30 weeks down, 10 to go

With only 10 weeks until D-Day, here is what we've accomplished:
-ordered furniture
-put together crib
-put together bookshelf/storage shelves
-primed and painted room
-bought an area rug
-bought lamps for room
-waiting for dresser delivery (tomorrow between noon and 4!)
-bought floating shelves for walls
-bought faux wood blinds for windows and curtains (will be hung tomorrow)

I'm feelin good! We were going to go to Chicago Monday through Wednesday as a "final get away before baby", but late Sunday night, decided to stay home and relax/get things done. We're both happy with this decision as we've been getting lots done in baby's room. Tomorrow should be a very exciting day--dresser gets delivered, blinds and curtains go up, furniture will go in it's place in the room as well as the rug. It'll start looking like a little guy's room (hopefully!)
Pictures to come after tomorrow!! Here's to the home stretch...

If you can't say something nice...

I think we all know how the rest goes.

This is especially true when speaking to pregnant women. Pregnant women you DON'T KNOW. Here's what went down:

My mom and I went to the St. Louis Mills Mall today to hit up some outlet stores and have a fun day of shopping. While standing in line at Old Navy waiting to check out, the lady behind me says "oh, are you going to have your baby by Christmas?!" like she was so excited and hopeful he'd be here in FIVE DAYS. To which I politely replied, "nope, I still have a ways to go" (i.e. take a hint and stop talking, idiot). She didn't take the hint. She then says, "well it looks like you could do some jumping jacks and have that baby by Christmas!"

Mmmk, lady. I turned around at this point and my mom was trying not to giggle because she knew how I felt about this issue. Upon our exiting the store I told my mom I should have jumping jacked her face in.

Listen people: if you don't know how far along someone is, and you DON'T KNOW THE PERSON, don't say anything other than "hey! you look awesome!!" or "what are you having?" or "when are you due?" Those are all acceptable. Assuming I'm due in FIVE DAYS is NOT OK. Geez.

"Twins?"

This is what the idiot of a cashier at Lowe's said to me on Sunday when we were checking out.

"Twins?!"

"No, just one huge baby"

Naturally since then I've been completely paranoid that there are indeed 2 babies in my stomach. WHY would she say that? I'll tell you why: because I look like a friggin' whale. Everyone tries to reassure me and say "oh you look so great!" "you're all belly!" But let me tell you, people don't say "twins?!" to someone who looks "so great" at only 28, almost 29 weeks. I still have TWO MONTHS to go here. How much bigger can my skin stretch?

Either this baby is actually these babies or he's going to come out looking like a toddler. Either way, it's gonna be painful.

In other, more exciting news, Saturday was incredibly productive for us. We ordered furniture (yay!) AND bought paint for baby's room. Woot. Now we wait for furniture to be delivered and begin painting the room (well, Brent begins painting). That's about it so far. But hey, for us, those are some big steps. Tomorrow is week 29...holy freakin' cow. We're almost into the 30's. Time to enter into full-blown nesting mode!

Oh Finals Week

At 2:30 this afternoon, I will officially be on CHRISTMAS BREAK. Let me tell you what this means as an educator:

NO lesson plans

NO grading

NO emails

NO phone calls from/to parents

NO students

NO GRADING.

I got done with my last final this morning at 10:00. It was a foods class. They made various cookies: snickerdoodles, peanut butter blossoms, chocolate chip. And, as the teacher giving them a grade, I HAD to sample them all. It's been a rough day.

Now I'm stuck in my room until 2:30 grading. Which is actually a beautiful thing because I'm FORCED to get things done. It also helps to have a projector because of this:

So really, it's not a bad gig.

Furniture Nightmare

This one's too expensive

This one's too poorly crafted

This one's JUST right...

Thought I'm still waiting to find the one that's JUST right...

Here's the story in a nutshell:
My parents have been gracious enough to offer to buy us baby wood's furniture. Thank you madre and padre. Here's the problem I'm running into: furniture on sites like Wal-Mart, Target, and Babies R Us all have nice looking furniture, but the reviews all claim the furniture comes with scratches and dings and pieces missing and doesn't hold up for the long haul. Basically you get what you pay for. On the other hand, over at Pottery Barn, you can pay a pretty penny to get quality furniture but geesh, I just can't stomach paying that amount on ANY type of furniture.
So I continue scouring the internet looking at every combination out there: changing tables that double as a dresser, 6 drawer dressers that are long enough to also be used as a changing table. I honestly have no idea what I'm going to do. Probably cry. That's usually what happens.

Paint Color Disaster

The wall in Bob's room currently looks like the paint department in Lowe's. There are 6 perfect little squares of colors all labeled, waiting to be chosen as THE color.

Thanks to the lovely paint workers at Lowe's, we discovered on Sunday we needed to prime a the wall we're putting the samples on to get a more "true" look at what the color is instead of putting it over our already blue wall. This DEFINITELY helped. I think we have to narrowed down to 2, just waiting on them to dry. PLEASE LORD help us pick a color. I really can't buy a 7th paint sample!!

In other news, I've changed my mind, yet again, on bedroom furniture. I know, no one saw that coming. I'm now leaning towards...get this....WHITE. What? Yes, white furniture. Mostly because of this beauty. I apologize, Wal-Mart won't let me put the picture in this post :(

Anyway, absolutely love the idea of using that as a dresser/changing table and adding a nice little white crib and a bookshelf/storage shelf with some little baskets. The difficult part is selling this to the hubster. He's not so sold on the white furniture. Mostly because he thinks I'll change my mind tomorrow. Fair enough. I do change my mind...a lot.

Until next time...

Oops, forgot to post about week 27...

Well week 27 is over tomorrow. It brought trimester numero tres as well as lots of movement from Bob. I still love being able to tell where he is and poke at him (softly, of course). Still not sleeping much at night. I toss and turn and wake up at least twice a night to go potty. Calf cramps have been more frequent in the night when I stretch. They kill. I have to stand up and stretch it out then it's sore the next day. Not cool.

That's about it...looking forward to week 28!

I QUIT

Here's my white flag....I surrender.

I quit looking at baby furniture until my head hurts.

Espresso or Cherry?

Tall dresser or short?

Dresser/Changing table combo?

Oh, and let's keep it all under a certain amount.

And don't even get me started on paint colors....

I feel like I'm slowly losing my mind.

Or quickly.

Did I mention next week is finals? And I have to WRITE 4 DIFFERENT finals?

And grade.

Oh and I don't sleep at night so I'm LITERALLY about to fall over all day.

HOWEVER.....

-Baby is healthy

-I am healthy (though it's debatable at times)

-God is still good.

New Day, New Ideas

My mind is non-stop these days. I had every intention of not looking at or thinking about baby-related items until AFTER next week is over and I'm on Christmas break. However here I am, sitting on the couch, laptop in lap, searching for furniture for hours. Here's the latest items I found on Amazon:

This dresser is my ultimate fav. And with a price tag of $160, I didn't really think it could be passed up. So, if I have to match all my other pieces to this one, so be it. It's in espresso finish so I was trying to find other furniture I thought would match. Since we're not doing a set, it's rather difficult to figure out online if all will match.
I would prefer this crib and it seems to match pretty well to above dresser. Brent dislikes the straight lines and "modern" feel.
This was an original pick of the night and it called "espresso" but it seems pretty light in the picture. If it truly is espresso, I would have no problem with it at all.And finally, this little guy is the changing table that has won my heart. I know it's a bit non-traditional but I like breaking up the mundane drawers with some baskets that are lighter.

So, I'm calling it a night as my 4th paint sample square dries on baby's wall. Unfortunately, it seems we'll be going back for a 5th sample as we STILL don't have it right :( I've never considered myself much of a perfectionist until Bob came along. Now suddenly I want his first bedroom to be just right, though I know he could care less. I CARE!

Operation: Baby's Room

I started out Saturday morning feeling very frustrated and defeated. This is due in large part to the fact that as soon as I got up, I hopped on my computer and continued my ongoing search for baby furniture. I literally hate this task. Thanks to the encouragement from my hubby, I shut the laptop, ran to McDonald's for a diet coke and waited until later to revisit the furniture. In the mean time, we got to work on clearing out what will be Bob's room. This included:

-Taking apart a day bed
-Clearing off a desk and making room for everything in/on it elsewhere in the house
-Taking the desk apart
-Taking out a recliner
-Taking out a dresser and TV
Major props and thanks to my awesome hard working hubby for hauling all these things out into our garage in frigid temps and snow flurries. And, if I may, major props to me for being 26 weeks and 4 days preggo and cleaning/organizing the crap outta this house. We found spots for many things I thought would be impossible. Thank the Lord we have a basement to throw Rubbermaid totes.
I didn't get a current "before" shot of all the junk that had accumulated in the room before we started clearing out, but here's the best I've got of the room from when we moved in over a year ago:

What you don't see is the day bed which is to the left. The desk is on the right.
And now, here is the room in it's current state:
Sad and empty yes. But ready for a furniture and a fresh coat of paint! Which brings me to my next issue: paint color. Blah.
At this point we all know I don't do well with large, pretty premenant decisions. I am currently waiting for the 3rd paint square to dry on the wall to see if it passes the test. Have a mentioned I have an incredibly patient husband? God bless him.
The first color was too green. The second too gray. I'm hoping to hit the nail on the head with number 3 which is a more blue/gray. We shall see.
While we wait for it to dry, let's take a look at my current top furniture pics for Bob:
Here is the crib I'm leaning towards. And here is the changing table/dresser I'm learning towards. Not the same brand so hopefully they will match well enough. Bleh, we'll see.
Ok check back later in the week to see about paint decisions. Here's hoping we're as productive with furniture, painting, and picking out a baby name as we were yesterday with clearing out the room!

26 Weeks

This week hasn't brought many new things. Other than my uterus growing to the size of a BASKETBALL. Which is funny because that's exactly what it looks like I've shoved under my shirt. The lady checking me out at Kohl's last night even said "it looks like you've got a basketball under there!" To which I replied, "that's exactly how big my uterus is right now!" I'm sure she wanted to know that.

We chose a hospital tonight at dinner which was something on our to-do list. Since Springfield has 2 hospitals we had to choose between Memorial and St. John's (where I happened to be born). We both agreed on St. John's (not because of the previous fact) mostly because it as a NICU and Memorial doesn't. Hopefully we won't need it, but it'd be nice to be at the same hospital as my baby if he did need to be rushed there.

Also as I type Brent is painting a sample square of a second color we are considering in Bob's room. Thank goodness for these $2 sample paint containers you can buy at Lowe's. This color is more gray and I really have high hopes for it. Mostly because I want to start painting tomorrow!

My goal tomorrow is also to order the crib/dresser set. Stay tuned for a picture/link to that.
Here are 26 week bump pics. Enjoy!