Sewing Project #1, & Work

A couple days ago I went on a new adventure to start a hobby I had always longed for but never had the time to do it. Finally, after much contemplating back and forth I made the plunge and just did it....I bought a sewing machine. I knew I was crazy, after all I knew nothing about sewing! I turned on the machine and plopped myself on the table with my computer in hand. I watched hours of videos on YouTube and read on how to sew. Boy, was it confusing and more and more I thought I was completely nuts to even start such a crazy hobby with baby girl's due date fast approaching. I decided I was not going to give up after all I had given up many times because of our TTC journey. Finally I made headway and I felt good. I was teaching myself how to sew.

I felt adventures and went to the nearest fabric store, picked up some fabric and brought it home. Continued to read and teach myself and whola I have my first project done! 

Harper's first homemade blanket by her momma!

I'm beyond exhausted!! However, I am feeling rather accomplished of myself. Now as I sit on the couch I will not be moving for the next couple of hours. I may even sleep here that's how comfy I am!

Other than killing myself on a sewing machine today at work I got to thinking. I only have 12 more work days left. I can't believe the end is near and a baby will be in our arms. I have such excitement and nervousness in my body. Emotions I can't even began to describe to you on paper. We are so excited to meet our little miracle. 2.5 years in the making. I am very grateful to be able to take time off to be with our baby girl after she is born. It will seem like a long time but I know for a fact time will go by so fast which means both mommies need to cherish that time with her because as everyone says they grow with a blink of an eye. I am however, rather excited to be getting a break from work. It will be nice to just get away and not worry! 

Well, that's all for now...Till next time!

Organization Mayhem!

So remember in a previous post I had said I got hit by a the nesting syndrome? Well, here is my more elaborate post because I am feeling very confident with what I have accomplished. Given, I have a couple more things to organize these things are so small I could finish quickly. My main concern was getting the bulk of it done before baby girl comes to the world.

To give a little background I am a very organized person. My wife would describe me as a freak when it comes to anything organized. I will admit I do have an organization problem. I am not ashamed of it in any way LOL! In fact I have been like this since I was little. I remember clearly always organizing all my toys in certain ways and shapes. As I grew up I knew I couldn't live my life so rigidly so I allowed myself to just step back and not be so dang organized. I mean I will never be not organized but not as crazy as I used to be when I was young. So my point is ever since becoming pregnant my crazy organization skills have come back and in full swing. There is something about having the house be perfect before your baby arrives. I can't really explain the "nesting bug" other than it really is a true symptom of pregnancy. To make myself not seem so crazy I would like to mention that I know many women out there who suffer from the same symptom...yes, maybe more some than others.

So for the past couple of weeks I have been putting away and getting rid of "stuff" and organizing. So here is a little glimpse of what I have been up to the past couple of weeks. I feel SO much better with our closets and cabinets!

 Kitchen cabinets

 More kitchen cabinets

Looking at our closets makes me feel so awesome! Plus now everything is so organized I can find things a whole lot easier!

This weekend has been an awesome weekend I have to say. It has been pretty low key. I mean two weekends in a row! I am so not complaining. I m doing things as we go and I am learning to understand things will get done when they need to get done. Plain and simple.

So this Friday we bought my first sewing machine. No I didn't just walk into the craft store and decided this looked like a nice piece of machinery. I have been wanting to sew forever. My mom taught me to sew bits and pieces when I was little...remembering is a whole different story. I realized there are so many cute baby stuff that I want to buy when I could just make it myself. After much research we bought a Brother sewing machine. I am so in LOVE with this machine! I have been sewing and sewing what seems like all weekend! I have been practicing and practicing. Given this is my first time sewing by myself I was scared. I am proud to say I have taught myself how to sew! With the help of YouTube videos sewing is simply easy!

So now I have many sewing crafts on my list and I am hoping to finish one this weekend. On my other list of craftiness. I decided to bedazzle baby girls Converse shoes. They were just to plain and Sarah said I was allowed to since she has so many pairs of shoes.

I am so excited to be making homemade things for our little girl. It means so much more to me and more importantly it reminds me of when I was little and sitting at the table while my mom sewed my dresses or blankets. It makes things that much more special. Now, I just wish I would have paid more attention back then! Oh well! I feel happy learning on my own :)

Liebster Blog Award!

Wow! The over pouring amount of love is awesome! We have been nominated three times in the past week for the Liebster award!! This makes me feel super happy! I love to blog to just let everything out and knowing others are reading it and enjoying it is truly the icing on the cake!

Huge thanks to Our Journey to Become Mommies, Pieces of Religion & Bloggity Bloo

So what is a Liebster award?
It is a way for small bloggers out there to give recognition to other small bloggers (200 followers or less). Here is how it works:

The Rules:

1. Thank the Liebster blog presenter who nominated you and link back to their blog.
2. Post 11 facts about yourself, answering the 11 questions you were asked and create 11 questions for you nominees. 
3. Nominate 11 blogs who you feel deserve to be noticed and leave a comment on their blog letting them know they have been chosen.
4. Display the Liebster Award Logo.
5. No tag backs meaning you can't just re-nominate the person who nominated you.

As solo the first put it "the real purpose behind these nominations are not only as an accolade from a fellow blogger and let's face it, nothing really gently strokes our little writer hearts more than someone telling you they appreciate your work. In addition to the back patting we need to receive from time to time, it also allows us to get a little more personal as we get to know our increasing blogging community. It also helps drive traffic to your site as we reference one another".

Here are my nominations (in no particular order!) I also have no idea how many followers these people currently have, but I love reading them!:

Questions to be answered by me! (Since I got nominated three times I have decided to take questions from all of the fellow nominators!)

1. White, milk or dark chocolate mocha? I love anything sweet but I would have to choose milk chocolate!
2. City or nature person? City! I love being surrounded by people and buildings. Its a big comfort for me.
3. What are you most proud of in your life? My wife. She is my everything. She is the reason why I live and breathe everyday and the reason why we have a little miracle on the way!
4. Paper book or electronic? Paper. I love the way books smell both old and new. Wish I would read more. 
5. What's your biggest pet peeve? People not being courteous. Use your manners. I know we were all taught this!
6. Where do you see yourself in 15 minutes? In bed! YAY!!
7. Hot or cold? Cold, you can always add more layers!
8. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? Anywhere that has beautiful blue water. Fiji.
9. Favorite book? Diary of Anne Frank
10. If you could meet anyone person dead or alive, who would it be? Rosa Parks
11. Best thing about where you live? We have everything at our fingertips.

• Struggling to be Mothers
• Bits and Peaces
• Mrs. Katy Em
• Lezbmommies
• Non Fat Caramel Lesbian does Baby Making
• Two Mommas to Be
• Our Griswold
• The Adventures of Life, Love and Baby Making
• Two Moms and a Journey
• Little One Still to Come
• Mina's Musings
• Expecting to be Expecting

Now here are my 11 questions for the fellow bloggers I have nominated!

1. Sweet or salty?
2. Who would be the perfect dinner date and why?
3. Describe yourself when you were 18
4. What is next on your bucket list?
5. Favorite season
6. Where would your next vacation be?
7. What is the meaning of life?
8. Do you own any pets?
9. Do you have any fears?
10. Who is your role model?
11. How does a perfect day look like?

Enjoy and once again thank you to those who nominated me!

Tales of a pregnant woman

I'm sitting here 34 weeks pregnant and a hormonal mess. These past couple of days have just taken a toll on me. Yes, I am to blame for some of it but the rest I will blame on just being plain pregnant! I haven't really felt pregnant until oh about 28 weeks. That is when I started to notice a more noticeable bump and it was getting harder for me to just walk normally. Then I got to 30 weeks and I started having the lovely Braxton Hicks contractions...OK no worries I just learned how to adjust to them when they came. Everyone asked me how I was doing and my answer was always "great"! Then all of a sudden this Monday it hit me like a ton of bricks...my breathing was getting a bit harder to control, my groin felt like it got punched a bazillion times, my lower back is killing me and Harper is kicking me in my upper chest/ribs.

Maybe today at work was just not my special day and maybe the gal at the cafeteria didn't make it any better when she said I had the "waddle". I don't even notice that I waddle! She then went into a whole discussion about how I looked like a penguin with my lovely "waddle walk". That just ticked me off. So what if I waddle! I prefer to call it my strut!

Yes! This picture is how I felt when she was pointing out my walk. After that I proceeded to drop my water bottle on the floor and I'm guessing I was just too hormonal that I bent down way to quickly...got up and felt 90 years old. Wow! I had to have pulled a muscle. I then proceeded out of the cafeteria waddle and all LOL! The entire day at work I was miserable. I tried to find any bottle I could roll on my back. I rushed home and took a 1 hour bath. Wow, I must say that one hour bath made me feel like I had my body back for a split second.

My lovely wife then started talking about getting my body back after Harper is born. I continued to dream...she asked if I was excited. I never really thought about it as being excited because this is something we had longed for but a sense of me thought of all the things I will be able to do once baby girl is here. I enjoy being pregnant I really do and this is not me being selfish. It will be nice to be able to sleep on my back and stomach again, only pee once before bed, getting out of breath for every little activity and most of all being able to lift things without me always having to ask Sarah for help because its too heavy. So am I ready for my body back!? Yes and no. I want baby girl to cook until 40 weeks ideally. I mean that's in a perfect world. I hope this post does not offend anyone. I mean haven't we all complained about something while being pregnant? 

So as I sit here with my feet up on the couch and our doggy at my toes I feel great. My back is not hurting anymore and why, yes I do have to go pee again. Thanks for asking :)

Lazy Sunday

Today has been a very low key day. For the first time in weeks it wasn't full of running from one store to another or doing this and that for the house. It was low key which felt amazing! It even included a two hour nap!

I finally decided to get up and do some laundry since I always leave it for the last thing on my weekend. Then again who likes laundry?! So after finishing the laundry I decided it would be wise to start washing baby Harper's clothes. It was the most exciting thing ever and I hate laundry! Her clothes are so cute and tiny and just so dang cute!

So I leave you with some pics of my not so productive day!

Even our pup jake was lazy!

Also, thank you to the two fellow bloggers who nominated our blog! I promise the next post will be about it! Love you all!

33 Weeks & 1 Day

According to my ticker we only have 6 weeks & 6 days (48 days) until baby girl makes her debut. This is getting more and more real as time passes by. It still is all so surreal to me....that in less than 6 weeks we will be moms. Our long journey of TTC will soon end with a baby in our arms. I just can't believe it in all honesty.

The other day we were talking about our maternity photos and what we plan on wearing on the day we take our photos. Sarah had asked me if I plan on taking any photos of my belly. If you would have asked me that when we first found out we were pregnant I would have probably said no. I guess the sight of my stomach made me cringe. I have always battled weight issues since I was little and my stomach being a huge area of battle for me just made me sick. I am so used to seeing all these women on covers, magazines and even friends showing their beautiful bellies. They look so soft and so perfect. I then continued to lift my shirt up at 33 weeks. You know it is really weird. I haven't really stopped lately to just look at my body since becoming pregnant. I guess I try and avoid mirrors at all costs. Sarah smiled and made me tear up when she said I looked beautiful. I immediately went to the mirror and there I stood bare belly and all and I took it in. I loved what I saw. I love what has become of me since becoming pregnant. I don't think I am fat or ugly...I feel beautiful! I feel empowered. Sarah wanted to take a picture of my belly to save and share. I am not embarrassed of my stretch marks that have been made since becoming pregnant. I adore these beautiful marks made my our growing baby girl. In fact they are her imprints on me. I call them her tiger stripes.

I will really miss this belly when she is here but when I see her I will be reminded that she was housed for 9 cozy months. She has forever left a mark in our hearts and on my belly.

Prepping and Putting it Together

So remember how I mentioned in a previous blog post that time seems to be slipping from our fingers? Yeah...well I feel like we need to get things done ASAP. I believe my reasoning behind all of this is the fact that baby girl can come whenever she would like. We pray and hope that she doesn't make her debut until she is ready and well around her due date but reality is everyone is so different and since this is our first pregnancy everything is in the "unknown". This is where I believe our panic mode buttons have come from. I would hate for her to come and we are not ready at all. So the past two weeks we put on our "let's get this done now" hats and work towards having everything ready.

Well, to say the least my OCD has just taken over and instead of me just getting things done I want to make sure everything is perfect. So this brings me to the word "nesting". I know I have mentioned it before and quite frankly I feel like I have been nesting forever. So I decided that nesting is not just for the birds...pfft! Story is I want everything in tip top shape before our little princess arrives and well this means making sure everything is clean and organized.

So in my venture of organizing our household I have done some major cleaning and de-cluttering of stuff, which, I will save for another post.

What I will share is what I found useful in my adventure of prepping for baby in the past couple days!

The Diaper Bag!

At first, I thought you just threw in as many diapers and wipes as you could fit. It then sunk in that babies need more than just diapers and wipes. So I sat down with a pen and paper and wrote down what I thought was important to include in a diaper bag. This is what I came up with.

 A whole bunch of everything! 

 So you ask what I have included in our little girls diaper bag? Well, I thought it would be nice to share along to others what I thought was a good head start in getting the diaper bag ready.

1. The diaper bag (Well, duh! I think this may come in handy to help carry the 1,000 things that lug around with a child)!
2. Bibs
3. Changing pad
4. Diapers (I researched that for a newborn a good rule of thumb is to bring one diaper for every hour or two that you will be out)
5. First Aid Kit (You never know when this will come in handy for you or the baby)
6. Pacifier clip (We all know we don't want that little sucker to disappear)!
7. Diaper disposal bags (I can count many places where this will come in handy....we all don't want to smell a stinky diaper).
8. Boogie Wipes
9. Wipes (from what I have been told they say you never have enough wipes!)
10. Kleenex (in case I get so hormonal or just need one lol)
11. Diaper rash cream
12. Pacifier wipes (we hate germs especially those on the floor which is where a pacifier usually falls to)
13. Pacifier
14. Nursing cover
15. Hand sanitizer wipes 
16. Disposable nursing pads
17. Mittens
18. Pacifier bag to keep it away 
19. Extra outfit with hat
20. Socks
21. Grooming kit
22. Blanket
23. Burp cloths

What I forgot to picture...

  24.  Wallet

  25.  Cell phone

  26.  Sunscreen

So I leave you here with some helpful hints-at least I did lol. I have some more exciting posts to come about the good ole nesting syndrome. 

Till next time!

Braxton Hicks

Yes, I am one of the lovely gals that gets to experience the joys of Braxton Hicks. Also, known as "false labor or practice contractions". I started feeling these two weeks ago and at first I went into full panic mode. Oh dear god I thought labor was around the corner. I sat down and called my doctor immediately. She pretty much said that what I described was for sure Braxton Hicks! I was not excited to say the least. I was scared. Thoughts of early labor freaked me out. We were only 30 weeks she couldn't come that early. As time went by I learned that this was something I was going to have to deal with and more importantly I needed Sarah to understand it didn't mean to get everything ready and rush me to the hospital....poor Sarah. 

Things that I have learned make Braxton Hicks come more than usual....

~(lack of water) I learned this the hard way the other night when I woke up to immense uncomfortable Braxton Hicks. I woke Sarah up at 3:30 AM and said to get as many water bottles as she could carry. Soon enough she came in with 6 water bottles. I downed them all. Within minutes I felt 110% better! So ladies drink lots of water!! 

~(overworking myself) lately we have been in full get everything done before baby girl arrives and time seems to be scarce that I feel myself running to get anything done. I noticed when I worked too much it causes these lovely contractions. So I have been listening more to my body and learning this mama needs a break every now and then. 

To this day it amazes me how awesome our body is. It's unique in so many ways. 

So, anyone else have these lovely contractions known as Braxton Hicks?

Baby Shower

Ugh! I hate that I keep forgetting to update on our blog. Makes me upset because I have very good intentions to and then I am not sure what happens but a blog post is never made. Anyways, instead of boring you with my excuses I thought I would share pictures and an update from our beautiful baby shower! When we found out we were pregnant right away many wanted to throw us a baby shower. So we thought it would be nice for it to be a group effort since so many wanted to help including us. I know baby showers are supposed to be thrown for the parents to be but since this was our first baby and we had such a long journey of getting to this point we wanted to be involved. Boy, were we ever involved. I think we went a tad overboard with everything because by the end of the day on our baby shower I was glad I didn't have to plan another detail!

I took on the task of getting everything ready decoration wise for the shower. Sarah helped me even though craftiness isn't one of her key points. I have a very powerful mind when it comes to what I want and sometimes that take over the best of me. I try not to but it happens. All in all we ended up making everything for the shower and it came out fabulous! A memory that will forever be in our hearts and minds.

It was so nice to see how many friends and family we have in our lives and most importantly in our little girl's life. She is so blessed and lucky and so are we! We were so overwhelmed with all the amount of gifts we received. At first when we found it we were pregnant the first thing that was on my mind was making sure our pregnancy stuck and then making sure we had everything we needed for our miracle baby. After our baby shower it came to both of our minds and eyes that indeed we had everything for her. Now comes the task of putting everything away! That shall be another blog post!!

We would like to give a thank you to all of our family and friends for all the help they offered to make our baby shower a huge success! Special thanks to our two moms and grandma! You all are awesome!

Now I leave you with some pictures from the wonderful day!