On Nesting

Nesting has begun at the Swartz house and it's feeling a little bit like preparing for a nuclear fallout in which the pope will be staying in your bunker.  Or rather, maybe someone else of great importance because preparing for the pope to come would probably be less food preparation and more "hide yo kids" kinda prep work.

In any case, last weekend I went into straight up prep mode and went bananas in the kitchen.  Cilantro lime shrimp, honey baked chicken, muffins, Steve's chicken noodle soup, spiced apple pie (pie is critical post-baby)--you name it, it's in our freezer.

Yes, ice cream and vodka are also critical post-baby needs.

 I also canned for the first time this season.  4+ quarts of salsa!  This sounds like a lot, but we'll probably go through it in about 2 weeks :)



15lbs of tomatoes



Mixed with goodness



Equals a whole lot of yum.

In addition to the cooking there's a whole lot of cleaning going on.  In a desperate attempt at getting a milkshake Friday afternoon I walked 12 blocks to The Milkshake Factory.  In return I got one hell of a milkshake (as always because they make some delicious milkshakes) and a whole lot of pain.  I had walked down with a co-worker friend and I'm pretty sure I scared him into thinking I would go into labor somewhere on Pittsburgh's Southside.  Once I got home I was pretty uncomfortable, crampy and fixated on the fact that were I to go into labor that evening I'd be coming home to what I saw as a dirty house.  So I got up and started cleaning :)  The majority of it was just animal tumble weeds, which was remedied the next day when Izzy got her hairs cut!

Izzy is notorious for hating to have her picture taken, so this is the best you're gonna get.

So as you can see, we're all getting ready in our own way.  I finished up work this past Friday, so now we wait.  And wait...and wait.

Nursery!

Before:

After:

Thanks to Valerie for the super fun alphabet wall hanging!  Valerie has also started a mama/baby blog so be sure to check it out!

Playing Catch Up

It's July which means I'm officially to term and it's (hopefully) our daughters birth month! We finished our lamaze classes, had our final pre-labor meeting with the doula, have all of her clothes washed and put away and are getting things wrapped up at work in preparation of D-Day (before and after pics of the nursery will be in the next post-promise! We've got one more wall decal to put up and then we are DONE).

A few weeks ago our friends Jodi, Stacey, Rebecca, Sarah and Jen hosted an awesome baby shower for us and I finally can post some pictures for you!

As a thank you to our hosts, I put together thank you baskets that include alcohol.  Let me just say, buying alcohol at 38 weeks pregnant is an interesting experience.  I know what I planned to do with that alcohol.  I also know that it's no one else's business what I was doing with that alcohol...but that still didn't stop me from wanting to tell every person in there what I was doing there.  And to be honest I don't even think people really even saw me or gave me a second thought, but out of nowhere I found myself wanting to be that weird lady at the store talking out loud about "How nice this will go in 'so and so's' gift basket," only fueling the perception that I'm actually already drunk in the liquor store. 

Anyways, I'm about 38 weeks now, but here's a pic from 2 weeks ago since I missed it:

At 38 weeks I'm feeling pregnant.  I'm slower than ever, have trouble getting in and out of chairs/cars and spend most of my free time waiting to go to bed.  Baby Swartz is spending most of her time underneath my right rib and what feels like burrowing into my pelvis. 

17-ish days and counting!