Nursery update and belly photos

We made some great progress on the nursery this weekend. We got all of her bedding on (gonna have to rewash, but couldn't help ourselves to see it all together...), got the changing table set up and ready to go, loaded up the drawers with clothes, got the diaper stacker completely loaded, hung clothes in Daddy's closet, and hung curtains to give some more separation between our master bedroom and the baby's suite. Here are some photos of where we are at:

For another baby related update, here are some photos from the shower that my mom hosted for us a few weeks back. She did great! It was great to spend time with close friends and my family!

And here is the aftermath of two awesome showers (keep in mind that I had another shower at work and got some wonderful stuff from them as well, so imagine this room even more full than it currently shows below).

Here I am (probably around 33 weeks)....this is usually how I spend my evenings after dinner. I don't normally let my belly hang out like that, but she was moving a bunch that night and we were watching her rock my belly around.

The most recent belly shots are below. As you can see, I've got the double chin thing going and stretch marks to boot. Those didn't show up until about 3 weeks ago, so maybe they won't have time to get much worse??? Not a happy camper about either issue, to say the least.

32 weeks

33 weeks

35 weeks (taken tonight)

According to our blog countdown, the due date is 34 days away - it just doesn't seem possible, does it?!?!?!

Quick weekend update!

I am getting more tired again - similar to my first trimester, but not quite as bad. I definitely feel it each day after work, and yes, even though I sit at a desk/computer most of my day, I am exhausted after I get home. My evenings in the past week or so have consisted mostly of going home, taking Tanner for a half hour to 45 minute walk, having dinner, and then lounging on the couch. I try and get some thank you notes done from our showers, but that sometimes seems like too much work!!

Ben and I did so much stuff this weekend. I figured I'd use the energy that I gain on Saturday and Sunday from going to bed early and sleeping in longer to tackle the gift bags and baby clothes that have been piling up for weeks. We are finally making progress! The weather was so crummy on Saturday, I didn't leave the house until dinner time. I got through all of the bags of baby gifts, sorted everything into categories (nursery, bathroom, bedding, clothes, etc.) and started in on the laundry. I did probably 8 loads on Saturday, spent hours folding and sorting again into sizes, and then finally called it quits about 5 or so. We went to dinner at Jose O'Shea's out in Lakewood, one of Ben's new favorite, and then hit Babies 'R' Us to get some of the last things off our registry that we had some coupons for. I think we are set - now we just have to get organized and made up at the house and we'll be ready for BGL's arrival!

On Sunday Ben let me sleep in again - love him! I felt pretty good so I walked Tanner to the park and threw the ball for him. Back home and back to work on baby stuff. Man, who knew kids "needed" so much stuff!! Ben put together the glider and ottoman and bookshelf. He was a rock star. We grabbed some lunch, then ran "baby errands." Returned some things, bought more diapers and some wipes, etc. Back home and back to work again....we (and I do mean Ben) arranged the furniture in the nursery and we realized just how small that sitting nook is, so we had to leave the glider out in the main part of the master. But at least it's quiet, no squeaking or anything, so at least I won't keep Ben awake all night rocking the baby. We anchored the bookshelf to the wall and got the books we received at the showers out of the bags, and felt like we actually made some progress. More laundry on Sunday, and then finally relaxation after dinner! Woke up this morning and felt tired, but I guess I'm used to it at this point!

I'll get some photos up soon, I promise!

2 words, one reaction....

8 weeks! And....OMG (oh my gosh).

Yep, we are now less than 8 weeks to go until the anticipated arrival of Baby Girl Lowe. I cannot believe how fast time has flown by the last couple of months. And yet, I am more baffled by the thought of how much we have to do before she arrives!!! We went to Target yesterday and got some much needed storage bins and a closet organizer so I can start to get some things in order. For now, my list of priorities is laundry, followed by going through all of the wonderful baby gifts, followed by more laundry, organizing the nursery, and yes, more laundry!!! But all in all, we are so excited and cannot wait to meet our daughter! Anticipation usually makes time crawl, but I think in this case it will definitely fly by!

My mom hosted a wonderful baby shower this weekend with close friends and family. It was great to see everyone and again, it's humbling to know that all of these people love a little girl they've never even met! She's spoiled already, and bound to get worse. I will try to upload some photos this week, but it may not happen. I have to go through 5 HUGE bags of super cute baby girl clothes a friend (thanks, Shaleigh!!) gave to me this weekend. Per Ben, this particular project must be done by Thursday night, so he can get into the bedrooms and steam clean the carpets before we leave town for Easter weekend in Estes Park. She's expecting baby no. 2, but it's a boy, and her daughter Kendall was always dressed to the 9's - so we are fortunate to get so many wonderful and cute baby clothes. My friends really are amazing.

Long delayed, but much needed update!

Sorry for the long delayed post, been tired, been busy, been dealing with a new computer and had nowhere to upload our photos. I'll keep it short and sweet with mainly photos, since that's what everyone wants anyway, right?

Since our last post, Ben and I took a quick trip to LA the second week of March. He had to go for work, so I tagged along. It was nice to be away from work if only for two days, but the weather in LA wasn't all that great, which was my only complaint. It was nice enough for me to sit by the pool for a couple of hours on Tuesday, but I wasn't about to go anywhere near the water. We went to the beach twice to walk around, and watched the sunset from Santa Monica Pier. Very nice! Here are some photos from our trip:

Sunset from Santa Monica Pier

"Bona fide" celebrity (with paparazzi in tow) - her name is Katie Price, some model/reality star from England. It was interesting to watch the (albeit small) group of photographers follow her around. It was also nice to know we weren't the only people who had no idea who she was. Every other person on the pier near Venice Beach was as clueless as we were.

Our pets are our only children so far, so I try to include them on here too! Tanner found a new place to sleep; Andy found a way under the house in the basement, so that led to us having to bathe him, and of course we couldn't leave Milo out. First bath for the cats!

Tanner's new sleeping nook on the landing of our stairs.

Andy dirty, before the bath, during, and after the bath...surprisingly, once they got in and Ben held them in place for a while, they didn't seem to mind it so much.

Milo's bath

Last weekend, my best friend Jen and my sister threw me a baby shower. It was amazing. They did such a good job, the food was awesome, and I loved that all of my friends were in one place!

Jen and Kari had everyone personalize a onesie for Baby Girl Lowe. They turned out so cute!

And here are some long awaited belly photos.

26 weeks

27 weeks

28 weeks

29 weeks

29 weeks - Tanner has a new pillow

Baby Girl Lowe - baby or alien?

So we had super alien baby moment this morning – very cool! I reached over to turn the alarm clock off and when I laid back down, I felt her poking me really hard under my ribs. I reached over there and seriously felt something protruding out really far!!! If it hadn’t been dark, I swear I would have seen a foot or hand literally sticking out – she moved right before Ben got his hand there, but he could still feel her moving around a ton this morning. It was so cool and weird all at the same time!

Here she is!!

Baby Girl Lowe's first portraits! Mommy's nose, Daddy's lips! She's a keeper!

I passed the gestational diabetes screen, so from here on out, no more major testing. Mostly just going to be monitoring me and watching my blood pressure, weight, BGL's growth, etc. I visit the doctor every two weeks now until about 34-36 weeks. Then I'll be there once a week.

Oh yea, we settled on a name, and no we aren't going to tell you!

We are having dinner on Saturday with my mom and sister for Ben's birthday (March 2) at Ben's favorite pizza place. Nice and casual, right up his alley.

In other Lowe news, Tanner managed to severely dislocate a toe. He started limping around earlier this week, so we kinda watched it, and then decided better to have the vet take a look. We thought it was a broken toe. So we dropped him at Dr. Y's office (who is the coolest vet EVER!!) yesterday morning for an x-ray. Dr. Y took time to check Tanner out before the x-ray and determined that Tanner had dislocated his toe badly enough that he's torn the ligaments that keep it in place. No surgery or anything discussed, but we hope that over time, enough scar tissue builds up that it essentially repairs itself. We've used my old ace bandage from my knee surgery to keep the toe in place, and we got some self adhesive wrap last night at PetsMart; however, Tanner decided today that he's had enough and ripped it all off. He's limited to short walks now, no playing ball or chasing squirrels. You would get the impression that he thinks his life is over as he knows it - he is acting truly pathetic. Here's a photo of Tanner when Ben got home from work today. Check out the glean in his eye - "Yep, I tore that sucker off."

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Today's dr. appt. was great!

My blood pressure is really good, BGL's heart rate is fantastic, my iron levels are excellent, and weight is right where it should be. I did drink the yucky glucola stuff before my appointment today - barf. It is so sweet and syrupy, but I got it down and then they did blood work an hour later. I should have those results in the next day or two, which will give us any indication of gestational diabetes. Hopefully nothing weird shows up. I'd like to keep this ball of goodness rolling right on to the end! Two minor issues arose - our choice of hospital and the pesky pregnancy rash I have.

Hospital choice - we had chosen Lutheran, but now are seriously considering St. Anthony's Central. Our doctors prefer it based on the quality of patient care, patient perks (like massages and fresh cookies daily) and overall logistics. Their neonatal and intensive care units are really good and their perineonatologist attends each and every delivery instead of having to be called in if something goes wrong. On top of that, my nurse midwife told me that Lutheran was just bought out by a Catholic charity which is causing some issues (politically more so...) amongst OBs who deliver there. That's all tied up in litigation. So I am thinking we'll steer clear of that stuff....St. Anthony's is my docs' preferred choice, so that's enough to sway me, I think. Besides, as Ben pointed out, it's much closer to our house than Lutheran.

Rash - I've had this weird rash on my chest and now little spots on my shoulders since I was about 8 weeks pregnant. We've tried two different at home treatments, but neither have worked - I'm now going on 4 MONTHS of dealing with it!! So I got a referral to a dermatologist, who I am seeing tomorrow. Hopefully she can help me resolve this issue. It's itchy and really makes me self-conscious. I can't wear half of my maternity clothes right now because of it. I want it gone!

Weekend update and two more belly photos

Nothing too exciting happened this weekend. Overall, it was nice and relaxing. I went to get a prenatal massage on Saturday morning and Ben was kind enough to clean house while I was gone - I LOVE HIM!! Saturday night we had dinner out with our friends Matt and Kate to celebrate Kate's birthday. I had gnocchi stroganoff and it was awesome. Ben had a burger, and he liked it. Only problem was he added blue cheese, so I couldn't try it (have to steer clear of blue cheese for now...). Sunday we actually made the trip to Babies R Us to register. (We have a bit of tweaking to do, but you can view it if you search for us by name.) Dare I say, it was a bit overwhelming! We enjoyed checking everything out, but it makes you realize how much stuff you really do need (or maybe you really don't need) for Baby Girl Lowe. I think most of the items are creature comforts and things of that nature that in general make life easier with a baby. We shall soon find out - I'm 24+ weeks now, right around the corner from the third trimester and into the homestretch!

I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, which beforehand I have to drink some "yummy" glucose drink and then do some blood work. This will be give the doctors any indication of gestational diabetes and whether I need to have a more extensive glucose test done (think drinking thick cough syrup over the course of three hours....not fun!). So hopefully my results after tomorrow are good and I can avoid the additional testing!

Here are two more belly photos - I think I'm caught up!

23 weeks - Baby Girl Lowe had a growth spurt! 24 weeks - no major growth spurt, just a big dinner right before we took this photo!

Songs on the Blog and baby names/suggestions

We added two of our favorite songs that remind us of BGL to the blog. Ben's favorite is "Daughter" by Loudon Wainwright III - you might recognize the song from the movie Knocked Up. Mine is "Beautiful Life" by Fisher - it's the song from the commercials for Jon & Kate Plus 8 on TLC. Hope you like our choices.

Many people have asked about the name of BGL. Here it is, short and sweet -- we are not going to be sharing the name of BGL until she makes her grand arrival. Sorry to disappoint, but we did find out the sex to satisfy many of you (yes, including ourselves), so this name thing is going to be something that Ben and I can share just between us. I will, however, offer you a tidbit....below is a list of suggestions from our friend Lauren Motley (soon to be Lauren Johnson - it'll make sense when you get to the last name on the list). She cracks me up. My favorite is Butterfly - it's kinda hippy-ish and we all know how much Ben loves Boulder, so it seems to fit. Enjoy! Oh, and if you have BGL name suggestions, respond to this post and we'll put them on the list. You might be lucky and have us choose a name you like.....we'll take first and middle name suggestions.

Names for Baby Lowe. One for each letter of the alphabet.

Aiesha
Butterfly
Chrystyna (a new twist on the ol’ Christina!)
De-lisha or De-nossis (couldn’t pick just one)
Ezola
Fajah
Germaine (yep, under girl names)
Hyacinth
Imelda (on the list)
Jack-ee (not to be confused with Jacquie, both on the list); Ja'Quaelah
K'Brianey (I just picked this one so you could try pronouncing it)
LeRinda, L'Tanga, or Larhonda (the L’s just sound too good with Lowe)
Monette (yep, also on the official list)
Skipped N’s – no good ones
Odessa
Precious
Queisha
Redonna (just shy of Madonna; a ready-made celebrity name)
Sharisha (rolls right off the tongue); Shamecca (Shamecca mecca high mecca highny ho)
Tye (not to be confused with Ty Bo)
Blows me away there were none for “U”
VeNay
Wygenia (hmmm, wonder how they came up with this one? The guy at the end of the table with a lisp….)
YoLanda (because you have to include this one)
Zelda (don’t use this one – it’s reserved for the future Zelda Johnson)

HUGE THANKS TO...

My cousin, Alicia. She sent Ben and I a HUGE HUGE HUGE box of baby stuff. We got it a week ago and I feel like I'm still going through it. I can't thank her enough for taking time out of her busy schedule with two kiddos to package that stuff up and get it to us. Believe me, Alicia, it will be well used! Thank you again!