Happy Birthday Nick!

Well Nick is officially 28. I love his birthday because...well, because it is the day of his birth which is important to his existence, but MAINLY I love it because it makes us only one year apart in age. From my birthday until his birthday I am two years older. Which he enjoys pointing out. A lot. For the next six months I am officially only one year older! Of course, come October when I turn 30...well, we don't need to talk about that. For now we are 28 and 29. And this is how old we will be when our first child is born. Perfect!

So anyway, happy birthday husband! I would write something long and loving about how important you are, but you don't really read my blog anyways, so you will never see it. I will just make sure to mention all that love and stuff in person.

Another Thumbs Up

Well we had another doctor appointment today. We actually got there really early, which is EXTREMELY unlike us. We had another appointment earlier in the morning, so when it was done we figured we might as well head on over and put our name on the list. We walk in and there is NOBODY in the waiting room! We managed to get in to see the doctor and be out to the car before our actual appointment time had even arrived! I would like to think we found a new secret formula for these appointments, but I think it was just a fluke. There is no way you go from waiting two hours to walking in and out just because you are thirty minutes early! Still...I think we will be early again next time...it can't hurt.

Anyway, all went great with the doctor. I gained four pounds, so that brings me to 20. My blood pressure was good, the baby's heart beat was good. We got signed up for our birthing class, which seems like a smart thing to do. Really there wasn't much to it. They made our appointment for three weeks from now and we were out the door. I keep thinking he might offer us another ultrasound since we haven't had one since 18 weeks, but no such luck. I guess we might have to wait nine and a half more weeks to actually see this little baby again!

Spring

Well, spring has officially sprung here in Kentucky. We had a huge thunderstorm last night, and our cherry tree is in bloom...the two main requirements for spring.I love our cherry tree. We planted it the year we moved it and it had about ten branches and the trunk was about as thick as my thumb. It has come a long way!! It blooms for maybe one week, then goes to green the rest of the year, but that one week gives me constant joy. Hope you guys are enjoying your weekend! We are off to the Cheesecake Factory for Nick's birthday dinner with his mom. (His birthday is Tuesday) Can't beat that!
Another picture of the blossoms...just because they are pretty.

Why you Sould ALWAYS Look in the Mirror

So I was off work yesterday, which was awesome. I had lunch with my cousin, hung out with my best friend, then came home to get some housework done. I had worn a cute shirt to lunch, but just wanted to throw on a t-shirt to clean up the house. I grabbed a pre-pregnancy t-shirt that I wasn't sure would fit, but I slid it on, looked down, and see the following...
I was pretty pleased! I mean, sure, it's tight, but I can TOTALLY still wear my cute little t-shirt! I am OBVIOUSLY not as large as I feel! I start working on the house...take out the garbage, take out the recycling...normal cleaning stuff. I then go into the bathroom to clean up in there. And I look in the mirror for the first time. I see this...
Right. I had NO IDEA that I my shirt didn't go all the way down to my jeans! Totally and completely clueless. And now a little closer.
The sad part is, I seriously thought this shirt was fine. CUTE even. This is how serious fashion mistakes occur. A poor woman looks down and thinks "I thought this was sorta small, but I can TOTALLY pull this off!" Smiles to self about fitting into smaller clothes and runs out the door. Never looking in the mirror to see the truth. This is a valuable life lesson.

**For the record, after I took the pictures and started writing this post, it reminded me of the post of my belly when I was painting the nursery. I thought about scrapping it all together, seeing as how they are sorta similar, but effort had been put in...and I am way to lazy to just let some sort of effort go to waste! I figured you all wouldn't mind having MORE pictures of my belly hanging out of my clothes. How could you ever get enough of that??**

30 Weeks

Seriously people. THIRTY WEEKS. I am officially in the 30's! This is a big week for me. Mainly because this is the week that my cousin had my godson. It has been a few weeks since they said the baby could survive if I were to deliver now, but this is the week that I am actually able to believe it. This is the week that I was there and saw my sweet and perfect godson be born and be a totally normal (tiny) baby. Yes he needed the NICU, but now he is just like all other adorable three year olds! This is the week I have been waiting for...just for reassurance. Not that there is any reason to think I will go into labor early, but it is nice to know that if I did, all would be fine!

So speaking of the sweet tiny baby, he or she is now up to 17 inches long and weighs in at three pounds! A real chunk. According to my research the baby now really has taken on a newborn look. There is still lots of weight gaining to work on, but really, we are now dealing with a baby! Apparently the baby is moving down a little, which from what I read is totally normal. Seems odd for him or her to be so low, but I guess all is well. I do know it is helping my back aches when I sleep, so that is a good thing. It also is making it much harder for me to feel the baby (see worried about nothing post here) so that is not as enjoyable. Still, all progress is good, and since I know it is totally normal I will be able to stay much calmer about it from now on.

As for me, I am still trucking along. I feel pretty great most of the time, but am starting to get a little tired. My ankles are seriously swelling, which is annoying me. By the end of the day my feet totally look like cartoon feet. Seriously. This morning when I went to put on a sock, my foot totally busted through the heal. That's right. I destroyed my sock. And yes, my sock was a little worn out (I LOVE my socks and can't find them anywhere...) but still...STILL. My entire heal went straight through! Good old swollen pregnancy cartoon feet.

Okay, now to some belly pics...

Shirt down

Shirt up

Thriller

So last night Nick and I were laying around watching TV and I was reading my pregnancy journal. It has daily info on the baby, on me, and recently has included parenting tips. The tip for last night was to start a bedtime routine early with the baby. To rock the baby a specific way only at bedtime, sing the same bedtime song, read the same story, bla bla bla. Routines are good. I thought it was interesting, so I read it out loud to Nick. He thought about it for a minute, then informs me that the bedtime song will be sang to the tune of Thriller. Yes. Thriller by Michael Jackson. He then demonstrated singing the bedtime song while "rocking" the baby to sleep with the Thriller dance. This image has cracked me up all day. He is going to be an awesome dad.

Now that I think about it, the book said the bedtime routine will help other people get the baby to sleep when we are away. I really look forward watching Nick teach the babysitters the Thriller bedtime song and dance...

Crazy Overreacting Emotional Pregnant Girl (AKA Me....)

So I called the doctor this morning...and burst into tears and told them the baby wasn't moving like normal. Not exactly that the baby wasn't moving....no, it just wasn't moving LIKE NORMAL. Right. You see, here's what happened exactly. Friday night I woke up feeling like a had been punched in the cervix. I am not sure if it was a swift kick from the baby or maybe a strong Braxton hicks contraction, but either way it took my breath away. Since then I have had this pressure. I was aware of it over the weekend, and mentally evaluating to decide it I needed to call the doctor. Saturday I noticed the baby really wasn't moving much. Still over ten kicks in ten hours (the line at which it is time to call according to the doc) but this baby usually has ten good kicks in before I make it to work in the morning, so it was a clear decrease.

Yesterday things slowed down more. I only felt a couple kicks over the entire day, then I ate something and laid down to really get the baby moving before I went to bed and maybe got seven kicks. Enough to put me over ten for the day, but I wasn't satisfied. I woke up this morning and had my apple juice. It usually gets things going. Nothing. Not a kick. I ate breakfast...went to work...nothing. NOTHING. I though things were fine, but maybe I should call. That's when the emotions took over. As soon as the nurse got on the phone I broke down. BROKE DOWN, PEOPLE.

Of course, what with the hysterical pregnant girl on the phone, they told me to come right in. I had Nick meet me there...because of all the new terror. Deep down I really thought it was fine, but every minute after the call that passed without any movement freaked me out more and more. They put me on the non-stress test monitor and it took her two years (maybe a minute) to find the heart beat. At which time I once again burst into tears. This time out of relief. I was then ready to hop up and head back to work, but they wanted to monitor me for a while. They kept coming back in to see if I had felt movement, and I still hadn't. Finally the doctor got out the little tape measure, put it against my stomach and pulled it really hard. Making an extremely loud noise. Which REALLY made the baby mad. The sweet little heart rate jumped up from the 140's to the 170's and was followed by several VISIBLE kicks right into the meter that basically made it clear that the baby was saying, "WHAT THE HELL MOM! I WAS SLEEPING!!!!!" Right. Sorry sweet baby. Mama is just a little neurotic and emotional these days. Go back to sleep...

The doctor assured me I did the right thing. That they always want to know if there is a change like that. To not think I over reacted. Better safe than sorry. All good things to hear. She said that the new pressure and the decreased movement is most likely from the baby moving down some. She said as the baby gets bigger this can happen, but they want to keep an eye on it and to call back if things feel off to me again. Of course now I have felt the baby move about a million times over the rest of the day. At least they won't have another hysterical phone call...for a few days at least...

The Evolution of Bio Girl

I have been thinking about this blog lately. About how when I started writing on it, that I had serious doubts that it would even last. I have never been a writer. A talker, oh yes, but a writer...not really my style. Sounded...hard. Sounded like work. What in the heck would I WRITE about?? Still, everyone else was writing on one, and I figured I might as well give it a go and start a personal blog too. I really had no readers that were not people I knew in real life. My blog wasn't easy to find. There was no google search that would lead you to my blog except by googling www.bio-girl.blogspot .com. That's right. You had to google the ENTIRE NAME. It was the only way to hunt me down. Yesterday when I got home I was checking in on my blog and saw that someone was here who google searched Bio Girl. That's it. No quotations, no hyphen, no "blog" or "pregnancy blog" or anything. Just Bio Girl. Not only was on I on the google list. I was FIRST on the list. Number ONE out of "about 13,000,000" sites that contain those two words. I am about 100% positive that the reason for this is that google bought blogger, but still, somehow it got me thinking of how far this blog has actually come.

When I started writing we were not trying for a family yet. As I think back I am not even positive what I talked about, but then I go and read and it was really similar to what I write about now. Just day to day life. Random events that I thought were funny. Nothing moving or meaningful, just random life. Eventually we entered the second stage of Bio Girl as I told you all that we were trying for a family. At this point the blog took a turn to a little more personal with discussions of my endometriosis. In some ways it stayed the same around here, but it has an undertone of discouragement. Still, it wasn't something that was mentioned a lot and mainly I just rambled.

In the next stage of the life of Bio Girl I started infertility treatment. This is when lots of you all started reading, or at least this is how you found me. It was definitely the darkest side of Bio Girl. I don't even like reading lots of those posts now because they have so much heart break in them. I used the blog as a spring board for all my thoughts and emotions. This is the time that the blog was my source of therapy. I remember at this point thinking, "WHAT did I used to talk about on here? What was there before infertility??" I truly thought the blog might die if I ever got pregnant. I just didn't see that it would be something I would write about in the same way, or something you all would want to come back and keep reading about. Now I have no idea why I thought this, but I do know it happens to a lot of infertility blogs. They stop writing when they stop treatments. I am so glad I kept going.

The forth stage of Bio Girl has obviously been pregnancy. I can honestly say I was SHOCKED when I continued to pick up new readers as a pregnancy blog. I thought I would drop a lot of the infertility readers and nobody else would be able to find me in the long list of pregnancy blogs. I wasn't hurt by the fact that it is hard for other infertile girls to keep reading once the good news hits. I know how hard it is to be in the trenches of the fight, so I never want to make things harder. I just expected to lose a lot of readers and go back to mainly family reading. That is not what happened. This blog just keeps growing! You all keep coming and reading about things like weekly belly pictures and me having heart burn or us getting our home ready for the baby, or really just our overall excitement. You have been more supportive and loving than I expected. Amazing how I underestimate you all even after how much you were there for me with the IVF. I have learned that I love to share things with you all. The funny, the heart breaking, the boring. I just want to tell you. Really because you all have become my friends. My blogging family. And I love to share things with my family.

I guess eleven weeks from now we will enter a fifth and permanent stage for Bio Girl. The Mommy blog. In my head I wonder if I will have time to write. If I will have things to write about that you all want to read. Then I remember that I have thought that in each life stage of the blog, and I have never stopped writing, and you all have never stopped reading and commenting. I know things will change, and I will look back and wonder what in the heck I talked about everyday without pictures of the BAAAAABY, but I think I have been at this long enough now to still be able to hold on to what started Bio Girl in the first place. Random stories about our lives. Thank you guys for reading and for sticking around. You make it fun to share our memories. I can't wait to meet our sweet baby, and now that this blog is such a part of my life, I cannot wait for you all to meet him or her either!

29 Weeks

First off, you all are awesome. I am LOVING all your comments and guesses on my poll from yesterday! Seriously, you totally made my day. Now if you didn't have time to vote (or just forgot...or thought it was dumb...) you still have tons of time! Mainly because this is my poll and I will leave it up and running as long as I like...which might be forever (okay, it won't be forever because I DO want to make some graphs, but it will be up for a while). You don't need a google account or anything because this blog takes anonymous comments. It's so EASY. Obviously you all want to make my day and vote too, right?? Click here to play along.

Okay, now to the actual point of THURSDAY. I am now officially 29 weeks! That is the last week in the 20's, in case you didn't notice. The way these weeks keep flying by, I am actually going to have a baby before I know it! Speaking of our sweet baby, he or she is still growing like a weed. Apparently the baby weights around 2.7 pounds and is 16.7 inches long. Everything I keep reading is telling me that the baby NEEEEEEDS calcium right now, so it is a good thing I am in love with all things dairy. Seriously I drink more than a gallon of milk a week all by myself. Plus all the cheese and the ice cream and the sour cream...right. I love dairy. So I think this baby is going to have the strongest bones EVER.

As for me, I am still great! I like eating, but the undying hunger is...well, dying. I guess I am getting full a lot faster. Maybe because I have a big old baby pushing on my stomach these days. The baby is still giving me lots of kicks so I know he or she is doing good in there. I am starting to feel pretty large, but mostly I still just feel like me! Just a larger version of me that needs to remember to be careful when I open a door so I don't knock it into my stomach. I will get used to this thing right around the time I give birth! Now to belly pic's....

Shirt down

Shirt up

A Poll ( Come On...you KNOW you want to Vote!)

So I have been thinking about this for a while, but seeing as how I have started to obsess over the topic in my head, and I have nothing else to post about, it looks like it is time for a poll about the sex of this sweet baby! Now don't be shy. I am always amazed with how many people stop by this blog in a day, so just click on the little comment button and put in your vote. I will be all sorts of depressed if nobody comes over to vote in my super important poll (what? this IS important!), so click on over out of those readers and leave me a comment with your guess!

PS. If you need a reminder of all the belly pictures, take a look here.

PSS. If your guess is "I have no freaking clue...you should have found out at your 20 week ultrasound like a normal person" I am actually okay with that. Any comment on the matter will be tallied in the final count!

PSSS. I may or may not make a nice graph of the data once I am convinced nobody else is voting...because I like graphs...because I am a huge math nerd.

PSSSS For extra credit feel free to take a guess at the baby's birthday! Official due date is June 4th. If you get it right along with the sex, I will give you a super amazing prize!!*

*prize may or may not really exist. By the time I know if you are right, I will have a new BABY and so I fully reserve the right to "forget" about the so called prize...but I will try really hard to at least point out on here that you are a baby predicting genius...which counts for something...I think.

New Schedule

I am not sure how much attention you all have paid to me talking about my work schedule over the years, but I would assume that you have no idea when I work. Totally understandable. I have no idea when you all work either. No hurt feelings. The thing about my schedule is that I work in a lab that has living animals (nothing crazy, just fishing and water fleas). Seeing as how they are alive, they must be fed and what not every day. This means that someone is in the lab 365 days a year. This basically means a weekend and holiday rotation is required to cover all days. For the past three and a half years I have worked weekends, and recently it has been every other weekend. It is one of the few down sides to my job, which I love, so it has never bothered me much. They give us every other Friday off, so although I do work half the weekends, the other half of my weekends are three days off. It seems like a good trade, and honestly I am used to it. Still, it is an eleven day on (with Saturday and Sunday usually being half days) and then three days off schedule. It gets tiring.

It has forever been on the list of things I would like to change, but it is how it is. No need to obsess. Still, when I got pregnant I knew I had an issue. I wanted to only work four days a week. I wasn't exactly sure how to swing it. I would stay in the weekend rotation somehow, but I wanted all Mondays off. I started talking to the lab about it early on in the pregnancy and I have been so lucky with how easy they took to my plans! We decided to change up the schedule so that Justin and I now split every weekend. I work Tuesday-Saturday, he works Sunday-Thursday. Just like that I work five days with two days off just like a normal person! My Saturdays are half days still, so I am working nine hour weekdays. I know I am giving up my Saturday mornings, but oh how it is worth it. This is the second weekend of the new schedule and it feels to good to be true to actually be off work today! and I was off yesterday! And now, I only work a measly five days before I GET TWO DAYS OFF AGAIN!

To make my life even better, we just got word that they are letting us hire a part time student to help out because we are so busy. Let me tell you, this is needed. BAD. Especially with my up coming maternity leave. But here is the key. The magical key. This part time person...is going to work weekends! So...once we get them trained, I will be working four ten hour days, then EVERY WEEKEND WILL BE THREE DAYS OFF! AMAZING. I know ten hour days are long, but I am just planning to come in an hour earlier, and then not take my hour lunch. Just pack something and eat in like fifteen to twenty minutes. I have tried it out and it really isn't bad. Not bad at all. Especially when the result works out so perfectly for me and the baby. I am so excited about it! Now I should go so I can be productive with my day off. I am going to take a nap...then watch Harry Potter three on dvd. It's a hard life.

Girls Night

I used to be really good at setting aside time for my girlfriends, but lately I have sorta failed miserably at it. Last night, seeing as how Nick was out of town and I had no good reason to not be social except pure laziness, I decided to have some of my girls over for dinner/coffee/desert and to see the nursery. It was such a great time! We were sad to be missing some of our girls, but everyone that was able to make it had so much fun! Makes me want to actually become social again. Come to think of it, I think this happens to me every spring. I come out of hibernation and start to miss everyone once it's actually light outside when I get off work. Anyway, here are a couple pic's from the night...

Here is the group that was able to make it, minus Morgan who took the picture for us. I didn't really think about the fact that I might want to take pictures when I wore the baby arrow shirt...I guess when I look back I will always be POSITIVE I was pregnant at this little gatheringCarter was pretty tired when he first got there, but eventually he woke up and decided he loved the idea of all of our attention on his dance moves. Oh how I love him...Here are my two sisters and my cousin. I was pretty jealous of this picture, so decided to jump in...Notice how I don't even look that pregnant in this picture...but then...I took a picture with Morgan. Which is all sorts of adorable...but the belly...right. Clearly this baby is going to be gigantic. 12 more weeks people!Here is me and Liz, who was sweet enough to bring a caramel coffee cake. It. was. heaven. And finally me and an awake Carter. Notice how interested Ellie is with him..she has learned that where Carter is, there is usually also food that falls to the ground. She is just checking his face for crumbs.

And that's it for pictures. It turned out to be such a great and easy night. Something I will definitely do again soon! Now I need to find out how I am filling the rest of my days with Nick gone...most likely with lots of food and TV...

Old Habit

Well Nick has gone off and left me for the weekend. He is in New York for work. I would be all sorts of jealous, but he is working the night shift at the particle accelerator, so he pretty much sleeps all day, and watches a giant tube all night. Not my idea of a dream weekend...

Since he was away, I somehow found myself falling into an old habit last night. A really old habit. For years now Nick as been very anti-ER. Not the place, the show. I have no idea why the hate runs so deep, but he HAAAAATES it. Every commercial for it send him into a "Stupid ER...Why are you still on the air...'Best Show Ever' my ass..." For years I defended it. I LOOOOOVED ER. I had watched it religiously since it started when I was in high school (or middle school...how old is that show??) I even taped it on a VCR when I was going to miss it...I was so ahead of the DVR curve. Still, eventually I let it go. It was getting silly, and all the people I loved were gone. I began to mock it with Nick. A show past it's time. Dead to me now.

The thing is...deep down...DEEEEEEP down. The previews still slightly intrigued me. Not enough to add it to the DVR, but enough to remind me that I really used to like the show. A flicker of a feeling for a lost friend. Then it happened. The last season. And they started bringing people back! My old friends!! I hadn't caved...they hadn't brought back anybody good enough to pull me back in...until last night. I was home alone, flipping threw the channels...and who did I see...DOCTOR DOUG ROSS! (aka George Clooney) Yes! There he was! Oh and him and Nurse Hathaway are still together! OF COURSE THEY ARE!! THE LOVE!! And then, LOOK! It's Benton!! AND CARTER!! TOGETHER! Just like old times!!

I. WAS. HOOKED. I sat there are watched the entire episode, hoping somehow, something would bring them all back to finish out the last season. I knew it wouldn't happen. But I could hope. When it was over I was actually pretty happy it left everyone where they were. First off, the last thing I needed was another show to be addicted to. Second, how would I tell Nick that in the one weekend he left me alone, I rejoined the dark side and now LOVE ER AGAIN. No, it is better this way. What luck that this was the episode that came on when he was out of town!

28 Weeks

So here we are at another Thursday already! Amazingly I am now officially 28 weeks pregnant. As for a baby update, he or she is now nearly sixteen inches long and wights about two and a half pounds! Apparently the baby's brain waves also show that the baby is having REM sleep...which means the baby is dreaming. Awesome.

I am still a lot the same! I know these posts are getting pretty repetitive (baby growing, I feel great!) but really that's the truth and I can't say I have a problem with it! Each day that passes it hits me more and more that soon we are really going to have a baby! He or she is kicking and moving around a ton, which I am loving. My back is bothering me when I roll over in my sleep, but I don't really think there is much I can do about that. I am sleeping great, but the movement hurts. All in all not to bad for 28 weeks along! Now for some belly pictures.

Shirt down

Shirt up

I am an Idiot. The End.

Do you ever get in a hurry when you are doing house hold chores. Like, say you have the day off work and in your head you were going to be super productive and like, clean the house and do the laundry and clip coupons and go to the grocery and...well...you know, get crap done. The thing is that then you forget about the time change and sorta sleep really late, and run out the door for an appointment (without showering, which wouldn't be that bad but the appointment isn't until noon, so if you can't find the time to shower before noon you feel sorta lazy...) and then you come home and you WANT to get started on house work...but you are hungry so you make food instead. And while eating you figure you should go ahead and watch Lost...and then go ahead and watch Brothers and Sisters too...and sure, you could be doing laundry, but you will get to it...eventually.

Next thing you know it is like three o'clock and you still haven't showered, and that is just ridiculous. You jump in and get clean, then start tossing anything you can see into the washing machine so you can at least say you got ONE thing done on the list. You are in a tissy, because you are calculating the time it will take you to get to the grocery store and back and so you aren't paying attention...and you toss the jeans you had on this morning into the wash...because they were on your dirty self before the shower. And then you start clipping the coupons, not a care in the world.

About ten minutes later it hits you. Where is your cell phone? No. You are sure you must have gotten it out of the pocket of your jeans. You could not have just washed it. No. NOOOOOO. You run the the machine and start pulling ever item out until you find the jeans. And they are buzzing. This doesn't seem good. You grab for the pocket and pull out the cell. There are bubbles under the screen. Damn it. You pull out the battery. You attempt to dry it off. You put the entire phone in rice because you think you heard somewhere that it will draw out the water. it only gets stuck in the inner workings of the phone and you are now unable to even close the phone all the way. You wait several hours to put the battery back in. It starts buzzing again. No picture under the bubble screen. You yell at the phone to stop buzzing...but then it does. And now it won't do anything. And it is your only connection to the outside world. And you miss it. And you feel bad for yelling at it. But it is gone. And no apologizing it will bring it back. You are phoneless. And you didn't realize how much you loved your phone until now.

You accept that it's gone and get online to file an insurance claim to get it replaced. They give you a number to call. If you had a PHONE to call the number, you wouldn't have a problem! You are annoyed...mainly with yourself. Because you are a total idiot. Maybe you should just give up on laundry all together. Deep down you think this is really all the washing machines fault. It has always had it in for the cell phone. It knew the cell was your favorite of all the electronics. Stupid washer.

Just What We Needed!

Well, as a main highlight to this past weekend*, look what we got! Why yes, this IS our amazing (and SAFE!) stroller/car seat travel system with an extra base for the other car! AMAZING, right?? My sweet and wonderful childhood best friend and her mom stopped by on Sunday with our gift for the baby shower because she wasn't sure they could make it. They pointed out that we need lots of things, but this one is required to take the baby home from the hospital, so it seemed pretty important! I couldn't agree more, and I am SO EXCITED to have it!

For the record, I really was going to have Nick put it all together and take a picture of the actual stroller and car seat and not just a box, but we were running around all weekend and we just never had time. So...here is a picture of what it will look like once it is assembled!That works just as well, right? All the amazing ways the Internet lets you be lazy...

*Our weekend was full of many highlights, like grilling out with friends, 70 degree weather, (wearing flip flops!) dinner with Nick's dad, seeing Watchmen...which I didn't really like, but I do always enjoy the movies! bla bla bla. it was a great weekend that officially felt like Spring! Hope you all got the nice weather too!

THE Crib!

So a funny thing happened when we went to order the crib. We were positive it was the one...positive until we got back to the store....then it started looking...sorta BIG. and just too much for our house and our little nursery. It was a great crib. No denying that...but was it THE crib?? No. It wasn't. So for the THIRD time we started the crib search. (Nobody ever accused me and Nick of making rash decisions...remember how we dated for seven years?? Right.)

Anyway, apparently the third time is really the charm because we found THE crib! It only took a solid thirty minutes of me walking back and forth between two saying, "I am just not sure..." We finally made it official and went to place the order...only to find out that they had THE crib in stock! It was meant to be!! So without further ado...THE crib! So glad we didn't go with the bigger crib because once Nick got this one put together we realized exactly how large a crib actually is...or how small our nursery actually is...either way, this was the perfect choice! For the record, my floors are not always this dirty (thank God). Nick is still patching nail holes in the chair rail and so there is some sanding going on...I would have cleaned it, but he isn't done...so I would just have to clean it again in like two days. Yes, I am that lazy. Anyway, we wanted to test out the crib...but seeing as how we don't have our sweet baby just yet, we had to practice with the other baby... She seemed to like it okay, but that might have been because Nick and I were telling her HOW GREAT she was the entire time...she does love attention. She takes after me. Still, she much prefers her bean bag bed, which I guess is a good thing. The baby has called dibs on this!

***I have a new post up over at Chic Shopper Chic! Take a look if you have time.***

27 Weeks

AKA...THE THIRD TRIMESTER! Yes. It's true. We are now officially in the third trimester. That is like the third out of three...the LAST TRIMESTER. I am just as shocked as you guys are. Lets hope that this pregnancy continues to be this nice to me! Even if it gets rough, and the end of THIS trimester I get a BABY! YAY!!

Okay, speaking of baby, the little guy (or girl) is now a little over two pounds and is 15 inches long. Seriously. According to my resources that is the size of a teddy bear. Awww....The sweet baby can now open and close it's little eyes and is sucking its thumb to sooth itself. It also says the baby can now cry. That's right. The baby can CRY. that breaks my heart a little, but still it is amazing!

As for me, I am doing good. I still feel normal and not overly tired or sore. This week has honestly been so full of great baby stuff, I have loved every second! We registered, we finished the nursery, and I had my doctors appointment. The doctor gave me the big smile and thumbs up once again. Apparently the "correct" amount of weight gain for right now is 16-22 pounds, the official doctors record shows I have gained 16. The doctor seemed extremely pleased. I got to hear that sweet heart beat at the appointment, and then he pulled out the tape measure to see how I was doing! I was wondering when the tape measure came out! The glucose test wasn't that bad. It make my stomach a little off, and sorta gave me a head ache, but nothing unbearable. Now we are just waiting for some results!

Now to the belly pictures!

Shirt down

Shirt up!

Project Nursery Part Three!

We seem to have so much going on these days! Work has been crazy (CRAZY! Like huge audit/working ten our days crazy) and we had Nick's brothers 30th birthday (where the waiter started laughing and was like, "I am sure you all are use to it, but it is just AMAZING when we have identical twins come in here!"...talking about Nick and his brother...who are two years apart. Clearly not identical twins...the family has some seriously strong genes though...I am doomed)plus crib shopping and other random life events. Just BUSY. I had my doctors appointment today (gained five pounds...not bad considering the large volume of food I have consumed!) and all seems to be going perfectly. They did the diabetes screening so I should hear about that in the next day or two. After the appointment I stopped in to our infertility doc's office to get some tax information an got to catch up with the great girls from over there. They are just so sweet! To say we are thankful for that amazing office is the understatement of the year, but it was so nice to see them all and catch up!

Anyway, the actual point of this post is to show you all some nursery pictures! Now, I gotta say that this will not be the last nursery picture post...because come to find out they don't actually keep all cribs in stock...and if you have to order them...it take FOUR TO SIX WEEKS! My goodness. Gotta say I was a little depressed that it will be that long, but still, it is something to look forward to! Obviously I didn't want you all to wait that long to see the finished paint, so we will just add a Project Nursery Part Four once the crib is in and we have the bedding set and everything in there and ready for our sweet baby to come home.

So to the pictures....we last left off with some primed drywall which we have now painted green!

Then we cut in the lower boards with brown. Do you all know how long it takes to cut in paneling??? A LONG TIME.Finally we rolled out the last of the paint and added the chair rail and molding, cleaned up and moved in some furniture!See how it's all green on top and brown on bottom...like a tree...because we are doing the nursery in forests...get it...pretty cute, right? We absolutely love it. I actually cannot stop looking in there and smiling. I can't wait to get the crib and the wall hangings and bedding so it really starts to turn into our little forest nursery!

Registered!

Well Nick and I are officially registered! Wait. What's that? I promised nursery pictures by yesterday and here I am starting a post that has the feeling of not mentioning the nursery at all? Um...right. We are basically done. It's awesome. I am so excited to show you...but (you knew there was a but) I really want to have the crib in there for the final pictures. This wouldn't be an issue, except for the fact that the crib we bought...yeah, it was all wrong. It was cherry...and it just looked SO RED in the room. SO we are exchanging it. And we TRIED to do it yesterday, but the dag nab place is closed on Sunday...and tonight we are going to a movie...and tomorrow we are going out to dinner with Nick's brother for his 30th birthday...so Wednesday! Wednesday I will have the finished nursery pics for you guys!

Wow, that was long. I am not even positive any of you remembered that half hearted mention of a Sunday completion picture. Still, now you know. So to the registering. We are done! Our scouting trip sorta failed us because we totally picked a stroller/car seat set that in the end was a large parenting failure. I researched it and decided it was PERFECT. Then we get there and it is GONE. I ask if they will get more in...and they tell me "it has been pulled along with several other sets for safety testing due to the new safety regulations"....right. So we carefully picked the death-trap-stroller/car seat travel system. Awesome. After looking at all of the remaining options we went with the green and gray Chicco...it's know as super safe and wonderfully made, plus Nick and I were totally capable of closing it up and opening it back up without looking like idiots...and we think it is pretty stinking cute (my words not Nicks...he said something like, "it's fine"). I am pretty excited about it!

Besides that we registered for a ton of random crap. I don't even know...things like a high chair, a swing, a tub (it's a baby spa...awesome), a sling (I am excited about this one...)and other random baby junk. We fell in love with this forest bedding set (did I tell you we were doing the nursery in forest stuff??) but of course it isn't at Babies R Us, so we registered for it at a different online store. Isn't it adorable? So I guess the point is that we registered...and we basically finished the nursery. A pretty productive baby weekend if you ask me! We are really proud of ourselves. Hope you all had a good weekend too!