20 Weeks! Half Baked!!

We are half way there already! This is going so fast!! I'm feeling good physically and I'm happy to have reached thesis milestone. My belly has grown exponentially. I look like I'm 6 or 7 months, instead of 5. Because of all the growth my belly has been sore a lot in the evenings. It's starting to get hard to bend over already. I've stated to ever so attractive pregnancy squat to pick things up off the floor. I wasn't expecting to have to do that for a while still. I'm much bigger already than I was last time. 

5 months!

Comparison pic: 20w with Lexi (pink) vs 20w with baby boy... I'm huge! Lol

Maternity clothes are a struggle right now. Nothing fits right. I found some small jeans on eBay for a good price and they fit well when I tried them on. But the first time I wore them out I hated them. I'm disappointed. They were hard to move in and they cut into my belly at the bottom while still sagging down in the back. I joked about it before, but I think I'm really just going to wear yoga pants for the rest of this pregnancy! 

18w in my new mat jeans... Too bad I hate them!

KJ and I have been doing more work on the nursery. The room is all cleaned out now. I primed the dresser and painted the book shelf. I need to get some feet for the shelf and new hard wear for the dresser. I need to get KJ priming the walls. I really want to get all the painting done while the weather is warm so I can do the small things outside and we can air things out when he paints inside. 

How far along? 20 weeks

Total weight gain: I don't even want to admit to this one. I'm up 13lbs *hides head in shame* My original goal was to be at 6lbs at 20w so I would be free to gain a pound a week for the rest of the pregnancy and I'd end up right at my end goal of 25lbs. Well, the best laid plans... Granted, my belly really grew a lot this month, but 9lbs in 4 weeks! Ugh. Not what I wanted to see :( I know this gain is for the best reason there is, but it's really hard watching the scale go up. I was over weight all though school up until I graduated college, and I worked really hard to get to where I am/was. But I keep telling myself I lost all 47lbs after Lexi, I can and will do it again.

Maternity clothes? I don't even want to talk about clothes right now. I'm so over them!

Stretch marks? Nope

Sleep: Sleeping well most nights. I can't lay on my back any more, so every night I try to focus on laying on my side. I usually wake up at least once on my back, though :/

Best moment this month: Finding out that we're having a boy!!! I'm so excited!

Miss Anything? Sleeping on my back and clothes that fit.

Movement: Yes! I finally started feeling little kicks around 17 weeks. I found out at our a/s that I have an anterior placenta this time, so that explains it a little. I mostly feel kicks on the sides and bottom. Baby boy still loves to kick my bladder.

Food cravings: Soy milk, tomato sauce 

Anything making you queasy or sick: Cereal and milk. This is Lexi breakfast of choice right now and it's better if I eat the same thing she does or else she wants whatever I have and not her own. Blah

Gender prediction: I was right! Boy!!

Labor Signs: none

Symptoms: My ever growing belly, shortness of breath. I'm starting to really slow down, I get really tired after I run.

Belly Button in or out? In

Wedding rings on or off? On

Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy most of the time. I gave into my no caffeine rule and now I feel like a whole new person! Lol

Looking forward to: Reaching v-day next month!

Next app: Sept 8 for a check up

Lots of Love,

KJsbabe

And a cute Lexi pic :)

Happy June!

So, since I'm due the first week in July, there's a definite possibility that I might have a baby by the end of the month! Yikes! Where has the time gone?? I still have so much to do!

I've been making lists of all the things I feel I need to get done in the next few weeks so I can feel mostly ready. Somethings are important and others ready aren't, but they're all on the list anyhow. When I get stressed I make lists and it helps me feel like I'm making progress.

Stuff to get done:

Pack hospital bag (this is my plan for tonight)
Find a take home outfit
Wash bathroom valance (it's dusty and I stare at it every time I go in there!)
Clean kitchen ceiling (also dusty)
Weed driveway
Send Amanda's b-day card out (her b-day is tomorrow, oops)
Organize guest room (it's become our catch all for baby things we won't need right a way)
Wash diapers (I have to prep some hemp inserts I bought)
Wash rugs
Find a glider rocker
Clean off dresser (my bedroom dresser is a mess)
Set up pack n play in the bedroom (this will require some rearranging)
Make an Amazon order (still waiting on my registry completion coupon for this. Should get it next week)

Then there's the list of necessities that we still need to get. My mom is having a second shower for me on the 9th. In theory, it's supposed to help with these things, but as we saw with the first shower (50 pink onesies, what?!) I'm not holding my breath.

Things I still need:

Extra car seat base (we bought the car seat last weekend because I had a freak out over the fact that we didn't have it yet)
Changing pad and cover
Waterproof mattress cover (have one, but would like a back up)
Bottles (don't have any!)
Baby gates
Sheets for pack n play
Pacifiers
Swaddler (have one, but would like a back up)
Breast pump
Breast milk storage items
Bath tub
Sippy cups
Thermometer
"baby proofing" stuff


I've been yard saleing pretty much every Saturday since the shower on the look out for clothes and gear for MIL's house. My ultimate goal is to yard sale all the clothes we'll need for LG's first year. I know there will be things we'll need here and there, but if I can get the bulk bought now, that would be awesome. I've found a good amount, but there's always something left.

Clothes what I need:

0-3
Kimono shirts

3-6
2 sleepers
4 one piece outfits

6-9
3 one peice outfits

12mo
4 sleepers


Lots of Love,

KJsbabe

Flower Power

Once again I've been busy in the nursery! The fabric flowers are finally all sewn and on the walls. It was quite a project, but I'm in love with how they turned out. Our little garden is really coming along.

KJ put up some more shelves a few weeks ago.

I also made some art! I had this idea to wright out the lyrics to one of my favorite songs in the shape of a flower. I'm really happy with how it turned out. (Bonus points if you know which song it is! "Plant a seed. Plant a flower. Plant a rose...")

I also made a monogram of an A out of fun colored buttons (a Pinterest idea).

In other news, my baby shower is this Saturday and I'm really looking forward to it! I've been registry stalking (I'm horrible, I know) and so far we'll be getting some pretty nice things. There's still lots to buy, though. I hope we'll get some last minuet shoppers on Saturday morning. Don't get me wrong, I'll be grateful for anything that we get, it would just be nice to at least get the necessities taken care of. And come on, who doesn't love getting presents!

KJ got a new job! I'm so proud of him!! He's been over worked, and quite frankly under paid, for a while now at his current job. He finally got fed up enough to start looking a few weeks ago, and this new job just fell into his lap. He went for an interview and the company immediately loved him and offered him the job that day. It's exactly what he's been wanting to do and will be a great step ahead in his career. The only down side is that it's going to be a much longer commute for him. He'll be traveling an hour and 15mins one way, as opposed to the just 15min commute he has now. As long as everything goes well, a move will definitely be in our future in the next two years. The fact that his pay check has almost doubled, though... That kind of makes up for it! Maybe being a SAHM is in my future yet!!

Here's my 7 month bump pic taken on April 15. April showers and all that. She sure is growing in there!

Lots of Love,
KJsbabe

Nursery Progress

KJ and I did a lot of work on the nursery this weekend. It's really starting to come together!

Here's the crib all assembled

The crib with the mobile

This Precious Moments mobile was another previous kids.woot purchase.

KJ trying to decipher the Swedish hieroglyphics for the dresser

Almost done!

The finished product

Friday night's progress

Saturday we added a bookshelf

And pretty pink knobs on the dresser

Sunday I made the window valences. I love how they turned out!

That's all for now!

Lots of Love,
KJsbabe

Life in Pictures

I've been getting a little picture happy lately with my iPhone. Enjoy a little throw back Hanson as you peruse the past week or so in pictures...

Monday, Feb 27 was Cloby-Jack's first birthday. My baby is growing up so fast! This is him with his birthday toy.



My boys patiently waiting to go outside. Tucker is in the back and Colby-Jack is in the front. Too cute!



BPF! This is from Friday, March 2 when we were 21w5d.



Trying to feel baby. I thought this was the cutest thing ever! I was sitting on the couch and Heath-Cliff was cuddling me up, like usual. He likes to cuddle Superman style with his arms stretched out. I started feeling LG kick, so I told KJ to put his hand on my belly to try and feel it. Of course she stopped at that moment, but it sure made for a cute picture opt!



Girl Scout cookies!!! For weeks I've been seeing people post about getting their cookies in and I've been soooo jealous. On Saturday (3/3) I finally found some girls selling cookies out side of one of our local stores. Thank God!!



Fluff mail!! Saturday I got my first cloth diapers in the mail! I'm so excited! Cottenbabies.com had a sale last week on their gently used Bum Genius 4.0's. I got 5 snap diapers and 6 inserts for $56. Awesome deal! I can't wait to start using these!



Paint. Matching. Nightmare. So, like I mentioned before, we repainted the yellow in the nursery purple. It turned out really well, but we had some splatterage on the green that I really wanted to keep. Originally I thought, not a big deal, we'll just take our old sample and get it color matched to touch up with. Let me tell you, all of those home improvement stores that claim up and down that they can match any color you bring in, no problem.... THEY ARE LYING!! Poor KJ spent five hours, two trips, and tried eleven different greens that the stores had come up with. None of them were even close to being right. Everything Home Depot came up with was too yellow. Everything that Lowes came up with was too light. Sherwin Williams came pretty close, but it still wasn't deep enough. Here is just one of many non-matching samples.



Finally Sunday morning I said eff it, and we went out and chose a different green. Sadly, my pretty Pea Pod green that I loved so much is gone. In it's place is Cliveden Pasture which is definitely not as fun sounding, but it looks nice. Here's the nursery all painted.



Also Sunday morning, I tried to make coffee (decaf)... With no coffee grounds. Yup, pregnancy brain has officially set it.



Last night I cleaned up all the painting supplies from the nursery and swept and mopped. Then KJ and I put the rug down. I got the little pink and green rugs off of Kids.Woot.com last year. It was one of those deals I just couldn't pass up! I'm not sold on the placement of everything just yet, and once we get the furniture in there I'll probably rearrange.





These are some of the fabric flowers I've been working on for the past few weeks. Our nursery theme is "flower garden" and I'm planning on putting them up on the walls around the room.



This is the general look I'm going for with the "flower garden". I've been using McCalls pattern M5869.



This is a quilt and a couple crib sheets I made a few weeks ago. I can't wait to put these to use!



Name reveal! KJ and I have settled on a first name for our little girl, Alexis. We actually had this name picked out before we found out the gender, but now that I've painted some letters it makes it more official.  We won't  be telling anyone IRL the name until LG is born, so keep it to yourself! Honestly, I don't want anyone steeling the name and I don't want to hear anyone's rude opinions on it. KJ and I pick Alexis because WE like it. We're still thinking about middle names, but the strong contender so far is Alexis Grace. In second place is Alexis Rose, but I think we'll probably go with Grace.



My little seedlings. The tall ones in the back are beefsteak and cherry tomatoes, in the middle I have basil and some purple and white flowers (can't remember the name!), and up front I have orange marigolds and petunias. I harvested my own seeds last year from the purple and white flowers, marigolds, and petunias that I had. Everything's growing well so far, so I'm pretty proud!





Lots of Love,
KJsbabe

Shopping for Baby!

We're going to back track a little bit here and do all of our shopping excursions in one neat little post.

On Saturday, Feb 11 KJ and I took a drive to my favorite store in the world, Ikea! I love Ikea. They have the coolest things at affordable prices. And thanks to our tax return, we were there to buy, not brows like usual. Before we found out our little girl was a girl, KJ had me talked out of the white Hensvik crib I loved, and into the Gulliver in the natural wood. He convinced me the natural wood would go better with the nursery in the green and yellow that we already had. Well, then we found out LO is a LG (little girl) and all the plans changed! DH finished painting the other day and the bright yellow has been replaced with a nice blue toned purple.

The nursery so far:

Anyways, because of the color switch, we went back to the original plan of white furniture, and I got my pretty Hensvik after all. Squee!

We also bought the Vyssa Sloa crib mattress and the Koppang dresser. I was really surprised I liked the Sloa mattress so much. When I was checking them out on line I was leaning more towards the Vyssa Vackert. It's one of the only ones made with springs and it sounded like it would be a nice firm mattress that would hold up through the years. The Sola didn't sound like there was much too it, being all foam. When we actually saw them in the store, though, the Vackert turned out to be supper soft and squishy, not really something I want my fragile newborn laying on. The Sola, on the other hand, was nice and firm on one side, and then a bit softer with an egg crate on the other side. Out of the ones they had available, I felt it was really the best one. For the dresser, originally I was looking at the Hemnes line. Being that our space is so limited in the nursery, though, we really needed to find something small. The Koppang is a good 6" shorter than the smallest Hemnes, and it comes in white. So, I was sold.

We also picked up some teething rails, a few white picture frames, and of corse, a nice big green leaf. So, after our Ikea trip, we have two of our main nursery pieces!

Sunday Feb 19 KJ and I went registering! So much fun! I actually started catching a cold that day, so I wasn't feeling very well, but it was still a good time. First we registered at Babies R Us (duh! Where else would you register!). I have to admit, it was a little overwhelming. There are just sooo many things you can get and you have to sort out what you actually need from the things that would just be nice. Before we went, I read Lucie's List and that was a really helpful guide for the big things, but there's still so much stuff out there.

We also registered at Target. Not everyone has a BRU by them, but most people can get to a Target. Between the two places I think we have our bases pretty covered. I also made a registry on Amazon. They have a lot of the same things as BRU and Target, but for lower prices. I also registered for all of our cloth diapers on there. I really, really want to CD and I hope people buy us at least a few. CDing isn't a big thing around where we live and I've gotten a lot of weird looks when I've mentioned it to people. I'm really worried I'm going to get all clothes and blankets at my shower. I really hope people are considerate enough to include gift receipts!

Lots of love,
KJsbabe


P.S. Here's our five month pic from Sunday. We're half baked!! 20w down, 20ish weeks to go!

And I don't have Chicken Pox!

Woo hoo!

To recap the saga: when we started IF testing at the beginning of October my doctor tested me for chicken pox, as a routine thing they check for. It came up positive, even though I didn't have any symptoms. I had it rechecked a few weeks later and it came up positive a second time. Shortly after that I found out I was pg again and then it became a whole new ball game. Chicken pox while pg can be all kinds of bad (birth defects and other scary complications). I saw an infectious diseases doctor at the beginning of November who didn't spiciaze in pg women. She basically told me, "Well you're pg now so I can't do anything for you!". I had it check a third time a couple weeks ago and I'm still postitive...

Well, long story short I saw a MFM doctor today at McGee Women's Hospital. She was very nice and said that the test my OB was using (testing for IgM) is notorious for getting false positives. She consulted with a different infectious diseases doctor who specializes in pg women (also at McGee) and they went over all of my labs in depth. They're both very confident I've been getting false positives and do not have chicken pox! Yay!

It feels so good to get this resolved and not have to worry about it any more!

Since KJ and I had taken the whole day off work, we decided to make our time in the city worth while and went to Ikea. Love! We browsed the baby section and saw so many things I want to get! If we have a boy we're planning on a jungle themed nursery and if it's a girl we'll do a garden theme. They have these big canopy-like leafs that I just love!



We also looked at the cribs and dresser/ changing table combos. Our future nursery is a pretty small room, so non-bulky and duel purpose pieces are a must. It seems like all the cribs at Target and BRU are these huge tanker things. I mean, I definitely want something sturdy, but I feel like you can still have that without all the bulk. That's why I like the Ikea ones. It doesn't look like there's much to them, but they feel really sturdy and durable.

Hensvik crib


(I can't believe I'm debating about cribs! I'm only 9 weeks! Crazy girl KJ's coming out again!)

Lots of Love,
KJsbabe