At 27 weeks we passed the third trimester mark, at 30 weeks we were 3/4 of the way there, we’ve had baby shower 1 of 2, and we recently passed the 31 weeks mark which means we have only single digits weeks to wait… 9 weeks to go!

We have made a lot of progress getting ready for our little girl. Our furniture came in and Tim painted the nursery. Kate has started washing some of the baby clothes and the reorganization of the house has begun. And Samson is slowly being taught that not all toys on the floor are going to be his.

We have moved on to having Dr appointments every other week and everything is looking good. Kate is feeling well and she is definitely getting bigger. We’ve also started interviewing pediatricians in the area.

At the beginning of October we took a BabyMoon to Niagara Falls. The drive was beautiful and very scenic as the trees were just turning. We spent Friday afternoon driving up the coast of Lake Erie and got there just in time to see fireworks over the falls at night. Saturday we got up and went to the falls, rode the Maid of the Mist, and walked around on the American side’s park. Saturday evening we went to dinner at Niagara on the Lake, a little district on the Canadian side with restaurants and shops. Earlier that day we heard about an art show that night in Toronto and so we decided to drive up after dinner. Tim did a wonderful job planning a leisurely drive home Sunday through the Allegheny Forest and scenic towns with Fall festivals.

Below are some pictures from our trip as well as a few maternity shots Tim took recently so you can see how Kate and Emma are growing.  We hope that this post finds everyone well and we will post pictures of the nursery once we have it finished.

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We have a ton to update on this post since it has been a while from our last post.

Things have been well in the Anderson household. Samson is a year and a half old and has been part of our family for a year now! He continues to be well behaved and no longer chews on any furniture. He doesn’t even need a leash when we let him out into our unfenced yard (most of the time). He tries to make as many friends as possible with the neighbor kids, but sometimes he can be intimidating because of his size.  Over 80 lbs!

The house is really coming together. It has been over a year since we moved in and time has really flown by. We got a dining room table for our front room and all of our rooms are furnished and functional… all except 1 that we have been using as storage. With summer approaching we’ve even done a little bit of flower planting and mulching. Ah the joys of home ownership.

We’ve been very blessed to have found a church that we very much enjoy. It is less than 5 minutes away from where we live and fits our personalities and worship style very well. We’ve been checking out a few different Sunday school groups and bible study classes, and in general just enjoying getting to meet new people.

Speaking of new people, we’ve enjoyed getting to build new friendships with some of our neighbors. Tim’s softball team has started back up and we’ve found a new board game that we enjoy playing whenever we get together with friends or family. It’s called ‘Ticket to Ride’ and if you are ever looking for a new game to purchase, we highly recommend it. It’s our new favorite.

We have some fun trips planned this year and had a couple of them already. We went to Washington DC to visit Tim’s sister and our brother-in-law, Kim and Luke. It was great because we were able to plan the trip when Tim’s brother, Ryan could come out too. The five of us explored the capitol city. We went on walking tours of  the national mall and Arlington National Cemetary.  We went to the Newseum and went to the Earth Day celebration on the National Lawn. One day we spent a day going around to different places and did a photo shoot with our brother-in-law, Luke, who is a wedding photographer and did some of the pictures from our wedding. (check out his stuff here )

We also took a brief trip down to Daytona and Cape Canaveral Florida with our Anderson parents to see the final launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. It was a very cool experience and the weather couldn’t have been nicer. We spent 3 days and had a BLAST :)

When we got back from DC we discovered a wonderful surprise…. WE’RE PREGNANT! We are 13 weeks, just out of the first trimester, and due December 30th. We have had two doctors appointments and everything is looking good.  We could not be more excited. Our room we have been using for storage is getting emptied and will soon be the baby’s room.

We hope this post finds everyone well and enjoying the summer. We are looking forward to spending the summer with family and friends and preparing for the arrival of the new member to our family.  Hopefully we will be better at posting this summer as we update on how things are going with the baby.
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Kate got her wisdom teeth removed during July, which hindered her enjoying all the wonderful July 4th foods, but she recovered quickly with no complications.

We were able to enjoy a lot of summer festivities such as: the Dayton Air Show that Tim went to with his Dad and brother, the Jazz and Ribs Festival  that we went to with Jenny and Gabe, and we started playing in a weekly sand volleyball league with our friends Mark and Michelle.

August  has already been an eventful month as we enjoyed our first Dublin Irish Festival this past weekend and Kate assisted in throwing a bridal shower for Jenny.  After celebrating another friend’s wedding this weekend, we will be heading out to spend our one year anniversary in beautiful San Francisco.  We’ll spend the rest of that week enjoying some relaxing time with family at Discovery Bay and Yosemite National Park.  The rest of August should fly by with a few more birthday celebrations, a bachelor party to throw, Tim taking high school football officiating classes, and just enjoying what’s left of the long summer nights.  We’re very much looking forward to the beginning of football season while being back in ol’ Columbus town and getting to spend time with visiting friends.

Our first stop into the city was the Atlanta History Museum.  They had a lot of info on Atlanta’s past and growth as well as significant events that were important to Atlanta including the Civil War, Martin Luther King Jr, and the 1996 Olympics.  After checking into our hotel, we got a nice Valentine’s Day dinner at a great Thai restaurant.  For the evening’s activies we had heard about a fun event going on at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art.  We decided to check it out and were glad we did.  Not only was the Art Museum impressive itself, they also had a special exhibit on the Terracotta Army that was very cool to see.  There was also had some fun music, dancing and desserts to keep us entertained.

The following morning we laid out our path to see three of the more popular tourist attractions that were all centrally located to our hotel and Centennial Olympic Park.  Our first stop was the CNN World Headquarters studio tour.  After our tour we moved on to visit the World of Coke and the Georgia Aquarium.  By the end of the day we realized we had seen quite a lot for such a short period and were ready to head home.  We had a great time and Atlanta is a really neat city.