Crazed organizing

With what limited energy I now have at week 31, I am in an organizing craze to get the house and baby room ready. Zach requested that the baby "get his own closet" ie, don't leave 90% of my own stuff in there (apparently he was deprived of a personal closet as a boy. Growing up one of 7, I'm not surprised.) I figured this would be an easy request to meet, aka everything the baby has will now be stored in "his" closet, haha. But, I do need to rearrange the linen closet and office to make room for some of the items. The baby won't entirely have his own room (guest room and a bit more sewing until he is mobile) at first but I'm going to do what I can to organize the rest of the house.

This is where it gets crazy. Try not to vomit, ok? I'm taking pictures of how I want the linen closet to look, and what goes in each shelf, so Zach and I BOTH know the proper place for everything.  Because...to be honest...he does most of the laundry and putting away, so every few months I have to sort of rearrange optimally. Not that I'm complaining! Zach likes to follow orders (I love me a military man!) so I think is will be a good way to stay organized.

Here is the back of the easiest shelf to access..guest towels. These might get displaced for other items, since we don't have many guests, but we'll see.

Here is the same shelf with the front section filled in. Grown up bath time on the left, baby bath on the right. Look OK so far, you experienced moms?

Here is the shelf below (second most easy to access). Beach/gym towels and sheets. After taking this picture Zach pointed out that we don't need 15 extra pillow cases when we only have 6 pillows. So I downsized on that pile. :)

Lastly, rarely used items are moving out to the garage in XL and XXL ziplock bags. You know, things like extra pillowcases. Also some bath mats we can't use in this house, sleeping bags, etc. I have a thing about bugs and whatnot so evening has to go in plastic, a tub, or a box with every opening taped shut. OCD, I know. I'm a firstborn, what do you expect?

So...is this level of nesting normal???  Stay tuned for the rest of the shelves, I haven't done anything else so I'm counting in you guys to keep me accountable!!!! Nothing like blogger guilt to get a project done, right?

Weddings, cankles, and recliners

In May, Zach and I spent some time in the Bay Area for a good friend's wedding. There were a bunch of other preggos there, including two couples that were in our bible study before we moved. We are all having boys with a month of each other (give or take...). Actually everyone else at the wedding that was also pregnant (at least 3 others) were having boys too. I actually don't know anyone having a girl right now!!!!!! So here are some pics plus I want to send this post to these gals so they can see the pics too. 

Check out my whitey-white legs and cankles in this pic. Sexy, I know. But I'm working on the white part and avoiding salt on the cankle part...

I had forgotten that one of my best friends, Sarah, and her husband were also attending the wedding. I looked down from the balcony (I was doing slides for the music) and saw them arrive...what a great surprise! Sarah just got back from Mexico where she tanned the whole time and she lives near a beach, so don't judge me again on my paleness. (I work in IT...pale is normal, right?)

Last but not least, did I already post this pic? I have such a terrible memory these days. We got this lazy boy on Craigslist and it desparately needs a cover, preferably one with pockets in the sides so I can stash water, snacks, iPad, nursing stuff etc.  apparently I'm going to be tackling that project soon, but I'm not expecting it to turn out very well. I might google for a store bought one first!!! The fabric is so faded...except for that semicircle on top...I imagine a grandmotherly doily must have been laying there or something! Anyone have any major skills in the furniture slipcover department??????

Wonders

Ok already-moms, what was your hospital experience like?  Because after all these classes, I'm getting an idea of what ours will be like. Kaiser has a "room-in" policy with their babies - meaning after your baby is born, s/he is NEVER sent to the nursery except for a blood test and circumcision. You mean that a trained nurse isn't going to watch my baby while I sleep off the delivery? I'm in charge of this guy right away with no break? Gulp.  I've never heard of a hospital doing this, but they claim it is very "baby friendly" and encourages bonding and more breastfeeding opportunities.  So, there you have it.

Its crazy to me how fast this baby changes weekly. Just at the beginning of the month I was talking to some other pregos around my stage and none of us felt many cases of the hiccups (I think I had felt them once and that was the most.) Since then...hiccups a lot. Guess Lil'Guy just needed to run out of room first.  Secondly, I can now tell by pushing on my belly which spot his head is in - because - that spot is really hard!!!  Before everything was just squishy. I cannot imagine what this is going to be like in another 8 weeks. YIKES!

This and that - 29 Weeks

Sorry for all the baby posts. Since the nursery is in "transition" I have all my crafts put away, so new new posts in that department. (Although I'm drooling over a few ideas I hope to make happen before August...we'll see.)  And I haven't been too interested in food (or home to make it - work travels) so no new recipes. I'll work on that.

Here I am at 29 weeks with a "large cabbage" aka approximate size of baby. Then I re-read my baby tracker and realized this week was "butternut squash" and NEXT week (June 14, 7 days after this pic was taken) is "large cabbage" sized.  Now that my belly is finally bigger than my boobs and this guy spends evenings using me as a drum set, the reality of pregnancy (and future baby) has really set in. No really, I was worried that the baby was on the small size, but my doctor assured me, "You are measuring right on target. You just look small because your boobs grew so much." Great.

The weird thing is, when Zach and I talked about starting our family, it kind of went like this, "Of course we want kids, but how soon? Now? Later? Now? Ok." Then there was a complete refocus on pregnancy. Getting pregnant, staying pregnant, baby growth, etc.  Now I'm realizing (duh) that this act of "getting pregnant" is actually going to yield a birth (ouch) and a slew of new parent responsibilities, etc, and oh, by the way, we are going to have a helpless baby to take care of 24-7. Gulp.  I thought we were just getting a "kid." And later a teenager? Yikes.  So we've been attending some classes. Class 1 of 4 on birthing, and a breastfeeding class. I wonder how many people would be less likely to rush to get pregnant if they made people attend these classes as pre-requisites to getting pregnant...Eeks. Can you tell I'm a little nervous about things? I think I'll feel better when we're in the thick of it all and caring for the little guy (and all the educational horror stories are less likely to come true.)

Here's our fake baby for training class. Wearing stripes OF COURSE. 

 Here's what our nursery looks like right now. Not shown is a nasty 5 year old $15 IKEA rug that needs to be replaced and some other items that need new homes in other places of our house. Then to figure out what kind of furniture works best for all of these items. Honestly, I'd rather only keep 3 months of clothes or so out a time, I'm not looking for a full bedroom set, more like -- how FEW amount of things can we own/have out that we need at a time???  I've got the clothes semi-divided by tubs, a "diapers, burps, and boobs" tub, a toy tub, "blankets and bath time" tub so far. I love these tubs from Costco.  But I know we will get several more items and need more storage, I just need to figure out how to best use our closet to maximize space.  Nesting at its finest!  Obviously whatever "stage" of clothes we are in at a given time isn't going to stay in the tub - probably go into baskets on the changing table or one of those hanging shelf sets in the closet...just need to decide how to deal with it all.  Anyone have some advice on staying minimal???

Homemade Onesies (Pinterest style!)

Last weekend I was SHOWERED with lots of love at a baby shower.  Lo and behond - instead of a game...we had a craft. (Be still, my heart!) The craft was to make a onesie. I've seen this idea around and always considered it a huge amount of work and would be unlikely to tackle this myself for an activity unless I had a lot of time and resources. (Or its a shower for 3 attendees named Christy, Emily, and Erin!)  I'm still in awe of the shower and this activity and so thankful to the gals that made it all happen.

This was a BLAST. The hostess got a variety of onesies from sizes 3 to 18 months, which is useful so I didn't end up with 17 size 6m shirts.  She also pre-washed the onesies and some random fabric, brought stencils and iron-on paper...the works!

This first onesie cracks me up the most. (Although I love them ALL!)  The author (creator?) of this one called me a "Pinterest Mom."  I'll have to photograph our baby in this one along with some other pinterest projects at the same time. :)

 Here are some of the others. As you can see - so much cuteness going on!

 Here are some more - I thought the "Daddy's Assistant" one was so clever! A friend free-handed that one, so I am very impressed. Thats in one of the bigger sizes so baby boy will DEFINITELY rock that at one of Daddy's film shoots!  (The one that looks like a women's boot says "I love RI" (Rhode Island))

 And here are the last ones!  So much creativity and variety!

Thank you to the girls who made these and made it all possible!

Technical notes: I can't remember the iron-on transfer type that was used, but it specifically said NOT to stich over the designs (post ironing). I'm going to wash some of the smaller ones to see (after re-ironing just to make sure) if there are any issues and then consider stitching the larger designs that might be more prone to peeling.  All fabrics were washed/pre-shrunk. Hope that covers it...

28 Weeks

28 weeks

I keep thinking of clever (I think they are clever) things to blog about (or non clever but still interesting) yet at the exact moment I'm in front of the keyboard, I'm coming up blank. However, since I scheduled a bunch of topics previously and now I'm all out of those (I should have spaced them further apart!) here I am rambling.
1) I saw the most AMAZING baby blanket at Beverly's this week. This coming from the girl who swore off sewing blankets after last Christmas. This, however, is only 40x40 and uses 5 types of flannel...I think its really cute...however Beverly's fabrics are not cheap and Jo-Ann's, not so cute.  So I'm dreaming of making the blanket (and a few extras for others) but not sure if I'll do it. Its a tough call, because there is a pretty darn cute and SUPER soft blanket for the same price (if not cheaper, and no labor) at Kohls that I also love, its just not handmade. Dilemmas.
2) Baby boy is the size of a head of iceberg lettuce now.  I got my first public pregnancy acknowledgement this week - before no one has said (or guessed) anything, probably just thinking I just had a big belly or were too self-concious to ask.  Tiny kicks have turned into massive belly shaking kicks and rolls.  We saw Star Trek and there were 2 particularly loud/great music (he still loves music) where he was moving like crazy.  Allegedly he will run out of room soon and these kicks and rolls will become a lot more uncomfortable for me...
3) Cankles. From air and car travel and heat. Not pretty. Dont' want to say anything else about that.

Ok...I think that is pretty good for now.