The rain cleared Sunday for our second shower of the weekend! Heff helped me get the house and backyard in order to host a wedding shower at our house Sunday afternoon. It was a "Tea" and guests were instructed to wear flowery dresses and big hats... everyone looked so cute dressed for High Tea!
Saturday Brian and I went up to Davis for a baby shower for his cousin Margaret who is expecting a little boy in a few weeks! It is always fun to get together with the whole Heffernan crowd and we had a great afternoon showering Margaret in cute baby stuff :) We were originally supposed to have the shower in Red Bluff at Claire's but Margaret is on doctor's orders to stay close to home so we moved it to Mark and Sarah's house in Davis. Brian and the boys headed out to "picnic day" on campus, Brian is a UC Davis grad so he was excited for it... the pouring down rain put a little damper on picnic day however!
Here is a picture of the pregnant girls, Mary and Margaret... a little difference in the belly size at 18 weeks and 37 weeks!
We had an appointment Monday morning with Lisa Pineda at Palo Alto Medical, the nurse practicioner we see on alternate appointments with our doctor. Lisa is great and she's 6 month pregnant with her second baby so she knows the ropes. We heard the baby's heartbeat loud and clear on the doppler thing... it makes it so real! Last appointment I had gained 3 pounds and this appointment I hadn't gained any weight but I sure feel like I have! The belly is making an appearance :) The NP said I'll probably start packing on the pounds next month. It was a pretty quick appointment and the best part (besides knowing everything is ok w the baby of course :) was lunch with Heff at Scott's afterwards!
We have the big 20 week ultrasound two weeks from today... We are not going to find out if it's a boy or a girl but should be exciting to see how big the baby has grown!
We spent easter at my Aunt Kathy and Uncle Rich's house in Aptos and had a great afternoon and evening. I was at a bachelorette party in LA all weekend so Heff, Janet, John and my brother Jerry picked me up at the airport on our way down to the beach... in Heff's new truck! He picked up a new Ford F250 in Corning on Saturday and it is beautiful. The best part is that it isn't covered in dog hair like his old one!
Here are some pictures of the cousins and family at Easter...
My birthday was last Thursday, I turned 29 and hit 17 weeks pregnant! Brian took my to my favorite spot for lunch, Lovejoy's Tea Room in San Francisco. I go there often with my mom and some friends, but it was his first time for tea and he was worried he wouldn't get enough to eat :) We had a great time together and on the way home stopped at Lullaby Lane to register for fun baby stuff.
We had a birthday dinner at my parents house that night with our siblings... the usual "Johnets" dinner with pizza fired up in the pizza oven, angelfood cake, lots of funny birthday cards from my dad and of course some illegal fireworks to cap off the night. :)
Heff has his new office all set up and is busy working away. His office is on El Camino two blocks from my office and we get to have lunch together most days! Luckily there is also a Staples right next to his building so we have him all set up with new computers, a printer, fax machine, scanner/pdf machine, and all the other fun toys. I think his favorite is the label maker :) We spent the day together Sunday setting up his filing system and Quickbooks so now he can start billing those hours! We are so happy to have so much more time together and although it is hard to adjust to, I think Heff is loving being his own boss out on his own.
Here is a picture of the office...
Our good friends Kim and Ryan Carter are expecting triplets (three BOYS!) and getting closer and closer to their arrival date! Kim is at 29 weeks and doing a great job, she's been homebound on the couch since January so my mom and I get over to visit as often as we can to bring lunch and visit. We're so excited for them!
A few weeks ago my mom and I hosted a baby shower for Kim... here is a picture I finally downloaded of the Carter girls (Georgia, Beth and Jill) who we grew up next door to and Kim's mom and grandma. We had fun and the "triple" gifts she got were adorable! Their blog is www.cartertriplets.blogspot.com :)
We just got back from our trip and had so much fun with "The Johnets" in Oahu. We spent most of the time out by the pool and on the beach reading books, playing Scrabble and of course ordering fruity drinks (mine just lacked the main ingredient!) Heff managed to get some work done with his laptop and an internet connection some mornings too. I was so excited he was so easily "talked into" the last minute trip... but he told a friend that I've been a "trooper" through the first trimester and the only thing I complained about was being so pale, a problem he said this could fix. :) (I think he conveniently forgot about all the other complaining I do!) We had a great time and hope to make it an annual trip... if all goes well just with Baby Heff next year!
Here are some pictures from the trip...
Jan and Mare Enjoying "High Tea" on the veranda
Mare and Heff after dinner
Mare and Jan
The Johnets
We had another doctor's appointment on Monday morning with Dr. Nicole Hong who will hopefully deliver Baby Heff! She is great and was very excited for us. We heard the heartbeat on the doppler at 150 beats per minute... it was so much fun to hear! We made our next three appointments for every 4th Monday and our 20 week Ultrasound at the end of April.
Heff and I have a busy schedule for the next few months! Hopefully all of our activities will help the time pass until we get to meet the baby :) We have 6 weddings between now and then, a few vacations (yeah!) and lots of family events. This Friday we're actually off to Hawaii for 6 days... my parents were going and we decided there wasn't much holding us back as Heff can work remotely with his new practice and work is pretty much under control for me. Time to stock up on poolside reading and find a bathing suit that fits!
We had a great weekend in Red Bluff enjoying the beautiful weather and spending time with friends & family. I am feeling good and almost begining to "show" getting a little belly, I'm loving maternity pants already! :) Saturday we went fishing with Brendon Flynn and Madeline, Spencer and Eva at Eagle Canyon Trout Farm... we were there almost all day and watched the guys catch lots of giant fish! Here are a few pictures from the day:
Flynn Kids watch Heff pull in a rainbow 
Sisters
Watching Dad
Okay it was 3 weeks ago... but I just found a cute picture from Kat's camera of Heff's surprise party!
Heff and I were glad to have a quiet weekend to relax and do a whole lot of nothing. We took my dad out to dinner Friday night since my mom was in Nashville for the week visiting baby Ann and antique shoppng with her friends. Saturday we walked to breakfast and did some errands downtown (opened a Bank account for The Law Offices of Brian T Heffernan!) and enjoyed the nice sunny weather that is finally here! Sunday when "Jan" got home we walked over to my parents house for lunch and managed to find my old crib in the loft above the garage... my siblings all used it as well as my cousins Claire, Connor and Drew. It's a white "Jenny Lind" crib my parents got at Lullaby Lane when they were pregnant with me and we're going to use it in our nursery too! (Although Janet kind of wants it for her nursery, aka my sisters old room turned dad's office he's getting booted out of for Baby Heff... sorry Dad) It needs a little clean up and Heff if going to fix some of the hardware and make sure the slats and everything are "up to code" (we all survived it!) but we're excited to use it in our house.
Our neighbor, Philip, captured the moment on his camera phone :) Thanks Philip!
Today was my husband's first day out on his own... or unemployed... however you want to look at it. :) Just kidding, he is rearing to go and feels so good about his big decision. He slept in until 8am (big for Heff and I'm sure won't happen often) hung out at home with me before he packed up the car with the law books that have been arriving on our doorstep all week (they sell these books by the measurement of feet they take up on a shelf) We went to Staples to outfit his new office, always a fun kind of trip for me, picking out printers and lots of new office supplies. Then my favorite part of the day... LUNCH together! Not a completley rare occurance in the past, but never with a relaxed, no rush to get back to the office husband. And we walked from his office to my office and to lunch! I am feeling very lucky to be looking forward to so much more time with Heff :)
We also had a visit from cousin Emmy today from Aptos with her three adorable babysitting charges (all under the age of 4) whom she brought from Aptos via the bus, the train and some walking... pretty impressive feat for a twenty year old and three little kids! We had fun at the "Brilliant Babies Photo Shoot" we hosted at the office in the afternoon (pictures to follow) and after they headed home Heff and I had dinner with our friends Larry and Lucy and another couple they knew who actually live on the other side of our fenceline! Always fun to meet new neighbors and we had a delicious dinner at Larry and Lucy's house.
Tomorrow... Heff gets to work now that his office is, as he says "dialed in"!
Sorry we haven't updated anything in awhile (except this new blog layout! The old one reminded me of smelly Sage, our dog, and I had to change it... don't ask, pregnancy makes you act crazy.)
We've had lots of changes in the Heff household! Brian made the decision to leave his law firm, DLA Piper, a few weeks ago and today was his last day. He is going to start his own practice doing real estate law and I am so excited for him in his new venture.
We just had his "goodbye" party at The Dutch Goose tonight and all of his co-workers were so nice to give us our first real baby gifts! We got a very fancy Jeep jogging stroller that you can plug your iPod into and listen to music on the speakers! Rachel says it will help Heff lose his "couvades" weight (when he gets the same symptoms of pregnancy as I do). We put it together tonight and pushed it all over the house practicing, it's so much fun!
So Heff starts "The Law Office of Brian T. Heffernan" tomorrow morning... of course he's not taking a minute off :) except that he can't get the keys to his new office until 10:00am tomorrow which he was all stressed about, but I reminded him it means he gets to go out to breakfast with his wife! Oh, and his new office is two blocks from Academic Trainers in downtown Menlo Park so he also gets to look forward to daily lunches with his wife and hopefully some day with Baby Heff in the jogging stroller too!!
Brian's paternal grandmother, Bernice Borchard Heffernan, passed away last Friday night at her home in Southern California. She was a very neat lady and I was lucky enough to meet her twice, to celebrate her 90th and her 91st birthdays. Bernice raised four Heffernan boys Tom, Bob, John and Pat who have all raised great kids and are all still close... we get to see everyone often and always have fun with the family!
We went to southern California this weekend for her services and loved celebrating her life with all the Heffernan's. The rosary was held at a retreat center on the grounds of the home Tom grew up in that was donated to the Catholic Church, it was so neat to see the old house their grandparents lived in and learn so much about the Borchard family history. They were great farmers and contributed so much to those around them.
Here is a picture of the Heffernan granddaughters, Allison, Katherine, Katie, Maureen (and Ellie), Colleen and Jessica; with their "Grandma H" purses she famously carried always on her lap...
So the news is out... we're pregnant! We made the announcement tonight at Scott's restaurant in Palo Alto to Claire and Tom, Jan and John, Katherine, Mark and Sarah, Sarah's brother Jacob, and of course the eldest Heffernan granddaughter Ellie as a special guest! We waited until after dinner when Heff was opening his birthday presents (his real bday is tomorrow, Valentines Day). Everyone was SOO excited and we passed around the ultrasound pictures for proof :) Janet and John are already trying to decide what their grandparent names are going to be and Claire called the rest of the Heff siblings from dinner to share the news. We're just at 2 months or 9 weeks so still a little early to break the news but we weren't going to have both of our parents in the same place at the same time for awhile.. and once the news is out in this family it's out!
Heff's Surprise Birthday Party...
Janet, Tom, Heff & Mare, John and Claire... proud grandparents-to-be of Baby Heff! At the restaurant right after we told them the news.
Heff took the morning off work Friday for our first doctor's appointment. We went to Palo Alto Medical Foundation at 9:15 and met with Lisa Pineda who took our family history and gave us lots of pamphlets, books and reading material to prepare for the baby. She went over everything I could and couldn't eat and was luckily very relaxed and lienent about it all... no soft cheeses that aren't pastuerized, no sushi or raw meat, careful about fish with mercury, etc.
Then she did an ultarsound and we were so happy and relieved to see a strong heart beat and a few great shots of the baby! It's only about the size of a grape, but she said we are right on track for where we thought we were. She also told us our due date is probably September 23 which is also Heff's god-daughter Madeline's birthday!
Here are the ultrasound images....
So Heff and I were in Newport this weekend for a big Heffernan family gathering celebrating Bernice's 91st birthday... while we were gone Janet was graciously taking care of our awful beasts for a few days. We came home Sunday to a clean house as our housecleaners (who usually show up unexpectedly on random days) had been to tidy up and they found my pregnancy book "What To Expect When You're Expecting" somewhere under the couch and left it right on top of the Scrabble dictonary in the living room, with a bookmark in it nonetheless! It was one of the books Heff and I picked up on a walk downtown Palo Alto a few weeks ago, anxious for some what do we do now reading... Heff got "The Expectant Father" :)
Needless to say I thought our cover was blown Sunday as Janet had to have seen the book! BUT... I think I pulled off a huge cover-up by announcing at Sunday night dinner with the fam that I was planning to visit Kim Carter again this week (who is homebound 20 weeks pregnant with triplets!) to deliver a "What To Expect" book a girl from work had given me to pass on to her since it "had a good section on triplets." Phew... the only problem was I that I was so nervous about pulling off the successful fib I took a swig of the red wine glass in front of my plate after I finished talking!! I guess one sip can't hurt that much and Heff slyly finished the rest for me :)
It's so hard to keep it a secret but we were saying our prayers and taking good care of me to make sure this baby isn't going anywhere. The hardest part in keeping the secret is the dead giveaway in not drinking... I always thought I'd have a hard time not drinking when I got pregnant, but I don't have any desire for wine or beer since I found out I was pregnant. Brian offered not to drink either but that's no fun! He might as well take advantage of having a DD while he can. He is very sweet to offer though and he has been "taking one for the team" secretly sipping my wine, switching our beer bottles and ordering vodka tonics, hold the vodka.
The three hardest people to pass the "not drinking in front of" test... Kat, Kristie Flynn and my mom.
1) The day after I found out I was pregnant I went over to Katherine's house to hang out while she babysat her friends two adorable kids... which of course includes wine! She poured me a tall glass I couldn't say no to and had to pour it in the sink a little at a time (sorry Kat, hate to waste good wine!) but as far as I know, she couldn't tell.
2) We were out with the Flynn's in Red Bluff last week and went to dinner at the Green Barn in town. Heff and I arrived early and ordered a sparkling water with lime that looked like a vodka tonic. Of course the guy used a tall water glass and when Kristie and Brendon arrived she told the waitress "I want what she's having!" I looked at the waitress and said "tall vodka tonic" with a wink... they brought her a different, smaller glass, but I don't think it raised too many eyebrows. Heff helped drink the red wine they poured which of course meant I was driving back to Claire and Tom's!
3) Sunday night dinner at Su Hong with Jan and John after church this weekend. We sat at the bar to watch the end of the football game and luckily Jan wanted a Sapporro so we "split" one. I told her it tasted better from the bottle so she didn't notice she drank the whole thing :) Then of course John orders a bottle of chardonnay (which my husband says is wine for cooking, not drinking) and the waiter poured 4 HUGE glasses. Heff had to drink both mine and his... I was giving him "I'm sorry!" looks all night and he was lauhing (sort of) after we dropped my parents off that he was plotting how to explain a DUI with his inlaws should he have been pulled over that night!
Jan and John's Anniversary Party
The other night I came home tired from work so Heff went to the store and got me "fake beer" or non-alcoholic Beck's. It actually tastes pretty good! Heff refreshed my fake beer in our camo wedding coozies during my parents 30th anniversary party too. :)
It's tough to pull this part off! Does everyone have this problem or am I just a well known lush??
Life with our Four Marys! Raising Free Range Kids in Northern CA.
