Hike at Pulgas Perserve

This Saturday was a beautiful day and Dan and I made it out of the house for a little hike.  We found a pretty nice open preserve near our house with little wild flowers blooming.  It was great to get out and get some exercise.  I have about 5 weeks to go in the pregnancy, so Dan and I are trying to enjoy some time together before we become 3 and never sleep.

Safari Baby Shower!

My mom and sister threw me a beautiful baby shower last weekend.  It was a safari themed shower with lots of animal prints in honor of our nursery theme.  It couldn't have been cuter!  Here are some photos.

This is a little giraffe that my mom found.  I figure little boy Gieseke is going to be a tall tower someday like his dad, so we're using giraffes in his new bedroom.

The cute cake, which tasted amazing by the way (lemon custard cream?).  My family devoured the 1/2 of a leftover cake after the shower was over because we just couldn't stop eating it.

My mom made the flower arrangements since that is now one of her areas of expertise.

My sister Natalie came up with some really good and unique dishes, including this watermelon, goat cheese, and basil creation, or was it mint?  I'm not sure, but they were certainly gone fast.

Lemonade with mangoes, my favorite!

Me and Natalie, Hostess #1

And with my mom, Hostess #2

We played guess whose baby picture.  It was really hard to tell all of the baby pics apart.

More games.  All of the prizes were safari themed.

Tiny baby clothes for our new baby boy.  So fun!

For some reason we only had a butter knife to open the difficult packages.  Natalie was making me nervous jabbing with that thing.

My mother-in-law Cheryl made me this amazing quilt for the baby.  We picked out the fabrics together and she worked on it for hours trying to get it done for the shower.  She showed up with needle holes in her fingers, and the quilt completed.  Isn't it beautiful?

The whole big group.  Thanks everybody for being there and making it so special.

And of course, if someone else is pregnant, this shot is mandatory.  Dan's sis Laura is having her little boy a month after ours.

And me with my dear friend Marissa.  Thanks for taking most of these picture Maris!

Moldy Popcorn

We found MOLD in our duplex a few weeks ago and it has been pretty hectic ever since.  Our landlord decided that he wanted to replace all of the popcorn ceilings in the place, even though we only found the mold spot in the ceiling in one bedroom.  On 3/15 we had to move out of our place so that the contractors could come in and drop the ceilings.  We are now living in a Residence Inn, which is fine, but it's hard to be away from home for so long.  I was pretty discouraged about the situation at first because I had the baby's room set up and almost ready to go, then we had to take everything down and pack it up.  That felt like a huge step backwards and it made me nervous that we wouldn't be ready for the baby in time.  However, our stay at the Inn should be ending sometime this week, so we can work on getting moved back in this weekend!  I've never been so excited about more moving!