18 week belly picture

I feel like I don't look this way at the beginning of the day, but I definitely do toward the end!

Not really in the mood for writing right now -- but here's my most recent belly pic!






Edit: From the morning of 2/27:

(proof that it does grow throughout the day!)

the (slowly) growing belly

In my sixteenth week, Baby Stead will grow from a navel orange to the size of an avocado!! I am amazed by the recent growth and all of the changes in development. This week, the tiny bones in Baby Stead's ears are in place, making it likely that he or she can hear me! Fortunately my coughing has almost ceased, or the poor baby would be sick of me before meeting me.

Starting last weekend, we've done a lot of baby stuff! It was actually coincidental, as it started with me shopping for a girlfriend's baby shower. We were at Babies'R'us (which was a HORRIBLE experience, by the way... I have rarely had such poor service, and never when spending so much money) and I saw the display for a crib I'd been eying online. The only thing was that this crib, the one I loved, had been out of stock for a month! At one point Babies'R'us took backorders, but then they just stopped and no one would say when it would be back. Well, it was on display, so we thought we'd ask if they had it!

An hour later, we found out that they did (hence the extra-poor customer service that was provided by the assistant manager Curtis) and there was one left!!! We had to get it, right?

So we did! Following some other troubles (they gave us the wrong one, so we had to bring it back and exchange... uh!!) on Tuesday of this week we ended up with our crib. And what did we then do? Put it together, of course! Realistically, we didn't want it taking up space in the guest room/soon-to-be-nursery, but I was afraid if we didn't at least inspect it, we'd end up with a defective one past our return date. Now that it's together, it's not coming apart! I've just kept the door closed to that room -- we need to move out some furniture before it will look live-able :)

Here's a stock photo:


I don't have a complete photo of it in the room, and it doesn't have a mattress or any bedding anyway, but here's one of Roxie. She had a difficult time allowing us to put it together :)


I couldn't stop looking at diaper bags, and when I found this one I loved it. It happened to be on sale, so it only made sense to buy it, right?! I like that it's gender neutral and it's something I will be able to re-purpose in the future. (It's also made out of recycled plastic -- but that's just a plus!)
check it out:


Lastly, my belly photo for this week.. forgive me for looking very very tired! It was taken at around 6:30am!


Next week we're going to North Carolina to visit Scott's aunt and uncle at their beach house. I'll update with photos when we get back!