36 Weeks!

Well, I have made it to the 9th month - I'm only 4 weeks from my due date!! We have had a busy last couple of weeks getting ready for Baby Girl! This past weekend my friends put together a fun couples shower for Chris and I. We had it at our house, and they did an amazing job planning everything and putting together the food and decorations. I had a fantastic time, and it was great to get together with everyone!!  I have said it a million times, but we are so so lucky to have such amazing people in our lives, and that will be a part of our Baby Girl's life for years to come!!  Here are a few pictures from the shower.....

 The cookies were delicious and so pretty (complete with edible glitter!) and the diaper cake was so cute!

Yummy candy, and blank onesies for everyone to decorate

The food was amazing!!!

Yummy, a strawberry lemonade cake - so delicious!

Some of my DG friends .... Julie, Leah (the hostess!), and Michelle

More friends - Nicole and fellow mommy-to-be, Trish

Peeking out on the "boys party" (they were outside)

The beautiful Miss Bella, who was a huge help in handing me presents!

Michelle put together a mad lib and got word suggestions from everyone at the party ... this was the official reading of the mad lib!  So fun!

Bella loved throwing the frisbee for Lexie, and I don't know who was more tired by the end of the party!

More of my DG girls ... Stacey & Meredith

 Leah (who was a Spanish major at KU) found this pacifier and put it on the diaper cake.  Love it!!

Here are some of the onesies made by people at the party - can't wait for Baby Girl to wear these!

My cup for the evening (and for future evenings when I can finally have a glass of wine again!)

I am officially on maternity leave (yayyy!!), so now that I am off work I have lots of projects I am hoping to get done before Baby Girl gets here. I am already in crazy organization mode in the nursery and doing lots of laundry so I can finally get everything all put away and organized! I looove these kinds of projects, and it is even more fun when it involves cute little things for Baby Girl! Next up is to do some decorating elements in her nursery. I have lots of ideas (thanks Pinterest!) but am struggling with which ones to do and how to pull everything together. Hopefully it can all come together soon, because there is a chance Baby Girl might be a little early....

At my 36 week appointment, Baby Girl was measuring big for the first time so we may be doing a scan in the upcoming weeks to get a better idea on just how big she is right now. I don't like the idea of inducing her before she is ready to come out, but I also don't like the idea of pushing out a 10 pound baby so we will just see what they say at my appointment next week! Good news is the doctor said Baby Girl is head down and unlikely to flip over anymore, so that is a definite plus!  I have been having some random, sporadic contractions the last couple of weeks but nothing regular at all so who knows when this little lady will decide to make her grand appearance! I still think she will be late and Chris is thinking early so she has her parents split on this one! Most of the guesses I have gotten from friends and family seem to agree with Chris and be on the early side, but we will just have to wait and see!

Hope everyone has a great memorial day weekend!  We are heading down to the Lake of the Ozarks to spend a relaxing weekend with my dad and step-mom.  Our past trips down to the lake have contained boat rides, tubing, wake boarding, jet skiing, and lots of beer ... so needless to say the this trip will be a lot tamer!  No boat rides for me this year, since I'm afraid the choppy water could induce labor (not too mention it would probably be pretty uncomfortable for me) ... and none of those other fun water activities either! I plan on spending a lot of time on the porch overlooking the lake, and occasionally making trips to the pool up the street!  I am so looking forward to it too - sounds like just what I need!!!

-Ellie

34 Weeks

Six weeks to go!!  I think Baby Girl is getting increasingly antsy to make her appearance, and she is getting mad that she doesn't have nearly enough space in my belly to sprawl out the way she once could.  This is evidenced by her deciding she still wants to stretch out, and then I end up with some sort of body part protruding from my belly (usually it is her bum or her foot).  The other night Chris was feeling her bum as she was sticking it out the right side of my belly and noted that it felt like "a hernia". :)  I love my little "hernias", but man do they make me sore!!  Sometimes I will try to push on the body part to get her to pull it back in, but usually that just results in getting some extra kicks from Baby Girl.  She is definitely a feisty one already!

This did come in handy this past weekend, when I got together with my DG girlfriends for a going away dinner for Katie who is moving to Arizona.  The girls wanted to feel Baby Girl kick (which she almost never does on cue), but luckily I was able to poke at her a little bit and most of the girls were able to feel her moving and kicking!  She is moving and kicking a lot these days, but it seems like whenever someone else wants to feel it she stops so I was excited that my friends were able to feel her dancing around!

Also, this past weekend was my first baby shower.  This was hosted by my long-time friend, Nicole, as well as Julia and Gayle - the "little" girl I used to baby-sit for (she is 11 now!) and her mom.  They did an amazing job, and it was great to see everyone that was able to show up!  I felt very loved and lucky to have such wonderful people in my life.  And Baby Girl definitely got spoiled - lots of clothes, toys, blankets, and so much more!!  She is so so lucky to be so loved by so many people already!

Such a cute diaper cake!!

With one of the hosts - Miss Julia

Baby Girl's two great-great aunts

Two of Baby Girl's great-grandmas

Baby Girl's great-grandma and great-aunt

With one of the grandmas-to-be!

Another one of the hosts - my longtime friend, Nicole

My mom and I, aka Baby Girl's Gram

The third host of the day, Gayle - I started baby-sitting her kids when the twins were 1 and they are now about to turn 15!!

The picture below shows my reaction at opening up one of the presents from my mom.

The story behind this is as follows:  When my brother was born, she cross-stitched him a birth sampler which had his name, weight, DOB, as well as some cute little pictures on there.  It took her a couple of years, but she finished my brother's by the time he was 3.  When my sister came along 3 years later, my mom started on her birth sampler but having 2 (and then 3) kids running around it took her a bit longer - and she finished it when my sister was 6.  So being the last born, my mom obviously had her hands full when I was born.  So at one point she told me she was doubling the ages, and would have it done by the time I was 12.  Age 12 came and went, and no birth sampler.  So it kind of became a running joke about finishing my birth sampler because my teen years passed with still no birth sampler.  (To my mom's defense - she said she never hung up the other 2 because mine wasn't completed yet.)  But to my great surprise, when she had a few weeks off of work this spring she was diligently working on my birth sampler and finally got it finished!!  She took all three of them to get framed, and wrapped up mine to give to me at my shower.  I was SO shocked when I opened it up and saw what it was!!!  I let her keep it at her house so she could display the "collection" of birth samplers together (and admire her own handiwork!)  It was such a surprise and I know how much work went into it, which just made it even more special!!  Now if we could just get my brother to finish the "Royals" cross-stitch he started decades ago (he currently has it completed through "Roy"...)

Speaking of the Royals, at -6 weeks old, Baby Girl got to go to her first Royals game to celebrate her daddy's birthday!!  Chris's birthday was on Wednesday and he wanted to go to see the Royals take on the Red Sox.  It was a perfect evening for a baseball game, and even better - the Royals won!!  Happy birthday to my amazing husband!!

33 Weeks

We had an appointment yesterday so I thought I'd fill you all in on some of the details. I think we have seen from our previous ultrasounds that we are going to have a stubborn, active little lady on our hands; however, she took it to another level yesterday! The doctor was trying to get her heartbeat (which is normally really easy to find), but every time she would just about get it baby girl would move so that we couldn't hear her!! The doctor was even trying to press on my belly to sort of hold her in place, but baby girl really didn't like that! At one point the doctor told us that we were going to need to "swaddle this little girl because she is going to be a wild one!" Chris was super active as a baby in his mom's belly (and managed to wrap his cord around his neck twice!), so I am just thinking she is already taking after her daddy. :)

Our doctor also commented on how strong she is and said she was surprised I wasn't more sore from all of her activity. My belly is not really sore, but the movement definitely takes my breath away at times. She is especially active late at night, and recently she will almost kick Chris's hand right off my belly because her kicks are so strong! Sometimes it even feels like she is just doing log rolls (or somersaults) in my belly. I love getting to feel all her movements, but am thinking that 7 more weeks of this activity (that seems to be getting stronger by the day) could be a little painful as she gets even bigger!! I can't believe our due date is 7 weeks from today - we are so excited to meet our active baby girl!!!

-Ellie