The McMillins

Gretchen went to the doctor yesterday. She is measuring normal. The baby is head down (ready for delivery) and Gretchen is 1 cm dialated. We went to the hospital last Sunday just to make sure we knew where to go. It's VERY easy to get to but does take a little time to get there.

Gretchen is trying to get everything cleaned up and organized before the baby gets here. She's planning on putting the Christmas decorations up the first week of November (just in case the baby decides to come early).

We have Zach's 5th birthday party coming up on Nov. 1st. We have his party at 10:30 AM in the morning and then the church is giving Gretchen a baby shower that same day later in the afternoon. So, it will definitely be a busy day.

We have FINALLY decided on a definite name for the baby. Anyone want to take a guess? (those of you that don't know)

Gretchen is 33 weeks pregnant now. She is really having a hard time sleeping still. She can't get comfortable and the baby seems to be VERY active at night. We can't believe how fast time has gone but we are getting so anxious to meet her. We're pretty much prepared for her. There are still little things on her registry at walmart.com and target.com that we need, but other than that we have the big stuff. The nursery is ready. It just needs the baby now!

There's nothing really going on this month. We are going to a wedding this weekend that Gretchen is playing the piano for. Then, Halloween night we'll be going to our church's "Hallelujah Party". Zach wants to dress up as Batman. Of course, the next day is his birthday. He wants a Batman party. We can't believe he's going to be 5 already!!

After doing a lot of praying about buying a new house, we've decided that right now is just not a good time for us to buy a new house. Besides everything that's going on in the economy, Corey's job isn't doing so great with orders, which affects his pay, as many of you know. We feel like between those two things, we really need to be smart about our own finances (especially with a new baby coming).

As far as the baby is concerned, Gretchen went to the doctor yesterday. Everything is normal and the doctor said that Gretchen looks great. She lost 1 lb from her last doctor visit, which she is VERY excited about. The nursery is done and we've got a lot of the basics that we need for the baby, in case she arrives early. The only things that are really needed are the travel system, a diaper pail, and bottles. We're not sure if there is going to be a shower for her but just in case, we registered at walmart.com and target.com. If nothing else, it's a good way to help remind us and keep us organized of what we still need for the baby or for nursing. :)

Gretchen had her 1 hour glucose test done last week (Aug. 25th). She failed it, so she had to go back today to get her 3 hour glucose test done. That meant, she had to go to the doctors (with Zach) and get blood drawn. Then, she had to drink this "sugar water" (which is basically what it is) and then wait for an hour and have blood drawn again. Then, she had to wait another hour and have blood drawn again. Then again, another hour later she had to have blood drawn again.

This time the glucose stuff made her feel light headed, dizzy, hot and a little nauteous. So... they let her and Zach go back into a room and had her lay down. That made her feel better. Zach was so good and ended up doing so many pages in his Kindergarten book. He also read her 2 books, got to play on his leapster for a little (until the batteries ran out.... which wasn't very long) and got to play with some of his Star War figurines.

Then, we came home and Gretchen has had a headache the rest of the evening. So, we're just relaxing and doing nothing for the night.

We found out today that we're having a girl! We prayed last night the God would allow us to see the gender of the baby during the sonogram today. The first part that the camera saw was the crotch area and her legs were wide open. After those first 3 pictures, she curled up in one corner of Gretchen's stomach. We were very fortunate to get the pictures that we did get. There is no doubt, from the pic, that it's a girl. See for yourself and don't forget to look at Zach's blog for more pics. :)

We went to Hard Rock Park yesterday for Corey's company picnic! It was pretty fun. There weren't a whole lot of adult rides, which was fine with Gretchen since she wasn't allowed to ride any of them being pregnant. There were several "kid" rides that Zach liked to get on but his favorite were the "swings". I'm not sure we would go back unless it was for the company picnic again but at least we got to go and see what it was all about.... and for free! :)

Zach has had a fever since Tuesday. It's finally starting to come down, thankfully. Especially since we're suppose to go to a theme park tomorrow. This will be the first time that Zach can ride the rides for the kids. Last time we went, he was only 2 years old and couldn't get on a whole lot of rides. Now, at 4 1/2 years old he's 45" tall and will be able to ride a lot more! He's excited about it and so is Corey. We get to go for free since it's where Corey's "Company picnic" is being held.

Our upstairs A/C unit stopped working last Tuesday evening. Fortunately, we have 2 seperate units, one for the upstairs (where all the bedrooms are) and one for the downstairs. While upstairs gets to be around 88 degrees, we still have A/C downstairs. So, we all "camped out" downstairs on the couches. Someone is suppose to be coming today to fix it, hopefully. :)

Last week, Gretchen spent a whole day JUST cleaning the kitchen. She went through every single cabinet and sanitized it. She went through all the food and threw out the stuff that's expired and re-organized everything. She sanitized almost everything in the kitchen. Aren't pregnant women suppose to "nest" and "clean" when it closer to the birth? lol

Last Friday, Gretchen and Zach went to a local beach with their friends Kim, Kacie and Madison. It was a lot of fun! We stayed at the beach for 3 hours and then came home so Gretchen could give Kacie and Madison a piano lesson. Zach doesn't even look like he got any sun and Gretchen got a little burned.

Today, Gretchen and Zach went to Myrtle Beach to see one of Gretchen's friends from up north, Tracie. We had so much fun! We got to play on the beach/ in the ocean and in the pool at the resort that they were staying at. Gretchen got a little burnt on her back, but otherwise it was nice to catch up with an "old" friend and just relax by/in the pool. We were there for 6 hours.

Zach fell asleep on the way home. He didn't want to leave when it was time to go! What a nice day!

Last weekend, Gretchen's parents' came down to visit us. They drove down on Friday and arrived around noon. Around 4 p.m., we left to go out to dinner as a storm was coming into town. When we got back from dinner that evening, Gretchen noticed that our security system was off, along with our house phone. Corey checked the breakers and found one switched off. When he switched it back on, Gretchen heard a noise in the kitchen. She unplugged something from the outlet of where the noise was. When she did, smoke started coming out from the outlet. That's when we knew that lightening had struck our house.
We ended up finding SEVERAL things "fried" in our house, even through the rest of the weekend. Here is a list of everything that was affected in our house by the lightening strike:

1.) The A/C unit transformer had to be replaced (which Corey and Dad fixed)
2.) The thermostat had to be replaced (Corey bought one that weekend)
3.) The GFCI had to be replaced in the kitchen (Corey bought one that weekend)
4.) The Security System doesn't work (That will be replaced in a few days)
5.) The Garage Door opener doesn't work (we're still looking into that one)
6.) The surround sound system doesn't work (we MIGHT get one if we can sell our hardwood flooring)
7.) The xbox 360 doesn't work (we ordered a power supply brick on ebay, hoping that is our problem and not the console)
8.) The Internet modem had to be replaced (Fortunately, the cable company took care of that)
9.) Zach's TV doesn't work (still undecided if we're going to replace that)
10.) The loft TV doesn't work (we might just give that to someone and see if they want to fix it... won't be replaced at least in the next year)
11.) The Nintendo Wii doesn't work (we ordered a power supply brick for this too on ebay, hoping that is the problem as well)
12.) The HD/DVR box in our bedroom didn't work (The cable company just replaced that today)
13.) The DVD player in our room doesn't work (we have the DVD player from the loft TV, so we shouldn't need to get another one of these)

God really was looking out for us when this happened. My parents were down and the only A/C unit that didn't work was the downstairs one, NOT the upstairs one where all the bedrooms are. Fortunately, we have 2 seperate units so that was a blessing. The TV's that got "fried" were the older TV's and not our newer, more expensive ones. The computer ended up being fine (since it's only a year old). Not to mention, we are VERY thankful that our house didn't burn down b/c of this AND that we weren't here when it happened. It certainly made for an interesting weekend. :)