 |
| A celebration for Baby Garnier!!! Natalie along with fantastic aunts and cousins made this day truly special. Look at those yummy home-made desserts! The food, flowers, decorations, games...all of it was just perfect. Equally wonderful was getting to see so many family and friends while home last weekend. Hard to believe that the next time I'm home, it'll be with a little one :) |
 |
| Me and soon-to-be Aunt Natalie!!! |
 |
| 24 weeks brings lots of kicks and squirming! I can't believe that they'll get even stronger. I've started wearing some maternity clothes (thank you to a couple of wonderful friends who have passed along some pieces to me!), but can still fit into a few of my own. I know that rummaging through my closet will get more challenging as the weather gets cooler. |
 |
| At home, I think the girls are starting to sense that something is up...Ellie won't leave me alone and she's totally comfortable laying next to and on me in awkward, seemingly uncomfortable positions to be close to my belly :) This morning, I was laying on the couch reading and the girls decided to come up and snuggle. Emma bumped Ellie off my lap and took over the spot, so Ellie cuddled up nestled between my legs. Too cute! |
 |
| After spending about one week on the island of Crete, we took another ferry north to Santorini. The island of Santorini is a ring of cliffs that remains from a volcano explosion, actually multiple explosions over the past hundreds of years. In this photo, we are on the still-active volcano in the center of the caldera. The volcano last erupted in the 1950's. During a portion of our hike, we observed sulphuric gas coming out of some of its rocks. Off in the distance, the white on top of the cliff is Fira - a main city on Santorini. Oh, and we took a pirate ship to get to the volcano - quite the adventurous day for our little one! |
 |
| This is a picture of me in our "cave" residence. The majority of the hotels are built into the sides of the cliffs - a very unique but fun lodging experience. We thought this would be a fun photo to take for comparison sake to the 10 week photo posted back in June. I feel like the baby grew a lot on this trip! Hopefully not just the result of all the yummy vacation indulgences :) |
 |
| Our first night in Oia, we were lucky to be "upgraded" to a "cave house" with private outdoor jacuzzi. We arrived with enough time to put on our suits and enjoy the famous Santorini sunset from our balcony. With the rush of our daily adventures, mommy and baby finally had some time to just relax. |
 |
| This was our last night out in Oia before leaving Santorini for home the next morning. I think this particular evening, baby got to enjoy some delicious caramel chocolate cake after a wonderful dinner - yum! |
 |
| So many dreams coming true at once :) I've wanted to travel to Greece since I was 12 and be a mommy since I can remember. This was the start to our "Babymoon". Our first day in Athens, we visited the Acropolis and this is the Temple of Athena Nike on our climb up to the Parthenon. |
 |
| We rented a car in Athens and drove to the Peloponnesian Peninsula where we visited ruins at Mycenae, the beautiful coastal town of Nafplio and Epidaurus. This is us in Epidaurus visiting the famous amphitheater. It was huge and the acoustics were amazing! |
 |
| Leaving the mainland, we took a ferry to Crete and enjoyed some beach time. The water was crystal clear and each beach had its own personality. This is Elafonisi Beach which boasts pink sands and wading waters leading visitors 50 yards out to a sand bar. Here's a picture Rob took of the baby under Mediterranean waters :) |
 |
| Above water at Elafonisi - can you see the pink-tinted sand? It was so pretty that we decided to bring a little of it home with us. |
 |
| Growing steady at 20 weeks. For the time being, we're holding off on learning the gender, but we've got an envelope containing the "reveal" if we change our minds! At 20 weeks, baby's measurements are right at the 50th percentile. One exciting development for us has been feeling the baby's movement - I started feeling it more and more earlier in the week, growing increasingly confident that it was in fact the baby. By the end of the week, Rob could feel the movements, too! |
 |
| Look at that cute little face! We were lucky to get any sort of detail on the facial features given how squirmy our little one was being! |
 |
| Rob couldn't help but smile when he saw this pose - a little "gun show" for the camera! |
 |
| Our little one is still showing to be an excellent self-soother - we'll have to see if this habit carries over once outside the womb. We actually got to watch in real time as the baby brought his or her thumb up to get a taste... you can see the ultrasound technician's comment in the image! |
 |
| After church today, we headed in to Old Town for some delicious brunch. I got my donut fix by sampling Rob's "Coffee and Donut" flavored pancake. My arthritis dietary "cheats" are staying small but are growing more frequent... some things are just too hard to resist! |
 |
| We got to sneak an extra peek at the baby this past week. Baby is looking healthy and sure likes to move around a lot!! We're excited about the 20-week ultrasound coming up soon :) |
 |
| Development highlights for this week include the baby's skeleton changing from soft cartilage to bone. The baby weights about 5 ounces and is about 5 inches long from head to bottom. |