tick tock, tick tock

I am so tired these days. I'm having a really hard time focusing on work when all I want so badly is for this baby to arrive. I know, I should enjoy this time while I have it because once this baby comes the silence will be gone forever! I had my 36 week doctor appointment yesterday. No progress has been made as of yet... meaning I'm not dilated. The baby's heartrate was 155. He or she has definitely dropped at least a little bit which is so very nice because I'm able to breathe a little easier! :)

Over the past couple of weeks I've been so lucky to have had two baby showers! One thrown by some very dear friends of mine and another was a dual shower at work with my friend Meredith who is due a week before me. How lucky we are! Here are a few pictures from the first shower on 2/28.

This is my friend Michelle, she made the cute tiered cake with the little pregnant lady on the top!! It was so delicious too. She is so stinkin' talented... love this girl!

Everyone was encouraged to decorate a onesie. Oh my gosh they are priceless!! It was such a great idea and it will be a wonderful memory from the shower each time the baby wears one. How sweet! :)

Ah yes, the belly string game... let's guess how big you are! This is Ellie, my cousin's daughter, trying her string on for size. She did a good job guessing!

My wonderful friend Valerie made a cute-as-can-be diaper cake! We will definitely be using those here soon! Thanks Val, you're the best! :)

And last but not least, are the amazing party planners! I know these girls put a lot of work into making it a beautiful shower and I can't thank them enough!! I am so incredibly lucky to have such great/amazing/sweet friends!!! :)

What's in a name?

Matt and I are having the hardest time picking baby names. We just can't seem to find one we both love. AND it's so much harder to have to pick one boy name and one girl name... it would be so much easier if we knew the gender! Oh well too late now! I just have to laugh because we're so indecisive.... here's an email chain we've been working on for oh, about 5 days now...

Me:
Do you like??
Boys:
Alec
Benson

Girls:
Juliana (I think I mentioned before but can’t remember what you said about it)
Brenna
Calista
Eden

Matt:
I like Alex better than Alec, but I'm sure that is off the table because of Mr. Stoermer (FYI-a friend of ours)

I like Bennett better than Benson.
I do like Juliana... what do you think about Julia?
Of the last 3, I like Eden the best.
What do you think of Caelyn?

Me:
Well I thought I would suggest Alec BECAUSE you like Alex.
I like Juliana better than Julia.
I like Caelyn.

Matt:
What about Dillon or Vanessa?

Me:
Not really a fan of either. For girls, I don’t really like names that end in –issa or –essa, that’s why I don’t like Alyssa either (sorry no offense to anyone!!).

Matt:
Do you like:
Hannah
Pheobe

I'm liking Owen more and more...
I really like this website: http://www.nymbler.com/
Try it out!

Me:
That website it not helping. It keeps showing me the same names over again even though I have blocked them!

Matt:
It works awesome for me...found a few more names to try on for size:
Girls
Elise
Avery
Hope
Clara
Olivia

Boys
Vaughn
Graham
Grant
Caedyn
Quinn

Me:
Oh my God I'm going to smack you... I asked you about Elise a long time ago and you didn't like it!

Matt:
We've discussed a million names at this point! You also loved Bennett and have since changed your mind. Do you like any of the other ones?

Me:
I still like Bennett... I just want to give our child his own name and feel like Bennett is maybe a little too close to Benjamin. I'm on the fence.

And no, I'm sorry I don't like the other names.

Matt:
What about Owen?



This is just hilarious to me! This doesn't include all of the countless conversations we've had about names up until now... Who knew picking a name for your child could be so hard!! haha! It's all in good fun though and hopefully we'll be able to agree on something soon! :)

much ado about baby

It's about time I update this thing! So here goes... We never did get the 3D ultrasound. Due to the atrocious Ohio weather the office called and cancelled the appointment just 2 short hours before we were due to arrive. Matt and I were SOOOOOO bummed, to say the least. :( The office said they could reschedule us for late February/early March. whaaaa?? Oh I was mad. But what are you going to do? At this point the baby will be here in less than 6 weeks anyway so we'll just save the money and see our little babe then. 


We're having a blast putting the nursery together. It looks wonderful! Here's a little preview so far...

It's exactly what I imagined! Is it weird to be in love with a room?? Well then I'm guilty because I loooooooove it! It's so calming and beautiful. :)


This past weekend my step-mom Angie threw me a baby shower for my Dad's side of the family. It was kind of a couple's shower. The guys were invited to come and participate in a poker tournament as long as they brought a package of diapers. We are definitely good on diapers for a LONG TIME! Well until the baby reaches about 15 pounds... which might not last as long as we think. Anyway, while the guys did that the girls did the baby shower thing. It was so much fun! We got SO MUCH wonderful stuff. More importantly stuff we need! :) Of course we need absolutely everything so it was all appreciated! We are so thankful!

My parents are HUGE Harley fans so this little onesie was quite appropriate. :) It says 

From Cradle to Chrome

My cousins Kylie and Kenlea

My cousin Kenlea is due exactly one week after me!

My wonderful parents!

I have another shower this weekend with my Mom and Matt's side of the family. Then we should be all set for baby! I've also been working on a few projects of my own. I've been 'trying' to make baby bibs... 'trying' being the key word here! Here's a few that I've done.... I've actually made all of them by now I just haven't taken a new picture. They are quite cute if I do say so myself but I'm just not sure how they'll hold up. The thing is my sewing machine only sews in zigzag mode so it's a little tricky to make the stitching look pretty as well as make sure the fabric stays put. If they fall apart, oh well! I've really wnjoyed making them and they were made with love so that makes them even cuter, right?! :) 

and here's few random cute pictures... Matt putting together the pack n' play. Good job babe!

and how funny is this picture of Cricket?! haha! Someone's going to be a little jealous when the baby gets here!

Time Goes By...

I cannot believe that it's 2010 already. Every year seems to fly by faster and faster. I'm sure it gets worse the older you get. I am so so ready for this year though. There are SO many wonderful things to look forward to!

So to start off... things are going great with the baby and my pregnancy in general has been smooth sailing. Thankfully I didn't gain a crazy amount of weight during the holidays (like I thought I would!). My weakness these past few months have been buckeyes. Oh those sweet delicious rounds of peanut butter dipped in chocolate... I just couldn't resist them... and I didn't. Thankfully they are completely gone from our house so they won't be tempting me anymore. Otherwise the baby's heartbeat has been pretty steady at 145. I'm starting to see my doctor every two weeks now which means I'm in my final trimester! (or will be at the end of this week) How exciting! I've been feeling a ton of movement from the babe in the last couple of months. He or she is very fond of my ribs. I haven't noticed a pattern as far as when I feel the most activity... whether it's day or night, but I do cherish every movement. I love it! I feel as though if the baby is moving then it must be doing ok in there. It still absolutely amazes me how far we've come and that this is actually happening to us! We've slowly been preparing the nursery... it seems like it's taking forever. People ask all the time if the room is ready or what kind of things we've bought so far and so far, nothing. In which I get a super surprised face saying -Really?! You better get going! Nope, we don't have the furniture yet, nope, I haven't bought a single thing for the baby... wow this baby is coming in roughly 3 months, maybe I should get busy?! We've finally registered though, does that count?? I guess I haven't quite hit the 'nesting' period yet because otherwise I'd probably be going crazy stressing about it. Anyway, without further ado here is the most recent belly shot at 27 weeks. It's getting huge!!

We have also decided to get a 3D ultrasound which I am SOOOO excited about! Our last time seeing the baby before it's born... it's going to be amazing. :) I'll be sure to post pictures!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year! Here's to a wonderful, exciting, and happy 2010!

Babymoon! :)

Can I first just say if you've never taken a cruise in your life you are missing out. I LOVE to go on cruises, you get to see soooo much without having to worry about how you're going to get there and what you're going to do. It's definitely an awesome way to travel. So this last cruise that Matt and I went on was no exception. We had such a wonderful time together and it was so incredibly relaxing and fun! We met some great people, saw some beautiful beaches, ate delicious food, did a little shopping, enjoyed some wonderful entertainment on the boat, got a little sun on our pale white skin, and just had the best time. :) And then to top it all off how lucky are we that we were departing from Tampa Florida and my Aunt, Uncle, and cousin live in Cape Coral, which is about 2 hours away. So we flew into Tampa a day early and got to spend the night with them then they dropped us off at the ship the next day. It was SO great to see them. Thanks Cindy, Rick and Nate!! :)

Our first stop was San Juan, Puerto Rico. We visited this beautiful fort called Castillo San Felipe Del Morro and took a ton of pictures... it was really beautiful!

The boat! Grandeur of the Seas - Royal Caribbean

Next up was St. Maarten where we took a little tour of the island (did you know that one half of it is Dutch and the other have is French??), did some shopping, then went to the beach. This is also where we discovered these AWESOME coconut smoothies (which we are holding)... OMG they were delicious!!

Next up, St. Kitts-Basseterre! We took a fun scenic train ride through the countryside and got to see almost the entire island. (it's a VERY tiny island... only about 80,000 people live there)

did I mention it was an open train ride?? So awesome! (loving the windblown hair!)

black sand beach...

It actually started to rain really hard while on the train ride but only last about 5 minutes (still managing to get us pretty wet though) Everyone on the second level of the train fled to the bottom where it was enclosed but we decided to tough it out. So I think that's why we're laughing here?? :)

Our third stop was in St. John, Antigua where we went sailing on a catamaran, enjoyed some snorkeling, and soaked up the sun at 2 of their 365 beaches.

...and finally our last stop was in Tortola, British Virgin Islands where we took a crazy 90 degree drive to get to a beach on the other side of the island! (no kidding! It was a little scary!)

When you go on a cruise you have a set table that you eat at every night so obviously on a 10 day cruise you get to know the people pretty well. We had a really great group of people sitting at our table. It's so fun to meet new people on cruises.... hopefully we'll be able to keep in touch with some of them throughout the upcoming years. Here's a group picture with our wonderful waiter Lee in the middle. :)

Thank you to my wonderful husband for planning this vacation for us. I love you babe!!!