01/31/2008 - 3D/4D Ultrasound

Today was my 3D/4D ultrasound appointment and we got our first glance at Baby Grau. It was so strange to see her for the first time...she looks different than I expected, but I don't really know exactly what I was expecting her to look like! Of course she is still developing and although better than 2D images, there's still some distortions in these pictures since my OB said her face was pressed up against the placenta.

This picture makes me think that she has her daddy's nose...which is probably a good thing for her :)

During the ultrasound we could see her moving her little hands in front of her face as if to say, "No more pictures please!"

This picture shows a clearer image of her lips. She kind of looks like she's smiling!

My OB added little comments to some of the pictures.

So far, we are both still progressing well. My glucose test came back okay, so no sign of gestational diabetes. He said that she's still growing in line with my due date and is currently in the 47th percentile on size, weighing almost 3 pounds.

We did one more check on the gender and since we are 99.99% sure that she really is a girl :), we are ready to share the name. We are going to name her...

Anna Claire

With Anna as the first name and Claire as the middle name and we're going to call her "Anna Claire". The name Claire is from Mandy's maternal grandmother...we shared a very special relationship and her middle name was Clarene. The name Anna is just a name that both Eric and I like. We wouldn't mind if she decides to drop the Claire when she gets older and just go by Anna. We can't wait to meet Anna Claire for the first time!

01/30/2008 - 29 Week Belly

We took a lot of pictures at Christmas but decided that I was due for another "official" belly shot.

Eric chose this outfit when we first started taking the belly shot pics. I was skeptical about being able to wear it for all of the pictures, but so far I'm still able to squeeze into it! We'll see if it continues to "fit" over the remaining 11 weeks!

Baby Grau continues to become more active. I usually feel her move some during the day at work but I feel the most movement when I'm lying in bed at night just before I go to sleep. Eric was recently able to feel some of the movement and I've actually seen my belly move a couple of times, which was also pretty cool. Showing more and feeling more movement have definitely made the pregnancy feel more "real".

01/12/2008 - Pink Gingham

Mandy's mom used various shades of pastel gingham to decorate her nursery (almost 30 years ago!) so she was very surprised to hear that PB Kids is still selling it and even more surprised that her daughter was interested in using it!

Our mom's and Mandy's Aunt Carole bought us a couple of items off of our registry for Christmas.

These curtains have a blackout panel in an attempt to darken a room that gets a lot of sunlight. We're still hoping that little opening above the top doesn't let in too much light.

This lamp has such a cute shape in person and will look great on the dresser.

This changing pad cover is so soft and the gingham liners will be very cute in some baskets that we plan to use with the changing table.

I found a changing table at a consignment sale for $15 (you can't beat that!). Eric's dad is currently refinishing it along with Eric's old dresser. We're all doing what we can to make sure that he doesn't get bored with retirement :)

01/06/2008 - Painting the Nursery

Eric painted the nursery the weekend before Christmas, but we just took down the painters tape today. At first we had talked about doing a darker second coat but we are officially sticking with the original color.

I think he had some fun with it :)

Here's the final color! It's probably hard to get a good feel of the color on the computer, so you will just have to come see it in person!

I took this picture of Daisy while Eric was painting the nursery. She got into a fight with another dog and got a cut just under her left eye. Daisy thinks she's a lot bigger than she is and tends to instigate things with bigger dogs. They usually just ignore her (or she out-runs them!) but this dog decided to teach her a lesson. The wound is just about completely gone now, but we hope Daisy remembers this experience for the future so this doesn't happen to her again!