Baby Shower Pictures

Here are the baby shower pictures from the party at Sharona's (my boss) house....

Sharona with her youngest, Yael, who just turned 1 in January....

Becky and Dan chatting away with other members of the lab and their spouses....

Li and her husband Cary, and their son, Ed (who is six months old).

Opening gifts.....A bouncer! Now we can mesmerize and vibrate the baby at the same time!Opening more gifts (I think this one was the breast pump accessory set).

We had a great time and really appreciate the time and sentiment of everyone who came. We had a good spread of food for dinner (potluck) with Dan voting the sushi rice as his favourite dish. I liked the carrot cake that Carmen made.

Only 4.5 more weeks to go (or so they say) and we are getting more and more excited. We tried to put in the car seat on Saturday. Notice I said tried. I now understand why 80% of parents have them installed incorrectly. There just seems to be no way to get the thing tight enough so that it doesn't move around. And this was even after Dan kneeled in the car seat, putting his entire weight into the thing as I tightened the belts. We may have to try the latch system. And figure out a way to move the back seat further back so that the car seat is not resting on the front seats. We have the car seat inspection in another week or so, but I really think that we should be more ready than we are. Especially because Dan thinks that I should have had my bag packed already.

Don't forget to enter the Birthday Sweepstakes! The winner will receive our undying admiration for their psychic abilities, a place in history as the correct guesser of Claude/Maude's birthday, and the recipient of one of the first phone calls after Claude/Maude makes his/her appearance. Just drop either Dan or I an e-mail with your guess!

Pictures!!!
I promised and here they are! Only a day late....



The growing belly......who would have thought that I would get this big? Certainly not me....
The nursery pictures show our almost finished room. Also they show how small the room is. Hopefully babies spatial skills are not too developed. But it is looking really cute. The two outfits are for coming home from the hospital. Dan got to pick out the girl outfit and I picked out the boy outfit. Whichever we don't use will be returned. Or maybe saved for the next one...









The walls look a little bare, but I am working on pictures. Since they are watercolours they take a little bit longer, but they will be done in plenty of time. And they look pretty cute too. I am hoping that after the baby comes we will get some letters and spell out the baby's name above the crib. I've also thought about hanging up a crewel work picture that my mom made for me when I was a kid. I have to find it in the basement though.

Baby Showers and Playing Hooky

Well, I am not really playing hooky. Today is President's Day and the U is officially on holiday. Plus the shuttle buses don't run. Plus I have a lot of joint pain and thought it would be best for baby and me if I rested at home today. I have another 5 weeks to go until the official due date and don't want to spend them on bed rest. I met up with some of the other women from our childbirth class on Saturday and walked around Green Lake again, but ended up in more pain than I started the day with. The doc said it is just one of those pregnancy things and I should stay comfortable (which means limiting my walking), drink fluids to keep the baby floating higher, take a warm bath (which I would love to do, but they regrouted and caulked our tub this weekend), and try a maternity support belt. The maternity store is open today so I will be going there this afternoon to see if that helps at all. Plus I needed to pick up some camisole nursing tops for after the baby comes.

We had a baby shower given for us last Saturday night at my boss's house. It was really nice of the lab to plan the shower for me and we had a good time. It was a potluck dinner, which meant we were treated to Mika's sushi rice (everything but the fish) and Carmen's carrot cake (sooooo delicious!) I have just a few pictures from it, but I need to get them off the lab server to post them correctly.

We spent this weekend trying to finish off the nursery. We put together the stroller and the bouncer and actually put a sheet on the crib. I took down all of the office pictures and hung up a few baby pictures. With today off I am also finally painting my watercolours...they don't look too bad so far, but I don't think anyone will be beating a path to my door to commission their own set. Dan had a brilliant idea with the cat training as well. Since our cat is only so smart, he put the baby gate we purchased for the bathroom in the door to the nursery. This has stumped the cat. She just cannot figure out that she can jump over the gate and get into the room. She has discovered that she can jump onto the chair next to the doorway and gaze into the room, but still hasn't figured out how to jump over the gate. And this is the same cat that this morning jumped from the window to the TV to the top of our 8 ft. bookcase. I don't get it. We filled the bassinet with the rest of the balloons and she is staying well away from it. Next weekend will be the great car seat installation, with the inspection to follow in a few more weeks. I promise to post some pictures of the nursery before the end of the day. Really.