Things That Must Go

Sometimes it just feels better to write them down, so here are the latest things that need to go:

• This. Winter. It snowed Monday and Tuesday. GO AWAY WINTER!!! No one likes you!!!!
• Marvel stuff. The Avengers was fun, and I liked the first Iron Man. But the rest of this junk (who really wants to see multiple Captain America movies?)  Blech. Just way too much. They're even trying to shove a TV show down our throats now? Way too greedy Disney. Show some class and restraint.
• Those automated customer service lines where you have to tell a robot why you are calling the stupid company, and then have to repeat yourself three times because the robot lady keeps being dumb "I'm sorry, I couldn't understand you" after going through eight different menus and options, and then when you actually do speak to a human being you have to repeat everything you had to enter in the first place. And then they have to transfer you to someone else and then the whole process repeats itself. The worst.
• The U.S.'s crappy, non-existant laws and programs for working pregnant women. All we have is the FMLA?? Really??? Which, by the way, is not specific for pregnancy.  How has some idiot politician not jumped all over that for the female vote?  Honestly, though. Plus we don't have anything for paternity leave. That's pretty messed up and sexist America. Get it together. (Luckily, my work has a pretty great maternity leave policy, but I still think the laws need some updating.)
• The fact that Two-And-A-Half-Men was ever and is still on TV. How???? Why????????
• Finding out that a place you used to eat lunch at fairly regularly, recently failed a health inspection. Just ew.
• People asking whether I'm going to deliver naturally.  First of all, it's none of their business, but secondly, I am a slacker and don't really have my complete 'birth plan' figured out and the question stresses me out and makes me feel even more freaked out about the whole thing.

And of course, I don't want to be completely negative, so here are some goodies too

• The cherry blossoms should be blooming in a few weeks! Poor little guys have had to wait forever for this beastly winter to pass. I feel your pain cherry blossoms. We all do.
• Brody's finals are a month away!!! And then he will be done with school forever! I think I might be even more excited than he is.
• Is there anything better than free shipping both ways? There's no risk!
• As of Wednesday, our apartment is finally finished.  They installed our carpet on Tuesday and finished up all the loose ends Wednesday. I must say, being able to walk barefoot in our bedroom after three months of having to put on shoes just to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night (which is a regular occurrence for me) feels like a luxury.
• Brody found his wedding ring today! It had been lost for a long time. My theory is that is had been lost under the shelves in his closet and the carpet guys found it and put it on one of the shelves in there. Yay!
• For the most part, people are really nice to you when you're prego.
• It's Friday!!!!! And my cute ward is throwing me a shower tomorrow :)

Happy weekend everyone!

The Look for Less

I've got major spring fever. I can't wait for warm weather and of course, warm weather clothes.  Cute spring and summery dresses and sandals. Sigh....

And I've been noticing some amazing retail cheats lately.

Is there anything better for spring than a bright, beautiful floral?  I love the colors in this Anthro Quinby dress, just not so much the price.  Lands End has a beautiful option for much less.

Anthropologie $168, Land's End $59

The Free People embroidered Marina Dress, so lovely and perfect for summer but not exactly cheap at $128 retail. Luckily both Target and Ruche seem to have their own, much more affordable option

Free People $128, Target $29.99, Ruche $54.99

Sonnet James is a line of modest, mom-friendly dresses that are really cute, but seem stupidly expensive for what you're getting. I found this super cute substitute for their popular Remi dress at ASOS and I know target has a full-length one too but I couldn't seem to find it online

Sonnet James $98, ASOS $47.05

Free People Penny Lane Dress, so breezy and cute but for $152....not so much. Luckily, Ruche has a similar option for much less

 Free People $128, Ruche $44.99 (though admittedly no where as cute)

And this lovely Galina dress is only $59 at Anthro which is super cheap for them, but ASOS has a very similar version for half that.

Anthropologie $59, ASOS $25.41

I think I'm just getting excited to wear my non-maternity clothes again

A Good Start to the Weekend

So I just got off the phone with a nice customer service lady over at West Elm and because of all the hassle we went through with the mattress debacle and the damage that had occurred to our old Queen set, they are giving us a $300 merchandise card that never expires and can be used at any of their brands! Eeeek! Sometimes it really does pay to be a complainy beast, (and actually fill-out those annoying automated customer service follow-up surveys).
Yay for justice!

Now, what to get....

31 Weeks (with pictures)

It's been a week of welcome good news. Our mattress, our beautiful, king-size, actually double-sided, mattress came on Thursday.  And everything went perfectly.  I wish we would have just gone with US-Mattress.com in the first place, but...you live and you learn. Not only that, but a crew of handymen came to our apartment yesterday and fixed all our walls and ceiling. I still can't believe it took this long and we still need carpet in the bedroom, but I'm just so happy that our apartment is almost back to normal.

As promised to a few different people, Brody took some photos of the baby bump today. I tried to include some variety to get the full magnitude of my belly. I apologize in advance if my blindingly pale skin hurts anyone's eyes (especially the ones without my jacket on, yikes.)  It was in the 60's today and we took a nice little stroll in the sunshine. It felt so good to spend time outside, the sun and warmth is just good for the soul. Not to mention getting some much-needed vitamin D as we're both getting over colds right now.

Lately, there is nothing more fun for us than watching my tummy move with baby girl's kicks and rolls and whatever else she's doing in there. We can't wait to meet her in a couple months! And yes, we do have a short list of names that we like, but we are going to wait to decide for sure until we meet her :) Right now that list is Cadence, Olivia, and Naomi for those who've been wondering.

30 Weeks

I meant to have Brody take some more bump pictures last weekend, but he was so busy working on a hearing for one of his clients that it just didn't happen. Breaking into the thirties is kind of freaking me out, I feel like this pregnancy is flying by! I now have to go see my doctor every two weeks instead of 4 and I feel like she's going to be here before we know it.  With the flood and all the craziness with our apartment we've done virtually no "nesting" (we can't really do much anyway) but at some point in my life I became a big 'planner' and having so much be out of my control and un-plannable has been a challenge for me. But we are already seeing the reasons for everything that has been happening, and the fact that we've had to rely solely on each other through it all has just made me fall even harder for him (which I didn't know was possible).

"It's a lovely store, and in a week it will be something really depressing, like a Baby Gap"

Just a line from You've Got Mail, but I felt it was appropriate since I finally broke down the other week and ordered Baby Girl some clothes! They were having a sale, and I just couldn't help myself I mean, honestly, look how cute they are....

if nothing else, it looks like she will be inheriting my love of stripes and gingham :)