And the Countdown Begins....

Okay, okay, I freely admit that I have sorely failed at doing my job of updating the blog over the last (eesh) couple of months. I have a whole list of excuses that I will try not to spend all my time on (*Tommy hogging the Internet connection on his video games* Ahem, I mean...... I didn't say anything.... ) :-). Regardless, we have been very busy trying to get ready for Zane and keep up with our busy lives this summer. I was also a little hesitant to post for a while because I lost our brand new camera and I was really pretty depressed about it and just didn't want to post much without having many pictures to go along with it. Lame excuse, I know, but it contributed. Thanks to the generosity of our family, we have a new camera now so that we can take lots of great pictures and videos of Zane after he arrives.

It is a bit of a daunting task to try to quickly summarize the last 2 months in one post, but I will do my best to just give the highlights. I will make a bigger photo album on facebook (soon I promise!) to include more of the great pictures from along the way.

The dogs are trying to adjust. They like to hide under the crib!

My good friend Amy got to visit briefly in July. I was 31 weeks here.

We finally got the room arranged so that we could fit all the furniture. This was a challenge!

We had a great baby shower from our church in July. (I'm 32 weeks here)

Our friend Christi made this for us. Isn't it cute!

Smallz made himself comfortable with all of the stuff we got at our church shower.

We did a few maternity pictures in July as well. I was 32 weeks. Our friend Landon did a fabulous job!

My Grandmom finished the t-shirt quilt she made for me of all my sorority shirts from college and brought it in July. I love it!

We had a great time at the lake with my family in July. Here is my niece Emma making friends with 2nd cousin Carson.

We have already had a busy month of August as well. My co-workers threw me a shower at work, but unfortunately I do not have any pictures of that one yet. I will have to get my friend Donna to send me the ones that she took. I didn't want to risk taking even my old camera because the camera that I mentioned before that I lost, yeah, I lost it at work...

Some of our college friends threw us a fun shower last weekend. We had a great time reuniting with lots of friends and family. Tommy entertained the men with video games upstairs.

My wonderful hostesses

My friend Jacque got to be here for the shower from North Carolina. Unfortunately I didn't get any posed pictures with her. But here she is next to me!

Tommy's sister, Tammy, is only 4 weeks behind me. We are looking forward to Zane having a great time with his cousin Noah! We are 35 and 31 weeks here.

Whew! I think those are the main highlights of the last couple of months. Zane's room is just about ready. We just need to hang things on the wall. I will definitely post with the finished product. I am 36 weeks now and we are realizing every day that he will be here very soon. This is both exciting and terrifying! We have just about everything we need (and so much more), aside from a couple of trips to Babies R Us and Target. I am feeling okay most of the time, just tired and getting a little fed up with having this big belly and all the pregnancy woes. I plan to keep working until I deliver or Labor Day weekend, whichever comes first, as long as I continue without any major problems. It will be such a relief to be done with pregnancy, although I know that caring for a newborn will be a whole new adventure in itself. We can't wait to meet our little boy and start getting to know him! I will make a point to keep the blog better updated now, I promise!

With Love & Anticipation!

Crystal

Zane's Room

I finally have a few minutes to update and show you guys the progress we have made with the room. We took a leap and decided on the red paint for the room and we absolutely love it!! We also got the crib all put together so it is really beginning to look like a baby's room. To show you how far we have come, I am posting the very honest before pictures of this room. Before we did anything, this was the catch-all junk room in our house....


It doesn't even look like the same room anymore. With a lot of help from some friends, we installed a ceiling fan and got the room all painted.

How many men does it take to screw in a lightbulb.... er, install a fan? We've even got an Aggie in there. Thanks Andy & Brooks! Tommy's parents were a great help too!


Andy also stuck around and helped us tape the room to get ready for paint.


Our friends Mike Taylor and Mike Reed helped Tommy do most of the painting. They were both lifesavers!!

Tommy posing with walls almost done. Just lacking one coat of red!

And now for the finished walls!!

We think the red turned out great!! I will post pictures of the crib in a separate post because I am out of time. Off we go again!

Love,

Crystal

Paint Problems

We have yet to decide on a paint color for the nursery. So I need some help from some of my more design inclined friends, or really anyone.... It has been harder than we thought to find a shade of blue that we both like on the wall and that matches/coordinates with the blue in the bedding. The blue in the bedding is almost a denim blue, which looks like a gray blue on the wall and that looks a little depressing to Tommy. We are still considering blue at this point, but I decided to think outside the box today. Up to this point, I have been trying to avoid very dark or bold colors since our bedding is so colorful and bright, but I am willing to consider anything at this point. My friend Nikki and I picked up a stack of paint swatches tonight in a variety of colors and ideas. Tommy and I are both kind of liking the concept of painting red on the bottom and painting the top a creamish-tan. (We already have a chairrail in the room). I really feel like the red would grow with Zane as we go from baby room to toddler room in a few years. My only concern is that it might come across as too much with the bright bedding. I am rationalizing however that with the furniture and everything, much of the red will be covered so maybe it wouldn't be too much. Please tell me what you think!!

Let us know what you think. If you have additional suggestions, we will take them. We are trying to avoid green because we already have another bedroom in the house painted green as well as the bathroom. I am also stearing away from yellow because I don't think that would grow up with him very well. But, I am still open to suggestions!

Thanks,

Crystal

Baby Bump Watch

Well it seems to be time for an update on the baby belly. I am showing for sure by this point. Random people all day long ask me when I am due. I am at a point where I feel pretty darn huge, but everybody exclaims about how small I am. Whatever! I realize I have quite a ways to go, but I am now having a hard time getting up and down and bending over. I get tired pretty quick these days if I have to do a lot of walking. I've told Tommy before that I wish sometimes I could just take the baby off and make him carry it for me for a while but that won't come for a while. So here is the update and the last recent one for comparison....

25 weeks- 5/28/09

21 weeks- 4/29/09

I will try to post some pics soon from last weekend with Robin & Jill & Emma in Tulsa. We had a great time and I have some fabulous pictures!

Love you all!

Crystal

Time to make a place for Zane!

We have been busy trying to get the house all ready for little Zane. We still have a lot to go, but we have been able to accomplish a few things. We got his bedding in and we are so excited about it. Here are a few pictures of the real thing.

We also made a last minute decision to go ahead and lay some grass in the backyard. We are hoping that by laying it this year, we will have a thick yard of grass by next summer when Zane will be toddling around and he can play outside. Before now, our backyard has been mostly mud and weeds, so this is a big deal!

Our next big step was painting the bathroom. It has been decorated in pink and that will definitely not do for a little boy's bathroom, so we had to do a little work.

Before

More Before

It took a lot of tape!

Daddy working hard

Green!

Finished.. for now!

We still have a ton of work to do, but we are getting there. We will be cleaning out the junk room next so that we can make it a nursery. We found a crib this week and plan to go pick it up on Monday. So excited!

More to come!

Crystal

Kickin' It

Hello All!

We haven't had much to update about the last couple of weeks. I have had a pretty rough couple of weeks at work, just a lot of really intense and difficult situations with patients and families. That has left me pretty much wiped out by the time I get home, usually later than Tommy would prefer.

For Mother's Day, Tommy got me an Itunes gift card (and some grass in the backyard) and Zane gave me a moment of nausea at church.... That is life though. The exciting news we got this weekend is that Craig and Fallon are now expecting. This means that Zane will now have 3 cousins within 3 months of his age!! Tommy's sister- Tammy is due in October, my sister-in-law- Jill is due just before Thanksgiving, and my other sister-in-law- Fallon is due Christmas Day. I figured that at some point some of us might have some overlapping pregnancies, but I never imagined that I would be pregnant with all of my sisters-in-law at the same time! Now that is sisterhood! I am so excited to watch how this will all play out. Zane will always have someone to play with.

Fun milestone of the moment. Tonight, Tommy and I were sitting on the couch and I realized that I could actually see my tummy jump when Zane kicked. I got Tommy's attention, and he raised my shirt up and we both stared for a few seconds with nothing.... Tommy leaned down and talked to Zane. He asked Zane to please kick one more time. Right after he asked, our obedient little child responded and my tummy made a huge jump! My entertainment for the whole rest of this evening has been laying here watching my stomach jump around at Zane's every little move. Crazy!! If this is so fun, I can only imagine how much time I will spend watching his every move when he is out and I can actually see him. This is getting so fun!

We love you all!

Crystal

Busy busy

Hi all!

I don't have too much to share but I have had a few requests for an updated baby bump pic so I thought I would make a short entry. I will include the last pic as well so you have a good reference point.

16 1/2 weeks (3/30/09)

Almost 21 weeks (4/29/09)

I am getting to the point where people are asking me, "How far along are you?" rather than [awkward] "Are you pregnant?" I half want to tell someone no when they ask just to mess with them but I haven't been able to be that mean to anyone yet. I am really enjoying the second trimester but it is going so quickly.

Our friends Landon and Nikki had their baby girl, London, this week, and our other friends Sarah & Dicky (Fallon's brother & sister-in-law) had their baby girl, Molly, last week. Going to see Landon & Nikki in the hospital made things a little more real for me. It doesn't help that they have the same doctor and delivered at the same hospital we will use. It makes me very excited but I am also realizing just how much we need to do to get everything ready. Everything went pretty smoothly for both couples and the babies are healthy. I haven't met Molly yet, but I can tell you that little London is beautiful. Zane will have plenty of cute little girls around to play with!

The Day family- Landon, Nikki, & London

We are working on getting some baby showers scheduled. It looks like our shower at church will be Sunday, July 19th in the afternoon. We have some friends that are planning to host a different shower for us as well. I don't have a definite date on that one yet, but we will let you all know as soon as we can. Our next step is to begin to transform the junk room into the baby nursery. First we have to get rid of all the junk..... Why do we have so much random stuff??

I am hoping for a lighter week at work this week after an insane week last week. I can't believe it is May already!

Love you all,

Crystal