Nobody puts Baby in the garage

This had been a fear - that the baby could come, the room wouldn't be ready, and (s)he'd have to sleep in his/her crib that was out in the garage.

OK, so of course I wasn't really worried that we'd put our baby in the garage, but seriously, now that the furniture is in the room and cleaned off I feel GREAT!! I'm about to hit Babies R Us to get a mattress and crib skirt (to cover up the metal things allowing the mattress to be raised) and am one happy momma to be!!

**Serengeti Grandma will be up Friday to add the mural and Sweatshop Grandma got the curtains in the mail today!! Now there's just the glider cushion to finish to replace the hideous one that's on it now... Steve left it on so I could sit in there (on a sheet) to read to the baby as it gets closer. Nice gesture!**

Living Large

A co-worker whose partner is 2 1/2 weeks further along than I am commented that she hit a wall at week 35 and could not believe she had 5 more weeks of pregnancy to endure. I would say 90% of the time I don't feel that way. I still love feeling the movement, think the belly is great, and am overall enjoying the process. That being said, Monday (35 w, 2 d), I hit a mini wall when my feet were HUUUUGE and I was really struggling to bend over. I had picked up Steve's birthday cake and tried setting it on the passenger floor of my car. Ha! Putting groceries away was equally challenging this week. Two more pounds of kid and who knows how many more pounds of me left. . . We'll see how this goes!!!

34 weeks, 4 days 35 weeks, 3 days

35 weeks, 3 days

This baby's a growin'!

And these feet get a swollen!

Troll feet - week 35. YUCK! This was a particularly puffy day.

A House in Transition

At lunch last week I commented that the construction chaos has officially entered our main living area. A client of mine called me out and said that I've been saying that for the past 2 months. She's probably right, but seriously, it really is chaotic up here now!!!

Last Friday night Steve & I cleared out the baby's room - mostly. There's 1 desk left that wouldn't fit in our (tiny) dining room. This met the 1 August deadline for beginning the baby's room and allowed me to take a deep breath. At least until I remembered all the other stuff going on.

So as it stands right now, our living room has an extra table in it, our dining room is now the office, the guest room is a catch all with various bags & containers filled with books from the office, and the baby's room is a whole lot closer to becoming the baby's room.

We also made the decision this week to hire out the mudding for the basement. Good call as now Ivan Ivanoff is able to do in 4 days when may have taken Steve 2 weeks, getting us back on track to get this place baby ready in the next few weeks.

The steps remaining are as follows:

*Finish our bedroom in the basement (flooring, trim, doors, paint, lighting)

*Move our bedroom in to the basement

*Rip up the rest of the carpet upstairs (my dad took out the carpet on the stairs last week, hooray!)

*Put down hardwood floors, paint, and put back the trim upstairs

*Move the office (out of the dining room) and the guest room upstairs

*Finish the bathroom downstairs (tiling, install vanity, toilet, lighting, paint, trim, door)

*Finish the family room (flooring, trim, paint, lighting)

*Finish laundry room (flooring, paint, trim)

*Install new stairs (up and down)

Should I add a new poll to see how far people think we will get?!

Full-time personal attendant

My friend Lisa has earned herself a full-time position in my life. She was the awesome personal attendant for our wedding and did more than we ever knew that day. Over the years, she has continued to be an amazing and generous friend, always willing to help out in whatever way.


This past weekend, Lis gave up her Sunday to get incredibly hot and icky in our baby's room helping me paint it. She offered a while back when I was feeling particularly overwhelmed by the whole renovation process and I was just as grateful Sunday as I had felt with the initial offer. She and I were able to get 2 coats done and then I finished it up after she headed back to Hibbing.


I have felt an increased sense of peace and readiness knowing that step in baby prep is done. Steve spent the morning painting the ceiling and tonight is getting the new ceiling fan ready to be installed. It's coming together!


Now "Serengeti Grandma" - as my mom refers to Bonnie (since she'll be painting a mural in the baby's room of a Serengeti sillouette) - and "Sweatshop Grandma" and I secretly refer to my mom (since she is sewing the baby's curtains and new glider cushion) - hold the key to the finishing touches! My girlfriend Ellie will be up this coming weekend and will help me get a few other things up on the wall and lend her design eye to final furniture placement, etc.

Murray 3.0

Steve turned 30 on Monday. Yup, my husband is an old man. He's disappointed to not be a dad by his 30th bday, which was an initial goal. I like to tease him that for a Catholic, pro-lifer, he has an interesting take on when he becomes a dad. ;o)

The Thursday before, the baby and I surprised Steve with a table saw (insert Tool Time guy sound here). I am a strict observer of birthday and Christmas and any other gift-giving/receiving waiting, so it was especially surprising. I wasn't able to get it out of my car though, so he was even able to put it to use before the big day.

We spent that Saturday with the Murrays, doing a pre-bday celebration for Steve and his sister and then attending a family wedding. It was a good day to relax and enjoy each other's company.
His birthday was lowkey, spent predominantly in the basement, but he did get a yummy DQ cake and monkey bread for breakfast the next morning. (Painting the baby's room took away from my regular grocery run, hence the belated bday breakfast.) 30 should be a good year. A new baby, a finished basement, a new Gopher stadium - what more could a guy wish for??

There was a crooked man. . .

Who walked a crooked mile.
He found a crooked sixpence
Against a crooked stile.
He bought a crooked cat
Which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together
In a crooked little house.

What the nursery rhyme leaves out is that the crooked little house they lived in is ours!!

When Steve redid our kitchen, the cabinets gave him no end of headaches as he realized just how crooked they were. The backsplash we put in was pretty amusing when we ended up with one side that fit perfectly and the other that needed a crooked mosaic boarder to finish it up.

Now on to the basement and what do ya know. It wasn't just the cabinets. Whole walls are crooked, which makes measuring and drywalling, and flooring, etc. a nightmare - for Steve. Since I am not the one carefully measuring to just to find that the part I measured is over an inch off of another part on the same wall, I find it somewhat amusing. Seriously though, what can you do but laugh at some of this stuff??

**In other news, we now are carpet free on all of our stairs! My dad's "Norris List" included removing the terrible, nasty carpet from the stairs going up to our bedroom. That's the part he wanted to tackle first. Hooray! I may have said this before, but I am seriously almost the most excited to have that horrible carpet out of our house. It's disgusting. And now it's a step closer to being a thing of the past!**

Charlie and me

Our black lab, Charlie, is a real nut. We adopted him a year ago and had been told about some of his quirky behavior, but it's a different story to live with him! Last year the family that had fostered him told is if we were missing items, to check his kennel. They said he didn't chew on things (which after losing a pair of sandles, the top of a cowboy boot, and a few other things, was obviously not the full truth), but he likes to steal things and put them in his kennel.

In preparation for the baby, we have not been paying as much attention to the zoo. (Ok, so we've just been really busy with this basement remodel and a zillion other things going on.) As a result, they've needed to entertain themselves a bit more than normal. Here is a short list of some of the things Charlie has gotten into this past week :

*Emptying out, can by can, bags of recycling, and placing items under the dining room table
*Stealing a bunch of bananas from the kitchen counter, and placing 4 of the 5 at the top of the stairs (the 5th was initially thought to have been eaten, but was later found in the living room slightly bruised)
*Moving shoes, one at a time, to underneath the dining room table or in to the living room (See a trend? Shoes typically are mine and he rarely if ever takes a pair, he just takes one)
*Lounging on the couch (this one is new)
*Taking my toothpaste off of the bathroom counter and placing it at the top of the stairs
*Eating underwear (gross, right??? And yet another privilege reserved for his favorite person. . . )

Today before Steve left he found the toothpaste at the top of the stairs, underwear in the living room, shoes under the table, and Charlie on the couch, with a flip flop. He scolded Charlie for being on the couch and a bit later when he called the dogs to let them out before he left for work, Charlie didn't come. He found him curled up under Steve's desk looking a bit depressed. Apparently he knew he had been in trouble.