Any Day Now...

Written on Thursday, April 10, 2014 

Once again I have hijacked Erin's blog to share more belly growth pictures.  Our child is growing rapidly now and it is amazing to watch.  Erin is worn down again and is very tired.  My Mom is coming next week to spend Spring Break with us and we are all hoping the Baby K will be born when Grandma Kassouf is here.  We were supposed to be off from school for Spring Break next week but because of snow days we will only be off next Friday and Monday. 

Erin is determined to have Baby K this weekend because she does not want to go back to work next week since it has become much more draining physically for her there.  I have several things to take care of at work still and my plan is to have it all taken care of by the time I leave tomorrow so if Erin is correct and we do have a baby this weekend I am prepared.

Since we are getting very close and Baby K will make his/her entrance to the world any day now I thought I would share the next segment of belly progression pictures.

Posted by Andrew Kassouf

We didn't take 37 or 38 week pictures but here is a bonus one from week 8.

Maternity Photo Session with Uncle Ron

Uncle Ron offered to take maternity pictures for us early in my pregnancy.  I was not super eager to take maternity pictures at first but Andrew really wanted them.  After the experience I am glad we were able to capture this stage in our family's life.  Thank you Uncle Ron for taking the time to work with us.

Uncle Ron captured some fun moments where we were goofing around in between shots.  They turned out to be some of our favorites. 

Baby Showers March 2014

Andrew and I were blessed with 4 baby shower's to celebrate the arrival of Baby K! My school kicked off the festivities and threw a great party! They had gathered a bunch of Pooh stuff from all the teachers in the school and they decorated our entire library with Winnie the Pooh characters, sayings, puzzles (these were on all the tables for everyone to put together), and they even decorated with hand punched Winnie the Pooh character confetti.  It was so nice to celebrate with them; I am blessed to work with a great staff team!

*Thanks for the pictures Jen Gray

Then my cousin, "sister", and really one of my best friend's Heather threw a shower for my friends and family back home in Calvert County.  It was so nice to go home and celebrate, I got to see friends from church that I had not seen in a very long time! We played a fun baby trivia game, gift bingo, ate delicious food, and had a great time socializing and catching up.  It was also nice because Andrew's mom was able to come up for this shower so I got to spend time with both his mom and my mom, two really excited grandmas! 

* Thanks for the pictures Erin M Kassouf

Our third shower was at Bel Air High School to celebrate with Andrew's staff.  It was nice because they scheduled it on an afternoon when I was able to attend.  They decorated with diapers which messages they wrote of us on them.  Actually the messages were mostly for Andrew saying things like, "This end up," and, "This one's for Daddy."  They were super cute.  It was nice to get to celebrate with Andrew's staff team as well because they really are a close knit department.  

Lastly, our small group threw a shower for our friends who live in the Bel Air area.  This was supposed to be a surprise but I figured it out a few days before.  I was surprised though that Andrew's mom and my mom both came up to Bel Air to celebrate with us again! Dawn, Dawn, Jen, Nicole, and Anna really did a great job decorating for this shower.  They took our Winnie the Pooh theme to heart and made a 100 Aker Wood sign, a tree with pictures of all the characters hanging off it, a diaper cake, and honey flavored cupcakes!  There was even homemade honey bath scrub given to all who came.  The games we played included Daddy Knows Best trivia game, a name game, and gift bingo!

  *Thanks for the picture Nicole Renee (she is a newborn photographer and she took pictures at the shower, see her work at http://nicolereneenewborns.com/)

It was humbling to be surrounded by many people we love!  We know that Baby K is entering a great family and circle of friends! 

Babymoon!

Andrew and I decided that before the arrival of Baby K we wanted to get away before our world changes next month! Can you believe it's next month! Anyways, we enjoyed a weekend Annapolis.  It is a place that is very special to us.  Our blind date was in Annapolis and we got engaged in Annapolis so we decided it would be a great place to visit and reminisce.  

Friday night we went to the Lebanese Taverna where our blind data was 3 1/2 years ago.  We had kafta sandwiches, hummus, tabbouleh, baklava, and mamoul cookies! Saturday morning we relaxed and then went to the PA Dutch Farmers Market at the Annapolis Harbor Center.  We went just to walk around but we ended up finding our crib! We had been searching for the right crib for a long time and this one was perfect! 

Later that afternoon we went to Downtown Annapolis where we got engaged and we went to an early dinner at Pussers Caribbean Grille (this is the restaurant where Andrew had our engagement surprise party).  We had a great dinner on the waterfront and walked around for awhile.  

Then we went to the movies to see "August: Osage County" and went out for late night dessert a Gordon Biersch! 

 

It was a wonderful weekend with the man of my dreams!! It was so nice to be away and get to spend some quality time together.  Now we are in preparation mode as Baby K is only a month away.  

Extreme Home Makeover Baby K Edition Phase III - February

Andrew and I have been working hard to continue to get everything ready for Baby K.  On our many snow days this past month we completed a bunch of home projects.  Andrew hung a new curtain rod in our master bedroom, a new shower curtain rod in our master bath, and patched all the walls in the nursery.  We then painted the nursery!  And Andrew put together our rocking chair!  So we are moving in the right direction; although I feel like we have been working on house projects for an entire century.  I'm ready for everything to be in its place; although we don't have everything yet so that's still a process.

Here is the nursery so far: 

  

Date Night!!

 Life around the Kassouf household has been quite crazy over the last month and will be this way for awhile.  Andrew and I are both in grad school right now so every weekend one or both of us have had class.  So last weekend after I finished my second class we went out for Date Night! Andrew who is mister creative, decided that he was going to develop a "Choose Your Own Adventure" date.  He got the idea from the children's books where you get to choose which the outcome.

At the beginning of the date I got an envelop that said I was going to "Choose My Own Date Night".  Andrew told me that I would have to make 3 decisions during our date and that I got one flip ahead where I could get all the details of the choice; the rest of the decisions would be based on clues.  My first choice was to choose dinner; I needed to choose between Mexican or Italian food.  And my choice would effect the rest of the evening.  I choose Italian; although this was a very tough decision because Andrew does not normally like to eat Mexican food out so I almost choose Mexican just because it was a rare opportunity.  But, I was in a pasta mood so Italian it was!  After I choose Italian I got a second envelop.  On the outside it told me we would be going to Italian Sensations a local chain and at the end of dinner I could open the envelop for my next destination.

After dinner finished I opened the envelop and it told me that dessert was our next stop.  (Dessert is my favorite so I was very excited!)  My choices were to choose "Red, Green, and White" or "Pink, Green, and White".  This was very difficult because dessert is a very serious matter and I did not want to make the wrong choice!  I had a feeling that "Pink, Green, and White" was code for Sweet Frog.  "Red, Green, and White" was harder to figure out but I had an inkling that it was for the Italian flag; which meant that it was for Vaccaro's, an Italian pastry shop based in little Italy known for their desserts.  A few years ago they opened a cafe version in Bel Air so I was hoping that "Red, Green, and White" was for Vaccaro's.  So I took a chance and picked "Red, Green, and White" without using my flip ahead.  I got my 3rd envelop and the front said .... Vaccaro's!  I was RIGHT!! Dessert was amazing! Although, I ate way too much; I had a Nutella latte (which was absolutely wonderful, for coffee lovers out there it was the best!) then got a few different Italian cookies to try, and I had a chocolate iced cream puff and Andrew had Amaretto Tiramisu. Needless to say we waddled out of Vaccaro's but I waddle a lot now so it's all good.

After we ordered dessert I got to open up the 3rd envelop which said we were off to our final destination and I had to choose Men, Women, or Children. I had a feeling that they were referring to movies but I was not sure so I used my flip ahead.  Which meant I got to see all 3 options of the envelop 4.  The Men option was to go see "Lone Survivor", the Women option was "Labor Day", and the Children option was "The Nut Job".  I choose "Labor Day" so off to the movies we went!

It was such a nice evening and I loved every minute that I got to spend with the love of my life! He is so good to me and so creative, I love him!!  As he would say he "Kassouf'ed" our data night to make it spectacular! 

Extreme Home Makeover Baby Kassouf Edition Phase II - January

Our house is beginning to looking very different.  My Mom and Kyle came to help us with Phase II of Extreme Home Makeover - Baby Kassouf Edition; early in January.  They helped moved all of our office items down to our basement so the office could now become a nursery!  They helped Andrew moved three full bookshelves, two file cabinets, and basic office supplies all down to our basement.  And then moved a full kids bookshelf back upstairs to the nursery.  

After Mom and Kyle came our house got turned into a construction zone for the last four weeks.  We hired a handyman to complete all types of odd jobs around the house to help us to prepare for Baby K!  I think he did some work in every room of our house except the living room and bathrooms.  He installed a fan in our dinning room, he painted the ceiling in our kitchen and installed a new light.  He painted the stairwell going upstairs along with the upstairs hallway.  In the nursery he painted the ceiling, and in our guest room he fixed the closet doors.  Then in the master bedroom he fixed our window which had leaked a long time ago and needed major drywall work and he painted our ceiling.  Finally downstairs in our basement he installed a new handrail, new lights, rewired all of our electric and put in four new switches.  Now our basement is on multiple circuits! He also installed shelving units over our washer and dryer.  He even did some work outside installing a new front light fixture and extending the downspout past our garden.So the house is coming together but there is still more to be done.  I know we can, I know we can, I know we can ...  

Here are a few pictures: