As promised...

The shower!
A few days after I got to Louisiana I had a baby shower - so much fun! It was perfect, tons of friends I haven't seen in a long time, delicious food, and lots of pink baby stuff. Here's some pictures...

I was so happy to have both of my grandmas there! 

The party planners - thanks again! Everything was so fun!

I LOVE the little hats and headbands with the huge flowers/bows. So cute on a little newborn's head!

Really cute (and surprprisingly super soft) Levi's outfit - jeans, shirt, and jean jacket.

Soft bear rug from my mom- These girls held it for the rest of the shower, it's too soft to put down.

Here's everything - look at all the pink!

Since we've used the extra bedroom as a storage room, and we don't really have anywhere else to put our 'stuff' (Calder uses that closet for his dress clothes and the dresser in there is filled with winter stuff and miscellaneous computer stuff) Anyway, he turned one of the bookshelves into a closet thing.

(I had a picture but my comptuer is apparently no longer reading SD cards, I'll figure it out later)

We took out one of the shelves and put a bar across to hang all the baby clothes. I'm trying to find some cute baskets/boxes to put everything else in. It looks really cute and nice to have everything accessable. 

Calder is a little sad to part with his books but I've assured him that he'll see them again someday, and he can always walk to down the hall to our storage room and look at them if he needs to.

I'm a little behind on posting belly shots... this was last week. Let's call it a 21 week picture. I feel so much bigger.

(what happened to the spell check button at the top?)

Louisiana

Earlier this month we went to Louisiana for a week - so much fun!

We made Vegetable soup...

Hung out with friends

Had a baby shower (which will be a post of its own!)

Ate at Steamboat Bill's.

And had a birthday barbeque.

In case you haven't heard...

And she looks 100% healthy and weighs 8oz! The December 30th due date looks like it's right on. We're so excited!! Here's some pictures...


A profile...

More profiles...

Some bony little hands!

And a booty!

So cute! Now it's time to go shopping for girl stuff!

It's time! Monday morning we go for our ultrasound! We're SO excited to know the gender of this little baby (and start buying things for it!) So let's hear it - what do you think we'll be having? I haven't decided yet if I'm going to tell on Monday when I find out or wait until Wednesday

Also - here's an 18 weeks belly picture taken last Wednesday. Getting big!



Calder got home last Sunday and we've been having so much fun! One day this week we went to a restaurant that we had a coupon for. It was good, not great, but in a Mexican neighborhood that we didn't know about. There were tons of shops and restaurants. We walked around for a while, bought some salsa at the super mercado and headed home. The salsa was DELICIOUS (I may or may not have eaten over half of it this afternoon). Today we went back to the area because we were in the mood for tacos. We had discussed going to taco bell then remembered about the "Taco Taxi" that we saw there (just a restaurant, don't know what's up with the taxi, but they did have a taxi... it said taco taxi... I don't know why a taco joint needs a taxi). We went there and there was a little festival outside celebrating one of the big markets 10th anniversary. Fun music, lots of people, yummy smelling food. The tacos were delicious, very authentic. The menu included things like tongue and cow head, which makes me feel a little sick. I don't like eating something that was in the same fridge as cow head meat. Ek. I got a plain jane beef taco.

Then we went to the library, target, Costco. Home to watch TV and read. I love having my husband back!

What happens

When I go grocery shopping...


Yes. That would be one pound of marshmallow fluff. And I couldn't be happier. The graham crackers say low fat - that means it's ok, right?

From this...



To this...



And it only cost $20! Sure... it's pretty dinged up, and the table's a little wobbly, and one of the chairs has a broken leg (which I fixed myself with wood glue - hopefully it worked). But it's actually wood and has four matching chairs. I'm a happy woman!

I wanted to put the old stuff on Craig's List but don't really feel comfortable with strange people coming over here to get it when it's only me here, so I put it in the baby's future room, which currently looks like this...



We have a lot of work ahead of us!

17 Weeks!

It's a little round belly now! I love it!




And some cute baby shoes I got at Target for $3.50. The looked like something Calder might wear.

One last weekend trip...

Last weekend I went to Delaware to visit Calder for the last time before he comes home! I got there Friday evening and we had all of the other summer associates over for a barbecue that night. It was so fun to meet all the people that he's worked with all summer.

The next morning we slept in and then headed out for a fun filled Saturday with Calder's high school friend Molly, who lives in Philadelphia. We met for lunch at Marathon on the Square and I had some really delicious blueberry pancakes.

We walked over to the Museum and walked around. Super fun. Crazy what some people consider to be art. I liked a lot of it (the real art that is). Lots of walking. Here we are at the top of the steps.




I wanted to see the historic Philadelphia stuff so we took a cap over to that area. Most of the sites were closed but we did get to see the Liberty Bell!

and... I think it was Ben Franklin's house. There's nothing there now, they have areas where it's dug out like an archeology thing, then big frames of where the house was.


We walked a few blocks to an awesome ice cream place called Franklin's Fountain. Wow. Holy Guacamole it was delicious.




Next, I think, after sitting and chatting for a loong time, we walked. and walked. To eat dinner. The first place we wanted to go didn't have a table available until like... 9:45. No thank you. I don't remember where we went but it was delicious. After dinner we got gelato (lots of eating this day) and headed back to the car.

This is what we found.


Our car was on the right side (which was filled with cars when we got there). Gone. Towed. Very Expensive. HUGE waste of money.

By the end of the day my feet were puffy and tired but we had a great time! Thanks Molly for showing us around!

Love is...

finding two boxes of your all time favorite candy in your husband's dresser drawer. Then having the following conversation

Ivy: I found sweethearts candy in your drawer. Thank you :)
Calder: Those are for when you get mad at me. Leave them alone.

I ate one box. Let him keep one for a get out of jail free card.

5 months old and they were still delicious.

Busy Summer!

I have two suitcases at home that need to be unpacked so I can repack one of them for another trip on Friday!

Calder's sister Becca got married on June 27th in Las Vegas. It was such a fun wedding! Me and Calder both got in pretty late Friday night and Saturday was busy busy. Calder left Sunday morning so we didn't get to see much of each other at all :( I stayed a few days after to hang out with Mom Mary and go shopping for maternity clothes! It was such a fun trip - I didn't carry my camera around so I'm stealing pictures from other blogs and facebook (sorry and thanks!)



And the dance...



I got back home on Tuesday night, repacked Wednesday and flew to Louisiana Thursday after work. I hadn't been back in a YEAR so it was super fun to see everyone and go to the civic center to listen to the band and watch fireworks. Again, I didn't carry around my camera but here are some pictures from my mom.

She bought 9 flavors of bluebell ice cream and two bags of zapps cajun crawtator potato chips! Yum! I also ate at Casa Manana (which wasn't really as good as I remembered but it's a classic) and steamboat bills (where I ordered and ate gumbo, boudin balls, pistolette, and a fried shrimp dinner).


Sometime between Vegas and Louisiana the baby started growing and I got a cute baby bump! I think it looks way bigger in real life.






I got back Sunday night and went back to work on Monday. Both Monday and yesterday I fell asleep as soon as I got home so I haven't even started cleaning/washing clothes/packing to go to Delaware this weekend. I did realized that all the food in my apartment was rotten. Bread was moldy, milk was way expired, vegetables were gross, and I had nothing to eat. Calder called and woke me up around 8:10 and I made a mad dash to Costco for a salad last night.

Calder's last day is July 24th - it's gone by so fast! I can't wait to have him around to help me start cleaning out the baby's room. I married a major pack rat and tons of junk doesn't mix well with a 700 square foot apartment AND a baby. I am determined that this kiddo will have a cute real room and not share with piles of junk. Calder doesn't agree. We'll see how that goes.