Friendship is a beautiful thing..

I was thinking tonight that I blog all the time about the baby, how great Matt is, etc, but I've left out a post on a major part of who I am - my best friends.

My best friend Staci got engaged tonight to her soulmate Jordan, and I couldn't be happier for them. They are our favorite couple to hang out with, and when it is the four of us in any situation, it is just easy, fun and always a good time. I've also had some other good conversations with my other best friend Jamie over the last week or so, and it amazes me how a friend bond can remain so strong even though we've lived at a minimum of an hour to three hours apart for the last 8 years.

My best friends are like sisters to me - we fight, we love, we cry, but most importantly, we are there. We can get angry with each other and blow off steam, but I challenge anyone to try and cross one of us in front of the other because they won't get very far.

Friendship is a beautiful thing - it brings out the best in us, and I would be completely lost without Staci & Jamie. My children will grow up to know them as aunts, and I know that no matter where life takes us, or how many directions we go, we always end up back together. Besides Matt, they are two of the only people in the world who I can literally tell anything to - no topic is off limits, no secret too sacred.

I could go on and on, but I just felt like tonight I needed to give some credit to my two beautiful friends and thank them for being who they are. Our friendship is timeless, and is one of my most cherished gifts. There's nothing I wouldn't do for either of you, thanks for all you do for me.

xo,
Lindsay

Hi my name is Lindsay and I've become a baby clothes shopaholic.

So, after 30 weeks I have finally given in started buying baby clothes. I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how addictive it would be. I think I said "awww" about 8,000 times today while shopping at the Hershey outlets. The best part was that I've always loved Gymboree baby clothes, but have always been relatively appalled at the prices they charge for how quickly babies grow out of the clothes. So one of my first stops was to the Gymboree outlets. They were having a fabulous sale on spring/summer clothing which is what LBC will need first.

I went crazy. The pricetags started at $0.99 and the most expensive thing I bought 22 items later was $7.99. Got stuff for this year, for next year, it was so much fun.

I've always laughed when people talk about the amount of clothes their babies have and how they grow so fast they only get to wear things a couple of times at most, and I can now say that our baby will most likely join those ranks. I think I need to stop buying clothes though at this point, because the way my luck goes - our 0-3 month stash of clothing that should fit up through 12 lbs will never fit this ever growing little baby.

I guess if the clothes don't end up fitting, I could always start a lucrative career as an EBay store owner selling baby clothes...

Love at first 3-D third trimester sight...

So today was "Womb with a View" day! Matt, myself, the aunts & grandmothers all went over to see the ultrasound in 3-D and hope that LBC gave us some face time!

We got in and started the ultrasound, and just like earlier in the week, he had both of his hands up at his face completely covering us from seeing anything. The tech was so wonderful and patient and after about 15 minutes of non-cooperation, she gave me a Sunny-D juice container, told me to drink it to get some sugar going through me and to walk around a bit trying to move in different ways to encourage LBC to do some movement of his own.

Once that was done...we tried again. He moved one hand, but the other one was staying put and we were starting to think that we'd have to come back another day for the session. Then she decided we would try one more thing and have me lay on my left side to see if we could get him to move his hand that way. At first, no luck at all, then at the last moment he pulled that cute little hand away and gave us some images which brought tears to my eyes!

The pictures didn't turn out as great as I had hoped, and everything was so much clearer on the screen today, but I will post some of them below.

When she finally got a face shot, we first saw the forehead/eye area and she thought that he looked like Mommy, which we all agreed. Then she went from the cheekbones down, and suddenly it was EXTREMELY obvious that he is also quite the Daddy's boy. It was like looking at Matt's mouth!! LBC was thrilled by our vocal excitement and began to put on quite the show by flexing his muscles, showing his face and giving us smiles. I've been excited for a long time now to meet him, but after getting a glimpse today, I can't wait to hold this child in my arms and tell him how much I love him. What a fabulous day.

So without further adieu, I would like to introduce LBC in all his third trimester 3-D glory. I know I am a bit biased...but he really is the cutest little baby I've ever seen :)

Here was a little smirk...you can also see his umbilical cord throughout the photos - he apparently likes like play with it, as it kept getting in the way and he had been holding it most of the time.



Sucking his thumb:


Matt's lips & my eyes!


Flexing & showing off his guns:

Whoa. 7 months!

So I've been 7 months pregnant for a little over a week now, so we figured it was time to get some shots of my rapidly expanding stomach. I've not done so well with taking pictures of the belly up to this point, but since it's taking on a life of it's own, I gave in. Excuse the haggard face & hair...it's been a long week!!

Tomorrow is Womb With a View to hopefully see LBC's face - cross your fingers for some good shots to post tomorrow night!!

Future Comedian??

So today was the big day for the ultrasound, and it was big in more ways than one.

I'll start with the "big" stuff - LBC is estimated to currently weigh in at about 3lb 4oz already, which puts him in the 80th percentile for size. Translation : He is on the path to be a big baby. Matt & I were joking around with the technician and I made a remark about having a 12 pounder and she said "well, I wouldn't rule it out". I immediately had the urge to cross my legs in anticipation of some serious pain.

The first part of the ultrasound was great - we saw his head, spine, legs, arms, all four chambers of the heart pumping away, organs like his stomach, kidneys, bladder - all things we've seen before, but this time in week 29 view.

Then we got to what was supposed to be the good part. She was going to get some face shots as well as a good image to once again confirm LBC's little boyhood. LBC is doing some things right, and is currently in the vertex position (head down) where he wants to be for delivery. She moved the ultrasound wand thingy (real technical and smart, huh?) down to my lower abdomen and Matt & I both braced in anticipation of seeing this beautiful little face finally looking more like our little baby and less like the big headed alien we've seen the other times. There on the screen we see all the features of his face and as the tech hits the button to switch to 3-D mode to give us the "real view", LBC turns his head completely away from us giving a nice full shot of the back of his head.

The tech attempts several times to capture that cute little face, and each time he responds with a hand over the head, turn away from the camera or a face smash into the side of my uterus. We even tried having me lie on my side for a few minutes and push around to try and coax him into cooperation. The ONLY shot we ended up with is a half face glimpse of a cute eye, nose and lips pursed into the shape of a smile. Apparently we have a comedian on our hands.

So to try and make me feel better about my un-cooperative child, the tech then moves the ultrasound wand thingy to the top of my stomach to get some boyhood confirming shots. While in the 2-D mode, she points out that yes, he is in fact a boy, but realizes that to the untrained eye it can be very difficult to really understand what we are looking for so she will give us a good 3-D image. Guess what happens next? Yep, our funny little monkey tucks his left leg right up underneath that cute little butt and completely covers up anything that would verify his gender to us. Coincidence? I think not.

So after 30 minutes of ultrasound and a good 10-15 minutes of wishful thinking, we had to give up on our dreams of getting a fun blog worthy picture of this cute little boy. Fortunately, we are headed this Saturday to "Womb With a View" which is a non-medical ultrasound place where we can bring family and try to get some great frame-worthy shots of the little guy. I joked with Matt that I will let today's lack of cooperation slide since insurance is picking up the tab for this ultrasound, but Saturday's falls on our dime along with the company of his grandmothers & aunts who are eager to see his little face, so I may not be so understanding next time!

I can't help but wonder though...is this a sign of personality? Could it be that he has a sweet shyness like his daddy (we all know I have maybe 1 shy bone in my body), or is stubborn and bull headed like his mommy? I guess time will tell...for now, it's fun to laugh and give him the credit for being smart enough to play tricks on us. I can't wait to hear the laugh that develops out of this gestational attempt at humor!

Keep your fingers crossed for us that Saturday results in a DVD full of great images for me to someday show his girlfriend....

xo,
Lindsay

Oh little LBC..

LBC is kicking up a storm tonight, and its amazing how each time I feel a kick, it is just as exciting as the first time I ever felt it. Each kick makes me wonder more about this little tiny baby inside of me - what will he look like? What will it feel like to hear him laugh or see him smile? How amazing will it be to find out that another human being will be consoled or comforted by just having me hold him?

Don't have much else to post about tonight other than this...we have an ultrasound tomorrow morning and I am really hoping LBC cooperates with the tech and gives us some good images. He has been notorious for hiding his face during ultrasounds!

For now..I'm going to relax with my amazing husband and feel our amazing baby kick his way around and try to take a mental picture of how happy I feel in this moment about the family we have created together and how much we have to look forward to. I hope that I can always remember to cherish these simple moments, block out the rest of the worries in the world and stay inside the bubble of our four walls to find my truest happiness.

Sweet dreams <3

Dude...

Blame it on the pregnancy hormones, but in the last 6.5 months, I have fallen even more insanely in love with my husband than I could have ever imagined. He has been the most selfless, thoughtful, compassionate person I have ever known and I am so utterly grateful and humbled by his love. I couldn't design a better man to spend my life in love with as my husband and the father of my children. Ahhh..I could just go on and on, but will stop before I make everyone sick - I'm starting to nauseate myself (though that doesn't take much these days...)!

There are few things in life that Matt ever directly asks for except for deodorant and sneakers, and he is probably one of the most fun people to buy gifts for because he LOVES everything, no matter the size or meaning.

So as we keep getting the nursery ready and start buying things for the baby, there has been one thing that Matt has really wanted for himself & LBC, and I couldn't resist ordering it for him the other day. Check this out:



This is the "Diaper Dude" and is one of about a hundred diaper bags made by the Diaper Dude company for men...now Matt & LBC can go out on an adventure and Matt can keep his man-card by having a cool masculine diaper bag. I can't help but think of the movie the Hangover though... "it's not a man purse, its a satchel"...whatever it is, it's cool - dude.