Pool Noodles and Zebras

The pregnancy is chugging along. I use the word chugging both because it's progressing at a pretty steady pace without much excitement and I'm starting to feel like I'm the size of a locomotive :)

We've been trying to be social and enjoy our time together very purposefully, as that will soon be whisked away by sleepless nights and me being incredibly irritable :) We've been to our local pub for the best hot wings in town a couple of times, gone to see a movie (a two or three times/year occurrence) and even had an impromptu datenight yesterday with a giftcard (confession: it was b/c we spent so long sorting and looking through baby gifts that we relized it was 8 p.m. and we hadn't eaten or started to prepare to eat a thing). That's actually been enjoyable. I'm such a productive, git 'er done kind of person I spend most weeknights and weekends completing my list of to-dos instead of hanging out with people and relaxing.

It helps that we're pretty much prepared for baby (as much as one can be, ignoring the fact that I have to mentally prepare myself for pushing a watermelon out of a certain area). We need a light switch plate, to install one more car seat base....I think that's it. We've got the stuff, we've been overly-educating ourself to feel more prepared, my house is 90% clean and reorganized, etc. So - more time to just hang out!

So have I told y'all our newfound use for pool noodles? First I thought this was a universally known fact that I just was never aware of before. Now I hear that some people actually don't use them (or anything else) to make sure their car seat is level, which surprises me. Anyway, we had a cop friend who is muchos knowledgable -- also has two kids under the age of 4 -- demonstrate and install one of our car seat bases (shout out to Krista and Jesse who let us have their old infant car seat!). Eric actually climbed INSIDE our car, whole body balanced on top of the car seat base to get it as tightly installed as humanly possible. Which worked quite well!

I meant to share with you a funny comment that I imagine some of you may not find so hilarious. As one expects in pregnancy, my tummy is covered in stretch marks, which happens, and it doesn't bother me. But Tim did say the other night, "oh, you look like a zebra," in a sort of "I'm sorry for you" kind of way. It's true - both because I became much more lax in my daily water consumption (40-50 ounces along with a few other drinks like coffee and ginger ale instead of my previous 70 - 80 ounces) and because I am ALL belly and I can't help it if my poor skin is wearing thin! Even my midwife commented (also in that sad for you kind of voice) that my stretch marks seem to be getting stretch marks inside of them! Such is life, I'll just have to stop wearing bikinis so often throughout the summer :)

In mentioning all of our baby stuff above, and the fact that you might be able to tell from the tone of this post that I'm slightly more relaxed than usual - we had not one but TWO baby showers this week!

Ugliest shirt ever, I know.

One was planned, and thanks to Megan Fisher who did an AWESOME job with a nice, social party with some of my favorite food :) She got me a cookie cake, because she knows (okay, I told her point-blank) that I love cookies more than cake, she had delish deli sandwiches and cheese and delightful frosted animal crackers. Though only a small group of friends were able to make it, we were very grateful and enjoyed the time together. One friend shared a story about the first time he met Tim - our neighbors, who have a 5-month old little boy themselves, were looking at buying the home next door to us (duplex) just about a year ago. While they walked through with the realtor, they looked out the small back balcony that's on the home and saw Tim down below, with our laptop blasting out March Madness live, standing by the grill and making a large amount of ribs and other types of meat. Kent's first thought was "oh, we're going to like living next to them..." which is certainly mutual! We also won $2 with a lottery ticket prize, always a fun deal.

Then, at work yesterday, for one of the first times in my life people actually managed to surprise me with a party! Tim is sometimes successful at surprising me, but most people who know me know that I generally hate surprises and that I figure out whats going on usually before the surprise actually comes about. I was completely clueless on this one though, even though one of my direct supervisors accidentally included me on the original "shhhh - don't tell Holly" invitation :) My coworkers went all-out with a whole car-full of baby gifts, which I appreciated SO MUCH - it's almost everything left on our registry, with a few gift cards to use later and as we realize we need something else or to just restock something like diapers or wipes. They also had an awesome cake, which I'll hopefully post pics of soon - it was super cute and perfectly matched our nursery!

Speaking of all the things we've received, like our wedding showers, we've noticed people tend to give certain kinds of gifts more than others. I think we now have....7 boxes of baby wipes. which I'm sure we'll use, it's just funny how many people think of that :) We also have 5 different crocheted or knitted blankets, all of them beautiful (some from family, like Aunt Marilyn, Grandma Norton and Grandma White, and others just thoughtfully made by very talented people like Deb Koopman). It amazes me at the intricacy involved in such projects and how soft and wonderful the blankets are!

There's our most recent update - I may add some photos to this soon, so feel free to check back!