Showered with love!

Two weekends ago, my sister-in-laws Jennifer & Shelly threw me a fabulous shower to celebrate the arrival of Baby C with Brandyn's Fresno Family. Both sisters, grandmas and several aunts showered Brandyn and I with love and loads of gifts for Baby C.

Jennifer, Shelly, and me.


My Mom (Nana), me, and Brandyn's Mom (Grandma).


Brandyn's Aunt Denise made this blanket for the baby, along with several cloth story books too!

And the nesting begins...

What a great treat 3-day weekends are!! Especially when they are filled with family and and jam-packed with fun! On Sunday, my mom, dad, brother, his wife Katie and their 2 1/2 year old daughter Evey came for a visit. We started off the weekend with a trip to the Oakland Zoo!! I'm not sure who had more fun "Nana & Papa" or Evey!! Actually - I think we all had a great time!

After a nice relaxing night on Sunday, we rested up to take on a few chores Monday morning/afternoon. My Dad, Ryan and Brandyn worked on taking down the Baby Room doors and door frame. We have French doors on that room and want to replace them with glass paneled doors (eh, the kid doesn't really need any privacy!).


While the men were working on the "bigger" project... the ladies took on a decorating task - adding curtains to the living room windows.


The guys helped out too! Oh, and even Evey helped out!

All in all it is was a VERY productive weekend at the house of A, B and Baby C!

Grow baby, grow!!

And the belly gets BIGGER. Taken at 32 weeks.

Special Moments...

So many ups and downs of pregnancy. 40 weeks is a LONG time. Sometimes I forget to just LIVE in the moment and enjoy it for what it is. Reflecting on my current 31 weeks, here are my thoughts.

I feel so truly blessed right now to be experiencing such personal and private moments between my son and I. (Hee, hee... my son!). Recently, I turned to Brandyn and said "I'm going to the store... and I'm taking the baby with me!" LOL. Really though, it is pretty cool to spend the day carrying my baby around... feeling him move... watching my belly jump with his squirming.

He's moving around a lot these days, but differently than he was before. Before I could feel random kicks through out the day. Now... I feel movement. If I put my hand on my belly, I can almost always find his little rump (or some hard body part). Then he slowly moves across my hand - adjusting positions. I still get the occasional KICK. Like I did when I was falling asleep on BART earlier this week. He totally woke me up with his strong kick... and it was all I could do to keep my mouth shut and not cry out from being startled awake!

This morning I was talking to Baby C, as all the books encourage you to do. I'm not even sure what I was saying... something like "Are you playing around in there? I feel you kicking... can't wait to play with you out here." And then I found myself walking to the car... STILL talking out loud... about the frost on the front yard and how cold! I hope Baby C appreciates hearing my voice... 'cause I'm starting to feel like a nut!

My DIY How To

THANKS for all the positive feedback on the room decor. I had a lot of fun picking out the pictures and putting the project together. Here's how easy it was.

After much hemming and hawing about whether or not I could bring myself to TEAR OUT pages in a book... I found myself at a used book store (thanks for the suggestion Nesters!). I dug through the books and realized that many of them (priced very low) were colored in. I figured those books were probably never going to be purchased by someone to read, so that would justify my cutting them up! ;)

I purchase three large books (most of the books were about 5x7 size) these were 8x10. I used an exacto knife to cut the pages very close to their binding. And wall-la!

I think one of the keys to making it look professional was the matting. That always adds a lot to a piece. I used 11 x 12 frames with 8 x 10 mattes.

Making *small* progress on the nursery... my attempt at DIY artwork

Once you find out the sex of your baby... the next obvious question is... how will you decorate the nursery? What theme will you have? And with a boy - its pretty limited. Sports. Trains/Autos. Jungle. And that's about it. There were many, many cute bedding sets with these themes, but none that Brandyn and I could seem to agree on.

So, we went with something a little more neutral. An alphabet themed decor.
Our thoughts were to use this basic bedding set... and "spice" up the room with a little wall decor of our own. I was inspired by some very pricey pieces of artwork - thank Pottery Barn Kids - framed images of popular children's books/stories (Dr. Suess, Curious George, etc.).


So after thinking about it, and canvasing my friends, I decided that I could MAKE the artwork for much less than I could buy it.

And so I did. I think it came out pretty well, if I do say so myself! ;) The finished product. I spent about as much in total, as the cost of 1 and a half of the pieces featured above.

Welcome to 2009!!

2009 is going to be a BIG year for A, B and Baby C! Most importantly... Baby C will be making his appearance early this year!

As I'm sure that I'll be busily distracted and have my hands full in just a few short months... I thought I'd write down a few of my 2009 goals/New Year's resolutions to help keep me on track.

- Begin composting at home.
- Grow a few of vegetables/fruits/herbs in our back yard.
- Cut my hair and donate to Lock of Love.
- Participate in the March for Babies.
- Get back on the healthy living/eating bandwagon.
- Become a mom! ;)
- Editing to add one more goal... I'm a little scared to put it in writing... but I have optimistic goals for breastfeeding. First... I plan to at least make it 3 months (while I'm on maternity leave)... then I'd LIKE to get to 6 months... and I'd really LOVE to get to a year. Let's see how it all goes.

Not all necessarily in that order!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!