A baby update! Finally...

I apologize for the lack of baby info as of lately, as you can tell things have been quite crazy in our neck of the woods! But we are starting to get settled in and regain a normal routine! Though I do have to say it has been nice having the whole house thing going on to "distract" me from the last weeks of pregnancy. As many pregnant woman do in their last weeks, I have been getting the questions about if I am ready to be done or uncomfortable, ect. And Praise God, I can honestly say that I am not really uncomfortable at all, except if I sit or stand for long periods of time (but that has been the case throughout my whole pregnancy). Last week I was having some problems with swelling in my ankles but I think that just came as a result of trying to do too much with all the house stuff, so I have now had to learn to take breaks from time to time to put my feet up. That has since subsided, so that is wonderful! I have had a bit of heart burn and I am getting run down by the end of the day, but I am still sleeping well at night. So all in all I will def take this over my initial 20 weeks! And as for getting excited to meet our little guy, of course that is def the case, but we still have a bunch of things to get done around the house before he comes. So I am game for him staying in until his due date! Plus I have a baby shower that I am helping throw for my sister in law, Steph, this weekend, and then another one to attend for her the week after. So there are still so many things to do! But like I said, not that I'm not looking forward to meeting our little one, because I def am!

My last couple of midwife appts have gone really great! I am on weekly visits now so I am thinking about just setting up a tent in the waiting room! Last week she said that she thought he was about 6 pounds (which I know is just a guess, so I'm not set on that) which would put him between 7.5 and 8 pounds at birth. That's about what my guess was of how big he would be (because I am clearly an expert!) just because that's about what Mike and I both were when we were born. But only God knows and I will obviously take whatever I get! :-) This week I had the group b strep test (or whatever) thingy done (fun!) so she also checked me just to see where I was at. She said that he is most def head down, I am dilated to 2, 50% effaced, and that he has dropped (which I could tell happened about a week ago as my sudden urges to go to the bathroom frequently def has increase!). She said for a first time mom my body is in a surprisingly great place and since I have been having braxton hicks frequently (but not too frequent) my body seems like it knows what to do! So with all that she said that of course there is still no telling when he will come (which I also read in my Bradley Method book) but when the time does come she thinks things will go well, which of course I was expecting to be the case! :-) She put it this way, "when I check some ladies it's like they are going to need a stick of dynamite to get anything through there, but that is def not the case with you!" LOL! Very nice to know!

Our little guy still is nameless (other than Ducky, Ray Ray, Mac & Cheese, Yo Buddy Bemis, you fill in the blank), i think it will end up being a game time decision as the conversations are normally the same everytime it comes up.
Mike: "Have you thought anymore about names?"
Me: "Not really. Have you?"
Mike: "Not really."
Me: "Ok."
LOL! :-) I think we previously talked it to the point of exhaustion, maybe these last couple weeks will put some fuel in our fire to talk about it more.

Our little guy's room is well underway which is really exciting! We have painted the walls, put in a ceiling fan, customized the closet. My mom has so generously taken all of the baby clothes home to wash and fold for us! (She LOVES to do laundry, so of course doing laundry for her grandbaby is more than a pleasure!) Which helps us out a ton so then we can work on other things! My dad is also making a changing table (which can later be switched into a dresser) for us, I can't wait to see the finished product (or any product of it at all, hint hint ;-p just kidding! I suppose its hard for him to work on it while we have him slaving away on our house!)

The theme of our nursery has pretty much completely changed and I love it! We were going to go with a sports theme (of course) but after recieving this ridiculously adorable gift from Brodie (& Joe, Carrie, & Carlie)

I was feeling a bit torn! And then I found this fabric for curtains

and I knew it was meant to be! The colors that we wanted to go with for the nursery were blue, orange, and brown so when I found this fabric I was SO excited (as I had gone on a fabric hunt a few weeks ago and came up totally empty handed and frustrated, but then my awesome friend Annette told me about Crafty Planet and that's where I came up with perfect find)! It's super cute and fits perfect with our new elephant chair and with our color scheme!  Hopefully I will have completed pictures of the nursery here soon!

Also on the topic of babies, we are SO excited to have another niece or nephew on the way! As I have mentioned my brother and sister in law (Darek & Steph) are also expecting our first little nephew in July but then when Joe, Carrie, & Carlie flew through Carlie shared the news with us that she is going to be big sister! It was absolutely adorable hearing the news from Carlie too! We are SO SO excited for them and to have more little ones running around for our little guy to play with! It is crazy to think that more than likely the next time we see them that we will both have new additions to our family! Such a fun time!

Our home

So last night as we were headed out for a quick walk a remembered to take a picture of our new house. I haven't taken any from the inside yet with my phone so this is the only one that I have to post. Slowly but surely I will get more up. But here is the first for now!

I will try to get a baby update posted soon! Only 4 more weeks to go!
Have a wonderful weekend!

What a difference 5 years makes!

 Five years ago today I was standing here...

 making one of the best decisions of my life!

 

On May 19th, 2006 I married my best friend!

That day seems like it was only yesterday, but at the same time so much has happened in these five years! When we got asked when we were going to have kids (because u know that's the first question married couples get asked, and I think we have been asked that a million times! and mostly by my parents!) we always said in 5 years, well here we are 5 years later and about to welcome our first (skin) baby to our wonderful little family!

Our current family (Photo by Modern Life Photography)

 

I am amazed at how far we have come and am so blessed to have my best friend by my side through thick and thin! It's such a comfort knowing that he will always be there for me, not matter if I am having a bad hair day or a crabby prego day! I love him so much but more importantly respect him for all that he is and all that he does and is doing for our family! I can't wait for what this next year of marriage will bring! Thank you to all of our wonderful family and friends in our lives that have showed us the way of having an awesome marriage and also have supported our marriage as well! We know we wouldn't be where we are today with our all of your love and support!

And we are Offically Home Owners!

I know, kind of a crazy time to decide to buy a house, but it all kind of worked out and there is no turning back now! :-)

We started the process around the end of March and closed on May 11th. So the process was pretty quick which was a huge blessing! When we decided to jaunt down this path we prayed that if it was meant to be then it would be a speedy process and we would be in and settled before the baby comes! And praise God that's exactly what happened!

We looked at about 15 houses in about a week and a half and this is pretty much the only one that we even considered. There were others that had potential, but with our little guy on his way, we knew this point in our life was not the right time for a big fixer upper. We went into the process pretty open minded, knowing that our time frame was what we were picky about, but the house that we bought has everything on it that we had on our wish list and even some things we had on our bonus list! The day we looked at our house we also looked at about 10 others and this was the second one, on our way to the last one we called my dad (who is a carpenter) and Darek & Steph and asked them if they were available to come look at it with us. So we went back that night with them and checked it out, they all gave it the stamp of approval! At that time our realtor had checked with the listing agent and he said that there had been 40 showings and it had only been on the market for 4 days! So we decided to put an offer in the next day.

To make a long story short(ish) they accept our offer and agreed not to take any other offers! So we had our home inspection done where we had found some water damage from the basement, so then we asked for an intrusive (sp?) inspection to be done (basically where they go in and take down sheet rock and stuff to find the source of the water damage) they agreed to it but said that they would have it done for us. Through that they determined that the water damage was cause because there wasn't a sump pump, so the inspector proposed that the bank (the house was bank owned) put in a sump pump and fix all the of the water damage, which they agreed to! PTL! So we decided to move forward with everything and pushed our bank and title company to move their booties so we could close ASAP! And as I said that happened last week on May 11th! Tho the paperwork process up to that point was less than steller, but I hear that is pretty much the case across the board.

So now for the details on the house! It is a 3 bedroom (really 4, but its in the basement and doesn't have a window), 2 bathroom, rambler and is about 2500 sq ft. It has a nice 4 season porch, it has a fenced in backyard (which was a must for the pups), it also has nice patio space, and the basement is perfect for entertaining. There is a ton of storage all over, the kitchen has a 2 huge pantries, all the bedrooms have large closets, the garage has a ton of storage space and there is a nice shed in the back. The garage is also heated, which was a huge bonus for Mike! The bathroom has double sinks, which was a huge bonus for us as well! The basement has a little fridge and wet bar space along with a pool table and fireplace. Though at this point the decor is still hang out in the 70s so that will need to be updated eventually, but until we want to tackle that its not too bad. Same with our kitchen as well, though it has really good bones and nice space! Oh and there is a ginormous jacuzzi tub in the basement bathroom as well! I am so excited to put that to good use, and along with that it has a ginormous hot water heater, so it won't end up as a cold bath halfway through! YAY! Mike is excited because there is a rhubarb plant on the side of the house (looks like I will be learning how to make all this rhubarb!) and I am super excited because there are hydrangea bushes as well! I think they r SO pretty and i can't wait for them to start blooming! Other than that we are growing a lot of weeds thus far! Oh there is a garden in the backyard too but it looks like the strawberry plants have taken over, which works for us! Also the house on a cul de sac, so its a nice quite street but there are a mix of families and older couples throughout the neighborhood. So that is really nice too! There are a ton of walking trails close by (actually the same ones the we used to run when we lived in the area before) so we are looking forward to using them a lot this summer!

So we closed on the house on Wednesday, Mike and my dad worked their booties off to get it painted ASAP, we got the carpets cleaned on friday, and then moved in on Saturday! We had a ton of great help and are SO blessed to have so many great friends in our life! Since, my dad has been staying with us to continue to do little projects here and there, like build closet systems because they took them out before they moved out, and yesterday we had a fridge, washer and dryer delivered because they took the fridge with them and the washer didn't work. So its fun to have those in now too! I have the bathroom, kitchen, and living room unpacked so far which feels really good! Though I am def itching to get to the babies room, of course! I just had to wait for the washer and dryer to be delivered and hooked up and for the closet to be done. I have been a slacker at taking "before" pictures and there sure are not any "after" pictures at this point! So I will try to take some "during" pictures. But we are still working on getting internet hooked up there so who knows when I will be able to get those pictures up. I thought I was going to be able to include a picture of the house from the MLS picture, but they just took it off the website today so the unfortunately is not the case! I will try to get a picture with at least my phone tonight...or soon!

We are really excited to be home owners and we know that this def the perfect place for us for the next handful of years. We know that this was the house that God wanted for us as it just felt like home when we walked in the first time and continues to the more and more that we get settled in! We can't wait to make memories here with our family and friends!

(All is well on the baby front, 4 weeks left! I will do another update blog soon!)