Shower

This weekend, I had a baby shower at the Jacksons' house. It was so much fun, and it was wonderful to see all of the sweet ladies from my hometown of Covington, Georgia again. I have missed them since I've been living in the midwest, so I had a great time catching up with everybody.

The beautiful table, all decorated in the famous style of Sandy Jackson...














Carrie and Linda Parker, some dear friends from childhood.














Rachel Choe with Isabel, who was our tiny little belle of the ball!



















Mrs. Sally Nichols, who as been a close family friend since my earliest memory.



















Mom and Meghan in the kitchen














SO many presents for our little baby girl!!














Sandy Jackson and Kathy Greco














Tiffany Howard with her adorable little Tallis, Me, Natalie Whitworth, and Meghan














Connie Musselman and Carrie Parker with Carrie's sweet little boy.














I loved these little cakes with the pink baby booties on them














Madeline made the baby this soft little pink pillow, and I love it!!














Opening gifts



















A picture with the hostesses - Sandy, Lisa, and Meghan

New Furniture

I have never had a china cabinet, and I always wanted one. We actually use our china and crystal quite a bit, but it has never been very convenient to use it because we didn't have good storage for it. In fact, when we moved into our house, I had to keep our crystal down in the basement because I was afraid that Max would destroy it if I left it out.

But not anymore!

Until now, I had to keep the china sitting out on a bookshelf. When I found out we were going to have a little person pulling up and running around before long, I decided that it was time to invest in something more stable. SO.....I turned to craigslist.

The biggest problem was that I can't pick up any furniture, and I didn't want to have to pay for professional movers. The first china cabinet that I was going to buy never arrived. I had reached a deal with the girl who was supposed to have it delivered, but they never showed up! (Very annoying, but not too surprising.) It turned out to be a good thing, though, because my next deal was MUCH better. I got a china cabinet AND a buffet!!! Take a look!!!

Purple Nursery!!

We've got the nursery painting almost done! The walls look great, and I'm so glad that we decided to paint inside the closet. There are some stains on the walls in the closet, so we're going to have to seal that before we can finish painting it.

Here is our crib bedding quilt.














And look how good the closet is shaping up!



















We've picked out a pretty light switch cover for this room, too.



















Window to the backyard.

Nursery

This afternoon, I got started working on the nursery for our little baby girl! It needs a LOT of work before it will be ready. Today, I had to spackle up holes in the walls, as well as sealing the corners of the closet walls. The closet is HORRIBLE, so I scraped down the closet walls and re-plastered over them.

Fortunately, I had Max to oversee the process!



















The closet walls need some work.














Here's how they looked after I plastered them over again...














We're going to paint the walls purple, so we're trying out different shades.

Some Fall Color

We've decorated our front porch for the fall, and the trees are turning now that it's cold outside. Here are some pictures...

Baby Belly 18 weeks

I had James take some more pictures tonight of my belly at 18 weeks. It's definitely getting bigger, but I'm still not putting on much weight. I'm supposed to be putting on a pound each week, but in the past month, I've only put on about a pound. I'm eating healthy food and staying active, so I may be losing fat as I put on the baby weight.

Girl!!!

I had my 18-week sonogram on Monday, and we found out that we're having a little girl! We still haven't picked a name, but we're not rushing it. We'll figure it out by March =) The sonogram showed that everything seems normal and healthy so far, but I need to go back in 3 weeks so that they can take another look at the heart. They wanted to wait until it was bigger to take a good look at it. Apparently they can't do that until I'm 20 weeks along. So far, so good!

File it under "F" for "future"

Based on the messes that I remember making in my childhood, I think that this might be useful information in the near future =)

Kim and Brendan's Wedding

This past weekend, I was a bridesmaid in Kim and Brendan's wedding in Huntington Beach, California. The wedding was at the Huntington Beach Hyatt on the beach, and it was so pretty!

This was the view from the balcony of my hotel - beach is on the right.














my hotel room














The view across the street - we were right at the beach!














the bride and groom at the rehearsal dinner














the lovely bride with her orchid bouquet!



















I'm crazy about the fish water fountain.














another view of the fish water fountain - the beach is straight ahead














This is a shot looking down at the beach and the courtyard where the ceremony was held - that's why all the chairs are there.

Hopey's Wedding

A few weeks ago, I was invited to attend a wedding of a good law school friend named Hopey Gardner. She married a doctor named Vishal, who is Hindu, raised in India. He's such a great guy, and I was so honored to attend their wedding. It was held at the Hindu Temple in St. Louis, and it was such an interesting new experience. Here are some pictures...

The ceremony included fruit and flowers offered to the various Hindu deities in order to appease their potential wrath and ask for their blessings on the marriage.














Hopey's mother and her mother's boyfriend sat in chairs on the side so that they could do their parts of the ceremony. Hopey is sitting on the floor in her GORGEOUS sari beside Vishal and the priest, who is on the right.














This part involved a coconut and all members of the wedding party.














Here were all of the things used in the ceremony - fruit, flowers, fire, and much more.














Here are the bride and groom, wearing their lovely flower garlands and married at last!

16 Weeks

I had another doctor's appointment today. I finally got smart and asked them to tell me when their FIRST appointment of the day would be, and I scheduled as close to that as possible. The result = no more sitting in the waiting room for more than an hour before they see me! Today, the nurses put me in a room so fast that I didn't have time to sit down in the waiting room. Nice.

They listened to our baby's heartbeat with the doppler scanner, and it was amazing to actually hear it! That little heart beats so fast - I knew it would be much faster than mine, but it's still surprising to hear. The doctor said that she thought it was around 140 bpm, and she seemed pleased. It took her some time to find it because the baby is hanging out a bit high in my tummy. Then they did a quick sonogram with the green monster. (The green monster is a portable sonogram machine of not-so-good quality...I think it might be older than I am. They only use it for quick sonogram check-ups, when they mostly just want to measure the baby or see the heartbeat.)

The baby was so much bigger than last time - no surprise! It was neat to see the little bottom and the curled legs. Our doctor tried to see if she could figure out the gender, but the picture wasn't good enough for her to tell. (And it's still a little early for that anyway.) We have our "official" 18-week sonogram appointment on Monday, October 5, so only 2 more weeks to wait. Of course, for that appointment, they'll use a really modern machine that gives a good quality picture. Hopefully that time, they'll be able to see whether it's a boy or a girl, and then we can start decorating and getting baby clothes!

Meanwhile I've been researching and picking out gender-neutral stuff like car seats, strollers, and furniture to put on my registries. It's so much fun, and it's surprising how much gear you need to acquire for just one little person. We're trying very hard not to fall prey to the "baby industrial complex," which tells you that you simply MUST have every little thing that's invented for babies. But it's fun to go and look at the cute little stuff that's out there.

Well, I'm exhausted, and so off to bed. It's really raining hard outside, and I'm glad for the sake of my plants...they need it.

Big Belly 14 Weeks

As James told my niece Anna Kate on the phone this morning, I have a BIG BELLY. It's pretty amazing that at 14 weeks, I'm sticking out this far. My doctor says that I'm pretty short, so there's really nowhere for the baby to go except out! Take a look...

Oh, Baby!

I'm sure most of the readers of this blog already know this, but we're having a baby!! YAY!!! I've been extremely sick, but it's been fun to see all of our baby pictures from sonograms that the doctors have done. Right now, we're calling the baby "Peanut," but we'll find out whether it's a boy or a girl on October 5! We're due some time between March 6-9. Here are our pictures so far...

This one is 6 weeks, 2 days. Usually you don't see the doctor until you're at least 8 weeks, but I was so violently sick that they told me to come to the hospital.















This was 8 weeks, 2 days. It's so cool to see the little head and the left eye! We could also see the heartbeat on the screen.














This was at 12 weeks, 2 days. It's a little unclear, but you can see the head, face up, at the bottom, with the little body coming up to the left. That teeny little bump at the top of the baby is it's feet.














This was also at 12 weeks, 2 days, and you can see the baby sucking its thumb here. That little white circle in the middle of the screen is a fist.















The same ultrasound - but you can really see the fist here. The doctor told the baby to move around so that we could get a better profile picture, and when she poked it, the baby shook its fist at her! It was SO funny.