Ramblings . . .

I can't wait to get out of town!!! We have been having our statewide standardized testing ALL.WEEK.LONG. and I am MUCH more than over it! I have been looking forward to this camping trip long before I was pregnant, so we will see how much I enjoy it toting a couple extra lbs now... Hopefully it will be no big deal, but we will see how comfortable I am while sleeping.


Mostly everyone will be arriving tomorrow during the day, but hubs and I are going up early today to scope out the scene. We will go ahead and set up our tent and canopy, etc. and wait anxiously for everyone else to get there! Hubs and I have already toyed with the idea of taking sweet baby girl next year when she is merely 8 months, but we will obviously see about that later.

I am unfortunately missing a talent show at my school and one of my students asked me if I could reschedule the the camping trip for another time so I didn't miss their dance. As politely as possible, I told her that I would miss almost anything, except for H.A.'s birth to go camping. Maybe next year we can talk my sister and parents into going too...We will see, be back on Tuesday!!! I hope y'all have a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend!!!

As you can probably imagine, I am so very eager to get our sweet baby girl's nursery set up. Actually, I can't stinkin' wait!

I could possibly be the hardest person in the world to please so I have been having an impossible time picking out the bedding. I think little girls (and boys!) are so special and individual, so I can't imagine grabbing a bed-in-a-bag that could truly match everything I feel about this tiny baby.

My criteria for the bedding was this;
1. LOTS of colors! I wanted to be able to match solid color crib sheets with whatever we chose
2. NO CHARACTERS! END OF STORY!
3. No butterflies, bugs, animals, etc.
4. Flowers were ok if they were abstract and not strategically placed in rows and or columns
See? I'm a freak. I found some that I liked, and some that I looooooved, but they were either in only brown and pink or $500 for a 4 piece bedding set.

Solution? Ask these incredible people that I am lucky enough to be related to and or friends with to make it for me!!! Yaaaaaaaay!!!



Luckily, my sister is friends with (so I, in turn, am friends with...) the very talented Stephanie of Providence Handmade and she has graciously agreed to work with us and create our own bedding for our sweet little H.A. (I am not sure I am 100% ready to reveal our name...)!



I asked her yesterday if she would maybe consider helping us out...my sister is amazing behind the sewing machine, me...not so much, but she said she would definitely help us out! Sa-Weet!!! Not only is she doing this pro bono, she also put together this LOVELY collage of everything we should include in the room, aahh, the benefits of having an interior designer friend!!! Check out this bad boy--

(Sorry! I can't figure out how to make this bigger!!! )
Needless to say, we can't WAIT to get started!!!

This little girl in my belly likes to move it-move it, she likes to....MOVE IT!

I am feeling her all over the place and it is NUTSO, but 'nutso' in a fab way! Both of the ultrasound techs that saw me recently told me that my sweet little girl is a wild woman in the womb...my mom, obvi knowing me, said, "well, what did you expect??" I guess my mom is saying something along the lines that I was always busy and on the move...God help up all if this baby is just like me!!!

This was, by far, the best mother's day I have ever had, but I am certain it won't be the best ever.

A GIRL!!!! We are oh so very excited! We had an ultrasound today and it was confirmed, I have no penises growing inside of me. I can't even begin to tell you how much I loved watching that little girl on the us. We have a dvd of the whole thing so we can watch it whenever we want.

Well, I have officially felt the baby move. I was pretty sure I was feeling it for the past week or so, but yesterday I was sure.

I went to my 16 week check-up, which, turns out, everyone at the Dr.'s office says I am 16 1/2 weeks, not 16 weeks exactly (as I thought). This was a pretty routine meeting, heard the heartbeat (160!), talked with my Ob, asked some questions, etc.

However, when I was leaving, the ultrasound tech (who is a family friend) asked if I wanted to hurry back and "peek" to see if we could find out what the baby was. Did she need to ask?!?!? A FREE ultrasound?!?! OF COURSE! So, we hurried back into the room and turned out the lights and tried our hardest to get that baby to stay still. I realized I was feeling the kicks/hits/flutters or whatever when we saw him/her moving on the screen and the nurse said, did you feel that? It was a big one! So I have officially figured out what a baby kick feels like and let me tell you, it's phenomenal!

So, I bet you may be wondering just what it is aren't you? Well, I am not going to tell yet. And, if you know me IRL, don't tell either. I am going to another place today for an ultrasound and I am hoping I can get a definitive answer. We were in a hurry at my Dr.'s office so we couldn't say for absolute sure, but the tech was pretty sure it was one way and not the other...

I'll post answers as soon as I have a proof positive ultrasound pic...and until then, I am trying not to get too excited one way or the other!!!

I am embarrassed. That is basically all I can say right now. I am looking at my "before" pictures and they make me want to hurl something across the room. Let's look at the facts;

1. Hubs and I have never been the neatest people. When it comes to us, we are always well groomed -- showered, clean clothes, hair done, nice nails, etc. Our house is a different story.
   
2. We are also the exact same person split into two different bodies, so we are both basically the most stubborn person in the world at any given moment.
   
3. We would rather do whatever we wanted when we wanted to do it rather than clean any time of the day.
   
4. We are having a baby in October, I believe I have started this "nesting" thing.
   
5. My sister is cleaning her house following simplemom.net and I am not one to turn down a challenge.

So there you have some simple facts. Our "before" pictures have our living room/dining room looking the absolute worst it ever has, this is mainly because I decided to clean out what will be our baby's room which was chock full of crap. A lot, and I mean ALMOST 99% of the junk in the pictures was moved from our bedrooms to the living room over the weekend. But, as my sister pointed out, these pictures should "keep it real" so I didn't lift a S.I.N.G.L.E. thing, so trust me, while our house is seldom ever clean, it is always, always, ALWAYS better than my before pictures.
Hubs seems to think we would win a competition from worst to decent. After looking at my "after" pics I can't believe how much more I love my house when it's clean. It is so nice and relaxing to sit on the couch and not have anything to complain about (at least in terms of cleaning--), and what was even better was waking up and walking into a pristine living room and dining room. We even ate our breakfast at the dining room table together, something that we have never done.


Today is living room: part 2, so we may tackle our living area in our basement, but it is not a very pretty space...we will see.

Keep your eyes posted for a couple important posts coming up in the next couple of days!!!