BUMP - 21 weeks

She is the size of a carrot now. Last week was a banana, which I always thought was bigger than a carrot, so they must be talking about quite the carrot!

Voila!

I completed my project for Olivia's room. Yes, she has a name :) I think it turned out really cute if I do say so myself! Her room isn't pink, but the close up photos made the color all funky. It would be cute pink, but sorry Baby Girl, this mama isn't painting. I'm not a crafty person, but this was a fun project to do for inexpensive and handmade love for the nursery. YAY!

Welcome to my craving

Yep, KFC mashed potatoes and gravy. Baby Girl loves potato flakes and beef flavor. Great. But what can I say....YUMMMMMY! And isn't it a lovely table setting?


This weekend has been full of fun things so far. I started making a craft for the nursery. It was pretty fun and it's turning out pretty great and I don't even like crafts! I got to see my great friend Jo and her precious baby at only 7 hours old! She is absolutely adorable and Jo did a great job. I also visited an old high school friend, Erin, and we got to catch up after probably 10 ears. She was unbelievably generous and gave us a TON of awesome baby cloths. And I mean a ton. She has two adorable girls, age 3 and 4 months. More practice holding babies :) Plus I got to see one of my greatest friends, Lusia, at her bridal shower. The shower was over the top with gorgeous decorations and delicious food, hosted by another HS classmate, Mariel. And we still have today to enjoy! Happy weekend to you!

Lusia, me and Mariel

Look at these amazing cupcakes!

Proud papa holding 7 hour old daughter!
Isn't she just perfect?

The craft begins...


Stay tuned!

decisions decisions

Who knew picking out nursery bedding would be such a challenge?! I thought I had it nailed down, but then I started second guessing myself. As if Baby Girl cares! I love the idea of birds, owls and flowers and bright pinks, oranges and greens. So I'm trying to decide between several different sets and also contemplating mixing and matching. I like the Hayley birds and owls, the green in the Simone and the bright colors in the Paisley. Oh dear! Just thought you'd all be dying to know ;)

"Simone"

"Hayley"

"Petite Paisley"

"Love Bird" Don't you worry, I'll keep you posted.

Saving the environment and $$ and whatnot

Do you know what these mean?

OS
AIO
PUL
Fitteds
Prefolds
Covers
Inserts
Aplix
Snaps

I'm still learning, but they are cloth diaper references. YIKES! There is so much going on in the cloth diaper world and I have so much to learn. I just purchased baby girl’s first 6 diapers on sale yesterday and I’m so excited! They are BumGenius 4.0’s. They are OS, meaning one size fits all and they come with 2 inserts, one for a newborn and one for a bigger baby.

I chose the velcro on this go around. I’ve heard the pros of velcro vs snaps is that you can adjust the fit a little better/snugger and they are a bit easier to close when baby is squirmy. The cons, though, are that baby can learn how to undo the velcro and that velcro wears out faster than snaps. So, maybe my next batch will be snaps. I also think I might try some AIO’s, meaning all-in-ones, i.e. they don’t have inserts that you take out or stuff in, you just have one full piece of cloth diaper, period. A great friend gave me some advice that I should try different kinds until I know which ones work best for me, Jeff and baby girl. I think I’ll try to get plain, inexpensive prefolds, which are probably very similar to what cloth diapers were in the “olden days” for baby girl when she is a newborn, and with those some extra small diaper covers to go over the prefolds. There are also a gazillion different brands to choose from. Whoa, right? I know. It’s overwhelming and exciting! I probably won’t do any in depth posts on diapering, I'm just excited about trying it! I’ll try to keep you posted on what I get and what works best for us. Stay tuned in 5+ months for that info!

and the baby is...

Sugar and Spice :)

The ultrasound was so cool! We got to see her little mouth moving, her hands and feet, all kinds of things. She has a long femur! So far she is in the 67th percentile. So fun!

We are grown ups

Today's the day we find out BOY or GIRL!!!

Let me show you my latest project. I made a new wooden sign for the baby room! Jeff let me use his Walnut and it is stunning. He also helped me draw the mockingbird, so it is a lovely joint effort :) This picture is a little blurry, but it's still cute.

Yesterday was a BLAST because I got to see Steph, Sar, Grace and Tiff AND 6 week old baby John for dinner! Tiff had the cutest idea that all the girls would wear pink or blue based on what they think I'm having. It was so sweet that they all had fun with it! Steph wore a pretty pink cardigan and purple eye shadow, Sar wore a subtle but confident pink flower in her hair from her recent honeymoon in Hawaii, Tiff wore a cute pink shirt and Grace, well Grace went all out in blue! She had an amazing blue jumpsuit complete with turtles and a comfty band, blue necklace, blue eye shadow, blue shoes and a blue purse! I think all her blue outnumbered all the pink, so if the gender of baby Schurz is up to last nights wardrobe choices, it's probably a HE! It meant so much to me to have a silly, fun little thing like that to look forward to.

As always it was a blast catching up with these girls, and so good for my soul. Can you believe I've known these girls since I was 20??? And now look at us. Grace is in an awesome new career that I know she is going to excel in, Sar just became a Mrs.!, Steph has two little boys who are both starting school this week! and Tiff just had her little John and is a wonderful mom! And I'm halfway through my first pregnancy. Whoa! We really are grown up. And yet young enough to wear ALL BLUE to Red Robin and LOVE it! What fun!

Mama Steph took John and got him all calmed down right away. But really, he did a GREAT job and I think he loved all the attention from such pretty girls ;)

Then Grace got the joy of his smiles. I think he must have loved her blue eye shadow ;)

Sweet Sar with her confident pink flower showing him some love :)

And me, hoping I'm holding him right! Hey, I did pretty good until he started crying and I had to pass him back to Tiff. I wore black under my jacket because I have no inkling of whether baby is a boy or girl.

Here we all are in our colors. And now we only have 5.5 hours until we know who was right!!!

Would you just look at Auntie Grace in her ensemble. What a wonderful friend she is to not even blink an eye at this wardrobe choice all for the fun of her friends and this new mom to be!

This and That

A little (screeny) view from our bedroom of the silver lace vines. They are actually covering even more of the pergola today-probably about half. Amazing!

Guess what this is going to be:

...A crib! Yep, Jeff is building the baby crib. Unbelievable, right? Nah, not really ;)

And a few pretties from the yard.

BUMP-20 weeks

Halfway there!!! The baby is the length of a banana now :) We find out BOY or GIRL on Monday! YAY!

sunny side up!

And we thought we might have a rooster! Nope, just a mature hen. Carmelita laid her first egg on Tuesday and her 2nd today! She sure did make a lot of noise in the process. Hopefully the neighbors don't notice. So far they are adorable and miniature, but will get bigger in time. We enjoyed the first one sunny side up with a store bought egg as a taste test and let me assure you, the TRUE free range one was much more delicious! YAY for our little farm in the suburbs :)

In her little nest

Carmelita checking out her work

So small and cute next to the one from the store!