Play Time

This week my sister Keri and her family came to Grand Rapids for an overnight visit. I met them at the Children's Museum so the kids could play. This was Allison's first trip and she loved it. The cousins did a good job of wearing her out as she took a three hour nap that afternoon.

I discovered that my zoo membership was good at the Children's Museum during the month of August, so Brian took Friday off so we could bring Allison back to play and take pictures. She had a blast playing with her dad.

Her favorite toy was the mirror tunnel. She loved crawling through that.

Balls and putting balls into something....how could she not love this exhibit. This kept her busy for a while on both trips.

Another stacking toy. As you can see she takes her works seriously.

Sometimes you just don't realize how tired you are until have have a chance to sit down for a minute.

Check!

Pregnancy To-do List

Scheduled C-section - Check. October 23 at 11 am

Clean baseboards - Check. The past few weeks, I've been doing a deep cleaning. I've been cleaning closets, organizing drawers, washing walls, etc. Brian is helping me with the remaining rooms this weekend. I even cleaned up the basement storage room so we now have room to make a Costco run and buy tons of TP and paper towel. I'm so excited.

Clean sock drawer - Check. Now that the basement is complete and the floors are nice, I was able to pull out my new socks. So exciting.

Plan meals for after baby arrives - Check. I have a four-week menu all planned with easy meals, so we don't have to think about what we are going to have for dinner or worry about not having all the items in the house. Some of those meals will include dinners from Alicat, one of those places that you can prepare and freeze meals. I will also make some stuff up ahead of time and freeze at the beginning of October.


Update phone and email address book - Check. I have everything ready and updated for Brian to get the word out. The hospital has a website that you can send out an announcement so I created a page for Brian who can update it with all the correct information and pictures to send out. If I can borrow the hospital's laptop that they have for patients, I will post something on here in the first few days. Otherwise, it will probably be a week before I can post.

Teach Allison to take on more responsibility - Check. From now on Allison will be doing the grocery shopping to help us out a bit. Hopefully the whole family likes Gerber Puffs.

Overall the pregnancy has been going very well. It is hard to believe that I am almost 32 weeks along. And, yes, I am showing as you can see.

All Dressed Up

Last weekend Brian's brother Mark got married. Brian was the best man. I thought I would post a few pictures of us all dressed up. Allison did great....thanks to "cousin Amy" who helped watch her during the ceremony. I appreciate her helping out at the last minute. I didn't even think of having someone watch Allison during the ceremony until Friday night, so Amy sat out in the lobby with her.

Allison met another Allison who is around two months older than her. Our Allison was able to dance to one song before we had to head home. By 8:30 she was worn out. It took a few days for her to recover and get back on her normal nap schedule.

The Basement is FINISHED!!!

After months of blood, sweat, and tears (well no tears, but maybe nagging on my end), our basement is finished. Brian installed the home theater system tonight, so we can officially say we are finished.

In the past few years Brian has completely refinished the entire basement. Other than the glass block windows and some help with the tile floor on the stairs from a friend, he did it entirely himself. He first started off with the workshop area. He put shelving units in, fixed up the walls, and put glass block windows in. Last year, he constructed an office. This had to be done so we could turn the office on the 2nd floor into the nursery. Once we got past the newborn stage (i.e. colicky stage) last winter, he started on the rec room.

The theme of the room is an English Pub. I have been to England twice and fell in love with the country. The last time I went was with my friend Carolyn who is a photo fanatic and took tons of pictures. She graciously enlarged some and matted them for me. When I moved in with Brian, we decided that one-day we could put them in the rec room. Over the past few years we have been building up a collection of items to put in the pub including the bar, wine rack, pub table, and many of the accessories. It was fun taking all the items out of the storage room and seeing what we had.

The room looks great. I do have to say that Brian did a fabulous job. He is very meticulous and it shows. I wish I could say that he gets a nice long break from home repairs, however we have to paint the bedroom that Allison will be moving into and paint the outside of the garage. Maybe I will give him this weekend off since it is Labor Day.

The bar...I can't wait until I can break it in come November.

The flag separates the laundry room. Another room that Brian had to redo. Above the pub table is a clock like you would see at Victoria Station.

Dart area....we discovered last weekend that rubber tip darts still can leave a hole in the wall. We may have to add a cork board behind it.

A cool media storage cabinet we found in a magazine. We had been looking at it for a while, when all of sudden they stopped carrying it in the Signals catalog. Luckily Brian found it again a few months ago.

TV viewing area....after all these years we are finally with the times and have HD and a DVR.

Another Day for the Books

We have a new entry for Allison's baby book. She took her first steps unassisted today. She took a good 3-4 steps towards me. Brian and I were both able to witness it. Needless to say it was a great way to start a Sunday morning. She still have lots of practice before she gets the hang of it, but it is a good start. Hopefully we will get pictures or video soon.

Allison and her Cousins

Last weekend, we headed to Swartz Creek to visit my family. My cousin's son Jackson turned one, so we went to his birthday party. Jack is Allison's little buddy, so she had fun seeing him.





On Sunday we brought two of my nephews back with us for a visit. They were supposed to come last summer, however we ran out of weekends before Allison was born, so they patiently waited until this year. Allison had a blast playing with her cousins. They kept her entertained, which was a big help on the car ride back to Grand Rapids. They took Allison through the sprinkler for the first time. She didn't like that too much and had more fun watching them run through it, or in Cole's case, running around the ball 300 times. On Monday, we went to Holland State Park where they played in the sand and Chase and Cole had a great time jumping the waves.

I know that we must have done a good job entertaining them, because they were both fast asleep on the car ride to Lansing where I met my sister to drop the boys off.

Potential Craig's List Ad

Ever since Brian and I sold our TV and another item on Craig's list, I have been searching for items around the house that we could get rid of. After today, I was tempted to post the following ad.

Available to borrow for as long as you would like:

Girl: One year old. Approximately 21 lbs. Brown hair (what little she has) and blue eyes. A cute grin. A little on the chubby side.

Slight imperfections: Teething and still tired from long weekend. Some could consider her crabby. Obsessed with stairs. Will make you chase after her several times a minute.

Price: Negotiable. Willing to provide beer, wine, free lunch in exchange for taking her off my hands for a short while.

Ok, so maybe I won't get rid of her, at least not on Craig's List. Now if any family or friends want to take her for a bit, that would be a different story.