The waiting game....

We are ready and waiting for this baby to make his or her arrival! My due date was yesterday, so we're officially overdue... I must confess I am thankful that the baby didn't come early as I just wasn't as ready as I would have liked two weeks ago. But.... now we are ready, or as ready as we can be including:

• almost a dozen meals in the freezer
• 10 dozen cookies made(although, if this babe waits too long we'll eat them all!)
• a very clean house
• bags(for Mom, Dad and baby!) packed and ready by the door
• a completed nursery(see pics in post below)

So now we're just playing the waiting game..... any suggestions to help pass the time?

The Nursery

The room we had designated for the nursery didn't need a lot of work, but as with most projects around here we did end up putting a little more work into it than we had originally thought was necessary. My dear hubby worked very quickly though and it was done in no time! I must confess I didn't do a single renovation-related thing on this room except provide loving support and snacks when necessary :-) Ben, however, spent several nights on the following:

• ripping out the door frame into the very small closet
  
• ripping out the old space-wasting shelves in the closet
• sanding the bottom half of the walls to get rid of the leftover glue from the wall paper that the previous owner had painted over
• running a wire for a light in the closet
• pulling off the old trim
  
• installing a new window
• mudding the many holes and divits around the room
• patching the ceiling
• sanding and mudding a few more times
• painting
• cleaning the carpet
  
• painting the new trim
• installing the new trim
• installing new shelves in the closet

Before

During

The view from the doorway.

We bought the change table off Kijiji and Ben just had to fix up a few things on it and paint it. The rocker we also got off Kijiji and my dear mother made new, very comfy cushions it. The end table(which is difficult to see on these pics) we had passed on to us when we were very married, and because it was so dinged up my mom made a cover for it(I know, she's the best!). The crib was lovingly made by my Opa teBokkel for my older sister and she and the rest of us kids slept in it for all our baby years. It's pretty special to have for our little babe to snooze in too!

Standing in front of the window

Standing in front of the closet.

So now we're just waiting for our little son or daughter to make this room complete!

Stained Glass Window

Our house was built in the early 1900's and is identical to the one next door. When the houses were built they each had four stained glass windows giving both value and character. While our house stood empty before we bought it, all of the stained glass windows were stolen with the exception of our front living room window. We really like our stained glass window and always bemoaned the fact that we don't have the other ones. Well Ben's old boss, Frank, does stained glass for a hobby and offered to make us one as long as we paid for the cost of the glass. We of course agreed and Ben took a sketching of our neighbour's window along with a picture and passed them on to Frank. We just got the window a few weeks and we've been enjoying it ever since!

Our neighbour's original window.

Our new window.

View from our living room.

The "matching" window in our front living room window.

39 weeks!

Three and a half weeks to go!

Update

Well I'm a little behind on posting pregnancy updates and just updates in general. Time just seems to get away from me and despite the best intentions I just don't seem to get around to posting anything!

Life is ticking away like normal around here. We've been busy with renovations as we're finishing up the bathroom and starting on the nursery. Pictures of the bathroom will be coming soon(we were waiting for a long overdue counter top!) We've started on the nursery in the last couple weeks; Ben's been busy doing some electrical and patching the walls. We hope to get the walls primed and ready for paint this week! We ordered a new window for the room as well, so that should go in this week. After that we just have to buy and install new trim and we'll be all set!

We're right in the middle of the busy Christmas season and we're about halfway done our our family gatherings/parties. It's been a busy Christmas season, but we're so blessed with wonderful family and friends to celebrate this time of year with! Below are some pictures from our VMS family gathering.

Puzzles Ben made for Lauren and Leah. Waiting anxiously!

Kara in the new pajamas I made for her!

And Joey in his new ones!

Ben got some extra time off this Christmas, so he has/had almost two straight weeks off from work (pending snow plowing and any funerals.) I also took/am taking some extra time off work, so it'll be nice to spend some time relaxing and working on the house.

I'm finishing up working full time at Word & Deed. I been training my replacement, Hanna, for three weeks now and it's going wonderfully! I hope to continue working until the end of January and then have twoish weeks before my due date. Depending on my level of energy, I may cut down my hours towards the end and only work part days.

We only have six more weeks to go with this pregnancy; it seems like just yesterday we found out we were expecting and now in sixish weeks we get to meet our new little baby! Everything is still going well; my midwives tell me I'm right on track at each appointment with 'textbook' numbers. I'm starting to slow down a little though; I just don't have the same amount of energy I had. No more running up the stairs two at a time and bending over just isn't as easy as it once was. I think I took a lot of things for granted before I was pregnant: being able to eat without worrying about heartburn, picking something off the floor, rolling over in bed, and just having energy and motivation to do things like clean my house, bake, etc! Thankfully I have the most understanding husband to help me with everything! He's so supportive and understanding of all my wonderful (*cough cough*) pregnancy quirks and moodswings and is so willing and ready to help out with things around the house in addition to everything else he does. I'm truly blessed to have such an incredible husband; sigh... he's just so wonderful!

Junior/ette is continuing to grow and kick and kick and grow. He/she should be about 5lbs by now and probably about 20 inches long. The flitters and flutters have now grown into pokes and stretches which grow stronger every day. He/she is very active and likes to stretch in different directions all at once. As I type this, junior/ette is wiggling and I can watch my belly move up and down and back and forth! So fun! I've been having more Braxton hicks contractions too, preparing me for labour. They're not painful, but are getting more uncomfortable as the days go by.

Below are some pictures of me at 34 weeks!

28 Weeks!

Third trimester here we come! The countdown is on: 12 more weeks(we're hoping anyways!)