Happy Thanksgiving!!

Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday and this year was no exception. We have so much to be thankful for!! We go around the table and say what it is that we're thankful for each year and the majority answer for this year was family. Especially the fact that our family is growing! We feel so incredibly blessed to have Daxton on the way. Also, so blessed to have such wonderful family to spend holidays with.

I'm also thankful for a wonderful husband who does an amazing job at taking care of our family. He provides for us in many ways, and there is no way to possibly thank him enough. I hope he knows how much I appreciate all that he does! God really blessed me with Adam!!

I'm thankful for Karsten too! He is such a sweet boy who I know will be an excellent big brother to my sweet little Daxton. He is so incredibly smart and sensitive. He also likes to drive me crazy...but what kid doesn't enjoy doing that to their parents every now and then? I don't know what I would do without him.

I want to say that I am thankful for my husband's parents and sister as well. They do so much for us and there is no way to repay them! I'm especially thankful for their help with making a wonderful Thanksgiving meal!! I couldn't have done it without you!!

This Thanksgiving was a little bittersweet for me. This was the first one without my Gran. I missed her so much, but I know she was watching over me. I keep thinking about last Thanksgiving when she came over and how much fun she had. She hadn't been to a Sellars Thanksgiving before and she was in for a treat! I'm so incredibly thankful that I was able to share that holiday with her and always have that memory.

Here are a few pictures from our day!! We always have fun!

Such a good helper!

 What a beautiful bird!!

 Such a cute picture of mother and daughter!

 Oh the love they have for one another!

 Finally enjoying the meal!

A little update about Daxton. His due date is tomorrow, and I'm not convinced he's going to come by then!! When I found out I was pregnant there were 4 other girls who were all due around the same time as me. Most before, but one had the exact same due date! Well...the last one is about to have her little girl and my sweet son is still hanging out (or I guess in!!!)! He has decided he wants to be the very last one born. Adam says that it's good that he's last b/c he will get more attention. I like the way he thinks!! Of course, anyone who knows Adam very well knows that Daxton is taking after him. When Adam says he will be somewhere at a certain time, expect him to be late! Except when it comes to work...he's pretty much always on time for that. However, he's almost always late to everything else!

We have scheduled a date to be induced, HOWEVER, we are going to have to change it!! It was set for Wednesday, but Adam has some important people coming into his work on Thursday morning and we decided it would be best if we waited until at least Thursday afternoon, Friday at the latest. I'm going to talk to the doctor tomorrow and hopefully get it rescheduled!! I'm still crossing my fingers that I go into labor tonight and he is here by his due date!! :) Not likely, but you never know! I have tried to walk a lot to get him to come out, which seems to help a bit, but not enough. I go to the doctor tomorrow morning and I will know more after that. Keep praying for us!

Activities from October

We've had lots of things happening the past month! One weekend we had some great friends come for a visit. Karsten was very excited to spend time with his best friend Hannah!! We went to the Anheuser Busch factory, where we all enjoyed some beer and Mountain Dew (don't worry, I had root beer). We also went to Boo at the Zoo, where the kids got a little candy and saw a few animals. We really enjoyed visiting with our friends from Van Buren!! Thanks for coming down to visit Tiffiney, JR, and Hannah!! Here are some pictures from their visit!

Karsten has put his arm around Hannah in the trolley. He thought he was smooth! :) Hannah is super happy about this as you can tell! We joked that we could put this picture in a slideshow when they get married!! 

This is at the arch, facing the Mississippi River. Such a cute picture! 

Best Friends! 

Heading into the zoo with a ninja and a pirate! 

Karsten with the penquins at the zoo!

The weekend before Halloween we had to do some pumpkin carving!!! So, awesome Aunt Melissa came over to join the festivities!! Here are some pictures from that adventure! (It's always an adventure when Melissa, Adam, and Karsten are together)

See what I mean?! :) We love Melissa!!

Now, you would think that Melissa is being caught throwing pumpkin guts at Adam, however she just made an amazing catch! Adam is the guilty one!! Of course Melissa did get revenge! :) Like I said, always and adventure.

This is Adam and Melissa filling Karsten's pumpkin back up with all the guts he has already pulled out plus some! He had left the room of course. How did he feel about that? Well...look below.

That's not his happy look. He thought we had hidden his pumpkin, because his was empty. 

Back to work now!!

And now he is all finished!! One scary pumpkin, and one vampire pumpkin!

Of course the fun isn't over! 

We were able to go to a fall festival at a church that we visited earlier in the month. Karsten had lots of fun and got quite a bit of candy. He also won at a cake walk! We have found another church that we have gone to a couple of times that we LOVE! It reminds of us Community back home. Karsten is going to play Upward basketball again this year, and it will be at this church. We feel really blessed that we found a wonderful church so quickly!

Here are some pictures of the fall festival as well as a few pictures from halloween night!

Adam being goofy! 

Karsten's haul from trick or treating! We had SO much candy left over as well as the candy he brought home! 

Ninja!!

Brownies he won at the cake walk. They were SO delicious!!

And now a baby update! I have been going for weekly checkups now. I am 37 weeks, which is so hard to believe!! I just keep thinking that he will be here SO soon!! I can't believe it. At my last 2 appointments I have been dialated to 1 cm. It's not much, but it's a start. This is pretty typical at this stage. It doesn't mean that he will come early, just that he is getting ready. The doctor thought she felt his head at the last appointment so hopefully he is headdown now. They will check again at the hospital when I'm in labor to be sure.

I have brief moments of "nesting" but then other times I'm tired and would rather take a nap! There is still so much to do to get ready for Thanksgiving and a few things that need to be done before Daxton gets here. I still have just a couple of things I want to add to his room, but I need Adam to do it! I'm not very good at hanging things on the walls, but he is awesome at it! We have our childbirth class on Saturday, and then I plan on making him finish up everything that afternoon or on Sunday. Then I promise I will get some pictures up!!

I think that is all for now!!! Here is a picture of Daxton again. You've already seen it, but I couldn't resist putting it up again! I look at this one every day!! He will be here SOOOO soon!! If Gran was right then it will be November 27th. I'm hoping that's the day! Adam says December 3rd. Either way it's 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 weeks away!! Did you realize that it was so close?? :)

Oh! One quick funny story before I go!! I pick Karsten up from school every day. Earlier this week there was a problem in the pick up line with someone's car not working...so I got stuck behind a lot of other cars that I usually don't have to wait on. Karsten got into the car and said "Mom!! I was worried that you went into labor!! I kept telling my teacher that you are never this late and that probably meant that you were at the hospital!" It made me laugh! Hopefully he doesn't get stuck at school waiting for one of us to pick him up because I am in labor!! I guess it's a legitimate worry for him! Thank goodness Melissa lives up here. Also, we met a mom of one of his friend's and we have her number, just in case Melissa can't make it in time to get him. No worries!!! :)

Have a great week!!

Third Trimester Ultrasound!!!

Baby Daxton at 35 weeks and 1 day!!!

A quick glimpse at the little cutie in my belly!!

Today we had our 35 week check up and we will go every week from now on!! I can't believe it is getting so close!! As you can see Daxton looks great!! The ultrasound technician said that he had great movement and even showed us some of it. We didn't get an awesome video like we did back in Arkansas, but she was very sweet and put a series of pictures on a disk for us. Here are some of him opening and closing his mouth. He looks funny in some of them!!

I have been telling Adam that my family has superior genes than most b/c of how similar me and my brother and sister looked as babies, as well as how much my niece, Kaylei, looks like all of us. It turns out that I was wrong though!! As you can tell from the pictures, it looks like Daxton will look more like his dad!! That's okay though, like Great Grandma Sellars said: Adam looks a little like Brad Pitt. No complaints from me. :) This next picture you can see a good profile shot. I'm not sure what all is going on around him, just the cuteness that is his face!

I love this next picture! We had been looking at him for a little while now and I think he was getting tired of being pushed on. He has lifted his little hand up to cover part of his face! You can also see some toes in this picture! I counted 5! Apparently he is pretty cramped and very flexible! There are all kinds of limbs in this photo! I think 2 arms and a foot.



So, for all of those participating in guessing the weight, I have a little insight from the doctor! As of right now he appears to weigh about 5 lb, 9 oz. He should gain about 1/2 a pound a week putting him at around 7 lb 9 oz when he is born! I'm not sure who has quessed that, but I know MANY of you guessed over 8 lb!! I'm just going to pray that he keeps it under the 8lb mark! :)

The doctor said he looked great and his heartbeat is still very strong. Everything is going well so far! She did mention that I needed to have a little talk with the little guy about his position. He is "transverse", which means he is sideways in my belly, and he needs to be facing down. If he doesn't get into the right position within the next few weeks then there is a possibility that I will have to have a c-section b/c he would be breech. Send out some prayers for us that he gets where he needs to be! I have faith that he will. He squirms all the time!! The doctor actually thought she felt his head facing down just 20 minutes after the ultrasound. I guess it could have been his little booty though! :)

I hope you enjoy all the pictures of our little cutie!!

Margarette

So much to catch up on!

32 weeks and a few days--->

A couple of weekends ago we went to Illinois to check out Eckert Farms. It is a really fun place to pick apples, play games, and go to the pumpkin patch. There was so much to do we spent most of the day there!! One of the boys favorite things that they did was act like the trees from the Wizard of Oz and throw apples at each other! There were so many that had fallen to the ground because they were either rotten or becoming rotten. Let me just tell you that Karsten, Adam, and Melissa all had rotten apple on either their clothes, face, or in their hair!! It was kinda gross, but they had SO much fun! I, of course, hid from them so that I didn't have the same fate. :)  Here is an example of an apple that Adam found and threw at Melissa:

It is a little hard to see because it is completely brown!!! SO disgusting!!! Here are a few more pictures from the apple orchard.

What a handsome boy!

Karsten apple seed!

This picture cracks me up!! It took a few tries to get the apples in the air during the picture, but it was totally worth it!

Love this picture!

After we were finished in the apple orchard we headed over to the pumpkin patch. We took a few pictures there as well. I love the one of Karsten and Melissa holding all the pumpkins. That was a fun picture to take!

Adam is such a goof ball!

We did several more things at the farm including a corn maze, a 70 foot underground slide, pig races, and a haunted hay ride! This was Karsten's first go at anything haunted, so we were a little worried he would chicken out. He did a great job though!! He actually said after it was over that it was lame! :) I completely agreed with him! But it was a fun experience! Here is a picture of Adam and Karsten standing in line before we got on the ride.



They were so scared!!! :)

Last weekend was spent mostly doing things around the house. I tried to get most of Daxton's room together, while Adam and Karsten worked on the garage. Melissa was a life saver for the boys though. She called and asked if they wanted to go on a hike with her. Of course they did!! I stayed behind because I knew I would have slowed them down and probably annoying to all of them by the end. Daxton is just too much weight to be hiking over 3 miles, part of it up hill! I was able to get some things done while they were gone though!! First take a look at some pictures from their hike! I can't remember the name of the park, but they said it was beautiful! We plan on going back in the spring/ summer when I can go. They have bike trails and swimming holes. There are several overlook areas that I believe look out over the Meremac River. Maybe even some canoing???

Adam is pointing out something to Karsten

Such a great picture of my boys!

I love this of Karsten and his favorite Aunt Melissa!!



Now here are just a couple of pictures of what I have finished in Daxton's room!!

I started painting this on Sunday. I'm not quite finished with it, but I'm pretty proud of how it turned out!! I will have the rocking chair that belonged to my great-great-grandmother sitting in front of the tree, so I didn't bother putting branches down lower.

I painted the letters above the crib and added the adorable little forest creatures to each of them! Thanks to Melissa, who gave me 4 of the 6 animals! I wouldn't have thought to put them on if she wouldn't have given them to me!

This is a bookcase that Adam had in the attic. It was an ugly color, so I painted it brown and Adam moved it up for me! Dax has so many books already thanks to his big brother! Also, the little beaver on top of the bookcase was another painting by me! :) I have a few more in the room, but they haven't found a permanent spot yet.



Last nursery picture!! This is actually going to be his mobile for his bed. I decided to make my own! Mobiles are SO expensive, and I love to try to be creative! I actually got this idea off of pinterest (which is the best website ever!) I'm not completely finished as you can tell, but as soon as I get a couple of dowel rods I should have it finished up and ready for Adam to put in his room!

I hope to finish up the nursery next week! When it is all done I will put some more pictures up for you all to look at! I'm hoping it will be great!!

We have a busy weekend planned! Our good friends from Van Buren are coming to visit us! We can't wait to see JR, Tiffiney, and Hannah!! Karsten has been excited to see his best friend! Even though the poor guy has bronchitis!! Don't worry, he's on antibiotics and doing perfectly fine! He got to stay home from school for 2 days and loved it! He just has a really bad sounding cough, but we didn't want him out in the cold weather before he had taken a few doses of his antibiotics. There is nothing better than staying home from school when your a kid and you don't feel bad! He spent most of the two days playing video games and watching TV. Of course, I did make him do some math homework and read. He didn't seem to mind though! 

Also, we have a doctor's appointment on Wednesday the 26th, and we will get our last ultrasound! I was very excited about seeing Daxton again, but then I talked to a friend of mine who is almost 2 weeks ahead of me. She had just had her last ultrasound and they didn't get to see his face because he had already dropped and was facing away from them. I'm trying to be optimistic about either one of these situations though! If we get a good picture of him then that will be great, but if he is ready and in position to come out then that is great too right! Maybe that would mean he will come a little earlier than we all think!! I know several girls who are pregnant and due within the next month or so and they have begun to have their babies!! I know of 3 boys born within the past 2 days!! Karsten asked me if I was jealous, and I am slightly. I would love to hold Daxton, but we're just happy that we are blessed enough to get him in about a month or so! Karsten replied that he didn't know how I could wait for 7 whole months to have him! He is going crazy just thinking about Christmas coming up and how he has to wait for that!! I love that kid! I did correct him on the 7 months thing though, I want credit for all 9!! :)

Well, that is all for now!! Next time I'll have finished pictures of the nursery hopefully! Also, pictures of the house and possibly some of the little D-Man (as Karsten calls him!)

Margarette, Adam, and Karsten