Dallas Showers!!!

We have been so blessed with close family and friends who care about us enough to throw us baby showers! We got lots of goodies! Here are some of the highlights:

DALLAS SHOWER 1

Sweet Sweet Shower Hostesses, some of the most important girls in my life. 

Jamie, Brooke, Briana, Me, Tonya, Hailey (We missed Allison!!)

Me and my momma!

Don't worry mom, someday I'll be able to hug you like a normal person again. 

And sweet Rhianna came all the way from San Antonio!! 

Inside look at the shower! We got to play really fun games and eat deLISHous food. Seriously - only thing we forgot to get a picture of! It was so good. 

This is the present from my wonderful sweet family members, Danna, Dana, Devhra. Super awesome high chair. 

   

  

These are of me getting so excited about presents! 

Rhianna made these insanely cute outfits! 1 reversible dress, 2 pairs of bloomers, 2 pairs of shoes. SO CUTE!! 

FAMILY MINI-SHOWER AT UNCLE JEFF & AUNT SHERRY'S!! 

(Sadly we didn't get any pictures with the grown-ups, but the kids are always up for snap shots ;) 

Bethany, Ben, Endalk, Chloe, Katie, Gabby

Kiddos can't help themselves - they love to help open presents!! 

SOOO CUTE! 

Bottle keeper-colder-thingy! Going to be so useful! 

Chloe is super excited about life right now. But no matter - we got a first aide kit! And some awesome 12month onesies! 

Also, these didn't come from a shower, but I have to add them because they're so flippin cute! We got to pick out her first swimmy suit!! How cute!! 

And Dad wanted to wait until we got home to try on the matching hat. 

It's certainly been a fun couple of months!! 

ONE MONTH LEFT!!!

(Note Mr. Pheeny has been in several of the maternity pictures, despite my constant trying to run him off during our monthly photo shoot)

Pregnancy Highlights

Size of Baby: Over 6 pounds, 18 inches long

Weight Gain: Who really knows?!

Maternity Clothes: Same ol' - except that she finally dropped, so my maternity clothes are starting to look a lot cuter.  

Gender: She's a Lady! 

Movement: She's extremely active. Since she moved down in my torso, it's much harder to drive and sit up straight, but we're makin' it.

Sleep: Still sleeping great! Thankful for it every morning! 

Symptoms: I finally developed the pregnancy waddle, sadly. I try very hard to walk like a normal person every time I catch myself. Oh, and my feet look like they've been replaced with foot-shaped bags of pudding. 

What I miss: Being able to distinguish my ankles from my feet from my legs. And painting my own toenails. And seeing my cheekbones. And my upper thighs. 

Cravings: Still mostly dairy.

Best Moment This Month: My family came in town to spend some time with us and go to Kole's show at UNT, and it was really great to see them! We also had the DFW shower, which was SO fun (post to come).  OH - And getting to do the 3d sonogram! 

What I am looking forward to: Meeting my daughter (that is such a weird statement), getting to know her personality. Will she a sweet, shy, observant and wildly discerning person like Ben? Or immensely awesomely entertaining like me? The possibilities are endless. So thankful to God for who she is already! I'm betting that we don't make it to the 40 week picture, so here goes nothin'! 

Baby K: The Story of an Amazon Baby

Weighing in at a WHOPPING 6 pounds (supposed to be just under 5 right now)!! 

That's right, baby K is... rather large. But we're so thrilled! Big means hardy! 

We got to do the 3D sonogram, but she had her hand up by her face, so it's a little hard to tell what everything is - I tried to help with labels:

Heart rate is good - 144 bpm
Still a girl!

Doc says that there's no need to start worrying about if she'll be too big by due date, but we'll keep an eye on it. More updates in a couple of weeks (at the 36 week mark). 

32 Weeks!!!

Pregnancy Highlights

Size of Baby: 3.75 Pounds, 17 Inches long

Weight Gain: Still not looking at the scale when they weigh me. Not in trouble with the Doc yet, so it can' t be that bad! 

Maternity Clothes: I'm starting to miss my old non-maternity go-to's... but for now, I'm still very thankful for all the stretchy stuff I've borrowed from my very dear friends. 

Gender: She's a Lady! 

Movement: She's gotten so big that any movement she makes I can pretty much feel and see. She likes to spend most of her time right against the outside of my tummy. You can usually feel what is either a head or a rump right in the center below my rib cage. 

Sleep: Still sleeping great! Thankful for it every morning! 

Symptoms: Exhaustion has come back, and I'm still very awkward. Random things are painful. Like walking, and getting in the car, but I'm hanging in there, by the grace of God. Thankfully that's really all I'm experiencing. 

What I miss: I know this sounds silly given my post last month, but I miss my non-maternity clothes! And I desperately miss working out. 

Cravings: Milk

Best Moment This Week: Watching Ashlynn (Mark and Allison's sweet little girl) and seeing how great Ben is even with little babies. I knew he was brilliant with kids, but I didn't know he was such a natural with babies. It has taken some of the pressure off of the baby coming! 

What I am looking forward to: Seeing my family in a couple of weeks, and taking more classes at the hospital! Those darn things are so informative!! And of course - my Texas baby shower!! It's going to be so fun to get all the important women in my life into one room together. Very exciting.

28 Weeks (T- 12 Weeks and Counting!)

28 Week Picture

Pregnancy Highlights!!!

How Far Along: 28 Weeks

Size of baby: 15 Inches head to heel, 2 1/4 pounds

Weight gain: +20 at least - I stopped looking at the scale when they weigh me (That'll show 'em!)

Maternity Clothes: I'm beginning to wonder why I thought I needed an entire closet full of clothes before I got pregnant, since I've been surviving off of 2 pairs of jeans and about 6 shirts. I dig the comfy.

Gender: Es una chica!

Movement: So crazy - Now when she moves, you can see it from the outside! Freaks me out a little. Our favorite game is to put the remote on top of my stomach and watch it bounce around when she kicks it.  

Sleep: I tell you what - I'm sleeping like a rock. No idea how that's happening, but I'm going to enjoy every night of it until she comes.

Symptoms:  Finally starting to feel like a pregnant lady. My hip joints have been giving me a hard time. Doc said I had to stop working out before I agitated them so much I can't walk anymore. So no more working out for me! 

What I miss: Being able to walk into a room and not have all the women gaze at you with this "knowing" look. Yeah yeah, I know, I'm about the join the club. For now, I just want to order my cheeseburger, thanks. 

Cravings: Peanut butter.

Best Moment this week: Getting to know baby's sleep patterns and when she's most active. Since I can really feel and see everything now, it's much more obvious when she's playing around and when she's dozing.

What I am looking forward to: Seeing my mom and dad at the end of March. I miss my family!

MICHIGAN BABY SHOWERS!!!

I know it hasn't been four more weeks yet, but our showers were so fun and exciting that I just had to get some pictures up as soon as possible.
Ben and I were able to take one last plane trip up to Michigan before the baby comes. It was a great trip because not only did we get to have some baby showers and get some much-needed baby supplies, we also got to see all of the Zuverink/Looman families! That's something we haven't gotten to do in a couple of years, so it was definitely great to see everyone.

We landed in Chicago on Saturday at 9:30am, then drove around the lake to Grand Rapids with Ben's parents Ron & Jodi. For Texas folks, that is at least a 3 hour drive, with no snow. It was snowing. When we got to Grand Rapids, we went straight to the first shower (the Looman side of the family). We had so much fun!! Here are some pictures:

We can't wait for baby K to get big enough to wear this fun hat!

So stinkin' cute!!

Look at this beautiful blanket!!!

Look closely at this beautiful bouquet!! Is this not the most beautiful fun flower arrangment ever? You may want to sit down for this - some of the flowers are actually onesies!!! So cute! 

After all the wonderful food and fun presents (and watching little Caleb run around and entertain everyone), we headed over to the Zuverinks' side of the family and had a shower with them! Pictures:

We had so much family around, we got to catch up with all the little cousins too! Ben helped Jack figure out how to launch rockets really high!

Look at this beautiful cake!! You guys... it was like stupid good.

Here we are enjoying all the wonderful food that the family brought! I'm always impressed by the creative potluck food from the great white north. So delicious!! 

This is us all cracking up because cousin Christine is hi-larious.

All the Zuverinks gave us really sweet baby books! We read them to baby K already! She likes them. Obviously. Thanks to them, we have probably a dozen kiddo books already.

Look at us digging into the huge pile of presents!

The other side of the big circle - We had a very supportive audience. 

Grandma Zuverink gave us the coolest blanket! We think it'll be great for swaddling. 

HOORAY! We got the activity gym!!! 

And the Pack N Play!!! So excited to get it all set up!

After present time, the boys were very excited to get to play soccer again.

Siblings chattin' it up! 

My wonderful mother-in-law, very helpful cousin Becca and me! 

After all that activity and all the fun we had, we went home and just crashed. The next morning, Ben and I got everything out all together and sorted through everything. How overwhelming!!! 

Look at all of this!! Holy Moly!!

I'm in my pajamas and I'm surrounded!! 

Thanks to the Zuverink and Looman families, we had such a wonderful shower experience with our family! Special thanks to Mom-in-Law Jodi, F-I-L Ron, Kimmie, Grandma Looman, Aunt Shirley and Aunt Sheila, Aunt Gert, and everyone else who was so involved in helping put them together! They were both so beautiful and so fun. We love you guys!

24 Weeks!
Good gravy. I know everyone says this about this time, but I am shocked that we are as far along as we are. It has totally flown by. All the time I get more nervous and more excited all at the same time. Also, I'm getting bigger by the minute! Here's the picture for this month:

Yay for maternity clothes!! So comfy.

Aside from the little accessories that we will be adding eventually (after showers, I'm sure), the nursery is done!! I won't spend any time on the mural because you guys saw that already. Also including cost - we'll tally at the end. Okay so this is the virtual tour of sweet baby K's nursery!

Area 1: Changing Table/Dresser & Mobile:

Dresser: $35 at goodwill. Spray painted brown to match the rest of the room. 

Spray Paint: $8

Mobile: Branches collected from outside the apartment complex.

Birds: I sewed them out of scraps from the crib sheets I made. Great Pinterest idea, y'all. 

Ben and I figured out how we wanted them suspended in the room, he hooked them up to the ceiling and against the wall. We think they're pretty stinkin' cool! 

Area 2: Big Dresser & Night Light: 

Dresser: Hand-me-down. It actually was my dresser when I was a baby. Painted to match. 

Night Light: Another great Pinterest idea! Created from a piece of cardboard we had, some canvas fabric that used to be curtains, some paint, and Christmas lights! Didn't cost us a penny - just an afternoon of painting and drilling holes!

This is what it looks like when the room is lit up. 

Area 3: Crib, glider & Lantern

Crib: $50 at Goodwill. Stain & Shellac to refinish: $15

Sheets/Crib Skirt: Made by Katie (there are 2 extra sets too) - Fabric: $35

Glider: $25 at CCA. I recovered the hideous floral cushions - Fabric: $40. 

Lantern: $2 at Goodwill. I have to be honest you guys - I ADORE the lantern. 

Look how fun!! 

And thus concludes our nursery tour. All for just over $200 (right at $202 I believe). I'm so in love with it because we made or altered almost every single piece in it. It is completely our own and I'm thrilled about it. There's no way I would have been able to accomplish half of it myself. Ben provided most of the handy-work and ALL of the patience required. So excited to put baby K into it!