Top things I'll miss after Hank's birth & what I look forward to most

Overall my pregnancy has been really easy.  I had no morning sickness, just some food aversions, which quickly went away.  I did have some pretty bad headaches brought on by the change in hormones through probably my 4th month.  But once I found out I could still take aspirin and ibuprofen that helped a ton.  Then the headaches finally went away and I've been pretty ailment-free since then (except chronic heartburn).  I haven't had any bloating, my rings and shoes all still fit.  No backaches (due to pregnancy anyway), and almost no stretchmarks even (TMI?).  Oh, and very importantly, no gestational diabetes.  I think the fact that I still exercise 3-4 times per week and am still otherwise active (with the exception of my desk job, of course) has helped with all of these things.  I've only gained about 16-17 pounds and am due in less than 2.5 weeks!  I hope this allows me to fit into my pre-pregnancy pants very quickly.

So here are my top things that I will miss after giving birth to my little Hank:

1) The excitement of knowing I get to meet my little guy (including finding out what he looks like!).
2) Having Hank with me at all times, which will never again be the case after he arrives.
3) Never having an extended period of time off from work again (hopefully, unless it's my choice!).
4) Feeling his movement (up until recently anyway - it was neat at first, now it's way uncomfortable).
5) Having lots of alone time for myself and Julian.  Not as much in store for us in the future!
6) Being able to sleep in on weekends/days off.

Here are the top reasons I cannot wait to give birth to Hank:

1) Meeting my little guy and knowing he's healthy.
2) Having 4 months off from work, the longest I have not worked since prior to working for my Dad (beginning in junior high).
3) Being able to drink wine guilt-free again.
4) No more maternity clothes!!!  Can you say 'bonfire'?
5) Having some energy back - I have been so tired these last few weeks.
6) Being able to bend over comfortably again and generally having my body back to myself.
7) Not having a baby churning up my insides with his insane movements.  The movement has NOT gotten less towards the end for me, it's gotten far more intense and darn uncomfortable.
8) No more doctor's appointments (for me anyway).
9) No more heartburn!
10) No more people asking 'How are you feeling?'.
11) Having this baby off my bladder.  No more having to go pee sometime during the night and being able to go on longer walks without fear of not being able to find a bathroom.

So you noticed that the latter list is a little longer than the former?  Yes, I am ready for Hank to be born any time now!! 

Nursery pics - it's finally done!

So Hank's room is finally done!  We may add a rug (the one I ordered and waited a month to get was totally wrong, so I sent it back).  But otherwise our Richard Scarry / vintage kids' book-themed nursery is as done as it's going to be right now.

Just last week Julian finally finished the last of the Richard Scarry murals.  He definitely put his heart and soul into these paintings and it shows - they are beyond super amazing.  I love them and I sure hope Hank loves them even half as much as I do. 

We picked out the soft green wall color when we had the upstairs remodeled last year - it was sort of a premonition - just in case we did decide to adopt or have our own baby the walls would be ready with a neutral color and we love it.  The rest of the room was a blank palette and luckily was empty.

We bought all the furniture (except the crib) used, at vintage stores and I repainted them.  Julian repainted the rocking chair though, which was his parents', given to them as a honeymoon present and they gave it to us probably 10+ years ago.  We painted it horrible colors long ago, so it had to be stripped and repainted.  I also sewed the curtains (Little Golden Book fabric) and was so happy to see the color goes great with the furniture I painted a really pretty blue (it was called 'newborn blue').

The rest you can check out for yourself:

Before picture

Another before picture

Julian in action on the first painting

All done!

Detail of the Bear Band mural above crib

The Polite Elephant mural

Detail of the Lowly mural near Polite Elephant

Cute Richard Scarry bunny holding saw (no embellishments!)

Adeline's 1st birthday shindig

A couple weeks ago our friend's sweet little girl, Adeline, turned a year old. Monique and Chris (the proud parents and some of our best friends) threw a great party. I can't wait to be able to throw our lil' Hank his own birthday party some day! Here are some pics from the festivities:

Teresa, Tim, Julian and Chris (proud daddy) sporting party hats

Adeline ripping into a present

Birthday girl got her own personal cake - lucky!

Manijeh and Eric with their new little guy, Oren

Restaurant review - Otto

Last Friday night Julian and I attended a dinner with our dinner group at Otto, which is a newer restaurant on 18th & Hawthorne. We'd been wanting to check it out, and it was a bonus that we could walk there. It was nice to go to a dinner group outing, we hadn't been to one since mid-May, party due to general craziness and also due to budget constraints. These dinners do tend to add up because they're usually at "fancy" restaurants, which we've really cut back on.

We had a nice time, and sat near a super nice couple that we'd never met before (and near other great people too of course). Liz, another dinner group member that is a sweetie, even gave us a cool book for little Hank, which everyone got a kick out of - it's called "Go the F*ck to Sleep" and it has a minimum of one cuss word per page, but usually more. Funny - but probably not something we'll be reading Hank to bed any time soon. But that was so darn nice of her to think of us and I'm sure we'll share it with him someday.

So on to the restaurant...it was not packed, which isn't a good sign for a Friday night. I'd seen the menu on-line and it was the same one when we got there, which is always nice (when you have something already picked out). Julian and I started with shrimp fritters and a salad. Each were $7. The fritters were literally 2 small fritters with a quinoa tabbouleh salad and it was tasty but way too small. I only had one bite of salad, I didn't want to eat all of it on Julian, and it was nothing to write home about and was underdressed. It was also the only salad on the menu - which is not cool because I almost always order a salad and like a choice. For our main dishes we shared a Neptune roll (lobster, shrimp & crab) that was $13 and the grilled sturgeon over corn succotash for $17. Both were yummy, but the roll came with absolutely nothing else (at least throw in some potato chips!) and the fish was a very small portion. The dessert was great though - I got the salted carmel gelato with espresso poured over it - really good and worth it for $6.

The wine list was not great, with 3 red wines by the glass: one for $9, one for $10 and one for $11. Too expensive. I'm a big fan of a good priced house wine in the $6 or $7 range.

So overall - good food, but not enough bang for the buck. We didn't feel ripped off, but we probably won't be going back either. Not one person had leftovers to take, or food left on a plate sent back to the kitchen - not really a great sign when our bill was as huge as it must have been. I would recommend they tweek their menu to be less expensive if they want to survive - Portland already has enough fancy pants restaurants and I'd hate to see them go out when the owners moved all the way across the country to start this place.