The Days Drag On and On

So here I am still sitting at home waiting, waiting, and more waiting. I have been unsuccessful at concentrating at work in fear and in hopes that I will go into labor (fear that my water will break and I am not at an appropriate place) with nothing happening. I guess I shouldn't say "nothing" I have been having contractions here and there and was almost convinced yesterday that it was time, but as soon as I got home they stopped pretty much for the rest of the day. I am starting to give up hope, I will be forever 40 lbs heavier and have a large belly that moves around on it's own free will.
As I started to think last night that my due date is fast approaching and Dan's mom will be flying in on the 6th of February (so now less than a week) I started to feel a little sad. I think some of the pressure I have been putting on myself to get this baby out into the world may be the desire to have at least a couple of days of just me, Dan, Katelynn and our new addition. I am hoping that I will still be able to have this and if I start to relax a little more than maybe this will become a reality? The bags are packed and we are all ready to go. Katelynn even said the other morning on the way to daycare that she no longer wants that baby in my tummy, well sweetheart, I couldn't agree with you more.
Katelynn has really been great these last couple of weeks and growing into a little girl. She has started to entertain and play by herself a little more and it is so fun to watch her interact with whatever or whoever she is playing. Because I have been getting a little lazy on the cooking scene we have been going out to eat a little more, which scares the hell out of Dan and I due to PTSD of Katelynn's bad behavior in restaurants, but surprisingly she has turned a new leaf on this and has been really good the last few times we have went out. This week we even went to Red Lobster and she ate snow crab legs, popcorn shrimp and some of Dad's fish. One thing that Katelynn has recently had on her mind is being competitive with any other 3 year old girl. At daycare it is now a competition between her and the 4 year old girl, Sam, on who can get to the house first and bring the daycare provider her newspaper from outside, which one of them has the softest blanket, who is the prettiest in girl in town. Katelynn has even started to bring in her other friends and if she has outgrown an article of clothing then we can give it to one of them because she is bigger and has grown up more than they have. I haven't figured out where this has come from yet, but am trying to curtail it and say the correct things as a mother should.

The car scene has not changed either. I have now started to call my Caliber "The Shoebox". This infuriates Dan, but that's alright with me, so do a lot of other things. Dan is still sticking to waiting another month or two on purchasing a car and so far even with today being the last day of the month nobody has called to try and negotiate with me to sell a car. I have noticed the place where I originally looked at the Tribeca now has 4 used 2006 Tribeca's on their lot and I am hoping that they will eventually want to push one of these out and possibly move it my way. The 2 new cars have lower miles and are under warranty still and are priced at $1000 more, but they do not have the Navigation system or DVD player, I may have to give up on those 2 items and go with something that I can talk Dan into - lower miles, but still the car that I have my heart set on, we'll see what unfolds in the near future.
Well, time to get off of here, Katelynn and I have some Blueberry Muffins to make for breakfast.

Anytime ?

I have truly been a crazy person since I last posted on the 19th.

I went back to work the next day convinced that I would be going into labor any day and let everyone know that if they had something that they needed me to train them on then they better get with it because I was outta there. Obviously, this did not happen.

So, basically 2 things have been going on in my life right now that I am truly obsessing over - finding a car or having a baby, whichever comes first. Ever since the Ford Dealership incident (which I did call them the next day and gave them a good piece of my mind, but don't tell Dan!) I have now narrowed my search to a specific car - a Subaru Tribeca. I had been emailing an Internet Salesperson for roughly a month and half about a car that I really wasn't sure if I was interested in or not and was more just having fun messing with someone at work (I know, I never said I was nice?!). Well, after much contact through email and car searching I decided that I would actually go and check this car out and look at it in person. When I got there I truly fell in love with this car and decided to take it for a test drive and then fell even harder. One thing you will need to know about me is that I really need to "love" my car, if I don't then I'm not going to keep it, somehow my husband has lost sight of this with the last 2 vehicles that he has chosen/picked and purchased for me without any of my input - thus the car hunting chase right now. I decided to let them give me a quote on my car for a trade-in. The price was not pretty on my car and I got a quote on their car. After talking to Dan and doing some research I went back the next day and threw my title and a blank check down and said "let's talk numbers and make something work for both of us". Unfortunately, we have yet to make a deal on this car, they just will not give me more for my trade-in and Dan will not let me spend more to get the car. So, the hunt began after that for any other used Tribeca's in the area. I have looked on-line and sent off some emails and even drove to Denver this last weekend. It has been fun, exciting, stressful and disappointing all at the same time. It has been funny when talking to the salesman on the phone and they ask what my time frame is and I've told them "I'm either buying a car or giving birth, whichever comes first" - hopefully they get as much of a kick out of it as I do! I do have one guy this week that is really working hard to make a deal, he currently only has new Tribeca's on his lot, but tomorrow is heading to a Subaru auction and is going to look for a used one - sweet, he asked me what color and specifics I was looking for and everything - great! The other bonus with this guy is the owner also owns the Dodge dealership in their town so to me that would mean he would be more inclined and able to give me a better deal on my trade-in because they wouldn't have to re-sell it to another dealership to sell, they can just sell it from their own lot (this is also my hopeful thinking). So, I will be anxiously awaiting to hear back from this gentleman tomorrow. I am also hoping the other dealership may reconsider their offer now that it is the last week of the month and maybe they have not met quota and need to sell a car.
Baby News:
No baby - what the hell?! I have talked to "jr." and let him know that he is no longer welcome to use my uterus for a home. My stomach literally feels like it will not stretch anymore at this point, so every large movement that he makes is not feeling so pleasant. He has dropped some more I can tell from last week and now the "pressure" is on. He either needs to make me go into labor and come out or crawl back up and get his head off of whatever he is pushing on because it makes for one unpleasant day sitting at work or at home. I have another Dr.'s appt. tomorrow morning and will be talking to the doc - she is already on board for some stripping (women will babies know what I am talking about) and I am all for it, let's get this done and out. We are ready to meet this little man and I don't want to be pushing out a 10 lb baby from you know where - it was not meant for something that big.

So these are my thoughts for the week, wish me luck on either a car or a baby - again, whatever comes first.

My MLK Day

Let's start the night before - Dan is watching the news and I am getting ready for bed and the news brings up that "tomorrow is MLK Day" and Dan's heads snaps towards me and I turn and look at him and just start laughing as he says - "you have tomorrow off of work?!" I just replied - Yes, I do. This past year I quit telling Dan when I had days off of work that he doesn't remember - which would usually include every extra government holiday that we get. I try to enjoy these days to myself and hang out by myself at home or doing something for me.
Today:
I started the morning by letting myself sleep in for maybe an extra 15 minutes (Katelynn actually got up a little before 6am and I put her back to bed and she slept until we woke her up at 7am - whew). Off to daycare with Katelynn and I had an 8am hair appt. at the salon. I was debating all morning whether I would go and get a much needed pedicure after my haircut and ended up driving to the Ford Car Dealership instead. I had a couple of hours to kill before I was meeting a friend for lunch in Milliken. So in I walk to Ford Heritage in Loveland. Dan had already scoped the place out and had, had some good offers on a couple of their Ford Edge cars so I thought I would go ahead and test drive one while I had time and see what all the fuss was about. I ended up driving a 2007 Ford Freestyle as well, which was the original car that I wanted to look at when I decided my Caliber just wasn't big enough for a family of four (at least my family of four). I drove both cars and really couldn't decide which one I would really like, there were a few differences and it would depend on my priority list. Because I didn't really know which car I liked better the dealership said I could take one for the afternoon/day to see if it was something I wanted. I thought, wow- that's great, I didn't think they did that anymore. So I took the Freestyle and off I went to lunch. Lunch with my friend was great, we went to the Mexican restaurant in Milliken that I had been wanting to try out and it was good food and good service and the place had really been cleaned up from the last owner. I came home after that to possibly work on some house cleaning or taxes or just bum around with no one home, but that didn't last very long (maybe 10 minutes) because my husband just cannot handle me with a day off from work and sitting at home, so here he was at 1:15pm rolling in. It did work out to my advantage today because I got to show him the car and get his thoughts on it. He didn't love the car, but said if I liked it then I could go and try to swindle a deal. So off I went back to Loveland with the title in my hand for my Caliber and a check in my purse ready to buy myself a new car! My sister-in-law works for Ford in Minnesota so I thought I should give her a call and see what she could tell me on the pricing she thought I should be offering for the car and I am glad that I did. She told me that I should be looking at paying around $14,000 for the used car that I was driving and that her company could pick them up on-line for around $12,000 and were only making around $1000 on the Freestlyes right now. Well, this was some really good information to have going in because me and Dan were willing to pay a little bit more than that. So, I get back to the dealership find my sales guy (who was really a nice guy who had only started there a week ago) and said let's talk some numbers. He went to the money manager and came back with what was a huge joke to me - the sale price was $20,995 and they offered me $8500 for my trade in (which still has warranty left on it) and wanted me to cut a check for the difference of $12000 - are you kidding me? That wasn't even in the ballpark of what me and Dan were going to offer, let alone was my SIL said I should be offering. So, I made my offer and let them know that I had done my research and the manager came down and said that if they could get a car for that price it might be worth the road trip, but there was no way he could get down to that price or even close. I looked at him and at my bulging belly and said, does it look like I can be taking a road trip anyway? I am due in 3 weeks. I said sorry we couldn't make something work out to my sales guy and shook the other guys hand and walked out the door and back into my Caliber to get ready to go to my dr.'s appt.
Dr. Appt:
So here I am a little over 37 weeks and am anxious more than ever for this appt. I have been thinking that the little guy has dropped down and something has to be giving and I know that I am going to get "checked" today so the dr. can let me know. So, of course with every appt. I go and pee in the cup and then wait. The nurse calls me in and I step on the dreaded scale and say "please be nice to me" (this of course after I have put down the purse, taken off my zip up sweater and taken off my shoes, every little bit helps right?) and then into the waiting room to wait for the dr. My dr. comes in and we do a little talking and I tell her again that I am ready to go and we chit chat and we did discover that the nurse wrote down on my chart that I was only 36 weeks. All I can think is "nightmare" from when I was pregnant with Katelynn and they put that I was a week over due - please nurses - get the dates right?! So we listened to the babies heartbeat and all is well and we are ready to check. Keep in mind that I am really in the back of my head thinking that she is going to tell me that nothing is happening and I am hoping for 1 cm dilated - and then she tells me that I am already at 80% and 3 cm and that she is pretty positive that I am not going to make it to February and that if I went into labor now they would not stop it. Whoa - that was a little more than I was bargaining for, of course I rush home and tell Dan and Katelynn and start getting my bag packed and jr's bag finished being packed and now that I have been made fully aware of my status I am feeling contractions here and there all night as I am running around the house like a mad person. I am wondering if I was having all these contractions before (which obviously I was) and was just that oblivious to them? Then I think to myself - crap, I didn't get my pedicure today - when am I going to fit that in? Well, my fingernails and hair are done at least.
The Car Sale: one last note on this, I was browsing the Internet after Katelynn went to bed because now I am on a little mission to find a Ford Freestyle (they changed the name in 2008 to the Tauras-x, if you were wondering what car this is), I think I can find a good used one for a good price that we can buy. So, I pull up a website and start looking around and low and behold, what is the first vehicle listed - the one from Heritage Ford that I test drove all day today and guess what they have the sale price at - $17,995, less then the starting price that was offered to me. Needless to say, I will probably not be going back to that dealership anytime soon and won't be referring anyone there - what an ass is all I can say about that manager, trying to rip me off, sorry buddy - try it on someone else!

Baby Shower

Here are a couple of pictures from today. My friends at work threw me a baby shower. We went to lunch at the Olive Garden. It was great food and great conversation, it was nice to spend some time outside of work with everyone too! Thank you ladies for making my day special!

37 1/2 weeks

Here is another update of pictures of the belly. I really don't think my skin is going to let this grow anymore?

My Curly Sue!

Just for fun last night after her bath we put the curlers in her hair. She thought it looked like a crown last night and then she was a "real" princess this morning. We did clip a little bit of it back to keep it out of her eyes for the day! I just love the curls, too cute.

37 weeks

So here I am at 37 weeks and let me tell you, I am starting to feel the belly weight. It could just be me getting my hopes up (or maybe it's really happening), but I think the boy is starting to drop down. I have felt fairly lucky or it could be I'm just that stubborn that I have not been getting up numerous times to pee during the night unless something or someone (Katelynn) has woken me up and I've gotten out of bed. This week has started an entirely new trend, I have been getting up at least 3 times during the night to go. I have been trying to drink a little more water during the day which could be a contributing a little bit to this? As you can see we have been working on the nursery and I have all the stickers on the wall, we just need to hang up the wall quilt that comes with the bedding set and touch up the ceiling paint lines and we are done with it. Dan has been avoiding me all week so far on hanging up the quilt because he "Doesn't want more holes in the walls" - I don't understand men? It's a wall - that's what it's there for - to hang stuff on - maybe it's just my man or construction men? I am definitely getting a little tension towards people as well - every day it's the same thing - "How are you feeling?" - well, let me tell you how I'm feeling - I'm either at my desk or in the bathroom and you people are expecting me to answer questions that require thinking which I don't feel like doing. It probably doesn't help that I am training people right now either - poor co-workers of mine. I still need to pack my bag and I need to get a new diaper bag too and pack that as well - hopefully that will get done this week - I guess that would have to be tomorrow on my lunch then because Thursday I am in a meeting all morning and then some co-workers/friends are taking me out for a baby shower/lunch and on Friday I have a meeting in Golden, CO and will be working late. I feel really bad for my one co-worker who is driving to the meeting on Friday - he's pretty worried that I am going to go into labor and he's going to have to take me to the hospital, I told him not too worry - he won't be coming anywhere with me and I will be just fine or I wouldn't be going, he's just going to have to stop frequently on the way there and back for bathroom breaks! I guess I could really go on and on, on the lists that I have running through my head, but I am going to try and get back on Shutterfly.com and finish the photo album from Deadwood that I am almost done with. I wonder if my husband still thinks I am doing bookwork ? Oh yeah, one more thing - my next Dr. appt. is Monday afternoon and then I will be on weekley appts., I am very anxious to find out what the heck is going on down there.

Getting the Nursery Finished

Finished Room

Starting to Paint

Taping the Room

30 Days and Counting

Today is the 8th of January which means I officially have 1 month until my due date - February 8th, 2009. This date cannot come fast enough. I cannot believe how much more run down and tired I am with this second pregnancy, I am wondering if it because I have a three year old to chase around and the anemia or am I just getting older and more of a baby?

The babies room is now painted a pretty blue color and I am working on getting the stickers that I bought put on the walls. Dan did the painting over the long New Year's weekend and we contemplated putting up some border because the ceiling tape job wasn't done too terrifically, but after hitting a ton of stores and finding nothing that we liked and me finally buying some at Babies R Us and bringing it home and then him still not liking it and him not realizing what a pain in the ass putting up wallpaper would be (and it didn't match the stuff that I already had for bedding and such) we have opted out of that and I am going to try and touch up the paint job and call it good. I will post some pictures after I get them loaded of us painting the room, this was not an easy task with a three year old - we thought it would be lots of fun and keep her entertained with us painting the walls, but not so much - paint and carpet and things are not what you want a three year old to be playing with together.

Things are getting done, slow, but sure. The room is almost put together, I need to pack a bag still for the hospital, the infant car seat is out and ready to be put into my car, (I am still car hunting as well for a crossover vehicle, but the purchase probably won't happen for a couple more months), I need to start washing some clothes and actually going through what I have so I can figure out what I may need to buy?! I have already started buying diapers and wipes and piling those up in "Juniors" room and the bottles are all downstairs ready to be sterilized. We did have to change up some of our kitchen cabinets too make some room for bottles and sippy cups, so of course some "spring cleaning" of cabinets was done during this. I have lists upon lists that run through my head at night and wake me up and I've started writing things down on sticky notes and pasting them on the kitchen cabinets so I have to look at them everyday until I can cross something off and take it down. I have also booked my mother-in-law's plane ticket this week, she is coming to stay with us for 2 weeks, this I am hoping will be a god send for us and not too long of a stay.

I am also starting to think that maybe I am a crazy person. What am I thinking: having child # 2, starting in February the president of our HOA, and at work training for a new position and still doing bookwork for our own company. Do I really believe that I can keep up with all of this? This is when you wish you had more family living around you, where are those grandparents and aunts and uncles?

Those are my woes for the days - again 30 days and counting down and slowly loosing more brain activity!

More Christmas 2008

Dan all too happy that morning to put the princess kitchen together (yeah right!) We gave him lots of coffee and left him in his corner until he was done!

Christmas Morning 2008

Our presents that we opened on Christmas Eve. Unfortanetly I was not feeling well at all X-mas eve and crawled out of bed long enough to have everyone open gifts, so I didn't take any pictures that night. I felt pretty bad too, since Dan and Katelynn ended up eating pizza for supper instead of our traditional Lasagna meal and getting all dressed up for dinner and having a really good night. Katelynn Christmas morning coming to see what Santa Claus left for her.

Emptying out her stocking
She got her princess kitchen that she asked Santa for!