Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I know I did. Christi and I went over to her parents house for lunch with her family. It was delicious, as always. They always cook the best tasting dressing. We had a lot of other tasty food, but my other favorite is Mrs. Debra's chocolate pecan pie with some ice cream. After eating we ended up watching some TV, talking, and letting all of that food settle.

After spending the early afternoon with Christi's family, we went over to my mom's new house for a Thanksgiving dinner. They were supposed to eat lunch at 2, but due to some turkey cooking difficulties it turned into an early dinner. It was another good meal. It was also our first time seeing her new house; they had just gotten everything moved into the house last weekend. I enjoyed spending time with Blake and Annie (my brother and sister). I don't get to see them as much recently because they are both in college and we're busy with everything going on in our lives.

Landon was the main topic of conversation at both places. We're not sure when he is going to be here, but we hope it is soon. It's crazy to think that next Thanksgiving we will have almost a 1-year old child. We're both excited, nervous, anxious, and scared of what will be coming in the next few days.

Another thing that I am worried about is that I am coming down with a head cold. Well, I guess I shouldn't say coming down since I definitely have it. I haven't been running a fever, but a lot of coughing and runny noses. Hopefully it goes away before the big day comes!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from the Patterson family! We hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving with their families! Drive safe.

It's Getting Close!

Tomorrow is the 38 week mark. The time until Landon's arrival is getting soon, but I know we don't know exactly how close we are until the time actually comes. I do know that we are ready for him to be here. All we have to do now is wait.

We have been busy cleaning the house in anticipation of everyone coming here after Landon is born. We're expecting a packed house since noone can come to the hospital. I've been doing most of the scrubbing cleaning with any chemicals since Christi cannot be around anything like that. We try to keep the house as clean as we can, but it's been a while since we had a thorough cleaning of every room in the house and it definitely showed in the amount of time it took to clean the house. Thankfully we had some help. Christi's parents came over a few days and helped and my mom came over 1 day over the weekend to help as well. Christi's mom also washed all of Landon's clothes for us and helped us organize them by size. That was a HUGE help since it allowed me to concentrate on just cleaning instead of me having to go back and forth between cleaning and laundry. Naturally, all of this cut down on the computer time for blogging. I had plans to post some stories that happened, but that didn't end up happening.

Besides the cleaning, the biggest thing that happened was Christ ended up going to the hospital one day the other week. Everything is ok, just a little scare. Basically, she wasn't feeling good at the end of the day. Her friend, Lynn, called the doctor and told them all of her symptoms. The way their office works is that they have the nurse call you back later. Well, this day they were taking forever and Lynn called them back after over an hour of waiting. The assured the nurse would call back soon, and she finally did. They told Christi to go to the hospital. She was expecting just a little visit to get a few things checked, but it turned out they actually admitted her into the hospital for observation. It took forever to get seen (a few hours), but they finally came in and did a few things and everything was OK. The worst part was having to sit in the tiny, cramped room and wait. It wasn't fun seeing Christi all hooked up to the machines. I guess it something I am going to have to get use to seeing, but only when he actually comes it's going to be a lot more going on. Very hectic. Like I said earlier, everything was fine and nothing is wrong with Christi or Landon.

One of the other things we did recently is buy a camcorder. The plan is to take a lot of videos of Landon as he is growing up, especially the first few days. MAYBE I'll be able to post some videos of Landon, but I'm really not sure what to expect and what will be going on. I'm not anticipating a lot of free time, so if I'm not able too post any videos please don't be mad!

Well, it's getting late so I need to go to bed soon. Keep checking back for updates - it could be any day now!

Landon's Room - Fin

Here are pictures of Landon's room in all it's glory. A lot of hard work and time spent making it look just right. Now we are anxiously awaiting his arrival so he can enjoy it!

Letter hung above the crib



Close-up of the letters



Added the shelves and decorations



More shelves added on the wall



Pictures above the changing table



#21 Jersey for Landon



More things for Landon

30 days

30 days. Today is exactly 30 days from Landon's due date - December 8th. I know I touched on how close we were in my last post, but today definitely gives you an idea of how close we are. I'm excited, nervous, anxious, and ready. At least I think I am ready, or at least as ready as I can be.

We had another shower today with another great turnout. Again, we were given a lot of very nice presents. After these showers, we are definitely running out of room to store everything we are getting. The one thing we still need more of is diapers. We have been given a few boxes, but we will need a lot more. We were told today by a girl who had a child not too long ago that we will likely go through 7-8 diapers a DAY. That's a lot of changing. I guess I'll learn the hard way how to change a diaper, because I have no idea what to do. I think I have a general understanding of the process, but I've never actually done it. Should be fun.

I will try to post some of the shower pictures later if I am able to get a copy of them. We left our camera at home by accident. I know, we have to get better at that. On another note, we've started packing our hospital bag. I have my clothes set out and Christi is working on her things. I need to get some toiletries and other things together and get them in a bag for us to have. A lot of little things we have left on our to-do list that hopefully we will make a large dent in this week. Just random things like cleaning, getting some things organized, re-arranging the cabinets to make room for Landon's bottles, etc.

That's all for tonight. Stay tuned for more updates. Take care everyone. Goodnight.

Christi Pregnancy Update - Week 35

Wow! We are only about 4 WEEKS away from having Landon with us! Christi has been doing really well so far. Lately, she has been having a lot of contractions and the past few days they have become more intense. Her stomach will be as hard a rock when this happens. It's just another sign that it's almost time. It was happening just a few times a day, but last night she had it happen 4 times just during dinner (about an hour and a half). Crazy. I know it's very uncomfortable for her and painful (getting worse). I hate it because there is nothing I can do.

Another thing is leg cramps. She would get them occasionally, but the last few nights she got some during the night and her reaction to the pain woke me up and worried me. Thankfully they went away, but they seem to pop up randomly. It's usually her calves that cramp, but her hamstrings have also done it. Speaking of waking up the night, Christi has also had frequent bathroom trips in the middle of the night, which is completely natural. Apparently, according to some books we have read, this is the body's way of preparing her for not getting a full night's sleep. When Landon comes and is up during the night, her body will have already prepared itself for not getting a full night of sleep. Very interesting. I've been waking up more often, too. Normally I sleep like a rock, but every time she wakes up I wake up. I guess that's me subconsciously being aware of her movements and waiting for that one night when it's time to go to the hospital.

Landon is progressing very well. We had a sonogram last week but didn't get any good pictures because his face was to Christi's back. He is in the vertex position (face down) so that is good. Christi was measuring a little big the last few weeks; they measure her stomach vertically and how many weeks preggo you are is how many centimeters you are supposed to me. Just another reason to go metric! They measured Landon to see how big he already was and as of last Wednesday he was a solid 4lbs 11oz. The "average" size baby for this time frame was 4lbs 8oz, so he's doing well and he's going to be above average in everything he does, just like his mom and dad ;)

We have another visit this Wednesday. Hopefully we will get some good sonogram pictures. Speaking of, I don't think I ever uploaded any pictures from the 3D sonogram. Here are some for your enjoyment. Stay tuned for more updates! The time for Landon's arrival is near!

Christi says he looks just like me...






Solid heart rate






You can see the eyelids very well and the lines around his face. So cute!



You can see his arm propped behind his head while he is relaxing. That's exactly how I lay on the couch all the time, according to Christi.



Better side view. He wouldn't stay still so his ears looks huge in this picture.



Kept moving and putting his arm in front of his face. He did not want his pictures taken today, but we managed to get a few

It's Saturday

Yay for Saturday! That means GT is playing. I'll be going to the game with Jason and 2 other guys. I'm excited for the game today. I hear there is supposed to be a flyover! I was at the GT-VT game and there was supposed to be paratroopers, so they could be jumping today. That would be awesome.

The past week was really busy. Either Christi or myself was working late or had something to do too almost every night. Work this week wasn't too bad, just busy as usual. I'm getting a lot more responsibilities and have become the point of contact for several issues, so things are getting crazier at work. I like it, though. It tells me they trust me to be in charge of projects and to get them done correctly.

I took an interesting training class this week. It was Systems Safety Engineering. It mainly covered how to calculate reliability of systems, identifying potential system faults and failure modes, designing safety features into systems, etc. I thought it was pretty interesting although I don't do a lot of that in my day to day job. However, the mindset of identifying hazards was very useful. I also won't forget that regardless of education, work position, etc - all workers have a 0.1% chance of committing an error per operation and it's a random variable so you don't know when it will happen. If they are stressed and dealing with stressful issues or environments, it goes up by a factor of 10-100. Yea, I thought the same thing too - that seems ridiculously high, but the numbers prove it to be true. Stress is a very bad thing. So if you're stressing at work, take a moment to relax before continuing on. It could really help prevent mistakes. You're welcome.

I am about to eat some breakfast and get ready to leave for Atlanta. Have a great day everyone. Go Jackets!

1st Baby Shower Pictures

We were completely overwhelmed with the turnout for the baby shower last Sunday. We got a lot of great presents and more people than we thought would came showed up (more than I thought would, anyway.) To give you an idea of the amount of stuff we were given, Christi wrote out nearly 40 thank you cards from all of the attendees this past week. That's a lot of people. We're very grateful and appreciate of everything we were given and I can't wait until Landon gets here to use it. Below are pictures from the shower.

Some of the present at the beginning of the shower



Christi chattin' it up before the shower



Christi and her brother, Jason



1st picture of Christi pregnant and me together



More presents!



Lynne and I looking at the Christi opening the present



Cool cross-stitched banner that is a height chart. I like it a lot.



Picture frame



Cross-stitched blanket - a gift from Christi's Nana. The same lady who did the height chart did this as well. It's pretty awesome.



More clothes for Landon. Christi approves.



Landon's name on the shirt. Hopefully he doesn't re-enact what the whale is doing while we change his diapers



Georgia Tech outfit for Landon courtesy of Christi's parents. Probably my favorite outfit Landon has, except for maybe the #21 GT jersey we got him. I love both of them.



Matching bib



Another sweet GT bib and burp cloth



GT onezie



Swing that matches the stroller from my mom



Basket of goodies that match the crib set from Mike and Debra (Christi's parents)



Walker that looks like a Ford Mustang GT from Jason. It's yellow and black (or course) and resembles something Georgia Tech would sell. Very cool.



Some of the presents after the shower



More presents after the shower

See, I told you we got a lot of things. I condensed 133 pictures into 23 for this post. We were fortunate to get a lot of great presents from friends and family. We had out 2nd shower this past Sunday (yesterday) but I do not have any picture from that shower that the moment. Again, we were blessed with friends and family giving us a ton of gifts. We are literally running out of storage room! Thank you everyone who has given us some gifts. We really appreciate everything.

Stay tuned for more updates on Christi and things that are going on. We will be very busy this week but I will have some more updates coming this week. As always, thanks for reading.