Time flys when you're having a baby....

Well, we haven't updated in a while and now, I am finally getting to it at the end of my maternity leave! I can't believe it has been 3 months already! Gareth is 12 weeks old and learning new things everyday. My first day back at work was this Friday and Gareth's first day of daycare is Monday. While I am sad to leave Gareth after being with him all day everyday, I am glad to get back to work and have grown-ups to interact with.

Some new things Gareth has learned since our last post.....

How to shake his rattle


He is laughing now


And he can almost roll over but we don't have a picture of this yet.

Alabama Saturday's

I follow this blog, Kelly's Korner, where each week she asks her followers to post pictures in a certain category and I've always wanted to do it but have never had the time....until now. This week's category is tailgates and favorite teams! Of course, our favorite team is the Alabama Crimson Tide! During football season, we spend every Saturday watching the Bama game if it's on (it's not always since we live in Virginia). Here are some pictures from this weekend's game and Gareth's first Bama outfit.

Roll Tide!!

3 Weeks Old and Some Older Stuff I Forgot to Post

Gareth turned 3 weeks old on Thursday! I can't believe how the weeks have flown by. He is working on holding up his head and he smiles sometimes. I still haven't been able to capture a good smile on camera though. Here are some more pictures and I know I posted the details on Gareth's arrival but realized today that I completely forgot to upload my last few belly pictures. So, here they are!

38 Weeks (not sure where the 39 week picture went to)

40 weeks being induced at the hospital

1 Week old


2 weeks old


3 weeks old

Baby Gareth is Here!

I'm sure most of you have seen the pictures on Facebook but I figured I'd update the blog since we've been doing this all along. We are happy to announce that Baby Gareth arrived on July 30th, 2009 at 9:28pm. He weighed in at 8lbs 6.2oz and 20.5 inches long. We are all doing great and he is already growing up way too fast for me! Here he is!

More Updates

Week 37

Week 38

Any Day now!

This post was edited and approved by Zoe.

Happy 4th of July!

Ok so yesterday was the 4th of July but "Happy 4th" anyway! We hope everyone had a great time going to BBQs and watching fireworks. We went to a neighborhood BBQ and then watched fireworks down the street. Very low-key but it was fun! I can't tell if Gareth liked the fireworks or not. We were very close and it was very loud and he pretty much squirmed the whole time (probably means he didn't like them). Here are some pictures including this week's belly pic, belly shots from the last few weeks that I haven't posted yet and a finished picture of my shadow box that I made for Gareth's room.

36 Weeks

Our little neighbor friend, Brandon.

Who knows what Patrick's doing...


All the ladies!



35 Weeks


And a front shot at 35 weeks so everyone can see that I am really pretty normal sized.


34 Weeks


My project is finished! Now how do I get Justin to hang it?

I love being crafty!

Since we don't really have many decorations for Gareth's room, I decided I wanted to make something to put above his crib on the wall. At first, I thought I would do letters to spell his name and paint them in fun colors. But then I realized that EVERYONE that is having a baby right now is doing letters. So, I found a cute idea that still uses his name but is a little more original. The final product will look similar to this. But I am doing a 12"x12" size and I'm using circles. I had to order the shadowbox frame for it because I couldn't find it in the store so I am slowly assembling all the pieces and I will put the all together when the frame arrives. Here's what I have so far....

These are some of the dots I am going to use. Most of them will be plain blue or plain polka dotted (like the one in the corner of the picture) but I wanted to incorporate the puppy theme into this a little bit.

This is the background with Gareth's name. It's hard to tell here but the paper is a little shimmery and so are the letters (but not too much).

Just an update on me and the baby, I think I have officially begun the nesting stage and I usually hate to clean but everything in our house right now is grossing me out so I've been cleaning and organizing a ton. According to our childbirth class, nesting means delivery is right around the corner. Hopefully, it's not too close around that corner because we still have a lot to do before Gareth makes an appearance! 6 more weeks to go! I also just realized that we forgot to take a belly picture for the week yesterday. So I guess that means I will be putting on makeup and putting real clothes on later for that picture. I'll post it when we have it.

I love it when a plan comes together. Or: A plan is just a list of things that will go wrong.

Hello blog people. We got our crib in today. We took the VW to Babies R Us in Falls Church because I thought to myself, "How big can this thing be really?" Well apparently the boxes they put these things in are about 40% bigger than the biggest piece of the crib because there was no chance that it was going in the VW. Before we even left our friend Kelly offered to loan us their truck. I said "NAH- It'll fit no problem."

So after leaving Falls Church crib-less with our tails between our legs our wonderful neighbors let me take their truck all the way back up 395 to pick up the crib. Apparently these "trucks" are meant for putting large objects in and driving around with them. Who knew?

This was the most traumatic part of the whole process. Once I got the crib in the front door it was just a matter of opening the box and taken the pieces upstairs to Gareth's room. This was probably the easiest thing i've ever assembled out of a box.

Anyhow, the room is almost finished now. Enjoy the pictures!

This will count as this weeks belly picture unless she-who rules me says otherwise.

(P.S. the USA Men's Soccer Team is competing in the Confederations Cup in South Africa this week. They kick off against the defending world Champions Italy on monday around 3pm EST on ESPN. You all should watch it since I know none of you has anything better to do. =P)

(P.P.S. Rachel and I both sold out and signed up for twitter accounts you can follow me @Justinsaysthis and rachel @rbrightbill. I plan on tweeting from the delivery room. I may lose a cell phone and an arm, but anything in the name of social media!)

Nursery Progress and New Belly Pics

Since Gareth's arrival is less than 2 months away, we decided that maybe we should start on the nursery. So, last weekend, we painted the room.....OK, Justin painted the room. I did help the first day, mostly sitting on the floor and painting the bottom half of the walls. But the second day, I was waaaaaay to sore to help. Here's what we've got so far....

This is the before shot. Just white walls.


Justin happily painting.


Accident, or not? You decide.


Princess Zoe sulking because she was not allowed in the room while we were painting. Her revenge was to lay on the newly cleaned comforter that was drying out on the couch.


1st coat is finished!

Justin finished the second coat the next day and it looks awesome! But we haven't taken any pictures of it yet. Now, we are just waiting for the call from the store telling us our crib is ready to be picked up and we can set things up!!

And last but not least, here are the 31 and 32 week belly shots. I feel like I am getting HUGE but everyone that I know that's been pregnant before keeps telling me how small I am and I'm OK with that.

31 Weeks


32 Weeks

New Belly Pics

Well, we are getting very close to having our baby boy on the outside! Only 9ish weeks to go. Here are some new pictures of the belly. I'm going to switch it up and put the most recent picture at the top. We have also done some traveling recently so I'll let you know where we are for each picture.

30 weeks in Memphis, TN
(As you can see, I have pretty much given up on makeup when I'm not at work)

29 weeks in Orlando, FL
(you can't really see it but there's a really nice pool behind me)

28 weeks at home

New Belly Pics and Nursery Update

First of all, here are the newest belly pics! It's getting bigger and bigger every day. I went to a craft show this weekend and some guy that was working there asked if I only had 3 weeks left. I just kind of laughed and said, "No, 3 months." Then he got this look of shock on his face and said I must be having twins and when I said no he said "Well, it must be a really big boy!" Then he proceeded to tell me how miserable I am going to be by the end. I love how people feel the need to tell you exactly what they think when you're pregnant.

Week 25

Week 26

Week 27

We also got the OK from our landlord to paint the baby's room this week! So, we went to Home Depot and picked out a color. I tried to find the exact match online so I could show everyone but this is the closest thing I can find. It's a very pale blue/grey color. Sort of like this:

New Pics and Announcement!

We have been so busy that we haven't been able to post anything in almost a month! It seems like time is flying by and our baby will be here really soon!! First, here are the most recent bump pictures. I can't believe how un-photogenic (is that a word) has made me. I used to take good pictures! I promise!

Week 21

Week 22

Week 23

Week 24 (I think Zoe feels left out of the weekly picture-taking)

One of the girls at work told me my belly seems to get bigger every day (and it it does). Here is a self portrait I took a few days ago.
This seems to be a better picture of me....maybe I'll start taking the weekly pics in the morning.

And finally, most of you know already but for those of you who don't.......we have a NAME! We will be naming our little boy Gareth Drake Brightbill.