Its Really Real....

WOW!  There is a nursery set up in my house!

When Mom and Dad came to North Carolina last weekend, we were extremely busy!  We went to IKEA on Friday to pick up “a few things”.  We left four hours and two cars full of stuff later!  Mom and Dad offered to buy our crib and changing table for us, so that was very exciting!  They also bought us our changing table pad and cover, crib mattress, and our throw rug.   Shawn and I bought a shelf for over the changing table, sheets, and a light for the ceiling.

We came home on Friday evening and started to put everything together.  Well, in all honesty, the boys started to put everything together while the girls made dinner and watched.  They started with the crib and the light.  The boys thought it would be an easy task, but with the fading daylight, hanging the light was a bit more difficult than we thought.  But, we managed to finish both on Friday night.  We decided to wait until Saturday to finish the rest of it.

After our ultrasound on Saturday, Mom, Dad and I went shopping while Shawn came home to finish putting together the nursery.  By the time we came home, Shawn had the changing table and the shelf put together.  Since Shawn and I don’t do well together when we try to hang things up, Mom decided to help Shawn hang the shelf.  When they called me upstairs, everything was put together!   We spent the next few minutes putting up some details, like the crib mattress, the changing pad cover, and some decorative pieces.

We still need to get our glider, but after that we’ll be finished with the furniture in the baby’s room!  It is so hard to believe that we have a nursery set up in our house.  For our baby.  WOW.

Family Affair

We've had a busy weekend!  Mom and Dad came down on Thursday night to spend the weekend with us.  We worked hard on Friday (shopping can take a lot out of you!) and played hard on Saturday.  (I'll update about our shopping trip later this week...wait until you see all of the baby stuff we have in our house now!)

On Saturday morning, Abi, Mom, Dad and I headed down to Watch Me Grow Ultrasound to meet Shawn and Debbie.  It was our second 3D ultrasound!  We were so excited to see how much our Little Man had grown since our last visit about nine weeks ago.

Shawn and I got to head into the ultrasound room first, so we could set up and get a sneak peek at our Little One.  We also got to hear the heartbeat before everyone came into the room.  After a few minutes, everyone else joined us.  They sat around the giant TV screen and were able to experience everything we saw! 

I wasn't surprised to see that our Little Man was stubborn yet again!  He would not move his hand away from his face throughout the ultrasound!  Luckily, our tech was able to get creative, and we did get a few shots of him without the blockage of his little hand.  We were all able to see and hear his heartbeat, and see him kicking his feet, turning his head, waving his hands, grabbing his feet, opening his eyes, spreading his toes, and even trying to stick his foot into his mouth!  (YUCK!)

He's definately grown since our last visit.  It seems like he's running out of room in there, and I can only imagine how cramped he'll be in the coming weeks!  Poor little guy!

Here's what everyone had to say about our 3D ultrasound:

Mom:  It was such a great experience and I can’t wait to meet him!

Dad:  Its so much more than seeing four pictures.  It was awesome.  I was really impressed with the open eyes.

Abi:  That was cool.  I liked it when he did the I love you sign.  And I liked his heartbeat, too.  And I like my new “Big Sister” bracelet.

Shawn:  It showed how stubborn how Aubrey is, and she’s worn off on our baby!  I do like how every time Aubrey crosses her legs, the baby does the same thing.

At the end of our session, Mom and Dad bought a teddy bear for our Little Man.  When you push his belly, you can hear a recording of his heartbeat!  We also received a DVD recording of our visit, and a CD of pictures!  Here are a few of our favorites:

My favorite:  Spreading his toes!

Shawn's favorite:  Trying to eat his foot

Abi's favorite:  The Peace Sign

Mom's favorite:  He's signing "I Love You"

Dad's favorite:  Little Man's eye is open



Painting the Room

As promised, Shawn has created a blog post!  I asked him to write about his experience getting Baby Q's room together.  Here is his post:

We picked “Something Blue” but the day we went to buy the paint we changed it to “Soar”.  We thought Something Blue would be too dark.  We started cleaning out the room by finishing up whatever was left on our first Disney trip scrapbook (it took her two-and-a-half years to do!)  We sold the table and packed up and moved everything else out of the room.  For some reason, Aubrey wants to leave the dresses in the closet, even though the baby will NEVER wear them!  We never thought we would start painting as early as we did, but Aubrey’s parents are coming into town and I wanted to get it done before they got here.

We started prepping the room for paint.  Abi was with us also, and she wanted to paint too.  So I gave her a few chores, like vacuuming the room and dusting the baseboards.  Aubrey thought she was going to get out of doing any of the hard work, but I made her mask up the bottom trim and doors.  It took us about an hour-and-a-half to finish prepping the room. 

Aubrey was nice enough to take Abi to school so I could start painting the room before I went to work on Tuesday.  I started outlining the ceiling and close to the trim.  I started to notice that the wall was soaking in the paint.  I finished up the corners, around the doors, the light sockets, and the window sill, and grabbed the big brush to finish the rest of the room.  When I put the big brush in the paint and started painting, I wasn’t getting much coverage because of the wall soaking up the paint.  So, I had to switch up to the trim roller (the smallest roller I have!) and paint the room that way.  It ended up taking twice as long.  I used up about half of the bucket of paint for the first coat.  Even though the wall was soaking up the paint, I still could tell there were places I didn’t get.  I thought it was kind of neat, because it looked kind of like clouds, but I knew if I left it that way Aubrey would be mad. (And she had already started texting me to send a picture when I was done!)  I started working on my second coat, which was going a little faster.  I got about 75% of the room done before I realized I was running out of paint.  I had to start spreading my paint out and trying to cover up as much as I could with the little amount I had left.  I had to scrape the bucket to get as much as I could.  Some way, somehow I finished painting the room.  There is no paint left, but there’s also no paint on the floor! 

I was weary that the room was not going to turn out as well as it did because of the fact that I had to scrape and paint the layer thin.  I sent Aubrey a picture on her phone and told her I was finished.  I could tell her excitement! 

I am really excited about the room being done.  This is the start of something new and exciting.  I can’t wait to start getting everything in there.  It feels like its not happening fast enough; I wanted everything done the same day I was painting!  I find myself walking into that room every day, hoping something has changed, even though I know it hasn’t. 

Half-Baked!

We have reached a huge milestone:  we're (more than) halfway there!  Baby Q was "half baked" two weeks ago! 

I had a doctor's appointment on Monday, and everything looks good.  I've finally gained a little weight (did you ever think you'd hear me say "finally gained weight"?  I mean....I've always been trying to lose!) and our measurements are right on track.  I was able to hear the baby's heartbeat again, which the doctor has now measured at 130 beats per minute.

Now that we've reached our halfway point, Shawn and I have started to think about everything that needs to be done in the next 20 weeks.  Hopefully everything will be done sooner than that, just in case, but you know...

~We've started cleaning out the baby's room.  Up until this point, its been a catch-all room, storing some of my scrapbooking stuff, some holiday decorations, some clothes, our books, and other odds and ends we haven't put away yet.  I was able to pack a box to send to Goodwill, and I've cleaned and organized all of my scrapbooking stuff.  We're just going to pack up the rest of our books for now, and I have to bring my wedding gown to the dry cleaners soon.  Once we get our old table out of that room, and the decorations in the attic, we'll be ready to roll.

~We've decided to paint the room!  We're going to paint it "Soar" from Sherwin-Williams.  Its a very light blue, and it will compliment the colors of the nursery decor we've chosen.

~We registered at Babies R Us...what an overwhelming place!  We had a lot of fun playing with the registry gun, but I almost had a panic attack thinking about everything we may (or may not) need!  Some of the stuff they have is just outrageous!


Shawn wants to have the room painted within the nex two weeks, so its ready when Mom and Dad come down for their visit.  They'll be here to see our next 3-D ultrasound and then we're all going to head out to buy the nursery furniture.  Its scary yet exciting to think that we'll have a painted room with baby furniture in our house in less than a month!

Shawn has also promised me that he'll write an entry on the blog about putting the room together.  Help me hold him to that!  I'm also hopeful that Abi will be willing to write about her role in helping to plan the baby shower, as she's very excited to be a part of that.

We've been a little slack about taking pictures lately, so here's one we took last night.  Notice Riley...she loves giving Baby Q some kisses!

Please don't mind the quality of the picture....we only had our cell phone camera at the time!