New Jobs, New House, New Trimester

Last Thursday, I entered the third trimester and I believe my belly has increased by almost double since then. My belly is big enough now that I can give the baby light squeezes, which I do on a regular basis. I always thought being able to feel a baby moving inside would be creepy and alien, but it's way cooler than I anticipated, I find it reassuring and fascinating.

I've been asked by multiple people if we're registered anywhere for our baby needs. The registry is listed in our baby hootenanny invite, but maybe it's just too buried. Anyway, here it is:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/baby/1V48M35QFLS3B
AND
Deposit A Gift: http://stumbaughbaby.mydagsite.com/
If you're wanting information about our welcome baby party on October 17th, it can be found on the Deposit A Gift site, under "Event Details" or in the last post on our blog.

Speaking of our registry....
Someone(s) bought our baby their infant car seat and had it sent to our apartment. We have no idea who it came from. Thank you very much to whoever sent it, please let us know who you are so we can properly thank you.

Last Thursday we also signed official loan docs. Our mortgage broker says we're set for funding tomorrow or Wednesday. We'll be getting the keys to our new house on Wednesday or Thursday. I'll spend Thursday and Friday cleaning the house in preparation for our big move on Saturday. So far we haven't received many positive responses for folks being available to help on Saturday, we're sure it will work out though. People are super busy these days, which we totally understand. We have large pieces of furniture that all need to be moved on Saturday, in five different locations. At least all five of those locations are within 45 minutes of our house!

Tony started his job at Whole Foods about a week and a half ago, so far he's loving it! Turns out Whole Foods is a great company to work for. I worked my last day for the landscape architect last Wednesday and am so relieved to be working full time from home now.

We went to an exceptionally beautiful wedding in Mendocino County on Saturday. Congratulations Matt and Leila Madrone! Their ceremony was genuine, heartfelt and very emotional. Still feeling extremely honored to have been present. Wow!!!!

I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed by the amount of stuff that we need to take care of before our baby arrives, kind of makes my head swim...wish us luck!

love,
~melanie (and tony).

Welcome Baby Stumbaugh Hootenanny

The evite for our baby's welcoming party was sent out by Xochitl today, but just in case you have a difficult time with evite or something screwy happened and you didn't receive it. Here's all the details. If you want to come, either rsvp on the evite or send an email to: orangemelon@gmail.com

Welcome Baby Stumbaugh Hootenanny and Country Potluck!

Sunday October 17, 2010
Starting at 1pm
Ending at 5pm

It's a potluck, please bring something to share and let us know what you're bringing so we don't end up with ten versions of potato salad or a ton of hummus.

Here's the link to the potluck spreadsheet:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AmNoBrlyi9uRdDBwWEk1RFhpQVF1U2RZV0E5TC0ta2c&hl=en&authkey=CPC-x_oB

If you'd rather not deal with the google spreadsheet, send an email to Melissa at melissimo@gmail.com, letting her know what you'd like to bring and she'll update the spreadsheet for you.

Please mark your dish if it fits into any "special needs" food categories (vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, etc.), thank you!

We're encouraging everyone to bring their own plates/bowls/cups/utensils, for the sake of the environment. We will have some extras on hand, but please bring your own and if you happen
to have some extra camp meal necessities and wouldn't mind bringing them, that would be great too! If you do bring your own for sharing, please write your name on the bottom just in case we need to return them to you.

There won't be any games...aside from bocce on the massive lawn! If you have other lawn type games, please feel free to bring them. You won't be subjected to any "baby shower" type games.

There will be music, djs and a performance or two.

Children are welcome and encouraged to come! There's an amazing playground very close to the picnic site.

Here's where it's taking place:

Howarth Park
Gazebo Picnic Site
630 Summerfield Road
Santa Rosa

If you've never been to Howarth Park, check out their website:
http://ci.santa-rosa.ca.us/departments/recreationandparks/parks/cityparks/neparks/Pages/howarthpark.aspx

More than anything we want our family and friends to join us for a celebratory day in the park!

If you feel so inclined to help out with our baby needs, we are registered at the following two sites:

Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/baby/1V48M35QFLS3B
AND
Deposit A Gift: http://stumbaughbaby.mydagsite.com/

Can you believe it's been over two years?

Tony and I started looking for a house to purchase back in March of 2008. We started off looking in the Santa Cruz mountains and after figuring out there's not much in the Santa Cruz area in our price range, we did some major soul searching and decided to try our luck living in Sonoma County. We've been looking in the Santa Rosa area for almost a year and a half and finally...

Our mortgage broker gave us the green light on giving our 30-day notice at our apartment today, which we did. Looks like we're moving into our new house midway through this month. We're scheduling our big move for the weekend of September 25-26. If anyone out there is interested, able and available that weekend, we could sure use some help! I'm not going to be of much assistance in this move as I won't be able to lift many boxes. This will be the first time all of our belongings (which are currently in five different locations) will be housed in the same place for over a year and a half! If you're interested and available, please let one of us know, we'll provide some beer and food to those who volunteer their time to our worthy cause.

There's some minor work that needs to be done to our new house, painting, floors (master bath needs new tiles and living room hardwood floors need to be sanded and possibly stained?), minor electrical, minor plumbing. If you are skilled in these ways or know someone reputable and reasonably priced who is, please let us know.

After working for Beckmanns Bakery since the beginning of 2003, Tony is moving on! He's accepted a position at the Whole Foods in Petaluma as the Bakery Team Leader. He starts next week. We're very excited about him having a local job, not making the two and a half hour commute down to Santa Cruz and he won't be gone from home two to three days a week. He's sad to be leaving Beckmanns, they've been great to him and us. He's happy to be taking on a new challenge career-wise.

Not much has changed in our pregnant world. I'm still feeling good. My belly's getting bigger and my passenger is still cruising around like crazy. What else can I say?

The evite for our welcome baby party will be sent out by Xochitl this weekend. If you're evite "challenged" be on the lookout for a blog post coming soon with all the details.

Until then...
Here we are at Plunge two weekends ago...



love,
~melanie (and tony).