Mackenzie Mary...in 3D!

It's crazy to think that two days ago (February 15th), I was exactly two months away from my due date with Mackenzie. I have no idea where the time has gone!

Today I had a 3D ultrasound and we were able to catch some cute photos of our little peanut! She was facing the perfect direction for the photos, but unfortunately the umbilical cord was in the way most of the time, so getting that perfect, unobscured shot was tricky! I did get to see her yawn, smile, swallow and stick her tongue out though which was really neat!

The sonographer took some measurements while I was there and she said everything looked great! The heartbeat was 131 which she said was good, and based on the measurements it looks like our little girl is weighing about 4 lbs, 5 oz! Three more pounds and she'll be good to go! :) I seem to be able to gain that in a week these days, but I'm thankful she isn't plumping up quite as quickly as her mama is!

We were given a DVD of ultrasound so we have everything that was captured. Here are the pictures that were printed out for us.

Here's a "standard" ultrasound photo she gave me that's a profile picture of Mackenzie, with her head on the right side of the photo...

The umbilical cord crept into these two photos over Mackenzie's eye (on the right side of the photo), but they are still adorable!


And these two photos are my favorite! At the end of the ultrasound, she fell asleep and was resting her head on her arm. And the umbilical cord managed to stay out of the way for just enough time to capture the moment! She's a cutie pie!


We are getting really excited to meet Ms. Mackenzie and are having fun putting her nursery together. Well, I should say that it's actually been David putting the nursery together so far and he's done a fabulous job! We have the crib and dresser in place and will hopefully be bringing the glider into the room this weekend and maybe putting Mackenzie's name up on the wall above her changing table (like how it is in Maddie's room). Slowly but surely we are getting there!

My next checkup appointment is on Wednesday the 23rd. It's so strange to think that I have an appointment two weeks after that and then I'll be 35 weeks and go for weekly visits. It is all getting so close!

We love you!
Nile, David and Maddie with a special guest appearance by Mackenzie in 3D!

Our Gold Medalist

I'm so sorry that it's been an eternity since we posted! January 29th was Maddie's last gymnastics class - the course was 10 weeks long but it felt like it went by so quickly!

Looking back to when Maddie began the class, and where she was at the end of January, was so great - she had accomplished a lot in those weeks and was doing so much more than when we first began. She used to hate walking along the balance beams and would lift her legs up high so that her feet wouldn't touch the beam. On the last day, she walked along those beams and at times wasn't even holding David's hand! She had overcome that fear and hesitation and did such a great job on her own! I think the only thing she continued to dislike were the rings, but that's ok! She did them and enjoyed climbing through the rest of the course, including a small rock climbing wall. And of course, her favorite thing from day one until the very end was the trampoline. That girl can jump! She absolutely loves it and would've been completely content spending the entire class time on the trampoline!

At the end of the last class, they had an awards ceremony for all of the kids. We took some long overdue photos that day of the different activities Maddie did in class, of her teacher (Ms. Gail) and the ceremony. The ceremony was really cute - they had Olympic music playing in the background and they gave each kid a gold medal to wear and a wand to hold up during their time on the awards stand. We were (and are!) proud parents!

Here are some of our favorite photos...

Maddie on the balance beam - they start off walking along the slightly higher beam (to the right of the one she's on here) and then hop down to the lower beam. I am so proud of her for the progress she made in this area! She had no hesitation that last day of class!

Here's one of the rope swing...someone is always holding on to Maddie and the rope as she swings, so it's not nearly as dangerous at it may sound!

I hopped into the class quickly and walked alongside Maddie while she was on the balance beam. After the rope swing, there's a tunnel the kids can crawl through and then a balance beam to walk on that brings them back to the line for the rope swing. That is the balance beam she was on here.

Maddie never stayed still long enough on the trampoline to get a picture of her that wasn't blurry! She was just constantly jumping and loving every second of it, as this blurry photo will attest!

Here she is flopped down on the mat at the end of the trampoline, with a fuzzy Jonah landing by her side.

Maddie is swinging on the bars here. This was another area that she hated in the beginning and was much more open to by the end. It still wasn't her favorite and the rings followed the bars, which didn't make it any more appealing (since she still dislikes the rings!).

Maddie popping out of the circular tube for a great photo op!

Here she's starting up the rock climbing wall, following her classmate Jonah who has made it to the top (those are his parents beside him)...

Maddie is sliding down the ramp here, sitting on top of a little skateboard type thing that glides down the ramp - she really liked this!

After getting off of the skateboard, she would walk down a ramp to where the large rings were...

And here she and Jonah are looking at each other in the rings!

Here are a couple of Maddie with her wonderful instructor, Ms. Gail...


And now she's sitting contently with Daddy waiting for her turn during the awards ceremony...

And her moment of triumphant glory! Isn't she adorable?!


We love you all!
Nile, David and our little gymnast (aka Maddie)

A Trio of Girls

I am so sorry that it has taken me 4 days to get this post up! I was having trouble getting the ultrasound photos to load and those are half the post!

We had our 20 week ultrasound for little peanut on Monday morning and found out we're having a girl! The ultrasound technician said there was no doubt in what she saw and there were definitely "girl parts" out and visible! We are so happy and excited! I absolutely adore my sister and the relationship I have with her and can't wait for Maddie and little peanut to experience that amazing sisterly bond. Maddie is going to be such an awesome big sister!

The ultrasound technician printed out a bunch of photos for us. She said the baby is growing right on track and is weighing 12 oz, the size of soda can. I have been able to feel peanut moving around for about 3-4 weeks (right around my 17th week) and it's so fun to feel those movements. While the ultrasound was being done, peanut kicked around and I was able to both see and feel the kicks - so weird but so neat too! We got to see peanut drinking too - her little tongue was moving back and forth a lot! I don't remember seeing Maddie's tongue moving, but it was really cool!

And here we go, on to the photo show!

A profile of our beautiful baby girl...

You can see peanut's arm reaching in front of her face her...

You can see her torso here...

And her early acrobatic skills! She is laying on her back with her legs lifted up over her (so her toes are near her face). Oh to be that flexible!

And a cute little foot...

We're now working on figuring out a name for our peanut and having fun looking into nursery design ideas. I still can't believe that we're already at the half way point for this little one! It has gone by so quickly!

Love you all!
Nile. David and Maddie

Halloween

As we all know, Maddie is an early to bed, early to rise little girl. So staying up for Halloween is tricky because it gets dark past her bedtime. Add to that the fact that Maddie woke up this morning at 4:30am instead of 6am - and did not fall back asleep - and keeping her awake for the festivities was a very long shot! We decided to dress her up tonight though as we still wanted her to be in her costume and we went outside and had a great time running around with her all dressed up! She hates having anything on her head so we knew that the hood on her costume wouldn't stay on for long, but David was able to catch a few shots of her in full gear! She missed going door-to-door, but she had a ton of fun in her giraffe costume! And she looked so darn cute too! Here are some of our favorite pictures from tonight...










Isn't she just the most beautiful giraffe you've ever seen?!


Happy Halloween!
Nile, David and Maddie the Giraffe

Our Peanut

We have shared our exciting news with everyone, but I realized we never officially announced it here! This April Maddie is going to be a big sister! We are so happy and feel so blessed! We are so incredibly thankful too that we didn't have to go back through the infertility clinic and routines in order to be blessed with this little peanut. Maddie was absolutely worth every appointment, pill, shot, poke and prick it took to get her, but I am very happy that we didn't have to do that all over again! We affectionately named Maddie our "bean" and this little one is known around the West household as our "peanut"!

It's still hard to believe it's real...and how close April is already feeling! Maddie is going to be such an amazing big sister though - I can't wait to see her interact with a little one! At Ms. K's right now too she recently went from being the only one there to having a little 2 month old there with her. So she's getting a lot of great experience being a big sister there too and learning how to softly touch babies, etc. She's also getting used to sharing Ms. K's attention - she really loved having that all to herself!

Maddie is doing really well and has recently learned how to nod her head "yes" and also figured out how to do a somersault all on her own about 2 weeks ago! We are looking into a local gymnastics club that offers classes for little ones. We think she would love having a place to tumble and jump around!

Here are our most recent photos of the little peanut that were taken at the end of my 12th week. I have a checkup appointment on November 4th and then the big gender-telling ultrasound is scheduled for November 29th - I cannot wait! It's so crazy to think that I'm almost to that half way marker!

I know ultrasound photos can be hard to decipher, so hopefully these descriptions will help orient you! In this one, the baby's head is on the left hand side of the picture and the baby is looking up. The white you see extending above it's belly is an arm.

The baby is in the same position in these next two photos too...


Here's a foot!

On this one, the baby's head is still on the left hand side, but it is now looking down instead of up - you can see the whole body though! The round circle underneath the baby's belly is an arm and you can see the legs and feet off on the right hand side. It's so amazing!

We love you!
Nile, David and Soon-To-Be Big Sister Maddie

Fall Festival

We have been having such a great time with Maddie and were excited to really get into the fall season with her! On the weekend of October 9th/10th, we took Maddie to a fall festival at Butler's Orchard, an orchard that's about 20-30 minutes away. The weather was amazing for an outdoor fall trip - I think it wound up being close to 80 degrees! The festival is set up with a huge area with games for the kids, animals and a big pumpkin patch. A lot of the games were geared for kids older than Maddie, but she had a great time seeing the animals, playing in this huge open barn with hay and at the pumpkin patch. Here are some of our favorite photos from that day! There are a lot, but I have such a hard time narrowing down photos of her - they are all so adorable to me!

Watching the chickens and roosters...

And the black pigs...these guys were cute, but there were stink bugs everywhere which mommy did not enjoy!

Having fun with a painted pumpkin...

Her favorite animals were the goats! They were very mellow and friendly and would walk up by the gate so you could easily pet them. So fun!


She had an absolute blast in the barn with hay! There were a lot of older kids running around and jumping off the hay bails (which I'm sure she'll be doing in no time!), but we were able to grab a quiet corner for her to play in and she had so much fun! I think we must've spent at least a half hour in there!






This one just cracks me up! Maddie's expression is so priceless! She was smiling all the way through and then we have someone take a family photo and the stern look is all she gave the camera! I guess we were taking away from the real fun and she wasn't very happy about it!

My sweet baby girl...

Here Maddie is in the pumpkin patch. She loved walking around and wanted to pick up all the pumpkins. She was surprised to find out how heavy they are!


And this is her winning pumpkin! Maddie's first pumpkin!

We love you all!
Nile, David and Maddie