30 weeks

I'm 30 weeks today.  Only 10-ish more weeks until we get to meet our little one.  Time is just speeding by and I'm hoping that I can get my to-do list at least mostly finished before then.  But mostly I'm just so excited to meet my baby.  

And I'm so grateful.  Grateful for a loving and understanding husband.  Grateful for this little house we can call ours. And especially grateful for a chance to bring life into this world.  Grateful for the beautiful miracle growing in my womb. Grateful that he is (as far as we know) healthy and strong.  Grateful that I get the privilege of being his mama.

Thank you Lord for your blessings, great is thy faithfulness!

29 Weeks

As of last week, I am officially in the third trimester!  Time is really starting to speed by, I can't believe I have only 11 more weeks until my due date.  I still have a lot to do before baby makes his arrival, but we're getting there.  Next month I'm hoping to get some of the little details in the nursery started, like artwork and a mobile, etc.  We've got a few more weeks of our Bradley class left.  It's not my favorite way to spend an evening, but I think it's been good preparation for birth, especially for James.  I also have a breastfeeding class lined up at the hospital and an infant CPR class.  James and I both like to be fully prepared for things, we're not really the "wing-it" types, can you tell?!  Hah.

Baby is doing great!  At my last midwife visit, he was head down, so I'm hoping he stays that way.  In the last couple of weeks I have really started to feel him a lot more.  I guess there is less space in there now, so I can feel a lot of wiggles and rolls as well as kicks.  When he's really active, I can see my belly bumping and wiggling all on its own, it cracks me up. When I'm standing or walking he's pretty quiet, but as soon as I sit or lie down, off he goes.  

I'm still feeling pretty good.  I do feel big and heavy, and need more rest than usual, but that is to be expected.  My biggest complaint is still my back, which flares up when I've had a particularly active day (painting, gardening, etc.), and just generally starts aching faster than usual.  I did buy a pregnancy pillow that wraps around my whole body at night and that seems to help, as well as some exercises that relieve back pressure.  But really, I can't complain.  I haven't had any other unpleasant symptoms such as heartburn, constipation, or swelling, and I am very thankful!  

Overall, I am really enjoying this time.  It is such a miracle to bring life into the world and I am so glad to get to experience it!  We can't wait to meet our little boy.

Garden and nursery progress

This past weekend my sweet mom flew up for a couple of days to help me paint the nursery!  It was so nice to see her and get to spend time together!  Here is the before picture of the nursery:

And here is the after!

The crib :-)

We still have a lot of color to infuse through curtains and decorations, and we will be adding a rocking chair/glider.  But I love the soft gray and white, I think it is sweet and calming.

Paint makes such a difference in a room!  Remember this hideously green guest bathroom that we inherited? (I love green, just not such a bold color in such a small, windowless room...it's overpowering.)

A couple of weeks ago I decided to repaint it.  I used some tan paint that I already had lying around and now it looks like this!

Ahh, so much better.  Now the shower curtain can be the star instead of the Kermit the frog walls.

In addition to painting the nursery, my mom helped me revamp the flower beds lining the walkway in the front yard!  She and James did a lot of digging because we have clay here in Maryland which is not conducive to growing flowers, so we had to dig out the clay and replace with garden soil.  I definitely could not have done that by myself and I am so thankful for their help!  Here's the before and after shots.

This was taken before we moved in, and the flower pots up at the front did not stay with the house.

And here it is now.  

We removed the ugly bushes by the front door and planted knock-out roses instead.  They should look great when they grow bigger.  And don't you just love the cheery marigolds and begonias?

Speaking of plants, my veggie garden in the back has taken off! One of my strawberry plants has given me about 5 little strawberries so far, and I just found two little green tomatoes that are starting to grow.  So exciting! It's a lot of work to garden, but I love the payoff.  A lot of beauty and some homegrown veggies are worth it.  I'm loving having my own house so that I can do these projects that I couldn't do in an apartment.  So fun.

Tomatoes and basil right after planting

Tomatoes now.  The basil quickly got eclipsed by the tomatoes and never grew.

New York Baby!

May has been a whirlwind month for us!  A couple of weekends ago, James and I went to New York City for a few days for our 4th anniversary trip/fun getaway before baby comes and makes it 10 times more difficult to travel. I've always wanted to go to New York, and since we live within driving distance now we thought it was a good time to go.  

Our first day, we drove up (a 6-7 hr drive after stops) and just had time to check in to our hotel in Midtown and change before our dinner reservations and Broadway show!  This was by far our favorite activity of the trip.  I didn't get a picture of the E&E Grill House, but we both had steaks and dessert and the food was fantastic.  Then we walked the 10 blocks or so down to the theater district to see The Phantom of the Opera.  It was awesome!  

The view from our hotel window.

All fancied up and ready to go out on the town.

On the second day it was rainy, so we made it our museum day.  James wants to visit every air and space museum that we come across, and this one was on The Intrepid (a retired carrier), so of course we had to go.  

On the Intrepid looking out over the Hudson river.

In our quest to find great New York pizza, we decided on Famous Famiglia's.  It was yummy, but greasy.  But apparently it really is famous because the restaurant had a whole wall of pictures of famous people eating there.

Then we hopped on the Subway to head over to the American Museum of Natural History.  We found that the NYC subway system is a bit more complex than the D.C. metro, so we had a bit of a hard time figuring it out.  We waited for half an hour due to some delays, and then when the train finally was up and running again, we accidentally got on the Downtown train.  We went for a few stops before we figured out we were going the wrong way, so we got off and went over to the other side.  Once we got on the Uptown train, we thought it would be smooth sailing, but apparently that particular line was running an express train so we ended up going too far again.  A very nice person on the train told us what line to switch to to get to our stop, and we finally made it to the museum, about an hour and a half later than we had intended.  Fortunately after that we didn't have any more Subway problems.

I have never seen such a huge museum, we could have spent days in there and not seen everything.  But at this point it was about 3 p.m. and our feet were majorly protesting, so we only went to a few exhibits. 

My favorite part of the museum was this life-sized whale.  So cool!

James photobombing the Stegosaurus.

Since the museum was right across from Central Park, we had planned to go there for a little while after the museum, but because of the Subway delay and our aching feet, we didn't get a chance.  We went back to the hotel to collapse on the bed for an hour, and then we went out to Ellen's Stardust Diner for dinner.  That was definitely an experience.  It's a 50s style diner with average diner food, but what made it really fun was that the waiters are all aspiring Broadway performers, and in between serving food, they sing and dance karaoke style.  It was so loud that we had to shout to each other, but it was really fun.

One of the waiters singing.

And on the way home from the diner, we found Carnegie Deli, which is rumored to have the most delicious cheesecake.  I had to stop and get a slice, and it was heavenly!

On the morning of Day 3 we (successfully) took the Subway all the way down to the tip of Manhattan to take the Staten Island Ferry.  We would have loved to actually go into the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, but unfortunately both are closed due to repairs from Hurricane Sandy.  So we did the next best thing and rode the free ferry past it.

The Manhattan skyline from the ferry.

Lady Liberty

Our afternoon adventure was Papaya's Hotdogs for lunch (I was not impressed...I've made better hotdogs in the microwave, but you have to at least try one while in NY) and the Empire State Building.  

It was a really beautiful building on the inside.

We met King Kong.  He was offended because I didn't get a picture with him too. (There was an actual guy in that suit.)

The view from the 86th floor was spectacular.  And very windy.  We could have paid an extra $20 each to go to the 106th floor, but we are too cheap since the tickets were already $25 each.

The building with the pointy top is the Chrysler Building, the tallest brick building in the world.

Right in the middle of the photo you can see the Statue of Liberty if you squint.

The Flatiron building.

After the Empire State Building, we decided to walk back to the hotel (20ish blocks, or about 2 miles) so that we could pass through Times Square.  

We found Captain America patrolling Times Square :-)

We stopped to rest our feet and get a snack at Lindy's World Famous Cheesecake, but it didn't compare to Carnegie's.  Dinner that night was this little Italian place a couple blocks from our hotel.  It was pretty good.

The next morning we went out for breakfast and then drove home.  It was a fun trip!  I couldn't do as much as I wanted to because we were limited on time, and because I had to take breaks and go slower than usual.    If we had had another day I would have loved to go to Central Park, and do some window shopping at places like Tiffany's and Bloomingdale's.  But we were pretty tired and ready to go home when we did.  And our pocketbooks were glad we went home when we did, New York is expensive!  One of the things I enjoyed the most was just getting four solid days with James.  Our schedules have been so busy lately so it was really nice to have a little getaway.  We had a lot of fun together.

My overall impression of New York is that there are way too many people crammed into a small space.  The city is old, overcrowded, expensive, dirty, and smelly, and there aren't nearly enough trees.  It is a fun place to visit, but I sincerely don't know how people can live there.  I would go crazy!  When we left and got out of the city and I started seeing green trees and plants, I felt like I could breath again. In comparison with London and Washington D.C., New York is definitely uglier and dirtier.  But it has some really cool attractions for sure.  I am glad that I went, but I probably won't dream of going back.  

Torticollis is not a turtle disease

So last week in my update, I said that my job as a nanny was over and now I was going to have all this free time to get things done.  Apparently God had other plans because Tuesday night as I was going to bed, I moved my head a tiny bit and my neck got mad and screamed at me.  All night.  It was pretty awful, I couldn't move my head from it's very tilted position without getting charlie horse-like cramps in my neck.  At one point I was nearly resting my head on my own shoulder because that was the only position that didn't feel like my head was going to rip off.  It was a long and very tearful night.  My wonderfully amazing husband stayed up with me all night, bringing me ice and hot pads and Tylenol (the only thing I can safely take...otherwise I'd have been at the hospital begging for a muscle relaxer), and then he took off work all day yesterday to take me to the chiropractor and just help me out since I really couldn't do much at all.  The chiropractor diagnosed me with Torticollis, which can apparently happen quite randomly with no apparent cause and take 1-4 weeks to heal.  I'm calling it a pinched nerve, because that's what it feels like, and people actually know what that is.  Torticollis sounds like a turtle disease or something.  Today, after the ice/heat/tylenol/repeat cycle and finally getting some sleep (I think I had 4 pillows supporting my neck), I feel MUCH better.  My neck feels bruised when I touch it, but I can actually move my head most directions if I am very careful, which feels amazing.  But I am still taking it very easy because too much movement hurts.  You don't realize how pivotal your neck muscles are (har har) until they rebel.  Even something like lifting your arms uses those muscles.

I am so thankful that I have someone to take care of me when things like this happen, and that it happened after I stopped working rather than before.  I would have had to call in sick for several days since you can't take care of a baby when you can't move!  And I'm thankful that baby is kicking away in there, seemingly unfazed by my trauma.

So I guess my to-do list is going to have to wait for a little while.  In the meantime, I used my free time this morning to whip up a little mood board of my ideas/vision for the nursery!  My mom is flying up to help me paint it in a few weeks, YAY!  I am so excited to put Xander's room together and get everything ready.  

Pardon my lack of mood-board skills, I only had Microsoft Paint to work with :-)  I think it's going to be my favorite room in the house when it's done!