Preparing for Halloween

Now that the Ultrasound has come and gone and we know we'll have a baby girl in a few months... what is there to update you on??!! Of course I'll continue to add new photos of my growing belly and all the adorable things I'm knitting (just started a "girly" baby blanket with a snowdrop lace pattern in light purple fingering weight yarn). I will also be putting together a wish list for baby online since we will not be registering at a mega-store. I imagine the next big story will be feeling her kick - or more importantly, Robin being able to feel her kick.

In the meantime - I hope everyone has a fabulous Halloween! I'm dressing up as a Pumpkin Witch and lecturing to my students in orange! What a great excuse to wear everything I own that is orange. And A. (baby) can participate too because I am stitching black felt shapes onto the belly of my orange top to make my belly into a jack-o-lantern. I was just going to be a Pumpkin person (have orange hairspray, a brooch, and a sparkly "body art" sticker for my face [nnow neck] to go with the rest of the orange) until I remembered my awesome orange and brown crocheted witch hat. I can't not wear it on Halloween!!

Why "A." you ask? I guess I didn't post that story here. There are two top names chosen for our girl and both begin with A. But we won't choose for certain until we meet her. Until her birth she is A. Marion Furney Bartley. Her middle name was chosen years ago, or at least, the middle name of our first daughter was chosen years ago. Naming a girl was a relatively easy matter for us. It was boy names we were struggling with.

UPDATE: I think we could both feel A. kicking last night. It wasn't strong and I wasn't sure if I was just feeling movement inside or on my hand, but Robin may have felt something too. Very faint yet if it is.

Ultrasound says...

It's a girl.

The last image is our Halloween special... the skull.

Pretty cool... and creepy. But hey, that's human anatomy.

Enjoy the first baby photos.

Yippee - It's October!!

Ah, October. Cool breezes. Sunny skies. Autumn colours and crisp leaves. How lovely.

Let's hurry up and skip to the end of the month! Then we can get to the good stuff!! Namely, the ultrasound (Oct 25) and Halloween. I have no idea what I'm dressing up as this year, but I'd like it to incorporate baby somehow. But not as gorey as what my sister did during her pregnancy last year! (see photo below) I also plan on decorating the house this year. Last year the renovations were in the way and we hid in the basement with our lights off. And sheesh - they didn't even show Thriller on TV. What's Halloween without MJ's Thriller on MM?

In the meantime, I suppose I'll have to occupy myself by getting stuffed this weekend. A long weekend of fun - and this month I/we are taking advantage of it! Over the summer the long weekends slipped by us unnoticed. Robin currently has Thursdays and Fridays off, plus he got the weekend off, and he's not working the holiday Monday. So he has a 5 day weekend! (I have to teach Friday). We're celebrating his birthday on Saturday. Then we're sharing dinner with his cousins on Sunday. It's somewhat unfortunate that his birthday is this weekend and we want to celebrate with friends, because otherwise we could have taken off for a mini holiday. We'll just have to have a holiday here at home. This week I'll be busy finishing up Robin's surprise gifts. I already gave him an early present - a Halo 3 poster I made sure I got before they all sold out (with H2 they sold out in 2 weeks). I also wanted him to have it before the actual game came out - but he's still not put it up. And now, of course, he's too busy playing H3 to worry about the poster.

Robin's soon changing jobs. He'll still be with the same company (unless he quits), but the job will be somewhat different. He may get stuck with some crappy hours for a while :( But he's hopeful that the new developments will give him an opportunity to get a supervisory position.