Friends

I just have to say that I don't know how, but I got blessed with the most amazing group of high school friends ever. We've managed to keep in decent contact thanks to blogs and Facebook over the years (now almost 8). Now many live out of state, in fact of six of us girls we live in five different states right now. But the track record is amazing. Everyone either has a college degree, or are in the last stages of finishing their degree. Everyone has gotten married in the temple.

So these said amazing friends have come up twice recently. The first was just over a week ago. I came home from a family Christmas party to a giant box on my doorstep. Unable to really get together, one of my friends still organized a baby shower. Here it is.

I had balloons, treats, a diaper cake, confetti, gifts, and cards all stuck in this box. They went in on the crib set I'd picked out for the room that matches the border. And this was my happy surprise. It was so much fun.

Also recently, the largest group of these friends got together for breakfast. Its sort of an annual tradition to get together for breakfast shortly after Christmas. This year more people came than have in a long time. We were only missed a couple. It was fun to see people's families and hear where everyone is right now. We forgot to take pictures before a couple of people left, but here's the picture when we did take it.

Just the girls (and kids) Everyone left and families

Pregnancy

Just so I get all my tummy pictures on here, a recap of pregnancy. I feel like I've been pregnant for a very long time. It was funny, because for so long I would get comments on how tiny I was. No longer. I'm not tiny. But its fun to see the growth. So here is my collection of me pregnant. Hopefully not too much longer.

Pretending to look pregnant at three months Four and a half months, not much better.

My Halloween costume and Anna's first costume as a basketball. 6 1/2 months along.

Not quite sure exactly when, but getting big. Something like 8 months.

And just before Christmas (Dec 23) almost 9 months.

So baby is big and I'm big and now its time for this belly to disappear :) I have to say, I've never put this many pictures of myself anywhere, its a little unnerving. One funny thing I find is ladies that I talk to who mention they miss being pregnant. Although there are some upsides to it, mostly I can't imagine ever missing my entire body being out of whack. Come on little Annalee, its time to come meet mommy :)

Anna's Room

I haven't been good at this but I did want to share our big project of recent weeks. We have turned Matt's old bedroom into our little Annalee's room. Last week we finally finished the floor and moved what stuff we have in. I have to say that it just makes me happy. I'm at about 30 weeks now and looking forward to these last 10 weeks being done. Luckily the holidays are upon us making this all a little more fun.

Here's my chair that we've had for a long time and a few of the big butterflies.
The corner with the bassinet that we have right now and the butterflies going up the wall. My husband did each and everyone of the stenciled butterflies and designed it. So amazing. Also, I have to draw attention to the items in the bassinet. The pillow was made by Matt's mom. The quilt was sent to me from Texas and is absolutely amazing!
Detail around the door and light switch.

And I realized none of the pictures showed the awesome floor. I'm too lazy to go take one right now, but here's an idea, although this is before we refinished it. It looks the same only clean and shiny and the trim is now pink.

So that's been our big project and its fun to see it done.

Millions of Peaches

Yes, its been over a month and yes I should write about other things, but I wanted to post something and I'm very proud. I recently bought a ton of peaches and I just finished putting the very last bag of peaches in the freezer. They look all beautiful! So now I have a freezer full of peaches.

(and sorry, somehow this picture insisted on being big even thought I told it to be small!)

P.S. pregnancy is going good. Little Anna is extremely active and according to the ultrasound technician has big feet.

Its official!

And we're very, very excited.

What's it going to be?

I plan on doing a really nice girl's camp post sometime. It was really fun and so awesome to see many of the girls grow a lot. Most seemed to have a good time. I loved all of them and had the added blessing that besides some sore, out-of-shape muscles, I felt really good the whole time! I can't begin to express how grateful I am for that.

So this post is for an official tally. Any and all who read it, I want predictions on what the gender of the baby is going to be. I have to give you the facts. My sister and two sister-in-laws with children all had a boy first. Out of my close friends in high school, the four who have already had children also had boys first. The fifth who is expecting has not been able to get a clear answer yet. Of ex-roomies that have children and I've kept track of, three had a boy first, one had a girl first, one is expecting a boy and one is expecting a girl. A clear majority of boys, but a few girls thrown in. My chinese zodiac predictor or whatever says its a boy and I'm carrying low. Matt, my mother and I all have had dreams it was a girl. I've had lots of morning sickness. Hopefully I will know on Monday and make the reveal. Let me know what you think it is.

Other News

While on our trip on the farm there was a goat. I don't know if you can tell, but we sure could in person. There is something unusual about this goat.

We didn't think the wide hips were just some extra weight. And so I use this goat expecting some kids to make an official cyberspace announcement of what many/most of anyone reading this already knows.

We are expecting a new baby. Baby is due January 13th, 2011, so I am just over 16 weeks along. We do not know gender yet, but we do want to find out and hope to in two weeks at my next doctor's appointment.

Now for me just a word about being pregnant. I believe it is the worst thing ever. I miss liking food, I'm tired of my body ruling my life. I can't ever ignore it, even just for a little while, because it will rebel and make me wish I hadn't. Pregnancy has not been kind to me in any sense. One of people's issues is the weight gain, and I will be very excited for that. Right now I feel like I'll be lucky to get to my pre-pregnancy weight before I have the baby. I've lost somewhere between 10-20 lbs, depending on how you measure it. I do not like that Sam-I-am. It gives you an idea of how I've felt. But I am grateful for drugs, which allow me to keep any food down at all. I'm also grateful that finally I think that second trimester promise is starting to kick in. Although just when things seemed to be getting better, I had to go and get the stomach flu. Luckily when the flu went away so did morning sickness. I've actually felt completely human for most of this week.

Alright - enough complaining. Things I sort of like. I have already felt baby move. Its sort of early on a first pregnancy, but I'm pretty darn sure. And its nice to have that reassurance that baby is healthy. Its a slightly uncomfortable feeling, but sort of fun.

Baby is cute. The following pictures are from my first appointment, so I was only about 10 weeks at the time, but they are pretty good.

This one causes my husband to call the baby "Wave." But it really does look like baby was waving :)

So there. I'm very excited to be a mom. I'm excited for this journey. And I'm already looking forward to January when this whole prego thing can be done with!