The 40th Week -- Hopefully our last set of pregnancy photos this time around

Happy Tuesday everyone,

Sorry for not posting yesterday -- our modem at home broke so we don't have internet access at home until our new one arrives tomorrow. This will hopefully be our last pre-baby post since next Monday is the official due date -- November 5th. I've gotten a few predictions for this Thursday, but a lot more for this weekend or actually on Monday. We'll see when Baby K decides to come out. Hopefully sooner rather than later! Crazy to think that we'll be parents so soon. Very exciting!

Last week was fun but not too eventful. I have been taking advantage of things being slow at work to have lunches with friends. Jem was out of town for a couple of days for work as well (with the specific instructions to get on a plane ASAP if i went into labor)... Friday Ellycia came up to LA (she was down in Long Beach for a conference), which was lots of fun. She stayed with us for the weekend, which was very nice, especially because she may not be able to make it out for the bris. Friday night we ate at our friends Mordechai and Shana's house with Adi and Larry -- we had a very nice mellow meal and were in bed by 10:30... Saturday after shul we went over to our friends Jonathan and Elana Rackman's house for lunch, which was also lots of fun and pretty mellow. We decided to nap for a bit afterwards and then once shabbat was over, we headed out to the valley to Beth and Nati's house to celebrate Beth's 29th birthday (which was friday). We played games -- including a really fun new one I'd never played before called Boxers or Briefs -- kinda like Apples to Apples but MUCH more fun! Sunday, my dad and Rochelle came over for brunch -- after Jem and our friend Aron played tennis at 9am -- which was lots of fun. Then we took Ellycia down to the Long Beach airport and shopped our way back up to LA -- we had errands to run at Target and Home Depot ... Then we did some stuff around the house -- including putting the finishing touches on the baby's room -- and then headed out to Santa Monica for Taffy's bday party/baby shower. She and Claude had rented out a screening room at Lionsgate (the production company) and we watched Knocked Up. We had already seen it but seeing it when having a baby is SOOOO close was a little crazy. It was a very fun party.

This week begins the period of making lots of plans not knowing if you'll actually make it to any of them -- I'm having lunch today with some friends I used to work at Proskauer with -- Nkechi and Nicole -- then tonight, we're having dinner with our friend Yoni (who is australian, and we know from Israel, but lives in San Francisco now with his wife Leah)...Jem is headed up to Sacramento tomorrow for the day for work (again, with instructions to hop on the first plane back to LA if i go into labor)... This Thursday we have what I hope will be our last drs appointment -- we'll probably have to come up with a game plan with him at the appointment if we end up going past our due date. Then we have plans for shabbos and are going to a birthday party (our friend Rachel's 30th) on saturday night... of course, all if we aren't in the hospital.

Then Sunday, the relatives begin arriving -- David and Mira on Sunday, Daniel on Monday and Liora on Tuesday. Everyone else (like Jonny and Ellycia, Bec, Lenore and Henry, Joanne, maybe Steph) will make travel plans based upon when the baby actually decides to come so that hopefully they can be at the bris.

The one really nice thing is we have everything ready so we won't have to run around frantically once the baby comes to get stuff -- and it means that we can enjoy our last few days sans baby without running around organizing stuff.

Have a great week!

Lisa and Jem

Belly Shots -- the professional series

Here are a few shots from our photo shoot a couple weeks back...There are many more and we'll probably put them up on a website sometime soon. In the meantime, enjoy these!

The Countdown Begins -- 2 Weeks to go!

Unbelievable that Baby K is due 2 weeks from today (or even less time if you count his due date as November 1st based on his first ultrasound). Of course, that doesn't mean he'll be here in 2 weeks, since most 1st babies are late, but at least we know we'll have a baby in 3 weeks since most doctors here induce once you are one week late. I have to say, it doesn't FEEL like he'll be coming out this week -- based upon my exam at the dr last week and the fact that he's only dropped a little -- but if he comes this week, we are ready! We set up his nursery, went to Target to buy the "essentials" and Carters to buy some clothes. We also got a new digital camera because ours is not working so well any more as well as a camcorder to record things AFTER the birth -- no miracle of life video for us!

This past weekend was fun -- we stayed home for a mellow friday night, then after shul, went to our friends Ellie and Daniels for lunch with Jeff and Reyna. Ellie and Daniel live about a 25-30 minute walk from us, so it was quite a hike for an almost 10 month pregnant person, but I actually set the pace as we walked up there and everyone else arrived totally winded :-) So, at least I'm a very active very pregnant person :-) Saturday night, we headed over the hill to Beth and Nati's place to meet their puppy Layla (they spell it Lyla) and give Gabe his birthday present -- he turned 5 on Friday. Crazy how time flies! It was SUPER windy on saturday and there were leaves and pine needles all over the roads -- it felt like FALL for a few minutes in LA, only to be 85 degrees yesterday.

Sunday, we took Milo to his class and then Jem headed out to the valley with Jeff to play some golf, while I ran some errands and did some more baby room set up and laundry. Then we went to dinner in Culver City for Jen's 30th birthday with Jen, James, Sasha, Kim, Dan, Ali and Hilly (Ali's sister). Yummy Italian food at Ugo. Got home, watched some TV and went to bed. Not a super relaxing weekend, but definitely lots of fun.

This week, I'm heading out for a girls night today of pottery painting with Adi, Shana and Taffy while Jem has a boys poker night. Jem is heading up to San Francisco and Sacramento for the day on Wednesday (with instructions to jump on the first plane if I go into labor then, which is unlikely) and I have a mother-daughter dinner with my mom, Jen, her mom Mickie and of course baby Sasha. The last mother-DAUGHTER dinner since next time there will be a BOY there too! Ellycia (our sister in law/Jem's brother Jonny's wife) is coming into town this week for a conference and will be staying with us over the weekend which should be fun. We're probably going to attempt to have some friends over friday night for dinner and then we're out for lunch. Then celebrating a few friends bdays over the weekend. Should be a nice week.

Have a great week!

Lisa (and Jem)

Belly Shots, Milk Baths and Showers

Happy Tuesday! (Didn't get a chance to update the blog yesterday).

We had a very fun week last week. Last monday, I got to have a traditional pregnant person lunch -- my friend Kim and I went to a diner (Cafe 50s) and I had waffles for lunch. So fun! Not a craving, just a "why not? i'm pregnant! i can do this without regretting it later" thing.

Tuesday was very exciting. Jem and I met at home around lunch time for our professional photoshoot. We were inspired by our friends Sharon and Boris' amazing pregnancy photos and decided to call their photographer and set up an appointment for some pregnancy shots (and lots of great belly shots). So, we met Ellice at our house and went through our closets with her to decide what to wear for the photo shoot and came up with 2 different looks -- for the first set of pictures, which we did in our bedroom, we wore white -- I wore a white tank top and white pants and jem wore jeans and a white button down -- and we put our white sheets on our bed-- and took some really cool pics of us laying on the bed -- both with my shirt pulled down and also up so you can see the belly. We did some others up by our bay window and mirror, which should turn out really great. We also decided to be a little racy and did a few shots sans shirts (with hands covering the racy parts) so you could see the belly in all its glory. Luckily, I don't have any stretch marks so the belly isn't a scary sight!

Then we changed into more "fall/autumn" attire for some shots outside -- which of course Milo decided he needed to be a part of (until we locked him inside) -- he just bounced right into our laps for the photos... We hope to have proofs sometime next week and will give you all the website to view the photos...

Tuesday night we went to dinner with our friends Ellie and Daniel and Andrea and Jon to this great Italian place (Andrea and Jon's favorite) called Cafe Delphini in Santa Monica/Pacific Palisades. Its just off PCH (the Pacific Coast Highway) and is about a block from the ocean. We had a scrumptous dinner and great company.

Thursday we had our infant cpr and baby safety class at the hospital, which like all other classes, we took with our friends Taffy and Claude. Its a pretty traumatic topic, but we're really glad that if g-d forbid something was to happen, we'd know what to do. Afterwards, we all enjoyed a delicious dinner at Jeff's Gourmet Sausage -- of course we all got burgers and not sausages but still totally delicious. We still haven't been to the Kosher Subway that just opened up on Pico since the line is always crazy, but its on our To Do list.

Friday night, we went to our friends Julie and Rusty's house for dinner -- they just had a baby about 6-7 weeks ago -- Matan -- and Rusty's parents were in town visiting. They had literally brought shabbos dinner with them from Arizona, so that Julie didn't have to do anything -- I was wondering how and why they were inviting us over for dinner so soon after the baby was born! We had a great dinner with them and some other friends who were there. Walked back home in the rain (i know -- it rained in LA! crazy!). Shabbos Day we decided we needed some down time, so we slept in, read, and did some stuff around the house -- a bit of "organizing" -- it may be the beginning of what I'm told is called pre-baby "nesting", where you start organizing and cleaning frantically. After shabbos, we did a lot more organizing and then headed to bed after catching up on some tv.

Sunday was baby shower #2. Jem took Milo to his training class and then did some stuff around the house, while I headed over to Karen's house for a baby shower thrown by Karen and Aileen (aka "A"). It was a fantastic day. Seriously, this baby isn't even born yet and his life is so filled with love! It was a great shower -- complete with Mimosas for those who were drinking, yummy yummy food and great gifts! We even had people write down suggested baby names, since Jem and I are still deciding on a middle name for the baby -- we decided on a first name a while back but are still going back and forth on middle names. There were some great suggestions in there!

Sunday night we headed over to our friends Jeffrey and Laurens for a BBQ with our friends Ellie and Daniel (same crowd as a few weeks ago). Had a fantastic night with DELICIOUS food! Gotta love BBQ.

Jem headed off to Ohio and Illinois this week for work VERY early Monday morning and is coming back tomorrow (Wednesday) night. So, yesterday, after work I had a very girly day. Taffy and I went to the Pump Station (a breast-feeding focused store) where we got nursing bras and tank tops (apparently must haves from day 1) and some stuff for our breast pumps and then headed over to Burke Williams Spa for pregnancy massages and milk baths. A wonderfully relaxing evening. Then we headed over to Real Food Daily for a healthy, vegan dinner. A fantastic day.

This week shouldn't be too eventful -- we are trying to knock things off of our To Do list so that if the baby comes early we won't be too unprepared and if he comes on time or late, we can enjoy some downtime in the last few days... So, we are getting the nursery furniture delivered this week and will probably make a Target run to get some essentials -- i.e. the things my friends with babies have told us we need in the first week or so. Luckily, since we have lots of friends with babies, we've been getting fantastic advice.

Thats it! I can't believe there's less than 3 weeks to go until Baby Kolieb's due date -- and my grandma told me yesterday that she was 3 weeks early with all 4 of her kids -- I had no idea! That would mean any time now! Though my mom was only 3 days early with me, so hopefully we have a little more time to get ourselves together -- like 2 weeks or so.

Since Jem is out of town and I can't take such great shots on a timer, these pics were taken today at work (so yes, finally a picture that is NOT in a workout outfit!). Enjoy!

xoxo

Lisa (and Jem)

Chagim and Baby Shower #1

Happy Monday and Welcome to the 37th Week of Pregnancy (just less than 4 weeks to go if baby K decides to come on time)!

What a great week (it already seems like so long ago now that we are back at work for a full work week!). We spent last week working and enjoying sukkot -- from our shul's young members event in the shul sukkah complete with pizza, beer and icecream, to dinners in the sukkah over chag. We also had our new desk delivered (which will go into the now guest room/office). We are in the process of dismantling our current office to make room for Baby Kolieb.

Over chag, we decided we wanted a mixture of being social and laying low, so we had friends over wednesday night for Shemini Atzeret dinner-- our friends Aron and Dalia Youngerwood, who are having their first baby a few days after us, our friends Ellie and Daniel, who are having a baby in March (crazy, i know -- so many friends having babies) and our friend Dan. Thursday for Shemini Atzeret lunch we had our friends Ari and Florence over (Ari is the assistant rabbi at our shul), along with Ari's mom and their 2 daughters Eliana and Aviva, our the Fishmans (Mordechai, Shana and their two kids Caleb and Tehilla), and Adi and Larry. It was very nice. Sad to say goodbye to the sukkah after that. That night, we celebrated Simchat Torah by starting out at shul and then going over to a party at our friends Rebecca and Jeremy Mittman's house, which was lots of fun. Lots of yummy food and fun new people to meet. Simchat Torah day, we went to shul where Jem was in the mens section that breaks up into little groups so that everyone can have aliyot (i.e. get called to the torah) and I went to Shirat Chana, our shul's women's torah reading group, where we got group aliyot. Then after we all joined back together as one big group, we all headed down for the shul's Simchat Torah Grand Kiddush, which is lots of fun, cause people just go down there and hang out and you don't have to make a meal that day. Friday night we stayed home and had a mellow meal, read and played cards. Shabbos lunch after shul, we headed over to the Fishman's house for a lunch to celebrate Shana's 29th birthday. That was lots of fun.

Saturday night, we stayed in to continue with our organization rampage, where we cleaned out most of the office, moved things over into our new desk and started to decide whats going to be thown out, recycled and donated.

Sunday morning Jem got up super early (6am) to play golf with our friend Jeff and his dad who is in town from Canada. They had a 6:42am tee time at a nearby course for 9-holes of golf. I took Milo on his morning walk and then got ready for my first baby shower. Jem got home in time to pick Milo up and take him to his obedience class. I headed over to pick up my mom and go to Amy Higgins house, where Ali, Jen and Kim were hosting a baby shower for me. It was a ton of fun. There were just under 30 of us for a very fun afternoon. They had a very cute Australian theme for the tables, so we had one "Outback" table, complete with a stuffed kangaroo, an outback koala and a cool aussie book, a "Great Barrier Reef" table with a stuffed turtle, and some very cute bath toys, and a "Wiggles" table with all sorts of fun wiggles stuff. They had the Wiggles playing in the background. The food was super yummy, from this new kosher restaurant called Circa and we had delicious ben and jerry's chocolate cookie dough ice cream for dessert. They planned a fantastic activity, where everyone decorated onesies (the little baby t-shirts that snap on the bottom under the diaper) with puffy paint, so now we have about 30 onesies decorated by our good friends. Such a great idea. We got lots of fantastic gifts! This baby isn't even born yet and he has tons of great stuff and even more people who love him already! He's one lucky baby!

Jem stopped by at the end of the shower to put all of our loot into the car and then we headed over to visit with our friends Joanne and Carlyle (the Jackson-Halls), who live very nearby. They just got back a few months ago from an around the world trip (they were gone for a year) and got back for their son Chris' wedding (Chris is my friend from high school) which was back in August. So, they are finally settling back into normal life again. We had a great time catching up with them, and especially hearing about how Joanne delivered her 2 sons naturally -- one of whom (Chris) weighed 10 lbs, 13 oz and the other (Andy) who weighted 10 lbs, 12 oz. Wow! Wow! Wow! I'm impressed! She told us about her crazy nesting story where she decided one day near the end of her pregnancy with Chris that she NEEDED to change the curtains in the baby's room so went out to a fabric store and stayed up all night with her sister making curtains for the room (she didn't know how to sew!!!). Hysterical.

After visiting with them for a couple hours, we headed over to my mom and Larry's house, where we met them and their friend Aileen (aka "A"), and all went out to dinner at a yummy italian place near my office.

A great week!!! This one promises to be fantastic as well, with another baby shower this sunday, hosted by our very good family friends Karen and "A" -- i can't wait! Its weird to be back at work for a full week but luckily I reminded the partners that I am still here and might be here as much as another 4+ weeks so they need to give me more work, so they did, so I can not be bored and can feel productive. We also are having another ultrasound this week at our weekly doctors visit and we'll see what position the baby is in (hopefully facing down and getting ready to come out) and maybe the doctor will venture a guess at how much he weighs.

Have a great week. I'll put photos up from the shower once Amy Higgins sends them to me.

xoxo

Lisa (and Jem)

Sukkot and Jem's Birthday

Happy Monday!

We had a very fun week, mostly filled up with sukkot-related activities, but a few other things. Last monday we had dinner with our friends Wittney and Cody at the California Pizza Kitchen at the Beverly Center-- Wittney's birthday is a day before Jem's so we had a double-birthday celebration. Wittney and Cody were off to Napa to celebrate her birthday in the wine country. Very fun.

Tuesday night Jem and I had our final childbirth preparation class at our hospital. Our graduation was watching a video of a bunch of different births -- all from the late 70s, early 80s. Despite the crazy hair and mid-western accents, we learned a lot and got a little teary at each one. Though our waterworks were nothing compared to our friend Taffy, who wept at each birth. One very fun thing happened during our class -- one of the husbands came in about 15 minutes late to tell us that they had just had their baby an hour and a half earlier. What is so crazy about that is that they were only due 2 weeks before us... wow, i guess it really could happen at any time. crazy!

Wednesday after work, I stopped by to see Jen and baby Sasha, and then headed home to get ready for chag. We were out Wednesday night at our neighbors Harold and Brenda Walt's house -- the Walts used to own our house (2 owners before us). They lived in it for about 20 years, so it was lots of fun to hear all the stories about the house. We had a great time with them -- got a tour of their amazing house which they built about 6 years ago. Brenda is a caterer (a kosher one), so of course the meal was delicious.

Thursday after services we went home to prepare for the meals we were hosting -- we had people over Thursday night and Friday night to celebrate Jem's 31st birthday. We had a very fun dairy meal on Thursday night -- the highlight of which was the dessert -- cookie cake and s'mores over our fire pit. Our friends Sara and Larry, Taffy and Claude and BJ and Elaine joined us for that meal. Friday night we did the more traditional shabbos meal -- gefilte fish, matzo ball soup, chicken, etc. but of course had to have another bday cookie cake -- with our friends Adi and Larry, Jeff and Reyna, Lauren and Jeffrey (along with Lauren's mom who was visiting from Toronto and gave us a really cool baby blanket that she had knit), and our friend Daniel (unfortunately his wife Ellie wasn't feeling well, so she didn't make it). At both meals, Milo insisted on stealing the napkins off of everyone's laps. He probably got about 15 over the course of the two nights. For shabbos lunch, we headed up to Ellie and Daniels for our book club lunch. We stopped by to visit Kim and Dan on the way, which was a nice treat, since we don't always motivate to walk up there on shabbos since they live about 1.5 miles away from us. Despite the title of book club lunch, we didn't discuss our book at all, since almost none of us actually read it -- despite attempts to do so. I got to about page 110, Daniel to about 200... only Rebecca actually read and liked it. We've decided to go for a classic next time and hopefully all of us will actually read it. After lunch, we headed back over to Kim and Dans and hung out there for a bit, before walking home.

Also of note -- my cousin Mark and his wife Alessia had their baby Carolina Bell Proctor on Thursday. She was 7 pounds, 8 ounces and everyone is doing really well. Marky finally sent photos out last night and she's gorgeous. They are settling in to life as parents very well.

After shabbos ended, my mom and Larry came by to pick us up and take us out to dinner to celebrate Jem's bday (which we celebrated on my sister Becca's 24th birthday). We went to a restaurant in Santa Monica called Wilshire, which was lots of fun.

Yesterday, we had Milo's obedience class, then had brunch in our sukkah with our friends Erit and Roberto, and then ran some errands (such as buying Jem a new golf bag and some additional golf clubs to go with his new R-7s) and then had our tour at the hospital. Its good that we now know where we are supposed to go and what we are supposed to do when I actually go into labor. Then last night Ali came over for dinner in the sukkah.

Sukkot is definitely one of my favorite holidays. Its nice to just sit outside in our sukkah hanging out with friends.

So, a great weekend. I can't believe chag starts again Wednesday night. Finally next week we'll have a normal week!

Have a great week!

Lisa and Jem