Washer & Dryer - Merry Christmas to Us!

Tonight I went to Sears for their VIP late night event and got a great deal on a new high efficiency Washer and Dryer, using 70% less energy and 69% less water than our current set, and since we pay the city for water and the electric company for our energy this should be helpful! Plus these washers are known for being nicer to your clothes which I like. Anyway, other than the fact I got line jumped by someone who obviously had an "in" with the lady I was waiting in line for (And here I thought a line was a line...silly me) the sale was worth the extra trip out. The set is a Kenmore and was on sale for 20% off and then an additional 10% off, which for the size washer and dryer I got was by far the best price I had seen, and I have been looking for a while. This is our Christmas gift to each other, exciting huh :-) We are donating our old set to a charity center who sells used home goods and/or puts them in low income homes, besides that someone else gets to use them without us having to try and sell them, and the fact that we can get a tax write off, the best part is that they come and pick them up!

Confession

I have to confess, I am a registry snooper....I check my baby registries to see what has been fulfilled, and then I get all excited about the adorable baby things that we will get to put our baby boy in and that he can play with etc. The funny thing is I was intimidated by the whole registry process, all I could think was this is too much stuff, and where am I going to put it all?!? But I got a lot of really great advice from other new moms on what I needed, and that helped a lot. Thanks Teri, Jane, Christie & Bethany! The "Grandma's to Be" are hosting a shower for us the Saturday after Thanksgiving, although all of the baby mania could be a little overwhelming I am getting really excited for it.

The Diaper Debate

So even though I still have give or take 16 weeks left before I will actually have to change a diaper, I am stressing over what kind of diaper I want to change. Cloth, Disposable, Hybrid?!?! I want to be "green" but I also know that with both of us working full time I also need to be realistic about what will work for our lives. And then there is all the data on whats better/worse for the baby, for the environment, for cost, for day care, it goes on and on. I have read everything from disposables and cloth being equally impactful on the environment (manufacturing of disposables vs. water usage of washing a cloth) to factoring in that disposables have to be manufactured, using all sorts of chemicals, and then after use and discard they fill our landfills for up to 500 years before they go away. And of course I am also interested in penny pinching if I can, so what truly saves in the long run?? My struggle is that the Gdiapers and the AIO cloth diapers are more of an investment than just going out and trying out varieties of disposables. I will feel bad if I get cloth diapers and then don't end up liking them!

Anyway, this week I was excited to see that Target now carries AIO diapers by BumGenius that adjust to baby's changing size and that I can register for! Yea! So I did register for a few, I figure I can start slowly and see what happens. I can buy the G-diapers that I like at the local grocery store so that is good (although same level of up front investment as a AIO cloth diaper) and of course I can go anywhere to pick up a pack of Pampers... Overall, I know that I will end up using both to some extent, maybe cloth on weekends and at night and then either the hybrid's or disposables during day care hours. Who knows....I wish I wasn't so obsessed with planning.....I am sure I sound like a crazy person :-)

Other than my diaper "worries" things are going great. Baby boy is doing all kinds of acrobatics in there and keeping me on my toes. We registered for a bunch of classes offered by our hospital for January:
Childbirth Preparation
Infant CPR
Baby Care Class
an Intro to your Pediatrician thing
and a Hospital/Labor & Delivery Tour

I figure after January is over I will feel either really prepared or completely freaked out....we will see....

21 weeks

Over half way through, I can't believe it. We took this on Sunday, on Wednesday I will be 22 weeks. Definitely growing everyday...but feeling great so far. Really starting to look forward to meeting the little guy in a few months.

Mom & Dad Visit

This weekend my mom and dad came to visit. It was a great weekend, we had some bad weather on Saturday but we did some shopping and a lot of football watching. We also had a few yummy meals around State College. The weather on Sunday was awesome and we went to the pumpkin patch/apple farm. My dad and Jeremy also put in a new window in the nursery, it looks great and will keep the room so much warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer as it is an Energy Star product. Our plan is to replace the windows throughout the house as we can, it will be great someday when can replace them all. We also assembled our crib!! I can't wait to put a mattress in with a cute sheet and bedskirt etc. We still have to paint the room, put up trim etc. but we will get there. It was great to spend the weekend with my parents. Can't wait to see Jeremy's mom and dad and the rest of the fam at Thanksgiving.

Our weekend...

This weekend we went to the PSU vs. Michigan game at Penn State with some friends from Michigan who drove in and stayed with us. We had a great time even if only half the game was a good time from the Michigan fan's perspective. PSU fans are all breathing a sigh of relief since they hadn't beat Michigan in 9 years! Like I said to every person who so nicely brought it up at work today...Once a decade is acceptable I guess :-) Now I would just like to see PSU beat OSU, win out and compete for the National Title so the Big Ten gets some sort of credit!

Sunday I started to refinish the dresser we are putting in the nursery. It is painted brown now, but I need to darken it to better match the black/brown finish of the crib. So instead of completely repainting I bought a mini can of black semi gloss and took old t-shirts and basically wiped two coats of black over the brown. More or less rag rolling I guess. Anyway, I am loving the way it is turning out, it darkens the color a couple of shades but lets the brown come through underneath. And I don't have to go through a big process to get the look that I want. Oh, and our crib came in, we are going to put it together this weekend.

Other than that we are still letting the news of our having a little boy sink in, it seems all the more real now that we can associate a gender and a name to my growing belly.

It's a .....

We had our 20 week apt and ultrasound today...

And we will be having a little boy! Jeremy and I are both so excited and even happier that everything looked great on the ultra sound. The baby is measuring at 20 weeks, 1 day and I am 20 weeks today and he weighs a whopping 12 Oz's right now :-) We are going to keep the name we picked to ourselves until the big day so we save some sort of surprise. The ultra sound was great, the baby was on the move almost the whole time, as you can see in the pictures he kept scratching his head and his legs alternated between stretching out and crossing and kicking up so they were almost above his head. The ultrasound tech said it was the most "challenging feet" she had tried to catch all day. Explains why I started feeling him move at 16 weeks, he can't keep his feet still!