33 Weeks!

We made it- yay! Cross your fingers, cross your toes, cross everything you can that we make it 4 more weeks to full-term. Actually, now that we've hit the first goal of making it to 33 weeks, I'll take each day as it comes. I can't say that I'm exactly comfortable these days but hey, it's worth it. By my estimate, this kid weighs 10 pounds already. I've had people comment that I'm hiding a basketball under my shirt but I tell them it's really a bowling ball. Clearly an exaggeration but that's what it feels like.

We had dinner tonight over at the Callahan's who live across the hall. Some other neighbors also came over and we had a nice little dinner. Luke and Alec actually played nicely together with one small little head on collision resulting in two goose eggs.

In other news, We're gearing up for Luke's 3rd birthday. So far he's requested an orange classic car (to go with his green VW and his red Corvette) and some tattoos. We start em' off young here on the northside of Chicago with hot rods and ink.

And starting this week, I'll be predominantly working from home until the baby is born :) I normally work from home at least once a week but I'm glad to transition to doing it full-time for a little while and avoid the commute.

Wish me more weeks!

April

We've been having lots of fun in Chicago with a couple of visits recently from friends and family and some more to come shortly! We've also started preparing for the arrival of baby #2 who seems rather anxious to make an appearance. In fact, Matt and I had some fun this past Friday and did a test drive of labor and delivery. Ok, so we didn't want to do it but nonetheless we did a run through. Baby #2 is good for now but needs to relax already! Sheesh. The "new" Prentice Women's Hospital is a beauty -- quite different from the "old" Prentice where Luke was born.

Luke's been sillier than ever. He's completely addicted to the show Dora even though we've been limiting his viewing time. It's a good thing he has no idea that there are a lot of kids shows out there - thank you, DVR. He's also been enjoying his old baby toys that we've been pulling out - I think we might have some issues with him being possessive of them in the near future.

So in my preparation for baby#2, I've decided to use cloth diapers. Better for the environment, better for the baby, better for the wallet :) Mimi is helping with this effort by actually making the diapers - just like the ones you buy in the store but for 1/3 of the price! The first shipment should be arriving this week and I can't wait to see how they turned out.

Well that's about it for now...off the make more baby-prep lists!

32 Weeks:

Easter 2010

Yesterday we kicked off the Easter festivities with some egg dyeing and painting. This was no small feat with a toddler participant although it was ridiculously cute to watch. We started out using the egg dye and this worked out pretty well after we convinced Luke that not all of the the eggs had to be yellow and that he could use the blue and pink bowls. I'm not sure why, but apparently when I was in Target buying the egg coloring kit, I thought the paint and glitter kit looked like fun too. So next up was egg painting. Luke started out strong by painting just the top 5% of each egg. Then the paint turned into finger paint, but not the kind that actually comes off the skin easily. uggg. We finished the egg painting rather quickly but not before we added the glitter! Somewhere along the line, Luke thought the glitter was edible, but don't worry, we were able to stop him before his tongue connected with the egg. Saturday festivities, check! Onto Sunday...

The Easter bunny stopped by our house last night while Luke was sleeping to drop off some "presents and treats." Luke woke up extra early today (yay.) just to see if the Easter bunny took good care of him. I'm pretty sure that the presents won out for the most favorite Easter basket items. Who cares about M&Ms and lollipops when there's a bracelet making kit to play with! By 6:20 AM, we had already created two Luke size bracelets and by 7:00 AM the container of approx. 500 beads took a spill. Well, I should explain how the beads were spilled. The beads were in an open rubbermaid container inside Luke's Easter basket which was hanging from the handlebar of his scooter. Do you see where this story is going? After riding down the hallway with the Easter basket in tow, Luke abruptly stopped his scooter which fell over. Splash go the beads! Crawling around on the floor at 30 weeks pregnant picking up beads was fantastic! Nonetheless, I'm not delusional enough to think this won't happen again very soon.

After we got all cleaned up, we headed to M. Henry, our favorite breakfast spot. Uncle Nick came along and we had a successful breakfast. Luckily, the weather here in Chicago was actually spring like and we played in the front yard for a while after breakfast. We even did a little Easter Egg hunt with Luke. His favorite eggs were the ones with money in them - no surprise there!

Yay, I'm coloring Easter eggs!

Just call me Monet...

Egg decorating was exhausting, now I need to relax...

The Easter Bunny came!

Now that's a big egg...30 weeks big:

Declan loves babies...

The Egg Hunt:

Looking for eggs...

Found some!

Can I have more eggs?