Crib Bedding

Here are some pictures of the crib bedding we bought. I just love it! There are hundreds of little accessories they can sell you, but right now we just have the crib bedding and a diaper stacker that came with it. It also came with a valance that I think we might use to make a pillow. I might add the mobile and possibly the hamper, but we'll see.

Baby Gifts

Ricky & Keri and Chad & Kim gave us a 'gift tub' since they said they wouldn't be able to come to a baby shower. It was so nicely put together I asked Keri to take a picture - thanks guys!

Chad & Kim said they saw this and knew that the baby had to have this to wear at Grandma Mary's house - or will it be MeMe? She still hasn't decided. In case you can't read it it says "my favorite colors are green and yellow" I love it!

Me & Carson

Here we are at Katie's party - as you can see, I bored her to sleep!

How long has it been?

Well first, let me say I'm sorry it's been awhile since the last post. There's been a lot going on and I've been neglecting the site. Also, we just got our camera back (actually they just replaced it for free with a brand new upgraded model - thanks Canon!) so I've still been unable to take pictures of the house. I've got the day off tomorrow, so I plan to go out and take a few pictures to post because it's supposed to be a beautiful day. Mom and I were talking, and I don't think the picture I've got on here does justice to the color of the house - I just love it! But anyway, we just got back from a weekend in Charlotte visiting our family for my cousin Katie's 16th birthday party who, by the way, is on her way to Raleigh this very minute in her brand new 2007 Honda CRV with her mom - congrats Katie! Speaking of Raleigh, they're on their way to stay with my cousin Keri and her new little girl Carson for the weekend. I finally got to meet Carson this weekend and she is one of the most beautiful little girls I've ever seen! We had a great weekend and it was nice to see all the family, with the exception of Anna and John, Layton, and Granny (and Cody who had to work, but I see him all the time!). We also had an eventful weekend because we were able to find our bedding for the nursery! I've been searching and searching and finally found something neutral that I love - and it was even cheaper than I found it online. It's still more than I would have expected I would pay, but I'm getting so excited about the thought of a new house that I wanted some new nursery bedding to go with it - sue me.

As for the house, the guys are (hopefully) finishing up the drywall this week and it will be time to start painting the inside. We've already ordered our tile, and we're finalizing plans on our cabinets. We were really lucky to have a family friend who's an interior designer here in town to agree to help us pick out some things. She found us a great deal on cabinets - there's a guy who just started ordering a new kind of cabinet in from China that is really sturdy and just beautiful. If we would have gone to Lowe's or somewhere to pick out this same thing, it would have cost us twice as much. And the great thing is that he's ordering them in bulk so we don't have to place an order and wait for them to come in. They'll be here in a week or two, and all we have to tell him is what exactly we want. Then we can either install them ourselves or have them installed. I was really stressed about cabinets because we spend so much time in the kitchen and we have so much kitchen stuff to store, but we didn't budget much money for the cabinets. The way this is working out, it looks like we may be only a few hundred dollars over the cabinet budget, and I was expecting it to be maybe a couple thousand over.

So that's all for now. I'm still feeling great and have no complaints. We're 23 weeks along, and our next appointment is Nov. 29th. Everything is going great for us right now - we're so very blessed!

Baby Banner

Here's the latest picture of our little one, taken at our 20 week ultrasound yesterday afternoon. This is a side profile of the face and upper body - you can see the little pointy nose and a hand below the face. We got a DVD, but the baby didn't move around much at all. 'A very laid back baby' according to the nurse - "like it's Daddy" said Cody. It's either laid back or stubborn (like both its parents) - at one point the nurse was trying to roll him/her over to get a better look at the spine, and the baby just wasn't having it! But we did at least get to see the arms, legs, fingers and toes move around enough to know that they can, and that's all we need to know. It was tough not finding out the sex, but what a fun surprise it will be at the delivery! Right now the baby's a little bigger than the average for this stage, but we'll have to wait and see if that trend continues. Hopefully it won't be too big, because I'm hoping to deliver naturally and I have no idea what my pain threshold will be because I've never had any serious injuries or illnesses to test it. Most mothers laugh when I say this is my plan, but I know it can be done because I know women who have done it. We'll just have to wait and see how this one cooperates - I'm counting on the Conder history of fast labor, but I don't want to have any false hopes either! But we've still got four more months to prepare for all of that - right now Cody and I are just excited to know that everything is fine and we've got a healthy little Banner we can't wait to meet!

And the work continues.....

It's been quite awhile since I've updated this - our camera is broken so I've been unable to take pictures. Here is the latest image, complements of Uncle Carlton. We've gotten one coat of exterior paint on the outside - we've had lots of help with the painting from my family - a whole group showed up on Sunday and helped us get the whole first coat completed. We're lucky to have such a great family. You can't tell from this picture, but all of the rough-in work is complete (a/c, plumbing, electrical) and we passed our framing and rough-in inspection. We just picked up our next draw check on Friday, and now we're ready to order the drywall work. Hopefully our camera will be fixed quickly and we can get some more pictures up, but until then I'll try to do a better job of at least updating the site to let you know where we are in the process. Oh - and I almost forgot to mention - we have our 20 week ultrasound this afternoon at 4:00. I can't wait to see our little one on the big screen! We're still hoping not to find out, but I guess we'll have to see if Baby Banner wants to cooperate. It's so nice to know we're halfway there - the time has flown by, so I'm hoping the same will be true for the second half. It's been really nice - no sickness, no cravings, no mood swings (and this is according to Cody!) - I couldn't have asked for it to be any better!

It's a Wrap!

The window trim is up, the house is wrapped, and the siding is going up. This is not a recent picture. I haven't been able to make it out there since last Friday, but I hear that the siding is almost or may even be completely finished. Now it just needs to be painted. I think the only major thing that's left on the outside is the soffits, and then it's on to the inside to begin work in there - pretty exciting!

Some of the Work Crew

Here's the head honcho - busy as usual. You should see how easy he makes it look to hammer those nails in the wall! Puts me to shame, that's for sure.

My hubby - such a stud! I'm sure he'll be a happy camper if he never sees another hurricane clip for as long as he lives.

Here's Mom - always looking good no matter how hard she's working! I hope baby gets those good Conder genes!

He was too busy working to get a head shot, but here's Dad working on hurricane clips - you have to have so many of those things! But it's worth it because I know they could come in handy one day.

Grandpa worked so hard he decided he needed a two week vacation at the beach! I'm sure there will be plenty of painting for him to do when he gets back.

House Update

It's been a while since I've updated everyone on how the homebuilding is going. We've now got the complete roof, the rough in electrical and plumbing, and we're working on getting the A/C roughed in. All the trim is up and the siding is going up too. It's almost time for our next inspection and loan draw. I don't know what comes next, other than painting the exterior. We went ahead and bought a five gallon bucket of the 'Mother Nature' green that we painted the shed. I still have hesitations about painting the house green in a field full of green grass, but I think it will look really good, especially once we add some color around the house with our landscaping. I'm hoping what they say isn't true about how if you live with a mechanic your car's never running, when you live with a plumber there's always a pipe leaking, and so on and so forth. Otherwise, we'll never have any landscaping!

We have a roof!

As you can see, the metal roof is now on - doesn't it look great! It's so exciting to see it look more like a house all the time. Today is our framing inspection. Hopefully I'll find out in a few hours that we passed! We had some wonderful help this weekend from U. Carlton, Grandpa, Mom and Dad to get everything finished up. Thanks guys!