First Contractions!

Yes you read that right, I am having Braxton Hicks all over the place! Nothing has progressed or become painful, but they are definitely happening. So exciting! We could be welcoming our baby girl any time now! I am officially 36 weeks pregnant and feeling it! My belly is huge and taking up all of my resources including air and stomach space. I swear my stomach is in my neck. Indigestion is fabulous! Bending over is definitely not a possibility and the other day I went to tie my shoes and had a realization that I may need to invest in slip on athletic shoes. Trying to figure out how to reach my laces was an episode. I think it took a good 5 minutes a foot to get them on right. Then one of them was too tight.....o darn not untying those again! The Doctor says that Lily is in good shape and in the right position so we are on the home stretch! My contractions have just started to show up in the past week or so and they happen periodically all day. Bob has predicted that Lily is going to come out within the next week or so. I don't think that it will be that early, but I would be willing to bet that she won't make it to November 8th. We will keep you posted! I was hoping to have our pregnancy pictures up this week, but I am still waiting for the finished images in the mail. So they will have to wait for next time! I promise it will be worth the wait!

Jill and Steve came down to visit over Columbus Day and we had a great and relaxing weekend. On Friday morning we went to Lake Johnson to take Rocky for a walk. I only made it half way but Jill and Steve took our un-exercised dog around the rest. I must have been having a BH contraction or walking funny because I had a lady come up to me with a worried look and a "Are you okay?" I must look ready to pop!


Anyways, I spent most of my time on the rocking chairs on the deck overlooking the Lake. Perfect pregnant lady place. I am really having to be careful to not overdo it right now. I just cannot do very much and I tire so easily. Nap time is a routine part of my days. I know I know! Enjoy it now right?

On Sunday we went to our favorite local coffee shop for Pumpkin Pie Crepes (you can be jealous :) and coffee before heading to church. Yummy!


After church we headed over to Duke University to see the campus. It was gorgeous.





It was built in 1925 and has these old historic buildings and this beautiful Catholic church with a huge steeple, bells and a fabulous pipe organ. The whole campus felt like a step back in time. Beautiful. We stopped for a while in these covered picnic areas that sway. I kept thinking that if I went to school here this would be my study spot for sure.



The trees in the area were huge too. North Carolina is so lush and beautiful. I couldn't help but hug this tree for perspective.



The baby belly definitely took away some of my wing span. Wonderful way to spend the afternoon.

We have a baby room!

Do you see that widget on the side of the blog? I have 46 days until my due date and cannot believe how fast the time is going! Over the past couple of weeks I have been working like crazy to get our baby girl's room all set up and looking cute. I have also worked on learning how to install our car seat.

The car seat went in great, Bob stood in it and I pulled and we locked it in.



Afterwards, I took it over to the fire department to have it checked out. Without hesitation the police officer politely informed me that we had installed it completely wrong. We made it way too complicated. So he reinstalled it and we have our car seat. It looks so cute in our car.


Finishing Lily's room has been a lot of fun because I have been working on saving money by making my own stuff and using my creativity. I started the decoration with the letters for her name. I could not believe how expensive cute painted wooden letters were! So I went to Michaels and spent a good hour trying to find the cheapest way to do her letters. I painted the letters in the purple paint and then added all of the flowers (which are scrapbooking materials), tied some bows on them and here they are. Thank goodness her name is short!



After my foray into redoing lampshades I decided to tackle a lamp design for Lily. I thought it would be nice to have a lamp by the rocker so that I can read while feeding and one day read books to our baby girl.


My next project was the bedskirt. I found it kind of tricky because of how the base of the crib attaches. It took me a couple of days to finish the project, but it turned out so cute. I really love it because I have got so many awesome quilts that have either purple, pink or green in them. This should tie everything together really well.


Bob and I bought one of those IKEA paper lamps hoping that it would be a nice mellow light during the middle of the night feedings. Holy Moley, those lights are bright. So I decided to take some of the left over material and ribbon from the bedskirt and cover the outside. Even after all of this cuteness, it is still pretty bright, so we will see how it works.


My next project was finding cute shelves to hang above the changing table and dresser. Target provided these awesome black shelves. Okay so the instructions were so simple and the first shelf went up perfectly.



The bottom shelf, however, would not go on the wall. I got so frustrated I think I almost broke it. Thankfully, I stopped and took a break before that happened. After a 10 minute hiatus I came back and got the silly thing on the wall. I want to put pictures of her and our new little family in all of those frames.

I would have had this blog done a couple of weeks ago but I had to find a nightstand to put beside the rocker for the lamp to sit on. I finally found this nightstand through Walmart.com and had to have it shipped. Trying to save some money I shipped it site to store. It arrived this past week while Bob had to be in Las Vegas for work. I didn't think anything of it until I got it in the shopping cart and was attempting to put it in the car. The box with all of the parts was so heavy. Here I am standing at the car going "I did not think this one through." I did manage to use the leverage of the cart to push it into the back of the car, but there was no way I was going to get it into the apartment. On the way home I had this brilliant idea to get the nightstand upstairs. Even though I can't lift the whole box, I can take it up part by part. So I opened the box and managed to get all of the parts and pieces up the stairs within a day. The next day I built it and here it is!


Surprisingly, we still have room for the spare bedroom and this new bookshelf.



All in all I love how her room turned out. It may not be what I had originally planned but I am happy and blessed at the outcome. Bob and I can't wait to see her in her room.