Baby Bump (take 2)

After a few requests for an updated bump picture....here it is. I have a complex about showing these because I feel huge. In the back of my mind I remember how much I always loved seeing my sisters and friends pregnant and so I figured it is only right for me to share with you. Pehaps my complex was intensified by comments I have heard this week. To make a long story short, one thing I leave learned in the past few weeks is that saying "wow - you are big" to pregnant women is not the best idea. I had someone say this to me last week at a low moment and it ended in tears. Probably a lot of hormones talking (crying) but I am using this as a note to self - when talking to pregnant women the words "large", "big", and well - all synonyms should be avoided!

Baby M is spoiled...

Nicole and Grant and Nicole's mom Maureen spoiled baby M for Christmas. Nicole made this awesome burp cloths and matching blanket out of flannel (aren't they awesome). She is so crafty!
I also got a wonderful treat in the mail yesterday from the McCord family. Jenni made the cutest little Oregon Ducks booties for baby M! Jenni sells some of her creations on ETSY....check out her craft blog and her ETSY site sometime.
I feel so lucky to have such crafty friends! Thanks Guys!!

Radke's Rock

Will and Katelyn doing Jon's hair....
Mike's 30th Birthday....
Sam eating lunch.....
We got to stop and see the Radke's on our way home for Christmas. It was a treat to see them and celebrate Mike's 30th birthday on the 21st. We had the pleasure of seeing all the kids in all of their Christmas glory. Samuel looks great and we are praying for continual progress with his bone marrow transplant success.

Christmas Fun

We had a great time visiting our families over Christmas break. Here are a few photos of our time with family. I hope everyone had a wonderful break. Sorry we were bums and didn't send out Christmas cards this year. Just too many things on our To Do list lately. We may shoot for a Happy Valentines card - so don't give up on us just yet.

Playing play-doh with Rita.....
The whole Gee Family including my uncle Larry and Grandma Sylvia....
Ava relaxing on her princess bed (aka sleeping bag). We didn't take any large group photos with the Meendering clan - but I have a thanksgiving one I can post sometime soon.

Quasmas Visit Omaha

Rachel, Sam and Greta came to visit Omaha for New Years Eve. It was so much fun to see them and to get to meet Greta for the first time. She is such a good baby and so beautiful to boot! I totally fell in love with her. It gave Jon and I some good baby practice! We love you guys!

Baby Bump

Although I am hesitant to do so - I have had multiple requests for a baby bump picture so here it is....this was taken a few weeks before Christmas. The scary thing is that it is only going to get bigger.

Oh Boy!

Yes it is true - we found out that baby Meendering is a boy! We actually found out the first of December - I have just been horrible at posting lately. It was funny because I have felt like it was a boy ever since my sister Julie and my friend Nicole said they thought it was a boy. Jon and I had a great time at the ultrasound appointment. Baby boy Meendering was moving around like crazy so it was difficult to get any really great images but it was still surreal to see him and all the progress he has made since our last ultrasound. It actually looked like a human this time! We didn't get to do a 3D ultrasound which was a little dissapointing - and irritating because they didn't tell us this until we were at the ultrasound, but their other ultasound location they let us choose from does (pehaps this would be a good thing to tell expecting parents when you ask them the locaiton they want to do the ultrasound). Anyway, it is back to the drawing board for us to think of names. We have three girl names we just loved and NO boy names. I feel like boy names are so much harder for some reason. If you have good ideas feel free to leave them in the comments. We can use all the help we can get.

Floor Transformation

So, we sucked it up and paid for the wood floors in the kitchen and upstairs to be refinished. If you remember Sue and I ripped up the first layer of lanoleum off the kitchen floor and pulled out hundreds of staples. We were left with a second layer of pink lanoleum that jon had to chip off piece by piece to reveal the original wood floor beneath. To be honest I didn't even believe it was wood becaues it was so covered in lanoleum glue that had turned back and was all sticky and gummy. Luckily the floor guys we hired were able to sand through it (they were not happy - but they did it). It feels awesome to have those floors done - it would have taken us forever to do that job. Here are some shots of the transformation....

After the 1st layer of grey lanoleum was ripped up....(the second layer that you see was pink - Awesome!)
The floor is back to the original and the kitchen is almost done...just baseboards and we can quit working in the kitchen!
It has made big progress since the day we moved in... (this picture was posted when the house was for sale by the previous owners)

Landscaping in Retrospect

So a few weekends ago we took a break from working upstairs and we ordered what seemed like a ton of mulch for all of our planting beds around the house. We spend a lot of time this summer pulling weed after weed out of those beds (although our neighbors may beg to differ because we just couldn't keep up)! So, we decided to invest a little time and energy to mulch the beds and hopefully prevent so many weeds from coming up and requiring our attention in the spring. I can't believe how much better the planting beds look now with the mulch - it totally pulled them all together and made them look so much more polished. Although I am sure the pictures won't do it justice because all of our plants have died because it is so cold here already - hopefully you can get the idea. Funny think was that we had to shovel the mulch from the big pile in our driveway into our recycling container and carry it load by load to the different beds around our house since we don't have a wheel barrow. To bad a didn't get a picture of that!

Two Become Three....

I know most of you who regularly check our blog know already - but we figured it was time to make our blog announcement that we are expecting a baby at the end of April/beginning of May. We are about 16 weeks right now and really excited for our family of two to become three! Here are pictures from our 12 week appointment. If you double click on them you can seem them a little bit bigger...
We have an appointment this week so we will keep all of you posted if we learn anything exciting. We are trying to decide if we are going to find out if it is a boy or a girl...right now we are thinking we will find out Although I really feel like it is a boy at this point. Thanks to everyone for all of your love and support over the past few weeks. We are so excited and feel so thankful to have so many family members and friends who are excited too!