33 Weeks & Summer Vacation Plans!

Yesterday marked 33 weeks along for me & Baby Girl!

So much to do & only 7 weeks to do them in- AH!

If you weren't aware, I'm a list making kind of person. I try to keep that slight obsession in check or at least hidden, but for once I'm going to publicize my list as a sort-of checklist to hold myself accountable to on my next post! I think this will help curtail any excessive lounging so that when I am about to pop I won't have anything to worry about, except maybe getting a pedicure and/or massage. :)

Things to Do/Have Done by 36 weeks:

- Old Furniture in soon-to-be nursery out of room or sold!
         - desk
         - bed/frame

- Re-arrange the kitchen cabinets to make room for baby bottles, baby food, and all other kitchen accessories we will soon be acquiring!

-Re-arrange guest/baby bathroom & linen closet to make room for Baby Girl's stuff.

- Have nursery setup... This may not exactly come to fruition by 36 weeks, but I'm hoping i'll know what furniture and items we'll need to acquire at this point & that it will only be small things left!

- Decorations up in nursery! I'm very excited to have a lot of unique things to put up in the nursery....and I CAN'T WAIT to be able to post pictures when it's all finally decorated & put together. Ahhh!
       - On that note, finish making the decorations! I have shelves to hang & possibly embellish as well as some wooden letters to beautify in some way. Baby Girl's bedding is being ordered from an awesome Etsy seller so once I get that I'll be able to determine if I need any extra pillows, a mobile or other things like that.

The bedding will look similar to this. :)

- Take my labor & delivery class @ Martin Memorial- scheduled for July 21 so we'll be cutting it close with this one!

- Get a baby-friendly car! This has been in the back in the back of my and David's minds for the past few months, but we were more worried about housing previously to really worry about my car. Now that David has a new & reliable vehicle and our housing situation is secure, we need to trade-in my little 2-door whip for something larger &, most importantly, with MORE DOORS! I know we'll manage if my car isn't sold when Baby Girl arrives, but it will be easier on all of us if it's already taken care of.

- Exercise at least twice a week with either yoga, swimming of some sort, walking....Anything that will keep me and baby active and some of the pregnancy aches/pains at bay as long as possible.

-Have enough money saved/set aside that we'll be able to squeeze through these couple of months w/out my income while still providing comfortably for ourselves & Baby Girl.


On a slightly different note...What the heck am I going to do about school in a few months? Obviously, I'll be on maternity leave, but I'm still anxious about my future students' well being while I'm out on leave. *sigh* That's a completely different post & something I also need to tackle here while I still have plenty of energy to put towards it! Soon enough I know I'll be all consumed with Baby Girl!


My plan is to somehow get ALL of this done & relax before the big arrival of our little one. Between family trips, a baby shower, and some much needed R & R courtesy of my mommy I don't know that I'll be bored this summer....probably not at all!

Time to get going! Hope everyone is enjoying their summer as well!


             

Getting Ready for Baby

This past week has been my first one off since school ended. Rather than sit around watching TV all week, I really went crazy starting to clean and prep our place for Baby Girl. My dad came over Tuesday through Thursday morning, and his whirlwind of energy allowed us to get TONS accomplished!

The first thing to tackle was the garage. The first picture shows me after we're almost completely done. Do not be fooled; it was a wreck!!

This pile of boxes shows just a little bit of what we took out. Add in an old water heater, some bedding parts that needed to be tossed and tons of disorganization. That's what our garage looked like.

Now, it's pristine! There are shelves with nicely organized bins and boxes, a shoe rack in the corner, and the laundry area is clean and orderly. Is it weird that I'm excited for this stuff? Haha

The next set of pictures shows later Tuesday afternoon as we my dad made fresh-from-scratch giant cinnamon raisin rolls.

The dough rose for a few hours before he rolled it out and added the goodies for the middle. 

The second step was to roll it up and cut it! Did you know using floss to cut the roll stops it from being squished? I love learning new little culinary facts like that! The rolls then went in the fridge overnight to be baked in the morning!

Good morning! This is what I woke up to Tuesday.

This is the final product before we frosted them. Of course with homemade frosting as well!

The batch was halved and still made 16 giant rolls! We took a pan of 6 up to my high school to visit administration, check out my new classroom for next year, and spread some of the love! Let me tell you, everyone was drooling over these rolls! It was a great way to get caught up on changes for next year and make sure my room is starting to get up to an acceptable level. 

In a nutshell, I'm being moved to a room a hallway over b/c I'm teaching different classes next year. This aligns with my goal of teaching ESE self-contained classes eventually. Basically, I'll have more special needs kids and classes specifically for them, and I'm taking over for another teacher who taught that last year in her old room.

Unfortunately the room is a disaster. There's one small stained white board and a blank, dirty wall where another white board should be. The entire place was filthy- stained floors, dirty counters, broken filing cabinets. The room is half the size of my former room. To top it off, there were books, papers, and supplies left haphazardly for me to have. The teacher emailed me saying she hoped I used the materials she left. Yeah okay.

Either way, I know I want the room in working order this summer before everyone comes back for fall because I will be too large at that point to really do much to fix it up. Who wants to learn in a dirty, hopeless little room? 

Back on topic though! It's still Tuesday, and my dad and I are heading out to grab paint, knobs, planting materials, and more shelving to finish off the garage and do other odds and ends projects I wanted to get done!

Here is the new and improved garden area! My dad has a HUGE garden at his house so he brought me quite a few plants to get ours really started. David and I had a habanero pepper plant, some basil, and an aloe plant to start, but my dad added more basil, a jalapeno plant, 2 tomato plants, 3 zucchini plants, one squash plant (which may not survive), and 2 "pretty" plants. We re-potted a few that needed more room and added the plant cart to arrange them. I'm so excited for these to start producing!!!

The next things were more crafty. We re-painted the white filing cabinet below and added some new knobs. This was an older piece that David had been using to store video games, and I think it will be great as a psuedo night stand for Baby Girl's nursery.

 Cost of re-finishing vs. buying a new one?  

$4 brushes

$8 knobs

$0 paint- already had

$0 cabinet- already had

= $12 total  Love it!!

The next crafty project that I pulled out was completed Tuesday evening. I gave my dad the night off and sat and painted while he read. 

This was an old cork board that didn't quite match anything and that I would have tossed if I hadn't re-purposed it. First it was painted white, then the border was added. Next those three flowers on the bottom are mounted on old wooden spools that I painted to match the border. The gold flowers on the left are push pins with those glued on top for decoration, and the ribbon w/ large flower at the top is just there to look cute. I thought this would be good to put up her pictures and maybe eventually little pictures she draws or work to display. 

After all that nonsense, we decided the best way to end my dad's visit was to wake up at the crack of dawn to watch the sunrise at the House of Refuge Beach. 

This beach is my absolute favorite because of the beautiful rocks and relative seclusion. Only a few fishermen here and there joined us.


Baby Bump Update!

Only a few things to add since last time so I won't go through the whole list!

I am now...

-32 weeks 3 days

- WELL into the 3rd trimester...Only 1.5 month to go!

- Craving sweets. Trying to keep that in check so I maintain a healthy weight gain!

- Fun fact: My fingers and toes now looks like little sausages in the morning or late evening, and my finger joints even ache from the swelling. Trying to counteract that with lots of water/less sodium. My ring will still go on though!

- Dr visits are now every 2 weeks for the next month and then every week after that. We're getting down to the wire!!

Lastly, here is the *surprise* 4D ultrasound that David and I got to see Thursday afternoon! We went in for a routine check, and the nurse was sweet enough to pull up the 4D (without us asking or paying extra) to show us our baby!

The nurse said it's amazing the shot was so clear especially this far along. I'm just amazed that you can already see her features so clearly! Crazy to think this little girl will be joining us so soon!! This will be our last ultrasound before she's here. Time flies!
With that, I'm off to start to enjoy my break with some weekend fun. Adieu!

Summer Vacation

School is officially done! 
This past week was a bit of a joke. Honestly, why do we continue to have classes after final exams? It's one of those things that teachers and students alike are dumbfounded by. The last three days basically served as a time for students to scramble to makeup assignments or exams, teachers to pack up their rooms, and everyone to remanence about the year.
 However, before we left, my ESE teacher counterpart was super sweet and decided to throw me a mini-shower with my students. This year we've been collaborating- her ESE self-contained kids have worked with my creative writing students at least once a quarter if not more. They've all really enjoyed the experience and so we planned one last end-of-the-year party for them so celebrate. Little did I know this was also a celebration for me! The kids and teachers were sweet enough to get me presents, balloons, a card, and these delicious looking dishes....

Aren't they great!? Now though with the kids gone, it's time for me to focus on nesting!

This very real phenomenon of nesting has me glaring at closets, cabinets, and any nook and cranny to re-organize and baby-proof them in time for Baby Girl to get here. Luckily, I now have the time and (surprisingly) energy necessary to spring summer clean our house! My dad is coming into to town Tuesday to help jump start the process and help me move things around with his truck. Bring on the cleaning supplies, organization bins, and crafts!

Speaking of crafts, this weekend I broke out a canvas that's been sitting in my craft box to make a picture for the nursery. I knew I wanted to stick with the Eric Carle theme, but I have plenty of caterpillar stuff to put up. So, instead of the caterpillar, I decided the sun from The Very Hungry Caterpillar would be a good subject.

I did the collage of the sun, and it turned out like this....

I thought it needed something more so I added the text from the first page of the story and the tiny caterpillar in the corner.

My paint was being difficult as I wrote the text so I'm not as satisfied with it as I was with the sun, but overall I like it. I also love that my nursery decorations so far are all handmade! 

Did I mention that my little brother graduated high school last weekend?! I don't know how that little fact slipped my mind! I'm so proud of my little brother... He is such a grown up! Crazy!!

Joel with mom & dad

The whole family was there to see Joel graduate!

Me, the graduate Joel, and Andraya

Onto the...

 Belly Update!

I feel like my stomach has REALLY popped now, right?

How far along: 31 weeks 5 days

Total weight gain: 20 lbs

Maternity Clothes: Yep.

Sleep: Back to the nightly bathroom trips, fun!

Best moment this week: This week just started, but I'm excited to nest!! We also have an ultrasound on Thursday; can't wait to see how she's grown!

Miss anything: Weather that wasn't as sweltering.

Movement: Crazy rolls, flips, and kicks! She's a cheerleader already!

Food cravings: Sweets....I'm finally guilty of the typical cravings- ice cream and cookies...I can't get enough!

Anything making you queasy or sick: Nada

Gender: It's a girl!

Labor Signs: Some lovely braxton hicks but that's about it.

Symptoms: Back aches...swollen ankles, wah.

Belly Button In or Out: And it's gone.

Happy or Moody: Happy!

Looking forward to: Nesting, crafts, summer break, family vacation, ultrasound this week...SO many things!

Lastly, here's the surprise I received in the mail from my long-lost best friend on the other side of the country! She won't be able to make it to this coast for my shower so she sent some love and goodies here instead. I can't wait 'til she moves back to this coast from CA!!

These things are PERFECT when you're expecting! There's a little bit of cutesy with the dress, but I was honestly super excited for the practical items: baby bottles, burp clothes, pacifiers- YES! Ashlea you're the best!!

On that note I'm off but, I will be sure to add my ultrasound pictures as soon as I get those on Thursday!