Little Girl's Kicks

I've started to notice that Little Girl is most active just before I eat, and then active after. Around 7 a.m. every morning she's kicking up a storm -- which is not painful, but interesting more than anything. Then I eat, and about an hour afterwards, she kicks like crazy. Then right around now (11:30 a.m.) she starts kickety-kicking again.

I'm not sure what this means. It could mean that she's incredibly impatient when she's hungry (like me!), and it could also mean that she's just going to be a little spazzy infant.

Pete asked me while we were on our trip if I was able to get a sense of her personality already; my answer then was not really. It's shifting to a maybe these days.

Weekend Review!

We bought the sofa, finally! And as a bonus, we also bought the chair-and-a-half! We decided that it was better to have the set rather than random pieces of furniture. It has a 10-year warranty and is being delivered THURSDAY!! 

Wow, that means we gotta get cracking selling our old sofa and all the other stuff on Craigslist. 

We also rearranged the dining room! And our new mattress arrived yesterday morning! Lots of NEW! 

Pete loves the new mattress; I think it'll take some getting used to. It's too soft for my taste, but I suppose I'll get used to it. 

That's the update!

Our Tribute to Grimace

Notice the similiarities? My two pregnant co-workers and I were um, surprised that we were all wearing purple today. Christine is 38 weeks, Amy is 32 weeks, and I'm 28 weeks.

Great Weekend In LA!

We just got back from a great weekend in LA seeing friends of mine and their new baby Danny. Adorable. Mary and I talked nonstop about mothering, babies, etc. etc. and she loaded us up with TONS of baby stuff. Woo-woo!



The heat was nearly unbearable; we were thankful we had air conditioning in our hotel room, and we spent some time in the pool Saturday to cool off. Mrs. B went with us; I always appreciate hotels that take dogs. She seemed scared the first night and insisted on sleeping on the bed glued to Pete's side. The second night, after playing all day with our friends' dog, she was out like a light in her own bed.



The drive wasn't too bad; not a ton of traffic minus a really long jam on the way down -- we lost about an hour of time, which sucked for sure.



I'm in full-on nesting mode these days, which means I drive Pete crazy rearranging and reorganizing things constantly. Last night we rearranged the living room so it's more open. We're planning on sharing a nanny when Little Girl arrives, and the share will be in our house, so I wanted to get used to the new layout before, um January. :)



It feels like we're on a buying frenzy these days; we're buying a new sofa from Crate and Barrel this month -- they're currently having a sale and get new shipments in Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, so I'm calling them constantly to see if they have the sofa we want marked down. We're buying a glider/ottoman combo for the nursery, the crib, a dresser, and a new bookcase for the dining room. And oh yeah, any of the other baby stuff we don't get at our baby shower. There's that. :) Good thing we're going to the financial planner!

He-Man the cat who lives upstairs

Is moving out. I'm very sad. I truly adore him and thought about keeping him, but we can't. :(

Also, our awesome new apartment community manager got fired this week. He was really cool. That office is like a revolving door. :(

Financial Planner = Not Terrifying

We went to a financial planner yesterday, it actually went really well. It will be the first of four sessions with a team of two planners. We bravely shared the details of our debt, income, expenses and investments (yes we have them) and our giant tax refund. We're going to create a plan to understand our net worth and what buckets to put our money in. We'd like to send Little Girl to Montessori School starting in 3 years, so we've got to get it together now. I felt very grown up after leaving their office. :)

New car seat

Earlier I thought I was the one to get a new car seat around here. I had been looking at Recaro.com, but I don't think they will fit in my car unless I cut out some material from the door, its pretty snug in there.
Now, the new seat came from Britax, not Recaro, and although it will fit in the car, I'm the one who needs to cut some material off my butt to fit in it, but not much.

Heres a photo of it taken about the day after we came home from our Eurotrip extraordinaire, so theres plenty of mess-o-laundry to go around.

Fire!

Okey, so there's fire in the hills around here. No big deal it happens almost every year, and it is the price we (or usually the trees) has to pay for never ending sunshine, 80F degree heat and 14% humidity all summer long 6 months straight.
Here are pictures from the previous evening when the evening sun magically bathed everything in a weird orange hue, and the following morning when everything was bathed in ash.

Weekend Success!

We have successfully switched closets. We started in the study/office/guest room/baby room, and unloaded that closet first (known herefore as Closet A). We went through everything in Closet A and got rid of maybe 20-25% of it, including maybe 15 pairs of my shoes. It feels good to throw things away. Then Pete started on Closet B, which, um, took a lot longer. He's got a lot of stuff and likes things to be just so when organizing. When he was done, we loaded Closet A with Closet B's shrunken contents, and vice versa. We already took one carload to Goodwill, and we need to take another one. We took many bags to the trash as well. :) 

Pete's back has been bothering him, and we suspect it's our mattress. It's eight years old and wasn't uh, high-end at the time of purchase. He notices the back pain especially after we've been traveling, and for the past two nights has slept on the couch cause he's so uncomfortable. :(

So we walked across the street to Mattress Discounters and bought a mattress today. We got the box spring throw in for free, and got a waterproof mattress cover (for that hopeful day when my water breaks), and we bartered for the price to what we thought was reasonable. AND we got a really comfortable mattress. The sad news is that it won't be delivered until Friday, and we're going out of town so we won't be sleeping on it, and when we get back Pete's going to Chicago for work, so he's on the couch until Friday. Ouch. 

I'm hoping to do the kitchen cabinets tonight, but I really need to get into the pool; my feet are still so very swollen and I don't think I can wear flip flops to some important meetings Wednesday and Thursday. I bought two new pairs of shoes today while we were out, and hope my feet start to depuff soon. 

Where'd the Week Go?

Seriously? I wish I could say that we're completely unpacked and organized and ready to switch the closets tomorrow, but we're not. We've got loads of laundry. I haven't felt well the past two days, so we're behind.

It's great to be back though. Monday and Wednesday we went to Whole Foods and bought loads of organic blueberries and strawberries. I'm pretty sure Pete has eaten 80% of them. He lets me have a few here and there (more so with the blueberries). Mrs. B is happy to have us at home, and is back to her usual shenanigans. Our car seat for Little Girl arrived, and while it looks comfy, it's surreal to have it sitting in our living room. In just 14 weeks we'll have someone to put in there. Wow.

On deck for the weekend: the great closet switcheroo on Saturday, and then I'm getting together with girlfriends Sunday morning, and we'll celebrate Father's Day with dinner out on Sunday night.

Shortly Before our Trip to Helsingborg, Sweden

Reflections From Our Trip

Pictures are here and videos are coming... but in the meanwhile, I thought I'd share some reflections on our trip. 

1. A good education is the very best thing we can give Little Girl, besides self-confidence. It may sound stunningly obvious, but really it just all hit me when we were traveling. Education is *essential* and the predictor for how far she'll get in life. And we expect it to be far!
2. We are so, SO blessed and fortunate and thankful to have the friends and family that we do. 
3. Nothing makes me (Heather) madder than getting ripped off/unnecessary expenses. The crying in the Copenhagen airport and the heartburn STILL over the $24 spent on 3 cokes is evidence, people. Don't get me wrong, I love me a latte from Starbucks, but having to pay $8 when it's $3 here really chafes me. 
   
4. The first few weeks, ok maybe months, with Little Girl are going to be um, hard. By hard I mean sleep-deprived, and bordering on insanity. We saw no less than 6 sets of our friends in Norway/Sweden alone who have little ones and this was the universal truth. That some days you'll wonder what the heck you were thinking, then you'll remember when you catch a glimpse of the little one. 

Weekend in Maryland Review!

We arrived in Maryland Thursday night, as you may know, and stayed with the lovely Megan, Jon and Finley who conveniently live 10 minutes from the airport. But that's not why we stay with them, it's because they're fun. Megan and I met at a Christmas party together and instantly fell in super-like with each other. Ok, maybe it was love. Whatever, we became inseparable, and we ended up working together, which was so, so fun on so many levels. Anyway, so we stayed with her, her husband and their 2.5 year old Finley. 

Friday morning Megan had booked a maternity massage for me (bless her), so I went to have that done. It was a great, great massage. After changing into a robe and slippers, I sat in the tranquility room, which was so dimly lit I almost fell asleep. Then the masseur came to get me. I've only had 3-4 massages in my life, but each time I have absolutely no problem telling the masseur that I don't want to chit-chat, I want to relax and be silent. He was understanding. It was a maternity massage, so to massage my back, I got to lay on this giant um, thing, that had a big hole for my belly. It was SO awesome. Afterwards I drank at least 5 glasses of cucumber water (a natural diuretic -- god knows I need to shed some of the excess water). 

Friday night Megan and Jon hosted a BBQ/Baby Shower with some close friends of mine, and most importantly, my parents and brother. Fun!!! It was so wonderful to see everyone and we got some really helpful and wonderful gifts. It's getting more and more real, this baby thing. :) We managed to completely trash the guest room with baby stuff. 

Saturday morning Pete and I drove 3 hours to McHenry, Maryland for my friend's wedding. It was an easy drive with very little traffic, PHEW! We got to our hotel in plenty of time, and had a great lunch and took our time getting ready for the wedding. The wedding was lovely; the bride absolutely stunning and the food delish. I saw many of my former co-workers, whom I miss so dearly, and we got caught up. It was great to see them. The only regret was the heat; my feet swelled up to paddle-size by the end of the night. Oh well. We got back to the hotel and were in bed by 9:30. I love me some sleep!

The next morning we drove back (again no traffic) and went with Megan, Jon and Finley to Heroes, my favorite bar/restaurant in Annapolis. I always order the same thing: buffalo chicken sandwich. It was predictably delish. Then we packed and headed to the airport.

It's always sad to leave Maryland, especially friends like Megan. It always makes me wonder if I made the right decision leaving, and makes me wonder if I'll ever come back. So it's bittersweet, I guess. But it was a wonderful ending to a great trip. We're so thankful to have friends like them. 

Back in the States!

We're back, and oh it feels good. We had such an incredible trip, but it's always nice to get back to home. We're in Maryland for a wedding, then heading to California Sunday. 

Last Day in Norway!

Today's our last day in Norway and I've spent the majority of it sleeping and eating brown cheese. We're headed to the grocery store shortly to get some packages of it to smuggle in our suitcases. I'm figuring 3-4 kilos (about 2 lbs) will do it. 

We're having dinner with our friend from SF who just moved back to Oslo, and coffee in a few hours with our friend who lives in SF and we see all the time, but we happen to be in Oslo at the same time. 

Our flight leaves at 11:25 tomorrow and Pete and I have already vowed to arrive at the airport for check in at 10 a.m. We will not be running through the airport again. Ever.

In Case You Were Wondering

Running through the airport while 6 mos pregnant pushing 60 lbs of luggage and in flip flops to miss a flight by mere minutes IS as fun as it sounds. Then shelling out another $700 for new tickets is exceptionally satisfying. At least we'll have stories to tell Little Girl.

We're Beat

We're really tired today, and Baby Girl seems to have one foot/shoulder/elbow in a very uncomfortable spot. We'll post more later maybe.