walls.

i have begun working on zak's walls-- i took a whole bunch of coloring books and combined them, and drew what i liked in them. sooo here are my sketches so far, they are far from perfect, but i think they'll be cute at the end. =)

happy.

is this not the most precious sweater you have ever seen? if you say no, you haven't seen the super cute little patches on his elbows, like an old man sweater, which obviously you can not see in this picture. but anyways, baby clothes are thrilling. I love them so much. The best part about them is that I will buy them every once in a while, and my husband will just say they are cute, instead of asking how much they were, or hinting that we didn't need them. oh, i love it so much. so so much.

i also bought this little outfit from burlington coat factory, that is pretty snazzy if you ask me, i can't find any pictures of it online but it has this writing on butt of the jeans, not like something weird, it was just an M and i didn't know what it was for, and a bright yellow polo shirt with some design on it. i looked it up and apparently i bought him an "urban hip-hop brand". so basically our kid is going to be ghetto-fabulous when he wears it. i'll buy him some little high top sneakers to go with it now. =)

i also invested in one of the best things ever invented today--

yes, it may cost a small fortune, but i can already say that i did not have to stand to watch our episodes of chuck today, like i usually do. it feels very nice, and i might even go to bed early tonight, just so i can use it. baby zak will thank me, and so will my brains because not sleeping due to child-given discomfort is not helpful to anyone.

on a brighter note, can you get even brighter than baby clothes and sleeping? i think not. but anyways, we now have a rental car, after 2 days of hassling both her and my insurance, the girl refusing to talk to them and saying that she's not at fault, and many other small catastrophes. Our car is in repair, and should be costing her about $2,200 to fix by the time she is done. sucks to be you my friend.

grateful.

today was the day i became grateful. not because i haven't been before, but then again who has life altering experiences everyday?

in the middle of coming home from the wedding expo with nicole, ashley and amy (which i will discuss further in another post) our drive abruptly changed. two little cars driving next to us, going about 90 mph, were racing to get in the carpool lane, and one of them lost control of their scion. spinning towards us, my backseat drivers start screaming, and i have no idea what is going on, until i see this white care coming toward me very very fast. she plowed into my door, and threw us into the other lanes, while still spinning out of control down the highway. somehow, and honestly i don't know how, i got us to the edge and pulled over. i have no idea why there were no cars next to us during rush hour traffic. actually i know why, and that is because someone was looking out for us, that is for sure.

all four of us are ok, minus our shock, with no scrapes or injuries or anything. we'll see if tomorrow we end up being sore from the seatbelts or something but i'm hoping not. the girl in the other car got taken to the hospital in an ambulance, so hopefully she is ok too.

it just makes me think about what could have happened today. I wasn't supposed to drive, but what if we had been driving something other than my beast of a car? we would have been smashed.

what if we didn't have our seatbelts on? yeah, i wouldn't have been able to get back in control of the car that's for sure.

what if she had hit 1/2 foot further back on the car? she would have smashed me, instead of only having my legs be in that position.

it's nice to know that the big man above looks out for us, especially in events like this. i am so grateful that none of these "what-ifs?" came true.

sometimes i wonder why our car seems to be the target this year. between it dying, and the break in, and this, we seem to be shelling out a whole bunch for my baby. it's a good thing it's an amazing beast because otherwise i wouldn't be writing this today. but we have all of her insurance info, so i'm crossing my fingers that it works out smoothly and she is paying for all of it.

phase one complete.

the first phase of the beast's room is complete. i guess i should not call him that, as it is not very loving, but sometimes that's what he feels like. anyways, phase one of zak's room is finito... i forgot to take pictures of it before, but this is it as a work in progress from the original color.




this is that wall now. i don't think it's as bright in person---the flash kinda made it go crazy.

this is my animal wall, which is not yet complete. take notice of the sand on the bottom of the wall, which is actually texturized, the paint we bought has granite in it, which makes it go on like sand. =) didn't my cute husband do such a good job painting?


in a couple weeks, this wall will look somewhat like this, with brighter colors and the whole wall underwater, not just the bottom, but the same sort of cute sea creatures. isn't it cute??

boy oh boy oh boy.

our sister in law Tashina found out she is going to have a boy today. hurrah!

she swore the whole time that it was going to be a girl, because she and her hubbie Todd just felt like it would be.

i secretly prayed (not literally obviously, that would be a little out of control) that it wouldn't be, because i would be sad if she had a cute girl to dress up and i did not, when she would not take full advantage of the giant flowers and headbands and ridiculously poofy dresses as i would.

yes, i am that much of a loser i will admit it. i feel guilty, but at the same time so so pleased.

but then, magically, the chromosomes listened to me! and that makes me so happy!

so, the Lowry family will have had three baby boys within 8 months of each other by the time june rolls around. haha.

i'm not quite sure why we all had to have boys, apparently the lowry tradition of boys first carries strong, but our next children are all going to be competition for the first girl in the family.

but anyways, congrats to Tashina who is now very excited to be pregnant!



Zak update of the week: he is 15 inches long, and 3 lbs. and has a 9 out of 10 chance of surviving if he was born now. Let's get him outta here!! but he also has normal-ish skin and fully functioning lungs. He also loves captain crunch, takes after his favorite mommy, he does.

ode to the bath.

i love to take baths.

even though people, such as my husband, think they are revolting, sitting in your own skin cells etc. etc, i think that they are lovely.

however, this is what I feel like in our bathtub:

i'll admit she looks happy in this ridiculous thing, but you get my point. at least all of her body is covered, which mine definitely is not. its one of those awkward things that happens to most people, when the top of you sticks out if you stick your legs in, or in my case, my belly freezes regardless, even if i stick my legs out too.

siggh... tis a trying situation. and it makes me want to be rich. someday, i will achieve my ultimate bathtub. just like her:
doesn't she just look so happy? she has no belly or leg problem in this bad boy.

i dream a dream....

zak attack.

So we saw the doctor today for our 28 week check up. (Can you believe it's been 28 weeks??) I can't.

On the plus side, he said that we have a small baby. Which is weird. I was HUGE. like over 10 lbs. Levi was like 7 lbs I think so it will be interesting to see how big he turns out. The whole gaining weight thing is a new experience. Its a weird weird feeling going in every month and being significantly larger. Oh well. It's all for a good cause right?? It's been 6 1/2 months and I've gained about 18 lbs, and you're supposed to gain 25-35. I think I'm going to be on the upper end of that spectrum that is for sure. =)

On the negative side, my tail bone has been killing this week. Apparently it's going to be like this for the next 3 months. I guess that's what my problem is since I haven't thrown up, or gotten huge (so far) or had my back kill all the time. Dang...

Genius.

Photoshop is a wonderful wonderful thing.

I had these cute pictures of us from Canada, but for some reason I was unaware the entire time that my sweater, when taken pictures in, is see-through. Awkward yes. But, I spent some time and figured out how to make my bosoms/belly not so florescent white. I'm a genius. Hehe

Before--

After--

Before--

After--

Before--

After--

The Rest of the Vacation:

The Lowry Fam

The psycho killer parrot cat

SNOW. lots and lots.

Though it may be hard to believe, I went outside. Be impressed.
I don't have many pictures from Reno, seeing as I lost the camera in Levi's suitcase but he's so hick here.
Yes, I will someday be hard core. Just like him.

All in all, it was a successful trip. Now we move on to preparing for the little babe now, seeing as that's the next big event in the Lowry household. Speaking of which. We decided to switch the spelling of Zak, after a long debate of how to spell his nickname, to Zakary-- it makes him different too, though no one is going to be able to ever spell his name. Oh well, we like it.

Addict.

I am addicted to selling things.

We have a jar labeled "IKEA FUND" that we have on top of our TV that all of Levi's plasma money and my selling money goes into.

So far I've sold my desk, levi's desk, a chair, and a big poofy chair. Hehe.

- We're buying our new coffee table tomorrow. Booyah. And I'm going to celebrate by smashing our other one. =)

And I just put up a printer, a lamp, and another chair on craigslist.

Plus, my purses which are selling on ebay.

So that equals our baby room being cleaned out of furniture-- Now to find someplace to stick all the stuff.

revolt.

Why?

Why, praytell, does the world make flights that are supposed to leave at 11:00 AM, but somehow get switched to 6:30 AM??

Why would my in-laws live an hour and a half away from the airport?

Why would I need to be there 2 hours early to clear customs?

Soo-- Why do I need to leave for the airport at 2:30??!

I DON'T KNOW.

While I'm on my shpeel, I don't know how to spell that, but why did Canada decide this week that you are no longer allowed to bring carry-on's to the states?

And why, does United charge $25.00 for the 1st bag, $30.00 for the second, and $40.00 for the third?

I DON'T KNOW. but I'm going to have to be at the airport at a disgusting hour. And fork out over $100 to take my suitcases home, stuffed from this week when I could have carried half of them on.

this is how I feel right now, and probably will feel for the rest of the weekend. Yeah for travelling.