Eggplants

Dear Zoe - I am 28 weeks, that means that I am 2/3 done!! I am officially in my third trimester and feel so different than I did at the beginning of my pregnancy. I am much bigger. :) I have gained about 22lbs at this point, and am definitely showing! (see picture above!) I no longer have morning sickness, but I am tired a lot. I fall asleep on the couch every night pretty much around 9:30 and leave Dad to finish watching all of our shows himself! You are moving around a lot too, which is so fun! It is kind of hard to describe, there are little kicks and little flutters and the other day I am pretty sure that you had the hiccups. Your favorite time to move around is right after dinner and at bedtime (hopefully you will outgrow that!)



My weekly pregnancy tracker tells me that this week, you are as big as an eggplant! Kind of unbelievable!

The Nursery

I have been thinking about the nursery since the day I found out I was pregnant, and even before I knew that you were a girl, I had the cutest bedding picked out from land of nod. I didn't have anything picked out for a boy, and turns out, I didn't need to. Dad and I struggled with whether or not to paint your room, it is a mocha brown, which I love, but we were worried it would be too dark. But we decided we would brighten it up with some pictures on the wall, a light colored rocker and the bedding. I haven't purchased the decals yet...I am going between butterflies and birds, but I love how they look. I am really excited to see it all come together!

The best day of my life...

This is a picture from my favorite day ever (so far...you are not born yet, remember??). November 10, 2007, the day your daddy and I got married. It was such a fun day. My best friends were all over at my house all morning and we hung out got ready, drank some champagne. Then we drove to a beautiful church where I met up with your dad and we got married. We were both so happy, we couldn't stop smiling all day long.

We had a wonderful reception with great music and everyone danced all night. People still tell us that our wedding was the most fun wedding they have ever been to. The dance floor was never without people on it and that was what I wanted! The food was delicious, and all of our favorite people in the world were there with us to celebrate.

The last 3 years have been wonderful. I cannot wait for you to be here to make the next many years even better!

Love, the mama

Where your daddy and I met...

Dear Zoe -

Hopefully we will be bringing you out to one of my favorite places, San Francisco, CA very soon. SF is where I met your daddy. We met through friends in the summer of 2004 and my old roommate and friend Ginny gave him my phone number to check on me while I was on a date at the Cubs game. The date wasn't going so well, so I went out to meet your daddy. The rest is history. :) We lived there until summer of 2007 before we moved to Chicago before we got married. I miss California all the time - its weather, scenery, food and people. As much as I love being home in Chicago, there are lots of times when I wish that we could move back and we could raise you out there. I am sure that you would love it...

Besties

Speaking of girlfriends....I have been working on a slideshow for Jenny's wedding and I realized that in the "friends" section, the amount of Jenny and Kelly pictures are ridiculous. Why we insist on taking pictures together (opten smooshing our faces together), I will never know...but I must say they make me laugh and bring back tons of memories when looking at them all.

Zoe-bug (side note: your daddy and I were talking last night on what nicknames we are going to give you- Zo-Zo, Zu-Zu, Zoe-bug were amoung the top ones)- I hope that if you ever need anything at all and you don't want to come to mama or daddy, you will be able to call Jenny and she will be able to help you. She is very excited to meet you, she comes up with a lot of different names for you (last week it was Lola, which I think is very cute!) because we haven't told people your name yet.

Love, the mama

Girlfriends

Dear Zoe -

This picture is from my bachelorette weekend in lake geneva, wi. These beautiful ladies are some of my best friends in the whole world. I couldn't imagine my life without these girls, they have been there through tough times, fun times and ordinary times. I can only hope for you that you have a great bunch of girls to be there for you (when you don't want to talk to your mama about stuff!). Girlfriends are the best.

Love you ladies!

xoxo,

Zoe's mama