June 26th - Wardrobe

As we've been going through all of our stuff in the guest bedroom and making room for the baby, I realized that I was losing my storage space for some misc. things that I didn't have room for anywhere else.  After brainstorming several different solutions, we decided to buy a wardrobe to put into our bedroom to house all of the "stuff".  It would take the place of the desk we have in there and don't use.  After extensive internet searching, I found a wardrobe that seemed to be the perfect fit at Ikea.  We headed over there one day after work to check it out.  I'd never been to Ikea before so John showed me the ropes.  After seeing the wardrobe we thought it was perfect so we bought it, got it loaded into the car, and headed home.  Unfortunately, I was zero help in carrying the VERY HEAVY boxes since I can't lift anything, but John managed without throwing out his back.  :)  That weekend we spent several hours working through the instruction book and getting it put together.  We're so happy with how it turned out!!!  It's perfect for what we need it for and it looks like it's always been in our bedroom.  Here are a few pics of the process of putting it together:

Just getting started.

Our quality inspector was making sure her Dad was doing it right.

She seems a little uncertain, but allowed us to continue.

It fits!

Assembly complete.

The drawers at the bottom now house all of our gift wrapping supplies.

Hanging shelves will really help to keep everything organized.  We also bought some green fabric to hang over the windows so that we can store stuff in there temporarily without having to worry about being neat.  This is a misc "stuff" cabinet after all!

June 25th - John's "First" Wedding

One of our co-workers was getting married and heard that John was a photographer.  He approached John and asked if he would photograph their wedding.  John was flattered but quickly explained to him that he's more of a hobbiest and had never done a wedding before.  Our co-worker didn't care!  After thinking about it, John decided to do it.  Since it was a small wedding he figured he could get some experience and try out the wedding photography side of things.  They agreed to a very nominal fee, at John's insistence, and John wrote up a contract.  Soon, after much coordinating with the bride, the big day had arrived!!  John got all of his gear ready to go and borrowed his old camera from Renee in case of emergency.  Here he is right before he left.  Doesn't he look like a pro???

The day went well and John got some great pics.  His thighs were burning from squatting down so much and he was tired, but he said it was a good experience.  I don't know if he's going to do many more weddings, but it's a possibility!  I'm really proud of him.

Here are a few pictures he took:

June 21st - Disneyland

As we had planned, we headed back to Disneyland just a week after our last visit to soak up some Disney magic and to try out the new Hungry Bear restaurant menu. This time our group consisted of me, John, my Mom, my Dad, Deanna, and Loryn. After arriving we walked around a little bit to do some window shopping for the baby's room. We decided to hop on a ride so we wandered around looking for a short line. It wasn't super busy that day, but there were some pretty long lines. We decided that Mr. Toad's Wild Ride was the winner. (My Dad wanted to go on the the Storybook Land boats, but they were temporarily shut down for the parade. We haven't been on that in a LONG time.) After the ride we headed for the main event ... dinner!! Between the 6 of us we tried out a lot of the offerings. I had the Crispy Chicken Sandwich with Sweet Potato Fries. John had the Pioneer Chili Cheeseburger with Sweet Potato Fries. For dessert, we shared Trixie's Blueberry Pie.

John and I really liked the food. It was a bit different from what you can get elsewhere in the park and prepared very well. We're looking forward to going back and trying out more of their offerings (John = Fried Green Tomato Sandwich, Debbie = Big Al's Chicken Salad). The Hungry Bear is a winner!!

Here are pics of us as we left the restaurant:

We hopped onto the Haunted Mansion as we walked back towards the entrance. That ride never gets old. We noticed some changes to the attic scene that we hadn't seen before. We finished up our night with a little shopping at the World of Disney and then headed home before it got late. I love quick trips like that!!

Father's Day

Like Mother's Day was for me, Father's Day was kind of weird this year for John. Neither of us feel like parents yet so it was weird to be celebrated already. But it was neat too! John got several cards and a bank for the baby.

John printed a picture of the 4 of us that he took in Hawaii to give to his Dad. He loved it.

We drove to the Melting Pot in Brea for lunch. It was absolutely delicious ... and once again a ridiculous amount of food. I didn't even want to eat dinner later but I made myself have something. They had a special menu for Father's Day. John's parents hadn't been there before so it was a great way to introduce them to it. We had a really nice time eating and visiting.

The cheese course

Refreshing salads

Main course

Dessert

It may not look like a lot in the pictures, but believe me, it's A LOT of food.

Outside the restaurant they were having a car show so we took some time to walk around and check out all the old cars.

Walking around helped prevent a total "food coma" but we were tired by the time we got home! Later that evening we swung by my parent's house to visit and give my Dad his gifts.

Nala was more interested in playing than Papa opening gifts, so he did it quickly. :)

All-in-all it was a nice day - pretty laid back, good food, good company. And best of all, we got to celebrate the dads who we love so much.

Baby update!

It's been awhile since I've written an update on the baby's progress.  In the past month and a half we've had several ultrasounds (pictures below).  Everything is looking exactly the way it should.  All of our screening tests have come back in the normal or better range.  He's growing like a weed and kicking me throughout the day to remind me he's in there.  We're still working on a name and still planning to keep it a secret once we have it nailed down. 

We're making progress on the baby's room.  We've decided on an underwater/Finding Nemo theme.  The room already has blue walls so I don't think we'll have to paint.  It took some time to figure out if we were going to buy new furniture or not.  We decided to use what we have except get a new dresser/changing table.  We're going to donate our double bed and replace it with a twin.  I've been having a heck of a time finding cute bedding for that twin bed!!  Who would have thought!?  There's all kinds of crib bedding available, but apparently once you graduate to twin bed status you only like loud, gaudy, awful ocean bedding.    We're working on it.  We're still in the beginning stages but I'll post pictures once it starts coming together.

A couple of weekends ago my mom, John, and I went to Babies-R-Us and set up our registry.  Talk about exhausting!!  It was fun and I loved having both of them with me, but there's just so much stuff!!!  I had spent hours and hours and hours beforehand doing research on what we really needed and what would work best for us.  I can't even imagine how awful it would have been to show up at the store and not have done all of that.  Having a lot of the decisions already figured out really made a difference.  Getting the registry created was one more thing we could check off the to-do list.  Woo-hoo!

So things are going well.  We're truckin' right along.  It's going to be October before we know it!  That's a little scary because we aren't anywhere close to being ready, but we have time.  Here are a few ultrasound pictures from last month and this month.

Here he is, just hangin' out in April.

 

We got to see him opening and closing his mouth .... so cool!

In May we saw more of him opening his mouth PLUS he was sticking out his tongue!  You can see a little of his tongue in this picture, plus his spinal cord and heart.

The very very very cool part about this last visit is that John took some video of the ultrasound while we were there.  You can definitely see the tongue action and his heart beating ... so amazing!!  Click here for video.

June 13th - Disneyland!

Would you believe me if I told you I hadn't been to Disneyland in 6 months??  Well up until last week, it was the truth!!  Partly due to being sick early in my pregnancy (remember the awful sinus infection and constant congestion?), and partly due to us just being busy and not making time to go.  I decided enough was enough and something had to be done!  Especially since we only have a few more days available to us until our annual passes get blocked out for July and part of August.  After work we changed clothes and headed out!  The park was a little busy but not bad at all.  We didn't really have an agenda other than to have dinner at one of the restaurants that recently reopened with a new menu and to do a little baby window-shopping.  We also ended up walking around some and checking things out since we hadn't been there in so long.

I didn't have my camera so the few pictures we took were with our cell phones.  You'll have to pardon the crappy quality.

We decided we were overdue for a bump pic and couldn't think of a better place to take one than in front of the castle.  Here I am at 24 1/2 weeks.

We found a few cute things we may buy for the baby with our Disney points.

And a few things to put on my birthday list.

We had dinner at the Village Haus restaurant in Fantasyland.  They've added a few new things to their menu and we were excited about trying them out.  Click here to see the menu. http://allears.net/dlr/din/menu/men_vil.htm  (Here's where the crappy pictures come in.  It's dark in there so John was shining a light onto the food while I took pics.  Everything looks a little blue!)

John had the chicken sausage in a pretzel roll.

I ate the apple and cheddar salad.

Chocolate milk for me  & iced tea for John.  Those of you who know me may be shocked that I willingly drank milk, but being pregnant has got me craving it!!  We're going through milk like crazy at home.  I still can't drink it plain, but add a little chocolate to it and I'm in heaven.

Black forest cupcake - Delicious!!

Everything we had was really good and we'd order it again.  It was so nice to have something different than the typical hamburger they have everywhere.

We had a great time and are looking forward to going back.  The whole family (including Deanna and Loryn) are planning to return the 21st to try out the second restaurant with a new menu and to get our Disney fix.

June 11th - Mark Miller's Birthday Party

One of our friends (and ex-Mooger) turned 30 this month.  To celebrate, his girlfriend put together a little surprise gathering for him.   We drove out to Mission Viejo to see him and wish him a happy birthday.  You should have see the look on his face when we walked through the door!  He never would have expected us to be there in a million years!  I'm so glad we went though.  We got to catch up with him a little bit and talk to Mitch, one of our other friends (and ex-Mooger) who we hadn't seen in years.  They had tacos for dinner and a Claim Jumper Motherlode birthday cake.  Chocolate heaven!!  We only have one crappy picture of Mark and his girlfriend Jen, but since it's all we've got I'm using it!

June 4th - John's Birthday

John just celebrated his 33rd birthday!!  We didn't have a big party this year, but we got together with the ones we love the most to celebrate.

The day started out with and very hastily made breakfast-in-bed.

I baked him a pineapple inside-out cake.

We went to a birthday party for very cute Courtney Weisman, who's growing like a weed!  Click here for a link to Courtney's mom's blog to see how adorable she is.  

Then it was back home to feast on dinner from Famous Dave's BBQ.  We had enough food to feed an army!  But it sure was tasty!

John's "haul"

His new flip-flops didn't make it in time so Renee made some awesome stand-ins.  Taylor and Dixie are wondering what in the heck is going on.

He got some neat new camera equipment.

Blowing out the candles

The dogs love playing with my dad

It was more of a low-key birthday than some of his wild bashes in the past, but it was nice all the same.  It was John's last birthday before becoming a daddy.  Next year will be a whole different ball game!