Latest on the nursery. . .

I've kinda lost track of what happened when, but wanted to give you an update on the nursery. It is now the most multi-tasked room I've ever had. It is a guest room, Andrew's office, and baby's nursery. I guess you could even say it's storage for some of Andrew's old band things.

Anyway...we've made good progress and I would now say we are ready if the baby were to come early.

Valentine's day weekend I had a 4-day weekend, and we were hoping to get out of town on one last weekend get-away just the two of us. When the weather had other plans, the goal became to get the crib up. Friday we went out to lunch and it started snowing. We decided that's perfect weather for getting home and working in the room.

It's SNOWING!!

We cleared the spot and moved the dresser into it's new home.

That night we watched Adventureland while putting the crib together. It was fun to do it together, even though it turned out Andrew really didn't need my help. But still - I'm glad Andrew let me be involved.

Crib together - bedding in!

B is for Bear . . . . so cute....I love, love, LOVE it!

A cross-stitch that was in my bedroom when I was a child. Mom passed it along at Christmas and it goes perfectly with the teddy bear theme.

Mission accomplished. We got the crib together. Andrew's only stubbed his toe on it once. I have a fear that will happen more as 3am feedings become more common.

We stripped it down to wash the bedding. We also got the sheets for the bassinett washed, so she has a few options for sleeping.....although I'm already convinced her favorite place to sleep will be in mommy and daddy's arms. :o)

Something else not quite as fun, but also important - we have the changing table together and in the room as well. I like the one we chose because of the shelving. That's this weekend's project...getting baby supplies into cute little baskets so it's a functioning room. The presents from showers are still in the living room. I plan to sort through those and get them put in a better place. Here's hoping I get this "burst of energy" I keep hearing about. I'll definitely need it to get through this "nesting" task!

Two cute!

With baby faces like these how could we not make an absolutely adorable baby?? :o)

Nursery Progress (weekends 1 & 2)

So, I'm a little stressed about all the blogs I've missed and "shoud've posted...." But at this point, I'm taking inspiration from my friend Judy and going more with a "look at the progress we've made on baby's nursery."

The question I've heard the most lately (and am frankly tired of hearing because of the stress it causes) is "Is your nursery ready yet?" Well, the short answer is NO! but we are working on it. It's been Andrew's office and our guest room for the last 4 years. You can imagine how 4 years of graduate school can really pile up in there. It's books, cds, papers, folders, and then even more of those things. . .

I'm a little embarassed to show the "before" pictures, but I will. Mostly because I know how proud I'll be at the end when I see where we started.

We started last weekend. I say we, but it was mostly Andrew rearranging the books to get them on the bookshelf and dispersed other places in the house. Quite a project....

Here are the pictures after last weekend before this weekend (January 30 & 31). Under each, I'll let you know what our tentative plans are for that area of the room....

The twin bed that serves as our guest bed. This will stay in place - at least for the first few months. We assume at some point, baby girl will need more play room....then the bed will probably have to go.

For this area, we're thinking of two options. Either move the bookshelf out of the room and slide the dresser over. Where the dresser sits is where we will put the change table. We may also try to just turn the dresser and put it between the end of the bed and the bookshelf. It would block access to some of the books, but Andrew says that's ok.

Here are the filing cabinets. They will be turned into the base for Andrew's "new desk" First they require some cleaning.

This is Andrew's corner desk. It is quite large and because of the design of it, needs to be replaced. It was quite a task getting it undone. Andrew thinks he may have spent more time taking it apart than putting it together. . .

The new desk will be put in front of the window. The black end table will leave the room.

January 30 & 31:

There was good progress made this weekend. The major task was cleaning off the filing cabinets and getting the desk taken down. When we saw that progress was far enough along on Saturday, we headed to Home Depot to get the wood. This wood will be placed between the 2 filing cabinets to serve as Andrew's new desk. I felt bad about this, but we know it only needs to last us for a year or two. He has a nice one waiting for us in Waco. We'll take it when we have a house of our own and room to put it somewhere. Poor Andrew worked hours on getting the desk taken apart. It was quite a bear for him to tackle, but he managed to do most of it Saturday. Then he woke up early to finish on Sunday morning. He was careful when taking it apart because a friend of ours is going to take it from us. (Have fun putting it back together!!)

Filing cabinets cleaned off & the desk taken apart!

End table cleaned and removed; desk taken apart & moved out of the room. New desk ready for assembly.

Andrew's new desk in place!! Ready for him to use this week. We realized a problem. The crib is going to be in the foreground of the picture (where the filing cabinets used to sit). There is JUST enough room, but it means that Andrew won't have access to his files in the black cabinet. He (again) says that is ok. Many of the files he is keeping for when he teaches. So we'll make sure he doesn't need those for the first few months.

All in all, there was good progress made on the nursery this weekend. It was a lot of work and I really owe Andrew a huge thanks for all his help getting the room ready. The theme for the room is "B is for Bear", so as a small token, I bought him a bag of gummie bears. He's the best! Next weekend we'll either work on getting the space for the changing table ready....or maaaaybe even get the crib up. I'm anxious to see how the desk/crib combo will work out. 2 baby showers this weekend mean that a lot of the work will be left up to Andrew...although I'll help when possible.

I'll keep you posted. . . . :o)

Thanksgiving with the Kirkpatricks

Part 2:

So I realize I'm way behind on my blog, but I'm trying to go in order of events that happened. . .

This year for Thanksgiving, Andrew's parents were able to come. It was nice to have my mom in town to motivate us to clean and then Andrew's parents in town a few weeks later as motivation to keep it clean! (That, of course, was not the only reason it was good to have them come).

They arrived on a Monday night, and we met up for a late dinner. I had to work on Tuesday, so I headed to work while they went shopping (not fair!). They headed to the Lego store and also ended up at the Carter's outlet. What grandma can resist shopping for an expected grandbaby? Not Brenda! :o) After their shopping excursion, they came to visit me at school. All 3 of them were able to see my new toy, the ActivBoard! It was really fun to show them all the things it can do. This is not me or my students, but it gives you an idea of how interactive you can make learning by using it. They can write on the screen. It's pretty awesome!!

Wednesday we met Andrew on campus for lunch, and then got ready to head to the Fabulous Fox Theater. We saw the Rockettes perform their Christmas Spectacular! My dad had their special from the year before that we had watched, and they did some of those same numbers. It was much better live, and a great way to put us in the holiday spirit

Thursday was, of course, Thanksgiving. We woke up, turned on the parade, and started cooking. Luckily, cooking for 4 is not a ton of work....and Brenda of course wouldn't let me stay on my feet for more than 10 minutes at a time! We had a delicious meal - with the perfect balance of healthy choices and banana pudding! Here's a picture of the spread...yummy!

Thanksgiving dinner

We didn't do much Thanksgiving night. Of course there was the watching of the Cowboys game. We also discussed going to a movie, but realized there was nothing we were all desperate to see. So we decided to call it an early night so we could be at Old Navy at 3 am to play Guitar Hero and get us some new jeans.............................Yeah right!!

We did do some shopping on Friday, but it was only to Babies R Us. One nice thing about pregnant women is there is no "busting down the doors for deals". We got there about 10:00 and got the 1/2 price deal on the glider we registered for. I love it! We got it home, set it up, and have been using it since then. It's so comfortable and we hope baby will love it as much as we do.

Andrew putting the glider together! Yay!!

Final product.

After we got it we headed to one of our favorite brunch places - Radial. We enjoy going there, but try not to go too often...it's a special treat. We came home, put the glider together, and it was time to say goodbye to Brenda and Jerry. They had obligations at church on Sunday, but we were so happy they were able to come and celebrate this holiday with us.

Next time we welcome family to Atlanta will be for the birth of our baby girl!!! So excited!!

The Parents Come for a Visit (Part 1)

November was filled with many visitors - something we love! My mom was in town the first weekend and we had Andrew's parents in town for Thanksgiving.

Part 1 is about mom's visit:

I worked 1/2 day on Friday, grabbed some lunch at our favorite noodle house, Doc Cheys, and then we hit Atlantic Station for some shopping. We found some good deals and were definitely worn out by dinner time. So we picked up California Pizza Kitchen and headed home.

Saturday we had a lazy morning before heading to the Botannical Gardens. I'll try not to bore you with too many pictures, but it was a beautiful afternoon and for the time of year, we were surprised how many flowers were still in bloom. There was a bride getting ready for her wedding wondering through the garden taking pictures. Beautiful setting!

Mom & I in front of the entrance

Pretty blue glass sculpture/fountain in the middle of the garden

The garden was featuring sculptures by Henry Moore. We know him from the sculptures there are of his in Kansas City. A common theme of his is with a mother and child. I liked this one the best of those.

I thought the pink of the blooming roses were beautifully contrasted against the orange of the fall colors on the tree in the background.

Me with one of the several frog sculptures througout the garden.

Orchids that were in the orchid room. I loved the beautiful colors. There were so many unique types!

Green leaves are pretty too - especially when bordered with pretty purple!

Mom snaps our picture while we try to take one of our own.

Mom & I by another fountain.

The kid in me wanted to go down the slide. . . ha ha! :o)

We ended the weekend by going to church. Mom got to see what we do when we help with Children's Worship & Wonder. It was nice to have another set of hands to help us out. I was sad to see her go so quickly - weekend visits are never long enough but definitely better than no visit.

Halloween Treat

Living in Atlanta, Andrew and I love to take advantage of being so close to the mountains in the fall. We were ready to get away from the city for a weekend, and chose a get-away to see the fall foliage.

We started out Saturday morning (after getting my H1N1 flu vaccine), heading north up 400. We've gone this way before, but made a turn we hadn't made before - toward Dawsonville & Amicalola Falls. I've always wanted to go, but thought it was a lot farther away. Not a bad drive, but we did have some bad weather. It spit rain on us all the way up. We decided to pull in anyway for a picnic. After finding a covered shelter, we unloaded and started making our sandwhiches. A quick glance over to Andrew had me looking at a daddy long legs on his neck waaay too close to his face. Eeeeek! Back to the car to eat there. Perfect timing too, because the rain stopped while we ate. We drove on up to the bottom of the trail up to the falls. We weren't in the right shoes, but managed to get far enough along to get a beautiful view.

The stream at the bottom of the trail up to the falls.

Amicalola Falls

After finishing up at the falls, we found a cute little pumpkin patch. It was Halloween - we HAD to stop! :o)

Holding our baby pumpkin

After the pumpkin patch, we drove about 10 miles. We saw many signs for apple orchards. I love apples! Andrew was concerned we were stopping too frequently (3 stops in about 15 miles), but it ended up being our last for a while. They weren't letting anyone pick apples because of the weather, but we did pick some out from the baskets - Pink Lady for me and Granny Smith for Andrew. Very crisp and delicious. We headed back to their parlor where we saw they were selling apple fritters. It was the best apple fritter either of us had ever eaten.

Warm apple fritter with vanilla ice cream - perfect!!

Back on the road - at the top of a mountain on the Appalachian Trail. A 3rd grade teacher from South Carolina was nice enough to take our picture. The sun came out long enough for a picture that really shows all the colors!

We stopped in Clayton at the downtown there - it was quaint and not as touristy as some of the other towns we'd driven through, so we spent some time there stretching our legs. We ended up finding a few good Christmas presents and decided it was a small town we'd like to spend more time in later. Maybe a cabin rental up there next fall?? On to South Carolina - we drove through Clemson. They had just finished Homecoming football game, so we didn't see much of the campus. What we did see was enough to say that yes, it was a place I'd live. Andrew likes to look at all the universities we drive by to see if it's a place we could live. It looked like a good size college town. Advantage - distance to Greenville (our stop for the night.) Disadvantage - they're school colors are ORANGE (ick) and purple. We drove straight to the hotel - it was dark, rainy, and we weren't familiar with where we were going. Got in, watched some college football, and called it an early night. Perfect! The next morning, waking up refreshed after the extra hour of sleep, we had a delicious breakfast buffet. Andrew navigated us back to downtown and we found Falls Park. It was a beautiful day, so we took many pictures before walking around some of the shops. Cute place! We needed to get back to Atlanta for my pregnancy yoga class, so we didn't get to see as much as we'd like. Another place to put on our "let's come back" list! :o) It was a great weekend vacation and we both returned refreshed; ready to face the week.

The Most Beautiful Sound in the World!

I think everyone that reads my blog has heard the news that Andrew and I are expecting our first baby in March. Needless to say, we are very excited!

There have been countless times when I've stopped to think about the miracle of life, and the amazing process it takes to "build" a baby. We love to read about what's happening each week. This week's big thing is building their layers of fat. It's also about the length of your palm (5 inches) and weighs 5 ounces. Teeny!

I'm especially excited about the next few weeks. We are going to find out if we're having a baby boy or girl. Yes, we've had people tell us that's cheating, and no we don't agree. It'll be nice to start getting more prepared with nursery items that coordinate with baby boy or girl. Also, in the next few weeks, we should be able to start feeling the baby move. Neat-o!

Today was doctor visit #3. This was the least exciting of them all, but that's ok. The doctor just answered my questions and they took blood for more testing. But, one thing that I will never get tired of is listening to baby's heartbeat. The doctor had a device that we were able to hear it on. And it truly is the most beautiful sound in the world. I could sit and listen all day. . . :o)