Pregnancy: Week 26

Another smooth week has flown by here and we are now exactly three months from baby peanut's due date!  This week the baby is measuring over 14 inches long, the length of an english hothouse cucumber (very specific) according to my email update. She weighs a pound and two-thirds. This week baby peanut worked on developing the nerves in her ears so that she can hear both JP and I better and also has been practicing breathing exercises so she can get her lungs ready for life on the outside!

I continue to feel good and have been working out and getting around without much trouble. It has been hot this week but not totally unbearable.  I am still able to wear a few non-maternity shirts but it seems like I am starting to need longer tops to cover the belly.  The biggest change this week has been that we can now see the baby move from the outside at times when I am resting.  It was a little surreal at first but has been exciting to see how much stronger she is getting.  Time is flying and things are going well!

A craigslist success!

The most exciting thing (to me) that we did this weekend was find and purchase a dresser for the baby's room.  Ta da:

I found the listing on craigslist on Saturday morning and called to get some additional information. It was solid wood, had been used for several children in the family that was selling it, and was in our price range.  But, it was about a 30 minute drive from us and would require a car with a bigger carrying capacity than our little Civic.  We spent some time considering our options and located a friend of mine from work who said we could use her truck.  With this tentative plan, we drove up to see the dresser and confirmed that we wanted it and would return with a better vehicle.  Things got a little complicated when push came to shove, but my wonderful friend Eileen from work was able to loan us her volkswagen van and her husband to drive it and help maneuver the furniture, so we are now the proud owners of this fabulous maple dresser!

This may seem like a lot of work for a dresser but I was surprised at how hard it has been to find a reasonably priced, reasonably sturdy dresser.  I have been looking online and in a few local stores and have mostly found that dressers in general, and baby dressers in particular, seem to be cheaply made (fiberboard etc), less than sturdy, but still very expensive. 

For example, we bought a dresser for our room from target when it was on sale and spent two evenings taking it from pieces (this is after night one):

to finished:

It looks pretty good in the picture but has gaps between the drawers and the middle post on one side because it simply did not square up when we were assembling it in spite of our best efforts. We also removed the 'base' of t-shaped fake wood that went on the bottom and made the whole thing seem tipsy.  We decided it will be fine without the base as long as we don't move it from this spot, but is definitely not sturdy enough to survive a move.  We paid $5 more than this dresser for the baby dresser and it is 100 times more sturdy and long lasting.

I know there are plenty of things we need to prepare for our little peanut's arrival but the dresser was one I was having a hard time figuring out until this weekend. The other things seem more straightforward thus far.  So I am very happy to have our dresser and very thankful for the help of our awesome friends!

The rest of the house is looking pretty good (stuff on the walls!) so I will try to take some pictures and share them later in the week.

Pregnancy: Week 25

Another week has flown by and I still look pregnant!  This week little miss peanut is the size of a rutabaga, which means she weighs a pound and a half and is about 14 inches long.  According my weekly email updates, she is putting on weight and growing hair, but given my family's history of bald babies, I am not sure that the hair-growing part is actually happening. 

I continue to feel good overall.  We had our prenatal appointment on Monday and according to the doctor, the peanut is measuring on target for her due date, which is good. We heard her heartbeat at 145 bpm, which was exciting and is also good per the doctor.  The appointments have been short and sweet lately. I go back at 28 weeks for the glucose tolerance test and then will begin bi-weekly appointments since it will be the third trimester--hard to believe!  We have been going monthly thus far. 

Work is going well for me, JP is off to a good start on his second year, and we continue to spend time thinking about and planning for little peanut's arrival.  I still feel lots of kicking and rolling from the baby and JP has felt her a few more times this week too.  I am still sleeping a little more, working a little harder to roll over at night, and feeling good. I made it to the gym four times this week and haven't had any major food cravings yet, although JP keeps waiting.  Hopefully things will continue to be smooth sailing!

Pregnancy: Week 24

This week our little peanut is as long as an ear of corn, over a foot, and her weight is about a pound and a quarter.  This week our peanut worked on developing her taste buds and spent a lot of time on lung development.  She is going to keep focusing on developing her lungs and putting on weight to get ready for life on the outside!

I am still feeling good although it is starting to get a little harder to roll over at night or get out of bed, but nothing too annoying.  I am still wearing some of my loose, stretchy non-maternity clothes (pictures) mixed in with maternity stuff.  I still feel pretty energetic and healthy and made it to the gym four times.  I went to a couple trainings this week and our little girl seems to be very active in the mornings, as she was kicking me quite a bit.  Her kicks are getting stronger too, and JP actually felt one on Thursday night, which was very cool!

We go to the doctor for our next checkup on Monday so hopefully everything will continue to go smoothly.

House updates

A quick look at some of the things we (mostly JP) has been working on over the past week:
1.  Windows

These are the windows in the guest room and baby room that needed to have the trim and screens repaired.  We went to home depot and picked out paint that matched the rest of the complex, then JP spent a good chunk of time on Saturday sanding and priming the old wooden trim, then painted on Sunday.  He was able to take the screens to the (local) hardware store and have 2 repaired and one replaced, so we now have pretty looking windows with solid sun-blocking screens. In the picture JP is securing the frames in place.  I will have to get better about before and after pictures but I can definitely say they look a lot better!

2.  Storage:

Our old rental house had a lot of built in storage so we knew we needed to come up with something else to deal with our clothes and stuff here at the new place.  After lots of price comparing we ended up getting a dresser (particle-board type) on sale at target, and were happy to be able to take it home and put it together right away...except a piece was broken, so it sat around for an extra 10 days waiting for the last piece to come so we could put it together.  We spent a good chunk of Tuesday night putting together the drawers and prepping the pieces, so the picture above is how things started on Wednesday.  It is definitely not the most stable piece of furniture I have ever seen (I am pretty sure it is not square right now and we just finished putting it together), but it is done:

It will work for now but is definitely not the kind of thing that could survive a move, but hopefully it will be sturdy and fairly reliable for the next few years.  We put a lot of things in it tonight so it feels like we are making progress on finding a home for everything.

3. Bathroom:

In the picture of the master bath before, I mentioned the need for a new shower curtain but not all the work that needed to go in behind it.  We haven't used this shower yet because it needed some work to get up to workable condition.  JP's Mom heroically most of a Saturday grouting the seams between the walls and the floor, and then JP and I finished up with caulking over the weekend.  There was also a leak in the faucet, so JP watched a lot of you tube videos and together with two trips to home depot figured out how to take off the faucet, remove the parts causing the leak, and replace them.  So we now have a lovely, sealed, grouted, caulked, leak free shower, plus a nice shower curtain and matching bath mat:

So, that is what we have been up to and why I still haven't taken more pictures because we still don't have anything on the walls, but that is on the list for this weekend!

Pregnancy: Week 23

Only a day late in getting this up since it is technically the beginning of week 24 today.  This week has seen more comments on my looking more and more visibly pregnant by the day, but nothing too annoying so far.  This week our little girl hit the one pound mark, apparently making her the size of a large mango.  She is working on developing her lungs to get ready to breathe when she gets out and apparently her hearing is also improving.  She is still moving a lot and the movements are slowly getting a little stronger.

It has been a busy week with JP wrapping up his summer internship in preparation for returning to school on Monday and my office moving to a new location, so we snapped this picture on the way out the door Friday and neither of us noticed to tuck in the tags on my shirt. Oops!  My belly is definitely feeling bigger and the picture represents that, so just focus on that.  My outfit is all non-maternity clothes, although I bought the long, stretchy gray skirt with maternity in mind. It has been super comfortable and is also good for getting on the floor and playing with kids, which makes it great for work.

I am still feeling a little tired but overall happy and healthy.  I managed to make it back to the gym three times this week so it feels good to get back in a rhythm. It is exciting to feel the baby move and we are looking forward to her getting stronger so that JP can feel it too.

House in progress...

Some pictures of the house right now, not completely settled in but making progress.  It is a townhouse in a small complex and we have a unit on the corner so we just share one wall with our neighbors, who seem very quiet so far.  Our property is the left part of the picture below, with our front door visible under the overhang.

When you come in the front door, the living room and kitchen are visible to your right.  This is a picture taken from there more or less, so you can see our living room, dining room table and part of the kitchen:

Here is a more straightforward view of the open living area. To the left of the table in the left mid-ground, there is a hallway that goes to the bathrooms and two bedrooms.

Here is a closer view of the kitchen. We have been pretty settled in the kitchen for some time, although we haven't figured out all the counter space. The cabinets are pretty new and so are the appliances.

Here is the other side of the kitchen. The door to the left is a pantry we are primarily using for storage and the door in the middle goes to the back patio.

Below is the (messy) study/guest room.  It is already looking cleaner than that as the chairs went away, the cooler fit in the closet, and the boxes went away too.  Once we get the missing piece on our dresser there will no longer be clothes on the bed, but it is fine for now and we like the blue walls.

Here is the very messy nursery!  This has been storage and box central while we figure out where things go, since we don't actually have anything to put in here yet.  It is not huge, but will work fine for a baby.

The guest bathroom:

The master bathroom (I am planning to get a less-ugly shower curtain one of these days)...

Past the master bathroom is our bedroom, also pretty settled in:

There is a sliding glass door in back that opens to the patio, but we mainly use the door from the kitchen.

And here is the patio, looking left from the kitchen door:

Looking straight ahead to the back gate:

And our grapefruit tree to the right of the path to the back gate:

I promise more pictures when the move is more done, although we are in pretty good shape. We did a lot of home-improvement this weekend and are still working on getting books on bookcases, coming up with a plan for all our clothes storage, and then hopefully starting to put things on the walls.

July highlights

It felt like July just flew by, and I keep saying to people that I can't believe it is already August.  Looking back on it, though, it makes sense because we were busy traveling and moving and getting organized.  We ended up spending two weekends out of town, which were fun but tiring, going to Kansas City and Albuquerque.

In Kansas City we got to meet up with some of JP's fellow Peru volunteers from his time as a JV, explore Kansas City, and eat lots of good food.

We also got to meet our friends Rachel and Eric's new baby, Quentin, who is adorable and was only 10 days old when we met him.  It was great to see Rachel and Eric, their cute old house in their small town in the middle of Missouri, and to get to see them in the early days of parenthood!

The only catch with our trip was that we got stranded in Denver on 4th of July evening when our flight to Tucson was cancelled.  After two hours of waiting and negotiating with the airline people, we ended up with meal and hotel vouchers and a new flight the next morning through Salt Lake City.  We ended up getting in at 11 am Tuesday instead of 6 pm Monday, but were thankful that we did better than some of our fellow travelers, who were flown to Phoenix and then on their own or were not scheduled to arrive until Tuesday night.

We avoided airlines on our next trip, taking the day of our ultrasound appointment to drive to Albuquerque for JP's cousin Stacey's wedding.  The drive was pretty and uneventful, the wedding was lovely, and we got to spend a lot of time with his family from Arizona and New Mexico. 

We drove back again Sunday morning for our last week in our rental house, and spent the week getting ready to move and packing and unpacking boxes.
Next up: long awaited house pictures.