Our almost free staycation/baby moon

If anyone has ready pregnancy books/blogs you might have come across the term "babymoon" essentially its a vacation before the munchkin makes their debut... Last summer we house sat/dog sat for our friends down the street and they in turn gave us a night stay at the beautiful Grove Hotel in downtown! (We watched their dogs almost every other weekend all summer). It was super nice of them and we wanted to save our "night out" for sometime special so we put the gift certificate away and almost forgot about it. A few times we thought about calling in our reservation but we never did. Well when we came across it a few weeks ago we noticed that it expired in February! That is just right around the corner and the lil man will be here then too... so Aaron called in our reservation last minute and they had a room available! We packed our bags and headed out for a night on the town! (not surprisingly we forgot the camera at home- it is safely packed in the "hospital bag" so some of the images I stole from the Grove Hotel website) :)

This looks just like the room we stayed in... Our view was of the roof top and part of downtown :)

I have always loved the "river" they put on the front of the building- it is so beautiful , especially at night

Our night started off with a quick visit to the maternity ward to visit our friends and their new baby girl (she is baby four for them... the other three are boys). The nurses looked at us kinda funny as we came walking down the hall... we assured them that we were just visiting a friend but we would be back in a few weeks. We enjoyed holding the baby, visiting with our friends and getting the "scoop" on all the things we should know- like what not to order from food service, don't wait too long at home or you wont get to the hospital in time to get the drugs, what to expect during our stay and so on. After the hospital visit we were off to dinner at Red Lobster (So. Very. Yummy!! and FREE because we had a gift card from Christmas!) Then a little shopping at the mall (the "belly" is growing out of the shirts I have, I hate to spend money when I will only wear them for a few weeks but it was becoming a problem). After shopping we headed back to the hotel because this mommy was very sleepy. Aaron enjoyed the sauna and hot tub while I hung out pool side in my sweats playing on the ipad. We then headed back up to our room and crawled in bed (so exciting aren't we?) I was dozing in and out and flipping channels on the TV (way exciting for us because we don't have TV at our house). We came across an episode of Friends, some older movies, and the Saturday night British comedies- (I used to watch them with my dad) The Red Green Show was our favorite so I made Aaron watch part of it :) "the handy man's secret weapon... duct tape"

The next morning we ordered room service for breakfast, slept in a little, packed up our little suit case and headed to pick up Jack from my moms. When we got there mom's chocolate lab was sound asleep- she didn't even hear us come in! We went to Jacks crate and he was zonked out too! They must have stayed up late partying! (I later asked my mom about this because Jack came home and slept most of the day- apparently they all stayed up until about 1 am and she let Jack sleep in her bed! No wonder he was still tired!)

So that was our little stay-cation/baby moon. :) It is still hard to believe that in just a few short weeks our lives will be changed forever! We are so excited but it still isn't feeling "real" quite yet... I don't think it will truly sink in until we have been home from the hospital for a week. Oh- here is a belly shot from today (just about 37 weeks)...

Growing and growing!

Well apparently I really stink at keeping our blog updated! Somehow the last 10 weeks have flown by! We have been busy with work and Aaron finishing another semester at CWI (He did great this semester! Best grades he has ever had!) and of course we have been busy getting ready to add a little boy to our home.

A few weeks ago one of our friends came to visit from Pocatello and take some family/maternity photos. It was fun to have her stay with us and to see the pictures when she finished touching them up a bit. :)

We also had the lil' mans baby shower hosted by Aunt Lara. She did an excellent job planning some fun games (like guess the baby food- ick!) It was so fun to have people over and visit and of course eat yummy food! Since it is December we had a hot cocoa bar and muffins and fruit.



all of the fun gifts and swag from our very generous friends and family




Cleo checking out the fun toys after all the strangers left




My "halloween costume" for work- its a t-shirt that says "Pumpkin Smuggler" over my bump

 We are just about ready for the lil man to get here... I really can't complain too much about being pregnant. It is so fun to sit back and watch my belly wiggle and jiggle- especially when we are supposed to be paying attention at church :). I already feel like I know his little quirks and tricks- like if I sit at the table or desk too long he stretches out top to bottom pushing more room for himself. Whenever I start to worry about things it is like he knows and he will wiggle and I can't help but smile at our little miracle baby.

Thanks to my wonderful doctors and being super diligent in managing my diabetes he seems to be growing and progressing with out problems. A few weeks ago we had a little adventure and spent part of an evening in labor and delivery being monitored with contractions. After some medication and telling the lil man that he would get more birthday presents if he waited until February we were sent home. I have been taking it a little more easy and resting more and haven't had any problems since. However, I have seemed to develop a lovely pregnancy related rash called "PUPPPS" apparently about 1 in 500 pregnant women get to enjoy this, and you are more likely to develop the rash if it is your first pregnancy and if you are carrying a boy- that's me! So I pretty much have a super itchy rash all over my belly, legs and chest and the only thing that will make it go away is having the baby. To treat it I can take a small dose of benadryl (which is great at night to help me sleep- not so great during the day when I need to be awake), using lotion to keep my skin from drying out, and oatmeal baths (which are quite an adventure at this stage of pregnancy and really haven't helped too much). So we are getting even a little more antsy for this guy to pick his birthday. :) I have a feeling I will actually sleep more after he is born... is that possible? Just a few more weeks and then our lives will be changed forever!

P.S. Somehow I have also neglected taking pictures the past few weeks... so I will work on catching those up soon too! :)