Nursery Inspiration

Now that we know it's a girl...  we've got some things narrowed down for the nursery!  Here are our "inspiration pics" I found on Pinterest...

I love everything about this pic except the wall color.  And I like the tree, but I probably won't do the tree.  I do however, love this chair, these curtains and especially the polka dotted tie-tops of the curtains. I want to use our leftover wedding fabric to make some stuff for her room, which I think is kinda romantic and extra special...  

I actually found a good-looking chair and ottoman at Target...

As far as wall color goes... I'm thinking something like this:

And something like this for the bedding...

This is the crib I want...

And we'll need another piece of furniture for the changing table, with a pad on top... Something similar to this, but probably black.  I dunno, I'm having a hart time deciding between black and white furniture.  We already have a black dresser and a black book shelf, so probably black, but I'm drawn to the white:

I also want to use left over wedding scrapbook paper and do something like this but with family pics and in all black and white on the teal walls...

This is one more idea that I really love, and it matches the quilt my gma is making... But i think it's too much brown for my taste.  Super cute though!

18 Weeks and McMuffin's First Shopping Trip!

We forgot to take it this morning, so I'm extra giant in this pic! lol

How far along?  18 weeks!  Almost half way!  wowzers!!!
Trimester: second
Days to Go: 154!
Baby size: 5.6 inches or the size of a sweet potato or bell pepper!
Baby weight: 6.7oz
Total weight gain: i'm not weighing any more!  At least not on break! haha
Maternity clothes? Yes! All my pants, pretty much, and I'm looking forward to buying some shirts too!  One of my amazing students gave me a $25 gift card to Motherhood!  Can't wait!
Stretch marks? no, but my belly is getting itchy and tight! And awfully full!
Sleep: not as good as it used to be!  the 3/4am wakings to pee are no fun!
Best moment this week: Every moment this week has been great!  I love being in NC with my family, I loved telling everyone that we're having a girl, I loved our special Christmas, and I loved shopping for McMuffin today!
Have you told family and friends: Everyone knows everything now, except for her name!
Miss anything? Drinking with my family! haha
Movement: Not yet... SURELY soon!
Food cravings: none in particular, just food!  And OFTEN!
Anything making you queasy or sick: Nope, thankfully
Gender: GIRL!
Labor Signs: none
Belly Button in or out?  In, but getting closer to out every day!  I can see the whole inside of it easily in the mirror, and it's getting itchy so it's definitely changing!
Wedding rings on or off? On, but it is getting a little tighter!
Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy!  So happy, in fact, that I'm kind of freaked out that I haven't been more emotional! I am normally the girl who cries at Hallmark, Cotton and Haagen dazs commercials, so the fact that I didn't cry at the heartbeat or our ultrasound or any of this so far has surprised me! I think it's all still so surreal... and I'm so happy! But no irrational tears yet!
Weekly Wisdom: December sales on summer baby clothes are awesome!
Current Reads: Ina May
Looking forward to: getting home and to work on the nursery!  Deciding for SURE on a name!
On the "Honey Do" list: enjoy and relax for now, b/c it's all going to be fast and furious once we get home! It's a downhill slide to parenthood from here on out! :-)


We took a family outing today to go look at baby stuff.  We'd been out and about all day and hadn't really bought anything except the quilt we were looking for that Mama Sue is going to cross stitch, which you can see here:

Quilt and Accessories

And then after hours of shopping we were heading home, but Caitlin wanted to buy a Kindle Fire and they were sold out.  I called all over town for her, and the one place that had one in stock was Toys R Us.  We got there to get her Kindle, but they also had a Babies R Us section, so we went to check that out too... while there, we stumbled upon a "Take an additional 50% off already reduced clearance rack" and we ended up stocking up on tiny little girl clothes:

She has the beginnings of a darling shoe collection!!!  And such a good bargain shopper!  I'm already such a proud mama!  There was a diaper bag we liked earlier today at Bed, Bath and Beyond for $80... But we got this one, which I like better, and full of stuff for $92!  So I think we did good!!!

Merry Christmas to everyone! (and the 2nd Big reveal!)

McMuffin's stocking... my first stocking from 1983!

We got a ton of darling baby stuff today, including SUPER cute burp cloths (with no monkeys or frogs!) made by my amazing grandmother, and a food processor so I can make baby food!   Tons and tons of other cute things, but the highlight of our morning I think, was telling Luke's family our exciting news!  This is how we decided to do it:

See a video of our Reveal here!

I'd like to give mad props to my husband for being an amazing video maker, and always going out of his way to make things extra special for everyone!  I love you babes!  Best Christmas ever! (So far!)

Merry Christmas Eve!

The first big reveal!

After 3 days and 20+ hours in the car, we finally decided on a fun way to tell my parents....

So exciting!

It's a GIRL!!! All the Old Wives Tales were wrong!!!

Luke, Indy and me at Ultraview Imaging in Arlington TX.

Finally on Wednesday afternoon at 12:30, we got out of school for Christmas Break and flew home, packed the car up, and hit the road for Dallas!  We didn't get on the road til 1:30 and we had to be at the Ultrasound place at 4:30!  We had the very last appointment of the day! That meant we were going to have to make the 3 hour drive with this preggo and our dog and no pit stops!  I also had read that I was supposed to drink something sweet to help stimulate the baby 30 minutes prior to the appointment, AND that I wasn't supposed to empty my bladder immediately beforehand!   Needless to say by the time we got there, I was about to bust! haha!  Luckily, they were super nice and they even allowed us to bring Indy in the room with us (in his kennel- and he whimpered the whole time!).  They thought it was super cute that he came along with us!

UVI posted both of these two pics on their  Facebook!  Too cute!

The facility was amazing.  We were in this nice big room, large bed for me to lay on, and the images were projected onto this large screen on the wall for us to see! Within seconds of beginning the ultrasound, Makeba (the awesome tech with 20 years of experience!) goes "Well I'm pretty sure I know what it is, but I want to have a few more looks before I tell you."  

Just one baby, for all you people saying it was twins! ;)

I'm a Girl!

Sure enough, she did know what the sex was!  It's a girl!!!!  We were so surprised and sooo happy!

Sneak peek at the 3D/4D stuff

I love her little fingers on this one!!!  She's going to be a piano player like her daddy! He already found her a starter-piano!

We told the tech our plans about how we hadn't told our parents we were getting this
ultrasound and so we were planning to surprise them for Christmas, so she made us this little pic!

Afterwards, they had a few cute novelty items for purchase and we got these darling wrist bands!

We also got this darling little stuffed bunny that plays a recording of Baby Girl's heartbeat!

After we left the ultrasound place, God blessed us with a beautiful pink sunset in honor of our precious baby girl!!!

We were so happy and so thrilled just to see our tiny baby for the first time!  Add to that the knowledge that we're having a baby GIRL and I was just about as happy as a girl can be!

Luke had said the whole time that he wasn't leaning towards either a boy or a girl at all, and I'd been saying I expected a boy, but secretly, (or not so secretly!) I was hoping for a girl all along!!!

With Luke's aversion to frogs and my aversion to monkeys... and how neither of us are sports fans... it just makes more sense for us to have girls! haha

Now, the hard (fun!) parts..... deciding on a name, since we only had boys names picked out!
And deciding how we want to decorate the nursery!!!!!!

17 Weeks: Polar Express Pajama Day!

How far along? 17 weeks
Trimester: Second
Days to Go: 161
Baby size: 5.1 inches or the size of an onion or avocado!
Baby weight: 5.9oz
Total weight gain: ugh! Something like 15 pounds.  Sheesh.
Maternity clothes? Mostly just pants so far.
Stretch marks? not yet!
Sleep: mostly good
Best moment this week: Getting ready to find out the gender on Wednesday and leaving for our trip to NC!!!  So excited!
Have you told family and friends: yes, but no one knows we're finding out the gender on Wednesday!
Miss anything? seeing over my belly! haha
Movement: not yet!  hopefully soon
Food cravings: none really
Anything making you queasy or sick:  more heartburn than sick
Have you started to show yet: um yeah. lol  Everyone is saying twins!!!
Gender prediction: I'm going with boy...
Labor Signs: none
Belly Button in or out?  DEFINITELY going towards being out!  I can see clear to the back of my belly button, which has always been really deep... freaking me out! lol
Wedding rings on or off? on
Happy or Moody most of the time:  Happy!
Weekly Wisdom: Preggos should be allowed to wear PJs all the time!!!
Current Reads: Ina May still, no time to read lately!
Looking forward to: FINDING OUT HOW MANY AND WHAT GENDER!
On the "Honey Do" list: I convinced Luke that we just HAD to get in there and do some organizing in the nursery!!!  We cleaned out the dresser, the bookshelf, the closet, and all my craft stuff.  Luke even built some awesome shelves to go in the office closet so we had room to store everything we moved out of the nursery!  Now I just can't wait to put away all the Christmas stuff so we can see the empty nursery!!!

Even my students are curious about what the Sex will be!

I pulled up my blog on my classroom Promethean board during inside recess yesterday to show a co-worker... as I was scrolling through the posts, my 5 year old students noticed the pictures and all came up crowding around the board to see!  When I showed them the pic of what a 16 week baby looks like,  I guess one of them saw the umbilical cord sticking out and said, "Yep, it's a boy!" Hahahaha!

I can't wait to find out!!!

Heart burn!!! Boo!

Had my first real case of heart burn today!  I'm sure it had nothing to do with the 2 mini Three Musketeers, small bag of potato chips, or the egg roll I stopped for at Little Panda after school!!!

I've felt a little burn recently, but it's always been more of a "Huh, I think that's what heart burn feels like..." kind of thought, which then goes away before I ever really thought about it, but NOT today!

It started around 3 and persisted til 7ish.  I tried peppermints, milk, and finally some ginger ale, which seemed to finally do the trick!

Guess I'll be stocking up on Tums and Maalox next time I'm at the store!

Hopefully this means our baby will come out with a full head of sweet blonde hair! :) lol

Old Wives Tales

Luke went to a holiday party/meeting with the Preservation League tonight.  There was another guy there whose wife is also expecting and all the women-folk proceeded to tell them lots of old wives tales.  The other guy said that they had an early ultrasound in which their dr thought it was a girl, but wouldn't say he was 100% sure... but according to all the wives tales, they were definitely having a girl, and according to those same tales, we're having a boy! O.o

1.) Heart beat--- Ours was between 140-150, which a slower heart beat is indicative of a boy, and the other guy said theirs was around 160, indicating a girl.

2.) Hairy legs - Supposedly a sign of a boy, but then again, my legs are always hairy! (my poor husband!)

3.) Carrying low - the baby has been down low when we've tried to hear his/her heartbeat, but I wouldn't say I'm showing enough yet to be considered "carrying low" but Luke seemed to think so.

4.) Morning Sickness - mine being minimal (being more indicative of a boy), and the other guy said his wife has been sick a LOT, which held true for them having a girl!

So..... We shall see! Exciting stuff!!!

More and more people keep telling me they think I'm having twins, so who the heck knows! ;-)  Can't wait to find out!

16 weeks!

How far along? 16 weeks
Trimester: second
Days to Go: 168
Baby size: 4.6 inches, or the size of an avocado! wow!
Baby weight: 3.5oz
Total weight gain: 12 frickin' pounds! grr
Maternity clothes? maternity or stretchy pants, yep.
Stretch marks? no
Sleep: I miss sleeping on my tummy! I just don't think I sleep very soundly on my left.
Best moment this week: Getting my hair colored and trimmed for the first time since before school started!!! I'm even getting a keratin treatment! It's my "splurge"! ;)
Have you told family and friends: yep
Miss anything? being skinny! lol  Lunchmeat!
Movement: I thought I felt something strange this morning below my belly button, but I'm not sure it was the baby!
Food cravings: fruit!
Anything making you queasy or sick: Getting too hungry, salmon, guacamole (used to be a fav!) 
Have you started to show yet: yes, and everyone likes to say so!
Gender prediction: boy?
Labor Signs: none
Belly Button in or out? in 
Wedding rings on or off? on 
Happy or Moody most of the time: happy!  Even Luke said I haven't been moody, which he's really surprised by.  He just said, "Yeah Happy. And I'm not just saying that.  Which is kinda surprising, because I was fully prepared to deal with.... whatever I needed to deal with." LOL! 
Weekly Wisdom: Throw your scale in the closet while you're preggo.  It's no longer motivating, just, quite frankly, depressing!
Current Reads: Ina May's Guide to Natural Childbirth
Looking forward to: Seeing my family for Christmas! Feeling some movement!  Having other people be able to see/feel kicks and movement!
On the "Honey Do" list:  Luke has been doing a FABULOUS job taking care of everything so I can rest and relax.  I have the sweetest husband!

15 weeks already?!

How far along? 15 weeks, 6 days - Almost 4 months!! 
Trimester: 2 
Days to Go: 170!
Baby Size: 4.0 inches, the size of a navel orange or a big apple!
Baby Weight: 2.5 oz
Total weight gain: 10 pounds!
Maternity clothes? Yes! Maternity pants feel way more comfy, but I'm still wearing all my own shirts.  Did have to buy new bras though! ;)
Stretch marks? no, thankfully
Sleep:  I've been having weird dreams, and I don't feel like I'm sleeping very soundly.  Probably b/c I'm a right-side sleeper, trying to sleep on my left! We even changed sides of the bed to make it easier, but it's still strange!
Best moment this week: Going to the Jazz Band concert at the Cockerell Art Gallery and seeing all my band-parent friends I haven't seen since we told them the happy news!  Plus Luke make me feel special and loved, and they even played my favorite Christmas song, "Baby, It's Cold Outside"!  So sweet! :)
Have you told family and friends: yes, telling everyone! So fun! 
Miss Anything? I miss Diet Coke and red wine!  And exercising! I just have no energy!!!
Movement: not yet, but I can't wait!  If Charry (our cat) keeps making biscuits on my belly though, maybe McMuffin will feel more motivated to push back! lol! 
Food cravings: cold stuff!  Popsicles, frozen grapes, etc, even though it's freezing outside!
Anything making you queasy or sick:  salmon just doesn't appeal the way it used to!  Snotty little kids also make me gag! 
Have you started to show yet: Ummm yes.  haha.  Very much so.
Gender prediction:  I'm thinking (and hearing from everyone) that it's a boy! We shall see! 
Labor Signs: none
Belly Button in or out? In, and I have a really deep belly button so it'll be weird to see it pop out! 
Wedding rings on or off? On, and still loose
Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy!!!!
Weekly Wisdom: Get lots and lots of protein and water!  
Current Reads: Ina May's Guide to Childbirth
Looking forward to: FINDING OUT THE GENDER!!!  Ahhh I can't wait!  With that, it'll start to feel "real" I think, and we'll be able to make some decisions about names and nursery ideas! And I'm looking forward to feeling some movement!  
On the "Honey Do" list:  I can't WAIT to get in the nursery and get it started! Right now its full of all our Christmas boxes and our love seat, since we took it out to make room for the tree!  It's a total wreck in there, and I can't do anything about it till after Christmas when Luke gets all the heavy stuff out of the way for me to come in and organize! I'm starting to feel antsy that we're wasting too much time! Only 170 days to go!  Ahhhh!