Photo Dump

This begins with Thanksgiving (GASP!) i know.. sorry it's so late. :)

Next up, Christmas Tree hunting!!

 

 

Random Stuff like making Homemade Marshmallows, our decorated Christmas Tree

and our contribution to the McHenry Christmas Party!

Lastly, a bare belly! I had Alex take this for documentation of 35 weeks!

5 weeks left.. whhat?

Please excuse the poor lighting and lack of tree skirt!

Can anyone even believe that there are 5 weeks or less until I hold a baby girl in my arms that Alex and I made? We kinda can't!

She's supposed to be the weight of a honeydew melon this week. So that's about 5 lbs or so. And still working around 18 or 19 inches long. She's very active and though she makes it a little uncomfortable to change positions while sleeping, she's totally worth it.

What else is happening? Well, I still haven't really organized the stuff we got from the baby shower. I need to figure out where to put things.. like how to store all the hooded towels and tiny wash clothes (my bathroom or hers?) how to organize the clothing in the closet/dresser, where to put the gear we won't use for a couple of months, etc. It's all quietly sitting in the living room sorted into different bags while I sit in another room writing thank you notes (over halfway done!).

Sunday, my first attempt at using homemade stencils on the wall didn't go quite as planned. Spray adhesive is quite sticky if you didn't know. Therefore, I am letting them dry for a while and I will attempt it again later this week. I also wish they sold tiny bottles of spray paint (do they?) and I also might succumb to a white paint marker. This doesn't solve the problem for the pink flowers but i'll cross that bridge when I come to it! I still think it's going to turn out really nice. Also Sunday, Alex and I hung up the shelf and the butterfly frame which is pretty exciting. I need to print a couple of images for the other smaller frames I have but I already know what I'm going to print, which makes it easier. Not too much left to do in the Nursery other than organize and set it all up the way we want.

Last night we 'watched' that Ricki Lake documentary, The Business of being Born. I say 'watched' because we were doing other things while it was on the TV (like writing thank you notes for me and the hunting app for Alex). I went into it knowing that it was a documentary that would try to express the negative connotations associated with giving birth in a hospital as opposed to a home birth. Intervention (such as medication) vs No Intervention. I took it all with a grain of salt. I did learn some interesting facts and it will probably have a small influence on the way I want my birth plan to go (as much as I can control anyway). For instance, I definitely want to steer clear of drugs as much as possible. I am allowing the option of getting an epidural at some point if it becomes unbearable but I hope I don't have to go there. From the way the documentary showed, the nurses are all about speeding up your labor through medical intervention, etc.. If all goes as kind of planned, I won't even be heading to the hospital until the pain is unbearable (unless something weird happens like my water breaks and it's been 24 hours or something and I'm still not progressing) which will leave little room for them to even need to progress the labor for me using drugs. A main thing I want to be able to do is be up and moving around. I don't want to be lying in a hospital bed in pain. I want to be moving and I don't want to deliver a baby lying on my back without the help of gravity. This is all probably a little bit TMI but who's blog is this?

Anyway, she's still growing and I'm still feeling good (other than the stress of whether or not she's breech). I can definitely stand being pregnant another 5 weeks so keep on cooking baby girl!

Life without DirecTV

Welp, we did it.

We recently got rid of DirecTV and switched to only streaming. We're starting with Netflix and Hulu Plus.

In our first week without actual TV.. we didn't missed it. Possibly because we were too busy cleaning. But this is the life we'll probably lead once baby girl arrives. No time for TV, at least not live TV, only time for streaming episodes of things we've missed. Therefore this is perfect.

Let me break it down cost wise so you can see the differences.

DirecTV for the choice package, plus HD, plus DVR was a little over $100 a month.

Verizon DSL was $39.99/month.

Total: about $140/mo

Now, we're with Comcast internet at the intro rate of $29.99/mo for 6 months and Netflix which after the trial will cost $7.99/mo and Hulu Plus which is $7.99/mo.

New Total: $46

Therefore we went from $140/mo to about $46/mo .. savings? About $100. Cha-ching!

Something we need to decide though is how we plan to stream this. Currently we're using my iPad. We're not sure if we're going to get another box that can stream it for us (like a PS3/Roku/GoogleTV) because they all have different features and we're just not sure enough to purchase anything. All we know is, this is working out so far. We watch far less TV and it's just been great.

One tiny struggle is, we don't know if we'll keep Netflix instant streaming after the trial or switch to the DVD by mail service. The instant streaming doesn't really have much more we want to watch. Alex will be finishing Sons of Anarchy soon and we already watched most of the Party Down series. I know there's more out there but I just can't get into it for some reason. We'll see what happens.

Into the future we go..

Do i have a breech baby??

At my 34 week appointment, the midwife was having a tough time determining whether the baby was breech or not. She concluded that she was. All that time, I thought it was her butt in the air but the midwife said it was her head.

This has caused me a lot of stress over the past week. I have been working daily with different positions to try to get that big bump to move around to the 'correct' spot. I think about it constantly. Good thing I don't worry about other things like this.. I can't imagine a life filled with worry.

Regardless, since I am worried.. I have been reading a lot about position and movement and how to tell what position your baby is in. Almost all signs point to head down even though the midwife concluded breech.

#1 hiccups- These are and have been for the most part in the lower left side of my tummy. Hiccups come from the mouth and though they do tend to shake her whole body if I watch, I always put my hand down low to feel them on the outside. This makes me think that's where her head is when she's hiccuping, aka head down.

#2 rib kicking- These could not possibly come from her hands punching me. She kicks or moves up there and it feels like she's trying to get her feet stuck between my ribs. The only way her legs could be up there is if she's head down.

#3 lower belly movement- This is not common. If her feet were down there and she were actually breech, I do believe I would feel the kicking that is associated with that. Mostly all I feel are small flutters, which i'm assuming are her hands. Again, this points to head down.

#4 anterior placenta- My placenta is in the front on the left hand side. This could make it difficult for the doctor/midwife to locate where she is. It's obvious that she hasn't 'dropped' or settled into my pelvis yet but I think I would know when that would happen (breech or not) because of the pressure, which I did feel a couple of weeks ago.

One week from today, I will have an ultrasound to tell us whether she is head down or not. That is the only way we'll know for sure. I'm really hoping that the midwife was wrong and she has been head down all along. If that's the case then this has caused a lot of unnecessary stress but if it isn't the case and the midwife was right, at least I have been working on it for the past two weeks and not just sitting around accepting it.

Mommy & Baby :: Wants and Needs

Brown Knit Booties 1 & 2 : Baby Clutching Toy : Ring thing : Sophie : Felt Shoes

Itzbeen Timer : Mittens : First Aid Kit : Birthing Ball : Pack N Play : FuzziBunz Diapers

10 Things :: Link Up :: Volume 2

I might just have to make this link up thing a regular gig. I mean, why not?

In no certain order:

1 :: An apology (to myself and anyone who reads)

I'm sorry that I have been slacking in the blogging area as of late. These past two weeks have been uber busy and I haven't had much lunch time free at work to write a post or two. I will do my best to write more. Pinky promise.

2 :: Finally, a pediatrician

We have chosen one and it feels so good to have that out of the way. Interesting tid bit though, they don't require you to have any paperwork or anything done prior to your child's birth. All I have to do is tell the hospital "Lancaster Pediatrics is my pediatrician" and they send someone over and then I'm guessing that's when you schedule the next appointment and fill out paperwork. To be honest (and we might be bad parents for this) we didn't go and meet them prior to deciding. We're pretty laid back people and we had lots of good ped doc recommendations that we figured if someone else likes them so will we. Also, we can change ped doc's if this one doesn't pan out.

3 :: Holiday Dinners // Parties

This week is filled with holiday dinners with friends and family. Boy do I love going out to eat, and well, just eating, so sharing these activities with people we love is just icing on the cake.

Monday we dined at Iron Hill with the Hix's and Herr's. We're all pregnant (or we were all pregnant until last night, one of us is no longer pregnant, congrats Matt and Britt! I know you're reading this even though you just had a baby, haha yeah right!) Anyway, dinner was filled with chit chat about pregnancy/baby stuff with a little bit of guy cabin talk splashed in. Those men are crazy. We also effectively shut down their effort to go next door for a crappy beer, only to leave us at the table with the checks. Silly husbands.

Last night, Thursday, we had the Van Wyen clan over for dinner as well as the rest of Alex's family. We cooked our free turkey that I got with my bonus points from Giant (thanks, mom! -we're on the same bonus plan so her points are my points and vice versa). It was a Shady Brook and it was already in a brine in the bag. This is the way to go, people! No work in brining what-so-ever! It might've been the juiciest turk-a-lurk we've ever had. No gravy necessary (but of course we had some). It was so nice to catch up with them, and Matt and Marci who have been in Oregon studying it up in graduate school. There were tons of laughs all around and it was a close to perfect evening!

Tonight we're heading up to the Davis' house to have dinner with them and the Snyders and see baby Addilyn! We're so excited about this. She was looking totally adorbs at my baby shower and I just want to squeeze her (gently).

Saturday we're headed to the McHenry's (now) Annual Christmas party. Sure to be a blast. I can already taste the delicious food that I will be eating there. Plus, I found the perfect swap gift that better arrive in the mail today!

4 :: Baby Shower Goods

So now that i've had the opportunity to go through the things we received at the baby shower, we have a small pile of exchangables that I have been waiting to make a trip to good ol' Target with. With the busy-ness of this week, no such luck. I'm struggling a little bit with where to put things/store things/how to organize things. This might wait until the week I have off after Christmas so that I have more time to figure it out.

5 :: Baby Shiz

I've decided that I'm going to be making my own baby sling, like this one. For more than one reason.. A. way too expensive to buy for a piece of fabric and two rings.. even on Etsy. and B. it looks convenient and I found some nice jersey stretchy fabric to use in a lovely purple color. I've also decided that I won't be purchasing one of those hooter hider things that you put around your neck when you're breastfeeding. I'm going with something more like this. I mean, it's really just a piece of fabric with a hole for your head to go through. And I couldn't pass up the flannel-ish pink hounds tooth fabric I found for it. I will post about these when they're completed.. which will have to be the week after Christmas.

6 :: Daycare

This morning actually, we had an appointment to tour a day care facility that was pretty close to our house. Now it's my hope that I can work out my schedule with my place of work so that I can move to part time for a while and maybe even work from home a bit so that we don't have to go full on full time day care. The center was nice. Honestly, a little messy and it smelled like onions and diapers. The ladies in the infant room seemed caring though so that was nice but it kind of broke my heart. Please don't judge me because I know that day care is the only option for some people and it's really one of our only options but the thought of dropping my child off to other people, that are currently strangers, for more than a 15 minute time period was just too much to handle. Therefore, when we left, I cried. Looking back on it now, we definitely need to look at some other places because I think maybe the atmosphere there (or something) was just off-putting. The people were very nice and it's also totally possible that I completely underestimated how emotional looking at day cares would make me. Oh, and i'm pregnant by the way (obv) so maybe my hormones are a little wack? There's a first time for everything, right? So the plan is to look at some other ones too and get a better idea of what we're looking for / what we're comfortable with.

7 :: Christmas

Let's get back to focusing on what's really important right now. Christmas. (i'm so funny). Anyway, I get a kick out of tracking the packages that I've ordered every morning. I'm tired of things coming from California via USPS though. Takes for-ev-er. Next week will consist of wrapping gifts and cleaning the house for visitors. Also, something exciting (for me anyway) is that I'll be eating a Christmas Ham two days in a row. Real ham, people. Not water packed ham. Real -straight from the piggy- ham. I'll probably even get to have it two different ways. This is a christmas miracle in my book. The gift of real ham, two days in a row is all I could ever ask for. I will take a picture with each ham to mark the occasion.

How sad is it that i'm really excited about ham?? wait, don't answer that because if you say it's sad, i'll just assume that you're jealous!

Oh and Christmas is only 9 days away. Did I just rock your world? Each day, I think about this and each day, my own world is rocked... hard.

8 :: Baby Update

The little darling is just living it up, breech style. Most people who know me personally know that I don't really get stressed out very much. I don't worry about things that I cannot control, it's a waste of time and energy. Having said that.. this is stressing me out! If she could just turn and stay there I wouldn't want anything else for christmas (except ham, obviously). However, I do know that if she flips/turns.. it's totally possible that she could just flip/turn back to breech at any time. I am also aware that we have tons of time (so they say). I'm only 34 weeks and 4 days. My next appointment where thye'll do the ultrasound is on the 27th. That's 12 days away. Then i'll only be 36 weeks and a day. Still another couple weeks for her to turn around and face the ideal direction. I would've been much better off assuming that the thing I was feeling was a baby booty and not her head. Why did they have to tell me?? What's the point of this paragraph? Oh yeah, to stop stressing and give a baby update! She's doing good! She moves a lot.. she does bladder dances.. she hiccups, normal baby stuff.

9 :: Breastfeeding

If you don't want to read about babies eating from boobs, skip this paragraph. I had a BF class on Tuesday evening that was super informative. How is there so much to know about breastfeeding? Luckily they gave us a booklet that had all the information discussed for when I promptly forget it. All I know is, the whole nip goes into the mouth basically, like eating a big hamburger from Red Robin that you don't think will fit into your mouth, but you make it fit. I wish I could insert the animation they showed in the class. Interesting stuff, I tell ya. This is where I'll stop talking about it.. I don't want to bore/gross anyone out. Oh wait, I probably already did.

10 :: Congrats!

I can't believe you made it the whole way to number 10! Through all of my rambling and almost zero pictures! Good for you! Also, i'll share this congrats paragraph with new baby girl, Harper Hix. I hope we get to go see her today or tomorrow. I still have a hard time believing that I'm growing a baby but this is proof that there really was a baby in there! We're so excited for Matt and Britt and just know they're going to be kick butt parents!

It's Christmas Time!

I absolutely cannot believe that Christmas is in 11 days. These last couple weeks at work have been so busy that it makes the days fly even faster than normal.

We put up our Christmas tree this past Saturday and I don't have any formal (as in not iphone) photos of it yet but here are a couple of the tree and ornaments that we made at craft night last Friday night!

Wow, blurry! We got a canaan tree and it looks so good that it looks fake. I will try to replace this with a real photo soon!

There's so much you can do with empty glass ornaments!

 

I love this one!

Santa!

How pretty are these babies? I hope they last all month!

Alex and I have a little more shopping to do for the holiday but we're almost finished! Then I need to get to wrapping! I can't wait until next year when we have a little one to share Christmas with. Then Santa will officially start coming to our house and I'll probably have to be way more organized. Things will definitely be different next year (in a good way!)