Allison’s Baby Shower

My friend Allison who I used to work with at the Sheraton Greensboro is expecting a little boy on March 23rd. We are five days apart and have been so excited to be pregnant at the same time. Her baby shower was this past Saturday and was so nice...the food was great too! We also got to see the nursery that Jason (her husband) has been sweating over for the past 8 months…he did a wonderful job! We’re so excited to help them in welcoming Baby Locke when he arrives and are ever so curious to see who goes first. Either way we know our boys will all grow up together being friends and we’ll be needing 4 high chairs when we meet up for dinner instead of just 1 for Abby…uhm maybe we’ll leave the kids at home with Grandma and Gigi (her Mom’s name for Grandma) – I think so!

Our new nephew, Zachary Allen Cates

Our new nephew, Zachary Allen Cates arrived today at 12:46pm CST in San Antonio, Texas. He weighed 8 lb., 3oz. and Michelle (my sister) and baby are doing well! We are so excited for his arrival! One baby delivered and 2 to go in the next couple of weeks! Our family is going to be over-flowing with cute little baby boys!

Dress-up at 17 months…you’ve got to be kidding me!

Our little girl is growing up…tear!!! I think this would be a lot harder for me to swallow if the boys weren’t going to be here soon. It just amazes me what new things and words she learns everyday. Recently she’s been into trying on clothes, shoes, jewelry and bugging mama to put pretend make-up on her. The funny thing is that she has come up with this all on her own without encouragement from us. She has always had an obsession with watching me put make-up on since she was very small. I usually had her in the bathroom with me so I could keep an eye on her while getting ready. I can't help it...she's just too cute!

First day of nice weather

We finally had a break from rain, sleet, snow and below-freezing weather for a nice sunny day. It was in the high 50’s and we all got spring fever so after we got home from church Dustin decided to wash the car so Abby and I did a little exploring in the yard. She LOVES to be outside as do I but trying to keep up with her being 8 months pregnant is a task. I look forward to being “normal” (as my sister put it) again and being able to run faster than my 17-month old and not lose my breath. We have a little bit of a gully forming between our yard and Mom’s so Abby decided to make use of the “sandbox” and play…boy was she in heaven.

NextEra Energy Resources 250 – Daytona Beach, Florida

So the 2010 season has begun! The team was excited to get on the plane for Daytona to see how they compared to the rest of the field. They were pretty confident going in that they would do fairly decent since all testing had gone well during the off-season.

Well they started the season off right with qualifying 3rd…they had a really fast truck! The green flag dropped and unfortunately on the first lap Austin got 3-wide and hit the wall. There was a lot of work to be done but the team ran a long ways back to the garage and started working on the truck to get it back on the track. They really worked hard and even though Austin was 50 laps down they got him back out there and finished 26th. They all did a great job despite the wreck!

Maternity Pictures at 33 weeks

Yesterday, Beth (our personal family photographer haha) came over and took maternity pictures at the house. As always she has once again exceeded my expectations and blown me away with her work. These pictures I will cherish always. She has such a good way of bringing out the sweetest expressions in Abby. If anyone ever needs a photographer in the Lexington/Winston-Salem, NC area you will not be disappointed with Beth. Check out her website at www.lightofminephotography.com. I will post more pictures as I get them and she is also photographing the boys when they arrive…how I can’t wait to see those!

Racing Update

Dustin was hand-picked by Austin Dillon (driver of the #3 Truck) and has the privilege of working on the #3 Truck team for RCR. He is the tire specialist/front tire carrier for that team and he is sooo ready for this season to start. Their sponsor is Bass Pro Shops which they are all excited about and their first race is at Daytona Motor Speedway on Friday, February 12th. It will be on the SPEED channel at 8pm EST…so watch for Dustin! He will actually be doing the catch-can for this race only and then front tire carrier from then on out. He has been working out 5 days a week and sometime 2 times a day trying to get muscled up for carrying those ridiculously heavy tires – I think he said they’re about 80 lbs. each with the wheels and everything. Swinging those things while jumping off the wall isn’t an easy task so the team has been practicing their pit-stops non-stop for the past several weeks. He is exhausted but knows his hard work will pay off.

Dustin does a lot of different jobs at the shop and one of which is decaling. Here are some pictures of the new truck and I think he did a GREAT job…it looks pretty sharp, doesn’t it?

32 weeks, 2 days…the count down is on!

It hit me last week that I could have these little boys in as little as 3 weeks and they would be in the “safe” zone…3 WEEKS! That’s when the panic started setting in – I don’t have everything done, Abby and the boys rooms aren’t quite finished, my house isn’t clean, our hospital bag isn’t packed, I don’t have everything I need for when they arrive. After I calmed down, the excitement set in and then I realized – I can sleep on my stomach again!, no more extra pillows in bed, no more heartburn, and to top it off we will have 2 more amazing additions to the Keath family. So then my attitude started changing to “ok kids hurry it on up!” hehe.

I went to the Dr. today and did the normal routine. I had a soniogram and everything looked great. Baby A is 4lbs. and Baby B is 4lb. 1oz. so their weight is right where it should be. No wonder I can’t sleep – I have over 8lbs. of baby inside me and Abby was only 6lb. 11.5oz. when she was born…oh my how much bigger are they going to get…yikes! Baby A is still head down (yay!) and Baby B is breech with his head right at the top of my belly (oh so comfortable ;)). We also saw today that they both have a lot of hair which is unusual to spot this early so they suspect they will both have full heads of hair when they’re born…any guesses on what color? That does explain this wretched heartburn I’ve been having. I no longer believe it’s a myth that if you have heartburn you’re children will have hair because it is proven with all 3 of mine. After the soniogram I went and chatted with Dr. Jacobs as normal and he said that if I don’t have these boys by 37 weeks then he’ll induce. HALLELUJAH! I was so glad he was on board with what I was thinking! My next appt. is on February 16th so I think we’ll schedule the induction date then and it’s looking like the end of the week of March 8th…just in time for Mom to get back home from being with Michelle in San Antonio for her little guy to be born. So the boys will all be about 2 – 2 1/2 weeks apart.

We are very excited for these much anticipated boys to be born…please pray that they will continue to be healthy and that my labor & delivery will be as smooth as Abigail’s was.

Here is only 1 picture of Baby A this week (if you look at the top of his head you can see the strands of hair growing…cool, huh?). Baby B wasn’t cooperating and had his back turned so we don’t have a picture of him this week.

Snow Weekend

North Carolina got hit with quite a snow storm this past weekend and it seems as though we got about 8”. The puppies have loved the snow and playing in it and all day Saturday Abby wanted to go out and play. She was getting over a cold so we waited until Sunday to take her out…she had a blast! Loved every bit of it and especially loved watching the puppies run around like crazy.