36 weeks!

Wow, I can't believe we are at 36 weeks!  I am finally in the last month of pregnancy.  Since it's the last month and who knows when this boy is actually going to come I'm going to write about pregnancy.
I want to write some of this before the last month takes over and I forget how great everything was before this month ;)


I have been extremely blessed this pregnancy with almost NO issues! Sometimes when I talk to other women I feel like I'm rubbing it in.  They say things to me like "doesn't it get so hard to sleep",  "don't you just hate the swelling", "doesn't it just drive you crazy having to pee all night", etc.  So far, my answers are always no.  I still sleep through the night just fine, I haven't really been swelling (yet), and I don't have to pee that much more.  Sometimes these conversations make me wonder what's wrong with me.   Overall, I actually love being pregnant.  I love feeling Jacob kick and move around. Watching him grow by watching my belly grow and from ultra-sounds.  I love trying to get Micah to feel Jacob move and when Micah kisses my belly to tell Jacob bye in the mornings.


However, a few issues are starting to take over and I can see that the honeymoon period on pregnancy is almost over.  I figure that is mother natures way of making you actually somewhat want to go through labor.  My back is starting to hurt more often and I have a hard time sitting for long periods of time and sometimes even short periods. I finally have succumbed to the full fledge pregnant lady waddle too!  When I stand up after laying for a while I feel like an old lady with my hips hurting and kinda limping.  I painted my toenails the other day and that was an extremely difficult task. 


I'm sure this last month I'm going to get increasingly more uncomfortable but I'm so excited as to what it will bring- our precious baby!  But before counting the days to Jacob, I'm counting the days till our Mom's arrive.  I'm hoping and praying the Mom's arrive before Jacob.  After that, bring it on :)

Man Shower- videos

Since I posted about Micah's "Man Shower" I thought it was only appropriate to post a couple videos. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mtfw9gwehhQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Uy9BroIRKLs

Telling our Saudi friends

So this post is SUPER late but I just now got the video and figured out how to do it.  When we told our friends in Saudi we had everyone over for dinner.  This is something we do pretty regularly so it wasn't that unusual.  Lindsey had the idea of baking a "baby" cake for our desert and to see how long it took everyone to figure it out.  I had predicted that Laura would be first to know what was going on.  Laura is the first to start screaming "I knew it" but look at how confused everyone else still seems.  Then finally you here me say "We're pregnant".   That's when everyone else reacts.  It was a very fun night!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAtLLc7TCfY

Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to the best Mom in the entire world!  I'm so blessed to call her Mom.  I couldn't ask for a better example.  Love you Mom!

Ohh...and not to rub it in or anything but I also have a pretty great Mom-in-law.  How lucky could one girl get? Happy Mother's Day Marvetta!

Love you Moms!

5 Years!

Can you believe it? Micah and I have been married 5 years today.  I don't know why 5 seems like the magical finally made it past the "newlywed" stage but it does.  What's funny is that after 5 years I feel like we actually have each other "figured out" and now we are about to throw a baby in there and mess it all up again :)

What a great 5 years we have had.  We started out with a fabulous wedding followed by a romantic honeymoon.

After all the hoopla we moved into our first tiny apartment in League City, TX.

Then we adopted our first child. The fur ball we named Gizmo. What a cutie.

Finally we made the big move (actually before our 1 year anniversary) and bought a house! This one was technically in Houston but it's the north Clear Lake area.

During our time in Houston we made some wonderful friends, had a church that we loved, and enjoyed our home. We traveled the Caribbean and New York City. But then after 3 years of marriage and living in Houston our marriage was moved to Saudi Arabia.  Once again we were back in an apartment.

After 2 years in Saudi we have traveled the world, made life-long friends, continued to love on Gizmo, and once again moved from an apartment to a "house".  In 5 years of marriage we have lived in 4 different homes. The walls around us don't matter because as long as I'm with Micah I am home.

I feel so blessed to have such an amazing husband that makes each move and change easy and fun.  I'm blessed to have someone to share such great adventures with and someone who enjoys the adventures as much as I do. I can't wait to see what THIS next adventure in life will bring:

New Place for our New Baby

When we first moved to Saudi we moved into an apartment on our compound.  This is the living arrangements the company gave us since we didn't have any kids.  Since we found out we were pregnant the company moved us to a bigger place on the compound where Jacob will have more room and now Gizmo has a yard!  I was having a hard time imagining having to take Gizmo out on walks and get Jacob's stuff (car seat, stroller, etc.) up and down the apartment every day so the move was a huge blessing.   So, here is our new place.  It's still a work in process but I'm feeling pretty settled.


This is our "extra" sitting area that will one day become more of a play room.  Notice the changing table in the corner. 

Dinning Area

Entryway with Abaya hanger and bag hanger. It's looking into the kitchen

Downstairs bath

Living room

Backyard 

View from back porch.  Giz is in the back corner.

Kitchen

Our bedroom

Our bathroom

And now what everyone's been asking me for...Pictures of Jacob's nursery!

This will be his "changing table" upstairs.
Eventually a changing pad will be there instead of the nap nanny.

Pictures aren't quite hung yet and not sure about this corner.
Again, a work in progress.

These pictures will be hung over the crib.
These are pictures I took on our Safari that we had put on canvas.
I LOVE them!

There you have it. When we finish Jacob's nursery I will post updated pictures but that won't happen until my Mom gets here to help.  

Man Shower

I know I've said this before but our friends here in Saudi truly are amazing.  The other night I was told that we were all getting together for dinner before everyone started to leave on vacations.  Since this is something we would normally do, I didn't think much about it. That night Micah and I wandered over to Matt and Cherie's to walk into a surprise "Man Shower".  The girls had decided that Micah needed his very own baby shower and that the guys should be the ones playing the baby shower games.  To start the night we ate a great dinner and then moved on to the shower games.

The first game the guys played was the Poopy Diaper game where we melt different chocolate candies in a diaper and the guys had to guess what candy was in each one.  It's funny...I've played this game with girls before and very few of us actually taste the candy. I don't think there was one guy who didn't taste to try to figure it out.  

 For the second round, the guys played "Baby Charades".  We played this game at my shower the Friday before and had a lot of fun playing. It was almost as fun watching the guys play with similar words and seeing how differently their minds work from us girls.

 Last but definitely not least was the epic game of stroller races.  The goal was to get the stroller opened completely and back closed the fastest.  Each stroller was different and some were easier than others.  Brooks and Jamie ended up tying over-all so they had to do a tie breaker.  For the tie breaker they each had to open and close every stroller while being timed. The fastest time won.  Surprise! Brooks, the dad of 3, won.

 While the guys were playing, I decided to get in some practice time with sweet little Brooklyn.

After the games Micah opened his gifts of diapers, diapers, and more diapers (awesome!).  They were all in honor of Micah having never changed a diaper.  I can't wait for Jacob to be his first diaper change.

As usual, there was time for plain ol' goofing off.

Thanks to all of our wonderful friends for throwing another great party for Jacob!