Baby Shower

Last week my wonderful friends threw me (and Paige!) a baby shower. It was so fun to get together with all the girls and celebrate this coming baby.

Here are some pictures:

Left: Henry, Tammy, me
Right: Tristen


Left: Christen
Right: Alex, Eve


Left: Brittney, Brenda
Right: Janice


Left: Gabbi
Right: Henry, Gabbi


Left: Fun decorations
Right: Fabulous food


Tammy explaining that the new bathtub basketball toy was actually more for Jake than for Paige.


Thanks girls for all the work you put in!

38 Weeks

Huge belly. Inability to bend over. Swollen ankles and feet. Approximately 30 trips to the bathroom daily. Perpetual uncomfortableness. Itchy and sore belly. Very little energy. Shortness of breath. Practically no sleep. Consistently numb arms and legs. Full term baby. Dilated to 2 cm. Sore body. Usually hot and overheated. Can't walk without waddling.

Somehow still smiling.

In two more days I'll be 38 weeks (8 1/2 months) pregnant. Almost done!

Starting off Right

Yesterday, my boss gave us the perfect present for little Paige. She'll be starting off right by wearing these.

This onesie says "eat, sleep, museums"

Thanks, Caren! They're so perfect!

Here's a picture of me last Sunday at 36 weeks:

I wasn't going to post this picture because I look huge and frightened in it, but then Holly reminded me that I was 8 months pregnant and it's expected that I look huge and frightened. So there it is.

Paige has gotten so big that I am usually really uncomfortable. But I still have so many things to be grateful for.

1. Jake. He's fantastic. He is always willing to rub my aching body, carry heavy things for me, make dinner (even after long hard days at law school), pick up things I drop, and even put my shoes on for me. My hugeness isn't so bad with him around.

2. My new glider and ottoman. It's fabulous.

3. Paige's kicks rarely hurt. She's kicked my ribs only once and occasionally gets a good jab on other organs, but other than that she mostly kicks the front of my stomach.

The countdown says there are approximately 22 days left. Keep growing, Paige. We're so excited to have you here!

Christmas 2009

Since I am too pregnant to fly, Jake and I spent Christmas this year in DC. We had a fabulous holiday together. The weather even cooperated and gave us a fabulous snow storm (which is rare for this area) to make it a white Christmas week.


This year my mom gave me a new ornament (my siblings and I get a new ornament every year) that made me even more excited for Paige to come! The little penguin in the middle swings back and forth.



It was strange not to be in Colorado with all our families, but we still kept some of the traditions going. We had great food starting with a big dinner on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day (like my mom usually does), complete with a beautiful ham. I also put out bowls of candy like Jake's mom does and we had chips and queso (I even have the same crockpot that Jake's mom puts her queso in!).

On Christmas day we slept in, then went and saw Sherlock Holmes. It was a pretty good action movie; Jake liked it a lot and I thought it was alright. Our typical reactions to an action movie.

We bought presents for each other (as usual Jake did a really great job shopping for me), wrapped them and put them under the tree. Then we had a fun time opening them with each other.


It was a really fantastic holiday!

Winter Break

This winter break was fantastic! It was so great to have Jake around without having to worry about work or studying. We hung out relaxing a lot and threw in some fun adventures. Here's some of what we did:

Jake played some video games. The universe was a little bit out of whack, because Jake was really cold for most of it and I was really hot (usually it's the other way around. I'm always the cold one. Thank you, Paige for keeping me warm). One evening Jake was so cold he pulled out his winter gear to wear while playing.


We worked on a few puzzles (I LOVE doing puzzles!). Here's a picture of one of them completed:


We also ate a lot of food. For one meal I made green eggs and ham:
(Justine, please notice that even when the eggs are green the cheese goes on AFTER cooking!)

We ordered a pizza one evening using Dominos' online ordering. We ordered a specialty pizza and then removed the toppings from half of it to make it plain cheese (or so we thought). What showed up was the pizza pictured below. Half specialty, half plain crust. Fortunately, we called Dominos and they sent us a new pizza.


We also ventured downtown a couple of times and visited some of the museums. We saw the International Spy Museum (we got really discounted tickets). It was cool, but not really worth paying full price for it.

Then we stopped by the Air and Space Museum to see the new exhibit they recently opened. This exhibit includes an interactive that I helped test as part of my work with Oberg Research. We spent a few minutes playing with it and other cool interactives in the exhibit.


Later in the week we went to the US Holocaust Museum with the Fowles. This museum does a really good job in portraying the horror of the holocaust. Depressing museum, but fun day out with the Fowles. I didn't take any pictures that day, which is unfortunate because Alex (their 5 month old) is ADORABLE.

By the end of break Jake had grown an impressive beard. He shaved all but the mustache off and we took pictures of it that he calls "a tribute to his dad." After the pictures he shaved the mustache off (at my request).

Overall, it was a FANTASTIC break and we had such a great time together.