Hello 3rd Trimester!

  

Wow.  28 Weeks.  I can't believe I am already in my third trimester.  This pregnancy has gone by very quickly.  I have been truly blessed with a very easy pregnancy so far, although I am hoping my luck doesn't run out just about the time labor begins...

I know I haven't been very good about blogging updates about this pregnancy, or posting updates on the 'belly bump', but honestly centering a blog around how much big my stomach is getting doesn't really appeal to me!  Matthew and I have been taking pictures along the way, because we do want to document (privately) this wonderful, exciting time in our lives.  Starting the third trimester, I decided it is finally time to share some pictures.

Matthew was promoted from assistant photographer, to head photographer for a little maternity photo shoot. I am still not at that perfect, full, round belly stage.  So, while Matthew was taking pictures I was trying to push my stomach out a little more.  When we got home and were looking at the pictures, Matthew says, "Wow!  You look huge!"  (just what every woman wants to hear!!!)  He quickly followed that gem of a statement up by saying that he was just surprised because I looked bigger in the pictures than I do in person.  That made me feel a little better, sort of...

 

As we were taking pictures on the hay bales, a farmer drove past on his tractor.  Matthew kept shooting, and the look on the farmer's face cracks me up! (I added a closer cropped photo so you can see his face better)

 

 

I was working hard on setting up this shot with the sun flare...

 

But, by the time we switched places, the sun went behind the clouds.  Oh well!

So there you go!

On other, pregnancy-related topics, Matthew and I have the nursery/guest room/office/storage room just about set up.  Since I got our crib from Jen, and it is a US sized crib- which is different from a French sized crib, I ordered bedding from Pottery Barn.  My mom is bringing it when she comes in November.  We moved our futon from the living room, since we had to get rid of the queen bed that was in the room.  This is where my mom will sleep for the 7 weeks she is here (sorry Mom!).  While Matthew was off for the August vacation time, we received our order from Ikea that included our new couch and a dresser for the nursery.  We were also loaned a second dresser from a co-worker of Matthew's.  This has definitely not been the nursery decorating experience that I always imagined.  I have had more than one meltdown (let's just blame those on the hormones) over how much stuff we have to fit into that one room.  Then there is the issue of this being a rental apartment and not wanting to deal with trying to take off the existing wallpaper and trying to paint or re-wallpaper (and then possibly having to re-do it all again before we move to get it back to something the owner approves of).  Matthew promised me that for our next child (when we are back in the US) I will get to finally design and decorate the nursery of my dreams (on a budget of course!).  Here are some pictures of what we have so far.

 Now that I have a dresser to put clean clothes into, I have been doing loads and loads of baby clothes that were given to me by a French friend.  I have one big drawer filled with nothing but gigoteuses (the sleeping bag things the French put babies in while sleeping) and pajamas.

I have another drawer filled almost entirely with onesies!

This has been a really long post, sorry! Hopefully this satisfies all the 'baby bump' update requests I have gotten.