2013 is looking good!

I am so behind on my blog! There are not enough hours in a day for me to do everything that I want to do. But it is what it is. So a lot has happened since I last blogged. It would take me hours to go over everything, so I'll do my best.

First of all, we closed on our house.. YAY! I think we closed around December 7th. It was a busy month with the house project and the holidays in the mix of it all. But it was nice that the semester was ending so Derek didn't have school. He was able to take a week and a half off from work and do some things on the house with help from his brother, Dustin. After he went back to work it took a lot longer to get things done since we could only work at night and Saturdays. It took about a month to get the upstairs ready. We did some electrical work, re-finished all the hardwood floors, painted every room, every base board, all the trim etc. and did many little things here and there. The house really didn't need that much work in the upstairs, but you'd be surprised how long all of these little cosmetics things take. We haven't started on the basement at all yet. That will be a completely different project. The basement is only partially finished for now. It has 2 potential bedrooms down there that were recently done (well, half done). We want to add a family room, second bathroom and a storage/laundry room. But I'm being patient with that. But I would just like to point out how hard it is to get window treatments for a whole house! Geez, I think that was the most stressful part for me, haha. I'm still not completely done with that either. I've also been having a hard time finding wallpaper for the hall so our hall still looks scary. We are still organizing and doing little things when we have the time. But it's a little hard when I work a lot of Saturdays and only have a couple hours each night after work and most of the time want to spend those hours relaxing. AND when I am 7 months pregnant and trying to get ready to bring a baby into this world. So, things are moving but moving slowly :) I took some quick photos when we were done most of the painting but I will take better ones once it looks more put together. We got a lot of help on the house from our family and friends that we are really grateful for. It took us a long time to get a home for our family, but we were determined and it finally happened. We aren't in our dream neighborhood or the area we originally wanted to stay in but we just feel very blessed to have a humble home and to have a place where we can raise our children in. 

Here are just a few photos..

Before: Living/Dining Room

(If the paint job wasn't so messy, it wouldn't have been bad but I really wanted light gray walls)

Before: Living/Dining Room 

(I should have taken close ups of the baseboards - yuck.)

After: Living/Dining Room 

After: Living/Dining Room

(We had to put the chandelier higher up for now until we get a new table - our table is really high. I want to do a stencil on the darker gray wall when I find the perfect one)

Before: Master Bedroom

(Bright neon green walls and brown ceiling and baseboards... interesting combo)

Before: Master Bedroom

After: Master Bedroom

(The photo is a little blurry, I chose a purpley-gray color for our room)

After: Master Bedroom

(don't mind Derek's butt)

Now that we are settled in, we started getting the nursery ready. All of a sudden it was like "Oh my gosh our baby is going to be here in 10 weeks!". So we got the crib and glider set up in his room. We bought his car seat and stroller.. we are making progress! We are still struggling with a name for him though. I just haven't heard any new name that I'm like OOooo I like. I just keep hearing the same names over and over again and nothing sounds special to me. I have always liked the name Noah. That's the only name I know for sure that I love. But as I've said before, I don't want him to be one of several Noah's in his class or church or wherever. To me, when a name is too popular it loses it "spark", I don't know maybe I'm weird. But that's really the only name I love so far. For a boy at least. And I personally don't know any Noah's but if you look at any baby list, it's usually in the top 5 or top 10 popular boy names. Lame. But we'll see, maybe when he's born he'll look so much like a Noah that it won't matter to me anymore. 

Baby Finch at 22 weeks

Anyways, pregnancy has continued to be.. pretty.. blissful.... :) I'm sorry to anyone who has had a rough pregnancy. I'm sorry, don't hate me but I love it! I will probably be one of those girls who misses being pregnant after their baby is born. I will be 32 weeks in a couple days and I still feel really good. I'm just barely starting to feel not as comfortable when I sleep but it's not bad at all (yet, right?). I'm sure in a month or so I might feel different. But hey, if pregnancy is only uncomfortable for the last month then I'm not complaining! Baby has been moving a lot! Sometimes it's very strong and it startles me and then I startle Derek by my reaction, haha. I love watching my belly move around from him squirming so much. It's pretty good entertainment. I started exercising again last week and boy I am weak. I hadn't been exercising as much the last 2 months being so busy with the house and moving. But I know it's important so I am going to do my best these last 8 weeks or so without pushing myself too hard. It's really crazy how fast time is going! Baby will be here before we know it! Oh and remember I said I was turned off by sweets and chocolate, yeah that didn't last too long. But at least I haven't really been having any crazy cravings.

Some photos of my progression..

12 Weeks

20 Weeks

25 Weeks

30 Weeks

Have you seen the Friends episode where Phoebe is in labor and Joey all of a sudden has kidney stones? We kind of had our own little version of that. Well, not exactly. Last week Derek had to go to the emergency room for kidney stones! He got to work and they were in a morning meeting. He felt some strong pains and had to leave the room. Then it got so bad that he couldn't even talk so they rushed him to the hospital. I got a call saying that he was in the hospital and they think that he has kidney stones. First I was really scared and confused. I was like what the heck he was fine just an hour ago when I saw him. It was the weirdest thing! It felt unreal. I had just walked in the door at work and was not expecting that at all. I was able to leave and go to the hospital. I was so worried about him :(  He wasn't in much pain when I got there because they gave him some meds. They did some tests and found that he was passing a kidney stone in his right kidney that was causing him so much pain. I guess the most painful part is when it's passing from the kidney to the bladder. I guess once it gets to the bladder it doesn't hurt anymore and it doesn't hurt coming out from there. They told him it could be a few days before he completely passed it. They also told him that he has another one in his left kidney that hasn't started to come down yet. It could be weeks, months, it could be years before it starts to come down. So the good thing is that if he feels that pain again at least he'll know what it is and he won't think he's dying. The bad thing is that he knows he's going to have to go through that pain again. They say it's as bad as childbirth! So I don't know if God just wanted him to have more sympathy for me when I'm in labor or what! But he is okay now. Luckily with the help of pain medication he wasn't in too much pain the following few days. And it completely passed about 3 days after he went into the ER. What a relief. Another good thing from this is that it motivated him to wanting to eat healthier and drink more water. He hasn't drank any pop since then, which makes me happy, but we'll see how long this lasts. I'm happy that he is okay and it was just kidney stones and not something more serious.