The projects continue to mount. Mainly because items get added to the list, and not much is getting crossed off. Last night's efforts on the crib bumpers ended up resulting in an equal amount of time required to rip out stitches and re-think an approach to deviate from the pattern so I won't go crazy. Hopefully I'll be able to get more work done this evening in between trick-or-treaters ringing the door bell. It's been four years since a Halloween with no dogs at home - should be relatively relaxing for a change. I think last year was when we had a pair of wire-haired Daschund puppies and had to put up a baby gate at the front door to keep them from tumbling out each time it was opened. Hopefully I can get enough work done to possibly (?) be able to finish during sewing class tomorrow. It's going to be a busy morning with another B & B Creative show. I'm sure this one will be significnatly better than the crap-fest at St. Timothy's last month.

Omigosh! Tonight I headed out to our monthly Girls' Night dinner, only to arrive at the restaurant and discover that was the cover used for everyone to assemble for a baby shower! I was caught completely off guard, and just too surprised for words. Thank you guys!!! It feels really great to have friends who do special things like that for you.

This afternoon's 32 week check up (check in) was wonderful as well. All numbers were good, and my belly measurement is still tracking about one week ahead. That's about all the info we have to share to help make your guess in our online baby pool. We'll be locking it down before the end of November so be sure to get your guess in now! Our game name is "leachbaby."

October babies #5 and #6 have arrived. Diana's son and daughter-in-law welcomed Isabella at 1:06 Monday afternoon. No pics just yet. Just a short while later, at 6:11pm, Brett and Liana welcomed their daughter (no name yet!) after only a couple hours of labor. Seems like newborns are everywhere!

Here are some pictures of the purses I completed over the weekend.

Monique and Grant came by last night to complete our area rug deal, and the new sofas will be here later today. Old sofas will be in the garage waiting for scheduled donation pick up until Friday.

We are becoming very aware that there are only two months left until our due date. This weekend has been so incredibly busy. We had hoped to go down to Cuero, TX today to celebrate Kim's engagement, but there was too much to do to leave for the day. (It's not like we won't have two more opportunities to celebrate with her during the next two weeks.) For Jim and I, our only 'outing' together for the weekend was Friday night's Aeros game. The game itself was a bummer as the good guys lost 5-2, but the new Toyota Center is very cool, and Malinda hooked us up with some amazing seats which included access to the club. Very nice! Yesterday Jim was teaching a class for Civil Air Patrol, and I was continuing my sewing class where I finally completed the purse I have been working on for the past week. My first sewing project! Next one (already underway) are bumpers for the baby's crib which I started in class and have been working on today as well. Today has been consumed by tons of errands out of the house, and many more projects at home. Jim has done a tremendous job completely redoing a rocking chair - stripping it down to the wood, changing the shape of the frame, and building everything back together. This weekend included working on the exterior upholstry, and now we can really see the light at the end of the tunnel. Thank goodness for the end of Daylight Savings Time - we needed that extra hour today!

Allergies are no fun, really no different than being plain old sick. I think I've turned a bit of a corner as the sore throat phase gave way to the runny nose phase, and now I'm just left feeling run down with a big stuffy head. I'm going to blame the physical drain as one of the contributing factors to nearly passing out at the brit milah (bris) of Alan & Carol's son. That, coupled with a very hot room, plus knowing that it would soon be our little boy's turn for this ceremony, seemed to have the deck stacked against me. And it was more than a bit embarrassing that Alan's dad had to rush across the room with a chair as he (and others, I'm told) observed me going pale and slumped over on Jim who was keeping me from falling. From this experience, Jim and I determined that it's ok if we are not in the 'front row' for our son's ceremony.

Speaking of babies, Jim's hockey teammate confirmed the arrival of October baby #4 earlier this month. The brief version he relayed to Jim of the hospital circumcision underscored how glad we are to have a mohel perform this procedure, rather than the hospital's technique. Oh, I should jump back to Brian Hal Green's bris and state that Jim and I were very relieved to note that the baby did not fuss or utter a peep when he received the anesthetic injection, and was completely numb and unaware of when the actual circumcision occurred. If our son gets through his own ceremony this well, we will be thrilled. I hope as the emotional parents, we'll do ok too.

After the hockey carpool this week, Lori sent Jim home with a chocolate & caramel covered gourmet apple for me. Yum! Thanks Lori!

Tonight is the Aeros home opener!!!

Highs and Lows...We're told that the 9 months will be full of them. I guess we are having a low spot as Bonnie is getting more uncomfortable, and is having a bad stretch of allergies causing even more discomfort for which there are very few effective meds that are safe to take right now. I guess we are just going to have to plow through it...

I completely forgot to blog about how awesome it was to see Alli & Dave (a.k.a. Dr. Baker & Dr. Brain) during their <24 hour visit to Houston over the weekend! Best of luck in their move from Boulder to the Bay Area!

After weeks of missing each other online, I caught up with Kim and she shared some photos of her new place in Dubai. It's HUGE!

I'm pretty bummed these days that I'm starting to outgrow some maternity clothes already. I'm just finishing up week 31 of 40 (roughly 6 1/2 months) which means there is plenty more to go. And, it really doesn't help that I'm such a klutz these days and am managing to stain the limited number of clothes I do have!

What a busy weekend! Still so many projects on our plates! One of the big 'to do' items we checked off of the list was picking up the crib and mattress - a very generous gift to us from mom. Thanks mom! We had already made our selection about a month or so ago, but didn't want to do too much too far in advance. (Besides, even though the store does have a generous 90 return policy, we thought we should wait until our due date was closer than that!) Our Honda Pilot proved invaluable in transporting everything home from the store. And although Jim was feeling a bit under the weather yesterday, he just couldn't help but assemble the crib and get everything set up. We think it looks great - see for yourself! I've taken two sewing classes so far, and hopefully I'll be able to begin working on crib bumpers from the pattern I bought when mom was in town earlier this month. Should be fun!

Last night was the second half of "So, You're Having a Jewish Baby" class and it was quite informative. With all but one of the pregnant women expecting boys, the audience was keenly interested in the presentation by the Mohel (a ritual circumciser, rhymes with 'oil') who will likely be the one performing the circumcision at our babies' bris. He even brought along some tools for visual aid as well! It wasn't the most pleasant topic, but knowing this is something we will be participating in in the near future, it was very helpful to be able to ask questions and attempt to become a little more comfortable with the details of the ceremony in advance.

October baby #3 arrived earlier this week. Congratulations to Alan and Carol who welcomed Brian Hal Green on Tuesday evening!

Man, it has been an exhausting few days! Mom and I had a great visit here in Houston over the weekend - shopping for shoes, sewing supplies, baby stuff, etc. Kim was kind enough to meet us out at Babies R Us and help navigate through the maze of stuff. The sheer volume of products in that place is still a bit daunting to me.

Today was a 30 week check up appointment. "Perfect" was the word used to describe my progress at this point. We even had the opportunity to get back into the ultrasound room for some more 3D pictures of Baby Leach. This time he was definitely awake - opening and closing his eyes, sticking out his tongue and wiggling around. His hands and cord are still up by his face, but we had more photo opportunties today. His head is already down, and the strong movements I've been feeling on the right side of my rib cage were identified as his knees and feet.

Its been a while since either Bonnie or I had a chance to blog. Bonnie's Mom was in town this weekend and I was in NY visiting a Karl and doing a little flying. Time seems to be the main thing we just don't have much of these days. I understand that sleep is what we will be missing most in just over 2 months. Today is the 30 week Dr. visit. The schedule calls for little more than the heartbeat check and some measuring of Bonnie's belly and a new weigh-in. We are hoping, however, that the technician that did the 3D ultrasound will not be too busy to take a quick peek and see if Spencer is feeling photogenic today. We are not getting our hopes up, but its possible.

Friday we met up with Diane and Marcos for lunch after their 3D ultrasound appointment at our doctor's office. It was nearly a two hour drive for them to get a chance to see their baby. Unlike baby Leach, theirs cooperated and moved all around and they were able to get some great pictures! My favorite of the bunch is this one.

At night, Chris and Katie came over to the house. The boys watched the Penguins opener and the NLCS (much thanks to picture-in-picture along with ReplayTV) while Katie and I worked on invitations for Kimi's wedding shower.

Crafts continue with our first sewing class this afternoon, and mom arrives later today so we'll do some baby stuff together over the weekend.

Someone did bring my pills back to the pharmacy and we picked them up last night on the way to "So, You're Having a Jewish Baby" class at our temple. It was a fun discussion with six pregnant couples and the rabbi. Due dates ranged from two weeks, to me (two and half months) and I observed that I was not significantly smaller than anyone else in the room. We covered topics including baby naming traditions and significance, as well as the covenant ceremonies that will take place following the birth. It was great to see Jen back in the country! After class we went out for dinner with her and her folks to catch up. With an induction scheduled less than a month away, it's very exciting for her to be able to count down to a real date. (As opposed to our countdown on the right which has a standard pregnancy error of -3 weeks / + 2 weeks.)

Pregnancy is full of highs and lows. Just spoke with someone at the doctors office who confirmed that each of the interval results from the glucose test were within the normal range. Yippee! This means I do not have gestational diabetes and do not have to avoid all the wonderful desserts in November and December! Yesterday I suffered from a pregnancy moment at the grocery store. I paid for my refill prescription for pre-natal vitamins at the pharmacy, picked up a few groceries and then proceeded to leave the pills in the basket when I checked out. I hope that someone returned them to the pharmacy and that I'll be able to pick them up later today.

Today was round two for glucose testing to see if I have developed gestational diabetes. They drew blood, then I had to drink a sweet orange soda. Following the drink, they drew blood again every hour for the next three hours. Since I waited 45 minutes before I was called back the first time, I was at the lab for nearly four hours this morning - not fun. I guess I'll call this a bonus of pregnancy (one of very few) which was that since bloodflow has stepped up in my body, I was a pretty easy stick for the technician. My veins are usually a big pain - frustrating the tech and leaving me black and blue for several days afterwards.

Yes, definitely not what we would have scripted for our only anniversary alone as a married couple, but memorable nonetheless. When the cantor was carrying the torah around during the processional in the morning service, he stopped by us for a few extra seconds and told me to make sure that the baby had a chance to 'kiss' it too. A few of the people sitting near us laughed a bit. Only our congregation's cantor could tell jokes on a day like today. Quite contrast to the emotional sermon delivered by our senior rabbi this evening. As Yom Kippur also focuses on remembering our loved ones, his words brought about more than a few tears, and sniffles could be heard throughout the sanctuary.

We did talk about our fabulous wedding that took place one year ago, but decided we need to set aside some dedicated time to focus on each, other without other events piled on top. Our anniversary was certainly not forgotten by others - mom's card and gift arrived via Fedex this morning before we left for temple. Grandma couldn't decide on the perfect card, so she decided to send THREE! And we were touched to receive an anniversary card from the Ruhlman's, so we fondly remember as the couple (after us) who had the best time dancing together at our wedding.

Today was one of those days when the planets aligned and pretty well ruined what would otherwise have been a great day. Today was to have been not only to be our first wedding anniversary, but also to be our last without children. However, today is also Yom Kippur and a day that carries with it an obligation to fast (just for me, Bonnie, being pregnant was obligated to eat and to drink for the obvious health reasons) from sundown (last night) to sundown (tonight)...Not exactly the way you want to spend your anniversary. But, we knew about that for several months, and sort of just decided that would make the meal later tonight, all the more enjoyable. Little did we know that I'd get to start off the day by going into work to notify one of the people that works for me that their position is being eliminated and they are being let go. Not a fun way to begin the day. That all said, we decided to push out our anniversary to some later date and enjoy the full day without all the other stuff.

Since I had no fewer than 10 requests this weekend for more pictures of the baby and for the update to the belly, I have added two more ultrasound pictures on the 28 week ultrasound page and the October Belly picture.

It was great to be able to celebrate with Tracy and Oriol at their Houston wedding reception yesterday evening since we were unable to attend their big event last month in Victoria, BC. I guess haven't seen many of my hockey friends in a while (understandable since I haven't skated in six months) so many were surprised to see how big I had gotten during the summer. Dawn instantly checked out the belly with her hands when we arrived, then gave Jim a hug hello, and finally it was my turn to be greeted!

Later in the night Katie and Kimberley got to see and feel the baby squirming around, and today Monique got to feel him move too. He's done a decent job of moving around when people want to check him out - except of course on Wednesday when we were trying to take some video. He's quite an active one (though I have no basis for comparison.) We were told that the head is already down, so most of the kicking and moving can be seen higher up on the belly.

The glucose screen from earlier this week indicated numbers just barely above the range they like to see, so I will be going back to the lab for a comprehensive test this week. (Drawing blood four times in three hours - ugh.) Nothing to be concerned about at this point, as only a relatively small percent of people who have to take the full test actually have gestational diabetes. The bummer is that following a 'better safe than sorry' practice until this next test is complete, I am keeping an eye on my sugar intake which has put a severe crimp in my fondess for desserts! We went to the Greek Festival for lunch, and that was where I had my one sweet for the day. And we bought a few pastries to take home so I could enjoy one during each of the next two days.

Last night's dinner with a bunch of our Canadian friends revealed how woefully sad our U.S. based healthcare plans are when it comes to time off for new mom's. Not that we thought we got a good deal by any means, but it was sad to hear specifics about how Canadians can receive 75% of their pay from the goverment for a year. And that mom and dad can each take advantage of this benefit. Six weeks...

Figures that as Baby Boy Leach is normally super active, he decided it was nap time about 10 minutes in to our 28 week ultrasound today. He curled his arms up to his face, crossed his legs and dozed off. Before that happened, we were able to clearly count 10 fingers and 10 toes, a few clear glimpses of the boy parts, and some cool 3D images of the face. We never got a great frontal shot because of his arms and the cord obsuring the view. He did flex his little baby muscles a bit and punched a few times, but mostly quiet.

Its only Wednesday and its already shaping up to be a week of extremes. Yesterday, I went flying an airplane that was built in the 1960's with 1930's technology. Its a Belanca Citabria, a plane with a tailwheel and made of a combination of metal tubes and wood and covered in fabric. Quite a technology throw-back. Today, we are getting ready to hit the other end of the spectrum. We are scheduled to experience one of the coolest new technologies, the 4D ultrasound. I'll be posting some of the fruits of this as soon as I can get them converted to a format that will be viewable online.