Nesting: Day 2

So I really hoped I would wake up today filled with lots of "nesting energy" to straighten up, clean the floors and finish unpacking.  But, of course, my nesting could not be a productive, cleanly nesting... it could only be a nesting that would inevitably cause my floors to become dirtier and my kitchen to become 4 times messier.  (*note: having a dishwasher is amazing.  I didn't realize how much I missed it in Germany, but when you cook four dinners in one day, being able to run the dishwasher twice and have sparkling clean dishes is fantastic.  Especially when you plan to re-invade your kitchen the following day and create an even larger mess.)

So following yesterday's cooking-nesting-fest, I present you with today's baking-nesting-fest!

Now, my ability to remember things during pregnancy has gone down drastically.  Recall the unfortunate "Un-cinnamon rolls"... And the more recent "I think I'll make chicken pot pie for dinner and NOT buy chicken at the grocery store..."  So by the time I decided I wanted to post pictures of my baking extravaganza, it was too late, as the baking was done and the kitchen was a flour covered war-zone.

Fortunately, I chose my baking recipes from some of my favorite baking blogs, and the women who write them are fantastic at documenting the baking process.

So I present my two delectable baked goods for today:

Maple Pecan Pumpkin Bars (which I made without maple...)

courtesy of Gingerbread Bagels

and

Apple Pecan Muffin Cake

courtesy of Lethally Delicious.

I was also going to make a pumpkin quick bread, but the pumpkin bars were kind of a mix between a pumpkin bread and a pumpkin pie so I decided to hold off.  AND, who the heck is going to eat all these treats?  I, of course, devoured a good portion of both recipes "trimming off the ugly edges no one wants" and making sure neither was toxic... however, Bob doesn't like sweets... and unless I go into labor REALLY SOON, the remainder will probably go bad and I'll have to throw it away.  :(

Nesting: Day 1

So I've heard that towards the end of pregnancy most women experience "nesting".  (Read more here)

Well, today was not the day for hoarding newspapers, scrubbing floors or even finishing the last of the unpacking.

It was a day of cooking like a mad woman.

I went to the store, bought 4 lbs. of ground beef and spent the day in casserole making oblivion.

Four frying pans, five spatulas, 3 casserole dishes, 5 other ceramic dishes I dug out of the back of a cabinet, and the rest of my ziplock containers later, my freezer is now stocked with meals for after the baby arrives.  And I have dinner for two more nights this week.

Unfortunately for any other frozen food that wants to reside in my freezer, things will be kind of cramped in there for a while...

Weekend Foliage (or lack thereof) Drive

Since there's a good chance we'll be spending next weekend at the hospital rather than enjoying the mid-70 degree weather coming our way, we decided to take a drive to see the foliage... I've been so excited about fall in the northeast that this was one more thing I couldn't miss.  I'd been tracking the foliage progress on the news with the "foliage map" and even though we were at the "beginning to turn" stage, I figured we'd at least get to see a few nice trees and take a nice Sunday drive.

Unfortunately, the weather didn't really cooperate.  And by didn't really cooperate, I mean it was cold, damp, cloudy and drizzly.  Pretty much a miserable day for doing anything but sitting inside with a blanket and a cup of hot chocolate watching movies.  Yet there were were, driving miles from our house to see some trees in the rain.

On a positive note, I've heard that the best foliage viewing is on a cloudy day is best, especially for taking photos because direct sunlight is too harsh and a cover of clouds produces soft, uniform lighting.  It was definitely cloudy... with a smattering of showers...

Fortunately (or unfortunately) there were about seven trees the whole trip that were in full color so even if the conditions weren't exactly perfect for photographing (and were certainly not perfect for getting out of the car for a bit of hiking or leaf collecting), we didn't miss much.

Sweet artsy-looking mushrooms

Awesome store design... At least we saw something cool on the drive.

Hopefully New Baby loves driving in the car and we can go on a foliage drive when the "foliage map" shows that we're in "peak" foliage season...

I *Think* I'm Finally Ready...

It took a couple more days of hanging shelves, arranging, unpacking, cleaning, organizing and feeling a bit like I was losing my mind, but I *think* I'm finally ready for the baby.  I *think* the house is pretty much done (aside from that box of clothes I don't have any space to unpack, which is okay, because they don't fit right now anyway seeing as how there is a watermelon growing inside my ever-expanding stomach).

The nice things about being ready?  Well, obviously, any time the baby comes (which according to the doctor I saw today could be tonight or in two weeks.  Thanks, super helpful...), I won't have a zillion things on my "To Do List," so maybe I can actually spend some time with her.  I have more time on my hands for awesome things I've been forgetting to do my whole pregnancy--like napping, and also more times for things I haven't done much of and wish I didn't have time for--like worrying.  About EVERYTHING.  But I've saved a few projects to keep me occupied during the next week (or two, or three...) while I wait for the arrival of... *gulp*... a real, live, crying (but hopefully also cute and squirmy) baby.

And probably the most exciting thing about being unpacked and finally at home for blogging is that my camera is set up and I can get all my pictures onto my computer and POST THEM!!!

As promised, here are pictures of the baby's room, complete with crazy jungle mural!

The crib bedding is totally thanks to my awesome mom who sewed everything with a couple sets of Target sheets.   It's really hard to find awesome material that coordinates with a brightly colored, jungle-themed room!

Note: sweet books in German and adorable kitten

Target has these super cute mini box shelves (above changing table and between closet doors).  I highly recommend buying at least 3 for your house. 

The rest of our house turned out pretty well too.  Maybe I'll turn photographer this weekend and walk around taking awesome pictures of it since the next week will probably be the only time until we move out that it will be clean and organized.  It's on my "To Do List."

And as a final photo, here is me (in the baby's room--it's so cute I just want to live in there myself) almost ready to pop!

Home Sweet Home

We are finally *almost* settled in our new house.  The first week was super stressful with only half a day in the house before our giant international shipment with all our things arrived.  Unpacking is still a work in progress, though most of the boxes are finally gone.  We had some small projects to do around the house, even though it was basically move-in-ready (a necessity since a baby could have arrived right as we were moving in...).  But now that most of our projects are done and almost everything has a place (with the exception of the piles of things in our garage... but we'll worry about that later), it's finally starting to feel like home!

The most exciting change we're making to the house is the nursery (which sounds like a silly word, so from now on, "baby's room" will be used...).

What seems like a million years ago, I posted about the artwork I was creating for the baby's room.  While I sat around in our temporary housing, I painted, and painted, and painted- a total of 15 jungle animal canvases to hang as a mural on the wall.

We painted the room in orange and pink and green stripes (for grass) and just have the finishing touches of putting up the chair rail and arranging the furniture, which hopefully should be done tomorrow!

SO, until then, no pictures (wouldn't want to ruin the surprise!!)...


And in other exciting news, we finally have reliable, full-time internet (and cable- I love you, HGTV and DIYNetwork) so I will be posting much more frequently.  At least for the next 10 days or until the baby decides to arrive... not sure how that's going to go, but there are lots of other blogging moms out there who do it, so hopefully I can step up to the plate and make this blog what I intended when I started it a couple months ago.

Happy Labor Day Weekend

Or for us, our last weekend of time to hang out together with no house to work on or baby to take care of...

Not that we're not thrilled with all the new changes coming up, it's just going to be different.


So I'm hijacking Bob's computer to post a post with pictures!!  All our stuff is scheduled to arrive a week from Monday, so hopefully after that, I can post more often.  Well, for a few weeks anyway...

Let me fill you in on life since returning to America with the following:

Finding a House:
-I looked at a bunch of condos/townhouses while here on my own
-I found one I liked and put an offer on it
-The offer was accepted... we almost have a house!!
-(Bob liked it when he got here)

The Kitties:
-Love having carpeting (no sliding on the hardwood into walls)
-Love chasing each other up and down the stairs

-Got a new kitty condo as a present for moving back overseas

-Like exploring and sleeping in the sun

Austin, Texas:
-we used to live there
-we went down for a week as soon as Bob got home to check out our condo
-we thought we were just packing up a few things a touching up some paint
-we ended up spending the entire weekend cleaning, scrubbing, steam cleaning and painting :(

-we saw a really cool owl

The Baby:

-I'm getting ginormous

-Found a good doctor and a good pediatrician

-Bought a ton of stuff for her

-Made my own crib sheets

-Just finished painting the mural for her room

This Weekend:

We have lots of plans to enjoy this weekend since next weekend we'll (hopefully) be in the house and have lots of projects to work on until the baby arrives!

Last night we went to the Saratoga Park to walk around.  It was also the evening of a Journey concert, so we ended up waiting in line just to get into the park and had to park at the golf course, which really didn't put us near the walking/jogging trails, BUT we did get to walk around a bit and hear Journey from afar.

Today we went apple picking.  I haven't been in YEARS!! and I was so excited to move to New York just to go apple picking.  This was the first weekend for apples in New York, so there weren't hay rides yet (one of my requirements for a good apple picking experience), but there were tasty apples, apple cider and hot donuts, so I was a pretty happy camper.

Here is the most recent picture of me... only one month left!!

This weekend is the last weekend of the races at the Saratoga Race Course, so there is live music downtown.  We'll go see a concert and go out to eat at a restaurant that isn't kid-friendly.

Tomorrow we're going to the races, playing mini-golf, relaxing by the pool, and anything else fun we can find to do.

Monday is supposed to be stormy, so we might check out the local YMCA, which looks pretty awesome.  Or we could sit around on the balcony at our apartment and watch thunder storms.  I love thunderstorms.

Hopefully next week will be full of closing on the condo, starting to move in and completing some projects!

Computer, how I miss you...

8 weeks left until we expect the baby to make her appearance, and to be honest, I'm kind of flipping out a little bit.  I was sick all week after taking a trip to Austin, TX to fix up our condo so we can rent it out.

Being the crazy person I am, I thought I would add a little more stress to my life by deciding to sew my own crib sheets and make homemade birth announcements.  AND I still have to finish (and probably start) the mural for the baby's room.  AND we still have to close on the house, do a couple DIY projects when we get in, and move all our stuff in.  ACK!!

I'm missing my computer because I can't post any pictures, it would be really handy to have it since my mural design is on there, I want to work on promoting the children's book, but I need to do some internet research, and of course, I can't post nearly as often.  I CAN get the internet on my iPod touch, which is nice for keeping in touch through e-mail, but doing much more than that on the teeny tiny screen is more than I can handle.  I applaud all you fantastic iPod and iPhone users... I just can't get the hang of it.  Maybe my fingers are too big??

Anyhow, I thought I would post something since I haven't posted in a while.  And hopefully I'll figure out a solution to this lack of computer/internet situation and can post some pictures soon!!