1 Week Old Photoshoot!

After some encouragment from my sis., I finally pulled out a strobe and my camera and shot some pics of the babe. :)



My sister was very helpful in setting up some of the shots, and even acting AS a prop in some of the pics. Thanks, dot!!



These are some that I've edited...

Poor child... won't stand a chance in avoiding my camera in the future. hahaha...

SHE's HERE! Part 1 - Going to the hospital

Monday - Memorial Day. Tim had work off, so we all had a nice long weekend. After going for some Chinese food in Chinatown with some friends, we headed home, relaxed, then ran to Target to pick up some things. On the way home, Tim made a comment, "I hope she doesn't come at 3 o'clock on the morning. I'd be exhausted and wouldn't be able to drive you to the hospital," (or something like that... he was teasing). He also expressed slight sadness that Baby Girl wasn't born yet, and how he might need to go into work the next morning.

We stayed up until about 10:30pm, then headed to bed. Tim fell fast asleep real quick. I was in-and-out until about 1:00am. I'd get hot, I'd have to pee, I'd get thirsty, I'd get hot, reposition... I'd fall asleep for an hour here, an hour there. At one point, I noticed that my contractions were pretty frequent, so I finally got up and started noting the times. I was having slight (and non-painful) contractions about every 2-3 minutes apart. I also noticed some slight leakage that felt like it was NOT coming from my pee hole. :)

From about 1-ish to 2-ish, I kept a record of the time and started gathering extra things together in case we had to go the hospital. I also got on the internet to checkup on some work HR stuff, and to read my cousin's blog about HER recent labor and delivery.

It was close to 3am, and I thought how funny it would be if I woke up Tim and it was time to go the hospital (since the comment he made earlier). But then I decided that if it were a "false alarm", he'd be EXHAUSTED the next day if he had to work. I remembered reading in lots of my books (and online forums) that it's best to "labor" at home for a bit, and THEN go to the hospital. I was feeling really tired, so I decided to get back into bed and get some sleep. (Plus, I guess if my water HAD broken, I would REALLY know by laying down for a while, and THEN getting up.)

Tuesday - We both woke up at about 6ish. Tim mosied around for a bit, getting his work laptop ready and making some phone calls. He came over to crawl into bed with me and noticed my pad of paper with my contraction times written on it. I told him that I didn't know if my water had broken or not, but was thinking that it hadn't yet. He wanted to call the doctor...I didn't. But he did anyway. He called her at about 7ish, and JUST as he was hanging up the phone, it felt like the baby KICKED my belly (with a slight "pop" sound), and I felt a river of warm fluid running through my body towards the exit. Woah! I hopped out of bed and ran to the bathroom. It took us a little while to get a hold of the doctor again, after which she told us to head to the hospital.

We hit a little morning traffic, but made it to the hospital in great time... so fast, in fact, that the nurse assigned to us wasn't there yet. So we got another nurse (whose patient hadn't arrived yet). What an INTERESTING nurse (interesting, in this case, was NOT a very good thing). :)

Wedding

Last Saturday--a day before hitting the "safe zone" (meaning 36 weeks)--our friends got married. It was nice to REALLY get out of the house and go do something. :)

It was a really good wedding... the bride was gorgeous! Here are the bride and groom "at the altar" of their Methodist church:
*Note: The organist was a Korean girl... she played well, but was off-tempo a LOT! ESPECIALLY for the bridal song at the end! Maybe I should practice my organ... I hear you can make buko-bucks playing it...

Here I am outside of the church after the ceremony:
(Look how huge my belly is!!!)


We then headed over to the reception. Here's my place setting:

Here's the bride and groom entering the room:

After lunch, the bride and groom made their way around the room. Isn't her dress beautiful?

It was quite refreshing to attend such a traditional reception. (With so many people not wanting to have a "traditional mormon reception", you end up attending some very interesting "non-traditional-mormon" AND "non-NORMAL-traditional" receptions.)

The wedding ceremony was also very nice.

My Grandpa

On the 15th day of the 5th month, at 15 minutes past the 15th hour (according to my parents), my dad's dad passed away.

(Bottom right is my grandpa).

This is one of a series of pictures I took of my grandpa doing some exercises. :)

This is an old video I found of my grandfather and I celebrating my birthday.

"I love these baby shows!"

That is what Tim has told me as he's flipped through the channels, then stopped to watch Baby Stories on TLC. :)

"Look at them...they're so cute! I love babies," he says.

What a cutie... he'll be a great dad.

Is it supposed to get worse?

The other day while eating dinner, I realized that I haven't (or atleast I don't THINK I have) had one of those situations where I'm "so hungry! so hungry!", then take a bite of something and being completely full. I've heard from other peeps that that's usually what happens...but I don't recall every having that... is that yet to come?

I space out small meals/snacks throughout the day...or if I don't, I'm still able to put down a normal-size lunch/dinner. Is this normal? AND, my ankles aren't swollen at ALL. (Maybe this is from all the good "bed rest" I've been getting... or maybe I've been eating a LOT less salt). :) Either way, aside from this huge BELLY GROWTH, I feel pretty normal...

Oh. AND my belly button doesn't hurt. I guess it was slightly tender in the middle at one point...but it's not now. Maybe it's because I'm always picking at it.

Slap-Happy Belly Dancing

So I had posted a pic earlier of this same situation... anyway...

Here I am getting our girl to dance. :) I'm really not hitting my belly very hard! It just sounds that way! (Don't worry, Tim scolded me once he realized what I was doing...hehehe).

Kinda gross looking, eh? And don't you just love the commercials playing in the background.

More Belly Dancing

This is a really short clip that I captured of some slight belly dancing (note: the "clicking" in the background is me "fishing" for Tim's character in WoW):

This is a better video... I'ved edited so just the "dancing" is in the video. (This reminds me of watching those ghost-hunter/paranormal shows on T.V....)

Baby Bjorn and Hot Sling

So here I am playing with the baby bjorn (practicing with it) and a new sling that Tim's parents sent me for my birthday. Very cute! (I'm wearing my LuLuLemon capris and a tank...trying to do a quick photoshoot...maybe I'll post those later).

Baby Shower with Ward Friends

My friend Jan threw me an awesome baby shower with ladies from church a couple nights ago. Lots of good food! Lots of good people to mingle with!

The "gift table"...

Pics of me opening gifts. :) Not posting other pics of peeps sitting on couch watching me b/c you probably wouldn't care too much to look at them anyway. :) (But I've posted them on facebook).

Got some great things! Already wrote out 20 Thank You cards that I'll send out soon...

Belly Dance

Wanna see a belly dance?

(I FINALLY got some good movement on video!)

Happy Birthday!

So for the past few days, Tim has been bugging me about what I want for my birthday. Usually I'd go for a shopping spree where I can venture from store to store and buy random stuff. But being pregnant and all, that didn't sound too much fun. Plus, Tim wanted to do something "different" for me this year.

I had no idea what he would do...ESPECIALLY since we spend most of our time TOGETHER.

Well, being the cutie that he is, he found a good way to surprise me.

This morning after waking up, he presented me with a pair of REALLY nice Yoga pants. Lululemons. I had never heard of them until this morning... I guess he went to the store and talked to the sales reps and they helped him pick out a pair for me. He said that there were a TON of other ladies at the store shopping the Lululemon line (while wearing their Lululemon items).

So today while at work, I did some research on this "Lululemon". (Pronounced "lu-lu-lemon").

It's a company based out of Canada...and a TON of yoga fanatics (and celebrities) LOVE their line of clothing and accessories.

Tim bought me a pair similar to the ones below... Black Capri's with a blue/turqoise band-top-waist. Their reversable, so on one side, the band is all blue. And on the other side, it's blue and white-and-gray striped.

They look like this on a mannequin (from a Japanese website):

And the long pants look like this on a real person (a very slim un-pregnant person).

I tried them on this morning... Ooh, are they comfortable! AND they give me a nice bum! haha! (Granted, this pregnancy thing has already given me a more booty-licious bum... but those pants sure give it an extra kick.)

:)

At work, I received a beautiful bouqet of roses:

That (above) is my cubicle. We've been in the process of transitioning our systems... so I have two phones on my desk (one is behind the roses). Notice my garbage can with foam board and a blanket on top...I put my feet up every so often.

After work, Tim took me to a nice steakhouse (that his co-workers recommended to him... they had just gone their the night before). The place was so cute!! We sat out on the deck and enjoyed a view of the green bayou.

We ordered their restaurant special, which allowed us to order a 4-course meal, including dessert. This is what we ordered...

TL: My appetizer, some sort of onion and red onion dish. Yummy! Tim ordered a bowl of French Onion soup (not pictured).

TR: Our side dishes...I ordered some German Potatoes (left), and Tim ordered some grilled Cheese Macaroni (right). Double good.

ML: Tim's entree, a 6oz Filet Mig.

MR: My entree, salmon...mmmm...SO GOOD!

BL: My dessert, Apple Strudel with vanilla ice cream. Delicious! I would go back JUST for the dessert!

BR: Tim's dessert, Raspberry souflee...VERY good!

At one point during our meal, Tim was like, "Ugh...I think I'm done. I can't eat anymore." A minute or so later he burped, and said, "Ooh, I feel better now. I can keep eating." haha!

Baby Shower with Tim's co-workers

This past weekend, our good friends (from Tim's work) threw us a nice baby shower. It was so much fun! About 12 people showed up (mostly couples... and mostly peeps that had interned with Tim a couple summers ago). Our friends Karen and Andrew went way out on this shower!

Below: Baby Food Taste Testing game... the person who guessed the most correct flavors won a prize.

Some of the food that they had for the party. The cake came later...

Our friend Stephanie won a prize for guessing (the closest to) my current pregnant waist size. It was funny to see how some of the guys guessed WAY too large! :)

After eating and playing some of the games, everyone sat around as Tim and I opened our gifts.

And here's the cake our friend Stephani got for us... Italian Cream cake.

These are the gifts we received... we laid them down outside of our door so I could take a pic.

Baby Jogger Stroller

Since receiving the free car seats, we finally pulled out a boxed-up stroller that we received for Christmas from Tim's parents. It was fun putting the wheels and canopy on. Niiice!
I guess if we wanted to, we can buy an attachment that would allow us to put the car seat in this stroller... if not, we'll just use the free one.

No baby yet, but we're already loving this stroller!

Awesome $20 Finds! And other stuff...

A few weeks ago while in "nesting mode", I was constantly on "the hunt" on craigs list for good deals. And what did I find? Some awesome deals! (Well, at least *I* think so...)



I purchased the following two items for $20 each.


Black Baby Bjorn (I washed it in cold water instead of warm, and it cracked the logo thing on the front...so I unstitched it off).


Pink Bumbo Seat with Tray.

A lady in my ward gave me two car seats, a car seat base, and a stroller for free. They're "done" with having kids, and have no more need for them. One of them might be too "old" to use... but I have to double check on that.
Yesterday (Saturday), Tim had to go into work, so I spent some time wiping them all down with some Clorox wipes, washing the covers in the washing machine, and then washing all the plastic in hot water. Nice and clean!!!

"We're picking up high levels of hormones..."

What an interesting weekend... mixed feelings of fun, happiness, annoyance, and depression. Ugh.

Tim found it funny to "scan" me with his Blackberry and make beeping noises ("beep, beep, beep, beep"), which he would end with something like, "Picking up high levels of hormones... Back a-way from the wife..."

It always made me laugh. :)

Take me out to the ball game...

One of Tim's colleagues/clients/customers(?) invited us to a baseball with him and his wife. What fun!

We ended up getting there late, and didn't have any cash on us for parking, so we had to drive around until we found an ATM, find a parking lot, and walk about 5 minutes to the ballpark.

Because it was a "business meeting", we were able to expense our dinner/treats. Boy was it expensive! I got a hot dog, a salad, and a small brownie.

Ooh! And Tim and I were put up on the BIG SCREEN during the "Kiss Me" portion of the game. Tim said it took him a little while to realize that it was US on the big screen...I told him that I noticed my "turtle neck" right away. haha...

Before the game started, three helicopters hovered over the open stadium. It was chilly outside, so they closed the top soon after...

Les Mis

We went and saw Les Miserables. Need I say more?

Oh wait...yeah. We were in the very last row of the ENTIRE theater. :) Reminds me of when we went to see Wicked.

Babysitting

Tim and I babysat my friend's kids one night. While some of the kids played upstairs, Tim and the youngest girl played the Wii (while I sat on the couch and watched). It was cute to see the girl grab Tim's hand and was ready to play. So cute!

Last dinner meal with Mom and Dad...

So before Mom and Dad continued their journey home to Utah, Mom made a DELICIOUS meal of lamb, potatoes, and asparagus. Mmmm... It smelled and TASTED delicious!