27 weeks

Ok, here we have some belly updates from our little one... I just found this one as well on my phone. So we have in red from Monday which was 26 weeks and 4 days:and then we have here in green our gymnastics fan at 27 weeks and 1 day:
There is not really a big difference but she has positioned herself differently I think. At least it looks like it.

I woke up this morning at 2AM :(... and couldn't go back to sleep, checked on my husband, he's still on the road driving through the darkness. And after 1.5 hrs of restless turning back and forth I decided to just get up and go... at least that will give me good head start at work so I can hopefully get home in time :). The weekend is almost here, how awesome is that? Happy Friday to everyone out there...

Start of the Third Trimester!!!

I'm always very excited when we reach a new step in our pregnancy. I have to tell you, every morning I get an email with some information/ tips about the baby, me or dad ;). Every morning the first thing is checking my emails (luckily my emails are all on my Iphone so I can do that before even getting up *g*. Just need to put on my glasses!). And then also I have the application IPregnancy on my Iphone that will give me information on Zoe as well. The application just got updated and also shows now information about the mommy and her bodies' changes. Today was a special day, we entered the last of the three trimesters!!! I can't believe it... and then also I always have to check out the ticker on the blog. Isn't that cute how she grows from one flower into the next one... I love it :).

Zoe was apparently very excited as well. This morning my phone woke me up at 530AM and I have this gym class going on in my belly!!! She was just going nuts in there... *lol*... also it's getting very interesting when you're resting the arm or hand on the belly and it gets kicked away! Like today I was at a client resting my arm against my belly and she was kicking me away... I just have to smile, it's so funny! She's growing a lot... the bending over is not working out that well anymore :(...

But it's so funny watching her. When I was in Chicago, Vicki and I were watching her kicking... it's so amazing that you can actually 'see' her while being in the belly.

And then the other very exciting thing is that my lovely husband is on his way back home *YEAH*. Can't wait to have him back... his house is all packed up and ready in the truck to be coming up north (they'll deliver the freight next Wednesday I think). Frank originally wanted to leave today or tomorrow morning. So it ended up being tomorrow morning, and I just got a call from him, telling me that he's on his way :). He wants to come home *Big Fat Smile*.

First Coffee, German Breakfast, Indian Summer and new haircut

I just found so many pics I did that I wanted to blog and never did!!! Ok, here we start with our first Sunday Morning Coffee in our new house :). Because we forgot the coffee maker in the condo, Frank ran out and got us some coffee to start our first morning in the house:Last time I was in Chicago, Sandra and I had a german breakfast while meeting and exchange what we're both working on and stuff. That was pretty cool and delicious :).
Ullu, some indian summer pics for you :). Not sooo good ones. But I thought about you while we were running out to have breakfast this morning and took some pics on the way. Better ones will follow... I'll work on it:
Look at the colors!!!


These people are totally into Halloween!!! Next time I'll drive by there by night with my camera and will take a picture, you won't believe it... all light up and scary!
And today I finally made it to the hair stylist *yeah*. She straightened my hair... it won't look like that tomorrow :(... I'm too lazy to straighten it every morning (or some mornings) so I'll just make it curly or do nothing and it looks as it comes *lol*... but it feels so good having the hair cut done. And I made another appt. already before Zoe arrives to get pimped one more time before the crazy busy mom world begins... ;)
Monday I'll be back on the road again to Chicago but will be back on Wednesday since I have another sales call on THU here in Detroit. Frank is ready and packed and will leave here in a minute to drive to Charleston, SC (ca. 14 hr drive) to get his house in order. Monday the movers will come and pack all his stuff and bring it up here... then we'll be buried again in a world full of cartons *lol*.

Name change

Today I officially signed with my new name... that was soooo exciting :). First I went to the Secretary of State and tried to get my Michigan Driver License with my new name and then I wanted to go to the Social Security Administration and get my SSN name changed as well. BUT, I started in the wrong office. So I went to the SSA right away and got my name changed on my SSN which was soooo easy since I had all needed docs right there (I tell you, I was prepared). Since the 'change' at the SSA takes about 24 hrs I'll have to go back to the Secretary of State on Monday to get my new driver license with my new name and then I have to change all the other stuff.

It was really exciting when I finally was allowed to write with my married name... i'm telling you :). And when the guy was about to write my new name in the computer, I told him he should write it RIGHT :)... that was pretty funny I think ;). He was pretty dry but I didn't care, I checked it all in the end again... looks pretty funny my new name, still have to get used to it.

2. Midwife visit

Good news... I don't have any blood pressure illness that established because of the pregnancy *YEAH*. I was so happy to hear that... all test results came back normal. My food input is very good, i'm not missing out on anything. Iron is good... pretty cool, isn't it? My blood pressure wasn't the lowest but you could tell a difference. After we left the midwife I started to feel very tired... probably because of all the stress about 'what might be the result?'. And I could feel that I was much more comfortable this time going to the midwife. I was actually happy to see them... just when I entered the office I noticed that I was getting a little excited about it all... I blame my high blood pressure on the stress... period ;).

Zoe is doing great, gained another 2 lbs! And her heart was beating so strong... it's very amazing every time again and again!!!

Welcome home

It seems as my old living room :)... today I straightened out the Reading room and hooked up the stereo and placed everything where it should be placed.
I finally found a spot for my little Computer area that I used to have in my apartment. Thought this might be a nice place besides sitting in the office. This set wouldn't have another place in the house so I decided to use it in the Reading room
And now our laundry room which leads into the garage. Also called 'mud room'. Our new appliances, washer and dryer from Maytag. Look at the tiles, another thing we replaced in this house, the laminate looked pretty worn out already:
And finally our three babies. Frank picked the one garage door and has a lot to range around before entering the garage. I park with the Harley in the two door garage (pretty easy to drive in...). We decided to park the cars this way because otherwise you would step out of the door and you fall onto my car! We didn't like that it wasn't very roomy... so why wasting the space, now we have a lot of space to unpack and walk around in the garage... NICE. Also something to think about... when placing Zoe in the car. This way we have lots of space to get her very comfortable into the cars:

25 weeks

Sita, as promised your little niece :). Sorry, a little later than promised... she's growing and growing... kicks a little and stretches around... sleeps longer now but is also much more active when she's awake:

We moved!!!

Ok, here we go :). After a stressful week away in CHI again we finally moved this weekend all my stuff from CHI and all our stuff from the Condo into our house. It's sooooo AWESOME... just came home from work and I can tell you. It's so great to come home into such a wonderful place. Now you're getting a little tour of our chaos *lol*:

Here we have the main entrance. You can see two bedrooms upstairs, there is one additional to the very left and the master bedroom to the very right. The left door you see here will be Zoe's Room :)
To the left from the entrance we have our Reading Room (or also my little area)... We decided to put my couch in here and some book shelves. Very nice view into the front with a little tree in front of the window that covers the view inside a little:
Our guest bathroom (0.5 bath)... isn't that big??? I'm amazed every time i'm in there how big it actually is:
To the right of the guest bathroom we have the 'formal dining room' that we will use as our office. We're already all hooked up on Internet of course :). Some troubles with it though. Somebody has to come out and get it checked properly. That's why I wasn't able to post pics yesterday :(.
Here a view from the office into the living room through the kitchen:
I just stood there between fridge and oven... now the other side... our wonderful new painted kitchen. Do you remember, it was brown wood... and Frank had the idea of a white kitchen so we let it painted white:
the other corner of the kitchen. The big doors lead us out on the patio :) and we decided to have our dining area in the kitchen.
From the kitchen you can access the living room right away... our new couch we bought a few weeks ago... one piece goes upstairs in the master bedroom. It's too much couch for the room we decided:
view from the living room into the kitchen and you can see we have another set of stairs from here up to the upper level. Totally cool, we have two stairs downstairs that will lead into one stair to the upper level. Sometimes Frank and I miss each other *lol*
Zoe's Room, the little crib will be replaced by a baby crib and this little crib will stay in the master bedroom for easy baby access when it's breast feeding time at night... oh that will be a thrill...
This one is the one guest room facing the street with Lake view :). In the winter when the leaves fall off you can actually see the lake. So we call it our guest room with lake view :)
And our Guest Room with view into the garden which has it's own bathroom attached. The lake view guest room and Zoe's room share a bathroom. Pretty cool in case we have another one, they'll get the two rooms and share that bathroom. It even has two sinks. I bet it'll be a fight with the bathroom cleaning then ;)... like in our days as kids... but it was fun growing up with siblings... i wouldn't wanna miss any of my three sissi's :).
Tadaaa... our master suite :). It's amazingly big... we really wanna have a king size bed and that will be the next purchase we make. Just the mattress for now and sometime later on we'll buy a very nice bedroom set (and we also have garden view):
You can see barely the door to the master bathroom to the left and right next to it the master walk in closet, and the door into out of the suite to the other rooms:
Our Bathroom:
Still getting settled... His and Hers' :)... we still need to get the towel hangers and stuff... right now everything is laying around :)
Our Master Closet... what a dream closet... we both have our own side... here my side, already everything in place and sorted by color again :).
And my husbands' side, still not unpacked yet. He had some troubles finding his clothes this morning :)... i was cracking up this morning when I heard about his morning... and I even asked him if he's all set for the morning. But very cute :)
And a last view from the upper level down in the foyer:
This is our new home... Ohhh, I forgot the laundry room... we got new tiles there as well... I'll post that one next time. Still have to save something for you :)

Baby update

Ok, now finally an update on Zoe. We do so many other things around here that we barely report about our little wonder: Zoe and how she's doing.

Today we met with a midwife (first visit after almost 2 month not seeing a doc). And it was great. This network of midwife consists of 18 midwifes that are located in different areas and also cover each other in case they're understaffed. We'll probably end up with meeting 3 of them during the rest of the pregnancy and it could be that another midwife will help us deliver, but that's totally fine with me. As long as there are not so many people around. I just want Frank to be there, our midwife and I. Then she said 2 nurses/ assistances and two other ones in case the baby needs help will be in the room as well. I'd like to limit it to the very minimum and she said I can always ask for it and it also all depends on the health of the baby and my health of course.

Again I had a high blood pressure :(... normally my blood pressure is very good just recently it's a little higher every time I go and see the female doc because of the whole shock she put me through a year ago and I really don't have an explanation now why the blood pressure is high during the pregnancy. I'm just not comfortable with female docs anymore I guess!!! But anyway... the midwife was great and I haven't gotten so much information from my previous doc then we got today from the midwife. It was amazing!!! Of course I have to be seen by a doctor if we don't find out more about my blood pressure problem and how we can get it down but we'll do some extra testing this week that will give us maybe an answer. And even having to go to a doctor I can still have one of the midwifes with us at the delivery. Which is a pretty nice compromise I think.

If everything goes smoothly they won't even do another ultrasound. So we won't get it 'proven' one more time that it's a girl... we better be prepared in case it'll be a boy *lol*. But we'll be alright and in case it's a boy we have a name picked already as well. We heard Zoe's heartbeat today, pretty cool... so fast and strong. And they also draw some blood again for more testing and making sure everything is fine. I have to see her again in 2 weeks and check on my blood pressure. It's really amazing how much more care you get with a midwife than with a doctor.

Now I'm waiting for my wonderful husband to come home to spend the evening together. He's running to the house every day and does something on it. I'm just too tired to do more than I'm doing already. I asked to travel less because I just can't do it anymore... my body told me already twice within the last week that I work myself too hard and my body really knows HOW to tell me, I can tell you that! Not very nice... I guess that's what happens if you don't listen!!! But now I got it... and I try to slow down and relax more. Today Frank gets the garage door openers working, how exciting :). Can't wait to have my own garage space. And I'll get a baby belly picture update tomorrow maybe so you can see her again ;). She's such a great baby... her kicks are getting a little stronger and especially when I go to bed she's having fun in there... the midwife says that babies are more active when you don't move around because they wanna be rocked *lol*. Ok, our baby is already very demanding ;). Also food... man... now I'm starting to feel that 'hungry' feeling so often... it's crazy! I sit at work and don't even know what I can eat next to satisfy Zoe! But luckily, all my measurements and weight and stuff is all in the average. So that's awesome. Besides my blood pressure it looks very healthy.

Rainbows

These wonderful two rainbows were up in the sky today when we were on our way home from 'home depot shopping' ;)

My key to our house :)

Just a silly post, I guess but it's a very important thing :). The own keys to our own house :). We just had the locks replaced and now we each have our own key plus some extra (for guests *hint*). Right now we have to drive by the house every time we can because we have some water problems in the basement. They winterized the house 4 days before closing and we made them 'dewinterize' on their costs because why in all names did they decide to winterize the property 4 days prior to closing??? *big question mark in our eyes*

We plan to move in there... why should we have bought it if not for living in there? Duh!

Ok, but the guy who dewinterized it did a shity job... only connected the water, nothing else. Electricity was still turned off etc. - (means the water pump won't work in case of a basement flooding)!!! AND best thing... he connected the water meter so uncool that it leaks all the time and we're constantly changing the buckets of full water into empty ones. I mean... I don't have any words... sorry... but if I'd meet this guy who did that... he better not meet me because when I'm done with him he's a mashed potato and after Frank is done with him I think he wishes to never ever have done such an unprofessional job!!! Oh well... handymen!!! You're better off doing everything yourself, I'm telling you :(... let's see how our own hired handymen work. Hope they'll do a good job and we'll be satisfied with the result. Tomorrow morning a guy comes in to fix the water dilemma and also our kitchen is getting started on the white coat... I'm so excited! But it's kind of cool... we're getting to be in the house any free minute :). Yesterday night we switched around the couches a bunch of times to see how it all looks after we changed the buckets *lol*... we're nuts, I know!