Can you hear me now? ...Good!

Happy Wednesday everyone!!!  Just wanted to share some of the Nate updates from the past week.  We had another opportunity to check Nate out on the ultrasound machine (as we had to repeat our 20 week body scan since Nate was being "uncooperative" the first time.  A child of mine being uncooperative?  Never!).  Anyway, we got to confirm that Nate is in fact a boy.  The Ultrasound tech actually was funny about the number of times we asked her to check during the 1.5 hour appointment so she gave us a special picture (which I will post later).  Needless to say, we are having a boy for sure.  According to our weekly baby newsletter, Nate can hear us!!!  His inner and outter ears are developing so he can also feel my movements.  This means we will start practicing using better language, begin reading my father's copy of Winnie-the-Pooh and house on Pooh Corner (in which a young Art Isaacs practiced writing his name), listening to all kinds of music, and dancing around the house with Sammy (which actually isn't too much of a break from the norm).  Our little Nathaniel is now the size of a large mango and moves around quite a bit!

Nursery Sneek Peek!!!

So, as I've mentioned before, decorating children's rooms is one of my favorite things so it's no surprise that I have been dreaming up my own baby's nursery since long before I was even pregnant.  We already had the new windows installed and this week the electrician is coming to install some new lights (I will post the light we currently have in there and you will understand the need) and a ceiling fan.  Soon after the electrician is finished, the painter/contractor will be coming to add some color, architectural elements, and remove the popcorn ceiling from the room.  Here is a sneek peek at the color scheme we are using (in the form of our paint colors):

Bump Watch:

Our weeks have been very busy and crazy (and we frequently don't take pictures of what we are up to).  However, this past weekend Kurt and I had the pleasure of going into Philly for a night out to celebrate Jessica's birthday!!!  We had a fantastic time with good food, friends, and good times all around.  I also got to show off some of the new maternity store fashions I had to pick up last week (yes, I'm past the point where most of my "normal clothes" are comfortable or attrctive looking.  Here we are:

Pillow Saga Continues:

As I have documented in the past, I am not into the sleeping restrictions that come with being pregnant.  Don't get me wrong, I still manage to spend a decent amount of time sleeping, but as a life-long "stomach-sleeper" the idea that I have to sleep on my side keeps me tossing and turning in the wee hours of the morning.  The Snoogle pillow has helped a lot, but it appears that Kurt and Sammy have been enjoying it a little too much when I get out of bed.  You guys have been caught!  WARNING!!!  The following pictures were taken without the consent of either party (also, please ignore our pink sheets, our blue ones got ruined in the wash and we have not yet been able to replace them..Kurt does not enjoy the pink sheets even though they are very soft):

Hope you all have a great week!

xoxo, Jilly

Congratulations!!! The Bee has arrived!!!

Welcome to the world Hunter Shaw Ormsbee who was born on Tuesday, January 18th at 5:57pm!!!!  He was born weigning in at 8lbs, 2oz. and 21 inches.  Becky and Ben are going to be the most amazing parents and I am sure Hunter already knows it!  Congratulations also to both of their families!!!  So very exciting!

We have movement!

Hello all!

Well, I am extremely happy to report several updates on the baby boy Perhach front...

First of, he has most definitely start kicking.  It was a long time coming (in my opinion), but I have been regularly feeling his kicks since this weekend.  It all started at the Maryland Basketball game I went to with "Auntie" Jessica and her parents.  Of course we knew our little boy was going to be a Terps fan (no matter what type of brainwash Kurt plans on trying), but I think the kicks serve as confirmation.  Though the Terps lost in the last 6 minutes, it was a very exciting game in which we were in the lead for almost the entire time.  Here is a picture of me and Jessica from the game:

Secondly, we have landed on a name...or so we think.  As any good parents, we reserve the right to change his name at any point, but for now we have settled on Nathaniel, we will call him Nate.  We are still working on a middle name, so feel free to pass any slections along (though be prepared, I am brutal about playground nicknames...it's actually a wonder that I was such a nice kid growing up, seems I can come up with a bad nickname for everything).

Thirdly, we introduced Nate to his potential wife (not trying to rush things here, but she's a catch).  I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon with my best friend from law school Jess,  her husband Alex, and their daughter Jordana (Jojo).  She is 6 months old, ridiculously cute (see for yourself), and extremely well behaved.  Not to mention that I love her parents with all my heart (seems like a perfect match to me)!

Fourthy, our new countertops and sink are in!!!  It's kind of crazy after 2 years with the yellow laminate countertop and the wood topped table (not practical for kitchen island use).  The pictures I am posting are not great (they were taken by my phone), but after the backsplash and hardware go in, hopefully by Valentine's Day, I will do a follow up posting!  Here they are:

Finally, here are some Nate updates: Veggies are back!!!  Though I have to take it slow, Nate is finally letting me eat some vegetables...never thought I'd be soo excited to eat broccoli.  Nate is now approximately the size of a carrot, his eyebrows and eyelids are present, and he is swallowing more (all very exciting stuff)!

Hope you all have a great few days!!

xoxo, Jilly

"Whoa, we're halfway there..."

C'mon, sing it out...you know you want to!  Anyway, hello freinds and family!  Sorry for the "radio silence" the last 2 weeks, but it has been crazy crazy over at our house.  We have hit the 5 month, halfway, point and the baby is literally "half-baked" (sorry, I've been saving that one for weeks!).  In our most exciting news, we found out that it's a...

Hooray!  We went to the doctor for our 20 week ultrasound yesterday and we were informed that the little bean will be a boy (and we checked out the anatomy to prove it)!  We would have been equally thrilled with either a boy or a girl, but are really excited that we finally get to start calling this little guy by his name (which I will reveal later) and thinking about HIS future (still feels crazy not to say "it" or "the baby").  The news of a boy may not come as a shock to most of you, as it seemed almost everyone had guessed boy except for the younger generation (those under the age of 5).  In fact, here is an excerpt from the conversation where my sister told my nieces that their only cousin would be a boy:

Carolyn: Aunt Jill's baby is going to be a boy, do you know what that means?

Anna (age 2.5): I'm going to be a sister!!!

Kate (and 4.5, who had previously mentioned that we would be having a girl and her name would be Molly):  But I don't want a boy to be my cousin!
Carolyn: Why not?
Kate: Because I don't like boys!!!

Oh well, she will come around eventually (we hope, hahaha).  Many other changes have started taking place in our home as well.  First, we are finally almost finished with our kitchen.  We moved into our house 2 years ago and the kitchen was the first room we started working on.  It is a HUGE accomplishment for us to be almost done (I will post updated pictures this weekend after the countertops go in!!!).  Here is a picture of the kitchen BEFORE we even moved in:

  Secondly, we finally replaced some of the old windows in our house, probably original from the 1920's.  In total we have 41 windows that need to be replaced..we've done 13.  This marks the official first improvement that has been made to our office, which will soon be the nursery.  I will post pictures of the nursery transformation through the next few months (since children's room are my absolute favorite room to design and decorate).  You can't imagine how different life is with windows that actually prevent wind from coming into your house.  It's like we live in a new home...now we have to win the lottery and get the rest of them done, hahaha.  Here are 2 pictures of the office/nursery BEFORE any improvements:

Have a great week!

xoxo, Jilly