsville. Even though we live inside the city limits, it's really still so much more "country" than most "cities" in the rest of the country. I was off work Monday for the MLK holiday. I had a few errands to run, so after lunch I headed out to my car. As I walked around the back of the car, I noticed a creature was sitting in our yard. I did a double take and realized that it was a raccoon! I snapped this picture with my phone thinking that it would run off any minute. (Sorry, it's a tad blurry!)

But as I stood there watching it, it NEVER moved and then I realized something was wrong. It was just sitting there shaking/convulsing. It was WEIRD. At one point it actually stood up, froze and just fell over like a fainting goat! Like I said, weird. I got in the car and called Seth to tell him that we either had a dying or pregnant raccoon in the yard. I had intended to just leave it there, assuming it would leave eventually. But then a neighbor caught me. It was an older couple from down the street. "Hey...umm, don't you think you should call the police or something? What if it has rabbis?!" So, I said okay...I could call animal control and see if they could do something.

Well, Huntsville Animal Control is closed on MLK Day, in case you were wondering. So, I called the police department...not 911 mind you...just the general number. I didn't want to seem totally crazy! :) The lady said they would send a police officer over to check out the "situation." So, I stood (at a safe distance) keeping my eyes on the raccoon as I waited on the officer. A couple minutes later he arrived...I could tell he was sooo excited to be responding to a raccoon scare. I apologized for the disturbance and explained my concerned neighbors (I had talked to three or four more by now). He just chuckled and called in back up. :) Seth suggested that I ask the officer to (illegally) hand over his gun, let me shoot the thing, and we could call it a day! Which I might have done if I had known how long it would take animal control to arrive. But eventually they did...they wrangled the now perturbed raccoon and saved the day!

Ahh, life in the city...always full of excitement!

Don't you just LOVE snow days?! Sunday night at about 9pm it started snowing at our house. Monday morning we woke up to about 7" of snow!!! We proclaimed it an official Snow Day and stayed home from work. :) As soon as we got done eating breakfast, Seth was ready to go outside and play. It has been such a LONG time since I made a snow angel! It was so much fun, until I realized that my jacket wasn't pulled down all the way and I had gotten snow all down my pants. Brrr!!!

We wanted to take a few pictures of the house before we started messing all the pretty snow up. My sweet husband wouldn't dare throw a snowball at me while I am holding a camera....would he??? ..... YES!! He most definitely would!!

We got a couple good pictures of us in front of the house before he threw me down and pounded me with snow!

He thought he was sooo funny! :)

We attempted to make a little snow fort for our snowball fight.

Seth lost. :) I have no idea how he got all this snow on himself!! I didn't have that many snowballs!

Now on to the snowman making! GO Vols!!


The next day the roads were still pretty bad, so we stayed home again and attempted a second snowman....

We would have measured him to see exactly how tall he was, but as soon as we took a couple pictures....


The wind caught him. :(

Nevertheless, we had two wonderfully fun snow days full of playing and being lazy!!