Making Progress...

Matt and I were super productive this weekend (and super impulsive, and spent a super duper large amount of money)! Gender Neutral Nursery Mission is 90%, 70% complete!

Mobile: Done
Inspiration Mobile...

My Copycat Version:

Wall Collage: Done
Inspiration Collage...

My Copycat Version (ignore the crookedness) #ilovemysilhouette ...

Yellow Glazed Furniture: Done
Inspiration Furniture...

My Copycat Version (there is also a tall dresser - ignore the color, stupid cell phone cameras don't show it right. It's mustard, not urine.)...

Cornice Board with Fabric I'm obsessed with: Done
(Sorry about the crappy lighting, it does NOT do my fabric justice!)

That's enough of my teaser pictures in crappy cell phone quality. After a few more details (and that darned fan/light fixture) I will take better pictures with a real camera, better lighting, and the completed nursery!

While we were in Home Improvement mode, we threw in a few more cornice boards (Matt loves playing with his ShopSmith).

I am pretty pumped about our house feeling more and more 'homey'. As I mentioned, Matt loves his ShopSmith (for our 'paper' anniversary he got me season Broadway tickets and I told him he got to pick out a tool that came with a paper receipt - hence the ShopSmith #soromantic) so last week when Matt said he was going to Lumber Liquidators, I thought he wanted wood for his dumb toy. Not. 19 boxes of wood flooring later, our house will hopefully be feeling more 'homey' by the end of the week.... or 2 or 3 or 4 weeks. Pictures of that to come upon completion.

All of Matt's impulses (which I admit, I usually come around to agree with) usually entail buying more crap than I initially realize. "Oh great, Matt wants to install wood floors for us!" "Katy, I need to buy a top of the line air compressor, and a floor nailer, and air tool attachments to make this all happen." Look who just doubled the price of the floor.

Last night, Matt was working and decided he HAD to have a nailer from Craig's List that HAD to be retrieved last night (while he was at work). I was in the middle of necessary things, like buying fat clothes at Target when I get a text message from him with an address and amount of cash to take. Let me get this straight.... my police officer husband wants to send his pregnant wife to a house from Craig's List with a wad of cash? To top it off, my phone has gone haywire and was straight up beeping at me that it was dying. Not wanting to drive home to recharge (this would have meant going to Craig's House in the DARK), I made an impulse purchase of a car charger at Target (along with my 8 new shirts - all under $5!!!) and you can bet the guy in electronics and the guy checking me out heard about my crazy husband. The phone charged was necessary a)for the address b)to find out how to get to the address and c) for 911. Thankfully, Craig's List guy was a sweet little old man (who knew Matt was a cop from their phone convo, and heard it again from me - just as a warning!). Sweet little preggo wife got air tool oil (which I found on my own at Home Depot) and a floor nailer so sweet little baby daddy can get these floors installed in reasonable time (which I have warned is no more than 2 weeks). Pray for us, our exposed sub-floor, the shards of ceramic tile everywhere, and little Gus & Wally paws.

Did I mention Mrs. B got us some new carpet too? Baby is getting spoiled already... no used, old carpet from previous owners will do for this baby to roll around on! Our main floor is going to look like a whole new world in a matter of days! Weeks! Before the Baby gets here?!?!

Week 34: Cantaloupes, Crunch Coat & Crafts

This week the baby weighs almost 5 lbs~ about as much as a cantaloupe.

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Baby is almost 18 inches, fat is filling out by the minute, and the skin is as smooth as... a baby's bottom? As for me, I was given permission by the BabyCenter to be exhausted and fatigued. I am tired but I don't know if its more than usual. What does make me tired is the thought of the luxury of sleeping in ending in 6 short weeks. That's a little depressing!

I'm getting bigger by the minute... more than one person has told me that as well. Starting now, opinions no longer welcomed. I am beyond the cute, baby bump phase and quickly blowing up into the cow, house, barge... whatever you want to call it phase. When I think of my size 6 weeks ago to now, its hard to imagine what 6 weeks from now will be.

There's my little Gus-a-Roo napping on the baby. It was way cuter in real life. Do you think he knows whats in there for him??

One thing that is in there, besides the baby, is this...

The greatest thing in the world~ a crunch-coat blizzard (with chocolate ice cream of course). I love crunch-coat cones. It is the most under-rated thing at Dairy Queen and its not even on the menu.

This is crunch coat in cone form

There are 3 Dairy Queen's within 2 miles of our house and unfortunately, the most convenient one does NOT have crunch coat. I have made Matt leave one DQ to go to another one in order to get a CC cone and I just don't get why it wouldn't be a staple in every store. A few weeks ago, Matt told me I should get crunch coat in a blizzard and I thought it was crazy talk. The more I thought about it though, the more sense it made. The worst part about the cone is once you lick the crunch coat off, you have a plain old ice-cream cone. Boring.

FF 2 weeks and me and my little bro were sharing blizzard tips. I informed him you can build your own (PB cups and cookie dough - the textures work perfectly together) and he informed me that you can have a crunch-coat blizzard. Whaaaa?!?! Pat and Matt on the same wavelength here. We immediately got into the car and drove to the less convenient DQ that has the crunch-coat and I ate the best thing ever. Pat and I have decided the Grill & Chill DQ's are usually the ones without the crunch-coat so avoid those if you want to consume the greatest thing on earth. Naturally, I've been back since the original trip (Matt needed to try it too) and all this talk of crunch-coat probably means I'll be going today or tomorrow (inconvenient location is very convenient on work days - a few blocks from my office and in my direct path home). The other crunch-coat DQ in our proximity is seasonal and doesn't have a drive-through BUT they have $0.25 blizzard coupons on the back of my grocery receipts. Cha-ching. And I complain about feeling as big as a house....

Speaking of a house, Matt is getting annoyed because I have made a to-do list for him of chores around the house before baby (which we both know means ASAP, like before Courtney comes in 8 days). In my defense, the list was composed with at least a month's notice but in his defense, its annoying that they are all Matt jobs. He doesn't see my arts and craft projects as equivalent work. We have compromised on one fun project, cornice boards for the baby's room and for our living room. Matt wins because he gets to play with wood and tools. I win because I get to upholster and pick fabrics. This is the baby's window treatment fabric.

I am very excited to get the project done and hung. I think it will help tie things together in the nursery and get us one step closer to being baby-ready. My mobile project is also in the works and thanks to it, my hand is about to fall off. Last night I cut 120 pieces of heat n' bond, then 60 pieces of fabric, then 120 circles out of the heat n' bond/fabric combo. That doesn't include all of the ironing. This will be the end result though, way worth it.

How is that not the same as Matt installing a fan, doing electrical work, moving furniture and hanging things on walls?? Sounds equally important to me!

The name game is making more and more progress. This book is my latest purchase and although there aren't really names we haven't heard, they analyze names in an interesting way.

amazon.com

It gives popularity statistics, sibling suggestions so you can see complimentary names, and also gives a pretty up-front opinion on the names. It tells you if a name sounds old, or hard to say, or easy to make fun of. I was happy to see that a bunch of the names we like were sibling suggestions for other names we like. The common 'style themes' for our names were "Guys & Dolls" and "Antique Charm." I'm not telling you names we like but that can keep you guessing for a while.

I will tell you that Matt's favorites had some entertaining insight. Leroy would have siblings named Doris, Norma, Wilma, LaVerne, Clyde or Virgil and is African American in style. Milo would have brothers like Bruno and Rocco and would sound like a bodyguard. Hahaha! You can look at a big chunk of the book through amazon so if you've got some free time, check it out.
 

Week 33: Cousins

Finally, something I want to eat! This week the baby weighs just over 4 lbs. like a pineapple!

foodscience.wikispaces.com

I guess the problem here is pineapples like this...

evernewrecipes.com

Those pineapples just tick me off, especially after a scorcher of a summer like we've had. It's not like I drink that much but all I want is a frozen blended fruity drink! Ideally, it would be a Miami Vice (if you don't know what this is, you are missing out), in Mexico, where I was on my honeymoon about a year ago...not that I'm complaining. I wouldn't trade waddling, achy ribs, a sore back and a pea-sized bladder for the world! Right Baby??

I went out to dinner with some friends of mine from high school last night (shout out to Marian friends!) and we were talking about feeling like you're going to give birth to an alien or some crazy monster. BabyCenter informed me however that this week, baby is "rapidly losing that wrinkled, alien look and his skeleton is hardening." Good to know BC, good to know. I guess the talk of an alien inside of you isn't so far-fetched weeks prior to 33?

Not much has happened in mommy/daddy world since last week in terms of baby. Matt's latest list of name suggestions included, Gus (our dog), Henry (a snaggle-toothed dog we attempted to rescue before we got Walter, who was shipped back for attacking Gus), Milo (the guy from the original Saved by the Bell), and Leroy (even though it was his Grandpa's name, baby Roy is not likely).

tvrage.com

Milo is the gentleman in the top left corner. Milo also makes me think of Otis from the classic 80's flick, Milo & Otis. Matt is also not opposed to the name Otis.
Milo: You're a strange-looking cat. 
Otis: Oh, I'm not a cat; I'm a dog.
Milo: All right, a dog, I understand, but... deep down inside, we're all cats, right? 

We will be revisiting names at another time. Matt thinks the delivery room is a good time. I on the the other hand, would feel a lot better going into it with a narrowed down list, especially after seeing the "lists" Matt composes in his own time.

Things our Baby needs:
*cool name - TBD
*nursery - still a work in progress
*stellar genes - as if Matt and I weren't enough for this, 2 of my cousins are SUPER talented and hopefully get their talents from the side of the family I come from.... which will hopefully get passed through to Baby. (By the way, I have more than 2 talented, wonderful cousins with sparkling personalities, wit and charm - they just don't have websites to plug.)

Talented Cousin #1 - KERRI!
My cousin Kerri just completed her Master's Degree in Illustration and is finally sharing her work with the world. Here is her website Kerri McDermott, and here is her blog, Go, Draw, Go!

http://kerrimcdermott.com/home.html

Baby connection that makes this relevant to my blog... I am growing a watermelon in my stomach AND I've eaten about 5 watermelons in the past month. I can't get enough. This Baby must be fruity since fruits have been some of my 'must haves' since the beginning of this pregnancy.

Back to illustrations~ the sampling of Kerri's work leaves me hanging and hopefully she posts more soon! I can't get enough! Yay Ker Bear! 

Talented Cousin #2 - Miss Molly!
My cousin Molly just graduated from the University of Denver and moved is L.A. to pursue her dream of becoming a singer/songwriter. She. Is. Amazing. I wish I was blog savvy enough to post her music right here but I'm not so you'll have to click away to check it out. Here is her website, Molly Cottrell.
You can also follow whats going on in L.A. at her blog, Dream Chasing Adventures. Things are happening fast for her and its awesome to watch her succeed doing what she loves! If you find her on Facebook, you can hear my favorite song, "If You Weren't You" posted on her fan page wall.

Just a dose of some fun cousins. Molly is 2nd from the left.

"I am a fun person." Kerri is on the far right.

Anyway~ there is my shameless plug for the art and music of some Kruse girls. Baby will be lucky to get the genes from either side of Matt & My families but these 2 are especially talented. Go Kerri & Molly! If not for the talent, Baby can learn about following dreams from you two! Yay for cousins (FigZig)!!!

*P.S. Mom, I don't want a pineapple upside down cake. Fresh pineapples accepted though.

Week 32: Perspectives

The baby weighs almost 4 pounds at this point (well, between 3.75 and 4 depending on the source – and frankly at this point I think its every baby for themselves in comparison to the ‘norms’). That would be about the weight of a jicama.

naturespride.eu

My complaint on this weeks produce is that jicamas are just ugly (what is the plural of jicama? Jicami?). I do like jicama though. Apparently there are babies out there promoting consumption of root as well…

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The things people put on the internet.

I was thrilled to go to my checkup this week and discover that I weighed .4lbs less than I did 2 weeks ago. It doesn’t matter that my bladder was not full and that my 10:20 appointment had me weighing in at 11:35 and starving. It’s the little victories. Med student shadowing my doctor was a weirdo and he gave an awkward “wow” comment when he measured my stomach insinuating it was big. Whatever buddy, I’m down 0.4! 

My wait at the doctor’s office had me very grateful for the life situation I’m in. There is some really good people watching at the Creighton Women's Health Clinic and it made my hour and 20 minute wait interesting to say the least. Out of the 5 patients I observed, none had wedding rings on, 4 had additional children in tow, 3 had translation issues with the front desk, 1 had a major insurance issue that required being put on hold for 45 minutes and 1 needed a medical voucher for a cab to get home.  Just when I started to get irritated with my own wait, I realized life could be a lot more difficult and at least my time had me missing out on my job…with a salary… and benefits. Perspective.

As my stomach is getting bigger, my ‘inny’ belly button is becoming more of an ‘outy’. I wouldn’t say it’s popped, there is still some ‘inny-ness’ but way less than there has ever been. This development has led to my discovery of a little freckle inside my belly button. Who knew?!? 27.5 years and I sure didn’t! I discovered a freckle behind my ear when I was in college and felt the same sense of revelation. What else don’t I know about this body I’ve been living in forever? Perspective. 

Bodies are weird. Babies inside of bodies feel weird. This baby has been kicking up a storm lately and I think its using my ribs as a foot massager. It feels really nice (sarcasm).

siberianproducts.com

I would imagine my ribs work similarly to this contraption.

Matt and I were laughing this week about the potential for our baby to have my paddle thumbs and Matt’s hammer toes. Poor mutant thing! Mix in Uncle Patrick’s webbed toes and this baby would be monster! I guess we’ll just have to wait and see which genetic blessings Baby is graced with. Speaking of 'wait and see,' I watched a show on mom’s giving birth in prison last night and one lady was waiting to see what color her baby was so she would know if it should go to stay with the boyfriend, or the husband (who was in the burn unit after his meth lab blew up). 2 weeks after birth, she still couldn’t tell and baby ended up going to Amish foster parents (who prison lady was glad “weren’t too religious”). Once again, perspective. I’ll take paddle thumbs and hammer toes, just as long as there are 10 fingers and 10 toes!

The baby prep is coming along much better after my meltdown last week. We got the registries situated and the paint is finally DONE. The registering at Babies R’ Us was the nightmare I figured it would be and sorry to say, it went a lot smoother when I went again, alone. That is not a dig at Matt, in his defense, I went to Target armed with a list. I’m just glad it’s done and hopefully we honed in on the necessities and not just the cute fluffy stuff.

My subtle hints in last weeks blog about cake seemed to work although the cake my mom made was not a half birthday, it was a whole anniversary. Matt and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary on Sunday (Aug 7th, which was also the 6th month anniversary of the positive pregnancy test) and my mom made this delicious cake so we could celebrate.

You can’t tell in the picture but the purple/blue frosting was swirled in different shades of blues and purples~ which were the colors of our wedding. If you are wondering why we would need a cake and not just eat the traditional frozen top tier of our own wedding cake, the reason is because we had no frozen top tier. When Matt and I were loaded into my Dad’s cousin’s car to take us home after our wedding reception, someone thought it would be wise to send the cake with us. While Matt was busy napping and waking up to give the wrong directions to the driver (mind you, it was a straight shot home~ literally 3 turns needed if you included the one into our driveway), I was in the back seat starving and holding a cake. Wait a minute here… I got like 2 bites of this cake and it was damn good. Naturally, I started digging in. In the back seat of my Dad’s cousin’s car (sorry about the crumbs Annette). Without a fork.

The one legit bite of cake I had at the reception

The top tier that rode home with me... to be frozen

 

Fast Forward to about 6am the next morning. I woke up next to Matt, still in his tux, SOUND asleep, and I really had to pee. I went into the bathroom and sat down to go, only half awake and with only half of my half that was awake, coherent. All of the sudden the door pushed open and in walked my little Gus. Oh hi, Gus, who sleeps in his kennel overnight. Why are you free in the house? I walked into the kitchen and sitting on the counter, was the top tier of the cake. Lets just say it was a hot mess (the half that was left, that is). It was obvious utensils were not needed, or used. I’d like to say that Gus being unsupervised overnight was responsible but based on the cake's countertop location, and my obsession with buttercream, I’m pretty sure we all know the culprit (this is the same person who told Matt to get his own piece of cake at a wedding and I would get 2 pretending one was for him, when really, I wanted two, so he had to fend for himself). Yea, I ate the cake. And you know what? It probably tasted WAY better then than it would have this past Sunday~ so there!

 

Some of the PG pictures leading up to the cake massacre.

Anyway, we had a very nice anniversary, the paper year, and its pretty crazy to think of how drastically our lives have changed in 12 short months. Perspective. I don't think either of us really know how much the next 12 will change our lives but we are so excited to find out. Here is one last wedding picture to pay tribute to this time 1 year ago...

The beginning of the rest of our lives.

Week 31: ROYGBIV

The home stretch is into single digits. 9 more weeks (unless this baby is like me and comes 3 weeks late... do they even allow that any more??). I am assuming the odds are that the baby won't come on its due date so I've been brainstorming days that I like that could be potential birthdays. The key is aligning a number I like with a day my Doctor is on call... we will see how cooperative this baby chooses to be.

This week, the baby is measuring over 16 inches long and weighs about 3.3lbs~ the amount of 4 naval oranges.

babycenter.com

I'm not sure why they provide perspective for you with the quarter since we are looking at weight, not size but again, I'm about over BabyCenter's information. This week they sent me an email that included THIS which was traumatizing. If you are bored, curious or clueless to the birthing process, read it (be sure to go past page 1 - 3 and 4 is where it gets good) and you'll probably be horrified, disgusted and thankful that you don't have a delivery looming over your head. At least there is a good prize at the end~ a sack of oranges.

A few weeks ago, my doctor told me I should start tracking the baby's movement a couple of times per day. Baby should move 10 times in an hour (it should most likely happen in 10 minutes) and I should pay attention to it twice a day. This is not good for me. I am bad at daily routines. I don't wash my face every day, I don't shower every day (yea, I said it), I don't clean everyday, I don't get the mail everyday, I don't even take my pre-natal vitamins everyday (I sincerely try with those though~ I just forget sometimes. Plus they smell awful and it makes me gag). Now I'm paranoid that I forgot to check if my baby moved each day~ TWICE! Thankfully, the navals in my naval have been a moving machine the past week or so and it makes it much easier to acknowledge movement when your being punched and kicked in the ribs multiple times a day. Although its a little annoying, its also pretty amazing to think about and I'm still amused seeing my belly move like an alien through the corner of my eye.

Although I am not a pregnancy picture taker, (I feel awkward taking pictures of myself, plus I have an enormous growth on my belly!) I took one for Miss Courtney who is in California and wanted a baby update. Being that she is a medical professional and would not judge, I complied and have now decided to go out on a limb and share with all you lucky readers (so stop bugging me! haha).

In exchange for the picture, Courtney is coming to visit me in 29 days. What do I get from you??

I guess oranges are appropriate this week since colors have been taking over my life. I mentioned the multiple color samples on our walls a few posts ago. My mental image started with blueish, greenish, aqua colors. Water Mark, Valley Mist & Tide Pools did not work for me. I'm telling you, this room is the weirdest lit room ever. Colors transform into bizarre hues that are nothing like what they appeared to be (maybe I should quit judging the previous owners with their choice of pink). From blues I tried a creamy, butter color. Belle Grove Light Amber, Filoli Honey, Oatlands Yellow... no dice. Then I got some green samples, Coriander Seed, Sea Kelp and Chameleon? More like canned spinach, baby diarrhea, and St. Patty's poop.

I had initially liked the idea of gray but I was afraid it would look gloomy. I humored Matt with a Pensive Sky sample and we both hated it. Oatlands Subtle Taupe? Too Taupe. Notre Dame? Too Purple. Frappe? Too Green. Finally we settled on Filtered Shade and decided to go all-in. The other colors obviously weren't working and gray was at least a neutral that worked with the accessories I have planned for the room. Drumroll.... We bought the gallon! The room turned from pepto to filtered shade. Empty of any of the pops of color, it looked sterile and boring. We held off on the 2nd coat and I told myself it would be good once we got everything in the room. The convincing didn't work and even Matt knew the color was wrong. Too blue on the Filtered Shade gray. UUUGGHH! Back to the Depot. We went darker than we intended because we kept finding ourselves drawn to the more bold shades (that I was avoiding in an attempt to keep a nursery soft, sweet and baby-like). Wood Smoke.... another gallon purchased.

Smoke covering the Shade. Ignore cellphone pictures~ the colors don't look right but trust me on this one, we FINALLY got the right color. Now for the bad news. We have issues or stirring or something. The edges/trim and corners that I painted looked like an entirely different color than the rolled portions. In the past 2 years, I have painted 10 rooms plus an entire kitchen's worth of cabinets and that has never happened to me before. It happened on the Filtered Shade and now with our Wood Smoke (its got to be the walls, not the application right?!?). Sooo... at 10:30 last night I did a second coat on all of the edges (and the GD window/window seat - I hate edging). Now, all the edges are a smidge darker than the rolled parts. Awesome. Did I mention that we have used the ENTIRE gallon on both shades of gray painted? This stupid room is dry-walled in sponge. 1 coat (plus a quick second coat on edges) should not take an entire gallon of paint. Today, we'll be back to the Depot for another stupid gallon and another stupid coat of paint. I'm soooooo over this paint that if this next coat doesn't work out, I'm going to call every one of you crying until someone comes and does it for me.

We also bought a gallon of Solar Fusion which is a snazzy mustard color that we will be using to paint a dresser and a smaller nightstand thing to eventually look similar to this....

Glazed with black, our yellow furniture better turn out as cool as it looks in my head. Its taken GIANT steps for me to accept putting 2 Craigslist pieces of furniture into baby's room (I don't like touching them, even though Matt disinfected them. In my defense, I went to the house we got them from. I'll be re-applying the Lysol at least once before they are 'ready'). Between the yellow furniture, red chair,  black furniture, black and white bedding, and my wall art projects, I think its going to come together. Now if the frickin' paint would cooperate.

Such a pretty rainbow we've plowed through. This week in ROYGBIV recap...

Red: The leather chair for baby. And the color (Cherry) of the OhKaty diaper I ordered. After lots of research and reviews, it turns out Matt & I are digging the OhKaty's. With a name like that... Duh.

Orange: The weight of the baby BTW, the DQ by our house recently turned into a DQ/Orange Julius and Matt brought one home yesterday - not knowing about the navals. OJ was a BIG let-down. It was the consistancy of thick milk, not a frozen frothy smoothie. We'll make our own, thanks. DQ will be reserved for Nutter Butter Blizzards.

Yellow: Solar Fusion Furniture (and the color of our yard - talk about baked in this heat!)

Green: The color of this delicious marinade we ate for dinner last night, the envy I have for rooms with finished paint on the walls and the color of the toothbrush rug Matt has attempted to weave for the baby's room (Google it). Also the color of OhKaty #2 I ordered (Apple Green to be exact. If I ordered 2, I got free shipping :))

Blue: The multiple failed attempts at paint on the walls and my failed initial vision for the nursery. Blue is for boys anyways, right? This could be a girl.

Indigo: The color of my knee after I fell down the garage stairs last night. Don't panic~ it was 3 stairs and I caught myself, well my knee/leg did, well if by "caught" you mean ending up on the ground with a bloody and bruised leg. Matt to the rescue.
*No Navals were harmed in the creation of my indigo knee

Violet: The color of my birthstone. Happy Half Birthday to ME! (in 2 days) Remember when my Mom made Patrick a half Birthday Cake?? Its probably because he is her favorite (violins).