It’s raining gifts… THANK YOU EVERYONE!

This weekend a wonderful group of friends and family celebrated with us, and were ridiculously generous. We cannot express how special it was. Per usual my best friend and company of other extremely fine ladies went all out for another Mary life event.

She proved that just because you throw a killer scandalous bachelorette doesn’t mean that you can’t also host a lovely baby shower. What can I say, the girl’s got talent. I can also say that I had the best baby shower bartender in town at my event. I don’t think she does gigs, but she will keep you hydrated amidst all of the tissue paper wonderment.

Everyone brought magical treats and gifts and made a bunch of super sweet pages for a scrapbook that I can’t wait to show baby girl when she’s older. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. Tears of happiness. I have amazing friends who I cannot thank enough for all the sweet things they do.

As far as baby gear and baby outfits (and everything amazingly precious) go, WE’re READY. Baby Moe/Squanto is going to arrive in a world that loves her so much already it makes me tear up a bit. And, I think I have more than just hormones to thank for this. I am soooooooooooo thankful for our friends and family for sharing the excitement and anticipation with us in this crazy time. The amount of positive energy directed at the person currently sitting on my bladder is pretty astounding. I can't wait to meet her!

We have a nursery! Now we're just waiting for the baby...

Though the lighting is less than ideal, here's the big reveal:

Mike and I have had a lot of fun putting together this room for our little girl. Now that she's almost here we're happy to have it finished. Lots of the pieces are from our favorite Swedish superstore, but we've done our best to rehab some old pieces and put our stamp on a few new ones to fit into our ideal gender neutral approach to a girl room. She may come out a sparkly pink princess, but we're going to let her decide on that a little later. In the meantime the room is full of our favorite things. It's the best way we can think to welcome a person to the planet.

We inherited the green room when we bought the house, but feel really lucky with it. The Red rocking chair is porch sized, for baby girl's giant momma and painted my favorite red, thanks to Mike's hard work. Another touch that makes me smile is borrowed. A very special lady's lamp will light some night time stories

We painted a lot of the furniture using two small cans of Martha Stewart low VOC. The sea glass blue and off white were picked way back in warmer months, and we're still happy with how they make us feel. I could go on for ever about all the ideas and steps to get to this room, but here are a few pictures instead.

Now that we're at 35 weeks we're looking forward to the time, a little more than 1 month from now when we can give you all updates about the person living in this room.

Nursery: the home stretch

We're almost there! Today our Expedit storage shelving went up, and all of my craft supplies went away to the attic, at least for the time being. It's looking a lot more like a real baby room now. Once the final pieces of art, shelves and a mirror are up we'll give you teh 360 degree view. But for now, we're feeling pretty darn productive. Credit must be given where credit is due. Mike reconfigured the space, and the fun red star light so that they give more floor space for baby girl, and less of a chance for scary shelf crashing down on tiny tots. We couldn't be more excited. Friends and family have been so generous, this little girl is pretty lucky already.

Belly Ponderings

We had our second childbirth class last night. It was a bit intense. Because of the freak snow and ice storms earlier this month we missed a session so we got to watch all the less awesome videos back to back in the condensed catch up class. The ones on birth complications, labor augmentation, c-sections... and the list goes on all effectively made me feel a little ill. Luckily they went for slightly less graphic animated views of things like breaking the waters and Cesarean, but it didn't make it any less weird when applied to the little person who was kicking away inside as though to say , "don't even try that stuff on me!"

We're planning to have the baby naturally. Apparently this is less common than I thought, and is the most popular question that people ask when they see a distended belly. "Have you given any thought to how you want to deliver?" Are you kidding? Of course I think about it. Like every few minutes when I again realize she has to be born somehow. It reminds me of a similarly awkward tendency for people to ask what my life plan was senior year of college. When it comes down to it if I answered 90% of those asking, most of whom are pretty much strangers, they would likely be equally satisfied by something ridiculous as by my painfully sincere and overly thoughtful response. I'm tempted to say- "we're going for a zero gravity birth in a space shuttle" or "I've heard great things about hand stands and hard core drugs to induce labor." I've come to realize that no matter how personal it is to be pregnant, it's also possibly the most public thing you can do as a woman. It's pretty hard to hide, and I wouldn't want to anyway.

In nursery news we're planning on finishing up this weekend. We had a fruitful pre-class trip to Ikea last night. Let me rephrase that to be more accurate. I am hoping to get everything finished this weekend and hope that Mike is on board for spending his days off working on some, mostly frivolous, decorations for his child's room. He's been a trooper so far.

Also on the table this weekend- I am meeting with a potential Nanny share candidate. She may be WAY out of our budget, but with the chance of a wait list at the neighborhood daycare center I want to have a backup option. Fingers crossed. We're also attending a good friend's birthday party. It seems as though all of my favorite people were born within my 9 months of booze free time. There are 3 other months in the year! But, this particular individual knows how to have a pregnant friendly party. While I cannot partake in the lovely craft beer and sparkly wine selections, The party is a pie party, so.... me and baby are going to chow down.

Happy weekend to all!

Waiting for baby week 34

We're getting close to go time for Baby, so like many other young families out there we're starting a blog to keep our friends, loved ones and anyone else who stumbles upon us in the know. How frequently we'll remember to update is any one's guess. I'm feeling ambitious at the moment, but seeing as the baby is still on the inside I cannot be overly certain of how awesome I will be 6 weeks from now.

The picture on the right is the nursery thus far. We've got a few more things to do to make it more magical, but if Baby arrives today, she's certainly got a place to sleep. Thanks to the generosity of our recent Tallahassee baby shower, she will also have some cute clothes, fun things to play with, super soft blankets, and some very handy nursery essentials. We're really excited and grateful for all the generosity that's been sent in our direction!

Today my workplace is throwing a joint shower for me and another expectant coworker after which I'm off to the doctor for my 34 week checkup. Fingers crossed, all has been well so far, and as we get to the finish line I hope our good luck and good health continue.

Here I am on Sunday(sporting my awesome new scarf from Debbie). There's no denying that baby girl is growing!