Happy Holidays!

We wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season. Check out our ghetto brothel christmas lights. Its been our tradition for 3 years now! The belly is getting huge as you can see. Brendan and I no longer get any sleep....I guess we can say we are ready for what the future will soon hold.

Another day closer!

We are yet another day closer to the supposed due date. We just took our first baby birthing class, or lamaze as others know it, this past Saturday. It was an entire day of watching videos on birth and breathing. And, to Brendan's excitement, we get to do it again this Saturday! I'm sure the breathing will come in handy but I am not sure that the 5 uncensored videos we have watched so far have been very beneficial in my eyes. My reaction: "I don't want to do that anymore!" Brendan had to explain to me, again, that at this point it is just too late.

Here are the latest photos:

Final touches on the nursery after adding the "jungle animals."

Jake! My BIG Belly!

Final Frontier

Its been a while since the last update.... a lot of family things going on right now but we are slowly getting back into the groove. We have reached the final trimester! Time is really flying and this belly is really growing. Doctor updates look good and we seem to still be on track for January 19th. We still have some finishing touches to put on the nursery but here are a few pictures of our progress so far. Thanks to Angie and Jenni for helping me paint!

Future Swimmer????

This baby sure is growing! For all of those who love the belly shots, this ones for you. Its really getting out there:)
Our latest doctors visit came with great results. The prescreening for abnormalities came back negative (always a relief) and the review of the ultrasound went great. All the organs are present and functioning properly, they saw lots of brain activity, and they even gave us some measurements on the baby: head is in the 55%, body is in the 52%, legs in the 49%, and the arms in a 62%! The question now is whether we have a future olympic swimmer on our hands or just the passing down of mother's ape arms:)

Baby Herlihy is half way here!

We can't believe how fast time flew. The baby is now over 19 weeks. We just went in today for an ultrasound. Again...we are keeping the sex a surprise (even to us). We are happy to announce that our baby has 2 legs with 5 toes, 2 arms with 5 fingers and from what we can tell a gorgeous face. The pictures are blurry but here they are......

Wisconsin Humidity

Wisconsin was nice but sticky! I don't miss the humidity and I'm sure Brendan didn't mind coming back to the Cali weather either. My family threw me a really nice baby shower where I got some amazing gifts. I couldn't believe the time and effort that went into some of them. You should see the custom onesies that Mary (my brother in laws sister made). They are unbelievable. (Some of the sayings were: "future raider fan-I'm too young to know any better", "Dutch treat", and "Herlihy's Hooligan"). It was really nice for Brendan and I to get to visit with the aunts and cousins at the shower and the uncles on our visits.

Thanks to everyone again for all the gifts! We really appreciate it.

Wisconsin

We are off to Wisconsin tomorrow for a family visit. This will be Brendan's 3rd time stepping in the state. We look forward to seeing everyone. You can see my little bump which makes me look like I packed on the pounds, not pregnant with baby.

Big News in California

Brendan and I would like to announce that an addition to the Herlihy family is on the way! We are expecting little Herlihy to join us around January 19th, making me about 12 weeks along. We just had an ultrasound and saw that the little one has two arms and two legs so things are progressing nicely. We have decided not to find out the sex of the baby and keep it a surprise so we’ll let you know upon arrival. We are very excited (and honestly a little frightened). This will make 11 VanDerLoop's but the very first little Herlihy in the states.

The family dog

Jake...what can we say about our spoiled little guy. Here's his latest at the beach. He loved the freedom but hated the big waves!