Splish Splash Shower...(29 1/7 weeks)

Today I had a wonderful "Splish Splash" Shower full of rubber duckies and lovely friends and family. This shower was hosted by Cheryl, Kathy and Andrea (Hanson Family) at Cheryl's House in Pewaukee. The menu consisted of phenomonal chicken salad croissants, pasta salad, a green salad, fruit kabobs, oreo dump cake, mini cherry cheesecakes, punch n more! It was a wonderful feast.

Games we played included, baby food guessing game (no tasting, just looking!) And diaper poo guessing game. I was terrible at both of them. I didn't realize the numerous flavors and combinations available for baby food these days. The diaper guessing game had diapers full of different food items. I sort of gave up after smelling the first few as it was starting to make me nauseous, and I couldn't come up with the answers. Things such as peanut butter and jelly, garlic, onion, worcestershire sauce, jalapenos, blue cheese, and tuna just to name a few. This game you could only smell the diaper, no looking. It was not easy, but it was fun and entertaining. Here is Andrea and I! Andrea only has about 2 weeks to go before Mr. Breyson will be joining us.
After games, everyone made us a scrapbook page to start a scrapbook for the little Smith baby. Very creative!
Then came the numerous wonderful gifts. I can't even start to list everything we got. Many of the bigger items (Pack N Play, highchair, Activity Center by Baby Einstein, clothes hamper, etc.) And many other items off the registry also. A picture describes the items better than me listing!
Andrea made a wonderful diaper cake, of course it followed the shower theme also. (Notice the picture frame has a picture in it, that is Me, Andrea, Casey and Ashley, naked in the tub! Priceless!!)

Gizmo felt a little left out when I came home with all these gifts. So he managed to get ahold of a rubber ducky. I figured we had enough to spare one for him to play with one! He really liked it! We'll see how long until it is in a million pieces, so far so good! He looks so innocent though!

All the gifts you saw on the table and scattered around the dining room are there to stay until Ed arrives home tomorrow from MI. He was there with the Smith family men doing some work on the cabin, and maybe a little golf too! He insists on inspecting everything we received before I put it away still!

Clean Up 'n MD appt (28 4/7 weeks)....

Today was a very productive day in our household. This morning Ed and I were out in the backyard (or Bristlecone Pines) cleaning up the dead trees and limbs that were causing our backyard to look atrocious. So Ed semi-illegally got over the Bristlecone Pines fence to clean up some dead limbs and trees on their side in addition to a few on our side. He got to use his chainsaw he received for Christmas for the first time, it worked very nicely. Then we had to drag all the tree limbs to the front yard, because in Hartland you have to have all brush on the curb by April 28th at 0730, and they only make one pass down each street between that date and early May. So we got it taken care of. Good thing it was a nice day. And we didn't get caught by Bristlecone for being on their premises, even though they should be taking care of that themselves, but either way, it is done.

Sorry I forgot to take pictures before we cleaned up, but just take our word that it looks 100X better. Gizmo is loving the sunny warm weather. He was exhausted after all of his fresh air today.


Then we took Gizmo for a walk. He is doing very well with walking, he and I have gone the last 5 days straight. We hope to continue walking daily, weather and time permitting.


Lastly, we had a doctors appointment today. Nothing overly exciting. Standard weight, blood pressure, questions, concerns, heartbeat and measurement. Weight and blood pressure are fine, No questions or concerns at this point. The heartbeat again was 140's, and as far as I know I am measuring right on. The doctor didn't say anything, which leads me to believe all was well. Ed wasn't at the appointment with me today, which is a good thing, because I sat in the examination room for 45 minutes before the doctor came in, and she was in the room a whole 5 minutes, so Ed would have been pacing and cussing the entire time. So, next appointment is in 2 weeks, can't believe we will be 30 weeks then. Time is starting to fly by!!

Best Husband Ever...(28 1/7 weeks)

Okay, where do I start? Well, the best husband ever, was in Chicago last night and today helping Dusty work on 'remodeling' Julie's bathroom in her newly bought condo. I decided to stay home, as I wouldn't be much help in the construction area, and I had worked 16 hours Friday into
Saturday as our unit isn't slowing down any and it was my turn to stay crisis. So, when I got home from work at noon on Saturday sitting in the car for a couple hours wasn't the first thing on my list. But anyway, back to my husband, he took the time to go out of his way when he was in Chicago to buy his pregnant wife some Garrett's Popcorn. I am hoping I don't have to elaborate on Garrett's Popcorn, but it is the best popcorn ever, even it it is a bit pricey, it is soooo.... worth it. He got me the cheese and carmel mixed, to die for!! So that is why he is the best husband ever!!

So after my very few hours of sleep yesterday, Gizmo and I went for a walk since it was a lovely day that we missed most of due to sleeping. Then, after much discussion with my dear friend Cora, and the latest buzz on BPA (Bisphenol A, a hormone-disrupting chemical that is the building block of polycarbonate plastic, has been found to leach out of six major brands of popular baby bottles sold in the United States and Canada) I decided to change the bottles and nipples in which I registered for in order to keep our unborn child safe. Even though I am sure I have eaten things reheated in plastic with BPA, but that isn't the point. Therefore, I ditched the Avent bottles (even though they were the best of the ones tested) and splurged on the BornFree bottles. I stuck with the plastic ones versus glass, but they are BPA free. Here is a link to the article Cora introduced me to for those of you who haven't heard the hype. http://www.chej.org/bpa-e-s.htm

I almost forgot the other thing we did this weekend, we made homemade popsicles. We had wanted to make them awhile ago when we got the Jessica Seinfeld cookbook as there is a recipe for yogurt pops, but we didn't have the popsicle molds and had a hard time finding them at the store. But Sue found us a set on Ebay, apparently she had been wanting some too, so we finally made our popsicles, not the Jessica Seinfeld ones yet though. We started with the standard popsicles with sugar, kool-aid and jello, sugar free at least so they aren't too bad for you. Stay posted to hear how they turned out, we are still in the freezing process. I guess that is all for now.

Shower #1 (27 2/7 weeks)

Another busy and exciting weekend to add to the list. On Saturday we had our last night of bowling! For myself, it was rather exciting, it is a long season, and since I had bowled maybe half the number of times as the rest of my team due to work conflicts, I was ready to be done. My partner and I took second place in our 9 pin tap fun night, so we did well.

Then on Sunday, we had our first baby shower!! I felt like a 5 year old on Christmas morning. I was awake at 6am, finally got out of bed at 7am since going back to sleep wasn't happening. Cleaned our house for like 2.5 hours (it was way overdue), jumped on the elliptical and then showered and got ready for the shower. At least I was busy and not sitting around waiting for 1pm to arrive. But then when all was said and done I was exhausted. But it was worth it.

So here are the details:

The shower was at my Aunt Karen's house in Pewaukee. It was put on by Karen, my mom and Vicki (so it was Blodgett's and Bremberger's and a few friends too). They did a wonderful job. There was tons of food of course. Plenty of tasty desserts, and of course lots of presents from many wonderful family and friends. And I have to mention one of the games we played. They put a candy bar in a diaper and microwaved it so we had to guess what kind of "poop" was in the diaper or the type of candy bar. I was terrible, but Jennie won her first game ever at any shower! I cheated off the wrong friends and got a 50%, not good. Oh well!!

Here is the diaper cake made by Karen (or her lovely co-workers! She didn't take all the credit.)

The Cake!

Desiree was home for a funeral and found time to come spend with the ladies and attend the shower, so that was exciting. I haven't seen her in forever it feels like. So us ladies got to catch up a bit. A few women from WI Dells made the trip down, that was very nice of them to join us despite the travelling. My Grandma and Grandpa came down for the shower as well. So we got to see many people we don't see too often anymore.

This picture is more to show an update of the ever expanding belly! Baby is definitely growing!

Jennie, Crystal, Andrea (due in 4 weeks!!), Me, and Desiree!

I can't even start to list all of the wonderful gifts we received. Ed came later in the shower to eat and visit a little bit, but he didn't see everything I opened. So when we got home and unloaded the car, he went through everything to see what we all got. I wasn't allowed to touch anything until he saw it. So then we tried to put things away and organize the baby's things. It was a lengthy process, and I was already ready for bed. But it was fun. We figured if we waited until all the showers were done we would have a big project on our hands. So our goal is to keep up with the organizing along the way.

I almost forgot to mention Ed's gift. Not sure why he was so deserving of a gift, but Karen couldn't leave him out. So he got some much un-needed beer, a Brewers t-shirt, some golf balls and really cool tees. He was very excited to not be forgotten!

Baby Doctor Update...(26 4/7 weeks)

Today was our last monthly check-up, from here on out we see the doctor every two weeks and eventually every week. Besides the basic weight, blood pressure and peeing in the cup, we had the O'Sullivan test (glucose test) where you drink some very sugary orange drink and then wait an hour and have blood drawn to determine if you need the 3 hour glucose test to rule out gestational diabetes. We passed with flying colors, so no need for the 3 hour test and no need to watch what I eat, praise the lord!!

All the other statistics were fine too, blood pressure was good, we are gaining weight (I think I need to give the baby some credit for all the weight I am gaining) and my hemoglobin was good too, so I don't need to take extra iron.

I am super excited, Herm and I have our first baby shower this weekend. Can't wait!!

Otherwise, Gizmo had another play date tonight. The other day Tallulah was over to play and tonight Amanda and Colby came over for dinner and to play. Surprisingly Colby could have cared less that Gizmo was here until like 10pm tonight, then all of a sudden he wanted to play. And it took until about 9pm before the two of them both finally laid down. Keep in mind they came over at like 515pm, so they were following each other around for several hours before they got worn out.

Spring, Brewers, <100 days (26 weeks)

I guess it has been some time since I have posted anything, so this might be a long one.

First of all, we finally have some spring like weather to enjoy. This week I had Gizmo outside for awhile and he got some exercise running around the yard without snow finally. He had a major case of the zooms! I even got some action photos.

Ed and I attended Opening Day yesterday for the Brewers. It was a very long day. We left Pewaukee at 8am and we got home to our house at like 630pm last night. The day consisted of tailgating for 4 hours prior to the game, the actual game, post game tailgating, traffic the entire ride home despite sitting in the parking lot for quite some time, and then finally home to relax. It was a very nice day overall. In the morning it was a little brisk until the sun came out, then it was beautiful. I am suffering from either a little sunburn on the face, or possibly some wind burn. The Brewers won, so that made the game even more enjoyable. It was a fun day, but exhausting, we actually made it to bed at a reasonable time.

Baby news: We have made it to 26 weeks today!! Yahoooooo.... And I was looking at the ticker to the right and I can't believe the number is below 100 days now. I remember when I first put it on the blog and it was in the mid-200's. That makes me feel like the time has flown by, but then I think of the number of weeks I have left until July 12th, not so close! Oh well, I am trying to enjoy this exciting time in our lives and prepare for the road ahead. I have my first shower in a week so that is exciting. And now that the weather is starting to cooperate, I think the time will start to fly by. We have our next 4 week check up this week Wednesday, glucose test time too.