Pretty flowers.

When J's parents were here in April, I planted pansies into the planters I got for my birthday. They look great!




I got these flowers that game in ball form, all you do is toss them in the dirt and they should grow. I'm still waiting for them to flower but right now they look like a bunch of weeds.


Thanks to K&B who got us an early anniversary gift from the Farmer's Market in DM. Its the looney bird in our front yard.

Painting the nursery.

We won't know the gender of the baby until later in June, but I wanted to get a head start on the painting. We decided to make it neutral so we wouldn't have to change it later. Here is the room originally.


I decided to do two colors, green and yellow.


Here are the two colors together. J is going to add some moulding to divide the colors and then I can add some decorative knobs to the moulding and hang frames from the knobs. I'll post a picture when that finally gets done.

Deck Party!

J wanted to tell our college friends in person that we're expecting, so what better way to do it than have a deck party. Everyone was excited. We got to eat outside on the deck, but it was a bit chilly. We had guacamole, crab dip, grilled chicken, beef skewers, potato salad, bread, yummy brownie dessert and lots of beer. Even the kids wanted to get in on the beer, but they weren't allowed. Mean daddy!



Mom, can I have just one?

Baby heartbeat.

We had a 16 week check up on 5/23. The baby was moving around a lot so the nurse had a hard time finding the heartbeat. You can hear it really well at the end. Hopefully next time we'll get a better clip.


Here's a picture of me at 16 weeks.

Trip to DM!

We drove in the new car to DM for N's baby shower. They are due in July. The morning of the shower, we went to the Farmer's Market. I went with K&B and R&M. We got there at 7am on a Saturday morning!! Even though R was a bit hungover, he still went but J decided to sleep in instead!



Here's N opening a gift. We played a few games, had awesome chocolate cake and opened a lot of gifts.

MY new CAR!!!!!

After having the zx2 for 10 years, it was about time to get a new car. I went with my mom to test drive, but ended up driving home with a new '08 Nissan Maxima. I LOVE IT! Justin was on a conference call so I texted him to say goodbye to his car.

My first Mother's Day

Each year I make my mom a corsage and we go to church with her. She always the biggest and nicest corsage and gets lots of comments. This was also my first Mother's Day. Who knows maybe next year J will make me a corsage. HA HA! J got me flowers, a mother-to-be drink book, some chocolate and a maternity tank top. I was bugging him about getting me stuff but he kept telling me I wasn't a mother yet, but he surprised me.

Top Golf Champion

Who knew that I could golf?! Maybe the baby will be the next Tiger Woods! At my work's off-site meeting, we had a golfing event where we shot golf balls with chips in them out into targets in the field. Each target had a value associated with it if the ball went into a target slot. I won!

Its about time there's a new addition to the family!

Finally a test that is positive!! I took the test on March 6. Told J on the phone while driving to work.


J wouldn't let me tell anyone until after I visited the doctor, so while he was in Vegas for a bachelor party, this picture was taken. Here's the baby at 8 weeks.


So after seeing the doctor, J then tells me I can't tell anyone until after we tell the parents. Anyone that knows me, knows that I cannot keep a secret so holding it in this long is pretty good for me! Finally on April 19th we told both sets of parents. Then he tells me that I can't post it to the blog until after we tell some college friends. Grrrrrrrr. Well we finally had them over this past weekend so now I can tell everyone!

Telling the parents about the baby.

J's parents were here for a weekend so it was the perfect opportunity to tell both sets of parents at the same time that there is going to be a new member of the family. We took them to the White Chocolate Grill (which by the way has the best white chocolate brownie dessert) and told them before dinner. I handed both moms a framed picture of the ultrasound.

Putting the old man to work!

This past weekend J's parents came to visit. Instead of just letting them relax, we put them to work, well mostly just the old man. :D M and I took restful naps and did some shopping while the boys put together the new patio furniture and built a terrace around the tree in front. They also put the flower planters I got for my birthday onto the deck. I did some work by planting the flowers. The terrace took a little longer than they thought but they got it done and got a nice sunburn in the process.
Here are all the bricks they used, they ended up returning five.






Here's the deck without the patio furniture. We went to Menards after dinner to find screws for the planters and ended up coming home with furniture!

The duck & the pig are losing their hair!

Apparently the duck and the pig do not like being at the office. They seem a bit stressed out and it seems the duck has lost most of its hair! Guess we'll have to do some hair replacement treatments.

March 10


April 10

Hey, where's my Easter egg?

With everyone here for the wedding, Easter was at our house.



What's Easter without an egg hunt? Here's J getting ready to grab eggs and candy hidden around the house.



R, that is not part of the egg hunt! (he's holding a bottle of wine!)


Aunt K found her big egg.


I wonder where J's big egg is!?


How's he going to get to the second story shelf when the ladders are all locked up!



Find out where the key is by watching this clip. Sorry its sideways, I told J he can only take video by holding the camera in one direction, but he never listens!

If you are unable to view this video, the key was in a small egg that was on one of the ceiling fan blades. The guys turned on the fan and the egg went flying and they were fighting for it.

J with the fruits of his labor.


We also celebrated my birthday since it was only a few weeks away.

Cousin J & D get married!

Cousin J and hubby D got married on Easter weekend, Congrats! The whole family made it to the reception to celebrate.



Here's J and I.


J's brother J and N.


J's parents R & M.


J's Aunt and Uncle, K&B.

Brrr...go Blackhawks!

J was able to get some free tickets to the Blackhawks game from work, our first one! We got to be in one of the skyboxes, where there was free food, drinks and dessert! The Blackhawks lost but it was a great time. The best part were the fights, there weren't enough for me, but the one there was, was a good one. I must say I'm not a huge fan of sports but I would go to another hockey game, but next time I'll keep my jacket on, it was cold!

Latest on the duck and pig...

March 3


March 4



March 6