A Week in California

Once upon a time there were two wonderful parents, who must be getting pretty old and senile, because by their own freewill and choice they decided to take

their four crazy children,    two counter parts, and one adorable grandchild (ok we can see why they want her) to California for a week.

Unfortunately this little piggy had to stay home and work and got watch the dogs :(.

So they rented a 15 passenger van and packed us in for the long  haul to San Clemente, CA.

 

Where they had rented this beautiful house that was just a short walk from the beach. 

We had a fabulous time.

Reading on the beach.

 

Relaxing on the beach.

Playing in the waves.

Looking cool in funny hats.

Building sandcastles.

Boogie boarding.

Skim boarding.

Eating rocks, sand, and seaweed (just to name a few.) And barring each other in the sand.

We also traveled to the Nixon library.

 

 

And we visited Knott’s Berry Farm. Where some of us road lots of fun scary rides.

And some of us sat by and watched and road lame log rides and train rides

 

and watched Snoopy on Ice. (o the joys of pregnancy).  

But most of all we enjoyed being with each other. Whether we were playing games, enjoying the next meal, or taking a walk to the pier, it was just fun to be together.

So maybe those parents aren't so crazy after all.

Thanks Mom and Dad! It was a blast!… Can we go back next week?

Kristi’s Shower

After years of trying to have children Kristi and Cory were finally chosen by an awesome couple to be the a parents of a baby boy!

Not long after Kristi’s good new, I found out I was expecting, and together we celebrated the end of many years of infertilitywith what else..pedicures! It was so fun. Kristi is so fabulous. So when it came time to throw a shower we had to make it a big celebration.    

Can  you believe it?! I didn’t get any pictures of baby Kase, but trust me he is a cutie-takes after his Mom ;). Congrats Kristi! You are an awesome mom already!

Operation Nursery Closet

For the past 4 years our spare bedroom has been serving as my guest/craft/storage/I don’t know what to do with this throw it in there room. (Which I am sorely going to miss).

Every time I would throw something on to the pile in the closet I would think, “boy, this pile is really growing. When the day comes to clean through this it’s going to be painful.”

So a few weeks ago, I was anxious to do something with the want-to-be nursery. And I thought, “can’t paint yet-don’t know the sex, but I can pain the closet white.” Which meant I would have to clean the closet out! If I had known how long it was going to take I probably would have found something else to do that Saturday afternoon, but it is now done and I am so thrilled.

I wish I had taken a before shot of the closet, but here is a shot of everything that I had to get back into HALF of the closet. What a daunting task. I spent hours and hours (it took days!) going through old pictures, school work, letters, and all those other things that you don’t want to throw away, but know they are not paying for their space.

 

After a trip to Home Depot and Michael's for paint, a new shelf, and cool little wall unit. I managed to squeeze everything in. Now it’s no Real Simple make over, but it was cheap, and is now functional.

Cute little wall unit. Love it!

*Despite how long it took, there is something that thrills me about putting stuff in cute little bins and making it clean and organized. Totally wouldn’t mind getting paid to do it for strangers.

Now that I know it’s a girl I can’t wait to get started on the room. I love this fabric I found online- way to pricey though. I’m hoping to find something comparable at JoAnn’s that I can make my own stuff from.

…If only the room didn’t have dark blue carpet.

I was wrong, we were all wrong.

Everyone has been telling me how I am going to have a boy, everyone except one confident patient and Dave. Even my maternal instincts have been telling me from the very beginning that it was going to be a boy.

She kindly proved us all wrong.

We are so excited for the arrival of our little girl! She will be so fun!

And for those of you that wanted a ‘bump’ picture, here is our little girl from the outside.

Body

Dear Body,

It’s only been 18 weeks. You have 22 weeks to go. It’s not a race. Pace yourself please.

          Sincerely,

                          Owner of a quickly depleting wardrobe

Deals to Meals

Check out Deal to Meals blog and to see what they are all about, and the contest they are hosting.

 

The winner is announced in July, and I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed until then!

Finding Out

Unlike most women who hope to be pregnant, I don’t have to wait for my monthly visitor to not come before I go out an buy a home pregnancy test. On the contrary, I count down the pain staking 14 days from IUI until test results can be produced. In the infertility forum world we call this time 2ww (two week wait aka. the longest most nerve racking wait of your life).

I’ve had a lot of 2ww over the years and have gotten much better at handling them. In fact I would say this last 2ww was my best ever -most level headed, unemotional, and calm about the whole thing. Until day 12 when I started feeling like things weren’t going to go my way.

Resolved to waiting until I was very late before giving into testing, I woke up and tested first thing on day 14. I’m such a good waiter…

After taking the test I set it out of sight and tried to ignore it. Finally, I mustered a one eye peek at the thing, and then quickly looked away. Unsure of what I saw I allowed myself a quick glance which turned into a very long stare. I couldn’t believe it…there were two lines this time.

I know what to do when there is only one, you sit there and cry, and then go tell Dave, and let him hold you while you sit there and cry some more, but two lines…what do you do? I just sat there dumbfounded. Not truly believing it. Could it really be? A smile grew upon my face, as I tried to let myself believe that the day I had dreamed of so many times was really here.

I received this fortune during my 2ww and have held on to it ever since -just for fun.

Telling Dave

I had once thought of the perfect little “Dave” way of telling him, but always thought, “I’ll probably be too excited and end up jumping on the bed screaming it on the top of my lungs.” Call it a lack of believing or the early morning hour, but I managed to pull off my idea.

Sometimes I like to change Dave’s desktop background to a silly little drawing I do in paint, it’s dumb really, but I get a kick out of it. So, I took a picture of the positive test, set it as his background, changed his hibernation settings, emailed him to meet me at Cafe Rio for lunch, and left for work.

In Dave’s words, “I was not expecting to see that this morning.”

Telling Mom and Dad

As agreed our anniversary trip would not be ‘a go’ unless we got positive news. So with our good news we took off to Cali without telling anyone.

As we walked through tourist shop after tourist shop I couldn’t believe the lack of souvenirs with some type of Grandma Grandpa slogan on them. I wanted to find something that we could bring home and give to my Mom and Dad that would give them the hint that we we’re expecting, but I could find anything!

When time had just about run out, and I had given up on finding anything, I had the perfect idea –a photo in the sand.

We went to my parent’s for dinner the Sunday we returned home. After dinner, I oddly insisted that EVERYONE (Mom, Preston, Dad, and Grandpa (who luckily was in town) ). Sit down and look at our vacation pictures. Strategically placed at the end of slide show was this picture taken at Coronado Island.

It took everyone a minute, (while I nearly died in anticipation) but eventually Mom read it and got it, and then so did the others. It was excellent!