31 Week Update

It's been a few weeks since I posted a true profile shot so here it is (not sure why its fuzzy). I have now met all of the doctors in the new practice we switched to and I am happy with all of them. The last one, Dr. Penman was my favorite and if I got to choose who would be there to deliver it would definitely be him. He was great to meet with and offered up a lot of information without me having to ask a million questions. He gave us a run down of what to expect over the next few weeks and then took all the important measurements. The baby belly has exploded to 31 cm which is exactly on target and the heartbeat sounded great. Based on where I have been getting kicked and jabbed and Dr. Penman's assessment, Ringo is head down with his/her shoulders, elbows and rear end doing most of the damage. He/she moves constantly to the point where I have to stop whatever I am doing and try to talk him/her into settling down so I can get stuff done or try to sleep. Its been especially bad when I am in the car which has made for some long road trips recently. I swear I should be bruised! Ringo is currently weighing in at about 3.5 lbs and should be around 16 inches long so based on that, Dr. said if I go the full 40 weeks we should be looking at a nice healthy 7lb baby. Sorry, no changing your guesses now! We have made a lot of progress on the room and after this weekend, we will have a better idea of what we are missing and what else we need to be ready in terms of supplies. Hard to believe that our little baby will be here in less than 2 months! Since I am going to grow at a crazy fast pace for the next few weeks I will do better at posting photos and details. We will still visit the doctor every 2 weeks in August but after the last week in August we will be going every week until D-Day arrives. And yes... to those of you that said not to worry about gaining weight right away and that it will come eventually- you were right!

Almost Finished Baby Room

Here are some pictures of the main pieces of furniture that are in the baby's room. We have everything set where we want it and I had to put the bedding on the crib just to see what it looked like. The dresser finally came in last Friday so it all came together on Sunday. The only things left to do are to put up the decor for the walls including some matching animal hangings, a mirror for above the dresser and some shelves for the wall above the crib. We are also in search for the perfect rocking chair/glider to go in the corner of the room. Once we get it all complete, I will have to post a slide show that illustrates the transformation from messy office to gender neutral baby room. Its been fun putting it all together and we hope baby likes it!

Dresser and wall stripes

Crib with bedding and mobile

Books and storage in front of the window

Baby Shower #1

On Sunday we had our first of two baby showers- one given by each family. My mom and aunt organized the family and some friends from home for a small gathering at a local restaurant. We had lots of good snacks and cute cupcakes and cookies for dessert. Not knowing if this baby is a boy or girl didn't really allow for pink or blue anything so we had some of both- half the cookies said "its a girl" and half said "its a boy" while some cupcakes had pink and some had blue. It didn't matter to me, they were all delicious! Instead of cards, everyone was asked to sign their name to a book for the baby so we got tons of cute books to read to the little one including some classics like the Berenstein Bears and Dr. Suess. We got so many great gifts that we barely got everything packed into the car to take home. Karl spent the morning golfing and it was so late by the time we got home that we unloaded the car but he hadn't really seen anything. Monday I got to play show and tell with Karl while we put everything away in the baby room so it was just like opening it all again. We now have some of the important things like bottles, diapers, wipes and blankets.... a huge improvement over the one stuffed animal we have had up until this point. I can't thank everyone enough for coming to the shower and for all of the great gifts. Getting to spend more time with my family was the best part about it. I'm sorry no one could buy cute little dresses or football jerseys but there will be plenty of time for that later. Here are a few pictures from the day:

The best hostesses anyone could ask for! Mom, grandma Marilyn and Aunt Kelly

Happy grandma-to-be!

Grandma Sandy and Aunt Judy

The best aunties any baby could want: Leah, Laura, Nicky and Andrea!

29 Week Update

We made progress on the baby room! It now has been completely cleaned out, carpet cleaned, stripes painted, closet organizer in place and the crib is set up. Its come a long way but there is still a lot to be done. The dresser has been on back order but should be here by the end of the month and then we can really see how we want to arrange things. I had a picture in my mind of how it would all look but once we got the crib in, the room started looking very small. Who knew something so small would need a bed so big! We are really happy with the choices we have made so far. The paint turned out better than we expected and we are happy we decided against painting everything all one color. Our walls are already a nice cream color which matches the bedding perfectly so we just added two horizontal stripes around the room to match the brown and green colors. Grandpa and Karl set up the crib and we thought about putting Ella in to test it out but she was not interested. As of today, this baby has a place to sleep but that's all! Most of our free time has been spent working on the room but this weekend we are heading home to WI for a family reunion and our first baby shower. I'm so excited to see my family! Unfortunately my dad is out of town and we can only stay for the weekend but some time is better than no time. I'm a lot bigger since the last time I was home which I think was for Easter so I might surprise everyone. We will be spending tomorrow at the lake so I hope the weather cooperates- apparently we are in the middle of a cold front and its only going to be 70.... yuck. Sunday is my baby shower so I will get to see a lot of friends and family.

Here is an update on the belly at 28 weeks from my beautiful friend Sharon's wedding last Saturday. Yes... that's the same dress from the last wedding but its the only one that fits and now it no longer does. It was almost a crisis on Saturday! Sharon and Pat had a very beautiful wedding and you just can't go wrong with all those men in uniform. Pat is a naval aviator, Top Gun style!

More pictures to come on the baby room and the shower after this weekend.

Online Baby Pool: Baby Kraebber Challenge

Now that we are closing in on the home stretch, its time to place your bets! Click on the orange box to the right to compete in our online baby pool- the Baby Kraebber Challenge. Enter your guess for gender, weight, length, date and time of birth. Once we know the real statistics, points will be awarded for the closest guesses and an overall winner will be calculated. We have a fabulous prize in mind for the winner so give it your best guess. If for some reason the box doesn't take you right to our game, you can access it by visiting www.expectnet.com and entering the game name BabyKraebber (its case sensitive). Here are some stats and answers to some wives tales that might help you in your guessing:

Erin's Stats: 7lbs 14 oz born a few weeks early
Karl's Stats: 7lbs 4 oz born one week early
Baby's heartbeat has been a steady 148-150 bpm every time (right in between)
Baby has been moving around like crazy since week 24 (boy)
Erin was very sick from weeks 8-16 (boy)
Baby has been carrying pretty high (girl) and looks like a nice round beach ball (boy)
No real cravings other than lots of fruit and less chicken than normal (girl)

We are having fun trying to make our guesses and we change our minds every day. Good luck!