Family Fun

So last week was our little "mini-vacation". We decided just to go spend a few days at the lake house seeing as how taking a big trip at this point in my pregnancy was neither affordable nor sensible. Justin and the kids drove up on Sunday and I joined them on Monday after I got off work and had a little nap. It was a nice break, although there were a few obstacles. . . .

We knew the AC was "out" the week before and decided we would just take the window unit out of our bedroom and tough it out. Hubby's step-dad pointed out that the windows at the "cabin", which is actually a double-wide trailor, wouldn't hold a window unit. The neighborhood fix it guy was supposed to be coming to fix it anyway so we decided to go on. Apparantly Sunday night was unbearable, so hubby and the kids went and bought a window unit from Wally World and rigged it up in the sliding glass door, duct tape and all! Unfortunately, it did not help much. It was still 80 deg in the house. Knowing me like he does and especially now, hubby decided not to tell me that the parts for the air had not come in! I may have stayed home! I guess you might as well say we were camping cause it was almost as hot inside as it was outside. Ever tried to sleep 8 months pregnant in a house that's 80 degrees??? Thank the Lord that the parts came in and we had AC after getting off the boat on Tuesday!

The AC was not the only problem we encountered. Hubby had to replace the carborator on the boat Tues morning before we could go out. Come to find out, after an hour on the lake Monday, the boat died and he had to ask someone to tow him back to the dock! This is apparantly a terribly embarassing thing for him. Must be a man thing. We just had to laugh about it but I think he was gonna crack if one more thing broke!

After everything got repaired, we ended up having a great time. Chloe has really learned to swim well since last summer and didn't even need her Scooby Doo doggie life jacket and my baby girl started learning to water ski! I was so proud of her. She got almost completely up on the first try. I would never have had the guts at 11 to even try. Then on Wednesday, my sis in law and niece came up and went to out on the lake with us. We did some tubing- I'll have to post some pics if I remember. And then we hit Fat Daddy's for lunch. It's a floating restaraunt on the TN River in Dover. Sarah Kate now has her very first Fat Daddy's t-shirt! It's super cute. We just couldn't resist!

Gripes!

It's okay to gripe here, right? lol So things aren't going very smoothly this week. The nursery curtains I was expecting came in (now let me say I have been trying to get these curtains since the 25th of March) with the WRONG fabric. That's right! The wrong fabric. How in the world does one confuse polka dots with red monkeys???? Please tell me. I just about cried. When I called the very old, senile lady, she said, "Well, that's the number I wrote down". So even if you wrote down the wrong number, wouldn't you notice that monkeys were NOT polka dots??? She and I got on the same website at the same time to pick out my fabric to avoid any confusion. Guess that backfired. This is a little lady that runs a shop in a little town outside of Murfreesboro. Hubby was there for a class and bought me a sock monkey pillow while he was killing time. So he brings this lady's card and tells me she has curtains too. YAY! Or so I'm thinking. Not only did she use the wrong fabric, but the seamwork was just atrocious. I could've done better myself and I don't sew! Sooo, Lesson: Don't trust hubby's opinion of one's seamwork!

My bumper is being made by a lady I found on Etsy. After I emailed her wanting a shipping date, she tells me that she is running about two weeks late! Aggghhhhh! Doesn't she know that I desperately need these curtains hanging up two months ahead of time??? lol I relunctantly ordered my curtains from her after rereading lots of wonderful reviews. All say, "worth the wait" so I guess she stays behind. She has bought herself some time by holding my bumper hostage and shipping both pieces together. She did give me a date of June 7th though, so I'm trying to be strong! Ohhhh, how crazy I have become! Hopefully, they will be worth the wait!

Thirdly, what is thing where pregnant women work? Holy cow, 12 hours has never seemd so long! I just want to cry every morning when I finally get off. I can't imagine, at this point, working up until my due date. I guess I have officially become a wuss. I am whiny and obnoxiously emotional. My poor hubby and kids. I must say, they are doing pretty good with my crazy behavior. But 7 weeks seems like forever right now! For all of us!

In the home stretch!

Well, we are officially in the single digits. Nine weeks to go and counting. And boy am I counting. Things have actually been going well, but I am starting to get pretty uncomfortable and feel like I could knock down the Eiffel Tower with this belly! No weight gain at my last visit! YAY! I was super excited about that although I'm not sure why I didn't gain. I guess my eating has slowed quite a bit. Guess I'm running out of room in there! SK was 3 lbs during an "under the table" ultrasound from a friend 2 weeks ago. That's just a little above average I think so hopefully my lessened appetite will prevent her from being HUGE! My boys were both close to 9lbs. Everything looks good so far. She even has little fat cheeks and I can tell she's gonna favor her big sister!

The nursery is almost there. I can't wait till it's finished. I had a lady come out and add some detail to the name my mom and I painted above the crib and I'm pretty happy with it. My curtains should be in the mail tomorrow and my bumper should be ready any day now. I got a couple of cute pics to frame off Etsy and some other little nick nacks to finish things up. I need a hamper and wastebasket still and a cute rug for the middle of the floor and I think that will be it! I have really had fun with the sock monkeys. I hope I don't tire of them quickly after all this work!

Hubby started stripping the dreaded cradle today and it went well. Yay! I had just about decided not to use it until a family gathering on Mother's Day where I was informed that half the family slept in that cradle. Even second cousins! SIGH!!!!! So I'm stuck with it. I did discover that they make metal spray paint that we can use on the hardware since it seems impossible to find. I'm also still in need of a new mattress. Apparantly, size 14" by 33" isn't a common cradle size! I'm hoping it will turn out well. Now I just have to get on the ball and find some bedding.

I must say that the closer it gets, the more scared I get. That "amnesia" that the dear Lord gives us is starting to wear off and I am remembering the long, painful labors of the years before. I am truly considering wussing out and risking the epidural. lol My doc this time isn't totally against it so we'll see. She says to talk with the anesthesiologist as soon as we check in and get his/her opinion. Sooo, we'll see.

All in all, life is good. I know I am truly blessed. I know that the Lord loves me althoughI don't always act like I should. I have a healthy family, a healthy baby on the way, a nice, DRY home, a good, stable job, and food on our dinner table every night. What more can a girl ask for?

Cankles and Cradles

So I'm happy to report that my cankles seem to have subsided for now. I had about a week of REdicuous swelling, and now, MUCH better. I dunno??? I'm not going to question, just enjoy while I can. It has also been brought to my attention that I have not gotten heartburn yet this time around! Yay! I lived on Pepcid with my other pregnancies so I guess right now, I'm feelin pretty blessed. I'm going to be blessed tomorrow with that yummy glucola drink for my glucose tolerance test. I must say I'm super exited about that! At least I get to hear baby girl's sweet heartbeat. That's always reassuring even though I have constant reminders that she must be okay every time she punches me in the ribs! I LOVE it!
On a less happy note, things aren't going quite the way I expected and looked forward to with the furniture. The MIL gave us hubby's old cradle and rocking chair. Yes, that means that they are near 30 years old and a bit worn looking. I took them both to my mom's house about a month ago in hopes of refinishing them together with my parents. I love the memories of working on my nursery projects with my parents so many years ago and was hoping to do the same for this baby. So Saturday after I woke up, I went to their house to try and get started on things. My schedule isn't exactly conducive to productivity on the weekends, but I made the effort. My dad glued the joints of the rocker while I did some sanding and before you know it I was packing everything up in my truck and going home. It was kinda late but I didn't get the feeling that anyone else was quite as excited about these projects as I was. I certainly don't want to be a burden. I checked into having someone redo the cradle. It's a light oak color which matches nothing in my house and is a Jenny Lind style which is probably my least favorite style of baby furniture not to mention difficult to refinish bc of the many spindles. It's going to cost twice what I would pay to buy a brand new one to refinish it. If I'm going to spend that kind of money, I'd rather just buy one I actually like, but then we have hurt feelings to deal with! Aggghhhhhh. I guess at this point, the best option is for hubby and I to research and take a stab at doing it ourselves. Sighhhhh.

Milestone!

Okay so Saturday was a BIG milestone for baby SK and I. I'm officially 24 weeks or 6months. Wow, SIX months. Doesn't that sound BIG??? Boy I sure feel big this week. Apparently along with my big milestone comes big changes in my pregnancy. On the positive note, SK is FINALLY moving. A LOT! YAYYYYYY! I've been just dying to feel her little movements for weeks and have been disappointed that I was only able to feel slight flutters. My OB started asking me if I was feeling her move at 16 weeks and I think it was about 20 weeks before I was able to feel any significant movement. But finally, this week, baby SK is moving like crazy. I can even see her moving which is too cool. She definitely lets me know if how I'm sitting is bothering her. I had my arm resting on my belly last night at dinner and she got to kickin' like crazy till I moved it. I think our little one is gong to be a feisty girl!
Since I did say that was on the positive, yes, that means there is a negative. Yesterday, I went to the last hour of the Baby Expo and hit a few other stores before meeting hubby and the boys for dinner. By the time nightfall hit, I looked down and I had CANKLES. Already!! At 6 months. What's this? I have not had any swelling out of the ordinary and have been feeling pretty good up to this point. Cankles so bad that I had to stop in at Old Navy for a pair of flip flops to continue my shopping trip. Along with the cankles, also came a fierce aching low back. I'm sure this is a good sign that in the last 4 weeks, my already atrocious weight gain has gotten worse. Ahhhhh, the joys of pregnancy. The memories started flooding back! LOL
Another positive, the nursery is looking super adorable. I got my bed skirt in and changing pad cover. Ordered up some girly curtains and found someone to make a super cute bumper pad for the crib. My quilt top is complete and I've had it embroidered. With the exception of one fabric that I DID NOT choose, I do love it so far. I have painted a wooden shelf and an ABC block to look kinda aged, gotten some cute vintage pictures of the sock monkey to frame, and am working on a cover for the lamp shade. People say I'm obsessed but I'm having lots of fun. Thinking back, I did the same for my other babies so I couldn't do any less for this sweet girl!

Favorite New Store

So yesterday, Sarah Kate's Meemaw came out after a little arm pulling from the mommy to be, to get her name painted on the nursery wall. We needed a little break and decided to make a trip to Covington to check out the Freckled Frog followed by lunch at the tea room with the slightly obnoxious ladies who work there. So I must say without a doubt, I have a new favorite store! It is an absoulutley precious children's store. And as an experienced mommy, I can honestly tell you how precious the days are that you get to shop in a store like this for your little one. It doesn't seem like it took anytime before we graduated to Limited Too/Justice and Aeropostale. Where did the time go?
The Freckled Frog has all the old time honored brands that I put on my babies a decade ago like Feltman Bros and Petite Ami, along with some adorable new brands I had never heard of. I am super excited to get to shop for these little things again. Although SK has multiple sweet outfits of her sisters, washed and waiting in the closet, I've got my eye on some, more precious than words, dresses that I may break down and buy. There is a line of clothes called WillBeth (I think) that I have fallen in love with that SK and I may not be able to live without! Sorry honey. Just wanna get that outta the way now! lol

Painting things. . . . . pink?

So things are really moving right along it seems. First, we have a closet, well almost. We have to go have another $30 gallon of paint mixed to paint a 2 ft wide section of wall. Baby boy is officially moved upstairs with the exception of his hanging clothes, which of course, are waiting on paint. He actually has a lot more space than he did downstairs so now I feel less guilty about yanking his bedroom. We now have a chest and dresser and a leather rocker in the nursery with several sock monkey items set out that I've already purchased. I'm really getting excited.

I also got my hall bathroom "mudded" finally after 7 months of procrastination thanks to a good friend who really came through for me and motivated me to get the job done. I still have to "rag paint" to make the texture "pop" so to speak but with all the yucky weather and a crazy work schedule, I haven't made it to Sherwin's yet. So hopefully this week with the next 3 days off and the hopefully melting snow, I will get some painting done. I'm also planning to buy the paint for the stripes for the nursery walls. Thank goodness I don't have to paint the whole room. I'm really not up for that. As a matter of fact, I think we may call someone in the next few weeks and have the master bath painted. I've had the paint sitting here since we moved in. Hubby thought he would save us a whopping $200 by taking the bathrooms off the list of rooms for the painters. Oh how I have regretted going along with that decision. Especially now that we will probably pay at least $200 to have one bathroom painted now anyway. It's going to be a dark chocolate brown on the wall above my tub and then yellow on yellow wide vertical stripes on the other walls. Will be beautiful when it's done.
I'm now officially 16 wks and 2 days. Although some days it seems to be creeping along, I can't beleve I'm finally 16 wks. That's 4 months. That sounds substantial, don't you think! I go for my monthly check up tomorrow but unfortunately that means that I won't get another ultrasound till I'm 20 weeks. Agggghhhhhhhh! Can I say that any louder??? I have no idea why but I'm so anxious to find out if this is going to be baby Nash or Sarah Kate that I could just scream. I didn't know with my first and chose not to know with my second and with my third, I was just like "sure, what is it". LOL.But for some reason, knowing that I'm going to find out, I'm worse than a kid at Christmas who tries to unwrap her presents ahead of time! I actually had the tech at work look tonight for the 2nd time in the last couple weeks and we are thinking it's a girl. If it had an obvious penis, I would be totally convinced, but at 16 weeks and this being "unofficial" I'm a little hesitant to start buying dresses. However, it's REALLY unlikely that this baby will have a penis pop out this late in the game. Soooooo, I'm really thinking we are on team pink and will be welcoming a little Sarah Katherine into the family this summer!