13 weeks to go!

Sorry for the awful picture. It was taken Sunday night, so that's my excuse. (i'd actually rather not post it but what's a bump update without a picture?)

The bump looks the same to me still, so I won't mention anything regarding it. I however, feel like I look like a whale (no comments, please, you won't change my opinion).

I do have one complaint though.. it's called maternity clothes, especially jeans. I know I wrote a couple weeks ago that I love my jeans and I still do. BUT they need to be washed every couple days because otherwise they loosen up too much and then fall down all the time. Kind of like the skinny jeans I got from Motherhood that fall down regardless of whether they were recently washed or not, therefore I cannot wear them. Irritating!

Vent over.

In other maternity clothing news, I haven't bought anything else. However, I'm almost at the end of road with most of the shirts I have because they're getting increasingly shorter and 'belly shirts' on pregnant girls is just not attractive, I totally know this. I will be working on it soon (because I have no choice left).

Appointment Update:

It went fine. I had the glucose screening. I don't know what everyone was talking about with the 'gross soda like drink' I thought it tasted fine and had no problem chugging it down. Maybe it's because I was hungry for some sugar though. After I chugged I did have my normal appointment, nothing too exciting but the midwife (I think) Lisa was very nice. They've all been nice but she was a little bit older so she seemed more like a mothering/nurturing type that the other ladies i've seen. I wouldn't mind having her deliver my baby. She told me what position the baby girl is in which was cool to hear. I was basically right though, she's shifted more into head down. Her heartrate was 148 bpm which I think is close to what it was last time. After the regular check-up I waited another 30 minutes before I could have my blood drawn with the biggest gauge needle ever. I distracted myself by having the lab girl talk to me about how much she likes drawing blood and how everyone at work calls her the Vampire. It was a good distraction.


I've been doing lots of research recently regarding delivery. So I had some questions to ask Lisa (finally, i usually don't have any) and here are the questions/answers.

What are the advantages/disadvantages of not clamping the umbilical cord right away after delivery? Her answer was that some would say that the baby gets a little bit more from the placenta by waiting to clamp it, others might disagree. I asked if it could compromise the collection of the cord blood for banking/donation and she said it very well could, which I thought would be the answer. So we'll have to weigh the pros/cons.

Why must the baby get the eye drops and vitamin K shot right after delivery? The eye drops are azithromycin and help prevent blindness in babies whose mothers may have an undiagnosed STD. And the vitamin K shot helps babies blood clot since that system is immature at the time of birth. We might forgo the eye drops.. we'll see.

What's my blood type? Turns out, it's A+ which is pretty universal she said. Now we just need to find out Alex's.. just for the sake of knowing.

If the baby is head down, does the blood rush to her head (this was just a fun question, not meant to be serious)? She said that since the baby is living in it's own little bubble, they have a completely different circulatory system then we do which means no, the blood doesn't rush to her head.

Our next appointment is in three weeks and then we'll start having appointments every two weeks until December when I think it might go down to once a week. I think all the major stuff is done though, so the rest of the visits should be fast and easy. Next week, we're going to Womb with a View with our parents as a special treat so they can see their future granddaughter on the big screen. I think it'll be awesome to see her one last time in utero and hopefully that'll hold me over for 12 more weeks until I can meet her face to face!

Last night we had our 2nd childbirth class so I'll try to post on that later this week!

The Nursery {Part 3 cont'd}

If you remember from the first "Part 3" post, this part is all about the Nursery DIY projects I'm working on.

I recently completed the mobile that we're going to hang over the changing table. I definitely cut out more flowers and butterflies then were needed but that's okay. Maybe I can use them for something else?

Basically the materials needed for this were:
Scrapbook Paper
Scissors
Embroidery Hoop
Fishing Line
Floral Wire

Though it wasn't hard to put together it was time consuming. I jabbed myself a couple of times with the needle to put the holes through the paper but it's all in the name of love.

I just hope that those colors look good against the blue walls in the nursery. It appears the colors we're going with are purple (light/dark/in between), pink (magenta, light pink, maroon) and of course most of our furniture is white, while the walls are an aqua blue. We'll see how it all turns out, fingers crossed.

The next project looks easy. I thought it was going to be easy because the directions are so simple. Well, it's not as easy as it looks folks. It's not hard, just time consuming. Probably because i'm a beginner (this makes me dread the sewing machine a little bit) But since I have to make two of them, I definitely think I can cut some time off of the project with a few short cuts.

Behold, the roman shade. The color looks lighter in the picture then it is in real life (my skills behind the camera are sub-par). There is a navy felt backer which will help create a 'black out' effect when the shades are down, which is exactly what I was going for.

I used our existing mini blinds, felt, fabric and fabritac which is probably the best invention ever if you're trying to glue fabric. The glue they say is just for fabric did not do as well as this and is getting returned! Of course there was a tape measure and scissors involved too. If you want to do something similar, i found the idea on pinterest (where else?) but it links to this blog: Little Green Notebook.

I do need to train them to go up a little bit easier, but the existing mini blinds weren't that easy to get up and down either so I don't expect it to run perfectly.

Couple more projects in the works so stay tuned!

14 weeks remaining!

Monday marked the beginning of week 26!

See the bump, doesn't look much different from last week, does it?

Each week it will grow about a centimeter which will be hard to detect via photo week by week but in the end when I mesh them all together into a video, i'm sure it'll be clear that it was getting larger.

Nothing new to report though, things are still going smoothly. She still kicks to tell me she's alive in there.

The baby websites say that this week the baby's eardrums, etc are basically fully formed and she can now hear me talking. We decided we're going to sing her a song every night and see if that helps her when she's out in the world when she needs to calm down. I've read that it's possible they can associate the two so we'll do a little experiment. Still trying to choose the song to sing though. We're going to have to sing it for 14+ weeks so it needs to be one we're not going to get tired of. Born this Way by Lady Gaga sounds appropriate, right?

The baby websites also say she's the length of one of those long cucumbers in the grocery store. It also says on the site 14 inches, so that's easier to think about. She's also about a pound and two-thirds in weight. Keep growing little girl!

Monday night we started our childbirth classes. We're probably on the early train for this but I didn't want to start later when the holidays are in full swing. It went quite well. It was interesting to sit down with other couples who are going through the same thing at the same time as we are. We mostly talked about anatomy and some labor stuff. I think next week we'll be talking about the stages of labor, so that'll be interesting even though i've already read about it. We did a neat activity with a balloon and a ping pong ball.

14 weeks to go!

The Crib + Baby Registry+ Evander + Football

If i had to sum up the weekend in one word, I would say, productive.

Finally, the meyer lemon tree has lemons!

Friday night, my parents came over with Makayla for dinner and to help set up the baby crib. Alex made a flank steak which was delicious and we introduced my parents and Makayla to quinoa which I think they all liked. After everything was done, I was too tired to do anything else so we just hung out a little before going to bed.

Saturday morning we didn't sleep in too much, Alex went to work on the farm and I watched Grey's Anatomy, followed by a trip to JoAnn Fabric for some supplies. I started on two projects and watched Private Practice. It's best to watch those shows on Saturday when Alex isn't home. He doesn't love them. Later when Alex got home we went to Hoss's for dinner (yum) and then watched Bridesmaids while I created our baby registry. Those things are not easy folks. Hopefully I did it right and didn't miss anything, though Courtney was giving me tons of good advice yesterday about registries so I'm sure i'll be updating it over the next couple months.

Sunday, Alex headed over to Dan's to help with an electrical project and I slept in.. a lot. I worked some more on my nursery projects. Alex came home for a little bit before heading back to Dan's to watch football. I'm pretty thankful for this because I don't generally enjoy watching football and usually when I do so I end up sleeping which is not my idea of a good Sunday, but the fact that Alex has been heading to Dan's to watch football gives me lots of time to do solo things. I went to visit the Nowak family for a couple hours and baby Evander is so freaking cute. Babies are so tiny.. it's unbelievable to me even though i've seen it with my own eyes. I also cannot believe that i'm growing one (sorry if I sound like a broken record).

Anyway, it was nice to catch up with them and get some new parenting insight. I really needed to go to JoAnn fabric again on my way home but decided I would just go later since it's really only 5 minutes down the road. I had some lunch and relaxed a little more when I got home, followed by working more on the projects. Around 6 I decided I should hit up JoAnns before they close since it's Sunday. Little did I know they close at 6. After arriving at 6:15 to a locked door, I went to the grocery store instead. I really miss having our garage door working.. it's kind of a chore having to carry 3 or more loads of groceries in through the front door instead of just in from the garage to the kitchen. Especially since I can't really carry heavy groceries for far distances. Luckily this time, Alex came home in time to help with the last trip inside. After unpacking all of that, I took some pictures of the things I was working on and wrote a couple of blog posts. I made us some dinner and messed around on my ipad while Alex watched more football or something.. soon after we called it a night. The end.

15 weeks to go!

Today marks 25 weeks (or 15 weeks to go)!

Things are still going well. I'm sorry these are so boring and that I don't have anything to report! Though i'm sure at some point i'll say, it's getting more uncomfortable.. that hasn't happened quite yet.

Things get a little crampy sometimes but I do believe that's normal considering I'm growing a human.

I did have something exciting happen on Friday though.

I got new jeans!! I ordered from Old Navy online and I freeeaking love them. Way way way wayyy better then the ones I got from Motherhood Maternity, not to mention, these don't make me look like I have a wide rear-end (or not as much). They are super comfortable and I'm sure i'll get another pair soon because I can't just wear one pair of jeans all the time (or can i?)

Let's see.. what else? Well you saw the post I did yesterday on one of my nursery projects. I'd also like to report that my parents came down on Friday and showed us how to set up the crib (we were clueless!) and it looks great. Here's a picture!

I need to do some touch-ups on it but it looks brand new with it's white paint job. Can't wait to see what the bedding looks like on it.

Next week I'll be creating Roman Shades for the room and hopefully sewing some crib sheets if there's time. I have finally decided on colors for things. I can finish the mobile next weekend too (or maybe this week) and also the wall piece I'm working on. Super pumped for the DIY things to come! (don't worry, i'll post all about them).

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

The Nursery {Part 3}

Part 3 is all about DIY.

I will probably have multiple parts to this "Part 3" since I have a bunch of projects going and a bunch in the queue.

For now, I'll show you the one I completed this weekend.

I saw this on Pinterest and liked it. I only recently thought about adding it to the nursery.

So here's my mini tutorial if you want to create your own.

Supplies:
Canvas (mine is 12 x 12)
White paper
Wax Paper
Puffy Paint
Mod Podge (or homemade version*)

Steps:

Step 1, put your design on your piece of white paper, what you want to trace with the puffy paint. Since I liked what I saw on Pinterest, I just copied it. It may not be identical but I did the best I could free-hand.

Step 2, put the white paper under the wax paper and use the puffy paint to trace the outlines. Since i'm right handed, I went left to right to avoid smudging what I had already done. I probably didn't make as thick of a bead as I should've but it turned out fine.

Step 3, let it dry. The puffy paint said 4 hours. I just waited until the next day.

Step 4, peel it off the wax paper, carefully! Today, I spent time peeling and placing the pieces exactly where they would go but on the table just to make sure I had it down.

Step 5, apply one coat of mod podge to the canvas where you'll be sticking the puffy paint peels to.

Step 6, move each peeled piece over to the canvas, this wasn't the easiest thing but it surely wasn't difficult. Piece by piece I recreated the same design by staring at my original sketch.

Sorry, this is probably hard to see.

Step 7, after each piece is laid, put another coat of mod podge onto the canvas work area.

Step 8, let it dry. Test it later and if it needs another coat of mod podge, do it.

Ta dah!

This would also look cool with a different color puffy paint. I liked the white on white but it would really stand out in a different color.

*I created my own mod podge by combining one bottle of elmers glue and then filled the bottle with water, shook it and added it to the old sauce jar, then I shook that. Easy peasy. {I found the 'recipe' here}

The time that's left

I think I might start counting backwards next week when I hit 25 weeks.

Because there's only 15 weeks to go after that.

Those 15 weeks will include birthdays and baby showers, halloween, thanksgiving, christmas and new years.

In those 15 weeks I have a lot of projects I want to accomplish for the nursery as well as obvious shopping to be done for christmas.

In those 15 weeks we'll be spending 6 of them at a childbirth class. I'll be spending another couple hours at a breastfeeding class. And hopefully then we'll know a lot more than we know now.

In those 15 weeks, my tummy will have grown to hold a baby the length of an ear of corn to the size of a watermelon. I already feel like I have a watermelon, so this is going to be interesting.

In 15 weeks, I'll start to get my body back (though i'm sure that'll be a longer process then I can currently imagine).

15 weeks from now I'll be holding a baby in my arms instead of in my tummy. I'll feel her kick with her limbs out in the world instead of feeling them on the inside. I'll hear her little voice cooing (and obviously crying). Alex will get to hold her instead of feeling her kick and punch.

I can't believe I'm growing a tiny human!

24 weeks

This is the start of month six.

Things still going well, nothing new to report.

Lots of movement now that I can often feel on the outside.

She's kicking as I type.

Guess that means she loves my blog already??

Last week we signed up for our childbirth classes. They begin the 3rd week of October.

Yesterday we visited Erin, David and baby Addilyn. She is ah-dorable. It was awesome to hold her and it made me realize I should start working my arms out now. She slept so peacefully the whole time we were visiting.

I can't wait to hold our little sweet pea in my arms in 16 more weeks!

The Nursery {Part 2}

Let's talk about furniture, shall we?

My parents were generous enough to lend us the crib and changing table from when we were babies. My niece used the same crib and changing table when she was a baby as well. (I'm aware of the current crib safety standards). They both started out a vintage yellow gold. We decided to spray paint them white. I don't have a picture of the crib yet because we can't figure out how to put it together, but when we get it together, I will post it. In the meantime, here is the before and after of the changing table.

This next piece, I found while shopping at a consignment sale with Erin. I couldn't believe it was still there when I arrived because I got there rather late and it's a very nice piece. I need to redo the drawer liners but it will definitely hold a lot. We weren't planning to buy a dresser so this is going to work out perfectly! And it fits right inside the closet.

We bought this shelf from Ikea and Laurel lovingly helped me put it together. I need to figure out what's going to go in the shelf holes but I think it's going to fit really nicely in the room overall. Plus, you can't have enough storage, right?

Please ignore the changing pad, it obviously won't be going on this.

And last but not least is the rocking chair we just got off Craigslist for a steal! It's such a nice chair. I'm actually sitting in it right now bc our computer chair is broken. I thought for a minute about painting it white as well but I just can't. Regardless of the fact that it doesn't really fit into the room, I just can't disgrace it like that. I'll be putting a nice cushion on it though for comfort, hopefully that'll tie it to the room a little bit better.

This weekend I went to AC Moore and Michaels to get some supplies to make a mobile. That will probably be featured in part 3 of this nursery series along with another craft I plan to do for one of the walls. Still on the list of things to do is sew crib sheets, curtains, a crib skirt and recover a bumper for the crib. I also want to recover the bassinet that Jess is letting us borrow. It's frilly and white and I don't really like the styling. Lots more to do but it will all definitely make the nursery more cozy for the little one.

Updated to add the Crib image on 10/9/11:

Here is the crib all put together with a little help from my parents! It looks great in the room and I'm very excited to sew the crib sheets, recover the bumper and eventually put the quilt on it. Eeeee!

23 Week Update

Old Image Removed due to Disgust

Here we are at 23 weeks! I may or may not have photoshopped this image.. so sue me! Maybe it's this ipad camera.. yeah, let's blame the camera bc honestly, I don't see that when I look into that mirror (and by that, i mean what you would've seen, had i used the actual original image).

Anyway!! We're still feeling great!

We had a doctor's appointment on Monday and baby girl's heartrate was around 150bpm. The midwife couldn't get a super accurate reading due to a wiggling little one. Funny that her heartrate is only going up, when they told me a couple appointments ago that it would start going down. We're measuring right at 23 weeks which is good and I'm assuming my BP and other levels are doing well.

Alex had a major milestone Sunday morning, he felt her kick for the first time! We'll be working more and more on that since the more she moves around now, the more I can feel it on the outside.

Our next appointment is in another 4 weeks and we'll be doing the Glucose screening as well as a normal OB appointment.

Things are definitely feeling bigger these days. I did play volleyball last Wednesday, which left my thighs a little bit sore but felt really really good to do some sweaty exercise. I hope to continue to play for another month or so until the bump really starts getting in the way. Sleeping is a little bit harder than before but nothing too serious. And the throat burn seems to have subsided which is good.

I'm thinking about teaching myself to crochet a baby hat, which could be interesting. This is the one that I like and also this little hat/cocoon set (though that's knitted, maybe I could just use the pattern from the left hat to make a longer hat to use for a cocoon). It can't be that hard, right?? Update: I believe Charmayne will be making these for me, so no need to teach myself something new! Ha! Just kidding, I still might do it. It's nice to have a trick up your sleeve every once in a while and would come in handy for baby gifts for my friends who just had or will be having a baby soon!

{pin}

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As per last week, nothing too crazy to report. Just counting down the days until we meet our little one!

Interesting..

Just some interesting tid-bits from yesterday/today..

Yesterday at work we had a biometric screening (to see if we're all overweight) to save us money on our insurance. I didn't know if they'd be taking pregnancy into account and they kind of did/kind of didn't.

The finger prick went well.. last year the lady squeezed the bejeesus out of my finger bc I guess she didn't prick it hard enough and the lady this year got lots of blood right away. Maybe it's because i'm pumping more through my body this year (thanks baby girl). Obviously, my waist size and my weight are going to be above average for someone of my height. This resulted in an over-exaggerated BMI. Obviously. They also told me that my LDL cholesterol is too high, my HDL is awesome and my triglycerides are great. Did you know, that pregnancy can increase your cholesterol levels? I just found out yesterday after I googled it because last year my cholesterol was normal. Interesting stuff. It couldn't possibly be all the ice cream i've been eating..... ha!

As I was waiting for my blood results to come back (2 minutes), the finger pricker lady asked me how far along I was. I said 5 months. She said, "wowww!" and I said, "I know, right" and I don't know if she was referencing my tummy size in a "woww you're huge" sort of way or a "woww you don't look 5 months" .. I'm going to go with the former. Regardless, she also told me not to sit with my legs crossed. Not because it cuts off circulation but because crossing your legs over and over again can wrap the umbilical cord around the baby's neck. I did not know this. And it's absolutely false. I googled it. I guess it's one of those pregnancy myths that people pass around as fact, like Mister Rogers (of Mister Rogers neighborhood) was a war veteran covered in tattoos which is why he wore sweaters all the time (this is also false, thanks wikipedia).

This morning I was taking my healthy survey (that follows the screening) we were asked lots of interesting questions to gauge how healthy we are, etc. Other then having to work on my cholesterol, I also need to work on the fact that I never get angry. I mean, I get annoyed, but rarely angry. I guess this is a bad thing. So i'll be working on getting angry sometime soon. This survey also didn't take pregnancy into account because at the end of it all, I needed to put goals to lowering my cholesterol and waist size. That should be easy when i'm not pregnant anymore.. cholesterol will go down and so will my tummy (eventually). Therefore my completion dates for these goals is in March. I just wanted a spot to write.. I'm pregnant, so this is skewed.

If anyone wants to read an article related to a healthy lifestyle, Alex found a good article on yahoo today, here is the link: The 7 Laws of Leanness

Have a happy Wednesday. I swear a Nursery post is coming soon. I already wrote it and now just need to add pictures!

22 Weeks

Monday marked the end of week 22.

Things have still been going well. Over the weekend after dancing a lot at a wedding, my back was feeling it a lot. Mostly on Sunday and Monday. I'm back to normal now. I expect that after I play volleyball Wednesday that it will again hate me. I'm cool with it. At least I'll get some exercise in.

Not too much to report for week 22. I still feel normal other than the growing bump. She's moving around in there on a schedule which is nice. I've been trying to put my hand on the outside when she's moving on the inside so that I can try to direct Alex in the near future.

Alex spray painted the crib the last couple of days. And I think tonight we'll finally put it in the room (note to self, take a before picture). And maybe we can even set it up! We need to wait until another guy comes over before we can move the steal of a deal changing table I got from the garage since it's too heavy for me to help Alex move.

I'm still struggling a little bit with the fabrics for the quilt but I think i've finally found some that I like that all go together. And a pattern that I like. We're very grateful that Charmayne wants to make it for us, I think it will be one of our favorite keepsakes.

I basically feel hungry all the time and it's pretty difficult to make good choices all the time. I try to do my best though. Who can resist a double stuffed oreo? It just tastes so fresh!

Well that's probably enough, I can't really think of anything else too interesting to say about week 22. :)

Thursday Randoms

* My shoes don't really fit but I haven't purchased new shoes to go with my new black maternity pants so i'm sucking it up while walking and while sitting in my desk chair I am barefoot. You'd think i'd attribute this to pregnancy.. but no, it's always been like this. Apparently I don't know how to purchase the correct size flats on more than one occasion.

* OJ gives me throat burn (which is essentially, heartburn). But i looove OJ :(  I did bring tums with me to work today though!

* I might have a nursery breakdown. That's a bit dramatic but i am having trouble picking fabrics for the quilt that will serve as part of the bedding which will determine what fabric i use for the crib sheets i want to sew, which will have to go with the rest of the room in an aesthetically pleasing way. Longest sentence ever?

* Today marks Alex and I's fifth anniversary of the day we met. We're going to celebrate tonight with a fresh Lobster dinner. Homemade. Suck it Red Lobster.

* The past couple nights I've been having vanilla ice cream with the chocolate magic shell stuff and those little sprinkle balls. It's been awesome. I'm sad to report that last night I ate the rest of the ice cream, so I won't be having it again until I get more. Tragedy.

* The baby is currently rolling around inside my tummy. I think she likes OJ too.

* I'm way more freckly this year than last.. I wonder if this is going to continue to increase.

* I'm really glad tomorrow is Friday. I don't think anyone would disagree with that statement. And with that, I will end this post. Baii!

21 weeks

I really hate the background of these images. I should cut myself out and plant myself on a beach somewhere or something.. but that would look silly since i'm always fully clothed.

Anyway, I hit 21 weeks on Monday. I never know what to say when i'm in the next week, so I always just tell people "I was __ weeks on monday, or I'm going to be __ weeks this monday" makes it easier. It really gets me when people ask how many months that is because apparently my brain has trouble dividing by 4. Anyway, it's 5 months or so I guess.. In the 2nd trimester. Babycenter says the baby is about 10 1/2 inches long and they relate that to a carrot (must be a big carrot). Eating healthier has been going pretty well. I try to bring my lunch everyday as opposed to buying it.

Everything is still going smoothly, still some minor backpain from the sciatica which I'm positive can be helped by a chiropractor if only I wouldn't be so lazy and go visit one. I did really well walking around Ikea on Saturday though.

I feel like a bus but I'm sure that's normal. Yesterday my bump looked huge and today it looks down a little bit. I should line up the first 5 months of pictures and check out the progression. Maybe i'll do that at the full 6 months! Something to look forward to.

No new milestones to report other than I feel her moving more. Sometimes she taps me a couple times in a row which is cute. I don't think she likes that I sit at a desk all day and don't move around all that much. I'm trying to pay closer attention to the patterns though to see when she's awake and when she may be sleeping. It's pretty early for her to set any patterns that won't change by birth but it's interesting to try to decipher.

Delaware +. Ikea + Bachlorette + Baby Shower = Busy

Busy weekend!

Friday after work, we headed down to DE to spend time with Nick and Laurel. They made a delicious dinner, we at Gelato on Main Street and played Mad Gab, which was hilarious to say the least. I almost touched their cat Dilla, which is pretty much a success because he's the shyest kitty on the planet (but also possibly the cutest).

Saturday morning, after breakfast we headed to Ikea in Baltimore. It was awesome. I hadn't been to Ikea in about 6 years so it was nice to go back and see the whole showroom setup. We ended up getting a bunch of stuff for the nursery. We got a 4 cube shelf, some picture frames, some little globe-y lamp things that I want to use as 'night lights' as well as the image to the right.. I pinned it a while back but didn't actually look to see where it was from. Pleasant surprise to find it at Ikea, at obviously an awesome price. Now i don't have to try to recreate it myself! We also got some new bathmats for the bathroom up there as well as a new shower curtain. I'm going to try to add pops of color in there as well. Why not! The last thing we got was a shelf for the dining room to go over the kegerator to hold beer glasses. Alex put it together and we put it up yesterday, so i'll snap a picture of it and include it in the post about our new mailbox that Alex also installed. He's so handy! Anyway, back to Saturday. After Ikea, we hit up PF Changs (and weren't overly impressed due to the amount of hype we heard prior) but it was still good. I love fried green beans and they give a huge plate as an appetizer.

After this late lunch we parted ways. I had a bachelorette party to go to in the evening which started at Jen's house with silly cookies and sangria that looked amazing (but I couldn't drink, obviously). We headed to dinner at Cultura's and it turned out I had an awesome coupon for 50% off food. Cultura's is a tapas restaurant so we probably ordered 30 plates of food to share between 10 people. It was delicious as always. I thoroughly enjoyed my two raspberry (virgin) margaritas as well as some red raspberry ice cream from the Strasburg Creamery. After dinner we headed to the bride's sisters home to hang out, play games and watch a movie. We played Mad Gab, which was hilarious again and then watched Bridesmaids which I was so excited to see. The movie was funny but had some slow parts. That whole night, I probably did more laughing then I have in a long time. That group of girls are hilarious! I ended up getting home around 3am. Crazy! Time had just flown by and I didn't realize it. I knew I would have to do some hardcore sleeping in the next morning.

And that's exactly what I did. I finally got up around 10:30am. I putz-ed around and then vacuumed the house. We put the shelf up above the kegerator like I mentioned above. Then we headed to our friends Courtney & Derek's couples baby shower. We'd never been to a couples shower before but it was so fun. They had some cute games like guess the baby food flavor (which baby food is pretty gross, even more reason why i'm probably going to make my own food, although the fruit was much better then the meals) and bobbing for nipples, which Nick won! We got to meet Dedra and Justin's brand new baby boy, Jack, who was super cute wrapped up in Dedra's (what i'm assuming is a) Moby Wrap. He was so tiny at 2 weeks old, which is completely normal obviously, and when Alex was holding him he looked like a complete natural. Cue the awes. After the shower, Nick and Alex watched the Eagles game we recorded and Laurel and I watched Bridesmaids.. long movie, the funny kind of dies off in the end and is brought back with the Wilson Phillips. There was a small break at half time for them to move furniture though which was a huge help. I'm so glad that's completed and now I can actually take picture of the nursery and get moving on all my other things related to it. After Nick and Laurel headed back to DE, Alex went over to the Herr's to watch the night game and I really needed to go to the grocery store, so I did that, plus I hadn't eaten anything since lunch so I made some spaghetti/meatballs and spent the rest of the evening facetiming with Julia and then my parents. Gosh facetime is amazing.. it's going to come in SO handy when we have this little bundle.

That sums up our super busy weekend. I can't believe it's already the 2nd week of September. This month is flying by already! Tomorrow I will take a picture of my 21 week bump to share with you! It's definitely getting bigger!

What a week..

Well this week just FLEW by, which is something I love about weeks after a holiday weekend.

It was supposed to be a 4 day week anyway but due to the flooding, I actually 'worked from home' yesterday. This just means accessing email since I can't actually do any other work at home. It was weird to be off on a middle of the week day but also nice.

We didn't have any damage from the flooding, our basement didn't see a drop of water which is a relief. We have a large patch of wetlands behind our house that held the water from the creek, at least for us. Some of the other neighbors down the street weren't quite as lucky. We also live at the top of a slope, so i don't think it would've gotten to us anyway. It's nice that it's not raining at the moment. Hopefully it'll be a nice weekend.

Sorry for the reflection but it was raining and I wasn't going outside.

So yesterday, with a whole day off (Alex came home as well).. we weren't sure what to do. We decided to make homemade pizza for lunch so I started the dough around 9:45am. We went to the grocery store for some ingredients we didn't have. We watched The Wire (or Alex did). We made delicious pizzas. One pepperoni, one cheese, and one onion/pepper. They were probably the best pizzas we've ever made. I should've taken the opportunity to photograph the process, maybe next time. After we stuffed ourselves with pizza, Alex accompanied me to the mall to buy some maternity clothes. Shopping while pregnant is no fun thing to do. 2 pairs of pants later and we were done. I found out later that I bought a pair of skinny jeans instead of bootcut. Which is fine, except I need a pair of bootcut, so I guess i'll have to get them at some point. Skinnies make me look huge these days. Anyway. After the mall, we stopped by the Herr's which turned into hanging out at the Herr's for a couple of hours. Alex was downstairs playing old school NES and Steph and I were upstairs having a great conversation and watching Brutus be the cutest rotty ever. When we left it was around 5:30pm. We didn't think the day was ever going to end. So when we got home, Alex made dinner and I probably just sat on the couch, I can't remember. Then we watched the Packers/Saints game and I went to bed at 10.

Here we are now. I'm finishing up work for the day and then we're headed to DE to visit Nick and Laurel. Tomorrow we're traveling to Baltimore to hit up the Ikea and then I have a bachelorette party to attend in the evening. Sunday we're busy too. Nick/Laurel are coming over to lend a hand moving furniture upstairs since I can't help Alex. I can't wait to have that stuff put into storage so I can really get a good look at the room that will be the nursery. And of course, before pictures will be taken! Hopefully we can get some sunny weather so I can spray paint the crib and we can put it all together. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures of that too (look at all these promises!). I feel like my excuse is that I have a blog that people look at but don't comment on. LOL. Things really went up since I posted it on Facebook. I'm not surprised by that though, I'd be doing the same exact thing. :)

Have a great weekend! Maybe we'll welcome baby Snyder into the world?!

Gender Reveal: Pink Icing Filled Cupcakes

In a fun way to announce the gender to our coworkers, Monday afternoon/evening I made a couple batches of cupcakes for us to take into work. I filled them with pink icing to reveal the gender but topped them with white icing so that you couldn't see the pink. They turned out awesome if I do say so myself. Here are the steps in case you want to do something similar in the future.

Step 1: Bake cupcakes and let them cool. Obviously.

Step 2: Use a sharp knife to cut a cone out of the top of each cupcake, 

saving the cones in a bowl.

Step 3: Separate the icing that you made into two parts. 

(I had to keep making more pink icing and then I had to make more 

white icing because piping icing uses a lot more than just spreading it on).

Step 4: I chose a regular large open tip in my piping bag (sorry, no picture) 

and then piped the pink icing into each cupcake.

Step 5: Put the cones back on. They don't have to be perfect since the rest 

of the icing will be covering them anyway.

Step 6: Fill another piping bag with the desired tip attached. I did a large star tip. Frost those beautiful cupcakes, doing your best to start far on the outside to make sure to cover the pink.

 Step 7: Test one! The lighting is way off in this picture but it showed the pink the best.

MMM.. i wish i had more here to eat, lol.

Anyway, just thought i'd share this step by step in case anyone ever wanted to do it and didn't know how. It's a great way to reveal the gender. Alex had a good idea to only fill one of them so that they'd have to eat through the cupcakes to find out what it is, but that's a lot of cupcakes, sugar.. butter.. etc, lol. We might use that in the future though!

19 weeks and 20 weeks

Yesterday, I was 20 weeks along. Officially halfway!

Things are still going great! Still feeling great (despite minor backpain brought on by too much walking). I feel the baby girl move at least once a day and really have no complaints!

Here are the pictures from 19 weeks and 20 weeks.. since we all know that I procrastinate!

19 weeks

20 weeks

In the 20 week picture, don't worry.. that wasn't my martini! Just thought it would be funny to pose with it since I was out at a bar, dancing with my belly ah la amy poeler's snl skit. More pictures from that night in the next post recapping the weekend!

Not much left to say about 20 weeks, other than.. it went relatively fast. Hoping the next 20 go even faster!!

The Nursery {part 1}

These posts will be in pieces due to the 'work in progress' scenario that we're currently in. I won't reveal the whole nursery until the last post but there are bits and pieces that I would like to share. Starting with color.

With aqua blue walls that aren't being repainted, we decided to just do splashes of color around the room instead of deciding on one or two other colors to focus on. Here are the paint chips that I have for inspiration. I haven't decided yet between the lighter or the darker of the two sets. (Sorry for the blurry left one).

We bought some shelving board at Home Depot that Alex is going to cut down into 12" x 12" pieces that I'm going to use for the wall decor. Some of the 8 pieces will be painted and some will get scrapbook paper adhered to them for some pattern.

All furniture will be white, as you'll see in part 2 but i'm not quite sure yet about the rocking chair. Our friend Glen had a great suggestion this weekend to help me get what I want with the chair in this post so I need to explore those options a little bit more.

And despite my sincere distaste for the state of the bathroom upstairs, the most I will probably do is remove the wallpaper and repaint it. Maybe i'll go into detail about the rest of the bathroom in another post, maybe not. ;)

Obviously we have more plans for the nursery that haven't come to fruition in our minds yet to even speak about but I have plenty of ideas.. including sewing my own (or asking my MIL for help) crib sheets so that I can make sure to get the pattern/colors that I want. Exciting things to come!

It's a..

GIRL!

That's right, we saw girl parts on the screen at the ultrasound on Monday. We are beyond excited to add yet another girl to the family. I know my niece is going to be super pumped (though I'm sure she would be either way, every time I see her she asks to see my belly.. with my shirt up, hilarious!).

Doesn't looking at the picture from this post just scream girl now that you know? Such a dainty little nose. We're still surprised it's a girl. We would've been surprised if it were a boy as well. It's just crazy knowing the gender in general. There's a little girl in my belly! She'll join her newborn little girl friends baby Snyder and baby Hix and she'll meet some cute newborn boys too, baby Doutrich and baby Nowak.

I also cannot wait to get my niece's baby clothing. Perk!

We just told our parents by giving them a copy of the picture and having them guess the gender. They are beyond excited as I'm sure you all are (lol)!

Sorry to everyone who thought boy ;)