Brrrrr!

Yes, I grew up and Kansas (and still have my mad "driving in ice/snow" skills), but holy cow is it cold for the Texas Temperatures I've grown accustomed to! Yesterday was a record day (at least for the last 6 years) with over 300 area school districts closed because of the ice. I worked from home a bit in the morning and headed in around 1030 once a lot of the crazies got off the road, but Joey still had to be to work at 730. Luckily he left about a half hour earlier around 6 and made it just in time. Business seems to be back to normal today with just a few slick spots and a lone school closing in the outer area of DFW, but we're off to Georgia. I know all my Kansas friends and family will get a good chuckle, but these are just 2 pictures I took yesterday that led to the "Winter Blast" in our area.

Yes, those are teeny tiny icicles, but they're there and they cause chaos in Texas! If you think that's bad, one of my Austin area sales reps said that if he dropped an ice cube out the window, they'd shut down I-35 in their area. :)

Hope you're all keeping warm!

We have a match!

Mom went on the hunt for different fabric than the cream we had that previously was going to fill the "gap" between the yellow and striped fabric we had found for Baby Shoup's bedding. I found this green polka dotted fabric online and was hesitant at first, but mom found it in a store and it works beautifully (I think) so she's moving forward to finalize all the bedding. Now we still need to buy a mattress, finish cleaning out the nursery, and find a dresser/changing table. I believe we're also going to try to find a nice leather rocker/recliner as Joey would like it to be his chair after the need for it in the nursery is gone. :) Plus we still haven't been car-shopping and need to get busy with that as the weekends have started filling up quickly.

This weekend I had a baby shower to attend and while I went to that, Joey went to a "Beer & Diapers" party for the father-to-be. I think the boys had a little too much fun, but hopefully they get some of the craziness out of their system as their need for sleep and sobriety will be more abundant once the little bundles of joy arrive! At Dawn's shower I got to hold Riley (Viavattene) quite a bit while Amanda helped out with recording the gifts. He's such a cute and happy baby and is also a big flirt, which is no surprise given who his dad is. :)

We went to my friend Pam's birthday party once Joey got home (and took a nap) and it's amazing to see the difference in people baby belly's because there were 2 other women there who are only 1-3 weeks further along than me and I don't even think I look pregnant compared to them. I suppose that's to be expected since I'm still technically below my pre-pregnancy weight and with the weight gain last month that in time I'll actually "look pregnant" to strangers.

On Thursday we'll be headed to Georgia for the memorial for Joey's dad. I'm looking forward to seeing his mom and sister and meeting some family that I have yet to meet, but of course we know it will be an emotionally draining weekend. It's nice to know that several of Joey's friends will be making the trip to Rome as well. We're so blessed to have such amazing friends and family!

All's well

Another routine checkup for me & Baby Shoup yesterday. I really think I spend more time in the waiting room than actually back getting the checkup, but considering I don't have any complications and rarely have more than a question or 2, that's OK. I did manage to gain a few pounds this month, but am still below my pre-pregnancy weight. Baby is measuring right on target size-wise so Dr Staub is pleased with how all is going.

I receive weekly online updates and this week, it tells me Baby Shoup is roughly the size of a bottle of root beer...It's rather amusing that all updates are usually in comparison to food items - from a sesame seed in the very beginning to all sorts of things in between - like avocados or baked potatoes (which after I read the update for that week had me craving baked potatoes oddly enough).

Joey & I continued a successful weekend of purging, but also had a few friends over just because on Saturday. We still haven't found a dresser/changing table, but continue to look and have decided we'll probably splurge on a leather rocker/recliner/glider for Baby's room (that Joey hopes to make his own after we don't need it as much any more in the nursery), but have yet to shop for that either. There is still plenty of time, but our time fills up rather quickly as his sister has finally set her wedding date for March 28 (Joey's birthday) and there are plenty of other fun things going on between now and June 1st.

Baby Shoup Picture Update

These are from the week of 12/29 - the most recent sonogram pictures of Baby Shoup. My favorite is the 1st - the clearest picture of 5 little toes on 1 of his/her foot (well - it's clear in person - sonogram pictures aren't that easy to take a clear picture of)! The other is a profile similar to those we've seen before and if you look closely, you can see an arm, which was pounding the "fists of fury" during the sonogram and I'm starting to feel him/her "punching" me a little more lately.

Halfway and Nesting!

Well, it's official - Today marks week 20 of our pregnancy so we're about halfway to everyone actually meeting Baby Shoup (give or take about 2 weeks either way) and finding out whether it's a boy or girl that will be keeping us awake for one reason another for the next 20 or so years of our lives! :) It's gone fast, but there are some days, where I know I wish June 1st would just get here already. I'm sure later on, we'll wish we had more time to prepare, but I feel confident we'll be reasonably ready by that time. :)


Aside from this Saturday when Joey & I were basically useless, watching 4 movies, some TV, and just having a wonderful day of vegging, it seems we've started the "nesting" process. It started Saturday night when I decided that all of the boxes in the built-in's in the nursery-to-be needed to come out to be reorganized and find a new home as we start to accumulate things for Baby. Those boxes are still neatly stacked in the nursery waiting for us to reorganize them into better boxes/Rubbermaid containers for storage in the attic, but they are already relatively sorted so it's just a matter of putting things in boxes better suited for attic storage. We moved on to other rooms of the house and had a purge-fest Sunday afternoon, with several boxes of things set aside for delivery to, most likely Genesis Women's Shelter. Actually I'm hoping they'll come pick the items up as we've decided that's where our old entertainment center will be going and they're definitely going to have to pick that up. I've listed it several times on craigslist.com with no success and while we hoped to get even just a little bit of $ for it to have a little more savings during the time I'm on maternity leave (since short term disability doesn't pay near as well as it should...but that's a subject for another day), but alas, it just hasn't happened, so since it wasn't that expensive of a piece and it's not a family heirloom, we'll consider it an additional tax write-off for this year and feel even better that it'll be going to help women in need.



Anyway, with getting rid of that and all the other many things we are purging, we're hoping to actually get started on making our carpeted converted garage/den/"junk room" into a dining room finally. We're trying not to spend tons of money so I doubt we'll put the hardwood floors down yet as we later plan to do, but we will probably have someone come out and professionally clean the carpet and maybe even paint (paint first) and get a dining table to accomodate future gatherings in our home. The hope now is that we'll actually keep up with this purging and reorganizing process so much so that when baby gets here I'll be able to fully enjoy the 6-8 weeks leave from work (yes, I will be going back to work). Wish us luck!



It sounds like there is a small hold-up with the baby bedding my mom is making, but hopefully we'll ge that worked out soon. One of the sets of fabric we bought is apparently a different blend than the other 2 fabrics so my mom is not sure we'll want to continue with it so we're trying to figure out another option, but hopefully it shouldn't be too much of an issue, but so far, this is what the pillow for the set looks like.

The striped fabric is what I found first and got stuck on really wanting (in a good way), but we needed some additional pieces to complement it so we found the yellow and were having a hard time finding something else that fit with the pattern so settled for a simple cream and of course, the cream fabric is the one that appears to be thinner and causing some stitching issues. I did find another bedding set I like (that is of course overpriced so I'm glad mom is making ours), but has me confident we can find another fabric that will work...This is the example I'm giving mom to hopefully find a simple polka dotted fabric to use instead of the cream fabric.

It's very subtle polka dots so hopefully mom can find something and it'll all work out. I'm confident that it will.

In the meantime, we're on the hunt for plenty of new things - from a new vehicle for me to drive (Joey will start driving my car since he's still racking up the miles driving to and from North Fort Worth every day), to a mattress for the crib and all sorts of other fun things.

Hope you're all having a great day and enjoy a beautiful week!

Suzy

Don't forget to vote!

In case you haven't already, don't forget to place your vote on Baby Shoup's stats!
http://www.expectnet.com/games/babyshoup

The beginning of Baby Shoup's room

So far the only things we've really accomplished, with my dad's help are taking down my old iron bed (now that dad helped us get attic space ready for storing it and other things that were previously taking up the future baby's room), and getting the crib set up in the baby's room. Now that the crib has had about a week to "rest" from all the cleaning/painting, I'll be looking to buy a mattress pretty soon and I'm on a furious hunt on craigslist and wherever else I can think of for a dresser that can also serve as a changing table and we'll continue from there.

My mom has all the material we picked up (gender neutral, but colorful stripes withs some cream and yellow accents) while Joey & I were in Kansas for Christmas and has already been pre-washing and learning her new serger to start on the bedding!

Here's a picture of the (30 year old and yes, it meets all safety standards, not just dad's "You and your brother turned out OK") crib in the room (with Buddy's bed now in front of it - although he doesn't really sleep on his bed near as much as he sleeps on ours...or the couch!!)



I'm still not really feeling like I'm showing and as yet have only purchased 3 pairs of maternity pants, but hopefully the weight will start to show up in the right places soon and maybe I'll LOOK pregnant, but the low-grade nausea and decreased appetite have actually resulted in weight loss which my dr said is OK because of my "reserves", but that he doesn't want to see any more losing right now! Last week's sonogram showed Baby is right on schedule weighing in about a 1/2 lb. He or She is already practicing the "Shoup Shuffle" or "Fists of Fury" and was very active. I'm starting to feel flutters on the inside, but Joey & Buddy have yet to feel Baby move so hopefully that will happen soon.

Love you all!
Suzy & Joey

A new year, A new blog

Welcome to the Shuffling Shoup's blog! I've decided to start blogging somewhere that family and friends can access since not everyone has myspace or facebook and e-mails can often get lost in spam.

I figured since 2009 will be an eventful year for Joey, Buddy, and I with Baby Shoup on the way (expected arrival date sometime around June 1st), I would follow the lead of several friends who have blogs and update rather often (hopefully once a week) to let everyone know what's going on in our lives.

I hope you'll all subscribe and follow along as we find time to update, and add pictures to document 2009 and the years to come!
-Suzy & Joey (& Buddy & Baby Shoup too)!