The First Animals Spring to Life......

On Sunday Shannon and I celebrated our 6 year wedding anniversary and his first Father's Day. It was a pretty special, romantic day. We had originally planned to take a camping trip to some state park within two hours of us, but decided at the last minute that because of the extreme heat and restroom necessities, I would probably be really uncomfortable. So we stayed home and planned some fun activities here, which included going to the Aquaport by our house. It is like a mini-water park with water slides and a lazy river. I watched Shannon go down the slides and spent most of the time relaxing in the lazy river in a double innertube with him. Unfortunately, I started experiencing some strange lower abdominal pains, which we were worried might be labor, and we chose to leave the Aquaport earlier than expected. Luckily the pains just turned out to be Iddy Biddy kicking in weird new (painful) places. We went home and napped for about an hour and all was well after that. We went out for a romantic dinner then came home to work on our lighthouse puzzle, and finished the evening with playing some Never Winter Nights questing, just the two of us. It was a pretty fun day.

We are still searching and shopping in preparation for our little one's arrival. This week we went and bought a car seat, and today we picked up a dresser we found on craigslist. Still a lot of things on our list, but we're whittling them down, one by one. We are excited for our first child birth class on Tuesday night. I've been terrified that I would go into labor before taking the class and be totally clueless. Pretty silly, I know. I'll probably be sitting there on week 40 wondering how I ever had that concern. Saturday will be the start of week 34. So much left to do.

Getting the mural done is my top priority these days. Once I finish painting the room, we'll be able to move the furniture in and get everything where we want it. As soon as that happens, I'm sure I'll feel a lot more prepared for our little friend to join us. We re-arranged our bedroom this week also to accommodate the cradle by the bed. This is a special family cradle that Shannon's dad made for his first grandchild that has been passed from sibling to sibling. Malta has been adapting well to all the new things being brought into the house, from the baby swing to the fun squeaky baby toys. We had previously trained her to understand that not everything is hers by leaving random balls and stuffed animals on the floor that she wasn't allowed to touch. So when we bring new baby toys in, we quickly let her know they aren't hers. She seems to be doing really well with all of it. Isabelle, I think, will be more of a challenge. I caught her in the cradle the other day and got out the squirt gun to quickly let her know that there are no cats allowed in the cradle (sorry Cat Stevens). It's good that we have it set up early so we can make sure she has that rule down before there's a little sleeping bobbin in there. So here are some pics of the first animals in the mural and the cradle by our bed. Enjoy!



This is the wall with the door on it (not shown to the right). I chose to paint the mama deer and fawns first to help set the scale for the rest of the animals. Also added the rock and branch which will have a frog and birds on them.

Here is the cradle next to our bed. We chose to wrap the bumper pad around the outside ends of the cradle because it was extra long and there were not tie offs in the corners of the cradle. It still rocks fine, it just looks a little strange. Notice the wedge pillow on the bed. The best invention I've found for helping with sleep when the tummy keeps getting bigger and bigger. It definitely helps my back feel better.



Malta likes to help paint too! Hey, isn't that my paint shirt?

Malta likes it when we put her bed in the closet. Must be that wolf-den instinct or maybe she has something she needs to tell us about her sexuality!

A Little Paint Goes A Long Way...

Each day is filled with progressing through the mural for me. I am excited that I'm finally almost to the animals. I tried taking multiple photos and photoshopping them together, but it looks like the room has all kinds of cooky cool angles. It's just two walls meeting in the corner. Scope out the hidden door! Fun!

Last visit to the baby dr. went well. Iddy Biddy is still growing on schedule. Lots of movement and little feet pushing out of the belly. I'm ready to film my own alien movie now... Have I said that already? We're still trying to pick a pediatrician and have more organizing to do. We're prepping to start buying the last necessities off the registry in our final stretch towards the arrival of our little one. But all in all, things going well. Trying to avoid the sweltering St. Louis summer outside!

The Baby Hugger Harness!!

You've heard all about it, I'm sure. It's sweeping the nation. Well, not really, but it really helps my back ache even though it's the most un-user friendly contraption I've ever seen. It's the Baby Hugger! The inventor describes it as "back packing your belly". I won't even tell you what I have to go through to be able to go to the bathroom, but it's no easy task! Sheena can tell you where the extra socks go for comfort!! Tee Hee. So here's a pic of this thing and below is a bare belly pic with our kitty, Isabelle, getting some camera time.

The Mural in Progress

We are back from our wonderful trip to MN and the graduation party in WI. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you to everyone who helped out with the surprise baby shower in Wausau and everyone else who made our trip special. We had a great time hanging out with Erin and Shawna in Chatfield catching up and learning much from the wise mothers! Our breakfast gathering in St. Paul with Katy, Peter, Freddy, Jason and Lyndsay was also splendid. It's nice to catch up, but I wish there was more time. We never feel like the visits are long enough! But it is nice to be home and relaxing now. The nine hour car ride was hard on my back and my bladder, good thing I have the sweetest hubby in the world who is patient and doesn't mind stopping a million times for me. Thanks love!

We are now happily filling up our house with baby wares from our journey! Also I've been making slow progress with the baby mural. Below are some progress shots. I'll keep them coming. Sheena was a great help with the mountains! This is only one of the two walls in the room. The angle in the room is too steep to get the whole mural in. I'll have to buy a wide angle lens.

We are now 31 weeks along! Not too much longer now. We're feeling pretty stressed about being ready in time, but I'm sure I'll eventually feel like he/she will never arrive. Probably around the middle of July when the sweltering heat has decended. For now we're just enjoying the prep time and the staying up late watching TV and sleeping in til noon. Enjoy it while we can!

Ambitious Aspirations

So here is my first preliminary sketch of the mural I'd like to paint in Iddy Biddy's room (sorry for the text leaking through from the other side, just grabbed some scrap paper). Ambitious I know. I wanted a pond side mural that showed life above and below the water with things happening on shore and landscape in the background. Some autumn foliage and lots of cute animals. I know the sketch is really rough, so to wet your pallet a little, here are some of the animals I'm including: lots of colorful birds, turtles, fish, river otter, baby racoons (in tree), baby foxes, deer and fawns, mama duck with little duckies swimming, swan, crane on door, bees, butterflies, dragonflies, lots of flowers, cat tails, lily pads, frogs, etc. So you all think I'm crazy, but I'm really excited. I'm planing to get the base coat in before we come home for Memorial Day weekend, so that Sheena can help me some with the details when she comes back here to visit. It will also give me something to do rather than clean house all day up til Iddy Biddy arrives. I'm most excited because it's been a long time since I've put my creative talents to work on my own project. And best of all, hopefully it won't be destroyed/painted over for a long time. But who knows when you sell a house. I'll do my best to photograph the steps of the mural so all can enjoy! If any of the painters in the family want to drop in for a visit when we get back from our tour of MN and WI to help add their own artistic flair (eh, hem, Eileen, etc.) you are more than welcome!!!!

Baby Registry!

Well, I think we've finally finished our baby registry! We registered at Baby's R Us and Target. It's incredible how many things there are to choose from (a million brands of strollers and car seats, etc.) We didn't register for too many baby clothes, since gender neutral clothes are not as cute as the little boy and girl things.

Our last trip to the baby Dr. went well. We had the diabetes glucose screening test, which was difficult because of the two hour fasting before hand. I have hypoglycemia already, so going without snacking even for a little while causes some major dizzy spells. And I am no fan of needles, so the blood test was stressful, but we made it through it. And we passed. So that's wonderful. Iddy Biddy is still an active little acrobat, mostly late at night. Guess he/she is a night owl like mommy and daddy.

Here are a few pics to finally share the baby belly.

Just after vacation. 20 weeks!



25 Weeks and ready for bed!

Finally Mexico!!!

A long time coming.... Here are some photos from our vacation in Mexico! We stayed in Cancun for a night, then took a three hour bus ride into the jungle to Chichen Itza. We stayed in the most amazing resort, the Mayaland. Which we would recommend to everyone! Well maybe not right now during the swine flu mumbo jumbo. We got to stay in a private bungalo with a palm-frawn roof. The resort had it's own private entrance into the Chichen Itza ruins. It was incredible. The weather was amazing too. After that we returned to Cancun for a few nights. By this time, spring break was in full swing, so there were half naked drunk college students everywhere! Yikes. We enjoyed the romance of being together alone in a busy city without any interest in partying. We took a ferry ride over to Isla Mujeres one afternoon and rented a golf cart and were able to tour the entire island. It had the most incredible free public beach, white sand, crystal blue water, shallow-only up to your waist for about a 1/4 mile out. And so relaxing. It was very heavenly.

A Peacock visiting us during lunch at the Mayaland Resort

On a stroll in the Mayaland!

Isla Mujeres!

Chichen Itza

Ballcourt. Notice the rings on the side walls.

Cancun view from our balcony. Gorgeous!