Mark & Mandy

Today I was supposed to fly out for my last trip to mountain view before baby sladden arrives – sadly after my doctors appointment yesterday I was grounded. I have been having pre-term labor contractions and my doctor is playing it safe. We did get to take a quick peek at the baby – she is head down and ready to go. She was actually sticking her tongue out – very fresh!

We are still 6 weeks out and many women who experience pre-term labor go to their due date – so no real worries.

Mark and I have made a big push to get ready for the arrival of our munchkin. Here are a few photos of the progress in the nursery. We (well I) decided to dive right in and make the room as girly as possible – in the end isn’t the nursery for the parents!! I guess our theme is a french hatbox theme – we have chocolate stripes with a powder pink top and of course a capiz light chandelier. Our furniture is all white – you can see our little black cat testing out the changing table. Mark installed recessed cans (9 total) throughout the room and put them on multiple dimmers – we can definitely have some mood lighting going on.

We purchased and had shipped our favorite Pax systems from Ikea!!

Here is the crib set (dwell baby blossom dots and stripes) with a calder-esque mobile (silver feathers). We have our first user test starting tomorrow with the arrival of Niko. We hope he can help us see what we are missing …

We (meaning me) have found that Cricket is the perfect size for 0-3 month clothes – here she is trying on a sassy pink outfit from Scott and Julie.
She doesn’t really mind being dressed up…

We also started our 11 week Bradley Method birthing class. The bradley method is a natural birthing class which focuses on overall pregnacy nutrition, relaxation techniques and general involvement of a coach (Mark). I chose the class for the coach supported relaxation methods, not for the natural part (but I just keep my mouth shut during the class). Here is a photo of me – sporting a belly. Mark has tried (against my efforts) to document my belly growth over the months – I am sure we will like it someday…

All seems to be going well with the baby – we are both getting excited and extremely anxious about the arrival! We have selected a few names and hope that when the little muchkin arrives we can meet her and see what name fits.

Happy Tuesday!

On Saturday we headed to the Denver Zoo with the Spruill’s. This was our first outing to the zoo and I was pretty impressed. It was one of our first days of spring like weather – almost 50 degrees.

Sophie was bundled up and ready to go…

Miss Emma (who turned 2 last october) is quite a chatterbox – I am amazed at how advanced her vocabulary is – I sometimes forget that she is only two. As we were walking back to the car, emma was walking as slow as a snail – I said “hey emma, lets walk fast like a cheetah and then I made some cat movements (they were pretty cute I must say) – Emma stopped and looked at me and said “Are you kidding me?” – Doh, I was just called out by a 2 year old.

She loves to ride on shoulders…
the lions were sunbathing …

and the elephant was playing with some sort of ball on a chain – it was pretty cute. The animals were amazing, but its sad to think of them trapped in their cages …

The kids were great – I think we might be able to do this parenting thing after all!