Sunny days, sweeping the clouds away!

So after several complaining posts (my bad day yesterday, the rude lady at Kohl's, and my no-fun news at school) I figured it's about time to talk about the good things going on right now!

1. As bittersweet as it is, school's out!  I have to return Monday for post-planning but am completely finished after that.  I am looking forward to having lots of free time to finally finish up the nursery and get other things ready for baby's arrival. I'm also happy that I will have plenty of time to just rest and get some good sleep before the arrival because I know things will be very different once he's here!  I'll at least have a little while where I can return to thinking 4:30 is actually night time, not morning.
2. I have my third (yes, I said third) baby shower tomorrow.  I had my friends and family shower in late April, then my work shower (which I completely forgot to post about!) early in May and now the ladies at my church are throwing me a shower.  I am so thankful to have so many amazing people in my life, and so excited that so many of them will be an amazing part of Floodling's life too!
3. Minus this minor cold I've come down with, I'm still feeling pretty great!  Heck, I walked 3 miles last weekend!  
4. And even with still feeling pretty miserable from this cold I slept through the night pretty well last night.  I am so thankful for my ability to sleep!
5. I am still really enjoying the feelings of Floodling moving around.  It never seems to get old.  Lately I've been able to feel his little elbows sticking out on my right side as he presses his butt out on my left.  It's fun to poke back at him.  I think he gets hiccups sometimes too and I enjoy lightly rocking my belly until they go away.
6. I got another piece of awesome, necessary furniture from our friend Jessica (and her daughter Lilly!).  Thanks for the dresser! She is the one who gave us our crib.  She has also offered up anything else we need (as have another set of friends), so if we don't get some of the last baby-gear items from our registry we can use some of their stuff.  
7. I finally have a car seat!  I can't believe it took this long to get one.. I just kept putting it off, but with people telling me baby might be here in a week and a half I started freaking out and decided I needed to get it NOW!  Thanks to the gift cards from my work shower I was able to get the car seat.  Now we just have to install the base....
8. And last but not least, I am so excited that Floodling's arrival is getting closer and closer! We're down to 4 weeks now!  Here's what he looks like and might be up to these days at 36 weeks:
   
   
   
   
   

   Your baby is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. He now weighs almost 6 pounds (like a crenshaw melon) and is more than 18 1/2 inches long. He's shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered his body as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that covered and protected his skin during her nine-month amniotic bath. Your baby swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, that will form the contents of his first bowel movement.
   
   At the end of this week, your baby will be considered full-term. (Full-term is 37 to 42 weeks; babies born before 37 weeks are pre-term and those born after 42 are post-term.) Most likely he's in a head-down position. But if he isn't, your practitioner may suggest scheduling an "external cephalic version," which is a fancy way of saying she'll try to coax your baby into a head-down position by manipulating him from the outside of your belly.

9.  Okay, so that gives me one more thing to be glad about-  that he's in the right position already!