Baby Shower

We had our first baby shower about 2 weeks ago. It was so great to see all the people that showed up, excited for our baby's arrival. Generally, I hate opening gifts as people watch, but I didn't mind this time. A baby shower is just so different than a birthday. A celebration of things to be.

We received a lot of great things. A bathtub, Diaper Genie (Jer is super excited about this one), clothes of all different sizes, diapers, a stroller, a couple stuffed animals and much more. Jer and I are so excited to use it all once our baby girl is here in January!

Sadly though, we had to leave it all at my Aunt's place. We just didn't have room for it in our apartment. And since the whole bed bug scare, we haven't wanted to bring anything new into our apartment just in case. I know I'm going to re-live the excitement once we start getting the baby room together and see everything that's tucked away for the time being.

Christmas is Coming

When I think about Christmas, I think about how much I enjoy making Christmas dinner, wrapping presents and spending time with my family. We always pull out a game or two as we wait for dinner to be cooked and again, to wrap up the day. Over the years we've found that some games are worth buying and some, not so much.

Here are 3 of our favorite games:
1) The Game of Things
Play Time: 20-60 minutes
Players: 7 or less
Each round, one person reads out a phrase. Like "things you shouldn't do at the circus". Then, everyone writes down their answer and the person who read the phrase, reads them all out and people try to guess who said what. We always end up laughing hysterically.
2) Pit
Play Time: As many or as little rounds as you want. Each round takes from 10-15 minutes.
Players: 4-8
Your goal is to get all the same cards in your hand (like the game spoons). To do so, you need to trade the cards you don't want by having them face down on the table and yelling out the amount of cards you need to trade with someone. This gets very loud, and crazy...which is why my family likes it.
3) Settlers of Catan
Play time: 45 - 90 minutes. Depends on how many players you have (up to 6 with expansion).
Players: 3-6
Earn a specific amount of points before the other players. The way you earn points is by building settlements, cities and roads and trading or selling commodity cards.

10 More Weeks

Yes! I just entered into my 31st week of pregnancy. Strange how time has flown by. To date, the experience has been great! With the exception of one day of round ligament pain and the occasional back/leg cramp. I have been lucky so far. I have heard many pregnancy horror stories over the past couple months...and my experience has been nowhere near what I've heard described.

Funny how people only tell you the bad things after the fact. The same thing happened when I had to have my wisdom teeth removed years ago.

There's nothing as amazing as feeling the movement of your baby within your womb. I'm in awe on a daily basis at how God has designed our bodies to carry such precious cargo.

During the past 2 weeks, the feeling of movement has changed from light jabs to rough jabs and controlled movement. I can usually tell now, whether she's just moved her feet and hands, a joint like an elbow or knee or her head. I can feel that she is getting bigger and running out of room.

Here are a few things that are sure to make her move:
Movie Theater Opening Credits
It never fails. I love movies, and every time I'm sitting in a theater and the opening credits roll down the screen accompanied by base that can be felt right through the floor, she adjusts herself. Maybe she's trying to watch through my belly button.

A Bus Ride
Maybe it's the vibration of the bus that gets her going. When she moves at these times, I just can't help but unzip my coat and feel for her movements. Perhaps she's excited to travel just like her mom.

Slouching
She's got limited space...so when I slouch, she moves. It's like she's training me to have better posture.

Mondays
Yes, Mondays. Sundays are usually the days I relax. So maybe she relaxes too. Then Monday comes, I sit in my office to start work and she starts the somersaults. I suspect that just when I start liking Mondays, I will be on maternity leave and have no use to hate them anyways.

Baby On The Way

When Jer and I decided it was time to start a family, we never gave much thought to just how many people would be excited for us.

When thinking about who we'd invite to our baby shower yesterday, we didn't realize just how many people would show up. Roughly 30. Crazy! Every person there was someone I care about and I guess, they feel the same way. Otherwise they wouldn't have shown up. Everyone is super excited for us and this baby entering our family. And that comes as such a comfort, especially considering the rough couple weeks Jer and I have just gone through.

I really am blessed to have so many awesome people in my life. Knowing full well that I don't deserve them. There are times when life is going so well and I look at my surroundings and wonder what I did to deserve these great people and circumstances. Nothing comes to mind. But I accept what's been given to me, and hope that I can be of some comfort to others, the way they have comforted me. Even if they have no clue about what an encouragement they've been.

Change of Plans

Recent developments have brought our house hunt to a halt. This is disappointing, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that it may just not be the time for us to buy a home. There are other plans in the making for us.

This current situation is just a small hurdle blocking our path. We are not the type of people to just sit and wait for someone else to come along and repair our lives for us. We have the means to move the hurdle if we look past what we WANT and focus on what we NEED.

So, instead of moping and feeling sorry for our situation I have decided to take the next step. If we can't buy a house, the next step is moving to a new apartment for at least a year. This isn't ideal, but our time in our current apartment has expired. We need new surroundings.

I came to these conclusions after I found a small book that I used to write inspirational sayings and my favorite Bible verses in. Here's the one that has stuck in my head for the past few days:

Trouble, and the grace to bear it come in the same package.

Paranoid About Bed Bugs

Even though it has been a week since our apartment was fumigated for bed bugs, I am still worried. Any bugs that walk over any surface of our place that has been sprayed will die instantly...for 21 days after the initial spray. But...

Just when I was starting to get a better sleep, we found another bug. This time though, it was in the toilet, dead. When we thought about how it got there, there was only one explanation. The fan is almost directly over the toilet. So we taped plastic around the vent for now. This doesn't mean we have them in our bedroom. In fact, I am sure we don't. But it still made me uncomfortable as I tried to sleep last night. So the problem hasn't been solved, they're still living somewhere in the building...and traveling.

I'd love it if there was a way we could ensure that our apartment was sealed off from all the others. But I don't think that's possible. I've read articles that say they even walk across the halls to other apartments. Ick. What an annoyance.

The House Hunt Continues

Shopping for a home is much different than shopping for anything else. There are so many things you have to consider before you even think about putting in an offer.

Out of the 12 homes we've looked at so far, we've really only liked 2. We put an offer in on one, but as soon as I heard that there were 5 other bids I realized that the chances of us winning the bid were slim. Especially considering the like new 2 car garage on the property. It went for much higher than we would have been able to offer, so we concluded that it just wasn't the house for us. It was nice to go through the bidding process though. I did learn a few things.

So we continue our search. There are so many awful homes out there. People just don't seem to up-keep their homes the way they should. Shingles can easily be replaced by my handy husband, but when there is an issue with the foundation, I turn and run. I've learned to look at homes from the bottom, up. There's no sense in picturing how you will live in a home, if the base of the structure is compromised by shifting or bowed walls.

One house that we loved as we observed the main floor disappointed us with a part basement with many large issues. One issue was the alarming slant of the home and shifting of the main support beam. They tiled the kitchen floor beautifully with ceramic tiles, but as soon as that house shifts a little too much, all those tiles will buckle and one of the nice parts of the home will become a hassle. I'm not into that. If it has a sound structure and has been maintained, I will consider bidding.

We suspect that we will look at many more houses and bid on a few before we can call a place home. Until then, we'll have fun looking at what's out there.