31 Weeks!

Not the best picture, but it was the only one we got on Christmas day!

How far along?  31 weeks, 2 days

Total weight gain/loss: +23lbs...darn those Christmas cookies! haha but really things seem to be on track and my OB is happy with where we're at so far....

Maternity clothes? All the time!  Now I'm also trying to focus on nursing clothing and taking that into account when/if I purchase any clothing.

Sleep: Seems to be okay...getting tired and taking some weekend or evening naps here and there.  I've gotten a few leg cramps in the middle of the night which is not fun.  I'm having a little more back/hip pain as this bump gets bigger and bigger so sometimes it's difficult to figure out a way to lay that is comfortable.

Best baby moment this week:  Several!  Jake and I went to childbirth class on Saturday and learned lots about preparing for the exciting, yet dreaded, childbirth.  I have to admit that it pretty much scares the mess out of me.  But, I'm now feeling super informed and finding some confidence in myself and the choices that Jake and I will make for bringing our daughter into this world.  We had a great instructor and both really liked the class.  

 

On our way home from class, we bought little one's crib mattress!  Selecting one seems overwhelming and impossible to do with all of the choices available, but I did some research and we settled on the Lullaby Earth Stage 2 crib mattress from Buy Buy Baby [thank you 20% off BBB coupon!].  It's a huge matter of personal preference, but the important aspects came down to organic materials, firmness/support, and it's waterproof so it will be easy to clean and hold up well.

 

Also all the love and Christmas gifts for Ryleigh :)  She's already one lucky little girl.  She got some outfits and pj's, bedtime prayer board book, squeeze/teethe blocks, and two handmade quilts!  I had to hold myself together when I opened up the beautiful quilt from my friend Shanti, which she also had embroidered with Ryleigh's name and it has the softest minky fabric back.  That will keep her warm next winter for sure! 

Have you told family and friends: Yes

Miss Anything?  Being able to sit down and get up quickly...being able to get dressed quickly...being able to do anything quickly...haha

Movement: lots, especially around meal times or after 7:30pm.  Night owl!

Food cravings: Still pasta, chocolate milk, and juice!  Trying out some out-of-the-ordinary flavors but not necessarily weird--like Hawaiian pizza.   

Anything making you queasy or sick: Not really

Have you started to show yet: Oh yes :)  belly bump is measuring right on track at 32cm/32 weeks [I've been measuring 4 days ahead for a while now]

Gender: GIRL!  

Labor Signs: No, hopefully not until sometime in February!

Belly Button in or out?  In, but getting pretty shallow. 

Wedding rings on or off? On, but some days it's a little snug.

Happy or Moody most of the time:  Happy/tired.  I do get emotional over sad/sweet things.  

Looking forward to: More nursery progress, and celebrating on New Year's Eve--closing out one pretty great year and looking forward to 2014 because I know it will be even better!  Also our maternity pictures and baby shower coming up in a few weeks!

 

 

 

Decking the Halls

Or should I say Decking the Kitchen....because after 2 years our kitchen is officially fully remodeled.  Maybe we were just taking our time, maybe we I was a little picky, maybe it just wasn't a top priority...but let's take a look back at this remodel that started back in the Fall of 2011...

Remember that our kitchen originally looked like this?

Oak laminate cabinets and laminate countertops

Old flooring

No Peninsula dividing the kitchen & living room spaces

and the slowly but surely all of this happened...

New wood cabinets

Granite Countertops, new sink and faucet



New lighting over the peninsula



New Patio Door

Did a little painting...

And, the final piece, the backsplash...

Here's the final product!

 

It's been a labor of love, and we love the results!  Of course, we owe many, many thanks to my Dad and Mom for volunteering their free labor to help get these tasks done!

 

Mid-week Randoms...and an exciting purchase!

Well, first let's start with the update from my doctor.  Hydronephrosis confirmed, and the safest way to move forward is pretty much do nothing.  They can put in a stint to help my kidney drain, however in pregnant women stints need to be replaced every 4-6 weeks.  That means having several surgeries between now and the time I give birth--no thank you.  The stints also tend to cause more discomfort in pregnant women, and have been known to cause pre-term labor--again, no thank you!  I'm perfectly fine with managing and dealing with the pain if that means little miss gets to cook all the way!  So, course of treatment now is a follow-up renal ultrasound of my kidneys and bladder in 6 weeks so that they can make sure the dilation is not getting to unsafe levels.  Over the past two weeks I have learned certain things that help the pain to subside and have been able to manage it pretty well.  I just plan to continue with that so that I don't need to resort to any pain medication. I'm allow to take Tylenol but I'm not crazy about putting medicine like that in my body that will get to the baby. 


So, on to more fun and exciting things, let's take a look back at Halloween:

Pretty cute for being thrown together in about 5 minutes, huh?
I had several costume ideas but procrastinated a bit and put this together at the last minute by cutting up some old
cotton t-shirts and pinning it to the outfit I wore that day.

 And now a peek at the Nursery progress:


Room cleaned out, floor mopped, rug laid down, diaper shower goodies brought upstairs, and washed all of the baby clothes that we have so far.  The two green and two clear plastic bins in the picture above need to go up into the attic, but we did not have our ladder so couldn't get that done this past weekend. 

We also changed out the electrical duplex in our hallway upstairs [to the left of the nursery door].  All we need it for is one plug-in to vacuum, so we put in one of these:

LED Nightlight and Receptacle

For about $9.00 at Home Depot, we got this nifty receptacle. The nightlight has a sensor so when it is a certain level of darkness it turns on, which will help tremendously during all-hours-of-the-night trips to the nursery so that I don't have to turn on any brighter lights in the hallway.



While that was an exciting purchase, that's not the one this post title is about.  No, that would be Ryleigh's "coming home" outfit!!!  I'm a little obsessed with paisley and mint green, and this cute little set was too perfect to pass up [plus it comes with a cute little bunny rattle]...

Tutti Frutti Layette Set from Vera Bradley Baby
[I found this set on sale from Zulily...still a little pricey but it's her coming home outfit so I'm justifying it!!]

Also, two good sales going on right now for you mommas and mommas-to-be!  Apparently, with the code THANKSGIVING you get five free pairs of baby leg warmers at www.babyleggings.com, you just pay $12.95 shipping.    The other is at www.Crazy8.com, where they are doing a B1G1 for 88 cents!  This is only for regular priced merchandise, but you can still get some great deals. 


That's all for now!

 

Hydronephrosis

There's a new vocabulary word for you.  I had to look it up myself today.  Here's why...

I started having intense back pain on my lower, right side Monday evening.  At first I thought it was from sitting in an uncomfortable booth at dinner and then sitting on the bleachers at Jake's softball game right after.  However, it never went away after sleeping that night and I had the same intense pain all day Tuesday at work.  Tuesday evening I called my Ob's triage nurse, thinking that I might have a kidney infection or kidney stone.  She called in a prescription for kidney infection, and told me to go to the doctor's office first thing Wednesday morning.  They worked me in to the schedule and I saw a nurse, nurse practitioner, and a doctor.  They sent off a urine sample for culture to check for kidney infection or UTI.  Both ended up coming out negative so I stopped taking the prescription they gave me.  They did an ultrasound to check my uterus, cervix, and see how baby was doing.  Everything there looked really good, so it gave me piece of mind that whatever this was, it wasn't hurting the baby and she seems to be just as healthy as ever with a good, strong heartbeat and normal movement.

I had to fast for the next 6 hours and later Wednesday afternoon I went for a renal ultrasound, where they checked my heart, kidneys and bladder.  The images were sent to my Ob for review, and they called this morning to let me know that there is no sign of kidney stone.  There was some fluid in my right kidney, but that is often found in pregnant women and would not be causing the pain.  Diagnosis ended up being a pinched Lumbar nerve in my back, just caused by pregnancy since organs move around and can push on things. 

Well, for some reason my Ob decided to take another look at the renal ultrasound images this afternoon and realized that my right kidney is dilated, = Hydronephrosis.  There are a few things that can cause it, but most likely baby girl is positioned in a way that my uterus is causing a pinch or blockage from my right kidney to my bladder.  More doctors visits are in my future this coming week to check and confirm what's going on.  Prayers are definitely appreciated, and I will update later on this week.

  

25th Birthday Weekend Recap :)

I had a great 25th Birthday weekend!  Saturday morning my parents came up to visit, and we went out to Windy Hill Orchard's Apple Festival.  It sprinkled a little on us when we first got there, but other than that the weather was nice.  We got to feed some animals, eat some cider donuts and drink some cider!  My dad and Jake did the Hard Cider tasting.  After that we quick snapped this picture by their pumpkins :)

Such a good picture of me and my hubby [..and Ryleigh making her presence known nowadays!]...

After the Orchard we went to Empire 2 for lunch and played in their cornhole tournament.  It was a lot of fun, but sadly we did not come even close to win.

Saturday night was some girl time and window shopping with friends, then made chocolate & pecan covered apples....There are photos of that somewhere but they will never see the light of day! Let's just say that the chocolate was not set before we decided to devour them, so it was a little messy to say the least!

Sunday [my actual birthday] started off with a lazy, snuggly morning watching overloads of New Girl on Netflix with Jake...and the treat of breakfast in bed, in the form of these bad boys:

...Let's just call it a recent craving...

Then, got ready and met a couple friends at the Upscale WeeSale.  It was an interesting experience!  I ended up finding some pretty cute little outfits, mostly jumpers/dresses, for little miss!  I was impressed with the nice brands that they had [Ralph Lauren, The Children's Place, Janie & Jack, Gymboree] and most clothing items were priced around $4-6.  The last day prices were cut in half, so we ended up paying $1.50-3 for each of these:

 

 

Black corduroy dress with matching bloomer, 6-9 months from Baby Gap  $3.00

Brown and Pink ruffled leggings, 6 months from Carter's  $2.25 for the set 

 

Jean & Plaid jumper, 6-9 months from The Children's Place $1.50

Autumn Plaid jumper, 6 months from Gymboree $1.50

 

Khaki embroidered jumper, 6 months from Gymboree  $1.50

Jean Capris, 6 months from Janie & Jack  $1.50

 

and my absolute favorite for many reasons [UGA colors, super cute, plaid, and still had tags on!]

Red & Black plaid jumper, 6 months from Ralph Lauren  $3.00

 

Yes, ladies and gents, those are serious deals!  I also got myself a pair of black maternity leggings that were Ingrid & Isabel for only $3.00! 

 

The grand total for everything came to $18.99 with sales tax :)  Even Jake was proud of those deals!

 

 

 

I ended my birthday with a fun dinner with some friends and Jake's side of the family at...wait for it...Charandas! You were surprised, weren't you?! haha we do love that place :)

 

Bump, Bump

Well, I guess I officially have a recognizable baby bump!  I'm pretty excited that I've graduated from the "maybe it's a beer gut?" stage and a stranger knew I was pregnant today! 

I had a client come in to our showroom to buy a chair, and when we were discussing getting it into her car she said "Well, will the guy up front help? Because I can't lift it and I can tell you're pregnant so I don't want you lifting anything!" 

I still feel like I haven't officially "popped" yet, but maybe that's coming soon? I'm just over 18 weeks now and I feel like other pregnant girl's I've seen end up having their bellies pop around 20 weeks.



In other exciting news...

TOMORROW

 

is the day!  It's so crazy and I am really trying to wrap my head around the momentous significance of tomorrow.  We will find out if our first child will be a son or daughter.  The eldest child of our family.  Our future children's big brother or big sister.  I know tomorrow's appointment will be an emotional one, for sure.  I'm also still hoping to get a glimpse of his or her little face :)

 

Please pray that Baby W's anatomy ultrasound goes well and that all those little organs are developing properly! Please also pray that we get a good view so that we can find out gender!

 

 

Kind of an Important Week...

Baby W, we can't wait to find out what you are!!!!

 

Crazy & Excited!

So, I'm getting slightly excited that in only

more days we will know if Baby Walden is a little boy or little girl!!!!

 

 

My imagination and patience have been going crazy.  Sunday night I started our baby registry at Target online because I couldn't take it anymore and I figured it might actually be nice to get some of the general/neutral items out of the way. 

 

 

 

In other very exciting news, the work has officially begun to fix our water-damaged house!  Here is a picture that Jake took this morning:

 



This is a corner of the living room.  I'm also really happy that they are laying down a pad underneath, which will help with insulation and wear.  Our old floors only had a thin layer of black plastic underneath the flooring (which was discovered after the damaged floor was ripped up).

 

They told us all of the flooring (carpet, vinyl, and wood) would take 2-3 days and the drywall patch and repairs would take another 2 days.  I'm so happy that this will be finished by the end of the month and behind us for good!

 

 



 

Remember that day when none of your pants would fit?

Yep, that day was today for me.  I kept thinking, What in the world, I've only gained 2.5lbs, why will these not fit? It is because I just put on lotion? My hips must be getting wider...To which I was sad for about .3 seconds and then realized--Be thankful for this.  Maybe this means you will have an easier delivery.  Trust your body, it knows what to do. 

And then I felt better.  Also, because I found the mecca of all maternity stores, Destination Maternity, maybe this needed shopping trip won't be so bad!

 

15 weeks!

Little update after my appointment this afternoon...

How far along? 15 weeks, 2 days!

Total weight gain/loss: +2.5lbs

Maternity clothes? Still mixing my old clothes with some maternity and belly bands.  Slowly but surely going to have to make the full transition in the next couple weeks.  Especially for pants.

Sleep: Still seems to be a little touch & go...every now and then I will wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble falling back to sleep.  Still tired at times during the day.  I'm planning to get one of these pregnancy body pillows this weekend! 

Best baby moment this week:  Hearing the heartbeat today! and scheduling our Anatomy ultrasound for the end of this month!!!!

Have you told family and friends: Yes!

Miss Anything? Subway! I could devour a 6" flatbread Italian BMT with southwest sauce. 

Movement: maybe? hard to tell what is my stomach growling or possibly baby.  I'm sure I'll figure it out in the next couple of weeks!

Food cravings: Anything and everything Chicken. Still pasta, Sonic slushies (ice), anything peanut butter.  Lots of milk and Chocolate milk!

Anything making you queasy or sick: Still staying away from red meat (except pork).  Also, can't do Chinese food.

Have you started to show yet: Yep! A little bitty bump

Gender prediction: Still thinking boy! Lots of friends and family think it's a girl.

Labor Signs: No, and better not for a while!

Belly Button in or out?  In

Wedding rings on or off? On

Happy or Moody most of the time:  Happy/tired

Looking forward to: the anatomy ultrasound/finding out the sex!!!!!!!!!!  September 26th can't get here soon enough!  Our doctor's office has a 2d/3d ultrasound machine so I'm excited that we might get a little peek at Baby's face too :)

 

 

Making some house progress!

Remember this fun surprise that we have been dealing with for the last 3+ months?

Well, we finally have a signed contract with Andrew Roby after lots of back and forth with our insurance adjuster.  I am so, so ready for the work to begin so that my home is no longer a construction zone.  I know it's going to be a slight mess during the process, but I just keep telling myself that hopefully by the end of the month this will be long behind us! 

I'm also excited because we decided to upgrade the floors downstairs to the same type that we put into our master bedroom.  I realized I don't have a good picture of it on here.  The flooring in our master is Toasted Chickory that we got from Lumber Liquidators.  We are working with a different flooring company through Andrew Roby, so the flooring downstairs will be Riverside Birch by Floorcraft.  They are very similar... 

I can't wait!!  Shortly after this project finishes up, it will be time for us to start on Baby Walden's nursery, and finishing our backsplash in the kitchen [also a long overdue project! oops]

 

Go Dawgs!

Ahh, football season has finally begun!  We are going big for the UGA vs. Clemson game this weekend. 

A couple friends came over last night to help me whip up some of our tailgating munchies.  So far on the list:

• Buffalo Chicken dip [tripled the recipe!] going to be in the crock pot
• Macaroni Salad
• Vanilla Chip Rice Crispy Treats
• Chocolate Chip cookies [homemade, the only way to go...]
• Peanut Butter Brownie Bites
• Red Pepper Jelly & Cream Cheese dip
• Chips & Pretzels [ok, so we didn't make these]

Others are also bringing a fruit tray and some 7 Layer Taco Dip, yum!  I am so looking forward to the food this weekend.  I am so NOT looking forward to the fact that it's going to be 87 degrees all day.  At least we will have an industrial fan and several tents to hopefully cool off under (I told you, we're doing it big!).  I'm halfway considering getting water balloons. Too much?

 

Adding another branch to the Family Tree....BABY WALDEN!

Yes, it's true and we are so excited!  Jake and I are going to be welcoming a little one into the world sometime at the end of February [Due Date Feb 25th]! 

I'm 11 weeks right now, and we have been pretty much bursting at the seams so we decided it's time to share with the world.  It's still pretty surreal. 


How I found out...
The good Lord above gave us the best anniversary present we could have asked for this year, with a positive test very, very early in the morning back on June 11th :)  We had just gotten back the night before from our anniversary vacation to Nashville, super tired, and the dogs woke me up in the middle of the night to go outside.  I thought--heck, why not, I'm going to take a test [I was a few days late at this point but took a test before our trip that was negative so not feeling very optimistic]...Well, maybe it was early or maybe I was impatient, but I looked at the test right away and saw one bold line.  Yes, I know it says "May take up to 3 minutes to appear" but I was looking for the instant gratification.  Well, thinking it was another negative test I just set it down on the counter and let the dogs back inside.  On my way back upstairs I picked it up to throw it away and looked again.......I FROZE.  I kept blinking and rubbing my eyes to make sure that I saw that second, beautiful, faint pink line.  I couldn't believe it. 

Can you see the 2nd line? So faint, but you don't get false positives!
I also ended up taking 3 more in the following days that were much bolder...

I had my own little dance party in the kitchen.  My heart was beating so fast and I couldn't stop smiling.  But, it was 4am, and I didn't want to wake Jake up because I had always thought that, just like the guy gets to do the marriage proposal, this was my special thing.  I wanted it to be really memorable.  Of course, I couldn't fall back to sleep because my mind was going a mile a minute, so I just tossed and turned and daydreamed for the next 3 hours before my alarm went off to get ready for work.  I didn't know exactly how I would tell him, but I knew that by the time I got home from work I better have a plan!


How I told Jake...
So, on my drive home from work I came up with this--call him and tell him I'm running late because of traffic.  Totally believable..thanks I-77.  I quick went to Books-a-Million searching for the perfect children's book.  Something that we would be able to hold onto for years, make memories with, and something that would represent the bond of father & child.  That's when I found the absolutely most fitting bedtime story possible.  I quickly paid and drove home, hoping that I would get there before him.  Nope.  I pulled into the driveway and tried to figure out how to cram the book into my purse and get upstairs to hide it from him.  I needed to wrap it and write a note to him.  Our plans that night were to meet some friends at a pizzeria for a 21st birthday party [yes, on our anniversary. But we had just gotten back into town from 4 days of "date time" and we missed our friends! Just call us social butterflies...] so I hid in our closet while I was changing and did a laughable wrapping job and scribbled a note out.  I was so worried he would find me mid-scheming, but thankfully he didn't!  I brought the gift out to him and said "I know we weren't supposed to get each other any more presents, but this is just something little..." to which I was fussed at because he said "You always do this! and I didn't get you anything!" I kept telling him to just open it, it was something small and it was okay.  He didn't realize what the book was a first because he saw the back cover, but then he saw the note fall out and read..."Daddy, I thought you might want to practice reading this to me...I can't wait to meet you in February!"

So, it's overwhelming and crazy and we are so blessed.  Thank you all so much for your love, support, and kind words!  Follow along on here if you want to read more updates on Baby Walden :)