My Beautiful Baby Shower

Well after a long hot summer of being pregnant, my mom and sisters(Yash and Mollie) threw me an awesome baby shower at my moms house in Waukesha, WI.  Just in time too.  It was August 4th 2007 which is my neice Jaqlyn's Birthday, it was so nice of her to share her big day with Payton and I.  She was my helper in opening our gifts and I made sure she was the first to open a present that day.  Kurt and I got her a brat doll and a gift card to go to see the Brat movie in the theaters.  I think she really liked it.  Here's a picture of her and my other niece Kayla playing in the guest room at mom's house that day.  

It was so fun to see my family and friends and we were so blessed with so many amazing gifts for Payton.  I was obviously huge and it was very hot that day, but mom made sure to keep the house nice and cool for me.  Regardless of her greatest efforts though I continued to swell like a baloon.  Here is a picture of me and my huge belly.

A few of my friends from college came including Danyel Lachermeier and Jennifer McEvilla.  I found out some amazing news about my friend Jenny that day; after a couple of years of trying to get pregnant her and her husband were expecting twins in March of 2008.  I have to get in touch with her to find out if she's had them by now.  I believe she would have had a boy and a girl, Reece and Cole.  Here is a picture of the two of us, you can't even tell that she's pregnant yet, I think she was about 8 weeks along here.

The party was so fun and I am so thankful for everyone that was there, everyone that sent us gifts and for all of their generosity.  Here are some more pictures of the shower and I just have to sneak in a picture of Kurt, his family and I when we went to two weddings this summer. Enjoy....

Here I am with the beautiful cake that Mollie brought, it was so yummy.

My mom got the letters of Payton's name at a craft store and painted them, they are so beautiful and as you've already seen they are hanging above Payton's bed.  Here's me opening the "O".
Kurt's sister Niki made letters for Payton's room as well.  They were wood and she used some really cool scrap book paper to decorate them.  They are hanging above her changing station. 
This is a burp rag that my aunt Clarice made she embroidered it and everything.  She knows I love turtles, it says "Payton Nicole Loves Mama and Daddy".
Here are the sheets and curtains for Payton's room.  They are green, white and brown with elephants.  

Here I am with the wonderful ladies in my life that made this party happen.. 

From left to right... Mollie, my mom Kathy, me and Yashica.

My sister got Payton a shirt that says "everyone loves a brown eyed girl", too bad I don't think Payton will be able to wear it, here eyes are blue/hazel.

Mom got me a corsage to wear.
Here is that picture I was talking about from the weddings last summer.  I was six months pregnant here.

Here I am after the baby shower when Kurt grabbed a quick picture of me.  Little did I know how soon Payton would be arriving, I was almost 9 months pregnant here

My FIrst Job in Green Bay

It took me a couple of months, but I finally got my first job in Green Bay in May of 2007. I applied for and accepted a job as a Client Services Representative at a company in De Pere, which is about one mile from our house. The name of the company is PAi which stands for Plan Administrators Inc., they are a third party administrator of 401(k) plans. They are a pretty small company of about 125 employees, but growing fast. I spend my days helping employees, and in some cases employers, understand how their 401(k) plans work.

I've learned a ton since I've starting working here and I love the people that I work with. The owner is also super nice and sits in a cubicle right along with the rest of us. It's awesome going from a 40 minute commute to work, to less than a 5 minute commute. They also have a gym at our work that employees can use for free and Payton's daycare is about one mile from my work, which is so convenient.

It's been a great place to work and I can't believe after praying to find a job for so many months that God would answer my prayers in such an amazing way.

Finding Out We Were Expecting

Shortly after we moved here last January, I was focusing on trying to get us settled in to our new home and Kurt was focusing on getting settled into his new job. Working for Stryker was quite a struggle for Kurt at first. They kind of threw him to the wolves the second week he was here. His co-worker/trainer Peter left him to fend for himself in the territory, as Peter went to California for the Annual Sales Meeting. Basically Kurt and Peter supply the local hospitals with Endoscopic surgical equipment. They have to sit in on surgeries when doctors are trialling new equipment to show them how to use it and to make sure things are installed correctly and working properly.

He didn't have much back ground in the medical field and was having to study a lot of anatomy and surgical procedures in order for him to prepare. I think he did a great job of adjusting to such a new industry, and has come a long way since last January. He is comfortable going anywhere on his own now and assists hospitals with all of the equipment they supply and will be starting to draft up sales proposals now that the busy season is over. We hope to be getting into our own territory soon.

As he was learning, I was struggling to drudge up the energy to get the house unpacked and looking like a home. I was exhausted all of the time. I would wake up around 11am every day (I'm not a morning person), then I'd do a little bit of work around the house and would feel overwhelmingly exhausted by 1pm. I tried to drink coffee, but couldn't manage to enjoy the taste anymore for some strange reason. Then at night when Kurt would come home, he would be exhausted from working and commuting all day so he'd go to bed around 9:30 or 10pm and I'd be right there with him exhausted as well.

I didn't know what was going on I just couldn't find the energy to do anything. I also noticed that a lot of the foods that I usually enjoyed I couldn't eat anymore. I couldn't finish a cup of coffee and I couldn't eat beef. I was also very emotional; everything made me cry. Finally in the beginning of February I went to get some groceries and walked down the aisle where pregnancy tests are sold and thought, "I wonder?" so I grabbed two pregnancy tests and went home to see if my assumption was correct.

Well as you now know the first test was positive. I couldn't believe my eyes, I was nervous, scared and excited all at the same time. We moved up here and took a chance on a job that could make Kurt's career based on the fact that we were young and didn't have any kids to worry about. Well, now that was all changing and sooner than expected. I took the second test just to make sure I did it right and sure enough it was positive too. At this point the big question was, "How do I tell Kurt?". I knew he'd be excited and worried because at this point he was still so unsure of his new job. He actually called me that night and said he needed to go back to wherever he was very, very early in the morning and wouldn't be home til late. He said that his boss Kevin offered to reimburse him for a hotel room if he wanted to stay the night. I felt kind of guilty, but asked him to come home. I hated to make him do all that driving, but I definitely didn't want to tell him over the phone and knew I couldn't wait until the next night.

He didn't get home til around 8pm that night. Meanwhile I had put the pregnancy test in a ziploc baggie, wrapped it in a gift bag, and when he got home I told him I had an early Valentine's Day present for him. He opened it and the look of confusion on his face was priceless. He managed to form a smile, but I think he was so tired from the long day that he had had, that he didn't know exactly how to react. I cried cause I was so nervous to tell him and just emotional (ovbiously).

The next morning he got up really early, around 4 am and left for work. He waited until around 7 or 8 am, but managed to call me about every half hour or hour to say, "I can't believe you're pregnant", " I can't believe we're having a baby, that's crazy." I could tell it was sinking in and I could tell he was getting pretty excited.

A day or two later he got a recommendation from some pregnant nurses at one of the local hospitals for an OB doctor in the area and I made my first appointment. They scheduled an ultra sound right away. I found out that day that I was almost 14 weeks pregnant, man were we clueless. I was already in my second trimester! That two weeks waiting to find out how far along I was and how everything was going felt like forever. We didn't want to tell anyone until we knew we had made it through the first trimester. We had to tell Kurt's brother Kyle because he came to help us move the rest of our stuff to Green Bay the weekend before and we knew he'd wonder why I wasn't helping as much as I could. I think I told my mom right away as well because I just needed someone to talk to that knew what I was going through. Right after the doctor's appointment we told the rest of our family and friends and they couldn't be more excited.

Well the rest is history, what an amazing beginning to our new adventure here in Green Bay. Good thing we went for the bigger apartment that had more space, even though it was a bit more expensive. Who knew we'd need it more than we could have imagined. The spare bedroom quickly became Payton's room. Here are some pics of princess Payton's room today...

My First Blog Entry, It's About Time.....

Welcome to my first blog post. We've been in De Pere, Wisconsin for almost a year now. Our house is what they call a "twin-do". It's basically a duplex, but different people own either side.

We live in a couldesac with mostly retired folks. We have a yard, which is awesome, and Kurt and I don't mind doing yard work. This was the last place we looked at, during our search for an apartment in De Pere and we pretty much knew right away that this was where we wanted to live for the next couple of years.

Well, enough talking already, why don't I just show you where we are living. The following pictures are from when we first moved in, in January of 2007. It looks a lot different now, especially with all of our Christmas decorations up and our spare room isn't spare anymore, it's Payton's room now. We also transformed the basement into Kurt's office and a spare bedroom for guests.

These first pictures are of our Living Room. The white door is the front door and the wood door is a coat closet.

We love having a fireplace.

Off of the Living Room is the Kitchen and Pantry...

To the left of the refrigerator is the door to the basement and between the pantry door and the basement door is the door that goes out into the garage.

The door to the left of the picture is Payton's room, for all we knew at this time though, it was the spare bedroom. HEHEHE....

To the right of the picture of the tree above, is a tiny hallway that leads to the laundry room. You pass the guest bathroom on the left and the guest bath also leads into the spare bedroom.

SOOOO, below is the laundry room. At this time we didn't have a washer and dryer yet, but we got a free one from my friend Grace who I used to work with at Abbott. Thanks again Grace.

Below is the bathroom that opens into the guest room.

I know, I know like you really need to see our toilet, but I am giving the complete tour here...

Ok, now we are looking into the guest bathroom from the guest room.

Sorry this is the only other shot of the guest room I have at that time, but we have a ton more recent pictures of this room now that we've turned it into Payton's room..

From the guest room you walk out to the kitchen on the left and the dining room on the right. The dining room seperates the guest room from the master bedroom across the way. Here is the only picture I have of the dining room at that time as well and bare in mind that we just moved in so please disregard the stuff everywhere.

Ok, I'm sorry, I thought I had more pictures of our room, but I guess not. Yes, we have pink walls in our room, aren't they gorgeous. Here are the baby kitties while they were still the only babies in the house. That's Hemi (the grey one) and Leo (the orange one). It was quite funny when we moved in, they hadn't lived anywhere but in our apartment in Racine and they were a little freaked out. They hid in the basement under the stairs for three days before they ventured out. Now they love running around everywhere and they love looking out the sliding glass doors in the dining room out to the back yard. They see tons of birds, rabbits and even a stray cat that they like to growl at. (Have you ever heard a cat growl? It is one of the craziest sounds, you'd think they were dogs.)

So I'll get some newer photos of our bedroom and get them out here soon, but for now the next few photos are of the basement. It's half finished and half storage. Once you get to the bottom of the stairs there is a closet door on the right, that is the storage room which is half the size of the entire basement. The other half of the basement is finished and is just beyond the storage room.

Well that's the end of the tour. I'll definitely get some more recent photos of the place posted soon, it looks much better now. Although most of you who check out this blog will never actually visit us here in De Pere, I hope that you feel like you've been here by reading my posts.