The Third Trimester Has Arrived!

We are now three months away from Baby King making his/her debut (or shortly thereafter). Very exciting!

We were very busy this past week and weekend. Taylor came up with the kiddos, Shane and Hanley. We loved spending time with them- they are such fun ages, 3 yrs. and 18 months! Also, Jeremy put our nursery furniture together and the room is almost cleared out. We are so close! Just waiting for chair rail and crown molding to go up this week and get all the little things in order.
Take a peak....

We are also thrilled that our new couch arrived which changes the look of our family room. The room looks so much bigger!

What a difference (for those that have seen the room before)!

We start our Childbirth Series in February, along with our breastfeeding seminar, hospital tour, and Infant CPR. Wednesday nights are going to be busy!

I am excited to be heading down to Orange County for my first baby shower the first week of February. Stephani and Allie sent out darling invites and I can't wait to spend the afternoon with all of my girlfriends and their moms.

Here's another belly shot at 27.5 weeks-- the baby is moving all the time and definitely getting bigger and bigger.

I saw my Dr. today and am right on track. The baby's heart beat is strong and fast. I am now seeing her every two weeks until 35 weeks, and then will go every week until the end. All of my aches and pains are very normal, my gestational diabetes test came back fine, and now I'm just cruising until April 23rd. We talked about my due date, and she will allow me to go until May 1st before she induces me, which sounds perfect. I've gained a total of 14.5 pounds which she was also happy with. I am expecting to gain a pound a week from here on out. The countdown to the end has begun! :)

We are still undecided on the baby's name if a girl-- Gemma, Hallie, or Scarlett....
Which one is your favorite?!

26 Weeks!

Today I am twenty-six weeks pregnant! We are freaking out at how fast this has all gone by and we can't believe that we only have 14 more weeks to go. My belly has really grown over the past two weeks, it was only a matter of time :)
Also, the baby is kicking like crazy-- all day, all night. This child has A LOT of energy- to be expected as Cliffy's grandchild! Things like shaving my legs and sleeping have become quite an adventure. Jeremy just stares at me half of the time like I'm an exhibit at a museum. He can't get over the bod change!

I've gained another 3 pounds- total of 14 which still isn't bad. The baby weighs about 1.75 lbs right now and is 14 inches long, so I know those extra pounds are going to add on quickly as the baby grows in these last few months. I am now seeing my Dr. every two weeks- Crazy!

The nursery furniture arrives this Monday- I will post photos at the end of the month after our chair rail, crown molding, and new light have been put up and Jeremy has put together all of the furniture.

Jeremy made this very cool looking rack for our nursery from an old door he bought at an antique store in Maine over the summer. We went to Anthropologie and picked out mismatched door knobs- and voila! The photo doesn't do it justice- the door knobs are gorgeous and I am quite impressed with my handy and creative hubby!

I was able to finalize my maternity leave this week with HR and my principal. My official return date is October 18th- and I will be going back 4 days a week for the first 3 months. Then, will return to full-time beginning next January. I am so happy to have 6 whole months off with the baby, and feel very fortunate that I can transition back to work at 80% and will still have 3-day weekends for the first 3 months.

Our new couch arrives next week-- we are super excited as we customized it and can't wait to see the finished product! I will post photos of our "new" family room as soon as the couch comes-- finally a wall-mounted TV, desk/office, room for baby stuff, and roomy couch all in one space!
I'll leave you with this photo of our darling Hazel who has no clue how different life is going to be VERY soon...she's in for a rude awakening!

Painting Day 1!

We had a productive day! Here is day one of our painting project-- Jeremy will do one last coat tomorrow and then install the chair rail in between the two colors next weekend :)

Here's my contribution to the nursery renovation-- taping!

3.5 months and counting!

I can't believe I am 25 weeks! Crazy to think that we are so close to April. We have A LOT to do before we are ready for a baby in this home!  Here are some before photos of the soon-to-be nursery (you can tell we are still getting rid of stuff)...

Jeremy is going to do all the painting today (you can see the ivory paint swatch above). Hurray for having my husband home on a weekend (a very rare occurance)!  Besides that, I survived my first week back to work. I am looking forward to my first baby shower in 3 weeks in OC!

My doctor called this week to tell me that I'm anemic. Not a surprise since meat has been my enemy during this pregnancy. So, I'm on iron supplements for the rest of the pregnancy, along with having to add high iron foods into my diet daily- apricots, beets, spinach, cream of wheat, broccoli, etc. Wish me luck!

This morning I made these fabulous blueberry muffins to get Jeremy motivated for his big paint job. They were DELICIOUS! I cut the recipe in half which still yielded 12 muffins-- http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/blueberry-coffee-cake-muffins-recipe/index.html

Happy Weekend!

Nesting At Its Finest....

Now that our nursery is cleared out, we are moving full-steam ahead to get it all set up! Jeremy is tackling the paint and chair rail this week/weekend. He also got our glider and ottoman all set up last night, which looks great! And, we finally decided to pull the trigger and purchase our furniture.
Here is our fabulous solid pine, non-toxic Sophia crib by Sorelle :

And matching changing table:

We can't wait for everything to arrive so we can get it all set up!
We are going to wait to add those finishing touches when the baby is born so we can throw a little pink or blue into the room.

Besides that, I went back to work today. That was definitely an adjustment after 2.5 weeks off! Jeremy is busy as ever, which we are so thankful for.
We've decided to head to Carmel's Bernardus Lodge for our "babymoon" in March. We've heard great things from others, and Jeremy is excited that there is a winery attached to the lodge! http://www.bernardus.com/  We are so excited for a long weekend together before life gets crazy! :)