It's Now Official...we are having a.....

GIRL!

We couldn't take the uncertainty that we were given yesterday. This morning, we decided to call up an Ultrasound center and see when we could make an appointment and they ended up having an opening today so we took it. It was an incredible little session. Camdyn decided to play nice today and was very willing to show us that she was a girl (I think she was probably done with getting poked and proded during the ultrasounds the past two days). However, when they tried to take some close ups of her face she liked to throw her hands up by her face and hide. So you win some you lose some :) The purpose of the appointment was to find out what we are having and she allowed that. We are just absolutely thrilled!!!

So with the appointment we were given another CD that has pictures and some video in 2D and then in a 3D form (not going to lie, the 3D is a little freaky at this point). So we will go ahead and share some of them with you! The first one at the top was one of the gender shots. We hope you enjoy these new ones.

Love always,

Ben, Gabrielle, and Camdyn

This video, titled SHH, is pretty funny to watch. It was as if Camdyn was annoyed and was putting up her hands to cover her ears/side of head.

Pictures from yesterday

Problem solved! As promised here are the pictures from yesterday's ultrasound. The first picture is like a face-to-face view (the bottom of the picture says Face on it). The big black circle is the forehead and then to the right of that you can see the two eye sockets, kind of looks like an alien :)

The others are profile views of our little one., similar to the video that we posted yesterday, but still shots.

Enjoy!

Love,
Ben and Gabrielle

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Camdyn or Ethan?? 80/20??

We had our "big" ultrasound today and the little one decided today was going to be a good time to be modest and cross the legs. They opened up for a little bit but it was never enough for us to get a 100% confirmation as to what we are having. The best we were given was that it was 80% a girl. So, where does that leave us now? Not quite sure yet ourselves. We aren't sure that 80% is enough to move forward totally so we will see. I am sure we will have more information to come on this. The really good news is that baby Camdyn (that is our girl name-we can call that for now, or at least 80% of the time :-) ) is looking great and measuring up perfectly for where we are in the pregnancy. Her heartbeat today was at 140, which is definitely in the normal range, though lower than last time (to be expected at this point). She decided to show her hands and even her feet with 10 fingers and toes! We couldn't be happier with knowing she is doing so well!!

We got a video clip of her which is posted above. If you look closely you can see the heart beating. It is such a sight!! We were also given several other pictures on a disk. They are causing issues uploading right now so we will have to work on getting them posted soon. It is amazing how far our little one has come already!!!

We love you all!!

Ben and Gabrielle

4 months and counting!

Well as of Thursday we hit 4 months! Can't believe it. We have definitely been keeping pretty busy around here. Work has occupied most of our time. Most days it definitely feels like so much to do, so little time. The front yard is looking great! I finally took some pictures to post here. We aren't done, don't worry. The next step is going to be putting up a wall where they outline is, that will help cover up the piping from the gutters. That is just going to be a matter of time for buying the wall rock. In the island we are going to still buy a lamppost, our poor palm there is not having tons of luck, everytime it blooms something happens. In both rock areas we are going to put in some other items to help decorate it. We are pretty happy though with how it is turning out.

The first coat of the "clean up" paint has also been completed. It doesn't look too different from the pictures we took and posted not too long ago so we haven't taken any new ones yet. We are pretty sure we have a color scheme picked out for a boy, but still looking for one for a girl (we thought we had the bedding, etc figured out but we changed on both not too long ago). The good news is that on Friday, we will be finding out what we are having!!! We can't wait. Our appointment is first thing in the morning and we will definitely make sure we update on here as soon as we can. As you may notice on the right side of this blog, we have posted up a poll to see what the guesses are as to what we are having. Please feel free to let us know what your guess is :)

As we have been trying to do, we have a new picture that was taken today (16w2d) of Gabrielle. Things have grown pretty quickly. She can no longer fit in any of her normal clothes without the help of a belly band and sometimes that is getting uncomfortable. She wore her first maternity clothing today (the shorts) and was extremely comfortable. We will be making some rounds for some clothes soon!

We took one of her with her shirt lifted, but she has opted to not post that one today :)

Well we suppose that is about it for now. It is getting to be dinner time and everyone is getting hungry so that is next on the list for today.

We hope you are all enjoying your weekend and have a great one. We will talk to you all again on Friday!

Love always,

Ben and Gabrielle

Happy May!

Just wanted to stop by and drop in a new picture from this past weekend. This was taken on Saturday.

Slight change in the picture from last weeks, more so in the clothes department. The belly band has been worn a little more these days and we bought my first pair of maternity shorts that I am sure will be worn very soon. Gotta say, there is something about maternity clothes, those shorts are SUPER comfortable.

Can't believe it is May already. The weather is heating up quickly here! Definitely much nicer than the cold we were having! The pool is almost warm enough, we sort of went in on Sunday but it was still a little chilly, hoping that this weekend will be good!

In other news, Rory caught a mole this morning. It didn't take her long. Ben thought there may be one yesterday based on some holes he saw, and sure enough she found it this morning and when we were trying to leave for work she shows up and plops the thing down on the ground. Poor mole. The dogs are doing well though. Can't believe Rory is already 1 year (turned 1 in April). Here are some pictures of them from not too long ago.

Well that is about it for now. We hope that everyone is doing well!

Love and miss you all.

Love,

Ben and Gabrielle

Busy weekend! Lots of pictures :)

As mentioned before the Rivera's came up this weekend to help with some of the items on our list. So much got done and we are very thankful to them for coming up to help out.

We didn't take any pictures of before or after yet of the front yard, but the new larger "bed" has been scaped, weed-block put down, and ready for rock and then the wall (first layer of the wall is down though!). It already looks a million times better. It is really going to be nice when it is complete. I think we are going to try and get the rock purchased this week so that this coming weekend the open areas can be filled in. Then in time we will begin to work on the wall. So HUGE accomplishment.

The next big thing was starting the nursery. Since the guys moved out, we have only gone in and worked on the now guest room and have left the "nursery" room alone and just used it for storage. Well we had finished moving out everything and were left with an empty slate (minus the paint that was already there). Ben had started the patching of holes and then he finished it with his dad. Here are a couple of pictures of before this weekend's work.

Today's goal was to sand all the hole patches up and then put up a coat of ceiling paint and then primer to get to a basic starting point for when we decide on the color scheme for the actual nursery decoration. There was hope that only one coat would work but it looks like it is going to need another coat. So here are the pictures of round 1, getting whiter :)

So there is still a chunk of work to do in there, but it is definitely getting closer. The room will be ready to go for when we find out the sex of the baby (May 21st) so we can get in there and start really decorating it. Be ready for more pictures of this to come and we promise to get some up as well of the front of the house.

In other baby updates, we have a new baby bump picture from yesterday when we were 13 weeks, 2 days. This weekend shorts were definitely fitting tighter. Gabrielle had to put on her belly band for what used to be her loose :-)

Everything else here is going pretty well. Work is keeping us both very busy but we definitely have no complaints. We hope that everything is going well with you all. I am sure we will be updating more soon.

Much love!

Ben and Gabrielle

April Appointment- Check!

Today was our monthly appointment with the Dr. It is hard to believe that we are going to be 13 weeks tomorrow! Time is flying by. The Dr is very happy with the progress the baby is making. The doppler machines were having a little trouble, I think Baby Rivera likes to hide and only show him/herself. So we found ourselves back in the ultrasound room for another trans-abdominal u/s. Wow what a difference 4 weeks can make! Baby Rivera had hands and legs that were moving around and a strong heart beat flickering away. Our Dr. turned on the sound and let us hear the thumping of the heart. What a sound!!!

They are also pretty happy with the current weight gain. At this point it looking like 5 pounds over the first trimester, though the last 3 came from this last month! That seems to be the healthy average for the first tri, so hopefully we can keep up the good healthy pace.

So our next appointment now is in 5 weeks (usually 4) because at the next appointment on May 26th we will be finding out whether or not Baby Rivera is a boy or girl!!! It is going to be a long 5 weeks :) We have to go get this ultrasound somewhere else so we have to do that before the 26th so that our Dr gets the results before our appointment. So get those guesses in!

Ben has done an incredible job on the nursery. There is not one thing left in the room. Everything has been cleared out. The next step is to finish patching the wholes, then sand the walls down, then put up a primer and some of touch up some of the ceiling paint. Ben's parents will be coming up this weekend and will be helping out with the room. Then after our appointment on 5/26 we can paint the room the final color that will go with the room decor. We took some pictures of the room before any painting is done and will post those as before and the after, should be a sight!!

We want to thank everyone for their love and support. It has really been a blessing to have.

Well that is all the news to report today. I am sure we will be back soon!

Love always,

Ben and Gabrielle