Baby Shower and Updated Nursery

Hello, hello! I hope my readers are doing well on this last day of June. This past weekend, my bff hosted my baby shower. It was a lot of fun and I am so, so appreciative of my friends and family who made the day so special for me (and J). It makes me happy to realize how many people have shown such love and support for the baby!

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the day.

My mom and our family friend made this cute fruit baby salad. They did a really awesome job!

My mother-in-law had this adorable cake made by my favorite bakery based on the invitations. It was so delicious (yes, I cheated on my gestational diabetes diet for a day).

I forgot to take a photo with all the other yummy food out. But, it was delicious. We had tea sandwiches, Buffalo chicken dip, veggies, and cheese. There was also a delicious punch that I had a sip from. :)

My mom made these chocolate baby rattles, which were adorable.

Guests!

A lot of our friends and family traveled quite a distance to make it, and I was so happy they were able to come!

My mom and I

My mother-in-law and J's grandparents gift, which was quite the elaborate wrapping job (the gift was our stroller frame)!

Lamp for the baby room (a gift from my mom and aunt).

Two of my sorority sisters!

And my lovely hostess and I. I love that we inadvertently had matching dresses! I had so much fun at the shower and it really was a great day! Thank you to everyone who came!

And yes, I am looking quite pregnant these days. Baby is measuring about a week ahead in growth (meaning I am more like 34 weeks than 33 at this point).

I figured I would also share some of our updated nursery pictures with the goodies from the shower in there. The room is looking much less sparse now!

I should also add a huge thank you to the friends who weren't able to come to the shower and are sending us gifts! I am behind with thank you cards at this point, but we have absolutely loved everything! You all are so wonderful!

The quilt on the bed was made by one of my friends, who has her own blog. If you are interested in the details of the quilt, you can check out her post!

I really love our changing pad, which is easy to wipe down, which I know will be useful!

Oh, and I finally got the mobile hanging (with some help from J).

The sheep is a white noise generator, which I think is super cute! :)

Oh, and I love our diaper pail! It really goes well with the room, and seems like it will keep the smells contained. :) I also love all the books we have been getting. We have a bookshelf coming, so not all of them are pictured. We also received some swaddle blankets, which I am excited to use!

Anyway, that's all I have for now! Thanks again everyone!

The crib is finally here!

Hey guys! Guess what? Our baby's furniture (or at least the main two pieces of it) finally came in! You can picture me doing a happy dance. Actually, it came in last Tuesday, but we weren't able to assemble the crib until yesterday. Then, I managed to overdo myself and was way too tired to write this post last night (typical for me on weekends - I try to do too much).

Here is the assembled crib with the mattress we had purchased from Amazon. We have the mattress raised to the highest setting, which is the best for newborns. The crib and dresser are both from The Land of Nod (a Crate and Barrel company). The crib is made in the USA in North Carolina. I really liked that about it.

And here's the crib with the finished crib skirt! I love how it ties in with the curtains. I am thinking it will definitely need some hemming as the mattress is lower to the ground, but it is a perfect length for now.

I also hung some etsy artwork I purchased a few weeks ago. The frames are ikea frames to keep the cost down.

Better shot of the artwork. Some of the pictures are a little dark. I'll try and take some pictures when it's sunny out (for the final nursery reveal) so you can get a better idea for colors.

Here is our dresser/changing table area. The lamp will be switched out soon-ish. The puppy prints are also from an etsy seller. I was going to keep the theme all elephants, but J and I have a soft spot for puppies, and we couldn't resist (J helped pick out the artwork). I have been begging J to make a drawing for the baby room (he's quite a good artist). I'm still hoping. :)

Another shot of the dresser. The blankets are from my mom and J's mom and were used with us as babies. The basket is from our gender-reveal party (it held the cake pops), and I folded cloth diapers that my mom had given me from when I was a baby. We are not planning on cloth diapering (I don't have the patience for it), but cloth diapers apparently make great burp cloths (which is how my parents used them, too). So, I bleached those guys, and they look brand new!

More puppy prints. The mobile is laying in the crib. I was going to hang it yesterday, but I didn't end up getting what I needed at home depot to make it work, so it will have to wait a little.

I'm feeling relieved that our nursery is finally shaping up and looking like a nursery. It's pretty fun to put stuff away and get ready for baby. J and I are done our baby and childbirth classes now. I think we could have done without the childbirth one to be honest. It freaked me out more than helped I think. I am glad that I am delivering where I am. Apparently, it's one of the most advanced hospitals in the area for if something goes wrong, including a level 4 NICU (though I do hope we don't need that). I am still working on managing the gestational diabetes. I have good days and bad days. My dinner numbers seem to be the problem area. And I have more doctor's visits to schedule. The OB visits have now gone down to every two weeks. The end is near. When I went to my OB on Friday, they told me that I would not be going past 40 weeks, more likely 38-39 weeks due to the GD and my numbers being a bit on the high side (even when I am following the diet and feeling like I am not eating enough ever). So, it's looking more and more like early August is the time frame! There's more I could say, but I need to get moving on this Monday morning. Hope you all have a great week!

Crib Skirt

Hey everyone! First off, I wanted to say a huge thank you to the folks who gave me encouragement and reached out to me after my last post. I really, really appreciate the love and support and it has made this past week a little better. Also, thank you to everyone who made my birthday (29 weeks on my 29th birthday) so special. I received such wonderful and thoughtful things from friends and family and it really brightened my day. I have been so baby focused that I sort of wasn't thinking of my birthday, so it was really special to be remembered.

As promised, I finally finished the crib skirt. Of course, our crib still hasn't come in (don't get me started on how eager I am for it to get here), so I don't have any pictures on the crib, but I thought I would do a little tutorial. Basically, I assembled it in 3 pieces that can be tied to the crib and adjusted as the crib adjusts in height. I used 2 pieces of fabric: the same elephant print from the curtains and the coordinating solid gray (both from Premier Prints and ordered online through fabric.com). This is the longest panel. The elephant print was wide enough, but I had to sew the solid gray together to get the length. I used the measurements from the crib and added 2 inches to the tallest setting's height. The skirt can be tied and adjusted to fit multiple settings.

 Here's how I worked out the dimensions if you are curious. I allowed for a 2 inch hem on the bottom.

Each of the pieces was basically done the same way, so I'll do a step by step for a side panel. I cut my fabric to dimensions. I added 1-2 inches to the width to allow for a hem, and about an inch for the top hem.

I pinned right sides together to sew on the gray fabric.

Sewn and unfolded

I ironed the back side of the seam to make the edge look good.

I hemmed the bottom up 2 inches and the sides to the measurement I needed. I did 1/2 inch on one side and then marked my measurement on the other.

Close up of the seams (backside).

Last, I hemmed the top (again to my final measurement). The top hem isn't super important since it won't be seen under the mattress.

I then sewed ribbon ties on the top of each of the pieces. These will be used for securing it to the crib.

Finished product! I promise to have some more photos if we ever get this crib delivered!

I have been to my class for Gestational Diabetes and am working hard on following the diet. It takes more discipline than anything else. And the finger pricking is a bit tiresome. If you have diabetes, you are probably rolling your eyes at this. I'm sure it will become routine soon. I'm learning what foods spike my blood sugar and which foods I get good readings from. I meet back with the diabetes center this week, so we'll see how it goes. I'm now slightly past 30 weeks. Since they rarely let GD patients past their due date, I guess I can say less than 10 weeks left! I can definitely say I am 7 months pregnant at this point. Yay! I'm ready to be not pregnant (once it's safe for the baby, obviously), although I'm still scared of what's to come... But, it's going to be great! Anyway, that's all for now. I hope to have a furniture update soon!

Ups and Downs

So, this isn't a DIY post. Although, I am almost done the crib skirt. I will wait on posting that. It's not like we have the crib yet anyway (though they told me this month so hopefully soon). This post is a pregnancy post, so feel free to skip this one if you aren't all that interested.

How have I been?

Well, good ... and bad. Let's start with the good.

The good is that the baby seems to be doing well. He's getting much, much bigger. I feel lots of movement nearly all the time. I swear sometimes he is trying to stretch me out from the inside. It's a strange feeling. My weight gain and fundal height are all measuring right on track. I'm 29 weeks or approximately 6.5 months along. In fact, with tomorrow being my 29th birthday, I will be 29 weeks at 29 years old. Which is kind of cool. I am still exercising almost every day. I take that pretty seriously, and my weight gain seems to be all belly. I am still nauseous (I guess that goes in the not-so-good category), but it seems to be not so bad most of the time. Besides going to Williamsburg with my mom, J and I also took a trip with friends from college over Memorial Day weekend. It was a ton of fun to see people and I was really happy we were able to go.

The bad...
There was a definite hormone shift about 2 weeks ago, and some my old friends, anxiety and insomnia, decided to pay me a visit. I guess I should get used to this in the third trimester, but I was not so pleased. I ended up re-reading my insomnia workbook from last summer and improving my sleep hygiene, which helped considerably. As my belly gets bigger, I am more uncomfortable. It's hard to sit for long periods of time (and standing too long hurts my feet). I am also feeling overwhelmed by how much there is left to do before the big arrival, so I am a little stressed. Especially about daycare. We really need to work on that. But, I think the worst of all is that I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes this week. I was super frustrated and upset when I found out. I have 2 friends that had it during their pregnancies. I remember one telling me how upset she was when she found out. She wasn't kidding. I was devastated. I cried approximately 4 hours yesterday. My eyes were so puffy this morning that I couldn't even put in contacts. After reading more about it, I realize it's not my fault, but I sure did blame myself quite a bit yesterday. I just don't quite understand why my body has been so difficult with pregnancy. Nausea and GD at the same time was one of my nightmares. And now, I get to live it. It's this mixture of being scared about my and the baby's health as well as being ridiculously pissed off that I can't have cake on my birthday or ice cream this summer. More restrictions on an already restricted diet. It's just unfair. I am thin. I have worked out every day. I eat pretty well (when I wasn't throwing it up). It just sucks. It sucks to see all these other pregnant women I know have perfect pregnancies, while I feel like I am scaling a mountain here. So, I'm jealous. Even though I know I shouldn't be. Even though I know how lucky we are with conceiving easily and our child will likely be healthy. I know everyone goes through their own struggles in life. And pregnancy isn't fair. At all. Women suffer miscarriages, stillbirths, birth defects, hyperemisis, bed rest, infertility, pre-eclampsia, etc. There's no guarantee that pregnancy leads to a healthy baby. And it's simply hard sometimes. I wish I could say something profound here, but I am still coming to terms with all of this. Baby boy, I hope you know how much your mother loves you.

Until next time...