Baby Registries

For all of you who have been asking, you will be pleased to know that we finally registered! Here's a link to the
Babies"R"Us - Baby Registry. A BIG THANKS to Haley who drove me to Columbus to help me figure out what I needed to register for! I would have been absolutely lost without her! Don't get me wrong, I was still COMPLETELY overwhelmed at ALL of the crazy contraptions and the massive amounts of GEAR that this little tiny girl is going to require!
We are also registered at Target, but I couldn't find a way to post it on our Blog. If you'd like to view it click this link http://www.target.com/registry/baby/portal and just search for us by name. And if you know me well, you will not be surprised to find out that I've taken the liberty of price-shopping and registering for said "gear" where the price was the best. Shocker, I know. AND you're welcome ;) Just kidding, of course. Thank you to all of you for your support! We are so excited and promise to post pics of the progress on the nursery soon!

Lily Style

We have finally decided on a few fabrics for Lily's Nursery... John's Mom is making all of the bedding and window treatments for her and we couldn't be more excited! She is so talented and has recently invested in a new monogramming sewing machine! Of two things we are certain, this little girl will have some really cute outfits and she will never forget how to spell her name. THANK YOU, SHERRY!

The pink Swiss dot fabric is going to be the inside of the bumper pad, as well as parts of other accent pieces like pillows, and part of a throw quilt.

This precious pink and green toile is going to be the outside of the bumper pad as well as the main part of the Roman shades, to be tied with pink ribbon.

This green gingham is going to be the top part of the Roman shades as well as the changing table organizer, to be trimmed in pink ribbon.

This plaid fabric, which is coincidentally called "Pink Lily Plaid" is going to be the dust ruffle and throw pillows.

All together now...
(pardon the quality, I am not good with the camera phone)

I can't wait to get the nursery started! I'm hoping tomorrow we can get the rest of her room cleared out, lately it has been a glorified storage room since we had the floors in the living room, hallway, and master bedroom redone. Now that we are slowly getting our house put back together, I'd love to get a start on her room. With the fabrics ordered, we can now choose a wall color and start working on the wainscoting. Our goal is to be finished with EVERYTHING in our home including the nursery by Christmas! I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but not holding my breath...

Here are pics of her furniture, minus the glider & ottoman... The dresser really does match the crib and changing table, the picture makes it look a little lighter for whatever reason. Also, the changing table is not tiny, it is in proportion to the other furniture, despite the scale of the picture.

Pins & Needles

After my second acupuncture treatment in about 2 weeks, I am pleased to report that I am feeling a drastic improvement in several areas: headaches, sleeping patterns, energy, and mood. For those of you who know about my headaches, you realize how HUGE this is for me considering that I had an almost constant headache for the first 16 weeks of this pregnancy. After going through several bottles of Tylenol, a prescription from the OB that provided only a little more relief than the Tylenol did, and several trips to the Chiropractor, I was referred by the OB to a Neurologist. After waiting almost a month for the Neurology appointment, I left the Neurologist's office in tears after I learned less from him during the consult than in my tenth-grade health class. Drink 8 glasses of water a day, walk a little each afternoon, and sleep 8 hours a night? THIS is what you are being paid a six-figure salary for??? You've gotta be kidding me!

After I felt like I had tried everything under the sun, including a humidifier, a Neti-Pot (one of those genie-lamp looking pots that you pour salt water in one nostril and it comes out the other to flush allergens from your sinuses) and every remedy in between, someone recommended ACUPUNCTURE to me. Sounds crazy, huh? So I asked my OB what he thought, and he was all for it, especially after hearing me whine at each prenatal visit about all these stinkin' headaches.

Lo and behold, between acupuncture sessions #1 and #2, I've only had about half a dozen or so headaches, and not nearly as severe as before! Success? I think so! The first visit was a little, shall we say, different, but this second time I was able to relax a bit more. Despite resembling a human pin-cushion, the soothing music and the sound of the rain outside all but put me to sleep! Believe it or not it actually doesn't hurt! The needles are so tiny- about the width of a hair.

So for those of you suffering with any ailment, I highly recommend acupuncture. If you are in the Auburn area, Paula Lord is your gal! She is very knowledgeable and personable, check out her website: www.acupunctureforsouthernliving.com Tell her I sent you, maybe I'll get a discount at my next appointment or something :)

Baby Gwin is a....

GIRL! We are so excited! I thought I knew for sure that it was going to be a boy, but since day one John has insisted that it was a girl. He was right! (For once, I actually don't mind saying it... "You were right, I was wrong." Write it down, I'll never say it again.)

Here are a few pictures of her at the 16 week ultrasound...

It's definitely a GIRL! And suffice it to say she already has quite the ATTITUDE! (Insert sarcastic comment here, such as "NO! Not your child!"or "She is related to you, ya know.") During the ultrasound, Sheila (ultrasonographer extraordinare) was trying to push little girl around to get a better view when all of a sudden, in response to the provocation, baby STOMPS HER FEET, then arches her back and ELBOWS me!

Here's a shot of how our little girl is positioned... UPSIDE DOWN and her head is ON MY BLADDER. Explains the 38924 trips to the potty each day. Well, at least it seems like that many.

OK, you have to use your imagination a little here, but this is a picture of her little face.

That's all for now.... More to come later. Have a great week everybody!

We have BIG NEWS!

John and I are having a BABY! Our due date is February 17, 2010~ which seems so far away, but I'm sure it'll be here before we know it! Our first ultrasound was Tuesday, July 21st. To say it was amazing to see the first pictures of our baby is a huge understatement! When the doctor pointed out the tiny head, hands, feet, and little flicker of a heartbeat we were speechless. (Maybe for the first time in my life, ha!) John says it looks like him. ;) We will find out in six weeks what the gender is. For the record, I think BOY, but John thinks GIRL. After we find out, which will actually be the week of our 3rd anniversary, (and also the week of the first Auburn home game) the loser has to take the winner out to the restaurant of choice. I better think of somewhere good...

Summer Reading

Since there is clearly nothing exciting going on to blog about, I thought I'd share what I am reading right now. It seems lately I have an obsession with buying books- Hastings has a great clearance section out front, Target entices me with the "Bookmarked" stickers on discounted reads, and believe it or not, if you look hard enough, you can find some treasures at the Thrift Store for $1 to $3. I have accumulated several books on my nightstand, and I am in the middle of all of them. My mood determines which one I delve into on a given evening. Some nights, I start with one for awhile, then switch to another before dozing off. Here are the books piled next to my bed:

Quantum Wellness by Kathy Freston: I'm a little less than mid-way through this one. She has alot of great information to share about wellness, which I am slowly figuring out is a JOURNEY, not a DESTINATION. I love the chapter on clearing the mental chatter. I had to stop in the Conscious Eating chapter- I'm not quite ready to be persuaded into Vegetarianism.

Master Your Metabolism by Biggest Loser Trainer Jillian Michaels
Jillian is hardcore. Even though I've just begun this one, it is really helping me understand how our HORMONES affect everything, I mean EVERYTHING! Including, but not limited to, the way we gain and lose weight. I've also heard great things about her previous book, Making the Cut, (about fitness training) which I'll be sure to pick up when I finish this one.

The Proper Care & Feeding of Husbands
by Dr. Laura Schlessinger
This is another one I've started lately. It is the first Dr. Laura book I've read, but I'm loving her already! She is just so practical, and very straight-forward with her readers. I let (uh, made) John read the introductory chapter that explains how very basic men's needs are. After reading it, he handed it back to me with a smirk and says,"APPROVED!"

I saved the BEST for LAST: Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

The author of this book tells her story about a year of travelling the world following a nasty divorce, in an attempt to rediscover herself, whom she lost during her draining marriage. After much though, she decides to visit Italy to learn to appreciate fine cuisine and learn Italian, India to learn to pray and meditate, and finally Indonesia to study with a Balinese medicine man to learn to balance it all. Only weeks after planning her year of travelling (four months in each country) she realizes that each stop in her journey to self-discovery begins with the letter "I". I'm about two-thirds through this one, and I am going to be sad to finish it because it is such an entertaining read.

Better Late than Never?

I have decided that I am the world's worst blogger. One post in two months= LAME! That's it. I'm over it. *sigh* I'm finally posting pictures from our wonderful (and extremely overdue) trip to Montego Bay, Jamaica that was nearly two months ago! I have promised myself that I will never again allow as much time to pass between the small doses of R&R that I, in my own humble opinion, rightfully deserve... I guess our vacation, much like this blog post, came better late than never.


How could you NOT relax when this is the view from your balcony?

Oh, and the view at sunset. The weather was so perfect we left the balcony doors open every night. Heaven!


Stopping between breakfast and our morning beach outing for a quick pic. That pretty much sums our trip: EAT, BEACH, SLEEP, and repeat. It was tough, I guess it's a good thing we're such troopers.

O.K. one more....




PARADISE found! By the third day we were plotting for next year's trip. (That reminds me, where is our tax return?) Back to REALITY...