28 Week Picture

In the last post we said we would post a current picture. Well, here it is. Kristin's belly at 28 weeks, isn't it cute!!! Hard to believe that in only 10-14 weeks there will be a little one running around (well, maybe not running... but certainly here) our house! We have been slowly working on cleaning up and trying to get things ready. In the next few weeks we're going to have to get our butts in gear and get more done.

Today Tim finally attached the power, cable and water lines to the house - they were only hanging there for about a year! I also replaced the outdoor electrical outlets today which had also been sitting there waiting to be done since around October or November of last year!

A double top ten

Here is another installment of Pregnancy Top Ten (the doubler addition):

Ten Worst Things about being Pregnant:
1. No beer or wine.
2. No fun sports like hockey or scuba diving.
3. No roller coasters.
4. Normal clothes don't fit anymore.
5. It is hard to paint my own toenails with my belly in the way.
6. Leg cramps at night.
7. I have to pee WAY too often.
8. Emotions all over the place.
9. Not being able to sleep on my stomach or back.
10. My sense of balance is always off.

Ten Best Things about being Pregnant:
1. Being able to eat anything I want (and blaming it on the baby).
2. Maternity pants don't have buttons or zippers, makes bathroom trips much easier.
3. Feeling the baby move around is so awesome.
4. Seeing Tim so excited and sweet about the baby's arrival.
5. People help me out a lot more.
6. I always get offered a seat.
7. The "nesting instinct" is helping me to get my house organized.
8. Tim indulging me in my silly cravings.
9. I always have a good excuse to take a nap.
10. My belly is cute!!

This weeks belly pictures coming soon....

We didn't get lazy... I swear!

We didn't disappear or get lazy or anything... we were just on vacation. On Sunday we got back from a week vacation in the Dominican Republic with my mom's whole family. There were 21 of us total and we had a blast. I spent most of my time swimming (well, floating or sitting in the water, really), reading, napping and relaxing. Tim did all those things and also added lots of sports, a bit of partying and definitely some drinking (as Tim said, he was drinking "for three"). I felt really good the whole time we were there, although it did seem hotter than when we were in Mexico. Everyone else thought that Mexico was hotter, so I think having the extra weight to carry around really affected me. I had to sit in the shade a lot and drink a ton of water. It was still great though.

We took some new belly pictures a few nights back but Tim hasn't uploaded them yet, so I don't have anything to post. My belly is definitely getting big though, but so far it isn't too uncomfortable. I have had a few cravings in the past few weeks, mainly for the same thing - ice cream! I don't normally crave or even really want ice cream because of my lactose intolerance, but the other night that was the only thing I wanted. Poor Tim was sent to Friendly's, who was out of vanilla soft serve (the ONLY thing I wanted) and then had to go to McDonald's to try and find what I wanted. Luckily McDonald's came through and my craving was satisfied.

A busy week

It has been a busy week for both of us, so we haven't had time to write anything. Kristin got a promotion at work (her boss's job!) so she has been busy getting up to speed and work two jobs at once. Hopefully that will settle down soon. Tim has been really busy at work too, especially because he was trying to work extra hours each day. He took Friday off and went to Atlantic City with Matt and two other friends. They are hoping to win fame and fortune (well, at least fortune) at several poker tournaments and other gambling. We'll let you know!

A weekend at Home

This weekend was our first weekend at home in quite some time. It was nice to get a few things done around the house for a change.

We worked outside all day on Saturday and got our bushes back under control! We then moved on to rearranging the guest bedroom. First we took everything out of the room and brought the carpet from our dinning room up. The carpet fits perfectly there and the one that used to be in there is the perfect size for the dinning room. Then we moved the two book cases from the Nursery (formerly Kristin's office) into the guest bedroom and then added my old desk into the mix. This is where Kristin's office will be from now on. Amazingly even with all of the added furniture the room still works. Plenty of room to get around.

Sunday we worked on cleaning out the basement closet in the morning. In the afternoon we went to Babies-R-Us to look at crib bedding and Dunk and Brights to look at cribs. Dunk and Brights doesn't have any cribs though so we ended up looking at couches. I think we found one that we like. We had dinner in Mattydale at "China Road" and then came home and rode our bikes to Friendly's to get the baby in both of our bellies some ice cream. To end the day we took our weekly pregnancy photos. Here's a peek at Kristin at 24 weeks:

Pregnancy Top Ten

Here is a list of the top ten questions that we get asked, dealing with the pregnancy. Answers are in italics after the questions.

10. How is your wife doing/how are you feeling? I am feeling really good right now. I am over the extreme exhaustion of the first trimester, don't feel sick at all and am not so big yet that I am uncomfortable (other than riding in the car).

9. Do you know what you are having? Nope, although we usually call the baby a "he" when we talk about it.

8. Are you going to find out what your having? Tim wants to know, Kristin doesn't. You can determine the winner of that argument based on the previous question.

7. How far along are you/when are you due? My due date is November 8th, although the original due date was October 30th. So sometime in that range. That puts me around 24 weeks.

6. Are you craving any foods/do you hate any foods? I am not really craving anything weird, but I have been eating (and wanting to eat) a lot more fresh fruit than normal. Tim, on the other hand, has been craving everything in sight (his "baby" is growing quite well!). For foods I hate right now, the main one is chicken - I can't stand the taste of it, unless it is in nugget form. This is awful because we used to eat a lot of chicken.

5. Do you have names picked out? We like the name Cameron for a boy, but we don't have any names that we both love for a girl. We are still working on that one.

4. Have you worked on the nursery yet? Nope - Kristin's office (soon to be nursery) is still intact. We are working on cleaning up though so that we can start on the nursery.

3. How is Tim dealing with it? Tim is SO excited for the baby to be born. Since he is like a big kid himself, this will be a great playmate for him. I think Tim has been ready to be a dad since he was about twelve years old. He is going to be a great one!!

2. How are the mood swings going? From Tim - Kristin is a little bit sensitive but overall not too bad. From Kristin - I don't think I am being sensitive, I think I am perfectly rational and Tim is a bit much sometimes. I just need to puts him in his place.

1. What about all your traveling? What does having a baby have to do with traveling? This kid is going to have at least five states before he/she is six months old! (For those who are interested, the states are NY, MA, RI, FL, and TX.) His/her first international visit may be within a few months of birth - just Canada but it still counts.

Cottage Visit

My birthday was last Friday, and every year around my birthday I like to spend a weekend at the cottage to celebrate and relax. This year the cottage schedule was completely empty so we were able to invite Tim's whole family to come up with us. Cathy couldn't make it, but everyone else did. We had a full house at the new cottage, but everyone had a great time. The weather wasn't great (rainy and overcast most of the time) but that didn't stop anyone. We played in the water and the sand, went in the boats, looked for frogs and turtles, went into town and visited Dairy Queen, played some games, and chatted quite a bit. It was a great visit and we were so happy to show the Walkers and Borsts one of our favorite vacation spots.

For pictures, check out the photo gallery off the main travelingwalkers.com page!

A non-baby post

As the title says, this is not pregnancy related... it is just a good story from last night.

I was over at a friend's house last night for a BBQ and another person arrived. He said "Who has a red car?" I said that i did and he said "Well, your window is broken." Of course, I ran outside in shock, and saw my passenger side front window split into a million pieces. It was still in the window frame as one solid piece though. The piece was slightly bowed out, so it was obvious that it hadn't been broken by a rock or something hitting it. We slowly opened the door and knocked down the glass, and it was the whole window that was gone, broken into a million little shards. We cleaned it up and applied a lovely tarp covering to the entire door. I have a funny picture of myself with the final product, which I will share later.

We think that what must have happened is that it was so hot out yesterday (somewhere around 95 degrees) and then quickly cooled down due to a storm passing through, that the fast extreme change in temperature must have caused it. One guy, who used to live in Phoenix, AZ, said that windows cracked like that all the time there because of the heat.

And luckily, I have full glass coverage on my car, so it is free to get it fixed. I had to drive home from my friend's house at 30 mph last night though because my flapping tarp covering was so loud!

Bye-bye normal pants

This week, two of the last three pairs of my non-maternity pants were deemed too uncomfortable to wear anymore. Only one more pair, and I will be all the way into maternity clothes! For some reason I am really resisting wearing maternity clothes... I think it might have something to do with those giant weird panels of stretchy fabric. I am more of a fan of pants with buttons and zippers. I do have three or four boxes of clothes to go through, so I should be all set for a while though.

Tim is out of town this weekend, visiting his family in Swansea, MA. I decided to skip the trip because car rides are getting very uncomfortable, and 4.5 hours each way is tough. I don't want to imagine what they are going to be like when I am bigger! I'm not sure what I am going to do this weekend - be productive or sit on my butt. It is a tough decision.

Update

A quick update to the last post - Tim felt the baby move for the first time last night. And the second and third time this morning! For now it is just little bumps to his hand, but still pretty cool. :)

Welcome to our blog

Welcome to Kristin and Tim's blog!!

We are trying out this format, and will update this page with posts about what is going on here in Syracuse. Stay tuned for lots of information on how Kristin and Peanut (our nickname for the baby) are doing. Hopefully we will get some travel posts in here somewhere too.

For now, here is the latest belly picture (21 weeks).

From Kristin: Current status is that I am still wearing mainly normal clothes - only about two pairs of pants don't fit anymore. I have a feeling that it won't last for much longer, and in a week or two I will be exclusively in maternity clothes. Overall I feel really good and have a lot of energy (well, most days). I have been eating more often, but smaller meals. So far I have only gained around 8 pounds.


Baby Stats:
Due Date - November 8, 2007
Gender - Who knows?? Not us... although Tim suspects it is a boy
Heartbeat - Tim has heard it at home using a baby stethoscope
Kicking - Kristin can feel it, Tim can't yet