Yup.  I’m one of those people.

So it’s hardly surprising, I suppose, that I just finished up the thank you cards for my baby shower (um, the one I attended BEFORE Patrick was born) (in July) (early July…)  Embarrassing?  Yes.  But, in all honesty, the past few months have absolutely flown by.  FLOWN!  And – poof! – suddenly it was December.  And I suddenly realized that Christmas cards needed to go out.  And it seemed in poor taste (actually, downright tacky) to send Christmas cards out to the same people who first deserved thank yous for their very generous and wonderfully thoughtful baby shower gifts.

Which, given the (embarrassingly long) time that had passed between the shower and the thank yous, makes me really thankful that I took the time (during the early days of my maternity leave, pre-baby) to carefully record what everyone had given me.  Like this…

Yup.  I took pictures of all the gifts I was given, along with the accompanying cards.  Clever?  I thought so!  And, if not clever, practical at least, since five months out I would have never, in a gazillion years, remembered what gifts I was given and by whom (despite being unbelievably thankful for all of the super generous gifts I received.)  (Mommy-brain is a bit of a bitch like that.)

Plus I think it’s pretty neat to have pictures of all the gifts we were given.  Yup.  I’m all about preserving memories with my little guy.  Every single memory.  Every one.  Even the tiniest.  Mommy is a little OCD like that.  (Although I prefer to call it “organized.”)  Patrick is currently trying desperately to crawl, and I’m sure having the ability to run away from my camera makes mobility particularly appealing.  (I have all of his crawling attempts videotaped, of course.)

So there.  That’s my little piece of advice for any soon-to-be mommas out there who are headed to their baby showers shortly.  Take pictures of your gifts.  It’s actually quite a lovely keepsake!  And, if you’re a bit tardy like me, it’ll be a huge help when you go to write your thank you cards.  Several months later.  :)

Then Sweetie lovingly offered to take me out to try a two-person approach to maternity shots (he’s pretty awesome, that Sweetie of mine.)   With our trusty camera in Sweetie’s capable hands, off we went to a local conservation area where we knew we’d find trees and fields and all sort of pretty areas to serve as a lovely backdrop to my ever-growing belly.

What we didn’t anticipate?  Humidity.  If it was a tad humid when we pulled out of our laneway, it was a trillion percent humidity (possibly more) at the conservation area.  Positively tropical, you could say.  Rainforest-like, perhaps.  My hair?  It wasn’t at all impressed and immediately turned into a massive ball of frizz (as my normally-curly-but-oft-forced-into-straight-submission hair is apt to do.)

And, as one might expect from a humidity-laden area, we also encountered mosquitoes.  Lots and lots of them.  Swarms and swarms and clouds of (rather ravenous) mosquitoes.  It was unbearable at times, but we plugged right along until we couldn’t stand it any longer.

Yup.  Sweetie and me?  We’re troopers.

Here are a few of my faves…

(And, yes.  I’m holding a flower in that last one.  A bit cheesy?  Perhaps.  Hence the “Sweetie, I love you, but I’m not so sure about this” look on my face.)

All in all?  I’m happy.  I could have done a professional session and possibly ended up with somewhat better (and maybe more plentiful depending on the mosquito-factor) results, but with money a bit tight at the moment (with me off on maternity leave and a few items left to purchase for Baby), this seemed like the far more sensible solution for bump-documentation.  And it was fun!  In between hair-obsessing and mosquito swatting, Sweetie and I had a lovely evening out in that tropically humid, bug infested (but pretty!) conservation area.

Which, I suppose, with our time as a two-some quickly waning, is nearly as valuable as the photos themselves.  :)

And I’m also very aware that I’m ridiculously ginormous…

Crazy eh?  I’m still not entirely sure how I manage to stay upright.

Last week, with nesting instincts in overdrive, I put a few last minute touches on the nursery.  Curtains were hung, art was placed up on walls, the more-complex-than-anticipated baby monitor got installed, and I fussed over silly little details (would bashful bunny look better here?  Or here?)  And, with Baby overdue as of tomorrow, I’m happy with the rather peaceful teal, gray, white and mustardy yellow space that this nursery has gradually morphed into.

My dad found this metal wall hanging at a street art fair.  I added the ribbon and hung it from the door.  It’s perfect in every way.

We’re using Ikea’s Hemnes dresser as our change table: it’s a good height for both normal-sized me and super tall Sweetie, it has lots of room for the change pad and diaper related stuff, and (most importantly) it’s rather lovely-looking.

(Unfortunately it was also rather difficult and time consuming to assemble.  But that’s a whole other blog post for a whole other day.)

The Celebrate Everything canvas was a HomeSense purchase (on clearance, no less!) made a couple of years ago, long before Baby and nursery planning had ever started.  Again (and again and again): I heart HomeSense.

And this trio of friendly stuffed animals will eventually be relocated to a shelving unit of some sort (I’m still in search of the perfect bookshelf for this room.)  I’m hoping to find something fairly small, but still very functional.  Until then, these three will bravely stand guard over the change table.

Because the nursery is fairly tiny, we didn’t want a crib that felt large and bulky (as so many of them do.)  Enter: Ikea.  Of course.  We fell in love with Gulliver (and hopefully Baby will too!)

My friend Nadia (we’ve been friends since Grade Nine) (which means we’ve been friends for… um… many many years) made Baby this gorgeous yellow and teal baby quilt.

And the small vintage rocking chair, that long ago belonged to my grandparents, was reupholstered by my mom and dad as a gift to Baby.  It’s the perfect size for this little space.  And I love knowing that I’ll be rocking Baby to sleep in a chair that once belonged to people who, while no longer here, were such an important part of my life growing up.

Keeping watch over everything from beside my beloved rocker is the ever adorable bashful bunny (along with his good friends the happy hedgehog and hilarious hare.)

But my absolute favourite part of the nursery?  This sheep mobile from amazing Etsier (and fellow Canadian) TheMemis…

Each little sheep has a different expression on its face.  It’s absolutely perfect, and I can’t say enough good things about Emi at TheMemis. :)

So there you have it.  Our sweet and peaceful (and gender neutral) little nursery.  I’ll likely continue to add to it as time goes on – I have lofty gallery wall plans for the wall opposite the crib, I still need to find that bookshelf for stuffies and books and toys and nicnacs and such, and I’d love to add a little more coral (if Baby is a girl) or greens and navy (if this belly-wiggler is a wee boy) once Baby arrives.  And my friend Shawn (who I’ve been friends with pretty much since forever) has commissioned a baby blanket for me as a gift for Baby from another mutual friend (Sheilagh) who is an amazingly and incredibly talented quilter (you can see some of her work over at her site, Lay it on Me Baby) – I’m so excited about planning the blanket with her once Baby is born!

But for now I absolutely adore this serene little space, just as it is.

Let’s hope that Baby does too.

Whenever he or she decides to make a big appearance.

So, in short (or, rather, long): I feel like I’ve been super busy, despite my currently newborn-pending, work-free status.

Although I did manage to fit in a quick DIY mat session the other day.  For the record, I’m really quite awful at using the tripod + timer approach to self-photography.  This was a rather challenging little project!  For about an hour’s effort, I ended up with one image worth sharing…

…and even then, it’s out of focus.  And my hands are all gross and pregnancy-vein-y.  And I’m not sure if I look serene and contemplative, or sort of annoyed.  Needless to say, Sweetie is taking me out later this week to try again, with an actual person (Sweetie) on the other end of the lens.  Guessing (and hoping!) that we’ll have much better results with a two-person DIY mat session approach.  I’ll keep you posted!

The good (and rather timely) news: I’m nearly finished with the nursery (finally!), so a big (likely long-winded) update/grand reveal will be coming shortly.  In the meantime, if you need me, I’ll probably be marveling at the size of my belly while hanging/organizing/baking/shopping for something.  At 38 weeks, I’m starting to feel really large.  But I also feel amazing.  And with only a couple weeks left before my due date (and, really, knowing that Baby could arrive at any point now) I feel so lucky to be a mommy-to-be.  Can’t wait to make that transition into simply being “mommy”.

How I’m feeling: I feel awesome.  Seriously.  (Fellow pregnant ladies, please don’t hate me.)  Yes, my feet swell, and yes, Sweetie sometimes needs to help me up off the couch if I’ve been sitting too long, and, indeed, rolling over in bed is way more difficult than I ever thought it’d be, but I feel, for the most part, great.  I have been unbelievably fortunate so far in this pregnancy – no complications (knocking on wood!), no major sickness (beyond the three weeks of mild nausea I had right before Christmas), no complaints.  And, with only a few weeks left to go, I still seem to have quite a bit of energy.  I know lots of people who have been really sick for nine full months, have had serious health scares mid-pregnancy, or have been uncomfortable or in pain or dizzy throughout much of their pregnancy.  I feel so lucky to have had it so easy for the past eight-ish months.

How the nursery is progressing: It’s coming!  The walls are now painted a lovely Woodlawn Blue (thanks mom and dad!) and the crib is assembled (thanks Sweetie!) and the important components are all there.  Is it done?  Ummmm no.  The crib still needs a mattress (which, I gather, is likely pretty important!) and the dresser/change table still needs assembling (if you’ve ever assembled an Ikea Hemnes dresser you’ll realize is no small or quick feat!) and there are cloth diapers to be prewashed and omg-the-cutest-ever little lamb mobile to be hung and a rug that needs to be purchased, and much much more.  However, even with just the walls painted and the crib assembled, it feels like a nursery.  And a very perfect one, at that.  And I love it and can’t believe that a tiny little human will be snoozing there (peacefully, I hope!) very very soon.  :)

How Sweetie and I are doing: We’re excited!  And terrified.  And a little overwhelmed that this crazy huge life-changing event is approaching so quickly.  And feeling so blessed that our family and friends have been so supportive and helpful over the past several months.  And hopeful that our fur family will adjust well to the new little person in our household.  And aware that my beloved house renos will likely take back burner to this tiny human, and that we may continue to have squishy kitchen floors and tiled countertops and a bright red rec room and lackluster (and rather weed-infested) landscaping for quite a while going forward.  But… mostly, we’re just excited!

So that’s the 411 on my beloved bun in the oven.  Five more weeks.  FIVE.  And that’s assuming that Baby stays put until our August 4th due date (dear Baby: you’re perfectly welcome to stay right where you are for at least another month!)  More nursery updates to follow shortly!  But, for now, that’s the Bump Report.  Swollen ankles and all.  :)

(PS – photos courtesy of Sweetie.  Thanks Sweetie!)

]]> /2014/06/the-bump-report-35-weeks-and-counting/feed/ 2 /2014/06/my-new-camera-for-taking-pictures-of-the-cats-and-other-stuff-too-i-suppose/ /2014/06/my-new-camera-for-taking-pictures-of-the-cats-and-other-stuff-too-i-suppose/#comments Thu, 19 Jun 2014 13:30:33 +0000 /?p=5720 This is a long overdue post about my cats.  Which is really a post about my new camera.  Someone pretty awesome (Sweetie) remembered me mentioning that I’d really like to own a good camera by the time we have the baby.  And so, on my recent birthday, he surprised me with a snazzy Canon Rebel T3i.  (I really have no idea what the random letters/numbers after the “Rebel” part mean, but thought I’d better include that info too, just in case that stuff is important.)

The verdict?  I love my new camera.  LOVE IT!  I feel very grown up having options to change aperture and focus and f-stops and such (although I don’t really understand what any of those words actually mean), and knowing that if I want to go all rogue I can switch off of auto mode and (gasp!) manually take charge of my settings (although, honestly, automatic mode seems to be working pretty well for me at the moment.)

And (most importantly) my snazzy new camera takes awesome pictures of the cats.

Which, I’m guessing, means that it’ll likely also take rather fantastic pictures of the baby.

Who could ask for anything more than that?  :)

But once we reached our comfort zone (shortly after our 12 week ultrasound showed that baby was perfect and squirmy and had a good strong heartbeat) we decided to finally tell the future grandparents.

Being a rather monumentous and life-changing announcement, this wasn’t something I wanted to simply blurt out over dinner, mid-french fry.  I wanted the announcement to be as special as the news itself.  Unfortunately, I’m not an overly creative person.  And while Pinterest showed me hundreds of amazing and elaborate and creative announcements, none of them felt like us.

Here’s the card I finally designed to spread the news…

(Please don’t giggle too much at my obviously lacking graphic-design skills.  A graphic-design guru I most certainly am not, and the whole thing was put together using – gasp! – Microsoft Word.)

We printed the card on basic cream-coloured card stock that I had left over from some other random DIY project, and then I tied a ribbon around the card (so that the card wouldn’t accidentally flop open and ruin the surprise before the recipient had a chance to finish reading the cover.)

When the time came to hand out the cards, there were happy tears from one set of grandparents, high-fives from another (who apparently had speculated, a couple weeks prior at Christmas, that something baby-related might be up), and stunned silence from the third set of future grandparents we told (which quickly erupted into squeals of joy.)  All in all, the announcement (and this announcement method) was a huge success.  :)

And now, several months later, all of the grandparents are eagerly anticipating the arrival of this new little one.  Who is currently way bigger than a lime.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve got a happy little eggplant or butternut squash or watermelon rolling around in there now.  (A really, really, cute one!)

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned that the nursery will be a light teal-ish colour (which I see as very gender neutral – once baby is born we can add a bit of coral and yellow if we have a little lady, or navy and green if the bump is currently housing a little gent.)  Here is our (ok, well, my – Sweetie has sorta given me free-reign on this whole nursery decorating project) inspiration pic (from The Farmer’s Nest)…

Happy sigh.  Prettiest nursery ever.

And here’s what we I have planned to date…

Rocker

Remember the rocker from our staged quasi-nursery at the last house?

This chair once belonged to my grandparents, and my mom (hi mom!) has sweetly offered to have it reupholstered for our nursery here.  The room that’ll be our nursery is quite a tiny little space, and this rocker is small but super comfy.  And I love that it once belonged to my grandparents who, while no longer here, were such an important part of my life growing up.  Having this rocker in the nursery is a little like having them be part of Baby’s life, and I absolutely love that.  :)

Mobile

Have I ever mentioned that I love sheep?  I love sheep.  Weird?  Likely.  But there’s something so awesome and peaceful about those grass-munching field-frollicking balls of white fluff that makes me insanely happy.  So when I stumbled upon this mobile (courtesy of Etsy-seller GiftsDefine) I was sold.

Oh, lamby sweetness.  I love everything about it.  I haven’t yet hit the purchase button, but I plan to very very soon.

Bunting

Yep!  I may fall into the whole mobile-PLUS-bunting (how decadent for baby, eh?) category, mostly because (surprise surprise!) I can’t decide between the two.  The mobile will likely float above the crib, and the bunting will likely hang above the change area.

This one is my current fave for a little girl…

And I love this option should we have a little man…

…both from the awesome Etsiers at The Spotted Barn.

Pretty little things

Have you ever noticed that Chapters has the absolute best stuffed animals?  They really do.  I’ve adored the super soft, squishy stuffed creatures from Chapters since way before Sweetie and I had baby-thoughts.

My favourites are the ridiculously adorable bashful lamb…

And the ever so sweet bashful bunny…

So much cuteness.  So much.  Like, an immense amount.  (I’m seriously swooning over here.)  Here’s hoping that Baby loves them as much as his mom does.

And then there’s all the other (far more important) stuff

And then there are the bigger, scarier, expensive-er, non-decorative purchases: the crib, the dresser (that’ll double as a change table), a bookshelf of some sort for stuffies and books and such…  THESE are the items that I need to make decisions about soon.  Very soon, in fact.  I have a couple of friends who’ve had their babies far earlier than their due dates over the last few weeks, and I’m starting to get a wee bit nervous.

Let the nursery decorating frenzy officially begin!  :)

And then Sweetie and I received a little news.  Good news.  Fantastic and exciting news.  Unbelievably joyous and wonderful and life-changing news, in fact.  We were going to be parents, with Baby expected in early August 2014.  The future grandparents were thrilled, friends were ecstatic, and Sweetie and I were elated at the thought of becoming a family of three (five, if you count the cats) (which, of course, we do.)

However, what has this news all meant to the fate of our poor little house?

Renovations have hardly begun.  Like, nada.  Nothing.  Zilch.  The kind of non-eventfulness that cues lowly crickets chirping in the background and spiderwebs forming around paint cans.

Why?  I’m one of those crazy pregnant ladies who is afraid to paint.  Yup.  I used to make fun of those people.  “Of course they can paint – that’s what low/no-VOC paints are for!” I’d exclaim rather pompously.  Silly lazy pregnant ladies – they can paint, they’re just being stubborn, I’d think.  But now that it’s my turn, my turn, and it’s the health of my baby (who I adore so much already) that could be affected, I’m totally wimping out.  I have been paintbrush-free since October, and I could very well remain paintbrush free until at least August, and likely much longer (because, honestly, I’m not fooling myself into believing I’ll be particularly productive during the first weeks of mommy-dom.  I’ll have other, far greater (and far cuter) priorities to tend to.)

It’s been quite the struggle, I have to admit.  I’ve painted throughout every single winter for the past nine years (nine years!), since we purchased our very first (wallpaper-filled and salmon-coloured-trim adorned) house way back in 2004.  Painting is what I do – it’s my hobby on weekends.  Some people relax by cooking.  Others unwind by reading or doing crossword puzzles or scrapbooking.  Me?  I paint.  And it makes me feel amazingly accomplished and proud to see progress unfolding with each paint-roller roll across my walls.

I’ve toyed with the idea of bringing someone in to paint our main floor, just to feel like some paint-related progress has been made, even if not by me, even if just to have the living room and dining room painted – the green is so dark and so strong and just so not us.  Our house doesn’t really feel like our home yet, because it doesn’t look like us.  At all.  There’s the (awful) mossy-green walls in the living room and dining room.  There’s the gold-coloured kitchen and stairwell (oh how I despise the gold!)  There’s the rather offensive red family room at the back of the house.  (Yes, red.  Bright red.  So bright that that room makes me feel a little uncomfortable.)  Our furniture and cats and clothes and interactions are all contained by the old mauve-coloured siding and under our big gray roof, but the house doesn’t at all feel like our home.  Yet.

But, it’s worth it.  It’s completely worth it.  It’s only nine months (and, really, only five-ish at this point).  I’ve given up wine (oh, wine, how I miss you!) and deli meat (despite crazy intense Subway cravings) and coffee (well, most of it at least) and anything that could potentially bring harm to my little growing baby…  I can handle a few months sans paint.  It’s our child.  And nothing is more important than that.  Not even ugly moss-green walls and an awful gold-coloured kitchen.

So, until paint returns to our house once again, we’ll be making little changes here and there.  The cosmetic non-stinky-chemical sort of changes.  Lights are being swapped out, a few loo improvements are looming, appropriately long non-sheer curtains will soon be in place, and a nursery is slowly unfolding upstairs.

And, truthfully, I suppose that home is where your family lives.  And our home will soon contain Sweetie, me, Irwin, Erik, and someone little and new and perfect, regardless of whether the walls are green and gold and red.

I can’t wait.  :)

I worked and I toiled for weeks and weeks and I’m happy to say that everything was perfect and I was absolutely ecstatic with the final outcome.  And (also important) Tiff’s shower was a success!  Unfortunately, what did I NOT do?  I did not take ANY pictures of the final product.  At all.  Oops.  I know.  Insert a dramatic and sad muted-trombone “wop-wop” here.  Silly blogger.  Nad and I were so busy day-of making sure that everything looked perfect, and ensuring that guests were eating/drinking/mingling/being merry, that it never once dawned on me to take pictures of any of it.  And, sadly, despite all of the ooohs and aaahs that rewarded our decorating efforts, none of our guests took pictures of the decor either.   Not one.  Which, I suppose, I can’t really fault anyone for.  The shower was for Tiff, afterall, and not at all about the decorations.  (But I still really wish someone – ANYONE – would have captured just a tiny little bit of our lovingly planned-out and assembled decor.)

Suffice it to say: it was LOVELY.  And I was proud.  And Tiff was happy.  So mission accomplished. :)

But despite that I don’t have actual images of the actual decor to show you, I wanted to pass along some of the free baby shower printables that I found while planning.  These were all a huge hit at our baby shower, so I’m hoping that other shower planners might find these handy-dandy as well.  :)

INVITATIONS

We could have purchased those fill-in-the-blank invitations that you can pick up at any party store or Walmart or, well, pretty much anywhere.  That would have been the simple route.  And, well, that would be very unlike me.  I wanted to do a custom baby shower invitation, of course (which also required quite a lot more work, but the end result was very worth it, I think.)  We didn’t have a big baby shower budget to purchase custom printed invitations, but, after a bit of an extensive search via my good friends at Google, I found these adorable customizable (including the colours!) umbrella invitations, courtesy of On to Baby…

Obviously the actual invitations themselves had a LOT more detail (and included important pieces of information like, um, names and dates and addresses and such.)  But c’est cute, non?  We were thrilled.  And an evening spent with my printer and my beloved paper cutter later and – poof – we had invitations ready to go.  :)

DECOR

I made tissue paper pom poms, of course.  Tissue pom poms are my thing.  You could even, perhaps, call me the Pom Queen.  (Ha.  Get it?  Pom Queen?  Prom Queen?)  (Groan…  I know.  K.)  I made LOTS of them.  In blue, bright green, and white.  They were gorgeous, and a lot of time and love went into making each little fluffy ball of loveliness.  We hung them behind the main table in the room, and so many people commented on how lovely and pretty they were and how they made the room look super cheery.  I don’t have any pictures of those.  Of course.  But trust me when I say they were gorgeous.  :)

What I CAN show you, however, is a free BOY subway art printable I used to add a little extra decoration to the main table in the room (printable courtesy of Simple Crafter):

I printed this on card stock and framed it in an expensive HomeSense frame and placed it next to the fun diaper cake we put together (as you may have guessed, I don’t have any pictures of our diaper cake either.)  It was just a little something extra and fun, and not at all necessary, but it was cute.  (And it now sits next to the change table in Tiff’s little blue nursery.)

FAVOURS

Favours are one of those seemingly unnecessary extras, and Nad and I debated quite a bit over whether to do favours for the shower guests.  I am a big fan of the non-trinket favour, so I was pretty adamant that if we did do shower favours, they needed to be either usable or consumable (and not just some random item that would eventually be thrown away.)  Rachael Ray came to the rescue with a free printable and customizable chocolate bar wrapper…

Coincidentally, Walmart had Cadbury Caramilk bars on sale for $0.60 each around this time, so we were able to do favours for our group of about 20 guests for about twelve bucks (well, plus taxes.)  And (most importantly) people loved them.  :)

So there!  Those are a few of the free printables that made our darling Tiff’s shower pretty and special.  If I can’t share the photos, I can at least share the printables!

And, well, to put things into perspective: pictures may be worth a thousand words, but a happy friend with a beautiful baby boy (he’s now about two months old and he’s absolutely gorgeous) is worth way, way more.  :)