Today's (probably not) The Day!

October 7th.

I should be having a baby today.  Am I?  Not yet.  Still hopeful though.  I like the number 7.  And now that everything's done, I'm pretty anxious for her to arrive.  But despite the entire pineapple I ate last night, nothing but some serious acid reflux (pineapple is really acidic!) and some "I ate way too much pineapple" stomach cramps.

We'll see though.  She still has another 13 hours or so.

Maybe if not today, then this weekend...

I DID find another project to keep me busy this morning.

Introducing.... Project : Baby Mobile!!

Using digital images of the jungle animal artwork on the wall, I printed out three sets of my 7 favorite animals.  With a couple of wooden dowels painted pink, some embrodery floss, and a few pieces of foam core, I now have a mobile full of high-contrast images for New Baby to look at.
(Also, for people who walk into the room to look at, as seen in the two photos above.)

The coolest part of the mobile?? This is what it looks like if you are lying in the crib.

Note: I did not actually get into the crib to take this picture.  I probably would have broken it.  I just set the camera on the mattress.

Nesting: Day 3

Yes!  Finally... today was a day full of cleaning and straightening energy!  I finished unpacking the rest of the boxes.  I did loads and loads of laundry.  I picked up all the stray items lying around the house.  I cleaned the bathrooms (and scrubbed the floors).  I cleaned out and vacuumed my car.

And now... I am done.

There is no room in my freezer for more food.  My counters are covered with baked goods.  My house is clean and ready.  I've even done everything I can do for the birth announcements (aside from adding a picture of New Baby)...

What will I do next?

I'm antsy and anxious as tomorrow (her due date) approaches.  What if she's late?  What project can I tackle next?  Should I weed the garden?  Rake the yard?  Make some artwork?  Pace anxiously around the house???

Maybe to help her along and make sure she comes tomorrow, I will eat a whole pineapple.  It contains bromelain, which is thought to possibly bring on labor.


I will keep you posted...

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.