Abigail and Adrianna

Abigail 2004



Adrianna 2007

We're home!

We got to come home today. We could have stayed another day but you can't get any rest in the hospital. Plus, the bed was self adjusting so anytime you moved it would compensate for the shift in pressure and it was really loud and annoying. We are all happy to be home.....a little tired, but very happy. Quintin and Abigail decorated the car. It is really cute. They wrote on the windows where each person sits: Big sister, Little sister, Super Mom and Lucky Man with Fantastic Four written on the back window. There are streamers, bows and signs all courtesy of Abigail, who picked out everything!!

More photos of Adrianna........

Adrianna has arrived!!

We would like to officially welcome Adrianna Elaine Pollard into the world and announce that Abigail is the newest member to the "Big Sister Club." Adrianna was born at 4:09 am today weighing in at 6 lbs 8 oz and 18.8 inches long! She didn't give us anytime for anesthesia so we had her all natural........no medication at all! It is funny because she looks just like Abigail but a smaller version.

Abigail, Adrianna and Mother are doing well. We have now completed our perfect little family!

Our Christmas

Now that things are much calmer, and no more contractions, I can finally put all of our Christmas stuff on the blog. We made cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve and I think Abby had more fun playing with the flour than anything else. Thankfully, even though it gets everywhere it isn't that hard to clean up.

As most little ones do, ours woke up early (5:45) and was ready to see what Santa brought. This year she asked for a scooter and a jack-in-the-box. Not sure where she got the idea for a jack in the box, but because it was kind of a last minute addition, "Santa" had a hard time finding it, but finally came through in the end. We also found this really neat toy that is called the eyeclops. You plug it in to the tv and it has this handheld "eye" that magnifies things 200 times and then projects the image onto the tv. We have been having a great time looking at everything with that. Her favorite is her belly button.

It was a great morning. Pretty much right after we finished opening presents, she asked if the baby was coming. We have been telling her the whole time that the baby would be here after Christmas, so to her that meant right after we opened presents, I guess. That was when the braxton hicks started to get much stronger and we really thought the baby was going to abide by her big sister's schedule. But, we all know she chose to wait a little longer.

I didn't get to make the ham and other yummy food I had planned, so we had a fun time trying to find something to eat for dinner that night. Needless to say, it was the first Christmas that we ever had chinese food for dinner!! Wonder if we will get to have the ham on New Year's? I think I should probably make it sooner, just in case. It doesn't have to be a holiday to have wonderful food...maybe tomorrow.

False Alarm

Well, no baby yet. Just Braxton Hicks that were getting stronger, but didn't amount to much. Abigail was able to get in some practice with her green stopwatch. She was helping me time the contractions.... such a big helper.

Merry Christmas...........

We hope everyone is having a great Christmas. Janice started having pretty regular contractions this morning, so we might have an extra special Christmas present!! We will keep you posted.

Getting Ready

I can't believe it is almost Christmas!! December has really flown by. We did something new this year and went to a tree farm to get our tree. It was a lot of fun. The baby trees were so cute, and Abby kept trying to get us to pick one of those. After looking for a while we finally found the perfect one for us. We had to let it dry out in the garage for the day because it was kind of drizzly outside when we brought it home. I love the smell of a fresh tree! One of our friends had us and two other couples over last weekend for a little baby celebration as all three of us are expecting babies very soon. It was a lot of fun. The older sibling had a great time playing together and the food was wonderful. The one other couple's baby (whose Father is my officemate)actually had the same due date as mine, and I just heard she had the baby this morning. A very healthy 7lb little boy! I wonder if our little Adrianna will come in 2007 or 2008? I am going to the doctor weekly now and although she is very low, there has been no other progress. I wonder if she is going to be like her big sister and like it so much she decides to stay in a little longer.....guess we'll have to wait and see.
Quintin's birthday was Monday. He is 29 years young! Abby and I got him a little cake decorated with the logo of his favorite football team. No fair weather fans here...we like the Texans win or lose.

Saying Thank You to our Troops

I received this email at work and thought I would share:

If you go to this web site, www.letssaythanks.com , you can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will print it and it will be sent to a soldier that is currently serving in Iraq. You can' t pick out who gets it, but it will go to some member of the armed services.

What we've been up to

We've been a pretty busy family these last couple of weeks. We had a great time participating in the 5K Turkey Trot the weekend after Thanksgiving. Abigail won for her age group even though she rode in her stroller the whole time. The good news is that we didn't come in last place- that was our only goal, aside from finishing of course.

Making a gingerbread house has become one of our family traditions. Abby did a great job decorating her house this year! She is so proud of it.

The hospital where we will have the baby offers sibling preparation classes that we took advantage of. She got to practice changing diapers, swaddling a baby, learning about the umbilical cord (which she wants to help Daddy cut), and how to gently touch the baby. I think she is ready to be a big sister. She keeps asking if the baby is ever coming! Good thing we are down to the last month.

We also made our belly cast. Abby's job was to be the "smoother" and she did a great job. We did the same thing with Abby and I am so glad we did. I painted it and she still has it hanging in her room. For this one I was only a week further along than I was for Abby's. Her favorite color is green now, so I think we are going to paint it pink and green for her little sister. I'll definitely post some pictures of that process.

Snowy Wednesday

Yesterday we had our first official snowfall of the season. It was supposed to only be 1-2 inches, but in the end it was about 4. After school and work we went outside to play and had so much fun. Abby even went down the hill in the sled all by herself. The first time it was kind of on accident because she was getting situated and was turning her head to tell Quintin she wanted him to ride with her and then off she went. She liked it so much that she went down about 3 more times by herself. Such a big girl!

Getting ready

Saturday was Abigail's sibling preparation class. She had a great time. They talked about being gentle with the baby, learned to change diapers and swaddle, and even made a toy tester and a card for the baby. Then we took a tour of the birthing center so she could see where Adrianna is going to be born. When we told her we were going to take the tour, she thought that we were going to actually have the baby. She was really excited, but we had to remind her that it won't be until after Christmas. I am sure it seems like forever to her.

Today was picture day at school. Here is a shot of her before we left the house. I can't wait to see how the pictures turn out.

End of the year tennis party

I'm the Officer Rep for the women's tennis team at the Academy, and we had all 12 of the girls and coach over for dinner on Thursday. It was a lot of fun. We even had "tennis ball" cupcakes- yummy! Abigail wanted to make goody bags for all of them, since no party is complete without them, according to a three year old. They all really enjoyed getting a little break on a night they wouldn't normally be able to leave. We played the Wii- tennis of course! I actually beat coach, who was an All-American in her college days. Abby also had fun playing Wii Boxing. It was a great night!

Fun last weekend

The trees have been changing with the arrival of the cooler weather and we decided to go out and take some pictures before the opportunity passed. Afterwards we drove into DC to check out the wax museum. It was a lot of fun. We were able to touch and pose with all of the figures. Abigail said that Tiger Woods was her favorite!

High School Musical On Ice

First Navy Football Game!

Sneek Peek!

We had our 4-D ultrasound done tonight. It was so much fun. We had a 7pm appointment, which was a little late for us. They were also running behind, so we didn't get started until about 7:45, but it was well worth the wait. The baby was so cooperative. She is breech right now, but it is still early enough that we don't have to worry. She showed us her pretty little face the whole time. She smiled, yawned, opened her eyes, and even was trying to put the umbilical cord in her mouth. Abigail loved seeing her little sister, Adrianna (not sure if that is how we are going to spell it yet)! It is cute because she looks so much like Abby did when she was a baby. She is already getting chubby because we could see a double chin and some cute little cheeks. Here are some of the best pictures.

Picking a Costume

Abigail has had a difficult time deciding on a costume this year. Some of the top picks have been Spiderman, a clown, and almost all of the High School Musical characters. That was until we were at the costume store yesterday and she saw this:



It comes with all of the accessories, minus the weapon thank goodness!! We walked through about three times to make sure that this was the one and she stuck with it. No princesses for us- she is going to be a SWAT Team girl!!

We've been pretty busy....

I realized the other day that we have been so busy that we haven't updated our blog in way too long!! Everything has been going great. Abby started her dance class last Friday. We couldn't sit in, so the only pictures I have are from before. They are going to have an observation class in the future when parents can sit in. She really likes it- especially because she gets to wear her tap shoes! The other pictures are just from the last month or so- since I last updated. We found an indoor miniature golf place that was also "glow in the dark." They have a minor league baseball team pretty close by called the Bowie Baysox. It was really fun because after the game they let all the kids go down and run around the bases. Abby had a blast doing that!
She is also ready for her little sister to come. The other day she told me, "Mommy, we've been waiting a long time for the baby to come!" I think it helps now that she can feel the baby kicking and moving. We are going this Thursday for the 4D ultrasound. We did the same thing with Abby and it was a great experience, so we wanted to make sure we did it again. I now have to go to the doctor every 2 weeks. It feels like this pregnancy has flown by. I know at this time with Abby we had the whole nursery ready, and now we haven't even put the crib together. We are probably going to do that next week. The hardest part has been trying to figure out what stroller to get. I think we have decided on the Phil & Teds Sport Buggy. It seems like the best fit for us because Abby is older and we aren't sure how long she will want to ride in a stroller. If we get a regular double or side-by-side, then we are stuck with that for a while. With the Phil & Ted's we can put a little buggy board on the back that she can stand on if she doesn't want to ride inside. So many decisions!!

We're having another little girl!

We went in for our sonogram yesterday and found out that Abigail will have a little sister! The baby looked really healthy and is growing wonderfully. It was funny because pretty much the entire pregnancy so far Abigail has said she wanted a baby sister. So yesterday, when the doctor said that it was in fact a girl she said, "Oh man. I wanted a baby brother!" I couldn't believe it. On the way back to school I re-convinced her that a little sister is going to be great. She really wants some bunk beds, so the fact that it is another girl helped because I told her once the baby is big enough they could get bunk beds and she could sleep on the top. Not sure if she realizes that will be several years from now, but as long as she is excited again that is all that matters, right? We went and pulled out all of her baby clothes and are going to go through them tonight. Poor Quintin is going to be the only man in the house for a while, but at least he will have lots of girls around to love him!

Summer Fun

Quintin's sister came to visit us last weekend. We are so excited because she moved to Virginia from Oklahoma, and is now only about 3 1/2 hours away. The last time she saw Abby was before her 2nd birthday, so it had been a while. We had a great time! Tosha doesn't like to take a lot of pictures, but the ones we were able to snap of her were beautiful!