Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Tour de Nursery 2008

Well I've finally completed the nursery and am getting so excited about getting the actual baby to go in the nursery! I thought I would take you on a little tour since it is finally complete AND clean...which I'm sure it won't stay that way for long once the little one arrives. First of all here's a recent picture of the belly. This was taken on Monday at 36 weeks & 2 days. Is it possible to get any bigger? 



First up, here is what you see when you first walk in the door. The crib is to the left and the changing table/dresser on the wall to the right. The picture frames above the chair are filled with cute scrapbook paper for now, but once we have some pictures I will add them and the scrapbook paper will be used as the mat. You can also see the two adorable crosses behind the chair. The one on the bottom I bought soon after I found out I was pregnant. The verse on it reads, "He has called you by name, you are his"  - Isaiah 43:1. And the one on top was a gift from my momma, it reads, "Children are a gift from God" - Psalm 127:3. They go with the room perfectly. 

Here they are up close.
And here is Frank waiting for baby brother to come home. 
Here is the crib wall. It is kind of basic, but I wasn't sure what to hang above the crib without it overpowering everything else in the room. I found this simple barn star at TJ Max for $5.99 and repainted it (it was originally red) using leftover wall paint. You can't see it in this picture, but I painted a few layers alternating between blue & brown and using a paper towel to "wipe" some of the fresh coat off, giving it more of a distressed look. 

And here is an up close shot of the bumper ties I made, since the original ones that came with the bumper wouldn't fit around the rails properly. These things gave me more grief than the crib skirt did!

Here is the changing table/dresser. Don't get excited the "C" sitting up there is for our last name. I have made his other initials but took them down for the picture so there would be no guessing going on! I can't wait to show them off though. I stole Jessica's idea of decoupaging scrapbook paper on wooden letters that you buy at the craft store and they turned out really good. First I painted the edges of the letters a dark brown, then I mod-podged them to the back of 12 x 12 scrapbook paper and used an x-acto knife to cut them out. After they were good & dry I took a heavy duty nail file and filed around the edges of the paper to give it a more "vintage" appearance. Lastly, I globbed some more mod-podge over the entire letter to seal the paper on really well. 

For the "C" since it is special and will sit in the middle of the other two initials after I finished with the above steps I used my handy hot glue gun and covered it in really funky/colorful buttons. It turned out really well. Unfortunately you can't see it very well in this picture. I would go take an up close shot, but I really don't feel like it right now...you're just going to have to suffer through until I reveal the other two initials!

You can also see some of our stash of cloth diapers sitting on the 1st shelf...the rest are hidden in the top drawer. Since we're using cloth we didn't need a traditional diaper pail, so I just bought a Simple Human garbage can from Bed Bath & Beyond with a WAHMIES waterproof pail liner. 

This is the adorable Pinocchio print that my grandmother found at a flea market and gave to me since she knew I was originally wanting to do a vintage theme in the room. 

Some of you may remember Lulu from a previous post. Here she is in all her glory sitting to the right of the changer/dresser. She greets you as soon as you walk in the door. 

And above her hangs the guest book from my shower in August. I can't wait to finally have a picture of the boy to put in it!

In other news....I had another appointment with my midwife yesterday. And we had our final ultrasound. I am happy (and relieved) to report that Baby C is head down and it was quite obvious (cough cough) that he really is a boy. Let's just say he is very well endowed. The ultrasound also measured him to be about 6 lbs 12 oz. I've been having lots of contractions lately, but nothing regular or timeable yet. I hope I start making more progress though because I don't want him growing too much larger!

Rob has been having some tooth troubles lately. He went to the dentist last week and one of his old fillings had cracked (a while ago) and some icky stuff started happening to the tooth. The dentist thought he might need a root canal but wasn't sure. He definitely would need a crown though. So the dentist sawed his tooth down to a nub and put a temporary crown on it until he returned in about 2 weeks to get the permanent one. But Tuesday morning he woke up in excruciating pain and called the dentist. They sent him to see the root canal specialist this morning and lucky Rob was blessed to spend 2 hours in the chair having a root canal. Now, I've never had one before, so I'm not quite sure of the process, but apparently he has to back next week so they can finish it and then he still has to back to our regular dentist to have some other smaller cavities fixed. The total cost of this grand adventure...$1300 - after the insurance pays their part. Maybe he'll listen to me next time I tell him to brush his teeth!





Monday, September 22, 2008

Pregnancy Brain

I swore I had a dentist appointment this afternoon. I planned my whole day around it. I even double checked the calendar as I was walking out the door. So arrived at the office, signed in, and began reading a magazine in the waiting room. Normally our dentist is always on time, so around 10 after I began wondering what was taking so long. At quarter after the receptionist finally calls me up to the window and explains to me that my appoint isn't until NEXT Monday. Meanwhile all the other patients are staring at me (probably trying to control their laughter). I was so embarrassed. When I got home I checked the calendar again and sure enough my appointment is for Monday the 29th...NOT TODAY!

This baby needs to come soon...he's making me lose my mind!

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

That Lonely Feeling...

My parents left to go home this morning. We had a great time visiting with them. Frank LOVED having his cousin George here. During their visit we ate waaay too much food and my mom & I did some shopping and she also helped me weed and spruce up our flower bed, which has been in desperate need of some TLC. I wish we could have done more, but I have been so tired lately.

This is what I found last night when I walked into the office.....Frankie is going to miss them terribly!
Frank is always depressed when company leaves, so today I took him to the park as they were leaving to get him excited. He had a great time, but the depression has set in and he has done nothing but sleep all day today. I have to admit that I always get a little depressed when they leave as well. It's hard to go from a noisy house full of people you love to being all alone. It won't be long till they will be coming back though. I'm 35.5 weeks today, so hopefully the wee one will make his appearance sometime within the next month and we will have more visitors. It really freaks me out though to think about how little time we have left before the baby comes and our lives change forever.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Thankful Thursday (and other randomness)

Well, my pregnancy brain has officially gotten to me. Looking back at my previous posts I realized that I completely forgot to post a "Thankful Thursday" last week. Shame on me. I'll try to make up for it in this post. Here are some things I'm thankful for:

-my mom & dad are driving down for one last pre-baby visit this weekend.

-2 new (OK, the first that I've ever signed up for) classes that I am taking at church. The first class is a Bible study using the first book below and the second class is taught using the other. I'm really excited because Britni & I are taking the 2nd class together. She has written a really good post about the book on her blog...however, it is password protected. But send her an email (or comment on her "fake" blog) and she will give you the password...trust me, she loves new visitors! 
Loving God with All Your Mind    Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God's Spirit Invades the Heart of His People

OK, back to my list....

-Rob, my great hubby, who has been trying really hard lately (or at least offering) to help me get things done around the house and getting final things done for the baby. 

-Finding my midwife and doula who have given me back my confidence in trying to have a natural childbirth. 

-Finally getting our one remaining guest room (kinda) put back in order. (This is after we had to condense 2 guest rooms into one, to make room for the baby's nursery).



Now, back to my awful pregnancy brain. Three nights ago I was making spaghetti for dinner. I put the noodles on to boil and went about my business. When the noodles were finished I drained them and put them in a bowl, then turned to get the sauce. I stood there for a minute a little confused and finally said "where's my sauce?" Apparently I thought it was going to cook itself. I had completely forgotten about it! Luckily I'm no gourmet chef and prefer Prego out of a jar. And since I'm too lazy to make "real" meatballs I always just brown up some ground beef and add it into the sauce....which I had already cooked earlier in the day. So I just had to take out the beef, mix it in with a jar of Prego and pop it in the microwave for a few minutes. Dinner was saved! Unfortunately I also forgot to make garlic bread, which there was no time for at that point. Rob's least favorite meal got moved even farther down on the list (if that's possible). 

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Destin Trip & Hurricane Gustav

We're back! We had a great time on our short trip to Destin with Justin & Britni and Austin & Melissa. Unfortunately our trip was cut even shorter because inept meteorologists scared us into thinking Gustav was going to be worse than Katrina, so we left a day early to ensure we could rescue Frank from the kennel. You can see the WILD video of our poor Bradford Pear tree, taken during the height of the storm towards the bottom of this post. First of all, though, here are some pics from our vacation....

The outside of the beautiful house Melissa picked out for us

Our own private pool

The beautiful entry and staircase leading to the 2nd & 3rd floors

Family Room and Entry

Rob & I

Britni & I

Saturday night we went to Baytown Wharf to eat and watch some football. We ate at Poppy's (home of the $6 bottle of water) and then went to a sports bar to watch the game.

Me, Britni, & Melissa

Melissa & Austin

Rob & I


Here's that crazy video of our little tree...I'm REALLY surprised she made it through such a treacherous storm (sarcasm!)



Even though the storm was wild, Frank was still terrified...he's such a wiener!



I was talking to Britni tonight and she wants me to sign up for a yoga class at our church. I'm really excited, I've never done yoga before, so I'm a little scared, but I think it will be really fun. Of course I can barely bend over to put my pants on or tie my shoes right now...so watching me will be very humorous for everyone in the class till the little one arrives. But I'm hoping it will be a nice addition to my post-pregnancy workout routine....part of my get my body back as soon as possible plan!