Win! ErgoBaby Carrier!

Whattoexpect.com was running a "baby shower" for December 2012 babies a couple of months ago.  They were giving away 2 ErgoBaby carriers and all you had to do was post on a discussion board!  Well, out of all the entries, mine was selected and we won a carrier!  It came in the mail a couple of weeks ago and we were super excited to try it out.  So Buddy and Aaron gave it a trial run:

This carrier with the infant insert normally costs $163 so this was a major win!  Sweet!

I haven't tried it on yet (I have a feeling my big belly would get in the way!) but Aaron says it's super comfortable in both the front and back carry positions, so I think we'll be using this a lot over the years!

Baby's Room

I think our baby's room is finally ready (except for a few little things, like a laundry basket and diaper disposal) so Gummy Bear can come any time now!  Not that he'll even be sleeping in his room at first... he'll be in a bassinet in our room for the first little while.

Before we know his gender, we planned two color schemes for the room.  It would be turquoise and orange if he turned out to be a boy, and turquoise and pink if he had been a girl.  So we were able to start getting turquoise things for the room pretty early on.  And we went with white furniture (more details about the changing table here, in case you missed it), so that the color would really come from the accessories and bedding.  We painted the room a neutral-ish blue ("Quiet Rain") when we moved in and decided not to repaint for this baby.  It's probably not the best wall color for the color schemes we chose but it's not the worst either.  Too much work to repaint, since we're hoping to not be in this rental apartment long term.  And the curtains we have in here don't match the new color scheme... oops.  Maybe we'll get around to changing those.  But maybe not.

View from the door.  His room is also the computer room.

View from the rocking chair.

View from the crib.

The changing table.

The crib.

My mom made this awesome quilt too and I think it ties the room together really well!  Thanks Mom!

The quilt.

*Update:  I redid the glider rocking chair so it would look better and be more comfortable.  Click here to see it.

Thanksgiving!

We went down to my parents' in Manassas for Thanksgiving this year.  Austin, Mariko, and Harrison were there too.  It was a day full of family and food, and it was awesome!

Mom's been working on making a mini dessert cup version of nanaimo bars and they turned out great!  And they're cute, in addition to being delicious!  Aaron and I were in charge of snacks/appetizers, drinks, and rolls.  I made a cheese ball and cracker tray, fruit and fruit dip tray, and we brought a few different sparkling drinks.  For the rolls, I came up with this awesome idea to make them shaped like turkeys!  Some of them ended up looking really cute (and others... didn't...) and I was pretty impressed that my middle-of-the-night idea actually turned out well!

On Black Friday, we went shopping, but not crazy middle of the night/early morning shopping.  We went to the stores between 9:00 and 10:30 am and still got some good deals without having any lines and craziness to deal with.  Awesome! After shopping, we went with my parents to spend the day at their new lake house they just bought!  (They're planning on renting it out sometime in the next year or so, and then when they retire they'll sell the Manassas house and move into the lake house.)  It's a really cute house and we spent the day changing locks, testing appliances, putting up blinds, and cleaning.

So we had a really good weekend with family!  I'm so thankful to have my family living so close that we can see them often.

Baby Bump- Part 2

It's been a while since I posted baby bump pictures, and I certainly look bigger than I did last time I posted photos at about 24 weeks!

27 Weeks

28 Weeks 3 Days

30 Weeks

33 Weeks 1 Day

34 Weeks 3 Days

36 Weeks 2 Days

I'm feeling pretty huge these days but we only have a few weeks to go!  Only a few more of these pictures and then we'll have our little baby to look at instead of my big belly!

Updates:

Shoes?  Forget about it, unless Aaron's around to tie them for me.  Even though it's getting colder, I still wear flip flops if I go anywhere during the day since those don't require reaching my feet!

Rolling over is nearly impossible.  If it weren't so annoying, it would be funny how I have to grab the headboard or edge of the bed to help me roll over to get up for my middle of the night potty trips.  It doesn't help that I'm sandwiched between Aaron and my body pillow (so I will stay on my side instead of my back) so I'm not even really that close to the edge of the bed...

SWELLING.  Face.  Feet.  And my right hand.  Weird.

Baby shower is postponed :(  The girl who is hosting it had a death in the family and had to go out of town for the funeral so we have to push back my shower.  I just hope we get it in before I go into labor!

Bassinet is set up!  Aaron's been anxious to do this since we borrowed it from my parents about a month ago.  I didn't want it set up too early, because I didn't want it taking up space for too long before we can use it, but I finally let him assemble it this weekend on his day off.

Baby laundry is all done and organized.  Whew.  That project took way longer than it should have.

We tried playing "name that body part" the other day.  Gummy Bear was being super active and sticking hands, feet, and rear end out at us.  Sometimes we could tell what was a foot or a butt, but it's pretty hard to differentiate between a fist and a foot.  Oh well, it was just fun to be able to interact with our little boy!

Less than 4 weeks to go!  And we even get a holiday in there to (hopefully) distract me from my discomfort!

Kimbler Visit- Baltimore Aquarium

Aaron's parents came to visit us last weekend!  It was a short visit (cut even shorter by Hurricane Sandy) but it was fun.  We spent a lot of Saturday in Baltimore- going to the aquarium, eating, and doing a little shopping too!  We're lucky to have so much to do in our area!

I handed the camera off to Aaron pretty early on and he went a little photo crazy- he pretty much used up the entire battery while we were at the aquarium.  But we actually ended up with some good shots!

We also saw the dolphin show while we were there.  It was pretty neat to see what these dolphins can do!

We were glad to see Aaron's parents, even though the visit was short!

Maternity Photo Shoot

My dad is awesome.  He agreed to come up and take some maternity photos for me while we had the beautiful fall weather and leaves a couple of weeks ago.  He's not a professional, but photography and videography are some hobbies of his and I think he's pretty good!  (He did our engagement photos back in 2008 too.)  I just want to share some of my favorites:

We had fun taking these photos- thanks dad!

Aaron's Work Trip

Aaron went on his first trip for work a couple of weeks ago!  He went to the Openstack Summit in San Diego and was there from Sunday to Friday.

Mostly he and his coworkers sat in classes during the day, but they also had a party to go to pretty much every night.  He was even able to take his coworkers to see the San Diego Temple!

While he was gone, I worked on several baby projects and rediscovered how difficult it is to cook for one when I'm so used to cooking for two!

And Aaron came home with tons of swag.  17 t-shirts!  Wow!

I think he enjoyed himself, though he was exhausted when he came home.  I'm just hoping he doesn't go on another trip for a while- I got pretty bored and we're getting too close to Gummy Bear's due date for any more traveling!