Great visit and a yard sale

Here's a most recent profile shot of the ever extending belly. The baby is active in spurts, and sleeps a lot, too...he's very responsive to a little caffeine: if I have a few sips of coffee he'll be on overdrive in moments. We're feeling good and keeping up with the daily walks as much as possible now. Last weekend Sam and I hiked our nice 5 1/2 mile trail in the woods and that always calms us down even on a busy day, which it was. It took a few traffic jams to get to the park, but we made it and enjoyed the 80 degree day with some fresh air.

The weekend before last Lisa, Alyssa and Katie all came for a visit and we had a great catch up. They were here for the neighborhood yard sale and we spent the morning hauling things out to the curb, setting it up, figuring out what to charge...and then sat there on the porch for most of the day reading magazines and drinking fruity drinks while the few customers trickled by. Yes, we did manage to sell a few things, but most of it was either donated at the end of the day or is back in the basement. It was awesome having them here and made the whole thing a lot more fun. Given the turnout of shoppers, I'm not sure I would do it again soon. I was pretty surprised it was such low attendance after all the advertising and the fact that 45 sales were going on at the same time! Maybe the weather was just too beautiful for people to spend the day trolling the sales...

While we were manning the sale, Sam and Mike took to the grill and made ribs and smoked chicken. In the afternoon we pulled together some potato salad, veggies, etc. and had a lovely meal at the end of the day out back - the first real grill out of the season. What can be better than good friends, food, and a sunny spring day?!

33 weeks - and feeling big!

Here are a few pics of the pregnancy progress. I feel relatively huge at this point, but I guess that's how it's supposed to be? Luckily, I'm still feeling good and we had a good visit with the midwives this week with a good report...today, Sam and I hiked about 6 miles up at the Greenbelt Park and enjoyed the warm spring morning. Everything is blooming and full of color. It's a nice time of year here, and I'm so glad we can enjoy it!

Gifts new and old...

We've been really lucky to have so many friends pass along their baby-related items to us. Right now we've got nearly everything on our "essentials list" covered, and we won't need much more to accomodate our newborn. Beyond saving money, we are so happy to be able to exploit the greener options by reusing these items. Given that so many of the things babies need are used for such a short time, it's nice to know we are using a slightly more sustainable option like this!

Thanks to all those who have been so generous in sharing their stuff, from maternity and baby clothes to beds, bouncers, swings, strollers and more!To those who are looking to give a gift, we are hoping to minimize the plastic toys, battery-operated gadgets, and so on. Your help in developing a safe, calm environment for our child is much appreciated! We'd love to be building him a library of favorite books, and we'll provide links here to sites that have the kinds of toys we prefer. Homemade and gently used gifts are also great, of course! In addition, we plan to set up a savings account shortly so we can get a head start on funds for college, or other neat learning opportunities that might come along. We'll provide all that info here when we get it!