Shepherds and Rain...

Some folks have been asking for dog updates.  We have had an entire day of rain today which is unlike Florida.  The shepherd absolutely loves being in the rain while the little one can't bother herself to get her paws wet.  Here is a short video of Gracie playing in the rain.

Short post, hope you enjoyed the crazy rain-loving dog, we do.

Nathan (and Laura)

Turning the Storage Room into a Nursery!

We decided to dive in yesterday and start pulling together our nursery!  After having some paint chips taped to the wall for the last few weeks it was time to commit to our favorite, quaking grass (which Nate and I discussed is indeed someone's job to name paint colors), and head to Lowe's to buy a gallon of our amazing No-VOC Olympic Paint.  After much debating with the clerk at Lowe's that a 1/2 inch is indeed greater than 3/8 of an inch when purchasing rollers (yes, we need to leave this state!) we made the jaunt back home to Ruskin looking forward to getting rid of the hideous yellow that has been adorning the walls thus far.

After clearing out the room from my many late night studies during nursing school we were able to start painting.  I discovered a new 2" angled bamboo paintbrush that allowed me to do all the borders with absolutely NO taping which saved us a ton of time.  We were able to knock out the room in 2 1/2 hours which made both of us extremely happy campers!  We woke up this morning  to replacing the outlet covers and hanging some curtains that I have had lying around the closet for quite a few months.  The room pulled together great (minus the awfully installed forest green carpet from the previous owners that we still have to change out) and it really made it look like a nursery rather than a giant storage closet!

I also made a great discovery from one of my recent trips to target.  In all of my baby decor researching I have fallen in love with the Dwell Studio line, but alas paying $50 for a fitted crib sheet is something that doesn't process in my brain as many of you know.  So, upon perusing the baby aisles at Target (my new favorite hobby) I laid my eyes upon a Dwell Studio line that has been made especially for Target (read: affordable)!!  The bedding was absolutely adorable full of vibrant orange, yellow, green colors and all of the cute little animals you could imagine.  Long story short I bought the fitted crib sheet from the line, then went back again with Hubby in tow and bought another fitted crib sheet and a plush blanket to go along with the set and behold we finally have a theme to coordinate the rest of the nursery with!!!  All of my tedious, obsessive compulsive research has finally come full circle!  So here we are folks, a picture of our beautiful new nursery with Quaking Grass walls and a beautiful theme to boot:

So, here is where we stand with our prep work for the baby coming in, *Gasp* 14 weeks and 5 days:

Add a few impulse baby outfits purchased and some Dr. Suess books and I'd say we are doing well in prepping for the little bean.  A few minor details like a crib, changing table, and other odds and ends and we are ready!  Haha, I am confident that it will all come together soon enough!

Laura (and Nathan)

What my hubby does while I sleep in on Saturday mornings...

I woke up today to a new setup on our Lanai.  Nathan had moved everything around in order to have the seating arrangement focus more on our Koi pond.  I love it!  You can even see some of our fish swimming in the pond from this picture!

After finishing our wood floors we also moved our kitchen table in front of our giant windows looking out unto our backyard, it all works so well! Now we spend our weekend mornings listening to NPR, drinking tea, and updating our blog that we have neglected for too many weeks :)

Laura

24 1/2 Week Bump!

I have now approached the days where I can no longer fit into any of my old pants, my "bump" has officially popped.  Trust me I've tried everything to put on those old jeans, my favorite patagonia capri's, even some trusty sweatpants don't feel quite right any more.  I bought a "Be-Band" hoping to wear some pants with the fly open with a band holding everything together, even that has failed me this week.  It's official our little girl wants the world to know that she is in my belly!  It feels great now though to have questioning strangers ask me when I'm due rather than if I'm pregnant.  The daily onslaught of belly rubbers from my coworkers is something that I really enjoy!  I am not one of those pregnant ladies that gets freaked out by a little belly rub.  I see it as a small blessing being passed on to our little lady from all the people that support us on this adventure!

I have also been feeling her moving around on a consistent basis now.  She like to do flips, kick at my bladder, and readjust herself constantly.  Baby Johnson alerts me when I need to take a break at work and get some lunch by kicking me over and over again.  It makes me smily every time.  The wonderful doctor we saw today told us that Nathan should be able to feel these endearing kicks in the next week or so.  I honestly feel like he could feel some of them now but it is hard to get the timing right for all of those big kicks!

Speaking of our doctor's visit from today I got another good check-up from the doc!  He said that baby is growing as she should, that I am gaining weight at a perfect rate, and that I don't need to be stressed out about the left sided pain I'm feeling - they are just round ligament pains, signs of a growing and twisting uterus.  Good times!  We are planning on scheduling our 4-D ultrasound in April so that we will get to have more than a few minutes with the little bean, we are so excited to get a more detailed look as to how's she's grown!

So, here you all are, the official "Laura actually looks pregnant" picture:

22 weeks!

We just returned home from another sonogram appointment and our lady sure made us proud!  I am pretty sure that we woke her up from a nap in order to be poked and prodded by the sono tech and the MD, but the show we got was well worth it!  We saw her playing with her hands, yawning, and even a few hard kicks to show off her little attitude :)  It is absolutely incredible to see how much our little bean grows at every visit.  This time we could see every bone in her hands and feet, even her diaphragm was incredibly clear!  The above picture is of her showing off her strong biceps.

I am also to the point where I think I can say I've developed the "baby bump."  No longer does it look like I ate a few too many pieces of cake, bowls of ice cream, and several hamburgers, people actually instead ask me how far along I am!  It is a stage that I really enjoy, people rubbing my belly and gracing our little girl with all sorts of blessings, it feels great!  Here's a "baby bump" profile from today (note that for once I'm not wearing sweatpants in one of these pics, LOL)

And as if there could be other exciting news in our lives besides this little bun in the oven, of course there is!  I have started working as a real live Registered Nurse for the past two weeks!!!  It is unreal to have finally seen my dream come to full fruition after all of the hard work Nate and I have been through in the last few years!  I finally have a career that I am so proud of!  We both feel like we have accomplished so much in the last year, Nate completing his black belt training through Six Sigma Academy and gaining certification, and myself as an RN.  Here's a picture of both of us with our recent "certifications."

And to update you all from our last post, our house is now fully furnished with our beautiful wood flooring throughout (excluding our bedrooms).  With the help of my dad coming down to supervise the finishing touches and a few trips to the local "Fish House" for some lunch we finally can say we our done with laying the floor ourselves!  Not too shabby considering they were going to charge us well over $2000 to do the installation for us, quite a pretty penny to keep in our pockets!

Here's the team before:

And laying the final piece in our family room:

A fun visit from a Minne-SNOW-tan

My dad came to visit us for a week and we had such a fun time working on projects and just relaxing!  I was able to take off of work for 8 days, and Nate took off for 4 days and it sure seems like we got a lot accomplished in that time!

We ate Ruskin out of all of the fish sandwiches that they had at the locally run "Fish House," picked Hydro Harvest Farms almost out of all of their growing strawberries, and chowed down on some authentic tacos prepared by some locals.  I guess you could say this visit was all about food, which of course made the baby and I happier than ever!

We also spent a day fishing at the local park down the road from us.  I'm not sure that we did as much "fishing" as we did feeding the local wildlife all of the shrimps that we had purchased at the bait shop earlier that day but who's counting?!?  All in all we (and by "we" I mean my dad) caught a blue crab and a flounder.  It was so peaceful sitting by the river casting line after line in, we will definitely have to go back to catch the "big one."

Might I add too that while my dad was down we were able to cross off a big "to-do" in our list of preparations for our little bean in July!  Our baby now has a sweet ride thanks to Grandpa McEwen!  Who knew I would ever be so excited to own one of these crazy contraptions!!  Thanks for the contribution to our little family Dad!  

As always, it was great to have someone from home come to visit!  We love to have visitors and especially to feed them all of the delicious food that our area has to offer!  Can't wait to see who might show up next!! We have a feeling we might have a full house this summer!

Laura (and Nathan)