33 weeks... 7 to go

I have a few minutes to come up for air from work, so I figured I would do a post. Life is SO busy lately! Part of me wants to hurry and get to December so this can all be "over" and the other half wants to scream "I NEED MORE TIME!!!"


Work is insane. We're going full speed ahead in Bon Jovi land. We announced our 2011 tour dates on Wednesday (which meant I was up by 2:30AM to assist with the European announcement... and I was back up at 6 when we announced North America). Today our Greatest Hits album had it's first release (Germany) and we have 5 more release dates to go. Then there's all of the events, concerts, pre-sales, promotions, contests, TV appearances and award shows between now and the end of November. It's a wild, crazy profession but it's so rewarding and I love it! Even if I am exhausted and running on caffeine and Butterfinger bars.


Steven's been really busy himself. He has several major design projects at work and last night (I really need to brag about this one) he found out he's been hired to produce a full length album of Flaming Lips songs as lullabies. He's been working on getting this gig for several months... turning in sample demos and corresponding with the label that puts out these very fun and exciting rock albums for babies. I'm looking forward to putting Peanut to sleep to some of his daddy's lullabies. He has already made some amazing lullabies of my favorite Hanson and Muse songs so these new tracks will add to Peanut's Sleepy Time Playlist. Congratulations babe, I am so proud of you!


I promised pictures from my baby shower here in Nashville, so here they are!


On October 9th my sister, Lindsey, and Steven's cousin, Jessica, hosted a baby shower for me at Steven's parents house. It was a really beautiful day and as I thanked the room of women for coming I almost choked up from being so grateful they are each in my life.

Kristin, Jamie and 'Little" Shay- friends from Belmont!

Me and Sarah, both 30 weeks pregnant!

The hostesses and me: Jessica, Me, Lindsey

Peanut's great-grandmothers! Mama Joyce and Nana

Peanut's cousins: Jessica, Leslie (who is due in February with Peanut's newest cousin) holding Kennedy, and Brooke

From left: Andrea, me, Jenn

From left: Steven's Great-Aunt Joyce, my sister Lindsey, Liz, Brooke, and Joy

Me with the little booties Aunt Joyce made for Peanut. He's going to be so cute in these!

Me and Brooke, Nashville's best kept jazz singing secret!

Looking around a room filled with my family, Steven's family, industry friends, college friends, new friends, music friends..... I felt so loved. I am so thankful that our son gets to grow up with all of these amazing women in his life!


Last week Steven and I began our "Baby Classes." We have taken an Infant Care class, a Breastfeeding class and the first of 6 Childbirth classes. We also have the "Vanderbilt New Beginnings" class in November, which tells us what to expect when we are at the hospital and gives us a tour of the floor we'll be on. Yes we are indeed learning a lot, as there is a lot to learn.


Also last week Peanut's nursery furniture came in. Steven successfully assembled the crib and rocking chair. On Wednesday of this week he set out to conquer the dresser/changing table. He got all of the pieces out of the box then realized they sent us the wrong one!!! What a pain. I'm really looking forward to getting the room completely set up and putting all of Peanut's tiny clothes away in drawers (right now they are stuffed in a Rubbermaid container... you've never seen so many clothes!) The dining room will continue to look like a war zone until we get that room organized... bleh. Until then here are some cute pics of the process so far:

Steven assembling the crib

Deep in thought...

All done! He did a great job!

Crash's baby doll is modeling how the crib will look with a baby in it!

I'll end the post with one last picture. This is my dad and me at Babies R Us when we bought Peanut's (or "Ex Mo" as Dad calls him) motorcycle jacket!

Note to self: horizontal stripes and pregnancy don't work well together

Photo-Rama!

Sorry for the delay in posts! I have been putting off the next post until I could get all of the pictures from the past two weekends. I want to put photos from my Nashville baby shower and family visits all together in one post. In the meantime, here are some photos of what we've been doing lately.

Steven and I found this little motorcycle jacket several months ago while shopping. At the time the store only had ones for 3 year olds. While shopping with my dad this weekend we found out they come in infant sizes! We bought one sized 12 months, so be prepared to see little Peanut rocking this amazing jacket next Winter! I mean, really- is there anything cuter than this?! He'll look just like Daddy. It will be a LONG time before I let him get near Steven's motorcycle though!

This is the swing that Grandmommy and Papa B (Steven's parents) gave to Peanut. Precious!

On Sunday after my dad and Cammie hit the road we went to Lowe's. Here's what our cart looked like. Can you guess what we planned to do?!

Here is the room before ("The Guest Room")

Last night Steven set to work transforming the green walls into baby blue!

We still need to do some touch ups and the trim, but here's how the room looked this morning. I love how the color turned out! It matches the crib bedding we picked out. Soon "The Guest Room" will be fully transformed to "nursery." Amazing!

Our nursery furniture was ordered this weekend and they called today to say it is in. We'll have the room completed before too long. Sometimes I still can't believe this is really happening! We feel so blessed. God is so good!


This weekend I am headed to Indianapolis for my friend Sarah's baby shower. She was here two weeks ago for my shower so now it's time to celebrate her and her soon-to-be born baby girl! Sarah and I are due the same week (I'm Dec 15th and she is the 19th) so this has been a very special time for us to share together! I'm looking forward to showering her with love, just as she did to me two weeks ago!

Sarah and me at 30 weeks

Love, love, love.

Home improvements

Yesterday was the 30 week mark! In just 10 weeks Steven and I should have our little bundle in our arms, rather than where he currently resides- in my belly, snuggled up again one side in a tight little ball. According to our emails from BabyCenter.com Baby Peanut is coming along in his lung development and eyesight. Of course he's growing like a weed as well. He continues to be highly active and bouncy!

As for me, I'm still feeling good but I'm definitely feeling more stiff and it's hard to sit for more than an hour at a time. My lower back hurts and I can't sleep without a pillow propping up my baby belly. I kind of roll out of bed, rather than sit straight up and have to be careful about doing too much physical activity in a day. It's fine though, nothing that I can't handle! This makes for an excellent segway into how we've been spending our days lately....

Instead of taking things down a few notches we've decided to go from 50 to 1000 in one week's time. Smart, right? Let's begin with the unpredictable.

Right after my last post Steven and Colin asked to drive my car to Chicago so they could go see Roger Waters. The show was amazing (maybe I can get Steven to do a blog about the show....) but while in Chicago a hotel valet decided it would be fun to drive my black car down a white concrete pole in the hotel parking garage. Somehow neither of the guys noticed the damage and drove my car back to Nashville without a clue. Once they were home I noticed the damage immediately even in the pitch black night because, well, it's my car and I know how it's supposed to look! After getting nothing but nasty attitudes from the valet company and cluelessness from the hotel I decided to turn the situation over to insurance. Isn't that what I pay them for each month? Apparently not. Last Monday I spent hours on the phone with Progressive and they fought me each step of the way. 

Agent: well did you see where they parked the car?

Me: Noooo, it's valet. They drive it away and park it for you (duh)

Agent: well how do you KNOW they parked it by a pole?

Me: Because of the dent and 2 foot scrape down the side of my car!!!!!

Long story short, they ended up telling me that I needed to take the car to get fixed FIRST and at that time they would "try" to go after the valet company.  I said, "look, I don't have the money for this. I have a baby coming in a few weeks and I can't just go drop a thousand bucks to fix damages I didn't even do for the off-beat chance you guys might actually help me out and do something. So please just cancel my claim."

Well, there it was. "The B-Word." Apparently mentioning you are having a baby means something to the stubborn and often unfair world of car insurance. Suddenly the tone changed and it was "oh when are you due? Is it a boy or a girl?" Then it became "let me speak with my manager and see what we can do."

They called back and told me to take my car for an estimate and they'd send me a check for the damages. They also promised not to raise my premium. Then they congratulated me again on my pregnancy and closed out my claim. Ummm... what just happened here? I was left feeling somewhat dumbfounded but I won't ask questions. I can't say this makes me feel warm and fuzzy about Progressive Insurance but it is a lesson to all of you out there: when facing insurance companies, just tell them you're pregnant!

So after the car fiasco, we decided to tackle house project #2: getting rid of our bedroom carpet. The carpet in our room has never been lovely but after Crash had a freak out in 2009 over 4th of July fireworks and tore it to shreds we started saving money to get it replaced.

Bad dog!

We thought we coud just refinish the hardwood floors underneath but once the furniture was all moved and we could actually take a real look we realized there was only about 80% hardwoods and the remaining 20% was sub-flooring.

The Great Destroyer, some nasty carpet and some sub-flooring

FAIL!

We were in a bit of a time crunch so we decided to install new carpet in that room. I love what we picked out! It's called Lemon Custard and looks beautiful.

The bed was still being put back together, which explains it's messiness

While waiting for the new carpet we figured, what the heck? Let's go ahead and tackle house project #3: new appliances in the kitchen. Since moving in to our house 4 years ago I have hated our stove with the fire of a thousand suns. Only 2 of the burners worked and the oven consistently heated far beyond what we set it for. Since we are looking to move sometime next year we decided a while back that when we replaced the stove we'd buy a new refrigerator so they would match. So we did! And here they are.

My smart husband had the brilliant idea of putting the old fridge in our garage so now we have extra fridge and freezer space for storage. Can anyone here say "boiled peanuts all year 'round??"

So yeah, we have been very, very busy. But all three of our home improvement projects are now complete! This will make it much easier to put the house on the market next year in the event that the perfect house shows up and we need to sell quickly.

That's all for now- love to you all!

12 weeks to go...

I'm 28 weeks pregnant! Here's a new picture of the growing belly:

28 weeks pregnant

I can't believe I am due in just 12 weeks. We still have so much to do! Little by little we will get there.


We had our final ultrasound on Friday afternoon. Peanut is getting so big! At 28 weeks babies on average weigh 2lb4oz. Our little guy weighed in at 2lbs13oz! I'll bet he is 3 pounds by now. Time will tell if he ends up with the Monroe Family "tiny" gene (which I obviously got, as did my sister) but I'd say at this point that all signs point to no. The woman doing the ultrasound was rushing through it and didn't take the time to get good pictures. She gave us 3 but none of them are good- just blurry close ups of his head. They aren't even worth posting, to be honest. I may not even put them in his baby book because they are that bad. That was disappointing but I have a lot of good pictures from our previous ultrasounds so we'll just hang on to those.


After the ultrasound I had an appointment with my midwife. While listening to Peanut's heart beat on the doppler we could hear him hiccuping! I also did my mandatory Glucose test last week and passed! My midwife continues to be pleased with how I'm doing. Everything looks really, really good going into this homestretch!


Peanut's lungs are developing more each day and he can now open his eyes in the womb. A week and a half ago Steven and I were on the couch. I had a blanket over me and Peanut was bouncing so much that we could see him through the blanket. I pulled the blanket back and looked at my belly to see what it looked like. Lo and behold, he stopped moving. I put the blanket back and after a few seconds the bouncing began again. We figured out it was because of the light coming in when I took off the blanket! Steven and I sat there and played "peek-a-boo" with him and laughed our heads off at how he would immediately stop moving each time the blanket was off. Sometimes when I feel him moving on one side I'll put one finger on the other side of my belly. I'll feel him scoot over and touch where my finger is. I can't believe he can see that now! It's so cool to play with him already! 


Here is the paint color we picked out for his room:

The middle shade of blue, to match the elephant on his blanket

And here's what his crib bedding looks like. 

We love it! It's like a crazy zoo animal parade in India. If you can come up with a better description for it than that I'm all ears!


That's all for now. Love to you all!

3rd Trimester!

Over the weekend I was talking to my dad and he complained mentioned that I hadn't updated the blog since August 27th. I would like to say a very public HELLO to my dad- hi Dad, love you! 


Today marked the beginning of my third trimester. Time is flying! Tomorrow I will be 27 weeks. Here's a photo of me from a week and a half ago:

25 weeks pregnant

Would you believe I am already bigger than this? This weekend I need to go shopping yet again because I am outgrowing all of my current maternity clothes. I've crossed an important threshold: total strangers now know without a doubt that I'm pregnant and not just full... or a heavy drinker... or pot-bellied. In restaurants, airports & stores strangers ask me "when are you due?" and "is this a boy or a girl?" Peanut has been roaming the world incognito for the past 6 months but now everyone knows he's around! 


On the Saturday before last Steven and I celebrated 5 years of marriage. Talk about time flying! It doesn't feel like our wedding- with the mardi gras beads and the mansion and the gorgeous twinkle light pavilion- happened 5 years ago. 

September 4, 2005

To celebrate every year we take a week and visit the beach for a nice Fall getaway. This year we decided to avoid the oil in the gulf (so Peanut wouldn't come out with 5 heads) and visited St Augustine, FL. We rented a condo on the beach and enjoyed perfect weather, empty beaches and a lot of impressive surfing! A few storms came through just before we arrived so the ocean was a little rough. I spent a lot of time cruising around on a float and trying not to get knocked over. Steven got to go windsurfing one afternoon (a new favorite activity since Hawaii) and we spent several nights strolling around the old city and enjoying the sights. St Augustine is an awesome little town with a lot of young people and things to see. It was a great trip and a perfect way to spend our anniversary!


We are making some progress on the baby's room! I sold and gave away all of the extra furniture from the room (formerly the guest room). Steven took down the bed-side tables that were attached to the wall and patched up the holes. Tonight we are picking out a paint color. We don't have any of the furniture yet but it is picked out. Despite not having the crib we do have one very important item thanks to my Nana and Papa: a Pack N Play!

Nana and Papa always give such smart and thoughtful gifts. On the top left is a changing table and the top right is a bassinet for a newborn. Once Peanut gets a little bigger we'll take those two pieces off and he'll have an awesome travel crib and play area. These things fold up into a very compact rectangle that is perfect for families who travel (and we definitely do our share!) We are so thankful for this!


We have also been working on several projects around the house. When we bought our house we purposefully bought one that would have enough room for a baby. We'll be fine as Peanut is little but he's going to get big quick so we have decided to do what we can now to get the house ready for when we need to put it on the market. One big project has been our backyard. When we bought the house it had been pretty much destroyed by 2 outdoor dogs who loved to dig and make mud. It looked like this:

Pretty plain, right?

Now it looks like this:

Steven did 99.99999% of the work all by himself. I wished I could have helped more but this summer was unbelievably hot with temperatures usually over 100. I helped spread the mulch but he did every other thing himself. Well, actually, he did have one very obedient and furry helper:

Next on the list is tearing out the carpet in our bedroom and refinishing the hardwood floors. Wish us luck!


That's everything for now. I promise it won't be 3 weeks before the next update. Love to you all.

24 week ultrasound and check up

This morning we returned to Vanderbilt for a 24 week ultrasound. Have a look at this lil cutie:

I don't know if Peanut was feeling camera shy or if he was just tired (he kept me up most of last night by having one of his dance parties) but he burrowed way down low and kept his hands over his face. He was also playing with the umbilical cord- we could clearly see his little hand wrapped around it! The ultrasound technician was very patient and finally managed to get the photo above. I'm going to have to find a baby picture of Steven and post it so you all realize how much Peanut is already looking like his dad! It really is amazing how he's shaping out to look like Steven's "mini-me!" Doesn't he look sweet, though? Like he's dreaming away. We love our baby boy so much.

After the ultrasound we went to our midwife for a check up. Linda is very pleased with Peanut's development. He weighs 1 pound, 7 ounces and is growing perfectly! She's also pleased with how I am coming along. Despite not looking like a typical 5 month pregnant woman I'm still exactly on track with where we should be at 24 weeks. So good reports for everyone! We return for another ultrasound and my mandatory glucose test at the end of September.

Have a great weekend!

Lots of updates!

I have a lot of updates, so let's get right to it. Tomorrow I'll be 24 weeks pregnant! Here’s how I look now:

I never know what to do with my arms in these sideways pictures...

Time is flying by. Steven and I are working hard to be ready for the day Peanut decides to join us here on “the outside.” People like to tell you how expensive babies are. I’ve decided it’s not necessarily the “baby stuff” that costs so much- it’s all the stuff you feel like you “have to do" before the baby gets here! Suddenly we feel the clock ticking when it comes to car repairs, home improvement projects, doctors appointments, etc that we’ve been putting off for one reason or another. It’s hectic but we’re enjoying each step of the way!

Speaking of baby stuff, we are starting to figure out some of the major baby gear we need. We've made two big trips to the Babies R Us in Rivergate to figure this stuff out. We test drove strollers up and down the aisles. We figured out all of the hooks, latches, buttons, wheels and levers. We collapsed strollers and resurrected them again. We flipped handles back and forth on car seats. We shook cribs to see how sturdy they were. We rocked in rockers. We smooshed mattresses. Yes, there is definitely a lot for us to learn. For car seats in particular we consulted my sister, Lindsey, who is a certified child safety seat inspector (seriously, how lucky are we?!). It feels good to be scratching some items off the list!

One of the best parts of being pregnant is that everyone wants to see you! In the past few weeks we’ve had some special people come to visit and we got to go home to Atlanta to spend some quality time with my family.

Three weeks ago my friends Jennifer and Jill came to Nashville for the Hanson show. They brought along a new friend, Dominic, and we had a great time at the show! They didn’t allow cameras in the venue but we managed to snap this one before we went in:

Jenn, me (20 weeks pregnant) and Jill

Jill brought me a great surprise- a whole box full of clothes and baby items her boys have outgrown!

Jack & Aiden's hand-me-downs

Jill and I have the same style when it comes to baby clothes, which basically means we like to dress kids up as bears and puppies! It was so great to have my girl friends here for the show! I hate that we can’t see each other more but I love the times when we are together!

While home in Atlanta we stayed with my mom and got to spend time with Lindsey, Nana and Papa. Lindsey gave us a present: lots of ADORABLE home-decorated baby clothes! My sister has been making costumes for herself and others for several years and has a real gift for crafts and creativity. Peanut is going to be stylin’ in these “Aunt Lindsey Originals!”

Can't wait to see these on him!

Over the weekend we had what we later called "Baby-Palooza!"

On Friday night Steven's cousin Ginny came and met us for dinner. She has two boys- Logan, who is 4 and our new addition, Caden! I have a picture of the boys from that night but for some reason my Outlook won't let me save it- boo!! They are such a sweet family- we love when they come to visit!

On Saturday we babysat for our friends Heather and Kris. They have two girls, Ainsley, who is 20 months and Iris, who is 13 weeks. We've been wanting to get some "practice" in to beef up our confidence in the kiddo department. We had a great morning and afternoon with the girls. Steven got the day's Gold Star Of Excellence for 3 reasons:

1- He changed his first poopy diaper! And it was a cloth diaper, which adds a little different experience to this milestone. When he was done Ainsley said "Good job! Good job, Ee-bin!"

2- When Iris started crying he walked her around the front room and bounced her until she got comfortable and stopped. I was in the living room with Ainsley when I heard him yell "I DID IT!"

3- He showed off his knowledge of the Veggie Tales theme song. Where the heck did he learn that?!

Needless to say, those girls are great and we'd be happy to hang out with them again, any time!

On Sunday we got an unexpected surprise! Our cousin, Brooke, went into labor and delivered Peanut's newest cousin. Introducing: Kennedy Ann Carmen!

Steven got another Gold Star for holding Kennedy like a pro and without hesitation. When Josh and Brooke's older daughter, Kylee, was born two years ago he was afraid to hold her. When she was a week old I plopped her in his lap to take this picture:

He looks more comfortable these days! Good job, Ee-bin- you'll be a pro in no time!

Speaking of Steven, he's not feeling too hot today. Yesterday he became sick and had a fever so he went to the doctor. His strep test came back negative but the doctor still gave him a Z-Pack. He doesn't have the strongest immune system due to a medical allergy and a terrible case of mono 8 years ago. To be safe I am keeping my distance and sleeping in our guest room for the next few nights. We can't run the risk of me catching something while pregnant. I hate not being able to really care for him! It feels strange to sit on the far side of the couch from him and just kind of wave when we go to bed, then walk to separate rooms. I hate when he is sick! Everyone please say a prayer that he gets over this quickly and that no germs spread to me.

Whew! I think that is everything. Much love to you all- thanks for reading this very long post!