Troy and Melanie (dot com)

Pregnancy tour 2009 will be making it’s lone stop in Lancaster, PA from 6/20 through 6/28. Mark your calendars

Melanie called me downstairs tonight because she said that Peanut had been kicking her hand and she wanted me to feel it too so I let Mel place my hand where he had been kicking and I waited… about 2 minutes later our little guy gave my hand a kick… and my face lit up with a Cheshire Cat grin It is an amazing thing and an amazing moment that I’m going to remember for quite some time.

And what good is a post without a photo? Here’s a picture of me that Aunt Georgia took when we were in San Antonio last week.

It’s been awhile since we last posted… life has just gotten in the way. I shot a wedding this past Saturday (you can check out some of the photos over on my blog… when they are posted, of course), Schwab has been keeping me super busy (I worked almost 60 hours last week), and Mel’s Mom and Aunt are in town visiting this week. Yeah, you can say it’s been pretty busy around the Schneider house. We’re also beginning to nest… trying to clean the house up and get the place ready for baby. The nursery is top priority and will take a few weeks to materialize, but we took the first step by moving Melanie’s desk out into the loft so now we share an office. I will post some before and after photos while we’re working on the room so you can share in the transformation.

In the meantime here are a bunch of photos that I took on our trip to San Antonio on Wednesday. Aunt Georgia wanted to see the Alamo so while she, Mel, and Mom were learning I wandered around the grounds finding interesting photos. After the Alamo we took a ride on one of the water taxi’s on the River Walk and then stopped in Gruene on the way back home to grab some dinner at the Gristmill. Enjoy the photos and leave a comment letting me know if you like the gallery view. I’m not sure how well it will work so this may be the only time I use it.

In the world of blogging I’m known as a late blogger. The kind who, rather than writing a post at the beginning of the day, writes at the end of the day. My intentions are usually get the post up earlier rather than later, but time flies and I find myself writing before I go to bed. Such is the situation with today’s post. I just wanted to post a big thank you to all of the mom’s out there (2 in particular) and to share a few photos of my baby mom-to-be with our fur baby (Bella). Enjoy!

This is the necklace that I got Mel for Mother’s Day… the left side of the heart is a mother and she’s holding up her baby, which makes the right side of the heart.

(continue reading to see 4 more photos)

Okay, some of you have managed to survive the baby registry challenge.  Yes, the idea of putting together a list of items you hope others will buy for you is a fun concept.  I completely looked forward to getting to the point where we were ready to start doing this.  I mean…shopping’s fun…and shopping for baby stuff…more fun…right?  Except…why are there about 3,000 different strollers???  Is the Baby Bjorn better than the Infantino Front to Back Carrier?  Is Desitin the brand of choice despite the fun name of Boudreax’s Butt Paste?  And Shopping Cart Liners…I never even thought about shopping cart liners before!  So, this is my plea…er, request.  If you have been there, done that…tell us what you think.  What brands do you live by?  What are the most important things for us to have/register for?  What things aren’t so important?  Share your wisdom with us and we will be grateful.

Thanks!

This weekend has been pretty eventful so far. The new car that I’ve been negotiating for with the dealership finally arrived on Friday and we went to pick it up after work. We’re the proud new owners of a 2009 Toyota Venza (yes, the VW streak has come to an end). We were looking for something stylish, great reliability, low cost of maintenance, and full of utility (read not a minivan)… the VW Passat wagon was in the running, but the Venza looks so much nicer and the interior feels more like a Lexus than a Toyota. I will post more photos in the coming days, but here’s one to tide you over…

On Saturday we attended our friends Jeff and Jennifer’s son’s birthday party. Ethan turned 2 this past week and we celebrated with lots of running around, playing with bubbles, eating cupcakes, and tearing open presents. The weather was a bit warm and humid so we were constantly going in and out of the house, but the heat didn’t seem to bother the kids. Again, I’ll try to post more photos soon but here’s a teaser… Ethan knows that the best way to eat a cupcake is icing first

Tomorrow the plan is to go to church in the morning, grab some more photos of the Venza down by the 360 bridge, Mel is going to see 17 Again while I go to the gym, and then we’ll work on preparing to move Mel’s desk out of her office and into the loft. Should be jam packed day… and with that I’m going to get to bed (yes, it’s after 1am here… I’m definitely a night owl).