28 Weeks

     

     Things are definitely coming along.  I can tell I'm getting bigger by the week.  I'm a little afraid that I have 12 more weeks to go.  According to my email updates this little girl in my belly is about 2.25 lbs and 15 inches long.  She can hear and see and will react to loud noises and bright lights.  She's doing great and so am I.  I still have very few complaints - just occasional heartburn and aches and pains.  Jon and I are still slowly getting things ready for the baby.  We finally got registered - which took a lot more time and research then I expected, but I think we're happy with all of our choices.  We still have a long list of possible names, but nothing specific that we've committed to.  And we're narrowing down our daycare options and hope to commit to a center in the next couple of weeks, but we'll keep our eyes and ears open for possible home day cares between now and December, when we'll actually start using it.   Things are falling into place, but there's always more to do!  But we are getting more and more excited everyday to meet or little baby girl!

  

   And I'm still trying to have fun!  This Saturday, after returning from Wisconsin - Jon and I were able to enjoy the beautiful day at Loring Park at the Gay Pride Festival.  Our very good friend, Jud, was in town from San Diego and, as always, we had a great time hanging out with him.  We went to the Gay 90s, saw the Drag Show, danced to some 80s classics and generally had a great time!  So our girl is getting very cultured, even inside the womb!

Wickersham Family Vacation

     This past week I got to spend a relaxing time with my family at a cabin at a lake in Wisconsin.  Almost everyone in my family was able to make it, for at least part of the time - except my hubby and my step-dad :(  The weather was absolutely wonderful, sunny, 80 degrees and calm all week.  We pretty much had a routine - get up around 10 or 11 am, make brunch/lunch, relax for a bit, pack up and head to the beach until 4 or 5 pm, get showered and ready for dinner, make/eat/clean-up after dinner, relax after dinner, then go to the bar.  This year was a bit different - since I wasn't able to drink at the bar - but I surprised myself and made it out until midnight or 1 am drinking O'Doul's and water - playing Touch Master and even singing a little Karaoke one night!  My sister and I were both real troopers - (she's also preggers - 5 weeks ahead of me, due August 15th).  It was very relaxing and fun!

  

Tubing behind the boat

  

Playing Quarters

Taking a ride around the lake

Having a campfire

Madison's (my 4 year old niece) first Sparkler experience

My sis, Emily, Uncle Mark, me and my crazy cousin Jana at the Lodge (bar)

My Gma Wick, mom, niece Madison and sis

Madison singing karaoke (with my sis Jill's help), she sang "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"!

More karaoke: my two sisters and my niece

26 Weeks

    

     Well, I'm 26 (and a half) weeks along now.  I can't believe how quickly time is going by.  Besides getting bigger everyday, nothing much has changed.  Little Baby Girl M is still very active.  She kicks and flips around, ALOT!  I had a prenatal appointment yesterday and all is well, her heart rate is still in the 150s and though it was hard for them to get a good sound because she kept moving around.  They were also able to tell that her head is down and her back is facing my right side.  They had me feel, but I had no idea what I was touching.  I just think it's crazy that they can put their hands on my belly and tell what part of my baby is where - I can't believe she's big enough to feel already!  Other than that, I have no complaints.  Just a little heartburn and minor aches and pains when I'm on my feet a lot (like after this weekend).

Busy Weekend

 Jon and I had a very busy weekend this past weekend.  We decided to do a few things around the house to get ready for the baby.  Since we live in a small three bedroom home built in 1926, storage and closet space is at a premium.  So I knew it was going to take some finagling to make room for our future bundle of joy.  Because of the closet in our guest bedroom was our biggest and nicest closet (way too big for a little baby!) we were going to be moving Jon's office into the room that was the guest bedroom and the baby's room was going to be where Jon's office had been.  

     So the first order of business was to move around all of our clothing to empty out the closet in the future baby's room.  Then we emptied out our guest bedroom in order to paint and to scrape the popcorn off the ceiling, which turned out to be a huge debacle.  First of all it makes a holy mess.  I scrape the the ceiling dry, leaving a little bit of texture left.  Then when we painted the ceiling and it started to dry - bits of paint with the remaining texture started peeling off the ceiling.  This didn't happen when I did this very thing in our kitchen.  So we had to figure out how to even out the texture.  We ended up using 6 cans of orange peel texture.  We think it looks okay, but we decided to not scrape the ceiling in the baby's room!  Luckily, painting the walls went on with no surprises.  The pictures below show the new and improved office!

        

     Then we moved our loveseat from the office down into our living room and put our TV on top of our fireplace mantle.  Jon and I are very excited to have our own couches again!  I think this arrangement is going to work.  We just need to get a new corner TV center to house all of our components!

      

    The last thing we had to do was paint the baby's room.  We decided to go with a moss green paint.  It matches the baby bedding we've picked out and we actually had a gallon of moss green paint in our basement that we bought when we moved into this house thinking we were going to use it to paint our bathroom.  After painting the walls moss green, we decided to add a "Brilliant Metals" top coat to add a almost iridescent sheen to the walls.  It was a little tricky, you have to apply it just so or it will look streaky.  We really like the way it turned out.  For now I've moved some of my office stuff into that room and we're keeping the guest bed set up because we're expecting out of town guests in the next month and a half.  But all we have to now is move those few items into the basement and we're ready for the baby stuff!  We'll post more pictures when the baby's room is finished.  For now you can look at my makeshift office/guest room!

            

Happy Birthday to Me!

I had a wonderful 30th birthday! On my actual birthday, Jon and I were busy preparing for my party the following day, but we did get the chance to go out to an absolutely wonderful dinner at La Belle Vie in the evening! I was a very lucky girl because Jon gave me a new, very beautiful necklace for my present. I had been wearing the same necklace since Jon gave it to me 6 years ago, so I was definitely in need of something new! Then the next day was my 30th B-day Party! Thanks to all of those people who were able to come and celebrate with me and Jon at our home.  It turned out to be a wonderful day for an outdoor barbeque and I hope everyone who came had a good time. Jon once again manned his homemade smoker and made some very delicious pulled pork.  I contributed by making a few salads. We had plenty of beverages, as it turns out way more than we needed (I can tell all of us are getting older, and more responsible I suppose!). Their were a lot of kids this year and they seemed to have fun running around our postage stamp yard, while us adults just mingled in the yard. Jon bought a beautiful,and very delicious, cake - as well as a matching hat and balloons. It was great seeing so many friends with their kids! And my sister and mother were even able to make the trip up from Blue Earth, after the day at work in the hospital there. Thanks for coming you guys! And thanks to everyone for the well wishes, cards and gifts!

23 Weeks!

      

Here's just a quick couple pics of my belly at 23 weeks, I'm actually 24 1/2 weeks already and I think my belly is already bigger, but like I said before, I'm way behind and playing catch up.  As far as my pregnancy is going, all is well.  I'm feeling great!  I'm not tired, not nauseated.  I only have heartburn on occasion and can already tell that bending over is getting a bit harder.  And I have to say, I don't think I have any weird cravings.  I guess I like sweet things a bit more than usual, but that's it.  And Miss Baby M is getting stronger and more active everyday.  I actually am worried that if she is only 1/6 of the size she will be at term that she may kick her way out of my abdomen instead of the traditional route!

Putting in Our Garden

Well, Memorial Day has come around again, it was time to put in our almost "famous" garden.  Since we moved into this house we've tried our hand in growing a few veggies in our raised garden on the south side of our garage and we've had wild success.  So much so, that over the past several years I've brought in our extra tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, lettuce and herbs.  Now when the weather starts getting nicer, I start getting the questions from my coworkers about whether or not I'm planning on planting a garden again this year.

So Jon and I took our yearly trip to Bachman's and gathered all our necessary plants, veggies and flowers, and a few bushes we needed to replace.  Every year we're getting more and more efficient at the garden shop and this year it didn't take us more than 45 minutes and we were headed back home and digging in the dirt.  When it was all said and done, it didn't look all that bad.  It's amazing what a little color can do!  There's some pics above of all our hard work!

Bread Baking Tradition

Excuse me for the late entries, but I have some catching up to do. I'm still trying to get into the groove with this blog thing.  Hopefully, I'll have it down before Baby M arrives! At any rate, the day after Jon and I got back from our trip I had a very important engagement to keep. My sister, cousin and I met with my grandmothers apartment in Mankato to brush up on our bread baking skills. When we were all younger we had all made bread with our grandmother and have very fond memories of doing this. We played Gin Rummy or croquet while the bread rose and when we were done, there was delicious warm bread to eat, we always had fun making bread with grandma. So, we had all been talking and decided that we needed to get serious and actually learn how to bake the bread from the master, my Grandma Viv, before (God forbid, albeit inevitable) she passes away. When we had spoken to my grandma to set a date for this event, she informed me that she was going to have to practice her bread baking because she herself hadn't baked bread in many years! But she was all ready for us when we arrived! It was a very great experience, though nothing like I remember as a child - though we did get a few hands of Gin Rummy in. It didn't seem to take nearly as long as I remembered. And we all found out we are capable of making delicious bread and passing on the bread baking tradition to our own children!