Our new house and the second half of pregnancy.

Well, it certainly took me long enough to make a second post on this blog! In the last post, I was 24 weeks along. In this post, I'm 40 weeks- one day past my due date, in fact. Eeps! So sorry for the long hiatus. It seems I'm not quite as good at blogging as I was in high school when I'd blog on a weekly basis.

It's funny, when I posted my 24 week picture in the last blog, I thought that I looked SO big.

Looking back, that was barely a bump at all! Here's me at 38 weeks. So crazy! I'm loving my preggo bump. I'll really miss it and the maternity clothes whenever our baby chooses to make his debut.

So what's happened since the last blog? Well...

I am no longer working. My last day of work was January 13, and I am now a stay-at-home... wife, for now. A lot of people were surprised that I would leave work so long before my due date (March 5). It does feel like it's been a long time, but it has been a tremendous blessing to us. Right after my last day of work, we began to prepare to move (more on our home in a few paragraphs!), and I'm not sure we would have been able to do it had I still been working. There has been so much to do to prepare for our baby and to get into our house that it's been really essential for me to be here and doing things around the house. It was so hard to leave my job- it's the only job I've ever had, and I had been there for four and a half years. I loved my co-workers, and really enjoyed doing what I did (sorting and posting and then delivering mail). I was very blessed with a great job during my years as an employee. On my last day, my co-workers threw me a little going away party/baby shower, which made leaving that much harder. I totally cried as I was leaving (very embarrassing...). All that being said, I am so pumped about my new job as a mommy! It's definitely the job that I have been preparing for and hoping for. So as tough as it was to leave, I know that we have made the right decision and that I will be much happier at home.

The weekends of January (the 14th, the 21st, and the 28th) were filled with baby showers. On the 14th, the ladies in my small group at church threw me a baby shower for my friends at church. It was a lovely shower, with sweet fellowship and lots of encouraging advice from the ladies at church. On the 21st we drove down to Royce's hometown for a baby shower hosted by his mom and dad for family and friends down there. It was our last trip down there until after the baby comes, since I couldn't travel over an hour away from my hospital in my last month of pregnancy. It was a very fun shower- it was co-ed, so Royce was able to come and we were able to see a lot of family members that we wouldn't have otherwise been able to see. On the 28th, my mom and sister threw me a shower for my side of the family, family friends, and friends from high school. It was a really beautiful, big shower, with lots of loved ones there. Baby Hall definitely got a lot of things that we needed at all the showers. What tremendous blessings our family and friends are! This baby has no idea what a wonderful little community he is about to enter into.

Me standing next to the gifts at my Louisville shower.

The biggest thing that has happened in my time off blogging (in fact, I could probably blame my lack of blogging on this entirely... hmm...) is that we bought and moved into a house!!! We discovered a house that we thought would be perfect for us shortly before Christmas time. We entered into negotiations on it, and after a couple of offers back and forth, we settled on an agreement with the owners. We had to wait for about a month, and then on January 16 (shortly after my last day of work) we got to sign the contract on the house and become official homeowners. The current owners requested an extra week to move out after that, which we granted. So all in all, I had about two weeks after I finished working to pack all of the stuff in our apartment. We finished just in time. We received the  keys to our house on January 20 and spent a week cleaning and painting (we couldn't have done it without the help of my mom, who faithfully cleaned with me every day). Then on the morning of January 28 (the same day as my Louisville baby shower- it was a VERY busy day!) we moved all of our stuff from our apartment to our new house. Royce had several guys from our church and from his work offer to help, and we had a couple of ladies from our church helping too, so the moving went extremely fast. We felt so blessed by everyone who helped out so generously. We got pizza for lunch for all our volunteers, and ended up having so much left over that it was our meals for the next week while we continued unpacking the kitchen- haha! I got more than a little sick of Papa John's during that time.

After the move, I spent a day with my mom cleaning our old apartment, then we turned in the keys and were officially done with our first home. That was so, so hard. I literally cried for days. We loved our apartment so much and could have happily spent the rest of our lives there. But alas, since it was just a one-bedroom apartment, that would have been quite impossible with a little one, not to mention, we were kind of overflowing with all of our furniture anyways. It is very weird to not live there anymore. We do miss our wonderful little first home, but by now, we have gotten adjusted to our house and agree that it is every bit as wonderful as our apartment was. I am sure that the memories we make here will be just as wonderful as well.

Anyways, we spent all of February unpacking and decorating. By now, we are officially done setting up everything besides the basement, which is Royce's office area. And that is mostly finished. So we're good to go! Our bathroom and kitchen were the first things we took care of, then we got together the baby's room. It is so fun to see that nursery. It is so perfect. I walk in there all the time just to stare at everything. I've imagined and planned my baby's nursery for years now and it is so weird to see those dreams come true. Here's some pictures of the nursery...

The house is wonderful overall. It is much better than we ever hoped for. We have four bedrooms- three on the main floor, and one in the basement. There are two bathrooms, one on the main floor and one in the basement. Also on the main floor there is a large kitchen, a small but cute dining room, a living room, a sunroom, and a long hallway. Also in the basement (in addition to the bedroom and bathroom) is a huge multi-purpose room (we're using it as Royce's office and then a general family room on the other side) and a laundry/storage room. Oh, and there is an attic with lots of storage space up there as well. Other great features of the house are practically-new kitchen appliances, a wonderful wood floor in the kitchen and hallway, a wood-burning stove in the multi-purpose room, and massive closets everywhere. We bought a washer and dryer and it has been great having our own washer/dryer and being able to just go to the basement to do our laundry. We painted our bedroom a beautiful shade of blue and we painted the nursery a buttery yellow. We didn't have to paint the living room or dining room because they were already green, which we would have chosen anyways. It is a darker shade than we would have done, but it is still beautiful. The backyard is very big with plenty of grass area, plenty of concrete area, and plenty of area for gardening. It has a nice privacy fence and a shed for storing things. We are certain that our child and our future dog will both love it. The front yard has a big Christmas tree which is very exciting for next winter. It also has three dogwood trees, which seems like a bit much to us, but we'll see how they look when they're in bloom! The only downside to the house is that there's no garage. But it seems like in our price range you have to take your pick between having a garage or having a basement, and we definitely valued having a basement a lot more.


Our living room.

My side of the bedroom.

Now for pregnancy news. The last few weeks of the second trimester passed very quickly and very uneventfully. Despite the growing bump, I did not really feel pregnant, with no symptoms or discomforts to speak of. I could feel my baby moving more and more as the weeks went on though. It is so much fun to feel this little human life within me. Baby is quite active in the mornings and at night. I think the baby flipped at Christmas time, because in the couple of days before Christmas there was a LOT of motion in my tummy- you could see it shaking and moving like crazy! Then the next doctor appointment I had, he informed me that my baby was in the right position for birth. So that is my theory for when it happened.

The third trimester has been a little bit more difficult for me than the first or second trimesters were. It still hasn't been that bad, though. The main problem has been backaches. It seems most pregnant women have backaches when they are up and about, because websites always seem to mention sitting and resting with your feet up as the solution to a backache. That has not been the case with me at all. My backaches only occur when I am sitting. When I am standing or laying down, there is no problem. This was a problem for me for several weeks, but now it's actually kind of gone away, so I am grateful. Another problem I had for about a week two weeks ago is that when walking, my left hip would pop out of place, which was extremely painful and would make me double over and be unable to walk for a few seconds. Having this happen in public places was quite embarrassing! My doctor assured me that it was a common problem, though. So anyways, those were the major issues. I've also had swollen feet (my husband lovingly refers to them as "the marshmallows" and my sister gags every time she sees them), and only have two pairs of shoes that fit me right now. I'm anxious for those to go away, but I am grateful that only my feet have swollen, and not my hands or face! If a place has to swell, I'll take the feet any day. My final problem is that sleeping has not been nearly as pleasant for me as it used to be. I wake up to use the bathroom a lot, or I wake up and just lay there because I am uncomfortable. I still feel pretty well-rested, though, I think because I am not working anymore and can sleep in a bit to compensate for the lack of sleep when I should be sleeping. I think I am kind of grateful for my issues with sleeping, because I feel more prepared now to wake up a lot when our baby is crying. I was once worried at how exhausted that would make me, but now I think I'll be able to handle it just fine. We'll see!

As I mentioned earlier in the blog, I am a day past my due date. My doctor has been monitoring me for the past month, checking to see how dilated I am and if the baby has dropped yet. In my final month, and even yesterday on my due date, my baby hasn't dropped a bit and I am not dilated in the least. I have had zero contractions. This is good news for Baby, who seems to be extremely comfortable in there. This is bad news for me, as it makes an induction seem entirely likely. I am going to the doctor's office tomorrow to get an ultrasound, where he'll be evaluating the well-being of our little one and seeing how long he can continue on in my womb. My doctor says that at the most, though, he'd probably let me go a week and a half past my due date. So I think somewhere around March 15 is the latest birth date our little one might have. We'll see! I do hope that Baby decides to make an appearance on his own before it comes to being induced. I'd love to be surprised, and to avoid the pain being induced tends to bring. But whatever the Lord wills is fine with us. One way or another, we figure we will have our baby with us in a week and a half or less, and that knowledge fills us with joy.

Please keep praying for us as we adjust to our new home and as we wait for our baby to come into the world. We are fully prepared for the baby (or, as prepared as we can be, anyways!) and are now just sitting around waiting and twiddling our thumbs. Pray for me and the baby in labor; that we would both be healthy and strong.

Hopefully I'll be a better blogger when I have a cute little baby to report on all the time. :)

Us at 30 weeks pregnant.