single digits and his name

The countdown to baby t's arrival is in the single digits...less than 9 weeks left until we get to meet him!  I figure it is about time to officially announce his name so I can stop referring to him as 'baby t'.  Baby t is going to be Noah Benjamin Thompson.  If we were having a girl, then I think choosing a name would have been significantly harder, but there were honestly very few names that both Ben and I liked.  Noah has always been one of our favorites, so it was pretty easy to decide after the doctor confirmed he was a he.  For his middle name, we wanted a family name and loved the idea of naming him after his dad (and his great grandfather we discovered).  Now the issue is that if we ever have another boy, then I have no idea what we'll call him...hopefully we'll have a girl (fingers crossed so I can buy dresses and bows!).

Noah is now about the size of a pineapple (or 4 naval oranges).  All 5 of his senses are fully developed, and he is supposedly developing sleep patterns, but I haven't really noticed that.  He does seem to be most active at night, but that could just be because I am laying down.  I am still feeling great and have no real complaints.  Sleeping is getting less and less comfortable, and I imagine it will get worse as I get bigger.  Ben and George are suffering too since I'm constantly getting up at night and shifting around in the bed (sorry boys!).

Noah and I have had a pretty fun past week.  I was up in RTP for work last Sunday through Thursday, so I got to see my family and a few friends.  It would have been nice to have seen more friends but work was really busy.  When I came home Thursday night, my mom followed me and stayed for the weekend for my first baby shower.  My amazing friends, Michelle, Jenny, Jess and Deanna threw me a wonderful shower on Saturday, and Noah got so many nice gifts.  It was a little overwhelming to get everything home and figure out where to put it all.  The nesting bug has definitely started to hit because all I want to do now is clean out our closests and put things away.  Ben tries to humor me as much as possible and has promised to help soon...

Here are some pictures from the shower.  I swear it could be in a magazine!

Our good friends Amir and Sharleen had their baby girl, Zara, on Sunday, so Noah has a playmate to meet in a few weeks.  We haven't meet Zara yet, but we hope to soon once they are home from the hospital and settled in.

And since you are all dying for more pictures of my two fur babies, here they are relaxing this past weekend with their dad.  Nibby pretty much lives on this part of the couch when we watch TV and George needs to be next to Ben at all times.  This means Noah and I have the rest of the couch to ourselves.

happy fall

I can't pinpoint exactly why I love fall so much, but it is without a doubt my favorite time of year.  I think it has something to do with the smell, the leaves changing, the food (pumpkin everything), football season and just the fact that we're getting close to Thanksgiving and Christmas.  It also doesn't hurt that I met Ben in the fall of 2001 (yes that was 11 years ago and that makes me feel old), and it reminds me of football season in college, which was pretty much non-stop fun.  I am also getting more and more excited about meeting baby t, and I can't believe he'll be here in a little over two months.

Speaking of baby t, he is now the size of a head of cabbage and weights a little over 3lbs.  As he has gotten bigger, he has definitely become even more active, and some of his rolls and kicks kind of hurt, so I am fearful of what it will feel like when he is twice this size.  It never gets old to feel him move around though, and Ben has a lot of fun poking him so he can feel him kick back. 

Baby t also got to add another trip to his list making him an even more well traveled baby.  The three of us had a fun weekend away in Helen, GA last weekend for my friend Sayako's surprise 30th birthday party (as well as Oktoberfest).  For those of you who don't know, Helen is a small German town about an hour and a half north of Atlanta.  Despite the facts that it was my first (and hopefully last) sober Oktoberfest and I am down one iphone, it was a lot of fun.  Sayako was definitely surprised and we had a great time celebrating with everyone.

This past weekend we stayed in Atlanta and got to spend some QT together, which included eating really good food (steaks for date night and little bangkok with Michelle and Jordan), watching football (good day for State but not so good for UNC), adding to the nursery (we're plus one book shelf and gilder, but the ottoman is still MIA...it was allegedly delivered to the wrong store but should be here 'sometime before the baby') and catching up with our neighbors.  I also decided to take up swimming in case running gets too hard as I get bigger and bigger, and I found out that I really like it!  I have been doing a water aerobics class (for pregnant people) for the past few weeks, and it inspired me to swim laps on Saturday while Ben was playing basketball.  My goal is to try to alternate swimming and running to mix things up for the next few weeks, so we'll see how that goes. 

Lastly, we all know this post wouldn't be complete without an update on George and Nibby.  They have been warming up to the nursery and checking out all the new items.  The Nibby is especially interested in his distant cousin, the tiger, as you can see by the investigation happening below.  George seems to also be the most interested in the tiger and has his eye on the stuffed Cat in the Hat that Ben's parents brought down a few weeks ago - I have a feeling that the Cat in the Hat may not still be with us when baby t arrives, but we'll see.

third trimester!

I've just started my 3rd trimester and have officially moved to having OB visits every other week.  I also passed my gestational diabetes test last week, so no carb cutting for me (!), which would be torture since I've been eating 2-3 bowls of cereal a day (no judging please, I learned it from Ben). 

Now that I'm in my 28th week, baby t is over 2lbs and the size of a roast (not sure what kind of roast, but I guess you get the idea) or eggplant, depending on who you ask.  He has started to open and close his eyes and is sucking his thumb.  He also gets hiccups from time to time, which feels odd and cute all at the same time.  Apparently baby t has GIANT feet as you can see from the 26 week u/s picture below.  He's too big to get all in one shot, so the tech got his enormous foot.

While looking at my calendar yesterday, I realized that Christmas is only 11 weeks away (yay!) and I only have 8 weeks left of work (double yay!).  My plan is to take off the 3 weeks before his due date so I can use all of my vacation before starting maternity leave.  I will also take all 12 weeks of maternity leave, so I'm looking at almost 4 months away from work, which sounds like heaven.  Now, don't get me wrong, I like my job more than most people, but who doesn't love a break?  I am imagining those 3 weeks in December before he arrives to involve a lot of the following:

1. Christmas Decorating
2. Christmas Shopping
3. Daytime TV (GMA, Ellen, HGTV, FoodNetwork, etc.)
4. Other TV (knowing that most of my usual shows might take breaks in December, I am planning to catch up on old seasons of shows people keep suggesting, including Downton Abby, Girls, Dexter, Homeland, etc. Please feel free to suggest your favs!)
5. Reading 'good' books and a few tween novels that most likely involve vampires or other supernatural creatures (please feel free to suggest books as well)
6. Baking and Eating - I figure by December I'll be past the point of trying to look cute, so I'll bake recipes I find on pinterest, like salted caramel cookie bars and pumpkin cream chesses muffins and eat them. 
7. Sleeping (if I can get comfortable)
8. Playing with Ben, George and Nibby

In addition to daydream about my upcoming vacation, I recently had a mini panic attack about the nursery not being ready, so Ben and I have made a good amount of progress, which included welcoming the new additions pictured below into our family.  We will share final nursery pics once everything is ready, but based on these pics it is no secret that we have an animal/jungle theme going on (it all started with elephants and we've expanded to include a few other animals as well).

Can you tell which animal is real?

George has not welcomed the new recruits with open arms.  In fact, we have videos to prove it - he spent the first hour they were home alternatively barking at them and sniffing them to confirm their identities.

One not-so-successful venture we've had is assembling baby t's crib.  Ben picked it up a few weekends ago only to find that a part was missing.  The company then shipped us the 'missing part', which turned out to be a duplicate of a part we already have.  Last Friday we finally got the piece we need, so this weekend we were able to put it together along with the changing table.  We got a fully assembled dresser (I figure Ben needed a break) a few weeks ago, so now we're just waiting on the bookcase and glider.  Our other big ongoing task is picking fabric for the curtains, and after 4 trips to the nearby fabric stores, we've narrows it down from 20+ fabrics to 2.  Hopefully we can make a decision this week so they'll be ready sometime before Thanksgiving...

Aside from prepping the nursery, I had a fun weekend away a few weekends ago in Charleston for my friend Eve's bachelorette party.  We were lucky enough to get 2 gorgeous days, so we had a lot of pool time at our rental house.  We also ate at an amazing restaurant, Cypress, that I recommend to anyone visiting Charleston.  Sadly I will not be able to make Eve's wedding because it's 3 weeks before baby t's due date.  This is especially disappointing because it's at the Carolina Inn where Ben and I got married, and I was really looking forward to staying there again and having another reunion with everyone going. 

This past weekend, Ben and I were finally home together, so in addition to assembling furniture, we got to see a lot of our friends (thanks to the Kidds for feeding us and letting Ben take over your TV), meet Kyle and Julia's daughter Swift, attend an adorable 1 year old birthday party for Josh and Melissa's son Henry, watch NC State beat Florida and go to Taste of Atlanta.  Taste of Atlanta is a food and wine festival where restaurants from all over the city set up booths and offer small tastings from their menu.  Both this year and last year we got VIP tickets, which provided access to the wine and beer tent that offered as much free wine and beer tastings as you can handle.  Sadly, I think that was somewhat of a waste on me because last year I tasted 20+ wines, and this year I tasted a whopping 0 (after the stares I got from carrying an empty, unused glass, I can't imagine the stares I'd have gotten with a full glass).  Next year we'll bring baby t and make up for it.

In other news, our friends Ben and Kelley had their baby girl last Saturday, and Cam and Leni's little girl Annabelle came home from the NICU last Tuesday and is doing great.  Baby t can't wait to meet them both next year.

Oh and I FINALLY got around to making Ben take a real picture of me so you can see how big I've gotten.  This was right at 28 weeks (and yes, I did get a haircut for those of you who've seen me recently, it was a long time coming).