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Wednesday, April 22, 2015

34 weeks


Here is another bump update since I haven't posted one of them since 31 weeks.



How far along: 34 weeks
Baby Size: a butternut squash or a cabbage, about 18 inches and over 4 lbs
Weight gain: +18
Maternity clothes: Yep, my Gap super soft maternity leggings have been my favorite for lounging around on the weekend.
Sleep: Not great, getting up usually 4 times a night.
Gender: BOY!
Movement: Yes, all kinds of moving around and big kicks. He gets hiccups usually daily.
Best moment this week: Having our maternity photos done! We had a fun time and I'm so excited to see how they turned out.
Looking forward to: Doing more reading to munchkin. We found an awesome stash of children's books from my childhood and have starting reading some of them. Munchkin liked Strega Nona :)
Food cravings: Not really
Anything making you queasy or sick: Nope
Labor Signs: Nope
What I miss: Feeling more comfortable.
Symptoms: Tired, some back pain and general uncomfortableness (apparently spell check says that's not a word but I think it should be) and occasionally a little ankle swelling.
Nursery: I finished up some flannel swaddle blankets and burp cloths and we finished the changing pad covers - now there are 4 to be able to easily swap out when one gets dirty :)
Belly Button in or out? It's in the neutral zone but it could come out any day now.
Wedding rings on or off? On
Mood: Loving this little guy so so much.

We are praying our little munchkin continues to grow and stay safe and healthy.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Oh The Places You'll Go Baby Shower


Last month, my mom and one of my best friends Katie threw me a baby shower here in Charlotte with the theme Oh The Places You'll Go. It was more travel inspired with just a touch of Dr. Seuss which I loved since we really love travelling and seeing new places and hope our little one will too.



All of the decorations were perfect. My mom has a lot of travel decor (like the hats hanging from the kitchen light fixture) from living in different countries growing up in an army family. And she has lots of Little People travel themed toys like the airplane and bus and such that my sister and I played with as kids. She borrowed the globes and garland from me and made the table cloth and banner.

She also made this diaper wreath with clip art travel stuff taped to it. She also made a pretend passport for the baby. We are hoping to cloth diaper but of course will always need a few disposables for when we travel and such. She printed the Dr. Seuss quote out and framed it. We are excited to hang it up in the nursery.



Our little guy has a ton of cute appliqued and handmade onesies and such from the mantle. I'm loving the little hat and leggings with transportation stuff on them. There are a few more Little People toys on the mantle as well as random little toys in the two vases as decor. And a Oh the Places You'll Go Baby book to be read in utero from my sister. We've read it to munchkin several times and he seems to move around a lot and really like it!


I took these two photos later that night so you could see the window decor and table cloth better because it was hard to capture on camera when it was so bright out.



When guests arrived they grabbed a bow tie and if someone said the word "baby" you got to take their bow tie so the person with the most won a prize. I lost my bow tie very quickly :)


All the food was labelled for a different country to go along with the theme... so clever!




The little food labels were made out of punched out maps and punched out white paper with the words printed on them and are attached to binder clips.


My friend Elisabeth brought this activity that I was super excited about which I had seen at a friend's shower. Everyone puts their thumbprint on the printable (in the end it will look like a big bunch of balloons) and signs their name in their thumbprint. I can't wait to put this up in the nursery too!


We played  few fun shower games Katie came up with. One was matching the word "baby" in different languages and another was about what different things you have on your smart phone.. some was related to baby or kids and there were other categories like how many contacts you have with a "B". Much better than the measuring tape game or the candy in diaper game that I've heard of played at showers.


And I opened gifts. Little guy has some super awesome stuff already!




The wives from the group we usually hang out with.


Katie and I... can you believe she co-hosted a shower when she was about 37 weeks pregnant. She is amazing!


Elisabeth and I


My friend Kelley brought her daughter Olivia who is seriously the best behaved almost 4-year old I've ever seen. She is so adorable too.

With my mom and sister


And the hubby... who was great at clean up and packing up :)


I had such a wonderful shower and munchkin is already so spoiled and loved! Thank you mom and Katie for throwing the shower!

Friday, April 10, 2015

DIY Food and Drink Label Stands


I first made these food label stands for my sister in laws Duck Baby Shower. I wanted a way to label the different dishes and have those label be up high enough to easily see. All the stands I looked at online were kind of pricey so after some brainstorming with my mom, this is what I ended up with.



Materials

-wooden pieces that are flat on one side - mine were rounded but you could also use squares or another shape
-wooden dowels
-drill or someone willing to drill holes in the wood pieces for you
-cardstock, scrapbook paper or whatever paper you want your labels made out of
-scissors or punch
-marker or pen
-tape and glue
-twine for decoration (optional)

Drill a hole in the top of each of your wooden pieces or have someone do this for you. You may also be able to buy some with holes already in them. Make sure the hole is big enough to fit your dowel in and it doesn't need to go all the way through the wood piece (just most of the way) but if it does that's not a big deal.




Cut your dowels if necessary to the height you prefer. Mine are 12 inches but they can be a tad wobbly on a tablecloth and since I have big labels attached to the top so I think before I use them again I will shorten them by an inch or two.



Cut out labels or use a punch. I used a circle punch and a scallop punch so I could layer scrapbook paper behind the cardstock to make it more colorful. I cut a bunch of extra white scallops in case those are needed in the future. I glued a scallop cutout to a circle cutout and wrote the food item name on the white scallop. I tried to keep the names somewhat generic so they can be reused for multiple occasions and parties but whenever they cannot be reused, I have the extra white scallops on hand so I can glue a new one over the old one :)

You will need two labels for each stand so one covers the back and one covers the front. Attach the two labels to the dowel and to each other using little pieces of rolled scotch tape. I found this to be the best thing for attaching and wouldn't be too hard to remove an entire label from a dowel later should you need to. This is also when you can add twine or ribbon or some other decoration if you wish.




Then you can put your dowels with attached labels into your wood pieces and they are ready to be used! I have 12 of these on hand and they are great for showers, parties, and get togethers. They are great even for sometime simple like labeling which bowl of salsa is mild and which is medium or hot when you have guests over.



I reused the stands for my friend's Cute As A Button Baby Shower as well. These could also be place settings or have lots of other labeling purposes!



Monday, April 6, 2015

Nursery Closet Redo


After we painted the nursery aqua, my dad went to work on the closet. As you can see in the before photo, this closet is very narrow and having the hanging bar (or bars) at the back waste a lot of space.


My dad has put in a lot of closet shelving before (like some storage shelves he and Eric did at our last home - this has more detail about the shelving) and I really like the way the shelves don't use brackets which also get in the way and waste space. The shelves were already painted wood from Lowes and the wood pieces that brace the shelves were painted white by my dad to match. The shelves are about 15 inches apart.




The four shelves allow for so much storage and easy access. Plus there is space below the shelves to store things too. The rods on the very narrow wall on the right are able to accommodate baby and kids hangers with enough room but it would be a little too narrow for adult size hangers. They are 1 1/2 inch wood left natural and about 38 inches high (bottom rod) and 67 inches high (top rod). We could have painted these white too but that would have been more work and I think they look fine natural.



This layout definitely makes the best use of the narrow closet space when needed for hanging clothes and storing items. Definitely an awesome upgrade from wire shelves and rod! Thanks dad!

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

31 weeks


I can't believe we are down to single digits weeks to go! Yikes!

I really love this maternity dress I found at a consignment store here called One Hott Mamma! There isn't a huge selection especially in small sizes but I found a few great items for a deal and I believe they are starting to increase their selection as they just recently reopened in late January.





How far along: 31 weeks
Baby Size: a pineapple, over 16 inches and 3 lbs
Weight gain: +16.5
Maternity clothes: Yes and ready for it to stay warm so I can start wearing some of the short sleeve tops and dresses I have
Sleep: Getting up twice a night to pee and occasionally have a harder time falling back asleep especially with munchkin’s hiccups
Gender: BOY!
Movement: Yes, all kinds of rolling around and big kicks and hiccups
Best moment this week: Eric reading munchkin a couple of Dr. Seuss books before bed
Looking forward to: Doing some more things for the nursery
Food cravings: Nope but enjoyed some delicious guacamole on our date night this past weekend
Anything making you queasy or sick: Nope
Labor Signs: Nope
What I miss: I could really go for a delicious turkey sandwich
Symptoms: Some back pain and occasional tightening in the belly in certain spots… he's maneuvering into a certain spot (OB says baby is sticking his butt out haha) and occasional braxton hicks.
Nursery: Mom and I finished the curtains! They took a while since there are 2 windows but they look amazing!
Belly Button in or out? In only the slightest amount
Wedding rings on or off? On
Mood: Happy and thankful… it feels like we are in the final stretch and I’m feeling munchkin moving all the time now.
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