TheColemanFamily.com

It lives...

2008-04-06T10:40:00.001-04:00

Okay got this puppy resurrected once again... more frequent updates coming. I promise :)

First time on skates...

2007-01-21T17:01:00.000-05:00

We took Oliver out for his first ice skate (and ours in quite a while) this morning. He had a great time and two tired, sore parents practically had to coax him off the ice.

Burlington recently put in a great new rink right on the Lakeshore downtown. It's a great facility with a snack bar and a nice warm place to sit and get gear on and off.

Looking forward to more skates in the future!

Photos:

The Wiggles: Live! (Oh Yay!)

2006-11-07T09:20:00.000-05:00

When Mum called a few months ago to ask if Oliver wanted to go see the Wiggles live in concert Erin's first reaction was "Are you sure? Have you seen that show?" (She hadn't).

Still we thought Oliver would enjoy it so we said "Sure", and then poured ourselves a nice stiff drink. We tried watching "The Wiggles" once last year, when our friend Lori was visiting from Australia and loaned us one of her son Patrick's discs. We got about five minutes in and couldn't really take the grown men bouncing around like idiots - which meant, of course, that Oliver loved it. We desperately wanted to turn it off but didn't want to upset him - and then the power went out! (Thank god for flaky power @ the cottage)

With that experience in mind we braced ourselves for what was sure to be a long, long Saturday morning.

After dawdling around the outside of the Skydome (I refuse to call it by it's new name) as Oliver checked out every intricate detail of the doors, sidewalk and anything else he encountered we finally got inside - at which point Nana promptly marched him over to the souvenir stand and pretty much told the girl "one of each please" (did I mention Granddad was out of town?).

Once the show got started it actually turned out to be pretty enjoyable for the parents too. I don't know if it was just that show or if the guys were always like that but even they seemed to be having trouble with the silliness of it all - on more than a few occasions they cracked each other up to the point where it took them some time to recompose themselves. I also got the distinct impression there were times where they were just outright messing with each other.

Oliver, although feeling a bit under the weather, loved it and once he got used to the 6,000 other screaming children he started to really get into it - doing the actions and everything.

Overall he had a great time but when we got home that evening he passed out at five o'clock and ended up going to bed without supper and getting a good 13 hours sleep.

Photos:

Halloween 2006

2006-11-07T09:14:00.000-05:00

This year we figured Oliver would be good for a few houses up and down the block - we had no idea he'd muster the energy to cover over 30!

Erin picked up a great costume for him (as you'll see below) - it was a dragon costume but rather than covering him entirely he stepped into it so his legs were the dragon's legs - but then the head came out by his stomach and the wings and tail came out the side and back. It was nice because a)he could see and enjoy the costumes and b) it was a cool night so we could put a jacket on without covering the costume up.

With help from his babysitter Debbie, who taught all the kids the motions of Halloween, he did a great job saying "Trick or Treat" at each house and following up with a "Thank you" after he got his candy. He had a great time and even this morning he came wandering into the bedroom with his bag as we were getting ready for work making yet another attempt at Trick or Treating. Heck he even said thank you after Erin stuck a (fresh) Kleenex in his bag. :)

A Visit to the Pumpkin Patch...

2006-11-07T09:08:00.000-05:00

To get ready for Halloween we took Oliver to the Pumpkin patch at Springridge farms in Milton. It was a pretty cool day (complete with hail) and it was mucky from the previous day's rain but we still had a great time.

Oliver loved tearing through the maze they had setup and just trundled off into it on his own without waiting for us. He also got to go for a pony ride (something he's still not completely sure about even though he's been before) and see the other animals. Overall I think I liked Chudleigh's farm better last year but it was still a good day.

After playing Oliver picked out his own little pumpkin (which has been carted around the house like an abstract teddy bear) and we got a bigger one to carve that night (see the coming Halloween post).

Photos from the day:

Oliver turns 2!

2006-10-24T09:52:00.000-04:00

Oliver turned 2 over the weekend and he somehow managed to score himself not one, but two parties. Saturday we had family and friends over and then on Sunday he had a group party with his friends Mason, Clara, Cole & Alex - who all have birthdays within a month of each other.

He had a great time at both parties and made out like a bandit (he even got to the point where opening presents just wasn't interesting anymore - rough life!)

Anyways, here's some photos from the parties:

Update from England

2006-09-30T05:19:00.000-04:00

We're having a great time so far!

Flight on Zoom was great - we left early and arrived 45 minutes early! Thankfully Aunt Diane had checked ahead to see our schedule so she was waiting at the airport for us when we arrived. After stopping by her house to unpack and freshen up Diane took us to Arundel to see Arundel Castle , and wander the town for a bit. Got some great photos that I'll put on Flickr when we get back.

After, we went for supper at a pub close by with her cousin Richard and his wife Shirley. We had a few good laughs, drinks and a good meal to boot. Erin had to nudge me a few times on the way home to keep me awake and we finally surrendered to our exhaustion by 8:00 pm… 12 short hours later, Aunt Diane, gave a knock on the door to get us up to start the next day.

We spent a great day in London yesterday. We bought a couple of tickets on the hop-on/hop-off tour buses and managed to pack in a pretty good sampler tour of London . We actually ended up getting on and off several times as we made our way around the city. We stopped at Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square , & Harrods, wandered around China town & Soho then ultimately ended up at the South Bank for a stroll. We had dinner overlooking St. Paul 's Cathedral as the sun set on the water and then hit a few pubs as we made our way back to Victoria Station to take the train back to Diane's.

Today, Alex and Marcus are joining Aunt Diane and us for a trip to Portsmouth… and tomorrow we're spending the morning with Ros and Robin. Hope the weather holds – so far we've had good luck!

Off to London...

2006-09-27T22:20:00.000-04:00

Erin & I are off for a quick long weekend in London. Oliver is getting a weekend off of his own with Grammy & Grandpa.

We're both looking forward to seeing some of the Coleman's on the other side of "the pond" and enjoying a whirlwind tour of London.

Cottaging 2006: The (almost) end of another season

2006-09-12T16:32:00.000-04:00

Labour day has passed and with it comes the (almost) end of another great season of cottaging. I say almost as there's still a couple of weekends left to go up for close up etc (and maybe a weekend of winter cottaging) but after labour day it's a very different (and equally as fun) experience up north.

Erin, Oliver and I didn't get up as much as we would have liked to this year (of course anything less then moving up Victoria Day and coming back at Thanksgiving would qualify as "not getting up often enough") but while we were up there it was a ton of fun. We were worried at first that this year would be nothing but chaos as we chased a now-mobile Oliver around the property but it turned out to actually be a little easier this year rather than last.

One great help was the new deck across the front of the cottage - we had it for the end of last season but Oliver didn't start walking until Labour Day weeked '05. This year he had a good 50 feet of "fenced in" deck to run free on, so Erin and I could sit out there with him and but not have to be always on top of him.

As the previous post indicates it was also a bit of an exciting year as well. Right before the August long weekend our chain of lakes was hit by a pair of tornados (F0 & an F1). Thankfully no one was injured, power was down for only a few days and the community rallied together to get everything cleaned up.

An extra little bit of excitement came as Jim finished the pine ceilings in all of the bedrooms! Needless to say everyone is glad to have the pink insulation and plastic sheets covered up. The ceilings look great and Erin and I both look forward to waking up to them each morning.

The slideshow below is of all the photos from the 2006 season:

All the photos can also be seen here.

Tornado!

2006-08-08T16:11:00.000-04:00

We got a call last week from some neighbours up at the lake - it turns out our cottage was in the path of one of the tornados that struck the area around Beaver lake Road. Fortunately the cottage itself avoided any damage but we lost a bunch of trees and had some decking damaged.

Photos:

All the photos can also be seen here.

2006 Easter Video: "Egg Hunt 2"

2006-04-18T16:02:00.000-04:00

Well, at the risk of starting a new tradition:

Oliver in "Real Canadian Superstore" baby aisles!

2006-04-16T15:55:00.000-04:00

Oliver did this photoshoot late last summer... we were starting to wonder if they were ever even going to use the photos. Erin stopped in at the store the other day and surprise, surprise:

More pictures can be found here

New Years Family Cruise Pictures

2006-01-10T16:07:00.000-05:00

Here's a slideshow of our photos from our 2005/06 New Years Family Cruise:

All of the photos in full rez can be found here.

Oliver's First Easter

2005-03-28T17:55:00.001-05:00

A short video from Oliver's first Easter:

Oliver's big debut!

2005-03-22T12:47:00.000-05:00

So a few months ago Erin and I took Oliver down to a Child Talent Agency called Kamera Kids - we figured it'd be a fun experience for Erin and Oliver during Erin's year off, as well as a good way to help top up the RESP fund.

Over the past couple months Oliver's been to a handful of "look-sees" (the photography equivalent of an audition) and had two "photoshoots" for Sears. The photo for his first "gig" was in the big Sears flyer this week - it would have been delivered with your local news paper on Saturday or Sunday. His photo is in the bottom right hand corner of Page 16 - he would have been about 14 weeks at the time this picture was taken.

A few weeks later he did another photoshoot for Sears and that picture should be in one of their Fall catalogues.

As for other news, things have just been crazy busy around here. Oliver is picking up new things left & right. Last week he said "Da Da" to me, then he turned to Erin and said "Da Da", and to the cat, and his toy, and - well you get the idea. I knew I was supposed to cherish the moments because they wouldn't last long, but I thought I'd get more than 10 seconds! (He's since added "Ma", "Ba" and "Wa" to his repitoire)

Erin's doing well, she's made friends with a handful of mums from the various Mom & Baby fitness classes she's been doing. Ironically I think her social life has gotten even busier since having Oliver!

For my part work has been going crazy as of late. A few big pieces of the puzzle serendipitously came into place over the past six months or so and it looks like the business is finally finding it's place in the marketspace. We just launched the site for a new spin-off company at www.clay-tablet.com - It's looking more and more like the usual summer slowdown just isn't going to happen this year!

For now we're just counting down the weeks until we can start getting up to the cottage again. From a construction point of view, the addition that Erin's parents started last year is pretty much finished - Jim and I have a summer of work ahead of us to finish the interior and put a deck on it though. Now if we could only get the snow to melt so we can get back in the roads again :)

I'll try and get some updated pictures of Oliver in the gallery this week. I'll make a new Gallery so you'll see it in the top right corner.

Hope everyone else is well - I'll try not to go so long between the updates again!

Ryan

Going Up & Down

2005-01-27T10:11:00.000-05:00

I'm making some hardware software changes to the server that thecolemanfamily.com is hosted on over the next couple of days. There may be some periodic down times but most should only be a few minutes (reboot). There will be at least a couple longer duration down times as I'm also physically moving the box to another room.

See you on the other side!

Ryan

Oliver's present for us this year

2004-12-26T15:35:00.000-05:00

Hope everyone had a great Christmas - we had a great time, made all the more special by having Oliver this year.

Erin's family came over for Christmas morning, it was a treat to be able to celebrate Christmas in our own house this year - Oliver must have known something was up because he was actually bright and alert as soon as we got him up (morning is usually the time he just sleeps away - the kid is usually a night owl).

After a brunch with Erin's parents we headed over to my Mum & Dad's for the Coleman family Christmas - far from a subdued affair with 20+ people round the tables. In both places Oliver was spoiled by both families - thankfully babies don't remember this age or it would take us years to change his expectations of Christmas! ;)

We had a great time with both families but it was also nice just to spend some time alone as a family once we got home last night. That's when Oliver decided to give us his gift.

He's been looking like he was on the verge of giggling or laughing for a week or so now, and even gave Grampa Jim a sneak preview earlier in the day (a dress rehearsal you could say) - but we didn't expect him to let loose quite like that just yet. That clip is the tail end of his little giggle session - we were to busy staring at him in shock and laughing to grab the camcorder right away.

It truly was a special end to a very special day.

Ryan

Twas the night before Christmas...

2004-12-24T11:15:00.000-05:00

Well - Time sure flies doesn't it. Between Oliver's arrival, Christmas and increasing amounts of work the past couple of months have just been a blur. I finally managed to wrap up the last of our Christmas shopping yesterday - the snow storm provided excellent cover to keep the crowds at bay in the different shops. Two days before Christmas and Wal Mart was a ghost town!

We managed to keep up with most of the Christmas stuff this year - we got our first real christmas tree this year. Erin loves it, my skin doesn't. The putting up of the Christmas tree resulted in a pretty interesting reaction all up my arms - needless to say it'll be long sleeves next year (if I can't talk Erin back into our nice "looks real" tree). Erin did her usual fantastic job of decorating the house, giving us a great festive feel.

The only thing we didn't get around to was Christmas cards - they just didn't make the schedule this year. So if you didn't get one, you haven't been taken off the list or anything - no one got 'em. We'll be sure to send extra nice ones next year.

Oliver is doing great, every week brings something new for us (and him). Every week his "stories" get a little longer and a few new sounds are thrown in. We're in the licking and tastng phase it seems too, everything seems to take a pass by his mouth if he gets it close enough. So far he's been a really happy, mellow baby (knock on wood) - he doesn't really seem to have a fussy time, if he's acting up there's usually a reason. And, after 9 weeks, we're finally starting to be able to pick out which cry is which.

He still sleeps a lot of the day, but when he's up he's alert and playful. He'll happily sit and yabber on about something and as long as some one is paying attention to him, he's happy and smiling. Having him for Christmas will be really special - although I suspect next year will be the really fun christmas when he can open his presents himself. Erin was wrapping his presents the other day and commented "It seems kind of silly when you realise that we're wrapping these so we can open them".

The little guy is over 11lbs now and has even gained over 2" in length - he's just starting to grow out of a bunch of sleepers and such. But thankfully that means he's also growing into a bunch of outfits that Erin has just been dying to put him in.

Well - I should run, we're off the to now traditional Christmas Eve @ the Cooneys. We're doing our Christmas morning here at home this year, which we're both really excited about.

Hope everyone has a great Holidays!

Ryan (& Erin & Oliver)

Oliver James Robert Coleman

2004-10-24T01:30:00.000-04:00

Erin and I are both pleased to introduce everyone to Oliver James Robert Coleman. He was born at 11:41am on Friday, October 22nd and weighed in at 6lbs 10.5oz. He was about 53cm long and seems to have inherited his mother's red hair and her dimpled chin.

Erin's labour went pretty well - her labour started around 5am (we were scheduled for an induction at 7:30am - it's gotta be my kid because he waited until the last possible moment to start trying to come into the world on his own). Erin advanced through the stages pretty quick and was doing well, but Oliver seemed to be a little stressed during contractions. His heart rate would drop quite severely and occasionally take a little longer to recover than the midwives & doctor would have liked. Eventually his heart rate was down no matter what position we got Erin into and the doctor got very interested in getting him out as fast as possible.

Erin started pushing around 11:30am, and with the help of some forceps, Oliver was dragged kicking and screaming into the world at 11:41am. Up until that point I was pretty sure Erin was in the running for "Wombs Weekly's" Most Hospitable Environment award, as Oliver seemed to have no interest in coming out. I'm pretty sure her checkout policy of having guests dragged out by their heads will lose her a few points and probably cost her the win. It turns out the distress was caused by the cord wrapped around his neck, not once but three times! He must have been having a great time in there until labour started.

Oliver expressed his displeasure at his rather rough entrance to the world immediately by not just peeing on the nurses but going the extra step to save a little extra so he could get them a second time once they'd cleaned up the first round. His APGARs were good, he was assessed to be a 7 at 1 minute but bounced up to a 9 at 5 minutes.

He's been feeding well and has been pretty even tempered so far, but I'm sure that little honeymoon will end soon.

The labour was easily one of the more terrifying experiences of my life but our midwives were a great support team throughout. Through a mix of bad timing and Oliver's decision to hang out a couple extra weeks neither of our midwives who'd we'd seen for the bulk of the pregnancy were going to be available. Rebecca, our primary had been up to 2am, delivering her fourth baby in three days and our backup midwife was on a scheduled off-call week. Fortunately Rebecca had introduced us to our new backup midwife on Thursday so the person showing up at our door wasn't a complete stranger. We totaled it up and between the Toronto and Burlington clinics we've had no fewer than 9 midwives involved in this pregnancy, we're pretty sure that's a record of some kind.

Of course the birth plan (hereafter referred to the "Why did we even bother making this?" document) went out the window about an hour after Erin went into labour - But then again the likelyhood of someone writing out what went down yesterday morning as their birth plan is highly unlikely. Erin was a real trooper throughout and stayed calm and as relaxed as possible. It was kind of cute watching her try to stick to her goal of going natural the whole time while simultaneously trying to latch on to any medical reason that would necessitate an Epidural. In the end the doctor wanted one just so it was there in case anything really serious started to happen - had he not insisted I'm positive Erin would have gone it on her own.

The aftermath was pure joy as we watched our new son getting cleaned up and examined by the mob of people that had gathered. We were in just about the smallest birthing room they probably could have made - on top of our two midwives we had two doctors, a few nurses, and the anesthetist in the room - I'm pretty sure Oliver put us over the fire limit when he was born. On top of the chaos of all the people it had been a crazy night in the Maternity Ward (5 babies born that day by the time we had Oliver) so nothing was ready - they were out of all their kits and such so everyone was scrambling to get the right pieces in the right places before Oliver made his hasty appearance.

All in all though I think we got off pretty lucky, the real active labour was only a little over 6 hours long and Erin actually got less cranky as labour progressed so I pretty much avoided physical injury & insults throughout.

Well - should probably wrap this up and try and grab some shut eye - it feels like we got home 5 minutes ago (in "couple time" that's about 5 hours - baby seems to accelerate the advancement of time substantially).

I'm sure we'll talk to many of you soon - thanks again for all the support and best wishes,

Ryan (and Erin!)

Edit: Pics are up in the gallery now...

The calm before the storm...

2004-10-21T23:59:00.000-04:00

Well, one way or another we're having a baby tomorrow. It's been an up and down couple of days. We've basically spent the week trying all the different tips and tricks that anyone has had to offer to try and get labour going. We mixed up a couple of Castor Oil shakes for Erin yesterday morning. I felt a little like Joe Rogan from Fear Factor as I cheered Erin through each of the two "doses". Erin certainly put on a fear factor worthy performance but managed to eventually choke the Strawberry-Banana surprise back. What was described to us as something that would be a horrendous experience actually turned out to have almost no impact at all - good that Erin didn't have to go through any of what was described to us but not so good as it didn't seem to move the labour forward at all either.

Then, late in the evening Erin started getting contractions, nothing regular or overly strong that would indicate true labour had started, but certainly more frequent and a little stronger than they had been up to that point. The contractions pretty much continued right through the night and into this morning. Things picked up a bit after our midwife appointment this morning and since about 1pm Erin's been getting pretty regular contractions spaced a few minutes apart. To try and help things along a bit we managed to get Erin in to see an acupuncturist - at this stage we'll pretty much give anything a go.

So at this point Erin is sleeping soundly next to me thanks to a little Gravol and a warm bath. She still seems to be getting the odd contraction but nothing that's waking her up.

We're due at the hospital for 7:30 tomorrow morning, where we'll meet up with our midwife. They'll start out by breaking Erin's water to see if that gets thing going - if after a few hours nothing has happened we'll move on to the Oxitocin to encourage regular contractions. Based on today's exam and the contractions that Erin's been having today our midwife is hopeful that breaking the water will do the trick - but anything is possible. Either way, baby is coming tomorrow.

It was kind of a funny feeling tonight as we realised this was the last night of just the two of us - The concept of having an appointment to have a baby is equally as strange but we've both agreed to just take everything in stride an only worry about the step after the one we're on. We'll worry about the Oxitocin if breaking the water doesn't seem to be working.

Obviously I'm not going to get a chance to post another update before baby arrives. I'll try and get a pic up in the moblog as soon after as I can but with the no cell phone rule at the hospital that might be easier said than done. Also - it appears the captions are getting cut off so I probably won't be able to get many details in... just a name probably.

Thanks everyone for your well wishes and messages over the past few days - we really appreciate all the support - even if it's just sending us some positive vibes.

Still waiting....

2004-10-19T16:13:00.000-04:00

Yup, "No, Not Yet" is still the most commonly uttered phrase by Erin and I. Baby seems to be comfortable and with the cooler weather moving in I can't say I blame it for opting to hang out in a nice, warm womb a little longer.

We've got our assorted homeopath and wive's tale stuff to try and coax the baby out naturally. If baby continues to hold out then we've been scheduled to have Erin induced on Friday. So whether it wants to or not, baby is coming soon.

Erin's spirits are still really good - fortunately all the hormones seem to be making her mood better, rather than the usual grumpiness that we've heard overdue women typically get. Needless to say I'm counting myself lucky at this point.

As usual we'll keep everyone posted. Since the midwives come here if Erin goes into labour on her own I may have a chance to get out a "We're going to the hospital" post - but I wouldn't count on it.

No, Not Yet

2004-10-13T08:33:00.000-04:00

Wow. If I don't have to use those three words again for a while after this it won't be long enough. Someone really needs to sell a pack of T-shirts for expectant parents. 3 shirts - one that says "No, Not Yet", and two that say "It's a Boy" or "It's a Girl" with a space to write the name and other pertinent details.

It's funny, you kind of forget just how many people know (with some, the only thing you know about them is that they know you're expecting). Erin laughs everytime I answer the phone lately because it seems the standard "Oh hey, how are doing?" response to someone starting a conversation has been replaced with "No, Not Yet".

It is great though to know that so many people are interested in the arrival of this little one though. We went to our midwife appointment yesterday and they said everything looks fine and normal. Babies can be up to two weeks late without any risk or concerns - so it's still just a waiting game.

If Erin does make it to next week without having the baby we've got our Ultrasound appointment scheduled on Monday to go in and make sure baby is still in good shape and all the different systems that support it are working right. As long as everything checks out as healthy they'll let us continue until the end of the week to see if baby comes out on their own. If nothing happens by the end of the week we'll have to go the induction route - but in the pregnancy timeline at this stage that's a long ways off and the last resort in a long list of things to try.

Erin's doing great and just rolling with whatever happens. Her energy and mood are both good. We're just both wishing baby would make an appearance sooner rather than later.

So in short. "No, Not Yet" :)

Blogs, Blogs & MoBlogs

2004-10-08T13:18:00.000-04:00

I've taken the webcam image off the home page of the site as I don't really have a great place to point it for the time being. Instead I've switched it with a Mobile Blog, or "Moblog" as they're more commonly known. The moblog is basically a website with all of the pics that I've taken on my cellphone cam and uploaded to the site - the most current picture will always display on the home page. Clicking on the image will take you to the online photoalbum and also let you see the larger version of the picture.

More than likely it'll quickly turn into the latest picture of baby - but I'll try to mix it up a bit. I guarantee you though it'll more than likely be the first place a pic of our little one shows up as I can send the pic & details right from the hospital.

The "After" Pics are up!

2004-10-06T15:49:00.000-04:00

Ok, ok, so the reveal was almost two weeks ago... Things got a little busy!

Anyways, the "after" pics are up in the galleries section now. We both love the room - the designer, Neil, got our style down just right and it fits in great with the rest of the house. Now we just need a baby for it!

Overall the process was pretty undisruptive. We had a camera crew here on the Monday to do some "Before" shots as well as do an interview with us and videotape us doing things around the house etc. Then for the next couple of days we had two workmen in the house painting and assembling furniture - we forgot they were even there most of the time. Then on Thursday the designer came back with his assistant and they put the room together. Finally on the Friday the camera crew came back, shot the big surprise reveal and then took some after shots.

Before they showed us the room they wanted to do a last quick interview with us to ask some more questions. One of the questions they wanted to know was why we didn't want to know the gender. Well - Erin launched into her story but partway through the hormones kicked in and she got a little emotional. Through the happy tears she managed to finish her story and when we looked up at the crew we realized Erin had managed to get all of them crying too!

Erin offered to reshoot - but of course they didn't want to give up the television gold of a teary pregnant mother-to-be!

The show is expected to air in the Spring - we'll be sure to post when we get any information on air dates!

Baby Update

No baby yet - but even our midwife seemed to think the chances of Erin going overdue are pretty slim. All the early signs that things are getting ready to go are there so it's really down to a waiting game now.

Needless to say, we expect that our Thanksgiving weekend will be a little unpredictable! I'm going to try and rig it up so I can post a message on here from my cell phone when the baby arrives - of course we'll send out a proper message once we're home and settled in!

If you want to get the message - please send e-mail me at babyupdate@thecolemanfamily.com and I'll make sure you're on the list. We have most of our friend's and family's e-mail addresses but send yours in anyways - just in case we've got the wrong one!

Found something else to cram in...

2004-09-15T16:26:00.002-04:00

Erin and I figured that we didn't have quite enough going on in our lives right now so we went and landed ourselves right in another adventure.

A couple of weeks ago we went out to IKEA to pick up a few things for the new house and do some baby furniture shopping. Heading for the elevator we asked a woman to hold the door for us. As we stepped on she looked at Erin and said, "Hey you're pregnant! When are you due?". Awfully forward but hey - with babies and pregnant women this stuff seems to happen frequently. She followed up with, "Are you having a boy?"

Well it turns out she is a producer for a new IKEA produced show called "Space for Living" and she was in the bind of needing a third candidate couple for an episode they were shooting in the coming weeks - coincindentally for a complete dream nursery makeover!

Well after meeting the deisgner and providing a bit of background about ourselves, (and a lot of waiting) we finally got the call this afternoon to let us know we've been chosen! The camera crew comes Monday to start shooting and they'll be here all next week working on the room - so I'm sure I'll have more than a few updates during the week.

We're not allowed to look at the room until the big surprise reveal on Friday but I'll try and get the crew to snap some "in progess" pics for us. In the meantime - here's the before pictures: