17 weeks

Well here we are at 17 weeks. Josh and I will try to post pictures as my tummy continues to grow! What can I tell you that I'm sure you're dying to know about? I'm feeling really good these days and am starting to come out of the fog of tired ickiness that has had me confined to the couch during most to all of my free time. The doctor says that baby is right on target for growth so far and as for me I've gained a solid 7 lbs. The best update is that I can feel baby moving around- mostly when I'm trying to fall asleep or after I've eaten something yummy. The second best update is that we will be able to find out baby's gender on February 10th and are very excited to start planning names, nursery colors and ivy league college admission. Lately I've been craving things that exist like limeade, cream cheese and oatmeal as well as things that don't like radish spread and marshmallow milk. I met with my doula today and we began planning for a tour of the birth center and child birth classes. We also talked about the benefits of ingesting the placenta (in pill form) after baby is born. I never thought I'd be having that conversation in my life... and be excited about it. So, yeah, we're working on that too.  I was supposed to start my prenatal yoga class tonight but it was cancelled due to -35 degree temps. It's been a really cold and difficult winter so far and I'm trying to stay warm with lots of bubble baths and cross country skiing. I'm fortunate to have my new job as a therapist at Bloomington Kennedy High School. The staff and students are super supportive and the challenge of a new job mixed with the FUN of working with my crazy high schoolers has kept me motivated.

Kitchen Rehab

We finally tackled some kitchen projects and boy do the updates make a big difference. Our kitchen utensils are easier to locate and the extra counter space means that Josh and I can work together in the kitchen without bumping into one another. First we painted our kitchen mint green.

 This was our stove area before. It was wasted space above the stove:

We added some shelving, a magnetic knife rack and a bar we can hang potholders from:

Although I'm going to miss my chalk board we decided we could make better use of that space as well:

Now we have a pegboard ala Julia Child:

Finally we decided to spice up the corner of our kitchen. Before we had our microwave on a small cart:

Now we have a custom cabinet from Ikea that perfectly fits the space. We are able to keep our garbage and our microwave within the cabinet. We also had room to hang our suitcase spice rack:

Voila! We hope you will come over and let us cook for you soon!