Moving Along

5 months pregnant and counting down...

Things are going great. Brendan is warming up to the idea of the baby inside Mommy's belly and even tells her he loves her and that he's going to be her big brother. Although I'm still wondering what the reality will be like once she actually arrives.

I'm feeling tons of movement. It's like she's finally figured out how to move her arms and legs and she's doing somersaults inside. It's the thing I love most about being pregnant. Feeling those movements as assurance that there really is a tiny living being in there.

Joe has finally taken up working residence in the new Kittelson office. I have now reclaimed my home office space and I'm loving it! No more asking permission to check my e-mail or to sit down to a quick surf of the web. Although I have to admit it wasn't all that bad having him here in the next room.

I've finally finished my orientation at the hospital and have started on my own personal schedule of one 12 hour shift per week. It's stressing me out because I know they want me to work more (they're in desperate need of nurses) but they knew when they hired me that I really didn't want more than the minimum hours required. I find it emotionally difficult that I'm looking forward to my maternity leave already. I pray that I will eventually find peace with this job because I'm not sure how much longer I can stand the stress.

In the good news department Joe and I have two new nephews to announce. My brother and sister-in-law became new parents on Wednesday August 6th. Lindsay gave birth to my beautiful nephew, Sevren Joseph Grassick who weighed 6 lbs 8 oz. Apparently he has lots of blond hair like my brother but I have yet to see pictures without a hat. In addition to Sev, Joe's sister-in-law, Katie just gave birth to their 5th child yesterday August 11th. Weighing in at 9 lbs 6 oz. I'm assuming he's the biggest she's had so far. He has yet to be named but we trust he'll be announced sometime shortly.

Joe and I were reminiscing last night that both of our sisters also gave birth earlier this year and that our baby girl will be the one to round out 2008. He says on the Chinese calendar this must be the year of the Baby! God has truly blessed our families for sure.

Home Sweet Home

So I'm posting some pictures of the new house since I've had several requests already. It's hard to get good pictures of the inside of your house. Try it... you'll see. So these pictures don't do it justice. And things may look a little cluttered still. I thought I'd post pictures of the downstairs. There are too many rooms to post them all.

This is our living room, kitchen and dining room. They're all one big room which is nice because it makes it so open and spacious. All the bedrooms are upstairs (all 5 of them) and the den is downstairs next to the front door. You'd have to come and visit to really appreciate it all.

I'm finally done with most of my orientation at the hospital. I had a c-section delivery on Wednesday and a vaginal delivery on Thursday. But still so much to learn about the way things are done there. So I have an 8 hour shift of orientation scheduled on Wednesday then I'm on my own for a full 12 hours on Friday. After that I'm only planning on working one shift per week. I'm very much enjoying these days off. Two days off at a time just wasn't enough to really unwind.

I've become the neighborhood's unofficial welcoming committee, making cookies and taking them to the random people who have started moving in. It's the benefit of being the first ones in the development. You really get to know your neighbors. Quite a few young couples with kids so we're very excited. A new couple is moving in this weekend so I suppose I better get baking...