Getting the Nursery Ready...

With only 7 short weeks to go we are finishing up getting Katelyn's nursery ready for her arrival. We are very excited to meet her and as you will see below her daddy has been putting in a lot of work. Below are some pictures of him putting her new crib together. Now we just have to get the dresser/changing table and we will be all set :)

The final product!

Happy Birthday Todd and Rose!

Todd and his mom Rose share the same birthday, 10/20. It is a tradition that they celebrate together so this year we went to Grillsmith. We had a great dinner and evening and both the birthday boy and girl seemed to enjoy themselves :) Below are some pictures of the evening. I forgot the regular camera (oops) so these were taken on my phone. Please forgive some of the ones that are a bit dark :)

Happy Birthday Todd and Rose!

Rose and Todd

Todd and nephew Drew




Blowing out the candles

Todd's favorite... Carvel ice cream cake!

Opening gifts

Rose, Drew and Dylan

Todd was getting birthday calls through dinner... not sure who he was talking to here.

Rose opening gifts

The boys helping Grandma Rose open her gifts

Fall has FINALLY arrived in Florida!

We are happy to announce that fall has FINALLY decided to arrive in Florida this weekend! yeah! We have had such intense heat and humidity recently that we thought our taste of fall would never arrive. Today we have very low humidity and about 75 degrees. Lows tonight will be in the 50's! Can't wait. We have opened up the house and are enjoying a beautiful breezy, cool day :) Thank Goodness!

Baby update... We are approaching 29 weeks of pregnancy and had a good check up at the doctor yesterday. The belly is measuring appropriately and Katelyn's heartbeat was strong. She is really much more active lately... finding it fun to step directly on my bladder at times :) I am really happy we are now getting into the third trimester which means that we only have approximately 12 more weeks to go until we meet our little one. Last Monday we attended our first childbirth class. I won't comment too much about it other than we both felt the first day wasn't the most informative. We will see what this Monday brings :)

Other news is that Todd has been working night and day on his days off to complete the wood floors in our house. He is officially well into the third and final phase of the house and everything is just beautiful! I've posted a couple more pictures of the house to share his beautiful work. A huge thanks to my wonderful husband for all his hard work.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful fall! We'll post more updates later.

I could resist taking this picture. Meg is sound asleep in the kitchen enjoying the breeze coming through the sliding glass door.

Baby Alt- 24 Week update

Hello Everyone! Things are going well here. We just had our 24 week appt. this past week and everything checked out very well. The belly (which you will see below) was measuring right at 24 weeks and her little heartbeat was strong. This was the appt. where I had to do the routine glucose test to check for gestational diabetes. It wasn't too bad... Doctor said no news is good news so if I don't hear from them that means I pass (I guess) :) We'll pray for no news! Next appt. is at 28 weeks and I think we get another sonogram so we can see how much she has grown and changed. She should be about 2 pounds by then. Hard to even believe! Otherwise I have been feeling well, watching my belly grow and enjoying a lot of kicks now that she is really moving around a lot.

Todd has been very busy working on projects around the house. He and brother Dan spent two days this week hanging the rest of our crown molding. It turned out really beautiful. The baby's room is painted too as you will see below. The paint colors took me some time to decide on but I think it all turned out perfect! Next step will be the furniture for her room :)

These are sort of out of order but here is the 24 week belly. I've been getting requests for pictures of the "bump" so here they are :)

For comparison purposes, this was the 13 week belly. I know they are different shots, but you get the idea :)

Here is Baby Katelyn's room. The green actually looks a lot greener in the picture than it really is in person.

Here is another angle of her room and I had to show the rocking chair too. It's a pale pink as you cannot really tell in the picture. I'm sure we will get a lot of use out of this :)

2009 Walk For Sunshine Fundraiser

Every September Todd's brother Jeff coordinates an annual charity walk for the Sunshine Home which is where their brother Aaron lives in Toledo, OH. The walk is not only to raise funds for the Sunshine Home programs but also to instill in participants the importance of exercise and physical activity in ones life. The walk was inspired by Jeff's through hike of the Appalachain Trail several years ago and he has also written a book about his hike called a Walk For Sunshine. You should read it! ;) This year Team Aaron Alt alone raised $4,000 for the Sunshine Home and that was only part of it. There was also record attendance at the walk!

About our weekend... it was wonderful to see all of Todd's family and friends as we only make it up there every couple of years. The weather was GORGEOUS! It was great to be out of the Florida humidity for a few days. Unfortunately with my pregnancy brain I forgot our camara (can you believe that???) so I only took a few photos with my phone, which are below. It was a great weekend.

Todd and brother Jeff checking in the morning of the walk

This is Madison, Jeff and Beth's little girl. All the kids did GREAT in the walk!

Here is Todd's brother Aaron and sister Steph gearing up for the walk. Aaron was SO excited to be there!

This is Todd's dad Mike and his wife Sue.

Here is Todd and his little Godson William. William is Jeff and Beth's little boy. He had such fun playing with his cars before the walk started.

Busy Week...

Well, this past week has been a very busy one. Todd has been diligently working on the latest house projects we have elected to do, including hardwood floors throughout the house, finishing off the crown molding in the rest of the bedrooms and painting the baby's room. In one week he managed to complete the floors in two bedrooms, paint all the crown molding, trim, etc. and paint the baby's room. Things are coming along great! Another huge thanks to him for all his hard work. Below are some before and after pictures of the bedroom floors.

On the baby front, we are officially going into 22 weeks! I'm feeling good and can now say that people are starting to make comments about my belly, so I know it's officially "popped out." Our little one is getting more and more active which is so neat to feel. We go back for our next check up in 2 more weeks which is when I will have my glucose test for gestational diabetes. On a fun note we started our baby registry this week as well... I spent 3 hours at Babies R Us!!! Never imagined it would take that long, but it was a fun experience. A huge thanks to my cousin Blythe who offered to go with me...she was a great help having already been through first time mommy-hood :)

Todd working on prepping the concrete floor

Completed hardwood floors... this is going to be the baby's room.

(In case you're wondering, the cradle you see is NOT for the baby :) It is my old doll cradle that will now be for our little girl to enjoy.)

20 Week Check up... Baby IS a GIRL!

Yesterday was our 20 week check up and sonogram. They were able to confirm for us that we are definitely having a GIRL. Doctor says everything looks really good and is growing the way it should be. We saw 4D images of our little one, which are the live pictures and then when they take snapshots of the 4D they come out 3D which is how we got such a great picture of her little face below. She weighs about 12 oz right now, was very active and was giving us all sorts of different angles to see her by. So, so amazing and CUTE! The sonographer said she has long legs and big feet! I guess she takes after her mommy in the feet department :) Our next sonogram will be at 28 weeks so we should see quite a bit of growth by then. I just love the 3 photos below...

Other news in the Alt household is we are actively doing some renovations to the house. We are tearing out all our carpet and laying wood floors, painting and finishing the crown molding in the rest of the house. All to be done in conjuction with setting up the nursery and getting it all done before the little one arrives in January. Whew!! Thank you to my wonderful husband for all your hard work. I love you!

Meet our little girl in 3D... is technology not the neatest thing EVER?? I just love the nose and can't wait to see her eyes open eventually.
Another profile shot

Here she was performing a bit for us. She was lifting her arms so the sonographer could get their measurements. She was just holding her arm up like this and then would move it down. As soon as the sonographer stopped pressing on my belly the baby would kick back like it was a game :)