Baby preparations - advice!

I'm trying not to feel guilty about the fact that my blog/life revolves around baby related things these days. It's just where my life is at and I'm not sure why I think you might anticipate reading something else.

We are 33.5 weeks into the 40 of our pregnancy and as a planner, I'm starting to think through the final preparations I need to be making. Our last birthing class is this week and my last baby shower is in 2.5 weeks and I'd like to be making my final purchases pretty quickly after that time.

With that in mind, can all you experienced mothers (or those who have been close to an experienced mother) share the top 5 baby and mommy things I should have on-hand for the first few weeks/months? You can only anticipate so much when you've never done this before.

You can either include your responses as a comment or email me markcarrie.peeples at gmail.com. Please don't be shy or try and make it short. The MORE THE BETTER! And feel free to pass this on to friends who might have some good suggestions.

Thanks!!

Baby Shower!

My good friend Trisha threw me a baby shower last night! We invited mostly my family and close friends. It was really fun!!

By the way, Barb is throwing me another shower for my Sunset family, so if you are part of that group, you'll be getting an evite in the coming weeks ;)

Trisha did an amazing job on food and decorations!! Barb and I went out with Jenna to get birthday (our gift to Jenna from back in May) celebration pedicures and by the time I got home my place had been transformed into baby shower land!

Everyone was SO generous and I couldn't believe all the wonderful gifts we received!! It's a relief to be getting some of the baby accessories we've been needing.

Mark's Mom (who wasn't able to make it) knit this BEAUTIFUL white baby sweater! It's SUPER cute!! When I started opening the gifts I almost wanted to cry because of how real it was all feeling. I've wanted this for so long and can't believe it's happening!!

Me with my cake. Trisha made the invitations and the cake, which looked like each other.

Some of my aunts and cousins who came up from Dallas and Salem. They were a little late due to traffic, but managed to stay for a bit. My cousin Margaret (on my left) is due 3 to 4 weeks before me and is looking great!

My good friend Stacey MADE me and the baby quilts!! I LOVE them!!

Barb, me (31 weeks) and Trisha at the end of the night. It was a really fun night!!

The Nursery

It's finished!! Well, mostly ;) But other than moving in all the accessories we have yet to acquire and the baby, it's pretty much ready to go.

Here's the view from the doorway, which is also the first thing you see when you go up the stairs. We have the baby's name on the wall but aren't trying to broadcast that quite yet ;)

We "splurged" on the crib and changing table. I shopped around online a TON and debated on going cheaper or not. I couldn't find anything on craigslist and found a few good deals online but by the time I was ready to buy them, they weren't on sale any more. Since we had been putting some money aside we decided that we could get what we really wanted. Although I shopped for the best deal and feel like I got one! As well as 10% off and free shipping and handling. They are both an espresso colored wood. They aren't a matching set because I didn't like the crib that matched the changing table and the changing table that matched the crib, so got the 2 that I liked ;)

The bed is on the opposite wall as the crib. It's Mark's old college bed. I originally wanted to store it but decided to keep it and got a cheap duvet cover and pillow cases from Ikea.

The picture right above the bed (I don't have a full shot) is a fabric-covered bulletin board with a spray painted Goodwill frame I made for our guest room but it fit well in here. It has little pregnancy momentos pinned on it. We figure the bed will come in handy for naps, guests, and late night feedings ;)

A view of the window. The valance came with the bedding set and Mom made the curtains when she was here. We got the super cute lamp from Ikea, as well as the simple curtain rod.

We set out a few things on the changing table to display for now. Super cute!!

The bedding set we got for about $60 (+shipping) off ebay. I decided that we had registered for enough items that I really didn't want to have to worry about completing a bedding set. I think it's a knock off for a more expensive design. But it was a great deal! Came with the sheet, quilt, bumper, 2 pillows, a toy holder, 3 padded wall hangings, 2 valances, and the diaper holder. I shopped around a while for this before finalizing a decision and am really happy with it!!

We love our little nursery! It's pink, brown and lime green, and simple yet pretty. We didn't want to do any "permanent" pink to the walls or anything since we might try and squeeze another kid into the room eventually and you never know what the next one will be ;) But we can't wait to bring our little home to this little space!

Pregnant pictures and current thoughts

It helps me that my mom doesn't live close by because I'm more motivated to take pictures ;)

29 weeks and 2 days.

I can't believe I keep flashing my belly to the world!

30 weeks exactly. I liked this outfit so wanted to take advantage of the moment and get pictures.

Close up.

Mark wanted a picture from my angle. So this is what I see when I look down. The brown dot on my tummy is a freckle. I can no longer see the tie on my pants and my belly button is on the verge of poking out, but not quite there.

So far pregnancy has been pretty easy for me. I know I'm fortunate! Other than the usual nausea, sensitive smell, and a few other things that ended around 14 weeks, it's been mostly smooth sailing.

I am at the point where I can't sleep on my back because it hurts and realized last night how I woke up probably 10-15 times to roll over to my other side (which isn't an easy thing any more), pee, or just move into a different position. I think that's probably the most difficult thing so far is that I wake up all the time and can't sleep very comfortably. I sleep well when I'm asleep (other than the crazy pregnant dreams), I just wake up a ton. I think some of these things are just preparation for after the baby comes ;) My only other minor complaint, other than how difficult its getting to move around (and I have 10 weeks to go!) and how sleepy I get, is the acid reflux I've been enjoying. But my Dr gave me permission the other day to take something stronger than Tums which has been working beautifully!

A few minutes ago I was looking through my scrapbook from 2007 and was envious of my former body. Although 2007 was the best shape my body has ever been in, thanks to marathon training and watching what I ate for our wedding, so it's not the best reflection of where I might be able to get back to after the baby comes. But I'm getting pretty excited about working on getting back into shape. I just hope I stay remotely motivated! I've been putting on a decent amount of weight so far. But some of the pregnant clothes I bought from July still fit the same except in the belly so I'm hoping that the weight gain isn't as much in the areas it's not supposed to be in. But I have stopped being surprised by the scale when I weigh in at the Dr office. And I still work out 1 to 2 days a week but am down to an easy 20 minute workout on the stair climber followed by a little weight training. And I do mean little! I don't think my workouts do much for me but it makes me feel like I'm lightly maintaining. I have aspirations of doing (doing = walking/running) a half marathon in late March of next year so will have to get right back to it after the baby comes!

Have I mentioned how I can't wear my wedding ring any more? My finger has been mildly irritated by my ring since I've been pregnant and by early July it was so bad I had to stop wearing it. So I took the opportunity to get it cleaned and buffed and now just wear it a couple days a week. The rest of the time I wear a small band. I really miss my ring!

On another note... oh man, I seriously forgot what I was going to say!!

Up until a couple weeks ago I was getting pretty anxious about the birthing process. However over the past few weeks it's turned more into excitement (not about the actual birth but having the baby out). I think I'm willing to go through this scary unknown process to welcome our child into the world and to get her out of my body ;)

I still like to enjoy moments of basking in the joy of actually being pregnant and about to have a child, which we've always wanted. We're certain we have no concept of how life will change after she comes, but are excited to adjust as needed. I know that some people never get to go through this process so I want to not take it for granted and be grateful for the opportunity to be pregnant, no matter what challenges come along with the process.

Before and after pictures, garage

The garage is another space we wanted to work on when my parents were here. Our place is AWESOME but we have no drive-way (so aren't allowed to park in it) and have a TINY 1-car garage. We have comfortably fit the Mustang into the garage but were having trouble getting the van in without hitting side mirrors on the garbage can. In fact, we discovered that I had been mildly denting a strange place on the van with the garbage can (I was pretty annoyed when we discovered this). No matter how things fit/don't fit, the passenger still has to get out of the car before we pull into the garage, but we have that routine down pretty well.

Making our garage space more functional was pretty important. So here are the before and after pictures...

Amazingly, when this picture was taken our garage was already 25% more organized than it was before and you'll see on the far right, that Mark's bike was hung (which it didn't used to be).

This is the view from the front of the garage, you'll notice that we conveniently have parking spots right across from our garage. Although parking at our place is in high demand and we occasionally get lucky to get one of these.

Dad and Mark did a BRILLIANT job at organizing this space!! You'll notice in the last picture how Mark even got a work bench ("man space" is what they called it) out of the deal. Mark was pretty excited about that!

This is a better shot of the new shelving we now have. LOVE IT!! We're now proud to open our garage door when pulling in and out and show off our cool shelves and organized space! And it's fantastic to have a place for some of the things we needed to get out of the house.

2 Year Wedding Anniversary!!

The picture is a little dark, but I think it's cute!!

We celebrated our 2 year wedding anniversary on Wednesday, but didn't "do" anything to celebrate until today (it's hard when the day lands in the middle of the week). We had decided to nearly recreate our first date and go to dinner and a movie downtown. So this afternoon we took the MAX downtown and had dinner at the Macaroni Grill and then went to see a movie at Pioneer Square. We killed time before the movie by doing one of our favorite things, people watching. It was especially interesting tonight because of some convention going on that required people to dress up in strange costumes. We think it was somehow connected to something nerd/gaming related (not that those things always go together). We had a wonderful night and can't believe it's already been 2 years!!

Other than being tighter than we might have imagined financially, we both feel like we've come a long way in 2 years. We have a house, are happier than we imagined possible, and are excitedly awaiting our first child.

By the way, this is me at 29 weeks pregnant. Wow! It's going by fast and slow at the same time. I'm getting pretty excited to welcome this little one into the world and am curious to see how it will feel to have her out. Seems hard to remember what it was like to NOT having a growing child in my body. I also wonder what it will be like to have a flat tummy again... except that I realized the other day that it may never be flat again. Minor details ;) But the excitement to have her out and around is outweighing the fear of the process to get there. At least until the time comes, then I'll probably be scared out of my mind ;)

Before and after pictures, living room

A couple months ago we were blessed with a little cash related to property taxes and being in our house for a year. So we decided to fulfill something we'd been wanting to do and purchase some new living room furniture, namely, something that fit into our space a little better. We had previously been blessed with hand-me-down (free) furniture from friends and family. Although we were more than grateful to have these pieces up until now, we looking forward to getting something that fit with our life a little better. And since we hoped to not get anything else for a long time, especially since baby stuff will probably always trump other uses for cash in the future, we decided to get a new sofa. So here are the before and after pics...

By the time this picture was taken, we had already rearranged our sofa and chair. They were normally in the opposite positions. Either way, it was crowded. And of course, the ottoman was paired with the chair and coffee table with the sofa (unlike their positions featured in this picture).

Our sectional took a while after we purchased it to get to Portland and then delivered to our house. We gave our previous furniture (except the coffee table) to some friends who were able to pick it up right before the sectional was delivered. We were glad to only live a few days without living room furniture. We sure missed it!!

My cousin Alysun said the best way to re-decorate is to go shopping in your own home. I love that idea! We brought a shelf from up in our guestroom downstairs into the living room and swapped the dining room rug with the living room rug and got the look we wanted! The tv stand still needs to be updated and the pictures move around (we'll do that in the next few weeks).

Although it's taken us time to adjust to the new sectional, we LOVE how well it fits in our space and how comfy it is! We even had a couple friends over and comfortably fit 4 of us on there for a movie. We also love how much extra space is now in our living area so that we have more room for the baby and accessories. The only final piece we might add is a rocking chair, but the jury is still out on that one.