wow. just wow.

So every now and then I've been setting up the laptop to take a pic of the belly to send to my mom so she can see how much the baby's (I've) grown...

I saw this one in the file from early on and couldn't remember how far along I was when it was taken. I was thinking 8-10 weeks or something. I just checked the date in the info from the pic... OCTOBER 16th! I was already 16 weeks pregnant!! So this is how much she grew in her first 16 weeks...

And this is how much she's grown in the 2nd 16 weeks...

here we are in all our bumpy glory.

8 weeks left. How much is she going to grow now?!?

It already feels like I can't get much bigger.

Another Wrap-Up

This was a really busy week for me work wise. I put in more than 50 hours- yikes!

Here's a little run down of how it went:

Early Monday morning I had a production meeting for a new movie I'll be working on. It wraps 1 week before I intend to start my maternity leave, so it is really good timing. The movie is starring this guy. He wasn't at the meeting so I haven't seen him yet, but I will definitely be dropping by the set sometime, so it is in the works --I'll let you know how it goes down Sarah ;)

Then Tuesday, another early production meeting for this TV show that I work on.

I just finished reading scripts for episode 17 and 18 and I am definitely hooked.

Then Wednesday and Thursday were devoted to reshoots for this movie.

Wednesday casting and Thursday visiting the set.

Pretty much every available moment in the evenings of the last week have been spent catching up on Season 5 of this show. Man, I wish season 3 would've been that good, we would've never slipped away. We have the 2 part finale left and that is it. Excited for season 6!

Also on Wednesday, it was officially 2 months until this little girl's estimated arrival of March 27th. Which sounds like more than it is, because if you remember, one of those months is February... which is really a fake month of only 28 days (no offense February, but seriously)

I'm 32 weeks now and the other day I looked down, saw my stomach and thought, what?! I never imagined what this would be like. This is by far the most amazing, intimidating, miraculous, uncomfortable situation I've ever experienced.

The past few weeks I've had some REALLY random dreams... storms, horses, driving cars inside toy store/restaurants, killing zombies, setting zombies ghost ladies free (that one was after watching Coraline... definitely a direct reaction). I had the most saddest dream that the baby was born and they told me she had died (in hindsight, I saw her and she was not dead, she had her eyes open and opened her mouth and looked at me- but that's what they told me) I woke up and sobbed for probably 5 minutes while Caleb just held me and assured me that it was just a dream, but it was just soo sad anyway. I dreamed that she was a hispanic baby with tan skin and brown hair. I dreamed last night that she was a boy baby (but fair skin and hair and eyes again). Crazy crazy crazy dreams. I've always had vivid crazy dreams (even night terrors as a kid), but now seriously weird and a lot more often.

This is what I know about her:

She gets a lot of hiccups. And she likes James Taylor. And she does not have a name.

Our next ultrasound is 3 weeks from yesterday. I'm excited to see her again.

The Betty Draper Evening Gala Gown GROSGRAIN GIVEAWAY!!!!

The Betty Draper Evening Gala Gown GROSGRAIN GIVEAWAY!!!!

I don't think I'd have a real occasion to wear this style dress... but if I were to win it- I'd totally have Makaya take pics of me in it and they'd be awesome! Plus I love Mad Men!!

To Move or Not to Move

Currently this is what we keep going back and forth on. But today we decided... not to move. Well, unless we find the perfect place. We saw 5 different apartments today and realized that we either encounter a great (small) building/neighborhood with a crappy apartment, or a great apartment in a crappy building. I don't want to live in a building that looks like a hotel or nursing home! So we're staying put for now. I like our apartment, even with it's shortcomings. This is the longest I've lived in one place since I moved out of my mom's house 10 years ago- it feels like home now. The stairs up to our landing really suck, it's only 1 bedroom, the layout isn't ideal for once the baby becomes mobile, and the parking spot is ridiculous (I'm almost too big to get out of the car now when I drive- that's how close we have to park to the wall), but it is ours and it is pretty reasonable rent. And a huge thing for me- I'm comfortable here. Whenever CB has to leave for touring, I feel safe. So we're staying put... and keeping one eye open looking for the perfect next place for our little family. After all, she'll be in our room the first few months anyway, so the way I see it, we could be fairly comfy here for the next 6-7 months (and that is a lot of extra rent money we'd save). Which means we have a long time to be picky. We don't want to settle (at least not at this point) and I think that eventually the right place will find us.

The end of 09- Time for a wrap up!

****I had to break up these posts, because I find blogger to be really hard to use with more than 6 images in a post. I get really impatient with it and having to move them one by one.

We just got home from visiting family in Illinois and yes, I did say "WE"! Caleb's back! Woohoo! After an entire 4 weeks apart- our longest yet, we were finally reunited. And of course, because there is travel involved, and it is us... there was of course a snag.

I flew in to St Louis Thursday (Dec 17th) late at night, landing just after midnight and set to stay with my dad. Caleb was to land in Chicago the next afternoon and then drive the 5 hours to Carbondale to meet up with me. He lands and all is well... except the car they're driving in breaks down on the side of the highway in Chicago! After an hour of calling rental car places, we discover that no one will rent a car for a one way trip. Boo. He ended up having to take the Amtrak the next morning arriving about 18 hours later than expected. But we were FINALLY back together! He did have quite a bit of jet lag and ended up falling asleep at 6pm that night and waking me up at 4 in the morning though! But I missed him so much I didn't care at all! He was surprised to see how big the baby had gotten and felt her kick for like an hour in the middle of the night.

While I was in Illinois, Makaya and I ran out for a quick last minute photo session for some maternity pics. I can't wait to see them and will post them here or link to them when I can.

We both ended up catching colds. I'm just almost over mine now.

We then both ended up catching the stomach flu- luckily it was 24 hour variety, but unluckily- CB came down with it on the way to the airport before our 7am flight. He threw up in the backseat of my dad's car, so we called Southwest- cancelled our tickets and rescheduled for the next morning. We went back to my dad's and spent the day hanging out (on opposite sides of the room, since I was still trying to not get sick) and watching Food Network. At about 10pm and an entire day of quarantine, I threw up too. So we got back on the phone with the airline and rescheduled our tickets for a few hours later in the day, cause there was no way I was going to get up at 4:30am not knowing if I was still sick. Love that Southwest doesn't charge fees- just makes you pay the fare difference. By that time, we had already paid the max, so no additional fare for the 2nd change. But it did mean that our boarding order was reset to the C group. Boo. We had been in the A group. She said we could pay $15 to upgrade the ticket the next day to business class to board first. We woke up feeling pretty good, so we decided to make the flight. BUT when we got there, she couldn't upgrade one ticket to business class. I mentioned that I was 6 months pregnant and not wanting to sit separate and the lady said they'd let us pre-board- Just like that! Woohoo! We got seats together for both flights. I felt a little bit guilty about pre-boarding, but considering all that we'd been through the last couple days, I decided to get over that guilt. I guess pregnancy is considered enough of a disability to allow for pre-board.

We finally make it home and at some point, checked our bank statement to see the holiday damage and start planning our maternity leave budget... We then discovered that someone had gotten my debit card number and charged 14 different purchases at various gas stations in Southern California for around $75 each!!! We got had for $1049 total! After about 30 minutes on the phone, Caleb got the ball running on getting the money back and I faxed in the affidavit saying they were fraudulent charges and we hopefully should get the money back in a few weeks. Bummer, but it was money we were saving for my maternity leave anyway, so as long as we have it back by the time she's born, I'll be okay with that.

All in all it was a great trip home (pictures follow in the next few posts).

We had an amazing 2009. The band had a lot of awesome opportunities- which also meant that he was gone a lot though. I was top booker at work- casting about 22,000 people- I wonder if that is a record. haha We also had some sad times in 2009- both of us having a grandmother pass away in August.

Looking forward to an amazing and life changing 2010. Our baby girl will shake things up in a way I don't think either of us can even fathom yet. I'm also really looking forward to taking some time off work when she comes. The band will be releasing their first full-length album in the late Spring, which we will be awesome too.

Happy New Year everyone!!

Illinois Baby shower pics

Mini Cupcakes made by my mom

The decorations-- wish the color exposure was better, but they were shades of pink and ornaments hanging from the ceiling over the table set with china and tea cups.

The hostesses - Makaya and Harmony

My mom with her tea cup.

Being a tea party, everyone had to wear hats,

and my mom was a very good sport to wear a flower on her head :)

My niece Stella (no longer will be the only girl! yay!)

Caleb's sister Rachel and me seated at the table

Me and my friend Shaina who I haven't seen since I moved here.

She knew me before I started dating Caleb and there aren't many who can say that anymore.

My brother's wife, Annie and I- bump to bump (She's due in May)

Wish I'd thought to hold my dress in a little under the stomach so I didn't look so huge. haha!

My family's Christmas Eve tradition is to hang all our stockings,

pose for a family picture and then each open one gift.

Thomas started us off...

Tom helping Thomas

(I didn't actually get one of Tom with his own stocking)

Then Me...

I told CB that my arm looked fat in this picture- so he retook it...

And this is how he "fixed" it- by cutting my arm completely off

Steven's turn

Then CB

And Annie

Here are our group pics

Our dog, Joby, stood up

and walked into the picture. haha

Then Christmas morning, we open our gifts under Mom's tree and head up to St Louis to visit with family. We spend a couple hours with my mom's side of the family, then go to meet up with my Dad's side.

Aunt Mona, Aunt Marcia and my Mom

Opening up all the presents- haha

My Dad has decided to try his hand at hockey again-

He was a goalie when he played in college. The day after Christmas he put his gear on, we headed down into the basement of his new house and took turns taking shots at him :)

CB's turn

Never was one to let the boys have all the fun.

It snowed off and on the whole time we were in the midwest.

This day the snowflakes were really big, but they didn't photograph very well at all.

I was FREEZING without my coat on. Brrrrr.