Drew Vincent Kelley!

Vote for Drew!

Our nephew Drew is in the Rochester Post Bulletin's cutest baby contest - the winner gets a $500 savings bond...gotta start planning for college!!! Drew is also Aaron and my Godson, we love this kid sooo much!

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For those of you who are near or far but do not know of anyone else in the contest, would you vote for Drew? PLEASE!! He's pretty dang cute - he'll be 1 years old on March 29th!

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All you have to do is go to www.postbulletin.com/baby & he is #394. You just enter in your email address and his number :) Voting ends Wednesday, March 4.

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THANKS FOR YOUR HELP!!!

Lil Poppy's Bedroom

Make note - I have posted some basement pics in another post right below this one, so check them out. Aaron has worked hard on that!

A couple people have asked me what Lil Poppy's nursery is going to look like, so I thought I'd finally take the time to post on it. In a nutshell, the color theme is teal, with everything else very neutral. Off white curtains, a very dark wood (espresso) for the crib/dresser...and basically any shade of browns that vary from off white to chocolate brown are going to be in the room.

The only really obvious thing that is going to be teal are the walls...which will consume the room, which is why I decided that everything else would stay very neutral. The closest color description I have for the wall color is the color of a 'Tiffany & Co.' box...most of us ladies know all about those lovely blue boxes!!!

One of my closest friend's mom (Brandi & her mom Brenda) has offered to make a quilt for the baby, and I am SOOO excited about it!!!! I went with the two of them one day to pick out fabric, I have pictures below. She is also going to make a bumper for the crib out of one of the fabrics in the quilt. She was going to make me sheets for the crib and a cover for the changing table mattress also, but I found neutral sheets for both when I registered for upcoming showers, so I told her she didn't have to worry about that.

The 'theme' of the room is stars - not your typical yellow stars, but stars within the color scheme mentioned above. I am getting a saying to put on the wall that will say "Watch for Falling Stars" in a chocolate brown color and will have stars in the room (which I'll show with the pictures below!).

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I definitely can't wait to get everything together - but that is going to be an early/mid April project, once we can move the stuff out of the spare bedroom downstairs and start putting up Lil Poppy's bedroom. Can't wait!!!

The fabric for the quilt! I'm so excited about these...

This is the color of the walls, but I think the flash makes it look a little lighter than it is. I purchased this basket to put things in next to the changing area...and then I matched the paint to this basket :)

I have a few stars like this in different sizes, they will go around the saying that I am putting on the wall...

My inspiration for the room. I saw this pillow @ a clearance sale that my friend Amy was working at for a decor company that is basically a catalogue company (I am bad, forgot the name)....anyway, I saw this and loved it! Amy got me 2 of these pillows with a BIG discount. THANKS AMES!!!!

The Basement

Aaron has been working SO hard on the basement...most nights when he comes home from work, after eating, he's down working. The weekends have definitely been consumed w/ the basement for the most part. Once it is all said and done, we will have 2 more bedrooms, another full bathroom, a family room and an office. Our plan is to get done with everything up to carpet and then we will do that when we have the time/money after the baby comes.

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We want to have the bedrooms liveable & the bathroom functionable so we can happily have guests after our current spare bedroom becomes Lil P's bedroom. With Aaron's family being all traveling distance, this is one thing we definitely wanted to do and planned on doing as soon as we decided to have kids. So family & friends from afar - COME ON OVER!!! We'd love to have you :)

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I am so happy that Aaron has such a great talent of carpentry, it sure does save us money by doing stuff on our own. Obviously that means it is more time consuming, but that's okay. He's worked really hard and does a good job at it...he takes a lot of pride in his work, which he should!

Here's some pictures of where we are at so far:

My hubby the carpenter :)

Electrical work...fun stuff!

This will be the office, it is going to have a 1/2 wall with stone and pillars separating it from our family room...

The office w/ drywall :)

One of the bedrooms

Same bedroom with drywall...

Bathroom...it is going to have tile on the floor and the "walls" of the shower/tub area

Bathroom drywalled...

This is part of the family room...it is actually going to be a built in ledge/shelveing area for the TV and anything else. Check out Aaron's pride and joy - the Beer Drinking Trophy from a softball tournament. He claims this is going to be part of the decor once the basement is finished...umm, we'll see about that!!! In the meantime, it is there!

dOUbLe diGiTs!

99 days & counting :) Yesterday Aaron emailed me @ work and told me that there was 100 days to go until Lil' Poppy's due date :) Yeah yeah, sounds like a long time, but we decided to "celebrate" anyway! We went out to dinner @ Timberlodge.

Only 100 days to go!!!

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I don't think my tummy liked my meal, because if you notice what time I'm posting this...I should be in bed! I woke up with a really aching stomach about an hour ago, and am just trying to stay out of the room to keep Aaron from waking so I figured I'd post this. Aaron was EXHAUSTED from the long weekend of dry-walling. He decided that it was time to watch TV from bed as soon as we got home from dinner...that was at 7:15ish. We may as well take advantage of that now, since Little Poppy is NOT going to let us be watching TV in bed at that time at all in the near future!!

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Big Belly :) The other day our 3-year old niece Brooklynn looked up @ me with the most adorable face & said "you've gotta big belly"! She knows a baby is in there because her mom & my other sis have had babies w/in the last year. But it must have been on her mind for a while because when she first arrived at our house, she asked me if I had a baby in there...and then later followed up her curious mind with that comment. I didn't mind her comment at all, she's just too cute - it made me laugh!!

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Brooklynn Hope - look at that face...such a cutie!

F-I-N-A-L-L-Y!!!!!

As of 2:30 today we have FINALLY found our daycare provider! I feel so stress free right now, you have NOOOO idea! Sooo...after scheduling 8 meetings total, and only actually attending 3 of them, I am DONE!

It has been such an interesting journey for us. We actually got stood up again this week! Seriously :) Aaron's been super busy working on the basement so I told him that I'd go to the interview on my own this past Wednesday, and if I really liked her, than we could set up a time for them to meet...well I drive up to the house and it was the exact same situation as the last time - pitch black house...no one answering...etc. I was like you've got to be KIDDING me! After calling Aaron and leaving a message, I called my sister Shannon and VENTED. There may have been a few nasty words flying out of my mouth because I was so frustrated. After being stood up twice, having 3 others cancel on us, I just was done keeping my cool!

Anyway, it's done! I'm very happy with who we found. Her name is Jessica & I could just tell as we were talking and going through everything that this was the place for Lil P! Aaron felt the same way! I wasn't sure if he did so I told her that we'd talk about it over the weekend and I would be in touch on Monday...but then Aaron sorta looked at me and smiled & said that we can do that, but he pretty much knows how the conversation will go. So right then and there, we told her that we wanted to go with her. Weight is lifted off my shoulders!

So - our Friday the 13th was not so jinxed, but everything leading up to it, daycare wise, was REALLY jinxed. THANK GOODNESS THAT'S DONE!

Aaron has been SO busy working on the basement. After a few late nights this week, Aaron got the plumbing, heating, electrical & framing inspections all passed this week and we have a crew over here tomorrow to sheet rock. My dad, Chad (bro-in-law), Paul (Aaron's step-dad) & a guy that Aaron works with. I just finished making their lunch for tomorrow and have confirmed with Aaron that we have enough beer for the crew! I know that beer will be essential to pay them back for the help they are giving us this weekend!

I'll have to take some pictures of the basement for you all to see :)

Happy Friday the 13th & Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Then & Now...

All right folks! THE BUMP!!

Then: 11 weeks

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Now: 24 weeks

Wow! I didn't realize that I was showing in my face until that picture. I purposely put on the same outfit tonight as I did for my first bump pic. The sweater and pants are maternity clothes, but I don't think I'll be able to wear the sweater through the entire pregnancy, it's barely making it around my bump now and I'm not done growing!! Do you think it'll stretch? Ha ha!

And...just because newborns are just so cute -n- cuddly and I just love holding them - here's a picture of me and Hunter at our niece Brooklynn's birthday party a few weeks back. I think he was just a few days over a week old here :) I miss him 'cause I haven't seen him since then!

24 Week Update :)

Well, tomorrow marks 24 weeks. Some days I think it is going fast and other days I think..."only 24 weeks"...

Sorry - was hoping to post a belly picture tonight, but it seems that'll have to wait. Hopefully I can get that taken tomorrow night and post it!!

I had an appointment today, and everything went well! My doctor measured my belly, and right now I am right on for the size of my belly for 24 weeks. Also today in the appt., I finally got to hear the baby's heart beat! She said that the heart beat was varying between 150-160 beats per minute. When she actually showed me the Doppler, it was 153 beats/minute. So, as far as any of the myths on heart rate go...I don't really fall into the low or high category! Supposedly, if the baby's heart rate is fast - it's a girl.

A friend of mine at work found a website that you could answer certain questions in regards to your pregnancy, and depending on how you answer, it will tell you if you are having a boy or a girl. When she did it for me based on what she knew about my pregnancy, the results came out 50% chance girl, 50% chance boy. When I went and did it answering a few more questions, the results came out 60% chance girl, 40% chance boy...so - WHO KNOWS!

I have started to feel Little Poppy moving more and more, and I LOVE it! It is the best natural high ever. I have even been able to see my tummy move a few times when I happen to be staring at it when the baby moves. Definitely not anything that is obvious to others...Aaron hasn't been able to see it yet. Yesterday I was in a meeting at work and happened to see my tummy quickly move and had to hide a smile :)

The daycare issues haven't gotten any better yet. So far we were supposed to have 5 appointments with different daycare providers - and only 1...yep ONE has actually occurred. As I mentioned on an earlier post, the first one forgot about our appointment...I've had 2 cancel because their positions have become filled and we were supposed to have another appointment tomorrow night, but it turns out her and her husband are sick, so they are rescheduling. Ugh! The one person that we did meet with was very nice, but I definitely am not ready to say "she's the one" - so, the saga continues!

We continue to be busy working on finishing our basement - Aaron's definitely stressed about that! He keeps being reminded of different things that need to get taken care of before he can start sheetrocking. Always something...

So, that about sums up everything for today :)