More belly and visiting aussies

Okay friends and family, here is another belly picture slideshow...the last shot was taken at 34 weeks. I'm 35 along now...that's a mere 5 weeks until the due date! Crazy!

And fully clothed...




My cousin Jonathan visited the US from Australia with his fiance Anita. They got engaged a mere 2 days before they arrived from Vegas to DC! Congratulations Jonathan and Anita!

Here they are sitting on good old Albie Einstein during a day of touring around the DC monuments with me and my brother Dan.



And to leave this post with a note of humor...here is me resembling a beached whale wearing a Hawaiian shirt--we had just eaten a big dinner with Jonathan, Anita, my mom, and brother at our place.....mmm...steak.....baby likes meat...Monica no longer vegetarian...

Another Surprise Shower!

Thank you to Steve's mom Joan (aka "the mama-san!") for throwing me a surprise baby shower this weekend when were up in New Jersey visiting! With fun games, delicious food, adorable gifts, and good friends and family...I was one grinning, happy, giddy woman.

Thank you to all who came and helped make it a wonderful weekend!

Monica

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?!?)