A Shower for Baby Olivia!

My wonderful and loving mother-in law and mom threw a baby shower for baby Olivia and me last weekend!  All I have to say is "We are so, so, so spoiled!"  The decorations and cake were amazing... my mom even made little baby feet cookies with pink frosting  :) 

 
We even played a few hokey baby shower games, it was perfect  :) 

1. Who could write the most baby girl's names A-Z in 1 minute
2. Who could name the most baby items in 2 minutes
3. And my favorite, making babies out of play doh!

I am so blessed to have so many wonderful friends and relatives who took time out of a beautiful Saturday afternoon to spend time gabbing about baby girls and pink frilly clothes!  Baby Olivia has more cute cute dresses, tights, hair bows and blankies than any one girl could ever ask for and she isn't even here yet.

The Dells

Going back in time at little... March 11-13th we took a mini vacation to Wisconsin Dells.  We joined 4 other families at Kalahari Resorts for some water/ indoor theme park action.  It was amazing!  Ten adults, 8 kids and 2 pregnant moms both due in May all staying in the same 5 bedroom condo was quite interesting, but we had a blast.  :)

The resort had an African Safari theme to it, so there were all kinds of jungle type attractions to see.  You could even hold/ pet a baby tiger!  If the cubs weren't 5 months old and super rambunctious we totally would have taken Graham to get a picture with them, but we were afraid we'd pay $40 bucks to scar our child for life as one of the cubs lunged at him etc.  :)  So we just had fun throwing change in the fountains instead!

Graham is NOT the bravest swimmer in the world, but he is starting to improve and he actually did quite well on the water slides.  He even attempted the wave pool on the second day!  Here are some of my favorite pictures from the waterpark:



8mo pregnant in a swimming suit, nice!



Ahoy Mateys!



 


Outside of the wave pool and lazy river, I couldn't really do much at the waterpark.  So the second day I told Tim to just go rides some of the bigger water slides and I would watch Graham.  (Yes were were there with 4 other families, but with kids running in 12 directions at all times it was a little hard catching up with people.)  Anyway, Tim ventured off by himself, waited a half an hour for his first slide only for the life guard to tell him the ride was a minimum of 2 people  :(  Now Tim is not one to waist a half an hour of his time by just walking back down or picking another ride.  He was going to find someone to ride down with!  He decided to pass on riding with the teenage couple groping each other and making out behind him.  He also passed on the father/ daughter duo, but decided to ask the 2 college age girls behind them if he could bum a ride down with them.  Apparently the sort of hesitantly laughed, but said yes.  So he rides down with them only to find their boyfriends waiting at the bottom of the slide for them  :)  We still laugh imagining how that conversation went. (So, uh, who in the world was the creepy, old guy that bailed out of the back of your raft at the end)  :)  Needless to say Tim gave up on the bigger water slides and just hung out with Graham and I after that!  Poor guy, he just wanted to ride the ride  :)

We also went to the theme park (which had game, mini golf, go karts and bowling etc) but of course this absent minded pregnant lady forgot to bring her camera  :(  We went bowling, which Graham loves, loves, loves and he got the highest score on the kids lane.  He was so proud of himself!  I have to put a little plug in that I also got the highest score in the adult lane, go me!  I told him it was because the pregnant belly helped my center of gravity... really it was probably just a combination of a fluke and the fact that I was the only one not drinking  :) 

Our actual hotel was amazing.  Five bedrooms, 5 baths, a huge kitchen/ living room and an entertainment room with movie theater seating, a pool table and a bar!  What more could you ask for?  Five of the 8 kids who went were little girls and the only other 2 boys were 10 and 12, so Graham was a little out of sorts.  He hung with the girls for a while, but I think all the high pitched squealing might have gotten to him because before long he was in the basement playing pool all by himself  :)  And he continued to play pool anytime we were back in the hotel for the rest of the weekend.  He's actually pretty good, if you take away the fact the he doesn't always use the pool stick  :)

Nice "after waterpark" hair!

All in all we met some amazing new friends and had a ton of fun!

One Thing After Another!

First it was pooping on the potty so no more Pull-Ups.  Now it's not wetting the bed at night so no more night diapers... gesh, the Ahlers' family is saving money in leaps and bounds this week  :)  Yay!  I should probably just put that money in a jar to start saving for Baby O's arrival next month, but I feel like this is such a victory we should go blow it on something fun.  So now all I need to decide is what exactly a 3 year old and a lady who's 8.5 months pregnant can actually do??? Nothing comes to mind right off the bat, but I will do my best to think of something.  It might be a whole lot of ice cream  :)  Yay Graham, I am so proud of you!

What an Awesome Week!

I have been dieing to update my blog all week, but I was afraid if I did I would jinx my good luck  :)  It has been a whole week now, so I'm feeling like I'm in the clear...

It started with our house.  We had a showing on Monday March 21st and withing 20 mins of leaving the couple made us an awesome offer.  We still countered just to see and they accepted!  We were literally in shock until Saturday when we officially signed all the paperwork.  It's not a done deal yet, but assuming all goes well we will be back to owning a single house on May 13th  :)

Then there was last Friday night, the American Heart Association Gala.  Tim was the Co-Chair of the Gala this year and we usually try to safe some money to bid on auction items etc.  This year with the move and the baby buying auction items just wasn't in the cards, but Tim did buy a raffle ticket... and we won!  We brought home a 46" Samsung LCD Flat screen TV for $20!  Talk about good luck.

Then this past week Graham started pooping on the potty!  Since he has been otherwise potty trained since July 3rd of last year, this is somewhat of a miracle.  It was a little forced on my part, because I caught him ALMOST in the act of pooping and told him we were sitting on the potty until he went.  But he finally did and has been telling me and going by himself ever since  :) 

In the midst of all this excitement I did have one minor setback, my blood pressure is starting to raise again and I was a little nervous they were going to begin monitoring and bed rest again like they did at 33 weeks last time.  But I have been super careful with my salt in take and have been drinking what feels like gallons of water an walla, blood pressure this week is better and all looks to be going great :) 

Today is a beautiful sunny, warm day and tomorrow my mom and I are going to Des Moines to do some more baby shopping.  Honestly, what more could you ask for in a week?

Bring on the Pink!

We had our 30 week ultrasound on March 10th (yes I am 2 weeks behind)  :)  It looks like we are still having a girl, yay!  They measured her at 30 weeks 6 days and 3 lbs 9oz, so a little ahead. 

Apparently my placenta was 'low lying' last time they did an ultrasound, so the sonographer was happy to see that it has moved in the correct position this time.  She was being very shy again, so the ultrasound pictures aren't anything to write home about, but I will share some anyway.

Other than that all seems to be moving along swimmingly.  Blood pressure is normal, no swelling and my weight seems to have stabilized at least a little.  Now we just have to wait.  Less than 2 months to go!  Yay  :)

28 Weeks and Counting

I figured it was probably time for a baby update.  I am 28 weeks, 5 days today  :)  Minus a little sciatic nerve pain, everything has been going great.  I go for another ultrasound next Thursday (30wks) to check placenta placement... apparently it was 'low lying' the first time, so we shall see how we're doing now.  Then on Friday I get to do my lovely glucose test.  Other than that I feel kind of like we are hitting the home stretch.  Only 11ish weeks to go!  Here are some picture so the baby bump:

Happy Birthday to Me!

 From December 31st (my birthday) to January 27th Graham asked almost every day when it was going to be "Happy Birthday to Me?"  :)  The day finally came, and as is completely typical for Graham these days, it went from this:

To this:

in a matter of 10 seconds.  Only to be saved by some 'cash monies' sent from the great grandma and grandpas.  And now we're back to this:

Ahh, life with a 3 year old  :)  He wen on to open gifts from Mommy and Daddy and we celebrated with brownies.  All and all, a good 27th of January was had by everyone.

 

On Saturday the 29th we celebrated again with a Buzz and Woody party and family and friends.  There was complete chaos, tantrums, tears and plenty of laughter... all the makings of a great 3rd birthday.  He ended the night by helping himself to what what left of the cake  :)  Happy birthday Peanut, Mommy and Daddy love you to pieces!