Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year! We have had a lot happen over the last couple of weeks. Attached are a lot of pictures from our festivities. We enjoyed spending time with family over Christmas. We were excited just thinking about what next year's Christmas will be like. This little girl got lots of stuff for Christmas and she is not even born yet! Santa (aka Jeremy) got her the cutest booties and newborn outfits. We also bought a new digital camera with some of our Christmas money. We figured it would be put to work soon so we needed one that was nice and wouldn't take 15 seconds to find a flash!

Last weekend we went to Indy for New Years and for my first baby shower. Saturday we got together with Dan and Lindsay who are getting married in April. They currently live in NYC. It was so great to catch up with old friends. On Sunday we watched the Colts game with college friends at Brad and Tara's house.

Monday morning some of my best friends, Tara and Ashley, hosted a baby shower for Brooke and I. Brooke is having a baby boy 5 weeks behind me. Tons of our sorority sisters from Butler came in for the event from all over...even Kristine was able to make it all the way from London, England! It was a wonderful morning!!! I am so blessed to have such amazing friends in my life! That night we went over to Brooke and Brandon's house for Brandon's specialty lasagna and then went bowling to ring in the New Year. I am sure I looked pretty funny bowling considering it looked like I stuffed a bowling ball under my shirt. Don't underestimate a large, pregnant woman...I stepped up and got a strike on the first frame! How 'bout them apples? Jeremy got a strike on the first frame, too. Maybe Baby Girl A will take up bowling. I also got up and danced to the Cha Cha Slide. Once again, probably pretty comical. It was awesome to celebrate the ball dropping with wonderful friends we only see a couple times (if that) a year!

We are working on the nursery and hope that it will be done in the next couple of weeks. We went looking for carpet last weekend to have it installed very soon. Jeremy hung the closet doors, installed a nice new baseboard and started painting the trim while I started organizing a bunch of stuff. We are down to single digit weeks left (8!) and it is scary. I am trying to take it one day at a time knowing that we have so much left to do. If only we could attach a paintbrush to Sadie's tail and make her pick up some slack around this house!

I have started to feel very pregnant these days. I haven't been sleeping well, my sciatic nerve has been acting up again and I have heartburn for the first time in my life. Old wives tail says that she'll have a head of hair. We shall see! As great as it was to be with my friends all weekend I felt so bad that I just wasn't myself. It is hard to get used to the fact of not having as much energy then before I was pregnant. I am sure they forgive me, though. Tomorrow we have another doctor's visit. We will go every 2 weeks for the month of January and every week during the month of February. We will soon be parents...weird!

We are so thankful to God for 2007, but we are very much looking forward to 2008! May your 2008 bring you much love and happiness!

Blessings-
Laura and Jeremy

P.S. I think I changed the way that people can post comments. You can now post a comment without having a blog set up or certain email address. Just click the 'anonymous' button after typing in your comment. Make sure to put your name in the comment section or we won't be able to know who wrote it. :)


Dylan & Carrie came to Kentucky after Christmas to spend time with her family. They had dinner with us last Friday night! By the end of the night Dylan was lovin' Sadie!


Brooke and I with beautiful blankets crocheted by our friend Erin Riley!


With the hostesses Ashley and Tara. They did a wonderful job!


My mom even came up for the shower!


The babies meeting each other...maybe they will be boyfriend and girlfriend one day. :) That is after Jeremy sits down and has a talk with little Kline!


All of the DG gals at the shower!


Erin, Jeremy, Hannah...lookin' good!


New Year's Eve

Family time

In front of my parents' tree. Not a big fan of this picture, but posted anyway.


Lookin' good dude!


He doesn't sit still much to take a picture


Dylan cheesin' for the camera (he says "cheese" when doing this)



Although we were sick of the car by Sunday afternoon, we had a great weekend with my family. The weather cooperated during the times we had to drive. We woke up on Saturday morning to a blanket of snow outside my parents' house. Dylan played in the snow (hopefully I will get some pictures of that soon). This was his first time in snow and it was pretty cute! They don't get much of the white stuff in Florida. UofL lost their game on Saturday, but Butler won. Dylan stayed at Brad and Tara's house during the game and played with Brady (their son who is 2 months older than Dylan). Thanks you two! Brady and Dylan seemed to have a lot of fun together. They both have a lot in common--they love Elmo and cars. Typical toddlers. On Sunday my mom made a delicious Christmas meal since this was the only time my immediate family would be together. My mom may not like to cook a lot, but she can cook! Yummy! It was so nice to all be together!

Our baby furniture has arrived!!!! It arrived a little early. Jeremy is going to pick it up tomorrow. Let's just pray that everything is correct. Jeremy ordered doors to put on the closet and those have also arrived. We can now get a move-on with the nursery. Time is ticking!

We are doing Christmas with Jeremy's immediate family this Saturday since his sister, brother-in-law and nieces will be in town. We are looking forward to this weekend and then it will be Christmas! This is my favorite time of year, however, this year we seem to have lots going on (umm, let's see a baby coming in 10 weeks makes one busy) and I have decided not to send out Christmas cards. Ahhh! I hate that it won't happen, but I just faced reality and said there just wasn't enough time to get them out. We also don't have outdoor lights on the bushes this year! The inside of the house looks great! Jeremy is a Scrooge when it comes to decorating so he is not much help in this department. We have had such bad weather over the weekends that I haven't been able to put them out. Now it seems a little too late. I guess I will just have to be forgiven this year for not having outdoor lights and sending out cards. It will still be Christmas, right?

I hope to post again before Christmas with some pictures from this weekend. Until then, enjoy the final days before the holiday!

Busy, busy, busy

A picture of one of the nightstands...a work in progress.


29 weeks

Sorry we haven't written in a while. Between baby planning and Christmas events we have had a lot going on. Jeremy and I took some hours off work to visit daycares. Last week we visited 3 centers and today we visited 2 in-home centers. This is SUCH a difficult decision! Just like when Jeremy and I were looking for a house, we totally look at different things, which is a good thing. He was such a huge help! After leaving one facility he said, "Did you notice how there were no sprinklers in the building?" or "There is lead-based paint all over the windows." Wow! Once again I am so thankful for all his knowledge and experience. We still don't have a daycare resolution, but are working on it. We actually have to find daycare for three situations 1) when I get off maternity leave until I move to Lexington for work for 1 month 2) daycare while I am in Lexington for a month and 3) permanent daycare after Lexington. Lots of decisions! Luckily Jeremy and I have wonderful bosses (actually Heather was my friend first) who are understanding, compassionate and flexible. It will all eventually work out.

I would like to list a few statements that people have said to me lately. I don't know how I am supposed to respond to statements like these!

1.) From a random guy in Subway...He looks at me, then my belly, then back and me and says, "How are you two doing?" (Umm...good???)
2.) "Laura, you definitely look pregnant these days" (Ummm...thanks???)
3.) "Oh, look at you, how cute, you have a waddle." (Note: Don't ever tell a pregnant woman she has a waddle and that it is cute.)
4.) "How are you feeling? You look good. Your nose is changing. Don't worry everyone's nose changes; mine did." (What??? This one I have never heard before and for the record Jeremy says my nose hasn't changed.)

Tonight was the beginning of a new adventure for us: baby classes! Tonight's class was on breastfeeding. We learned a lot and laughed a little too. I laughed most when we had a break during the class and all of the women went to the bathroom and the men stayed back and had cookies.

Jeremy and I are so excited because David (my brother), Carrie (my sister-in-law) and Dylan (my nephew) are visiting this weekend. If you know me well you have heard all about Dylan and seen pictures. They live in Florida and won't be able to come in for Christmas so they are visiting for a long weekend. We are going up to my parents' house on Friday, to Indy on Saturday for the John Wooden Classic (UofL and Butler are both playing) and then Dylan's making his debut at my dad's church on Sunday. It should be a great weekend and I will have some pictures to share.

I will try to post more often and with pictures. I have had requests for every week, but we'll try for every 2 weeks for now. I have had some threatening emails requesting pictures, so here you go Amanda...

Happy Shopping (we still have TONS to do)!

3 more months!!!

3 more months to the day and Baby Girl A will be making her way into the world (maybe earlier, maybe later)! We can't wait to meet her! We already know that she is such a blessing in our lives!

It was so nice to have some days off work to spend with friends and family. Jeremy and I got a lot done over the break. We went last Sunday to pick out some items before my mom and I actually registered on Wednesday. Even after pre-selecting and asking around from other new moms, the registry process was overwhelming! Jeremy and I picked out all the big items (travel system, pack-n-play, swing, etc). Jeremy also picked out "his" diaper bag. He had to get a more manly one, if there is such a thing. He started chuckling because he had a bag on his shoulder that said "baby" on it. My the times have changed. Who knew there were so may things for a baby? It definitely wore me out, but I feel good that we have successfully finished the process. My mom kept reminding me that "we use to not have stores like this...you probably don't need half the stuff in here." I get my practical nature from her, can you tell? Almost everything is at Babies-R-Us and our bedding is online only at JcPenney. Jeremy and I are both pretty picky so we agreed on this. Very basic in sage green and baby pink. Take a look. Go to the websites, click on "registry" and then search for us under "Angermeier".

www.babiesrus.com
www.jcpenney.com

We finished painting the back room and are currently moving furniture into it so we can now start on the nursery! Now that we have bedding picked out I feel like we can really get a move on. Currently as I write this Jeremy is in the garage (or should I say his safe haven) building nightstands for the baby. (If you didn't know this already, I have a pair of gardening gloves and some golf clubs in the garage...that's it! It's his area and I stay out as much as possible.) We decided that a nightstand would be nice to have and it would be something that could be used in any room. He is making two because it won't take much longer to make two instead of one. I am sure this little girl will appreciate what her dad made for her for years to come. He is already wrapped around her finger!

We have another doctor's appointment this Friday. I will be tested for gestational diabetes (it's standard nowadays). Yeah, I get to drink some lovely juice and then wait for an hour to see how my sugars are. I hope everything comes out normal because I have a sweet tooth!

The baby is kicking ALL the time, especially at night! The other night she thought it would be fun to do somersaults at 4:00 a.m. One day I will get her back!

We actually had 3 different Thanksgiving feasts to go to this past weekend. I didn't feel the baby kick much on Thursday. I think she was trying to digest it all, was very full or the tryptophyan in the turkey put her to sleep like the rest of us. Hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving! We are thankful for so much this year!

26 weeks

This was taken late at night, can you tell? Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends! Baby and I are looking forward to some mashed potatoes. Yummy!

Baby kicks?

About a week and a half ago I started to feel kicks. Not for sure if they are kicks, elbow jabs or punches. We like to think they are kicks so we have a future soccer player or dancer in our family. I have been feeling her periodically, but she is most active at night...she definitely gets that from her mom and not her dad! Sunday night Jeremy felt the baby move for the first time. We were both so excited. He felt her kick twice and then she stopped for a minute. As soon as I said, "I think that is it," she kicked again. Already playing tricks on us!

Our baby girl is going to have lots of boyfriends...friends that are boys, that is. There are two couples in our Sunday school class that are expecting boys, our wonderful friends Brad and Tara already have a boy and we just found out today that some great friends of ours are expecting a boy. Jeremy said he is going to have to be sitting down with all these boys and "have a talk" that is if my brother doesn't do it first knowing how protective he was with me growing up.

Have a great rest of the week! We are looking forward to next week...Thanksgiving! Time to eat and be with family!

One more thing "checked" off

When I posted last what I meant was the pictures are getting harder for me to post as I get bigger, but I will continue to do it. Sorry if I confused you.

Well, I am proud to say that we have checked another thing off our list...we bought baby furniture! With Jeremy as my husband, that was a huge accomplishment! He is very discriminating when it comes to style and quality of furniture because of his background. We both finally agreed on something. We bought it from USABaby. Now we pray that the 8-12 week turn around is accurate.

We are having to work on our back room (the 4th bedroom in the back of our house) before we can start on the nursery. When we moved into this house that room suddenly became our storage room/laundry room/basement/close-the-door-when-company-comes room. Now it will be our office. When we bought the house it was paneling, so we drywalled it, but never totally finished it. Jeremy has been finishing the room with trim and crown molding. Now we are finishing up the paint before we can move our office into this room. The current office will be the nursery. I am so thankful that Jeremy is so talented and is able to do all this work on our house! Sadie has to be in whatever room we are in...she's such a people-dog. Well, she got curious when Jeremy was painting and the picture below shows what happened.

Today (Monday) I was off work because I traveled this weekend for work. I took advantage of my time to do research on daycare. A lot of places have waiting lists so it is better to get a start on this now. Hopefully we will find something that fits by the end of the year.

Did you know that there is no Expecting Parents Checklist? My good friend Brooke, who is also pregnant, and I were talking about this. Wedding checklists they have...you know, 8 months away meet with the florist, 2 months away send out invitations. With babies, a whole new territory, there are no checklists lists like this. Of course there are books, websites and doctors, but those are usually medically related topics. Those are all important as well. Thank God for family and friends that have had babies or I wouldn't know what to do. I mean, I am a first-time mom after all.

Hope you are well! I still can't believe it is already November! The time sure has flown by!

Jeremy was in a wedding two Sundays ago for his good friend, Gary Churchman. They love to play golf together. Jeremy actually danced a lot that night...very unusual for him at weddings! And even while I am pregnant I still love to dance!

Sadie's tail...and it is oil-based paint! It will be there for a while. :)