Happy Easter and Stuff!

Easter weekend was nice and relaxing. And we had beautiful weather to boot! Jim and I spent the early afternoon downtown with his family enjoying an awesome buffet brunch. We then came home and took a little nap and relaxed for the rest of the day. Can't beat a day like that!

As for my family, I went over and visited my mom this afternoon and she had this cute surprise for me:

Easter baskets! One for Jim and I, the other for her little grand-baby ;)

Here was ours. It had lots of silly toys, chocolates and other fun candy.

And here was baby girl's basket. It also had candy it (for mom and dad, hehe) as well as a cute little easter plate for her to put carrots and lettuce on for the Easter bunny in a couple years. We also got a little stuffed lamb and the cutest pair of bunny booties!

How fun. My mom is awesome!


In other news, we have decided to do a 360 on the way we eat. After watching a very disturbing yet informative documentary called "Food, Inc.", we've decided to switch up to eating more healthy, organic foods. I also read a book given to me by Jim's mom called "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan that pretty much coincided with the movie (he was actually interviewed in the movie as well) and it was just a real eye opener. So here's to eating more veggies and less processed so-called "food" and just adapting a healthier life style free of ingesting chemicals at alarming rates!

Day 1 has been quite successful in the change. We had a great steak dinner with a veggie platter and baked potato. We don't know if it's mental or what, but that steak just tasted great seasoned with a little salt and pepper. I've prepped some big salads for us to take for lunches as well as some fresh fruit. Not too bad!


Lastly, let's finish off with a survey. It's been awhile for one of those!!

How far along? 34 weeks 5 days

How big is Baby? About 5 lbs, 20 inches (according to "What to Expect" website)

Total weight gain/loss: Oh boy....Doc says it is all good, but I hate thinking about it. Probably at around 30ish l.bs

Maternity clothes? Still wearing pre-preg shirts. Haven't bought anything since the shower dress. At this point going to keep making do with what I got!

Stretch marks? Stretch marks are here and taking over. Got a nice band of them around the lower abdomen to add to the collection. Ohs well ;)

Sleep: Sleep is okay. Not great, but not terrible. Toss and turn a lot (which takes a lot of work for a big ol' pregnant woman). Up at least once a night to take a tinkle.

Best moment this week: Just had my checkup this afternoon and baby is contently head down and everything is looking good!

Movement: Lots of movement. She likes to twist and turn and jab the crap out of my right side. But I love it!

Food cravings: Not much going on. Just like to eat!

Gender: Girl

Labor Signs: An occasional "Braxton Hicks" contraction which is a tightening of the belly and getting the body prepared for real labor. But nothing real, which at this time is good! She needs a few more weeks yet.

Belly Button in or out? Belly button still an innie!

What I am looking forward to: Honestly, having this baby! My body isn't the most comfortable anymore. Got lots of heartburn, back pains and rib pains. We are more than prepared physically for her arrival (mentally...not sure, haha!)

Milestones: If baby decides to make her arrival....she is pretty much free to come! The doctors won't do anything aggressive to stop her although we would really rather wait at least 2 more weeks for that! Only 37 days until my due date!!!


Pictures of the week (last two weeks):

Almost the weekend!

And I am ready for it! Not too much planned. Just going to try to see the families at some point this weekend. The weather is supposed to be nice, so It is shaping up to be a fun and relaxing one.

Hope you all have a good holiday weekend too!

We've been keeping busy!

Time for the well needed house update! We took a couple trips to Ikea and Bed Bath and Beyond over the past two weeks and have finally gotten some things together. The family room still isn't at 100%, but it's looking better and better:

Here is our new curtains. We still need to put up our celing fan.


Here is our new entertainment center. We plan to add two shelves in the middle area above the TV.


The Kitchen is complete. We put up blinds and well, since I never posted it when we painted, here's our new paint job.

The dining room is still a mess, but I wanted to show off our new china cabinets. There is one on each side of the window. This one holds my collection of polish pottery, the other one is our wedding china. We also got new chairs for our table. We have curtains to put up still.


Little by little we are getting things done. Next up on the agenda:

Paint half bath on main floor
Paint small part of master bath (toilet is in a separate area)
Remove wall paper from Guest room and paint
Paint other spare room
Hang art work throughout house


That has been keeping us pretty busy the last two weekends. This weekend we are planning to kick back and relax with the family. Supposed to be a good weekend, I'm looking forward to it!

Busy Month: A Visual Guide

So instead of typing out everything that has gone on since the last time i've updated, I thought just a brief visual tour would do the trick!! So here we go..

For our "dating" anniversary we picked up a new game:
It pretty much just monitors your steps for each day. We each have a goal of 6,000 steps which is approximately 3 miles. Over one month later, we have reached our goal every day except for one! It has definitely kept us motivated to stay active. I highly recommend it!
So yes, I have been getting into running more! It is a great workout and fun to get outside and clear your mind during a nice run. I run about 3-5 miles every other day or so (been slacking the last week though).

To help me out on my longer runs, I got this nifty hydration belt. It holds two 10 oz containers of water and has a pouch just big enough to fit my key and cell phone. It straps around my waist and surprisingly isn't bothersome at all. I really have enjoyed having water readily available when I need it and not having to run without my cell phone on me.

July 11th we headed to a graduation party for my church sponsor son.

Down to Hamtramack for some awesome polish food to celebrate my grandma's birthday.

Mmmm.....Dill pickle soup, my favorite!

We headed off to the family cottage the following weekend. The weather was actually quite cold and the bugs were just insane. So we shacked up and watched "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Interesting movie....it was nice to have a little getaway, even though we were doing the same thing we would probably do at home!

Since the cottage was so buggy, we left early on Sunday and decide to go to the zoo! We hadn't been there in years. I will post pictures as soon as I load them onto the computer!

We decide we would try to do a ton of geocaching for a week. We made it out for two evenings and found 20 or so. Not too bad :)

I met my MIL for lunch one afternoon. We had some great sandwiches and then headed over to the local gourmet grocery store and had some wine samples. You can actually drink wine while you shop....I totally want to go back!

We headed over to a cute local bar for a friend's birthday Friday, July 24th. It was busy and loud, but we had a good time.

Another day of geocaching, however, this time we turned into a road trip. We hit Grand Ledge which was a cool place for the geocaches, then proceeded to Grand Rapids for the bet hot dogs EVER!!

Yesterdog. Seriously. Best. Hotdog. Ever.

MIL birthday was that weekend, so we went over to celebrate on Sunday. Had a wonderful dinner and for dessert and amazing torte.....we got to take home the leftovers too. I'm sure it all went straight to my thighs.

Back to the cottage! This time the weather was great. We did some tubing. No that is not a picture of anyone in particular up there, just something I pulled off the web, lol. We all attempted to stand on the tube whilst moving. It was really hard. My legs were killing me for the next two days. We had a lot of fun and ate a LOT of food. A few favorites....

Grilled Chicken

Avacodoes!

Here we are to today! I spent most of the day trying to work on our landscaping. I was doing a lot of shoveling and moving around of dirt. I am basically trying to reconfigure the whole orientation of the existing landscaping in our front yard. I am still dirty and frankly I'm pooped.

August 22nd, Jim and I are running an 8K (5 mile) race. I really need to get back into my running routine. It's hard when we have been working on the house so much. I don't really have time for both it seems!

We finally picked up curtains and other random things for the house. Hopefully we will whip it into shape before the winter hits. I hope to have the front yard landscaping done and have this house decorated more by then. We plan on painting two of the bathrooms and our "activity room" as we like to call it is turning disney themed room since we have so much disney stuff! It'll be a fun, even though I hate painting.....

New Aunt and Uncle!

Jim's sister had a beautiful baby girl this weekend! Welcome to the world Kathleen!