I get by with a little help from mah friends.

The hubs graciously agreed to paint my toenails for me (with nary a complaint!) since doing them myself is virtually impossible. Now do I have a great guy or do I have a great guy?

Plus he did a stellar job. From what I can see from up here.

The Staring People

She's ridin' low low low. The doctor told me that most women deliver in their 39th week. So, perhaps this week it will be! Maybe even tomorrow! Or today! Or Wednesday! The possibilities are endless.

I must look like I am about shoot a baby out immediately because I keep getting comments these days from well meaning strangers in the grocery store or Target saying things like "Just hang in there sweetie!," and "You just look like you're about to pop!"

Throughout my 3rd trimester, I've noticed a funny (and sometimes disturbing) phenomenon: You get a lot of attention when you are pregnant.

From strangers.

There's of course the sweet little comments like "Ooohhhh so cute! When are you due???" which always lead to the inevitable, "Do you know what you're having?" and, "Do you have a name picked out?" Which is all fine, I don't mind chatting and answering them, "August 28th, " "Yes, a girl," and "Yes we're naming her Luigi Mario Kart Points."

Then there's the people who simply gaze at you with a smile on their face, perhaps remembering their pregnancy or simply admiring my excellent and extremely attractive preggo waddle. They give off mostly happy vibes.

But then there's the ones who just stare.

Sometimes it's with a look of utter astonishment.

Sometimes it's a look of "WHAT THE" as they do a double take.

Sometimes it's seems that they are just unable to drag their eyes and lifted brow away from the beach ball that appears to have sprouted arms, legs, and a head and is currently making it's way toward them down the sidewalk.

Now. This leads me to question to myself, "SURELY I cannot be the first pregnant lady they have ever seen?"

And then I ask myself, "Do I ALSO stare at pregnant people like this? Because if so I should stop. It's weird."

Some people have tried to tell me that it's all in my head. But as I was talking to my bump buddy Molly recently, who is due just a day or so after me, she suddenly asked me out of the blue, "Do people just...stare at you?"

Yes. Yes they do. And it's weird.

A room for the behbeh.

We were so excited when we finally finished girlfriend's little room! It feels good to have everything prepared and laid out - gives me a sense of having things together (although I'm sure we will discover there is plenty we do NOT have together once she gets here.)

Lot's of greens and pinks, and a slight "classic" Winnie the Pooh theme. That changing table? That so nicely matches (oh how I love matching) the other furniture? $10 off Craigslist bay-to-the-bee.

Here are some crib details - my mother (soon to be Mamaw to her first grandchild) made the beautiful Pooh Bear bumpers, blanket, curtains (as seen in another post), and even some flannel Pooh Bear sheets for when the colder weather comes. And my aunt made the quilt. Lot's of homemade going on here, which I LOVE. Love love. And that super adorable mobile? Found it at a (rather sketchy looking but turned out to be awesome) garage sale for $15!

Sometimes I just stand in the middle looking around at everything, thinking about the daughter (what?!?!) that we will soon have living in there. Then I feel kind of corny and leave.

But soon find my way back in there again.

Here are a few "before" pics.

This dresser has been passed around quite a bit - it started out as my mom's when she was a kid, then it was mine and my brother's, and now it's here. It's also seen it's share of refinishing!

Babies. Rooms for them. Awesomesauce.

The Skylark Studio - New Website!

After many meetings at Starbucks and Panera (and too many iced chais to count) my business partner Emily and I recently finished putting together our brand spanking new website for The Skylark Studio.

And when I say "we," I mostly mean "she." Because while I helped out with the graphics, it was actually her website producing genius that got the thing put together and running.

We are super excited about how it turned out and will be updating soon with more projects, and at some point a blog feature!

Here's the link if you want to check it out!

www.theskylarkstudio.com

And here's a bit of background story on our little business.

Update

My blog posts these days just seem to be random updates here and there, but I'm a-ok with that for now. Time to just go with the flow!! And eat some cookies.

My 27th birthday was last week and it was certainly a good time. Some of the festivities included a fancy dinner with the hubs, seeing the new Batman movie, homemade dinner with a couple of friends, shuffleboard with the extended fam (though I did not participate but instead sat and watched in a pregnant haze), eating (engulfing?) made-from-scratch chocolate eclairs from my mom (she makes them for me every year - it's my happy place), and dinner at Chino Latino's with my bro, sis, mom and hubs.

Not all of these things happened in one day. That would have been busy. Too busy for an apparently almost 30 year old.

Here's the hubs and I at my birthday dinner at Muffuletta. Delish? Yes. One of our last date nights without having to hire a babysitter? Perhaps. My oh my how life is about to change.

Other things I've been up to are as follows:

Finishing up the baby's room (I'll be sharing pics soon!)

Thinking about all of my old clothes and how soon I might be able to fit into them once my bowling ball stomach is gone.

Trying to run errands and do useful things but often failing because of general fatigue and killer back pain. I complained to the hubs the other day, "It's hard to do things." "What?" he said. "It's just hard to do things," I repeated.

"....." was his response.

Finally making it to the beach with my sister. We've been trying to make it there for awhile but because of a series of unfortunate (although usually comical) events it took us a long time to finally make it happen.

Here's us.

Here's Hannah posing with Lake Calhoun. She approves.

Hope all is well in all of your worlds! Not sure how often I'll be around here for a bit, as I am at 37 weeks and little girlfriend could pretty much make her appearance at any time! Now that's crazy talk.