Yup

This is the shirt that my hubby decided to wear when we went baby registering on Saturday! Apparently, he doesn't always follow his own advice. Yup, I love my husband! :)

Fair Fun

Last week when the McFarland's came to visit, we all went to the fair on $2Tuesday after our ultrasound! It was super HOT. We were able to still have fun even though we were all sweaty. And keeping with tradition, W & I shared a delicious funnel cake with lots of strawberries, whipped cream & powered sugar! We ended our fabulous day at downtown Gay Nineties for some yummy pizza & jumped into the pool when we got home!!

#12

Grandbaby Swenson #12 was born today to Wesley & Carolyn-- Sweet Little Charis Abigail. We are so excited for them!! Carolyn got the wonderful opportunity to give birth at home & I can't wait to hear the story!! We know she was born at 3:30 am. And we're so excited that our little pancake with have cousins around his/her own age. So FUN! Congratulations to Carolyn for an amazing birth and to Wesley, proud Papa, and brother Josiah!!

G-ma's Corner

Another fun post from my mom! The family adventures of babyhood!

Half-Baked

I'm about at the midway point of this amazing pregnancy! We were able to see s/him yesterday at our ultra-sound. Apparently, our little pancake likes to lay on s/his stomach so the tech took awhile in her photos. She was so kind and let me see the whole process on the TV screen. We walked away with about 10 photos..hopefully one will be scanned soon. The tech also told us that our little pancake is about 9 ounces!!

We also are taking advantage of Kaiser's free classes: mid-pregnancy, breastfeeding, newborn care, and a few others. It's nice to compare/contrast with other local pregnant couples. We were pretty amazed at our "mid-pregnancy" class to find out that only two of us (out of 10) weren't finding out the gender. And two of us weren't going back to work after a month or two. That one really sadden me. I know times are really tough financially for families, but what a wonderful thing for mom & baby if they get to grow, learn and mature together!! Plus the best childcare is mommy's care. To each, his own...

Books On Birth

I love education, learning and reading!! (Go figure, teacher!) Summer is such a treat to be able to read, read and read about childbirth. I figure most of my fears, worries, hesitations about birth are because I had NO CLUE about pregnancy, besides having NO experience. Prior to reading, all I knew was: 1) You have 9 months 2) You get really big 3) Something about water-breaking. Yup, complete ignorance on the topic. Now I'm really getting lots of great and not-so-great information. I've been trying to learn as much about labor and actual birth as possible to prepare for our home birth.

Currently reading with high recommendations:

1) The Joy of Natural Childbirth
2) Thinking Woman's Guide To A Better Birth
3) My First 300 Babies

The Angels Are Singing...

What has been a full headache of a project for the past 2 years is finally completed!! Our garage is CLEAN!! It is with pride and relief that I present our garage. ;)(it's dark...not the point..notice..wide open spaces!!!)

It all began Sunday when we did our customary trip to Costco. We found a fabulous deal on metro storage shelving and just couldn't pass it up. W put the shelving together & worked so hard to stack all our crap..I mean meaningful boxes full of wonderful delightful things..on top. Once up we found one would not suffice. Come today: complex-wide garage sale!! We were able to get motivated enough to divide some of our crap into a sale-able pile. We were shocked when people bought it today!! ;) One person's crap, another person's treasure. It was great to make some $$ for once too. During this afternoon, W ran to Costco for another shelf unit...after 3 more hrs. of W's hard work & amazing-ness (while I went to a girlie movie) lo & behold: our CLEAN garage!! Yippie!! I don't even have any before pictures...thank goodness!! Unfortunately, W's truck is just too darn long to fit comfortably inside so we've decided to have our own personal "guest" parking for our visitors.

We would still love to clean out & throw away a few more of these shelved boxes, but we're just so excited to see our garage floor! :D (yes, it was THAT bad!) And we still need to sell our treadmill.

So far, we've successfully cleaned out our office/crap room, converted it into our guestroom... cleaned out our ex-guestroom, converted that into our nursery...and now our garage!! The last & final summer project step: our master bedroom & closet. Thankfully this won't be nearly as much as a project!!

The Chicken and The Egg

Last night I posted on my facebook status that we eat so many eggs that we really should just get our own chickens. Well, one thing I like about facebook is that people comment! :) And a friend from college told me about this amazing website. Wow!! I would seriously like to own a chicken or two, which reminds me that I need to resurrect my veggies garden too. I don't think we have enough space right now, but I'm not forgetting this website if we ever re-locate!!


(photo from backyardchicken)

Pain

My poor hubby has been afflicted with terrible pain: Poison Oak!! It's been going on for about 2 weeks and he finally got meds on Friday. Here's a peek at his leg:

This self-portrait was  taken last Friday-- it looks much worse now...moving to his upper thigh, and other calf. Thankfully, the drugs have been kicking in so we're hoping for a quick recovery & that I avoid it at all cost! Two nurses and a doctor have all said that it can't spread to me, but I'm not taking ANY chances!!! How did he get it, you may wonder? Well, it's a long story involving a stolen clothesline and a golf tourament. We're just hoping for no leg scars!

Grandma's Post

My mom's awesome post of our midwife appt. We went to our 2nd appt last month to hear the heartbeat & get a regular check-up. We were so excited to have my mom there. She, like the wonderful scrap-booker she is, took pictures to our album! We love our midwife, Veronica Wagner, & her student apprentices. I look forward to every appointment! We're so excited for this beautiful adventure of pregnancy, labor and delivery!!

Tiny Sprouts

I found this website a long while back after some blog surfing! She makes the sweetest outfits by simply embroidering names and sayings onto the clothing--which looks so comfy! I'm definitely hoping for a few things from here once our little one is here with a name! :)