Cake...Sandwich...Thing?

It's July.  It's crazy freaking hot outside (for a week and a half!).  I'm nearly 32 weeks pregnant.  As I'm sure you may have guessed, it's not a great combo.  But thank the great Lord for air conditioning!

This was actually the forecast from Monday.  We definitely broke 100 several of those days.  Someday I'll be able to hold this over my son's head: "Look at what I went through for you!" ;)

Our second weekend in IL was even better than the first.  We made great time going out, the in-laws were all home, and this time the baby shower was for me! =)  And after a little help, Miss Callie figured out how to use the ladder to get in and out of the pool all by herself, thank you very much.  Her swimming endurance is incredible.  And I'm pretty sure she's in love with my in-laws' yard.  Our yard has to seem like the lamest thing ever to her after spending the weekend there.  Plus there is a plethora of wood chips (mulch) in every direction so she can chew to her little heart's content.  She's so spoiled at Grandma and Grandpa's!

Asleep on our way to IL.

Our sweet little baby girl on our way home.

Sooo tired after a weekend full of swimming and running around.

The baby shower was vintage themed and felt like a little tea party.  Everyone was wearing cute outfits and we drank punch, ate a few little finger foods and sandwich loaf, followed up by coffee out of cute little English tea cups/saucers and of course cake.  Okay, now you may be wondering what the heck a sandwich loaf is, I definitely was.  Here are a few pictures to help me describe it:

On the outside it looks like a cake...

But on the inside there are really three different layers of salad sandwiches divided by layers of bread.  Ours had chicken salad, tuna salad, and egg salad.  It's actually frosted with cream cheese.

Now, to be honest, I was a little wary of this...cake...sandwich...thing.  Everything about it looked like a cake and I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that it was a sandwich.  I had to smell it before I could eat it and convince myself it wasn't covered in normal frosting.  It actually turned out to be pretty good.  Definitely a good conversation piece!  We played a couple games and then opened the abundance of presents and a library of books!  Our son is going to have no choice but to enjoy reading.

At the shower:  Grandma Sue, Mama and Baby S, Aunt Alli, and Great Grandma Faber.

We didn't do much for the 4th.  Our original plan was to hang out and maybe go see Brave, the new Pixar movie.  Instead we rented a couple movies from Red Box and unexpectedly bought our neighbor's weight lifting cage system including the barbell and barbell weights at a really awesome price.  An afternoon project (we had to rearrange some stuff in the basement before set-up) we didn't plan on, but we're super pumped about.

I'm kind of in love.

The best part is the bench can be pushed out of the way so I can do squats, deadlifts, etc.  Aaand it has an adjustable cable system so we can do seated rows and a plethora of other things.  We just need to get a full set of dumbbells and I will be all set which will mean I can workout at home while Baby S sleeps!  And then I will no longer have to clean up after lame guys at the Y who can't figure out how to put their weights away or plan my workouts around the teenage boys who stand around taking up space watching each other lift. Ahhh it's like a dream come true!

That's the big news at the Steffens house right now.  That and my nausea is back so I've been feeling too sick to workout.  I am sooo over it!  Still hoping our little one decides to make his appearance closer to 6 weeks instead of 8!  I'm not even considering going past my due date as an option at this point.

31 weeks.  Yay single digits left to go!

This weekend is a stay at home weekend.  I'm not sure we're going to know what to do with ourselves! Oh who I am I kidding, I'm sure Brian will want to relax in the basement and I'm going to want to do several things around the house in my ongoing preparations of getting this stuff done before Baby S gets here. I'm sure we'll end up compromising with a little of both.  We make a good team that way.

Love,
-K