for her nursery

Sorry I haven't been on here all weekend- we've been busy and I've been tired! She was awake A LOT the night before last, so I was up with her between 1130 and 3 am and then I swear she only slept for 30 minutes at 6 am... at least she was always happy though, just didn't want to sleep unless she was being held! John went hunting in the morning so I didn't get to nap until yesterday afternoon! He felt bad about me not sleeping though, so he took care of her ALL last night. It was so nice to sleep, and I was glad to hear this morning that she was good for him all night. yay! She sleeps the best on the couch or in our bed. I guess she just likes to be cozy. Anyway I had a print made for her nursery on etsy, it is so cute! I am going to frame it and hang it above the chair in her room. Here it is:

pictures of what we've done

John installing the carseat and mirror so we can see her when driving!

The finished seat!

Some of the great clothes from a co-worker and a full closet! (this 1st outfit on the left is the Nordstrom one I mentioned previously- shirt and pants)

Here is the changing area. Julie gave me the lamp, but I went with different bedding so I am going to have to get a new one, but I really like the size. I may also add a couple bird decals or something on the wall.

Bath time!

And some of the decals around the nursery

That's all for now. I need to get some cleaning done around the house and have a lot of laundry to wash for Olivia!

It's Fall!

I just realized that it is fall starting today! Fall is my favorite time of year and I know it's John's too. (for different reasons though- his obviously for hunting!) I love all the pumpkins and apples and the weather. Now I love it because it is the time of year Olivia will be born. I think everyone has heard by now, but it looks like her birthday is going to be October 2nd. I will be just over 39 weeks and a coworker I want to be there is working that day. I can't believe how quickly that is coming up now! I looked at I have 6 more nights of work and John and I just have this weekend together with just the 2 of us. I told this to John and he suggested to do something special (but not too far from home) He thought maybe we should go to the resort in Idaho for the night, but I looked at the prices, and I'm not sure we'll be doing that. We'll see what happens- it would be nice to spend some last minute time together!

Anyway I had my dr. appt yesterday and she did say she really didn't think it would be a good idea for me to try pushing Olivia out. That's why we scheduled the section. It is scary since it is major surgery, but like I said before, I want Olivia to come out the best way that will keep her healthy. We went to childbirth class last night (our last one) and they did go over c-sections briefly. They showed a cartoon like demonstration of a section and it was a little scary to see how they cut you open and spread apart your abdominal muscles. It's weird because I've been to a lot of sections now at work and don't think much about it. It is different when you think about it happening to yourself! Well overall the childbirth class was good for introductory information, but after I found out I probably needed a c-section, I felt like it didn't apply as much to me personally. Oh well. I think John like learning the breathing exercises. He was always very helpful in class.

Well I went off on a tangent, during my dr appointment she said they are just going to call me gestational diabetic since I did have the high sugar and Olivia has a big belly. For that reason, she sent me across the street to the hospital for a non-stress test. I hadn't had one of those done, and it was kind of interesting! It was just like I was in labor and delivery, and they hooked 2 monitors around my belly. One measured Olivia's heartrate and one measured if my uterus was contracting. I was also given a button to push every time Olivia moved. When I pushed the button it put a little arrow on the monitor strip. When she first put the monitor on Olivia was moving, but after that she settled down of course and was sleeping for a few minutes. I thought it was going to be a LONG test. The nurse brought me a bottle of water and that sure woke her up! She was moving like crazy and the monitor showed it. The nurse said her heart rate had to stay up for 15 seconds when she moved to show she is healthy. Her HR jumped every time she moved, and it showed I was having contractions! The nurse asked if I felt them, and I didn't at all. It just felt like Olivia was pushing outward. Anyway Olivia did great and I was probably in and out of there in 20 minutes. I have another one next Monday afternoon after my dr. appointment. It looks like only 1 more appointment until she is born! Weird!

Well I was going to add picture to this post of what we have done around the house, but for some reason my laptop won't open the pictures. I will try for it to work on my regular computer but it's acting weird too!

accomplishments

Well John and I got a few things done this weekend. I will have to put up pictures when I have time, but I'm just about out the door to go to work! We finished the changing table area- John secured her changing pad to the dresser and we hung the sparkly "O" above it on the wall (you can see it from my Seattle shower pictures, Julie bought it!) I also put up some more small decals around the room, a few toadstools, a squirrel, and two owls looking at each other above the closet! My overnight bag is pretty much packed and we installed the car seat in the car! It feels weird driving around with a car seat now! (oph and we put in the car mirror so we can see her when we are driving!) We should get the big wall decal to go above the crib in the next few days and we will put that up. Also, someone from work gave me a ton of great clothes that her baby girl recently grew out of. I was so excited since one of the outfits was an outfit I'd been admiring from Nordstrom but couldn't bring myself to buy (too much $!) Now I got it for free!! So I think Olivia officially has more clothes than John and I, but that's ok. I'm sure she will get changed a lot and they grow so fast!

On another note, we went to a neighborhood potluck tonight at the park. We met a few neighbors, so that was nice. I found out there are already 2 other Olivia's in the development- crazy! The smallest one is 3. Her dad is actually an OBGYN out here, so that was interesting to meet them. I thought we would meet more people, but it is hard to go around to strangers and start talking. Also, I don't think a lot of neighbors actually came- but it was nice! I'm sure once I get out and about with Olivia I will have more reasons to start talking to the other moms!

Well I have to go to work, then I have a BUSY day tomorrow. Dr. appt at 1:30, then a dentist appt. at 3:30, then childbirth class at 6! At least I can sleep until 1230 or so... oh well!

birthday update with pictures

Well my birthday was really nice! I had a pedicure in the morning with a pumpkin spice latte (decaf of course..), took a quick nap and then had my mommy-to-be massage at 230 in the afternoon! It was SO nice. They have a special pillow with an opening in the middle for your tummy to go through so you lay on your stomach the whole time! They also use unscented oil for the smell sensitivity and some essential oils are not good to mix with pregnancy. After the massage I took a shower there at the spa and used their products. It was so nice! Once I got home John was already home and waiting for me with flowers. We ended up going to dinner early since we were both ready to go and hungry! John had a really good halibut dish and I had scallops. We finished it off by sharing a piece of black forest cake that was made with chocolate mousse! Overall I don't think I could haveasked for a better day! It was nice to just do nothing but relax! Here is me at 36 weeks exactly on my 29th birthday before dinner:

And here are a couple of the nursery. John got the shelves at home depot so we had more room to put things like picture frames and books. I had these pretty pink glass jars and nothing to do with them. We needed book ends.... so I had the idea to fill them with pebbles, and now they are great cute book ends! They aren't too easy to see in the picture, but they are very cute!

And then I found some cheap wall decals at target the other day. It has a bunch of branches birds, owls, and little forest critters. They aren't the best quality and I don't think they will stick too long, but they were just too cute to pass up! You can see a flower next to the bookshelf in the above picture. Here is my little hedgehog and some grass below!

The decals on etsy are much better quality and more expensive. I am still planning on getting one for behind Olivia's crib on the wall of a branch with birds. I have e-mailed with one decal seller who is going to make a custom one for me! I sent her a link to my bedding and a decal I liked that she already makes. It is going to be similar to this one but she said with more smaller daintier swirls like the bedding. Here is the original decal. I would have pink and green and brown though. This picture is from her shop, you can visit it with the link above!
Anyway that's about it for now. Today I have been working on cleaning the house, doing a little laundry and now I am downloading belly pictures to be sent to Walgreens. I need to get them in my belly book now that time is getting so close!

Look what we've done today

Nursery and craftiness

Well today is the big day of my 32 week ultrasound. I'm super excited to see how Olivia looks now! I'm sure she has more chub on her than the last look at 19.5 weeks. It is scheduled at 2 pm. Before that, Amanda is coming over so we can make a couple things for my friends at work who are having babies. We are having a joint shower on Monday. I'm really looking forward to that too! Here is what I made the girls at work so far (one is having a boy, and the other a girl)

I found these iron on patch type things at the craft store and pt them on onesies. They are SUPER cute in person, I especially love the little tie for a boy! And next are the diaper wipe cases I made. I got the idea from Amanda who made me one that I love. She showed me the directions, and they really weren't too hard once I figured out all the fabrics to buy.

That's all I have made for them so far. I think we may make something like burp cloths later today to finish up the present. I'm glad Amanda is helping, because I don't know how to sew!

Here is the nursery right now too. I got the bedding in the mail a couple day ago. While I was at work John washed everything and put it all on the crib, and put the mobile together. I think it looks super cute! I also included a picture of what the closet looks like right now. I have to get another couple of pink cube drawers and organize it better, but I think it will be a good thing to have for blankets and random things that are hard to find a place for. Plus we can use some of all the space in that closet!

Other than that. Not much going on today... just getting ready for my shower here on Saturday. I have a lot of cleaning and laundry to do! My first baby shower is going to be so much fun, then one in Seattle 2 weeks later! I love showers!

updates

I just woke up from sleeping for the day. I worked last night, pretty uneventful. I did have 2 of the cutest babies in the unit in my opinion! Twin boys, 3 and 4lbs each. Olivia was kicking like crazy when I woke up yesterday morning (at 6 am on a Sunday!). Will she be an early bird like me and John? After about an hour of it she gave herself the hiccups pretty hard core. John got to feel her moving and kicking a lot then he got to feel her hiccups! I don't think he had felt that yet. She didn't settle down until I got out of bed and took a shower. She was also moving a lot last night at work, and when I woke up at 3:30 pm today. It seems like me getting out of bed and walking around is the only thing that calms her down. When she was kicking yesterday I felt her on both side of my belly at the same time. I hope she isn't lying transverse. She better get into the correct position soon if she isn't already! Thursday is going to be a lot of fun!

There are so many fun things this week. My bedding is supposed to be delivered tomorrow. I think when we put that in the nursery will pretty much be complete. All I would have left is getting some sort of decal for the wall. I wanted to wait and get the bedding to make sure I loved it! We already have the closet set up and decided to just put the ikea chair in there as our "rocking" chair. Then on Thursday of course we have the 32 week ultrasound and this weekend my first baby shower here in Spokane! I'm also excited because I will get to see some family from out of town that I don't see very often. My cousin Brandon who lives in Florida just happens to be coming the same weekend!

Well, I hope everyone has a good week! I am supposed to work 4 nights in a row starting yesterday but I'm hoping to get Wednesday off since we are overstaffed. My assignment at work really isn't bad, but it is hard to work 4 12 hour night shifts in a row. Especially hard when 7 months pregnant and I swear none of the chairs are comfortable anymore!

today

I wasn't to happy when John and Martini woke me up at 5 am this morning (on accident of course.) After John left for work I happened to look at my work schedule and realized I'm supposed to be in class all day today! I'm glad I looked at it, otherwise I would've missed a class I've been waiting to take for months and not have work tonight! Anyway I have to get going in a couple minutes, but I wanted to post a couple updates before I left.

We had the maternity session with our photographer last night at Gonzaga. She was SUPER nice and had a lot of cool ideas. I think some pf the pictures are going to come out looking really good! John was in quite a few of them and she even took a few of me and Jenny and had Jenny take some all by herself! That was pretty cool! She showed us one picture she took at the end of our time together of me by the river and the sun reflecting off the river. It looked really cool in the little screen on her camera so I'm excited to see them all edited up! I think there will be some really cute ones of John and I together too.

I also mentioned finding bedding last night. Well this morning I found the best deal out of all the Internet sites. The lowest prince plus no tax and free shipping! I think this bedding will get my nursery finally pulled together. Now I am going to look on etsy sometime for a wall decal with either a tree or a branch with birds. I think it will look really cute! Here is the bedding: sorry it is so huge, but at least you can see the detail of the bedding! :) Ugh I just realized I forgot to order the mobile...

nursery

Now that we have the crib and dresser, I need to work on decorating the nursery more. I'm still not entirely sure about the bedding, but I know I need to dress up the room a bit more. I really don't want to paint the room, espcially since we just bought the house and I don't think she will be in it forever with bigger rooms downstairs. I also think I would somehow get paint where paint shouldn'tbe.... The room does need to color though, and I think I've found what I want to do. Here is the wall decal I found on etsy. I showed it to John and he said he really like it a lot. I would have the tree next to the crib since there will be space 0n the side and the little flowers blowing over it. What do you think?
You can have it made in whatever colors you want but I really like these specific colors. It also kind of reminds me of our wedding invitation! Its big, I think 6 feet high. I think it would do the job of adding some nice color to the room! The other nice thing is once you are done with it, you can peel it off!

and the dresser

Last night John worked on the dresser. It took a lot longer than the crib, there were a ton more pieces and the instructions weren't the greatest! Here are a couple pictures of John putting it together, looking at the instructions and the finished product! The knobs on it are really plain, I think I may put on pink glass knobs. That would really dress it up!

And here is Martini and Olivia:

Crib!

We got the call on Monday that our crib was ready to be picked up. So yesterday evening after John got off work we headed up to JCPenny in the van (klassy) and got the crib, dresser and conversion rails that I had ordered! Here are the pieces all laid out in the living room, the "before."

It really didn't take long, and John and I worked on it together. Of course John did most of it, but I helped him figure out what bolts went where since the directions weren't incredibly precise.

This next pic is with the flash off. The color is antique white, so more of a muted white, but I wouldn't say it's off white.

Above the flash is on. You can see the crib more clearly. It really is everything we wanted in a crib. It looks like a nice piece of furniture with no exposed bolts on the front. I LOVE it. John said he loved it too, and said I did a good job of getting what he wanted (something with curves and higher in the back) It doesn't have a drop side front since I've read that those aren't the safest anymore. Also, most cribs aren't really made that way anymore. The only thing I was concerned about was being able to reach over the front. That doesn't seem like it will be an issue. Right now it is set for the matress to be on the highest setting, and I can easily reach the springs.

So now we just have the dresser to put together. I'm guessing we will work on that tonight. I'm supposed to work, but a co-worker told me I am probably getting a mandatory night off tonight due to low census. I knew I was up soon for one. I don't mind a night off once in a while! I think my last one was in January, so not too bad. Once we get the dresser together I will take more pictures and post them. It is finally starting to look and feel more like a nursery!

Furniture

I ordered the crib and dresser! I'm so happy to have that over with. I have been checking jcpenny.com to see if the stuff went back on sale, and finally when I looked this morning it was! That, plus it was free shipping! I know that saved us a lot of money too. We are having it shipped to the store where it looks like we will be able to pick it up in 4-7 days! Here are links to the dresser and crib. I got them in the antique white color. They got pretty good reviews, it looks like a lot of people didn't like the dresser because of all the assembly involved, but that is what John is for! ha ha!

Also, I signed up for a childbirth class next month. It is actually a natural childbirth class, but the prepared childbirth class is 8 hours, usually split into different days. I just didn't have the time for it, plus I heard from others that most of it is a waste of time (how to care for babies, etc.) My co-worker and I got special permission to get into this class since the prepared class is a pre-requisite for the natural childbirth class.

I feel like I'm finally getting stuff done now! Oh and John and I were going to order our blinds but the color we liked is no longer online. So I ordered MORE samples so we can re-decide what color we like. I paid to have overnight shipping of the samples so we can do that this week too. The house is finally coming together!

I may have found it.

I couldn't copy the picture, but here is the link to it. I found it on JCPenny.com. It's more than I wanted to spend, but nto $800 at least!

http://www2.jcpenney.com/jcp/X6.aspx?DeptID=62438&CatID=62709&GrpTyp=PRD&ItemID=15cd878&attrtype=&attrvalue=&CMID=62438%7c62702%7c62709&Fltr=&Srt=&QL=F&IND=14&cmVirtualCat=&CmCatId=624386270262709

I will have to show it to John, but I'm sure he will like it.

Ugh.

Looking for cribs is frustrating. I found the perfect crib- at least in my mind. Perfect except for the price tag. Why does it have to be $800? UGH!

There are no ugly exposed bolts on the front, solid rails, a taller back like John wants, converts to a toddler bed and full size bed later and a nice drawer underneath! I haven't read any review on it yet, but as far as looks go it is perfect!

Here is another one I found that I like. It's about 1/2 the price as the above one. It's not quite as cute, but it is a lot cheaper.

Anyway I keep looking and looking at the same websites over and over expecting something to jump out at me. I guess it's like when you look in the fridge to see if something new has appeared that looks good to eat. I don't think it ever does though.