Baby Shower!

Saturday was my baby shower at the church, and it was a lot of fun. My friends Amy, Lindsey and Katie, as well as the minister's wives and church secretaries, went to a lot of work to put everything together. And our house is now overflowing with lots baby stuff, mostly pink. My job for today is to find a place for it all, but I haven't made much progress yet.

Here are the centerpieces that were on the tables at the shower. They were very cute and definitely deserve to be included in this post, because I know how much work it was for the girls to punch out all the flowers for the balls with my broken flower punch. I think they're kind of crazy for going to all the trouble, but the end result was adorable!

Here are the shower planners with me!

My mom took lots of pictures of me opening presents, but I'm just going to include a couple. Being photographed while trying to open presents led to some very unflattering facial expressions from me. But these 2 pictures turned out OK. The first is a present from Amy with a story behind out. Amy was expecting her son to be born mid-November last year. We were on a shopping trip and she couldn't resist buying this newborn Thanksgiving onesie for Cael to wear on his first Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, Cael wasn't born until December 7...making his first Thanksgiving this year. And the newborn onesie definitely won't fit him this year. So she passed it on to me. I'm pretty sure that we will have a baby by Thanksgiving, which is 18 days after my due date. If not, I might go crazy! And the plan is to pass this onesie on to the next friend who will have a new baby at Thanksgiving...whoever that may be! The 2nd picture is an adorable present from Nickie, who always has the most creative ideas. I'm not sure how well you can tell in the picture, but she filled a basket with rolled diapers and bubbles (from bubble wrap). Then she added a baby, some soap and a rubber duckie to make this cute present! It's so cute, I'm not going to want to take it a part to use the diapers! And she made a handmade card, which are my favorite!!

We got lots of cute clothes, especially summer clothes. I can't wait til next summer to see our little girl wear some of these cute outfits!

Here's another picture of me in the rocking chair, this time with my mom and grandma.

And here's a picture of me today at 34 weeks. Only 6 weeks to go!
I think I'm carrying more up and down rather than just straight out, so I don't look huge in the belly. I do feel like my face is starting to blow up like a balloon and my fingers are swollen enough that my wedding rings don't fit comfortably. At my last appointment, the doctor did say that I was carrying small and "weird." That's what she kept saying...it's just weird. She thinks the baby is fine, but apparantly the baby is not situated inside me exactly like everyone else. However she is fitting herself in there, it is starting to become more and more uncomfortable. Sleeping at night is a dreaded process now. Between getting up to go to the bathroom, trying to find a comfortable position, and just being restless and unable to sleep, I'm not getting a good night's sleep anymore. Unfortunately, I think this is just the beginning of a long road in the lack of sleep department.

Office party

Last night was the premiere of season 5 of The Office, and we had a party to celebrate. It was fun, although we may need to think about getting a house with a bigger living room if we are going to have anymore big TV watching parties like this. It was kind of crazy. I think there were 16 adults and 3 babies around the age of 1. Fun times!

If you don't watch The Office, you can skip the rest of this post, because you probably won't care about The Office snacks and games we had. After several conversations with people on Facebook yesterday, I think The Office is a show you either love or hate. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground. If you are a fan of the show, here are some pictures of some fun stuff we had at the party.

I tried to come up with snacks based on the show...here are a few:

I made a game with Office quotes where you had to guess who said each quote. And I made these fun jumbo paperclips with The Office logo on them as favors for everyone to take home.

And with all of that fun stuff, we did watch the show too. It was a pretty good episode...probably better than any episode last season. I was very excited about the proposal in the rain at the rest stop!

Well, I'll have more baby stuff to post soon I'm sure. We're having a shower at church tomorrow, which I'm excited about. My wonderful friends seem to be putting a lot of work into getting everything ready for it, should be fun!

More Nursery Projects and a Name Hint!

I'm not sure if I am "nesting" or if I am just feeling crafty lately. But after last week's changing table skirt project, I've been in the mood for making more projects. My next project was to decorate some picture frames. I had 3 frames and wanted a baby picture of me in one, a baby picture of Daniel in one, and a picture of our baby in one. I saw the idea on someone else's blog and thought it was cute. So these are the frames I made...now we just need our baby to get here so that we can put her picture in the frame!

I also bought letters to decorate and hang on her walls. I just bought white wooden letters at Hobby Lobby and covered them with patterned paper. They sell these decorated letters for so much in fancy baby magazines like Pottery Barn. It is way cheaper to make them yourself! The letters are going to spell her name. I'm not going to show you all the letters, just one. But for those of you eager to figure out the name, this will be a hint for you.

Somewhere in her name is the letter E. There's your hint! It may be the first letter, the last letter or somewhere in the middle. It may be the only E in the name or there may be multiple E's in the name. The E may be in the first name, or it may be in the middle name. That is all I'm going to say until she is born!

Nursery Project of the Week

I mentioned in my last post that I found a changing table for only $8 at a children's clothing sale last week. It was probably cheap for a reason...the style is outdated, the wood is not in the best shape, plus the wood finish is darker than the rest of the furniture in our nursery. But for $8, I couldn't resist. I decided this week to try to make a skirt to go around the changing table. The table just had open shelves underneath, and I thought a skirt would be nice to cover up all the diapers and wipes and things we would store there. And a skirt would cover most of the unmatching and ugly wood. So I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a piece of fabric and some Velcro to make myself a table skirt.

It doesn't seem like it would be that hard, and really it wasn't that hard to make. But I was sure I was going to mess it up with all the cutting and measuring and hemming I had to do. I didn't have a pattern or anything; I just made it up as I went along (another reason I was scared it would turn out horrible!). I used an iron and fusible hem tape to do the hem. I have a sewing machine, but my sewing experience is limited to a class I took in high school. And I can't remember how to thread my sewing machine...so it's kind of worthless to me. I attached the skirt to the table using fusible Velcro and hot glue...again the table was only $8, so I'm not worried too much about damaging the table. Then I recycled the ribbons from the diaper cake my sister-in-law made for our shower and hot glued them on.

And it turned out halfway decent. If you look closely, the bottom hem is a little uneven. But for my first attempt at a table skirt, I'm pleased with it. It's going to look much better than looking at bags of diapers. The wall hangings on top of it (which match the bedding) are going to go somewhere on the nursery walls...I haven't decided for sure where I'm going to hang everything.

Now it's off to start Day 4 of the chore chart...I'm 3/3 so far this week with getting all my chores done each day. It's sad the games I have to play to keep myself motivated. You'd think as an adult I would be able to just get things done without any extra motivation, but not me...I need prizes to help me be a responsible adult.

The 8th month

Today is the start of week 32 and the start of the 8th month. Kind of crazy how quickly this has all gone! We (mostly Daniel) have been working on the nursery this weekend and it's starting to look more like a baby's room. I found a changing table for only $8 at this huge children's clothing sale I went to yesterday, so that was exciting. Here are some pictures of me at 32 weeks...about 20 pounds gained so far!

Maggie has been feeling a little left out of this blog (she'd better get used to it, because she is going to be very left out once baby gets here), so I thought I would include a picture of her today. It's been raining like crazy since last night, which means Maggie has been going crazy playing in the mud. I wish she was a more dainty dog, but she loves to play and roll in the mud. Today I think she was digging with her nose because she came in looking like this!

The Chore Chart

Well after a few months of staying at home, I am starting to get a little restless being at home all day, every day. I've decided I need a little more structure in my day, a set schedule of things to get done everyday. My friend Amy started a chore chart for herself and I thought it was a good idea. So I decided to make my own. I figured if I make it really fun and pretty then I will be more likely to actually do the things on the chart. Right? At least, that's my logic behind this chore chart.

I used a cookie sheet to make it. I got the idea of using a cookie sheet from another blog, where she made an advent calendar with a cookie sheet and metal tins. Look for that coming soon--because I am planning to make one of those as well! Anyway, there are magnets on the back of the cookie sheet so it will stick to the side of my refrigerator. Then, the flowers on the side of the cookie sheet are magnets too. When I get all my chores done for the day, I get to move a flower magnet underneath that day. If all the magnets get moved in one week, then I get a prize! Don't know what the prize will be yet...but I definitely think there needs to be a prize involved with this chore chart!!

So here's my plan for a weekly schedule--I'm sharing this with all of my faithful readers so you can keep tabs on me and make sure I stick with my schedule! =)

Dishes are a daily chore, as there always seems to be a pile waiting for us in the sink.

Mondays--Grocery shopping and bathroom cleaning. These are my 2 least favorite things to do, so I figure I might as well get them out of the way first thing.

Tuesdays--Laundry and stamping. Stamping may not sound like a chore, but when it comes to cutting out hundreds of pieces of cardstock for a stamp club or class, it isn't always fun. Since I'm trying to treat my Stampin' Up! business as a real business, I want to try to do better about scheduling actual working hours for stamping.

Wednesdays--Pick up and put away day! Mostly this will involve the dining room table, coffee table, my desk and my stamping area, where things always seem to pile up. Also, this will be the day to balance the checkbook and update all of our financial stuff to Quicken

Thursdays--Dust and vaccuum (living room, office, bedrooms and basement) and more stamping.

Fridays--Sweep and mop floors (kitchen, bathrooms, dining room, hallway and stairs)

So that's the plan...starting on Monday! We'll see how long I can keep up with it all!

Baby Update and Worship Ministry Party

Well I went to the doctor yesterday for my 30 week appointment and found out what is causing this annoying pain in my side and back. The doctor had me go in for another sonogram to see what was going on, and the baby is positioned with her bottom squished up against my right ribs. Most of her body is on my right side, putting a lot of pressure on my right side and up into my ribs. The doctor is pretty sure that is what is causing the pain. Which is good news--they don't think it's my gallbladder or anything serious. The bad news is that until this little girl decides to move, I'm stuck with the pain. She's been pretty comfortable there for the past 2 weeks, but I'm hoping she will decide to take advantage of all the extra space in my ever-growing belly and not be so crowded into my right side. Here's a profile picture from the sonogram. It's not the clearest, but it's another picture of our baby! They estimated that she weighs 3 lbs, 11 oz right now.

Also, last night was the annual Worship Ministry Banquet at South Side. Daniel plans a big event each year to say thank you to all his volunteers. This year, his theme was Out of the Box...the idea being that everyone attending needs to think out of the box and come up with their own theme. Each table had to come up with their own decor and costumes and carry that theme out through the night. It was a fun night. Daniel was one of the judges. I was a part of one of the tables competing. Let's just say that it may not be the best idea to be competing when your husband is judging. Especially when you don't feel like the judging was fair. Right Amy? =) But, it was really a fun night. Our table came dressed as Monks. We struggled coming up with a theme, but at the last minute, everything pulled together perfectly. I have these metal crosses hanging in our house, which were perfect for hanging over our table as decorations.

We found brown fabric at the church, as well as cutout crosses for necklaces and monk costumes. We walked in devoutly in a single file line, holding our Bibles and accompanied by the sound of monk chatting (thanks to a last minute Itunes download!) We also decided to be monks who were under a vow of silence, so we didn't talk the whole night! We had white boards that we used to communicate with each other and the rest of the room. I thought it would be boring to go the whole night without talking, but with the white boards and some creative team members, we had a ton of fun!

I think our group provided the most entertainment for the whole night. For example, a monk joke: A monk + keys = Monkey!

Here is the whole group. My friend Amy has more (and better) pictures on her blog, as well as pictures of the other groups...who also did a great job coming up with their themes: www.xanga.com/amyjmiller

Our first baby shower!

We spent the weekend in Indianpolis and had our first baby shower with Daniel's family. It was fun to get some things for the baby and start to plan out where we are going to keep all of this stuff. It definitely makes the whole idea of having a baby more real. The other thing that is making this baby more real is the sharp, constant pain in my right side under my ribs and radiating through to my back. It's been going strong since Saturday morning and is starting to become extremely annoying and uncomfortable. I'm pretty sure it is just the baby pushing everything up into my ribs and kicking all the time, although right side and back pain could also be related to gallbladder problems. I may call my doctor tomorrow just to be sure it's nothing serious. Hopefully this constant pain is not going to last for the next 10 weeks. Anyway, on to more fun things...like pictures of the baby shower!

This is the diaper cake that my sister-in-law and niece made for me. It was adorable!!

I think our niece and nephews are excited about their new cousin. They all wanted to help us open our presents. Or it could be that they are just excited about presents, no matter who the presents are for.



This is a blanket that Daniel's mom made for our baby.



This is our friend Eli with his baby Hunter and our nephew Mark trying to give him a pacifier.

And here we are with the diaper cake and our niece, who was very excited about giving us that cake!

And here' s a picture of me at 30 weeks!! 17 pounds gained so far, and still 10 weeks of growing to go!! I'm now the heaviest I have ever been in my life. I really appreciate the people (usually moms themselves) who comment on my weigh gain by saying, "Look how much your baby is growing." That sounds so much better than, "Wow you are starting to get big." Or my least favorite, yet a fairly common one, "Look at that big pooch you have." Referring to the growth of the baby rather than the growth of me is much more appreciated!! =) And really I can't imagine any woman, pregnant or not, that enjoys being told they have a pooch.