Happy Thanksgiving! We certainly have a lot to be thankful for this holiday. We are enjoying having Jeff’s brother, his girlfriend, her daughter, and our niece here for the long weekend. It’s great to have time to spend with them and just relax together. We journeyed up to my Grandma’s for Thanksgiving Day, along with 35+ other assorted relatives. There is a 2009 “baby boom” on that side of the family, as two of my cousins are expecting babies, one in April and one in June or July. I can’t wait for our little one to get to know his cousins! Today has been a relaxing day at home…my brother-in-law is a master at homemade pizza dough, and we make sure to press him into service each time he visits. As I type this he is working on dough for tonight’s dinner. I’m told one of the pizzas will be Thai chicken, featuring a yummy peanut sauce. Mmmmmmm.

In baby news, we are now at 24 weeks…it’s hard to believe that I can now say I am six months pregnant! I am still feeling good and loving the second trimester. Our son is over a pound and over a foot long, and I love feeling him move every day. It’s really fun when he moves and Jeff gets to feel it.

A couple pictures:

It’s hard to believe that on Wednesday I will be six months pregnant! It is so fun to feel our boy in there every day. Jeff got to feel him for the first time on Friday, which was very exciting for both of us. We have warned the baby that we will stop exhorting him to “kick Daddy” once he is no longer in utero. Yesterday we bought paint for his room, and this weekend we have been working on sanding a changing table that we’re going to repaint. Mostly Jeff has been doing this, but I did help a bit. Thankfully today was sunny and pretty warm so we were able to sand on the patio in comfort. It also gave Jeff a good excuse to buy an orbital sander, which was money well spent.

Because I can’t swallow the giant prenatal vitamins, I take an assortment of pills each evening (per my doctor’s instructions). Tonight I got out the pills and then went in another room for maybe 30 seconds. I came back to the kitchen and the folic acid was missing. Dory (one of our kitties) was sitting nearby licking her lips. I think I know where the missing pill went…now, if we had to get Dory to take a pill that was actually prescribed for her, it would be a challenge nearly beyond imagination. Don’t worry, I won’t leave any pills in reach once our son is here!

Here I am at 23 weeks:

It’s hard to believe I am 22 weeks pregnant already, more than halfway done! This week our son is the length of a spaghetti squash and weighs almost one pound. According to my weekly Baby Center email, his irises have developed but are currently colorless. Jeff finds this really cool, but it kind of freaks me out. Then again, those who know me know I have some eye issues. That’s one thing I hope our boy doesn’t inherit from me! We’re guessing those eyes will be blue when he’s born.

We’re planning out his room, tomorrow we’ll take a trip to Ikea to look for a white bookshelf. Hard to believe, I know, but the kid already has enough books to need a shelf! I am enjoying re-reading some of my favorites from childhood, including my vintage 1979 copy of “Hippos Go Berserk.”

Here I am at 22 weeks:

We recently had our ultrasound, and thankfully all looks good with our baby. We were hoping to find out if we’re having a boy or a girl, and were very happy that the tech was able to tell. We are having a boy! Jeff and I both thought it was a boy, so either we have great parental intuition, or we just lucked out on that 50/50 chance. Now we can really start shopping for all those cute baby clothes! I’m looking at paint for the nursery, it’s lots of fun to think about how to decorate the baby’s room. Of course the room is pretty small, so I can’t get too carried away. In other fun news, I have recently started to feel our son move! Right now it just feels like bubbles, it will be fun once I can really feel him moving around in there. So far Jeff has not been able to feel anything so we are hoping that happens soon.

I definitely look pregnant now! The baby is now as long as a banana, and weighs about 10.5 ounces. Here is a picture of me at 20 weeks, taken a few days ago: