Wanting to win...

This:

It's the exact Dwell Studio fabric as our crib bedding and window seat, so I think it will fit quite nicely into the room. Win it here!

Halloween Cuteness

So many options for our little girls first Halloween...how do I choose?



A little penguin...



A sweet cupcake...

Giraffe...

A tiny pumpkin (one of my first costumes when I was little)

Or a teensy flower...

A Little Face

I had my fourth ultrasound on Friday, and got a good look at our little lady's face. She was pretty active, sticking her tongue in and out, making faces, haming it up. My dad was able to come with me and get a sneak peak of his little grand daughter. It looks like she's taken after me in the big cheek department. I'm curious how much chubbier those will get over the next (hopefully) two months. We also got a glimpse of her feet, one ankle crossed over the other, looking much like her daddy's favorite foot position. This explains the weird twitching I've been feeling ... I think she's bouncing her foot up and down the same way Tim does. Who knew that little habit could be inherited?

And, just for fun, a few baby shots of me and Tim (and Tim Burns, for that matter):

Wonder who she'll look like? It's getting so close! Exciting!

Things I Didn't Expect About Pregnancy

Pregnancy has not been exactly what I expected...here's the things that have surprised me:

1. My belly is heavy

In retrospect, this should have been a given. But, I am constantly surprised at how bulky this belly is.

2. and yet, I forget that it's there

Even 31 weeks in, in my minds eye I still see myself with my old body. So, when I try to make room for you to pass me in the Costco aisle, or, worse, a doorway, forgive me if I don't actually succeed. I've temporarily forgotten about the basketball that is protruding from my middle.

3. No more sleeping through the night

I remember when Tim and I were talking about the possibility of getting pregnant, we talked about all the things we could do in the 9 months leading up to it. One of those things I expected to be able to do was sleep. Surprise! Not gonna happen! Whether it's my brain staying up to make lists of things to get done, or the four bathroom runs, or nightmares that keep me scared of shutting my eyes, or leg cramps that feel like my calves are in labor, or just plain not sleeping, I haven't had a full nights sleep in months.

4. Goodbye coordination

Evidently, the way that our bodies compensate for the extreme growth is by loosening our ligaments. This is evident in the fact that anything that I have in my hands will soon be on the floor. It takes all my concentration not to drop everything I come in contact with - a comfort to the mom's who drop their little ones off in the nursery with me on Sunday, I'm sure*

5. Hello grossness

So, maybe no one ever told you that pregnancy = drool. Or, pregnancy = bloody noses. For whatever reason, pregnant women get waaaay to much saliva, resulting is St. Bernard style grossness. Thankfully, I only experience this at night, so my pillow gets the worst of it. But, pregnant women be warned - you may want to invest in a plastic pillow case. Then there's the nose...you know how you hear about swollen ankles as a pregnancy side effect? That's not the only thing that swells. So does the inside of your nose, resulting in at least one bloody nose a day.

6. Crying over bread

One fine Saturday morning, Tim went off to play Halo with Ryan, and I stayed home to bask in nothingness. Eventually, nothingness gave way to hunger and I started dreaming of a sandwich stacked high with cheddar cheese, mustard, salt and pepper. Thankful that Tim had bought flatbread rounds the day before, I headed down to make my sandwich. I pulled out the cheese, the mustard, the salt and the pepper, but the bread was conspicuously missing. After searching the kitchen with an increasing sense of panic, I called Tim, forced my voice to be calm, and ask him if he knew where he'd put the bread. Turns out, sweet boy that he is, he'd brought it to Ryan's to make an egg sandwich for everyone. Well, as irrational as it was, seeing as how there was a different loaf of bread right behind me, I quickly got off the phone and burst into tears. For 20 minutes. Sobbed. Then I splashed my face and used the other bread. Thank goodness that's been my only irrational melt down to this point.

7. Surrealism

While a lot of pregnancy is in your face and hard to ignore, the one thing that's pretty quiet for the first several months is the actual baby behind it all. Even after hearing her heartbeat and seeing her little form wiggling on the ultrasound, none of it was real until I felt her move.



7. The strength of the bond

As soon as I felt her move, she became mine. (Yes, she was already mine, but it solidified the connection that I was trying to find in tiny pictures and super speed heartbeats.) I don't know how to explain, but once you feel that little karate chop, everything changes. Even when she's all up in your ribs, or rearranging your essential organs (which I swear she does), it's magical. But my favorite of all is when she tickles me. I literally feel her little hand opening and closing against my belly, and oh man, does it make me laugh.



8. Not getting sick

Of all the symptoms I expected to experience, not having morning sickness was not among them. But, this sweet little thing seemed to do just fine without causing her momma to be sick. A sign of things to come, I hope.

9. The joy that the daddy experiences

It's been amazing to watch Tim grow attached to this little one. In some ways, though he doesn't have the backstage pass I have, I think he's more in love with her than I am. When he heard the heart beat, he gasped. When he saw her on the ultrasounds, his eyes lit up and he smiled like I've never seen him smile before. He was so excited to find out she was a girl, he took me out to dinner, then baby shopping to celebrate (where he immediately told the waitress and the lady in the checkout line that we were having a girl). But the best is when he talks to her, in the sweetest little voice. He tells her that he's her daddy, first and foremost, then just chats, while she wiggles around. She's already got him wrapped around a finger we haven't even seen.

10. The renewed understanding of Divine Design

I think that the clearest argument against survival of the fittest is pregnancy. It is clear, within weeks of becoming pregnant, your body is not your own. Your body will deprive itself of essential nutrients to ensure that this baby gets everything it needs to grow and thrive. Your organs will move from their natural positioning to make way for this little being you're hosting. Your body will tell you what you need to be eating to support this child. And your brain (at least mine did) will change gears from looking out for #1 to looking out for this person you've never met at all costs. Not only is your body no longer your own, your life is no longer your own. You are so intimately linked to this child that you will sacrifice anything for it. Due to some potential complications, I was told early on that a C-section may be necessary. Is it ideal? No, but if it gets this little girl here safely, bring it on. I was trying to explain to someone why I'm so unconcerned about the possibility of an inevitable C-section, and the only way I could express how willing I am to sacrifice myself for her was to say, "If the doctor told me I had to have a leg taken off to get her out safely, I would say, 'That sucks. Which leg? Let's do it.'" The process of pregnancy has renewed my understanding of God's design. It is so evident that He is the one knitting her together in my womb, that He has created our bodies with the ability to warp and change to bring her safely into this world. And Tim and I have been charged with the task to bring her up to follow and love Him...something that I find totally humbling and intimidating.

So, that, in a nutshell, is my unexpected pregnancy experience.

*Just to be clear, this was a bit of a joke. I have never dropped a child. I fell holding one once, but she was fine (I was not so much) and that was completely unrelated to pregnancy, totally related to the fire truck on the floor.

Also,

I feel it is important to know, that Lisa Smith is by far, the best coworker I have had ever in my entire life. Thank you.

The Next Great American Novel

It's about time for another amazing, history changing, best selling, page turning novel. And I'm going to write it.

I have a fool proof game plan. I've read, studied, poured over recent successful plot lines and discovered what we're missing:

Vampires VS. Dragons*

To my knowledge, this has not been done, and in my humble opinion, the world is worse for it.

The premise, I think it's pretty clear, is a battle between vampires and dragons. No longer will the world have to wonder which is the superior mythical creature! All will be answered!

The characters will consist of:

Several vampires - the names I have so far are:
Smedward
Smella
Smackula

Several dragons - the names I have so far:
Daphira
Duff the Dagic

A token witch and wizard:
Larry Lotter
Lermione Langer

Some small hairy footed human-like creatures:
Prodo Paggins
Pamwise Pamgee

Miscellaneous villians (because a battle between vampires and dragons can't all be fun and games):
Tollum (also known as Teagol)
Tord Toldemort
Tick-ed Tepmothers
Teddy Trueger

So, that's what I've come up with so far, I think it's pretty solid. As always, I'm open to suggestions (good ones may earn you the dedication page, really good ones, a mention when I accept my multiple awards.)

*if this is successful (which I know in my heart of hearts, it will be) I will follow up with such sequels as:
Vampires VS. Aliens
Dragons VS. Aliens
Vampires and Dragons VS. Aliens (those aliens are tough)
Vampires VS. Sea Monsters
Dragons VS. The Yeti
etc.

Oh, the day I've had (long and detailed version)

Today started off like any other day. I don't know how it happened, but it quickly turned into chaos.

First I went to get myself some coffee* and found the carafe empty. (People...if you drink the last of the coffee in a shared coffee environment, please make more so the next unsuspecting girl to wander in doesn't get sprayed with the little remains left and have to clean up the resulting mess and take 15 minutes to brew coffee. It's just common courtesy.) So, 15 minutes later, with coffee** in hand, I went back to my cubicle.

When I got to my desk, I found that I couldn't print anything. It kept trying to save documents to my desktop. So, being the smart cookie I am, I thought that maybe my printer wasn't set up for some reason, so it was defaulting to "printing" PDF's. A quick glance at the printer name showed me that wasn't the case. So, I rebooted my computer. That didn't do the trick either. A call to tech support and a half an hour with tech support shadowing me later (plus many attempts of deleting and re-adding my printer on their side) and we discovered that a box had been clicked telling my printer to save everything to files. What should have been a quick fix took up the first hour of my day (at least the first hour that wasn't spent making coffee).

Okay, I could recover from this. At least that was my thought at the time. Then came lunch time. I cover reception while the receptionist (Hi Lisa!) takes her lunch, and today I brought a carbonated flavored (mixed berry) water with me. Well, I have much experience with these waters, and have never had anything bad happen with them...until...I sat down at the chair in front of the phone and started to open it. Immediately a volcano of sticky red liquid pours out the top and all over the desk, papers on the desk, and me. I thought I reacted pretty quickly in twisting the cap back on, but I'm told (Hi Lisa!) that I stared at it for several seconds before shaking off my shock and twisting it back on. So, there I sat, laughing till I was tearing up with Lisa, holding dripping hands in front of me and watching the drink spread over the desk surface. After some out of control laughter/discussion, it was decided that I would go wash up and bring paper towels down to clean up the scene.

I started up the stairs with my still dripping arms held out in front of me in a Mr. Burns type way (I'm told) and somehow biff it on the fifth stair. I caught myself pretty quickly (benefit of falling up the stairs and not down) and came up laughing harder than ever (don't worry, my belly didn't get anywhere close to the ground), while Lisa laughed at me from the bottom of the stairs (Hi Lisa!). I gained enough control over myself to get upstairs, wash my hands, and grab what seemed like a substantial amount of paper towels (8). I got back down to reception, still laughing uncontrollably, and discovered 8 paper towels wouldn't do it, and eventually improvised by using computer paper.

Anyway, in this process I managed to get red water on my white shirt, so ran home at lunch to tide stick it. (Is tide stick a verb?) Well, lo and behold, I couldn't find a tide stick. So I changed, put it in cold water, and grabbed a bag of Circus Animal cookies to make up for my crazy day. These I put in the passenger seat on my way back to work, only to discover that there was a hole in the bottom of the bag and the passenger seat is now covered in rainbow colored sprinkles. I scooped these up as best I could and headed back to my desk, where I settled back down to eat the remainder of the bag. Since then things seem to have settled down...we'll see what the rest of this day holds for me, I suppose.

*Please, please, please do not take this opportunity to lecture me about drinking coffee while pregnant. Before I began working full time I avoided all caffeine, and all the books say that 8-16 ounces a day in your second and third trimesters are fine. Trust me, I researched. Also, you try "sleeping" with something kicking you, multiple bathroom runs and pregnancy dreams. Not so restful, sometimes a small cup of joe can go a long way, plus I water it down with cream. Rant ending now.

** Seriously. Don't lecture me, I beg you.

Lookit Lookit Lookit!!! Or, how we spent our sixth anniversary

This weekend we celebrated our sixth anniversary, and our last just the two (and a half) of us. We stayed in our favorite hotel, the Bellevue Westin,

I went and got a maternity massage (thanks to a gift card) which can be translated as 160 minutes of delight and relaxation), ate a delicious dinner at Z'Tejas, and went off to see Despicable Me. It was cute, there was a lot of laughing out loud to be had. I don't however, think you need to splurge for the 3D - it didn't add a whole lot to the experience.

There's a scene in the movie where a little girl gets a huge stuffed unicorn, and she yells, "It's. So. FLUFFY!!!!" I had a similar reaction to my anniversary present this year.

A little background. For about two years now, I have had a slight obsession with a little Etsy store called MadebyHank. You who are familiar, know that she makes the worlds best purses, and that they sell out, literally in seconds. So, last year for my birthday, when Tim surprised me with this little number:

which I have used as a wallet ever since. Then, I treated myself to this one a while back:

and I love it, oh how I love it. But Tim knew that what I really wanted was one of her coveted shoulder bags - impossible to find, but breathtakingly pretty. So, imagine my delight when he quietly placed this little number on our living room chair:

My reaction was something like, "What's that? No. How?!" (remember, sells out in seconds), followed by immediately putting everything from above tote into new and improved tough ruffles shoulder bag and announcing that it's name was Purse-Face (cause it looks like it has a mouth when you open it.) I love it. I couldn't be happier. Tim's gift has yet to arrive (I may have been a little slow on the ordering it process) but I think he'll be pretty happy too. Anyway, all in all it was a great last hurrah before the baby joins us.

Wanted:

Adorable clothes!

I can't wait to have a littel wiggle worm to put in all sorts of adorable outfits. All of these were found at oldnavy.com - a place my wallet is never safe.

4th of July

I hope everyone had a great 4th! Ours was spent hearing an amazing sermon at church, then Tim went off to work, and I went to my dad's to say happy birthday to Tim (Burns) and eat lots-o-food. When Tim got off work, we headed to Jonathan and Laura's for some s'mores (with Reeses cups, none of that ordinary Hershey's business), Wii, and sparkler fun. All in all, a sucessful day.

Anyway, I was reminiscing on 4ths of the past, and remembered a story from when my cousin Danny and I were about 3. All the adults and "big kids" were out setting off fireworks, which left Danny and I to improvise (this was in the day that two three year olds could be left unsupervised, evidently). Naturally, we were jealous that we weren't allowed to play with 3000 degree sparklers and set off fireworks, so we opted for making our own. My grandma always had off brand cheesepuffs in the house, which are a fantastic, perma-staining neon orange, so these obviously caught our eye. We gleefully threw them all over grandma and grandpa's floor and proceeded to jump on them until they were nothing but orange and yellow dust. They crunched just enough to compete with the fireworks noise, so we were happy as clams. Thankfully, by the time the adults came back in and discovered us, the floors, and everything we'd touched orange, they just found us hilarious, so we somehow managed to avoid getting in trouble. Win-win, if you ask me.

Mobile Madness

Help me decide what sort of mobile to go with (bearing in mind the decor mentioned in the last post.)

1.
This cute felt and fabric tree mobile actually plays music. Plus, polka dots!

2.

Again, polka dots! And I love that they're not uniform in the way they fall.

3.

Subtle whimsy with clouds. I like the idea of pulling in more aspects of nature to go with the trees and tulips.

4.

Also in blue!

5.

This one is a DIY mobile, and I love the organic feel of it.

6.

And some sweet rain clouds gently dripping flourescent rain drops.

So, tell me what you like, or if you know of something even better. I'll let you know what we get when we eventually make up our minds :)

Once Upon a Time...

...I was a blogger. Now, I'm a slacker. But, now that we're just over three months away from adding a little girl to our family, I thought it might be a good time to re-enter to world we call the blogosphere.

So, like I said, we're closing in on 7 months of pregnancy, and pretty pleased about the situation. Want a sneak peak at our (hopefully) contemporary, whimsical, and slightly pink nursery decor? I thought so.

We've only purchased a few items so far (bedding, glider/ottoman/wall decal) but we pretty much know what we're planning, so I'll just show you what we've got up our sleeves.

So, the bedding was our inspiration, I love the simplicity of the tulips, as well as the use of hot pink rather than all pastels. Then, running with my love of jellybeans style trees, I found this wall decal on Etsy. Once we add some jellybeans artwork, I think it will look smashing. Also, we're looking for a wall color similar to the one in the decal picture.

We found early on, that a rocker glider can't be modern looking and comfortable simeltaneously. So, we compromised and got this one in a chocolate brown microfiber. Pricey, and not as pretty as we'd hoped, but oh-my-goodness-comfy.

And, lastly (so far), is the furniture. Because we are wanting to use bold colors (blues, hot pinks, dark browns and grays), we thought white furniture would pop. And, because Ikea is inexpensive, but strong in safety features, we opted for these items:

We'll use the dresser as a changing table (and the changing pad matches the bedding, yay!) instead of having two different bulky pieces we'll just have the one.

This crib got amazing safety ratings, with a tiny price tag. That's all.

And, what better way to house toys and books than a contemporary bookcase? I don't know of one.

And, that's where we are. I'm still searching for the perfect mobile, but it's coming together. Hopefully we'll actually start getting this stuff all into a freshly painted/decalled room shortly.

I Saw a Leaf Fall to the Ground Today...

Last year on this day I quoted a poem by a beloved professor of mine. I think it's worth reposting today.

I saw a leaf fall to the ground today.

For an entire season it had clung proudly to its place, gleaming brightly in the summer sun. It had felt its usefulness and beauty. But when embraced to Autumn's cold breast, its beauty faded; it became shriveled and sere. Still, it clung tenaciously to its accustomed spot on the branch. After much urging by a gentle wind, it wavered between its desire to remain with the known, and the desire to experience teh unknown. Finally, it embarked on its new adventure, and sailed happily with the breeze and gently fluttered to join many of its cold companions, and to meet many of a brighter hue. When it came to rest, I think I heard it release a sigh of contentment.

I am now in the summer of my life - enjoying my place, feeling of some use and service. When the late Autumn of my life comes, I think I shall be like that leaf I saw fall today. Certainly, I shall hesitate to leave the accustomed. But I know that once the great adventure is begun, I shall sail into eternal contentment.

You who see the leaf of my life fade and fall; Do not mistake that final breath as a groan. It will be a joyful sigh of release into the hands of my Great God, Creator and Savior.

CW Smith - November 14, 1972

Today marks three years since my mom went home. I'm so excited for the day we're reuinited.