Baby Rutabaga

Well this is week 25 and I couldn't be more excited (or be having more heartburn). The baby is the size of the rutabaga this week. Haha, seriously, these food comparisons just crack me up. Ever since being preggo I have definitely learned some new fruits and vegetables. But here are the facts about Nudger:

-Weighs about 1.5 pounds (apparently equivalent to a rutabaga)
-Currently about 13.5 inches in length
-Is starting to grow some hair


Here are the facts about me:

- I love my belly
- I make a ridiculous grunt every time I have to bend down or get up (and I can't help it, weird)
- Chris can feel the baby kick now which is pretty awesome
- Strangers have finally started to notice I'm with child
I apologize that the recent posts have been few and far between. I have been in a blogging SLUMP, which I blame on this darn unmotivating weather. Have I said lately how much I can't wait for spring? Well I'll say it again, I cannot wait!

Nursery Preview

Here is a little preview of the nursery. We're not close to being done, but I just thought I'd give you all the gist of what it is going to look like. We started by painting the whole room. I chose to do one orange accent wall, and the other three plain white. This is Chris painting, with of course his best Avatar face. I don't really get it. He does this now every time I take a picture.

The orange actually turned out really good! It doesn't look awesome in this picture, but thats mostly because all of the ugly yellow paint that is still on the wall.
These are the wall decals that I got in the mail a couple weeks ago and can't wait to put up.

And of course the crib. This turned out to be kind of a pain. All I wanted was a simple white crib. Turns out this is harder than it sounds, everything is a sleigh bed or a convertible bed with a bunch of bells and whistles. Well, I didn't want all those bells and whistles. We ended up finding this crib at walmart.com and I love it! It's exactly what I wanted, and its actually really sturdy. We got it a couple days ago and Chris put it together in no time flat. I love the simple little drawer underneath, and the simpleness of it.


And, we can't forget my favorite item the glorious glider :)

We haven't put up the wall decals yet, and I'm working on making a baby comforter and curtains. Remember, this is just a preview. I can't wait till it all comes together!

Before and After

I was recently talking to my friend Jewel and she brought to my attention that I haven't put up any pictures of our new house. So, I figured it was about time to throw some of those up. We moved into this house last May, and the last eight months have been filled with renovations. After our last house I swore that I was not going to do a fixer upper again. Well, when we found this house, it was only 15 years old and not a fixer-upper but it was definitely not decorated according to my taste. It had so many positives that we were looking for, perfect neighborhood, 4 bedrooms, good layout, etc that we decided that the pros outweighed the cons and we went for it. I figured a little painting/wallpaper removal wouldn't be that big of a deal. Hmm, well the pictures speak for themselves :) It was definitely not as much work as our last house, but it was certainly a lofty endeavor. However, my love for a good before and after will never change! We still have a bunch of projects ahead of us, but have came a long way in 8 months.
One of our first projects was the lovely dining room. The maroon drapes, and wallpaper had to go asap. This room actually wasn't a terrible project, we got the wallpaper and chair rail off in a day. Then had to wash the walls and paint the next day. I ended up using the same paint that we used in our old dining room. I really love the sunny yellow, and the room was instantly 100 times brighter! I love the room now, I would eventually like to tear the carpet out and put in hardwood or tile, but that can wait.
When we bought the house I said, "Oh we can spread these projects out over a couple years." Poor Chris had no idea what he was in for, I think we overhauled 5 rooms in 3 months... However, the Dining room really is one of my favorite "afters".




One of my other favorite diy's was the main floor half bathroom. It was wallpapered in a nice tropical theme and had a wooden toilet seat. This project started by me deciding to remove the wallpaper and just paint the walls. Well my dear husband was going to have to take out the toilet so I could get that paper off. So, we decided maybe we should just buy a new toilet. Then we decided, if we take the toilet off we might as well tile the floor. And finally, if the floor is tiled the only thing that wouldn't be new was the vanity, so we might as well replace that too. Things spiraled right out of control. This project ended up taking more work from Chris's end with the tiling and plumbing. Thank goodness for his bff Gilson who taught him how to tile and helped with a lot of the project. Once again the end product is amazing.



The last project for this post is the living room. Once again the drapes these people left us were just out of control. I don't know if they thought they were doing us a favor by leaving them, but really they were just hideous! The fireplace was of course hunter green tile. Before: We had a hard time deciding what to do about this tile. We thought about just replacing it, but then I read some diy article about painting brick fireplaces. Well this wasn't brick, but I talked to my dear dad about spraying it white. He thought I was a little crazy at first, but we decided if it didn't turn out then we could just re-tile it. Miraculously it turned out just the way I wanted it too! Of course we painted the walls too. It took three coats to over over more maroon around the fireplace!
During:

After:


Well I think thats enough for now. We've only done a couple projects since I've been preggers. Chris won't let me paint right now, which is very sweet. But we did paint nudger's room a couple weeks ago with eco friendly paint and I've been working on designing that. The crib is ordered, we have the glider and a shelf, now I'm on the lookout for a dresser!!! Hopefully I'll be able to post nursery pictures soon.

Here's a fun little question......

This is a game Marcie likes to play with me every time she gets dressed to go somewhere. Here's how it goes....

Marcie - "Chris do I look pregnant or just fat"

Chris - "You look lovely"

This game has been played almost every single day for the past 21 weeks. So far I feel as though I have done well. Marcie is starting to roll her eyes now with the lovely comment. So any advice? Feel free to make some comments. The comments will be judged. The winner.......hold your breath....gets to help put up wall decals in nudger's bedroom that Marcie has recently purchased. Before purchasing Marcie showed me a website in which the wall decals were shown proudly on a nursery wall. They looked nice and easy enough. However, when they came in the mail I found that there were 125 pieces to place on the wall individually....awesome. So the winner of my little contest will win one trip to our house to help place delicious little decals on nudger's walls. In all honesty the wall decals are awesome and Marcie does look lovely, but this is a serious contest.

21 Weeks

Baby is 21 weeks old today, which means we are past the half way point of 20 weeks! So far so good. We went for an ultrasound at 18 weeks which was so amazing. The heart rate was skipping along at 143 beats per minute. We got to see the arms,legs,feet, face, kidneys, and heart. And no, we didn't find out the sex. Everyone keeps asking, but we like the suspense people. Actually the baby had its legs crossed in a very polite fashion, so I don't think we would have been able to tell even if we wanted too. Chris is still hanging on to his vote of girl (especially since the legs were crossed, he thinks it was a sign :) and I still think boy. But according to our poll on here I'm beating Chris with 19 boy votes, and only 17 girl votes! Holler.
Here's a pic of little nudger, seriously, could he/she be any cuter? I don't think so.

I've been feeling great and loving the second trimester. I finally have an appetite back and could eat Mexican food every day if I was given the opportunity. I don't know for sure if this is a pregnancy craving, because I crave chips and salsa when I'm not pregnant so who knows. Otherwise then that I haven't really had any cravings. I did finally break in and switch to maternity pants. Holy smokes are they ever comfortable! I don't think I'll ever go back to regular jeans, seriously, its like wearing sweat pants that look like regular pants. Love it. The belly is slowly growing. Most people still can't tell I'm pregnant...which is weird because its so obvious to me of course. Maybe they just think I'm carrying around a bunch of holiday weight?! Here I am at 20 Weeks, the belly is here to stay, and I definitely cannot suck it in anymore :)
Chris and I have been working on the nursery. Last week we threw some paint up, that I think is just "ok". One accent wall is orange, and the other three are white. I love the orange, but the white is not doing it for me. So I think I'm going to have to whip out the ole brush again this week and make it a whiter, white. Hopefully we will get more done this week and then I can put up some pics of how its looking. Our next purchase is going to be the crib and I just can't wait. I've picked out the one I want, now just have to order it and put it together.

Merry Christmas

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6

Merry Christmas everyone (a day late). It was my goal to make a post yesterday but with all the cooking, gaming, and present opening there just wasn't enough time in the day. Chris and I hosted Christmas at our house yesterday and it was quite the experience. My family came up on Wednesday night and stayed until Friday evening. It was such a good time. Thursday (Christmas Eve day) we made waffles for breakfast, and then started prepping some food for the next day. We had planned to spend most of the day playing games. However, at about 11 am my mom was whipping up some cookie bars with my hand held mixer and next thing we know the mixer is on the floor and my mom is crying. She got in a fight with the mixer. She had been putting the beaters in when all of a sudden it just turned on and sucked her whole hand into it! I didn't know how bad it was at first until I looked at the misshapen beaters, then I realized her hand had bent the beaters. I don't know for sure what is going on in this picture, mom was crying bloody murder, but still smiled for the camera, dad looks like he's sleeping, and I'm still trying to figure out the beaters. It was pretty dramatic.

Well, she was laughing and crying all at the same time so I really didn't know how bad it was. We put some ice on it, but it just kept swelling. We didn't know for sure if there was a fracture or not, so Chris and my dad packed her up and took her to urgent care for some x-rays just to be safe. Thank goodness for no fractures, just a bad bruise. When they returned mom was feeling much better and we still got in a good game of phase ten and also went to Christmas Eve Service at our Church which was lovely.




Friday started off with some coffee cake, and present opening! And, wonder of all wonder Thaddeus finally got his xbox360. I don't think we will be seeing him anytime soon. Then came the cooking, cooking, and more cooking. We only had ten people, but that was just enough to fit around our table. Poor Chris was stuck on dish duty, but did an excellent job at keeping the mess under control. Around 2 it started snowing, so after pie and icecream almost everyone took off, needless to say the house seemed so quiet. And of course the dogs were just exhausted from all the excitement :)

18 Weeks

Oh, hello blizzard.

This week I am 18 weeks! This is crazy because we are almost half way done already! I was so looking forward to doing a post today because we were supposed to have our first ultrasound to see little nudger. Sadly, we woke up this morning to an all out blizzard in our front yard. We knew this was coming and last night I told Chris, I want to go to that ultrasound no matter what! He agreed. Well, this AM the imaging center called and told me I was the only one who hadn't canceled yet... I really didn't want to give in, but I figured one more day won't hurt. So I told the nice people there to just go home and I'll come in tomorrow :)

So hopefully tomorrow will be better, and I will have some awesome ultrasound photos to post. I am thankful now that we didn't go out. It really is pretty terrible. We have about a foot of snow in the driveway. However, even though Chris shoveled yesterday you can't even tell today and he's out there right now shoveling away. I really wish that I could go help. I actually like to shovel, but I have been severely vetoed by Chris. Which I suppose is good. However, I am a little bit stir crazy in here (so are the dogs). But I've been trying to keep busy making soup and cookie bars for my growing belly (and some for Chris too).

Here is my poor hubby out battling the blizzard to clear over a foot of snow off our driveway. I don't say it enough how thankful I am for him. Clearly, I would not be able to clear my own driveway from this catastrophe we call snow. Thank goodness for strong husbands.

Mitzy was keeping a close eye on him to be sure he was doing it right.

Every year one of my favorite parts of the snow is that I get to pull out my snow boots. Shalee and I got these probably 5 years ago in college and I could not live without them. I wear them everywhere!