Third trimester!!!

WOW! This weekend we began the 3rd trimester!!

On Saturday, I was officially 28 weeks (7 months) pregnant. We're coming down the home stretch, with 12 weeks left to go :) I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. It kind of makes me anxious knowing that there are still a million things to do to get ready for her to arrive. Where has the time gone?? And even though we're excited for our tadpole to arrive, I know that I'm still at the point of "let's keep her in there as long as possible" - both for her sake and mine. But the good thing is that, after 28 weeks, if she did decide to make her debut sooner than later, she's pretty well developed and ready to survive on her own (with a little assistance from the hospital). So, that makes me breathe a little easier. She still has a good bit of growing to do, so we'll just let her hang out in there as long as she wants :)

It seems as if this year is a baby boom for alot of my friends. Between March and December, 10 friends/coworkers of mine have been due/will be due with new babies! All along I've been thinking "We've got time, we're due way after so-and-so is due." But 4 have delivered, one is delivering tomorrow, and then there are 3 more to go before me (2 in Sept, 1 in Oct). At least we will have plenty of playmates for our tadpole!

Overall, it's been a pretty busy weekend for us. We had a wonderful lunch out with friends on Saturday, then took a shopping trip to Golf Galaxy for Matt, and to Babies R Us for me ;) Thankfully, we decided on a crib and dresser set, and will be ordering it this week! Phew - the baby will have a bed! We then spent the evening at home hanging out playing Wii bowling and tennis :) Today we went to church, bought the nursery paint at Lowes (it's Lavish Lavendar - I'm not making that up!) , and I went grocery shopping while Matt watched the NASCAR race. Oh, and we got snowballs too somewhere in the midst of it all :) A lime snowball on a hot day - perfect! And the tadpole agreed :) After dinner tonight, we had thought about doing a bit of priming/painting in the nursery, but I think chilling on the couch and an early bed time sounds like a better option :)

So, I tried playing a fun game with the tadpole this week that completely cracked me up! Mind you - it doesn't take much. Anyway, we played hide-and-seek, which means I was laying in bed and gently poking around my belly trying to feel her. I'm pretty sure I felt her head, and maybe an arm or leg or foot. And it was kind of cool, knowing that I was 'touching' our baby, with only an inch of skin between us. But as I poked (gently, that is), she started moving more, swirled around a bit, gave me some light pokes back here and there - it cracked me up. All of a sudden though I must have pushed her too far and one poke totally put her over the edge - she gave me her hardest kick yet! Okay - I get it - game over. It still cracked me up - she's a fiesty one! But I guess I would have done the same if someone was tormenting me :)

And I have a new picture to post! My belly has definitely grown in the past 5 weeks, though my pop-up timer (a.k.a. my belly button) still hasn't gone off yet :) I have started to notice though in the past week that I don't have a good sense of belly-awareness anymore. Sneaking through tight spots, and reaching across the grocery cart (things that were definitely possible before) are not quite as possible now. At least I haven't started the waddle yet... we'll give that another month or so :)

1. 28 weeks! (btw - thanks Laura (or Mary or Kristin) for the blouse - I love it!)

2. The view from up here - the toes are barely peaking out!