4 year Wedding Anniversary

As much as I can't wait to go into labor and meet this little guy, i am so happy he didn't come on our anniversary! I love having a whole day just to ourselves to remember our beautiful wedding and how lucky we are in our marriage; I would really have been disappointed if that day had to be replaced by a birthday party every year -just being honest ;-)

Our anniversary was awesome this year! We kicked the day off by sleeping in as late as we felt like and letting our bodies wake us up, not our iphones. Then, while still laying in bed, Aaron pulled my present out of his nightstand, a super gorgeous necklace that I had been looking at online weeks ago.

Then we took our time getting out of bed, and made a delicious pancake breakfast; complete with my very first time at making home-made iced coffee. Why haven't I been doing this all my life?!

Luckily, God blessed our anniversary with AMAZING weather, mid 80's with not one single cloud in the sky; so Aaron and I decided to take advantage and get a head-start on our 2014 suntans by hitting the pool. I was extremely hesitant to pull out one of my bikinis since they have not seen the light of day since my first trimester, and I really am not a fan of girls flaunting their bare pregnant bellies in public. But Aaron assured me that we would probably be the only people at the pool and I had no reason to be embarrassed, that I looked adorable - I'm sure he chuckled silently to himself as he turned around and left the bedroom.

 

Luckily he was right, we were the only people there. And the sun felt amazing. 

 

 I couldn't believe the profile of my shadow! Was NOT expecting that when I looked down.

 

After showers and rest at home, we went down to Tampa to the mall for some shopping. I am way too close to the end of my pregnancy to waste any money on maternity clothes, but I also didn't want to buy any skinny clothes because God knows how long it will be before I can wear them. Aaron didn't want anything for himself either, so by process of elimination we ended up in babyGap! I am in love with their Paddington Bear collection, not to mention the idea of matching the baby with Aaron in a white button up and khakis. Swoon <3

After that, it was a short walk over to the Cheesecake Factory for a romantic dinner-for-two and a couple slices of cheesecake to-go. We got home just in time to lay on the couch, watch a movie and force-feed ourselves some cheesecake.

 

Overall an amazing anniversary. Next year something a little more adventurous might be fun - hopefully involving a plane or boat ride somewhere - but for being 9 months pregnant I think we did pretty well. All day I kept having people tell me "enjoy your alone time because you won't be able to do this once the baby comes!".... but something tells me we have more than enough local babysitters who are willing to hang out with this kid for a few hours while mommy and daddy visit the cheesecake factory =) 

Almost forgot - we got a super adorable text message from our smallest nephew that just made my day.

Nursery Tour!

So excited we finally have baby's nursery done! The only thing stopping me these past few weeks from taking pictures before now was finding time to iron the crib skirt. I told you my OCD was bad =)

I love love love these bookshelves because they display the books sideways and you can see all of the covers,, not sure why that makes me so excited.

And the basket is from Target and has a little chalk board on the side with baby's name written on it. Little touches like that make me beyond happy. (Looks like one of the dogs brushed up against the chalkboard and wiped out baby's name,,, jealousy?)

Me choosing which maternity pictures to put in these frames turned out to be beyond my capabilities for this pregnancy, so I appealed to a higher court; aka Aaron looked at them for 5 seconds and made the  final decision lol.



I'd say he did a pretty good job =)

These storage bins are from Ikea and they make the whole room smell like hay, so now that's the scent that I associate with my baby -lol.

And then there's the birch tree decals that Aaron and his dad spent 372 hours putting up. Totally worth it in my opinion ;-)

So all we need now is a little Boyer to put in here. I am officially 37 weeks pregnant, that's full term! Baby could come at any time. Which is fine because Aaron made it home from his work trip and now I can stop holding my breath. We are officially ready for this baby =)



Happy Valentine's Day!

Even though Aaron is away on a work trip, it is still Valentine's Day at the Boyer house! Aaron called super early in the morning and woke me up to say 'happy valentine's day', just so he could say that he said it first - because nothings more romantic than a little competition, right? Well being home alone without my valentine did NOT stop me from donning some festive attire, painting my nails pink, lighting a red-velvet-cupcake candle and decorating the house with hearts. Flying solo on Valentine's day is NO excuse to be a scrooge ;-)

There is actually a story behind all of those Vday cards. I bought one for each day that Aaron is gone on his trip, and the plan was to wake up early before he left town and sneak them into his suitcase. However, being the incredibly pregnant person that I am lately, I completely underestimated how difficult it would be to wake up at 4am, and therefore missed my window of opportunity before he left. Too bad so sad, right? Wrong. Every day Aaron has received a text message with a picture of one of the cards on his phone. Where there's a will there's a way <3

And as hard as he tried, Mr Boyer was unable to leave town without at least ONE Valentine-themed breakfast =)

Now if I wasn't so lazy pregnant, I would have signed up to work an extra-shift today instead of being home alone on Valentine's day, but those 12 hour shifts have really been kicking my butt lately. So instead I bribed invited over Aaron's mom and sister for some lunch and baby-prepping! We had an afternoon filled with Panera Bread takeout, banana smoothies and heart-shaped cookies =)

After lunch, Cindy and Nora generously offered to put together my playpen, bassinet and baby swing, which have been sitting by the front door in their cardboard boxes patiently waiting for someone to get off their ass and assemble them. I like to consider this my Valentine's gift to Aaron - not having to do it himself when he gets home <3

And can I just mention how completely obsessed I am with this swing?! The MomaRoo swing caught my eye on the target website because it looks like something off of the Jetsons and it is the bomb.com. Even Aaron was impressed when I showed him the tutorial video -strategically shown to him BEFORE the price tag ;-)

So even though my husband and my entire family are all out of state right now (my parents are visiting one of my brothers in North Carolina), my in-laws kept me company just fine and we were able to get the final baby-prepping steps completed. Now I have the rest of the evening to relax, take a nap, and spend some quality time with the little valentine in my belly <3

36 weeks!

How far along? 36 weeks
Total weight gain: 32lbs

Maternity clothes? Pretty much living in maternity leggings and stretchy tops. Except when I have to work,, I am really testing the seams on my scrubs.

Stretch marks? Nope! Still going strong.
Sleep: Still waking up every 3 hours to pee/change positions. Aaron says its my body getting ready to wake up with baby <3
Best moment this week: Seeing the Midwife with Aaron and hearing that baby is in position and ready to go!
Movement: All the time. But it's obvious he is running out of room in there.

Food cravings: After having absolutely no fast food for months, I all of a sudden was in the mood for a cheeseburger and milkshake. It lasted all of 20 minutes inside my stomach before I ran to the bathroom to puke =/
Anything making you queasy or sick: Cheeseburgers and milkshakes lol.
Labor Signs: Braxton Hicks all the time. Some are getting a little painful.
Belly Button in or out? Depending on whether I have a full stomach, it changes from flat to a little bit out.
Wedding rings on or off? On.
Happy or Moody most of the time: Sad right now because Aaron is out of town for work, but happy knowing that once he's back it's baby time!
Weekly Wisdom: Ignore sudden cravings and say no to cheeseburgers and milkshakes.

Maternity Photos

So excited our maternity pictures are ready! Thanks to the super awesomely talented Lindy House Photography our pictures turned out even more amazing than I imagined. Pinterest can suck it =) Aaron was super compliant the whole time once we made it clear in the beginning of the shoot that he absolutely did NOT want to have to kneel down and kiss my belly, nor pose next to my naked stomach. He eventually got comfortable and I know he totally loved the spotlight of posing for a camera when he whispered to me that he felt like a Kardashian, lol.

Here's a few of my top picks.

 

And my favorite one.....

 

 

I have five empty picture frames in the nursery and will probably spend the rest of my pregnancy trying to decide which pictures to put in them. I have commitment issues.

 

 

Still on the list of things to do:

- purchase remaining items on registry

- pack hospital bag

- finish washing and folding all 72 loads of baby laundry

- put finishing touches on nursery

- get hospital paperwork filled out (makes for a quick registration when the time comes)

- plan something special for valentine's day and our anniversary this month (our last ones without a baby!)

- remember to savor each remaining moment of this pregnancy, because it is ridiculous how fast it is coming to an end.



 

Baby Shower

72 loads of laundry later, we just about have all the clothes/blankets/socks/hats that I received at my shower folded and put away. Holy baby supplies, talk about overwhelming. My baby shower was absolutely amazing, aside from the small  hiccup of the snooty country club not allowing anyone to wear denim and asking people to go home and change their clothes, or just not allowing them through the door at all. Still makes me sick to my stomach to think about. But would it really be a family-function/big-life-event if I didn't spend at least 30min-1hour of it in tears? Probably not. All I've been hearing for the last 24 hours is how I'm going to look back and laugh about this one day..... yeah, we'll see.

Unfortunately, watching some of my guests have to leave my shower to change their clothes posed as a slight distraction to me, therefore I didn't really get to enjoy the mingling or picture-taking that normally takes place during the first hour of a baby-shower. But my mother worked wayyyy too hard putting the shower together for me to waste the entire day pouting, so I was eventually able to pull it together in time to join the rest of my guests in stuffing my face with delicious brunch and non-alcoholic mimosas (aka orange juice). On the menu was fruit, eggs benedict, crepes, bacon, sausage, caprese salad, green salad, pasta salad and carved sirloin =)

There were also some games to be played, like guessing how many marshmallows were crammed into a giant baby bottle (942), and guessing how many hundreds of yards of yarn it took to wrap around my giant belly. Then there was the pins-in-rice game where four of my guests (Paulina, Alise, Kim and Madison) were blindfolded and given one minute to pull out as many safety pins as they could find from a giant jar of rice. And of course there was the hilarious bottle-chugging contest; a special thanks to my guests for being so cooperative with this one (Raquel, Stephanie, Suzanne, Nora and Aaron). Aaron wasn't supposed to arrive this early into the shower, but when someone called him and told him how upset I was in the beginning, my prince-charming came right away <3

GAME WINNERS

Marshmallow guessing - Brenda
Belly-size guess - Kim
Pins-in-rice - Alise
Bottle-chugging - Nora

Prizes included a starbucks tumbler with a gift card, Godiva chocolate, body soap and lotion and a Bath&BodyWorks Candle with metal stand.

Then there was the dessert table. Thank God I already passed my glucose-tolerance test earlier in the pregnancy, because I would probably get a giant 'F' if I took it today. If this baby comes out weighing anything north of 8 pounds, we can blame this dessert table. I had asked Aaron's mom to bake a cake for me, so of course she showed up with 3 cakes, plus a million cupcakes; in addition to the cupcakes that my own mom brought, plus the custom cookies, chocolate covered strawberries, cake-pops (courtesy of my friend Katie), and jars and jars of blue candy.

Then to finish off the afternoon, Aaron and I threw ourselves into the Mount Everest of presents that all of our guests brought. We will officially have the best-dressed newborn in the state of Florida thanks to all the adorable clothes we got, and our baby will for sure be turning heads in his new whip - the BabyTrend Expedition Jogger stroller.

 

A Special thanks to my bff Alyson for organizing all of the games, curling my hair and helping me keep my shit together when  I was a blubbering mess. Love you <3

Also thank you to my mother-in-law Cindy for the delicious desserts. I got so many compliments from guests about how good everything tasted and by the end of the shower not one single dessert was thrown out.

And last but not least, thank you to my mom, Debbie. This shower wouldn't have happened without you. I recognize how much time, effort and money you put into this, and even though we had to deal with some drama in the beginning the rest of the day turned out fabulous. There were so many little touches you put into it that made is so special, and I will remember every single one of them.