What a busy week it's been! A lot of exciting changes around here... last weekend Bryan and Lindsey came up to go to a Blazer game, which worked out really well because the Portland Bridal show was in town and we also got paint for the nursery. Sue came up as well, and while the boys went to see Avatar in 3D the girls went to the Oregon Convention Center where the bridal show was... it was huge! We got there about half an hour after they opened the doors and we still waited in a line of like 300 people for almost an hour! It was totally worth it though, if not just for the cake samples alone. :) We started to feel a little sick towards the end of the afternoon, too much sugar! Lindsey entered a lot of great drawings and got some good ideas, and it was fun to watch the fashion show and reminisce about my wedding... I texted Kyle and was like "I want to get married again!" He said tough luck :)

The girls at the bridal show!

Afterwards we went to Home Depot to pick out paint and supplies while the boys taped the room. We decided to do the room in two colors, and we're going to do a ladybug wallpaper border in between. It's going to be so cute, I can't wait until it's finished! We haven't put up the border yet because we want to put up the crib first to decide what height we want it at, so that will be very soon. Here's some pics of the room in progress!

Measuring where to paint the two colors... I really wanted to help, but I was assigned picture taker so I wouldn't be inhaling the paint fumes :)

Getting started!

I don't know why Kyle put paint on his face lol

This picture explains a lot... just kidding Bryan! :)

Boys :)



Finished painting! The top half is a light pink and the bottom half is green... it will all start coming together once the crib and wallpaper are up. Thank you so much to Bryan and Sue, they stayed late to help us finish and we couldn't have done it without them! It looks great!

This week was also a really sad week as well... unfortunately the Halls had to put down their family dog Barkley on Tuesday, who was almost 15 years old. It was time, but that still didn't make it any easier. The boys grew up with him, he was a member of the family and he will be greatly missed.

Kyle and Barkley...

Rest in peace Barkley! 1995-2010

Last night was the annual Burns supper for Kyle's civil war group, which is a dinner they do once a year to honor a Scottish poet named Robert Burns. They also name a Cameron Highlander of the Year at this dinner, which honors someone who gave a lot to the unit and really went above and beyond... and this year Kyle won! I was so glad he did, because he really deserved it.

Highlander of the year!

And of course there was piping :)

Kyle and I also got new phones on Friday, he got the Droid and I got the Droid Eris... we have been obsessed! I'm wondering if it was a good idea that we got phones with internet, because now I don't if we could live without it... they are practically attached to our hands lol!

On to the baby Hall update... the countdown is on! My due date is only 45 days away... CRAZY! She will be here so soon, I'm starting to get anxious and excited all at the same time! We started our childbirth preparation class this week (I'm the only one in the class who forgot to bring a pillow, hopefully this doesn't indicate that I'm going to be the worst mother ever... so I stole one from the ultrasound department for the evening!) There are about 10 other couples in the class, and after going around the room and having everyone introduce themselves, the instructor talked about the different stages of labor and showed a couple different videos... no, not that video! We get to watch that next week. Not exactly looking forward to it! Sometimes it's better when you don't know these things... especially since there's no turning back now! :) My favorite part of the class was the end when the partners mission was to relax the mom by massaging her neck, arms, back, etc... I could definitely get used to practicing that! The class will run for 4 weeks, and after that... we're on our own!

At 33 and 34 weeks, Baby Hall weighs about 5 pounds and is almost 18 inches long. Her skeleton is hardening and she's rapidly losing that wrinkled, alien look. Her fat layers (which will help regulate her body temperature once she's born) are filling her out and making her rounder, and her skin is smoother than ever. The bones in her skull aren't fused together so that she can more easily fit through the birth canal; in fact, these bones don't fuse until early adulthood! Her central nervous system is maturing, and her lungs are continuing to mature as well. If for some reason she had to be born now, she would be fine; she might have to have a short stay in the NICU, but would have no long-term health problems. Obviously we don't want her coming out anytime soon, but that's good to know!

Next weekend is my first baby shower, which I'm really excited about! I'm heading up to Gig Harbor on Friday and will be there for the weekend... I can't wait! I'll definitely have lots of pictures!

Hope you all have a great week! Can you believe it's already the end of January?!?!

Less than two months left...

Today was a great day... it was my day off! :) Kyle was supposed to work this morning but he switched with someone so that he could go to my doctor's appointment with me. We talked about pain control... not something I really like to think about! She said I basically have two options; they can give me a narcotic through my IV to take the edge off the pain, or a good old epidural. Kyle and I have decided we don't want to do the narcotic because the medication crosses the placenta to the baby; so if I do end up needing anything, we'll do an epidural, which doesn't effect the baby at all. She said you can do it so that you still have some sensation, all the way to the extreme where you feel like half your body is missing (weird!). There is also an option that is "patient controlled", which means that I can lessen or up the dose by just the click of a button if I choose. I think if I do end up getting an epidural then that's the way I'll go. A lot of people have told us to get the epidural the second we get there, but we really want to go in with an open mind. That's my plan; not to have a plan at all! We're just going to take each situation as it comes, one at a time.

31 weeks! One of the nurses I work with was like "you really have two more months left?!" lol yes I know my belly is huge!

I forgot to have Kyle take a picture of my belly before he went to work, so this is my attempt at a photo of 32 weeks

In exciting house news... we finally got a rug!

Ta da! Only about a year in the making... it makes the downstairs so much more cozy!

The other night when I was talking to my mom on the phone, she mentioned that she had found of bunch of my old stuff from school, which reminded Kyle that he had a trunk in the garage with a bunch of his stuff... so we decided to look through it! It was really fun to look at all the old picture and hear lots of stories. I love learning new things about my hubby!

Little League All Star jacket, still fits!

Aww, first time a boy asked me to wear his lettermans jacket :) looks a little funny with pajamas though!

We decided we're going to paint the baby's room this weekend, which we're really excited about! I promise to post lots of pics once we're done, I've never painted before so we'll see how it turns out...

At 31 and 32 weeks, baby is almost 17 inches long, so she's taking up a lot of space in my uterus. She's gaining about half a pound a week! In fact, she'll gain about a third to half of her birth weight in the next several weeks as she fattens up for life outside the womb. She now has toenails, fingernails, and real hair (or at least peach fuzz!) Her skin is starting to become soft and smooth. Since I've gotten pregnant, my blood volume has increased 40-50% to accomodate the baby's growing needs. I haven't been experiencing any problems with heartburn lately, but I am definitely having a lot of shortness of breath! It's really embarassing to be panting by the time you get to the top of the stairs lol. My uterus is pushing all my organs into my diaphragm, so I never feel like I can get a full breath. My back and hips are also starting to ache, especially when I roll out of bed (and I'm not exaggerating on the rolling part)... but these discomforts won't last for too much longer, and are totally worth the reward! :)

Cute little face!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Happy New Year!

Here are some pictures from our trip to Sunriver for Christmas; unfortunately my camera died so I wasn't able to take as many as I would have liked. But here are the ones I did manage to get!

Tanner in front of the Christmas tree!

The house was perfect, I love Sunriver! It had room for everyone to sleep, and a nice living room area with a fireplace and TV... very cozy! :)

You couldn't even see the floor after we opened gifts! We did a secret Santa system for Christmas, which worked out really well. Everyone drew a name at Thanksgiving, and we had a $40 limit for each person. It was really nice just focusing on getting gifts for one person, definitely made the Christmas season less stressful!

Kyle with one of his gifts... a bobblehead Joey Harrington! (He used to play quarterback for the Ducks)

This is the house that we stayed at... it didn't snow until the morning we left of course!

Picture of the bunkbed room... Kyle and I slept on the full bed on the bottom right.

Kitchen!

Kyle and I...

We arrived at the house late on Christmas Eve night, but were still up very early on Christmas morning! It was such a relaxing day, which was so nice. Everyone just kind of lazed around, drank coffee, and hung out until lunchtime. Sue and Pam put together a delicious lunch, and then after that we opened gifts! The rest of the day we watched movies, ate leftovers... it was a great day! :) The day after Christmas everyone went snowboarding and skiing except for Sue and I, we went shopping instead! We met up with Lindsey and Brittney, Bryan's fiance and Tanner's girlfriend, in Bend for some after Christmas sales. I really appreciated Sue hanging with me, and we had a fun girls day! :)

I was sad to leave Sunday morning, but we got to meet up with our friend Tom in Bend and have lunch and catch up, which was nice. We also went and visited Kyle's cousin Jeff at his girlfriend Valerie's house in Sisters, which is a small town next to Bend. Jeff and Valerie live in Minnesota, so it's awesome to catch up with them when we can! Jeff's brother AJ (Kyle's other cousin) is expecting a baby girl with his girlfriend Mindy in April, so everyone's getting excited for all the new additions to the Hall family. Overall, it was a really fun Christmas weekend with the Halls and the Hays!

On Tuesday Chelsea came down via train to visit us and stay until New Year's... unfortunately, that was the absolute WORST night ever for her to come down! It started to snow in the afternoon, and by the time her train arrived and I got off work, Portland was an absolute nightmare, the worst traffic I've ever seen. It was taking about an hour and a half to get out of the PARKING GARAGE, and that was before you even joined the mess on the freeways! When me and my co-workers heard that, we decided that we'd rather wait together in the cafeteria and eat some dinner then just sit in our cars for hours, so I had Chelsea hop on the max rail to the hospital while we did that because there was no way I could get to her by car. By the time she got there, it was almost 8:00 pm and I decided it was time to brave the freeways. Kyle was stranded in Tigard at JJ's apartment because his car couldn't make it in the snow, so we started to head south to get him and then go home... it SUCKED! Portland was like a parking lot, we didn't get to JJ's until 11:30 and then we still had to trek home to Beaverton. And this is after I worked for 10 hours and poor Chelsea had been traveling for hours to visit us! I felt terrible! We finally got home around 12:30 (I got off work at 5:30), thank goodness I had the next day off because I was exhausted!

Chels and I slept in and had a lazy morning... after eating breakfast we went shopping in the afternoon, and when Kyle got off work we did dinner and a movie. It was really nice to have some personal time to spend with her, it's been a long time since we had such an extended period of time to hang out with just eachother... just sister time! :) Kyle and I both had to work New Year's Eve, but my parents came down in the afternoon so they were there by the time we got off work! We ate dinner and exchanged Christmas gifts, and by that time the Halls (plus Lindsey and Brittney) had arrived. We had a really fun New Year's Eve; eating, drinking, playing games, and hanging out until midnight rolled around. After ringing in the New Year, everyone pretty much went to bed, we were all pretty tired! The next day was all about college football; the Ducks played Ohio State in the Rose Bowl, and it was a good game but unfortunately Oregon lost. :( There's always next year though!

I can't believe 2010 is here already... time is really flying! This is going to be such a special year for Kyle and I, we've really looked forward to it's arrival. Now it's time for decorating, baby showers, childbirth classes... let the baby craziness begin! I'm sorry I never officially announced this, but Kyle and I are registered at Babies R Us and Target. Our theme is ladybugs, we picked the ladybug theme from Kidsline. It's going to be super cute! :)

At 30 weeks (75% done!), baby is 17 inches long and over 3 pounds in weight; getting bigger every day! Baby's brain is also getting bigger every day, preparing for life outside the womb. It's starting to take on tasks previously delegated to other parts of the body, like temperature regulation. Now baby will start shedding lanugo, which is the downy, soft body hair that has been keeping her warm up to the is point. She won't be fuzzy anymore when she's born!

My last doctor's appointment went just fine as usual, the only thing is my bloodwork showed I'm pretty anemic so I've had to start supplementing with iron pills. Not a big deal though, I passed all my other tests with flying colors! Now every appointment my doctor is starting to take me through the process of what to expect when we get to the hospital, pain management, labor, etc... it's been kind of a wake up call! I mean, obviously you know it's coming, but really getting down to it and talking about it makes you think... wow, I'm going to actually have to do this soon! I'm not really looking forward to labor, but I also can't wait at the same time. :)

Hope that you all had a great Christmas and New Year's!