Belly Update

Ok, so shenanigans got the best of me yesterday and I didn't get this up like I hoped/promised I would but here's the latest shot of my belly, taken at 33 1/2 weeks. Just when I think "How could I possibly get any bigger?" I do!

Nesting

I've been a nesting fool today! I guess I've really been a nesting fool for the last 2 days, it all started Thursday night when I came home from work and decided that I couldn't wait until Saturday to set up the baby's nursery. So I washed all her linens and got her bedding set up. Last night I came home from work and before my office holiday party, I nested some more, lined her dresser, put some newborn clothes in the hamper. But today, I went nuts! After our breastfeeding class, Marc went to Livermore wine tasting with Edwin so I stayed home and nested in her room. Before they left Edwin and Marc moved the arm chair up to her room. It was glorious! I did some laundry, organized her drawers, put some toys away. Ah I feel good. So here's a sneak peak at what her nursery is going to look like. We're still missing wall decorations, we're working on getting those together in the next few weeks and I still want to get a bookshelf because she has tons of books and then I can put some bigger toys on one of the shelves (I have a vision, which is unfortunate for Marc because that means I won't stop until I find what I am looking for). So here's the sneak peak at the little girl's room!

Her door:

The changing area (we're going to spell out her name with wood letters above the dresser/changer):

The glider:

Her crib:

Another view of her crib:

A close up of her bedding:

It's Here, It's Here, It's Here!

Today our baby furniture arrived! I am so excited, I now have somewhere for her to sleep and Marc and I love the way it looks in the nursery! I didn't have time to wash and put bedding on it yet but that's the plan for the weekend while Marc is off wine tasting with Edwin. Here's a sneak preview of it...

In other news we've now interviewed 3 orthopedic surgeons for her feet and have finally decided on one we like best! Another huge relief off of us! It's been a very stressful, time consuming process but we feel we have explored all of our options and made the decision that is in the best interest of our family, especially our daughter. I also went to my 33 week appointment today and everything is going well and my doctor is happy with the way I am progressing. I told her about my little fall on Saturday night and she wasn't too concerned, even though I was freaking out. I guess I never blogged about that incident. After our Labor & Delivery class (which totally freaked me out) I went to get the mail, our neighbor parked in front of the mailbox (which he's not supposed to do) so I had to walk on the curb to fit through to get to the mailbox. Well I lost my footing and fell, luckily my wrist and knee took most of the fall but a branch did poke me in the stomach. It did not bode well with the baby who proceeded to squirm and move around most of the evening, I think she's was pissed her peaceful little existence had been distrupted. I didn't have any contractions, bleeding, or leaking fluid and since she was moving we figured all was ok, we did get to practice our labor breathing since I was so freaked out, Marc had me practice the breathing to calm myself down. My doctor told me I wasn't the first to fall and won't be the last. She also made me feel a little bit better about delivery, cause I have been really freaking out all week about it. I can deal with the baby being here, it's getting her here that's really freaking me out. Anyway, the appointment went well today, weight gain good, blood pressure good, and baby heartbeat is good. The baby even kicked the heart monitor off of my stomach while the doctor was listening to her heartbeat, it was kind of funny. I now go every other week until January 16 when I start going weekly, crazy how things are moving along! So that's it from here!

I owe a new belly picture, I can hardly believe it's been a month already and I will post more pictures of her room when I get some stuff set up this weekend!

Family Fun Night

Marc and I decided last night that Monday is going to be our family fun night. And what do we do on family fun night you might be wondering? We have Wii Bowling Tournament night, after the baby is born we'll probably expand it out to tennis, baseball, and boxing but since I'm not so svelte these days were sticking to bowling. It's super fun and very realistic. Homer doesn't quite get why Mamma and Dadda are moving around so much and not sitting on the couch watching a DVD but he's getting the hang of it. Last night we played 3 games, Marc whooped my butt, but mark my words when I lose the bowling ball on my stomach, he better watch out!

Here are the scores of the 3 games:

Marc
Game 1: 152
Game 2: 164
Game 3: 206
Total Score: 522

Allie:
Game 1: 135
Game 2: 178
Game 3: 192 (highest score ever!)
Total Score: 505

We even have skid marks on the carpet from bowling, it looks like we have bowling lanes in our living room!

It's Official...

I have CANKLES! :(

On its Way!

After much nagging (it does work ladies) my husband finally called the furniture store where we bought the baby's furniture to find out where it was. Marc just called me to tell me that it is being delivered on Wednesday, December 17 between 10-12 and he even sported for the extra $40 to have them bring it upstairs and set it up! Yay! I can't wait to see it and start nesting in her room!

I'll post pictures next week when we have it set up! Ok back to work!

Baby Shower Part Duex

Saturday was my Bay Area Baby Shower hosted by Jill, my sister-in-law/Auntie-to-be, and Jenny, a good friend of ours (and mom-to-be!). They did the most amazing job, it was such a fun day. I should go back a few days to mention my best friend, Anne, flew in Thursday night from Houston (thanks Doug for letting me have her fora weekend). Friday I took the day off and Anne went for a run, because she's a total rock star, while I went for a waddle around the neighborhod. Then we went for some mani/pedis before picking my mom up at the airport. After getting my mom we went for lunch in Walnut Creek and then walked around a bit before heading home before dinner at a teppenyaki place.



Saturday I got another walk in (its amazing what I have energy for when I am off of work) and then we got ready for the shower. Like I said, Jill and Jenny did an amazing job setting up and planning the shower. The decorations were adorable and all of the details were amazing - notice my favorite colors - pink and brown with some polka dots, Jill made super cute and yummy finger sandwiches and Jenny made amazing cupcakes and the cutest little cookies in the shape of onesies with the baby's initials on it. I felt kind of bad eatting them because they were so cute but they also tasted delicious! I just can't get over all of the detail she went through on each cookie. She also baked snickerdoodles (one of my favorites) that were so yummy too! I don't know how she did it all, she's amazing! I'm going to need to hire her for the baby's birthday parties!. There were about 12 women at the shower. Jill and Jenny planned a few games, we had to list all the songs we could think of with the word baby in it and we also had a race to see who could drink apple juice out of a baby bottle the fastest. It was surprisingly hard, I have a whole new respect for babies drinking out of a baby bottle. It's tough work. We (well really the baby) got some great presents and it was a lot of fun. Here are some more photos from the shower:




Onesie painting station:


















Her first onesie - getting back to her roots. Her namesake before we knew she was a she:



















The spread - sandwiches, pasta salad, fruit salad, little tomatoe mozarella yummy goodness, and dessert:



















The hostesses and I:
















Anne and I:

















My mom and I:






















Lyndsay and Xavier - X made his future friend a cute onesie with his hand print!
















Jenny & Homer - Homer had fun at his sister's party! Jenny helped him view the present opening. Homer bought his sister her changing pad and other changing accessories - I wonder where he gets all of this extra money from, he must have a side job. ;)



















Beautiful quilt the Materazos gave us along with some scrapbooking supplies, yay!:




















Funny book from Diana:



















Another cute outfit, she's going to be a little mini-me:

















This picture doesn't really do her closet justice but incase there was any doubt how many clothes she has, here's a photo. You pretty much can just see the newborn stuff but her clothes fill the closet plus there are some folded on the shelf above. I actually think she has more clothes than I do right now. She currently doesn't have any where to sleep, as of press time still no crib and no pack and play - but she's going to look darn cute in all of her outfits!



















Sunday morning we went for breakfast and then to Berkeley to walk around 4th Street, I got to hit up Scrapbook Territory too and got some cute baby girl scrapbooking supplies! Now I just need to finish up some old photos so I can start the baby's scrapbook! We need to stop shenaniganning so that I can sit down and crop! And even more excitingly (if that's a word) Anne got to experience a little bit of the Zimmerman Shenanigans and got to have an abridged shenanigan day with us.

Holy Cow!

I just got my weekly baby update and we only have 9 weeks left until she's here! Holy cow, that's single digit weeks! Starting to freak out a little bit!

Crappy Day...Literally

So I took yesterday off as an occasional day, these days we have that don't count as vacation or personal days, they're just sort of there in case you have Doctors appointments or need to wait for a service guy who tells you he's going to be there in a 4 hour window but comes 2 hours after that, but I digress. Homer had a check-up at his cardiologist and I had my monthly OB appointment so I figured it was a good day for an occasional day.

Of course I was running late because I can't move so fast these days and it takes me about 10 minutes to put on my granny stockings for my varicose veins (pregnancy rocks!). As I am coming down the stairs I notice a little brown, smelly present for me on the landing, compliments of Homer. It's something we refer to in our house as "a little something to remember him by." So I clean up his little present, spray the carpet to get the stain out and try to move Homer along. By this time it's about 8:30 and he has a 9AM appointment and it's foggy out which means parking lot on the freeway in California. I knew I had to take him for a walk before we got in the car, so I get him all geared up and drag him about 2 blocks, Homer wanted nothing to do with a walk and was more interested in his ride. I threw him in the front seat of my car, where he always sits and tell him how late we are going to be and head out. The freeway is about a mile from our house, keep this in mind as I get to the meat of my story. They just put in metering lights at all of our freeway entrances which is a royal pain in the you know what. So imagine me, over 7 months pregnant, merging into bumper to bumper traffic in the fog. As I am trying to get over I get hit with a smell. At first I thought Homer just passed gas, he's been pretty gassy lately, especially since his surgery and since he's been on his antibiotics for it. But this smell is much, much worse then any poof of air that could ever escape him. So there is my dog, on the front seat of my car, less than 2 miles from my house, less then 10 minutes since his walk/drag, squatting on the front seat of my company car...POOPING! I flipped out, I had no idea how I was going to clean it, what to do, it was all over his leash, ended up all over him, thank you stop and go traffic, and I was gagging from the smell. Not to mention what my front seat looked like! I drove the rest of the way with the windows down, mind you it was in the low 40s yesterday morning. I finally realized about 3/4 of the way there that I had poop bags attached to his leash, which yes is covered in poop, so while extracting one from his leash (in stop and go traffic again) I stuck my finger in a big chunk, yes I know this is getting gross. I finally, in traffic am able to bag up most of the little treasure he has left and then I bag it again just to make sure the scent is nice and sealed up. I get to the vet 40 minutes later, 10 minutes late and walk in with both a dog and a leash covered in poop, virtually in tears. They let me use a sink to at least clean up the leash and Homer a bit. Imagine a 7 month pregnant lady paper towel washing her dog in the middle of the lobby of a Cancer/Cardiology Vet Clinic. Yes, and on top of it my acid reflux was hitting me with fury.

The good news is, Homer's heart checked out perfectly, although we are now ex-friends. His heart actually shrunk more than it already had in October so his cardiologist was extremely happy with the results. The medicine he's on just got FDA approval so they don't have a lot of long term success stories or expectations so he was really happy with his progress. I of course was so flustered that I couldn't remember what 10 medications he was on. The vet also took him off of his antibiotics after hearing my story about our car ride and looking at his incision. We drove home, Homer on the floor so as not to get near the poop stained seat and further spread the love all over my car. I got home and spent about an hour scrubbing the front seat with Woolite Carpet and Upholstery Cleaner - good stuff by the way. Fortunately, it looks like I got all the poop stains out. Homer, on the other hand had to have another towel bath since I don't think he can have a bath until his stitches come out, of course in a week.

My day got better from there. I had my monthly doctor appointment and everything is going as it should. All my aches and pains are normal, the baby is growing and I am definitely gaining weight (like I should be). I now start going every 2 weeks until I am 35 weeks and then I go every week. Marc also set up my Wii last night and I played that for about an hour. So much FUN! I was running around the living room playing tennis with my left hand holding the controller and holding my belly with my right hand. Marc wants me to stick to bowling until the baby comes. :) I can't wait to go home and play again tonight!