This weekend, there wasn't a triathlon and we weren't out of town. That means, we went garage saling! We picked up some more baby clothes, a window valence, a sheet and mattress pad, and.........a video camera! Yes my friends, we found a used video camera at a garage sale. Original retail price (4 years ago when it came out): $800! Today's special deal for Beth and Brian (and snowpea!): $20! That's 97.5% off! What a steal! Oh, and what's that Bob? Sorry friends, but we just ran out! Yeah...it was awesome. Now we had to buy a DVD burner drive, a firewire port, and some mini dv tapes, but after that, we should be ready to go.
I never did get on last week to post a belly pic, and we never even got around to taking one. But today, we decided to go floating (swimming for pregnant people) at our lovely apartment pool. This was only my second time in our pool, and the first time this year. For some reason, we just never make it down there when it's hot out. It was a lovely time floating around and there were only two other girls there. It didn't even feel like I had a uterus! Ha. Anyway, before we headed down, I said, "hey, I already have my belly hanging out, let's take a picture," so we did. Here it is:
This Friday, we're off to Minnesota for the baby shower (YAY!) and then to Wisconsin to see long-lost family (January was a long time ago). I'm not so sure about sitting in a car for that long, but it will be worth it.
So I discovered this site called mamabargains.com (which Brian calls baby woot) where they sell off one deal at a time. Well, I get home from work today and what is on the site, but the most awesome looking blanket in the world! It didn't take me long to decide I must have one, so I picked out a color and headed for the checkout. Then I realized shipping would be $8 in addition to the $12 for the blanket (they retail for $50 without shipping normally!). So then I decided I'd better not. I even called Brian and told him about it. Just listen to their description of the blanket: "My oh my! The Star Swaddler Blanket by Baby Star is so super soft and cuddly you'll wish they made them in adult sizes! The soft waffle material makes it a natural swaddler with it's light weight ultra snuggly soft goodness - is it sure to entice your little one to curl up and siesta! A truly lucky star find in this Star Swaddler! 30 x 30 inches All products are formaldehyde free making them safe for baby and safe four our environment! "
Well, I couldn't help myself. I'm not normally an impulsive shopper but darn it I wanted this blanket!!! Look how soft they look!So I ordered one in chocolate with blue trim! Heehee. Snowpea will have a celebrity-quality blankie to tote around!! Take that Suri Cruise!I'm not all bad though. I decided to build up snowpea's musical brain by playing him my favorite classical piece (on youtube, not an instrument, duh!). So I found some Moonlight Sonata and sat the laptop near my belly. Wow, did I get a reaction! I don't know if he was trying to get away from the sound, was conducting his own orchestra, or dancing, but he sure was doing something! So now we've got some Clair de Lune going. He seems to enjoy that too. So I found a new fun thing to do when I want to make snowpea move. :) Who knows, maybe he'll become a musical genius!
I've been doing well, except for killing my feet, legs, and bum yesterday. Brian had a triathlon in Indy (which we had to wake up for at 3:45 AM!!!) and I walked along the canal (twice) as he swam then sat on hard rock for two hours waiting for him to finish. Well, I thought my heels were going to fall off after we got home and took a nap. Then at bedtime, I discovered sciatic nerve pain. That was fun (sarcasm abounding). Luckily, this morning I felt much better and all is well again in the world of Beth and her body. (Ooo, we're now onto Per Te by Josh Groban for music choices now!)
Oh! And the crib is now put together! Yay! Brian was very happy to get it together and likes to look at it. :) Here it is:
The crib is currently filled with stuff that we don't have another place for yet. Hopefully we'll figure something out for that soon. (The bunny is named HopHop. He is Brian's from when Christy was born!)
I also still had blue yarn left and decided to complete my blue outfit by crocheting up some mittens. There's still the tiniest bit left, but I'm not sure what I can do with it. Maybe trim the next hat. :)
That's all for now. We haven't taken a belly pic yet this week, so I'll post again sometime this week.
I figured you might be asking yourself, "what in the world is she doing all afternoon/evening?" So I am posting now to answer that very interesting question. I have been re-teaching myself how to crochet. My gramma taught me how to make a chain and a square when I was younger, and that's as far as I'd even made it. Well, I figured that snowpea will be born in the winter time and will need some warm things, so I might as well figure out how to make use of some yarn. Here are my projects so far. You might notice, upon close inspection, that the edges of the blanket are quite uneven. To that observation, I say, shush your mouth! It was my first project and I confused myself several times. Oh well, maybe snowpea will appreciate its imperfections. (And of course, I'll make another in a different pattern and color eventually!) Mr. Bear here, is modeling projects two and three: booties and a ribbed hat. (Sorry, I couldn't get bear to sit up well so you can see the hat, but it's cute!) Project number four is that there sweater. It's still missing some buttons, but those will happen eventually...after another wal-mart trip... Project five is the second pair of booties (different pattern than the first) and project six is, hey, I still have blue yarn, I guess I'll make a hat too. Not a ribbed hat like the first one, but a hat crocheted in a round....pretty cool. I even figured out how to make a pom pom! Brian will attest to my funny learning curve. I'll be attempting to read a pattern (the hardest part!!!) and say, "hmm....I'm not sure what they mean here....I guess I'll try this!" Now I'm thinking I might have just enough blue yarn left to try some little baby mitts. We'll see!
Brian has convinced me that the weather has actually been cool enough in the evenings to take walks, so we have been doing that for the past week or so. It's been a really nice way to unwind at the end of the day and get some fresh air. Well, since the pool is still closed meaning Brian didn't have an official workout tonight, we went on a "workout" together! Brian rollerbladed and I managed to heft myself onto my bike and we travesed about 5 miles or so in the nice cool evening weather. However, I looked quite ridiculous. Here's this week's belly pic to illustrate this to you. It wasn't bad though. Snowpea got to hang out in a hammock of sorts while I was leaning over my handlebars. :) 
More garage sale success this weekend! We drove by a couple of garage sales in Laf yesterday (so worthless!) and then gave up and went to Sam's Club to get a membership. We figure we'll save enough in diapers alone to pay for the membership! We did some shopping and then decided we would check out some of the West Laf sales that mentioned baby items even though it was after 10am by then. So we dropped off groceries and went exploring. The first one we stopped at had a crib, but.... it was at least 10 years old, you had to use two hands to put the front down, and the woman had at one point spray painted it and it was chipping in some places. They only wanted $50, but I just couldn't do it. They also had an awesome changing table/dresser for $25 that had already sold. Drat! So we went on to another. It was way out of town in a fancy little subdiv. As we walked up the driveway, the woman says "I still have the crib and dresser if you want to see them!" We say, "actually yes!" She said she saw my "little belly" and thought we might be looking for the crib. Well, it was much better than any crib we've seen garage sale shopping. Most cribs have been 10 years old and I am just not comfortable with that age on a crib. This crib was three years old, obviously in beautiful condition, and the little girl never slept in it once she figured out how to get into her parents' room. :) They also had the toddler bed kit and the full bed kit to change the crib into a bed once snowpea gets bigger. She wanted $45o for the crib with kits, armoire, and dresser. Brian asked if she would be willing to split them up and sell just the crib since we live in an apartment and don't have much room. She said she guessed but she would still want $200 for the crib since it would no longer be a full set. After talking about it, I decided that the crib, two conversion kits, AND a sealy mattress was worth the $200, so we gave her $50 and promised to be back with the rest within the hour. We disassembled it, brought it home, and it's almost all put together now. We are missing two screws for the crib (it was set up as the toddler bed, so we didn't make sure we had all the hardware for the crib) so we need to find replacements for those before it is completely ready. Here's a picture of the crib model (we got it in white, don't have the pull out drawer) so you can see what it will look like. The front does not come down because the curved front is supposed to make it easy enough to lean over and take baby in and 
Also, those mean old missionaries visited us and convinced us to go to church today, so we took my belly pic for 23 weeks while I was dressed up. 
Snowpea heard the "din of babies" (Brian's words) during church and decided to join in by jumping all around. Also, whenever I stop singing, he jumps around, so with three hymns, he was having a little dance party in there. My ankles were starting to get sore from sitting with them straight on the ground though. Anyway! We have to go check on Brian's test at the lab again, so that is all for now.
Oops! Forgot this last picture. We are (Brian is) slowly learning about all the places we cannot put snowpea, for storage or otherwise. Here's the latest:
(Yeah, that's a rubbermaid bucket...)
