Baby Z's Room: Stage One

We spent much of today moving things from our office to the basement. Aaron came over to help. Here's the finished product!






All of our books are now on the floor in the basement. We are hopefully going to get rid of some of them.



Oliver enjoyed every minute of it.

Now our office is in the guest bedroom.

Welcome to the 3rd trimester!!!!!

This past week was officially the first week of me feeling uncomfortable a majority of the time. I had some major difficulty sleeping, experienced some pelvic pain, and just feel awkward in my rapidly changing body. I have already outgrown some of the maternity clothes i did buy, so i had to head back to the consignment shop for more!

The good news it that Noah and I cleared out Baby Z's room today. It is totally empty, ready to be painted and decorated. We are very excited to go shopping for furniture next week. We will be sure to post some pics when we are further along in the process.

On Monday we are heading up to Semiahmoo Resort near Blaine, Washington, to have our last romantic getaway of our non-parenting lives. We are looking forward to just being together and MAYBE finalizing our list of baby names . . .

Thanks to Jen for snapping this pic of me and baby Z!!

Happy New Year!

Sunshine in San Diego!

Last weekend Noah and I took a short trip down to San Diego. Noah attended a Social Studies conference while I explored the city. The first day we were there, it poured rain the whole day!! It was the first day it had rained there in a year or so. The last day were there, Noah played hooky and we took the ferry over to Coronado to sit on the beach for a few hours. it was nice to be in the sunshine and 70 degree weather while Seattle was getting it's first snow storm of the year.

As far as the pregnancy goes, I am still feeling pretty good. the only recurring issues have been the ongoing heartburn and occasional contraction (which is totally normal). When people at work ask me how I am doing, I state the standard response: tired, fat, and hungry (in that order)! I feel like I am getting fatter by the minute! Noah and i are looking forward to working on the baby's room over our winter break in a few weeks.

Back from the Babymoon . . .

Noah and I just returned from Vancouver, BC for a weekend getaway. The weather was kind of crummy, but it was still fun. We went out to eat, went shopping, and saw a rock concert last night. The above pics were taken on our stroll on the beach on Sunday morning. We stayed at the Granville Island Hotel, which was perfect for some last minute shopping and yummy treats at the Granville Island Market!

Good-bye Cranky Pants!

Well, needless to say I have been SUPER cranky lately. Today is the first day that I actually feel normal again--THANK GOD! My poor husband and friends who have had to deal with me! This is the first time I have experienced such moodiness over such a long period of time. It is easy to blame the mood swings on the hormones, but I think I am also feeling a bit of anxiety about the birth AND the prospect of becoming a mom. Thanks goodness I have lots of friends to use as resources!

Another recent development (within the last two weeks) is the size of my belly. Everyone at school has been commenting about how suddenly big I have gotten! It is nice to actually look pregnant now,as opposed to just looking awkwardly overweight. Now I need to go shopping again!

Pictures to follow as soon as I can get Noah to take some of my rapidly growing midsection . . .

Settle down there, fireball!

So . . . after many minutes trying to figure out what to eat for dinner last night, I settled on the odd combo of quinoa, smart dogs and Tapatio hot sauce. Mmmmm. Within minutes of fully stuffing myself, I began to feel a substantial amount of movement below! I could hardly believe it, so I reclined a bit and put my hand on my abdomen. Low and behold, baby z was reacting to the spicy nature of my meal. Not that that wasn't enough, but it steadily continued for the next 4 hours, which gave daddy z an opportunity to feel the action himself when he got home! Man if this doesn't make it a reality, nothing will!!!

It's a...........

We went in for our second ultrasound this afternoon. The doctor did not see any signs of boy parts and said with what she called 75% certainty, that we have a daughter. Of course, it is still fairly early, so we can't tell for sure. It was fun to see "her" stretch her fingers out and rub "her" head on the screen.

Rolling right along . . .

Wow--it is absolutely amazing how easy this pregnancy has been this far. The only reason i know I am pregnant is the irritating amount of acne I am experiencing! Up until this point, we have gone to two of our Centering classes. These are our monthly (and eventually bi-monthly) check-ups and discussions with the 9 other couples who are due around the same time as me. Hearing some of their experiences makes me even more glad that things have been going so smoothly. I think that we may make some good friends during these meetings! Besides the classes, we have been trying to spend time together as much as possible, before I get too big to enjoy doing much of anything. We are taking a little trip to Vancouver in November, which I am already anxiously looking forward to! Next week we will have our second ultrasound, which will (hopefully) tell us the sex of Baby Z. After that, it is full speed ahead with the name game!!! Stay tuned . . .

Our First Ultrasound!

We are now at 11 weeks (13 weeks LMP). Today we went to the perinatal clinic at Swedish for an ultrasound and genetic screening. Baby Z is just under 7 cm.