The house is getting there!

Well you wouldn't know it by looking at the house (or by the length of my honey-do list), but things are coming together. I'd show you pictures, but if you reread sentence #1... its not quite picture worthy just yet.
-Wood stairs are in, but I had to sand off the stain before I apply the poly (stairs didn't need stain- oops.)
-Both closets are in, but I have one final piece to install (molding), and reattach my closet door. Guess what happens when you take all of the crap previously piled in 2 closets and let it loose throughout the house... :)
-Upstairs is now hardwood, but still needs finishing touches. Looks great though! In the words of Shonna, "its shiny"


Soooooo we now have a bunch of extra stuff lying around (the closet "stuff" mentioned earlier, lots of baby items, and... oh yea, did I mention that I emptied our storage facility and dumped the contents in the basement?) In order to get rid of or store this stuff, I will need to clean out the sh... stuff under the stairs, in the laundry room, in the guest room, and in the shed. Anyone want some extra stuff?

On another subject, I've had "baby dreams" on consecutive nights. Odd because these are basically the first 2 I've had. Friday night I dreampt we were in the hospital room while Shonna was in labor. The challenge was that we had to make the hospital bed, assemble the monitors and contraptions, and basicall get the room "delivery ready" as seen through my eyes at the time. I'm sure you can only imagie. It was eerily similar to my assembly of the baby swing earlier that night...
In addition, it was a Sunday, and not one of Shonna's Drs was available. Instead, the lady who runs the baby class we attend on Tuesdays was going to deliver the baby. Shonna loves her :)

My 2nd dream wasn't as weird, but definitely not normal. Our baby girl was crawling around, and it was just the two of us. Shonna was at work or something and I was playing mr. mom (or some role that loosely resembled mr mom). I can't remember all of the details, but I do recall her crawling down the hallway of our apartment (yes I know we don't live in an apt:)

Anyway, thats my blog for now. I'll be in touch.

September 27, 2009: 34 Weeks

Today was the last day of my last weekend workshop! I've found that it is much harder to work long days (especially 7 days/week) these days. My feet are pretty swollen by the end of the day and I'm usually really tired by about lunch time. I was able to catch up on sleep a little bit on Friday night, which helped, but I'm definitely looking forward to having a couple of days off this weekend!

We have 6 weeks to go (42 days)! We have our regular check up on Friday and then it's only a few more days until Jacy and Joel (and Liam!) get here. We also have 3 more childbirth classes. This week we have our tour of the hospital.

September 20: Week 33

It was a fairly productive week in the world of baby preparations! We got the car seat installed in my car (it's pretty trippy to look back and have a car seat in the car though!) and are set up for cord blood banking. Paul has been hard at work on the house -- the closets came in and he and Dave worked this weekend on getting them installed. They also replaced some light fixtures and fixed the wiring upstairs. Paul is still working on sanding the finish off of the stairs and a lot of little odd jobs. Next on the list is more dejunking and organizing. Seems like we never run out of things to do! Our diaper bags are packed though and we're getting closer to being ready for her!

We had our checkup on Thursday with Dr. Crowther. Everything looks good. She had just woken up when Dr. Crowther came in to check her heart rate. She was around 160 bpm and Dr. Crowther was laughing at how active she was. I'm still doing really well. I don't really have any new syptoms. I've been working a lot so I'm usually pretty tired and I find that I have a harder time getting up and down and my feet hurt if I'm standing for a long time, but I won't complain! If you keep up with Jacy's blog (www.jacysbabyblog.blogspot.com), you know that the third trimester has been harder on her than on me! I've gained 30 pounds, which is a little ahead of where I'd like to be, but I should still be pretty close to the recommended range by the end (maybe over by 2 pounds).

In other news, I got the official word this week that I was promoted! I'm thankful that my company promoted me even though it will be just in time for me to go on maternity leave for 2 or 3 months. The extra money will definitely help with daycare expenses!

Paul hasn't been writing on the blog much because he has been really busy with work (end of the fiscal year) and house stuff. As we speak, he is upstairs working on one of the closets. I've got another workshop this week (Thursday-Sunday), so Paul will have another weekend with me out of the way to slave away on the house. The goal for next weekend is to get rid of the storage shed (one fewer monthly expense!). Hopefully he will get a chance to write again soon. Maybe after this week's childbirth class where we get to see the glory of the video!

Week 32

Okay, okay! We'll post a belly shot soon... maybe this weekend. We're down to 8 weeks to go until the due date! That sounds very, very soon. We've had 2 childbirth classes so far at Virginia Hospital Center. Paul and I have pretty bad ADD, so I can't say that we're thrilled by the classes, but I guess it is a necessary evil. Next week we talk about pain medications and watch the video. I'm already thinking of illnesses that may pop up on Tuesday.

We have another doctor's appointment on Thursday (with Dr. Crowther again this time) and Paul is going to take my car in to get a car seat inspection this weekend. He's also going to work on installing closets in the two bedrooms upstairs. While Paul is slaving away with baby preparations, I'll be working all weekend with the physical therapists in Old Town. Luckily, Dave has been gracious enough to offer to come lend Paul a hand while I'm working!

September 6th, 2009: 31 Weeks and a Nursery

As you can see, our nursery furniture was delivered on Friday! We ended up with a lot of furniture and not so much room, but so it goes. Hopefully the glider will fit in there once it is delivered! If not, I guess we have a new chair for the living room! You can also see Paul's paint job and the new floors in these pictures. We still have some work to do - the windows and decorating, but all of the baby stuff is unpacked and it's getting eerily real. Dave was kind enough to come over today to help Paul with some stuff around the house and will probably come back later this week.

We had our biweekly appointment on Thursday and found out that we'll be able to get another ultrasound during our 36th week to check the position of the baby. We're looking forward to it! Otherwise, her growth is right on track and her heartbeat sounded great. We start childbirth classes on the 8th and we're really not looking forward to those videos! We've started putting things together for our hospital overnight bag and collecting stuff for the diaper bags. Time is flying! We're going to Caroline's (Bonnie's baby) first birthday party on Saturday. It seems like just yesterday that she told me she was pregnant, so I'm sure our baby's first birthday will sneak up on us just as quickly!