Week 35 Check In!

How far along? 35

Baby's size?  Coconut

Total weight gain:  30 pounds

• I officially have Hobbit feet at night.  Cankles from here on out , I guess :/  I've been drinking tons of water, but I guess that doesn't matter in terms of water retention quite as much as before.

Maternity clothes? I keep looking at new shirts and then just remind myself that I won't need them in little over a month!  I am definitely getting tired of my wardrobe though.  I have so many winter clothes that just don't fit over the belly!

Sleep: There is a lot more waking up during the night now, but I am never exhausted during the day from lack of sleep.  Usually just from all of the heft.

Best baby moment this past week: This gal sure has been getting the hiccups a bunch!  It's a funny feeling!
 

Miss Anything? I really wanted to make some Bailey's cupcakes for the New Year, but that will have to wait a bit longer!

Movement: Lots and lots!  She's definitely getting pretty big in there.  At my appointment yesterday, she was bouncing all around while the nurse was trying to listen to her heartbeat.

Food cravings: Hawaiian Punch is holding on as a craving, but the guacamole thing has passed.  Man, I could go for a steak for dinner though.  Yum!

Anything making you queasy or sick: Nope, but I did almost faint in the kitchen while putting away groceries.  Thank goodness Damien was helping or I would have ended up on my bottom.  Light headedness = not fun.

Labor Signs:  I experienced what I guess were my first batch of Braxton Hicks a few nights ago.  

Symptoms: I alternate between tired and just wanting to get things finished.  I need to be careful not to over exert myself!  My mind sometimes doesn't catch up to how fast I'm doing things until I'm pooped and can't get off the couch.

Belly Button in or out? Out and flattening.  (And Miss Sandy, the belly button thing really is nothing but another way to tell how far your belly is extending)

Wedding rings on or off? Just wearing the ring Damien got me for Christmas last year right now.

Happy or Moody most of the time: Pretty happy!

Looking forward to: Only having 8 more work days before my leave begins!

35 Week Pic!

I can honestly say that I don't "feel" like my belly sticks out this far, but apparently it does.  She's a growin' in there!

Cats and Cribs

Can you spot the Evie?  She loves to sleep on the panda's lap in the crib.  ~SIGH~
Korben sleeps under the crib and is now his favorite hiding place.

An update on yarn and knitting

So I admit, I haven't been the best with my knitting probably ever.  I have serious startistis, project ADD, whatever you want to call it.  I just can't stay focused on any project long enough to finish it.  I love to learn techniques though so I know how to do lots of fun and neat knitting techniques, but want to see a finished project using that technique?  Sorry, you'll likely need to go elsewhere.  Sad but true.  My other knitting vice is my love of the fiber.  I have more yarn than I know what to do with (well besides start new projects that is!).  All of that said, with Emme on the way, I'm pretty sure that my excessive yarn collection will keep me entertained as it is highly unlikely that I will ever be able to go on serious yarn purchasing binges again.  

Because I'm completely unfocused, I decided to go back to my knitting roots and pull out the garter stitch and good ol' log cabin knitting.  Because I had to add some level of complication, I'm working on a rectangular log cabin block with some of my favorite Madelinetosh merino light colors.  I'm currently in love with the yellow-orange-pink-red-purple combination so I'm limiting my palette to that.  I thought a touch of green would be nice in there too.
Colors are, starting from the top left corner
Row 1 - Candlewick, Terra, Tart, Posy, Dahlia
Row 2 - Grasshopper, Gilded, Citrus, Scarlet, Vermillion, Briar
Row 3 - Chamomile, Tomato, Frgrant, Lolita, La Vie En Rose (which may get switched out for sugar plum)

I won't be making all rectangular blocks and will throw in some squares, both log cabins style and mitered.  I have a vision...let's see if I can stay focused enough to see at least a portion of it realized!

Here is the start of the first rectangle:

Nursery Decorating Project - Take One!

Alright, so a couple weekends ago, I was struck with a creative, DIY vibe and decided to try my hand at one of the many gorgeous nursery projects I'd seen on the web.  Lots of people have done some pretty impressive things with scrapbook baby so I decided to jump there.

Luckily, I had the foresight to purchase some craft supplies during the pre Black Friday sales at Joanns so I managed to pick up supplies for 3 paintings at half the cost of the original ONE painting I wanted to buy online.  I am pretty happy with the result.  The modge podge ended up discoloring the original canvas a bit, but I think I'll just repaint over that part and call it a day.

I received the best compliment I possibly could though with this project.  When Damien left in the morning to head to the range, I hadn't started the project at all.  By the time he got home, I had the finished project sitting on the dining room table.  Being him, his first thought was "what in the world did she order now?"  He did admit that he liked it, but it was just another decoration to add to the ledger.  Well, imagine how surprised he was when I told him that I had created that item he thought came from a store!  Talk about a weird, round about way to end up with a pretty nice compliment!

I drew inspiration from a few places, namely the Under the Sycamore blog - http://ashleyannphotography.com/blog/2010/01/13/diy-paper-bird-painting/
I still love her use of the white canvas with the birds, but I thought the white might end up too stark.  In any case, I'm happy with the finished project!

Here are my process pictures:

 Gathering supplies: 16x20 canvas, acrylic paints, a strong glue, brushes, Mod Podge, pencil, and plenty of scrapbook pages!

 Bird templates waiting to be traced onto the scrapbook paper.

Outlining the leaves and filling in the background  

 Background all filled in!

Nursery Preparations Continue!

We (i.e. Damien) rearranged the furniture in the room
I found what I think will be a great solution instead of buying bookcase/bulkier furniture at Target on Friday when I was out picking up the huge 20 gallon plastic containers to get my yarn room more organized.  (That ended up not happening as planned as I was exhausted by the time I got home from shopping and taking lunch to Damien.  Doesn't sound like a lot of work, but apparently it was).  I decided to spend the afternoon instead watching Bride and Prejudice.  

 Here is the one that we ended up buying.  Damien was a peach and put it together so the nursery is coming right along!  Let's see, we have the crib, dresser, some decorations up (her name is above the crib - more on this tomorrow!).  We still need to put up curtains, purchase the glider, and purchase a small table to put next to the glider for the lamp. 

Yesterday I also decided that it was high time that I wash all of the baby clothes and bedding.  I can't believe how much has accumulated for Emme already and she's not even here yet!  So many cute outfits!  I decided just to put all of the little socks into one drawer without matching them because them seem to be too little to match, hahaha.

We are going to need double sided tape and lots of balloons ASAP.  Damien sent me this picture yesterday when I was at work.  Yep, that is Evie taking a nap on the changing pad.  ~sigh~  AND, Korben seems infatuated with the crib skirt and keeps darting underneath it.  I guess we created a fun new hiding place for them.  And on top of all of that, Damien found Taiko sleeping in the crib tonight.  Apparently all of our cats think that we are getting this room ready for them!  Those gooseheads!

Here are some more pictures of the nursery preparation:

Damien concentrating as he puts the letters up on the wall - he's so serious when he's focused!

Korben wanted to help sooooooo badly, but Damien wasn't have it so he closed him out of the room.  (can you tell that we need to put a more level door on the nursery, hahaha?)

Eventually, I couldn't deal with Korben being so sad so I let him into the room and he decided to supervise Damien.  It worked out well for everybody

Week 34 Bump Pic!

So I've misplaced the batter for my nice camera and have been relying solely on my iphone for pictures.  I'm pretty underwhelmed with them, but it's better than nothing!  So I apologize in advance for the fuzzy quality of the following picture.  Because that battery could be anywhere in this house, I ordered two replacement batteries this morning!

Anyways, here is a week 34 bump picture taken by Damien early this morning before he went to work.  (Note I said early this morning).  I'm not looking too fab in this picture and my hair is crazy, but the focus here is the bump!  I get all sorts of comments on my growing bump from library patrons.  Some people think I look like I'm about to pop and others say that I look "small" for 34 weeks.  I think I'm just right! (And the penguin slippers were one of the best splurges I've had in a while - cute and comfortable!)

Nursery Progress

Damien and I are slowly getting the nursery put together.  We have the dresser and crib put together, but still need to pick up the mattress for the crib.  I'm going to do that tomorrow and also start washing all of the baby clothes we received as gifts.  We are still playing musical furniture in the room to figure out the best flow and I think we have a decent plan - now it's just a matter of moving everything around!  Since there are still bags scattered around as I'm trying to stay organized (ha!), I'll provide a picture of the crib so you can see the wall color!  We decided on Valspar, color Sea Air.

 Yep, that's a huge stuffed animal panda bear in the crib!  My great MIL sent Emme an early gift from NYC - a huge cute cuddly bear!  The good news is that the cats are extremely alarmed by it and give it wide berth.  No sooner than Damien had the crib put together was Korben jumping into the crib.  As soon as we brought out Mr. Panda, Korben darted out of the room and hasn't tried to jump in there yet!  They do like to lie underneath the crib though which is okay with me!

Here is a close-up of Mr. Panda so you can get an idea of his actual size - he's HUGE!  (And he is wearing Damien's cowboy hat.)

And I know what you're thinking!  "Whoa whoa whoa, I thought that you were going with pink and purple in the nursery!"  About that...Soon before the baby shower, I was in "must the nursery before family gets here" mode so I set out to the paint stores to find the most perfect shade of pink or purple for the room.  Well, a funny thing happened on the way home from the numerous paint stores....
All of the pink and purple paints in the world just weren't looking good in the room and Damien started to have some serious doubts about a pink in general.  So I tried to figure out other colors that would work with the Jacana bedding set that we had selected.  I agonized over a blue, a green, or yellow, but ultimately was unsatisfied once I put the samples on the wall.  

In the middle of the angst, I started to see commercials for the Heidi Klum collections at Babies 'r Us so I decided to stop in and see them in person.  It was love at first site with the "Boho Harmony" collection.  Just about every color under the sun was included and the vibrancy was just perfect.  I told myself that the only way I would return the Jacana collection was if I could find the receipt.  If I couldn't find the receipt, then we were destined to have the Jacana set.  I must have anticipated our future reactions to a pink room because I found the receipt pretty much attached to the Jacana bag.

So it was a done deal and here is a picture of the Boho collection with all of the extras.  We have received many of the additional nursery decorations as gifts, but I still have a few more left to pick up before everything is said and done.

Week 34!

Haven't posted one of these weekly updates for a while - this one is going to be quite different from the previous entries, let me tell you!


How far along? 34

Baby's size?  Butternut Squash

Total weight gain:  28 pounds (

• See?!  I told you that this entry was going to be plenty different from the others!  All of my clothes from the first trimester are still fitting so I'm guessing this weight is all baby and everything that comes along with that!

Maternity clothes?I pretty much leveled out with these many weeks ago.  My wardrobe definitely isn't as diverse as it was pre-pregnancy, but it's functional!

Sleep: LMAO - what sleep?  Okay okay, it's not that bad, but it is so difficult to get comfortable.  And then once I get comfortable, I have to get up to pee and the whole cycle starts all over again!  The body pillow has been a Godsend though and the nightly back massages courtesy of Damien certainly help alot too!

Best baby moment this past week: Finally seeing the nursery come together!

Miss Anything? I just missed Vanilla Eggnog with a splash of rum - next Christmas!

Movement: Since she is running out of room in there, I feel a lot of sliding movements, almost as if she is just moving her arm along my inside.  At the last ultrasound last week, she was already head down so that explains all of the kicking underneath my ribs!

Food cravings: 

• Guacamole.  I don't even like avocados usually!
• Tuna fish sandwiches!
• Hawaiian Punch - diluted with seltzer or just water! 

Anything making you queasy or sick: Nope!

Labor Signs:  Thankfully none yet.

Symptoms: Tiredness is returning, but nothing like the exhaustion in the first trimester

Belly Button in or out? Waaaaaaay out.

Wedding rings on or off? Not on in the morning, but I can usually have them on for the majority of the day.

Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy

Looking forward to: Christmas, seeing family, and getting the nursery finished!

Only 39 days Late! The Baby Shower!

Well, I'm back FINALLY!  I cannot believe how ridiculously quickly time has gotten away from me.  Seems like just yesterday I was attending my baby shower when in actuality it was over a month ago!  39 days to be exact...it's almost like I've been wandering in the pregnancy desert, hahaha.  

Now about that baby shower - It was a fabulous day and my friends are still raving about how much fun they had and how delicious the food was.  My fabulous Aunt Deborah and dearest pal Sandya really pulled out all of the stops for this occasion and it was just PERFECT.  We had DELICIOUS food (it was so good that the family is heading back there when they come to visit for Christmas!  We'll be heading to the Tailored Tea for a delicious brunch.)  The games were fun too!

Here are some pictures of the day!

 My dearest Sandya and I - she is the best friend a gal could ask for.

 My amazing Aunt Deborah who I refer to as my Mommy-Auntie!

 The room at the Tailored Tea - we had a cozy room on the second floor.  The building itself is a renovated farm house so there was plenty of old style charm to go around!

 Fabulous friends who arrived for the shower early!  From the left - Cristen, Erin and Chinasa.

 Opening gifts was a lot of fun!  This was an adorable little lamb for Miss Emme!

 Here I am with the CAKE!  It was a cute cake and tasted really good too!  My one regret is having fondant on it because the butter cream was divine!  Definitely going back to this bakery for future occasions!

Friends enjoying the shower!