34.5 Weeks

Here I am at 34.5 weeks. Holy cow, my face is getting fat! Why is it that you don't notice things so much until you see a picture? I shouldn't be surprised, that is where I have always seen extra weight. Despite my growth, I am excited to be at almost 35 weeks at this point. It is what my doctors told me I needed to be at (at the least) for the best chance of a healthy baby both now and in the future. A definite sigh of relief was made and now I am just waiting to get this cerclage out so I can be a "normal pregnant woman" as my doctor put it. Just over a week to go until freedom! Then a week or two later freedom will be revoked as Lila should make her entrance. Can't wait!

Nursery & Baby Shower

It has been a busy last week! At least for someone who is used to doing a whole lot of nothing! My fabulous friends came to paint my nursery for me, my mom came into town to help me get the nursery ready and I also had a fabulous shower thrown for me. It was a wonderful week and I now feel ready to welcome Lila into our home whenever she decides to come (hopefully she will wait a little longer!)

I think this is a dad's right of passage. Chris did a good job getting Lila's crib all put together and I loved that he wanted to put all the bedding on right away.

Caught him off guard...

Here is my mom as we tried to put together a small table to go next to the glider. I love Ikea's style and prices but we did find ourselves saying, "How many people does it take to put an Ikea item together...?" It doesn't help that there are NO words on any instructions! We got it though and I love the table.

This gives a full view of the vinyl tree I ordered, the crib and bedding, the small table and the glider I got off of Craig's List for an awesome price.

This is the changing table/dresser. I was proud of the lamp because I couldn't find one I loved so I bought a plain shade and added the trim myself. The lower baskets have some cute toys in them. The brown basket holds things I will need to grab quickly while changing Lila.

This picture will have a white frame. I just taped the back up there for effect until I paint a black frame! White poster size frames are non existent by the way! I added hooks on the back of the door to hang hair bands and her cute hooded robe. I will take the robe off though and tie ribbon to the hook to put all her clips on.

I am in love with these curtains! Obviously they are not hung yet, but I wanted to show the cute ruffle at the bottom. I can't wait to get them up and see the effect they have on the room. I am waiting until Chris's dad can come over and drill something heavy duty into the wall in case Lila ever decides to be adventurous and yank or swing on the curtains.

This might be just too detailed for all of you, so this is for me and my mom. One of my mom's specialties is organizing and organize we did! The bottom drawer (and possibly my favorite) has all her beautiful blankets. The middle drawer has 0-3 mo. size outfits all put together for easy matching and grabbing and pj's. The top drawer has premie size clothes, burp cloths, bibs, hats, and shoes.

This drawer has all her cute socks and some more hair items.

The shoes...enough said.

I have storage above the closet so I have these great boxes with lids to store clothes in sizes she isn't wearing.

The inside of the closet. One side has her sweaters and sweatshirts.

This side is for all her beautiful dresses. I cannot wait to dress her on Sunday's!!!

Full View. I used a hanging organizer for extra sheets, bath towels and more storage.

The black and red bag at the bottom is my hospital bag my mom helped me get packed. I am so ready! It has the cutest going home outfit for her in it (plus another one in case she poops in the first!)

Now for my shower! I was so overwhelmed at how amazing everything was! I couldn't have asked for more. Jenie Hunter and Crystal Stalker threw the shower at Jenie's house. Here is the decoration for the food table. They purposely used birds to match my nursery theme!

This is a sweet bracelet Jenie had made for Lila with her first and middle name on it.

My mom sewed this flannel patchwork blanket. So cute!

Me surrounded by mountains of presents. Everyone was so generous and I felt like I was speed opening so people wouldn't get bored watching me open!

Yummy cupcakes.

Fajitas, fiesta dip, taquitos, salsa, empanadas and more delicious food!

This is something else my mom made that she needs to start selling. It is a car seat cover that velcros on so it won't slide off when walking with her. I love it! I love the fabric and pom pom detail.

This is a blanket my mom made to match the car seat cover. Isn't she amazing?!

I messed up the lighting on this one, but it is Jenna and I at my shower. Jenna drove 4 hours from where she recently moved to be there. Good friend huh?!

My grandma and aunts on my mom's side gave me a Petunia Pickle Bottom Diaper Bag. They are the greatest bags with every compartment you could think of needing.

I need to get more pictures from Crystal because these shower ones I grabbed from my mom and Jenna, but there are tons more! I received so many things that I needed and were adorable. Lila is set on all her gear and has enough clothing to change her outfit a couple times a day. How is she so spoiled but not even born yet?! I just felt bad at the shower that I wasn't able to talk to everyone as much as I wanted to because I spent most of the time opening gifts! I am so thankful to everyone for coming and especially Jenie and Crystal for all their hard work!

I also owe my mom big time for all she did.

Now I just need Lila to come in about a month. My cerclage comes out in 2 weeks and I cannot wait to be back up and around!

Really?

Imagine: It's 11:30 pm the night before you have 6 wonderful friends coming to paint your nursery (since you are incapable of doing any real work on bed rest even though you are itching too...), it's just 2 nights before your mom is coming from CA to help, and your husband has started clearing out the babies room so it can actually be painted.

You are walking along your year-old bamboo floors when your foot gets a little wet. You get a paper towel and wipe it up. When you return from throwing it away your foot gets wet again...in the same spot. yikes!

Yes, this is my reality. I notice water is coming from under the floorboards and yell for Chris to come because, obviously it's a man's problem. We trace the darkening boards to under the AC vent whose visibility has been mostly blocked by a desk. Chris moves the desk and we see the lovely sign of water damage. Don't know how long or how bad. The dry wall under it is wet, the base board is ugly, the bamboo boards are starting to bow out. We go into the garage to look at the AC unit and move the junk that was blocking the base's visibility and see pooling water. Yea, more water damage on the dry wall upon which it sits.

Chris stays up until 4:30 am because he went to good ole Walmart to buy a Shop Vac and tries to suck up the water in the garage and tries to suck out whatever is clogging the pipe.

Early the next morning we get the rest of the office cleared out, my friends come and do an amazing job on the paint (and more help in my guest room which is where most of the office stuff had to get dumped), and an AC guy comes and uses his skills to get out the clog which he said was pretty gross and bad. Welcome to Florida humidity.

The bad part is we are now waiting on someone coming later this week to assess our damage. I have no idea how many floor boards and how much dry wall is going to have to be replaced, but it's not going to be fun. I also don't know what the mold situation is. Can't wait to bring a baby in! I thought the AC company should have to pay for it since it is still under warranty but Chris thinks we were supposed to be doing maintenance to it. Did you know you had to clean the pipe out once a year? We obviously didn't. I'm going to make him try anyway just because I happen to want our money to stay our money.

I know this is part of owning a home, but I can't stand things like this where I didn't initiate some kind of great home remodeling where I am going to get something better for my money. We are crossing our fingers that it won't be as bad as we think. That might just be wishful thinking on our part!!! So all I can really say at the end of the day is, Really?

I didn't take pictures of it yet and will not post them because it is just too depressing, but I will post pictures in a few days of the cute nursery. Chris got the crib put together and was so excited to put the bedding on! Yes, him. I love watching how excited he is getting (and has been) for this baby.

Momma's Comin' to Town

My mom is coming to visit on Tuesday and I am so excited! But why is it that whenever my mom, or dad for that matter, comes I seem to have a to do list for them?! This time I feel worse because I'm going to have to sit back and watch her work instead of doing it with her. I feel lucky to have such capable parents, and hopefully I will pay them back by giving them a beautiful grandchild. :)

She's going to cook (and freeze extras), organize, shop, decorate, sew and give me lots of chat time. Can't wait to see you mom and I will try not to work you too hard!