The Last Weekend

This could quite possibly be/have been the last weekend Jared and I spend not as parents.
What do you do with that!??
Do you spend it finishing up last-minute baby preparations and weening yourself out of your old life? Or do you go balls to the walls and "live-it-up" a few last times?

Us being us, we've found what seemed to be a pleasant middle ground.
Without intending for it to be on our "final weekend" our group of friends have had planned a slumber party for the girls and a "slumber-brawl"/"lumber party". The boys all went to Jesse/Sami's house and the girls to Bob/Angie's. Perfect!
I can't tell you Everything that happened at the girls'
(That would ruin it for the boys' imagination)

But Sami, Heather and Angie consumed an entire container/almost gallon of homemade, a few days brewin', Strawberry Infusion. Along with I don't know how many appletini's. I put a dent in my case of Grape soda (it was in bottles even, how awesome is That?? I love soda from bottles!). We also shared an AMAAAZING canoli cake (yes, an Entire cake!!!) from The Cafe, ordered some pizza (ate the cake first, Of Course), Hoola Hooped in the back yard, did some Wii Bowling, and watched a Bunch of old, classic horror films.
After the movies... I did have visions of going over to the boys' with a chainsaw and ... sticking it through the basement window just to see how many of them wet their pants.... I refrained.
All I know about their event was that at... 2am or so Sami got a text that said "Randy just broke the (name of some chair) tickling nixons." And that the night started for them with a platter of MEAT that was waiting to be grilled, I believe. Jesse's house probably smells So bad today.........

ANYWAY!
It has served as a nice reflection time. We went to the farmers market Saturday morning in Des Moines and realized that not only will we be able to take jr to it, but the stroller will serve a dual purpose as a shopping cart!!!!

And for your viewing enjoyment...
It'd be neat if pregnancy were Really more like this:

Birthdays...

Jared and I have both had wonderful birthdays...!!

Thanks everyone for the b-day wishes, gifts, cards, visits and whatever else!!! :)

Also: Birthdays take on a Whole new meaning these days.....

Happenings

I mentioned before that Kris came over last week and took down our glass sliding shower doors for us. What replaced the doors can only be described with a photo:


Going to the bathroom may Never be the same...


Jared and Luda enjoy cuddling :)


The kitty is still ruling the house from on top of the refrigerator, but Luda and Creature are slowly learning to play together...ish.


And for those of you wanting 'belly pictures' ...this is the best we've got recently...
spandex is Practically skin, right?
So 2 weeks away from the due date Paul and I take off for a sunny-day ride. Yaaay!!

Family and Nesting

Jared's dad and Rhonda came to visit this past weekend and despite the barely 50degree, cloudy weather for the first couple days, it turned out to be a really nice time.

When folks come to visit in Ames, it is always somewhat a challenge to fill out a "what to do" list - especially as students who mostly just do homework. However, there is ALWAYS work to be done around a house that is expecting a new bundle of tears/poop/joy soon!

SO!

We let the 'nesting' set in and finally decided to figure out some organization for our hoards of baby shower gifts. (thanks again everyone!)


We found the cubicle thingers at Target and while the men cooked dinner, the women built things...


Okay, Rhonda TRIED to build ...but was unfortunately attacked by some heavy cardboard backing...


After some slight medical attention from our in-house nurse Jared, we were on our way!!


We put the newly built shelf in the room and moved on to dinner.
Kris came over on Tuesday and helped build the second shelf (and took down our glass shower doors! And helped organize baby clothes!!! thanks thanks thanks thanks!!) that we picked up!!

And Look!!!

Now we just need to fill them up! (which is entirely possible, it is just a matter of getting to that next step.

We did a bunch of other things with Jared's family.
One day we spent in Des Moines. Generally, Des Moines is a quiet little city but the day we decided to go proved to be special. As we were cruising along University Ave. a cop car comes up out of nowhere from behind us, and all of a sudden cop cars from every direction show up! They pull over an Explorer and the cops all get out... guns raised!! Some of them even had their BIG guns out... This was no ordinary traffic stop!

*thank you cell phone cameras...*
So we sat and watched as the driver of the truck was arrested and they found some dude curled up in the back.
Welcome to Des Moines.

We continued on to the Science Center and to the Hessen Haus

yuuuum.

We had Cold Stone for dinner.

Monday we celebrated Jared's birthday!
Happy b-day Jared. You old man, you!


Whew!
Thanks everyone for such a spectacular weekend!

Baby-Havin class

For 2 hours for 4 Tuesdays, we have baby-havin class.
We're currently 2 down, 2 more to go.

We've learned a lot. Like that babies don't Really get delivered by the stork - although, I'm still hopeful.

THE FIRST CLASS:
Our favorite part was probably where we learned stretches to practice. My favorite by far is the squatting. It might be because I am the best squatter in class (Thank You winter camping....) ...and it really is fun. Maybe I was meant to be a frog!
We learned about relaxing, too. I'm also very good at that.... now that school is out, anyway.

THE SECOND CLASS:
My sister Amie was visiting, so she came along with us. I'm not sure if it was because of that or something else, but... Jared and I both weren't really "into" class.
We learned about the different labor stages and... as important as it is, it is also on any pregnancy/labor website/book out there. Sooo we ended up acting a bit like 7th graders ...giggling during parts where we were supposed to be "relaxing". ...oops.
It happens.

We'll behave better next week when we get to go on a hospital tour and ...i don't remember what else we were doing, i was busy passing notes....

And he told us of his life...

Well, then, good evening my dear friends. We have got approximately 3.5 weeks left...less than a month till liftoff! I can hardly believe it....but I must!...not because I have to, but because the empirical evidence says so, and as a scientist, I would be foolish to ignore the relevant data. I'm both eager and apprehensive. Ready...but not really. It's a paradoxical conundrum of esoteric madness.



In spite of that feeling, though, the whole process is really exciting. The anticipation is escalating exponentially with time until the function reaches its maximum value at a number of days that is wholly unknown to us but can be estimated to within about a month - June...sometime, probably earlier in the month, but...who knows? If we did, then nobody would be able to gamble on it.

It's amazing to see Kim's belly. I kind of wish there was a little see through window or something on the side so I could sneak a peek...kind of like a submarine...

Holocaust Memorial Win!

People keep asking me "kim, what are you doing this summer"
I tend to look at them blankly and say "nothing. Having a kid."
But recently a few things Have been added.

Some of you may or may not know that I was on a team working on a Holocaust Memorial design. By team, I mean I drew things and made them pretty, the other graphic design friend did the killer research to develop our concept, our architect member proved to be worthless (he had a few good ideas, but... that was where his effort stopped), and our advisor (who is also my major prof) was her usual nit-picky, slave-driving self... who we can't help but always say "thank you" to by the end because we end up with amazing stuff and she usually ends up being right. Agh the Love-Hate relationships we have with people who care.
Anyway,
The competition was a pretty big deal. We presented members of the Jewish Federation of Iowa, some Des Moines design guy a few department chairs, the dean and other people who I'm not sure who they were.

Anyway

WE WON!!!! ish.

we actually tied for first.
The people liked the pathways and integration into the Des Moine Capital campus of the other team's designs, but liked our concept, research and wall graphics.

Here was our design








So new summer plans include meshing our design together with the other team's idea so that it will actually be built.
Oh, and still having a kid.

---

Jared goes to the lab every day. ... He's working on cool stuff too but ... he has to write about it himself. ...Someone should tell him to get on that.

We're getting close!

Holy wow.
Are you guys anxious?
We're getting anxious.
Whew we're anxious.

The Final Countdown

You might consider playing this youtube video while reading this post... it adds a certain sensory effect you might miss otherwise.....


Okay, lets begin... ready to help supervise Logan?

Me too.

Fist... clear out the garage-ish for food-table prep.



Get Luda ready for the guests (he is still celebrating gay marriage in Iowa)


Prepare decorations!



Clear out the nursery of ...randomly stored things


Create a calendar due-date pool


And... i think.... i think we're ready!!!!!!
You ready, Jared?


...
..
.

Jared?


I think he's ready
wait
...
..
.

............Jared?



.....After a ton of extraordinary effort put in by some unbeatable friends....
Baby Shower time Finally arrived:

There was food food food!!!!!
And even an ice cream bar inside (not pictured...)




And a yummy drink station that featured these beverages PLUS a special blend of ice cream/ginger ale of sorts... it was quite a hit.




We eventually got to open all of jr's gifts while spectators played gift bingo...
And wound up with some of the Coolest gifts Ever




The baby clothing wins include:

"all mommy wanted was a backrub" ...errr

and "my daddy is a ninja" ...Jared about peed his pants he was so happy.

Ahhh and we still can't get over how many wonderful wonderful friends showed up...if only we could possibly give credit everywhere where credit is due, but...this post would go on and on and on....






Of course, what is a Jared/Kim gathering without some hooping...


Logan isn't Quite big enough, Yet....
I wonder if sami makes 2yr old sized hoops.......




And to cap it alllll off
Jared and his boyfriends busted out some tunes


With the help of a few supporting instruments...



Luda dug up ...a bone. A very large bone.......



Once again....
A final thank you thank you thank you.... Thank You for everyone who organized and put it together for us.
And a really huge thank you for everyone who showed up and who has been supporting us through everything... You're really a Wonderful.... family.