Week 36: September 7-13th. In the home stretch. What a week!

Well, we're definately in the home stretch! I cannot believe that we're at 36 weeks. Once I hit 37 weeks-- NEXT WEEK (!!!!!)-- they'll let me go-- Baby will be considered full term. Holy cow!
I'm officially uncomfortable at almost all times, and Greg and I have officially hit the nesting stage. More on that in a bit, though.

I think I left off last week with Evan's birthday party and our Monday.. Tuesday was a busy night for both Greg and I with meetings and work. Wednesday was an Evan night-- didn't do a whole lot, Thursday was our prepared childbirth class-- which was actually a lot of fun. I met one of my "thenestbaby.com" message board friends, Amy, who lives in BG! What are the chances?? And she's due only a few weeks after me with a baby boy. So that was cool. She and I email back and forth all the time. We watched some videos on car seat safety and watched dummy babies get flung all over the place in car crashes. Fun, huh? Then, we went to the OB department and they showed us how to bath a baby girl. All it did was make both Greg and I want this baby "on the outside" more! I cannot wait to hold this little one in my arms (and maybe sleep comfortably for at least an hour or two before he wakes me to be changed or to eat).

Friday was another nice, quiet night. Saturday, we started early by doing lots of errands. Greg went one way, and I went the other. By 10:30, we were ready to head to Findlay for Evan's soccer debut. HE ROCKS. We all think he's even more of a natural at soccer than he is at baseball. None of us have really practiced with him. I won't brag about him too much, but lets' just say that he scored 7 out of the 9 goals. Woo hoo! That afternoon, Steve Peterson (spetersonphotography.com), came over and took "practice" maternity shots (aka baby belly shots)!

Sunday was fun. Emily, with the help of Mom, Myra, and my other mom, Barb Peterson, threw me a nice baby shower. It was really nice. We had it at Emily's house. There were no games, much to the excitement of the guests. We just ate, visited, ate some more and then opened gifts. I recieved some WONDERFUL gifts from everyone, and we just had a really nice time in general. I missed having my other two sisters, Heidi and Lindsey, there, but I understand the circumstances, and love them dearly. They still helped out quite a bith with the shower, and I thank all of the wonderful women in my life who helped throw this shower, as well as those who attended.

Sunday afternoon, Greg and I nested. Dad came over to help G bring in the cradle, and of course, he wanted to see all the things that we recieved! Mom came over soon after we got started pulling everything out of the bags and putting things away. After Mom and Dad left, Greg and I sat down at the table, went through our registery and made a list of everything we still needed. Primary on the list was the breastpump, stroller and carseat, plus all of the obnoxious little things that really add up. We went through all of the coupons, gift cards, discounts, etc that we had been saving, figured out who had the best price on what, and hit Wal-Mart that night.

After our trip to Walmart, we started sorting clothes into sizes (Would you believe that 90% of the clothes were 3-6 mo??) and started figuring where what went.

Yesterday, we went to Babies'r'us and bought EVERYTHING else that was left that we felt we still really needed (pump, stroller/carseat) and the rest of the little stuff. Yeah. That was an expensive trip. Greg put together the stroller last night. =-) It's sitting in our kitchen. hmmm.

This week is already half over. I can't beleive it. I went to the hospital and visited with the lactation nurse after work. Despite my scaring, I'll still be able to breastfeed. I'm so happy and relieved. Its something that I truely feel is important, and really wanted to be able to give this as a gift to baby.

Anyway! The next couple of weeks are going to fly by!

love you all!

jenn