Squash (week 4).

32 Weeks! Wasn't I just writing my 31 week post yesterday? I mean I know I wrote it a day late, but I really feel like that was just yesterday. It is officially beginning to FLY by.

Big ol' belly pic, in the dress I wore for some of my maternity pictures. Which I still haven't shared on here... I need to get on that!

Total Weight Gain/Loss: Find out again next week, because I go to the doctor every two weeks now!
Maternity Clothes: Oh yes. Although the dress today is not.. gotta love ON maxi dresses!
Stretch Marks: Everywhere. This morning in the shower I discovered that I have them on my KNEES. I am starting to really hate my skin :-(
Sleep: Meh.
Movement: Oh yes, my crazy little dancer is keeping up his or her reputation. And I love it, as always.
Food Cravings/Aversions: Nothing new.
Gender: Honestly, I'm just not sure anymore. I have no idea.
Belly Button In or Out: Still bizarre and freakish looking.
What I Miss: Not gonna lie, sangria. Not for the booze, but for how refreshing and nomalicious it is on a hot summer day. Which is what we've been having around here, despite the fact that it is only May. It's been in the 80s and 90s! I am having a love/hate relationship with the weather lately.
What I am Looking Forward To: Meeting a good e-friend on Friday!! She is flying in from Cali and a few of us are getting together with her and I can't wait :-)
Best Moment This Week: Celebrating our good friends' wedding last weekend. It was such a great weekend!!

Baby Gear and Nursery Update

First things first. You must see the most adorable little cuppycakes in the entire world.

My mom got them for the shower she threw us a couple weeks ago. I think the whole neighborhood heard me squee with delight when I saw them! And they tasted great too, which is always a plus ;-)

Now, on to the boring stuff. It was requested that I update about the new stuff we got from the shower. Plus, my mom and I went to Ikea this weekend so I figured I would do a little nursery update as well!

I had found this print a while ago during a google image search. I grabbed a frame for it from Ikea and printed it out on Sunday. I love love love it. I just have to figure out where the crap to put it now.

I also got these frames at Ikea and spiced them up a bit with some leftover sock monkey paper. We'll fill them with newborn pictures of babyCam.

Also at Ikea I found lampshades. (I can't find them on the website but they are almost the same as the ones I linked). They don't fit perfectly, but close enough. And they aren't what I was looking for, but they are a fraction of the price and I ended up loving them. So that worked out well.

We also got the changing pad and cover as a shower gift. The last thing the changing area needs is the shelf above, where the monkey will sit.

This bookcase has been filling up real fast! We received sheets and blankets and things which are in the baskets. We also got the boppy and the frame shown in this picture, and lots of books! The shower was a book shower, which I really wanted so I was so excited about that! Every guest brought a book starting with a different letter. Hands down the best one we got was Wally the Green Monster and His Journey Through Red Sox Nation. We got a lot of other great ones too though :-)

You really can't see it in this picture, but I got this curtain rod for the closet curtain and I loooove it. I will show a close up picture of it eventually. We also got our bouncy seat at the shower.

And pretty much the number one thing I have been dying to get (besides the crib, but I have no control over that) was the rug from Ikea! I am so so happy with how it looks in the room.

We also received our high chair and car seat at the shower! Super excited about those.

We got lots of other things too that you can't really see in these pictures, but trust me when I say everyone was so generous. We are so lucky to have such loving friends and family who are so excited to meet babyCam!

So that's the latest with the nursery. Hopefully my dad will get moving on the crib soon. I have started having major meltdowns about it. But at least everything else is coming together, that helps. We also have another shower for J's side of the family in a couple weeks. I'll be sure to update the nursery progress after that as well :-)

Purple and Green Closet Dividers

These are some closet dividers I made for a baby girl's room. The buyer requested they not be too girly - my kind of girl!

The dividers were to be purple, lavendar, and lime green, with brown accents.

And the patterns were to be fun and not too girly.

So I found some fun patterns, painted the backs of the dividers brown, and used dark brown numbers backed in white. These were so fun to make!

Nice to do something girly (yet not), but you all know what I'm really dying for are some girl blocks! I have so much more fun making the blocks than the dividers.

Jackson's Blocks

I almost forgot to blog about these blocks I finished last week.

Jackson's blocks were to be blue, red, white, and brown...

...with monkeys and elephants.

Every time I make a new set, they are my new favorite! I love these ones so much.

I have to say though, I hope someone orders some girly blocks soon. I've only had the opportunity to make my neutral blocks and all boy blocks so far. I'd love to have a girl theme to work with!

Squash (week 3).

31 Weeks! Holy crap I am into single digit weeks left! We had a doctor's appointment yesterday, and the baby is measuring right on. Plus, the doctor said I am nice and slim, which was a great contrast to the douchebag from the day before who nearly fell over in shock when I said I'm not due until July, and then proceeded to ask if I'm sure there aren't two in there. It took all I had to turn around and walk away rather than giving him a swift kick to the balls.

Sorry for the bare belly and sports bra.. I was lazy. And I confess, the picture was actually taken this morning, so a day late. But check out the newly aquired baby gear in the background! Woot!

Total Weight Gain/Loss: As of my appointment yesterday, I am up 28 lbs. I'm comfortable with that. Well, mentally. Physically... that's a different story. ;-)
Maternity Clothes: Oh yes.
Stretch Marks: New ones - on my belly. Under my belly button I've got a random cluster starting, and I also have the typical one starting to shoot out of my piercing.
Sleep: Blah.
Movement: Crazy dance parties are still a regular occurance in my ute :-)
Food Cravings/Aversions: Nothing new!
Gender: Still thinking girl. I was even caught calling the baby a girl at my shower haha.
Belly Button In or Out: Still sort of both.
What I Miss: Being able to move without heaving my stomach first. Especially in bed.
What I am Looking Forward To: One of my best friend's wedding is this weekend, and I. cannot. wait!!! ::waves to E:: It's going to be such an amazing wedding, and I couldn't be happier for her and her fiance. :-D
Best Moment This Week: My first shower. My mom did such an awesome job throwing me exactly the kind of shower I wanted. I didn't tell her anything, just that I wanted something small and no fussing, just relaxing for all. It was perfect.

Corn and Bacon Chowder.

I just realized that I never blogged about this chowder I made back at Easter. Which truly is a crime because MAN this stuff is good, and this recipe needs to be shared with the masses!

I got this recipe from a fellow BOTBer, who got it from Southern Living.

What you need (with my adjustments in italics):

1 lb bacon, chopped. (I got a little package of bacon bits from the salad aisle and added what looked right. I just didn't feel like going through the hassle - read: mess - of cooking bacon.)

1 lg onion, thinly sliced (I chopped mine)

10 ears of fresh corn or frozen kernel equiv. (I used frozen and it was great)

28 oz chicken broth

1 med potato, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes

2 carrots, shredded (I admit I hate cooked carrots so I skipped these)

1/4 cup all purpose flour

1 1/2 cups milk

1 1/2 cups half and half

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/4 tsp hot sauce (we don't keep it in the house and I wasn't about to buy a bottle just for 1/4 tsp, so I just sprinkled in some cayenne pepper instead)

2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper (I don't know about you guys, but I never measure these things. Except when making fudge. Long story. But just add a sprinkle.)

What you do:

Cook bacon until crisp in dutch oven, remove bacon and reserve drippings. Set aside.

Cook onion in 3 tbsp reserved drippings in the dutch oven until tender. Add corn kernels, broth, potato, and carrot to onion in dutch oven. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 10 minutes or until potato is tender. Set aside.

Whisk together 1/3 cup reserved bacon drippings and flour in a skillet and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly for 10 minutes or until browned. Remove from heat and set aside.

Add milk and half and half to vegetable mixture, cooking over medium heat, whisking often until heated. Stir in lemon juice and next three ingredients. Whisk in flour mixture and 3/4 of the cooked bacon.

Cook until thickened, stirring often. You might need to add extra flour. Garnish with bacon. Can be frozen for up to one month, makes 14 cups.

What I did differently: I don't own a dutch oven, so I just used my largest pot. Since I didn't cook the bacon fresh, I just tossed some of the bacon bits in a pan with some oil and heated them quickly, then used a little bit here and there when the recipe called for the drippings.

So the first time I used my pot was to cook the onions with some bacon bits and oil. After that part, I just added the flour to the bacon and oil in the original pan I had cooked them in. I followed the recipe from there on.

To serve I just transferred it into the crock pot (as seen in the picture). We ate about half of it at Easter, since it was just a side to the ham. We froze the rest and just had it the other day, and it was just as good as the first time. I am definitely adding this to my list of freezer meals to be made before the baby comes!

Jacob's Blocks.

3rd post in an hour, let alone one day! Can you believe it? I am trying to make up for the slacking this week, if you couldn't tell. But in my defence, I have been busy!

I've gotten a few more etsy orders that I had to work on. One was for closet dividers just like the ones I made for myself, so there's nothing fun to show there since the patterns were all the same. But these blocks are a new theme, so I must show them off!

These are for Jacob, who has a Peanuts themed room. I was asked to put Snoopy on one of the extra blocks, and Woodstock on the other. I so love how these turned out!

I think these were my favorite ones yet. However, the ones I am working on now are fighting hard for that spot. I'll be finished with them soon, and will be sure to show them off when I am!

Yet another sign that I am getting old.

When we first bought our house, it had horrible storage. We've been working to remedy that ever since. We started out with a small closet in each bedroom, and a linen closet so small that the door is half the size of a normal door. The tiny kitchen had hardly any cabinets, and we re-did half the house while doing our kitchen reno. Now we have tons of cabinets, as well as two huge pantry cabinets, so that helped a lot.

Another part of the reno was adding another closet in the hall. It has been sitting empty for a year and a half now, and I finally gave up on waiting for my dad to build shelves to put in it. With the baby stuff starting to pile up, I needed to get that extra storage space organized badly.

So off to Home Depot I went, and grabbed a shelving system. J and I put it up in less than an hour, and I immediately got to work. Everything from the linen closet (except the sheets for our bed) is now in this closet, as well as all of the cleaning supplies, paper towels, toilet paper, etc that we kept piled on the floor of the formerly empty [like] new closet. And we were still able to get the vacuum in there as well. Now that the linen closet if practically empty, I can start filling it with baby things as they come piling in.

Take a look at this. This? Is orgasmic.

And with the description of a closet as 'orgasmic', I am officially OLD.

Now if we could only get my dad to put the moldings up around the doorways, it would be absolute perfection. Sigh.

Squash (week 2).

30 Weeks!! 3/4 of the way to an outside baby. Yikes! And I have been a terrible blogger this week. This post is way late, and I have a few other things I have been meaning to post and I keep forgetting. For shame.

This week babyCam's eyesight is developing further.

Total Weight Gain/Loss: Find out again next week.
Maternity Clothes: Oh yes.
Stretch Marks: Nothing new - still all over the boobs and love handles.
Sleep: I have developed a pattern of waking up around 4 am every morning.
Movement: I have a dancing machine living in my ute. And I love every second of it!
Food Cravings/Aversions: Nothing new. I think by the end of my pregnancy I will have eaten a quarter of the world's mint oreo supply all by myself. Sadly it's beginning to show in my chin(s).
Gender: Still thinking girl.
Belly Button In or Out: It's still really weird. The belly button itself is popping a bit, but the area around it still sinks in slightly. So I guess I am destined to have my bizarre innie-outtie belly button forever hahaha.
What I Miss: Peeing for more than 2 seconds.
What I am Looking Forward To: My first shower on Sunday! (Which is actually today now, oops!)
Best Moment This Week: Doing our maternity photos. A friend of mine did them and she did a fantastic job! I will be sure to AW some of them soon :-)

"You're a really good breather."

I don't think I've mentioned it here at all, but we are attending hypnobirthing classes in preparation for the Big Day. Let me just backtrack and say that I never in a million years thought I would say that. Even as little as a year ago I was all 'stab me in the back, thank you very much.'

Then, like a crazy person, I became addicted to reading birth stories. Well the more I read, the more and more I found myself becoming wary of medicated births. I'm not going to get into specifics or start preaching, and I will say that I don't judge anyone for going that route. I may still end up down that path myself, for all I know. But what I do know is that I am going to try my best not to.

When I first expressed to my doctor that I would like to try to go natural, she immediately recommended the hypnobirthing class. I took her advice and signed up for it, without really looking into it at all. I had heard little bits about it in the past, but not much. So going into the class I wasn't really sure what it was going to be about. I just knew that my doctor warned me to stay away from the regular childbirth class offered by our hospital, as it is geared toward a medicated birth, and wouldn't help me attempt to go natural.

I left the first class feeling SO good about my choice. It's exactly what I was looking for, and I am now really looking forward to labor and delivery. Sure there are some parts of Marie Mongan's beliefs that are a bit over the top for me, but the important part is that the L&D nurse teaching the class is right in my comfort level. That gives me confidence that the nurses and I are going to be on the same page.

Of course even though all of what we have been learning has been wonderful and encouraging, I still had a little voice in the back of my mind whispering, 'what if...?' What if I can't hack it when the time comes? Well last week in class we were practicing our relaxation and breathing. We had done this before, but this time we were practice the contraction breathing, which is deeper than the regular relaxation breathing.

After we were done the nurse said '[jCam], you're a really good breather.' J and I kind of joked and said, 'well I've got a few years of experience, har har.' She said 'no really, do you do yoga? You are doing a great job. Everyone else watch her, she is really good.' It made me feel so good to hear her say that! When I told her I don't (and never have) done yoga, she said 'you're just a natural then. You are going to do great.'

I'll tell you, it was just a small compliment, but it made all the difference in the world to me. For her to single me out and tell me how awesome I am going to do, when I was just doing what felt right, was exactly what I needed to hear to make that little voice shut up. I don't have to worry about not knowing what to do, I'm already doing it right, by instinct.

I can do this.


Disclaimer - I am well aware that the best laid plans come undone, so I don't want to be called a hypocrite if for one reason or another I don't get my natural birth. I don't know what will happen when the Big Day comes, all I can do is prepare for it the way I see best :-)

The first official sock monkey!

I've gotten and made other sock monkey things, but never an actual sock monkey. I would like to get a real red heel one to put in there, but I haven't bothered searching around for the best price yet. I keep putting that off, I think because I know there are people who know our non-theme, and may give us one as a gift.

Anyway, I wanted to get a non-traditional sock monkey as well. I searched around etsy and found a bunch I loved. This one was by far my favorite though. He seemed to have the perfect colors to match our blue stripes. I took the chance and ordered him, and seriously you guys, these colors couldn't match more perfectly!

He is so adorable, and I can't wait to get the shelf up on the wall so he can sit up there. I love him.

And if babyCam comes out with a vag, I have a couple of girl monkeys saved in my favorites ;-)

Squash (week 1).

29 Weeks! This week babyCam is the size of a squash. It's getting into sleep and waking cycles, and its skeleton is hardening.

Total Weight Gain/Loss: Last week at my appointment I was up 25 lbs.
Maternity Clothes: Oh yes.
Stretch Marks: My love handles are getting more. Bewbs are still covered. Got some new ones on my thighs. Ick.
Sleep: I am officially waking up [almost] nightly to pee.
Movement: Tons. And I love it.
Food Cravings/Aversions: Nothing new.
Gender: Still thinking girl.
Belly Button In or Out: It's getting really freaky looking. The button itself is popping out, but it sinks in before the button. And it's dark all around the button, like darker than the linea nigra but ligher than my nips (which are quite brown by now, in case you were wondering. Admit it, you were).
What I Miss: Seeing my vag. I wonder what it looks like these days?
What I am Looking Forward To: Maternity pictures on Saturday!
Best Moment This Week: Nothing in particular stands out, but we had a really nice week. The weather has been awesome, so that always keeps everyone in a good mood :-)

Samuel's Blocks

Samuel is going to be one very preppy little boy. His nursery bedding is this madras quilt and bumper below,

with these car/truck sheets.

His blocks were very fun to make. Here are my favorites:

And the finished products!

I hope little Sammy's mom like his blocks too!