Week 27

We had quite the fiesta at our new house on Saturday! People came from all over the southeast to party in the name of Bartok! Sam ran the show, with help from Judy and Morgan (long distance) and she threw an awesome party! We ate some very delicious food, played some fun games, and enjoyed chatting with friends. I put all of the shower pictures on our google pictures page - so check em out! We were smothered with love and generosity from all around and we're so blessed to have so many people who are excited to support us in our crazy endeavor to become Parents. So many people made the effort to drive up/down for the day and everyone was very generous in their giving. We are loved!! Thank you!!
I started volunteering at the literacy center here! I'm teaching English as a Second Language twice a week. I teach the lowest level class on Tuesday nights and the highest level class on Wednesday mornings. So far I've taught one day of English 4 and I love it! There are people from all over the world in my class and they are all so motivated to learn! Surprisingly enough, they even want to know the grammar jargon so I actually get to teach the difference between the past tense and the past participle!!! Yay!!! I LOVE it!! Next week I start with English 0. I should get to practice my Spanish a good bit in there!
Bartok is doing well - still moving around a lot in there! No one besides Shamus and I have felt the baby but I'm hoping he'll kick some of our friends and family soon! Bartok is still the size of an eggplant. Just a little larger than last week, but not enough gain to graduate to a new vegetable. His brain is growing and developing a lot this week and his eyes are opening for the first time! He's also developing the ability to see in color!
It's the end of the 2nd trimester!! We're 66.6666666666% finished with this race!!! Woo hoo!! I added some belly picture to the slideshow on the right sidebar! It's growing!

Week 26

We've been working like crazy to prepare for the baby shower this weekend!! It has actually been really fun and rewarding. Shamus spent some time each day cleaning out the garage (and putting the "I-don't-know-what's-in-these-boxes" in the white room). I did some directing and started discovering what's in those boxes.
Here's what we accomplished:
Parked both cars in the garage and organized the garage!









Recycled 3 boxes of high school and college papers!!
Donated 40+ binders to the local high school!
Organized the office!










Painted the shelves in the baby room!! Gracias, Ari!!

Bartok is now the size of an eggplant and he weighs around 2 lbs. I have stopped gaining weight and I honestly have no explanation as to how that happened. I'm not really exercising more or less than before - although I don't think I've written about the awesome 1985 Pregnancy Workout VHS I've been doing. More about that later. For now, I'll give you this teaser: the teacher and her assistants all wear brightly colored leotards over different colored leggings and wear scrunchy socks that may or may not match anything they're wearing. It's fun! It's the 80s!! Anyway... back to Bartok - he's got lungs and somehow he's practicing breathing with amniotic fluid. So he's got fluid in his lungs but he's supposed to. I think. Right now, our baby actually is transparent. But, contrary to popular belief, he will not be transparent when he's born even though his parents are incredibly pale. He also responds to sounds now. I don't know how true it is because sometimes I try to scare him a little by making a loud noise but then I think, "What kind of a mother are you, trying to frighten your baby??" And if there's a loud sudden noise, I get scared and jump so I can't feel him anyway. He does love to squirm around in there and that's a weird sensation!! I still make Shamus feel it every so often and I haven't injured his wrist yet so that's good!

Week 25

We're spending the week working on the house. Shamus goes to work everyday and then comes home and attacks our move-in mess. I've been spending the whole day attacking it most days. We have a few goals... especially with plans for company soon.
1. Paint the shelves in the baby room and fill them
2. Park both cars in the garage
3. Put away everything in the office

I know 3 goals doesn't seem like very many but check out where we're starting:
Garage:













Baby room:









Office:

Now add to that the fact that I can't paint or move heavy things. Looks like Shamus and I both have our work cut out for us! I've been working on the office A LOT! I'm starting to dislike the room because it feels like an abyss of papers to sort through. But it's easy to see the progress in the piles of paper to recycle. So there's hope. We will see the carpet someday soon!!!
We're having our first company this weekend - some friends are coming over to play board games! The pressure is on! (In a good way - it's nice to have a real deadline!)

Bartok is still busily rolling and kicking and such. His spine is starting to develop and he recently finished getting fingerprints. He's also starting his weight gain this week! He's going to fill in all that wrinkly skin by the time he's born! I can't wait to see him!!

Week 24

We moved!!! All in "one day". We already took random trips with carloads and, as you already saw, spent many hours painting with the Cronins and the Culpeppers. But we really got it done with the help of many friends and family members in ONE NIGHT!! Thursday, July 31st was PUMP night - Packing, Unpacking, Moving and Pizza!! Our Shepherding Group from church came with empty cars, trucks, vans and trailers and so did the Culpeppers and Ariadna. We had about 15 people total and we had about 10 car/truck/van/trailer loads. We started around 5 and "finished" around 9:30. So there is some more REAL evidence of God's abundant grace - He gives and gives and gives and fulfills all of our needs! What a blessing it is to have our family in Christ AND our biological families to help us!! I spent the evening identifying boxes and telling people where to take them. I'm glad the rooms were already painted because "Blue room" is way easier to say than "last bedroom on the left upstairs". I had also made a room map for each room that has the room drawn on it to scale and cut outs of the furniture (also to scale) so that people would know where to put each item. What was unbelievable was how well everyone took in the directions. I mean, imagine, you're carrying a large, heavy box and some pregnant lady tells you where to put it but she (almost) never lifts a finger to help move HER stuff. Now do this about 25 times. I don't think I'd be smiling unless I really loved that pregnant lady! So I guess they all do!!! :) Shamus didn't believe that we would be sleeping in the house Thursday night. But we did!! We had a few glitches to work out, though... 1 - We have a LARGE window in our bedroom and couldn't find the frost spray we bought for it so we used the hall bathroom and changed clothes in the closet (I'm glad there's a light in there!). 2 - We didn't have blinds in the bedroom so when the sun came out, I woke up and the room started to heat up! 3 - I spent the morning putting away all of the kitchen stuff and then had to tell Shamus (a few times) where each thing was. I'm sure he won't completely know his way around this kitchen for a while - there are SOOO many cupboards and drawers! So, as you can see, the move went very smoothly and since there were so many people, I don't think we had any injuries (no pulled muscles, disabled backs, etc.). We are SO excited to be in a house and we're slowly getting used to the idea that it is actually our home.
Bartok is in great condition as far as I can tell! He is constantly on the move! He's still the size of a papaya... but a large one now! The only trouble he's causing is leg cramps and I only get them once in a while in bed. And they're nothing compared to what I've seen Shamus go through when he gets leg cramps from soccer. Shamus tries to feel the baby every now and then but Bartok is not very consistent with his movements so he and his dad haven't really interacted much. Plus, as Shamus pointed out, it's not like Bartok is going to stop moving once he's started. There will be plenty of opportunities to feel the baby move and apparently see him move!
We're already at the end of the 5th month!! I can't believe it!! He's growing up so fast!! And I'm growing out so fast!!

Week 23

We had a fabulous weekend on top of the mountain at the annual Brannaka Reunion in PA. Shamus and I left Thursday afternoon and got to spend Friday with the grandparents! Staying with them is like staying at a bed and breakfast (I think... I've never stayed at one!). We arrived in the middle of the night so we were only greeted by a cozy home. We woke up when we felt like it, went out into the kitchen and Gram took our breakfast orders. She makes the best eggs and bacon in the world! I highly recommend the place, and would give it 4 stars out of 5 (only because of the times I've stayed there and helped slaughter pigs... if you've ever done that or heard stories, you know it's not glamorous.)
We waited for the rest of the Cronins to arrive (the Greenville bunch left Friday "morning" around 4... which really is more like night than morning). Morgan arrived that afternoon just before they did and it was SOOOOOOO great to see her! We haven't seen her in so long!!
She had some neck pain and couldn't turn her head so we had some fun being silly and getting just out of her peripheral vision and then talking to her, forcing her to rotate her entire torso and of course, to make a funny face.
We played frisbee golf, with tons of shotgun starts and a few penalty strokes for hitting other family members while throwing the frisbee. Nick got really excited when he scored better than one of his cousins while using the worst frisbee I've ever seen. This is the celebration that happens when he doesn't win the hole, but beats his dear cousin:
We continued to enjoy the weekend, playing tons of volleyball (yes, even the pregnant lady played), playing cards, and realizing that Rosie and I were wearing almost the same pjs. Jim had an awesome dive in one of the volleyball games and Shamus did his usual run all over the place and save all the out-of-bounds hits and yelled "SPIKE IT!" repeatedly to everyone. I even had an okay lefty spike at one point.
The last night we were there we walked over to the big pond and visited with more family and enjoyed the beauty that surrounded us. On the way back, it was pretty dark and Sam kept jovially pointing out that "the people in the back are always killed first in the movies". So we walked faster back to the cabin than we did to the big pond. :)
We headed home on Sunday, sad to be driving south instead of north to see the Cronin family in Massachusetts but excited because we're moving in 2 days!!! Jim and Judy and Sam weren't too sad about missing the move to be on vacation in Cape Cod with the rest of the family. I wonder why....
Bartok is doing great, kicking a lot and forcing me to sleep on my side. Since I'm pregnant, I brought 3 pillows to the cabin and Morgan didn't have a good one so I gave her my "this one goes behind me so I don't roll over onto my back" pillow and I just used Shamus as a rolling barrier. I wonder how he feels about that?
Bartok can hear so that's exciting! I haven't started talking to him yet but I do love to sing in the car, in the house, and anywhere where most people can't really hear me. So he gets serenaded, off-key, but enthusiastically. He's still the size of a papaya.. just a bigger, riper one. His face is now fully formed so if we did one of those cool 3D ultrasounds, we could see about how he'll look when he comes into the world! (We're not doing one of those because it's costly.)
We are really excited about finally getting into our new house!! It's a big week!! Shamus and I are very blessed to have so many friends and family members who are so excited to help us move!! I think it will be really fun!

Week 22

Well, we had a lot of fun visiting the Culpeppers and going to a family reunion. My friend, Ari, came with us. We enjoyed catching up with everyone and seeing the little ones and even took a little walk in the woods. Another highlight from the trip to GA: my parents found a great deal on a really big kitchen table and they bought it for us!! We're so excited to have a table big enough for company and kids!! So as soon as we're moved in and we get some chairs to go around the table, you're invited to come over and use the table with us! We'd like to eat, play board games and cards, sit and talk, and Karen would like to do some scrapbooking there. If there are any little kids out there, I'm sure Shamus wouldn't mind being shown up in coloring at the table.
So the baby is still growing! I can tell because of the belly.... it just keeps getting bigger and bigger! For the next few weeks, Bartok will be the size of a papaya. Again, as I advised with the avocado and the mango, if you don't know what a papaya looks like, then you probably don't know what it tastes like and you should definitely go to your local grocery store and pick one up and eat it. They are delicious! To get a better idea, Bartok weighs around a pound and still fits in your hand. He's also "kicking" - which could really be any variety of somewhat violent movements such as elbowing, punching, kneeing, shouldering, head-butting, judo-chopping, kicking, or log rolling (which is not as violent, in general).
Shamus finally got to feel the baby a week after I did!! I might have messed up some of his wrist ligaments in the process of trying to get him to feel the baby. Imagine sitting to the right of someone, grabbing their right hand with your left and making them touch your belly with the palm of their right hand. Now imagine doing this to the person while they are asleep. Do you have any idea how fun this has been for Shamus?!?! I think it was worth it in the end... I mean, he got to feel the baby, right?
This weekend, we're driving to PA for the reunion on the mountain! And we're really excited because we get to see MORGAN!!! We haven't seen her since she left for Boston! Should be another fun family adventure!!!

Week 21

Last weekend lots of painting happened - and it's almost done! We decided to pay a professional to do the foyer and hallways and that will be finished some time next week!!!! Then, we can finally move in!! As you can see, we had quite a few helpers. I didn't get to capture my parents on camera, but their handiwork is the beautiful yellow room. I went around the house measuring all the rooms and drawing them to scale to plan for the move. Since I'm not allowed to move the furniture, I decided to make paper cut-outs of our belongings and lay them out on my to-scale drawings. This way, when we move, I won't be saying, "Wait, can you try putting that on the other wall?" because I already tried it on all the walls!! Don't worry.... I haven't turned into an engineer or anything. I just took good advice from my engineer husband after he saw a not-to-scale drawing of the baby room with random not-to-scale-furniture drawn in it. (Turns out I was trying to put a rocking chair against a 5-inch wide wall... oops!)
HUGE news on the baby front: I felt him move!!! It was Saturday night and I had just gotten into bed and suddenly felt like my stomach flipped over! I've felt random movements before but I wasn't ever sure if that was me digesting or the baby moving. But Saturday, it was clear. I've never felt anything like that in my life!! Now, I'm feeling him kick regularly but only from the inside. I can't wait until Shamus can feel him through my belly!! Bartok is now past halfway there so instead of measuring him head to rump, it's head to toe. He's around the length of a banana and he weighs around 13 oz (almost a pound!). Coolest thing this week: he can taste! He's been swallowing amniotic fluid but now he can actually taste it with his teensy buds! I have to train those taste buds to like what we like to eat and what's healthy... and some studies show that I can start teaching him what to like right now! Pretty awesome!
This weekend is the second family reunion of the year - this time it's my dad's side! We're heading to the lake to eat some really good southern food and to catch up on life. My friend from Mexico just got back to South Carolina - and she's staying for 2 years!!!! She's planning to come with us to the reunion so she can see my family again (who she hasn't seen since 2005). I have a few other good friends who have been abroad for a while now and they all just happen to be coming back to the US this summer. What a blessing it is to have my friends back in town when our baby is on his way!!