One of the many pictures taken at the Breeden Christmas gathering (held on January 15th)

Chase and his cousins on the Breeden side of the family

A rose between two thorns?...or is it the other way around?

6 months prego

Chase and his cousins on the Sneed side of the family (stop picking your nose, Chase!)

As we’re well into another new year, I’m also well into my pregnancy as I approach the final trimester. I’m 6 months along with my bundle of joy and feeling pretty well for the most part, although I’m just getting over a horrible stomach bug that lasted for a couple of days. I guess it’s time to officially announce the baby’s name so I don’t have to keep referring to my son so impersonally. After much consideration, Tim and I have decided on Gabriel Lee. I had other names in mind, as did Tim, but Gabriel was the one name that clicked with both of us—perhaps the Christmas season is to blame since we found out we were having a boy on Dec. 16th and Gabriel was the angel that foretold the birth of Jesus. Nonetheless, we like the name and it has stuck. Tim especially likes it because we can call him “Gabe” for short. Tim likes those one syllable names: Chase and Gabe. The middle name Lee is Tim’s father’s middle name as well as my grandmother’s middle name.

As you can see in the pictures, I’m undoubtedly growing. My all time favorite insensitive comment came from a guy at work asking me if the baby was due next week (and this was a few weeks ago). Once again, I’m just thankful I have a healthy baby growing inside of me—and growing is what is supposed to be happening during pregnancy. My doctor’s visit on Dec. 28th went well. Baby stats were healthy and my weight was surprisingly right on track even with the extra calories from the holidays. I was supposed to have a glucose screening today, but the stomach virus I had postponed it for another two weeks. In the meantime, I’m enjoying feeling more movement from Gabriel. He must be more laid back than Chase was in the womb, because I don’t feel near the gymnastics that I did with Chase at this stage in pregnancy; however, Gabriel may be saving it all for the last few months or for when he arrives in the world.

As for Chase, he’s been a little testy lately, especially towards me. I think he may sense there’s a big change about to occur as far as having a little brother on the way. He’s definitely testing limits with Tim and me, although Tim has the “magical Dad powers” to just look at him a certain way and it usually straightens him out. I, on the other hand, have to repeatedly yell at him, put him in time-out, or even spank him. It’s hard to reason with a 2.5 year old, but I’m trying my best not to lose patience and to rely on God to help me through these parenting challenges. Unfortunately, Chase is still not anywhere near potty trained and I’m afraid with Gabe on the way in just a few months that it won’t happen until afterwards, but we’ll deal with it one day at a time.

In addition to mastering potty training, there are still many other things left to do. We have to “graduate” Chase to his new room so that we can reuse the nursery for Gabe. In order to graduate Chase, we have some painting to do, bunkbeds to assemble, and some other rearranging; however, I’m hopeful we’ll get everything settled in the next few months—I’ll try to do a blog posting in the next couple of months to keep everyone in the loop!