Christmas & Baby Shower

Mom and Jessi came to stay with me for Christmas this year! It was our first Christmas with all 3 of us together in 13 years... man, that makes me feel old. We had a great time!

Both arrived safely on Christmas Eve- Mom flew in from Sarasota, Florida and Jessi drove in from Chicago (well, from Schaumburg actually). We stayed up way too late catching up, which ended up doing every night they were here (and which is also why we look so sleepy in all the pics below).

We spent Christmas morning together here at home, and then we spent the rest of the day with Chris's family in Xenia and then in Germantown. We ended the night playing Harry Potter Clue with Liz, Chris's little sister :)

The days after Christmas were spent lounging around watching pregnancy themed movies (Knocked Up, Baby Mama, and Juno) and showing Mom the coolness of Wii video games and the PS3 Rock Band video game. She was quite impressed.

We also filled our holiday weekend with a baby shower yesterday (before playing some Rock Band with Liz and watching Juno with Chris). Everyone came over here for the party. It was a BEAUTIFUL day for a baby shower- I'm talking record breaking highs (I think we hit 65 degrees or more!) We had the heat off and the windows open all day.

Mom and Jessi left today :( They both made it home safely, and I managed to catch up on some sleep!

Enjoy the pics of my wonderful holidays:

Me & Chris a few days before Christmas (I think I look perpetually tired at this point in the pregnancy...)

Jessi gave us the coolest bibs for Christmas! ("My mom is hotter than your mom" and "My dad is cooler than your dad")

Jessi and I were cracking up over the Christmas present I gave Frankie (a Santa costume!)

Mom also bought the dog an outfit for Christmas.

At the baby shower with my mom, Laura, and Chris's mom, Kathi.

The sleepy girls: My mom, me, and Jessi

Me and my sisters!

After I took this picture of us, we both got a very good laugh out of all of my chins...
A book for Lily's ever-expanding library :)The bomb-diggety of all diaper bags ;)
Everyone got a kick out of me when I noticed the kitties on the feet of these PJs and meowed. Yes, I actually meowed at the outfit :)

I love little ruffles on the butt!
Chris's mom gave us this cute frame that says "Smiles for Daddy" :)
My daughter is going to be a punk rocker!

32 week belly (and kitties)

Leia

Luke

Belly (no flash)

Belly (with flash and weird shadow)

Lily's room

This is Lily's room. We finished putting it together today. Chris painted a couple of weeks ago and moved the furniture in the other day. He did a great job with the painting and furniture :)





The paint matches the Tinkerbell wallpaper border we'll be putting up after she's born. It's green on the sides of the room to match Tink's dress, and it's blue on the ceiling, in the alcove, and on the slanted parts of the wall.

We bought her an armoire because I didn't want to put her stuff in the closet in her room- it's a cedar closet, so it smells like moth balls :( Her armoire is much prettier, AND it was the perfect place to put the beautiful gift from Jenny!



It feels good to have it all put together. Now all we need is a crib mattress, a glider/rocker and a little table to put next to the glider. Oh yes, and a baby ;)

After we finished, the kitties came in and were sniffing around. They seemed a little suspicious of the new stuff. It will be interesting to see how much they freak out when Lily gets here...

30 week belly

This is a picture of Chris and I yesterday at his dad's for Thanksgiving.



Here is Chris baking for me after we finished Lily's room. He's been baking a lot of breads lately. Not from scratch- from the box- but it's been a nice treat lately to have these yummy fresh-baked breads to munch on :) My favorite is the Fiber One Apple Cinnamon (which is actually a muffin mix he just uses for bread).


Here's my belly today.


This is a better picture from the side- you can see how big it's getting! I can feel Lily move quite a bit now. She's an active little girl :)

Maternity clothes

I've been lucky enough to fit into most of my pants (with the help of this nifty tummy sleeve: Tummy Sleeve), but I finally broke down and went shopping for maternity pants. I bought a pair of second hand maternity jeans from a Once Upon a Child (the resale shop) a couple of weeks ago- the tummy sleeve just didn't stay put over my regular jeans- but they were a little baggy. Yesterday I actually bought some new stuff that fits really well. I stuck to buying pants, since my lovely aunt and my good friend Jenn shared some of their tops with me (I didn't fit into their pants).

I had planned on going shopping by myself, but my mother-in-law Kathi happened to call right before I was leaving so I invited her :) It was so much fun! I did all the shopping at Motherhood Maternity. I'd compared prices online with Target, Kohl's and JC Penney's- all the prices were pretty much the same. I figured the sales person at Motherhood would be the most helpful in my search for clothing that would last until Lily is born. I was right. The sales woman was very helpful and even ordered a pair of jeans for me in my size at no extra charge.

I got some PJs with a robe (in blue): PJs
And some PJs with a cute matching baby onsie: More PJS
Here are the jeans I ordered: Jeans
My favorite new pants: Pants
New cords in khaki: Khaki Cords
And more new cords in dark brown (they were on sale and I love cords...): Brown Cords
Kathi bought this top for me in the purple stripe color: Shirt
I bought this dress (I promise it looked better on me than it does on the model... this is not a flattering picture of the dress at all): Dress
And I got black leggings to go under the dress: Leggings

I'm hoping everything I bought will be enough to last me for the rest of the pregnancy :) The panels on the pants all have lots of room to to stretch so Lily can keep growing!

Non-shower photos from last weekend

My sister's puppy looked so cute in his Halloween costume!

Jessi, Frankie, and Nana:



Mom, Jessi, and Frankie:



It was close enough to Halloween for me to go out in public wearing this 90's-inspired outfit in honor of NKOTB. My hair was crimped, my jeans were tight-rolled (aka pegged), and my socks were scrunched... I was a totally 90's mama.

More pictures on the way

Just needed to mention that more pictures will be coming. My camera went on the fritz, so I'm waiting for pictures from other people. (I need to include some of my mom and Nana!)

Baby Shower Fun

The shower this past weekend was so much fun! It was great to see all of my friends and family. My sister, Jessi, did an amazing job hosting the shower only a couple weeks after moving into her new place. She's a rock star ;)

Seeing all of my friends and family made me get all sappy and hormonal. Just looking around at the party, I realized what a lucky girl Lily is. She's being born into a family and extended family of people so loving and dear to me. Saturday was such a great day!

This first picture is an amazing gift made by my friend Jenny. It says Lilyana in wooden letters mounted to a metal base, and the front is covered in Tinkerbell!


Lily's first dolly (Tinkerbell, of course!) from Miss Sarah Brown :)


One of my favorites- "If you think I'm cute, you should see my mom."


Here are the girls from high school (and middle and elementary, too!)
L-R: Michelle, Lisa, Jilly, Jenny, Allison, Stephanie, and Jessica (my darling sister)



Pictures of my family and friends-

L-R: Aunt Sue, cousin Moira, cousin Debbie, Grandma Sally, cousin Kally, and Aunt Susanne (with Sarah Brown there in the background!)



L-R: Ginger, Aunt Tricia, Stephanie, and Michelle
(P.S. I have Ginger to thank for introducing me to Chris!)

Exciting news

My cousin Michael is a daddy to little Michael Joseph! Little Michael was born last night, quite a few weeks earlier than his Christmas Eve Eve due date (December 23rd). So far as I've heard, all is well. Rachel (new mom) and baby are in the hospital. According to my cousin, baby Michael couldn't wait to be born because he wanted to watch the Bears play yesterday (already a fan!)

Baby shower- so excited!

The baby shower in Chicago is this weekend. I'm so excited to see my family and friends and to have them all see how big the belly has grown!

Pictures from dancing

Texting Chris before the show.

Video of the 20 week ultrasound- I did it!

Thanks to a friend at work who converted the DVD to video files I could work with, I was able to make a little movie of clips from the ultrasound. The whole DVD is a bit long to post- consider this the "highlights" reel!


*If you can't get the video to load here on blogspot, try viewing it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBp-UsFw-_E.

Video of the 20 week ultrasound

When we went for the 20 week ultrasound, we bought the DVD of the whole thing for $10. It was well worth it :) I've been trying to take the video from the DVD and put it online.

I have not been successful... yet.

A video of the baby's ultrasound WILL be posted here, even if it takes me until she is born to figure it out.

I figured out how to take the dancing video from my camcorder and put it online all by myself, so I know I can do this!

Baby's first dance recital

Mommy, with baby in belly, participated in a "Dancing with the Stars"-style fund raiser for PFLAG's annual scholarships. The event was a success! We raised a lot of money for a wonderful cause, and all of the dancers looked amazing. Here is the video of Mommy, baby, and their dance partner Fred dancing an elegant foxtrot to Kenny G's "Songbird."


*If you can't get the video to load here on blogspot, try viewing it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbhkAL_Hlzs.

Baby's 20 week ultrasound

These pictures actually make her look like a baby and not a little bean. The first picture is a profile with her head on the right.



You can see where the ultrasound tech pointed out the girl parts here. She wouldn't guarantee it 100%, but she seemed pretty confident that the baby is a girl.



This picture is a profile with her head on the left.


Here's a foot.


Here's a 21 week belly.

Baby's second ultrasound

Here are some pictures from the 15 week ultrasound and a 15 week belly pic!

Baby's first pictures

Here are some pictures of the baby from the 10 week ultrasound.




And Mommy's 8 week belly...


And her 10 week belly.