25 Weeks and Other Updates

So much has been going on that needs sharing!  First up, we have picked a name!  We debated for (what felt like) a long time before finally deciding on the one that I had picked out from the beginning.  I keep trying to tell Andy that he should just go with whatever I want because he almost always ends up deciding it's what he wants too.  Happened with the house, the name, and too many other situations to even count!  Anyway, our baby girl will be named . . .

We wanted something that would carry some meaning for us, so this name was selected with great care.  Elaina comes from my mother's mother's name, which was Elaine (well, it was her middle name, but it's what she went by).  She passed away when I was 3 or 4, I don't remember which, but old enough that I remember it happening.  Joyce was Andy's mother's name.  She passed away when he was in high school - I never got to meet her.  Aside from being a beautiful name (in our opinion!), we thought it was a great way to remember and honor two wonderful women who are no longer physically in our lives.  I have taken to calling her Ellie for short :-) 

So, little Ellie is 25 weeks cooked now!  She's still very active, which the doctor says is a good thing.  At this stage of development, she is putting on more fat (gotta stay warm!) and growing some hair!  Not much else to report on the development front.

We had our 24 week check-up with the OB last Thursday.  They said I look great!  Ellie loves playing hide and seek, even from the nurse just checking her heart rate.  She would find it for a second and then you'd hear a loud thump (I can personally verify it was the sound of a good swift kick) and then she'd be in a different place and the nurse would have to find her again.  After a few minutes (and lots of laughter) we got a reading of 150.  The doctor looked at my blood pressure and said it was even better than his, so I took that as a good sign, haha!  Oh, by the way, his name was Dr. Sheppard.  Yes, that's right ladies, I got to see Dr. Sheppard at this appointment.  Ok, so this Dr. was quite a bit older and much less 'McDreamy' than the one from TV, but it still made me giggle.  He measured my bump and said I was measuring right on, so that's encouraging, and I've gained another two pounds since week 20, so hopefully Ellie's growing quite nicely in there too.  We will find out on the 18th when we go for our next ultrasound at the specialist! 

In housing news . . . on Tuesday of last week, we were able to have our home inspection!  The inspector found a few little things that need fixing, but nothing that the combined handyman powers of Andy, his dad, and my dad can't fix!  So that's quite a relief.  I was only able to be there for a tiny portion of the inspection because I had to go to work, but I was able to walk through the whole house and take note of it's general condition.  The owner's had already moved out and they had CLEANED before they left!  I wasn't sure what to expect because our Realtor had warned us that anything can happen when people are in a situation where they are 'losing' their house.  It actually was left in really good shape for us!  They even had left the lawn mower and everything there and are still keeping up with taking care of the lawn in the meantime.  I (with the help of my mom, of course) will still go through and give everything a thorough scrubbing before moving in, but it was very nice to see that they had taken such good care of it for us.  All of this is happening now because . . .

Our settlement is scheduled for November 9th!  We will take the week after that to clean and paint and fix those little things (and finish packing, haha!) and then move the following weekend.  This is exciting on the one hand, and really a bummer on the other.  Now I actually have to pack.  That's really hard to do when you're only moving 5 minutes away.  Some things (like most of the kitchen) will just get thrown in laundry baskets and taken over by the car load to get put away immediately, but a LOT of the rest of the house really does need packed up into boxes so it is contained and doesn't have to have a 'home' right away.  I hate packing.  And I think I'm starting to nest, so it really goes against ALL of my instincts to be putting things IN boxes right now.  Andy's doing a lot of the work, which is very helpful, but it still makes me cranky to even think about having to do it.  It's one of those necessary evils, I suppose.  I'm trying to keep my spirits up by picking paint colors and planning room layouts and all that.

We just got an email from our Realtor saying that the seller would be willing to meet with us to show us how the downstairs gas fireplace works (something even the inspector couldn't figure out!) and also all the swimming pool information.  We're going to do it, because how else will we ever know?!  However, I am a little nervous that it will be awkward to meet with them.  They are, after all, losing their house to a couple of kids (that's what we look like, anyway!) that are barely older than their own.  We're going to have to see them at the settlement anyway, so it's only awkward because they'll be teaching us how to use their house.  Oddly enough, I had a dream about this very thing a few months ago.  They were nice about everything in my dream, so let's hope that turns out to be true :-) 

I don't have any new baby pictures for you this time, so as a consolation prize, here's a picture of our soon-to-be house, taken when we had our first walk-through all the way back in May.  I was convinced enough at that point to take pictures, it's just taken a little bit longer for the rest of the universe to agree with me :-) 

Home, Sweet Home.  Well, soon anyway!