Monday, February 28, 2011

Baby Shower #1

29 weeks

We had our first baby shower this weekend! Judy threw it for us, along with some help from the aunts - Carol, Diane and Jan, and the girls - Erin and Lori. It was amazing! Judy went above and beyond. It had a 'King of the Jungle' theme and it was so cute! She had all these little homemade decorations to go along with it.
The first is a baby carriage made out of receiving blankets, diapers and a crib sheet. This was the centerpiece for the gift table! SO CUTE!
These were little pacifiers on the cake table that she made too! Totally edible!
This was what the centerpieces of the tables looked like. She made the little booties out of tissues, cotton balls and little ketchup bowls and filled them with mixed nuts! Genius! Then each table had a stuffed animal with a baby bottled filled with M&M's. Baby B now has a full collection of stuffed animals!
Below is a picture of the cake table. The them was so fun and the cake was awesome! The cake might be the only thing she didn't make by hand!
And finally, here is a picture of me and the Grandma's! I have been avoiding cameras, but for the sake of looking back on these later, I figured I'd put a picture of me in here to see what I looked like!
The shower was so much fun! I can't say enough about how hard Judy worked and how wonderful it turned out. We got so many great things for Baby B!! Lots of clothes, but we also got a lot of our 'big' stuff which was nice. We got our stroller (thanks Great Grandpa Hoyle), carseat (Judy), bassinet (Elsie), swing, highchair (Meme and Poppy) and so many other great things! We got it home and it took up the whole living room almost! We are in the process of going through it all and putting everything away. We have another shower this weekend and I want to get everything in place before we get more stuff! This baby (and I) are so lucky to have so many people who love us and can't wait to meet him!
As far as symptoms go, this week I've been feeling much more tired. I got a couple comments this weekend about my eyes looking tired. I'm starting to slow down a bit. I definitely am shorter on oxygen. I don't know if that's from my organs pushing up or what. It's becoming more and more difficult to shave my legs, put my shoes on, etc. I have started limiting my 'bending over' to only when it's absolutely necessary! At the shower when I would bend over too far to pick something up, baby would respond as if I was smushing him! LOL!
The nursery is almost completely done! I'll do a post later this week with pictures and updates on that front!

Monday, February 21, 2011

3 months to go!

28 weeks

We have 3 months left!! I can't believe we are in our 3rd trimester already. It feels like so long ago since we found out, but the time has seriously flown by!! I don't want it to go too quickly, but at the same time, I can't wait to meet, hold, kiss, hug, feed, stare at my little man!!

Phase 2 of the nursery is complete! Paint is up and looks great!!

Phase 3 hit a bit of a snag. We went out to NFM to look for nursery furniture. We saw the original crib we wanted (and went out there specifically to see) and I didn't like it in person. It was easily scratched and just not as 'sturdy' as I wanted. We saw another really expensive set that was awesome. Great quality and so gorgeous! We were almost settled on it, but the color was just too dark. So, we kept looking. I will say, NFM would NOT be a high recommendation on my list of places to shop for baby furniture. We would see one thing and they would be sold out, or find someone else but it only came in a certain color. We finally found THE set we wanted, around our price range, we loved the color AND we loved the crib and dresser together. We picked it out and were ready to buy...what do you know - they were sold out and had no idea when they would get it in. I was getting overwhelmed because I just wanted to walk out of their with his furniture that night! Nick checked online and found the same crib we wanted was sold a couple of places online, including Target.

On our way home, we stopped by the Target in Mission and sure enough, there was our crib and the matching changing table. We got both of them loaded up and got them home!! I was so excited to start putting them together on Friday night. We got the changing table up with no problems. We started on the crib and realized they sent us 2 'right back legs' instead of one of each. We called the company and they are sending the replacement part this week. We also ordered the dresser online and it should be here this week also! Right now, it's making me agitated because our house is a mess! All the stuff I was hoping to get put away once his furniture was in place is sitting on our dining room table and it's making me crazy!!

I did get all his clothes that he already has washed this weekend (3 loads worth!!!) and all his new blankets and bedding. All his clothes are put away and just waiting for him to rock them out! I was very glad to get ahead of the ball on those since our first shower is this weekend and I'm sure we'll get more things to put away!! I'm so glad we decided to get the dresser AND changing table because I think we'll need all the extra storage!!

We are having a hard time finding a chair for his room. I really don't want the wooden ones with the cushions, or anything with microsuede but I'm thinking that might be the only kind that will fit with all the other furniture. There just aren't many options out there! We went a few places yesterday and just didn't find anything we really liked. Or if we did, it was discontinued or we didn't like the color and it would take 12-14 weeks to get a special order! Again, overwhelmed mama!! I'm just so ready for his stuff to be set up and see it all together so I think it's making me frustrated that it's not done yet! Nick has been so wonderful and patient thru this whole process.

Saturday was a great day. I got an amazing prenatal massage (seriously best massage ever) and a pedicure! Both felt so good! There were 2 other pregnant women getting pedi's - the one next to me was due today!! I also went shopping with my mom for outfits for my showers. I found a couple of dresses, but I'm just not sure if they are keepers or not. I know I'm supposed to get bigger being pregnant, but sometimes I just feel HUGE!!

As far as pregnancy symptoms go this week the biggest thing I think has been my mood. I've just been so agitated and irritable. I think getting back to the gym and getting his room all set up with definitely help with that. Other than our shower and hopefully getting his furniture in this week, we have a doctor's appointment where I have to take my glucose test! I've been avoiding as much sugar as possible so I don't have to take the 3 hour test if I fail this one!

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Nursery update!



27 weeks




The closet overhaul was a success!! The blue/teal paint turned out awesome! At first it looked a little darker than I wanted, but after it fully dried, I ended up loving the color!! I designed the closet system I wanted online at Home Depot and printed out everything we would need. My dad and Pat were supposed to come up Friday night and start work on the closet on Saturday. Sadly, my dad's best friend Ed got some terrible news the week before. His son Eddie, who was literally one DAY younger than me, had died unexpectedly. They still aren't sure what the cause was, but either way, it was such sad news for their family. The funeral ended up being Saturday morning which delayed my parents arrival until Saturday afternoon. We had Nick's graduation dinner that night with all the family (mine and his) so the closet was put on hold until Sunday.




Dinner was great. We went to Chappell's and the food was wonderful! It was such a cool place with all this sports memorabelia and the owner came back and talked to us for a little while and was such a cool guy! Nick got some cool gifts, a Baker sweatshirt, a couple gift cards and baby B got his first KU basketball jersey from Uncle Dave!!




Sunday morning we got up, went to breakfast (thinking the closet couldn't possibly take too long) and came home so they could start working on it. Nick and my dad got started at about 10 am and the poor things worked pretty much straight through until 6:30 pm!! I felt so bad for my poor dad! They had to drive all the way back to Wichita after they finished, but I am so grateful and thankful that he came to install the closet! He's so good at that stuff and him and Nick made a great team. Everything went up pretty easily, there was just a lot of cutting things down to size to fit into our closet. It seriously looks so amazing! Even better than I had pictured in my head!
Here is a picture of how it turned out! I put his shoes and just one little outfit hanging! I plan on getting the rest of his clothes washed and hung up soon too!

Some new developments with little man this week are he's moving so much you can actually SEE it now. He was putting on a show for Nick and Judy Sunday night. He's moving and kicking a lot, but still just fun to feel, not painful. I've started having Braxton Hicks contractions every once in awhile. Last week I had a few that were pretty intense. Not painful, just pressure. I had my first episode of 'pregnancy heartburn/acid reflux' this weekend. It was awful!! Luckily it only lasted a couple of days!

Phases 2 and 3 of the nursery should hopefully be completed this week. Phase 2 is painting the walls. I got everything taped last night and am going to get all the supplies at lunch today. Nick is going to start painting tonight and hopefully we'll have it done in the next couple of days. Phase 3 will be furniture!! We have scrapped the idea of the first crib we wanted. We found another one we really like on Amazon and it turns out Nebraska Furniture Mart has the same one for less! We're going to head out there later this week to look around and hopefully buy/pick up our furniture so we can put it all together this weekend!
Our first baby shower is next weekend with another one the following weekend. I'm so excited for those! Now I just need to find something to wear!! Valentine's Day was yesterday, but we decided to keep it low key. We went to Jalapeno's for 2 for 1 taco night! It was perfect! I'm trying to soak up as much time with Nick as possible before baby makes 3! We have our next appointment next week and the doctor will go over what to expect during the 3rd trimester (so Nick is coming with me) AND I have to take my blood glucose test. I hope everything comes out ok!!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

A little scare

26 weeks

We had a little bit of a scare last night. Little man must be on a sleeping binge this week or turned some other direction because I've barely been able to feel him move. It always makes me nervous when that happens because I'm afraid something is wrong. I had noticed for the past couple of days that he has been more quiet than normal and definitely more quiet than when we were on vacation and he was moving all around. I got so nervous that yesterday morning, I busted out the at home heart monitor and of course, I found his little heart beat right away. It sounded strong and that put me at ease.

As the day went on however, he was still pretty quiet. I Google'd 'fetal movement at 26 weeks' just to see what came up. A lot of the links had other moms who were experiencing the same decrease in movement around this time. That made me feel a lot better and I had little movements here and there to let me know he was still in there enjoying life! I even realized one of the things I've been feeling (low, steady little pitter patters almost like a heartbeat down low in my pelvis) are actually him having hiccups!! He gets them a lot. I first noticed them on vacation but thought it was just him moving around. Now I know it's just him having hiccups!

Well, last night, I was pretty active all night cleaning and getting the house ready for my parents to come up this weekend. When we went to lay down, baby was almost uncomfortably quiet. I tried to poke my stomach to wake him up, shined a flashlight (only for a few seconds) on my stomach to see if that would make him move and nothing. After he didn't respond to the flashlight, I got a little nervous. I drank some orange juice to see if that would spark him up and still, not much. I busted out the heart monitor again and for the first time since he was really tiny and hard to find, I couldn't find the heartbeat. I tried to stay calm because my doctor has told me the problem with those 'at home' ones is they can cause unnecessary concern when you can't find a heartbeat. She said they aren't nearly as sensitive as the ones they have so if the baby is turned just right, you may not hear the heartbeat. Of course, none of this made me feel better while I was frantically trying to find it. Every once in awhile we'd hear a little blip that I think might have been him moving around, but at the time, it wasn't enough to satisfy my concerns. Finally after about 15 mins, we picked up just a few seconds of his heartbeat, but not long enough for me to feel comfortable.

Nick reassured me that's what we heard and everything was fine, so I made myself go to sleep. I kept waking up all night long and not feeling anything (which is normal for him but for some reason didn't feel normal last night). This morning I woke up and usually that's a pretty active time for him and he was just silent. I got up a little early, drank some orange juice and once again, busted out the heart monitor. THANK GOD I found his little hearbeat right away. Same place it was yesterday morning, beating strong and finally he started to move around a little bit. I've started feeling him a little more this morning so I'm starting to calm down.

I've started to realize that this happens almost every week too! LOL! I think he must be adjusting to my schedule at work and during the week must catch up on his sleep while I'm at my desk. It seems like he's super active on the weekends when we're on the go and by mid-week, I'm in a panic because he's slowed down. Either that, or I'm just focusing on it more when I'm just sitting at my desk. Going forward I'm going to try and just stay calm and not get upset when he's quiet unless there is a reason. At 28 weeks is when I should be feeling him a lot more and even counting his kicks/movements. Until then, I've got to try and keep the freak outs under control!

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Creative juices are flowing



Week 26




Everyone is having a hard time believing that I haven't started the nursery yet. I'm such a planner and try to do things as far in advance as possible, so it is a little surprising even to me, that we haven't started yet. However, we decided to wait until AFTER Nick was done with school and we were back from our vacation to start working on it. I'm really glad we did because I've changed my mind a few times since I started designing things and now I feel like I'm really ready to go.




The nursery bedding came in over our vacation so as soon as we got home, I ripped it open!! I
was so excited to see it. I really like what I picked out, but I LOVE the color theme we've decided to go with. I'd had this picked out from the Land of Nod when we first got pregnant, but still kept my eyes open for other things. I came back to this one and just loved the concept. Even better, the week I ordered it, it had just gotten back in stock (after being on back order for weeks) and we got FREE SHIPPING!
Here is a picture from the website of the bedding!
Nick thought it looked a little too 'sissy' at first, but I like how it's very calming colors and it gives us lots of freedom with decorating choices. A lot of things out there for boys right now are themed, and it's mostly animals or cars. Lots of monkeys, jungle themes, etc. While some of that stuff is so cute, it just wasn't what I was wanting for our baby's room. I wanted something that was not only soothing for the baby, but something we would enjoy also.
We have just started the process of getting the nursery together (don't worry - I've started taking more pictures so we'll have the 'before and after' ones to post) and I'm so excited! My dad and step mom are coming up this weekend and we are installing a closet system with shelving to make it more functional for a baby.
We have narrowed down our paint for the walls to 2 different greens and just last night, I decided to paint the closet! Since the closet won't have doors anymore and I really have been wanting to incorporate more of the 'teal/blue' from the bedding, it came to me last night. I'm going to repaint the inside of the closet with the blue color since the walls will be green. I'm hoping it'll look as good as I'm picturing, because in my mind, it's not only a pop of color, but it should add some depth and help the closet look more put together.
That's on the agenda for tonight so hopefully it can be dry by this weekend for my Dad and Nick to build the shevles. Last night Nick and I combined our closets and dressers together for the first time since living in our house! It actually went much smoother than I imagined. We were able to easily fit things where they needed to be and we got a bunch of things to donate to Goodwill!
The baby has started moving a TON lately. It's so much fun to feel him and sometimes even see it. I'm really hoping he'll move a lot this weekend so my parents will be able to feel it. A few changes that I've noticed over vacation are I am definitely more tired. This is probably from the 'pregnancy insomnia' that has set in. Once I get to sleep, I'm ok...for awhile. One trip to the bathroom or shift in positions and I wake up and can't fall back asleep. I also wake up super early and when I'm up and moving around on weekends, I can be go go go. It's times when I stop and am sitting that I tend to get more tired. Especially sitting at my desk at work!
Bathroom visits have kicked up quite a bit. That was fun on the airplanes...LOL! My hips have started to hurt again when I sleep. I'm really thinking it's because I'm not getting to the gym and walking as much. We walked a lot on vacation which kept the pain away, but now that we are home, I've been on the go trying to work on the nursery. I hope to get back on schedule next week with at least walking at the gym. I feel like when I walk more, my hips don't hurt so that's even more motivation to get to the gym. I've started being even more vigilant about making sure I'm getting lots of protein, fruits and veggies in my diet. Not only to keep weight gain under control, but so little man gets as many vitamins and nutrients as he needs. We ate pretty badly on vacation so it's nice to be back in a routine. We also finished up our registry this weekend. Invitations for 2 of our showers went out and we wanted it done for anyone who's an earlybird shopper!
Nick has been fantastic! When we were registering this weekend, when we were looking at paint and closet options, he'd start to realize when I got easily overwhelmed and has learned to sort of talk me through it instead of trying to 'fix it'. Once he gets me talking through it, I find I start to sort of calm down and can focus more on the task at hand, rather than the finished product which gets me overwhelmed. I find myself getting more overwhelmed than normal, but he's been amazing at getting me to calm down. Last night when I made the last minute decision that we were going to paint the inside of the closet, I went in, during the KU vs. MU game and decided to start taking the current shelf and rod down myself. I got the shelf down, but got stuck on the shelf support. Instead of getting angry, which normally may have been his reaction, he was more concerned about me hurting myself. At half time, he came in and got all the rest of the stuff down so I could start taping to paint tonight! It was a small thing, but I noticed and really appreciated it because he's been so helpful.
I'll try and post pics next week of the finished closet! Next weekend the guest bedroom furniture gets moved out and hopefully soon a crib will be in. We are on the hunt for a crib because I don't think I like the one I originally picked out!

Extended Vacation

Week 26

We've been on a bit of a hiatus the last couple of weeks!! We went on our trip to LA, which was WONDERFUL, but thanks to a nasty snow storm that hit about 90% of the country, we were unable to get home as planned. The vacation was supposed to be Thursday January 27th to Monday January 31st. As sad as we were to leave the gorgeous LA weather, we knew we had to get back home. Apparently, Mother Nature had other plans for us. Our flight was scheduled and 'On Time', however about an hour away from landing in KC, they stopped us in Denver and told us the Kansas City Airport was shut down and we'd need to either stay in Denver or go back west and try and fly out the next day. After some pregnancy hormone fueled tears and about half an hour to figure out our next move, we decided to head to where else.....LAS VEGAS! As much as it sounds like the 'fun' way out, it actually also made the most sense. They had the cheapest rooms and the most flights out of there to Kansas City.

We got to Vegas last Monday night, with a flight booked for the next day - the day the storm was supposed to hit. We were about 15% confident that we'd get out as planned on Tuesday and that was mostly based on the hope that, as usual, the weathermen would be wrong. Of course, this would be the ONE TIME they got it right on the nose. KCI airport was shut down all day Tuesday so our flight that night was cancelled and the next available flight wasn't until Thursday morning. Once we knew we'd be stuck for a few days, we decided to just make the best of it. We knew we probably wouldn't be going on a vacation for awhile once little man is here and this was just forcing us to really enjoy it.

I was so glad it happened because we really got time just the 2 of us and got to really enjoy each other. While we were in LA, I kept thinking about all the exciting and even stressful things we had at home. I kept trying to tell myself to just take this time and be in the moment. Enjoy it because it's going to fly, but it was so hard!! Having that little extension at the end really allowed me to relax and enjoy it.

A few of the highlights of our vacation:
- Lakers game in LA - we saw lots of celebrities: Khloe and Rob Kardashian, Chris Harrison (host of The Bachelor), Kenda Wilkinson and Hank Baskett, Jack Nicholson and a few other randoms. This is a good tidbit to show what society is like right now - most of the 'celebrities' we saw, were reality TV personalities!

- KU game watch party in Huntington Beach at Sharkeez. A girl from KU, recently graduated and relocated out in Cali, works at a bar Sharkeez. For every big KU game, she organizes a watch party for the local alumni/fans. It was a blast. We met some really fun people and everyone was so welcoming and nice! The little beach town was awesome too!

- Beach day - we drove up to Malibu, down to Venice Beach, basically up and down the coast just watching surfers, the beach, the waves, it was a fun day!

- The Grove - we went to the outdoor shopping mall The Grove and did a little shopping. BUT, we also got to see Matthew Morrison (aka Mr. Schuester from Glee - my fave show right now) perform his first solo concert. He was great and it was cool to see him up close!

- The Citadel Outlet Malls - this was Nick's idea but it was so cool! They had a Carter's Outlet, Old Navy outlet and even stores we don't have here at home! We got Baby B TONS of super cute clothes. We even went to a fancy 'LA boutique' Bel Bambini and bought an expensive, but super soft, onesie. I got some FABULOUS 'LA' shoes. Since clothes aren't fitting quite like they used to, shoes and accessories are my new obsession. Ok, so shoes aren't really a 'new' obsession, just taken to a whole new level!

- Ketchup with Matty - our dear friend Matt Hugunin flew out to LA for a work conference and was staying downtown near the Staples Center. Well, the hotel he was staying in just happened to be the same hotel my friend Pete from Meadowbrook now worked. So we got a drink there first so I could say hit to Petey and then hit LA for dinner. We went to Ketchup (a place I've seen on TV as a big celeb spot) so I was pretty excited! The food was great and we had even better company!!

- Criss Angel show in Vegas - neither of us had ever been to a Vegas show and since we had taken on the 'make the best of it' attitude, we decided to go all out. We got the tickets for half price and got 2nd row seats!! I'm not a believer in 'magic' but it was pretty cool to see it upclose. The show was entertaining.

- Walking the strip - we went out and walked the strip the night before we left for Vegas. It was pretty chilly in Vegas, but we wanted to get out and see some of the new hotels before we left. We stopped by the shops at Planet Hollywood and they had a Gap store in there. After stopping in a few different Gap stores in LA, all without maternity sections, I was so excited to find not only that they had a maternity section, but that it was HUGE! They had some great sales on shirts so I got a few. We went in to the new Cosmopolitan hotel and it was gorgeous!!

Overall, the trip was so much fun! We were definitely ready to be home and missed our house and our little Oscar!! We came back to quite a bit of snow on the ground. I think overall the KC area got about 12-14". Nick had to spend some time shoveling the driveway and a path for Osci in the backyard, but we pretty quickly got caught up on house stuff and are back in the groove!