Registering and Other Fun Stuff

I know that the last couple of months of pregnancy are the months that supposedly go by the slowest (according to almost everyone). However, I think (hope!) that maybe this will not be true for us. We have a number of upcoming events that I (we) are really looking forward to, that will keep our weeks full, and HOPEFULLY help the time to go by faster (and it's not that I'm not enjoying these last few months of just the two of us, because I am, but I'm also really ready to meet Gunnar!). Anyway, last night kicked off the chain of "fun-events-that-I've-been-looking-forward-to-for-a-while" with our baby registration. (Others include our trip to Padre next week, our 3-D ultrasound when we get home, finishing up...ok, actually, STARTING the nursery decoration, Beth's shower, my shower, Nason's "man-shower", a family shower, and a church retreat later in September). Anyway, about registering.....

I had been really stressed and overwhelmed about the whole baby registration process. When Nason and I registered for our wedding, I put little to no thought or planning into it..I was just excited about registering, and so I did it WAY too soon after getting engaged, and put WAY too little preparation into it. As a result, we ended up deleting our entire first registry, and registering again. Even then, I could have done it a lot smarter than what I did. So I wanted to do it differently with baby stuff. I wanted to be smart with money (money we were going to have to spend, as well as money other people would be spending on us), but I wanted the things we registesred for to be good quality, safe for the baby, etc. I also didn't want to think of a bunch of things later on that I wished I'd asked for, and didn't. So I sought out the assistance of about 8 of my friends who have recently had babies (or are about to), and asked for their advice. I also spent about three hours at Barnes and Nobles one day, reading through a GREAT book called "Baby Bargains", that I would highly recommend to anyone who is having a baby soon. I then compliled all the info from the various sources, and made a list. As a result, registering was fun, not stressful, and I feel like we did a really good job with our selections. Nason was pretty pleased with the whole process, too. Here's some corny pics of us registering last night:

Of all the registry items, the stroller/car seat was the thing I put the MOST thought and research into. I was VERY confident in the choice I made regarding this, so when Nason had the audacity to say, "are you sure that's what we should do?" while in the stroller section, I gave him the look seen above, and reminded him who had put all the blood, sweat and tears into the research.

I really wanted to capture a "candid shot" of Nason scanning items, but he said it was stressing him out that I was following behind him trying to snap pictures while he was scanning stuff, so he asked me to just "hurry and get a shot out of the way" so he could concentrate. So this is definitely quite posed, and not at all candid, but it's better than nothing.

Gunnar Has A Place to Lay His Head!

We finally picked out and bought Gunnar's bedding this week. I think I was a bit different than most of the other moms that I know, in that I wasn't just super super picky about his bedding. I obviously wanted to like it, but I didn't really look through tons of choices before deciding. I've browsed here and there online, but honestly not that much. Then this week, I decided we probably better pick something, so Nason and I spent about thirty minutes one evening browsing through different choices, and after viewing a few I liked that he didn't, and a few he liked that I didn't, we came across the "Jungle Babies" bedding, and both instantly liked it a lot.

So the bedding choice becomes the second surprising choice we have made with this new little baby. The first surprising choice was just choosing the name "Gunnar". It's so not the kind of name I would have thought we would have chosen....it's a bit "country", which I normally would NOT go for, but for some reason, I just LOVE the name Gunnar, and love it more and more every day. Then with the bedding, I wouldn't have taken us for "jungle baby" people....Nason's always been sort of into a sports theme idea, and I've always kind of liked a more "mature" look....stripes, plaids, polka dots, etc., but not Jungle BABIES. But for whatever reason, right when we saw it, we loved it! Anyway....here's the picture of his bedding (this is not our nursery by the way...this picture is off the internet)