The end of October brought a flurry of activity with the pending baby shower paired with the dining room renovation.  As the party was to be at our house (as we are rather centrally located for our family members) we wanted to be sure we didn't have bare sheet rock welcoming our guests into our house.  So, in the week and a half leading up to the shower Kyle tackled the taping and mudding of the sheet rock.  Instead of our typical technique of hand-sanding the seams, Kyle (in a stroke of brilliance, I swear) decided to pull out his orbital sander.  We were sure to put up plastic in all the doorways to try to keep the drywall dust migration to a minimum which worked relatively well.  The walls and ceilings ended up looking great- much smoother than when we would sand by hand- so we're sold on the new technique.

The weekend before the shower we had my Mom come down to help paint.  We purchased a VOC-free paint from the local hardware store in a dusty yellow-green color (can you tell we're suckers for green?).  We were able to get the entire room primed and painted in a single day.  I was psyched.  The room went from this:






Rest assured, nothing ever goes perfectly.  We ran into a little comic relief towards the end of the day when my Mom decided to be a joker and step into the paint can.  She says it was by accident but I'm pretty sure she just liked the color and thought her shoes could use a little update.  But a little bit of water and some uncontrollable laughter solved the problem and we quickly righted her shoe and sock, although I'm fairly sure her pants will never be quite the same again.



The floor still needs to be refinished and we have yet to find the perfect chandelier, but we've been making due with the light we removed from the nursery when we upgraded it a few months ago.  We were able to get the trim up and painted around all the doors and windows, so our dining room was perfectly presentable in time for our first baby shower at the end of October.  We had a lovely time with family and friends and were given many generous gifts in preparation for our little girl.

Speaking of which, our little girl (as it turns out) isn't all that little.  She's a little monster in there and the doctors are telling me that if she doesn't flip over soon (as she is currently head UP instead of head DOWN like she's supposed to be) they'll have to schedule me for a cesarean section.  I'm not terribly pleased, what with my feelings of wanting to keep things as natural and drug-free as absolutely possible, but in the end all that matters is that we are blessed with a healthy baby girl in late January.  Until then, I am blessed by being able to stay home, relax, and prepare for baby.  Almost a month ago, the doctors decided that I should stop working and thanks to my company's short-term disability plan we are able to afford this turn of events.

So, thats my modest update for today.  Please stick around- I hope to get another blog post up tomorrow to continue in my efforts to get you all caught up before the end of the year!

Last year had been a whirlwind of firsts.  Our first house, marriage, goats and chickens.  We made it through in full force last year and haven't slowed down yet.  Kyle and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary this year.  We had decided not to go overboard in the name of frugality- so it was a day without cards or flowers or gifts.  We both agreed afterwards that this had been a mistake, but we're good at learning from our mistakes.  Days like that, the day of two lives joining together as one, should always be met with a celebration of some kind.  Our wedding day had been perfect.