Baby Shower

Our baby shower was great fun! We were so glad to see so many good friends & glad you could all make it way down to Littleton! Amy, Joanie and Buffy did an awful lot of preparing and organizing food, decorations and activities and we are VERY grateful--it was perfect!

More Finishing

When Betty took the chic wood paneling down, we found out there were large pieces of drywall missing where extra outlets had been added. I spent this afternoon patching and mudding:
Here is the wall with the patches in place.And here it is again with the first layer of mud.

Beginning the Finishing

Betty adds the finishing touches to the framing around our new basement window.
The little Volkswagon makes a trip to Home Depot in order to pick up a couple sheets of drywall!
After bringing the drywall inside, we were pretty tired out, but managed to put up one sheet before calling it a night.

Continuous Improvement

I spent Friday morning taping most of the house so that Betty could paint trim on Saturday. Betty ended up running through two more rolls of tape as she touched up all the shelves in the livingroom as well as placing tape on the floor where it was a little hard for me.

I spent Friday afternoon mudding the newly exposed drywall in our basement so that Betty could spend Saturday sanding it! You can see she is a little dusty! Also featured is our favorite contractor, Mr. ShopVac.

Why people don't like being pregnant

When we found out we were pregnant, I signed up for a couple of email lists that send out updates on a fairly regular basis. They seem to have bred and I now receive several a day. Most are advertisements for things that I MUST buy if I expect to possibly survive pregnancy and motherhood. Unfortunately, the informational ones are almost never helpful or kind. Throughout they have explained to me various types of torture I should be experiencing--it seems they are written by the same people who have to tell every pregnant woman they meet their own terrible birth story, that she will never get her body back and sleep is highly overrated. While these things may well be true, they will overtake the new parents whether they knew about them or not. I am sick, I don't have heartburn, I am not in pain, I don't have to wake up more than once or twice a night to pee, I'm not any more grouchy than I would normally be without food, I don't have any problems with the way my body looks. Perhaps there is an email list out there that includes the part I like (your baby is now the size of a pumpkin) and also includes positive information about pregnancy--I am certain that I am not the only woman who enjoys this time. There is a tiny, separate human right inside of me. She has her own perspective and opinions about what goes on out here and in there. How cool is that?!

For example:
Braxton-Hicks and back pain
Lisa, you may begin to feel (if you haven't already) periodic Braxton-Hicks contractions over the next few weeks. These are absolutely normal but can be somewhat uncomfortable at times. Your body is literally practicing for labor, and they give you a little taste of what it will be like. In addition to the contractions, you may also feel a variety of aches and pains on your lower ribs and pelvis. Pelvic pain is generally felt in the lower back and is caused more by your pelvis expanding in preparation for birth, than pressure from the baby. The rib pain is caused by pressure from your baby and uterus, probably feels like a dull ache, and can be felt all the way across the top of your abdomen. Ouch!

I don't have any of these things going on (which is true pretty much about every email I receive)--my pelvis has been spreading since about 10 weeks and of course its not comfortable, but of course its totally normal! Of course, I don't have rib pain because my baby still has about five inches to go before she can reach my ribcage!

32 weeks

We went for a nice walk/hike today at Mt. Falcon. Not the best picture, but check out the snowcapped peaks in the distance

To the other side of the walk--the view of Denver.

All this picture taking is wearing me out!

The good news of the week--we were showered twice! Our rugby team held a celebration in honor of us and the other two families expecting on our team. It turned out to be just in time as Rugby Baby number one was born on his due date on Tuesday. The awesome team of trainers I work with at my local early childhood council threw a surprise shower at our monthly meeting on Friday. We have all these treats lined up in front of our defunct fireplace. Bad news of the week--we had the chimney sweep out to check our flue and found out that our fireplace is nonfunctional. They do think that they can fix it and we are considering it...

Window Well Done

Here is the inside view of the sun shining in our galvanized well this morning. Betty spent most of yesterday morning finishing this project up.

Its pretty nice to have just the well as a hole in our backyard instead of the big pile of dirt. Next we will need a lid, so Mark, Lilly and Baby Cousin don't fall in!

Done! (well, not finished)

We are pretty proud of our work today--framing and installing our egress window. We have a lot of work still to do in order to make the surrounds look as nice as the window itself and to finish our window well.

This is the view from our new window--we might make this space an office space now that is has such a nice atmosphere!

On the Chain Gang

Betty worked for quite some time with a small sledge hammer and a wedge to break up the concrete. But luckily, Amy had a much larger sledge hammer in her garage and once we brought it home, it took only about 15 minutes to complete the breaking up!

(I was having a hard time adjusting to the new camera and kept taking pictures before the action. Also Betty is wearing her sunglasses inside as we did not find safety glasses in Amy's garage!)

Falling Cement

The concrete cutters left the cement in three chunks which we then needed to break into transportable pieces (apparently concrete weighs about 100 lbs per square foot)

Cutting a hole in a perfectly good house...

As I may have mentioned, the previous owners of our house put a window AC unit in this basement window. Instead of building it a window well, they created a funnel using cement which caused water to pour in underneath the unit in heavy rain or runoff. We decided that if we were going to replace the window, we might as well do it right and put in a full size egress window. The space is confined by a small patio outside so we had to move a closet inside in order bare the concrete for cutting.

After about three hours we were pretty happy to have: removed the black mold-covered drywall from the foundation, remove the AC unit, demolish one wall of the closet and move the outlet and lightswitch to their new "moveable" closet support post.

We are not sure exactly what the refinishing of the closet space will look like, hopefully we'll be inspired more today after the concrete cutters finish cutting a big enough hole in our wall for a 31 week pregnant lady to climb through!

The rest of the Walk in the Woods

For some of the walk, Mark was happy to lead the way, walking all on his own. He had brought a bag in which to collect rocks, but didn't find any of interest apparently.

The moms and children turned around at this point and retraced their steps, while the mom-to-be went on for a little more speedy walk for a few more minutes.

The sun peeked out for a few minutes as well to shine on the aspens showing their fall colors.

30 weeks

I joined Amy & Co for a walk on Sunday and Amy grabbed a picture of the 30 weeks belly (while I chat with Lilly who is attempting to meet all of the dogs out for a walk).