Saturday, February 26, 2011

31 Weeks!


Only 9 weeks left!!

I am SOO excited that we are finally past the 30 week mark. It feels like a big milestone and now we are into the single digits...of weeks anyways. Time is going both fast and terribly slow. I feel like January and February passed pretty quickly, but 9 weeks is still sounding like such a long time to wait to see our little man. The average baby at this stage is about 16 inches long and weighs about 3.3 lbs. He should be gaining more weight here pretty quickly in the next few weeks. I am feeling him move a lot more these days, though it is still very light and hard to detect. I am grateful that Will is so kind to his mother and does not kick me hard enough to hurt. But it is really nice and comforting to feel some movement and know that he is ok. I noticed he moves most late at night or early in the morning. I have tried telling him that it is nighttime and he should be sleeping; hopefully the message will sink in before he is born. A few days ago, Lance felt him move for the first time. It was probably more exciting for me than it was for him, but I have been very anxious for Lance to be able to feel him too. We have our next doctor appointment next Friday, and the day after is my baby shower in Salt Lake. I am crazy excited for it. I have a lot of friends coming that I have not seen in years, as well as many family members. I just can't wait to see everyone and catch up with people.

We are taking a "Prepared Childbirth" class at the hospital and we had our first class this last Wednesday. We discussed typical symptoms of pregnancy and what different things we had been experiencing this far. We talked about things to expect in the coming months. We discussed the signs of labor and how to know when it's time to head to the hospital, or just a false alarm. At the end of class, we went over a few relaxation techniques which were nice. They included having our husbands give a hand massage, or rubbing our backs. I told Lance those were definitely techniques that we would be practicing a lot at home :) Our class next week will focus more on the actual labor and delivery. I think these classes will be good for several reasons. Number one, I think it will help the time go by a little bit faster. Secondly, I think it will help Lance feel a little more involved and part of this pregnancy. And number three, I think it will provide us with some useful information.

Things are going really well for me so far. I have been feeling good and I am so grateful that I am still able to do all of the things that I need to and want. I have realized just how BLESSED I have been throughout this entire pregnancy. I have been much more tired and emotional lately but that is to be expected. I realize that there are far worse things and I am so grateful that I have been this fortunate this long.

Friday, February 18, 2011

The Nursery

I have been anxious to post pictures of our nursery for weeks! I told myself that I could post the pictures once I was 30 weeks. I have made pretty much all the bedding and decorations in this room. I knew that once I graduated, I would want some projects to do. So I decided to make everything for our little guy. Unfortunately, once I get started on a project, I work like crazy until I am done. I planned on spending several days, if not weeks on all of the bedding to give me something to do. But I was so excited to have it finished, I sat down for over 8 hours straight, two days in a row and finished it all within two days. And that was even before Christmas! So this post is mainly to show off my craftiness and to get any sort of feedback. I really like what I have done, but any suggestions would be welcome if you think I could make it better.

Perhaps my favorite part of the whole room is the wall I decorated. We have his name displayed on the wall, and I am very excited about how it turned out! We are pretty confident on the name, and I really doubt it will change. That being said, there is always a chance. And if so, I'll just change the letters on the wall. Let me know what you think of it all!


These are the curtains I made.


 This is our changing table. The cupboard on the right opens up and has a place to hang clothes. I made the cover for the changing pad. It is made of the super soft, almost fleece material.



This is a front view of the bedding. The green section is the fitted sheet on the mattress. I actually made the fitted sheet also. The crib sheet is pretty much the same as the curtains, though you can't see a good portion of it because of the wood panel.



I thought this polka-dot pattern would be cute for the inside of the bumpers. I also decided to try something different, in that I put solid sections also. 



This is a view showing all the bedding together. The stripe/blue outside and the polka-dot/brown inside. 


A friend of mine made all of her crib bedding also. I fell in love with the quilt she made, so I decided to copy the general idea. I thought it was super fun, cute, and different from anything you could find in the store. Hers looks much better though. I didn't realize until after I was done that we had even used the exact same stripe material. Even my curtains are very similar to hers. I hope she takes it as a compliment that I thought it was cute enough to do it similar, and not be upset that I copied.


I chose to try something completely different on the back. The middle is that soft-fleece material, then I did the border in all the other materials. I really like how the look turned out. However, it is not made particularly well. I didn't really measure and line things up exactly, so it's not the best quality. 



I had some leftover soft material from the blanket and the changing pad cover, so I decided to throw them together into a small blanket. I don't have my own sewing machine, and I feel bad always asking my mother-in-law to use hers, so I actually decided to sew this entire thing by hand. It was quite a project! I probably could have finished this in less than an hour with a machine, but it took me closer to 10 hours to do it by hand. It helped give me something to do during my graves at work. I'm just worried my hand stitches wont hold for very long. 


This is the car seat cover I made. We don't have a car seat yet, so I just threw it over something to give you the general idea.


Another picture of the car seat cover. Green stripped fabric on the back. It's very bright, but I think it'll be fun for the summer.


And finally....the best of all. Seeing the whole room together, and revealing the name we have chosen.

And he shall be called...
That is right. We have chosen to name our son Will. We are still debating over the middle name and probably wont reveal that until he is born. This was one of the only names we both liked, and once we started talking about it more, it just seemed to fit.


So remember...this is what the room looked like before... and now.....



Ta-da!

I doubt that I will add much more to the room. I plan on putting a rocking chair in here, and hopefully it'll fit against the side wall. I think it'll all work out so I don't have to rearrange anything.




Tuesday, February 15, 2011

My Life is Blessed

Lance and I had an experience today that made me really realize how blessed we truly are. We were driving up 1400 N. in Logan, heading to the parent's to play some ping pong. We were in the right lane, at the light next to Lee's. Lance has this crazy need, or obsession, to always be in the lane with the least amount of cars. (He later said he had switched lanes because the right lane ends at the next light and we needed to go straight.) So last minute, Lance quickly switches lanes. No exaggeration, we were sitting at the red light for no more than 10-15 seconds when we heard a loud crash noise. A mini van had plowed into the back of the car that was next to us. I'm not exactly sure what happened, or if the driver was just not paying attention. There didn't appear to be too serious of damage, but we did notice the two people in the front car holding their necks. Probably some serious whiplash. All I know is, if Lance wouldn't have changed lanes when he did, it would have been us that got hit. Someone was definitely watching out for us, and especially for our little baby. Our lives really are SO blessed, and I know I really need to start noticing and appreciating those little blessings more.

Never again will I criticize Lance for constantly making unnecessary lane changes....at least not until tomorrow :)

Monday, February 7, 2011

Super Bowl XLV

      Lance was SO excited for the super bowl this year. His NFL team is the Chicago Bears so he was a little disappointed when they got eliminated; however, he was still very excited to watch the big game. He decided he would cheer for the Packers. As I didn't have much of an opinion and didn't know much about either team, I just went along with Lance. Go Packers! We invited a few friends over, had some awesome food, and enjoyed the game. We had one of Lance's pals from class and his wife, a good friend of mine, and a co-worker of Lance's. Of the six of us, there were four Packer fans, one Steeler fan, and one who really didn't care either way. So it was good when the Packers won since most of us were cheering for them. It was a pretty close game, and I thought for a second that the Packers were going to lose it. Luckily they pulled through when it counted. There were a few great commercials, but the majority of them weren't that special.
The food included all of the following:
  • Chips and salsa
  • Chili cheese dip
  • Seven layer dip
  • Regular smokies
  • Smokies in BBQ sauce
  • Twizzlers
  • Pigs in a blanket
  • Crownies (brownies and cookie) - These were the BEST!
We had a good time just kicking back and relaxing for a few hours. When the game was over, we played a few rounds of "Two Truths, and A Lie" to help get to know everyone a little bit better. The boys had originally planned on having a Halo party afterward, but by this time it was about 10pm and we decided to call it a night. 



Friday, February 4, 2011

Birthday Bliss

I have an amazing husband, and I love him more every day. He is constantly doing things for me and does his best to make sure I am happy. I have never been much of a birthday celebrator, especially when it's my own. I would just let the day pass without letting people know it was my birthday. But Lance loves birthday's and likes to make them a big deal. He makes me get excited for birthdays again, which I haven't really been since I was a kid. He probably asked me about 100 times what I wanted, but I refused to give him an answer. I didn't want him to spend a lot of money on me.

8:30am: When we woke up Wednesday morning, Lance could not wait to give me my presents. He even tried getting me to open them at midnight the night before, but I told him I would rather wait. I was starving so I made him wait even longer so we could eat breakfast. He would have made me anything or taken me anywhere to eat, but I simply wanted a bowl of cereal. Special K with strawberries = YUM! Then it was present time. He gave me the complete first season of Glee and an itunes gift card. Yay! We have only seen the first half of season one, so I am excited to see the rest.


10:00am: Lance headed to class, so I decided to hit up the gym. I walked on the treadmill for a while, then came back home. Lance came home for a short lunch break, but didn't stay long because he said he had a bunch of errands to run before his next class. I threatened to follow him, but he told me not to ruin his suprises. Instead, I hopped in the shower and decided to actually get ready for once.

4:00pm: Lance is done with classes for the day. He randomly asks me if I have ever been to the Cracker Barrel. Then he said we'd probably be leaving for dinner around quarter to five, since we had a ways to drive to get there. My first thought was that he was taking me to Maddox in Brigham City.We decided to go walk around Best Buy to burn some time and see what I wanted to get with a gift card I'd received.

5:00pm: We were driving through Logan and Lance turned into the Elements restaurant. He said he had mentioned those other things (Cracker Barrel, and long drive) in an attempt to throw me off. Well, it worked. Elements is a pretty fancy place (by our standards). When we got there, there was practically noone in the restaurant, so I thought it was kind of funny when Lance said he had a reservation. It made sense when the waitress took us to our table and there was a giant bouquet of roses and a card. So cute! I like the card so much, I decided to take pictures and share it here.

We both decided to try food that was a little different and not something that we would usually get. We got some spring rolls, and lettuce wraps for some appetizers. They were actually really good, and very filling. I was almost bursting at this point. Then Lance had a ceasar salad while I had a bowl of clam chowder soup. And for the main dish, I had salmon over mashed potatoes, and Lance had a steak pasta. I had a few bites of mine to try it out, but couldn't eat any more because the pain of being so full was starting to hit. The pasta was...different. It wasn't our favorite, and neither one of us would get it again. The salmon was pretty good, and it made decent leftovers for lunch the next day. And finally, they brought out a free chocolate cheesecake thing for dessert. Overall, it was a good meal and a great atmosphere. Thanks Lance for an awesome birthday!