Getting ready for Christmas

We picked out a tree in Belleville, Illinois, again this year choosing a white pine native to Illinois. Ed trims the tree (this year with large clippers because he couldn't find the small ones), then I put the lights on and he added the star. 

We also set up my village around the fireplace. It looks very Christmas-y in our house! Corey came over to help hang the outside lights to complete our Christmas preparations. Our house looks great!

 

29 week belly shot

A little late, but here's the most recent belly shot. The next one will be of me and Mary Beth, who is 4 weeks ahead of me, over Christmas.

Ed has been asking me if "I'll be getting bigger" like he can't believe it. Ummm...I still have a ways to go! 

Baby Shower and Girls' Night

Last Thursday night was my baby shower in Milwaukee, thrown by seven of my mom's friends. It was wonderful! The shower was themed around children's books. Everyone had a laminated paper placemat of a child's book, books decorated the room, and we played a trivia game about the characters of well-loved books. For a bookworm like me, it was perfect! We also played the measuring game--everyone estimated the circumference of my belly with a piece of yarn and then measured it around me to see how they did. Most people had way too much string! Diane and Kathy were closest...they both guessed smaller than I was, bless them! Mom gave me a beautiful flannel baby quilt she made, and everyone else spoiled this baby with wonderful gifts as well. 

Friday was a girls' night in Chicago. Jenn, Diane, Kathy and I drove down from Milwaukee and met Amy G. and Kelly Cook at Spiaggo for a delicious dinner, followed by dessert at Ghiradelli's (massive ice cream sundaes!). Thanks, girls--it was great to hang out and catch up! The non-locals (me, Jenn, and Kathy) spent the night at Diane's beautiful house in Beverly and were served a lovely breakfast by her husband Matt the next morning. Ed joined me in Chicago and we spent time with Dustin and Kelly and then Di and Matt, with a quick trip to Nacional 27 (our favorite restaurant) in between. It was a great trip!

Baby room plans and 27 week belly!

My growing belly (see picture) is a good reminder that it's time to get cracking on the baby room. Ed is planning to get some work done while I'm in Milwaukee this week and NY next week. This weekend we bought a crib (see picture) and a dresser (no picture yet). To add to Ed's work load, the dresser is unfinished and needs to be stained. Fortunately he likes that tedious, putzy work. I do not stain. It's not good for our relationship or the unfinished piece of wood. Something about me not having patience and attention to detail...

On my end of the baby room project, though, I'm happy to show off our color scheme and fabric swatches! The collection is Back Porch Bouquet in teal and mocha--nice gender neutral colors. It's not "baby" themed fabric, but I'm going to create zoo animal shapes on the quilt and for wall art, as well as little stuffed animals. The walls will be a soft teal. Here are the fabric swatches, as well as a beautiful quilt that the ladies who designed the fabric made for me just for fun. I'm so excited to get the fabric (it's just shipping to stores now) and get started on everything I want to do. I think it'll be a race to the finish line for both Ed and me. Maybe we'll start taking bets on the blog about who finishes first...

Friday Night Fun at the City Museum

Friday night, after an afternoon at Fast Eddie's and Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner, we took Greg to City Museum. This eclectic place features jungle gyms for kids and adults a like (including a giant ball pit!), random games/architecture/sculptures/old airplanes rescued from who know where, and a bar. We climbed through metal obstacle courses and tubes, slid down slides, wandered through a fake cave area, and sampled the ball pit. One disclaimer: No babies were injured in the taking of these photos. I went down the seven-story spiral slide verrrrryyyy slowly. 

Photos: 

*Ed and Greg pose with their beers and a giant pair of underwear.

* I climb in the obstacle course.

* Ed climbs in the obstacle course. Notice there isn't a picture of Greg climbing in the obstacle course. That's because, well, he didn't fit! 

*I'm getting eaten by a cave monster.

* Ed and Greg pose in the cave.

Thanksgiving

As much as we missed seeing our families, this year we were thankful for...staying home for this 4-day weekend! We had Thanksgiving with Greg (of course--he's not scheduled to leave our couch until Saturday morning) and our friends Carrie and Justin. 

Photos:

*Justin poses the turkey for a picture.

*We fried the turkey outside--you'll see the guys hard at work doing that.

*It's no wonder Ed is always happy to take up carving duties...one piece for the platter, one for his mouth! 

*Our beautiful table

*Our Thanksgiving group

*I like to call this one: Turkey 1, Greg 0. That's right, this meal got the best of him!

Metal Studz

Our goal was to show Greg the best of St. Louis, so we were thrilled to find out that the Metal Studz were playing at at the Phoenix Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. This 80s cover band plays a great repertoire of Poison, Guns 'n Roses, White Snake...you get the picture.

Speaking of pictures...here are three beauties from the night: Greg and Ed "dancing" (some things never change), me with Carrie, and a stage shot of the lead singer of the band. For anyone wondering, his "package" is not any more real than his long blond hair. Now if only Missouri would ban smoking in bars so we wouldn't come home smelling like ashtrays! 

Greg's visit

Greg Templeton, the Australian who sang at our wedding, is in town for the week. So far, this is how he and Ed have spent the weekend! They wake up to eat and then settle in for another nap. A nice lazy weekend! We also celebrated my birthday with the traditional birthday dinner, stuffed meatloaf, rosemary potatoes, and creamed spinach, and later, brownies and ice cream. Ed couldn't get the candles to stand up straight, so it was perilous walk from the kitchen with drooping flames!

Week of business trips

Ed and I both were on business trips this past week. He was in Idaho, visiting a malt plant. He left early on Sunday with plans to visit Old Faithful in Yellowstone. Unfortunately, Yellowstone was closed. At least he got some great shots of the Tetons! We hope to return here on vacation in the next couple of years. 

I was in the Outer Banks of North Carolina for a photo shoot. It was actually colder there (30s and 40s) than it was for Ed in Idaho! I'll upload the pictures when I get them from the photographer. 

25 Weeks

Here's the 25-week belly shot! 

Redneck fun at Grandpa's

On our last day in Florida, Dad pulled out Grandpa's pellet gun. We set up targets on the pasture gate. Plain old target shooting got boring, though, so Ed and Patrick raised the stakes with drive-by target shooting, using the golf cart. There's nothing like soda cans, pellet guns, and golf carts for some good, old-fashioned fun!

Florida

Last weekend we traveled to Florida to visit Grandpa in Kissimmee. The Swensons had many Disney vacations in Florida through the years, so we took this picture of the four of us to commemorate this most recent trip. Poor Ed, who has experienced the Swenson pace of vacations before, took a nap on the monorail about partway through our 14-hour marathon day at Disney. We took our traditional picture with Grandpa, as well as one in front of the castle at the Magic Kingdom. It was a fun trip!

Halloween

We decided to decorate our house for halloween this year. Thanks to some fantastic props we borrowed from the Rhyans, our front porch was appropriately spooky for trick or treating. We ran out of candy twice! Corey, my cousin attending Wash U, came over to help decorate and hand out candy. Check out my shirt...I created a glow in the dark baby skeleton! 

Mary Beth and Alli visit

Mary Beth and Alli came to visit us in St. Louis in October. We had a great sibling weekend, hanging out, roasting marshmallows, shopping, and watching football. MB and I took a joint belly shot--imagine what this photo will look like at Christmas!