Pregnancy Update

What is that? That's the view I have when I look down.

If I had written this a week or two ago as I had intended it would be much different. I would have said that the 3rd trimester was going great, the best so far. Even though I couldn't stand for a long time I wasn't having that much trouble getting around and even though I wasn't sleeping, I still had a bunch of energy during the day.

Ah, well the last month is now kicking my butt. I'm getting quite uncomfortable and I don't know what to do about it except hope that I can make it to the end. I still don't sleep a lot for 2 reasons: 1- frequent potty breaks- but I'm pretty much used to those; and 2) carpal tunnel. Yes my friends, it is a symptom of pregnancy. I thought it was just an excuse for people to claim short term disability but I'm here to tell you, it is AWFUL! Horrible pain in my wrists through my hands. It's the swelling of the pregnancy and it's cutting off circulation to my hands. At first it started with numb fingers, which I can deal with. Now, I will wake up and not be able to straighten my fingers or move my wrists. Sometimes I am awakened by the equivalent of a charlie horse in my wrist. This is one thing I'm hoping will go away soon after I give birth. Luckily, it's not that bad during the day, I only notice it if i sit very still for a long time (like watching a movie) or typing a bunch. Otherwise, his movements have gotten a little more uncomfortable, and now i really can't stand or walk for very long at all. All I wanted was to have the kitchen clean tonight and I was limping around the kitchen because of the pain in my hip.

Oh well, I guess this is all part of the deal. I'm just ready for him to get here!

The Rocker

This is the rocker we have for Cason's room. I believe it belonged to my moms grandmother (she can correct me in the comments if I'm wrong) and has been passed down since then. It's called a platform rocker and you can really see but the base sits flat on the floor and the chair part rocks on the base. We recovered it in a fabric that matched the nursery and it looks great in there. I love mixing modern with antiques, I think it's important to know that you don't have to get rid of everything old if you like the clean modern look.

Had to show you!

We just finished adding these touches to the nursery so I wanted to post them because I think it looks so cute. We put his name on the wall and some 3D wall circles. When it's all really done I will have someone with better camera skills than me come and take real pictures. I'm so excited!

Relache Spa

Last Friday was a great day. I had a Dr.'s appointment that morning and everything looked right on track. This is the first time in my life I actually enjoy going to the Dr. Then Mike headed off to a youth retreat in Houston and I headed off to the spa.
I had gotten a gift certificate to Relache Spa which is inside the Gaylord Texan. I had always heard good things about it and was very excited to try it out for myself. I booked a "mellow mama" prenatal massage which they use specialty products designed just for pregnant skin.
I park in the special spa designated parking and in the back entrance and check in at the front desk. The girl there then takes me through the frosted glass doors and we stop at another counter back there with more people waiting to greet me. I fill out my paperwork, which was very short by the way- a lot of places have you fill out 3 pages just to get a massage, not the case here. She assigns me my locker number and asks for my shoe size so i can be fitted with slippers. I tell her and she asks if my feet have been swollen and if I'm sure that is the size I want. Some might be offended by that but I actually really appreciated it. She was right, my feet have been swollen and the size larger fit nicely. So, she walks me back to my locker and gives me my comfortable robe and slippers and tells me where everything is. I change to my robe and slippers and take a tour of the huge bathroom equipped with several large showers, restrooms, a hair station, a teeth/mouth station, steam room and sauna. Amazing. I grab some citris flavored water and settle in to one of the comfortable chairs and read a magazine until my therapist comes to get me.
We head back to the treatment room which was very nice and she has all the pillows i need waiting for me- you have to be extra propped up when pregnant which i don't prefer but it is more comfortable at this time. She tells me about all the products she will be using and lets me smell them so i won't be caught off guard. There is a massage oil, thick body lotion for my stomach, eye gel, and cuticle cream. The massage was amazing, that's all there is to it. I have had a few maternity massages and this was by far the best one. When it was over she asked me what kind of water I wanted, this time I tried the cucumber.
After that, i headed straight to the slumber room. This room was worth at least half the cost of the massage alone. A dark room playing peaceful music with really comfortable chairs and waffle weave blankets. i picked a chair next to the fountain, turned down the lights and began to slumber. it was amazing! If i could put one of these rooms in my house i would. i know you are probaly thinking "um, that's called a bedroom" but it was much different than a bedroom. in a slumber room, you can escape from reality and be wherever you want.
When i was done slumbering i reluctantly changed back into my clothes and headed home. I decided that i would have had a much more enjoyable pregnancy if I could have gone there every week. If you get the chance, I encourage you to go!

Pregnant Picture

I think most everyone who reads my blog sees me on a regular basis but for those of you who don't, here's a picture. I have not done a lot of these becuase i don't have a good angle right now but i though at some point, i might want to remember how i looked when i was pregnant. The other two girls are at my office and we are all due within a few weeks of each other. So here you go, there may not be another until right before he is going to come.

Nursery Sneak Peak

I don't have a lot of time to write but here's the start of the nursery. It's been so much fun putting it together and it's almost there, just some details to complete... like window treatments!



This is one of the wall words from Uppercase Living. They allow custom creations so I typed the verse and picked the font and color and here it it. It's the verse Jer. 29:11 if you can't see it .


My dad came and helped hang all the wall shelving. Here there are shelves between the closet doors which will get decorated in some way.
This is my favorite part. The stripes are painted on the wall and the bookshelves hung above it. The dresser is from ikea that is going to act as the changing table and I'm waiting on the rocker to come back from getting re-upholstered. It's coming together!

Charger & Me

"Oh No"
"Um, you don't want to come in here"

Those are the words I was greeted with after a very long day on Saturday.
The thing is, I had been in that same situation before. I knew exactly what to expect even before I stepped through the door. I could see the image in my mind and there was no way I was waiting outside.

You see, several years ago, I was visiting my parents in Nacogodches for the weekend. We decided to take a trip to Houston to go shopping and locked up the three dogs- the chocolate lab, the mini dachshund, and the pit bull puppy, and headed to Houston. Upon our return, we walked in the house to me saying the words "Oh No", "Um, you don't want to come in here". So yes, I'm familiar with what this sounds like. We refer to that day as the great stuffed animal massacre of 2003. It wasn't pretty. Stuffed animals we had since we were little were pulled apart by their limbs and their stuffing covered the floor. You couldn't walk without stepping on stuffing. My koala bear was missing an ear and an eye, bears were missing arms and legs, some had just been torn open from the middle. We have no idea how long after we left they had gotten inside and made this mess, but we are quite certain they had the run of the place for awhile.

Back to our kitchen on Sat. night. I stepped in to find what you see in the picture below (although i think it looked worse in person). The remains of a bed, a hat, a book, and some carpet squares. Given more time we probably would have found the remains of our kitchen table or worse.
We had been at a class all day and the dogs had been locked up for over 8 hours. When we were done with the class we ran back to let them out, Charger stays in his crate and Champ stays in the kitchen. We had to leave immediately to go to dinner so my heart hurt for my precious Charger who would be locked up again for hours. I suggested we try putting both of them in the kitchen so they can keep each other company and play while we were gone. We have had very little success with this in the past because Charger is a chewer. His bed had some holes in it so we figured it couldn't look much worse and we put everything else out of reach and ran off to dinner.
Fast forward 4 hours later when we returned to the aforementioned scene. Now, as I mentioned earlier, Champ stays in the kitchen by himself all day every day. As far as we know, he doesn't leave his bed, he's there when we leave and when we return. So, logic would say that Champ was not the cause of the destruction below. The question I have, is why didn't he stop it? Why didn't he mention to Charger that he was chewing up his bed too and when mommy and daddy got back they would be mad and take the bed away. Why didn't they have that conversation? Did champ just sit around and watch? Where did Champ sit because the bed was clearly being torn apart as well as the carpet squares below the bed and the dogs don't like sitting on the cold tile so where did Champ go? He's the bigger dog, and older. He's probably got 2-3 pounds on Charger (that's a lot for the little ones) so why didn't he just plant himself on the bed and not moved. But obviously... that didn't happen.

So, the dogs got their big comfortable bed taken away and now have to sleep on the small pad that is left. They will not be getting a new bed for a long time and Charger will not be left alone in any area except his crate for a long time. I can only imagine what he could do with Cason's toys, since many of them look a lot like dog toys. What if he get's a hold of the infant carrier....

Update.

Tired…. That’s the name of the game right now. I remember being tired in my first trimester but nothing compared to this. A few days ago it was like running into a brick wall made of tired. I have had to start setting my alarm for later then I still go to work and sit at my desk yawning until my eyes water which makes my nose runny so I’m sniffling, wiping tears away and trying to read a computer screen and look like I’m not crying at my desk. I would love to go to bed at 9, get up at 8, and take a 2 hour nap in the afternoon, but that doesn’t fit well with my schedule. Along with being super tired, I’m still in a lot of pain. My lower back will ache at the end of the day from the extra weight around my waist. My hips hurt because of the weight and sleeping on my side, and my left rib cage still hurts but has evolved a bit. Apparently there are nerves extending from your ribs into your skin and the area where my rib is hurt, the nerves are damaged there and as they stretch, they feel a combination of numb and on fire. For the majority of the day it feels like I have a patch of skin that is blistered and burned and nothing can make it feel better. Just another thing the doc said would go away after the baby is born.

For the fun things, he moves around a lot and it still fascinates me to see my stomach move and feel a part of his body through my skin. Luckily he doesn’t kick hard so it’s not uncomfortable at all. Also, strangely enough, my skin is much better now than it was before I was pregnant. Bad skin is a very typical sign of pregnancy so I’m not sure how I lucked out but gone is my oily skin and here is clear, dry skin. I love it!

We had our first baby class this week- Baby Basics- 4 hours of learning about you baby in his first few weeks of life, not nearly enough. I feel like I learned just enough to be scared but not enough to be confident. Actually there was some great information and if the baby behaves like the dolls we were practicing with last night, everything will go perfectly. We even learned how to calm him from crying in 5 minutes or less. That’s a good trick to know! This week has been crazy with the class and other things going on that I haven’t had any time to work on the nursery or the rest of the house for that matter. It won’t happen this weekend either because we have our 8 hour childbirth class on Sat. Thankfully for family, my mom came over last weekend and helped clean out closets and get me started on organizing and making room for new baby stuff. I seriously could not have done ½ the stuff she did in the amount of time because I just can’t stand for that long anymore. I’m ready for the nesting instinct to kick in. I have made lists of all the areas that need organizing and cleaning out and I’m slowly getting to them but I’m not to the point where I am going to go crazy if they are not done right then. I need that kind of motivation. Hope it kicks in soon.

I know this update was boring and pictureless but I thought it was time for an update. Next time I promise I will make some progress and post some photos.

Some things just sound simple....

I started out on what was supposed to be a simple task, making Cason's bed. As I mentioned earlier, I had to get all of his bedding because Target is making room for something else in January and all the Dwell Circle bedding is on clearance. I prefer to buy things on clearance so I'm not upset about this, I just wasn't planning on buying it quite yet. I was going to wait to put the bedding on but I couldn't stand looking at the empty room any longer and needed some inspiration to keep going. I washed all the sheets last night and set out on the task this morning of making the bed. Simple. Small mattress, small sheets, no big deal.
After 30 minutes of sweating and heavy breathing, I finally wrestled all the bedding on. This was no small task. Tiny mattress made no difference. You get the bed skirt on and straightened out, and plop the mattress in only to shift the bed skirt to a completely wrong position. So, you reach to fingers between the regulation bars and try and pull the bed skirt back into position. Then, you start putting the mattress pad on the mattress only to realize that when you lift the corner of the mattress up, you have also grabbed the corner of the bed skirt and re-positioned it yet again. More tugging and straightening. Then the sheet which wasn't terribly difficult except that it's stripes and I want all the stripes to be running parallel with the bed not angled like they did at my first attempt to get them on the mattress. Then comes the bumper pad. The thing that makes cribs the cutest. It's great in theory except when you have one of those cribs where the front side lowers for us short people, then, how does the bumper stay in place when you lower the front. I did not try this move once I got it on, and I'm no expert, but from the looks of things, it ain't going to work. Oh well, we will figure that out when the baby is here. For now I think the crib looks much better.





Disclaimer: I realize that the use of pillows and other accessories is not recommended in a crib when the baby is in there for risk of suffocation. These were placed in the crib strictly for photographic effect and will be removed before Cason is placed in the crib. They are so cute though, aren't they?




I guess what is most upsetting about the crib being so darn difficult to make is that i hear that babies often have leaking problems when sleeping, and the bed might require changing often. I was already prepared for this by stocking up on extra sheets that match my collection as well as white ones. I figured changing the bed often would be no big deal, again, tiny mattress, very simple. Well, if I have to go through that every time, count me out, Cason is sleeping on plastic because this crib is staying like it is!

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. We sure did! We are always able to visit both families so that makes it a lot of fun.
As you can see above we have selected a name for the new baby and I get more and more excited each day as we continue to prepare for him. It's a bit overwhelming being in the final months but also nice knowing that the pregnancy part is going to have an end. I will have pictures of the nursery to post soon. It's far from being done but my bedding went on clearance at Target so I have most of it now and I just couldn't wait to get it put on the bed so it's in the wash (with special detergent) and I'll put it on the bed tonight or tomorrow morning.

It's a Start

Thanks to some generous friends, they loaned us a crib so we officially have 1 item in the nursery. it's painted the brown color found in the sheets and the floors are stained. They look so good i hate to cover it up with a rug! Now I just need about a million more things :-)

Pregnancy and the Dentist

I already wasn't looking forward to my trip becuase I have experienced the bleeding gums symptom that faces many pregnant women. I'm not a huge fan of the dentist anyways but add being uncomfortable and having bleeding, tender gums on top of that and I was dreading it.
So, I tell her right at the beginning, my gums bleed, I would prefer not to drown in my own blood so please be gentile. Well, i guess that was the kiss of death becuase there was no gentile. I was pretty ticked by the end of it actually. I know it is her job to get my mouth clean and disease free but I really think they should give pregnant people a break. They actually say we need extra attention because of the sensitive bleeding gums thing but by the time she got through, I wish I had skipped the appointment and risked the extra cavity- the filling would have hurt less. I think I was still bleeding when I left and went to the car. As I was checking out they had the nerve to tell me that pregnant women should come to the dentist MORE often than normal. I looked at that woman like she was crazy and said "no thanks". Not only does insurance not cover that, I cannot loose any more blood! So, against all dr's recomendations, I advise pregnant women not to go to the dentist... But don't tell anyone I said that!

Catching Up!

Wow, it's been a crazy week couple of weeks. Let's start with last week, we decided to have a professional stain our concrete in the back of the house. We have always intended to have a hard surface in the back but never got around to it. After we stained the den, we decided it was worth the money to have someone do it for us... especially since I'm not much help these days. So, we had to move out of the house because of the chemicals and the stain so last week, we spent 2 nights at a friends house, 2 nights at Great Wolf Lodge (more on that later) then we were back in the house as long as we wore little blue booties over our shoes if we walked on the concrete. It looks amazing and we are so happy but as you can imagine, nothing is in the right place and we have spent this week trying to get everything back to normal, but that's taking much longer than I had hoped.
I put a picture of the concrete in the hallway and a view of the newly re-decorated guest room. I've been waiting to take pictures of this room until it is finished but that's taking longer than expected (hmmm, is that a theme?). Lastly i got the word "Create" from the company Uppercase Living that does wall words and put it in the guest room/office. I think it turned out quite well!

Looks like someone needs to iron the bedspread and curtains.... any volunteers?


If you want your own one of these or another phrase, go to the Uppercase Living web site.

It's the most, wonderful time, of the year!

Christmas decorations are finally up. I'm sure this won't be my only pictures but it's a start. I love having the deorations up and letting the christmas lights be the only lighting in the living room, so fun!

Craft Weekend

Before I talk about craft weekend, I wanted to let everyone know that i'm feeling much better. I still have a lingering cough but that's pretty typical of a cold. My lower back has started hurting after standing but that's something I expected as well because of the baby in the front. All in all, I'm doing okay and I think it's due to your prayers, I really appreciate it!

So, a few weekends ago, mom and I went to a cool hotel in dallas to do crafts and chill out for the weekend. Here's her photos of the hotel- Hotel Belmont. Here are the photos of my craft projects. I made 2 necklaces with beads I got at michaels, some decorative letters for my Christmas Tree, and a bunch of cards for a friend who ordered them. A very productive weekend all in all.