Planning planning planning...

Hello everyone,

As most of you know, I come from a family of planners. It seems to be our familial pastime. We love to look at things from every angle and make the best decision after that. Dad and I spent many hours on the phone planning a small get together for Mom's birthday. When I got married, Mom and I spent many hours running around planning the big day. So it's only natural that with the baby coming I am in high planning mode.

However, this planning is marred by a few things. 1) You can't plan when the baby will ACTUALLY show up. Yes, I have a due date. But doctor's offices don't call them an "estimated date of confinement or estimated date of delivery" for nothing. It's estimated when Butterfly is going to grace us with her presence. 2) My mom isn't here to help. She's a champion planner and while I can get great information through the phone with her (and I do...thanks Mom!) I still miss her being around.

In any case, since the baby is still sitting on my back and restricts my movement more every day, my mind has suddenly become plan central. And I have so many things to plan too! I'm sure you don't want a list but oh well...here you go.

(In no particular order, just what's on my mind at the moment.)

1) Butterfly's blessing. Juice and I are very excited to have visitors for Butterfly's blessing. While we'll take care of the Church's paperwork after she is born, I've been thinking of what we're going to do while family visits. I am SO excited to see everyone again. We decided to bless her over the 4th of July weekend. Juice's parents are coming a week early and visiting with his mom's brother Russ and Juice's cousin Becky for a week and then heading up our direction. My parents are coming the Friday before and will be here for about 10 days after that. Andrew and Angela are also coming, although I think they are leaving on the Wednesday after to head up to New York to visit Angela's sister for a bit.

Seems like everyone is planned out, right? Well, everyone's visiting plans are set, but what do we do while they're here? I know everyone wants to meet our Butterfly, but I'm sure they won't be as excited to watch her sleep the whole time. I know Andrew and Angela want to see the National Archives and so on the 4th, I think they are headed for D.C. to mingle with the tourists and watch the fireworks from the National Mall. Good luck, and take bug spray bro. :)

Last time my parents were here visiting we ran across a very cool farm which had fantastic apples. These were the best apples I've had in a long time. Seriously, we ate 2 huge bags of these things. They were SO good. Dad got talking to the farmer (who doesn't Dad get talking to, right? ;) ) and the farmer told us that he has peaches in the summer that are just as good. Home grown peaches picked right off the tree. The idea makes my mouth water now! So Mom and I thought that the Saturday before the blessing all of us would make a 2 hour trip to the farm and get fresh peaches for everyone to eat. And of course to make peach cobbler out of for Butterfly's blessing. Yum yum!

Speaking of the blessing, we are inviting a lot of our friends out here to the blessing. We thought it would be nice to have a barbecue after church to let everyone mingle. Besides, it's the 4th of July weekend, right? BBQs are sort of mandatory for this holiday. So talking to Mom, we put together a bit of a menu for the BBQ, including bbq chicken, baked beans, rolls, pasta salad, hamburgers and peach cobbler. If everyone comes that we've invited (or planning to invite...it's still months away) we'll have about 25 people. We're really looking forward to that, but there's no way 25 people are going to be able to sit in our house. We own 5 chairs and 1 couch. Definitely not enough! So I'm looking at renting some chairs and a few tables. You wouldn't think that would be hard, right? Well, apparently it is. Especially since I only want about 20 chairs and 4 long tables. I don't want any linens or catering...just the bare necessities. And that seems to be unheard of in the East. Go figure.

The other thing I was thinking about doing while everyone is here (at least the parents...sorry Andrew) is either going to the Baltimore aquarium or Gettysburg. I'm leaning towards the aquarium because it will probably be inside. This is July we're talking about. And July in the East is muggy and hot. Besides, will I want to subject the kiddo to the heat and the bugs? We'll see. Anyone have an opinion?

2) Baby announcements. I've been searching online for something, and I found a very cute one that was all pink and grey with a dog pushing a baby carriage. I thought it was very cute, especially since Soot has been a huge part of our lives. But that one is like 200 dollars for 50 announcements! No way. I think I've decided on a picture announcement, but of course that has to wait until Buttefly is here and we get a good picture of her. I'd love it to be in her blessing dress when she's a little bit older and not so squashed newborn looking. We'll see what we can do when she gets here.

3) Painting the house. Yes, we are getting our house painted. And no, it's not the outside. It's the inside! Whoever painted it last was sloppy. There is glossy paint throughout the house, and the sellers decided to paint a matte finish over it but the painter they hired missed huge parts of the wall, giving us roller shaped shiny spots. In all the rooms. The painter also went around things like change left in the window sill and wires on the walls. The bathrooms used to be very bright and bold colors (think Brighton orange!) and you can still see the color behind the white he slapped over it. So we're trying to get the house repainted because it's driving me nuts. We're having a bunch of estimates in the next week or so to see who I like the best and who would be the best price for us. If everything is out of our price range, Juice will do it. Slowly, say maybe a wall at a time after work every day but he's at least offered. :)

4) Getting everything we need ready for Butterfly. I realize that we only have a few weeks left (57 days!) and we don't have any of the big stuff. Granted, thanks to all of you, the child will not go naked (thank you thank you thank you!) and we have a crib to put her in but no car seat to bring her home in. Or a stroller (although Anne and Elden are providing us with that...thank you!). Or a rocking chair for me. And numerous other stuff...little stuff that I'm excited to buy but haven't gotten around to it yet. Oh, and an outfit to bring her home in.

This is what I entertain myself with while I'm stuck in traffic in the morning. I'm sure it was facinating (drip drip drip).

Love y'all!
Safire