Weekend Extravaganza

This past weekend was a lot of fun.

• My mom and Matthew's sister and niece came into town for my baby shower. I knew my mom and sister-in-law were coming, but I did not know my 18 month old niece was coming. It was really great to see all of them.
• I had to go to a work event after picking my mom up from the airport on Friday morning. I wasn't looking forward to the team event but was convinced to go by my supervisor. Boy am I glad I went. We first went on a tour of one of our stores that will be opening in the middle of June. I got really lost getting to this store so we were about 30 minutes late. We joined the tour once we arrived and then went to another of our stores for lunch. My team had planned a baby shower for me where we ate lunch and cake and I opened a very generous present from them. It was really fun and it was fun for my mom to be there as well.
• Saturday was my birthday and baby shower. The last time I had so many people around on my birthday was at my rehearsal dinner 6 years ago. I really enjoy birthdays so it was fun to have so much family and friends around. I had a really good time at the shower. There were people there from my Sunday school class, Matthew's previous job, my job, and some of Matthew's family from other places in Colorado. The family then came over to our house for dinner which one of them had prepared beforehand.

• My mom made my favorite birthday cake. When I was a kid, one of her friends made this delicious chocolate sheet cake. I liked it so much that I think I embarrassed my mom by asking this friend to make the cake for my birthday. She did so and then when I turned 16 she and her husband showed up at our house with a cake straight out of the oven. It is truly delicious!
• Sunday was mine and Matthew's 6th wedding anniversary. It is hard to believe we have been married six years. Time sure does go by quickly. My sister-in-law and niece had to leave Sunday morning. While Matthew took them to the airport, my mom and I did a bit of shopping. Later in the day, we helped Matthew hang the Roman shade my mom had made for the nursery. I still need to take a picture of that to put on here. I'll do that on another post.
• My mom fixed 8 to 10 meals that are currently in the freezer for us to use between now and when the baby makes her arrival. Isn't that great? She knew that days are coming when I will get home from work and not have a desire or the energy to fix dinner. While she is here after the baby comes, she is going to fix us some more meals to put in the freezer. She was in the kitchen most of the weekend doing this. (By the way...while checking out at the grocery store when my mom bought groceries for these meals, the checkout lady said something about me looking 22. I lost 10 years this weekend! It was an awesome compliment even though I know she wasn't being truthful.)
• After some BEAUTIFUL weather last week, it snowed Sunday night/Monday morning. We ended up leaving at 5:45 yesterday morning to take my mom to the airport. It took us about 2 hours to get there in the traffic and snowy conditions, but about half that amount of time to get back because the snow had already stopped. It was crazy weather. I really hope that was the last snow of the season. I think out of 4 anniversaries spent in Colorado, it has snowed around 3 of them. This is not a very good picture because I took it before we went to the airport, but you can somewhat see all the snow that is on and around our tree.

• One thing that has become very apparent is that we are going to have to work on teaching Max the difference between his toys and Baby Girl's toys. Does anyone have any advice for this? He pretty much thinks any toy on the floor (or anywhere else for that matter) belongs to him. He wanted to play with all our niece's toys as well as anything that I was messing with in the baby's room.

Week 31

Here are some recent highlights.

~My mom and dad came into town last Thursday about half an hour before the "Blizzard of 2009" began. We didn't get nearly as much snow as the weather folks were predicting, but the conditions were not nice for driving and getting out for about a day. The wind was blowing like mad and made visibility less than ideal. I have no idea how much snow we actually got, but we did have a drift in our backyard that was about 5 or 6 feet tall. Other than that drift, the snow is pretty much gone. However, we're supposed to get snow a couple of days this week. (Side note - while my parents were here, they supposedly got 13 inches or so of snow at their place. That's definitely more than we had here.)

~While my mom and dad were here...Matthew finished painting the nursery. My mom bought our travel system for us (car seat/carrier/stroller) which Matthew and I put together Tuesday night. She also purchased some fabric to make a Roman shade for the nursery and a couple of blankets. While we were shopping, Matthew and my dad put together the crib. They opened the box to put together the dresser, and after seeing all the parts, Matthew decided he was done with that for the day. Mom and I went through the boxes of clothes we have received and organized clothes by size. We have a lot of clothes for 0 to 3 months which we will definitely get to enjoy right away. My dad asked why we wanted to have a baby since we have Max. I believe he thinks we spoil are dog. Who would have thought?





~Matthew and I had our second prepared childbirth class. We learned about breathing techniques as well as standard happenings during labor and interventions that could become necessary. While there was less than last week, I am thankful for the comic relief provided by my husband and the couples around us.

~Matthew put the dresser together on Monday and carried the glider and footstool into the nursery from the basement. It doesn't match the other furniture, but I have had it since I was living in my own apartment in Dallas. I know it will come in so handy in the nursery.





Questions for those of you with babies...
~What did you pack in your hospital bag?
~What kind of clothes and comfort items did you take to the hospital?
~How long were you in the hospital?
~Did you wonder if you were going to be capable of going through labor? I have concerns about my own strength and stamina.
~Did you take anything special/creative to the hospital to get your baby's footprints stamped on?

a TON of bricks

Things are going well here. I have 24 week photos, but they have not been loaded on the computer yet. We are SLOWLY making progress toward getting ready for Baby Girl.

• Last Saturday we started cleaning out Baby Girl's room. Since moving into the house a little over 2 years ago, this had become our junk room. Don't know what to do with something? Put it in the front room. People are coming over and we need to quickly clean off the dining room table (which collects all sorts of stuff)? Put it in the front room. Too lazy to take this or that downstairs where it belongs? Put it in the front room. You would not believe what all was in that room. It is almost emptied and ready for its makeover (even though we don't know what exactly that will entail and don't have any furniture ready to move into the room). We moved some things to a new home within our home and took many things to Goodwill. It felt good to at least get started on that project.
• Even though I already had a pretty good list going of names I like, several weeks ago I went through the HUGE baby name book and marked all the girl names I liked. Last night, I finally wrote out a list to narrow down the choices. I figured this would facilitate a nice discussion between Matthew and me of names. As I was making the list, I came across several names and wondered what in the world caused me to mark those names. Yikes! Maybe I was quite tired while marking the names. I definitely have a favorite name that has been picked out for a LONG time. Now I just have to convince Matthew that it is the best name choice.

That's it! So that's not much progress I guess. But we're working on it!

Back to the subject of this post...

I am guessing that I have always wanted to have children and imagined myself as being a mom one day. Matthew says I started talking about babies almost immediately after we got married. There is probably more truth to that statement than I care to admit. I really enjoyed babysitting when I was a teenager and have always liked kids.

A couple of weeks ago as I sat in Sunday school and watched a mother with her month old baby, I came to the realization that I have not spent much time around newborn babies and really have no idea what to do with one. I am far too composed to admit that I started to freak out (but in truth that is what happened). I started for the first time to feel completely unprepared for Baby Girl. I am still so excited to meet her, but now I am starting to think about all the things I have no idea about. I hope that every mom-to-be comes to this place at some point and that I am not entirely on my own in this.

I have since done a lot of praying, talking to Matthew, reading, looking through the classes offered by the hospital, and settled down a bit. I realize that I could not possibly know all there is to know before this precious gift is delivered. And I think with the classes I hope to take at the hospital, I will be reassured about caring for Baby Girl and learn many of things I am currently clueless about.

Whew! "They" aren't kidding when they say this pregnancy thing is an emotional roller coaster!