April Showers!

I had my baby shower on April 30 and it went wonderfully! My mom, MIL, and SMIL threw it for me. When they first suggested having one big joint shower I was a little nervous because MIL and SMIL don't generally get along. Everything, from the planning to the actual party, went very smoothly, though.  *big sigh of relief!*

The shower was beautiful! It was a flower garden theme, just like the nursery. My almost-SIL (BIL's GF, not official FI yet) made some awesomely beautiful cupcakes. It turned out to be a really nice time.

I had been registry stalking for weeks before hand and was a little nervous that not a lot if things had been bought. We did get quite a few items, though. Mostly clothes with a few useful things here and there. Some big things we got were the pack n play, high chair, swing, stroller accessories, and play gym. Of coarse, having a girl, means EVERYONE wanted to get her a cute little outfit. So, we got about 50 pink onesies, half in 0-3 months and the rest anywhere from 3-12 months. I'm grateful for the clothes, but come on, one little girl can only wear so many things at once. I would have appreciated more useful things over clothes. So, needless to say, I have some returning and exchanging to do...

It was a long day and I was exhausted after words. KJ and I had some friends spending the weekend with us so they could come to the shower. After we got all the gifts home, they wanted to help put everything away. I know they were just trying to be helpful, but I just wanted to take a nap at that point! But, alas, no nap was had. I had to sort through everything right away and decide what we were going to keep and return, and then were to put it all. After about 3 hours everything was put away. What would be a good word for more than exhausted? It was probably the most tired and worn out I've ever been. My bump was burning and my feet were aching. I had to call it quits, and went to bed. I slept for about 4 hours, woke up at about 2am, and couldn't get back to sleep. *sigh* It was a rough weekend! I spent all of Sunday recuperating.

I've very grateful for such a wonderful shower and all of the generous gifts we received for our little girl. Here are some pics!

The Cupcakes
 

Me!
 

The loot


Getting ready to open presents
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Cute little shoes!


Blanket made by SMIL


Everyone was asked to bring a book in lue of a card.


Getting my belly measured


MIL, me, my mom, SMIL


Me and KJ when he came to pick up all of the presents.


The loot once we got home



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

My Obsession

I'd would like to share with you my new obsession... Cloth diapers! I have been going crazy over cloth diapers in a last month or so. I'm constantly either lurking on the CD'ing board on The Bump or scouring eBay for my next purchase. I'm completely addicted! I've even had dreams about the CD's I want to buy... It's bordering on obsessive! They're just so darn cute and I keep finding awesome deals that I just can't pass up. I admit it... I have a problem. I'm thinking of joining a 12 step program (just kidding!).

Here's my lovely stash so far: (pictures are just a sampling)

First we have the newborn stash. I have 15 Green Mountain Diaper NB Workhorses, 12 GMD NB prefolds, 12 GMD small prefolds, 5 Cotten doublers, 2 XS Thirsties wraps, and 8 small wraps (Thirsties, Bummis, and other random brands). I found a good tutorial on how to turn a prefold into a fitted (like the workhorses), so that's my plan with the 24 GMD prefolds.

Next, we have the size one stash: 7 Thirsties Fab Fitteds, 8 Thirsties Duo Diapers, 5 Thirsties Duo wraps, and one Thirsties medium wrap.

And last, we have the one size stash: 5 BumGenius 4.0s, 3 BG Flip covers with 12 inserts, 2 Kawii's, and 2 random eBay OS.

After I convert my prefolds to fitteds, my NB stash should be complete. I need to get some more fitteds for my size one stash, a few more OS diapers, some snappies, and wet bags. Fun fun!!

Lots of love,
KJsbabe



PS Here are some bump pics!

This one is our 6 month pic taken on March 18 (24w and V-Day!!)

These two are from 26w on April 1. The trees in our front yard were blooming and I couldn't resist a bump pic with them!

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