Beauty is in the details . . .

My cleaning out has sputtered a bit this week . . . the apples that took over the kitchen clamored to be cooking into applesauce and apple bread (recipes to follow), the fridge is nearly overflowing with CSA veggies to be processed and enjoyed.  I only have a few free hours when Maya is napping, and they've gotten eaten up by more routine chores. 

But as we clean out, we are taking the time to make small upgrades, too.  Why wait?  There's no point in putting off fun little adjustments that make such a nice difference. (Speaking of upgrades---did you see my fun new clogs on the Facebook page?  When you get rid of old, broken shoes, you get new fun ones!)

I hung a bulletin board (that I've been intending to hang since we moved here . . . 2.5 yrs ago), but it looked too school-bulletin-boardish, so I gave it a quick sloppy coat of plum/wine colored paint . . . much nicer.  A free, tiny adjustment that makes me smile when I walk by it:

I've been trying to find a home for my glass vases (previously they were in a kitchen cabinet, but I want to free that space for more pantry stuff).   Finally, I decided to home some of them on the bookcases in our living room (we have three, with glass doors----two in a media center, one as part of a hutch).  At the craft store this afternoon I scored some pumpkins, gourds & pincones, which fill the cases are create a nice autumn touch---the hutch is done, now I'll have to figure out how to arrange the others. 


Doors open:                                                                      Doors closed:

I'm excited to swap these out with other seasonal stuff----my mom always has nice seasonal decorations . . . it just makes every time of year feel special  :)  And since these displays will all be behind glass doors, they will stay simple and out of the way.  No clutter!

In other news, Parker's therapy dog classes start tomorrow night (and I'm nervous!).  He's definitely been practicing here at home . . . his patience and obedience are tested daily by little Maya, who now like to give him hugs and kisses:

Maya: I love you, Pa-pa!  Mwahhh!

Parker: Oh brother.                         

Seriously, though, their relationship is so cute.  I need to get some videos and pictures to show off here----he runs to her with his little tail stump wagging and licks her ears and head and she giggle, giggle, giggles.  She yells "Ma ma!" (which is how she says Pa-pa, her best attempt at Parker) and he's learning to come running when he hears it (again, more giggles).  We don't know if we'll ever fully use him in a service dog capacity (who knows what Maya will need in the long run), but he's certainly her therapy dog, 100% of the time.  He's been everything that we were hoping for :)

A million pictures

*There is a new update post below this one. These are a million pictures from cleaning out my camera*

This was over spring break, when we were trying to clean out the apartment. Here's Dave in the guest room, going through boxes:



This was my favorite find of the cleaning project. An old wrestling t-shirt. I tried to explain that it's not quite as impressive if you're the champion, but they put the word champion in quotes. That would be like saying that I'm the "queen" of the universe.

Some of the garbage that we got rid of over break (along with my big self):


Our new grill! We're not supposed to have one, so it's got to be little enough to hide. Dave is the grill master. Or should I say "grill master":

My first non-stress test. Here I am hooked up to the monitors:

And the computer, you can see that at that moment the heartrate was 131 bpm.
Out to lunch on Mother's Day with Dave's parents & grandma:


The nursery, basically complete:

The baby's closet:

We can't use the bumpers once the baby comes, but they make the crib look nice now:
The dresser that used to be in our bedroom is now the baby's dresser/changing area:

I put the swing and bouncy seat together all by myself:

Car-seat carrier (stroller #1):

Jogging stroller with car seat attachment (stroller #2)--I put this together myself too!

This was the chart that my sister made for my shower. People who thought I would deliver early are dropping like flies:

And here are pictures of the rest of our apartment. I never finished putting them up after we moved in. I didn't take pictures of the 2nd bathroom, or the closets, but here you go:

Coming from the master bedroom & nursery, towards the main apartment:

The living room:

Standing in the living room, looking towards the kitchen/hallway:

The guest room:

Inside the guest room, looking out:

Kitchen:

30 wks, 3 days

I'm really, really tired. I pulled my back on Thursday and I feel like a big, growing blob. No time to write more tonight, but here are some updated nursery pictures after our productive weekend:

We finished the border (and the long thing is a hanging growth chart)

Dave examining the crib box:

The glider (& a little of the ottoman):

The crib. I really love this crib. I would kind of like to sleep in it myself.

30 weeks along now--3/4 of the way there. I'll try to post more soon.

29 weeks

The nursery is still a work-in-progress. Today we put up one long wall of the border---borders are hard work! It's the type of job that takes a lot of planning and forethought---these are not Dave's strengths. There is no doubt in my mind that had I left him in there alone he would have wet the entire roll, started to put it up . . . realized it was crooked . . . stared out the window a minute to think of how to fix it . . . noticed that the window was dirty . . . left to get the toolkit to take the window down and clean it . . .etc. 2 hours later the room would have no windows, the border would be half hung up (crookedly) pand he would be re-arranging the toolbox alphabetically. (**if you think that I am exaggerating at all, please view the evidence at the end of this post**)

We had to wet a section, then try to smooth it on so that there were no air bubbles, it was in a straight line, and it wasn't pulling or tearing. Then we started again with another section. I think by the time we were done I must have looked like a junkie, complete with flushed skin, sweat & shaking hands. No pictures of me during this loveliness--but here's the section we put up, and one of Dave (who obviously wasn't as high strung about it as I was).

Oh, this is where we found Layla when we came home from getting coffee the other day. I resisted the urge to scream at her long enough to take this picture. This tendency might be interesting after the baby is born---do you think it will send mixed messages if I tell the baby to smile for the camera before yelling at it when it's in trouble?



And here's me and the big belly at 28.5 weeks. It's really getting basketball-esque and moving a lot. It's somewhat entertaining to watch my belly move around---like a big bowl of jello.

Baby Update

This week the baby weighs about 2.5 pounds and is a tad over 15 inches long from head to heel. I have my next midwife appointment on Wednesday, and we were able to re-arrange the schedule at school a little bit so that Dave can come to this one too. He hasn't been to an appointment in a long time, so it will be really nice to have him join in. The appointment mostly consists of weighing and measuring me, so I feel a bit like a farm animal.

***This is what happens when Dave is in charge***

We are in the process of making 5 pans of brownies for the kids tomorrow (6th grade is taking a state math test). I'm in the living room writing this blog entry and he's in the kitchen, allegedly cutting up the first 3 trays of brownies so that we can use the pans again. I walk towards the kitchen, he is laughing so hard that he's in tears, and this is what I see:

I have no idea how he did this. He tried to lie about it but he keeps giggling. We may never know the truth.

Yesterday was the best day ever

For real. It was a really good day. Here are some great things that happened:

1. My dad came over to paint the nursery. It had been all blue . . . but over the course of the day it went to half white/half blue and then settled on white and khaki with a blue stripe. The blue stripe is marking where the border is going to be hung.

The old room (before we moved in-those aren't our toys):

During painting:

The new and improved nursery:

2. We went to Babies 'R Us to order furniture for the nursery. We bought the crib and converter kits (for when we want it to be a bed one day). Then Dave's mom very generously bought us a glider & ottoman, and the crib mattress too! Both sets of grandparents made major contributions today :) (Furniture should be coming in 3 weeks or so)

3. My old car got towed away---this one was bittersweet. We donated it to charity. Dave cleaned it out in the morning and took pictures of saying goodbye. I wanted to take a picture of the tow truck taking it away but I got all teary and felt like a big baby so I had to leave.

Dave was not sad to say goodbye:

I was:

But the new car is nice (I have to get a better picture of it):

4. After all of this goodness, THEN a box of nursery accessories that I ordered arrived! Putting up the border is going to be a big project, but putting up the light switch plate was easy--look how cute it is:

5. Another mini-victory happened too: we lost the automatic car starter, which we has just had installed in our new car. Without the little key chain thing, the starter doesn't work. If you lose it, you have to get an entirely new started installed, so we were bummed. But miraculously at the end of the day, after searching the car, the street, the office we had been to, etc. it appeared!

Baby Update

We're now 27 weeks along, and the baby is about 14.5 inches long and slightly over 2 lbs! I'm starting to feel big and pregnant. My back hurts, one of my feet hurt (who knows why), and . . . drumroll please . . . I'm starting to waddle. Yes, waddle. It's charming.

Our life in pictures

So the camera cord has been found, and here are some pictures of life recently:

Moving was a lot of work.

All of the dust made me miserably congested and sick, so Dave ran out to the drugstore (scoring major points) to get me a steam machine (since I was trying to avoid medicine). He then negated all of the points he had scored by taking this picture.

Here are some pictures of the master bedroom suite in the apartment. Pics of the rest of the apartment will come soon.

The office (Dave built it himself-no joke):

The sitting area:

The "inner" bedroom- separated from the office & sitting area by double doors (please ignore the fact that the bed's not made and the bedskirt isn't on yet):

The master closet

The master bathroom (look, we have one of those showers with all of the nozzles, like a car wash!)

And here I am, after getting home from work today. I definitely look pregnant now. I'll have to get another picture of my width, but I wasn't sure if it would fit in the frame.

And here's the little baby at 20 weeks along. It has a huge head---I showed this pic to the kids at school and they seemed terrified by its giant head. The little thing next to the head is the hand-we think it was sucking its thumb.