Progress Pics!!

I've decided that once a month is a good frequency at which to take progress pictures. I'm a day or so early, but since we're out tomorrow night, I don't figure much will change between now and February 1st. I think I got about 32 hours in this month - still not bad! For more information on these WIPs, see this post or my flickr site.






Now to finish watching American Idol and House :)

Lazy-itis

Is this going around? I seem to have caught a bad case of it lately. It's all I can do most nights to get home, cook supper, and clean up. Work on the house (by me) has slowed to less than a crawl. Although, I seem to be getting a bit of motivation to actually caulk a window tonight ... better finish this post quickly and take advantage!

I know, I said I would get these pictures up within 24 hours of my last post ... sorry! Without further ado ... here's my first official belly shot as well as a few pictures of our piano.

(20 weeks - halfway there!)

We found out that our piano was built between 1893 and 1900. I think it looks pretty good for its age!


Alright ... gotta go change and get caulking!

Long weekend - yay!

I have pictures of the piano and my belly to post, but ... they're not here right now. I promise I'll get them up in the next 24 hours!

Still no word on how much the truck will be ... I'm kind of hoping no news is good news, but I'm not deluding myself. I'm sure we'll get a bill in the mail sometime when we least expect it.

Peter's sister has generously offered to buy us our stroller. She's sent us some ideas and we've checked out the local stores as well as online for ideas. I had no idea choosing a stroller could be so complicated! This is *much* more difficult than buying our first car. The one we're looking at is the Bumbleride 2006 Flyer. It seems to have good reviews and will fit with the infant seat we're hopefully going to borrow if it fits in our car. Does anyone have any suggestions on what to look for in a stroller? I'm totally clueless.

I mentioned after Christmas that Peter had gotten me an iPod, something I'd been wanting but hadn't asked for. I must say that this little contraption has gotten quite a workout over the past month! I absolutely love having all my music available at any time. We are able to plug it in to the speaker systems on each floor of the house (nothing elaborate, just computer ones upstairs and cheap surround sound tv ones on the main floor). Peter also gave me an FM transmitter / charger for the car, so when we take longer trips we don't have to lug all our cds around - just this little thing! And don't forget the 8 hours I spend at work every weekday. I must say, I did not foresee how useful it would be when I was wishing for one. It's nice to have something that turns out to be more useful than expected! I still have work to do, though ... I have less than 2 gigs of the 30 gig capacity filled ;)

I'm feeling pretty rundown this week, which makes me doubly glad that both Peter and I have tomorrow off. We don't really have any big plans for the long weekend except seeing my little sister in a skating competition. I'm looking forward to some house progress and some relaxing.

Expensive Free Piano

The good news is ... Peter inherited a piano a few years ago and it's finally in our living room. The bad news ... We rented a one ton truck on Saturday to drive and get the piano. In itself that was a big expense as the piano was about 100 km away. In addition, the tires on the truck were terrible. It could not handle the snow well at all, and on Saturday morning the roads were still snow-covered in some areas. So ... we got to Sussex and back fine, but could not back into our driveway because of the bad tires. Peter drove up the driveway and backed around to the front door to unload the piano. When it came time to drive out of the driveway, the truck wasn't going anywhere. A friend who was there with his truck said we could just hook a chain onto the rental and he'd "unstick" it. Which is just what we did. However, in the process of hooking the cable onto the frame of the truck, we inadvertently hooked the brake line. So ... no brakes ... on a one tonne truck. I was not ok with Peter trying to drive it back to the rental place (or a mechanic) with no brakes, although some of the guys suggested it. We called around to try and find a brake line, but at 5 o'clock on Saturday afternoon it's a little tough to find an open auto parts store. If we had kept the truck an extra day it would have cost an extra $70 on top of the repair bill, so instead we called the rental company to come tow it and fix it. Now all that's left is to wait for the bill ... ugh. I had a mini (ok, maybe a full-fledged) breakdown when Peter told me about the brake line, but after cooling off for a while I realized that there were things to be thankful for even in this. The biggest thing is that this happened now, and not a few years ago when we rented cube vans to move. At the time we were in school and no way could we have afforded the extra bill, but now, although it's not fun we have the money to cover it.

On to happier things. On Sunday I managed to get a few of the main areas in the house tidied up and got halfway caught up on laundry. Yay! We were only home for a few hours in the afternoon between church stuff, so I thought I got quite a bit done, considering.

Last night was stitchy night at Katie's. I worked on Village Skaters and was introduced to the show Heros. I'm not sure what I think. I think it's probably one of those shows you have to watch from the beginning. Kind of like our favourite - 24! I'm loving this season. I did fall asleep during it again last night - I just can't keep my eyes open. I seem to be going through a phase of not sleeping well. I never had problems before I was pregnant, but now I just can't get comfortable. Maybe because I am a die-hard stomach sleeper!

Today I had a major breakthrough at work and finally get to start on something new after being stalled on this one thing for a long time. Needless to say it will be much easier to come to work tomorrow morning :)

Baby update - I have it on my list tonight to finally take a belly picture. If I actually do it I'll post it sometime. I've been able to feel Baby M's movements much more regularly over the past week. It's so cool. I got in the tub on Sunday afternoon and s/he went absolutely crazy! I just can't wait for Peter to be able to see / feel the movements. I got my 'meet 'n greet' appointment with our obstetrician booked for next Wednesday. According to Eleni, he'll probably give us the information on the hospital tour and prenatal classes, so I'm looking forward to getting started on that stuff. Plus, we'll get to hear M's heartbeat again :)

Tonight is date night. My night to plan. Peter's picking up some pizza from Greco as I type. I think we'll go for a (short) cross-country ski if it's not too cold. It would be nice to get out in the snow. Then we'll probably have some hot chocolate and watch American Idol - pretty lame, but we enjoy watching the audition shows. I lose interest after they've picked the top 10 and I know my favourite.

Catch-up

Just a quick catch-up post. I'd like to post more often so I can have more details to look back on :) I've already posted an update on the house tonight so I'll be less long-winded here.

This week I feel like Peter and I haven't stopped. We've been busy almost every night. Monday night we had a youth leader supper and meeting, then the second half of the 24 season premiere (I fell asleep before the second hour and still haven't had a chance to watch it!)

Tuesday night was date night, which was dinner and a movie this week. Very nice, but a late night by the time we were done. We looked at strollers at Toys 'R Us and gave my SIL some ideas.

Wednesday night I worked on the house while Peter taught a guitar lesson. He's saving up to buy the guitar of his dreams and this is one way he's raising money.

Last night was youth group and Peter had hockey. All that contributed to not getting to bed until after midnight. So ... tonight is going to be a stitchy night! Speaking of which ... gotta log off so I can get started :)

Meet Baby M!

Here's our baby's first portrait - from our ultrasound yesterday at 18 weeks. I think Baby M will be a cutie (I'm using M since it's the first initial of our last name ... not a hint on gender or possible names ;) ), don't you?

In case you're as good at deciphering ultrasound photos as I am ... here's a hint. M's head is on the left - facing you. Body is on the right with legs coming straight out of screen at you. There ... is that clearer?

So ... we had our ultrasound yesterday ... during our only winter storm of the season so far! Oh well, everything went according to schedule. Baby M is measuring exactly on target and weighs 9 oz. Hmmm ... only 9 oz? I'm sure I've gained more than that! lol.

That's our last peek at Baby M until we meet in person in June - I can't wait! I have a regular appointment on Thursday so I'll get to hear the heartbeat again. At least I've been feeling movements more regularly. It's so neat to think that the baby in the picture is the one in there thumping around!

In less exciting news ... our weekend went well. I worked Saturday on window returns while Peter got a cupboard panel built - very cool! Saturday night we went out to eat - we had a gift certificate so it was a really special treat. We then headed to WalMart to get a bunch of household stuff. I picked up a maternity top (I always check their three racks of stuff since that's about all the selection we have around here), but, it's too small and *very* low-cut. It's so pretty on the hanger. I'm going to return it and try a bigger size with a camisole underneath.

Sunday afternoon I finally took the tree down - a bit late but I'm so glad it's done! Now to get the rest of the Christmas stuff put away. Sunday night we had our youth Bible study at the house ... the routine has started back up for this term :)

One of the 'resolutions' Peter and I have been working towards is getting up in the morning to have our Bible reading / quiet time before work in the morning. For anyone who knows us ... this is a big deal! With my cold last week I was doing well to get to work on time. However, both yesterday and today we both got up on time! I know the youth and others in our church are praying for us as we try to make this commitment. The biggest part is turning off the tv and getting to bed at a reasonable hour.

Last night I took to relax while Peter had a meeting at the church. I did some backstitching on Village Skaters - I hate working on the trees, but they look so much better when all the branches are outlined!

Tonight we're reestablishing date night. With Baby M on the way, we know that if we don't get into the habit now it could be lost forever ... lol. We used to be pretty good about having weekly date nights .... then we decided to build a house! It's my turn to plan tonight ... so much fun :)

Productive night ... finally!

I feel like I've been so lazy in the evenings since I found out I was pregnant. Last night, finally, I had a night where I really feel good about what I got accomplished! Peter picked up groceries on his way to get me. When we got home I put the groceries away while supper was cooking. I planned supper for tonight (took the meat out of the freezer, but it's progress!) and cleaned up the kitchen before I left that room.

After supper I started some laundry (finished and folded / put away three loads before bed!) and caulked one of the downstairs windows. I promised myself that I only had to do one window. It takes about 45 minutes per window so at least I got something done on the house! Before bed I changed the sheets on our bed. And ... I still managed to get in over 2 hours of stitching! How come some evenings it's an effort to just cook supper and then others I can get so much done. Very strange ... oh, and I laid out my clothes for today for the first time since I started to show (before it was so hard as I didn't know what exactly would fit from day to day).

So, hoping to keep going on that productive stream from last night, I'm hoping to get lots done this weekend. My short list of goals are: clean master bath, paint upstairs window returns, caulk remaining downstairs windows (2 or 3 left), wash crack-fill dust out of nursery, prime nursery. We have a free night tonight and all day tomorrow so I should be able to pace myself and get it all done.

Oh yeah - my lucky hubby gets to watch the Canada-Russia gold medal game at work this afternoon!! I am so jealous. GO CANADA GO!!

WIPs

Here we go ... finally some pictures of what I'vebeen working on! I managed to get in about 35 hours during December - very impressive for me!


This first pic is of a new start called Amethyst Snowflake by Just Nan. This is instead of the gift I was planning on working on. That gift has been postponed indefinitely.





Here is the latest picture of Village Skaters. I think this picture is coming right along. I feel like I've been working on it forever, though, so I'll be glad to finish it. It should be finished this year :)






This is a start on Teresa Wentzler's Carousel. I'm hoping that doing it on the blue "cloud" fabric will help offset the pinks in the design since we need gender-neutral for the nursery! This is my first pattern I've worked on that's hand-written. It's definitely a challenge, but I'm getting the hang of it.










This is my start on Teresa Wentzler's Chestnut rocking horse. I really like the colours in this one so far. I find the rocking horses very relaxing to stitch as they're a manageable size.





So, that's what I've been working on over the past month. I didn't realize I had 3 new starts - wow!

In other exciting news, I felt the baby kick for sure last night! What an awesome experience. Since then I've noticed more activity several times today. It's very cool.

I've also developed a lovely cold in the last 24 hours. That, combined with my still-present (although lessening) morning sickness, made for a miserable day today. Hopefully tomorrow is better!

4 months today!

Sorry the following thoughts don't really flow from one to the other ... this is mostly a brain dump of what came into my head ;)

We had a wonderful Christmas vacation over the past couple of weeks! As you can tell from the lack of posts, we were busy, but it was a good kind of busy - lots of visiting with family and friends and working on the house. I did manage to get some stitching in but I'll talk about that in another post (hopefully with some pictures if I get up the motivation to take some tonight)!

We headed for our parents' houses for a few days over Christmas. Peter got me an iPod, which I had secretly been wanting but didn't ask for because they're so expensive! Mom & Dad got me a few maternity outfits - I definitely need them now! It was weird thinking this will be our last Christmas just the two of us. After traveling this year I'm definitely thinking I'd like to be home for Christmas morning with the little one next year. People gave us some really cute baby things, too. Mom & Dad gave us some size 1 diapers - they're so tiny! One of Mom's best friends gave us a little knit sweater and bootie set - also tiny! I guess I'd better get used to that ;) Now to get the nursery finished up so we have somewhere to put all this stuff.

We had both our families over for Peter's birthday on the 28th. It was fun to have a bunch of people in. The scene repeated itself a few days later as we hosted a New Year's party. Chinese food and board games ... fun! We designed the house to be conducive to having friends and family over comfortably and it's so nice to finally be at the point where we can use the space!

With the upcoming addition to our family and the cut in pay that will be involved in a maternity leave (yay for Canada - I am so looking forward to a year at home with baby even if it is at half pay) Peter and I have been working hard on sticking to a budget. So far, so good. Hopefully with Christmas out of the way we'll be able to pay down some debt through the spring and save a good chunk towards a new(er) car. We can't count on our 10-year-old Tercel to last forever (although that would be nice)!

Our big ultrasound is only 6 days away - eek! I also have a regular doctor's appointment next week - looks like I'll be working through my lunches next week to make up time! I'm super excited for the ultrasound. We'll be getting a picture and Peter's sister has insisted we scan it and email it to her, so I'll try and post it here as well.