Happy, HAPPY Birthday!

Today is Brian's one hundred and eleventh birthday!  (Spoken in true Bilbo Baggins fashion!)

Just kidding!

Today is Brian's 36th birthday!  And we celebrated just the way he desired with a fabulous dinner in downtown Columbus, OH at Milestone 229 with his Mom and Tom.  This restaurant was amazing!  The food was fantastic, the views were amazing, and it had such a cool atmosphere!  The temperatures were perfect with a nice breeze and it was a lot of fun being able to be downtown in the heart of all the summer night fun!  It really was a wonderful night!  And Brian is officially 36 (read: nearly 40)!!  (In all fairness I must admit...I am "nearly 35"...)

Bday pic with the bday boy!  I am one lucky lady!

Brian had five presents awaiting him when I got home:
one from yours truly; one from my parents; and three from his
little girl!

At Milestone 229 with Mary & Tom.

Downtown Cbus on Brian's 36th birthday!

I had to get on the action too!

Happy Birthday, Bri!  We love you!!!

Bambino Update

We had another appointment today and all is going very well!  We heard our darling girl's little heartbeat which was beating at a fast 141 beats per minute and the doc measured my tummy...vertically.  This is the first time she has done that.  I measured at 24 cm and she said that is right on target.  By the end of 40 weeks, we will be at 40 cm!  That's approximately me growing 1 cm per week!  Big Momma's going to be up in the house soon!

I gained a total of four L-Bs from my last appointment, which again is good.  We are currently six pounds on the positive side!

Our next appointment is on August 2.  We will have an ultrasound performed to see if my placenta has decided to make the move to the tippity top of my womb and we will get to say hello one last time to our little bambino before we meet her in person!  That is, unless my placenta hasn't moved.  I think another ultrasound may be scheduled if that is the case, but, for now, this is the last view we will have before the real thing!  Which, by the way, is only +/- 15 weeks away!  That is insane!

On one other note, I absolutely love my doctor.  She is amazing and incredible and so easy to work with.  She makes me feel at ease.  She answers our questions.  She takes her time with our concerns.  She is caring and attentive and wonderful.  We could not ask for anything more.  I do hope that she will be there come D-day because she is just that awesome!

So, in three weeks time, we should have another update with some photos of our little girl to post!

And we simply cannot wait to see how much she has grown!

We love you, sweet girl!

A Sign of the Changing Times

Just two years ago, Brian would run into his friends while he was out downtown at a bar...

...Nowadays, he runs into his friends at Babies "R" Us...

Brian ran into Duffy...mid-shop.

This is definitely a sign of the changing times, folks!

Camping Out

Remember how we bought a new couch, oh, about seven months ago??  Well, that said couch was purchased, loaded into another vehicle, and has now made itself home in someone else's home.

We decided it wasn't the right fit for us - especially when we found a couch that we liked a million times better when we were looking for a chair for our little bambino's room.

So, we (and when I say 'we' I mean 'Brian') sold our couch and purchased our new couch the next day.  The reason we hadn't purchased the newbie before we sold our oldie was because a.) we weren't sure if we would be able to sell our couch for a reasonable transaction to make sense buying a new one only seven months later, and b.) we weren't entirely sure what we were going to do with two couches in the living room if, for some reason, we couldn't sell the original one we had.

(Yes, some may diagnose us as clinically insane.)

Fortunately, the stars aligned and we had a buyer who was interested at the pricing we needed for this whole deal to make sense.  And that's why we no longer have a couch.

Current living quarters.

The funny thing about this whole situation is that the couch that we purchased takes 8-10 weeks to ship.  The other funny thing is we knew that going into this!  Therefore, until sometime mid-September we will be camping out Walden style in our living room - picnics, lawn chairs, loungin' on pillows!

Our current camp set up.

And here is what we are waiting on:

Pregnant lady with the flat expression
not included.

Don't you just love it?!  We do!  And I think camping out for the next 8-10 weeks is going to be a blast!  Now, if only we could have a little campfire in the middle of our living room...

Our Little Garden

Just over a month ago, Brian, Bun, Jack and I decided that we would plant a little garden this year.  We have a small concrete area in our backyard that was once a koi pond that is a perfect spot for a garden.  Initially, it was very weedy, but we weeded it, [hand] tilled it up a bit, bought some plants, planted them, and watered them daily.  We were slightly worried about what would happen to our plants while we were on our beach vacation, but they prospered in the heat and we came back with a garden full of bushy, green plants...and weeds.

Today we were weeding our garden a bit and noticed that we actually have watermelons, tomatoes, and green peppers growing!!!  This is so exciting, folks!  We had no clue what would happen to our plants or if we would even be able to manage a garden.  We knew that tomatoes and green peppers were easy to grow, but to actually see little watermelons forming on our vine is so gratifying!

It turns out we do have green thumbs!  And we cannot wait to reap the benefits of having a lovely little garden in our very own backyard!

Our little garden!

To Bump, or Not To Bump, That is the Question.

Week 16.

Week 20.

Week 24!!!

To bump, it is!

Our Next Project

After much discussion and deliberation, we have decided to complete our sunroom!  (We do not take home projects lightly!)  When we moved in to our house in November of 2010, the sunroom had a nice start to it, but it definitely needed a bit of rehab.  We haven't really used the room a ton since we moved in - thinking that we could easily do just a few minor things to get this room in tip top shape and then go from there.

Our house has three bedrooms.  We currently have one bedroom as our master bedroom, one bedroom as a spare bedroom (Bun's room), and one bedroom as our (mostly Brian's) office.  We could easily store our spare room in our partly finished basement, keep our master bedroom where it is, and keep our office where it is and make room for our wee one in the old spare room.  But we decided it would be really nice to be able to keep a spare room, at least for now, so we are finishing off the sunroom to make it a four season room and will be moving our office down there.  SO, the master will stay as the master, the spare will soon become our sweet baby's room, the current office will be the new spare room, and the sunroom will be the new office.  Just makin' a little room for baby!

Fortunately, with the sunroom renovation we will also be doing a bit of renovating on our bambino's room.  I hate to break it to all of you but the ballet mirrors are coming down...we will post photos of that room once we start the rehab.  For now, we will continue to update our sunroom project photos daily with all of our progress.

You can start by checking out our before photos and our progress over the first two days of work!  Click here for our current updates.

We are very excited about our upcoming additions!  (Sunroom and Baby, that is - not necessarily in that order!)

Just Can't Get Enough

We just bought two POUNDS of blueberries!

Anyway, like I was sayin’, blueberries are the fruit of the earth.  You can eat ‘em, cook ‘em, smash ‘em, bake 'em, puree 'em.

There are blueberries.  Blueberry pies.  Blueberry crumbles.  Blueberry breads.  Blueberry tarts.  Blueberry scones.  Blueberry crisps.  Blueberry muffins.  Blueberry buckles.  Blueberry teas.  Blueberry pancakes.  Blueberry waffles.  Blueberry syrups.  Blueberry cobblers.   Blueberry dump cakes.  Blueberry desserts.  Blueberry ice creams.  Blueberry juices.  Blueberry extracts.  Blueberry frostings.  Blueberries with milk.  Blueberry jams.  Blueberry jellies.  Blueberry glazes.  Blueberry sauces.  Blueberry upside down cakes.  Blueberry lemonades.  [Virgin] Blueberry mojitos.  Blueberry martinis.  Blueberry vodkas.  Blueberry wines.  Blueberry oatmeals.  Blueberry rhubarb pies.  Blueberry smoothies.  And that's about it.

(Thank you, Bubba, for the inspiration.)

I still can't get enough!

From Sea to Shining Sea

While I was in Canada gettin' my Canuck on, Brian was in Ohio gettin' his Red, White, and Boom on!  Red, White, and Boom is Columbus, Ohio's proud and popular display of amazing fireworks celebrating the fourth.  Brian and I have hit Red, White, and Boom together a few times.  We love going into the city and watching the amazing display, but since I was out of town during the spectacle this year, Brian decided to head downtown and snap a few amazing photos with the Big Dog - our nice camera - all by his lonesome.

He set his shutter speed for five seconds, and captured and created some fantastic firework photos.  See for yourself:

Don't these look like jellyfish in the sky?!

That is, like, firework perfection!

It's raining fireworks!

The heart of Red, White & Boom!

The Grand Finale!

I am amazed at his creativity.  It makes me so happy that we share that together.  The patience and spirit that he has for photography, and other creative ideas, surprises me time and time again.  He is a very special person and a wonderful husband.

Happy Fourth!

Canadian Bacon

After a week in North Carolina, I headed up north to Canada to visit my fam for a little while.  (Brian and Jack stayed in Ohio and held the fort down with Bun.)  From Saturday to Wednesday, I enjoyed warm, upper-80's sunny days, and cool, mid-60's summer nights.  Ottawa in the summer is simply spectacular!  (If you recall, the first and last time we visited Ottawa was last December.  We came back with a new appreciation of what "cold" really means.)

Ottawa in late June/July, however, is stunning.  There are so many wonderful green plants, the flowers are all in bloom, downtown is hustling and bustling with tourists and people - the fresh market was to die for, the weather is amazing, and being able to spend some time with my dear fam was priceless.

While we didn't take a ton of photos, but we did get to celebrate Canada Day while in Canada!  (Canada Day is Canada's "independence" day.)  Here is a small album from my Ottawa adventure.  (You've obviously seen the first photo from that album in the dressing room...)

YUM!

Until next year, Ottawa!