Living a Blessed Life

You guessed it!  We are thrilled to announce that we will be joining team BLUE with little baby boy Schwarz!!! I still cannot figure out how to rotate the picture after uploading. Argh! We had the ultrasound tech circle the baby's sex on this piece of paper (and she also included a very detailed picture with her confirmation) and placed it in an envelope to open after we left the office. (I figured I would spare you the detailed picture and just include our little note instead.) The excitement and anticipation were too much, and we HAD to open it once we got home. We decided to open it up in the room that will be the nursery, to make that a special memory. How special it was! We are both overjoyed, and excited to welcome our little baby boy into this world. I was hoping to keep this a secret until the baby was born, but after we opened the envelope, I just couldn't see how we could both keep quiet that long. I know a lot of people also wanted to hear the news, and I kne...

We had our ' big' ultrasound today. It was such a fun appointment, & the ultrasound tech was extremely nice. I thoroughly enjoyed this appointment & the ability to see our little baby! I have included a picture so you can enjoy our baby too. :) We did find out the gender, but you will have to be patient until we tell some of our family. Stay tuned...

I have the BEST husband in the world!! He really can read my mind (even if he says he can't) most of the time. Tonight he came home with a wonderful surprise... Cupcakes from YUM! bakery . The adorable box the cupcakes were delivered in     The top one is red velvet, and the bottom is the signature YUM! cupcake (with marshmallow creme filling) I quickly devoured the YUM! cupcake before my supper because there is an unspoken rule that we should always eat dessert first, right?? :-) It was delicious, and I look forward to gobbling up the red velvet one tonight!!! Thanks, Darek! You're the best!!

 Ok, so I changed my mind once again. (Shocking, I know!) I suppose this proves that I really can be flexible even when I think I have my mind set on something. So, the story goes...  I was really set on not wasting money on a changing table for the baby's room, as it is something that will be outgrown and really not necessary after a year or two. My plan was to find a nice dresser and just place a changing pad on top, and then use the dresser as a dresser is meant to be used until this child someday graduates and leaves the nest. I am a very practical person, and thought this was a great plan. Well, it was a great plan, but it meant purchasing a piece of furniture that we were unsure we really wanted to purchase right now because we will probably just want to buy a nice bedroom set for our child that all matches when that need arises.  Until this point we have not purchased one single piece of furniture for our home other than our mattress set. Everything we have has ...

After a really nice week of sunshine and melting snow, we have been blessed to once again get blasted by another snow storm. I must admit that I was enjoying the warmer temperatures and I really got a hankering for spring! I know it's a bit early, but I am all for an early spring regardless of what the calendar says. Darek has been doing a great job keeping the driveway clear, and I thought I'd give him credit by including a picture of his hard work in action. This is after Darek blew the driveway out so we could get groceries, and we were gone for less than an hour. Sad. I hear that we are supposed to have a total of 15-18 inches by tomorrow noon. (I can hardly wait for the commute to and from work!!) :s Aside from the snow, this is an exciting week for us, as we have our anatomical Ultrasound. We are both really looking forward to this and hope to have the option of recording the ultrasound on a DVD. I don't even know if our office offers that, but I am going to bring ...

This weekend was really fun, yet full of things to do. On Saturday morning Darek, Mike, Emily and I all headed down to Mason City, IA to help out with Suzy's new home construction. Don't worry - Emily and I did more supervising and encouraging than physical working, but it was great spending a good chunk of time helping out. I did cut a couple of outlet openings in the sheet rock, and trace a few others... :-) I also pretended to hold the sheet rock on the walls while other people attached it... :-) The house is coming along nicely and we are really excited to come back and do some bedroom decorating in the near future. This is very exciting for Suzy and the kids!! We cannot wait until they actually get to move into their new home! On our way home we made stop in Medford at the outlet center. They have a pretty nice variety of baby / kids clothing stores so we decided that it was a good time to see if we could find anything we might need. We stopped in the Carters and Gymbore...

Here are the best bump pictures I have from the previous 4 weeks. I will have another one for my 18 week picture tomorrow, but you'll have to wait a little longer before that one is posted. Honestly, it's kinda of tough to follow the progression because I am only posting fully clothed pics, and most of them are taken shortly after I have woken up on a weekend. (Don't mind the half-sleeping smile) Ok - Here you go... 14 Weeks 15 Weeks 16 Weeks 17 Weeks There you have it. I definitely have a bump, and I think this week it really made an appearance! Stay tuned for future bump updates. :-) Looking forward to our February 'mini' thaw this weekend!! ~Steph

Every few days I rummage through the postings on Craigslist to see if there is anything of value posted that we need for this baby. Well, I saw a posting for a really nice swing that is identical to the one we registered for. It was such a great price, I had to inquire! The long and short of it is this... There is a family about 10 miles from our house that is moving in June, and they have 3 young boys. They stored all of their baby supplies in case they would need them again, only to decide they will not. SCORE for us!! Everything they had was in perfect / new condition with a couple of items only having been used once or twice. It's always nice to find a good 'find' on Craigslist because we all know that some people can be dishonest or have dirty / very used things that just are not what anyone would want to buy (even if it is used). This was a beautiful, clean home and the nice lady selling even put batteries in everything to demonstrate and show how the equipment work...

I found this website via a babycenter post that I was reading through today. http://www.cafepress.com/+funny+womens-maternity?page=2 So Funny! I have to share a few of them that I really enjoy. I definitely plan on purchasing a couple of funny pregnancy tee's. :-) Ok, so those are good for a little chuckle, and laughter is good for the soul. It seems that everything we do now revolves around baby or baby planning. I LOVE it, though. I'm excited and ready to be a mommy. This weekend we got together with the 'quad' which has grown into a much larger group. Darek, Myself, April, Laura, David, Jack, Julie, Jeff, & Jaycie all met in Albert Lea (our old stomping ground) for some lunch and chat time. It's always nice getting back together. It's like we haven't missed a beat. I love having friends that I can always depend on. It was a really special occasion because I finally had the opportunity to tell April that we are expecting. I have been waiti...