A little nesting

After getting more tired out than I expected just doing some normal stuff around the house or shopping, I realized that it's all downhill from here. It's gonna get way worse before it gets better; I remember that all too well. So it was a relief to get a few things accomplished last week, nesting-wise.

 

I moved my writing desk from the guest room to the boys room. Zach was beyond thrilled (we are so alike it's scary), and he immediately started "doing math." He wrote down 112123, which he explained meant one plus one is two and one plus two is three. He is so proud he knows that :) He's also been practicing writing letters every chance he gets, though his latest notes to us all say the word "puppy" and seem to indicate that he thinks one is in our future. He also made a pencil holder at school specifically for his new desk.

I had to take the gate down in order to get the desk in, and it has stayed down. After the first couple of nights with lots of up and down to "go to the bathroom" (mess in the bathroom), we're doing ok. It's just a little strange because we are so used to seeing it there.

We decided to buy Angry Birds for my laptop but found that there are enough free demos to probably keep Zach busy for awhile. This one is called Angry Birds Rio. Gabe doesn't yet have a sense of using the mouse, but he loves to watch.

Probably the biggest thing that happened last week was us getting a new table. We'd ordered only a few days before and were told it would take three weeks to come in, so it was a nice surprise. The first couple of pictures show it with the leaf in (and room for a couple more chairs), and the last one is how we are using it without the leaf (and it still seems huge).

For some reason Zach decided that he needed to do a sewing project. Actually, now that I think about it, it was my idea; he made a monkey out of two sheets of paper taped together and I suggested that "sometime" we could make the same thing out of fabric and stuffing. "Sometime" then turned into immediately, but I convinced him to start with a pillow. It turned out quite well. He's still asking me every day about the stuffed monkey project...

Yay for strawberries. I just had to take a picture because these are the biggest ones I've seen; there were only about 10 in the whole container.

Also, we have two of these Zachary mugs...if anyone sees a "Gabriel/Gabe" one could you get it for us?

My shopping companion in his cool shades. It's almost time to move him out of that car seat and into a booster.

Saturday was a good day for getting things done. We dropped off many bags of stuff at the goodwill, we bought a new recycle bin to replace the one that was here when we moved in and is falling apart, we priced mattresses for a guest bed. The boys were cracking me up when helping Daddy with the bin and trying out Angry Birds on the iPads at Sam's.

The boys watching Rise of the Guardians in their camp chairs from Sam's. We are all ready for the family reunion :)

All the excitement

The past two weekends have been all about hanging out with friends. And the boys have been so excited about it.

Can't believe Gabe is 3 and 1/2 already.

Our one tree, and it only looks like this for about two days each spring.

The fun started early at Jen and Andy's. I think I was still in bed at this point.



The reason for our visit. Par-tay!

Possibly the only photo of me and Jen? Well, we were busy.

Did I mention that this was also a dance party? And that Jen and Andy have a dance floor covering half their basement and mirrored walls. Zach was in heaven. Awesome dance move photos by Jen.

Gabe loves this little motorcycle.

Gabe photo-bombing my 21-week belly photo.

Colored by Zach (who else?) He would like me to copy it and send it to relatives, so if you would like a limited-edition print let me know :)

Our warm weather go-to activity of late. It requires no movement on my part.

The boys were so excited to see Abby...and take her out to McDonald's.

Frank, thank you for snapping random pictures of the kind of boring stuff we were actually doing. I love it. We did a little shopping but mainly hung out and talked.

This is a photo from 2007. I taught Abby how to quilt.

And she gifted me with an art quilt that she started shortly after that in 2007 and completed over the weekend.

22 weeks. Frank felt her kick once but the boys haven't yet.

Crunched up in the computer

Over the past few weeks I was beginning to feel "caught up." Crazy, I know. Cleaning tasks were getting done, meals were planned in advance, I was spending free time doing actual creative stuff (making a new blog header was/is on my list...). And then we had the ultrasound and the craziness of telling everyone OMG it's a girl! And packing for our trip to Ohio, and spending the weekend with friends. And Frank staying home from work yesterday because he developed a bad cold. And "wow, where did spring go?" the boys have no summer clothes that fit! And just chaos for the past week and "caught up" went out the window, at least for now.

During the ultrasound, baby did not want to cooperate. She was curled up into a tight little ball. After taking about 60 pictures, measuring lots of things, and listening to the heartbeat this was the last picture the tech took. It is hard to tell, but this is actually baby's butt (two brightest areas are the bones) and on the right side are a series of small lines, which seem to indicate girl. Well, that, and the fact that she said she didn't see one glimpse of male anatomy.

 

This is probably one of the best pictures we got, taken early in the ultrasound when the tech was measuring stuff. And we think she wasn't looking and missed the fact that you can see the same little lines (between the legs on the right side of photo).

These two show just how much she was curled up in there. Head and feet, and then head, hands, and a foot. I told Abby later that day how "the baby was all crunched up in there," and since then Gabe's been telling everyone how "the baby was crunched up in the c'uter" (computer). What a goofball.

She is measuring right on schedule and weighed 15 ounces as of the ultrasound. We haven't started considering names yet, though Zach has suggested Lovely, Sweet, and Sunshine. I'm feeling pretty good in general, just have to take it easy or else get winded going up and down steps and also having more indigestion than before. Par for the course. Hope to post more photos soon, and we are looking forward to Abby coming to visit for the weekend.

Evenings...

...are for hanging out (and rest time for me). They are for practicing writing and drawing. For reading library books. For wrestling (gently). For playing a new Angry Birds Star Wars Jenga game. For brushing teeth with musical toothbrushes. For making homemade pizzas, and finally being able to let some spring air into the house.