Yep.  It happened.  Cue happy/wistful/omg-stop-growing-and-please-stay-little-forever-but-omg-look-at-all-the-amazing-things-you’re-learning-I’m-so-proud-of-you tears.

He’s not a little baby any more.  He can almost walk, he can say Mama (or, rather, MomMom, which is so ridiculously cute and makes my heart happy every single time those two syllables escape his lovely little lips), he can play independently and clap and wave and do all sorts of things that seemed so impossible a year ago when he was this small squishy helpless little being who merely slept and ate and pooped (and filled my heart with so much love.)

Sweetie and I celebrated his first birthday surrounded by close friends and family.  There was cake and singing and so many amazing gifts and lots of happiness.  Patrick was admittedly a bit overwhelmed by all the people (I may have a budding introvert on my hands… he might be just a tad like his mommy and daddy like that), but he had lots of smiles for people too (from his secure perch in my arms) and loved his birthday cake (and scattered it around for the kitties to sample too.)

It was such an absolutely lovely special wonderful day.

And where did I go to find touches to make his birthday extra special (and especially cute?)  Etsy.  Of course.

Patrick’s bowtie onesie came from an awesome vendor out of BC called Handsome Baby.  And he did indeed look handsome!

I have big plans for follow-up bowtie onesies.  I foresee a Handsome Baby Christmas bowtie onesie in his future.  And maybe an Easter one too.  And a second birthday onesie for sure.  And, honestly, he might need something with a green bowtie for St.Patrick’s Day (because of course he does.)

Yep.  Me and Melissa over at Handsome Baby are going to become really good friends, I think.  :)

And then there was Patrick’s first birthday board…

I agonized over birthday boards (there are, admittedly, a gazillion of them available on Etsy.)  I fell in love with this one (put together by amazing Etsier MsFit Designs) because of the colours (which I then turned – loosely – into the colour theme for Patrick’s party – red, yellow, and pale blue.)  (Or, I suppose, for those of you who support Captain Obvious, primary colours.)

And, with a few quickly fluffed tissue paper puffs here and there, that was about it for my party planning.  This was not a Pinterest-worthy party, I’m afraid.  I had big decorating plans that I’d planned to execute in the days leading up to Patrick’s party.  Patrick, on the other hand, had big playing with mommy plans.  The latter won out (and I wouldn’t change that for a thousand carefully made colour coordinated Pinterest-inspired birthday bunting flags.)

Nope.  It was a simple party with just a few simple decorations and a whole lot of celebrating Patrick’s first year.  And it was perfect for my little guy.

Although next year there might be bunting.

Because I do love me some bunting.  :)

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.  :)

…and I haven’t had much time for blogging since.  My days are now spent nursing, diaper changing, and cuddling a certain little boy.  Which all doesn’t sound particularly eventful, but the days and weeks are suddenly flying by indescribably fast.

Yep.  Life is suddenly very different.  And very wonderful.

Little Patrick is perfect and squirmy and squishy and he makes me so happy, even on his grumpiest days.  My world revolves around his needs.  Renos can wait.  Meals have become a lot less complex and a bit more premade.  And I’ve mastered the art of accomplishing all sorts of daily tasks using only one hand, while carrying or cradling a small human in the other.

So I apologize for my recent absence.  And I apologize if posts are a tad scarce over the next few weeks.  Me and a certain sweet little mister are still adjusting to life with each other.

And life with only one free hand.  :)

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 /2014/05/how-we-announced-some-really-big-news-about-a-teeny-tiny-little-person/ /2014/05/how-we-announced-some-really-big-news-about-a-teeny-tiny-little-person/#comments Mon, 26 May 2014 10:00:54 +0000 /?p=5645 Sweetie and I were pretty secretive when we first found out we were expecting (despite that I wanted to tell absolutely everyone – the mailman, random children, the lady behind the counter at the gas station, stray dogs, etc – about our very happy news.)  It had taken me quite a while to get pregnant (but that’s a whole other blog post for a whole other day) so we were both really cautious about spreading the news to too many people too quickly, before we were out of the scary anything-can-happen first trimester.  (Translation: there was a lot of breath-holding and positive thought-thinking going on around here during those first few months.)

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!)

But my favourite pastime at the moment?  Nursery planning.  I know: swoon!  The colour options.  The decor.  The accessories.  Where the crib will go.  Mobile or bunting or both.  Sigh.  There are so many happy possibilities for the room that will one day contain someone so tiny but so important and so very very loved.  With about 18 weeks (insert panic attack HERE) left to go until my official due date, here’s the nursery inspiration pic (from blogger She Walks in Beauty) that I can’t stop looking at…

So peaceful and lovely.  I absolutely adore this colour scheme.  A-DORE it.  We’re still undecided on whether we’ll find out the sex of little Baby in advance of the big day, but this soft teal-based colour scheme fits perfectly for either a little girl or a little dude (in my humble opinion, at least.)

Once baby makes his or her arrival, we can then add in some gender-specific colours to the mix, if we want.  Maybe a little navy and/or some bright lime-ish green if the bump turns out to be a boy, like this nursery from Spearmintbaby…

…or some coral-ly pink and yellow (like in this gorgeous nursery from CraftinessIsNotOptional) if I’m currently housing a baby girl.

Either way, I can’t wait to get started.  Can’t wait!  And that’s probably where Part Two of this (likely drawn out due to indecisiveness) nursery natterings series will go.  Regardless of everything else that ends up in the nursery (and all the decisions yet to be made), teal is one of my absolute favourite colours.  I’m hoping that Baby (boy or girl) will really like it too.  :)

Well, when we started gearing up to sell, we realized it needed to be cleared out.  A LOT.  Which lead to a massive purge.  Which lead to the room looking like this…

But then I realized (now that all the visual clutter was gone) that the baseboards were in rather awful shape.  Like, really really bad shape.  They looked like this…

So out came the painter’s tape (heaven forbid I should mar a cute little elephant while painting trim!) and the baseboards got freshened up a wee bit…

And then I decided that we’d better make the room look sorta nursery-ish for our listing photos.  So I grabbed my beloved brown rocking chair (which, a long time ago, belonged to my grandparents, and which I hope to one day have reupholstered and use in my for real someday-nursery), some spare drapes, added a throw and a cushion, and poof!  Instant quasi-nursery…

…well, sorta.  It’s not entirely convincing, but it’s not bad.  If I had a spare area rug kicking around, that’d make the room way cozier.  And, of course, if I had a crib that’d be even better.  And the drapes are a tad (ok, a lot) long and they cover up the sweet little elephant more than I’d like, but you can still see him peeking out a wee bit.  For now, it’ll do.

So long as the house listing doesn’t actually show that there’s no crib in the room, we’re good.  It’s all about perspective.  :)

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.  :)