countdown

THIS IS THE LAST MONDAY I WILL EVER BE A NANNY.  AND IT'S TOTALLY OVER.


Winning.

some things

Rob constructing the crib!  No, I didn't have any patience and needed to have it assembled the day it came.

Simon kept coming in to check things out, but he absolutely refused to have his eyes open for a picture.

Three hours and one f-word later, Eli's crib is [properly] constructed!  So now there is just a random crib in there.

And now, still sporting my mother's maternity clothes from 1985, I am mentally prepared (maybe) to deal with the 1.5 weeks left of work.  It can be done.  I won't die.  I won't go insane.

Happy Wednesday!

happy birthday rob!

Happy birthday to my sweet, intelligent, creative, understanding, supportive husband!   I love you even more today than I did that day we went to Spring Grove.   

scattered thoughts for sunday

+ the best thing in the world is being able to have someone with whom you can laugh yourself stupid.

+ i totally called off work tomorrow.  donnnn't feel like dealing with it.

+ there are one hundred and thirteen days until eli is due!

+ i need to clean my car out in the worst possible way.  seriously, it's disgusting.

+ speaking of cars, i once wrote about how we were buying a new car.  well, that was a lie.  when rob's car    craps out we are just going to try to be a one car family for awhile.

+ my parents got rob and i a new grill for our combined birthdays!  i am so excited for this.

+ speaking of rob and birthdays, my husband turns twenty-eight on tuesday!  why are we so old now?!

+ speaking of tuesday, that is my next doctor appointment.  happy birthday, dear.

+ we ordered a crib and mattress this weekend!

+ right now i am wearing my mom's maternity clothes from the '80s.  i don't even care anymore.

+ i FINALLY have a hair appointment on may 1.  i scheduled this thing at the beginning of march.  if you've ever tried to get in with sam hills at high five salon you know what i'm talking about.  but i am so excited because the last time i got my hair styled was april of last year.

+ i used to really hate going to weddings, but since i have had my own, i actually kind of like it.  i'm looking forward to my friend jason's wedding in june.

+ our gym finally opened up while we were in mexico so now rob and i have been doing the gym thing.  i love this because i have not had a gym membership since we got married slash it's kind of frustrating because i can only walk on the treadmill.  even  a slow elliptical makes my belly feel all bouncy and weird.  but i am excited to start up again for real after baby's here.

+ my mom made rob a birthday cookie cake earlier today and i'm totally going to go eat some right now.

i should be sleeping

I did not have a good day.  Being honest, this week was crap.  Nothing in particular made it this way, it was really a culmination of how I feel physically, a build up of my attitude toward this job in general, and the fact that I was somewhat screwed today.  Really I cried the whole way driving home.  And then it rained.

But anyway, I have been up for over an hour and I should be sleeping, but my brain won't let me stop thinking about today and it is pretty much really annoying.



In attempt to clear my head of negative crap I have been looking at baby crap on Target's website.  It's really overwhelming and hasn't really made me feel better.

So, I will write about something that does make me feel good, and that is that we have picked out a name for baby boy!  It is going to be (dun, dun, dun...)

Eli Thomas Chipman!

Yep, that's what we picked.  His initials will be ETC so we will avoid monogrammed junk.  I was initially having a really hard time finding a boy's name I liked.  At first I thought I liked the name Liam, but there are like a zillion Liams and one day I was at my mom's house and she was expressing her distaste in the name, which was really random, and I hadn't even told her I was considering it.  At that point I marked it off my list (which was unfortunately, of only one).  Then I thought I liked the name Levi, and I still do.  It was kind of like Liam except not  Liam, so maybe people would like it.  Rob was okay with it, but he didn't love it.  And one day when I was at my mom's house I decided to test the waters and just say, "I like the name Levi", to which my brother responded it is a horrible name.  Disagree, but moving on.  Anyway, one of our girl names we both really liked was Eliza (the others were Mara and Norah, if you were wondering), and so Eli is kind of like Eliza so naturally I liked it.  And Rob liked it too.  And so we decided to go with that.  And all along I knew I wanted to use the middle name Thomas, after my grandpa.

I know I said I wasn't going to share for a while, but after Rob and I decided on the name Eli, I decided maybe we should just tell people so if they didn't like it, they had until August to get used to it.  Plus it is kind of nice being able to refer to the little person inside of me who is constantly poking and jabbing by a name that he will have for the rest of his life.  It's kind of sweet.

UPDATE

I went back to work today, and finally met my boss' baby.  AND HOLY CRAP.  Babies are precious.  I can't wait until ours is here!

some photos

first day.

our lizard friend in front of our complex.  these guys were everywhere.

we walked the beach almost every day.

because it was pretty.

flora.

hanging out in the shade.

and probably eating nachos.

el castillo at chichen itza.

another significant building, that i cannot remember the name.

skullz.

peacock just walking around.

view down into Ik-Kil (sinkhole near Chichen Itza)

view up from inside Ik-Kil.

on the beach.

last morning view.

about today

Um.  So, I ended up not having to work today.  Everyone who reads this probably already knew my boss was pregnant, and she had her baby (17 days early!) while we were in Mexico, so her parents are in town until after Tuesday.  Maybe I will be done with work sooner than I thought?  We shall see.

Anyway, while I muster up enough motivation to go through pictures from Mexico and upload them onto the world wide web, I will leave you with this song.  I'm not embarrassed to say I was obsessed with this song in high school, and probably could still be considered so.  In fact, I have a very vivid memory of sitting in my parents bed with a bowl of ice cream and a bag of Dorito's watching VH1's Top 100 just to make sure this video was number one.  I was probably sixteen? I listened to my iPod a LOT on the plane and I may have picked my favorite Chili Peppers songs and listened to them multiple times, including but not limited to Californication (duh) and Scar Tissue.

Happy Monday!

Greetings from Mexico!

So Rob and I arrived safely in Cancun on Saturday and have been hanging out ever since. I think baby boy likes it too because he has been flipping out. Seriously is it normal that I can see the kicks outside of my belly at 22 weeks? Because I do. Whenever I sit down he pretty much starts kickboxing or something in there. Rob even saw it, finally! It just seems weird that it's apparent already, though I keep reading it's different for everyone. IN OTHER NEWS, tomorrow we are taking a super long bus ride to Chichen Itza, which is the super awesome Mayan ruin around here (like, 7 wonders of the world awesome) and spending all day there. It cost an extra $109 per person, which was annoying, but we justified it as being in Mexico and who knows if we will ever have the chance again. Also, unsurprising, I got brutally sunburned on day 1. I can feel my mother in law rolling her eyes at that :). And in case you are wondering how ,uh it costs to buy aloe here it is FIFTEEN DOLLARS. And it's not even the good kind. I was so mad. Well...time to go 'confirm out departure' with our representative so I will share more interesting content after Saturday, when we return!

yes.

In a little under twelve hours, Rob and I will be heading to Mexico for seven days of vacation bliss.  I can't wait.