Genius Shopper Part 2

Today I stumbled upon a great deal! I had received an email from B.R.us saying they were offering free shipping today only and thought... we should really take advantage of this to buy our dresser for the baby. I went online and even though I'd picked one out in the past from there, nothing today was catching my eye. Still, free shipping is a good deal on something as heavy as a dresser, so I didn't quite want to give it up yet. We had talked about looking at the unpainted furniture store down the street from our place, so I decided that I'd run check there really quick to make sure there wasn't something better, before settling on one online. The unpainted furniture store is right next door to a baby store that I'd already looked at and written off as way too expensive. But as I passed by there today, I noticed that they had some discounted pieces on the sidewalk out front. LO AND BEHOLD- the most perfect dresser was right there, marked 50% off. It was everything I wanted for her dresser: dark colored wood, drawers on the left/door with shelves on the right, flat top where we can put a changer AND it was some things I didn't know that I wanted: silver knobs, smooth sloping lines (rather than a box with drawers), 2 small top drawers instead of a 3rd bigger one and SOLID WOOD. With the discount, it ended up being the same price as the lower quality model I'd nearly bought online from Target a week or so ago since tax and shipping was factored into that. CB loaded it up in the van, drove it home, his friends that are visiting helped carry it up the stairs and I filled it with her things this afternoon.

I'm just slightly jealous of her fancy dresser (CB and I have the Ikea style that look like boxes with drawers), but I'm glad she has such a nice piece of furniture (and I'm going to make her use it forever). Here's a picture of the dresser I took from the website. There is a matching crib but we're probably not going to get that until we move to a bigger place.

Which style dresser and which car seat/stroller have been 2 of the biggest decisions we've had to make with picking out "her gear". I've been looking online and changing my mind back and forth since October. It is such a relief to have those decisions made and carried out... not to mention 2 big checkmarks on our 3 page to-do list (typed!).

PS- And good thing about the genius shopper part... because we spent A LOT of money this weekend! Oh well... doing our part for the economy right?

I am pretty much a genius shopper...

That is what I came up with earlier.

A week ago, we got an ad in the mail from Babies R Us saying that if you bring in your used baby items (car seat, stroller, playpen, high chair or bassinet), you can get 25% off a new item (in certain categories/brands). Here I am thinking... I don't have any used big ticket type baby items. How can I take part in this great deal? So yesterday, I started looking at Craigslist- thinking if I could get a cheap something I could trade it in for our travel system. I didn't see anything super cheap on craigslist or not convenient enough to go get. I drove "the long way" to babies r us this morning to pass by as many yard sales as possible to see what I could find. I thought I hit the motherload when I saw a yard sale with 2 car seats and a bassinet. But they were in pretty good shape and nice brands and priced at $50 and $60~ not going to work for my $55 discount. I run into the thrift store and there it is~ a pink dingy car seat priced at $10.99. Woohoo! Standing in line for the cash register I see that Saturday is 30% off used item day!!!! Meaning I got the car seat for $7.70! Sweet! So for my 15 minutes of searching and my $7.70 investment, I saved $55!!

Here it is in all it's glory, our new travel system...

Since the box was kind of heavy and bulky, I got it up the stairs (Caleb was out of town for the day) by opening the box and taking it up the stairs piece by piece. I'm sure I looked hilarious. Once I got it up the stairs, I put it all back in the box- haha. Not quite ready to have it out and about yet, but it does feel responsible to have it. Maybe because having a car seat means we would be allowed to take her home from the hospital.

6 weeks from today is her due date. It's still going really fast.

FYI- Pregnancy = baby

Tonight we had our maternity tour and pre-registration at the hospital. Right before we left, we walked by the postpartum nursery and saw a few of the new babes in their bassinets... and it hit us right then- Wow. We're going to go to the hospital some time in the next 6 weeks and when we leave, it will be with a baby. Funny that we reacted the exact same way in the same moment. It's getting very real.

The more items we check off our to-do list (it's 3 pages long- TYPED!) the more excited I get for her arrival. We did our 8 hour long all in 1 day birthing class on Sunday. I feel just a teensy bit more prepared for that part, I guess. My biggest job right now is to keep her in. Caleb is doing a mini tour from February 21- March 1st and she is NOT allowed out until he gets back. We have an ultrasound scheduled for a week from tomorrow, so hopefully that would indicate any complications that would throw a wrench in these plans before he leaves. (KNOCK ON WOOD) But I really feel like I have had a "by the book" pregnancy so far, so I figure I'll probably not have her until the week she's due.

I'll try to think of something else to write about for the next time... this is turning fast into a pregnancy blog... boring.

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.