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I am SOOO excited to meet this baby! Three friends of mine have had babies in the last 2 weeks and it makes me want to meet mine more and more. We are feeling more prepared as the weeks go by. We've taken a birthing class and a baby basics class. We have a stroller and a car seat (Thanks Mom and Dad L!). We even bought a video camera! We're waiting on a chair for the nursery so we can finish putting her room together.

I'm still enjoying being pregnant - for the most part (my darn feet take away some of the enjoyment - see previous post)! I'm starting to feel a little bad for Brian though. His sleeping space is getting smaller and smaller as I keep needing more and more pillows to make myself comfortable when I sleep. He also tells me that I have started snoring :). Poor guy.

Just a few weeks until we meet her!

The joys...

...of pregnancy. This is my foot and cankle after a long day of work and shopping for baby gifts.

I was just at the doctor on Monday and I'm healthy, no worries, the Dr says this is normal. But in all seriousness - I totally can't complain. This pregnancy has been a breeze and a joy. This is the worst thing that has happened. Gross though...it doesn't even look like my foot! Please pardon my pasty pale skin. It will stay this way this year. There's no chance I'll get my post pregnancy body anywhere near a swimming pool this summer - a bummer since it is literally across the street!

This time - 4 years ago...

I was having the most fantastic day ever. I went on a date. It wasn't any regular date. It was a first date - with the man that would become my husband a little over a year later. I'd had a SERIOUS crush on this guy for about 6 months before he finally asked me out. He picked me up and took me to lunch at Fortune Wok. We had good conversation and we both had a great time. As we were getting ready to leave the restaurant, he asked if I wanted to play a game of putt-putt golf. I had no desire to go home and after a round of golf, I had won the game! Brian mentioned several times during the date that he was having a great time. He told me a few more times on the way home, and dropped me off. Incredibly excited, I raced up the stairs in my apartment to tell my roommate Emily every single detail. Mid story, my phone rang! It was Brian! My heart pounded with excitement as I said 'hello'. However, he said that he had been thinking a lot about our date and had decided that he didn't think it was a good idea. I was confused. He'd told me he'd had a great time - several times. What had happened in the last ten minutes? Then he said, "April Fools." I was silent for a few moments because I really wasn't sure what to think. I was relieved, but I didn't think it was very funny. I'm pretty sure my silence let him know that saying that wasn't a good idea. He spent the rest of the day apologizing with more phone calls and e-mails. I was so glad he was joking! He gets teased plenty about doing this to me. :)


This is a picture from a few weeks after our first date - the day after we became boyfriend and girlfriend! I'm so glad I got to marry him! It has been a fantastic 4 years!

Hair confessions...part 2

Several months ago I wrote about issues with my hair loss. Since months 4-5 into my pregnancy I have noticed that my hair doesn't fall out at all. Instead of picking gobs of strands out of my fingers in the shower, there are days that go by where I literally lose NO hair in the shower. My hair feels lots thicker - not as thick as it used to, but I'm not complaining. I'm really enjoying some of the effects of pregnancy hormones. I realize that I'll probably lose it in clumps again once Lauren's born, but until that happens, I'm going to enjoy wearing my hair down. It had been 1.5 years!!!

Her room!!!

OK! Here's the post with pics from Lauren's room! Below Brian is painting from the test can to determine if we want what we picked. And we did! However, it turned out a little brighter than we though. It kinda looks like her room is glowing when you're standing in the hallway. :)




We were quite amused when selected her crib and changing table that the model was called this!


It is finished - complete with the bed skirt and quilt made by Cathy Koehler!


Close up




The changing table with the diaper bag - it was a Christmas gift - and also worked great as a carry-on when we went to visit Brian's parent's for Christmas.


I found these letters at Hobby Lobby and painted them the same pink that is in the window sill. We're thinking that they'll probably go above the crib, but we're not sure of the furniture placement yet.


Here you can see both together - and we're in need of some curtains. My mom said she'd make some. We'll probably use the same fabric that Cathy used for the bed skirt.


I LOVED 'grandma blankets' when I was growing up and now Lauren has her first one - made by her Great-grandma Schmidt. It is SO cozy!


Her closet - it has been so hard for me to resist buying clothes...and I haven't been able to completely, but some of these things have been gifts...like 4 items... :)

So, that's it for now! We need some wall decor and a rocking chair. I love how it looks so far!

hair gel?

There were many things on my to-do list this week. Some were fun (eating at the Melting Pot, watching the Today Show every morning, always eating dessert, sleeping in, spending lots of time with Brian, getting Lauren's room mostly ready, registering, and FINALLY getting to eat a fried pickle) and some were not so fun (cleaning bathrooms, glucose testing for gestational diabetes, laundry, dusting, getting my oil changed and cleaning out under my sink in the bathroom). Cleaning out under my sink....yes....since we've moved into our house I haven't thrown away a bottle used spray hair gel. I don't want to waste any. There's always a little left in the bottom of the bottle and so I didn't want to throw the bottles out. The spray gel is more gel like than water like, so it's not a quick pour from one bottle to another - so I just stashed the used bottles under my sink and started using a new bottle.

And I was really starting to run out of room. So, finally, I emptied them all into one bottle. I got an entire bottle of gel from the extra remaining in all of these! I'm thinking next time I should do it a little sooner...this was a pretty extreme number of bottles to just be sitting under the sink.

Oh, Lauren's room is done. I'm just too lazy to get up off the couch to take pictures so I can post them. Perhaps tomorrow???

Oh the husband... :)

This spring break is probably my favorite ever. Brian took the week off so that we could spend this last amount of time I have off school together before the two of us become the three of us! This is the first time since the week after we got married that we have had more than 3 days in a row together when we haven't been traveling or had guests in the house. It is just fantastic! We are eating at lots of fun restaurants, painting, and relaxing. Tonight after dinner we headed to Babies.R.Us to add a few things to our registry. We were specifically looking at stroller/car seat travel systems. I wanted to pull them off the shelves, push them around and figure out how they worked. I was SO glad I had Brian there with me. He figured out how to make the stroller back rest move, how to unhook the car seat from the stroller and make the stroller collapse - without reading the directions. As we were leaving he told me that he was really glad he had gone - that he likes learning and knowing how things work. He said he even felt so prepared that he didn't feel like he needed to take any baby classes! (He was kidding). I then said that he could probably figure out the parenting thing somewhat easily if he was able to figure out the stroller/car seat thing without directions. To which he replied, "Strollers are just like babies. You just have to find the right button and turn it the right way to make them do what you want." :) Oh, I love him!