"Nobody puts Baby in a corner"

Patrick Swazye strongly proclaimed during the summer's finale show that "Nobody put's Baby in a corner."

Well apperantly you can put Baby in the corner.

When you live in a 900 sq foot loft you learn to turn every inch into usable space and we have done just that. This whole pregnancy people have been asking "Do you have the nursery ready?"or "What is your theme for the nursery?"

My answer has always been the same. "Baby doesn't have a nursery, Baby has wall" And now that it is all said and done Baby actually has a window view!

When we decided to stay in our loft for the time being I had to go through a time of grieving over the fact that I would not have a nursery to set up for my first precious baby. Along with planning my wedding since I was twelve, I had also spent years imagining how special and joyful it would be to set up the nursery for my first baby with my husband. But in the end, I got Urban Living over my first nursery.

And low and behold, now I like it! Living in such a small space with limited storage has made us choose our baby gear wisely and only buy the necessities that friends and family have recommended. Which is a very different list than the ones the websites or store advertisements will give you! Turns out I don't need the wipes warmer, the armoire, pastel colored walls, designer art, bilingual newborn toys, or three different strollers for my baby to thrive.

I have a heart that is already enamored with this Baby and a soul full of prayer for this little one. And I think we're going to get by just fine, dream nursery or not.

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,

How we wonder what you are?

This was the theme to my baby shower over the weekend. My sister in laws, my mom, and two of my best friends put this on for Baby and I and it was wonderful. The Martha Stewart like details, the fun and creative games, and all of the women in my life who showed up to support, encourage and laugh. Plus, Baby got a lot of loot!

Thanks to these amazing women we are all but ready to welcome our little baby into our arms and our home. Thank you Julie for spear heading this and for all of your Martha Stewart-eqsue ablilites. Thank you Christy for your photography genius and the fact that you accidentally took a nighttime Sudafed that morning makes for a great story. Thank you, Lisa for your blue and pink shower gifts given out by color once each guest made their guess as to whether this baby will be wearing pink or blue. Thank you Jessica, for your help and support and, of course, your gluten-free vegan pumpkin muffins...which I never tried. And thank you to my Mom for the fantastic flowers , the space, and the cheating during the shower games.

Safari Life

Since we are such a superior couple and excel at living, for our Babymoon we chose to go on a safari....

Well, ok it was simply a trip to Ashland for the Shakespeare Festival and a drive through Wildlife Safari just down the road in Winston, OR. We had to stop every hour of the trip to find a bathroom and I had just crossed over into the" Too big to Move Freely or Walk Down Stairs without White Knuckling the Handrails in Case I Should Lose My Balance One More Time" stage. Which often results in a very bored husband with nothing more to do than imbibe on the various pints of beer offered throughout the town.

Either way, we had a nice time and it was really cool to see all of these crazy animals so up close and personal. From Yaks and Zebras to Brown Bears, Tigers and Cheetahs it was wild to see such beautiful animals in Oregon.

All in all, if you find yourself driving through southern Oregon take exit 119 and you too can excel at living at go on a safari! :)

Eye to Eye with Mr Giraffe out of the top of our sunroof.

Elephant car wash anyone?

I told Daren that I was hoping for an elephant face since that seemed to feel more fitting.

The Family of Turtles

Twin Buttes

Potato

Potato, Potato. Oh how I love thee.

By this time my baby is probably part potato.

You can come in so many forms, thats easy to see

You're like a gift from the Gods sent down straight to me

From french fries with salt to baked with extra butter,

I have you to blame when my thighs and arms shudder.

I love you so much that I hate to see you go

But in about one more month, this will have to be so

For 9 months we have shared in guiltless food bliss,

but now, I look in the mirror and know, I have to deal with this

Please don't be sad, and don't see this as good bye

I know we will meet again when I'm eating on the fly

Potato, Oh Potato. How I do love these.

I want to say goodbye, but now... I'm off to Wendy's.

Love is like a greased pig

A realistic and poignant take on love by Mark Gungor of "Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage"

“I just don’t feel what I used to feel for you.”
“I love you, but I’m not in love with you anymore.”
“I believe I’ve found my soul mate…and it isn’t you.”
Or as the Righteous Brothers sang, “You’ve lost that loving feeling.”

However people want to word it, the bottom line is this: the fabulous and intense experience of our early love isn’t there anymore. I guess it wasn’t true love after all.

In the wonderful movie classic, The Princess Bride, the cotton-mouthed, speech-challenged priest talks about “true love” (or “twuuuu wuv” as he says it!) at the wedding ceremony of Princess Buttercup and Prince Humperdink. He states that true love will follow you forever. While it makes for a great movie line, in reality it is a bunch of nonsense. True love doesn’t follow you like a little puppy that is constantly there. It’s actually more like a greased pig! You have to chase after it and pursue it. You have to run it down and tackle it and when it gets away, you go after it one more time. You may finally get a hold of it for a while, but then the little rascal can slip away and you have to chase it down again.

I know, I know—a greased pig isn’t all that romantic of an analogy to use, but it surely is more realistic and more accurate! Men and women who ascribe to all this romantic fantasy stuff will be sorely disappointed. So many people actually think that love and marriage will always be easy; that it will always be a skip through the meadow with birds chirping and butterflies flitting and the orchestra playing in the background. They think that the emotional high and buzz they experience at the beginning of dating or marriage will always be there. “Our love is true love and it will never fade!” That’s why so many people become disillusioned once they get into marriage—and sometimes it doesn’t take very long at all. They think that they have “fallen out of love” with their spouse once the flames of passion begin to die down to a smoldering ember.

Of course our feelings change over time. There is no way that the initial euphoria can go on and on. It gives way to a deeper and more mature kind of love. The stages of marriage have been well documented in the research. That initial high that people experience at the onset usually only lasts six months to two years. Once the buzz is gone, the mistake that people often make is to allow their “feelings” to dictate their actions. They don’t feel that rush of emotion that they associated with love in the beginning; therefore, they assume they aren’t in love any more. And naturally, since they don’t feel love, they reason (wrongly) that they must be true to their feelings. As a result, many cash in their marriages to try and find someone that they can feel in love with again. Sadly there are people who go from relationship to relationship and marriage to marriage, yet never learn the reality that they will never find a person with whom they will share all that heat, magic, and excitement every day for the rest of their lives.

The stuff of life happens—kids, in-laws, exhaustion, dirty laundry, lack of sex, so on and so on… Sometimes it’s huge stuff like loss of a job, death, serious illness, an accident or other catastrophes. But it’s in these “for worse” times that real love is fostered and developed. It’s easy to have all the happy feelings toward someone when everything is going great. But true love, the kind that Scripture talks about, is tested and tried in the difficult times. True love requires patience, perseverance, dying to self, and forgiving.

Feelings are fleeting, that’s why you have to chase after love. Be intentional. Pay attention to the girl, give the boy some extra time and focus on one another. One of the reasons new love is so exciting is simply due to the exorbitant amount of time that the couple spends together. Sadly, after a few years and a child or two, they spend little to no time with one another. How on earth do they expect their relationship to survive, much less thrive? No wonder there are not many feelings of love left!

Make your spouse and your marriage important. If you rarely see each other and are not investing time and energy into the marriage, it won’t work. Try growing plants without tending and watering them. Or think of your pet—no dog or cat would survive without basic care and feeding. Neither will your relationship.

So, go after it! Wrestle that greased pig to the ground and when it squirts out of your grasp and gets away, chase it down again. Realize that it is work and commitment that allows you to hold on to love… as greasy and slippery as it can be sometimes! Don’t let it just squeal and run away.

Goaaaaallllll!

In pregnancy I have found that there are goals you strive to meet. The first goal is 12 weeks where you are out of the 'danger zone'. The second goal is 20 weeks where you get that great big ultra sound. Then comes 28 weeks where baby begins to be viable outside of the womb.

All of those I met and passed. With each one I could breath a little easier about the well being of my little bean in there.

Now I have just passed through my latest goal and its one of the most important ones to me since I have had a constant low level anxiety worrying about preterm labor for months now. I Have made it past 34 weeks! Hooray. This means that if our baby was to be born at any time between now and our due date it would most likely fair just fine in both the short and long term. It feels like such a weight has been lifted off my pregnant shoulders, which is helpful since there is a lot of weight pulling down on them these days too.

Now all that's left is to hold out until labor and delivery...

Pink Bows and Camo Pants

This baby is gearing up to be born in just a few more weeks. The fewer the better if you ask me. With in reason of course! Woman have always told me how the last little bit is the hardest, and this pregnancy has been such a breeze I thought I just might miss out on some of that.

Ahh wishful thinking. I am in the middle of my eighth month and am experiencing many of the necessary accouterments such as low back pain, pelvis pain as the baby drops and tilts forwards that makes me walk at a pace slower than a snail, uncomfortable contacts and poor vision, and of course, shortness of breath.

But on the positive side last night I got to feel my baby's entire bum as it pushed out against my belly! It was wild and incredible. I would stick both hands on my belly and its little baby butt would push out of the opening between my hands and you could actually feel the whole thing, almost like I was holding Baby a little.

I tried to get Daren to do it and to see how cool it was, but it was in the middle of the Duck game. I should've known better. I will try again when something else is on...like Project Runway.

We are also busy trying to get everything prepared for our precious package to arrive. Putting furniture together, cleaning, stocking up on everything from peanut butter to toilet paper in hopes that I will be able to keep all three of us fed and relatively clean in those early days.

One other such tasks has been buying Baby's going home outfit. I got to buy the baby girl outfit and Daren bought the baby boy outfit. Take a quick peek at our choices.

A sweet and simple pink flowered onsie with pink bows

for our possible precious baby girl.

--Keep in mind that when I met Daren he was driving a station wagon looking Audi, had never been hunting, owned no guns and was nearly a vegetarian. Today he drives a Toyota Tundra, hunts and fishes anytime he can, has a full clip for one of his guns on his bedside stand, and loves my affinity for red meat.-- here is his choice if we are being blessed with a boy!

An awesome display of baby camo for our sweet and studly

possible baby boy.

I love it!

"Went Fishing and all I caught was this Durango"

After the baby shower on Saturday, Daren and I and my brother and sister-in-law and their kids stayed over night with Bill and Gina.

The boys went out on a nice, though uneventful, fishing trip Saturday evening. Daren enjoyed it so much he and Bill made plans to go out again early Sunday morning. They had to leave about 6:00 am and pull out of the water at 10:00 am due to tides and time, since they were going to the Mainers game that afternoon.

Staying true to his word Daren was up at 5:45. He got ready, made the coffee and waited. Finally about 6:20am he went in and woke Bill up! It turns out that Gina had heard their alarm and turned it off and Bill had never heard it.

So the two morning fishermen ran out of the house and to the river where they fished but didn't actually catch any fish. Then about 10:00 Gina gets a call on her cell phone from a number she doesn't recognize and almost doesn't answer.

Its Daren calling her to say that she and Ryan need to get to the boat dock ASAP! Don't worry, the only fatality of the event was Daren's iphone

For the rest of this story and for the pictures see HERE.

And after all of that, they all still made it the Mariners game in time for Connor to get his Ken Griffey Jr backpack.

Detlor Theater Presents

A Star In Born!

We had our family baby shower up in the Seattle area over the weekend. It was hosted by my cousins Bill and Gina and almost all of my mom's side of the family was able to make it. It was a great theme and we had so much fun!

Thank you to Gina for hosting and for the great cupcakes ( think I had at least 3). Thank to all of the family and for all of the wonderful and exciting new baby things.