Pinterest Fix-ideas for Finn

So if you know me, then you know I love Pinterest.
I've been looking for DIY stuff to do for Finn. Nothing in particular, just looking around.
Here's some stuff I have found recently.

I really love this idea of taking a lid of a bottle and freezing breastmilk on a paci. Its a perfect teething paci!

These fabric stacker rings are just cute!

I am definitely doing this once he's old enough to eat fruit. I think it's sucha  great idea to cut them up on Monday and Thursday and let Finn munch on them whenever he wants.

Again, this is just cute, and easy to make!

I am picking out fabric tomorrow to make this:

Since Finn will possibly be attending his Aunt Amy's wedding, he's gonna need a rockin party outfit. I can toatlly put this on a onesie. And another one for his Auntie Ashley's wedding too!

Another must do project!



Goofing off

Sometimes it's good to just have a little goof off time:

My pregnancy pillow and Amy falling in love.

 Amy with the pillow and the boppy. She's looking pretty comfy.

AAAAAND, I bought my first nursing bra. It's really weird.

Baby Shower #1-Hosted by Morgan and Amy

Yesterday I had my first baby shower!

When I got married, I was so concerned about planning this wedding and making sure everything went smoothly and getting all the wedding crafts were done, that I really didn't put much thought into showers. I had one at the church we attended, and I had one at the Y, where I work.

Here I was at the Church Shower.

And here's what I got at the work shower.

I loved all of my gifts, but I just simply didn't have time to really get excited about the showers because I was completely preoccupied.

Having a baby is different to me though-shower wise.

I can only do so much to get ready. So I was SUPER PUMPED about having my first shower :)

So the shower was at 2, at Morgan's parents home.

Here's what the invitation looked like, except with my information of course!

As I mentioned before, this shower was for my friends from work, family friends, and people I went to high school with. Mom picked me up and we headed there.

Amy and Morgan did a fabulous job on the food:

the bird nest cupcakes were sooooo yummy!



Here are some pics from the shower:

The guests wrote messages to Finn on little owls and then hung them on the tree. Too cute!

 

Me and the lovely hostesses

From Left to right: Amy, Morgan, Katie, Hannah, Nicki, Me, Shannon, Haley, Grandma, Nancy, Brandy, Mary, Jessica and then Ashley and Malina are sitting on the steps.
Everyone looked fabulous!
If you are friends with me on facebook, then you can see more pics.

Isn't that a beautiful group of ladies?! And they all have fabulous taste in baby stuff!

When we got home, we layed out all the gifts and here's what it looked like:

My friends are so generous!

 One of the gifts I'd like to mention is this awesome diaper bag that Hannah MADE!!!:

I cant remember if I mentioned this tree.
But My Dad vinyl'd the tree onto a canvas I spray painted and all the guests from all the showers will put their fingerprints on it. I think it is turning out better than I had planned. And its going to look so cute in the nursery :)

I had an awesome time and really appreciate all that went into the shower!

Cutie Pie!

Saturday was a great day! Well, actually it was a bad day that turned into a great day. We had an appointment at 3:00 at The Prenatal Experience in Tallahassee to have our 4D ultrasound. I woke up that day in a bad mood and I just had meltdown after meltdown for no reason at all. Lot's of crying went down, over nothing.
By the way, the crying hasn't stopped, and it's still over nothing.
So I kind of collected my thoughts and we went to Tallahassee.

There were two couches in the room and a bed for me to lay on. So we got started and here's what we saw:

He smiled alot and he is just too cute!

Here he is with a hand on his cheek, thumb in his mouth and a foot in his face.

There are more pictures on my facebook, for those who want to see more.
We also got a DVD of the whole 25 minutes of the ultrasound.
It was totally worth the money.

We then went to Hobby Lobby to get stuff for the shower that's being held at our house. And then we ate at Olive Garden.

We shared the DVD with Ben's Family on Sunday night and then with our work people today.

It's a really good feeling to know that we have people that care about Finn like we do. Ben took the DVD to work with him to show it to his friend. She's older and has really been excited and it was nice when she texted me that she was so glad we shared Finn with her and that she loves him.

On another note, I have made a plan to have something special delivered to me at the hospital.
A Turkey Sandwich.
I reallllyyyyy miss deli turkey.
Anyways, I cant wait!
haha

Monthly Visitor

And NO! I'm not talking about my period. I'm talking about this darn cold. It started in October on the same week as my birthday. Began with a runny nose, and the next thing I knew, I was coughing up stuff and was congested.
November rolled around and I got it AGAIN. It was worse that time.
Now here we are in early January, and I have it again. I need a break! It's a freaking new year for goodness sake!

Since I cant take normal meds, I have to basically do this:
-keep a box of tissues with me all the time
-use the vaporizer( Thanks Stephanie and Steve!!!) at night, and anytime I am just relaxing.
-use vicks vapor rub at night
-drink hot tea in the morning, followed by a shower just to warm up  my body, go back to sleep for a few, and then get another shower to actually shower.
-drink hot soup before bed. I just drank my hot soup.

These things help it go away faster.
I said if I got it again, like now, I was going to see about getting a pregnancy safe antibiotic, but it seems to be going away this time faster than the last.

If it's not nausea sick while pregnant, then it's cold sick. Honestly, I'd rather have the nausea...

Mike from Oregon

So Finn's got this Aunt.
She's not blood related or related by marriage.
But she is Finn's Aunt, and also his Godmotherish figure. See, I hate the word Godmother, and besides, my religion doesn't have those, so we just use the word Aunt. lol
She has come over twice this week after work and hung out with me.

The first night, we talked about shower stuff and I let her see all my baby and pregnancy things.

Amy is not only planning a baby shower, but she's also planning her WEDDING. Girls got a lot going on, and I really appreciate her. But anyways, She brought me an extra box of invitations for my January 21st shower.
Funny story, these invitations.
Let's see, i am only going to tell this because I think it's hilarious.
So Amy and Morgan are throwing me this shower. Amy ordered the invitations from a popular photo and invitation website.... rhymes with butterfly.... and she ordered 37. She called me one night to tell me something that "might make me mad" It was that the invitations might not be received by the guests until 10  days before the shower. It didn't make me mad, by the way, and she told me that they had that I was registered at target, Kohl's and Babies R Us...I didn't register at Kohl's, but I thought  it was funny.
A few days later she found out that she never placed the order, and so she was able to change the registry info and still get them at the same time. So in the meanwhile, she shows me how cute they are with little owls, and everything was great!
Then one day last week, she was sitting with me at work and said she got a phone call from a Man in Oregon who told her he had received her order along with his. So all of the shower invitations were exactly in the opposite corner of the US. So she freaked out and called the company and they said they could ship her 37 more and they would still get there by the original deliver date. So she was ok with that. Then she goes home that night after she called the company, and what's in her  mailbox? That's right, 37 MORE invitations. So now, she has 37, Mike in Oregon has 37, plus there are 37 on the way to her house. So this is a photo of how Amy feels about these baby shower invitations:

DIY CRAFT- Burp Cloths

I recently dug out my sewing machine for the bumper pads. And it's been sitting on the dining room table ever since. I also have used it frequently.
So I made these burp cloths, and I really don't feel like describing how I made them, because just thinking about it gives me a headache. But basically I bought some cloth diapers, fabric and used some ribbon and made up my own pattern and this is what I came up with:

These are folded just to show the decorated part. So they're actually bigger. The one with Georgia Fabric is for my sweet hubby. I figured I should make him a manly one for when he has Finn maybe with someone else, and he wont have to use all cutesy stuff. The ones with ribbon and the damask are one's for home. I also have other ones here that were bought. The paisley is for Mom's grandma shower gift, along with another ribbon one. The last one on the right is the flannel baby feet fabric that My grandma picked out, and I hated it so much because it was all cutesy baby ish. But turns out, it's the softest one. haha
So since I was sewing with ribbons, I just wanted to see what I could do, so I made this pillow out of a dish cloth-new- but I wont use it because it was just for fun.

BUT this is the green color I want to use in the nursery.
Oh I'm a crafty crafty Mommy!

Little Sugar

Little Sugar
Fuzzy Sugar
Lovebug
Little Mister
Punkin
Sweet Prince
Punkin Doodle

These are the nicknames we have had for Finn since we knew we were pregnant. Lately it's been "Little Sugar". And Jasper is "Furry Sugar". lol
Ben says "I bet they think we're weird now."
It's ok though!

I write some stuff about the pregnancy on here, but there's a lot that I don't. Well I feel like sharing some of it now.
I've put some stuff on here about how we told people and the day we found out, but I don't think I told details about that night.  If I did, then feel free to hear all about it again :)
It all kind of started about a week and a half before we found out. I had some pain and thought I was having an ovarian cyst again. I got them just about every three months and they hurt like the dickens. I even told my Mom a few times that week that I was having one again and might have to see about getting back on a birth control pill.
SIDE STORY-  I started taking birth control about 7 months before I got married and never had any problems from it. After we were married for about a year I switched pharmacies, and the new one gave me a different brand of generic for Loestrin. I never had any problems on Loestrin, but about 3 months after taking the new generic I got into a weird funk and pretty much got depressed. Ben and my co workers even noticed. At the time I didn't even think about it being my birth control, but a few weeks later I started having leg numbness and so the only thing we could think of was my new BC, so I stopped taking it and ALL my symptoms disappeared. Also I felt totally healthy and decided I didn't want to be back on any birth control pill. So for a year, I wasn't taking any form of Birth Control. So Ben and I made a pact and decided that we weren't going to have sex for a year.
AHAHAHAHAH  kidding.
Anyways, the whole point to the BC story was to say that when I was on the pill, I had less cramps from my cysts. But when I got off, the pain was bad. So I thought all these cramps were a cyst.
So Mom knew I was having issues.

Well then I remember Ben's parents came over one night to eat and I was talking to MIL, and I doubled over in the kitchen with a sharp jab in my side. It took my breath away. And I think It was the next day that was the fourth of July and I woke up feeling awful. I rode to the In laws house with the seat layed back and when I was there I just felt like crap. A few people asked me what was wrong, but all I could say was I don't know, because honestly other than exhaustion, I couldn't pinpoint anything.

skip a few days to Saturday.

I had lunch with my friend Nicki at Barberitos and I think Ben and I went on a date that night. And then we went home and I was going to paint my nails and just kinda do nothing and Ben was watching a movie in the bedroom. Now TMI, I was due to get my period that day, and usually I just wake up with it, but It hadn't made an appearance so I was like what the heck I'll take a test. So I went to the bathroom alone with a test, and what do you know, it was positive immediately. I REALLLLYYY had no clue that was going to happen. So I sat there on the toilet silently freaking out. First off, I was alone. Secondly, Ben had no clue I was even taking a test at all. So he's watching mortal combat, and I was watching a positive sign popping up. My first thought was maybe it was a fluke. So I grabbed another one, peed on it, put it down and walked out. I gave Ben a hug and went back in and it too was positive. So I freaked out again.
Then I walked into the bedroom and I just looked at him and started crying and he was like uhhh, what's wrong? I told him and he was completely in shock. I told him if I thought they were going to be positive I would have made him be in there with me. He was in shock for about 15 minutes.

That's Ben after he came to grips with reality.
haha
He was so happy!
He started talking to my belly that night even though we hadn't had our confirmation blood work done yet or anything.
There was lots of crying that night. But they were tears of joy. I had alot going on in my personal life at that time and I really just needed something to be happy about and to focus on for the next few months. We had just moved into our new apartment one month before that night, and I just remember praying for something happy and  in praying, I remember for a spilt second how I thought it just felt like the right time to take that step with Ben but as soon as it entered my mind it exited. Turns out, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE in our immediate circle of friends and family needed something happy too, so I believe Finn was sent for a reason, and it was more than just to make me and Ben happy with starting a family.

I haven't told many people about the fact that Finn was an answered prayer. But he is :)

Making Progress, Finally!

So as I may have hinted or said in past blog posts, I am a bit overwhelmed.
Ben's Got Work, school (different schedule every week), and weekly physical therapy appointments. I only have my part time job, and Appointments, but the whole nursery situation and getting everything ready for Finn also just seems like a lot.
But I have some verrrryyy good news!
All of the nursery ffurniture is fixed up and in the nursery!!! The bed and dresser have been completely redone, and the rocking chair and changing table are in there too! The only thing we don't have is a crib, but we do have a cradle!!
So I feel a ton better when I can walk in there and see everything. Ben had to completely change the front look of the dresser, but I love it! I put the baskets in the shelves and I cant wait to fill them with clothes and Finn's items. The wall art is about finished too.

So I haven't taken pictures yet, as this all was finished yesterday, but they are coming soon.
The baby shower that is being held at my house is a good opportunity for our guests to see the nursery and understand what i've been describing for months lol.

Everything in the nursery was UPcycled, or things we already had.
The only things I have bought for it were the dresser baskets (50% off) and a lampshade, and a few little under $5 things. The rest of the decor was around the house and I repainted some of it, but overall, it is a cute bird/nature themed nursery.

One project left to do is the crib bedding.
This is what I want to make. Except I want it to be white and pea green. So I'm going to take some bedding given to us and re-cover it.  All I will hopefully have to get is the ribbon, as I have the fabric already. I've never made a blanket before, so this should be interesting.

It's pottery barn....DROOOOOL.

Also this past weekend, I finished all the invitations and gave some of them to my MIL to give to people and I will mail the rest soon. Also, with the help of my Mom, all our Christmas stuff is put away in boxes waiting to be put in storage. And all of my crafting supplies have been organized in boxes under the bed. That free'd up about 3 baskets that I can now use elsewhere :)
So overall..A very productive weekend on the nursery front.

New year!!!!!

Happy 2012!!!
This year, WE ARE HAVING A BABY!!! and it's not like we have to wait long either.
I had an appointment last Thursday night, and my Grandma went with me. We waited an hour... but that was ok because we talked and stuff.
We talked about what we would do if she watched him over the summer while I worked. My grandaddy is retired, and she works for the school system, so she has summers off. But just because she has the whole summer off, doesn't mean she's gonna watch him everyday, I told her.

She is going to be a baby hog.
When I told her I was for sure going to plan on working this summer, she threw her fist in the air and let out a "YESSSSSS!"
"Oh, yeah....Sorry you have to work this summer!!!!" cackled as she walked away with the biggest smile on her face.

So I thought I would bring her down a few notches by telling her that I would only work 2-3 days a week, and She would only be watching him 1 and a half days. After the disappointment set in, she was ok with my decision. (Like she had any other choice)
I don't want to have her get worn out. She is in her 60's, though she's more energetic than me, and she's hellagood with kids, so I completely trust her.
The other days or half days, Ben can watch him or Mom possibly. Ben says he wants to watch him as long as he doesn't have class or clinicals, so that will be good Finn-Daddy time.

Anyway, back to the appointment. I saw a doctor this time and she was the nicest person ever! She said everything was looking good and that I am still under my pre-pregnancy weight!! Heck Yeah!!! I am still wearing a size smaller pants than pre pregnancy also!
When I got pregnant I lost 20 pounds from being sick and changing my eating habits. So I have gained 17 pounds back. Good news is, It's all in my belly. I mean, I have filled out a little, but It's all mostly on the front, which is fabulous. I still have more to go, so I could balloon up, but it's pretty good so far.

She also scheduled me my last ultrasound for next week where I will be 30 weeks.
I'm excited about it, but I hope Ben can go with me, since classes start tomorrow and he has class that day.

Other than the normal stuff, nothing else really happened at the appointment. She scheduled me for another one and we were out of there!

So I have an ultrasound early next week. Then coming up after that, we are going to Tallahassee to have a 4D ultrasound done. I talked about this in a previous blog.
Also Avery's birthday is coming up this weekend. He will be 18!!! Where did my little brother go??? He grew up on us. lol
speaking of Avery, we had him spend the night with us on new years eve. We didn't go out and go crazy obviously. We stayed in and watched movies and then when it was midnight, Avery gave Finn a hug, and Ben gave me a kiss. lol So it was pretty chill.

I had Friday off of work, the weekend, and then Monday off. So I made myself busy the whole time. I finished invitations and made thank-you notes, sewed some cute burp cloths, which will have a blog post of their own soon, cleaned the house, set up and organized more crap in the nursery, caught up on all my laundry, and put away most of my Christmas decorations.
I also cooked another meal to put away in the freezer for After the Birth Meals. (spinach lasagna)

Random:...Mom texted me just now and said that Dad was setting up a skype account so that we could talk to Thomas and he could see Finn.

So on the pregnancy front there's more tiredness. I am in my third trimester, so it's for sure hitting me again. Last night I got off work at 4:30 and was asleep by 6:30 and didn't wake up until Ben got home at 11.
I just feel exhausted after I have been up for a few hours.
My hips hurt.
My butt hurts.
My legs hurt.
My feet don't hurt as much as the above.
My back is actually pretty good since I've been using the pregnancy pillow.

I'm craving things. I cant remember if I mentioned my cobbler craving. But I had a cobbler craving on Christmas Eve. Mom made me cobbler, and all was good.
I go from craving salty to sweet constantly.
Also I have been waking up a few times a night with a dry mouth and incredible thirst. I just keep a bottle of water by my side of the bed. usually one per night.

Finn's movements are different. Where it was all mostly kicking, we now can see elbows or knees rubbing under my skin. Sometimes they hurt when he gets in certain spots, like for instance, my ribs. haha

It's all really neat though!