03/30/2008 - 38 Week Belly

Here's an updated belly shot in the original outfit. It's a good thing that I'm approaching the end of my pregnancy because the shirt is barely still covering my belly!

I have been blessed with a very easy pregnancy but I am starting to get a little uncomfortable now that she has gotten so big!

Since we've ended up with a little extra time on our hands, we decided to play around with some pregnancy photos this weekend. You can see our work under "Pregnancy Pics" on the right.

03/27/2008 - 37 Week Doctor's Appt.

We had a much less eventful doctor's appointment this week...I'm still at 3 cm and 50% effaced (he didn't mention anything about effacement last time). So, we breathed a little sigh of relief and just spent the evening relaxing. She could still be here any day now but after hearing 3 cm last week, we're pretty much ready (my bags are packed and actually in my car!)

03/26/2008 - Nursery!

I couldn't post any finished nursery pics without first posting this picture of Blair working in the nursery, since she was such an inspiration for the entire room! Blair was my college roommate and you may remember her beautiful voice from our wedding ceremony. We like to refer to her as our "right brain" friend :)

Eric used a wide-angle lens to capture as much of the room as possible.

The first thing that Blair helped with was her name above the crib. She made this limb and 3-D birds and had the idea for the actual letters. But I do have to give Eric and myself a little credit for actually making the letters, since we typically do not think of ourselves as being crafty :) Eric painted the letters and frames and I hot-glued various colors of seersucker fabric to the backs of the frames.

Here is a close-up of one of the birds that Blair made...she was able to exactly duplicate the birds in the bedding!

There's a lot to share about this pic (don't forget you can always click on a picture to view a bigger image). This is Eric's old dresser that his dad refinished...I really like how the door knob pulls that I ordered on E-Bay pop on the black! The memo board above the dresser is another Blair inspired project that Eric and I managed to pull off. It will be used for pictures and other special baby mementos that we want to keep and display. In the meantime I've displayed some of the mementos from my showers.

The curtain hold-backs are also Blair inspired but sewn by G.G.

I think the $15 changing table turned out to be a great find! (not sure if Peepaw Grau would agree or not :)) Nana got us the baskets and pink gingham liners that we needed to finish it.

Our little girl already has a pretty full wardrobe :) These are her dresses and jeans for the first 6 months (her onesies and gowns are in the dresser). These include shower gifts and clothes from Emery (the daughter of our friend's Joey and Steph, who was born at the end of February 06, so the size & season should line up pretty well!...Thanks Em!)

So, there's the finished nursery! Finished for before her arrival at least :)...I told Eric that we still have some wall space available, but after thinking about it, we want to be able to put some pictures of Anna Claire in the room, so we're probably good for now (he was amazingly quick to agree :))

03/23/2008 - Easter

After last week's appt. we thought there was a chance we could be celebrating "Baby's First Easter" this year but it ended up just being the two of us (plus Daisy!)

I thought this dress was appropriate for the occasion since it kind of made my belly look like an Easter egg :)

You just can't take a picture with Daisy without her sneaking in a couple of kisses! I bought her a new bed yesterday so she would have something new to lay on when we have to continually tell her not to lay on all of the baby stuff in the floor (we've already discovered that she finds the Boppy pillows as comfortable as everyone else :)) We are trying to ease her transition from being an "only dog" to a "big sister"!

We worked hard all weekend and got the nursery completely ready before the end of the day (our last step was getting all of our shower gifts organized and put away). So, we're still on track for having nursery pics up by the end of the week but first we've got to get our hospital bags packed! (We decided that really should be a higher priority for us at this point!)

03/22/2008 - Baby Wash

Today was the most fun laundry day I've ever had! I washed all of Anna Claire's newborn outfits and blankets with Dreft. We will not be air drying this much in the future but I just didn't think any of the little newborn stuff could afford any shrinkage!

I thought all of the little onesies and gowns were so cute hanging on our drying rack :)

03/20/2008 - 36 Week Doctor's Appt.

This was my first appointment where my doctor checked to see if I had started dilating any. I told myself before I went that no matter what he said, I wasn't going to believe that she really would be coming early (I have just heard too many stories from friends that hear news from their OB that the baby is almost here and then they still go past their due date!). But when he told me that I had already dilated 3 cm, I have to admit that I got a little panicked about the nearness of her arrival! My doctor doesn't anticipate that I will go into labor as soon as the next week but he said there's a good chance that she will be here before April 16.

I'm doing weekly visits now, so we'll continue to post updates. No one really knows when Anna Claire will decide to make her arrival, but we definitely feel like a fire has been lit underneath us to finish up the remaining things that we would like to do before she gets here! (hopefully I can post some finished nursery pictures in the next week or so)

03/09/2008 - Grau Baby Shower

G.G. (Grandma Grau) and Megan (Auntie Mimi) threw me a shower on Sunday. Eric's aunts (Diane and Gayle) drove all the way down from Maryland to come to the shower!

We had such a great turn out!! I was exhausted from opening so many wonderful gifts!


This picture is from one of my favorite memories of the day. I really wish we had video footage of this: As soon as I sat down with my plate of goodies, Anna Claire started moving. At first I just felt it but then I could actually see my stomach moving. It seems like most of the times when I've noticed her moving, by the time I'm able to tell someone, she's stopped. But not today! She was moving so much that anyone who was in the living room could see it. It was like she knew she had an audience and wanted to perform!


I decided that this pic can be my 34 week belly shot. I really wanted to stay on top of taking those to watch the growth but we have been so busy lately! Eric has planned a "babymoon" trip for us in Asheville this weekend (we leave on Wed.) to make us take a break from all of the baby preparations and relax a little bit before the real work gets here! Now that the trip is here, I'm so grateful for his persistency in making sure we take time to relax.

The other pics from the shower are posted under Photo Albums on the right.

03/01/2008 - Harper Baby Shower

The Harpers had a couple's get together for us on Saturday night.

We enjoyed a really fun and relaxing evening. We had dinner, cake, opened presents and played a couple of fun games (well, mostly fun...check out the Harper Baby Shower photos on the right for more details :))