It's like velvet...

This description of the inside of the belly button is from my cousin, Sarah. And you know what... she's right! Now that I can feel the skin that's normally inside my belly button, it does feel a bit like velvet. I mean afterall - this little tiny piece of my bellyhas never seen sunlight or been subjected to years of soap, lotion, the elements... It's just so soft!

Belly Button

I tried to take a self portrait of my belly button yesterday afternoon because it's starting to look a little funny! It's stretched all sideways and has no more "depth" to it. Hee hee....

Total Randomness

Randomness - is that even a word? Not sure... but whatever! Here are my random updates for the day:

1. My beautiful friend Kristy Valdivia just found out that her wedding photographer entered a photo from their wedding into a contest and the picture is one of the top 5 finalists. The winner will be published in a national magazine. Voting ends soon - but if you can, click here and vote for #5. You'll see why - it's just a sexy photo!! Kristy says it's not one of her personal favorites from the day... but if you saw the whole collection, I don't know how I could possibly pick favorites. I'm bummed I wasn't able to make it to San Diego to share in her day - it was an unbelievably beautiful wedding!

2. I really need to start fixing my hair and putting on makeup on a regular basis, especially on the days we take Baby Baden photos! Yikes people - I'm looking a little scary!! This is from last Friday, April 18, 2008 at 24 weeks. (Maybe there really are two little Badens hiding in there??)

3. Baby ducks are really cute and they amuse me all during the day because I can watch them from the window at my desk. :-)

You have to look in this first picture to see baby just to the right of Mama duck.

Baby ducks motoring around the pond... check out the wake of the renegade guy at the top of the screen!

4. Tomorrow is my Level 2 Sonogram. My mom came down to Austin so she could come to the appointment with Greg and I. She's never seen an ultrasound, so it should be fun. I'll be 25 weeks to the day tomorrow. Since we don't want to know the flavor (so to speak) the doctor will have to be careful what baby parts he shows us on the screen! :-) Granted, I don't think I could tell even if I wanted to... but you never know.

5. A big Mazel Tov to Kevin and Mahra Pailet on the birth of Lyle Ellis Pailet yesterday afternoon. I'll miss Ellis's bris, but I hope to meet him when I'm in Dallas in a couple of weeks.

6. For the record, there is nothing wrong with Kerbey Queso and a pancake for dinner. Even Greg's classmate Michael joined me last night by dining on queso and pancakes for dinner!

7. Just for fun... here's an old picture of Kristy and I covered in chocolate frosting.

Baby Ducks!

Ok, Greg and I are officially nerds. We both were excited a few days ago when Mama duck returned to our little pond with 2 baby ducks. And then... today all the sudden there was a baby duck explosion. Seriously -- I counted about a dozen little guys and turbo'ing aroud the pond this afternoon. They're so little, I had to use the digital zoom on the camera to try and get some pictures. They were everywhere, and so freaking cute! Yes, the pictures are still on the camera... but that's because at the moment I'm on my laptop doing some extra work for work. Blech. To get the pictures into the blog, I have to upload them from my camera onto my home computer and then onto here.

Alas... the ducks are really cute and I hope to get some better pictures of them soon. I'll try to walk down to the pond during the week and catch them at play.

Knitting

I totally forgot. I actually made a baby bootie! One down, one to go. Granted... it might not be exactly perfect, but isn't that the joy of handmade gifts? :-) I've learned that I am not a very good "finisher", and the seams might not be perfect... but I'm pretty pleased with my one baby bootie. Ta-dah! I do still need to find some cute little buttons, but if I get the hang of these booties, they may be one of my new favorite baby shower gifts! Let's just hope there are alot of people having girls because I have an entire skein of baby pink yarn that I stole from my Mom....

If I get the second bootie done tomorrow, I'll take a picture of the pair. I am pretty pleased with myself....

Decisions Made

Well - two big decisions are out of the way. Today we ordered the Munire Urban crib, combo (essentially a dresser) and hutch (the bookshelf that sits on top of the dresser). We didn't get any of the other pieces for now - figure we can always add on. I am still wrestling with the mattress however. We ordered one with the furniture because we got a $25 discount for placing the order at the same time... but... is it the "right" mattress? Foam? Coil? Dual - with one side of each? I have heard great things about Moonlight Slumber, but is it really worth finding another place to order a mattress from? Or do we just deal with the one that USA Baby sells? Ahhhhh!

And, we picked a paint color. If you go to Sherwin Williams do a search for "Lacewing". It's a pale minty green that we hope will be nice calming and baby friendly color. Granted, we haven't even begun to think about bedding -- but I figure we'll either end up with a green/pink theme or green/blue theme. I've seen lots of bedding that's caught my eye - but Greg and I haven't even talked about it yet.

We also oh so briefly looked at strollers while we were placing the order for the furniture. I had to laugh because the stroller that Greg liked the look of most was the Quinny Buzz. :-) We have expensive tastes!! Oy. Greg was making fun of the Bob Revolution that I had liked - saying the front wheel was a big beak sticking out. Who knows. That's another expensive decision that will have to wait until after finals for some more thought. Have I mentioned how glad I am that I got an unexpected bonus check at work -- and that we're actually getting some money back on our taxes? Oh... we also found out today that Greg's summer internship position at Haynes Boone requires a jacket and tie (preferably a full suit) everyday. Ummmm... looks like the 4 suits he owns isn't going to cut it for 6 weeks of work!

Don't mind my stream of conscious writing style - my pregnancy brain is a bit all over the map lately! I did get a new picture this morning of my growing belly, but it's still trapped on the camera at the moment. Perhaps tomorrow... There's always tomorrow...

As Butters Would Say.... Ahhhhh, The Pressure!

This should sum up how stressed Greg has been this week.... he skipped classes to work on a paper! I KNOW! Greg - skipping a class!! Add to that the fact that he hasn't come to bed before 3 or 4 am, while still getting up by 8. Yikes. I think I'm looking forward to the end of this semester as much as he is. There's just so much pressure to do well this first semester. Seriously, it's a little nuts. Consider this... later this summer, Greg will start interviewing for jobs after he graduates in 2010! All the employers have to consider are his first year law school grades and his prior work experience. Do you know what you want to be doing 2 years from now? Or in what city you want to be doing it?

But back to the public acknowledgement of the Outstanding Award for Legal Research (?)... Greg went to the reception earlier this week. 5 people from each 100 section group were selected for the awards. So -that makes a grand total of 20 "winners". Of those 20... 3 were in Greg's small 25 person section (pretty cool) and he said that a few of our friends from the Old People Starting Law School won too. Yay to new dad Jason Leach and to Wyatt. Greg said he also recognized a few other of those recognized from the "older" crowd. Wonder what that tells you? That a few extra years of work before law school paid off? :-)

A small group from the small section is heading out to Happy Hour this afternoon once the paper gets turned in. Hopefully, I'll be able to finish work by 5 and head out to join the gang. I think after a couple beers, Greg may come home and sleep straight through until Saturday!

In knitting news... I'm attempting to make some baby booties! Granted, the pattern isn't that difficult, but I've started the things about half a dozen times. Oy. But, I think they're going well now. I've made it through the first paragraph and so far I have the correct number of stitches and they look way better than my first attempt! Guess I shouldn't have stopped knitting for so long -- you do start to forget stuff. Thank goodness for the nice people that post videos on http://www.knittinghelp.com/! I'm not sure if you have to register --but here's the link to the T-Strap Baby Booty Pattern. They will hopefully look like this once finished:

Aren't they just too freaking cute? Hee hee. I have also pulled out from the dark recess of my closet the baby poncho that got stuck in it's WIP state. That's Work In Progress.... it never made it to FO (Finished Object). But... I hope to have it completed soon as well so that it can be a birthday gift for little Miss Zoe Myers this summer. That's the plan.

This weekend, Greg and I are going to pick out the paint color for the nursery and order the nursery furniture! Woo hoo. I'll be sure to post a picture of the color we choose for the room and of course what crib we FINALLY choose! :-) That will be a relief to get that ordered!!

Hiccups & Other News

Lots and lots of hiccups. That's the current baby news. I think Baby Baden is going to come out of the womb hiccuping! Last night, Greg said it felt just like my stomach muscle was spasming... yep. That about sums it up from the outside... but on the inside, it's a weird weird feeling. More belly pictures are coming. I'll try to get an updated one tomorrow. The Buddha is definitely growing! Greg says it won't be long before I don't have a belly button anymore. It's getting stretched all sideways. :-)

In other news, I'm FINALLY feeling better. That stupid cold lasted for just over two freaking weeks. So, first I was afraid I was going to cough up our unborn child. Then, I was afraid that the cough medicine would knock out the baby... but now, I'm sure that baby is just fine. Hiccuping like there's no tomorrow.

And, in other other news.... Greg received another award in school. He wasn't thrilled that it was announced in front of the entire 100 person section, but -- still, another pretty cool honor. There were 5 people out of each of the four 100 person sections that were called out for Best/Outstanding Memo. We're also gearing up for next semester. I think it's going to be a busy one for Greg. He's applied to be a "TQ" for Legal Research and Writing (kind of like a teacher's aide). He's also now a part of the IP Law Society and I don't know what it's called... but some other organization through school that prepares Memos and does research for local attorneys. All of that in addition to his classes. Oh, and a new baby. Should be interesting, huh? We'll find out this week if he got a TQ position, and if he did.... then he'll have to rearrange his school schedule a bit. The TQ position is a 2 hour credit -- which with a full class schedule would be too much. So, if he gets the position, he'll have to drop something else. Decisions, decisions... but it's a good rock/hard place to be stuck between! (Did I mention that the TQ position comes with a small pay and tuition reimbursement!!)

I've also started a registry for Baby Baden at www.babiesrus.com. I started a little one at www.babycenter.com but I don't know if I'll make that one public. We're crib and furniture shopping at the moment. It's a tough decision. Do we go for the simple nursery furniture that can be "offloaded" when we move after law school? Or, do we go for the more furniture furniture stuff that we'd move, but should last us through a few kids and then some? The first instinct is the latter. We're looking at www.munirefurniture.com. But, there are so many other options. You start to over think everything after a while. I know that Baby Baden doesn't care one way or the other!! If we do want to order Munire however, we have to do it soon, because I hear it can take up to 3 months to get the furniture in! Yikes.

OK, well -- some cookies are calling my name. Cookies and fruit... I suppose there are worse things to crave!

Now that I'm feeling better, there should be more updates forthcoming!