Belly friends

Two posts in one day! Wowee!

When Bess, Jessica, and Carrie came over for dinner last night, Jess thought it would be fun to do a pregnant momma photo shoot.

Bess is 20 weeks pregnant with her "tater" and I am 33 weeks pregnant with my "peanut" :)


Bess has more creativity with her poses, she'd definitely make it further on "America's Next Top Model" than I would!

Tour of the new place

Hi everyone,

As I was leading some friends around the new place last night, I realized that we haven't given our out-of-town friends and family the "virtual tour" so here are some photos of our new home!


This is the living room and dining room.
Here is the view from the dining room "window" looking into the kitchen

The little peanut's room!

Our bedroom (still plain...we need to decorate). The large pillow on the bed is my "Snoogle" pillow--perfect for helping the pregnant lady find sleeping positions for her aching body. I like to call it "Slimey" after the little worm from Sesame Street.

What house tour doesn't include the bathroom? Key feature: The monkey bath rug...muy fancy.


The basement/office/guestroom/playroom/rock concert hall. Missing image: The back patio. I was taking these photos at 5:30 am (guess the snoogle pillow didn't help much last night) and it was dark out.

Hope you enjoyed the virtual tour! Have a good weekend!

Monica

The Little Peanut visits Philadelphia

This weekend was a busy one as we drove up to Philadelphia to celebrate the marriage of Steve's cousin Kait to her new hubby James. Congrats, to the happy couple!


In addition to hanging out with the fam in Philly...


...we also had a chance to stop by Jodi and Chris' on the way home to meet their 7 week old daughter Shannon. What I didn't know that my friend's Brette and Alexandra also came down from New York City and my Spain girls (as we studied abroad together during college) surprised me with a baby shower for the little peanut!

My Spain Girls (there are 6 in the picture!)

Me and Shannon (notice, Shannon is putting her hand on my belly, calming the kicks of her little friend inside)

Steve practicing being a good daddy by watching football as he holds a sleeping baby :)

Setting up the crib and a new belly shot

Hi all!

It's been a few weeks since we posted, but we were busy getting settled into the new place, which we love!

As promised, here's the most recent shot of Monica's belly at 30 weeks (7.5 months!).


We were playing around with putting it in a slide show version along with the past pics so you can see the progression.

In other breaking baby news, we also bought a crib for the little peanut's room! We had heard that if you buy a new crib, it can take 10-14 weeks for delivery, but we were in luck! They had the exact one we wanted in stock. We put it together that afternoon! Now it feels like a real baby's room! Craziness!

The finished product!

Hope everyone is doing well these days! Drop us a line and keep us updated with your lives!

Love,

Monica and Steve

It IS a baby!

There's no longer any need to worry, the peanut growing inside of Monica is, in fact, a baby. Long had we wondered whether the thing kicking away at Monica's belly was a baby or that some of her food was just a little too organic. Lo and behold! Our fears were allayed this week when we had a final ultrasound and it not only showed a baby, but a cute one at that! (We're not biased at all.) Here are a couple of shots of her face:

The one on the left is her puppy dog pouty look. She's got an eye on you in the middle pic. And the one on the right is the crowd pleaser--eyes scrunched up and a little smile.

In other news, we're all moved in to our new place. Luckily when we move out again in two years, we'll have an extra set of little arms to help move the couch, the tv, etc. ;) Grandma Laufer helped clean up the old apartment, and Grandma Silvestro came down for a few days to help unpack. This all culminated with a dinner at which the grandmas tried to weasel the baby's name out of us, bonded over babysitting privileges, and solidly concluded that Steve is going to be a pushover when it comes to his little girl.

Monica's doing great. She's loving all the baby kicks and when strangers ask when she's due. She's setting up a nice home office in the new place, where her nutrition & health counseling practice will continue to thrive. If anyone would like a free counseling session or just some tips on nutrition, cooking, and more, check out her site at YourIntuitiveHealth.com, or email her at yourintuitivehealth@gmail.com to sign up for her newsletter. (Yes, it's a shameless plug----but have you seen the price of baby furniture?!?)

New Belly Pic--26 Weeks (6.5 months) along

Several people have asked for a new belly picture, so by popular demand...here it is! Once we get a few more, we'll try to animate it like a virtual flip book.

Little Peanut update: She's doing really well! If there was a contest for kicking, poking, and elbowing, she would definitely win first prize. Steve is searching for his cleats so that he can get ready for some soccer coaching.

The Silvestros are moving to Arlington, VA on Monday! Even though Steve thinks Monica would be great at carrying boxes---she's got a perfect spot to rest things on---she's going to focus on the packing/unpacking part. Both grandmas will be in town helping out, too. We'll send out an e-mail with our new address and maybe some pics of the place once we get settled.

Hope everyone is doing well in this heat! (Or does it only feel hot because Monica's pregnant..?)

Monica and Steve
P.S. - Hope everyone enjoyed Harry Potter!

The Little Peanut goes to Austin

I took the little peanut with me (hey, she goes where I go) to Austin, Texas to visit my best friend Erin this week. This was not her first trip to Texas, she was in Dallas for my cousin David's wedding last month, but this was probably the last plane trip for both of us before she emerges into the real world.

Since Erin can't come to visit until next year, she surprised me with the most adorable mini-baby-shower EVER. The guest list was me and Erin (and the little peanut, of course), but we still played games, including "smell the mystery baby food in the diaper" and "every time you say the word baby, you give the other person one of your 5 mini plastic pacifiers"....let's just say that there was a lot of passing back and forth of those little plastic charms. The funniest was when I saw a "baby spider" in the bathroom and announced it's diminutive status as such and lost one of my pacifiers that way. I think Erin won both games...

Here are some photos!

This is me in front of the adorable diaper cake she made. The belly is growing, right?

This is me smelling the...lamb? No, that was beige....perhaps the chicken and rice? Erin's husband Dave bought the baby food and took off the labels so that Erin could participate equally. Yes, it was as gross as it looks, and yes, we laughed very very hard.


This is me in front of an Austin landmark graffiti wall. Erin's sister Kathryn gifted the little peanut with an adorable little t-shirt with this same image.


And finally, here is me with my wonderful friend and hostess with the most-ess...Erin :)