Back from the Babymoon!

We had originally had grand plans of going to Charleston, staying in a Bed & Breakfast, and living it up for a LOONNG weekend - but the selling of the house didn't happen soon enough or according to "our" plans - so instead we went up to Atlanta on Saturday for a short weekend of things we never get to do. Bill & Becky had gifted us one night at the Ritz Carlton on Peachtree - so atleast we had a roof over our heads - and the most wonderful feather bed & pillows underneath... Seriously - do you think they would let me buy them?!

We checked in, put our stuff down, and then practically immediately called the valet back to get our car, and headed to Lenox. Some of you might know - but there is literally NO WHERE for "good" shopping in Columbus. Granted - that's usually fine these days since I can't fit into anything with this watermelon - but it was nice to find nice baby things. Most out of the price range we were willing to spend - seriously $65 for a baby hoodie?! c'mon! But we found THE MOST ADORABLE seersucker outfit that will get monogrammed - even Sam said it was seriously cute - now that's saying something! That was at Pottery Barn Kids - we also found William's new night light - it's an owl and it glows - it's SOO cute!!! And fits in his nursery perfectly! If you had told me that I was going to be ok spending $30 on nightlight a week ago - I would've told you were crazy - but somehow - since it's for the baby - and because Sam loved it - and it was quite possibly the cutest nightlight EVER -it's ok. :) Then at Macy's, which btw - our Macy's is a sorry excuse for a store - we found a romper (? I need to figure out what all this baby clothing is called) that's green with turtles and a white collar - bought it in 12months so the closet on that end won't look so sad.. - and we also got a blue smocked outfit for church. It has cars - which I KNOW I said I didn't want (and still don't generally speaking) but it has buttons for wheels and is only across the chest - it's adorable - and TINY!! I love 0-3 months! I hope this kid is small. OH and we got William a Christmas present toy - haha - it's a toy soldier puzzle thing that is actually beyond his years I am sure - but it looks like the stuffed soldier that is Sam's - so we couldn't resist - plus it was on sale..!

Anyhow - that was our shopping adventure. Surprisingly - Lenox didn't have that many baby stores - which is fine - we were running out of our allotted baby spending money at this point... We still had a couple hours before we were supposed to be at my cousin's 2 year birthday party - so we went to IKEA. Found some plastic tubs for 1.49 and bought 30 of them for the storage closet in the back of the house (so nice to have that stuff organized and put away!) and then Sam wanted some compact fluorescent lightbulbs and I found some nylon baskets for the baby dresser and we hightailed it out of there. We could spend thousands at IKEA if we had thousands to spend. It's kind of ridiculous.

Then we went to the birthday party and we were 30 minutes early - but we were doing good not to get lost - so we helped blow up the helium balloons and tie them to chairs. Kalin, Lainey, and Grandmother showed up early too - so it's not like we were the only ones. Dash, my 2 year old cousin, is absolutely a doll - so cute. He does high fives and knucks and it's the cutest thing. He giggle too - which is cute. We played with the new video camera - but I'm gonna let Sam help me figure out how to get them on here. The party was fun - went about 45 minutes longer than we had anticipated - and because my ankles were the size of canteloupes and I was exhausted - we made the executive decision to skip our reservations at Ruth Chris Steakhouse and just order room service. Felt a little lame but it was nice just hanging out with Sam in the room (in pajamas!!) then having to put on a dress and have my swollenness out for everyone to view. Besides - Sam ordered a steak which was crazy good and I had been wanting a club sandwich all week - so that was delicious too.

Sunday we slept in - 9:00!! Black out lining is so worth it - but you definitely want to set an alarm. I had actually pretty much been awake all night - but I think I slept nicely from 6-9, so that was ok by me. We got up, took showers, packed up the room, and went down and had breakfast in the hotel - YUM!!!! Then we checked out and headed to the aquarium!!

We have been meaning to go to the aquarium since it opened and either never wanted to spend the money or didn't have the time - so that was the ONE thing we HAD to do while we were here. Note - do NOT go to the aquarium in the summer on the weekend - there are WAY too many people. I really thought I might kill someone - everyone is so rude - but whatever. The fish were really neat - so many bright colors in one of the sections (I don't remember which). and we saw Whale Sharks, Beluga Whales, Hammerheads, Stingrays, etc etc etc. Really really cool stuff- we even pretended like we were children and touched the stingrays and itty bitty sharks in the petting pool. (they felt wet, smooth, slimy-ish, and weird..) We also bought the combo ticket that got us in to the Titanic exhibit - which was awesome. It was really neat to see actual artifacts recovered from the boat. We've watched some special on the history channel a zillion times on the Titanic - so it was really cool to see some of the things in person and read about some of the people, and I could go on and on. Loved it - except there was no where to sit down...oh well. And you know - the casting people on the movie did a really good job in casting people/making people look like the actual people they were playing - it was uncanny!

Well, we went all the way through, looked at everything, bought a magnet (you know we have to get a magnet everywhere we go!) and headed home. Got stuck in major traffic - thankyou construction for narrowing it to one lane - that was awesome - and made it home around 4:30 ish I think. Sam put us right to work on the organizing the closet and that was the weekend. We ate pizza, watched boring tv, and I fell asleep in the chair with headphones on my watermelon.

Great weekend!

Loves!

General Catch-up I suppose

Totally forgot to post anything about Father's Day - I'm a bad wife... No cute pictures because we forgot to take pictures of anything except Sam's dad opening gifts - but I think Sam had a good a day. He got a new pair of Reef flip flops because his literally have a hole in them and he got a set of tool bags to keep his essential tools in the house and a really sweet card. I definitely noticed though that Mother's Day was a much bigger deal for the "to be" mom then Father's Day is for the "to be" dad. Which I don't quite understand but yeah.

We had lunch at his parents house and then came home. Not sure what we did - but at some point Sam decided that of all the days, Father's Day would be the day to get to see a movie at the theater. I am generally opposed to paying so much for a movie - it's just wrong - and way to expensive - but it was Father's Day - so off we went. (Side note - The Hangover is HILARIOUS!!) Small little surprise - we got to pay the matinee price because we beat the time by 5 minutes!! I wanted popcorn though - but was NOT about to pay $7 for a medium when we were paying $5 (!!) for a drink. (Thank you Sam for letting us get Sprite so I didn't break the caffeine ban in a big way - you're the best!) Then we came home and ate leftover barbeque - yum - and banana pudding - double yum!

Pretty much Sam is going to be the best dad ever - so I'm just ready to get this started. I keep repeating 8 more weeks 8 more weeks. If it wasn't so amazingly hot - this wouldn't be so bad. Next time we are going to have to think a little bit more about when/what time of year we get preggers - because THIS - is not preferable. But, millions of women have survived summer pregnancies, so it can't be THAT terrible. I am on the lookout for someone I know to have a pool - hint hint y'all! :) And just in case you have a pool and were worried that I would put on a bathing suit in my condition - no way jose - I will go in fully clothed - no one needs to see my belly like this.

Did I mention that I now have stretch marks? I am not one of those lucky women like I thought I was going to be - but I have cocoa butter lotion and I'm not afraid to use it! haha! :)

So my mom came into town yesterday just for the day/1 night on her way to Montgomery to see my sister graduate from Air Force Officer Training. That was fun. In between the two doctor visits I had yesterday (thyroid & OB/GYN) we went to my FAVORITE consignment shop Mikayla's Place and shopped for baby clothes. Which is always a good time - and she pointed out that we did not have enough clothes to keep William from being naked half the time. We got the best stuff - probably 20 things/outfits for an average of $3 each - and maybe 1/3 of them still had tags!!! So cute!!! There were a lot of REALLY cute smocked jumper/jon jon/what are those things called? but I would hate to spend money on them and end up getting the wrong size and William never be able to wear them! I realize that $20 is cheap for them and maybe we should've bought them - but I don't want to spend $20 for something he'll never wear - spending $3 is one thing... anyhow - most fun place ever. We ventured over to the girl racks and the dresses are SO CUTE! Seriously - if you have children - go there!! There's also toys and furniture and other stuff. Even managed to find a black maternity shirt for me - so now my "nice" shirts that cover my expanding belly is growing to maybe 5..haha! THANKS MOM FOR EVERYTHING!! SO MUCH FUN!!! William is going to be mighty stylin'! :)

And now I just have to make it through to today and then tomorrow we are headed to Atlanta to redeem our gift certificate at the Ritz Carlton and have a mini-baby moon. Fun! We're going to the aquarium - I'm BEYOND excited! And Sam wants to eat at some Brazil place where they carve your steak off vertical meat or something - where ever he wants. I probably won't be able to fit anything more than a salad in my scrunched up stomach...

Sorry no pictures - maybe next time..

Loves!

PS - we are now the proud new owners of a video camera - so we will hopefully be able to post videos on here - be on the lookout for a test or two.. :) THANKS DAD & SARA!!

Baby Party Luau!!

Thanks to Amy & Hadley - we got to go to the most fun baby party ever - and it was for us! They seriously went over and beyond - everything was awesome! The decorations were awesome - paper lanterns, tropical flower dishes, all the color coordination(!), flowers in our hair, coconut glasses - so much fun!!! The food - omg - hotdogs, doritos, and banana pudding!!! I heard that the bbq was really good too - gonna have to try Brannin Rd! Thank you so much for everything ladies! It was so much fun to see everyone and hang out in the AC! (seriously - could it have been hotter?!)

Sorry in advance - we were having so much fun - we forgot to take a lot of pics - but here's what there is:

The house looked great!!

Me with Amy & Hadley - my bestest!

The boys about to chug out of baby bottles

Bocce Ball - but I don't know what I'm doing...

A humongo thank you to everyone who came and helped us get ready for William. We had so much fun with y'all!! Who wants to be the next to have babies so we can do this again?! :)

Side-track for a small baby note: I am now not sleeping thanks to indigestion or heartburn, Sam diagnosed that last night, but he has introduced me to Tums and I think I might be in love. Also - William does not like it when I slouch, and every time I lay down to take a nap or go to sleep he thinks it is time for a full on dance party, not cool, I need sleep...

Loves!

It didn't take me long...

here is the new and improved crib wall.  A much improvement if I say so myself.  It now has purpose and style - I love it!  I'm still in LOVE with our slightly abstracty - not - too-  baby - bunny theme!!  Whatcha think?

On a slightly different note - baby is kicking like crazy - and it's so cool!  I should be annoyed - because he chooses to really go to town when I'm trying to go to sleep - but it's the neatest thing ever - so then I just end up laying awake hoping that he'll continue.  Last night I swear he was Wii Boxing - it was the craziest thing.  But everytime I would lift up my shirt to see if I could see it on the outside and not just feel it - he would stop - then start again when I put my head down - but my boobs are ginormous now (ugh) that I couldn't see over them... I tried this for about 5 minutes and then finally gave up...silly me.  Oh - and he's discovered my ribs - at first it was just the left side but the right side got a good jab today - so yay - soon it will hurt but right now it's just surprising and fun.  ;)

I think tomorrow I am going to paint a dragonfly in the corner between the windows - haven't remembered to look for those frames yet - should probably hang those to figure out where to position the dragonfly...  What in the world am I going to do when I'm done with this?!  Nesting is fun - but I'm running out of things to nest.  I suppose I could finish unpacking the last couple boxes - but that's no fun when there's baby stuff to do! 

We finally got around to hanging the bookshelf that he & Grandaddy made tonight - looks good.  It's nice to see it on the wall instead of propped up against something...  I wonder if we could now switch rooms with William - I like his better.  ;)

Loves.

We've been busy bees...

...unpacking like crazy (that was my job), installing new fans so we can survive the summer in Columbus, installing a new dishwasher, taking out a stupid half bath and closet to make a much larger - much needed - storage closet, setting up house in general....

So far we are almost completely out of boxes - I think there are still a handful that need to go to the attic or the storage closet - but that's pretty much it.  Not bad for 1 week if I say so myself - and I will - since I did most of the unpacking.  Sam says he has a professional packer & unpacker and has enjoyed having very little to do with it.  Poor him though - I'd practically attack him when he got home to move the boxes that were too heavy so that I could deal with them.  :)

The first couple days I don't think we rested.  Sam had to repair the subfloor & wall where the dishwasher was going, which was a surprise, but not a huge deal - and then install the new dishwasher.  I would like to take this moment to say that our white, inexpensive dishwasher does a MUCH BETTER job of actually cleaning our dishes than the stainless steel, very expensive dishwasher we had at Forest Ave EVER did.  Plus - we can actually fit our plates and some (smaller) platters in the dishwasher! It's crazy!  (and super wonderful!!)  I can live with the fact that it is a little bit louder - oh and it doesn't take 2+ hours to wash a load of dishes either!  I'm in love..haha!!

I'm also really glad that we painted the weekend before - it has made life so much easier!  It's been really nice to truly unpack instead of playing months of musical boxes.  I unpack a box and put its contents where it goes - such a concept!! ;)  On that note - it was my mission to get the boxes unpacked as soon as possible because I've been waiting 7.5 months to set up the nursery and the time was NOW!!  I just had to clear the boxes that were stacked to the ceiling out...easy cheesey... I think by Thursday I had cleared enough to slide furniture around and I had a big time.  By the time Sam got home - I had it pretty much set up - looking rough and plenty of mess around - but the big pieces where they went.  And I LOVE it!!

It's not 100% done - I still have to address some walls and we're still trying to figure out to afford an 8x10 rug before August 17 - but I'm sure everything will work out... Or it won't and that will be fine.  :)

SNEAK PEAK:

Need to replace almond blinds with white ones - I don't understand why they even make almond - they're just ugly...  Also need to find large frames for by the rocker for baby pictures - we probably have some in a box that we put in the attic now that I think about it... :0

I think I am going to paint the starburst tree things from the bedding on this wall - it just feels empty to me - will post more pics when that is done.  I LOVE how his name turned out though!  Never doubt 3M tape - that stuff is serious! :)

This rocker is uber comfortable and just so happens to blend with all the greens which I was really surprised about - hopeful - but surprised just the same.  My ex-boss Leslie and co-worker Lisa - gifted it to us instead of throwing a shower - which worked out perfectly - because I had no idea how we were going to get a rocker and apparently they're fairly necessary...  Anyhow - LOVE IT!

So I think that's pretty much it.  We're in love with the nursery (seriously - we go and sit and stare at it - it's kinda weird actually.. haha) and can't wait for W.T. to get here.  Or well - we can wait..but y'know what I mean.  We're excited and it's nice to finally have his room design/ideas come to fruition.

OH! I forgot to mention that we are very proud of ourselves for eating at the dining room table for EVERY meal!!  Seriously - I even eat breakfast by myself at the table... (this is quite an accomplishment for us - since for atleast the past 3 years we have probably eaten 98% of all meals on the couch at the coffee table watching tv...)  Sad I know.  But it's really nice.  We pay more attention to what we're eating, have conversation with each other, and watch a LOT less bad/random tv.  We feel so grown up! haha :)

Loves!

WE SUCCESSFULLY MOVED!!!

First off - HUGE thankyou to my Daddy  & Sara whose school trip to Lagrange just so happened to coincide with our moving weekend.  Without you two - there is no way we would have EVER gotten finished moving.  THANKYOU SO SO SO SO MUCH!!!

I promise that next time y'all come visit - there will be no manual labor involved! :)

So we actually closed on Thursday on BOTH houses - thank goodness!!  Couple surprises - but everything worked out and it was done.  Slightly disappointed selling a house and then having to sleep in it for the next two days - but that's ok.  I still had plenty of work to do packing/organzing...

Friday we went to Lowe's and bought the Frig & Dishwasher we needed for the new house and lo and behold they were actually able to deliver next day and we got a rebate for free shipping!! yay!!  I know we did other very interesting things with my parents, went to Wal-mart...I'm such a hostess, and then when it was dark we plopped them in front of the tv - forbid them to help us - and finished packing the random last minute things that never make it to a box in time.

SATURDAY WAS MOVING DAY!!!  We got up at 6:30 ate yummy cheese danish and cinnamon rolls and then Daddy decided that him and Sam were going to move all the furniture (that was heavy btw) from upstairs to downstairs.  It was going to save us time, hence save us money, but there was no way I would have ever considered carrying down the armoire even if I wasn't pregnant.  But they're manly men - so I guess it was no problem.  Huge Help!!  I was able to completely clean the upstairs before anything had really gotten started.  

AND THE MOVERS WERE AWESOME!  Seriously - if you ever move in Columbus use WRIGHTCARE!!!  They literally wrapped EVERY piece of furniture in blankets and taped the blankets down.  It was so much more than I expected.  Plus - they're  crazy good at packing.  Because of all the rain the two days before the move I'm assuming their usual trucks were unavailable (people wouldn't let them off load their furniture in the monsoon...) so they brought a large UHaul and I was little upset because I was SURE it was going to take two trips.  We may be downsizing - but we still have a LOT of stuff.  They seriously fit all of our furniture and boxes in the UHaul.  It was insane! Master packers!!!  Plus - their rates are great!  Weekdays $85/hr Saturday $93.75/hr for four guys!!  It took them 5 hours and 45 minutes to move us and that included the wrapping and having to drag/carry everything up a steep hill at our new house and up 5 or so steps, unwrapping every piece of furniture, and putting it where we wanted it.  I was hoping for 5 hours - but that was before I knew they were wrapping up the furniture - so we were ecstatic and very satisfied..  HIRE THEM!!!!  Plus they were pleasant and very hardworking.  Ok - that's enough..I'll stop.

Ok - so we're moved in by 2pm I think.  Daddy helped us move the heavy stuff so I wouldn't have to later (THANKYOU!!!)  He also helped Sam remove the old dishwasher because Lowe's was on their way and that turned out to be a bigger job than we thought - we're going to have to replace the subfloor and repair the plaster wall - but that's no big deal.  We were talking at dinner - if we can walk into Forest Ave at the beginning and not be super overwhelmed then these little things that pop up are no problem whatsoever.  So there's one silver lining about Forest Ave - we are no longer scared of problems/project houses.  Small Victories (that's for you Sara!)  

Anyhow - Daddy & Sara finally left around 5 I think - after Lowe's showed up and finished delivery -  and I kinda wanted them to stay.  It was fun having them here.  Guess I'm grown up - I like my parents.  :)  

Then Sam's parents & grandparents came over to see the house for the first time - I think they liked it.  Sam's dad lived around the corner and was a crossing guard at that corner - so that's neat.  I think he gets a kick out of it.  Then, thankgoodness, they invited us to dinner - I don't think we could've mustered up any energy to provide for ourselves - we were exhausted is an understatement!!  

Sunday was huge sorting the boxes and unpacking some of them.  Again - I'm exhausted and hurt.  I didn't even lift any of the heavy ones but it wipes me out and makes me hurt.  And I know I'm allowed to take some kind of tylenol - I've made it 7.5 months without taking anything but my thyroid medicine and prenatals - so  I don't really want to ruin it now... just saying. :)

All in all - we really like the house - we have a project list a mile long - but it's so nice being able to go from the bedroom to the kitchen in eleven steps instead of down the stairs and around the corner just to go back up the stairs...  (I don't think I want to have stairs ever again...atleast not with the master on the second floor..)  Sam installed a fan in the front room, light kit on the fan in the baby's room, switched out a couple switches/outlets, and did other stuff that I can't even remember.  The house is starting to look really good and comfy.  I promise to post pictures when I am no longer embarrassed of the disaster...

OH - on a preggers note - failed my 1 hour glucose test so I had to take the 3 hour glucose test on Thursday morning..  That thing stinks!! Plus my nurse was a nazi and my arms hurt and my left is still REALLY bruised!! Not cool.  Hopefully I'll find out today or tomorrow whether I have gestational diabetes or not.  I'm hoping for not obviously.  I like ice cream and banana pudding.  Just saying.  Plus - Sam said that GD produces 9 and 10 lb babies and I'm SOO not into that...  Again - just saying.

Loves.

(Didn't mean for this to go so long - sorry...)