From My Phone

Just thought I would share several pictures that I had on my phone. Enjoy!



Waiting for Stan



More waiting...


Cuddled up with Aunt Aimee


"That's some good eatin', Momma!"


Chillaxin'


First time in his crib....he fell right to sleep! Thanks Lollie for making his crib so comfy!


Hanging' out on his playmat



Taking a nap with Daddy
Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Visitors

We are very grateful for all of the visitors we have had since Stan was born.  We are particularly thankful for our families that made the trip across the country!  I'm not sure we could've survived without y'all!

Chillin' with Ole Dad

Snuggling up with Bebe

"Can you say Papa?"

Getting lots of love from Lollie

I was completely shocked when Jay and Robin popped their heads in the door  shortly after Stan was born!  Robin is one of my very best friends from AZ but their family moved to FL last May.  So you can imagine my surprise when they walked in!  They just happened to be back in AZ for business and they were going to surprise us anyway.  It just happened to work out that I went into labor!

"It's nice to meet you Aunt Mandy!"

Singing a little song for Aunt Aimee

We also have had several other visitors that aren't pictured:  Cherry Hoenig came to visit during the labor process and was in the waiting room while Stan was born.  She was actually Stan's very first visitor.  The Samson clan arrived shortly after Stan was born.  Then we had Judy Freeman (our AZ grandmother) and Sharon Craig, both friends from church, came to visit the next day in the hospital.  We also have had several visitors come to the house too!

A lot of travel arrangements had to be made for family to get out to AZ...flights rescheduled and then changed again, making the long drive from MS and back, etc.  But we are so appreciative that everything worked out and all traveling was safe and sound.

And Then There Were Three....

Well Stanley Pierce Whittington made his big debut February 1, 2011 at 4:32pm.  He was 7 lbs. 14 oz. and was 20 3/4 in.  He is now three weeks old and to say our world has been turned upside down would be an understatement!  He is absolutely perfect, if I do say so myself and we are head over heels in love!

I know that I am the worst blogger in the world so I am going to take the updating a little bit at a time.  Hey, at least I was able to write a post before he turned a month old! :)

So I will start with labor and delivery:

My water broke around 11:15pm Monday January 30th.  It was such a relief that my water broke at home. I was really worried it was going to happen at work.  I had actually been sitting on a towel at work for like two weeks before Stan was born and I also had an extra pair jeans in my cubicle just in case!  Anywho, after my water broke I woke Preston up.  I wasn't having any contractions so we googled if we should head to the hospital or not.  Google informed us that we should but since I wasn't having contractions we took our time getting ready.  Both of us took showers and I even curled my hair and put on makeup!

We got to the hospital around 1:30am.  They confirmed that my water had in fact broken and they got me setup in the labor and delivery room.  I started having contractions but nothing consistent and I was only around 3cm (I had been 3 cm for about two weeks).  After we got settled we tried to rest as much as possible but it was hard for me to get comfortable.  At around 8:00am the nurse came in to check me and I still hadn't made much progress, so we opted to get up an walk around to see if that would help speed up the process.  Preston and I walked around the hospital and ate breakfast in the cafeteria.  After we ate we headed back to the room where the nurse checked me again....no progress.  At that point we opted for pitocin and the epidural, both of which had been given to me by 10:30am.  And then we waited.  Thank goodness Cherry, a good friend from church, came to visit!  It helped distract me from the clock!

Before I knew it at around 2:30pm the nurse came in to check me and I had progressed to 8cm.  Then around 3:00pm I was at 9 1/2cm so the nurse called my doctor in.  The doctor decided to try to go ahead and push because she was heading to the OR shortly.  I was surprised because it was just me, Preston, the nurse and the doctor.  Before I started pushing I even asked, "So this is it?  We're about to do this, just the four of us?"  I just had in my head that there were going to be people bustling around the room!  After a couple of pushes, the doctor decided that I wasn't quite ready and that she wanted to let the contractions do their work.  So we waited again.  My nurse kept checking on me and at around 3:45 the nurse said, "Ok, let's do this."  So this time it was just me, Preston and the nurse and again I was like, "So we're going to do this just the three of us?"  And the nurse just laughed. 

After pushing for 30 minutes the nurse called my doctor in for delivery (who was now out of the OR).  She came in, along with several other nurses and I said, "See!  Now this is what I thought it would be like!"  I pushed for about 15 more minutes.  There was a little concern because Stan's heart rate kept dropping during contractions.  They even pulled out the suction machine, just in case but I was determined not to have to do that so I pushed even harder!  Then at 4:32pm Stanley Pierce was born!

The whole experience was amazing and we couldn't have asked for a smoother labor and delivery.  We have definitely been blessed!  Thanks to all who called, texted, visited and sent flowers.  We were overwhelmed by all of the love!

Now on to pictures:

Brand new baby boy!

Love. Him.

Proud Daddy

Bundling up to go home....it was the coldest it had been in AZ in a long time.  Our pipes were even frozen when we got home!  Oh and thank you to our AZ grandmother Judy for the warm sweater!  It was perfect!

Snug as a bug!

Moving Right Along

Well today marks exactly 25 weeks in my pregnancy!  I can't believe how fast this is going by!  When we first found out I was pregnant, I remember feeling like I would NEVER get through the first trimester and all of a sudden the end of the second trimester is sneaking up on us!

So on to the good stuff.  First and foremost, in September we found out that baby Whittington is a BOY!!!  It has taken me a while to post this because I wanted to get the sonogram pictures scanned in.  Along with finding out we are having a boy, we have also decided on his name:  Stanley "Stan" Pierce Whittington!  So without further adieu I give you....Stanley Pierce:

This is actually a picture of his "tenders" (as Michelle's boys would say)!  During the sonogram the nurse said there was no doubt that it was boy because he wasn't shy and was "flashing it all over the place!"

We couldn't be more excited about having boy!  I will never forget laying on the table with Preston at my feet.  The nurse announced it was a boy and Preston grabbed my ankles in sheer excitement and I immediately started to cry.  It was definitely an awesome moment!  Preston and Mr. Markel called it from the beginning.  After the nurse left the room Preston was grinning from ear to ear and I told him I couldn't tell if he was more excited about it being a boy or if he was more excited about the fact that he was right!  I honestly think it was a little bit of both! :)

Also, several people have asked for updated belly pics.  So here you go!

21 Weeks

22 Weeks

23 Weeks

That is really about it for us!  We are counting  down the days until we get to come home for Thanksgiving.  Just three weeks from today and we both can hardly contain ourselves!  Have I mentioned that this will be the first time since last Christmas that either of us have been home?!  Personally, I think that is just TOO long.  I really think we are both going through withdrawals....Preston has already planned to eat at Connie's twice in the short time we are actually in Tupelo! :)

I will leave you with a sweet profile picture of Stan from our last sonogram:

I can't stop staring at this picture!

It's That Time of Year Again...

....the time of year I complain about how bad it sucks to live in the desert during the fall.





I'm officially depressed.


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17 & 18 Weeks

I've had a couple of people from home ask about the "baby bump" so I am going to try to post "the bump" as often as I can remember.  We are trying to take a picture every week.  We started at 17 weeks so we will see how it goes.  Also, just for my documentation, I felt the baby move for the first time on Sept. 2, 2010!  I wasn't sure if it was the baby or gas but it kept happening and has definitely gotten stronger in the past weeks! :)  And as you will see I started "poking out" A LOT between 17 weeks and 18 weeks!

17 Weeks!!

18 Weeks!!

Austria - Part II

After our Saturday day trip to Salzburg we were pretty worn out (especially me)!  So Sunday we slept in and did a little more city exploring on Sunday afternoon.   We ate at a cute little pizza bistro for lunch and then toured St. Stephen's Cathedral.

Katie and I eating pizza al fresco.

St. Stephen's Cathedral.  The architecture was unbelievable!!!

Unbelievable detail in St. Stephen's.

Just an extra little tidbit about St. Stephen's Cathedral:  For forty years, many years ago, any person that died in Vienna was buried in St. Stephen's catacombs.  Katie and I didn't see the catacombs (it cost extra) but we heard about "rooms of bones."  It so happens that I found this picture on the internet, which looks unbelievably similar to the picture that Travis (mentioned in previous post) took with his cell phone.  Evidently the stench got so bad that they had to quit holding church there for a while.  The church still holds services there today and it just blows my mind that people attend a church that has dead people in it..... A LOT of dead of people.

After St. Stephen's we wandered around Vienna even more and came across an awesome shopping center.  Unfortunately, because it was Sunday, everything was closed so we decided to go back on Tuesday.  Late Sunday we walked through a tunnel, then through an archway and stumble upon this:

We learned from our tour book that this where the president lives and this building also houses the Austrian National Library.

Sunday evening I was, again, pretty pooped so I decided to go to bed relatively early and Katie went out with several other State Farm agents.

Monday, the travel agency that planned the trip for all of the State Farm agents organized trip to a small town outside of Vienna called Melk.   In Melk we took a tour of a HUGE monastery that is still active.

Monastery in Melk.  Again, the architecture was breathtaking!

After the tour of the monastery we went on a dinner cruise on the Danube River.  I have to say that this was probably the highlight of the trip for me....just floating down the river and coming across castle ruins, tiny towns with vineyards and even a palace!  

A view of the Danube from the monastery.

Castle ruins.

A quaint little town with vineyards on the hill.

Katie and I cruising on the top of the boat.

A huge palace on top of the hill.

Tuesday was our last day in Austria.  We got up fairly early and went back to the shopping area that was closed on Sunday.  We hadn't done much souvenir shopping so that was our main goal for Tuesday morning.  I am not much a souvenir person so I decided I wanted a Christmas ornament....something that I knew I would use and would be a reminder, every year, of my trip.  Katie and I found a cute little Christmas shop and I picked out a "Christopher Radko-esque" ornament of St. Stephen's Cathedral, which is very much a symbol of Vienna.  I also found a wooden wind-up carousel that played "The Blue Danube" for the baby's room since the baby traveled with me to Austria! :)

After shopping we went to The Belvedere.  It was at one time a palace in Vienna but they have since turned it into an art gallery.  This was also a highlight for me because I had know idea we would get to see original paintings by Rembrandt, Renoir and Van Gogh!  It was awesome.  The main attraction of the Belvedere is the Klimt display.  Klimt was famous for the painting called "The Kiss".  Klimt's art is very much representative of Austria.

I found this picture on the internet.  I didn't get many good shots of The Belvedere because it was just SO big!

I did take this picture.  This is a picture of the grounds on the opposite side of The Belvedere that is pictured above.  The grounds were gorgeous!

Unique statue on the front of The Belvedere.

Tuesday evening we went out to a nice dinner with Stephanie, Kirk, Travis and Pat.  It was a great way to end a fabulous trip!

Wednesday morning we were up early to catch our bus to the airport and thus began a VERY long day of traveling.  I think after all was said and done with traveling home, I was up for over 24 hours and I had to get up and go to work the next day....NOT FUN!  And I think I cried when I saw Preston in the airport because I was just so. tired.

Like I said before, this trip was absolutely amazing....definitely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me and I will never be able to truly thank Katie for her generosity!  Katie - maybe when we are old and retired we can do this again! :)