What a busy but fabulous weekend!

This entry will be shorter than I want but I don't have much time before I have to stop stalling and actually start getting ready for work.

Saturday was my 2nd baby shower and was given by my mom, Merridith and Janna. (Thanks again girls for everything!!) It was for my mom's side of the family and not only did we had a good turn out but we had a great time. At least I did :) My favorite part was we had people decorate onesies, booties, and burp clothes. They turned out wonderfully! I took pictures of each one and will post the pictures later when I have more time.

Mike had told me on Friday that he had a surprise for me for Saturday night and all I knew was I was needed by dinner time. We ended up eating at Reds on the River in Rockford (http://www.reds-live.com/home.html) and then we stayed downtown at the JW Marriott!! (http://www.ilovethejw.com/index.html) The hotel is worth all the hype it has earned. It was a nice relaxing romantic evening. The perfect last weekend out before the baby.

Thanks to everyone who had a part in helping make this an extra special weekend!

I intended to keep my mouth shut about this for a little longer but we've already spilled the beans to a lot of people, so I'll share here too.

We had a make-up ultrasound session last week!!!

As all (?) of you know, our scheduled ultrasound was a terrible experience. Janna spoke to her friend Missy, an ultrasound tech, about our experience and she graciously offered to have us come back. Well -- life became busy especially with Mike's job situation, so we weren't able to go until last week. It was such a great experience. We were a little nervous to go as we REALLY didn't want to find out the sex and thankfully it's still a surprise for us!

Since I was 32 weeks, the baby was quite cramped in my stomach. So although, the baby looks very developed which is great for pictures, she had a hard time getting good pictures/angles. Mike and I thought it was perfect though and are incredibly grateful to Missy.

The first thing Missy said when she saw the profile was "well there's the Slot nose." Mike's excited that the baby may have my button nose. There's another shot where it appears the baby has Mike's dimples, which I'm really excited about :) We caught the baby yawning and we watched it probably 3 times. We then switched rooms to have the 3D ultrasound done. It was truly amazing!! We thought the normal ultrasound was fantastic but it's nothing compared to the 3D.

I'm not sure how to post a video of pictures, so hopefully this link will work.

http://s258.photobucket.com/albums/hh268/kristimcwilliams/UltraSound2/?albumview=slideshow&direction=reverse

1. Getting out of bed easily
2. Putting on my shoes and socks without grunting or getting out of breath
3. Going more than an hour without needing to pee
4. Bending over for any reason
5. Sleeping on my stomach
6. Rolling over in bed easily
7. Walking up the stairs without feeling like I need to stop at the landing to catch my breath
8. My once spot-on memory
9. Having full control of my emotions :)
10. Having a flabby stomach - I think that was better than my now ROCK hard stomach

I had more but see number 8 :) Any mom's have any other good ones to add ...

In case anyone is interested in knowing what's been going on lately with the baby preparations, I thought I'd list a few things bullet-point style. I'm still not in the mood for writing but at least I'm updating, right?

• We put together our stroller. It's sitting pretty with the baby carrier in our dining room. I'm waiting to come home some day to see Mike pushing it around the living room again :)
• We are done with Step 1 of 3 in terms of painting the nursery. We are going to finish Step 2 tonight. I think it's going to be really stinkin cute!! I can't wait to see the end result.
• We have our crib and dresser/changing table. Neither are put together but they are bought and begging for us to finish painting, so they can be assembled.
• We had our birthing classes last weekend. It was a looooooooong weekend and although at times, I don't think it was incredibly useful, I'm glad we went. We had to take our classes at Metro because Scott wouldn't allow me to get time off to go to Spectrum, so we still have to go to Spectrum to tour the birthing center. I think we are going to wait until the beginning of January to do that.
• Something really exciting happened yesterday but I don't want to share yet in case people start reading my blog again. We have chosen not to share with everyone quite yet. I'll be sure to share within the next week or so.
• **EDIT- Addition** I'm pretty sure we have decided baby names. We have one full name chosen and the other sex, we have the first name decided but aren't sure on a middle name quite yet. I thought the baby naming process would be so easy but it's been our biggest "struggle" yet. It's kinda cool to call the baby by a name though. Of course Mike will only call it by the girl's name :)

That's all I can think of for now. I should probably get back to work anyhow ...

• Yes, I'm still alive. Life has just become very busy.
• Yes, I'm still doing well but starting to get uncomfortable.
• Yes, I'll try to update more often but I can't promise anything.

The End.