August is the cruelest month

As a child, August always seemed like the cruelest month. It was a month of transition when summer wasn't quite over but everything seemed to be centered around back to school. Endless July days of beaching, reading, and camping gave way to back to school shopping and list making. Yes, I was a list maker even then.

This August is another month of anticipation. With only six and a half weeks to go -- assuming a 40 week pregnancy -- most of our time outside of work has been spent getting our ducks in a row for this baby. Aidan's room is 99% done and it's awesome. Way cooler than any room he has ever had thanks to the blood, sweat, and tears of this guy here:

He took our disgusting, uninsulated downstairs bedroom and turned it from this:

Not a true "before" shot since he was well into his work here. Picture something worse. 

Into this...

Aidan's ten-year-old room: new windows, new carpet, new canned lighting, new everything.

Triforce decal, easel, desk. Pen cup still needs to be mounted to the wall. 

Minecraft Steve decal, bookshelf, Lego boxes

Laundry basket

Aidan now has the coolest room in the house. Big thanks to Grandma Diane who bought all the furniture and wall decals for Aidan's 10th birthday, Papa Bruce who put in considerable time on construction, and Christine and Lenore for helping me paint. It takes a village, people.

Next steps: Paint Ziggy's room and transfer the growing pile of baby stuff in the living room into her room across the hall from us.

Baby staging area

See what I mean about transition? Let's not forget there is a third project going to convert the 4th bedroom into the au pair's new room.

Speaking of, I picked an au pair! And I think I love her already! Her name is Tiina and she's from Finland. I wonder sometimes if my Finnish Baby Box discovery back in week 9 influenced my decision. Regardless, we had our second round of FaceTime interviews this week with our final two candidates and Tiina came out on top. Telling Chloe that we didn't select her was heartbreaking because she seemed so invested in our family already. It was horrible. But welcoming Tiina to join our family next year was awesome. Blogosphere, meet Tiina. She is 21 years old, a dancer, and is from just outside of Helsinki, Finland.

She also has a ten-year-old brother that looks a bit like Aidan from the side. 

Tiina will move in with us next January and live with us for a year. If you meet her, please try to make her feel welcome in the U.S. As an added bonus, I FINALLY get to meet someone with a sign at the Salt Lake City airport with all the returned missionary families. I may have mentioned on the blog that the throng of people waiting for RMs at the SLC airport is one of my favorite places, but I've never had occasion to wait in anticipation with them. You can bet come next January, I am going to have the biggest, sparkliest sign for Tiina while I wait outside the gate.

Other quick updates: Robert took Aidan camping a couple of weeks ago with some of the dads and boys in our neighborhood while I attended a dinner party at Kinza's and a baby shower for Chelsie.

I made the boys tinfoil dinners to take with them. Pictured: steak and veggies

Campfire potatoes

New Cummings family tent purchased at an extraordinary end of summer discount

Boys around the campfire

So lucky and they don't even know it

Morning campsite

Spence's famous pancakes

Fishing at Mirror Lake

Meanwhile back at home...

Kinza threw a lovely backyard dinner party and, as always, was the picture of grace and beauty

Beautiful table

Enviable place settings with intricate napkin folds and seating arrangements

Outdoor chandelier

Gorgeously lit at night

And the next day...

Baby shower with Christine and Heather (and photobomber)

My awesome sister-in-law

With the guest of honor! 

I was in charge of baby shower decorations. Here they are pre-hung.

In case you can't tell from the above pictures, I am running out of maternity clothes that a) I like and b) that fit me. My belly is growing rapidly but with less than two months to go, it's hard to justify buying a new dress. I do have three of my own baby showers (one in LA, one in Salt Lake, and one work shower) so I may have to do one more splurge.

32 week belly shot

Did I say that August was the cruelest month? Because it actually looked pretty good on reflection. Camping, new au pair, expanding belly, amazing parties, and house project progress. Next week school and fall soccer starts. Fingers crossed for an easy last six weeks of pregnancy!