Lil Ariza Monster

running in the rain barefoot / skipping / laughing / loving / dancing / flying / rainbows / blowing  bubbles / splashing / giggles / tickles / peek-a-boo / ballons / hugs / singing.

Watching Elijah makes me realize that we take forgranted the little things in life. A sparkling sunburst on the tiles floor or a drop of water. What small gift is God giving me everyday that I can’t see. God doesn’t always speak in a loud booming voice or a storm, sometimes it is in a small breeze or a whisper in the silence.

Yesterday Melissa was so kind as to take some maternity photos for Kaci and I. Which meas we had the opportunity to pose awkwardly in a public place and try and make it look natural. Which is surprising a lot of fun. I posed in whatever manner they told me to and tried not to look like a complete goon. Kaci on the other hand looked great and will probably be seen on the next installment of America’s Next Top Model. …Or are they only doing transvestites now? Who knows. It’s not really my area. In any case we’re excited to see the final photos and maybe we’ll actually put something in all those empty frames on the wall.

We also had another doctors appointment yesterday. Still looking good. Kaci is now 2 centimeters and 80% effaced. Which is fancy doctor talk for “he’s coming soon”. But only God knows for sure and he’s not saying.

Had another doctor’s appointment today. Everything is looking really good. Baby is in position, head down, has dropped and I am 1 centimeter dilated. Funny thing is I had my due date wrong. Looks like my due date is October 24 not the 23. Oh well, I’ll take another day. Not that you can base everything on that due date cause honestly it can happen any time now. We are ready to see him! Feels exciting and scary at the same time.

Well here we are only 19 days away from my due date. Seems crazy to think. I’m definitely ready though. Life is getting pretty hard. Bending over to pick up something that I’ve dropped is no longer an option. My feet are swelling up to where my toes look like lil sausages They (moms) say the last few weeks of pregnancy are tough and boy are they right. I can’t complain too much, I’ve had such a wonderful pregnancy. Now I just can’t wait to see his beautiful face. Had my doctors appointment last Tuesday and she said that everything is looking good and baby is in good position (head down).

Daniel and I are trying to relax and enjoy our last days together just the two of us. We spent today out on the lake for what will probably be one of the last, if not the last, weekend on the lake before lil ariza monster comes. It was a beautiful day!

Here I am at the lake at 37 weeks and 2 days.

I know I know I haven’t blogged in forever, but I have a good excuse…I’m pregnant.

Everything has been going well. I just had another doctor’s appointment and I’m glad to say that baby and me are completely healthy. Other than getting bigger I’m doing excellent. Baby is growing like a weed, it is crazy to see my entire stomach move around.  I’m doing better at keeping my weight in check. Not eating 3 boxes of poptarts in a weekend has helped with that.

I’m currently 33 weeks. Only 7 more weeks to go. Scary since we have soooo much to do but I’m very anxious to see and hold our baby. We’ve been furiously painting the nursery and we are finally finished. It turned out AWESOME!

Lizzy, Jordan, Melissa, Jenn and Linda threw me probably what was the best baby shower ever. It was a little monster theme and it was incredible. I can’t thank them enough for it. And thank you to all my friends for being there and “showering” me with all the wonderful gifts.

We still have tons to do…and buy!!! We’ll keep you updated as much as possible.

A shower was thrown in honor of our forthcoming baby this past weekend. Although I was entertaining the guys it sounds like it was a complete success. When I helped unload the car with all the gifts I was in awe of everyone’s generosity. Thank you to everyone who came bearing gifts. My favorites were definitely the blanket with the embroidered monster and the Lil Ariza Monster Doll. But really everything we received will be put to good use. I don’t know all the details of the shower but I can tell you the guys had fun dodging rain drops, shooting pool, eating junk food and talking about how no one will probably hang out with me anymore after I am a father. If you want Kaci to post something about the shower then you should definitely send her nagging emails.

We started the painting process today. It’s gone pretty smoothly so far. We have some contrast issues but tweaking the color should fix it. We still have a lot of painting ahead but at least it’s a fairly fun. Ricky came over and helped us out a little. Kaci was even able to paint a lot since the fumes were pretty minimal. It’s cool watching it all come together. Check out the process. With a paintbrush in one hand and one eye on the Olympics is how we spent the afternoon. I would consider it well spent.

We’ve been short on posts as of late. There just hasn’t been a lot to report. I was pretty sick last week and did my best to stay far away from Kaci so she didn’t catch anything. Thanks to her rock solid immune system she weathered the viral storm without incident. We’ve bought all the paint to hopefully get started painting our monsters in the room. Kaci continues to visit the doctor and come back labeled perfectly healthy. All seems well at the moment.

And just to silence all the questions… No, we will not share our baby names with you. It’s nothing personal but we just don’t want to hear everyone’s opinions on names. And believe me everyone seems to have one. But rest assured we have the perfect name picked out for our little boy.

We went to dinner last Friday night with our good friends Ian and Melissa. Little did we know that Melissa and I would be wearing the same dress. Definitely not inconspicuous either, red stripes stand out. Little did we know they would also be announcing to us that night that Melissa is 3 months pregnant!! We are so excited for them. It will be nice to have someone to go through my last trimester of pregnancy with.

Congratulations Ian and Melissa! Your kid is gonna be awesome!

-Kaci

preggers and matching

So we haven’t posted in a while but we promise it wasn’t our fault. About a week and a half ago lightning struck our house. It blew up a few things including our sprinklers system and and fried our cable for a bit. Then we got back online only to be taken off a couple days later. Hopefully we can get back on track this week.

Here is a little update of what’s going been going on. We gave the baby room a fresh coat of paint. Ricky created some amazingly cute monsters that are ready to be painted. Jeremy loaned us a projector to help us draw on the walls and Kaci picked up a few things from Ikea for the nursery.

I have been working through my list of things that need to be done around the house. Which got quite a bit longer when the lighting struck. I kicked it off by installing a new garage door opener this weekend.

Kaci has another doctors visit today. She get’s to drink some kind of gross liquid that helps determine if she has gestational diabetes. It’s just a routine test. I don’t know how this stuff works. Sounds like voodoo to me.

To make up for our lack of posts watch this video celebration of our little monster.