the big 2-5

It came. It went. It was fabulous.

It started the way every birthday for the last three years has started: a sweet "happy birthday" whisper in my ear. We got up early, I opened cards in bed and was serenaded via telephone by family. An hour and a half later, we were headed down town for Page and Andrew's day-o-fun.

We hit the farmer's market first, because I love it there. We took our time and filled our bags with all kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables. Andrew bought me flowers on the way out because he's sweet like that.

We'd planned ahead, so we brought a cooler to keep all of our stuff for the day. After getting that settled, we went for an early lunch. Hot sandwiches all around. And then...it was time for my present. THE present. My massage. Ohhhhh yes.

We walked to the Charleston Place Hotel, where Andrew saw me off at the elevator and went in search for TVs to watch the baseball game. I was early enough to sit in my robe with a magazine and some cucumber water for a little while. Bliss.

After the massage, I wiped the drool off my mouth (sorry, but it's true) and hit the showers to get all fancy for the rest of my downtown date. In my cute new dress and some dangly earrings, I met my boy back in the lobby. We stopped for coffee and then wandered to the waterfront park to watch the boats drive by.

We had big plans for dinner, but didn't make reservations. So I guess you could say that we didn't have plans. Neither one of us felt like waiting until 9:45 for a table to open up, so we settled for drinks and appetizers at a local rooftop bar. And by drinks, I mean sweet tea. But I may or may not have requested a glass of red wine for my post-baby celebration in the delivery room. Just keeping it real...

We stopped for gelato on our way back home and then called it a night. And I haven't slept that well in ages. There's something about being pampered and doted on all day that just takes it out of you :)

There were phone calls and texts all in between, which really makes a gal feel special. So thanks to you peeps. And thanks to that sweet, sweet man I married for making the day feel so grand. I sure do like you, sir.

23 weeks!

We're just chugging right along, aren't we? I realized this week that I'm less than a month from the third trimester and I stopped breathing for a few seconds. How can that be? In some ways, the time has gone by so slowly. And in others, I feel like he's going to be here in just a few blinks.

Anyway, in baby development news, there's not much to report. He's almost a foot long and weighs just over a pound. His hearing is also picking up and they say that he'll be able to hear more and more, with sounds like our voices or Rudy barking becoming more familiar.

I feel him all the time now and can usually see his little kicks on the outside. In the morning especially, while I'm still in bed and on my back, I can put my hand on my stomach and feel him actually moving around - not just kicks, but his body squirming all around. It's so crazy.

I've loved being to share that with Andrew, since so much of pregnancy is felt only by the one doing the gestating. And he's a strong, active little guy. Last night, I was on the couch and Andrew had his hand on my stomach. He wanted to see if he could get him to move, so he nudged my belly. The baby kicked. He nudged again and the baby kicked again. Nudge. Kick. Nudge. Kick. It was pretty funny.

We had a great weekend and I can't wait to get all the pictures together to show you all. Happy Tuesday!

baby crafting: fancy burp cloths

I know what you're thinking. Why fancy something up that is only going to get spit up on? The main purpose of a burp cloth is to wipe up baby fluids...who wants that to be cute?

I sure do.

And when I found out we were having a boy, I went a little overboard buying fabric and then realized that there are only so many things you can sew for a baby. So burp cloths it is. At least I can keep some sense of style while I'm getting (fill-in-the-blank)ed on.

Taking cues from my friend, Whitney, who I met while our husbands were at OCS together and who is a mama to two boys (one here and one on the way), I decided to just take some cheapo cloths and add some flair. Mine aren't nearly as cute/fancy as hers, but while I work on being patient enough to spend some more time on them, I think these will do juuuust fine.

Cute, eh? (The guitars are for you, Uncle Tyler!)

Any other ideas of what I can whip up on my sewing machine with a few scraps of fabric?

commenting 101

Here's the thing. A lot of you lovelies will leave me comments and I can't respond, because you don't have your email address linked to it. No harm there, but I feel like I'm just ignoring you when what I want to do is give you some love.

So I'm trying something new.

I installed a commenting widget called Disqus, so I can respond to your comments if I want. Now you don't have to feel ignored :) And if you're not familiar with Disqus, here's a little 101 on how to leave comments:

Step 1: Click the comment link.

Step 2: Leave some love.

Step 3: Post as...

You can sign in as a guest, which is probably the easiest. Just leave your email address (only so it knows you're not a robot, you won't get added to any lists. Pinky swear.)

If you have a Blogger/Google account, just sign in with that. Or if you have a blog, comment with that, under the OpenID. There's also Disqus, Facebook and Twitter, but those others are probably the easiest.

Easy peasy, right? Don't be skeered. Let me know what you think!

birthday wishlist

My birthday is on Saturday and while I'm always a fan, here's why I think this year's birthday is a big deal:

• I will be a quarter of a century old. I will be closer to 30 than 20. Whoa.
• It's my last childless birthday. Something tells me it's only going to get harder to enjoy the all-about-me moments.
• It could be the last birthday for a while that Andrew will be around, since he'll probably be deployed more than he's home over the next few years. Boo to that.
• It's on a Saturday, which means I get to do whatever I want all.day.long.
• I took Friday and Monday off to try and use some PTO before Andrew's unavailable, which means we can celebrate over a 4-day weekend. Yesssss.

In honor of my birthday, I decided to show you some things that have been making me smile lately. It's my birthday list, if you will. Because it's my birthday and it's my blog and I can do stuff like this without feeling guilty. Agreed?

Good.

Here we go...

1. Knotted necklace by Marine Parents on Etsy. I especially like the cerise and the jade green. So happy.
2. Bird nest necklace by Pinking Edge Designs on Etsy. Precious, right?
3. Starbucks NYC Architecture Mug. I've only been able to find it on eBay and at $20, I'm wishing that I'd paid $10 when I saw it in a Starbucks while we were in New York this Christmas. I loved it immediately and as silly as it sounds, I've regretted that I didn't get it.
4. Poppy headband by Much Love, Illy on Etsy. Headbands are my new thing, especially as I try to grow my hair out. And because I can go without fixing my hair and still look cute :)
5. House print by Volume 25 on Etsy. There's no better motto for a Navy family...
6. Knotted headband by Marcelacamargo on Etsy. I've coveted this headband for a long, long time. So fun for summer!

Cute stuff, I know. Happy birthday to me!

22 weeks!

Oh, he's growing now! {name that reference and I'll give you a yankee nickel}

Here are some facts about our little man:

• He's almost a foot long and weighs about a pound. Or knowing my luck, he's two feet long and weighs 5 pounds.
• His lips, eyelids, and eyebrows are becoming more distinct
• He's developing tiny tooth buds beneath his gums
• His eyes have formed, but his irises still lack pigment. Our cute little albino baby!

I also read in one of my books this weekend that he can hear more and more each day. Andrew keeps humming Beethoven to my belly in hopes that our boy will be a musical prodigy. We'll see about that.

I'm still feeling great. I've been having some hip and back pain that can be a nuisance, but I have a very stylish (not) maternity belt that has made a bit of a difference in the last week or so. Hopefully that will continue.

I'm also somewhat of a crafty nester at the moment. All I want to do is sew and paint and decorate for the baby. I have a few things done already, so look for it all on the ol' blog in the coming days. And as we get more done in the nursery (eeeek!) I'll show you that as well.

Until then, send some good baby-growing vibes my way...

nursery progress: making space

Note: If you don't appreciate all of the effort I put into these pictures, you ought to. I appreciate all of you visual people!

-------------------------------------------

So apparently, babies come with a lot of stuff. I made my list of things to register for/buy and my eye started to twitch. Then I made a plan and all was right in the world :)

Step 1: Determine where Boy will go.

Our upstairs currently looks like this:

And we decided that it should look like this:

Step 2: Get Organized.

There was a lot that needed to happen in order to make the guest bedroom a nursery. Most of it included unpacking boxes that we didn't unpack when we moved, making a Goodwill pile and organizing my Christmas decorations. True story. This is the progression:

Ohhhhh yikes. But over Memorial Day weekend, we made it happen. We got organized.

Step 3: Make room for Boy.

There was a lot of room-switching fun which involved cleaning out a closet, cleaning out attic space so we had a place to put the stuff that was in the closet, cleaning out the office/craft room so we'd have room for the stuff that was in the guest bedroom, moving guest bedroom furniture into the office/craft room, moving a bookshelf from the office/craft room to use in the nursery, etc. And the green grass grew all around, all around and the green grass grew all around.

Because of my "condition" Andrew did most of the moving. Rudy and I just sat back and directed.

As you can see, Rudy is mid-yawn. He also thinks he weighs about 30lbs less than he really does and insists on being right in my lap whenever possible.

Step 4: Daydream.

After the planning and the organizing and the room-switching, we were left with this:

We can breathe!

That's the cradle that the babe will sleep in while he's still in our room. All the other furniture is coming...THIS WEEKEND! That was the main reason for pushing ourselves over the last two weeks to get everything cleaned out. We're headed to Charlotte to do a little shopping with Andrew's parents and when we come back, we hope to have a truck full of furniture. I can't wait.

For now, here's what I'm thinking for the bambino's room:

We're still in a rental (and probably will be for a while, thanks to the Navy) so painting isn't likely. I love the gray and I love the yellow/blue/green combo and I like that the options I have for bringing in color without being drastic. It all makes me very, very happy.

So there you have it, folks. The first few steps of the nursery makeover. I'll keep you posted along the way, but in the meantime what's the one thing that you or your baby couldn't live without?

21 weeks

I feel round. All of me, everywhere, just feels round. At the end of the day, all I want to wear is a giant t-shirt so my body can finally breathe. And guess what? In case you were wondering, humans gestate for 40 weeks. What's that saying...? Something along the lines of it's all downhill from here. I know I shouldn't complain, but I feel like this happened overnight. Everything is just a liiiittle snug.

Silver lining? I work from home and my husband thinks t-shirts are sexy (sorry, Dad) so I can wear stretchy pants and 100% cotton all.day.long. And I will.

Moving on...

At 21 weeks, this little bambino is the size of a carrot. That confuses me a little because last week he was supposed to be a banana and I feel like carrots are smaller than bananas? But, whatev. He can also hear things from outside the womb, so Andrew likes to get really close and say, "Heeeeeeeey, behbeh" in a really deep and kind of creepy voice. I'm afraid this child won't recognize his father when he actually sees him.

Also, this boy moves around. He's been kicking all the time lately and I love it. We can even see little jumps and twitches on my stomach if I lie flat, which is bizarre, but so cool.

Aside from being a teensy bit uncomfortable, I feel great. I feel happy and motivated and just good. Honestly, all complaints aside, I really love being pregnant.

And I love this boy.

the name game

In case you missed it when I announced it before, we're not sharing this guy's name until he gets here. Mainly because we like the idea of keeping that little secret between the two of us and also because we don't care for unsolicited opinions. Or negative facial expressions.

But it's also because he's currently nameless.

Before we found out what we were having, we could easily come up with ten or more names for a girl. But we've never, ever settled on a boy name. The first thing Andrew said when we walked out of the ultrasound room was, "Well, I guess we have to come up with a boy name now." We had kind of been ignoring the fact that we may have a boy, since the name part was so difficult.

But alas, here we are. Baring a son who shall be called BOY.

It's too hard!!

There are a few that we like, but Andrew really wants to pick a name because it has significant meaning, not just because we like it. Blah blah blah. Sorry family, but you haven't given us much to work with. We even started thinking of people who have influenced us in some way - people in history, authors, etc. Andrew thought of C.S. Lewis.

In case you were wondering, C.S. stands for Clive Staples.

So we call him other names for now:

Little One

Little Guy

Our Boy

Baby

Little Buddy

Andrew sometimes likes to refer to him as The Parasite, but in a completely loving way.

We have approximately 132 days to make this decision, but I don't do well under pressure and I would like to have this figured out soon.

Otherwise, we might accidently name him Staples.