The day it all began

Since I made reference in my last post to September 8, 2007, thought I'd share more of the story with you. It was a warm and sunny pregame Saturday afternoon on the campus of the University of Arizona - Martin was hanging out with his buddy, Dave, and I was with my friend, Jessica. Turns out, Dave was a mutual friend to all of us! Jessica and I had met Dave just a few short months before at a country music festival. So when we ran into him on campus, it was one of those, 'Ahhhh, I know YOU' moments. And then, of course, there was Martin...and for he and I, there was an instant chemistry. Yes, the accent had a little bit to do with my enamorment :) So then we took this photo, probably not more than an hour after we had met. Although it's totally cheesy and the picture quality is not the best, I still love the fact that we have a photo together of the first day we met.

You'll notice the sign, and then you'll notice that we are holding our beers just ever so slightly over the threshold. I remember thinking that this was absolutely hilarious (hence, the photo). Martin thought I was a complete nerd, but at least he went along with it. Anyway, the four of us spent the remainder of the afternoon and evening laughing and having a great time. And for Martin and me, the rest is history.

Preparing for fatherhood...with tea!

For Mother's Day and Father's Day, Martin and I received 'mommy' and 'daddy' mugs from my parents. And because one of Martin's most favorite things is tea (from England of course), he gets lots of use out of his mug. Here are some snapshots of Martin studying last night while drinking tea out of his mug!

Action shot!

Studying intently...

In other news, nothing much to report on Madelyn's arrival. Our due date, ironically enough is the actual LABOR DAY, is exactly one week from today. We've been progressing, but rather slowly, so I'm not totally convinced she is going to arrive any time soon. Because of that, we are scheduled to be induced on September 8th if she hasn't arrived yet. September 8th is the day that Martin and I met exactly 4 years ago at a U of A football game. Amazing to think about how quickly time has passed and how many incredible things have happened in our lives since then. So, since the doctor asks, 'when would you like to be induced?', we agreed upon September 8th because it already has special meaning and would have an even greater meaning. Obviously, we really don't mind when Maddie comes though :)

Tomorrow is an exciting day for us - my parents arrive from Michigan after a 3.5 day trek across the country, complete with two dogs in tow! And Martin's grandmother and Oscar arrive from England! We are so incredibly excited that we'll be surrounded by all of our loved ones. That means for Madelyn's birthday, she will have to greet her - two sets of grandparents, two sets of great-grandparents, an aunt, and a cousin!!  Speaking of Madelyn, I took a picture of her closet because it's jam packed with all sorts of great stuff. We've received lots and lots of gorgeous/adorable baby clothes and we are so thankful...

All for now. It's time to return to my Monday night guilty pleasure - pathetically trashy television :P

Just in time for football season

So as I was doing my daily scan of the news this morning, I stumbled upon this beauty:

Turns out, this shirt is currently being sold at Old Navy. The joke is on the person who writes t-shirt copy for Old Navy, as he/she somehow forgot the apostrophe between the 't' and the 's' in Let's. HAHA. Not only is this incredibly humorous to me because I am a stickler for correct spelling and grammar, but more importantly, because the mistake couldn't have happened to a better team! That's right folks, the University of Michigan has yet another reason to be completely embarrassed. I love it. And might I just add...

Let's Go State!!!! :)

The baby's room!

Martin is at class as we speak, taking a mid-term, so I've decided it's time for another blog update.

This one is a peek into Madelyn's nursery! It's just about complete, the only thing we're still waiting on is the glider chair.

For those of you who knew our home before baby, you knew that this room (what is now the nursery) was one of our spare rooms with baby blue and chocolate brown decor, complete with all baby blue walls. And before we knew if we were having a boy or girl, we knew that this room would become the nursery. It became our goal to make the blue walls work with our theme, regardless of baby's gender. So here is our best shot at creating a little girl's room with baby blue walls :)

Her crib. Thank you to Auntie Joanne for letting us borrow the beautiful crib!

Side view of crib

Dresser/changing table

Her name. My mom (Mimi) bought us the letters and Sharron (Nanny) and I hand painted them.  Lots of work, but well worth it!

Another view of her name and an adorable wicker chair that a sweet lady at work gave to us

The rug, just because it's cute :)

We were so blessed to have a family friend custom create the dressers for Madelyn's room. They are the perfect size and color! We also asked him to create a desk for us too, since Martin is busy with his studies, we needed a designated 'work space' for our office. Here it is:

Pregnancy photos

 ...and here are some of our own pregnancy photos. These are in chronological order, although unfortunately I'm not exactly sure how many weeks we are along in each photo. For the record, I do have this documented somewhere, just not at my fingertips at the moment, so I've given you my best guess :)

This was around 16 weeks 

Somewhere in the middle...about 22 weeks

We're at 28 weeks in this one.

Almost done! 38 weeks.

And then we left the real photos to the professional. These pictures were taken at just under 31 weeks. 

  

 

Day 1 of blogging and random babbling

Well, after just a short 3 hours of trying to figure out how to set up a blog (I am not very tech savvy at these things), we landed here. For months I have promised people that I would become better at blogging and posting photos, especially with our impending bundle on the way!

So right now, Martin, Jake, and I are sitting in the office with our brand new desk enjoying a quiet and peaceful morning. This is one of those times that I have referred to as the 'calm before the storm'. The house is in order, laundry is done, groceries are purchased, nursery is complete, etc. We are just waiting for the arrival of Miss Madelyn. Tomorrow marks 38 weeks on this journey. We are hoping to make it to 39 weeks, next Monday, August 29th, so that my parents will be here to celebrate her birth. They are driving from Michigan and leave on August 27th, so I have promised them I'll do my best to keep baby in belly until then :) Dan and Beth have rented out a condo in Tucson for the next year, as they anticipate long stints out here to spend time with their first grand baby. We are very excited that we'll have both sets of grandparents and one set of great-grandparents nearby! We'll also have a second set of great-grandparents (all the way from England!!) with us for the first month of her life too!!

While we wait, we'll just keep to life as normal. In addition to both of us working full time (I plan to work pretty much right up until I go into labor), Martin is also going to grad school at the University of Arizona for his MBA. He will be done about a year from now. He'll be a very busy daddy! We're not really sure if Jake will know what hit him, considering he has been the center of attention for the last 6 years. We think he'll be quite the protective little dog over Madelyn; he's already made a nice home for himself in her room. Each day I find dog toys and bones on the rug, hehe.

Martin and I have found a new game that we LOVE to play. I'm sure it's old news to some of you, but WORDS WITH FRIENDS is the best thing ever. In fact, the last several nights, we have literally sat on the couch next to each other with our phones and played this Scrabble-like game against ourselves. He has beat me every single time. Apparently I'm not so much the best at word game strategy. As we speak, we have three games going on.

We have also discovered a new favorite show on TV called 'Chopped' on the Food Network. Aside from HGTV and DIY Network, Food Network is probably our favorite channel. When we find a favorite show, we have a tendency to record every single episode and then watch them all in one sitting, thus running out of new episodes to watch very quickly. We've found ourselves quite disappointed over the last week as we've recorded several Chopped re-runs. Wah wah.

I will take some pics of our house and the nursery, and maybe even share a belly photo or two. I'll post these very soon.

Love,
Megan & Martin