October Update

So much has happened this last month, we have much to tell! Shortly after my last post, we had another baby doctor appointment where we were given some scary news... At a routine check up, the doctor found that our sweet girl's heartbeat was no longer regular - every 5-6 beats it would stop or skip a couple beats, then start back up again. I could tell something was wrong before a word was even spoken, the doctor listened for far longer than they ever did before and I could clearly hear the heartbeat skipping. The doctor stepped back and talked to me for a half an hour about things like Fetal Heart Arrhythmias and several other underdeveloped heart syndromes... Granted, I only heard about 5 minutes of this lecture before my ears started ringing and my brain turned to mush.

So, they scheduled us for a 2nd ultrasound to get a more detailed look at the heart. Ryan was able to come with me to this appointment, so I already felt a little better about the situation... After worrying relentlessly for a week, we finally went in for the follow up appointment and of course the heartbeat was already back to normal and the doctors couldn't say why it had already corrected itself! Thank God! We were so relieved... but really, by this baby's track record so far, should I have been that surprised? I think we may have a little drama queen on our hands.... ohhhh, boy ;)

After the heartbeat scare, we held a yard sale at the end of September. We had slowly been gathering items that we could part with for the sake of making a little extra cash. We didn't have much but luckily Ryan's parents helped supplement our sale so we could have more than 2 tables to set up! All in all, we made enough money to make it worth our time so I call it a win....

In Mid-October we took our last planned pre-baby vacation - we were able to visit my parents in Oregon for a week! Mozart really didn't want us to go.... hahahaa

The day after we got there, my mom's friends threw me a surprise baby shower... I'm so grateful for the time and hard work it took to pull off, our baby it already super spoiled and she isn't even here yet! I was tricked into stopping by the Hostess' office at the Winston community center to pick up a gift before we went out shopping for the day... She gave us a little tour of the facilties and when we walked around the back divider wall I saw 20 familiar faces and a brightly decorated room awaiting our arrival. They definitely got me good! We were blessed with their generous gifts and my BFF Aimee was able to make it as well! I hadn't seen her for 2 1/2 years and I am pretty shocked that she was able to keep the shower a secret from me. Hahaa... A good time was had by all!

We also spent several days at the coast, crabbing and fishing. We celebrated Ryan's 35th birthday and then  made our way up to Salem, OR, for my Grandpa's 85th surprise birthday party! It was nice to see my relatives that we haven't seen for a few years and it was the perfect end to our week long visit.

Ryan and my brother Joseph with their catch of the day:

 Sculptures in Bandon, OR, made out of trash collected off the beaches:

 

The beautiful Oregon Coast:

 

 

Camo Cupcakes my Mom and I made for Ryan's birthday:

My beloved pet, Mr. Kitty. We got him when I was in 3rd grade and every time we visit I have to say my final goodbye but he just keeps kicking! He's a senile yet resilient old thing:

Since I'm 31 weeks along now, I'll be going to the doctor every 2 weeks now and then in December once a week. At my last appointment on Friday, the doctor told me that I have a torn abdominal muscle/ligament which is causing me quite a bit of pain in the upper left side of my abdomen. Unfortunately, due to the weight of the baby and strain on the muscle, he also said it is unlikely to heal until after the baby comes.... Joy. Not the answer I was hoping for when I described the horrible burning sensation I am feeling in that area of my stomach but since there isn't anything I can do about it I'll just have to deal. However, I'm not exactly looking forward to icing my stomach and popping Tylenol for the next 2 months. Wahhhh!!!!!!!

Hopefully, with the Holidays coming soon, the next 2 months will go a quickly as this last one. I'm ready to get this baby out of my belly NOW... so I can only imagine how ready I'll be at the end of December ;) 

I'd say Auntie Rachel is excited... what do you think? 

Progress report...

My sister Rachel came up for a few days and we had a blast shopping for baby girl things :) 

We are pretty much set for newborn clothes now even though I want to just keep buying them because they are so little and cute!!! 

 

We also painted the nursery - I wanted to do a Dr. Seuss theme but no go crazy with it -  so I chose to follow the book "Oh, the places you'll go!" for the bright colors and fun quotes. 

We chose a tiffany blue paint and I'm currently looking for some fun coral colored wall decor. I made a hot air balloon mobile for above the crib and framed some illustrations. We have to wait for the paint to set but then we can put the vinyl quote on the wall:

I've also been trying to take pictures of my belly every couple of weeks so I can eventually put them together in a time line sort of thing... or maybe a flip book...  lol! I still haven't mastered the belly shot, its actually pretty difficult to take a side profile picture of yourself... who knew? 

Here is what I have so far:

14 Weeks:

16 Weeks:

 18 Weeks:

20 Weeks:

 

22 Weeks:

24 Weeks:

I keep having to remind myself that 24 weeks = 6 months. I think I'm either in some sort of denial or the time has just really creeped up on me. Luckily, I still feel like I'm able to stay on top of things for the most part and I'm not too uncomfortable yet.... although if I'm being totally honest, I'm not really looking forward to getting much bigger ;)

In upcoming news, Ryan and I are going to have a yard sale in a couple weeks that we've been working hard to get things ready for. And in Mid-October we will be visiting my family in Oregon for a week! We're excited to just relax and take our last vacation before vacationing becomes much more difficult :)  Crabbing, camping and shopping here we come!!!

20 Weeks and Counting

Ahh! We're half way done! Its hard to believe... in a way its gone by really fast. In other ways its felt like 20 years. I'm starting to feel a little better now, getting sick less often. I think God started feeling sorry for me... or this baby just decided to chill out. Either way, I will live a happy life if I never throw up 3 times before 7am ever again :)

We had our 20 week appointment today. Annnndddddd......... its a GIRL! We are so excited! Here are a few pictures from our UltraSound:

Two blurry little feet... wouldn't keep still long enough for the picture:

 

 Body is sitting up on the left side, legs extended with feet on the right:

Upside Down baby! Feet on top right and head on bottom right, body on the left:

Profile shot... look at that face! You can see a little arm behind it too:

The best part about knowing now is that we get to start picking out cute things :) Here are a few things I'm really excited for, now that we're having a baby girl:

A girly Dr. Seuss room:

Cute dresses and leggings:

Sweet sweaters:

 Baby beanies:

In other July/August news, Ryan has been working hard on our deck remodel. Hopefully we'll get that and the fire pit done in time to have a summer BBQ before it gets too late in the year.

We also decided to adopt our sweet Oatus out a couple weeks ago. He is a 4 year old golden retriever that unfortunately was still in his puppy phase, much to hyper and wild to be around a newborn. He went away to a nearby farm with 15 fenced acres, other dogs, cats, sheep and goats - its perfect for him! He loved it there so much it was much that it was pretty easy to say goodbye. Its a better situation for him and better situation for us... A win-win all around! He will be missed though (mostly by Ryan lol... I'm not really a dog person).... but I even found myself missing him a couple days ago when I was making dinner. I dropped some onion on the floor and thought "well I'll just let Oatus inside so I don't have to bend down and pick that up". Fail...  :(

My mom came to visit me for a week in July and we baby shopped til we dropped! I have all the staple furniture that belongs in a nursery now. We found some great deals and got to spend some quality time together. My sister Rachel is coming out in early September as well, so we will get to shop for fun girly things! Clothes, decor and so much more :) .... the fun begins!!!!

Never Ending Home Improvement...

We always manage to under estimate the time and cost of house projects... maybe its wishful thinking? Or denial? Either way it seems that we finish a project just to start another one. Of course, we did all the fun stuff at first when we where excited to make the house our own... now we're left with the boring stuff - painting, changing outlets, swapping out floorboards. Its fun to look back at where we started though! Since I cleaned today I was able to take some more "After" shots... haha! 

The Kitchen came with old appliances and HORRIBLE wall paper. We were lucky to find that the wallpaper was so old that it was actually really easy to peel off, it just came off in big chunks with no scraping required. However, underneath there was this thick pink glue residue that we were stuck looking at until we managed to paint over it:

Before:

 

 After:

I really don't have a good "before" picture of this part of the house, but when we first moved in there was an iron railing (like one that is meant to go on an outside porch) separating the den from the kitchen. Our realtor gave us the idea of building a half wall with a bar top instead, so we did!

Before:

After:

Then there was the Pink Bathroom. I'm almost embarrassed to say I didn't hate the pink all that much... I don't know whats wrong with me! We started doing some research on how to update a pink bathroom with out stripping it of all it's vintage glory. I found this little website and was inspired: http://savethepinkbathrooms.com/

We still have some work to do - find the perfect paint color, update the doors/window covering and get a new shower curtain - but all in all I'm pretty happy with how it is looking so far:

Before:

After:

The Guest bedroom had wall paper that was as equally bad as what was in the kitchen, we tore it down right away so we wouldn't have to look at it any longer!

Before:

After:

Lastly, my piano. This wasn't necessarily done for our new house, but i just love it too much not to post it!!! We got it for $50 from a church that just needed someone to haul it away, it was in pretty bad shape on the outside but amazingly pretty well in tune. I browsed Pinterest for ideas and decided to paint it rather than try to re-stain.

Before:

After:

We're holding off on any more inside projects for the time being now, since the weather is nice we can now work outside. Our summer projects are repairing/restaining the deck and building a fire pit & bench out of cinder blocks! Oh and of course building our nursery :) Yay!