Bellies!

Check out this picture of Carina, my sister in-law, and I with our bellies. This was at my shower on April 9th. I'm due July 5th and she is due the end of July. So fun to see our bellies grow together!

7 months

I feel bigger than this picture

On Wednesday I was 29 weeks pregnant. I took this picture last Sunday night, by myself.  I know it's not glamorous, but maybe when Andrew sees it he can help me remember to take a better one.  We have been so busy with house stuff lately that I keep forgetting to have him take a picture.  And I would rather have unglamorous photos and some memories than no photos at all.

Generally speaking, I am doing pretty well.  I survived a move and am still managing to work with middle schoolers everyday.  Lucy might put me over the edge some days though :)

This baby moves all of the time!  While I'm walking down the hall at work, while I'm teaching, while I'm eating, while I'm sleeping.  It's movement pattern is all the time.  Which is fun, but somewhat exhausting at times.

Last week, all of the sudden I started having sciatic pain on the right side.  It wasn't fun and it made it rather difficult to walk like a normal human being.  I got two massages last week (thank you good insurance!), learned some good stretches, took a few baths, and my back/hip is back to normal.  I can feel it getting a little bit hurty when I have been doing too much during the day, but a little rest, a stretch, and a hot bag can get it feeling right again.  Glad I don't have to live with that all of the time!

I'm starting to have a very limited wardrobe.  And some of those shirts are getting tight.  The next 11 weeks could be interesting.

We have 3 weeks left of our birthing class (counting tonight).  We have started looking around for a doula, no decisions yet though!

Still trying to go on regular walks.  Thank you Andrew and Lucy for being extra motivation!  I'm not motivated to cook dinner though.  I am starving all the time, but I don't feel like cooking.

I'm starting to find things that are difficult to do because the belly gets in the way.  Like cleaning papers off the floor, or putting my shoes on. 

I'm taking A LOT of baths in our wonderful tub.  I love it!

Despite the not so fun things, I am still loving being pregnant and I can't wait to see what the next 11 weeks brings!

Last Weekend

We haven't had much energy in the evenings when we get home.  But we are trying to get a lot of project work done on the weekends so that we can have things around this place somewhat in order before Baby Bybee gets here.

Last weekend, my dad and Andrew put an invisible dog fence in for Lucy.  Thank you Dad for the help, it was a big project!  She is on day 4 of training and has learned about the boundary flags, the beeping when she gets too close to the boundary, and the shock that happens if you keep going instead of turn around.  It only took 2 or 3 times on the first day of introducing the shock (or static correction as they call it) before she started booking away from the beeping whenever she heard it.  We felt terrible about the shock, but she didn't act like it hurt her, more a pinch or a startle.  It will be so nice when, in a week or two, we can let her run around the yard to get her crazies out.  When she isn't going to Daycare at Tails a Wagging, going on walks in the evenings, or being trained with her new fence, Lucy is usually soaking up sun rays in the living room.

This weekend, she also got to hang out on the deck and work on a real meat bone from the lady who boards her when we are gone. Jealous much?

On Sunday, Andrew and I cleaned out the shed. The lady who sold us the house left us all of her tools and gardening gear, which is wonderful! But it was left in a crazy mess in the shed that made you want to shut the door and walk away. So we pulled everything out, cleaned and sorted it, and added our stuff to the collection. While doing that, we found a robin's egg under one of our apple trees. Since then, we've found another one in the same area, but no sign of a nest.

In between all of the yard work, we also found some time to relax a little bit. Sunday morning we had friends over for a pancake breakfast and coffee. We got to lay around the very sunny living room, stuffing ourselves full of pancakes, drinking delicious and beautiful coffee, and enjoying good company.

Here's to new houses, sunny spring weather, and good friends!

This Week...

...has been crazy at work.  Not bad, just an exhausting amount of paperwork.  Now that I think about it, I remember feeling this way this time last year.  In the next month you have to try to cram your last bit of teaching in, two weeks of state testing and all of the scheduling that entails, schedule for next year, get new students, open houses for next year, and keep middle schoolers with crazy spring fever somewhat calm.  It's enough to wear me out without being 7 months pregnant, having a 1 year old great dane puppy, or having just moved.  So cut me some slack as I try and keep up with posting :)  I do have things to share!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday Mom!

We love you!

Baby Shower

On April 9th, our families threw us a baby shower!  It was perfect.  Lynne decorated her house with little birds and nests, we had lots of delicious food, lots of people came, and I felt very showered with love and gifts for our baby.  At a later date I will take some pictures of some of amazing baby gear we got, but for today, enjoy the pictures of the shower.  Thank you everyone who came and pampered us, we feel very loved and supported!

Me loading my plate with delicious food1

Me being the center of attention opening presents

The crowd of family and friends who came to pamper us

My favorite nephew

Granny & Aunt Dana filling out their Gift Bingo cards

Me and Poppy

My mom, me, Granny, Levi, & Rachelle

My highschool girls friends, Tori, me Lisa, & Kelsey

Me opening and admiring some of the bedding the Lynne made for us

Me opening more presents

Happy!

Sorry

for the mope.  It's really not my thing and it usually doesn't last too long.  Last night after finishing my "chores", I pampered myself with a long bath in our wonderful tub while listening to Pandora on my phone and reading Little Women.  It's a comfort book, I've read it so many times.   I feel much better this morning.  Only 10 weeks left until summer vacation!

I don't have a title...

I'm feeling mopey.  I have a bad kink in my back that hurts when I walk but gets better when I sit and heat it.  So I am trying to find sitting tasks to do even though I feel like getting up and getting things done.  Yesterday was Josh's 18th birthday and I wish he was here.  While I was in the bathroom, Lucy stole one of my favorite shoes and brought it into her crate.  By the time I got suspicious about the quiet, it was history.  How's that for a whine?

I'm trying to be productive though and am cleaning off our desktop.  It needs it, badly.  Overflowing with pictures, music, movies, and documents that need to be sorted, deleted and stored properly.  I've gotten a lot done.  I'm close to finishing 2009's digital scrapbook, I'm thinking maybe 10 more events and I'm done and can send it in for ordering.  Here are the pages I finished tonight.

Play with Me?

We stayed down at the Bybee's last weekend so that our families could throw us a baby shower (it was great, pictures coming soon!) and Andrew could go skiing with the boys.  We brought Lucy and Andrew's Uncle Dirk and Aunt Lisa brought their much more mature dog Sasha.  They had lots of rompy playing, but Lucy could never seem to get enough.  Here she is begging Sasha for more playtime.

Happy Birthday Josh!

We love you and miss you all the time!  We wish that you were here so that we could spoil you on your special day!

Happy Birthday Josh!

April 11, 1993-June 19, 2009

Last House Pictures....for a while

It's the Sunday before we start back to our normal lives.  Spring Break is over and we will be back to 40 hour work weeks.  The house isn't perfect yet, but the rest will be pretty slow going I'm sure.  So these are the last of the moving pictures.  There are things left that we want to do to each room, and when a room is completely done (does that ever happen?), I'm sure we will post more pictures.  But for now....this is our house!

Our bedroom

From the doorway when you walk in, the front right corner of the room

From the bathroom doorway, on the left side of the room, looking to the right

From the bathroom doorway looking to the right

From my side of the bed, the back right corner

The right side of the master closet

The left side of the master closet

Things left to do:

• Look for matching white bedside tables
• See those cute red lamps next to our bed?  We need to get special light bulbs from IKEA for them
• Hang some pictures on the wall
• Red ties for the curtains on our bed
• Did you know a king size duvet from IKEA is not the same size as most king size duvet covers?  Yeah, me neither.  So we need to figure out a fix for that.
• Finish unpacking some of Andrew's music stuff for the rest of the shelf space
• Hang a couple of hooks in the closet for bathrobes and favorite jackets

The kitchen

From the breakfast nook area

The counter hidden behind the fridge

Notice:

• Andrew switched the way the fridge/freezer door swing
• The lovely racks for our pots and pans

Things left to do:

• Get more small hooks like the ones that our mugs are hanging on...IKEA only had one set
• A plant for the kitchen window
• Compost setup

The second bathroom

From the doorway

Things left to do:

• Everything....paint, some towel hooks, new towels, etc

Entryway and hallway

The front door from the doorway of the second bathroom

The hallway to the bedrooms from the doorway into the living area

Things left to do:

• Find a small entryway table that we can put shoes on and dump things like keys and purses on top of
• Scrub some of the stains out of the carpet that we made from all of the moving
• Hooks for coats
• Molding around the front door
• Paint

Master Bathroom

From the bathtub, the right wall of the bathroom

From the bathtub, the left wall of the bathroom

The skylight above the bathtub

The bathtub

Things left to do:

• Paint...but I have no idea what color.  Any suggestions?  It's off of our gray, red, black and white master bedroom but we kind of want something brighter....I don't know
• Some decorations
• Some fabric to hang over the front of the open shelves

The main living space

From the kitchen nook, looking at the left side of the room

From the hallway toward the right of the room

From the coffee table back toward the kitchen nook and entryway

The kitchen nook

The view out the sliding glass door on a stormy afternoon

And out the front window

Things left to do:

• Hang curtains above the front window and above the kitchen window, I have them, we just need curtain rods
• Put out small decorations
• Take the boxes our to the garage
• Clean all the junk of the kitchen table
• Pictures on the wall
• Paint boxes for records and put records out
• Get another lamp for evening times

Don't even ask about the garages, the baby's room, or outside yet. I feel overwhelmed just thinking of those to-do lists that I just wrote! Despite all the work we have left to do, we are feeling fairly settled and are loving having our own place!

Getting There

Hopefully by next Sunday I will be posting pictures of a nice clean house!  Until then, here are some more in the process pictures.  I realized after I uploaded these that I didn't take any of the bedroom...sorry, next time I promise!

Poor lost Lucy doesn't know what to do with herself

Isn't that a sad looking face?

Andrew putting the first coat of red on a wall of the kitchen nook

Andrew putting the first coat of red on the living room wall...look at that mess!

Chaos!

Kitchen nook after the second coat of red that Andrew applied around 10pm the other night

The living room after the second coat...also around applied late at night.

Lucy didn't bother staying up to help.

The kitchen is coming along...we have some organizing things from IKEA that need to go up today.

The right side of of our closet, freshly painted and ready to be filled.

And the left side.

The bathtub jets getting cleaned.

The baby's room...this makes me feel better because it looks way better today!

Lucy enjoying the sun.

The living room is getting closer!

The kitchen nook is still overflow for unpacking but at least it's painted and the kitchen table is up!

The kitchen

And now I'm going to go enjoy that wonderful bathtub!  More pictures of the house and hopefully belly pictures coming tomorrow!