Halloween Fun via Pinterest

In preparation for the month of October, I thought I'd share some cool things I've seen on Pinterest lately.

The perfect party invitation! {pin}

Serve up some bevies in a pumpkin! {pin}

Be creative with those little guys! {pin}

Who doesn't love a chevron pumpkin? {pin}

Or using your favorite cookie cutters instead of making a jack-o-latern? {pin}

Or heck, a complete pumpkin fireplace setup! {pin}

Feeling crafty?

Make a wreath out of tulle {pin}

Or paint some pieces of wood {pin}

Easy peasy!

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}

{pin}

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!

Fabric Shopping + Victory Brewing + Brunch + Birthday Celebration

Very busy weekend. Definitely the kind I like except for the fact that the time flies by wayy too fast. (Sorry, no pictures!)

Friday night, Alex and I went to SKH to look for a birthday gift for Nick. We weren't successful but did get some grocery shopping in. We made a delicious mushroom risotto for dinner and spent the evening watching TV from the week. Mostly the new pilots as well as the new NCIS. Very relaxing evening.

Saturday morning we were up bright and early. We went to JoAnn Fabric with Alex's mom, Charmayne for quilt fabric. Alex did such an awesome job picking. I was still being indecisive and he put together some really nice ones that I really like. After JoAnn we headed to Intercourse to have lunch and hit up another fabric store. We found the last two pieces that we needed and choose a back color. I think it's going to turn out ah-mazing. I saw some other fabric there that I might have to go back and get to make crib sheets and to sew over the bumper that I bought for $8 at the consignment sale. After shopping we headed down to Downingtown to meet up with Alex's Aunt and Uncle (Debbie and Lynn). We had such a great time (as we always do) catching up with them and listening to their stories. Lynn shot a hippo! I mean, can any other story really top that? Who can say they've shot a hippo?! No one else I know. After spending a good deal of time at Victory Brewing Co, we headed over to a place nearby called McKenzies. They had a great beer selection as well, though obviously I didn't partake in more than a tiny sip or two. Such a great evening!

Sunday morning we met up with the Herr's at the Eden to have the best brunch available in Lancaster County. I won't even go into detail about the amount of food I consumed but I will say, it was delicious and filled me for basically the rest of the day (well, until dinner). After brunch, we headed to see Courtney and Derek and baby boy, Evander. Courtney is so amazing and she was just glowing when she talked about her baby and her experience. We are so happy for them and they're already proving that they're amazing parents to that lucky little boy. Evander is such a sweetie, he was sleeping when we were there but he looked so peaceful! That little one could be our baby girl's future boyfriend, we're prepping them early ;). After visiting, I took Alex to the farm so he could watch the Eagles game with his family. I had some errands to run and ended up stopping at the Jcrew outlet (score!) which I should really try to go to more often. They didn't have anything cute for kids but I did get a couple things for myself that will last through this maternity period. I went home to shower and then met back up at the farm so we could head to dinner for Nick's birthday. He decided on Saigon, which is a vietnamese restaurant that has the best pho in Lancaster (trust). It was delicious and light (after that monster brunch). After dinner, Alex's parents came back to our house to check out our garage door issue and to help take a dresser up to the nursery. I really need to get some baby hangers to start hanging some of the clothes that my sister gave me.

We spent the rest of the evening relaxing, which is always how we like to end a Sunday. A little bit of time to mentally prepare for another work week!

Strawberry Banana Smoothie

This is my normal go-to breakfast choice when we have bananas on hand.

The recipe is quite simple and takes minutes to put together.

Ingredients:

1 Banana

5-6 Strawberries (mine are usually small but whatever size)

1/2 or 1 scoop of vanilla protein powder or ground flax seed

3 spoonfuls of Plain or Vanilla yogurt OR greek yogurt for more thickness

2 cups of milk (i use organic skim)

Optional:

5 Ice Cubes (i do this when my strawberries aren't frozen to make it colder)

Directions:

Put it in the blender and blend. Doesn't get easier than that!

Variations:
Sometimes I do two bananas and some chunks of pineapple for a tropical version.
Or I use frozen sweet cherries and banana.
Really any fruit will work but having the banana in there adds extra sugar that you
would would probably miss if you just did a berry smoothie.

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. :)

Lobster, A Wedding & Baby Clothes

I lied in my other post that we were having Lobster on Thursday. We actually had it on Friday night. Alex went to Mr. Bill's Seafood market and bought two 2lb live lobsters and brought them home. We steamed them in the dutch oven, which was kind of sad, but surprisingly easy. They were accompanied by mashed potatoes and brussel sprouts. They were very yummy to eat! We spent the rest of the evening watching The Wire.


Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to attend breakfast at our neighbors before the East Petersburg parade (which starts on our street). After we ate, we watched the parade (it seemed shorter this year) and then went inside. I decided to go to the mall for a dress for the wedding we were going to attend later on and I didn't have anything to wear. First I went to the BonTon because they were offering coupons for donations. Their maternity section is tinier then tiny. After I tried on a regular dress, and found Alex's name tag from the morning stuck to my bum (thanks babe), I gave up on the BonTon. I walked a little ways up into the mall to the Limited and tried on a couple of the dresses that were on sale. I ended up getting one for $10 and a flowy top for $12, score! And some earrings for $10! I was so happy with the deals and that they were normal clothes that will allow for stretching!

When I got home, we got ready for the wedding and headed into Lititz for the ceremony. It was beautiful! I love weddings! Gretchen looked like wedding barbie. Her dress was amazing! We had a great time at the cocktail hour and then the reception. We sat with Derek and Courtney, so of course I was quizzing Court with tons of pregnancy questions since she's going to have her baby boy on Friday!! Woo!! Our drink of choice was Shirley Temples (yum)! We ate dinner, we danced to the music and had a great time! The DJs were great, which was to be expected since Eric is a DJ himself. The speeches by Jen and Mike were awesome! They did such a great job. Probably two of the best speeches i've ever heard! We had a really great time catching up with everyone. When we got home we hung out on the couch for like 15 minutes so Alex could have a snack and then we went to bed. It was a long day!

Sunday morning, I slept in until about 9:30am. It was lovely. The temp has been perfect for sleeping lately, even though we've had crickets in our basement that have been chirping nonstop and I knocked our fan a couple nights ago so it also clicks (i'm going to have to look at it today bc I can't stand another night with the clicking, also, Alex slayed the crickets this morning for me, what a gentleman, so no more chirping!) Anyway, I slept in. When I got up, I cleaned up the kitchen and headed to Home Depot to get Alex more spray paint for the crib. I got the wrong kind, turned around and got the wrong kind again! Ugh! So he is going today to get the right kind (hopefully) so we can get this part finished and put together in the room. This coming Saturday we're going to look at fabric with Charmayne and hopefully will be successful. We discussed again just going with one color instead of multi-color so I'm going to create some inspiration boards and such at lunch to work further on that theme so we can at least know something that we want by Saturday. I spent the whole day up at my parents house, going through Mak's baby clothes. I got two bins full. One full bin of just 0-3 and then another bin filled with half 3-6 and 6-9 and a little bit of 9-12. She thinks there's another bin, which there probably is, filled with 9-12 and beyond. That was a treat. Then I chatted with my parents for a couple of hours, which was really nice and we ended up going to dinner all together before I headed home.

It was a nice busy weekend. I love those kind!

PINS

Here are a couple pins from my Random Love board. They might come in handy to those of you silly peeps who have yet to catch on to Pinterest!

Hang a picture. I plan to use this in the nursery. {pin}

Perfect for kids, am i right? {pin}

Put it in a bowl so that the sound will amplify. Genius. {pin}

Who doesn't hate when liquid spills down the side of the pan. Oh, that's right, no one. {pin}

Do you have a stripped screw? Put a rubber band over it and screw away! {pin}

Check out all my pins HERE and if they still require an invitation, you can wait for one, or leave a comment and I can send one your way for instant access!

Happy Friday!

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!

FIVE

Alex and I have been today for 5 years today. I think I posted on an old blog the story of how we met and I don't really feel like typing it out all over again but I will say a couple quick details to paint a picture.

Natural Icee
Dancing
Pizza
Walk Home

Here's a story of one of our first phone calls.

After him finally calling after about a week and having his phone number, I called him one evening to see what his plans were for the night. It must've been a thursday or a friday. (Words may not be exact but this is close enough).

(Ring, Ring)
Alex: "Hello"
Michelle: "Hey, what's up?"
Alex: "Who is this?"
Michelle: "What?! You have my number, it's Michelle"
Alex: "Michelle who??"
Michelle: "Michelle Elscheid, what the heck??!!"
Alex: "I don't know any Michelle Elscheid"
Michelle: "........(silence probably)"
Alex: "Just kidding, I know it's you"
Michelle: "Oh my god, I thought you were serious"

..Laughing, etc. even though I was completely caught off guard. The conversation was normal after that and I think he did a couple more things like that in the beginning of the relationship, just for a laugh. I laughed too so it wasn't like I was mad or anything. He's a jokester and I was just getting to know him.

I can't believe it's already been five years. I'm the luckiest girl in the whole universe. He's my best friend forever, literally and I couldn't think of a better person that I would want to bring a baby into the world with. He's going to be such a great Dad. And finally, his college nickname will actually be legit.

I love you babe!

Martin Drive Drafthouse: The Kegerator

Alex's personal brew pub (since we can make food in this joint) is called the

Martin Drive Drafthouse

And there he is, the Kegerator, i mean. With his new shelf from Ikea to hold the glasses (and clear up some space in the kitchen cabinet). And the sweet sign that Nick and Laurel made Alex for his birthday to show what beers he has on tap. I will get a close up of that tonight. He currently only has an APA on but I think he just kegged an ESB last night so that'll probably go on soon as well. He's such a craftsman. He has more hobbies than any other person I know, and I'm very proud of him for that. :)

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!

Gender Reveal. Birthdays. Shuffleboard. Housework.

Labor day weekend was great!

Friday night we had the gender reveal with our families. My mom bought Alex and I these cute booties (2 pairs) to hang from our car rearview mirrors. Mine are already in my car but here are Alex's. How cute are they!! They were actually supposed to be booties but my mom turned them into the car accessory, how creative! I can't believe babies tootsies are that tiny! The reveal went well, it was nice to hang out with both families at once, although it's quite hard to socialize with everyone at a restaurant. Everyone is excited for a baby girl!

Saturday we had to wake up early to head to York to sign a couple of papers that were missed when we bought our car. First we stopped at the Herr house to pickup a rototiller. Then we had to take it home before heading to York but got to experience the convenient cargo space of the Pilot. Speaking of.. here's finally a picture of it! After the signing which took about 5 minutes, we got our car washed in the rain (bc it's free for 30 days and only in York). We then headed home to pack and get ready to head to Nicholson for Glen's birthday party. First we lunched at Isaac's and took advantage of a coupon and then got on our way. 3 hours later, we arrived! lol. This was a surprise party for Glen so I think (hope) he was surprised. I totally underestimated the weather.. it was super humid out and I was wearing skinny jeans that stuck to me like glue. It was nice chatting and playing shoes and washers with the Hettel's and catching up with Glen and Jeanette. We ended the night around the fire and with some Ghost Adventures on tv.

The next morning, Mrs. Mackey made delicious potatoes and sausage. Mmm! We headed out around 10am and got home around 12:30ish. We ate some lunch and then headed to Home Depot to get a couple things. I thought about taking a nap and about starting some projects but settled with playing on the iPad and watching Titanic on tv. Later in the evening, we met up with Phil, Ashley, Anne, Jess, Lauren, Andy and one of Phil's coworkers at the Taproom in the city to celebrate Phil's birthday. We spent most of the time chatting and playing shuffleboard. It was awesome! Later we stopped by the Rendezvous Lounge at the Marriott where the following pictures were taken:

 

 

Today, we got to sleep in, which was fabulous. Followed by some rearranging of the upstairs furniture and then spray-painting the changing table while Alex brewed a beer. Now i'm writing blog posts for the week and hopefully having an early dinner followed by some straight up relaxation! I love busy weekends and especially weekends that I actually take a couple pictures! Enjoy the rest of the week!

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 ;)

5 Random Thoughts

We're getting closer and closer to the big reveal. I bet you're all on the edge of your seats, aren't you. HA!

I just wanted to jot down a couple random thoughts from today.

{pin}

Thought #1: I wish that I could sew my own clothing. I say this because i'm having some real trouble finding anything that I would even remotely want to purchase on any of the maternity clothing websites i've browsed (gap, old navy, motherhood, jcpenney, the expensive ones like pea in a pod, etc). Even H&M was disappointing last time I was there. Is there no where to get cute maternity clothes?? Forever21 has a line but it's way little.. by little i mean there isn't much to choose from, tanks, camis and leggings. I could live in those, sure, but they aren't quite 'work appropriate'. I have a pair of Forever stretchy jeans that still fit (and button, woo hoo high five!) so i'm thinking maybe i'll just buy normal jeans a size or so bigger so that they're slouchy and can button easily. I just don't get maternity tops. My mom commented to me a couple weeks ago (while I was wearing a normal tank with a cardigan) that they make looser fitting tops for pregnant people.. implying i should probably start wearing them. No offense to the clothing I got from my older sis (from 5 years ago!) but it's outdated and i'm not going to walk around wearing a shirt that says baby in rhinestones. I want to wear clothing like the picture above, but in adult sizes. Why do they make the cutest clothing for kids (at an awesome price by the way) and not have the same styles (albeit a little different) for adults. It's some kind of joke, isn't it? Anyway, back to sewing. Obviously, I don't know how to sew.. if i did.. i wouldn't be complaining. I mean, maybe I should just learn to sew, and then learn where to buy all the 'cool' fabric so that I can make my own cardigans and maternity tops and then i'll start a fashion line and rule the world. bahaha, just kidding. What a long thought, am i right?

Thought #2: We decided on nursery colors. I plan to do some posts on this including before and after and i wish i had an inspiration board to share but to be honest, i don't really know how to make those, and the inspiration is more in my brain than on an image that already exists (but check out this post or this post for some of the nursery related thoughts). Oh, you want to know the colors? How silly of me not to mention them. I can't possibly tell you the colors without revealing the gender.. so this will have to wait. I even wrote everything out and then thought, what the heck.. everyone will know if I write all this now. Sorry charlies.

Thought #3: Headed to the gym today again. Looking forward to it. Then i'm going to make dinner and probably do more laundry. I should probably mop the kitchen too.. it's a cream colored floor so it shows so much dirt so easily. But that means I have to vacuum first. We'll see if I have time for all of these things.

Thought #4: Every morning when I get in my car to go to work.. I wonder how long it's going to take to get used to driving this new car. This reminds me that I haven't taken a picture of it yet. Put that on my list of things to do this evening as well!

Thought #5: Tomorrow is Friday!!!!! Add to that the fact that I might get out at 3pm due to the holiday weekend and also we have off on Monday! I live for these work holidays even though they only come 10 times a year. That seams like a lot but it isn't.