3rd trimester=Sleepy Suzy

I'm a bit behind on updating as the 3rd trimester has been an exhausting one so far, but I wanted to post a few things on here real quick and hope to catch up more later this week or next weekend...

Joey & I had a great trip to Kansas last weekend and I really enjoyed the shower my Aunts Joyce & Dee threw for me. Baby Shoup is already so loved although there was definitely some heated debate about whether "it" is a he or she. I guess only time (and about 11 more weeks) will tell! I'll post more pictures later, but here are just 2: 1 of the hostesses with the mostest...

...and another of Me, "Buzz", Shandi, Deedra, and with Grandma Lou - apparently the wrinkling of the nose MUST be from the Liby side since Shandi and I are both doing it here!

Next is a picture of the recliner we purchased for the nursery. It looks great draped in the star-shaped afghan that Sue Affolter (one of my mom's cousins) made so I'm not sure if Baby Shoup or I will spend more time wrapped in the blanket! :) You can also see the completed pillow that goes with the bedding mom is working quickly to finish! Plus Joey's baby pillow is in the chair as well.

Now we're just awaiting the arrival of the dresser to start getting a little more organized, but we picked up the mattress for the crib this weekend too so progress is being made and I'm sleeping better at night not worrying about baby not having a place to sleep (we have a mattress cover and I "bought" (with a gift card!) some plain white crib sheets so we have the basics! I think I've also had a revelation about the wall art thanks to ever-so-crafty, Lisa, but I'll wait until the pieces are finished to post! :)

This last picture is a bit old, but it's me at 26 weeks (3 weeks ago now!) Yes, it's the point (especially in certain items of clothing) that you can tell I'm pregnant and not just fat. :) I probably won't get pictures from this week (I have this thing about odd numbers) but next week is 30 weeks and our trip to Miami for Sheri's wedding so hopefully I'll be looking fabulous and will have some pictures to post of more belly.

I'll need to update more on the progress (or lack thereof) on our converted garage. What we had hoped to do isn't going to happen due to this weekend's discovery, but we're working towards a quick solution so that I'll not just consider the room a "junk room" anymore, but hopefully it will resemble more of a dining room (although maybe not with a table quite yet) soon!

More to come later!

Slow, but steady progress

I finally feel like we're making progress on getting the house ready for Baby Shoup. It might have taken a little extra nagging and some hormonal tears, but on Saturday Joey & I went on a hunt for a leather rocker/recliner and a dresser for the nursery. We found the recliner very quickly at The Dump and arranged to pick it up yesterday with Christina's help (and her truck "Big Red Fred") so it's now sitting in the nursery next to the pile of boxes that we still need to go through and find a new home for. We didn't have as much luck on our hunt for the dresser, but again, thanks to Christina and her employer, we found one that is just the size we were hoping for. She's going to help us order that this week and then we'll just have to wait for it to be delivered and I'm sure it will be filled up in no time as Baby Shoup will be "showered" for the first time this Saturday in Kansas where I'll get to see a lot of family and friends who it's been too long since I've seen.

In other news, shortly after finding out that Russ and Dawn's little girl Finley had arrived last Sunday, we also found out that there's another little one on the way for our group of friends. Stan and Kim will bless us all with Baby Tigrett sometime in September! It's Baby-pa-looza around here, but we couldn't be happier that Baby Shoup will have so many playmates close to his/her age. Trent & Amanda even brought Riley over on Saturday night and he's such a happy baby. He seems to love the attention (and of course be a big flirt with all the girls) although hopefully he slept very well after all the entertaining he did. We only hope Baby Shoup and all his/her friends-to-be are happy and healthy babies too. He/She certainly is active in there - not overly so that it wakes me at night, but usually once I'm awake in the morning he/she is as well. Granted, he/she gets in a few naps during the day (yes, I'm jealous!) :) but plenty of times during the day I get to enjoy the kicking/punching going on inside and even on the outside from time to time as well.

Happy Birthday Buddy!

In honor of Buddy's 5th birthday (best guess estimate given by the vet when we rescued him about 3 & 1/2 years ago), I figured I'd post a few pics of our first "baby" from way back in 2005 until recently.

One of the earliest pictures of our sweet Buddums:

Always a fan of napping on the chair (or couch):


The hunter-dog:


Attempting to make a break for it out the hole that his pal, Landry created in our fence (which thankfully my dad repaired when he was here at the end of December):


...and of course, having a stare-down with his stuffed squirrel "Nuts" (I believe this might have been Nuts 2 as Buddy is quite a fan of destroying the pesky squirrels)

Happy Birthday Buddy Bear!

Double Digit Days

That's right, folks - This weekend we crossed the threshold from more than 100 days until Baby Shoup's expected arrival date to less than 100 days! There is still so much to do, but my hope is that some of the major projects that we (Joey) keep putting off will get done in the next month.

We're excited to meet the newest arrival to our group of friends. Finley Marie Watkins arrived in the early morning hours on Sunday 2/22/09. We're going to try to make it up there to visit Russ, Dawn, and Finley this evening. They're the first of our friends who go to the same hospital as I do so it'll be nice to get a preview of the digs before we actually tour during some of the classes we'll be taking over the next month or so.

Emerald & Savannah

No, these aren't potential names for our baby on the way! :) Emerald is now Joey's former car :( and Savannah is my new car. :) Yes, I do get the better end of the deal, folks, but then again, my daily round-trip commute to work is less than 1/3 of what Joey's is so it's really the more practical answer. He gets to take over with Ruby (formerly my car) and I get our brand new ride (to us at least - because Savannah is actually an '05 so she's got a few miles on her). We signed all the paperwork on Saturday and today, Joey drove Emerald for the last time on his way to pick Savannah up. I had Ruby cleaned bumper to bumper (waxing, carpet-shampoo, detailing, etc) for Joey so hopefully he will feel somewhat like he got a new car too, but I just thought I would take a moment and reflect on Emerald - who was a great car while he had her (2000 Oldsmobile Intrigue). She definitely had some better features than Ruby, but she also has about 65k more miles so it was time for her to "retire".

We were going to take pictures yesterday afternoon, but just did not quite get around to it so I snapped 1 of her in the garage this morning before heading to work. We'll miss you Emerald! :)


...and Welcome, Savannah! (She's an 05 Lexus RX330 and her name comes from the color - which is technically Savannah Metallic) The picture is dark because I took it after I got home tonight, but I'll take another maybe this weekend when it's more light.

Car-shopping, Baby-registering, and hiccups, Oh my

We were quite busy this weekend and boy did I pay for it yesterday. I started feeling a little icky on Friday as the weather started to warm up (and I think I've figured out the south wind brings out the worst of my on-again, off-again allergies), but powered through the weekend.

We kicked it off celebrating Bryan and Meagan's engagement Friday night with a great time at Rick & Brooke's house. We all had a great time (although I'm now sad that I didn't even bother to get my camera out - Please share, Meagan!) and Joey defintely had a great time and didn't want to leave after midnight. Gant & Courtney came in from Wichita Falls & stayed with us so a stop at Whataburger on the way home was necessary.

Saturday started out calm with the guys fetching donuts before Gant & Courtney headed back to the Falls. After that Joey & I decided to venture out to do some car shopping. We were really just planning to hit CarMax to try out a bit of everything, but ended up hitting the nearby Chevy Dealership afterwards spending way more time (and way more of my tissues as my nose continued to run non-stop) as they tried to get us in a car. We're planning to get something sometime before baby gets here - hopefully within the next month or so, but aren't in a rush, although Joey definitely was ready to sign on the dotted line for a brand new car - above the budget we were hoping for. We've asked a few friends with car connections for advice, etc so we'll be looking again this Saturday and hoping we find something just right.

Sunday, the Colvert clan (Jeremy, Jamie, and Connor) helped us out spending several hours at Babies R Us helping us figure out what to register for, etc (only after the obligatory lunch at Hooters - I promised Joey as I knew he was a bit hesitant about all the baby shopping). We might not need exactly the same things, but it was great to get advice from some seasoned pros! Now that we know their new addition will be a little girl, it's time to get even more excited for them too as Baby Shoup will be very close in age to her - even though we aren't finding out what Baby S will be - it's still so exciting to find out for everyone else!

I did have an interesting tummy feeling this weekend and I tried to get Joey to feel it too, but apparently he's still not quite able to feel things on the outside that I'm feeling on the inside. It seems Baby S had the hiccups. I know the feeling all too well and figured that must be it. I've been feeling him/her quite a bit every day and it always makes me stop and smile - I'll be even more excited when Joey and/or Buddy can see/feel the movement.

Hope you're all having a beautiful start to the week!

If I have to...

Since Meagan tagged me, I suppose I'll follow through...

1. Choose a minimum of 7 blogs that you find brilliant in content or design.
2. Show the 7 winners names and links on your blog, and leave a comment informing them that they were tagged...
3. List at least 10 honest things about yourself.

In no particular order: 10 HONEST things about myself

1. I am a lifetime member of Girl Scouts. I had a really great time even though by the end of high school I was 1 of only 2 girls in our town still involved, but I did get to experience a lot of great things for little or no money in the grand scheme of things.

2. I hate that I do it, but I’m a scab picker – often someone has to tell me to quit because it’s a subconscious sort of OCD thing I think.

3. I love trivia and playing games and wish more friends would be willing to have a game night...it always tends to turn into drinking games.

4. I turned down a trip to the Superbowl from a station a few years ago and wonder if I'll ever have that chance resurface...

5. Until about midway through college, I always thought I'd end up living in the same small town I grew up in, or one close to it and as much as I enjoyed my upbringing there, I just can't imagine living there and am glad my life has turned out the way it has.

6. I failed a class in college. That's hard to admit since I was valedictorian of my high school class and think I'm "smarter than the average bear", but I truly believe that foreign teachers can make a (in this case negative) difference because when I retook the class, I had a high B without trying as hard as I coud have.

7. I love to make lists, but sometimes faced with a task like this, I draw a blank on what I actually want to admit.

8. I love Seinfeld and quote it as often as I deem appropriate.

9. I hate those little earbud things for Ipods and such. I have to have the regular “outie” headphones. It's not because I don't like things in my ear - I just don't like the way they feel.

10. I wasn’t able to swallow pills until a year or so into college. I still have a hard time swallowing pills w/o water, but I can take multiple pills at a time and am thankful that I no longer need to crush up children’s Tylenol in ice cream to take pills.

Now I will tag 7 other peeps and they can do the same things and share all their interesting facts! Jaymie, Corri, Lisa/Robin-DallasEats girls, Lisa H, Joanna, Katie, Jeff & Sarah B