Random Stuff

I have been so stressed out with school lately. I don't talk much about it here, but I'm about 1/2 way through my Masters Degree in Engineering and I've been working really hard to get some things done before the baby comes this summer. I know once I have a newborn it's going to be even harder to buckle down!

Have any of you attempted school + baby? I'll be at the point next semester where I'll just be finishing up my research and writing my thesis (which may take me an entire year or more! Haha!) so I can do a lot of things from home. But how hard will THAT be? We won't be using daycare but I might get someone to sit with the baby for a day each week so I can still go to research meetings and write. Please tell me I'm not crazy!!!

I guess my husband got the memo that I was stressed (and horomonal - ha!) and I came home late Tuesday night from school and I had these two things waiting for me:

What you're looking at is a hot brownie with ganache wrapped in phyllo dough. It's exactly like my favorite dessert from one of the fancy restaurants we have here in town. I just about died. And "oh my GANACHE" was it good :)

Have a wonderful day!!

Easter 2011

We celebrated Easter THREE times last weekend between all of our families (and that doesn't include church!). We pretty much stuffed ourselves on good food and then played outside with the kids all weekend.

Bubbles (my niece Ellie)

Soccer (my nephew Trent)

And this is my crazy sister jumping. I told her to do it.

Hope you had a great Easter!!!

29 weeks!!!

I'm 29 weeks pregnant!! (Only 11 weeks to go!!)

How I'm feeling:
I still feel really good. It's getting really hard to bend over, sleep and eat a large meal (oh isn't that too bad??) because of the belly :)

About the baby:
The baby is the size of a butternut squash! I can feel it kicking high, low and to the sides. In fact, sometimes it feels like there's a few babies in there!! I'm really anxious to figure out if the baby is still breech.

Doctor Appointments:
Our next appointment is this Friday for 30 weeks! I am starting to feel like I live at my doctor's office!

Food:
Current favorite foods: my newest thing is banana splits!


Current food aversions: still can't even bear to think about avocados or eggs. I divert my eyes when I see them at the grocery store.

My body:
I think I'm still around the 20lb mark. I'm still carrying pretty low and my family tells me I'm carrying pretty small (I think they're just being nice).

The nursery:
We still need to decide on curtains and start decorating!!

Baby gear:
-My sister got the baby this cute Easter basket this weekend :)

-I may have bought some ice cream cone socks *cough* incase we're having a girl


Happy Monday!!!

Visiting After Baby

Someone sent me this article and I wanted to get your input - especially from the mamas! It's all about visiting friends after they've had a baby. I really thought this was interesting because we are starting to try to figure out what our family/friends visiting schedule will be after our mini is born. ALL of our family live 3+ hours away so pretty much everyone will be visiting from out of town. I must admit - I'm a little freaked out about playing hostess while also learning to be a new mom.

The article starts out by saying visits to new parents should only be 15 minutes (that seems extreme but what do YOU think??)..

Before you walk in the door, put your game face on.  Set a timer, on your phone or watch for 15 minutes. When it goes off, get out of there! Remember that you are going to be a quiet, productive blessing.  This visit is NOT about you.  It is not about the parents hosting you and putting on a cup of tea so you can sit and visit and hold the baby. Think about how you would feel if you had either had surgery or ran a triathlon.  What would you want people to do for you?  This visit is about blessing the parents and making their life a little bit easier.  Your prize is getting a quick peek at the cute new human.

Here's how to play out your 15 minute visit:
1.  Bring a healthy meal. Include a salad or fresh vegetables.  Only use disposable dishes. There is nothing more annoying than
a) having to wash more dishes when you have a new baby
and
b) having to try to return dishes to all sorts of random people when you have a new baby
2.  In addition to your meal, bring cut up veggies and fruit, unsalted trail mix or nuts, or other such healthy snacks for daytime munching for mom to eat while she's nursing.
3.  Go into the kitchen and spend 5 minutes clearing off a counter, washing a sink-full of dishes, loading the dishwasher etc.  Don't ask permission, just do it.  Then set the table for their dinner.
4. Before you leave your house, put some paper towels and some powdered bathroom cleaner like Commet or Ajax in a baggie.  Stick it in your purse.  While you are at the house, go and use the washroom...and while in there do a three minute bathroom shine-up, using your paper towels and cleaner.
5.  Coo over the baby, but wash your hands before touching it.
6.  If they want to eat right then, heat the food up and put it on the table, give everybody kisses and then leave.
7.  Take the garbage out when you go.

In and out. This will be the best visit the parents will have had.  They will love you and you will be awesome in their books forever. You can come back and have a longer visit when the parents have adjusted to their new normal.

So I'd love to hear your thoughts on this and also other words of wisdom you have for hosting visitors in the hospital and at your house after a new baby :)

Happy Tuesday!!!

(source of article: http://www.birthresourcenetwork.org/resources/109-how-to-be-the-best-post-partum-visitor-in-15-minutes-or-less)

Egg Decorating

Every year Joe and I try to decorate a batch of Easter eggs. It's a tradition we started when we got married and now we have boxes and boxes of eggs that I bring out every year to decorate with. I know that probably seems weird to people because we don't have kids yet but I love any excuse to celebrate any kind of holiday. We give each other Easter baskets too - haha! I LOVE looking back at eggs we painted over the past few years :) Someday I'd like to have enough to fill a tree with them! We make sure to write the year on each egg in Sharpie marker so our grandchildren can look at all these old stinky eggs and know which year they're from. (We do blow them first so they don't rot. Can you imagine???)

Do you have a tradition for decorating Easter eggs? I would love to start some more Easter traditions once our little "egg has hatched" ;-)

28 Weeks!!!

 I'm 28 weeks pregnant!!

How I'm feeling:
I feel great! A little bit of pregnancy insomnia, Braxton Hicks and tiredness.. but overall doing awesome! I'm also really excited because for the first time someone recognized I'm pregnant in public! A sweet lady *insisted* I go ahead of her in line in a restroom. Haha!

About the baby:
The baby is the size of a head of cabbage :) He/she moves around a lot, especially when I lay down at night. I feel kicks way high and way low all at the same time and sometimes he/she will roll slowly, which is the weirdest sensation!

Doctor Appointments:
We're going to the doctor every two weeks at this point. Basically, we check my urine, weight (fun times) and blood pressure and then we get to hear the heart beat (which totally makes the weight check worth it! Haha!)

Food:
Current favorite foods: Fruit and pickles :)

Current food aversions: still can't even bear to think about avocados or eggs. I divert my eyes when I see them at the grocery store.

My body:
I have officially gained 20 pounds. I'm trying not to focus much on the weight. The lady who does my pedicures assures me I'm not swollen at all (yay!) so that makes me feel better. After a meal I feel like a huge whale though.

The nursery:
We still need to decide on curtains and start decorating!!

Baby gear:
-We bought a few options for coming home outfits at Babies R'Us (one for each gender)
- I discovered our stroller doesn't fit through the doorways of our house (isn't that great?)

Happy Monday!!!

Weekend

Last weekend was one of the first weekends in a long time that Joe and I had NO plans! We spent a lot of time out in the yard because it was in the 80s and I couldn't stand to be cooped up inside! We mowed the entire yard (me on the rider and Joe with the pusher) and then weeded out and re-mulched the front flower bed. I think my nesting has officially spread outdoors!!!

We also went to see Limitless. I was craving movie theater popcorn and Joe thought it looked good so it was a nice afternoon date!

We (mostly Joe) watched a lot of the Master's tournament. I am terrible at golf but I love how soothing they are on tv because the announcers have such calm voices! Makes for a good nap! Haha!

What did you do this weekend???

Sandals and Pediatricians

First of all, I have to tell you that yesterday I stumbled upon a shoe and sandal goldmine at where else but K'Mart. Y'all, they have the cutest shoes and there's no way you can be more shocked about it than I was. I have been wearing these (less than $20) sandals all day today walking around campus because I have some meetings for my grad classes and just WOW. I know maybe not everyone is into the gladiator trend but I'm definitely a fan.

I also have to tell you something really funny that happened to us on Tuesday when we had our OB appointment. Or doctor was asking us some questions to put in our chart for the birth like "Will you be having the epidural?", "Would you prefer to use the Birth Care Center or the hospital", "Would you like to pre-register at the hospital?", etc and she asked us, "Can you go ahead and tell us who you've decided to have as your pediatrician?"

And then silence.

Oops!

We're supposed to be doing that now?? I had no idea! Our OB thought it was hilarious (hello, first time parents!! Ha!). Is there anything else we might be forgetting to do? I just know I'll be the type of mom who forgets to bring diapers when we go out or forgets to enroll her child in school or something. Haha!

Yellow Rose Pillow

Last week I was really feeling Spring fever and I decided I wanted to make a little pillow to freshen up our guest room because my mom was coming for a visit.

 I found some yellow fabric (isn't it just so cheerful??) at Walmart and thought it might be cute for little fabric rosettes I've seen around. I also grabbed a couple yards of simple white fabric.

I read a few things online about how to make the little appliques. Basically, you cut your fabric into strips about an inch wide, along the width of the fabric - I think most fabric bolts are 44 or 53 inches wide. (I actually tore my strips because I realized our only pair of scissors are awful and I even tried to find Joe's surgical scissors but couldn't find those either! Ha!)

 Once you've got your strips torn/cut, you just tie a knot at the halfway point of the strip so you have two ends. I added a little dob of hot glue here. Twist the fabric and start just wrapping it around the knot.

Around and around, twisting and gluing as you go with the hot glue gun. I burned my fingers a few times but it's totally worth it.

 When you get to the end, just wrap the edge of the fabric around to the back and glue it down. And you repeat the process for as many rosettes you want for your pillow.

I didn't want to over-exert myself so I only made three.

 Then, I got out my old sewing machine (which only works about half the time but I can't justify buying a new one because the only thing I know how to sew is curtains and pillows. I even took Sewing class in high school and I made my grandma a stuffed lamb and put the ears on backwards) and made a little white pillow case for a pillow insert I already had from Hobby Lobby. If you aren't much of a sewer, you could totally just buy a solid white throw pillow and stick your rosettes on the front. Now that I think of it, that would have been much easier.

I stuffed the pillow insert inside and then sewed the bottom edge with a needle and thread. The old fashioned way. And probably still not technically the correct way!

 Then, I arranged the rosettes on the front of the pillow and hot glued them down too.

I thought it looked cute on our guest bed and it only took me an hour to whip up! Not bad, huh?

Happy Wednesday!

Nursery Progress & More

I wanted to share the progress of our nursery because I have several friends who are begging me for pictures. We just got the furniture delivered last Thursday so it's just bare bones right now but I'm loving it and at least a couple times a day I go in and sit in the glider and imagine what it's going to be like to be rocking an actual baby.

Now is the fun part: decorating!! I really feel like that's when you can make the space unique. We still have so much to do like make the curtains, find lamps, etc. Speaking of nursery decorating, my friend Jacki just posted a cute tutorial on her blog about making a mobile for her nursery with birdcages and a branch from her yard. TOO CUTE.

I have to show a picture of the ceiling fan because Joe spent seven hours installing it. It's totally not his fault, because he had to re-wire the entire room I think. I'm not 100% sure because I was taking a nap on the couch at the time. Just kidding and I WISH. We were both on the ladder! Ha!

Last weekend my mom came to stay with me because Joe was in Chicago for a conference for work. We ate and shopped and then ate some more and shopped some more. I had to show you the cute bag I found at a consignment store. If you squint it can almost look like a Chanel bag. I love it!

Also, I had a major craving for a milkshake. Gold star to anyone who can guess what I put in it..?!?

Happy Monday!