The last belly photo shoot!

This Sunday, we decided to do a little photo session to capture the belly at its full capacity. D Day is this Wednesday so we decided to get out there and capture the final look for posterity.

The last belly profile pic!

A little couples action to verify I was there

And the obligatory artsy hands shot

P.S. We put up an older, but previously unpublished, belly shot here.

Baby Shower

Ashley's Aunt Sue threw a baby shower the same weekend as the wedding. It was a great opportunity to see friends and family that we haven't seen in a while. There were plenty of games and good times going around. Here are a few pictures of the event.

Ashley guarding the cake

Baby shower games are hard!

Kalamazoo college roomies

Ashley's maternal side of the family

Thank you all for coming! It was great to see everyone!

Preparations!

My Aunt Sue threw a shower for us and the baby last weekend in Niles. Our very generous family and friends set us up with nearly everything we need. I'm feeling much calmer and more ready now that we have most of the baby "must haves." I took some pictures of the kid's room this morning so you can see some of the fancy new stuff our lucky kid will enjoy.

The crib all set up with new bedding from Damian's mom. The bedding is My First ABC from KidsLine and I love it, love it, love it.

Close up of the crib bedding, with the sleeping Sammy the Lamby, a gift from my Grandma Mona. This is just the sheet over bare Ikea crib mattress. We need to get some sort of waterproof mattress pad under there STAT.

Jasper, the crazy, clingy monkey with magnetic hands and feet that I absolutely couldn't resist. 

More IKEA goodness. The window seat/bookshelf is from the Expedit collection, turned on its side. The brown fabric bins are from the new Itso line at Target, but they look like they were made for it. The rolled up rug is waiting for construction and cleaning to be finished before resuming its rightful place on the floor under Maggie. 

You may be thinking: "Construction?!?" Indeed. Minor. We desperately need to replace the windows in this room. The windows throughout the house are in pretty bad shape, but the two in this room are some of the worst. Our friend, Kelli (who is expecting her first baby a few weeks after us) works for Pella and has helped us order new windows and set us up with one of her best installers. They should be in sometime this month.

The dresser handed down from my parents that D painted and I put new knobs on (and contact papered the inside of). We need to attach the changing pad to the back of it and it will be ready to go. The table is a hand-me-down from D's mom, with another fabric Target Itso bin on the bottom shelf for holding diaper-changing necessities. 

I'm supa excited about that lamp. It's a touch lamp with three brightness settings that I picked up at Target this week for 17 bucks. Perfect nursery lamp. 

Also, notice the Bunnykins bank, another gift from my Grandma Mona. She also gave the baby a Bunnykins baby set. Growing up, Graham, Jessica, and I all had our own sets of this china and I remember eating my Cheerios from it on Saturday mornings while watching cartoons. I can't wait to see my own child doing the same (using Damian's baby silverware that his mom passed down last weekend)!

And! And! DIAPERS!! Damian's dad and stepmom got us a set of BumGenius 3.o diapers. Everyone I know who uses these is very happy with them and look at how freaking pretty they are! Plus, aside from the newborn, peeing-every-10-minutes stage, what you see here are probably (hopefully!) all we'll need until the kid is potty trained. They adjust to fit kids from newborn up to 35 pounds.

And finally, the stroller parking lot. The black one is the Micralite Fastfold with the infant carrycot. This is the one I'll be pushing around the neighborhood in a few weeks, marvelling at the sudden lightness of my body (and the beauty of the baby in front of me). Once the kid has more neck control, we can take the carrycot off and it will look more like this. 

The other is the BOB jogging stroller, a gift from Ginny and Todd Tyler. We are very, very excited about getting out with the baby in this thing particularly on the Prairie Path. We also have big plans for the BOB and the annual Niles Turkey Run, also known as the Thanksgiving 5K Hangover Stroll where the Young family traditionally finishes last.

(And, OH MY GOD. I just caught sight of our countdown. 33 DAYS?!? HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!?)

Week 33 or so...

King of the Belly!

McLovin circa 31 weeks

Even though we are at 32 weeks now, I'm posting the week 31 picture.  Because I took it.  And the lighting setup took a while.  Plus, it's in the newly grey guestroom!  So, double bonus.

Short lived.

It makes me sad to look at those pictures of the kid's room.

It looked like that for just about one week.

Now the fantastic rug is rolled up and piled on the bookcase/window seat. All that beautiful floor space is full of guitars, amplifiers, a 15-year-old TV/VCR combo, a futon mattress cover ... I could go on. In other words, it's a junk room. Again.

D's highly evolved nesting instinct has kicked into overdrive and he needed to get the other guest room painted, like, IMMEDIATELY. The good news is, he's nearly done. I'm typing to the dulcet tones of the power drill as he tries to fix the outlets in that room (ugh, the outlets in this house could not be more screwed up). The glitter is off the ceiling, the walls and trim are done. Hopefully by this weekend things will be back in their rightful place in their rightful rooms.

Or the garbage.

The only big change to the nursery is that D got the kid a mattress yesterday. Those of you concerned that we really were going to use Maggie's dog bed (and you know who you are) can rest easy.

The 31-week photo is coming. Soon. Monsieur Photographer just took it a few minutes ago (against the spanking new gray walls of the upstairs guest room). Pregnancy-wise, things are going well. I've mostly found the third trimester to be MUCH better than the second. Whoever decided the second was the golden trimester? I felt like crap for most of that one. The first was better than the second, and the third is better than both. The belly is still threatening to take over the world. At my 30-week appointment, I was measuring at 33 weeks. Yikes! Don't get excited, though. The kid isn't coming early. Nor is the kid particularly big. I have to go in tomorrow for an ultrasound to make sure, but I expect they'll find exactly what they found the last time I was measuring big: an average size kid and a woman carrying it entirely out front. It's moving nearly constantly and the movements have gone from thumps to more like the kid is stretching and rolling and shoving things. The (giant) belly changes shape about every minute or so. Last night, it had a definite point. A knee? An elbow? A conehead? Who knows.

Special note for my mom: I felt hiccups for the first time last week. D and I were confused at first about what it was doing. Why were the kicks so rhythmic? Then I remembered that my mom mentioned being able to feel hiccups and how weird it was. She wasn't kidding.

The nursery project continues

We spent all day cleaning house and working on the small spare bedroom so I don't feel like writing much.  Although I am proud to say we are now 100% wallpaper and glitter ceiling free!  More on that later.  But I wanted to post these pictures we took last weekend showing how the nursery is coming along.  It is definitely starting to look like a nursery now!

This bookshelf thing also doubles as a window seat!

Maggie is a big fan of the rug we bought for the nursery.

The week 27 belly

Just a quick post before we hit the road to Wisconsin.  I wanted to post the week 27 belly shot since it's, you know, still week 27.  Thought a little timeliness would be nice for a change.

The week 24 belly

This is the week 24 shot.  Even though this is week 25.  I'll get the next one up soon.  I promise.

This weeks photo features some gratuitous crib action!

Cribbed!

The kid's room is coming together. Ma and Pa Young generously came through with a crib, so our plans to have the kid sleep on one of Maggie's beds have been put aside.

For now.



As you can see, we have no mattress. If D can't make the herculean effort it apparently takes to meet me at IKEA after work* one day (or get over his phobia of weekend trips to the same), we might revisit Maggie's beds and just toss one in there. Don't worry, we'll wash it first.

*IKEA is about 5 minutes from Argonne. It's on his way home.

You can also finally see a good representation of the wall color in there. This is pretty close to the actual color (your monitor settings my vary).

In other kid news, cat has decided that we don't need one. We can just push him around in the stroller.




1) that is some reflective piping!
2) why do I always have the urge to call strollers like this "prams"?

Week 23!

Ok, here is the week 23 picture of the weekly belly updates.  Well, we haven't been very punctual with these so I guess it's more of a "weakly" attempt than "weekly".  Either way, here it is!

OK. The idea was to showcase the kid's room-in-progress with these pictures, but I think this will be the last in front of the green wall. You get the idea, right? The kid's room is bright green.

I, on the other hand, AM NOT.

Week 18

The weekly update for week 18.

Week 17 Belly Shot

I've gotten a little behind so it's catch up time.

The kid's room is significantly less pea-soupy than it looks in this picture. I have no idea what's going on here. ~A

Bun in the oven

At long last, the awaited belly shot.  As you can see here, the baby is a growin'.  Stay tuned for ongoing ab growth.

Belly photo FAIL!!

We took the first round of belly pictures on Tuesday. At 16 weeks, it was my first day wearing all maternity clothes. Unfortunately, Monsieur Photographeur decided that they are not blogworthy photos (something about white balance and apetures ... whatevs.) Anyway, rest assured that there is officially a bump, finally visible to the naked eye, and it will be documented here shortly.

(Though whether your eyes are naked or not is your business.)

The Belleh

Some have started asking when we're going to start sharing pictures of the growing belly. Well, uh, there really isn't much of one. I feel like it's huge and obvious, but when I have D take a picture of it ... nothing.

So, in the meantime, you get a placeholder:

Week 13 Ultrasound

Well, apparently we did it this time. The doctors say we are going to have a baby in July. Around July 8th to be more specific. Contrary to my poor attempt at jokes here, we are very excited. We have a lot to do before July and some of us are more than a little scared, but we feel very blessed and can't wait for the newest member of the family this summer.

Week 13 Ultrasound
Originally uploaded by DamianD23