Awwww...+ 4 years!

Happy to report that I had three more wonderful baby showers! As most know, I really do not like being the center of attention especially when it comes to opening gifts in front of people, and even more so when opening gifts with a bowling ball in my stomach. But, I truly enjoyed the baby showers.

My awesome ex-co-workers from D56 hosted a shower for me and another ex-co-worker, Nicole. Ex-co-worker is an awful description to use, really these ladies are my friends who are former co-workers! Nicole is due shortly after me and it was really nice to have a co-pilot. Even more fun is that she is having a boy so I could ooh and aah over cute non-girl gifts!

Myself and Nicole


D56 ladies - a few favorites unable to make it, we missed you!

The next shower was hosted by my marathon partner and good friend from college, Kara (note: I ran ONE marathon a year ago this weekend and I probably won't run another one, but at 9 months pregnant I feel like mentioning this stat since walking around the block is about as intense as my workouts get and I am re-living glory moments.)



Kara is the hostess with the mostess. I envy her natural hosting abilities. She made excellent brunch foods and put together a cute game of memory. The shower guests were all friends from college and we were all in alpha phi together. Really, we could have been locked in an empty room with no windows and we still would have had a great time. So many memories to laugh about!

Shower guests 1
Shower guests 2

The craziest thing is the changing balance of moms and moms-to-be within the group. It is challenging to get everyone together these days and I was really happy that the majority of gals could make it (out-of-towners are excused :) Very excited that my friends Sara and Kate made the drive from Duluth and were at the shower!


The a-phi ladies! Looking as good as we did in college, right??


Moms-to-be: Kate (due end of dec.), me, and Lindsey (due early Jan)

The third shower was held at my dear friend, Erin Strong's dad's house. What's funny is that I spent SO much time at Erin's house when I was in high school and even college. I would never have predicted that 15 years after becoming friends, I would be at my own baby shower there! This shower was hosted by Erin, another dear friend Maija, and my mom. All three hostesses were probably running on empty but you never would have known it. I mean that as a huge compliment. My mom had a conference leading up to the weekend, Erin had her busiest work week and weekend of the entire year, and Maija had to fly in from Chicago and attend a wedding!


The wonderful hostesses

The food was delicious! Maija created the majority of the menu and her original combination of tortellini-on-a-stick was awesome! I almost didn't want to mention it so that I could bring it to an event sometime but I have to give her credit!


Maija aka Magic

This shower had a mix of great ladies including my high school friends, friends from marshall field's days, friends of my mom who I've known since I was little, and friends and family that I know through Tom.


Go Hornets!

My mom put together a quiz about me as a baby. There were actually questions that I didn't know the answer to. Some of those answers include: I was born 3 days after my due date, 20.5" long, 7lbs 1oz, reddish/brown hair when born, and first steps at 10.5 months (had to find a way to maneuver more quickly with my contraband pacifiers).

I owe HUGE thank you's to all of the friends who came to the showers and friends who sent gifts even though they couldn't make it! Everyone is excited and so generous, which makes me really happy. This baby is one lucky little girl!

These are just a few snap shots of my favorite things:

A crocheted love bird made by Kate!

A quilt made by Lani.
Month by month stickers for onesies, love it Robyn. The zero is sooo tiny!
Handmade by Maija...
...with a little patch on the back!

More hand crafted goodies by Maija.

The new version of "pinky" next to the original Pinky

The quilt that hopefully ties everything together - thanks Megan!!
Baby shoes and smart wool socks, need I say more?

Sophie the Giraffe from Paris..I've heard rave reviews, merci abuela tina

I love this flower print one piece - nice selection Christy!
Time to be real, diaper dekor for dirty diapers and breast shields. I have to cut off favorite things because now I am taking photos of e-v-e-r-y-thing!

And lastly...happy 4 year anniversary to me and Tom! Our wedding feels like a very long time ago. We have had many "firsts" in the past four years of marriage but I know this year will be full of many new "firsts" that we are really looking forward to!



Jess

30 - 34 Weeks

Just a quick update! Thought I would share the size of my growing stomach.

30 Weeks:


34 Weeks - looking a bit more tired and I had not brushed my hair for a solid 24 hours:


The baby is in the head down position, hopefully she stays that way! Onto 35 weeks...5 more weeks to go. Coming soon: update on the move and baby showers galore!
Jess

First Shower + Humidity = Puffy Prego Lady

I attended my first baby shower last weekend and had a wonderful time despite the heat! The guests were mainly Tom's family members along with my mom and sister. I was especially excited to find out that Tom's grandma Sylvia and her sisters, Monica and Marie, would be there. They are the sweetest ladies and they have such a good time together. For lack of a better description, it is just a special experience to be with all of them.

Tom stopped by at the end of the shower to say hello to all of his family and catch up with his grandma.


I digress...back to the beginning of the shower. I have to put in a disclaimer for myself. I didn't start the shower looking really puffy but after sitting outside for a few hours with 85 degree, humid weather, I started to swell. I definitely felt sweaty while opening gifts (even while seated, leaning over to pick up gifts with a baby in the stomach is a lot more taxing then you would think) but it wasn't until I started looking through my photos that I realized how much I had swelled!! Non-pregnant Jess would have really loved the nice weather and probably tried to find a non-shady spot. I realize this happens to many pregnant women, so no need to offer any condolences on my puffy face. I was finally able to get my wedding band off on sunday night and now I'm nervous to put it back on...maybe when the weather cools off a bit.

Highlights and Lowlights

There aren't really any low-lights except for the realization that baby food is gross! I have never played the baby food guessing game and it was very enlightening. The color palette of the food doesn't vary that much even though the foods themselves are quite different. My 15 year old sister-in-law Lani put it best when she asked, why does the Gerber baby always look so happy if this is what he's eating?? I will admit that I liked the sweet potato...on to the highlights!



Parker received a gift. Tom's 2nd cousin, Jan, had the courtesy to remember and acknowledge our "first" baby. There was a note to Parker asking him to love the baby and to not be jealous. Parker will do anything we say once he sees the size of this bone!

Weird shot of me but I wanted to show the bone, it's larger than P's head!


We received a lot of cute baby outfits, books, blankets, and bibs!




Did I mention that laughing seems to also induce swelling? The next two gifts made me really laugh. Tom's mom, Sue, and her husband, Jerry, picked out two hilarious gifts. Tom's entire family is a little Packer football crazy (wisconsin's NFL team) so many of them will be pleased/relieved/enthused to know that baby girl thompson will be ready to represent while 0-3 months old.

Tom and I are most enthusiastic about the MN Twins. So a Packers dress here, a Vikings onesie there, it doesn't matter that much to me. However, we're not ready to accept any donkey or elephant themed outfits :)


The gift from Jerry that he specifically picked out had me dying with laughter. It is basically a mini-Jerry outfit. A camouflage shirt and coordinating camo-green pants.

As Sue pointed out, if the ultrasound did turn out to be wrong, we would have at least one non-girl outfit ready to go. Truthfully, I can't wait to put this on the baby, but maybe I'll add a pink bow around her head.

I did not get a photo of the cake before it was cut but it was AMAZING. Some type of chocolate with some other type of chocolate (my favorite) from Wuollete's Bakery. It was also quite adorable with white frosting and colored polka-dots. My sister-in-law Jess has a photo that I will get at some point.

All in all it was a great event and awesome to receive gifts for the baby! Tom's oldest sister Jessica (another Jess Thompson which can be extremely confusing for family members) hosted the shower and put it all together really well. Both families are really excited for us and we are so appreciative of that.

Normally I would go home, look through everything and ooh and aah, but with moving this week we just transferred it all to Tom's car so as not to have to pack it up. Oh well, it will be fun to revisit it next weekend when I unpack the baby stuff! Another plus, I think Tom is really getting the hang of the baby gear too.


The rest of this week involves finishing packing (about 96% there!), 34 week doctor's appt, closing on our new house on thursday, moving on friday, all-day hospital baby class on saturday, and continuing to unpack and get settled on sunday. Plus many, many other little things to do along the way. I'm tempted to post my entire to-do list because it would make me feel better but I will hold back (I am my mother's daughter in that regard). At some point I will figure out which website I will put photos on and link that to the blog. I have many more shower photos but too many to put in a post!

Jess

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Welcome to the first blog post!
I've been putting off actually starting this blog since I just didn't know where to begin. With the inspiration of new fall TV starting this week, the Krieg's blog debut, and a little harassment, I've decided that now is as good a time as any. Some major changes are happening in our life over the next few months and I thought this would be a good way to share updates with friends and family.

We're in the midst of moving and we hope to close on our new home on sept 17th. It's been a longer process than we originally anticipated, but hopefully we'll be in our new house within 10 days. After some thought and some very expensive moving estimates, we've decided to try and move ourselves (and by ourselves I mean Tom and whoever he bribes to help since I cannot lift anything heavy!). We've started packing and our house is now a mess. I hate living in the in-between state.



While moving in general just plain sucks, we have had some funny moments. One was reading a letter that Tom wrote to an ex-girlfriend when he was in marine boot camp (per Tom, I need to specify that this occurred in 1996 in case you're thinking this happened somewhat recently). He never mailed it (thankfully, as it was SO embarassing) but lucky for us, he saved it and we both had tears running down our face from laughing so hard. A favorite part was a request for her to send her return letter with a spray of perfume :) Another funny thing is discovering long hidden awkward photos that are both hilarious and scary when expecting your first child and wondering what your combination of genes will create...


(mom - can you really still claim that this hairstyle would some how "help" me be who I am today??)

So the unpacking and packing up continues...

The other major change we're looking forward to is the arrival of baby girl Thompson! I'm at 33 weeks and feel like I have no time to prepare and still too much time to wait. She is constantly making her presence known as I feel her moving all the time. I'm looking forward to my first baby shower this weekend with Tom's family (and my mom and sis).

So far, I have been very good at resisting purchasing lots of girl clothes. This is hard for me because 1) I love baby girl clothes, how can you not? and 2) I haven't bought that many new things for myself due to unemployment and not wanting to spend too much on maternity clothes, so I am itching to buy clothes for someone! I did make a purchase the other day. While in a baby section at the store, amidst a sea of pinks, purples, and other pastels something black stood out. I usually gravitate toward black shirts, so naturally I was drawn to this item. I think it's cute but still wonder, is it too dark for a baby girl?
(notice the monkey ears on the hood!)

On a final note I'm happy to report that Tom and I DID make it to the great minnesota get together. I was temporarily banned from going to the fair by Tom since there was an outbreak of swine flu but we decided on the final day that corn dogs and hotdish-on-a-stick could not keep us at home. (and there had been no other H1N1 incidents reported AND Tom still banned me from the 4-H exhibits and The Miracle of Birth Barn - this was probably for the better as maybe I would relate too closely to a pregnant cow and not like what I saw) Items we ate: corndog, pork chop on a stick, corn on the cob, hotdish on a stick, mini donuts, apple cider, root beer and sweet martha's cookies!

Bad side shot of me but a good photo of Tom :)

I think I've covered a lot of ground with blog post #1. My goal is to do an update at least weekly if not more, we'll see how this goes!