Amyblog

Merry Christmas to everyone!!! Here's a run down of the things I'm in love with this Christmas.

Top Row, left to right: My little growing family, Menchie's Frozen Yogurt, gifts and cards from family and friends.

Second Row, left to right: Reeses Peanutbutter Cups (my allowable sweet indulgence), my baby bump, an occasional Starbucks Hot Chocolate.

Third Row, left to right: Our home and the smooth renovation (so far), sparkling pomegranate juice (life saver from the boring water I've been drinking), holiday decorations and neighborhood lights (I love twinkle lights).
And lastly, though not pictured, I love my maternity jeans!!

We're going to have amazing weather for Christmas, looks like it's going to be in the 70's. With all the crazy storms going on around the country, we'd like to wish everyone a warm and cozy Christmas.

We'll be spending this Christmas at Mr. BAW's aunt and uncle's in San Juan Capistrano. Just like over Thanksgiving, we're expecting great food and fun times with the family.

We're also excited about my parents in laws' visit. They will be with us as we await the arrival of the baby. Ideally, the kitchen remodeling will be done before he makes he's grand exit. :-)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!

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We have drywall!! The kitchen remodel is moving along. We now have our electrical and plumbing all done and approved by the city. The drywall and insulation are all in. The next step is for our kitchen cabinets to arrive and be installed. Then the floor should go in and our appliances will be installed. After that, our quartz countertops should be installed.

In the beginning we were hoping for the project to be completed before January but it's not looking like that'll happen. I'm still hoping that baby will be late and the remodeling will be completed before baby arrives.

I'm already getting very excited about January. Once the kitchen's all done and baby is out, my gestational diabetes will hopefully go away, I will be requesting for tons of yummy home-made food! My MIL will be staying with us so Mr. BAW and her will be baking up a storm. I'm already asking for cream cheese cupcakes, peanutbutter pie, sugar cookies, and apple bread. :-)

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I've bathe Toby myself since the day I adopted him. Toby has always hated, I repeat, hated water. But he will tolerate his monthly bath, mainly because he knows he can't fight me. :-) But last month, my growing belly has finally taken a toll on me. Even with Mr. BAW helping, it was very tough to bath Toby in our bathtub. It was getting a little too chilly to bathe him in our backyard. So we finally gave up and took Toby to a self-bathing place. For a fee ($16 to be exact), we get the use of a bathing facility including all the necessary tools like brushes, shampoo, leashes, treats, towels and even ear cleaning solutions. This was our first time ever bathing Toby at a facility. It was a decent experience overall. I really like the shower head action since you can shampoo and wet him at the same time. It makes for a quick bath since getting Toby thoroughly wet usually takes at least 15 minutes! The only glitch was that Toby initially had trouble getting up to the steel tub because it requires him to walk onto a metal ramp. But with a small treat, we managed to coax him up. :-) Oh, don't let his "smile" in the pictures fool you, he absolutely hated every second of the bath. Needless to say, he didn't like the blow-drying part either. So we just towel dried him and skipped the blow dryer.

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It was my birthday yesterday. I was very happy to still be pregnant on my birthday because I didn't want our baby to have the same birthday as myself. I had a good day. I received some beautiful cards and packages from my family and friends. But my most treasured gift is this picture of Toby that Mr. BAW took. He snuck home from work early to hang this giant picture in our living room, replacing an old Ansel Adams picture. This is my favorite picture of Toby thus far. This size of this image just doesn't do it justice. I also have this picture as my desktop image on my laptop. :-)

I also had one request for my birthday. I wanted to get frozen yogurt at Menchie's. I LOVE Menchie's. It's the only dessert I can have guilt-free with my gestational diabetes. This place has an amazing selection of flavors, from pomegranate to cheesecake to your standard vanilla and chocolate. But they also change their flavors quite often so you can try various flavors. They are self-served, with tons of toppings available ranging from fruits to cookies and candies. They even have a sugar-free, fat-free fudge sauce which tastes really good. You get as much yogurt and toppings as you want and they charge you but the weight. Each machine contains two flavors and the center nozzle always contains the combination twist of the two flavors. You can, of course, make your own flavor combinations. The combinations and choices are limitless!! The best part of it all is that frozen yogurt is so much healthier than ice cream! The only thing I ask for is for Menchie's to please open more stores!! The one in Redondo Beach is about 10 miles from our home...maybe open one up in the Hollywood Riviera Village?? :-)

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Bliss...to wake up to this big guy resting his head on my legs on a chilly Sunday morning. We've had a week of rain here and everything appears misty and dreamy, especially in the mornings.

We have a few more quiet weekends until the baby arrives. Then all of our lives will be completely changed. I think Toby knows that. I'm sure he hears the baby when I give him hugs.

Happy Sunday to everyone.

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Congratulations to my friend TNK and her husband as they welcomed their first baby boy on Decemeber 8, 2009!!! He arrived at 12:35pm and weighs in at a healthy 7lb 12oz!! The boy is 21inches which means he must take after his daddy. :-) We're all so happy for them since now they get to spend their first Christmas with their baby boy. Both TNK and her husband are accountants so I am starting to wonder if they planned the birth perfectly to get the full tax benefit! :-) Welcome to the world baby BEK!!!

I am a bit relief since TNK is my size and she's gone through birth now. So it makes me think that maybe I can do this birth thing too. Like a lot of women, as I get close to the due date, I'm getting more nervous about the whole process. I've been experiencing pretty bad hip pain again the past few mornings. I guess it's nature's way of telling me that my hips are too narrow. Hopefully pain now means less pain later. :-)

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So amid all the craziness that is Christmas and pregnancy, we also decided to do a major renovation to our house. Isn't it always the case?? Things just kind of happened all together. It all started with a broken oven. Our house was built in the 50's so the electrical wiring are pretty old. Due to this, our wall oven is a gas oven. Apparently, no one makes wall gas ovens any more, except for Magic Chef, which is the same brand as our broken oven. Since Mr. BAW is a huge baker and cook, he really wants a convection oven. Well, that would require us to switch over to a slide-in oven which would require us to break our counter top to accomodate. One thing led to another and next thing we know we've signed on with Lowes for a complete kitchen renovation with new cabinets, countertops, and flooring. We're also having new electical and plumbing done with new insolation and inset lights.

After two months of cabinet and appliances planning, we finally started the process of demolition. We found a fantastic contractor and his team did a fabulous job of demolition, keeping everything within the kitchen area. Our living room was completely free of any debris. The entire tear down only took them one day. Toby was confined to our bedroom the entire day. But he didn't seem to mind it at all.

We're awaiting our custom cabinets to arrive as the contractors continue to work on the electircal and plumbing. We're cautiously hoping that the whole kitchen will be done before the baby arrives. But I'm not holding my breath. :-) Enjoy our before and during pictures. Looking forward to showing you our brand new kitchen in a few weeks.


We had hanging cabinets and raised counter.	Good bye cabinets, walls, and ceiling!

Farewell broken wall oven....	No more hanging cabinets and counters!

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Over Thanksgiving break, we got to spend some quality time with Brian's Aunt and Uncle in San Juan Capistrano and they treated us to an amazing turkey dinner. Toby of couse got to attend the fabulous dinner event with his buddy Becker, another Golden Retriever they happened to be dog-sitting.

Besides the dinner, we decided to take advantage of the amazing weather we had over Thanksgiving weekend by taking a stroll down Venice Canal in Marina Del Rey. It's a lovely little trail right along a canal that spills into the marina path where all the sailboats head out to the Pacific Ocean. There was a light chill in the air which reminds us that we're entering the Winter season. But the skies were blue and it made the water sparkle.

December started out with a bang. My best friend TNK is patiently awaiting the arrival of her first baby boy. We're all anxiously awaiting for his arrival. We have also decided to do a major renovation in our house. we're cautiously hoping that it'll be done before our baby arrives. I'll reveal what we've done in the next blog. For now, enjoy the rest of our hike pictures. On the left is Toby and I hanging out at the end of the canal. I was 34 weeks pregnant at that point, click here to see a close up of my huge belly. On the right is the view towards the marina facing East. Sailboats come and go along this waterway to and from the Pacific Ocean.