Vampires And Other Such Fun

We are finally getting mentally settled from Thanksgiving and traveling, and I want to catch up on some fun activities that I forgot to post about before we left for Ohio.

The Thursday before Thanksgiving was our annual Twilight premiere! We get a big group of (grown) women together, go out to dinner without children or husbands, and then stand in line for a ridiculously long time time to see the midnight premiere of the latest Twilight movie.

This year was just as much fun as all the others! I was a little nervous that "pregnant Katie" was not going to be able to stay awake for an 8:00 PM dinner let alone a midnight movie, but I survived just fine.

The very nice difference this year was that they let us wait IN the theatre seats instead of waiting in line outside or in the hallway. Since we act like highschoolers and get there two hours early, it was really nice (and warm!) to be able to pick out our seats early and relax!

The movie was fun and it was great getting to see girls that I rarely get to spend time with. We don't go expecting an Oscar winner; we just like to squeal like teenagers and hang out!

Mel and I at 2:30 AM...not too shabby!

Last Picture Of Fall

I know Fall is still here and we still have to celebrate Thanksgiving, but mentally, I'm on to Christmas. Steve and Mel are a little surprised that the house isn't covered in Christmas decorations yet; I blame the baby. We leave in just a few days for Ohio where we will celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas with Steve's family, making it even harder to care about Fall.

Before it goes away completely, here are my last picture I wanted to make sure I posted...

Bella's painted pumpkin from our Pumpkin Party...because that girl should never be trusted with a knife. ;)

Goodnight Moon

Bella is firmly in the "mine" stage, and every once in awhile she claims ownership of things that are either attached to someone else's body or simply impossible to get. Last night, as we got out of the car, she saw the moon. She reached up to the sky and yelled, "Ooohhhh! Moon! Mine! Mama! Mine!" I wish I had recorded her voice because she became extremely perturbed that I would not get the moon for her. It was a fun reminder that, as ornery as two-year olds can be, they can also be very funny and insistent!

And speaking of moons and bedtime...we got Bella a twin bed! The original plan was to wait until right before the baby was born, but we found an incredible deal on Craigslist and decided to do it now. As challenging as Bella has been at times, she has always been an amazing sleeper. Thankfully, this time was no exception. She loved the new bed and had no problem when we took her crib out of her room.

A trundle bed with a row of drawers on the bottom. Love it!

All cozy and asleep during naptime. Steve let me get the sheets that match her curtains; they have tiny owls and trees on them.

A Whole New Ballgame

I am not the kind of girl who loves school photos. I have years worth of coming-of-age, horribly embarrassing evidence to prove why. If I hadn't buried those pictures in the depths of the attic, I would pull them out to show you.

Becoming a mother has definitely changed that perspective. I don't think every picture of my child is stunning, but I loved her school pictures. When I showed up at the preschool office to check out her pictures, I expected to scan the one pose of Bella scowling at the camera and say a very kind, "No thank you." The school secretary suggested I take the envelope to the room next door so that I could spread them out for a closer look. I said okay and moved next door. When I took out all of the pictures, there were three different poses! (Can you sense the "sucker new mom" moment?) And they were all adorable!

I'm tempted to spy on the photographer the next time school pictures are taken, because if Steve and I had been there, no way Bella would have smiled so sweetly. And I DO have proof of that...

This is the face that we get if we try to take her picture.

How cute is she?!? I mean, come on! The little tilted head, the cheesy grin! So perfect! Further proof that we birthed an adorable little human!

I like to think of this one as her "dramatic heroin" pose. Complete with flowers and a pensive stare.

The smiling, wonderful monster that we all love! In person, this picture came out a little blurry around her face, but I love the shot of her giggling!

Our Second Midwife...

Last night, Steve and I met with our second potential midwife. We knew the questions we needed to ask and we were confident that both of us were on the same page about what we were looking for.

I had found this midwife, Debbie, over the internet after searching countless sites for midwife practices. She was very friendly and has about 12 years of experience. She started with letting us ask questions, so we repeated much of what we had asked Margaret the week before. I kept wondering throughout the entire meeting what Steve was thinking and which midwife he was favoring. I was really praying that God would align our hearts and minds on this issue.

As we left, I asked him what he thought and which one he preferred. Thankfully, we were both completely in agreement!

We definitely preferred the first midwife, Margaret! Ironically, what I first felt was a slightly colder approach, I now really appreciate as knowledgeable and professional. Since we are very new to the world of midwives and home births, Steve and I both feel that we need the guidance of someone who knows what she's doing. Margaret was able to suggest classes that would help us with nursing and childbirth, as well as give us suggestions for different aspects along the way. She seemed to be a good mix of letting us do what we felt and offering the support we need.

With Debbie, she was much more "feel-goody", which is not at all a bad thing, and in fact, it's exactly what many women are looking for. Steve and I definitely felt that she was of the mindset of "just do what your body is telling you" or "do what you feel." Since we have never experienced or witnessed a natural birth, I think we both would have felt like we were floundering and wondering why she wasn't being more proactive.

We are excited to have made our choice and move forward. We are now focusing on some logistics like finding a midwife or OB practice that will let us get some tests done at their facility without seeing us as full-time patients. I will see my OB for the last time next month in order to do my 20 week ultrasound and find out the baby's gender. (So excited for this!) For some of the tests that happen towards the end, we will find a doctor willing to do those. If the baby is a boy, we will also need to find a place to do a circumcision, etc.

So...here we go! Another plus of Margaret is that she comes to our house for each visit; how great is that!

Our Weekend In Florida

I come from an impulsive family, and it was definitely evident this week! Mel and I got a call on Wednesday afternoon from my dad, asking us if we felt like driving to Florida this weekend. He said that they missed all of us and they'd pay for gas if we would handle the crazy travel. How can you turn that down? We cleared it by Steve and started packing. Turns out, it's incredibly easy to pack when you're only going to be there a day and a half; I fit everything for Steve, Bella, and I into one duffel bag.

Our first stop on Saturday was downtown Venice with all of the shops and stores. Mom wanted our opinion on a little sushi place she had found. She and Steve loved it!

Mel, Steve, and Dad trying the sushi. Dad is NOT a sushi guy, so this was a big step for him!

Baking with Mimi...cookie dough is almost done!

The whole gang at Cheeburger Cheeburger, a 1950's-style diner with make-your-own-burgers. Dad has wanted to take us here for awhile, and he was a little disappointed that I was craving a salad! Bella's great-grandparents on my side of the family are my mom's parents.

Great-Grandpa Zinn sneaking his hot fudge sundae to Bella. They both enjoyed this!

Proof that we actually got to see each other during the crazy weekend!

Hanging out with Papa by the pool. This is Bella's favorite spot in the whole house!

Family picture on Sunday morning; we even got one with Rachel smiling!

It was a quick visit, but a wonderful one! We just don't get enough time with family and it was nice to spend a few hours with mine. In just two weeks, we'll be headed to our Ohio family for Thanksgiving!

Meeting Our First Midwife

Last night, we met with and interviewed our first midwife. At first, I was a little nervous about meeting her because she had seemed kind of...abrupt in her emails. Not rude at all, just not overly warm and friendly. Meeting her face-to-face, though, was much different! She is very no-nonsense, which I think came across in the emails and she was extremely knowledgeable. She has attended over 1,000 home births and has been a midwife since the 70's.

She spent just as much time focused on Steve as she did me. She answered all of our questions about how she would respond in different situations and what could potentially go wrong. She is definitely not anti-doctors, and it was nice to hear about her willingness to be completely flexible if I decided that I wanted to go to a hospital at the last-minute.

Our only negative was that she doesn't have an office. She works completely out of her home, so she isn't able to run tests like an ultrasound at 20 weeks or a strep-B test at the very end. It wouldn't be too big of a deal to find a close midwife practice that is able to see us just for those tests, but it's an additional cost that we'd have to think about.

We meet with our next midwife on Monday. I'm ready to know for sure and get the ball rolling. I need to schedule my next prenatal visit very soon, so hopefully, we'll have a midwife by next week!