Nursery Tour

We did it! We finished the nursery a couple of weeks ago and it is all ready for Baby Bug’s arrival this weekend! Thanks to everyone for the sweet gifts that made his nursery perfect, special thanks to Mom and Aunt Pat for helping organize everything and put the bookcase together, and extra special thanks to Dave who put the rest of the furniture together and hung the curtains.

Without further adieu, here’s the nursery!

Looking into the room from the hallway

Starting from behind the door - diaper bag storage

Bookcase and frame where we will put some newborn photos

Bookcase and crib

Looking straight on at the crib

A close up shot of the wall canvas I designed hanging above the crib

Inside the crib

Looking towards the right side of the room

A better shot of the dresser

The diaper organizer

Inside one of the dresser drawers. I LOVE these organizing cubes!

Inside another dresser drawer

Above the closet is a shelf for his already growing collection of stuffed animals

Inside the closet

In case you are curious, here’s where I got the various items from; glider, bookcase, nightstand/side table, dresser, drawer organizers, curtains, crib sheets, wall decal. If you have questions about where I found anything else just let me know.

I hope you enjoyed the little nursery tour! We can’t wait to show our little guy his room in just a few days!

Maternity Photos

When I first found out I was pregnant I knew I wanted maternity photos. But once I started looking into it I wasn’t excited about the price tag. Don’t get me wrong, I completely understand the value of a photographer’s time and talent and understand what I am paying for when I hire someone to take photos. But, quite honestly, I knew that whatever maternity photos I ended up getting would not likely make it to a photo frame anywhere in our house - I just assumed that all available shelf and wall space would be taken up by baby photos soon enough and maternity photos would be a thing of the past. All I really wanted was a few good digital images to put in our scrap book and share via social media. And upwards of $400 wasn’t worth that.



Our solution? Try to take photos ourselves with a tripod and shutter remote. And if we didn’t like what we got we would cave and pay the big bucks to have some nice photos taken and pay for the prints that we would not likely use. (And save our money for newborn photos!)

Good news! We got what we wanted with our tripod and remote (and Dave took some pictures of me individually too)! So get ready for a photo overload of my favorite photos from our own little maternity shoot :-)

Baby Showers

First. let me just say that I am one lucky lady! I have three groups of people who are my support system and who I really care about (and they care about me too!). Each group threw me a very nice baby shower to celebrate Baby Bug’s impending arrival. Each shower was very special and unique and I am so grateful that there are people in my life who were generous enough to host these gatherings for me. I genuinely loved getting to spend time with family, friends and co-workers and celebrate this little life that will be joining us very soon.

Shower #1 - Family and friends in Colorado
My aunts (with the help of my mom, cousin and a family friend) threw me a fabulous shower in January (while I was still allowed to travel). The theme was an owl in a hot air balloon (since owls are a part of my nursery decor and both Dave and I have won photo contests taking photos of hot air balloons) and the theme was carried out in the invitations, cake, favors and decorations!

My aunt even made super cute cookies with the owl in the balloon but unfortunately my cookies were a bit damaged on the plane ride home. Oops. I should have taken a picture of them at the shower, while they were still perfect. Lesson learned.

Other than the crushed cookies the shower was wonderful! I got a chance to spend time with a lot of people who I don’t get to see as often as I used to since we’ve moved to California. And I was extra lucky that my brother, sister and sister-in-law flew in from Texas for the occasion! I wish we would have gotten a picture of the whole group, but luckily my mom got a few shots of individual tables.

But one of my favorite pictures from the day is of me and the grandmas-to-be! From left to right is Dave’s mom, me and my mom. Such a sweet picture!

Thank you to all of the family and friends who took the time to celebrate baby with me! It was so good to see everyone!

Shower #2 - Friends and family in California
My girlfriends Kendra, Margaret and Jennifer threw me a lovely baby shower the first weekend in March. From left to right below: Jennifer, Margaret, me and Kendra.

In attendance were many of my California friends (all from church), Dave’s aunts Jan and Cathy (who also live in California), my mom (from Colorado) and Aunt Pat (also from California). From left to right below: Aunt Jan, my mom, me, Aunt Cathy and Aunt Pat.

We had a great time playing games, eating and praying over Baby Bug. It was a very special day and I think all of the ladies who came to celebrate this little guy and welcome him into our church and California family!

Shower #3 - Co-workers
My last shower was thrown by some of my co-workers; Diana, Melanie and Marv. We had it at the grill on the winery property and just hung out, ate yummy food and (everyone but me) drank wine (because that’s kind of what we you do when you work at a winery).

I wish I would have taken more photos but I was too busy chatting with everyone. Oops! At least I have these two to share.

Thanks to all of my co-worker friends who came to celebrate Baby Bug’s arrival! I look forward to getting reacquainted with all of our wines with all of you once I’m able to sample again!

Thank you to EVERYONE who came to one or more of my showers! I am definitely all set for baby’s arrival this week. We certainly do feel loved (and spoiled) and I look forward to sharing the news of Baby Bug’s arrival with all of you! Cheers!

I’m a blogging slacker…

So the last eight weeks have been a blur. Between 50 hour work weeks, twice weekly nonstress tests, weekly doctor visits, every two weeks visits to the diabetes center, getting the baby’s room ready, spending time with Dave and trying to keep up with housework I’ve had little time (or energy) for blogging. I really hate when that happens in life because I love looking back and seeing what we were up to at different times in years past. But, since this has been a crazy time and I’ve been a total blog slacker I’ll just have to catch you up with things in bullet points!

• This gestational diabetes thing really put a damper on our usual Valentine’s Day plans. Since I’m so restricted in what I can eat we decided to forgo any sort of special meal and just do an activity together. So, Dave found a play for us to go to! It was a Sherlock Holmes play and it was very nicely done. We enjoyed our night together we may just have to make a habit of going to more plays! I also don’t want to forget to mention the beautiful flowers and balloon that my wonderful husband personally delivered to my office on Valentine’s Day. That was so special and I’m so lucky to have such a thoughtful husband :-)
• Speaking of gestational diabetes… I am so over this. I mean, I would do anything for this kid to keep him healthy but I can.not.wait for the diabetes to go away. I am so done taking my blood sugar four times or more a day, having to go to nonstress tests twice a week and counting carbs at every snack and meal time is getting so old and all I want is a piece of pizza or a full plate of fruit or some creamer in my (decaf) coffee. You had better believe that I will do everything in my power to prevent diabetes in the future, as long as I can still have the occasional sweet :-)

• My dad had knee surgery at the beginning of March and is doing pretty well, but is still recovering. Unfortunately his recovery is taking a bit longer than expected which means he won’t make it out to California for Baby Bug’s birth. As disappointed as I am that he won’t be able to be here, at least he’ll be feeling much better and will be able to move a little easier before making the trip to meet his first grandchild. Get better soon, Dad!
• Dave and I really want to spend some more time enjoying our back yard this spring and summer and so we finally took the plunge and purchased an outdoor dining set. Well, maybe it was more like Dave convinced me it was a good idea when he showed me a cute dining set on sale at Target. If there are two things I can’t resist it is Target and a good deal! We’re enjoying it so far and look forward to spending more time outside very soon.

• Dave and I recently took a day trip to the San Francisco Zoo and we had a great time! It was fun to visit a new (to us) zoo and Dave really enjoyed taking pictures of the animals. I’ve posted a few of his photos from the day below.

• My mom and Aunt Pat came to visit in early March and we were able to spend a good deal of time prepping the nursery for Baby Bug’s arrival! Since they have left I put the finishing touches on the room and am super excited to share photos of everything in a separate post. Stay tuned this week for that :-)
• Speaking of getting ready for baby… we are all set for his arrival! The nursery is done, I have had a few wonderful showers thrown by family, friends and co-workers, the car seat bases have been installed and safety checked by the California Highway Patrol, my hospital bag is almost packed, the bassinet it set up in our bedroom and we managed to squeeze in some maternity photos. The showers and maternity photos will also get their own blog posts with photos.

• Oh, and I forgot to mention that that Baby Bug will be here no later than FRIDAY! With gestational diabetes they don’t like to let you go past your due date, and it happens that my doctor is off duty on my due date (April 2) so I am being induced on Friday, if I don’t go into labor on my own before then. We can’t wait to meet this little guy!
• Since I am so darn close to having this baby, I am officially on leave as of this past Friday. My doctor thought I was too stressed out to continue working at 38+ weeks pregnant so she told me I wasn’t allowed to work past March 22. So I wrapped up everything I could, handed things off to other people and am now home until June 24. Now I will (hopefully) have more time to update this little blog of mine. What a glorious 13 weeks this will be!

I think that mostly catches you up on everything. With my extra time this week I’ll be working to do a few more blog posts in preparation for Baby Bug’s arrival this weekend! We can’t wait!

38 weeks

How far along: 38 weeks

Size of Baby Bug: Baby Bug is the size of a pumpkin; about 18.9 inches to 20.9 inches long and weighs about 6.2 to 9.2 pounds

Gender: It’s a boy! 

Movement: He moves all of the time, but especially in the evenings. You can usually see my stomach move as he does his nightly kicks and punches. Dave is always shocked at how strong and frequent baby’s moves are. 

Sleep: It’s hard to sleep when you have to use the restroom every few hours, your body is sore, you’re stressed about trying to get things done before baby comes and you’re still working.

Food cravings: Anything I’m not supposed to eat with gestational diabetes… because if you’re not supposed to have it you want it more, right?

Food aversions: None at the moment 

What I miss: Carbs! Sweets, cereal, muffins, bagels, pizza, a big plate of fruit, Easter candy… you get the idea

Pregnancy side effects: Huge belly, leg cramps, being a little forgetful, having some crazy dreams and back aches

Best moment this past week: Doing maternity photos with Dave

Looking forward to: Meeting the little guy very soon!