Clay Babies Part 1

One of the games that we played was Clay Babies. Here are the results of all these creative minds!

The winning baby is in the picture below, which of course you can't see very well......She took one of the decortive carriages off the table and made a miniture baby inside (upper right).

Baby Shower #1

On February 2nd my mom and my sister gave me my first baby shower! There was a GREAT turn out for the party and a lot of laughter (and some tears). It was a wonderful time, and everyone thoroghly enjoyed socializing and having fun. Many different games were played (see the next post!) Below are the pictures of the cakes that we had, the first one is all cupcakes and the second is of course ice cream!

Below is a picture of all the gifts that I received (of course more than half were from my mom!!) There were so many gifts we had to call for reinforcements in the form of Justin!

The Last Stretch!!

Here is a belly shot of the last day of my second trimester/first day of my third trimester! Brianna is such an active baby that even the doctor's were amazed at how early I started feeling her move (at about 18 weeks!) We think she might be a gymnast! Can you believe that I only have about 12 more weeks to go? It seems like only yesterday I was taking the test. Though I can't wait to enjoy the rest of my pregnancy, I can't wait to meet my daughter!

Greatest Gift Ever!

So, for Christmas, my dad gave Justin some helicopters for Christmas. Here he is enjoying them. He got two and has already lost one! How that is possible, we still don't know.

Gifts From New Zealand

Justin's brother Josh and his family (Jill, baby Isaac and baby #2) are in New Zealand with Campus Crusade for Christ. For Christmas, they sent us a New Zealand calender, this set of baby clothes, and a "Mommy" bracelet with our daughter's name on it.

Thank you Josh and Jill for the wonderful gifts (even though we are disowning you for not sending TimTams) ! We miss you all!
Jill, I love my bracelet!! I have only taken it off twice since I put it on! I especially like the frog in the middle. (I know it is a little blurry, sorry, but it says Brianna Marie)

Baby Belly

Here is the "belly shot" picture at long last! This is Rachael and baby Brianna at 21 weeks.


Our little girl has been so active, even the doctors and nurses have been surprised to see and hear her moving around so much so early on. The doctor said that the movements are good and indicate that Brianna is a happy and healthy baby!

More pics from our Chicago Trip

Here are some more pictures from the Museum of Science and Industry at Chicago.


We drove down to visit the museum on our second day. It was quite overcast and foggy in Chicago that day.

This is an actual U-505 submarine from WWII. Rachael and I both agreed that this was the most awesome exhibit in the museum.

We also got to take a look at the Apollo 8 capsule. I don't think I would do well sitting in such a confined area for several days, these astronauts really had a lot of courage to go into outer space in these things!

They also had an exhibit titled "Earth Revealed" which shows the actual weather patterns of the earth projected onto the globe. Here is Australia and New Zealand!

All-in-all, we both had a lot of fun during our vacation to Chicago. We got to see most everything that we wanted to see and really enjoyed spending some time together. However, driving in Chicago is truly an "experience"... quite stressful actually :-)