Enjoy!

Look! It's my jumper!

Autumn - 2 months old

So without further ado, I present you “Man Woman and Child”:

Pregnant women can't jump

Where did this belly come from?

Tom's directions: "Alright Jasmine, now throw those letters like you mean it."

L-O-V-E

We took it outside for a bit.  It was FREEZING and a little muddy.  The neighbors kindly provided some Salsa music for our fashion shoot:-)  That explains this next series:

Tom's directions, "Dance! Dance! Dance!"

Cold

Hello belly

No Tom didn’t get me a $300 pair of shoes.

No Tom didn’t turn into a vampire over night.

It’s this:

Outside our bedroom window

In case you can’t tell what ‘this’ is, I’ll explain.  We awoke this morning with a nice little swoosh sound.  I looked out our window from bed and said, “oh, that’s funny a little branch fell from our tree…”

Upon further inspection, we quickly realized it wasn’t little and it wasn’t just a branch.  Almost 1/2 of one of our backyard trees fell within a few feet of smashing into the nursery.  That would have been a funny story, I’m sure.

Perspective

Back story–sometime last year we had a limb from this same tree fall on our newly installed fence.  Not only did it wreck our fence, it also caused damage on two of the neighboring fences.  Luckily it was small enough for Tom to fix himself.  At that time, the tree guy told us the tree was rotted and should come down.  We a) didn’t want to spend the money, b) were completely consumed in other house projects, and c) hated to cut down such a huge tree.

Well however many months later, we got a nice little reminder/warning to deal with the trees.  There are two back there and while one is definitely rotted the other is just as old and may have some decay issues as well.  We decided to take down both the trees in the back and Tom negotiated for the guys to remove the tree in the front of our house for ‘free’.  They are hauling away all the debris and grinding the stumps.

Let’s all hold a moment of silence for our brother sister friend trees that are going to a better place today.

Work crew getting ready

So today on the 16th of February 2011, we are not only not being ‘green’, but we are almost being anti-green.  I say almost because Mother Nature surely wouldn’t rather our house be crushed by a dying tree.

I am looking out the kitchen window watching a guy climb up this decayed tree with a chainsaw hanging from his belt….at least he’s harnessed in.  Did I mention there are gale force winds out today?  I’ll pray for him.

Kids don't try this at home

I don’t know what to update first.  I suppose we haven’t talked about the good old house lately.  It has nothing to do with the lack of work.  The work never stops.

We ended up changing the nursery location within the last month.  Did I tell you about that?  No?  Well let me begin from the end–which was the end of last year right about the time we were putting the finishing touches on the nursery.

After hosting some guests over the holidays, it became abundantly clear that we needed to move into the biggest room with the small bathroom and no closet.

We decided to bring in the new year by switching the rooms around–we moved into the biggest room, the nursery moved into our old room and the guest room moved into the old nursery.  Throughout the process there may have been some whining, painting, and IKEAing.  Sometimes you just have to live in a space to figure out what works.

We chose the blue/green color--it's actually the same as our kitchen wall

Painting over an old blue wall--we tried the glorified green frog tape this time and it didn't make one lick of difference on our bumpy plaster walls

We’ve been living in our ‘new’ room for a couple of weeks now and love it.  We just tested out the guests room with some guest and they love it too.  The bathroom situation makes a lot more sense now because the hall bath is the communal bath and we have our little teeny tiny bath in our room.

And call it serendipity, but all the nursery accessories match really well with the paint color in our old room.  It’s also the sunniest room in the house and the furthest away from our boisterous neighbors.  It’s calm and bright and all the things we wanted the nursery to be.  Pictures to come.

Starting to assemble our IKEA PAX closet

We each have our very own wardrobe now

For all the ladies out there

The pull out drawers are really nice and make it so easy to find your clothes

The baby’s due in the next few weeks and we’re far from complete, but we are where we are.  Tom wore many hats throughout the project since I was way too pregnant to help paint or do much else.  I was good at bossing and I still could tape.

Before we moved the bed in--Tom moved and shortened the light fixture from our other room

Bathroom perspective

I might have some updated belly shots to show.  We’ll see how I’m feeling:-)

Surprise!

…the long awaited photos have arrived.  I’ve been procrastinating sharing any sort of ‘maternity’ photo for the following reasons:

1. I didn’t start showing for a long time.  Now this bump thing won’t go away.

2. Who wants to see a pregnant women in her man’s t-shirt and sweatpants?  Not me.

3. I hate posing for photos–I get overly uncomfortable and critical at the same time.

4. My personal photographer needed some practice…Tom fired me as a model and then I fired him as a photographer.  We’ve made up now, don’t worry.

5. I wanted to come up with something ridiculously artistic, unique, beautiful…the list goes on and on.

6. Not only have I not achieved number 5, but number 5 has also prevented any normal photo from being taken.

7. I like seeing naked bellies–they become the star in the photo and you don’t get distracted by my face.  HOWEVER, I will not be sharing a photo of my naked belly on a blog.  I can’t start embarrassing my unborn child…they’ll never forgive me.

8.  I keep trying to incorporate Tom in the picture…it hasn’t worked so far.

9. I can’t come up with any more reasons at this moment so without further ado here are some semi-action shots of me with a belly.  Staring my belly with me as an aside.  Featuring a different exposure in every photo.  I may have to fire my photographer again.

Action! Grooming in front of the mirror.

Action! You put on chapstick, even when you're pregnant.

Action! Getting a snack.

Action! Making french toast Christmas morning.

Action! Actively waiting to open more presents.

We’ve approached the final stretch.  With my due date around March 13th, we have about 10 wks. to go, give or take a few days.  Tom has captured a little video of an alien moving around in my stomach.  It provides a countless amount of entertainment for us.

Is it a boy or a girl?  That is the question.

Click To Enlarge

Why not refer to this Chinese gender chart?

I am fully planning on sharing a pregnancy photo sometime soon.  One of the reasons it’s so delayed is the lack of belly until fairly recently.  We are in the final stretch or last trimester and are enjoying this phase of the pregnancy.  The baby is super active and it’s a great way to connect.  It’s already conditioning us for parenthood too–the schedule: up all night swimming and somersaulting around and then as soon as I wake up for the day it falls asleep.

I’ll leave you with a few photos from the weekend of tree decorating and D.I.Y projects for the mantle.  We were hanging ornaments that were almost 29 years old from Tom’s first Christmas.  Although it’s sentimental, some of them look 29 years old too:-)  Nothing avoids the aging process, even little ornaments.

Tree Hugger

Handmade Snowflakes

Spray Painted Tree Limbs and Vases