A wonderful baby shower

On Saturday February 28, my friends at Children of the Nations hosted a wonderful baby shower for me. I feel blessed to work beside and know these ladies personally during the past almost year of volunteering there. My friend Karen hosted the shower at her lovely home and my friend and supervisor Pam was her right-hand woman helping with the details. I have worked with both of these ladies every week in the Communications Department at COTN.
We enjoyed visiting and played some shower games, including "guess the size of Aimee's belly by estimating it with this piece of string." Though I didn't compete for a prize, my guess was almost exactly how big around I am. Some people apparently thought I was pregnant with octuplets by the length of their string! We also had a fun peanut butter and jelly cake... since after all, I will soon be transitioning to meals consisting of those ingredients. :)
I received many wonderful and thoughtful gifts and enjoyed hearing all the wisdom shared by the moms at the shower.

All dressed up!

Here is my handsome sailor all dressed up in his "dress blues." On Friday, February 20 they had a change of command ceremony to transition from one captain to the next. I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to get some nice photos in his dress uniform, since who knows how many more times he will be dressed up like this? We are thankful for our friend Annie who was nice enough to do these pictures (she has a talent for photography just like Joe.)

30 weeks & Living Larger...

So, this was supposed to be a video update. I tried!! We recorded a 29 week update with our new camcorder last week. But due to some technical problems I gave up trying to upload it!! Hopefully we (or more specifically Joe) will figure that out before the baby is born so we can share some video.


I've now reached the 3rd trimester and the 30 week mark of the pregnancy. That little boy on my baby countdown ticker is quickly approaching the end of the line. Crazy. I know our little boy will be here before we know it.


Last week I had my most recent doctor checkup and everything is progressing well with the pregnancy. I have been very healthy and the midwife is happy with my progress. She says I am very "normal."


Baby Henderson is doing well and becoming more active. He still hasn't kicked me really hard yet, but I have felt him moving around more in the past few weeks. Joe got to feel some of his kicks too right after coming home from being underway. My belly has grown larger and my belly button is almost gone!


As a part of our pregnancy centering class we took a tour of the Naval Hospital Labor & Delivery wing. The rooms are very nice and they showed us all the monitors and tools that they use during labor.


Joe has requested paternity leave from the end of April (or whenever the baby is actually born)through mid-May. Even if this leave is approved, it's not a guarantee that he will be home for the birth of the baby. However, it is the best way for us to let his command know when the baby is due and hopefully they will approve leave and allow him to stay home from going out to sea if that situation comes up. Please keep this in your prayers for us. Thank you!

Joe is HOME!

I'm very happy because Joe is home tonight (Monday). He has been out to sea for almost a month... and overall 3 of the past 4 months! He worked incredibly hard with very little sleep this time underway so hopefully will get some time off to rest and relax.