The Nursery

After three months, we finally finished the nursery! Since we don't know if we're having a boy or girl, we went gender neutral. Chris and I have always loved mint green with dark wood, so we thought it would be the perfect color scheme for the room. This room was a complete family effort, and without them, our baby wouldn't have a room to sleep in, I'm sure of it:)

I painted the walls (don't worry, it was water based paint) and spent my New Year's Eve putting together the dresser. Patrick, Lindsay's fiance, installed the new carpet. My mother-in-law, Joy and sister-in-law, Lindsay painted all the molding, doors and wainscoting. Chris put together the crib, hung all the pictures and, along with his dad, Bob, put up all the crown molding and wainscoting. My new sister-in-law, Stacy even got to get in on the action and helped me put the changing table. And of course, my wonderful parents, Ken and JoAnn furnished the ENTIRE nursery.

A lot of love and hard work went into putting this room together and we're so happy with the final result!! There's only one thing missing now. Our beautiful baby! We hope he/she loves it as much as we do:) Enjoy the pics...

Let the Countdown Begin...

Officially 1 month to go before the big day. At least the due date that is. If we're lucky, our little bundle of joy will be here sooner!! At my 35-week check up, the baby had grown quite a bit. At my 33-week check up I was measuring 31 and now I'm measuring 36! That's a lot of growth in two weeks :)

Some other news, I'm 1 centimeter dilated and 50% effaced. AND, the head is down, so we are on a roll. Hopefully things keep progressing normally and we'll have a healthy, happy baby soon!!

The majority still think it's a girl, however, I've been getting more people telling me that they think it's a boy. I personally still don't have any guess. Chris is hoping for a boy. Whenever he talks to or about the baby he always refers to it as a boy:)

The nursery is about 50% done right now. I had big visions of crown molding and wainscoting, so it has taken a little longer than expected to get it all done. It's really turning out nice though. I can't wait to post up pictures so you all can see it!!

Anyhoo, stay tuned for the next update. And Happy 2010 everyone!!

Photo Session

Last weekend I got some professional maternity photos done by my friend Sarah and I am so pleased with the way they turned out. They are beautiful. Thanks, Sarah!!

After the photo session, I surprised Chris with a trip to Portland for our anniversary. Since this was our LAST anniversary without kids, I thought we should do something special. So we went to the Embassy Suites downtown and out to The Melting Pot for dinner. After dinner we stopped by Kell's for a beer... well, Chris had a beer, I had an iced tea:) and then went to a place I've been DYING to go to for years! Voodoo Donuts! We waited about 20 minutes outside this little hole-in-the-wall (literally) donut shop in below freezing temperatures to get these donuts and it was SOOOO worth the wait. Chris had a Captain My Captain donut (glazed donut topped with Captain Crunch cereal) and I got a little greedy and had an Orangotang (glazed donut topped with Tang), a Dirt (topped with crushed oreo cookies) and a bacon maple bar. They were UNBELIEVABLE! Sorry I don't have any pictures of Portland, but enjoy the maternity photos:)

My Baby Shower

A couple of weeks ago my mom and mother-in-law threw me the most wonderful baby shower. The games were fun, the food was delicious and the decor was divine. I didn't expect any less from those wonderful women. And, not to mention, glowing Grandmas-to-be. All my closest friends and family were there to share the special day with me. They came from all corners of the Northwest. Seattle, Portland, Medford, the Oregon Coast and Spokane! All to share in the excitement of our little bun in the oven:) And I have to say, I made out pretty well. If I had the baby right now, I think I'd be pretty set. Enjoy the pictures!

The Meltdown

I've told this story to a few people, but thought it was so funny that I had to post it. About two weeks ago, when my "nesting" officially started to kick in, I was so pumped to start cleaning the house to prepare for the baby. And when I say clean, I mean deep clean. Literally scrubbing ever inch of my house floor to ceiling, vaccuming, shampooing, sanitizing, etc... You get the picture. So, on this particular Sunday, I was planning on busting out our carpet shampooer that I admittedly haven't even looked about in probably a year, and going to town on the bedrooms. I did one cycle and then had to reload the hot water. If you don't know, when you're shampooing carpets, the hotter the water is, the better. So this time I decided to heat the water in the tea kettle to ensure the water was as hot as possible. So I heated it till it was nearly boiling, started to pour into that rubber bladder thing, and as soon as I started pouring, the rubber started melting and fusing together! It was destroyed, along with my big plans for the day. I was DEVASTATED! I completely broke down and started crying like I had just found out a loved one died. SOBBING. Poor Chris had no idea what to do. He attempted to comfort me and every time he tried to tell me everything was alright I'd get pissed and start yelling that everything was NOT alright. He had no idea how to handle this. I don't think he's ever seen me like this, especially over something seemed so petty. It might have seemed petty to him, but to me, this totally ruined my plans for the day. So, after about 10 minutes of him trying his best to comfort me, I stared to calm down. Chris called the rental place in town and got me a commercial grade carpet cleaner that I used instead, which in retrospect, was probably what I should have done in the first place. It works so much better than the one I have. So, long story short, I eventually got to shampoo my carpets. I just can't believe how strong hormones actually are!

6 Months Down, 3 To Go

I'm officially in my third trimester! My how time flies. It really seems like it was just the other day that we found out we were expecting. As I've said, this pregnancy so far has been a breeze. Although, I have to say, I'm starting to feel the added stress and, dare I say, weight!?!? It's a little harder to get out of bed in the morning or just off the couch for that matter. But, I'm still wearing my heals:) I have bets going with people at work on how long I can wear them. I say until the day I give birth! At least that's my goal.

Chris and I started going to prenatal classes. Last week was all about breastfeeding! It also happened to be the same night as the first game of the World Series and Chris was such a trooper and gave up watching the game to come to class with me. I'm married to the most wonderful man. The fact that he would give up watching this huge game between his two FAVORITE teams to listen to a woman talk about lactation and engorgement meant the world to me. Don't be fooled though. He had his MLB app on his iPhone tuned into the game the entire class to keep up on the score.

The next three weeks will be childbirth classes where we'll learn about labor, delivery, epidurals, breathing techniques, etc... And then we'll take a newborn childcare class, which we all know we need since we don't know what the hell we're doing!! :)

Here are some belly bump pictures at 6 months. Enjoy!!

Jessica's Baby Shower

For those of you who don't know, one of my best friends, Jessica, is also pregnant! She's about 8 weeks ahead of me and is expecting a little boy:) Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending her baby shower. We live two hours apart, and the fact that we don't get to really experience being pregnant together is a bummer, so this trip was nice to catch up. We made sure to get together the night before the shower to get some one-on-one time.

For the shower, I made a diaper cake. I've been wanting to make one for the longest time! For those of you who don't know, a diaper cake is NOT a diaper shaped cake, but rather a tiered cake made of diapers. Just thought I'd clear that up since I had to explain it to Chris:)

It's funny to see how differently Jessica and I are carrying our babies. She is carrying him low, and I'm really high. This lead to the unanimous conclusion among the women at the shower that I am having a girl?? I certainly don't believe in all those old wives tales, but my mom said that my sister and I we both really high and my brother was practically between her legs. So, we'll just have to see:)