8 months!!

It has been 8 long months and I’m ready to get this baby out.  People have told me that being pregnant during the summer is miserable but I didn’t think it would be this bad.  I really can’t do anything in the day except stay in the air conditioning.  I have to wait to go walking until late in the evenings and by then I’m normally too tired from the day but I need to do it so I suck it up for Charle.  My belly is getting huge or at least to me it is, most people don’t know that I’m this far along because I look about 5 months max.  I noticed today that it is getting harder than normal to bend over to pick stuff up and when I do, she squirms around after.  The exciting thing is she still moves all the time and she’s starting to get the hiccups 2-3 times a day.  Last night during Varsity, she had them for 15 min straight.  I was starting to feel bad for her; she started kicking really hard out of frustration but then right as JT was closing, the hiccups stopped.  I’m ready to see what she will look like and hopefully there is a head full of red hair!!

My mom and I went out for ice cream and then we walked around Target and the Mall so I could get my exercise in for the day.  We stopped at Gymboree because they were having their semi-annual sale and I got Charleston a cute sun hat for 99 cents

and two pair of pants that were $2.99 a piece!!

  The sun hat was originally $12.75 and the pants $26.75 a piece (what a deal!!!!!)  I love being thrifty, I very RARELY pay full price for anything.  On that note, tomorrow is Saturday which means…… YARD SALES!!!!  I saw a sign for one that starts at 6am and it looks to be a good one!  I can’t wait!  Yard sales are like Black Friday sales to me but EVERY Saturday.  I’m on the hunt for some shorts that I can wear this summer.  I have a specific type in mind and I have been pricing them around all week and the cheapest I could find was $12 but I need several pair of shorts and I’m not paying that a piece.  I have 8 pair of old navy perfect khaki shorts that I stocked up on last year when they were $5 a piece but I know for a fact that I’m never going to be a size 2 again.  I was already having to stay on top of my diet last summer to keep from having a muffin top and I know my hips and rear are way bigger (I’ve got stretch marks to prove it.)  Part of me wants to hold onto them just incase I do shrink back down but the realistic side of me says that I just need to give them away.  I wish I knew what size I’m going to be because Target has my favorite jeans on sale for $10 (normally $40.)  This brand is one of the few brands that fit me just right but I know my figure is going to be a lot different so I just have to sit back and wait to see what I will look like and then wait for the fall clearance.  I need to stop typing and finish looking up yard sales and get some sleep so I can get up early… 

Here are some cute pictures of my mom's fat cat, CJ; we discovered he was somewhere he wasn't supposed to be...

A Lovely Wednesday

Today has been one long and exhausting day.  This morning I was supposed to go to prayer but our car is in the shop and my sister had a job interview during prayer so I ended up taking a nap instead. I'm glad I did because I had no time this afternoon to even think about a nap.  My sister and I were supposed to have a sister day but my brother in law tagged along and we all ended up having a good time (the didn't bicker once!!!! -miracle). We all went out to lunch and then they took me to my doctor's appointment.  I gained 4 lbs so the concern that Charleston wasn't growing is no longer but that means I'm over 150 lbs now :( 

I'm pretty sure there are going to be people who want to slap me for that comment but even though I am pregnant, I still battle my weight daily.  I was diagnosed with multiple eating disorders when I was 13 years old and every day I still have to make the decision to not think about how many calories I consume/can burn off.  I seem to go through seasons where I care about it and then I won't care about my weight for another. Being pregnant has made me healthy again but I still get self conscious when I see recent pictures where it looks like I'm starting to get a double chin. On a positive note, I'm healthy and Charle is healthy and I plan on staying this way for her.

Back to the doctor's appointment, the doctor checked my cervix because I've been cramping lately and he said everything is perfect and that Charle is already head down (I already knew this, she has been since week 24). Then we talked about how anti-medicine I am and how that could effect my labor.  He told me just to keep an open mind but they couldn't force me to take anything I didn't want to (talking about pitocin).  I'm not a fan of hormones being put into my system that shouldn't be there but I do understand the reason that they could help.

After the doctor's we ran a bunch of errands and everywhere we went today, the air conditioning wasn't working well and being pregnant in this heat is not fun. I did get a new bathing suit for this summer! It was originally $35 but it was on sale for $19.99 (not bad!)

I finally got home to some good air conditioning and food at about 6 and I think I'm going to go take a bath and go to bed or lay down on the couch and watch the CMT Music awards..

One random thing I have to add, I've had 'Everywhere That I Go' By Israel Houghton stuck in my head all day. I listened to it 41 times this morning on my itunes and if you haven't heard it yet, you need to! Here is the Chorus:

You promise me
You'll never leave
You promise me
I'm never forsaken
And I believe

That goodness and mercy

Will follow me
Surrounding me where I go
Everywhere that I go

I hope that's as encouraging to you as it has been to me!!!

BTW I'm so over editing so if you find grammatical errors, please don't get your panties in a twist and just overlook them for me :)

What a Day!

Wow today has been a long but great day.  I'm almost too tired to talk about it but I will stick it out and give an update.  Really the past two days have been long and amazing.  Yesterday I had my usual cleaning fit in the morning and bleached some walls then I went up to Kerri's Dad's office and helped answer phones and start patients on therapy.  After all that we went out for dinner and FREE donoughts at Krispy Kreme.  About 7:30ish we finally got to start on our sugar cookie making adventure that lasted way too long but we had fun. We didn't chill the cookie dough so when we used the fishy cookie cutters, the dough fell apart and we made numerous attempts to fix it but we ended up with regular round cookies that tasted amazing for my baby shower today!  It doesn't sound like much but when I'm waking up every night around 3:30 and not falling back asleep unitl 5:30 then I get up at 6 again, I need a nap and the past two days have been napless days.

Today started off at 6am again; we had a yard sale that was somewhat successful.  Between my mom and I, we made about $40.  All the stuff was going to Goodwill anyway so any money was good money. By the time we got finished with all the yard sale stuff, we ran some errands around town and got back home about 1:15.  I still had to shower, get the nursery set up and clean up a little bit before 3.  I was in a mad panic; I get super anxious over little things but I wanted everything to be perfect.  I rushed around and cleaned up before I jumped in a cool shower to calm me down.  Once I got out, my mom had left to get the cake for my shower so my sister and I set up Charle's nursery and it turned out beautiful.  I then had just enough time to sit down and do my hair and make up before people started arriving.

Shower time!! I had a great time during the baby shower, we played a few games but most importantly, I got to spend time with some friends I haven't seen in awhile.  The point of today's shower was to spend some quality time with my friends before Charleston is born because everything is going to change soon.  Of course I got some really adorable and useful things for Charle and I'm so blessed to have such thoughtful and caring friends.  I'm still waiting on my little sister to come over; she had to work in Charleston  today and she's supposed to be on her way to Florence now.  Here are some pictures from the shower

The four peas in a pod. (our band nickname)

And the picture I have been promissing

33 weeks

Here is the finished nursery!!!

The past two days have been wonderful but I'm looking most forward to my date with my pillow soon. 

Unfurnished Nursery Still..

Today was supposed to be "move in baby furniture day" but it never showed up; hopefully I will get all of her furniture tomorrow. My best friend came over to help arrange the "not here furniture" so we hung up baby clothes instead. We spent about two hours folding and hanging clothes that were given to me. We ended up only hanging up dresses and jackets and her closet is almost full; most of it is 12m-18m though. 

(70 hangers worth of clothes)

I waited all afternoon for the furniture to get here and I got nothing done. I was either going to finish getting my room in order or mop and bleach the walls in the dining room since I won’t be home on Friday but neither got done. Tomorrow is going to be hectic because I need to get both done and wait for the furniture to get here and go for my walk in the morning before it gets too muggy.  Caitlin and I went for my daily walk about 6:30 tonight and it was so stinkin humid, we felt like we were back in high school at band camp again.  From now on I’m going to have to walk first thing in the morning or go later in the evening.  I’m normally cold no matter how hot outside it is but lately my hormones have been kicking in and I have been getting warm at places that I would normally feel like an ice cube. 

I have also started swelling (yippee).  My ankles are looking fat, they actually look like normal people’s ankles but mine are so boney that when they are swollen they don’t really look it. I guess I should just consider that a blessing.  I am in the final countdown (cue music); I only have 4 weeks left until I am considered full term and I have 7 weeks left until my due date.  Caitlin reminded me that she’s leaving the country the day after my due date so Charleston better not be a late baby.  I have a feeling she’s going to be here a little bit early but no one ever really knows.  I do know that I’m not holding her in for my best friend to get back in the country so she better be here on time.  In all seriousness, it doesn’t matter but I would like her to be here when I have my first child.  If the furniture gets here tomorrow, I will get pictures of the finished nursery up :).

This Week's Doctor's Apointment Adventure..

This week I had a Doctor's appointment and I had so many questions I wanted answers to. Well first I got there early, like I always do, and couldn't find parking. I was already annoyed and not being able to find parking at your OBs office when you are 32 weeks pregnant is just not fun. Once I checked in, I had the routine of peeing in a cup, getting my blood pressure taken, and the one I really care about, getting weighed. The past couple of visits, my weight as steadily increased more than I like but I have to tell myself that I am pregnant and this is normal. When I got on the scale this week, I only gained .5 lbs in the past two weeks. I thought it was odd because I have been eating and eating and eating and eating (you get the point). Then the nurse asked me if I was eating and taking my vitamins. Of course I am so I replied politely that I was. I didn't think much of it as I waited for the Doctor to come see me. Like I said, I had lots of questions and I'm an over analyzer so I kept asking the questions over and over in my head while I waited 30 min in the patient room. I've never been a fan of this Dr. I was seeing because I always wait for a minimum of 30 in the room and he breezes in and doesn't give any detail on anything or allow me to ask questions. He finally made it into the room and measured me and then he too asked if I was eating and taking my vitamins. Now something seemed wrong because two people asked the same question; I asked him if something was wrong or could be wrong and he just waved off my question and went on to saying that it was abnormal and maybe Charle is just small. Well the last time this Dr. told me that my baby was "maybe small," I was at high risk for a miscarriage and he didn't tell me. Of course I'm now freaking out and wanting answers but all he would say is that they will see how I progress over the next couple of weeks and if my weight isn't up, they will do another ultrasound. By this time, I was frazzled and he was trying to leave the room... I still had a million questions that I wanted answered before I got in there... no answers. So this appointment was a total flop and as I was checking out, my day just seemed to be horrible (my hormones don't help with this.) I did notice a good thing as I was waiting on the receptionist though, I have had a $5 balance for about 3 months now that I keep forgetting to pay until after I leave but the balance was $0!!! Then she was making my next appointment and asked me if I've seen all the Doctors in the practice and I have, I have seen almost all of them twice and I've seen my favorite one three times. :) Since I've seen them all, I kind of get to see which ever I want and she scheduled me to see my favorite before I could even request him! Double bonus. So my next appointment will most definitely be better because he likes to answer questions and just talk about any concerns for as long as you need (and he never makes me wait more than 5 min!!!) I will finally get answers to all the questions I went into this appointment with and I will find out what is going on with my baby girl.

Goodbye Green Room

When I was 15, my mom told me that I got to choose what color I wanted to paint my room and that I would have to paint it. She had just bought this house about 6 months prior and all the rooms were the color of sand. It took me about a month to figure out what I wanted to do; I wanted something unique and matched my personality. My cousin nicknamed me flamingo when I was younger because I had really long legs and every time he saw me, I was extremely sun burnt.  After I acquired this name, I became OBSESSED with flamingos.  I collected anything flamingo; I had flamingo wall plaques, flamingo Christmas tree lights, flamingo bulletin board boarders, flamingo plant holders, flamingo jewelry, flamingo EVERYTHING. Getting back to painting, I decided since I had so much flamingo stuff that hot pink would probably be tacky so I decided to go with green.  None of my friends had a green room and I picked this apple green color that made my mom want to take back that I was allowed to pick out the color. Once I finally got the paint and got to painting, my mom really regretted  that she allowed me to do this by myself. I decided to make the room look like tall grass. Since the sandy yellow color was underneath, I made some strokes soft so that it was a lime green and some of them I doubled to make darker green (I did the whole room with a tiny foam brush).

This is what it turned out to look like

My mom wanted me to redo it and make it look normal but I told her no, it was my room.  Then my grandmother came and visited... she HATED it and tried to convince my mom to let her repaint it a different color while I was away. Thank you mom for not listening to her, I would have been so heart broken. I became attached to this stupid wall color and the way I painted it and I'm not exactly sure why. When I moved to college, my mom told me that she was going to repaint it but she never got around to it before I moved back in and reclaimed my territory. Then when I moved into my appartment she took everything off the walls and was serious about painting it but I moved back in just in time to save it once more.  Now it is finally time to change the paint. My brother-in-law is in there priming it as I type. 

I decided that I would pass this room on to my baby while we are here.  It is going to get painted Glidden Pink Ballet Slipper this weekend and I can't stand that I won't be able to help paint it.

I chose the color because it is a soft pink and the theme that I'm doing for the nursery is Rainbow Fish. Someone blessed me with the whole bedroom set for rainbow fish. I have two wall plaques, three pictures, a lamp, the whole bed set, curtains, and a diaper hanger.  The set is purple, blue and green with pastel colors so I thought the light pink would bring the pink out in the set.

After it is painted this week, I can finally set the room up and move in all of the furniture!! And it will all be ready for my first baby shower next saturday!

Yard Sale!!!

Every Friday night I get all antsy about Saturday morning yard sales. Am I going to find anything worth while? How many will there be tomorrow? Will I be able to bargain with the sellers? AND Where in the world are the yard sales this week?

Last night I woke up at 2am like usual and after my routine pee (sorry for the over share), I couldn't fall back to sleep but I knew I was going to get up at 7am to go yard saling.  Instead of watching a movie or checking emails, I decided to look up local yard sales online. I thought this would be much easier than it was but I did happen to find a couple on some websites that seemed promising. FINALLY at 4am, I fell back asleep and was able to get a couple more hours in before I had to get up to go bargain hunt. 

I started off with some of the yard sales that I found online last night and worked my way across town to the signs that I had seen last night. All of the sales I found online didn't have anything that I was looking for or they wanted WAY too much for their baby girl clothes.  I went to one this morning that all of her daughter's clothes were $10 a piece.  The clothes were extremely nice and the style that I like but everything was 2t+ and I didn't think that it would be a good investment at this time.  I finally made it back to the yard sale signs I saw last night on the south side of town and I hit the jack pot.  I spent a grand total of...... $10. I ended up with 22 articles of clothing; 21 for Charle and a pair of Express sweat pants for me (50cents).

I got several newborn and 0-3month onsies and sleepers along with a bunch of 6-9month spring outfits for next spring! A lot of the spring outfits where hand made by the grandmother of the baby and I found that even more exciting.  I love hand crafted items and these outfits have a story to them, plus they are one of a kind and that's always a bonus.

Here are a few of my favorite things that I bought.

Overall, I think I did a pretty awesome job this week at the yard sales. I'm not too sure that there will be many, if any, next week since it is a Holiday weekend but of course I will at least look for them.