Ba-boom, Ba-boom, Ba-boom

We had our latest doctor's appointment today and everything looks good.  We got to meet another doctor that works for the practice and this one, like the others we have met, was really nice.  I am okay with him delivering my baby...when the time comes.  I had to have my finger pricked to test my iron, got weighed and had my blood pressure checked by the nurse before Dave and I headed back to the examination room.  When the doctor came in, he said that my iron, weight and blood pressure were all good.  I have gained about 3 pounds and he said that's just fine.  He also said (several times) that I look really good!  I might just stop by to see him occasionally for the ego boost!  Next, the doctor measured my belly from the my pubic bone to the top of my uterus with a measuring tape and I measured right on schedule.  Finally, he pulled out his fetal doppler machine so that he could listen to the baby's heartbeat.  He was able to locate the heartbeat rather quickly, but then lost it.  Apparently, the baby likes doing cartwheels because every time the doctor found the heartbeat the baby jumped away.  He finally got a good reading and told us the baby's heart-rate was 151.

The doctor told us at our next appointment, I will have my comprehensive ultrasound where they will measure the baby and will hopefully be able to tell us Mini Mulley's sex.  At that appointment I will also have my glucose screening.  I will have to drink some super sweet drink and then wait for an hour before having my blood drawn to see if I have gestational diabetes.  It will definitely be a marathon doctor's visit...but we are excited to find out if we are having a boy or a girl!

After I met with the doctor, I had to get some blood drawn to test for chromosomal abnormalities.  We will get those results in approximately ten days.

Our next appointment is scheduled for Tuesday, July 20.

There's Someone You Should Meet

Dear Baby,

Although there are many, many people in our lives that we know will love you unconditionally-there is a really special person that can't wait for you to meet.  She has been a very special part of my life for over twelve years now and I hold her very dear to my heart.  I was her "childcare technician" when she was a little girl and now she is in college.  She is one of the kindest, most sincere people I know and she is so very excited to meet you.  She is currently studying and working in Greece but will be coming home soon.  Her name is Kori, but I'm sure you will call her Aunt Kori.

When Kori was a little girl she looked up to me in every way.  When I would get to her house in the morning to get her ready for school she would look at what I was wearing and try her hardest to pick something from her closet that looked the same.  We would spend hours playing Gin Rummy.  She was never embarrassed when I would sing loud and off-key as I drove her around town with the top down and music blaring-in fact, she was usually right beside me singing just as loudly.

As soon as Kori found out that I was pregnant with you, she was over the moon excited!  She has sent many emails and we have spent many hours chatting online about everything that is going on.  She wants to be a part of every aspect of your life and I can't think of a better person to be your friend.  She wants to help decorate your nursery, go to doctors appointments, help pick your name, pick our clothes for you, rub my every growing belly and just hold you and be a part of your life.  I'm pretty sure that Kori would learn how to breastfeed if she could.  I can't imagine my life without this amazing young woman in           it and I can't wait for you to be touched by her, too.

I love you,
Mom

Under Contract

We found a house that fills most of our requirements AND we like it!  We put in an offer and then negotiated very little and we are set to close on July 29.  The new house is about 6 miles north of where we currently live and it is located in a super cute neighborhood.  Here are a few pictures of the new place:

The townhouse is on the market and we are hoping that it sells quickly.  Judging by the history of the neighborhood, houses have typically sold in under 30 days.  Keep your fingers crossed for the sale of the townhouse and get ready for a house warming party at the new place!

Alternative House Photos

On Monday of this week we had a professional photographer come to the house and take photos for the listing and he took some great photos. However, Elizabeth and I have looked at hundreds of photos of houses over the last few months and we feel that the photos that are typically taken for a house listing lack something. So, we decided to take our own...

Living Room with Fireplace

Kitchen

Kitchen

Bedroom #1

Bathroom #1

Bedroom #2

Bathroom #2

I wonder if these photos would help the house sell faster??

Kitchen Make Over

When we first mentioned to Rick that we would be looking to move to a big, better house at some point in the future, he immediately said that we'd have to paint the kitchen a different (more normal) color. So, it was no shock at all when we met with him last weekend that the thing at the top of his list of things to fix was the color of the kitchen!

For those of you that don't know, I painted the kitchen green in May or June of 2007. It had never been anything other than white and was dull and boring. Elizabeth bought the paint and disappeared somewhere for the weekend for Camp. While she was gone, I painted the kitchen and surprised her (she thought we were going to do it another weekend). I have included some pictures of the green kitchen below.




I had been out of town Monday - Thursday, so I started the job of painting the kitchen the same color as the rest of the downstairs on Friday morning. As you can see from the photos, there are lots of small areas the paint so it takes a long time (and two coats to cover the green). I had the job of handling the edges and "cutting in" and Elizabeth did the rolling. We finished the first coat by 1:30 and then did the second coat in the late evening so we could get it all done in one day. It was a long hard day, but between us we got it done.

The photos below show the kitchen as it is today! Hopefully perspective buyers will like the new color...

Sir Tedrick Mulley

I got an email a couple weeks ago from Grandpa and Grandma Mulley saying that a dear old friend of Dave's was going be moving to Raleigh.  They asked if we would mind giving him a place to stay for a while (or maybe forever).  I'm all for a house guest but a new resident?  Aren't we already getting one of those in December?!  Being the kind daughter-in-law that I am, I told them to send him on.  I honestly couldn't wait to meet this guy.  He is one of Dave's oldest friends.  Dave has actually known him since the day he was born!  

This afternoon, as Scout and I were walking out the door we bumped into this:

Scout and I love to get packages in the mail so we rushed back inside to open it and see what had arrived.  It was quite the struggle to open the package, but with a little help from Scout, we finally got it open and guess what popped out?

It was none other than Dave's long lost friend, Sir Tedrick Mulley...aka "Teddy"!  Scout was a little confused as to who this was and what was he doing in her living room-so she kept her distance.  Teddy was dressed up like he had just come from a World Cup game.  He was sporting his patriotic England Shirt and some snazzy shorts with London written across the bum (you never want to forget where you came from) and, of course, some sunglasses. To say the least, he arrived in style!

I introduced (or tried to) Teddy to Scout.  I think they will grow to love each other.  Come December, Scout is going to wish there were more Teddys in the house...

After further inspection of the box that Teddy arrived in, I found a picture of Teddy and Dave.  Dave is about 20 months old in the picture and since Teddy refuses to divulge his age we can only assume he is at least as old as Dave.  I think they have both aged well!

I also introduced Teddy to my dear friend Bunny.  Like Teddy was to Dave, Bunny was given to me when I was a little baby.  I'll have to dig up a picture of us back when I was cute with my pigtails.

Both of our childhood friends are in really good shape.  This brings hope for the baby we are bringing into this world.  Let's hope we can treat this baby as well as we treated our stuffed animals as children.

Teddy has had quite the long journey, so I took him upstairs to go to bed.  Before he could get in bed, he found another friend from England sitting on the guest bed.

After they caught up on lost time, Teddy was ready for some well deserved sleep.

We are all very excited to welcome Teddy into our home and we hope that he will stay for a long, long time!

Summertime, Summertime, Sum-sum-summertime...

I have never really had a summer off since I turned 15 and got my first real job as a lifeguard and it's never really phased me.  I just knew that if I had the free time, I should be working or taking classes or both.  When I started teaching, I spent the first few summers directing a summer camp.  Then I started working for the year-round schools in Raleigh and so I've been working year-round again.  The good thing about working for the year-round schools is that I still get my 2 months off but they are spread throughout the year and therefore I don't get a second job to fill my time.  With all of this said, I really really really want this summer off!  I have been so jealous of all of my teacher friends who have been talking about the end of the school year and what they are going to do with their summers.  The countdowns in the classrooms that I visited nearly killed me!  It's not that I have any great plans on how I would spend my summer off, I just really think it would be cool to sleep in and wander to the pool and read trashy novels all day.

But alas, I must leave my dream world...and tomorrow, I will go back to work.

Hey internet, what are your fabulous summer plans?

Maybe One Day...

As many of you know, I enjoy running and I have already decided that we need to own a baby jogger so that I can run with the baby.

I saw this video on one of my favorite blogs today (Mark Remy on runnersworld.com) and thought I would share it with everyone!

Let me say straight away that a 5 minute mile is out of my reach, but a 6 minute mile with the baby jogger might be a fun goal to have!

Let The House Hunting Begin!

We had already been planning to "upgrade" to a bigger house this year but now we have added incentive to be moved and settled before the baby arrives. Yesterday we took the first step when we met with Dan (aka Dan, Dan the Mortgage Man) to set our budget and work out how much money we needed to have available at closing.

The meeting went very well, and we are ready to start looking at houses and get our current house ready to go on the market!

Rick is coming over on Sunday afternoon to take a look around our house and tell us what we need to do before we can list our house. One thing I know I will have to do is paint our kitchen a different color... apparently bright green might put off perspective buyers! I'll be painting it the same color as the living room (Pale Sunshine). It isn't a bad size room to paint, but there are lots of areas that are small and difficult to get to - I think it took me two days last time (when I painted it bright green) as it needed two coats of paint.

There are a few other small things that I know I need to fix, but there isn't a huge amount. We are lucky with this house that the outside is maintained by the home owners association, so we don't need to worry about the deck (that needs replacing badly) as it will be replaced free of charge for the new owner.

We are excited to start looking at houses, and I am sure we'll update everyone along the way!

FAQs

Here are some of our most frequently asked questions that we will answer for everyone:

Oh my goodness! How did this happen?
Well, when a man loves a woman very, very much... Come on people, you know how this happened!

When are you due?

I am due on December 6, 2010. Looking at family history, I wouldn't be surprised if this baby arrives earlier than that.

Do you know what you are having?

We do not know what we are having yet, but we are pretty sure that it will be a baby. We plan on finding out the sex of the baby in the next couple of doctor's visits.

Do you think it’s a boy or a girl?

I think the baby is a boy and Dave thinks the baby is a girl. Neither one of us has any basis on our predictions-just our gut feelings. You can let us know your predictions by voting on the right side of the blog.

Have you put on any weight?

As of right now, I have not put on any weight but I definitely think my stomach has gotten bigger. When I get dressed in the morning, I can wear my regular clothes, but by the end of the day my pants are really tight so I have been wearing mostly dresses lately.

Have you had any morning sickness?

I have been so lucky and not experienced any morning sickness. I have had a few times where I felt a little icky but nothing that made me vomit or put me out of commission. Hopefully, this trend will continue throughout the rest of the pregnancy.

Are you experiencing any crazy food cravings?
Nothing really out of the ordinary. I have always gotten fixated on certain foods and once I get that food, my fixation dies. Right now, I'm a little obsessed with the crazy topped hot dogs. In fact, the next Iron Chef Dinner Club theme is topped hot dogs. Hopefully, that will help me get over my hot dog obsession!

What about your Coke Zero addiction?

Many of you know that I have had a Coke Zero addiction since the drink came out in 2006. I think it is as close to Coca-Cola Classic as I can get without the calories. When Dave and decided we wanted to start trying for a family, I decided to ween myself off of the tasty beverage so that when I got pregnant it wouldn't be such a shock to my system. I don't drink it at all anymore and I don't really miss it that much. Caffeine and artificial sweeteners aren't very good for pregnant women or their unborn babies so I'm trying to do everything I can to help this baby be as safe as possible.

What room is going to be the baby's room?

We are planning to move before the baby arrives. In fact, we just met with our mortgage guy to see what our options are and will meet with our Realtor this weekend to look at what needs to be done to the townhouse in order to put it on the market. We would like to be settled in our new home by October so that we can get our nursery (and the rest of the house) all ready for the baby. Hopefully, this will be an exciting and stress-free time.

How are you going to fit that baby in a MINI?

While I am sure we can fit a tiny baby in a MINI Cooper, it might not always be the easiest thing to do. We are planning on getting a "family car" in the near future. No, we are not planning on getting a minivan. We are currently planning on getting a Subaru wagon. I think I will call it The Shaggin' Wagon.

We all know how much sleep you need to function - how are you going to get your requisite 10 hours of sleep in once the baby comes?

I'm hoping that the baby understand how much sleep Mommy needs and will be kind and will also need that much sleep. Otherwise, I will do what I have to do and sleep when I can sleep. Don't expect me to be pleasant, though!

We love your blog! Why I can't seem to comment on the blog?

I had a setting on the comments section that didn't allow people to comment easily. I have since changed that setting and you should be able to comment (and we hope you will) with ease. If you don't have an account, you can just click on Name/URL and then you just need to fill in the name box and you should be good to go.

First Purchase

Today, I made my first purchase for my future as a mommy.  Behold, the diaper bag:

Yes, I know it sassy and little over the top...but so am I sometimes.  I got it on an extremely good deal and I'm pretty stinkin' excited to use it!  We will most-likely not buy anything else for this little one until we move into a new house.  No need to move things twice!  In the meantime, maybe I'll use this little number as a laptop bag?!  

Learning to shop...

As most of you readers know, Elizabeth and I like to be organized and have a plan for everything. So, with nothing better to do on a blazing hot Sunday afternoon, we decided to go to some stores and look at nursery furniture. Elizabeth had already looked around online and found that the "big" stores (JC Penney, Sears etc) had a good selection of cribs, dressers and changing stations, so we thought we'd go around the nearby stores and take a look at them. Of course, we forgot it was actually 2010, and the Internet has changed everything...

We went to Sears, JC Penney and Belk and couldn't find a single item of nursery furniture! not to mention that they didn't have any car seats or strollers either!

The Internet really has changed how people shop - or at least how stores make people shop. Now, there are lots of things I will buy online without seeing or touching them first - but nursery furniture (worth hundreds of dollars) is not one. I want to test how sturdy the construction is, how heavy the wood is and I want to see what the photos don't show - things like all of the uncovered screws and the sharper than normal edges.

I wonder how much business these big stores are losing by not having at least a floor model on display. Do people still buy unseen online? or do they simply not buy nursery furniture from these stores? Well, they won't be getting my business - that is for sure. After an hour of wandering around the mall, it was time to head to Babies R Us.

However, we did stop by McDonald's for an Ice Cream cone each - so it wasn't a completely wasted trip to the mall!

Now, Babies R Us is more like it! They have a wide selection of their models out for people to see and touch and we quickly were able to determine what we liked and didn't like, take some notes and even take a quick look at the rest of the store.

Of course, Babies R Us didn't have every item they stock out on display in every color possible - but they did at least have a sample of the majority of their lines for people to look at - that really is all I am asking for.

There are apparently some other stores in the area that are similar to Babies R Us and we'll be going to check those out over the next few weeks, but this first day of looking at nursery furniture certainly was eye-opening for me!

YUMMMM

Last night on Throw Down with Bobby Flay they had this guy named Nick Suarez who invented Brooklyn's Cheesiest Hot Dog.  Basically, it is a grilled hot dog in a bun--but the kicker is that the hot dog is then covered in  a bacon and leek macaroni and cheese.  Bobby retaliated with a hot dog that had a mole style chili, combination of cheeses, avocado and pickled red onions.  Needless to say....I'm in love! Nick was ultimately deemed the winner, but they both looked like winners in my book.  I'm not usually a big fan of hot dogs, but lately I have been wanting a good ol' hot dog.

Whoever can recreate this delightful dish for me might just have a baby named after him/her!!!

**The hot dog episode will re-air on Wednesday (June 9) at 9 pm and 12 am as well as on Saturday (June 12) at 7 pm.**

Who Loves You, Baby?!

Wow!  Can you feel the love?  We certainly can.  After sending out our email a couple days ago and making our blog public, we have been inundated with emails, phone calls and comments on the blog with wonderful well-wishes.  Some of our favorite comments were:

"I KNEW IT"


"I'm going to be an aunt again!!!!  So much planning to do...shoes, outfits, extensions...nothing will be too good for my little girl...or boy." (note: this is my male friend, Rob)


"You'll make a great designated driver!"


"OMGOOOOOODDDDDNNEEEEESSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"


"I bet you are really proud of yourself." (Pa, my 94 year old grandfather)


"This news has put me in such a good mood."


"I know I am acting like you already have a child, but I am obviously going to count down the days until you're due... I kind of want to be around when you go shopping for your little one, pick out clothes, and accessories, and help with the name, and decorating the room... I'm sorry if this is invasive, butttt I'm not kidding."


"That baby surely has nuts in it--it's a Roady right?"


If we didn't feel it before, we definitely feel the complete outpouring of love from all of our family and friends!  We are thrilled to be bringing a baby into a world where we know that he/she will truly be loved and cared for.

Welcome to Our Blog

If you are reading this you really care about us and took that big step of clicking on the link in the email!  Way to go...and thank you!  As I stated in the email, this blog is a way for us to chronicle our adventures for our friends and family-near and far.

The big adventure that we are embarking on right now is pregnancy!  I am pregnant and due in December.  We are both very excited and have been blogging about the pregnancy since the day we got a positive test.  Feel free to read the previous posts to see what we've been up to the past few months and check back often to see how things are progressing.

We have been waiting to tell people until we got through the first trimester so please don't feel offended that we haven't told you yet. The first trimester is a very risky time in any pregnancy and we wanted to make sure this one was going to stick before we hired any skywriters, or graffiti artists or bought that big billboard on the side of the road to announce our pregnancy.  As it turns out, we can't afford any of those things so we started a free blog.  Money well spent-I think!

We love you all very much and are excited to share this special time in our lives with you.

Epic Fail!

So I mailed Chip and Allison and their families little packages containing "HEORSHE" chocolate bars to announce our good news.  We mailed them on Monday using the automated machine in the lobby of the post office (the post office was closed due to Memorial Day) so that the packages would go out first thing on Tuesday morning and would hopefully reach their final destinations by Wednesday-Thursday at the latest.

When I didn't hear from anyone on Wednesday, I assumed the packages had not arrived yet.  Tonight after dinner, I went down to check the mail and sitting in our mail box was the two packages that I had sent out.  I pulled them out of the mail box and stormed back to the house and threw the smooshy, chocolate oozing packages on the table and then fell into a hormonal crying fit on the couch.

After about a minute of good crying, I pulled out my camera and took a picture of one of the candy bars and proceeded to write an email to Chip and Allison.  I'm pretty sure I couldn't wait another two days (or possibly the weekend) for them to hear the news.  I'm an instant gratification kind of gal and I still wanted to tell all of my friends and other family members.  So the email has been sent and I am waiting to hear back from everyone before I tell everyone else and make this blog public.