All the Pretty Horses . . . .

First non-Rachael post to the team blog. Welcome to the 21st century Mr. Huntley.

For those of you who don't know our ridiculously talented friend Matt Magruder (www.scootermagruder.com), he is the one responsible for creating the beautiful painting below for our baby girl. We absolutely love it and have already found a home for it in the nursery. It is huge, and takes up the top half of a whole wall, even though it looks tiny in the photo. I'm sure our baby girl will spend hours mesmerized by it.

Thanks again Magruder - you do not get a "terrible, F!"

(and for those of you who do not get this joke, check out www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=irule)

Delilah's First Valentine

First things first, for those of you who don't know, we have decided to name our little girl Delilah. Delilah DiAnne Huntley. We already call her Lila for short and sometimes D. My dear friend Angie calls her Miss D. :) I absolutely hate the nickname "DeeDee", which makes me positive that this is what our little girl will want to be called when she gets older. A big thank you to all who played our little name game...I was really touched that so many people played it and wanted to figure it out...so sweet of all of you!!! Only a couple people guessed Delilah on the first try; most people missed the fact that we had registered with 2 "L"'s, so that led to some cute choices. The most common incorrect guesses were Hadlie and Dehlia and we also got Lehdia, Lideah, Delhali, Delliah, and, my personal favorite: Hildae. I think for our next baby we're going to say we're playing the same game, but really just register for a bunch of random letters and see if we like any of the guesses that you clever people come up with.
And now for the other reason I'm writing: Delilah received her first Valentine in the mail! Our friends Emily and Jeff have an adorable 9 month old named Cole and although he can't really speak or write yet, he communicated to Emily that he wanted to send this cute Valentine to Delilah.



So cute! I read it to Delilah and she said that she is extremely excited to be Cole's Valentine. She knows that he has many cute girlfriends that he probably sent Valentines to, but she wants him to know that as soon as she makes her appearance in April or May, she will leave all her competition in the dust.
Oh, and since our little girl already has her first admirer in utero, Chris has started cleaning his shotgun and practicing his menacing glare 15 years before he thought he'd need to.

An Admission

I've realized that this blog has turned into something I didn't want: a listing of events accompanied by the appropriate photos. While I definitely wanted to create a forum for that sort of thing, I also wanted to create a space where my friends could go and read about what's really going on with me. It's not b/c I'm being narcissistic...I just think that as we all get older and move farther away, it can become all too easy to let friendships become superficial b/c we stop making the time to talk about what really matters to us. So, from time to time, in an effort to quell this trend, I'm going to post an entry of just thoughts. Hopefully, Chris will find time to post some of his own.
My first thought to share is this (not so pretty) one: I'm tired of being pregnant. At least I am today. It comes and goes. Most days I'm quite ecstatic about it, and I am always very aware of the gift of being able to actually have a child of my own. But there are times when I wish I could take one day off...just one. It started when I woke up this morning and proved that it's possible to have morning sickness well after your 1st trimester. The difference is, it's much harder to throw up when you've gained 40 pounds (yes, 40, and I still have 11 weeks to go...shut up) and that extra weight is almost exclusively located in your abdominal area. I'm also tired of having so much less energy, of having weird aches and pains from ligaments stretching, of my fingers being so swollen that I can't wear my wedding ring, of not being able to find anything to wear, of not having a glass of wine or a gin & tonic whenever I feel like it, of repeatedly receiving "advice" that I didn't ask for, of taking a full five minutes to go from a prone position to standing, and of never knowing what's going to irrationally bring me to tears. Any of these things taken by themselves isn't so bad; the problem is when they're all combined (along with more that I haven't listed) and you have to experience them 24 hours a day for 40 weeks. I know billions of people have done it, I know I could be having a much more difficult pregnancy experience, and I know that people have told me that I'll be even more exhausted after the baby actually arrives. I don't care...I'm tired right now. But I do try to keep my sense of humor...after I finished throwing up this morning, I turned to Chris and said, "I think I might be pregnant". I think he would have laughed harder if I hadn't looked so pathetic.
Okay, done with my venting--my baby girl just did a somersault in my tummy and made me really happy again. Maybe this pregnancy thing isn't so bad...

Nursery Surprise

So while I was away in NYC for a week (see below), Chris was busy setting up a little surprise for me. During the time I was gone, he cut and installed crown molding, primed the entire room, painted 3 coats of white paint on all the trim (the molding, chair rail, baseboards, doors, and door frames), then painted two coats each of differing shades of pink above and below the chair rail. I knew he was going to do a little work while I was gone, but I had no idea that he planned to get the entire shell of the nursery ready!!!! It's just further proof that I have the most thoughtful, loving husband in the world. Thank you, honey...you're incredible.

Here are some before and after pics of his handiwork:

Here's Chris testing paint colors before I left...do you really think I would have let him pick colors without my approval?! :)

Here's a before shot of the side with the closet

And here's an after of that side. I love it!

Another after shot. You can't tell that the trim and doors have been painted in these pictures, but it made a huge difference. Before, they were kind of an almondy/cafe au lait color...now they're bright white!

Here's a before shot of the room in general

And an after shot of the room. The lighting isn't right, but this was the only angle from which I could almost get the whole room. The color of the pinks in this pic are wrong...the other pictures are a better representation of what the colors look like in real life.

And this is a close up on Chris's molding work. I still can't believe he did it...I mean, who thinks it's fun to cut and install their own crown molding?!! (Besides my dad, of course)

I'm excited to keep decorating now. Yes, I'm fully aware that our daughter would be happy sleeping in our room in a drawer lined with blankets, and that decorating the nursery is more for the parents than for the child. That said, it's a lot of fun and how often do you get to decorate in pink?

NYC Trip

I just got back from spending a fantastic week in New York City. I have an amazing group of friends up there and they invited me for a girls' weekend/baby shower. (My first baby shower!) I stayed with my friend Angie in her new apartment (which is gorgeous) and she was the most lovely hostess, as usual. So it was Angie, me, Summer, Shannon, and then Franca and Margot joined us from Toronto. We all went to the same acting conservatory in NYC a bazillion years ago and have stayed close ever since.

The weekend was full of great talks, lots of food and wine (well...lots of wine for them), shopping, walks through the city, long brunches, and a day of shower festivities. I was spoiled rotten with a ridiculous amount of presents and I already know that my baby girl has 5 aunts in the northeast who could not be more excited to meet her. The shower itself was absolutely beautiful and touching...there were the fun presents, of course, but much more important than that was the spirit that my friends brought to the event. They truly honored this new phase that I'm about to enter and focused not only on what's to come, but also paid homage to the past gifts that were given to us by our own mothers.
I don't really have that many pictures from the trip b/c I grew lazy and let everyone else take pictures. As soon as I get them from the girls, I will come back to this entry and post them. In the meantime, enjoy a few candid shots that I took when we all went to Angie's boyfriend's apartment and borrowed his Segway.

Summer coming down the hall on the Segway

Jason is happy with his Segway prowess

Franca coming to a screeching halt. We left many a rubber mark on those baseboards. We also made a lot of noise in the halls...at one point a cute little boy came out and asked us to be quiet b/c it was past his bedtime and he had to get up for school the next day. Oops!

Summer and Rach

Thank you, beautiful women, for such a wonderful time. I love you all so much and can't wait for us all to be together again...next time we meet we'll have a new addition to the AADA Sisterhood!!!