The joys of pregnancy...

I have always heard about "baby brain" but I'm now experiencing it full force and I must say - it's no myth. Our baby should be a genius since she's apparently taken all my brain power :) I've just been so forgetful and absentminded lately!! Last week I put the milk away - not in the fridge, but in a cabinet underneath the counter. It's like I just can't remember where things go. Chicken breats? Clearly they go in the pantry next to the cereal. I got so mad at Adam last week because he rearranged the kitchen drawers and moved the silverware. Turns out - I just opened the wrong drawer! Pregnancy sure is fun...

Project Nursery has begun!!

This weekend has been a big one for us. I have officially been feeling the baby move - not just the little stomach flutters but movements that I can tell are the baby. We think we have officially picked a name for our little girl - but we're going to sleep on it for another couple of days before we announce it to the world :) Also, we have officially started on the nursery. Last weekend Adam and I had picked out some adorable bedding and we had been trying to pick a shade of green to go with it. We had it narrowed it down to two different shades and when we couldn't make a final decision we opted to go with both!! We decided that we should put up a chair rail and paint each side a different color. Luckily, Adam's parents and brother came over to help us. In fact - they just did it for us. Adam and I went to check out the new UAB facility and when we came home - the last coat was drying. All we have left to do it finish putting up the chair rail. Hopefully we'll make a final decision on furniture this week and then we can really get the ball rolling - but we're off to a GREAT start!!!


The room how we left on Saturday afternoon



The room when we came home (or within another couple hours of work)



The rest of the chair rail isn't up yet so I'll post a whole room picture soon. We also have a few things to put up on the walls - so we'll have lots of fun nursery pics to share.

UAB Women and Infant's Center

My original doctor was at St. Vincent's and so that's where we had planned on having our baby. Due to my heart condition the doctor thought that it was better if I switch to the UAB high risk clinic so that I could be monitored more closely. This spring, UAB will open up the new Women and Infant's Center. We'll have our baby in the beautiful new building. Yesterday was the open house to see the new facility so Adam and I decided to go and take a tour. Everything is so beautiful and we are very excited about having our baby in such a nice place. They have a new RNICU (Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) where each infant has their own private room and there is a family area in each room so that the parents can stay with their babies more comfortably. The labor and delivery rooms are large and more home like and come equipped with a flat screen tv and dvd player (of course I was excited about this...). They care located right next to new state of the art operating rooms in case of an emergency c-section or other situation. Every time a baby is born, a sweet little lullaby is played over the intercom. We were very pleased with the facility and now we just can't wait to welcome our little girl into the world! I took some pictures so you can get a preview of the new building.




Front of the building


Labor and Delivery Room (minus the bed)


Infant Bed at the RNiCU

Sunday Visitors

Tonight my sister Katie and her dog, Champ, came to visit Adam and me. She's currently living in Auburn at Pharmacy school studying her butt off so I don't get to see her as much as I would like. We didn't do anything too exciting, but we had fun just catching up.

Sweet Champ

The (almost) 20 week belly

This Tuesday I will be 20 weeks - half way done!! In way it has lasted forever and in a way it has flown by! Per the request of a few I have taken a picture of my baby bump.


There are slight shadows on both of them, but I was exhausted and didn't want to take any more. That will probably be the only picture ever posted with my shirt pulled up - but Adam said it was cute...

Registering (and the few purchases we made along the way)

Today Adam and I went all over Birmingham putting together baby registries. It was so fun - and so exhausting!! We had no idea that babies needed (I use that term loosely) so much stuff! We registered at Swaddle in Homewood, Once Upon a Time in Crestline Village and Pottery Barn Kids. We have yet to conquer Babies R Us but we'll eventually get there :) We looked at about a million onesies, gowns, swaddle blankets, bibs, burp cloths, slings and diaper bags. We did find some really great things though. We learned that the "must have" item for babies is the Sophie the Giraffe toy. We're not sure what is actually is or why babies love it - but every place we went told us that they sell out of them faster than they care order more.

Regardless, we don't want our child to be without the "must have" item - so we registered for the crazy thing.

We also took advantage of all the great sales that were going on. We hit up BabyGap and Once Upon a Time and found some of the cutest little things!! We found this adorable red dress at Once Upon a Time and we're going to have the Alabama "A" monogrammed on it. It will be perfect for football season!!!

At Baby Gap we hit the sales BIG time. I got two adorable dresses that will fit her next fall/winter, one little shirt and one long sleeved/pants onesie thing (not sure when she'd wear it...but it has a hood that has bear ears so I figured why not??) They were all marked down and then there was an additional 40% off so we did very well!! I wanted to get so much more - but I had to draw the line somewhere!!







We also enjoyed lunch off the new menu at Zoes - which was great. We took advantage of the sale at White Barn Candle company and got more Wallflowers and soap. If you haven't ever tried the Wallflowers you are seriously missing out. Nothing makes your house smell better and more home-y. I'm pretty much obsessed. We got a couple of baby name books to help us in the naming process. After our long day, we're going to grab some take out and relax and look for names!!

Pink

It's time to start buying all things pink!!! Adam and I found out this morning that we are going to have a daughter!! Everything looks perfect at this point - she's the perfect weight, length, etc. and we couldn't be more thrilled. Although I must say I had a fleeting moment of disappointment that it wasn't a boy (everyone wants things exactly as they had it and I have a big brother so I always thought that my girls needed a big brother too). But once the reality set it that I was actually having a girl the excitedness hit!! I can't wait to start shopping for all the cute girl clothes, ballet shoes, hair bows, and other cute things that come with having a girl. Now it's time for the fun part...names and nursery!!!! Thank Heaven for little girls!

Strollers...no stroll in the park

Adam and I have been looking at strollers for the baby the past few weeks. We have found several that we like and several that we don't like - but we had no idea there were so many to choose from!! We "test drove" about a million and still don't know what to do!! We really like the BOB - a great running stroller that also works as an everyday stroller.


We're also fans of the Peg-Perego stroller...which has the highest safety rating but has the heaviest pumpkin seat and being that I'm not a very strong person when it comes to my upper body, that could be a problem.





We have also looked at the Chicco and the Bugaboo...also great options!! This is NOT as easy as I thought it was going to be!! Any suggestions???

Roll Tide!!

We had a great Thursday night as we watched Alabama beat Texas in the National Championship game!! We really thought it was going to ice and snow that evening, so we elected to stay in. Our friend Trey came over to brave the weather and watch the game with us! It was such an exciting game - even Daisy got into it!! Needless to say - there was no snow and very little ice that lasted for a short time so sadly we all had to get up and go to work the next day :(


Adam cheering for the Tide


Daisy in her Alabama gear


Adam and Trey crying with Colt McCoy


Roll Tide!!!!

Our First Baby

Most of you know that I'm a little (or a lot) obsessed with our dog, Daisy. She really is the best dog in the world!! She loves to have her picture taken. Her sweet Aunt Candy (Candice, I told her to stop calling you Candy but you know how stubborn Beagles can be!) got her a Snuggie for Dogs this Christmas. She looked so adorable in it so I wanted to show off my baby...plus a few other fantastic Daisy pics.





Yes, I realize how strange I am. But she is adorable, isn't she???

18 Weeks!!

Today I am 18 weeks pregnant!! Only 2 more weeks until I will be halfway done and only 1 more week until we find out if Baby Israel is a he or a she. We're so excited! Then it will be on to the fun things...like picking out names and decorating the nursery. We have A LOT of work to do in the nursery. Since moving into this house last May, it has become our catch-all room even though we are lucky enough to have a HUGE walk in attic for storage space. My goal for this weekend is seriously have the room cleared out so that we can start getting stuff done in there next week!! If it's a girl we've got some painting to do. We had originally decided that we would make the room our second guest room so we picked out a great blue color thinking that it would make a great baby boy room one day in the future. Our other guest room is yellow (some how our guest rooms ended up Sigma Chi colors...) and that could have possibly been turned into a baby girl room. We ended up pregnant before we even had a chance to touch the blue and make it into a guest room. I've added a couple of "before pictures" of the room and hopefully I will have dazzling clean room "after pictures" to share by next week. Excuse the ugly blue carpet - ripping that up is on our list of things to do in the near future!!




As you can tell, we've got a lot of work to do! I just cannot believe how fast the past 18 weeks have gone. Hopefully the next half of this pregnancy will be as fast so we can just meet our new little baby!!!

Happy New Year!!

I cannot believe that it's 2010!! 2009 was a pretty good year for the Israel Family - but I know that 2010 will be so much better! So many exciting things happened last year: Adam graduated law school, we celebrated our first wedding anniversary, we bought a house, Adam started a new job as a legal clerk, we FINALLY used our fine china, we had our first Christmas tree, and probably the most exciting thing of all - we found out that we are going to be parents!! We're certainly looking forward to all the things that 2010 will bring: finding out the sex of our baby, decorating the nursery, getting a lot of house projects done, the birth of our child, the end of my current job (and the beginning of my new job as a stay-at-home mommy), and so many other great things that we have yet to find out!! I cannot wait to see what this year brings! Since I don't have any pictures from our New Year's Eve party - I'll post some pics of our Christmas tree and some decorations that we took down this past weekend. Happy New Year!!!!

Our First Christmas Tree


Our Kitchen Table Christmas Style