Here are a couple of pictures from Lorens's first few weeks. Things are going great and we're in love!







Here's a link to see the professional newborn pics we had taken.
I'll post more soon...

Lorens Hansen Bishop

On October 24, at 9:54am, Lorens Hansen Bishop was born! He arrived by C-section, weighed 6lbs 14oz, and was 19 inches long. Michele and Lorens are both doing well!

His name (pronounced LOR-ence) is a Scandinavian version of the name Lawrence. He's named after St. Lorenzo/Lawrence. Here's the Wikipedia version of it:

"After the death of Pope Sixtus, the prefect of Rome demanded that Lawrence turn over the riches of the Church...Lawrence asked for three days to gather together the wealth. Lawrence worked swiftly to distribute as much Church property to the poor as possible, so as to prevent its being seized by the prefect. On the third day, at the head of a small delegation, he presented himself to the prefect, and when ordered to give up the treasures of the Church, he presented the poor, the crippled, the blind and the suffering, and said that these were the true treasures of the Church. One account records him declaring to the prefect, "The Church is truly rich, far richer than your emperor." This act of defiance led directly to his martyrdom."

His middle name, Hansen, is his Bestamor's (Danish great-grandmother) maiden name.
If you'd like to see pictures of his first week, go to www.lorenshansenbishop.shutterfly.com.

Here's one of all of us before we left the hospital.

It's almost time!

Here is 36 weeks plus a preview of the nursery!
Any day now...





Check out some baby bump pictures our amazing photographer friend took for us: baby bump pictures

I waddle...

now. When did this start to happen I wonder? It must be a gradual thing because I don't remember not waddling one day and waddling the next. :) Waddle is a weird word.
Josh and I have been so busy getting ready for the baby. I've had four amazing showers...we feel like we pretty much have everything we need for him to come! A list that has gone down from like 100 things to two. phew! We've done most of the work on the nursery...its painted, and we have the crib, dresser, bookshelf and curtains done. We're waiting for our glider to arrive and then we will do the final decorating. I'm going to wait to post pictures of it for when its finished. (the suspense Chaeli, I know...)
This past weekend I started to get stressed out about all the little things we still have to do to get ready, so Josh and I made a "baby to do list" and have started working on it. babies are a lot of work and he's not even here yet. :)
maybe this is where my stress stemmed from...last week I went to an early childhood conference in Dearborn for work and among many things learned that if you give your child 1500 hours of laptime before they go to Kindergarten you'll be sure to set them up for success in school! He's technically sitting on my lap right now...does that count? haha. :)

Since I (we I should say) last blogged...

Baby and I turned 28 weeks...

Baby and I I turned 32 weeks...

34 week pic to come...

We bought a car!...

We sold a car... (i miss it, it was a good car)

showers: (no pictures though)
I had a beautiful outside shower thrown by my GR friends and mom-in-law...what a beautiful day...and so many friends came!

I had an amazing shower thrown by my mom back at home...a fabulous brunch, FIVE games (i loved it), family, and many old and new friends. Including my new best friend who guessed that I had only gained 5 lbs so far during one of the games...love that lady whoever she is... :)

A very sweet (literally...lots of desserts :) shower thrown by my co-workers

And a fun shower thrown by my high school girls and Wendy

baby is on his way...we're so excited! We're taking some baby belly pictures this weekend...hopefully our next post won't take us so long to do...

mb

Josh's first post - the metamorphosis

Faux hawk plus beard plus braces

Faux hawk minus 1/2 beard plus braces

Faux hawk minus beard plus braces

Faux hawk minus beard minus braces

new haircut minus beard minus braces

and finally, an actually good picture taken by my new friend Daley Hake

the end.
-jb

Wow!

25 wks...It doesn't seem like I've been pregnant that long...but then again it does. The baby and I are doing great. We had another ultrasound this past week and were told baby is in the 41st percentile and is growing perfectly. :)

Last weekend Josh and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary. We went to Ludington for the weekend and had such a great time together. Although it was a little too chilly to sit on the beach we still drove to the state park to walk on the dunes, ate our weight in ice cream, went shopping, saw a movie, etc. Here's a couple pictures from our get-a-way.

me and baby at 24wks

Josh, Baby and I conquering the chilly beach


pretty sunset!

Earlier in the month I also celebrated my birthday - Josh had flowers sent to work and took me to Boatworks in Holland for dinner and we had some aaaaamazing food. Then we walked to the lighthouse, which I've never actually been to, and watched the sunset.

Over the past couple weeks we finished painting the nursery, putting the crib together, and registering for the baby items we need...it was sort of a surreal experience for both of us. I just want to give a disclaimer that Babys r us is a crazy store...especially for 2 people that "babys r not us yet"...it was an interesting experience to go around and figure out what we "needed." The only thing that saved us from throwing our registry gun at the foreign registry lady at the end was the fact that I had walked around with two wonderful moms a couple days before who kind of explained everything to me that I would need and which brands they liked best...we thank you, and probably so does the registry lady!!!! :)

Here are the links to our registries:

http://www.babiesrus.com/ControllerServlet?registryNumber=75259153&target=search

http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/baby/1NKAUEZGH5SHI

https://www.target.com/registry/baby/014399700052705

~mb

20 Weeks

A lot has happened in 4 weeks for us! We went to Florida with the Bishop family at the end of May and had a great vacation with them...our last before our little baby comes! It was so relaxing - nothing but laying out by the pool and beach in the beautiful weather. Then we went home a couple weekends in a row to see my sister, Kirsten, graduate from highschool and have a great party. After that came our 20 wk ultrasound! We were really excited/nervous to find out the gender and to know if our little peanut was healthy...HE is! It's a boy, and we are so happy. We haven't been able to stop talking about what our little boy is going to be like for the past couple days. And now it's names, names, names. We decided to wait to start talking about names until we found out the gender. It's a hard job but someone has got to do it. How do you pick out the perfect name? Welp, you'll have to wait 4 more months to find out as we're keeping whatever we decide a secret. Actually, we're not going to "name" him until he's born so we can make sure he fits whatever we pick out. What if we pick Newt, and he is not a Newt? My point exactly. Josh and I went out last night to baby's r us, our first trip, and each picked out a little boys outfit. I picked a cute little organic blue and yellow polka dot outfit minus anything with cars, baseballs, trucks, tractors, etc. (blech) and Josh picked a little onsie set that has a pirate theme to it...one says "argh" with a little pirate hat on it, one says "i'm a pirate" etc....if you know Josh, you'd know that he was unbelievably excited to buy it... So, there's our 4 week recap! Enjoy the pictures!

me and josh in Fl on a dolphin cruise

me and baby @ 17 weeks

Kirsten's Graduation Ceremony

me and baby @ 20 weeks

baby's tootsie (that's for you, mom!)

baby bishop sucking his thumb

~mb