Citizenship, Alas!

Because having a baby and moving isn't enough to accomplish in a 9-month period, I also managed to finalize my paperwork and obtain my citizenship! NOW we are good to go for Baby B to be born.

I wanted to get my picture taken at the Immigration office after receiving my certificate, but the officer told me I had to wait for all 150 people to go through before I could get my picture (I was number 55). Once everyone goes through, then they let them all back in (relatives and all, and because we are all immigrants, we don't just bring 1 relative along, we bring an average of 6.5 relatives along) to take pictures.

There I was, impatient, 8 1/2 months pregnant, by myself - I almost started crying when he told me no. The random urge to cry at this stage of pregnancy is unbelievable. Whenever I am in public and I get the urge to cry (for whatever reason) it takes a whole lot of effort to keep it together... So, holding back tears and with no patience, (I usually have no patience for lines and things like such as is... now that I am pregnant the lack of patience has grown exponentially to the 496th power) - I just snapped a picture of the official place and walked out.

And then my personal photographer took my picture with my certificate in the privacy and comfort of my own kitchen, no lines, no hassle. Yes, I was quite swollen that day...

Surprise! -- Sort Of

Yesterday my wonderful co-workers threw a Baby Shower lunch for me (for Benjamin...). It was supposed to be a surprise, until yesterday morning, the kitchen ruined the surprise by asking me what type of flat bread I wanted for my event... it went like this:

Sous Chef: "for your lunch event today, you want the mushroom flat bread, right?"
Me: "I don't have an event today... but yes, I do love the mushroom flat bread"
Sous Chef: "yes, you know? your event today!"

Then my boss and co-worker interjected and explained what was happening... apparently "nobody" told Sous Chef that it was a surprise........... I'm sure they did, kitchen just lives in another world.

What's most impressive to me, is that a group of 10+ people was able to keep this event secret for over two weeks!!! That is unheard of in a hotel (let alone in a planning office) - nothing is ever secret. Not to mention I tend to spoil every surprise for myself anyway.

Although I wasn't technically "SURPRISED" I was still surprised with everything they had done, the room looked great! Not to mention their generous gifts, and the flat breads and the Boston Cream Pie Cupcake they got specially for me.

Here are some pictures, they are not the best quality, but I did want to share to put my belly into perspective - it is quite huge.

Particularly here sitting down - I think I look more uncomfortable than what I feel...

Of course I couldn't resist sharing this very typical one of me... pretty sure I was screaming something across the room...

All We are Missing

Is a baby! Well, and curtains for his room...

We are proud to say that after many many hours of non-stop organizing, trips to Home Depot and other various stores and going to bed exhausted, we finally have Benjamin's room ready! We are just missing curtains. Which we have, it's the curtain rod that's a problem because his window is super skinny, so we might have to special order it...

Here are some pictures!

Here are some details, all of which were either gifts from the shower or items from the shower that we incorporated into the decor!

I love this little sleepy monkey!

And there you have it! Tonight I can go to be with a little less anxiety knowing that we are ready for Baby (as ready as we'll ever get to be). Except I have to find that curtain rod...

Two Weeks, Five Weeks

Babies can be born any time after 37 weeks of pregnancy... which would give us about 2 weeks to get everything that we are going to get, in order. But, they can also be born up to 42 weeks of pregnancy... which would in turn give us 5 weeks to get it together.

Because science really isn't as advanced as we all think it is when it comes to pregnancy, we decided it's time to get going just in case we only have 2 weeks instead of 5.

Earlier this week we put the nursery furniture together! (we had to wait for the accent wall to get repainted... the first shade of green was a fail).

And yes, I can still sit on the floor and get up by myself - although it's preferable if I have help...

We had on-lookers... new house, new rules. Getting used  to looking through afar. Although at first the "looking through afar" involved lots of whining.

This is where we are so far! Now we have to move on to decor and such... before and afters to follow when it's all done!

Move - Check!

Four hours longer than anticipated plus two additional movers to unload, we finally made it to the new house on Saturday. New address announcements will be sent out along with Benjamin's announcement when he arrives. If you don't get one, it's because I don't have your mailing address... email it to me or private message it to me and we'll be good to go! No time for hurt feelings.

We are quite grateful for Michelle coming over for the weekend to help with everything that I basically cannot do because I am too slow or too big to do. Here she is cleaning the cabinets at the new house... no, there is no catfish in that box. There was at one point... at work... this move we turned to free boxes from work. 

Michelle and I came on over to the new house to start unloading our cars and getting things organized before the big truck arrived. Poor Norm stayed with the guys at the old house, so by the time he go to the new house he was about starved. Here he's trying to smile while I interrupt his lunch:

Getting ready to eat our first dinner at the house, tired as all get out, but as happy and excited as ever!