Really?

Hate to say it but... I'M OVERDUE!! I was due the 27th and it's the 29th. I have one stubborn baby on my hands! My mom has arrived and we are trying everything you can imagine other than castor oil. We've been on 2 hours walks twice a day, been doing accu-pressure on my feet and hands, been drinking lots of raspberry tea, doing jumping jacks and eating spicy foods! Nothing has been working so far. It's getting frustrating but I keep reminding myself to enjoy the good nights rest while I can. Hopefully in the next post I'll have a baby to make an announcement about!

Until then...any ideas?

Guesses? 39 weeks!

This picture gives you an idea of how close I am to POPPING!! This is cute Charity- one of Ryan's team mates girlfriends. She had to go back to New York so she won't get to meet the baby :(

Here's for the main purpose of this post!

My best friend Stef told me it would be a fun idea to have people guess on my blog when I'm going to have Asher! I agreed that this would be a fun idea and it might help to pass the time by! Now that I think about it this will probably slow the time down...all well! His actual due date is April 27th. Please be kind and don't guess he won't get here until May 8th.

What do you think...

Day:

Weight:

Length:

Leave your guesses as a comment and there may just be a prize for the winner! Who knows, it could just be a pat on the back! OR something really great! Either way, please play along!

Funniest for last...

Leave it to Cheri to come up with something even more creative then before! What better then our very own Italian chef eating some spaghetti on my belly? What a genius idea! We laughed and laughed at this one!

Isn't she amazing? Look at those painting skills! It's not an easy canvas to work with when your baby inside wiggles and kicks nonstop.

Working her magic!

We later added an Italian flag and a "Product of Italia" sign! I am sad that Mike and Cheri are gone. I'm already beyond bored! (Pictures of their visit still to come!)

This is Ryan's artwork. His team logo for "Fabi shoes!" Not bad if you ask me! He was definitely concentrating as hard as he could. Good work husband...

For those of you that are sick of my painted belly pics I promise this is the end. My artist Cheri has left and i can't see below my belly button which means I can't paint myself!

Today I have 9 days left until my due date! I still feel good and am just enjoying getting some rest. I had another monitoring appointment today and his heart rate was much slower then last appointment. This time he was kicking back and enjoying some zzzz's instead of being such a show off. They pushed on him and made him wake up a few times just to watch his activity level. Everything was great! I have another appointment on Friday and as of now I'm hoping that he is nice and comfy in there because Ryan is gone for a week. His team left last minute for a training camp a couple hours away. It's no big deal as long as Asher doesn't come early! My mom arrives on Tuesday which is going to be AMAZING and help me to relax quite a bit! To hopefully keep everything under control I am putting myself on bed rest until Ryan returns. Please keep your fingers crossed! Or a prayer would be even better. I know I can't do this on my own.

Basketball Belly

When my sister in law Alycia was pregnant she painted her cute belly into a beach ball! I thought it was the cutest thing ever so I decided when I was pregnant I had to do a basketball. I should have done this about a month ago when my stomach was actually more towards the size of a basketball rather then a gigantic watermelon. Thanks again to my mother in law's creativity we painted the basketball! I know I don't look too great but just ignore that and enjoy the humor behind the photos. Ryan's huge black cardigan isn't too flattering on me either but who cares right? These will also count as my 38 WEEKS photos! I now feel like everyday is going to be THE day. We're ready for you little munchkin but in the mean time I'll enjoy a few more good naps!

Happy Easter!

I have one creative mother in law!! We had some fun today while the boys went to Ryan's practice. We went to town with some paint. You should have seen the reaction of the people walking by when we were outside for our "photo shoot." They all did a nice double take once they realized it wasn't just a cute shirt.

That's one big egg isn't it!! If only it was filled with chocolate! But it's filled with something much better! We had a dr's appointment yesterday. He weighs in at "approximately" 7 lbs. 5 oz. and looks great. He gained 1 lb. 3 oz. over the last 2 weeks. He scared me for a little bit when I was doing the stress monitoring and his heart rate was ranging from 160-180bpm for 60 minutes. They seemed to be a little worried but let me tell you. He didn't stop moving from the second they put the monitor on. My mother in law Cheri just says "he's social!" They wouldn't let me leave until his heart rate dropped in the normal range of 110-160bpm for at least 10 minutes. They wanted to make sure he wasn't agitated. FINALLY the little guy must have taken a nap after practicing all of his basketball and karate tricks. I was happy that they cared enough to keep me monitored even though I know I have an active baby! The girl next to me never had her baby's heart rate above 130. That baby is doing yoga.

April Fool's and more!

My family loves April Fool's Day. Every year we team up and try to come up with genius ideas. This year my sister Kim and I definitely took the cake! Thanks to my good friend Megs and the prank that was pulled on her we had a grand plan. We can't take any credit for coming up with the idea but we can take credit for it working perfectly! We created two different ads on ksl.com. The first ad was that my brother in law had a pet poodle for sale which resulted in him immediately receiving a ton of calls and emails! He caught on after a few hours and asked Kim if she knew why this was happening. She couldn't hide her laugh and told him! He even admitted that we got him really good! Here is the even better prank. We put on ksl.com that my dad had a talking green parrot for sale. We knew this animal may not be quite as popular as the poodle but would cause my dad more confusion. Well, April Fool's passed and we didn't hear anything from my dad so we figured that it didn't work. We left it on for a few days and would ask each other every day if our dad had said anything. Finally three days later my sister Kim asked my mom if they've received any calls about a pet parrot. My mom said "YES!!! Why? Do you have something to do with this? We've been getting calls all week and dad is so confused!" IT WORKED!! We laughed and laughed and my dad wrote me an email saying "I got punk'd!" Sure did dad! We love you!

On a not so funny note...I got a parking ticket. I am so mad! I didn't realize how much time had passed when I was getting my hair done and so I went out and had this big fat paper on my windshield. I was 35 minutes late which results in a 40 euro fine. BIG bummer! I am blaming this one on my pregnancy brain!

Poor thing...

Yesterday I woke up early in the morning because I had to go to the Lab for some more blood work and testing. I woke up early enough so I could take a shower and get ready. I went in the bathroom and turned on the shower but there was no hot water. I hate that! For some reason this happened last week on Tuesday also. The team had sent an electrician over to fix it so I thought for sure the thermostat must be on some sort of timer and have it set to turn off on Tuesdays! I woke up Ryan and asked him if he knew what to do. He called the manager from the team to come look and see if he could figure it out. I went to the Lab and when I returned he was trying to figure out the problem but had no luck so he said he would send an electrician again. Ryan left for practice and the electrician came to figure out the problem. The electrician didn't speak any English and my Italian is very basic. He went about his business coming in and out, turning things off and on, flipping switches up and down. I could tell he was confused. He went out on the balcony where our water closet is and I heard some crashing/banging then some good laughing! I didn't know if I should go check on him to make sure he was ok or if it would make him uncomfortable. Then I hear him say "Scusa!!! Scusa!!!" so I go running out there and what is he holding? A small bird that has been burnt CRISP! He pointed to the bird and then pointed to the water heater and was showing me that the tiny bird had somehow gotten stuck in there and was beyond golden brown! I think if he would have flicked the bird it would have disintegrated into dust. The poor bird! But once it was removed and he could fix a few things the heater turned right back on! I just feel bad for the bird that used to be cute and lost it's little life to our vicious water heater! I'm so sad I didn't even think to take a picture! But the burnt turkey up above gives you a good idea...

THAT'S a baby bump...

Well I'm now a whole 37 weeks!

Yep, you read that right. Only 21 days until my due date!

It is pretty crazy actually. I'm no longer a cute pregnant girl. I'm just a big/looks like I'm going to pop/waddling around pregnant girl! But, I'm still loving being pregnant!

I still feel great and healthy. I'm slowing down a little bit but I'm really enjoying taking it easy. A couple weeks ago at a dr's appointment the baby weighed around 6lbs. 2oz. and she said it looks like he has little or no hair just like his dad when he was born! This is the exact opposite of me because I came out looking like a gorilla. He was kicking back at her the entire time she was doing the ultrasound and she even got the other ultrasound techs to come watch how active he is. They got a good laugh out of his impatience with the ultrasound. He doesn't like people invading his personal space I guess. Ryan's parents get here this weekend which is great! We are so excited to have them here and it will definitely help this last little bit pass quickly. I have to make it through this weekend and then Ryan doesn't have any road trips that are over 1 1/2 hours away. His road trip this weekend is about a 6 hour drive so little guy better be good and not come now!

We can't wait to meet him and just so you know...his name will be (drum roll please)

Asher (can't say middle name yet) Toolson

(unless of course he comes out looking nothing like an Asher)

Oh, the hills of Montegranaro...

I usually think I am a pretty good driver. I haven't been in many accidents or caused many problems other then almost having my licensed suspended when I was 18 for too many speeding tickets. Let's forget about that detail. I have to give myself some credit for thinking I'm usually an ok driver so that I don't feel so dumb when I talk about this story. About a week ago Ryan was gone for a road trip and arrived back to Montegranaro at 4am. I went to the practice arena to pick him up. Let me tell you something, Montegranaro has STEEP hills and a lot of blind corners. I honestly get pretty nervous to drive here! A lot of the streets are wide enough for one car but it is a two way road. It's incredible! The view along the streets is absolutely beautiful as long as you don't get run off the road while enjoying the scenery! Back to my story. I arrived to the arena just fine and picked Ryan up. Right when you pull out of the parking lot from the practice arena there is a very sharp turn AND a very steep hill. This was my first time ever pulling out of the parking lot. I begin to go and then get really nervous because I realized that all of Ryan's teammates are behind me leaving also and are able to watch my driving skills! I put the pedal to the metal and took the turn really sharp. BAD IDEA! I started skidding on gravel and the wheels were just turning with no grip because of the gravel and I started to slide back. I started screaming and just took my foot off the gas which caused us to start rolling back even faster! Yet, another bad idea! Ryan is laughing hysterically while I'm trying to figure out how to not hit everyone behind me! Ryan just yells "FLOOR IT!" so I did and finally we made the turn and made it up the hill. Apparently I took the turn at the sharpest point possible and was only going about 5 mph when we started the hill. I learned that you have to take the turn really wide and get a pretty good head start because once you are on the hill it's like Mount Everest. It was so embarrassing! Ryan's teammates laughed and laughed behind us. He had to make sure and tell them the next day it was ME driving and not him. Let's just say I like being the passenger when driving the beautiful streets of Montegranaro! I don't consider myself as good of a driver anymore.