Baby Rychter, 19 weeks

We had our big ultrasound today and it was amazing. We are officially members of TEAM PINK! We are having a Baby Girl! I knew I was having a girl, those dreams were right! I can't believe how much she has grown in the last few weeks. How great is it to say "she" and know that I have a teeny, tiny daughter growing inside me. My mom and mother-in-law came with us to view the baby. Everything looks great and she is developing on schedule. Her heart was beating at 146 bpm and her brain was looking great. She weighs 9 ounces and is about 9 inches crown to rump. I can't believe the love I have for her already. It all seems so real after this ultrasound. We are going to be a family. For your viewing pleasure, I got the ultrasound pictures from today to post. Enjoy!

Practicing basketball stance in utero.....triple threat!

I'm number #1!

Hi! Here's my cute face.......

I am putting my hand on my forehead, ahhhh it is a tough life in here!

Baby Bump

Well I got Steve to take a decent picture of me, I feel so chunky these days. This is my 16 week baby bump picture. Baby Rychter is starting to make her or his presence known. I find out in less than 2 weeks what the sex is, I hope!! If baby cooperates...we shall see. It will be the best Christmas present ever.

For your viewing pleasure, here is the start of my "bump."

House developing on schedule!

The house building is moving right along.....In fact, I am shocked at how on schedule the builder is. He and his crew even work on Saturday and Sundays. Here are some pictures of recent developments:

Front of the house

Steve in the Great Room (which will be our kitchen and living room area)

Future Room of Baby Rychter :)

Update on House!

More work has been done on our new house, they are moving quickly and working dilligently because of the nice weather we have been blessed with. I love watching all the progress being made. Here are some updated pictures for you to see:

Cheese! Our first picture together at our new property. :)

Here is a picture of the concrete poured for our 3 car garage and the exterior walls framed in :)

A picture of the house from the backyard. On the far right-hand side, is our covered patio and we still have extra concrete included in our budget. We can't decide where to pour the rest of it!

That's all for now, we will see what the builders accomplish this coming week!

House Work!

The title implies that there is some sort of cleaning going on, but that's not the case! Here are some of the latest pictures of the building of our house in Stevens Point. We are so excited and it is progressing quite quickly because of the nice weather. I can't wait until they have the 1st floor in and then start putting up the walls!

I'm excited because they are already putting in the floor supports for the basement!

The hole is dug and ready for building!

Here they have already started to put the block up for the basement!!!

I can't wait unti we are in our new house and we can unpack all of our things. However, I can't complain because I have dinner cooked for me every night by my mother-in-law. :)

Ultrasound picture!

I have had 3 ultrasounds so far. The 1st one was to date the pregnancy and the other 2 were to follow up on a subchorianic hematoma, which is basically a blood blister that forms on the uterine wall between where the placenta develops. It was only 1 cm and it is now gone, but the doctor said that they are very common and most pregnant women don't know that they have them. It was very great to get to see how the baby develops early on, especially the last 2 ultrasounds (1 at 7 weeks, 3 days and another at 11weeks), because we got to see the heart beating.

Also, I had my 12 week appointment and the doctor put the doppler on my tummy and the baby has a heartbeat of 164bpm. He said that everything appears right on track and that things are looking good! Woo hoo! Here is the 11 week ultrasound picture:

We are so excited to become parents! We can't wait to find out what we are having!

We're Pregnant!!!!

For those that do not know yet, Steve and I are expecting our first baby! We are incredibly excited and can't wait to meet this new little person. It came as quite of a shock how soon it happened, but that's life right?

Currently, I will be starting into my 2nd trimester this week and baby Rychter's expected arrival date is May19th, 2010. So far no icky throwing up, which has been a good thing, but there has been nausea, fatigue, and a chicken soup aversion! We will be finding out if it is a girl or boy in December; I can't wait! I will be posting our 1st ultrasound pics soon hopefully, once I figure out the in-laws scanner. Did I mention we moved in with my in-laws while we are......

Building a new house in Stevens Point! We decided we loved the house so much in Reedsburg and were so sad to see it sold that we would build a replica of it here. The digging of the basement has begun and the foundation will soon be laid. Can't wait to post pics of that as well. I guess that's all the news for now, stay tuned for updated pictures, etc.! :)

We are Married!

We did it! On August 8th, 2009 we became Mr. and Mrs. Stephen and Lisa Rychter. The day went by so quickly, I couldn't believe it. The ceremony was beautiful, the food was great, and the dancing was so much fun. We kept getting compliments over and over again about the decor (shout out to Embellished from Arnott, they rocked!), our DJ (way to go, Bill Hill!), and the ceremony sermon. The Reverend delivered a great sermon about love and she actually tied in some anecdotes from love letters she had us write to each other before the big day. Awwwww! I almost lost it 2 times, once coming down the aisle and then when Steve started to say his vows. We were truly blessed with the great weather that day and with all the family and friends who came to celebrate with us. I loved everything about that day and I had such a great time. I am so lucky to have found an amazing husband, who truly is my soul mate. I love you Steve. Above are some pictures from the wedding that others took, hopefully soon I can post some professional pics from our photographers.

Only 1 week until the big day.....

The wedding is finally a week away....ahhhhhhh! So much stuff to do, so little time! As I type this, I am procrastinating from finishing my seating charts because they are so hard to do. I am having trouble trying to place everyone and make everyone fit with people then can chat with.

Steve and I have been counting down the days the last week until the wedding, because we are so excited. I can't wait to be in the big, white dress and walk down the aisle to meet my future hubby. I also can't wait to celebrate with our friends and family. This is going to be a busy month for us, wedding, moving, honeymoon, starting a new job, and we even have something else huge going on, but we will save that for a later blog. It is still in the works..... :)


ta-ta for now, the next blog I may very well be a Mrs.

Busy, Busy, Busy Bee

Wedding Planning=My Life. Enough said. These past 3 days I have been busting out lots of wedding tasks. Finalizing DJ lists, program templates, welcome notes, continually adding to the head count, and my 2nd dress fitting. I almost had a minor problem, because I was on WW and lost 25 lbs., they had to take my dress in 2 in. on both sides of the bodice part of the dress. When they took in the dress, I was afraid that the length was going to be affected (because it was just right before alterations). When I tried it on with my shoes, it was indeed too short for my liking. I got a panicked look on my face in the mirror and my mother says "Relax, it will be okay!" OKAY?!??!?! This is my dress that I am supposed to look perfect in as I walk to meet my future husband, that I am supposed to dance around and feel special in, that I am supposed to wear with confidence. I was not confident at all looking at the length of this dress. I suppose my "tallness" has been somewhat of a snag in the bridal wear department because it is A) hard to find dresses that look okay with someone with a long torso and long legs and B) hard to find shoes that are low-heeled, open-toed, and cute.

However, the seamstress at the bridal shop is a miracle worker! She discovered that there was an inch of material on the bottom hem and she was able to work the hem so that there can be an extra inch added to the bottom of the dress. WOO HOO. I breathed a huuuuuuuge sigh of relief. All was okay again. Things have been going relatively well other than that brief 3 minute scare about the length of the dress. Now, I just need to get going on displays for the design of the escort card table.......hmmmmmm, this is never-ending. :)

New Job

Sooooooo amidst all the crazy wedding planning and end of school stuff to do, I applied for a new job in the Stevens Point area. I had 2 interviews and I got offered a full time position, in 1 building (which is awesome), because I am not a fan of traveling between 3 buildings. The staff in Reedsburg has been great and I have really gotten along with everyone and developed great working relationships (I will miss everyone, especially the S/Ls). I student-taught in the Stevens Point district and went to school at the University there for my bachelor's and master's degree. I feel as though Stevens Point is my second home. Milwaukee will always be my 1 and only, but all of our close friends are in S.P. However, we have made lots of great new friends in Reedsburg. It is a hard decision to make....today my mood is sad and happy at the same time.

Holy cow. Almost 2 months until the wedding. Planning Overload

So I decided I needed to chat about wedding planning. Not to say it hasn't been fun doing it all on my own, but there is SOOOOOO much to do. This past Memorial Day weekend some of my bridesmaids and my awesome usherette came to my house to do heavy wedding work. We made the favors, addressed envelopes, and did the table tents with table numbers on them. We got lots done, thank GOD I had help. I can only imagine what it would have been like trying to do those things by myself. On Monday, after the girls had left, Steve was looking for something to do. I put him to work too, we made the welcome bags for our out of town guest that are staying at the hotel where the reception is being held.

Here are some pictures from the some of the products we were making:

lol, boxes galore! Anyways, wedding planning has been stressful, but when the girls came up this past weekend, it was so much fun. There was a crazy invitation incident, but we got through it.

Wedding Stress.........

With all the fru fru stuff involved with planning a wedding, I have to wonder.....is it all worth it for one day?

I continually have to tell myself that a simple, but fancy, a traditional, yet modern wedding is all worth it. Is a tasteful affair of 400 that goes off without a hitch too much to ask? I am beginning to think that I should have a professional wedding planner. I do have my good buddy Michelle helping me out with advice and suggestions every step of the way, along with my other bridesmaids, but jeeeeesh, this is hard work. I used to think that my job was hard work......boy, was I wrong. Hard work is making sure that what you want/need happens and it isn't easy to guarantee that. As they say, nothing in life is guaranteed. We finally found a new photographer after Steve's uncle needed to step down due to his wife's illness. It is tough finding a photographer that fits your style and is going to deliver what you want when you are only 3 1/2 months away from your blissful day. I just continually pray to God that everything will work out in the end, because this is who God wants me to be with!!!

On a side note, I am blogging from Milwaukee tonight, because I am at an out-of-town conference, but it sure felt good leaving all the school stress in Reedsburg to come where I always feel giddy when I pull into the city limits. It feels weird to say "out-of-town," because I am from here, but Reedsburg is where I live and Milwaukee will always be my home.

So it has been a super looooooooooooooooong time since I blogged. I figured I should catch up on some stuff and blogging is one of those things. I have been a busy girl with wedding planning and school. Everything has been kicked up into high gear, Spring is a busy time of the year, I tell ya!

I picked up my wedding invites this past weekend and they are super cute. I am so excited about them. They are black with cream writing and then I plan to add a red ribbon around it. Our wedding colors are red, black, and ivory (with a bit of white too), the dresses for the bridesmaids are red.

We have been busy taking marriage prep classes and "jetsetting" back and forth from Reedsburg to Stevens Point. In the past 3 months, we have also been to Milwaukee and Appleton (for Steve's nephew's 9th birthday). Some of the pictures we posted are from the Appleton weekend! The little girl is Rylee, our niece, who is an absolute jokester. She is taking after her Uncle Steve. She put on Steve's glasses and then pulled up her dress to show she was shaking her leg while dancing! Talk about hilarious. The other picture is of Steve and I with Hayden, it was his birthday that weekend in Appleton.