Memorial Day Cookout

Yesterday we had about 15 people over for Memorial Day. It was a hot, hot day so we mostly stayed inside but we had such a sweet time together. Everyone brought meat to grill and tons of other good food. I love all those friends and wished we all lived on the same street!

I have more pictures of dancing to the Michael Jackson Experience coming soon....had no idea there were so many talented dancers in our midst!

Rebecca's First Bridal Shower

Sunday afternoon marked the beginning of Scott and Rebecca's October 15th wedding festivities. We filled her kitchen with some of the best items around. I can't wait till she makes me a delicious dinner when I come visit her new home. Her maid of honor, Lauren, hosted the party for her and many of our awesome church friends got to help celebrate! Rebecca will be such a beautiful bride!

Nursery Beginnings

This past weekend the baby's nursery made huge progress! My parents bought us Carmen's beautiful dresser and night stand (best part is that they got an awesome deal in the store by swiping the floor model!) and Michael and my dad got to paint the room. I am so blessed to have two really good painters in the family so my walls will never have to suffer from my apparent lack of cutting-in skills.

I love this paint can - her walls are in Petal Pink:
Michael getting started on the rolling after the cutting-in was finished:
My dad was a huge help in painting her bedroom too:
Last night Michael happily put together baby's crib which was a gift from his parents! He did such a good job.
I can't believe how tan he is already. All he's done is mow the grass and played a round of golf on Sunday.
Testing out how his daughter will feel in there. He said safe and cozy.
Even though we're not quite finished with the walls, we wanted to move in the furniture to make things more real. I love it already!


So these are the nursery's bare bones but essentials. It will be so pretty when we finish the look and place the furniture where it should go. My inspiration is a gentle, soft and inviting room. A sweet little girl's room filled with pinks and whites and some brown. She is one blessed baby!

The Collins Anniversary

Happy 2 Years of Marriage today Pat and Jenny!

On Saturday night they invited us to join them at the National Harbor McCormick and Schmick's for dinner. We had a delicious seafood meal together and celebrated their past 2 years of marriage. We love them and look forward to so many more years together!

Don't they look good?! Yes Mom, these are the jeans you bought me. First time wearing them. On to Year 3 for them....

24 Weeks

Carmen is growing fast! I love her sweet little movements inside my belly. Sometimes they're not so little. Like last night, I woke up around 3am and couldn't sleep because I was starving. All I could think about was what fast food drive through I could get to for a breakfast sandwich. I thought that surely I would fall back asleep since it was 3am but Carmen seemed to notice I was awake and started moving a ton. After an hour or so I made it back to my crazy dreams. I am despising sleeping on my left side. I feel so uncomfortable and disconnected from my normal routine of sleeping on my back. I'll do it for her though, and the fact that I don't want to pass out because an important artery or vein is getting squished.

I exercised crazy control when my sis-in-law and I went to the Carter's outlet this week. I could have bought every little girl outfit I saw but I didn't. I'm waiting to see what she'll need. Baby C's little boy cousin is due to arrive any time in the next 2 weeks so we shopped for him and got him some cute little outfits. We are hoping to pick out the dresser/changing table this weekend with my parents. Soon I'll be able to post some pictures of the nursery's progress! Looking forward to resting this weekend and staying home (imagine that!) on Saturday.

Baby Girl Has a Name!

After many, many months of talking over names (let's be honest, we've played the baby name game for years), Michael and I have finally settled on our first-born daughter's name. Our sweet little girl is:

Carmen Isabelle

We love it. We love her. I never thought about having a daughter named "Carmen" but it's settling on us pretty well. We have gone back and forth between two names and been waiting for something or someone to tell us that this is it. That doesn't happen because it's simply up to us - the mom and dad. Although we do reserve the right to change it up until we sign the birth certificate, I think this name will stay. Carmen means "Beautiful Song" and Isabelle can mean "Consecrated to God." We are not huge on name meanings in general but Michael really liked the meaning of this name together. The name is undeniably feminine, not difficult to pronounce, unique but not unheard of and fits well with our last name Daubert. I also love that during our hard and long waiting time for her, this Beautiful Song by Kari Jobe got us through some nights and let us fall asleep resting on the truths that this song sings about. It quietly became our anthem and prayer when we had no other words. So now we are excitedly getting ready and waiting for Carmen to finish growing so we can all welcome her into the world! My sister immediately started calling her "Baby C" when we brought the name up - so here's to Baby C!

I have no idea what happened to blogger over the weekend. It didn't display my updated posts and took away all my helpful comments on the laundry detergent. Really weird. And I'm kind of sad because I wanted to read them all again even though I think I got the take home messages. I think blogger did this to a few other people's blogs too, so hopefully you all know that it was not me deleting your comments - it was the blogger people. Again, thank you for your input and I now have a better idea of what to buy! More updates soon....

Worth the pain

Thank you mommy friends on your laundry input. I totally appreciate it!

I am getting ready for another long weekend away for a wedding. Last weekend was really hard on my body and I definitely felt different doing a wedding weekend while pregnant. But at least I know how bad I can expect to feel this time around. The work is wonderful and the weddings are great, it's just my poor legs and feet that suffer. Last Saturday night I got home around 1:30am and after barely making it up 2 flights of stairs I find a Mother's Day gift on my pillow for a spa day at the Red Door Spa! One of the best gifts from Michael ever! It's complete with a prenatal massage, warm cream manicure and pedicure, an extra little gel finish add on and money towards a product. I can't even begin to tell you how much my feet ached for that massage and pedicure as I was reading it! He is so good to me and knows what I need. I've never had a massage before so this should be fantastic!

I will probably be tempted to use it next week but I might try and save it for June so I can have freshly manicured nails for my baby shower!

Baby Detergent

Calling on all moms: What's your recommended baby detergent for laundry? I've seen some on super sale and thought about buying them but I want to know what real moms say first. I want something different than what I use on our clothes since I just use Tide and Woolite. Meyer's? Dreft? Baby Magic? Don't know yet if she'll have sensitive, prone to irritation skin or not. Anyone have any thoughts? Would love your feedback...don't want to take it to a facebook poll just yet.

The beginning of getting ready

I want to start putting everything together for baby girl now but clearly it's not time yet. We have a few things waiting for her and it's so exciting.

Her Quinny Buzz Stroller and bassinet complete with a hot pink ride along blanket:
Her infant bouncer seat

And the precious beginnings of her closet. Heather bought this for her and I love it, the shirt says, "Tiny & Cute"
This month's task is to get the room painted and ready for furniture placement. ...And quite possibly to finish unpacking the other rooms in the house. As long as I finish those by August, I think we'll be OK.

Chores

Mowing the lawn is back in our life. Let's be honest, just in Michael's life. I will attempt to plant flowers and herbs but I'm not getting too optimistic because that's not a skill that's ever, well, blossomed for me.

Although it may be small, we have a yard that needs mowing since the grass grows rapidly during April and May. I just had to document the first lawn mowing in pictures because I want to remember as much as I can about our early years of marriage/homeownership/pre-baby. Good job Mikey!

5 Months into the year?

Did May sneak up on anyone else? Wow. Here we are. Megan Daubert Events has 2 weddings the next two weekends. So thankful to have the talented Rebecca Burtch to help me out with them! Other exciting things to come include the arrival of baby's crib - on it's way thanks to my in-laws - and, more importantly, the arrival of baby Reese Andrews! She will be here so soon and I already cannot wait to see pictures.

Lots of love to our military friends - just have to acknowledge this right now - Jon, Cale, Nick, Steve H, Steve C, John S, Tom, Marvin, John T, Ed and many many others. Reading news sites this morning has been interesting. Thankfulness mixed with a little apprehension is my response so far - maybe more thoughts to come but it's a lot to think about. Anyhow, I am again filled with gratitude and appreciation for your service.

And to finish out my thoughts - Here are some Easter pics: