Shower at Work

My coworkers threw Dan and me a shower, along with another pregnant couple at work that are due a month after us.  It was so nice and I was amazed by people's generosity.  We got so many cute baby clothes and lots of nursery essentials.  The Baby Room is 90% ready at this point, but I want it to be perfect before I take pictures, because it will probably never be that pristine again with the baby living in it.  I'm taking Fridays off from work now to give me extra time to relax, so this Friday the project is to totally finish the nursery and get the hosiptal bag pack, finally.  In other exciting new, I'll be "full term" (37 weeks) on Friday! 

3 pregnant ladies.  Here I'm 35 weeks, Jenny is about 30 weeks, and Elham is about 13 weeks. 

Yummy lemon meringue

 Great turn out!

Attempting some baby Pictionary.  This got rather interesting with works like zygot and circumcision as the clues.  I guess they wanted to challenge us.

Dan opening some baby towels and me trying to get a bunch of lint off my shirt.

Some great gifts.  If this new Gieseke is anything like his dad at that age, we'll be needing that monkey backpack harness before long so I don't loose the little guy in the store.

 Dan looks pretty suspicious of this Boppy pillow.

 Thanks everyone for the great gifts! Also funny but not pictured is that a significant percentage of the guests could not find wrapping paper in time and ended up wrapping the gifts in old mechanical plans and plotter paper.  Nice touch.

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! 

Throwing a Baby Shower

A few weeks ago I got to throw a baby shower for a girlfriend from Bible Study who is 1 week ahead of me in her pregnancy.  Elaine and Wes are also in our childbirth class, so it's really fun going through all of this with them!

 

Here Elaine is about 29 weeks and I'm 28 weeks

 

I won the guess-the-mom's-belly-size game, but I had an advantage having a belly myself

 

Me with Wendy and Sarah, other hostesses

People are noticing

I've been growing like crazy the past few weeks!  This weekend, for the first time, someone who didn't know me asked if I was expecting.  I guess people can finally tell that I'm pregnant now, which is good because I feel like I've been showing for months.

We're now working on our nursery and Dan did a great job of assembling the crib.  Our "office area" had to move out of the baby's room and into the living room, so we're adjusting to a new floor plan, but there seems to be enough space for everything.

26 weeks

27 weeks

Crib and 24 weeks

We finally choose and ordered our crib last night!  I'm really excited for it to get here and see if we can assemble it.  It's amazing how much reading, shopping, and debating you have to do to purchase such a standard item. 

And here's my 24 week picture.  I'm still incorporating a few pre-pregnancy items into my wardrobe, but I think this top is stretched to its limit.  I guess its going to the garage with everything else that doesn't fit right now.