March 26, 2009

Hi Everyone,

We just wanted to thank all of our Wisconsin relatives again for putting on such a wonderful shower on March 14th! I had a wonderful time, and it was great to see all of you again!!! And we were so blessed by all of the gifts. I know that showers were originally started to "shower" the mother-to-be with gifts for the baby, but the best part of the shower for me was seeing and spending time with all of you. I was so excited to get to celebrate with you, my family, and share this special time with you! And the gifts were the cherry on top of the sundae. :) We're looking forward to sharing the celebration with Noah's family in Springfield, IL around Memorial Day weekend for the next shower.

Here is a link to some of the pictures from the Wisconsin shower. Enjoy!!!
http://s187.photobucket.com/albums/x219/nkbrown81/WI%20Baby%20Shower/

Other than that, not too much has been going on down here in St. Louis. We are enjoying some nice warm weather lately, and I finally got to take some walks outside. I've been waiting for that all winter! :)

Baby is growing a mile a minute and kicking a LOT! We joke that we are going to have a little soccer player. We still don't know the sex of the baby (and not planning to find out - no, we are still going strong!). I know it's more fun to buy gender-based stuff, but we are looking forward to a surprise! We do have names picked out that we're pretty solid on, but not sharing them with anyone yet. Sorry... this is really no fun for anyone but us, is it? haha!! Well, we aren't going to apologize... ya'll will probably know more the second time around. ;) But Baby Brown absolutely LOVES his/her daddy... the baby responds to Noah's touch and they "communicate" through pokes and punches. Sorry Noah... I think it's SO cute!!! :) You are going to be an awesome daddy!!!

My boss is doing well with her pregnancy as well - yes, she is about 3 weeks ahead of me, due June 8th! We plan to try to bring the babies into the office. We'll see how that goes! I think they'll be best buds and it'll be nice that they have someone to keep them each company!

Work is going well for both Noah and myself. You may have heard that there have been some layoffs at Boeing, but they don't affect Noah, which we're thankful for. My job is going well too - no problems here. Business at American Family is being affected by the economy, but it's mostly the Insurance Agents seeing that impact, not the managers' offices where I work.

Noah's still working on his Master's degree. He's ready to be done with his 2 classes this semester, and not sure if he'll take one this summer or not. He may just wait until Fall and take one then, and then take one in Spring semester and graduate in May 2010. We'll see what happens!

We hope everyone around the country is doing well - wherever you may be! Blessings to all of you.

Until next time...

Love
Noah, Krista & Baby Brown

February 23, 2009

It's already almost March 2009, and I have to apologize for not updating our blog for a few months!!!

We hope you, your families and friends and lives are going well and you're blessed! We are definitely feeling blessed these days with so much new stuff going on.

Our year is going well so far, with much excitement about the upcoming new addition to the household! Baby Brown (sex still unknown) is doing wonderfully and is moving around a lot these days and can even occasionally be felt throwing those vigorous kicks and punches by others. :) Noah is especially excited about that. I think it seems more real to him these days.

We wanted to thank everyone for their continued prayers for us and baby, and for all of the wonderful gifts and loans of equipment and bedding and books!!! We feel so blessed and thankful!

Baby Brown is just under a pound now, and around 10-11" long from head to toe, and recently I experienced hiccups from the inside for the first time! haha So a bunch of neat things happening lately. It's been fun! Prenatal yoga is helping with the usual pregnancy aches and pains and helping me relax (which is always a plus!).

Here are some ultrasound pictures from our 20-week appointment (yes, we are already 5 months!!!). If the picture won't work, click on the link.

Photobucket Album

http://s187.photobucket.com/albums/x219/nkbrown81/Baby%20Brown%2020%20Weeks/

Noah is an excited daddy-to-be. When my parents came down to visit, he spent some time with my mom painting the nursery and we were really excited when they surprised us with the crib! So that was our Sunday afternoon project - setting up the beautiful new crib and enjoying the moment.

Noah is actually in New York right now - on Long Island. He has been there since last Monday, and we just learned that he will be out there for a total of 3 weeks for work. I am trying to see if I can fly out to visit him this weekend, but due to a bunch of church stuff, he may just be flying home for the weekend. Either way, it will be nice to see him again!

Noah's classes are going pretty well. He is taking a Collaborative Engineering class (which is basically a goofy pointless psych class) and another design class which isn't too bad. He is aiming to take another class this summer, and one more in fall. If that happens, he will have his Master's Degree in Aerospace by the end of the year!!!

Other than all that, we are doing well, just waiting for Spring. The weather here is iffy - always up and down. It is supposed to be cold for the next few days (30's) and then get warm Wednesday and Thursday into the mid- to upper-50's, then plunge back into winter again. We haven't had too much snow this winter - just rain once a week or so.

We are looking forward to seeing family soon and again, hope you're all doing well!

Love,
Noah & Krista

January 13, 2009

Hi Everyone!

This is just an update from the Browns again. A lot of people have been asking how our doctor appointment went yesterday.

The appointment didn't consist of an ultrasound like we'd hoped, but we did get to hear the baby's heartbeat, which was really amazing. It was over 140 beats per minute and going strong! The baby is definitely active in there, because the doctor kept having to move the doppler around to find the heartbeat!

FYI... this is a doppler. It's sort of like an ultrasound wand, but it has a speaker attached to it. Kind of reminded me of those little karaoke tape recorders we used to carry around as kids with the microphone! haha

Anyway, so the appointment went well. They did some quick blood work and sent us on our way.

Our next appointment is on February 12th, and will include a very thorough ultrasound, which will take about 30 minutes. We're very excited to see our little one again, and to send more pictures to all of you!

And, for those of you who are wondering "will they find out if it's a boy or girl???", the answer is leaning towards "no" :) We are thinking we'd like it to be a surprise. But you never know... things could change in the next month before our ultrasound. We'll see.

We hope all of you are doing well, and would like to send out a warm and excited CONGRATULATIONS!!!! to Noah's cousin Marissa and her hubby Kevin who have just announced that they are also pregnant! We're waiting for updates from them and pray they have a wonderful healthy baby too!

There must be something in the water, because I now know 8 other pregnant ladies who are all due within about a month of each other (including my OB/GYN and my boss)! Amazing, but very neat to be able to share this incredible time with other women going through the same thing.

Blessings to all of you, and stay tuned for more pictures of Baby Brown!!!

Love,
Noah & Krista.

Happy New Year!

Hi Everyone! Happy New Year!

We hope all of you had a wonderful holiday season with family and friends.

This year we traveled up to Wisconsin for Christmas with my family and then back down to Springfield the Monday after Christmas to celebrate with Noah's family. We had a great time with everyone and wanted to say thank you again for all of the gifts and hugs and effort you made to come see us while we were around! We really enjoyed spending time with everyone.

We want to apologize for not sending out a Christmas letter this year. We just simply ran out of time!

We had a great year in 2008. Lots of wonderful things happened. But had the pleasure of sharing one of the best yet with family and friends.... that we are having a baby! We were so blessed to find out we got pregnant in mid-September and are due with a little baby ______ (boy/girl? taking bets! haha) in early July 2009. Our first appointment was on December 15th (we did not realize we had been pregnant that long!) and here are our first glimpses of the little one:

I will be 15 weeks along on Wednesday. I've had a bunch of energy and have been feeling pretty good! I thought I felt the baby move the other day but I am not sure what that was just yet. We'll see! I've decided to take a prenatal yoga class which will be great for my low back aches, and we're starting to make a list of everything we'll need for "Baby Brown" and it's a little overwhelming, I have to say! But we are getting plenty of input and tips and suggestions from friends and family, which has been great. So if anyone has any suggestions just let us know!

Noah will be starting to take Masters classes again this Spring semester, and the way he's planning, he could be done by December this year with his Masters degree. Hooray! His work has been going pretty well too - not to much new to talk about there. They are doing some re-org, but it looks like he'll be working on the same type of stuff (whatever that is!). :)

Noah's brother Nick and his wife Cristol are in Hawaii now. Nick was transferred there c/o the Army and he's doing pretty well. We hope to go see them while they're down there but not sure when we'll make it, with the baby coming and all. They are doing pretty well and enjoying the sunshine. They got a kitten, who is the most adorable thing, and loves little kitty clothes and enjoyed playing with the Christmas tree this year.

Noah's other brother Paul got a job with Boeing down in Alabama. We wish him a safe trip and hope to see him soon! He will be leaving in the next few weeks to make the move.

My brother Eric is doing well too. He and Melissa moved to Madison this year and got an adorable little puppy, Mable! Eric is still doing tech support and training classes for his company, and Melissa got a new job in the Bio-med field there. They have an awesome little apartment that is near a lot of great stuff. We hope to visit them sometime and hit the Madison farmer's market this summer. We hear it's amazing!

Well, that is about all from St. Louis! We hope all of you had a wonderful, safe holiday season once again, and look forward to talking or hearing from you soon!

Love,
Noah & Krista