Happy Friday!

Things that make me happy today...
1. I'm done working for the day (thanks to my 17-hour day in Cedar Rapids yesterday)!
2. It is definitely FALL and I love it!
3. October is RIGHT around the corner!
4. 'A Baby Story' shows (thanks to Mama D.!) that I will be watching most of the afternoon.
5. I realized my hubby brewed a batch of cider last night, and that means I'm going to be a Happy Mama come November!!!
6. I am 32 weeks pregnant today!

(These are my 32-week pictures!)





I hope everyone has a great weekend!
Erin

Shower Weekend Recap!

The weekend of September 15 & 16, I attended TWO baby showers in Wisconsin.

The weekend started off with me driving to Cedar Rapids, IA, from Pella, IA, to pick up my friend, Stacey B., at the Cedar Rapids airport. She was going to be my traveling mate for the weekend (no, I never did let her drive... I'm such a dork). We drove to my sister's Friday afternoon/evening and stayed with her till Sunday.

The first shower was given by my mom (Sue), sister (Lis), and Aunt Chris. It was held at mom's house. It was held Saturday, September 15, at 2 PM. We played games (baby word scramble, etc.) and had a delicious meal. YUM! I opened an amazing number of presents! It's too crazy to go into all of the gifts I received, but I cannot express how grateful and amazed I was by all of the wonderful gifts! I've included some pictures from that. My nieces, Laila & Hannah, were excellent helpers. Laila was very good not to open presents unless I let her... and of course, she's so cute I had to let her open a few. We also enjoyed a marble cake, which had a sheep on it (sheep are the baby's room theme). It was nice and chilly that day, so I was able to wear my maternity zippy sweater, which I just love!







My second shower was held Sunday, September 16, at 1 PM in Spencer, WI, at the Municipal Hall. It was hosted by my mother-in-law (Marcia) and sister-in-law (Claire), with help from Theresa & Luann (aunts-in-law) and Shannon (sister-in-law-to-be). We also played some fun games there, including Baby Items Price is Right. Out of the 50 possible points, I scored 8. Whoops! I guess I don't know what things cost just yet! We also filled out a sheet where people were allowed to predict the traits of our child... those should be fun to look back on over the years! Lots of yummy food at this shower too (mmm.... roast beef!) and a beautiful sheep cake there as well (Sorry, Adam, no cake for you!). Again, I was astonished by the number of gifts and people that were at this shower.







It was so wonderful to see so many people I had not seen in a long time... and we feel so special to know so many people wish us well with our coming child! What a blessing to have such wonderful family and friends surrounding us!

Sunday night, Stacey and I headed to Galena, IL, and spent two nights there. Woohoo, Christmas shopping! We had a blast. Tuesday morning we went back to the airport, but not before we had our picture taken at the B&B where we stayed.



All in all, it was an amazing weekend! And... after a hectic week this last week, Adam and I were able to unpack all of the gifts (well, I unpacked and showed him things periodically) and put them away. I also was able to get a good start on my thank you cards, which I'm taking a break from tonight.

This coming weekend I have a shower in Cedar Rapids, following the start of the Packer game (I have to throw in a note of praise for the Packers in here... 3-0... WOOHOO!). I'm looking forward to that and spending time with friends there. Should be fun!

Hugs!
Erin

Latest Belly Pictures

Hi, all!

Here are my latest belly shots.

The first is from last Friday (9/21), at 31 weeks. I had Adam take a picture of me in front of the gifts from the showers (hey, you shower attenders and gift senders... no worries! I am ON THE BALL with the thank you cards! I just needed a break!)



The second is from tonight... I had to show off the new shirt that my sister bought me for my birthday... and I just loved how it matched the walls in my office/quilt room.



Now... on to my post about my Shower Weekend!

Have a good evening!
Erin

Quick Update

Hi, all!

I wanted to throw a quick update out there... as it's been almost a week and some of you may be wondering how my weekend was!

Let me start by saying that it's been a LONG and BUSY week! Wow! And that being said, it started out with a long but WONDERFUL weekend!

I will add info about my showers as soon as possible (with pictures) -- hopefully by this weekend. Also, Adam is going to take another belly shot tomorrow... 31 weeks tomorrow! Wow! Time is flying by!

But... quickly I'll say that the weekend was awesome and the showers were SOOO much fun!

Kudos to...
-- Mom, Lis (sister), Aunt Chris... and everyone else who helped with and attended the shower at mom's!
-- Marcia (mother-in-law), Claire (sister-in-law), Theresa (Adam's Aunt), Luann (Adam's Aunt), Shannon (Adam's Brother's Fiance... and everyone else who helped with and attended the shower in Spencer!
-- My friend, Stacey, for flying out from Pittsburgh and putting up with this crazy pregnant woman who wanted a traveling mate but then refused to let her traveling mate drive... yah, I'm weird. Oh, well! :)

Both showers were absolutely FUN and WONDERFUL and I couldn't have asked for anything better!

Look for an update this weekend!

Hugs!
Erin

September Weather

I needed to do a quick blog this morning and give a shout out to God for the BEAUTIFUL weather He has sent this week... wonderful!

I don't know about you... but I LOVE fall. I love NFL football (Go, Packers!), cooler weather, apple cider (and all fall foods like CHILI!!!)... I simply love fall. And this week has been a true testament that fall is right around the corner. There's nothing like sleeping with the windows slightly cracked and snuggling deep in the covers for the night. :)

I'm also excited because I'm heading to Wisconsin this weekend to visit my family and to attend a few baby showers (for our baby!). My friend, Stacey, is flying in from Pittsburgh today and is going with me to Wisconsin (so that I have a traveling mate), and she'll fly back home on Tuesday. I'll post more this next week after our little trip.

And... another fun note! I am 30 weeks today (along in the pregnancy)! It's hard to believe that I only have ~10 weeks left... wow! (Maybe less, maybe more!) Adam and I found out we were pregnant almost 6 months ago... seems like yesterday. Time is flying by and we're looking forward to welcoming our little one!

Have a great weekend!
Erin

Sheep Paintings for Baby's Room

This weekend I was so excited to have the time to devote to working on decorations for the baby’s room. Our room theme is based on a fabric panel that I’ve had for a few years (thanks, Amy!), and I decided some time ago that I would make a quilt from the sheep in the panel.

After some hemming and hawing about how I would actually decorate the room knowing that the quilt would be from this panel and that virtually no decorations out there exist that would remotely match it, I decided to create my own decorations.

So… I painted three pictures this weekend based on the sheep from the panel. It was incredibly fun!!! The first picture is a picture of my setup – I put one of our paint clothes over the dining room table and set up there to work on the pictures.

This second picture is of the sheep pictures after I completed them yesterday afternoon. I’m happy with how they turned out and can’t wait to hang them up! You can see which sheep I based them from if you look at the fabric sheep blocks around them.


Adam also “created” a plaque for me, which I painted purple, and I will paint a verse from Psalm 95 onto it. He also built a wonderful little toy / book shelf which I also painted purple, and I am still trying to decide whether I will paint some stars or flowers or whatnot on the shelf to tie it into the pictures.

Hopefully I’ll have more pictures to share by the end of the week!

Happy September! (Oh, but I do LOVE this weather!)
Erin

Baby Update

It's Thursday... how fun is that? Well, fun for me, because now that the baby room is EMPTY, I will finally be able to start decorating this weekend. Woohoo!

I thought I would post a quick update on how the baby and I are doing.

For those of you who don't know, we did have an ultrasound in early July and while the baby was happy and healthy in there, the baby was also STUBBORN. We weren't able to find out what we were having then. So... our baby takes on terms of endearment (so we aren't always calling the baby "It") such as Butterball (since we're due the day after Thanksgiving), Little Turkey (again, Thanksgiving), "Your" Child (when referring to the baby when talking to Adam when baby is moving LOTS and LOTS), and most recently, Alien (this is mostly my own fault, but my GEMS class at church seemed to adopt it pretty quickly last night... whoops!). When I find some time, I will take care to upload some ultrasound pictures as well.

We had our latest Dr. appointment on Tuesday morning. Fairly routine.
For those of you wondering these facts, here's some info:

Total Weight Gain: 14 lbs (by the way, when I'm not longer "happy" about the number, I'll no longer post it, LOL)

Difference from Last Appointment: +1 lb

Baby's Heartbeat: 150's (Dr. was doing basic multiplication this week; apparently did not see the need to get too specific... he said, hmm... 150's today.)

Fundal height (belly measurement): 34 cm / 34 weeks

Now... for those of you that know, I am 28 weeks 6 days pregnant (29 weeks tomorrow), so measuring at 34 weeks is a little... well, off. I've been measuring "big" the entire time. I think it's kinda crazy, but everyone is different. Nope, the Dr. doesn't seem to be too concerned about it. However, now he's thinking he'd like to do another ultrasound around 34 weeks. Does this mean we'll find out what we're having then? Don't know... seems a little silly at that point knowing that we'll be meeting our baby in about 6 weeks at that point. So... we'll see. Really, what does this all boil down to? I think my Dr. needs a new measuring tape. Or... he needs to relearn how to measure... LOL. It's all good. :)

All right... just wanted to put up that info really quick. OH... and here's my latest belly shot from yesterday. Please note that I do NOT normally wear non-maternity shirts (which makes for a slightly silly looking picture, to me at least)... but I have this ultracool shirt for GEMS and had to wear it last night. I think it'll look like a belly shirt in a few weeks. ;)



Have a good one!

Erin

Making Room for Baby!

I am so excited to FINALLY be able to post some fun info regarding the Baby's Room!

Well, whether you know the progression of what happened or not, what was once Adam's (my husband's) office / music room has now become my office / quilt room... and what was once the quilt room is now FINALLY the baby's room!

Picture 1: How the office looked after we moved Adam's stuff into his NEW music room. I wasn't too fond of the color... at least not for the basement....

So... Picture 2: My friend, Chrissy, came down in June to help me paint what would become my office / quilt room.

Then it was time to start cleaning out the old quilt room. Now... due to various circumstances, this room had grown to look like a tornado had hit it... please note that I am NOT normally this messy!!! However... things happen, eh?

Picture 3: This is what my OLD quilt room (to become the baby's room) looked like at the end of June - bleh.

A few nights in July and the ENTIRE weekend this weekend produced the following:

Picture 4 & 5: That's right... I even got the crib put together!!!! :) The closet is also cleaned out -- it just contains baby room items that I put in there so that I could vacuum. NOW for the DECORATING!!! Guess what I'm doing NEXT weekend...???

Erin