3 Month Appointment

Dave and I had our 3 month appointment today for Baby. The appointment was actually less eventful than I expected, but I guess they can't all be as exciting as the first ultrasound and actually seeing the little one inside me! We did get to hear the heartbeat this time though, as I thought. I was ready to go into this special room with a machine and basically, it was this little portable device that the nurse had that was able to detect the heartbeat. It only took her a few tries on my tummy to find the heartbeat and you could definitely tell it was a rapid little pace at 148 beats per minute!! I was trying to be so still for the nurse to count and I had tears welling up in my eyes - it was just an amazing sound! Thankfully we'll get to hear that sound at every appointment in the future!!! I guess next appointment they'll start measuring my belly, which can help them tell how much Baby is growing. Also, I am able to schedule the 20 week ultrasound now where we can find out the sex (IF WE CHOOSE TO...ahem, Rachel) and get to see all the organs and stuff I guess.

They also weighed me at this appointment and quite frankly, I don't like their scale! ha ha. I'm going to blame the extra pound or two on the Wendy's burger I had right before the appointment since I was starving - and you really never know how long you have to wait to get into the doctor's office - it's never at the actual appointment time! That's all for now - I wish I had another ultrasound pic to load up, but not this time. I'm sure we'll take another belly shot this weekend or next - hopefully in front of a better background where you can fully appreciate the growth of my mid-section.

12 Weeks Along

As promised, here is an updated picture of me and the new belly at 12 weeks this weekend (don't mind the lovely hairdo). I weighed myself at the gym Friday night and I've gained 2 pounds since my appointment at 8 weeks. I'm not sure if that's entirely pregnancy weight or all the eating out while on vacation. But, I have to get used to the scale moving upwards now. From now on, it's supposed to be a 1 pound per week gain! Oh lord, here we go....

Here are also pictures of the first toy that Baby received from our friend Sara and the donated maternity clothes from 4 good friends of mine (I even got a shipment all the way from Oregon!). I think now all I need to buy are pants!!

Two Month Ultrasound Pic!

As promised, here is a picture of 'Baby Hickman' at 2 months...hopefully we'll have an updated picture after next week's appointment!

Baby Hickman on the way!

Yes, that's right, Dave and I have a 'Baby Hickman' on the way! Dave and I wanted to try to call each and every friend to tell them in person, but honestly between me falling asleep by 8:30 most nights and being fairly busy at work for both of us, it's just not a task we can complete and I'm just too anxious to get the word out there to let this go any longer! I am 11 1/2 weeks pregnant now (Due Oct 7, 2007)! We had our first appointment at the end of February where we got an ultrasound and were able to see and faintly hear the little heartbeat! The baby also moved during the ultrasound, so Dave's sure the baby was waving 'hi' to us. We now have the ultrasound picture on the fridge where we can see our future son/daughter every day!! We have another appointment next week, where we'll get to hear the heartbeat on this doppler machine where it's a lot louder, so that will be awesome! We started taking side profile pictures of me to show progress (I will post those on the blog at some point) Looks like I'll finally have something to update the blog about on a regular basis, you don't know how hard this was for me to keep this for this long!!

We just got back from Arizona late last night, so I'll probably update the blog tonight or tomorrow with pictures and details. Dave is out of town in training until tomorrow night, so I'll have plenty of time to give all the details!

Wedding Bells

Last weekend Dave and I went to one of my High School friend's wedding. It was great to get together with the old gang, and almost every one of us is married now. Wow, we're getting old! ha ha ha. It's a shame it was so cold because the reception was at Starved Rock and it would've been so nice to be outside and see the view, but we stayed firmly planted inside (and even got a dinner table right next to the fireplace!) Here is a picture of most of the girls...a few had already left by the time we took the picture.

I promise more exciting blogs soon...Dave and I are going to Arizona next weekend for a 3rd anniversary trip, so there will be much to tell!

Weekend in Philly!

This past weekend Dave and I traveled to Philadelphia to finally meet our new little niece; we had such a great time! Rowan is a very happy baby and we tried to make her smile every chance we got! Uncle Dave was a bit nervous that Rowan might not like him, but I think his fears were set aside once she gave him a big grin! We also bought her a little chair to sit in, which we couldn't tell if she enjoyed due to the expression on her face, but hopefully in time! Enjoy the pics...

Birthday Weekend!

This weekend was pretty busy for Dave and I. Friday I had a Tastefully Simple Party, which is always fun because you basically visit with friends and EAT!! Saturday, Dave and I went bowling and to dinner with his co-workers from his old job at Amsco, which is always fun catching up witht he old crew! One of the girlfriends took pictures, so hopefully I'll have some pics to put on the blog shortly. Finally, different pictures besides the house!! Sunday, for my birthday, we had my Dad and family over to watch the Bears game...boy, was that exciting! (Dave even put on his Chicago Bears t-shirt for good luck) I can't believe the Bears actually have a chance to win the Super Bowl! Anyway, not much else to share at this point...hope everyone's doing well!

New Curtains!

Okay, so kind of a lame blog topic...but, Dave and I bought curtains for our family room windows and I was pretty happy with how they turned out. So, for everyone that keeps 'bugging' me to put updated pictures on the blog of what we've done to the house, you'll have to be satisfied with these pics for now. Although, the pictures don't really do the curtains justice since our lighting is terrible in that room, you can't even see the colors! Also, we did get a scarf to go across the top windows, but we need to get a tall ladder to put those up..so, this is the halfway complete picture!

But, silly story about these curtains. I brought in two women to look at the windows to give us suggestions on what we could do to make them look good and after I got the first quote back, I immediately went to "plan b" which was the JCPenney catalogue. The lady wanted more than $3k to do 3 roman shades and a scarf across the top three windows!! We spent less than 10% of that and I'm happy with what we did!! So, word of advice, try to bring our your creative talents yourself when it comes to window treatments!!

For those of you interested in the house, I'm hoping to get the master bathroom painted by the end of the month (January is so darn busy for us!!), so I can add those later.

Happy New Year!!

Dave and I had a great time with a group of friends on New Year's Eve! We went to Rock Bottom Brewery in Warrenville and had lots of yummy food and plenty of drinks to go around! I hope everyone had a great New Year's and hopefully we'll see ya sometime soon in 2007!!

Our First Fire

Dave and I went out and bought some firewood yesterday. We ordered a load to be delivered tomorrow to the house and we also picked up a small bundle to try out the new fireplace last night. Needless to say, our wood was fairly damp, so the fire wasn't very successful, but we'll let it dry out and just keep trying! Notice our new poker set/log holder set we got from Home Depot! The joys of after Christmas shopping with 20% off the floor model that was already on sale! We got it for a steal!!

Dave is busy setting up the surround sound today...he was off work, while I had to go back today. But, I left him a "honey do" list to hang some pictures and do some other small household items. Now, he's on the most important item, surround sound. He's almost done and I'm sure we'll just have the greatest effect while watching movies and tv now! ha ha ha

Happy Holidays!

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and has a Happy New Year! This is a picture from Christmas Eve at my Dad's house...the three of us! And, a picture of Sasha at Dave's parent's house on Christmas Day.

More Work Around the House

We've gotten some more done around the house since I last posted. Figured I'd wait until we got a couple more items crossed off the 'to-do list' before I posted, so I could put them all up here at once. We painted the upper part of the dining room walls last weekend and put up 2 pictures we bought for the room. We're going to paint the bottom half a yellow-brown color and continue the chair rail through the center of the room that's in the foyer. We also finally got our two bamboo roman shades from JCPenney that we ordered back in October, that Dave put up this weekend. We're pretty excited with how they look in our nautical room!! Now we still just need to get the wallpaper for the bottom half of the walls, so it doesn't look so silly with half green. This weekend I also decided to tackle the painting of the guest bathroom.

Some other things we got done this week, were buying doors for our fireplace, since it only came with the mesh curtains, and we also got a log holder to sit outside when we eventually order wood to be delivered!! We still are on the look-out for a poker set and an inside log holder. I love having a fireplace, but I tell ya, there's a lot of accessories you need just to run the darn thing! Hopefully we can have a few fires before spring!

Other than that, not much else is new with us...just trying to relax and enjoy the new place over the holidays! Happy Holidays to everyone!!

2 Week Progress

As promised, here are some pictures I took tonight of the house. We need some more lighting, so some of the pictures are kind of dark, but you can get the general idea of what it looks like now. There are pictures of the Family Room, Kitchen, Living Room, Foyer and the Library or as Dave named it this weekend the "snake cave". Oh yes, and a picture of my closet, because I think it's hilarious that my closet is HUGE and I don't have a lot of clothes to fill it up...I'm sure it's most women's dream size though! Guess I need to go on a shopping spree now! The Library looks funny right now because we've painted the walls, but plan to put wallpaper up. Of course, everything costs money, so in time we'll have the wallpaper! Enjoy and hopefully you can all visit to see the house in person, it's a lot easier to capture everything in person versus a photo. Until then...

THE MOVE!

Well, Dave and I had our closing at 3pm Monday and it went on without a hitch! We were homeowners by 3:45 officially with keys in our hands! Monday evening we unloaded the rental truck into the garage and painted the laundry room. Tuesday we continued to paint (the kitchen) and Dave's parents were gracious enough to bring over lunch and help us do two loads to empty out our storage unit. Wednesday was by far the most interesting day...the garage door opener was installed and luckily for us, the installer alerted us to the fact that there was a leak in the ceiling of our garage, and it was getting a steady stream of water on top of our stuff!! Luckily, we found the source of the problem (a roofer left off a piece of flashing when putting our garage roof on) and it was fixed quickly. Thank heavens it wasn't in our living area!! The painters also came over and started painting the foyer and family room. Dave and I painted our closets and started to situated boxes into rooms, the basement and unpacking the kitchen items. Thursday we finally felt like we started to see progress because my Dad came over to help empty the POD and we finally started setting up furniture! While the boys moved heavy furniture, I painted the library and continued to organize things in the house. The best part of Thursday was that finally, after 6 months, we were able to sleep on a normal mattress...and boy did we sleep well!! Friday was spent setting up all the furniture that came out of the POD on Thursday and I did a bit more painting. (I was actually supposed to work on Friday, but because of weather they told everyone to work from home...wahoo, I felt like a kid having a snow day!) Friday evening, we went and picked up THE BIG SCREEN that Dave was so badly missing and set it up in the entertainment center. Saturday was spent hanging window coverings and some art work, sealing the grount in the bathrooms and foyer and having our cable and internet set up (Yes, I am blogging from home now!!!). I think tomorrow we'll enjoy the Bears game at home to relax a bit before we go back to the grind on Monday, but I'm sure we'll do a bit more painting and situating with the day also. I will load some pics up soon to show you the progress we've made. We'd love any visitors too!

Ooo, La la

Dave and I had our final walkthrough today from 2-4:30 or so. We were instructed on how all the items around the house work and looked for any defects that we could see that needed to be fixed before we closed. There weren't many things that needed to be fixed honestly and it was so awesome seeing the whole thing completed!! Now, it's just a waiting game for 7 more days and it's ours to live in!! Here are two pictures where you can now see the wood floor is uncovered and the carpet is in...

Oh yeah...we found out because Pulte had a flaw in their paperwork...we actually got an additional $2k of upgrades that we didn't even know! (ceramic tile around our master tub and some crown molding in the foyer) He he...I guess it pays to sign early in a new subdivision, before they proof all their paperwork...

No more pics for a while, since we're on vacation next week moving. Although, I might just withhold anymore pictures so that we can have visitors come see us...since we refused to invite anyone over while living in our apartment.

Next time I post, I will live in a real house!!

Black Belt Fever

Dave and I had a very busy weekend...I drove with my Mom to Urbana to pick up my brother for Thanksgiving break. One thing that made me laugh is that there must be some unwritten rule for college kids that you should hold out doing laundry for at least a few weeks before Thanksgiving. That way, you can bring a HUGE bag of dirty laundry home for your Mom to clean!! I swear, every kid we saw coming out of the dorm had at least one huge mesh bag full of laundry! I guess every quarter counts in college though!

Saturday was a big event for my Dad and brother...they both took black belt tests (Dad - 5th degree and Patrick - 1st degree). It was a grueling 3 hour test with a total of around 12 people testing. The test was hosted at my Dad's facility in Yorkville, so Dave and I went to show support and helped set up the celebratory feast afterwards (and I made cupcakes...mmmm!). Of course they both passed with flying colors!!!

Sunday was pretty boring for me, Dave worked from 9-6:30p.m. and I just did errands around the apartment and started to get a few things ready for packing this next weekend....yee ha!

2 Weeks

As you can see by the pictures, our sod and mailbox are now there, kitchen island was put in and the final coat of paint was put on. We have our final walkthrough a week from today and closing 2 weeks from today! We're trying not to get too excited because it is 2 weeks away, but we're hoping with Thanksgiving right around the corner, time will fly by!!

On another note, I've discovered I'm starting to like sushi a little bit. We took Dave's Dad out for a birthday dinner at a place called Blu Coral on Saturday and I tried a piece of 'Red Dragon'...pretty good!

One other news item from this weekend...Dave's car was hit by someone in our parking lot Friday night! We came out Saturday morning and noticed his front, right panel was pretty badly hit! It's a shame with such a short amount of time left in the place and someone has to be stupid. We went around that night investigating all the cars in the lot that might've been responsible. We found one car that might've done it, but hard to prove without someone seeing it happen. So, time to call the insurance agent!

3 weeks

Here are pictures from this past weekend. They had our wood floors done, appliances were in the house ready to be put in, and all railings were done. I'm sure there were more little things they did that we couldn't see, but it's definitely coming together!! We can't wait to get moved in and start painting and getting our old things back! We took Sasha again this weekend and I really think she's starting to like the place! :)

Rowan Ashmore

Here is a picture of our new little niece!! She's so adorable! Dave's parents went out to PA to visit and sent us lots of pictures of Rowan. Dave and I can't wait to meet her in person hopefully early next year!

4 weeks until closing!

Another Saturday trip to the house with Sasha this weekend and a lot more was completed in the house! We have our cabinets in (kitchen and bathrooms), all interior doors were on, paneling above the fireplace, outside shutters, and they started the railings! Enjoy the pictures...

In an effort to really hype ourselves up to move, Dave and I managed to take full advantage of the JCPenney home sale this weekend and got several window coverings and pieces of art work for 50-60% off! We even got a call from the fraud group at our credit card company wondering if we were shopping in JCPenney...guess it's good we're being watched, but we thought it was rather funny! So, once we move all our stuff inside, we'll now have artwork and blinds to hang to make the place look more homey!