Jumpman 23

My favorite gift to date is this Jordan outfit........pretty ridiculous for the soon to be little baller!

Shower!!

I had my first baby shower on Saturday!! Yet another event I have been looking forward to for a very long time. (I wonder if sonograms, showers, registering, etc. are as fun with subsequent children, or if it's only your first? If it's only exciting the first time around, then I'm kind of sad that all of my "firsts" are going to soon be over) Anyway, I had so much fun, got so many great gifts, got to hang out with so many great friends, and was reminded how "so" grateful I am for all of them, specifically my hostesses! It's funny how none of the gifts (with the exception of the aromatheraphy bubble bath Michelle got me..which was life-changing, by the way) were even for me (they're tehnically for Gunnar), and yet they were way more exciting to open than any other gift I've ever received! How funny to get excited over things like bottle brushes, sheet protectors, and Diaper Genies!!! Here are some pictures from the shower. By the way, I think my friends are the most thoughtful and CREATIVE girls of all time!!!

Gunnar in 3D!

At the beginning of the month, we were able to go in to get our much-anticipated 3D/4D sonogram pictures done. I have been SOOOOOO incredibly excited about this for pretty much the entire pregnancy. ALMOST (dare I say) more excited than when we found out the sex. I wasn't disappointed. Our hour-long sonogram session was every bit as exciting as I thought it would be. Two UNEXPECTED feelings I experienced though were:

1) The feeling that we were kind of "spying" on him: I know that sounds dumb, and I didn't dwell on it for longer than about 5 seconds, but it did cross my mind that it was kind of strange that we were all staring at him, and watching his every move (him sucking on his toes, stretching, rearranging, scrunching up his nose, sucking, etc.) for a good hour, and he had no idea. Nor could he see us (obviously). Kind of like we were invading his privacy. Ha ha.

2) Awe/love/thankfulness/fear all combined, and in that order: Shortly after we left the doctor's office, and I was flipping through Gunnar's pictures for probably the 100th time, all of the above listed feelings kind of flooded me at once. Awe: at how CUTE he was, how AMAZING it was that the little person I was looking at in the picture was what was actually inside my stomach at that very second, and how AMAZING the entire process of conception and pregnancy, and birth and life even is. Love: I think up until that point, I loved the IDEA of Gunnar, and loved knowing that I was pregnant, and that we were soon going to have a baby, but I think actually seeing his little face really made me love HIM for the first time. Thankfulness: that God even allowed us to have such an awesome gift. I think before getting pregnant, I (and Nason, too) just kind of assumed that whenever you decided you wanted to have a baby, it would just kind of happen. Just like clockwork. Make the decision, do what needs to be done (ha ha), get pregnant, have a baby. Kind of like it was all in our hands. HOWEVER, we learned that is not the case. It took us a long time to get pregnant (a year a half). As hard as that was, it could have been worse. We know plenty of people who have taken WAY longer than that, or who were unable to get pregnant at all, or who have had lots of problems, miscarriages, etc. Bottom line: getting pregnant and having a baby is NOT in our hands. It is 100% in God's hands, and it 100% happens according to HIS plan, and in HIS timing. The fact that He has allowed us to experience that gift at all is just unbelievable, and I am so grateful. Fear: Looking at the pictures made me realize that once Gunnar is born, he is going to just be so sweet, and small, and innocent, and helpless. His physical needs, emotional needs, spiritual needs, EVERY need is going to have to be met by Nason and I. Now, I know that ultimately Gunnar belongs to the Lord, and that HE will be the one to TRULY meet his needs, however, God has put Nason and I in the position to most immediately meet those needs, and that is a BIG responsiblity (notice I use CAPS a lot to emphasize my poins :) ) Besides just his physical needs, which is overwhelming enough in itself, it will also be our responsiblity to be godly examples to Gunnar, to steer him in the right direction, to help him see and understand the purpose that God created him for, etc. It made me wonder, "Did God know what He was doing when He trusted us with this??? What if we mess Gunnar up somehow?" I'm sure every new parent feels that way, and I know it's just going to take a lot of trusting in God, and being sensitive to where He leads us, but I just hadn't really had those thoughts until Sonogram Day.

Anyway....here's a picture of our handsome little son. For all you FB friends....you've already seen this. Sorry.

Babymoon!

So, the latest blog-worthy thing that's happened with Gunnar "and his parents", is that we went on a Babymoon to South Padre. Is babymoon a cheesy term, by the way? Yes, it is. But, that's what it is. Our last big "shabang" before the baby gets here. Not our last big shabang, mind you. Just our last one BEFORE the baby gets here. I point out the difference, because while we were on our trip, we kept finding ourselves saying things like, "Well, it's the last trip as just the two of us (sigh)", or " This is our last time to go to the beach without having a kid with us (sigh, sad face)", etc. etc. Midway through the trip, I realized that not only was that somewhat depressing, it was actually not even true. Nason and I plan to be very intentional about reserving quality time for just the two of us....dates, occasional trips, etc. Not that we're naive enough to think that our life won't change tremendously once the baby gets here, because we know it will, and not that Gunnar won't be a HUGE part of our life, because of course he will. It's just that we intend to make good use of willing grandparents ON OCCASION, for the sake of keeping our marriage alive and kickin' ; ) That being said, it WAS our last trip as a family of two, and we took full advantage of having ten full days with nothing to do, and zero responsibility. What did that look like specifically? Well...sleeping late every day. Staying in pajamas until about 1 pm. Eating whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. Lounging on the beach. Reading book after book after book. Getting pedicures. Drinking beer (Nason). Smoking cigars (Nason). Then starting that whole cycle over again. It was great.

Unfortunately, the pictures included here will probably be a bit of a disappointment, since I'm betting anyone who reads this blog is also probably a Facebook friend, and therefore has already these pics, but what would a blog be without at least a picture or two?

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)

22 1/2 weeks

So......I may not be nearly so "blog happy" once a) this blog loses it's newness and b) Gunnar gets here and I have less time to write, but for now, I am happily maintaining an every-other-day rate of posting. Sorry if it's too much : )

Anyway, today was Baby Doctor Appointment Day, which I have come to love. I think it's so much fun going. Nason (being the good daddy that he is) has yet to miss a single appointment with me. We always schedule our appointments for 8:30 am, and then go eat at McDonald's afterwards. It's our new tradition. In fact, once Gunnar actually gets here, I think I'm really going to MISS that tradition!

The appointment today was supposed to be one of the more "boring" appointments, meaning just weight check, blood pressure check, urine check, and hear baby's heartbeat (well that part is not boring, at least), BUT the greatest Dr. ever, Dr. Shaushua, let us sneak in a surprise extra sonogram. I was a little bit worried that I hadn't felt Gunnar move yet (or maybe I have, but just don't recognize it for what it is), so just to ease my mind, he let us slip in and get a sonogram. Gunnar was moving around like crazy! Arms moving, legs kicking, lips sucking, everything! For whatever reason, I just do not really feel it. I'm fine with that though....I'll feel it eventually, and for now, just knowing that he IS moving is comforting enough. One other big thing about today's appointment....I've now gained a whopping 30 pounds!!!! We actually had to move big slider on the scale from the "100" mark, to the "150" mark...and then add a few extra little pounds up top. I've never had to move slots on the scale!!! OMG!