baby BULGE

So, it's a little frightening for me to SEE this picture, but Josh assured me that this is actually what I look like. :-) Eeps. People have been giving me a false image of myself by telling me that I don't look big. I feel big, but I've taken solace in all those nice people out there. Lo & behold, I look HUGE! Anyway, this is 34 weeks on the dot.


Kate tried to get in on the act after I left the room & posed for daddy. Apparently, this is her showing off HER belly.

nesting instinct

A few promised photos:

The little gems from Sherwin Williams. I wouldn't have been able to do it without these little guys. Plus, they are really cute! They will custom mix any color for you in these little quart size cans for $4.99. Now, that's some cheap peace of mind, at least for me. :-) We bought 4 cans total, and ended up using 2 of the colors we "sampled."


Since we were positive we were changing the color of the walls, we painted our sample swatches on huge sections of the wall. Here are 3 of our options, including our previous wall color in the upper right hand quadrant. I did NOT want to paint the room pink, but after many hours looking at Kate's quilt, I had a tiny question about whether the quilt was "asking" for a pink room. So, to rule it out, we got the pink on the walls. The second it went up, I hated it, and it laid to rest any niggling thoughts.


The ultimate color scheme -- Narcissus (a pale green or yellow, if you want to be that way) on the top, and Shy Blossom on the bottom. This is still from the sample can.


And now, here's my nesting instinct gone wild! Jen gave me the necessary push to think that I could do some simple art projects for the girls' walls. This week is Spring Break, and I figured it would be the best time for me to tackle such a crafty project. I can't tell you how much fun I had recreating my own versions of these pretty expensive prints. It helped to have some idea of what to shoot for, and what would look good in a grouping. The craft store didn't sell canvases in the exact sizes I wanted (for the price I wanted), so I did a bit of crafty work with some fishing line & ribbon to get the pieces ready for hanging. These will go in Kate's room.


Since I was on a role, I jumped right into my next project, these two Birdie paintings for the nursery. They match the valance & crib skirt & I am SOOOOO pleased with out come, even if I was up until 2 in the morning working on them!

a moment of decision

So, I finally made a choice for paint, after MUCH agonizing, and literally 2 hours of staring at paint chips, new quilt, the walls, the sample paint on the walls. . aarg! Hopefully, it will come together as I imagine it! Josh is putting second coats on as we speak. We ended up with two shades of green: Shy Blossom on the bottom, Narcissus on the top. Strangely enough, the colors are from two different paint collections (Glidden & Sherwin Williams), but I'm pretty sure they still go together. :-) I'll try to get up some pics soon. Kate has been so excited to watch Josh paint. She told me, "It looks like a house!" (I don't know what it means, but it sounded cute!)

little baby girl

I realize I have been woefully silent on the topic of my pregnancy (or perhaps not so woefully). But, here's a quick update. I'm doing well. I've been gaining at a pretty decent & regular pace of 2 lbs per 2 weeks for the last month or so. I'm measuring within normal range (different than with Kate, where I was already falling behind). AND, as far as I'm concerned, the best news is that today, Dr. Pohl did an ultra sound just to get an idea of where this little girl is hanging out & she is head down! Tears came to my eyes when he uttered those words. I know I'm only 32 weeks along, but I was starting to go down that worry-path of What If? What if this baby follows big sister's footsteps? How am I going to feel about facing another c-section? Am I ready for my v-bac? You get the picture. And, of course, I may still confront these issues since head down at 32 weeks doesn't mean that she'll necessarily be there in 2 or 3 more weeks, BUT, it was certainly a great indication to me of a big difference between her & big sis. I don't think Kate ever was head down. . not once. Well, except when she was so little she was floating in her pool any which way.

Other differences: This baby is a mover & a shaker. I don't remember feeling (or seeing) Kate move with such effect on my body. I feel her feet most particularly, and early morning (right when I wake up) tends to be a very mobile time for her. The last few weeks I've spent this time "touching" her, trying to figure out where her head, buns, & back where. I've also spent lots of time praying that this baby would find her way to a good spot! After some comment months ago by a doula about how sitting with legs crossed can set up your baby for a poor alignment at birth (not just breech, but posterior, etc.), I've become sensitive to this "pose." Let me tell you, I cross my legs A LOT! And, it's more comfortable than other positions. So, last night, when she started the big move, I was on pins & needles. I could feel her moving into places she doesn't normally hang out, but I still wasn't sure that she was going in the right direction. For all I knew, she had been head down & was spinning out of that place! Last night, she had wedged herself side to side and I could feel her heels on my left side & little, light finger movements on my right. This morning, when I woke up, I knew everything was different. She had lined herself up more in the center, so I probably gained a few cm just from her realignment (they measure the center of your belly).

I couldn't wait to get to the docs to see what he thought. I had no idea he was planning to do an u-s, but I can't tell you HOW thankful I was.

two months (ish) to go

One side of my mind knows that "two months" is a LOOONG time, but the other side of my brain has a list of all of these things that need to be accomplished in two months time, and that list makes the time seem QUITE short. Especially when counting weekends! I've made some moves toward getting Kate's big girl room ready, and so the great rubix cube resorting of furniture in the Bailey home is about to begin. Two weekends ago, we celebrated Jen's birthday by going on a girl's shopping trip! It was so fun to shop and not have to worry about diapers, potties, child containment, manuevering strollers, or even particular meal times. I made a fantastic find at Pottery Barn Kids on Kate's bedding. Her new quilt & old one actually look REALLY similar. This week we picked up a bed from a church family who are moving away . . for FREE! Now that's a steal! The bed will be a great transitional bed for Kate because it's still quite low to the ground, like a bunk bed, but holds a twin size mattress. I went bed shopping with Kate & we picked out her new mattress, too. She's so excited to have her bed "like Lyyyydia!" Of course, it's still downstairs in the storage room, but she still likes to go see it. Next step: paint selection & execution. I do NOT enjoy picking paint colors. I am too visual of a person & would prefer to see the whole room painted before I made my choice. Thankfully, I've only made one really BAD paint choice in my short career -- but it was enough to scare me silly! (For those who have followed the blog for awhile -- the "pool" room). The other sad thing is that I actually love the current color of the room, but it's just not the right shade of green. Josh is picking up some paint samples from Benjamin Moore today, and hopefully we can make our selection & get the paint actually made at our neighborhood Home Depot for painting this weekend. My goal is to get Kate moved into her new room early April. Our current plan is to move the desk currently in the office to our guest room & make that a multi-purpose room. We still have an extra room downstairs that needs some finishing work to make it a usable room, but we're still in wait & see mode about what exactly we should do with it. It would make a great playroom, but I've heard mixed results from people about how utilized playrooms really are. The only thing I've bought new for baby Bailey is a glider for the nursery & two SwaddleMe's. I'm so excited about how much "cheaper" baby #2 can be, especially with the help of a great s-i-l who has had 2 summer babies.

New Aquisition for Baby Bailey -- A chair! This is sooo overdue. We never had a chair in Kate's room & I definitely needed one when we breastfed. Even now, it's great to have a place to sit & cuddle & read before bed (or whenever). My star of a hubbie picked it up at a local kid's resale shop. Woohoo! Laid over the back of the chair is the crib sized quilt. She doesn't use it sleep under very often, but I have put it in her crib as a cozy layer to sleep on top of.

To go into Kate's big girl room -- her table!

New bedding. I think I got the quilt for a few dollars cheaper than the sheet set. (both under $40) The flowers are on the pillow sham. The pink is the reverse side of the quilt. If you look back at the crib quilt, you'll see what I mean about being quite similar. :-)

Kate's headboard (and footboard right next to it).

A picture that captures the chaos which is our office usually. This is Kate's future bedroom & I thought I'd capture a before. We'll probably keep the bookshelf/storage on the left, and move both the desk & bookshelf. I've been assaulting craigslist every day to find a dresser for her.

An update on Kate at 2 years 2 months. She made a small step into potty training, but got a horrible stomach flu right after that and sort of retrogressed after that. Because of my pretty regular visits to the doctor & two very recent ones to her pediatrician, she has a pretty great attitude about making visits to the doctor, and even likes to play "doctor" at home. Right now, she has gotten ready to go to Dr. Pohl's office. This includes getting socks and shoes on, and a purse. Earlier, she had to have her stethoscope, thermometer, doctor's pager, and her baby in order to go to the doctor's. We "examined" the baby by taking her temp & then looking at her buns (this from her doc's visit today -- I thought she might have a UTI). She also used her stethoscope to listen to the baby in the baby's tummy. Talk about a bit confused! She listens & says "fump, fump."

She is also REALLY into clothes right now. She is very particular about what she wants to wear. Not two shirts, not a sweatshirt, not jeans, but cozy pants, the green shirt, not the pink shirt, etc. Not the khaki crocs, the pink crocs. Favorite shoes right now are her Keen sandals. Convincing her that the weather is such that she NEEDS to wear two shirts or needs to wear shoes without holes or that green shirt & orange pants don't match is like wrestling a hippopotamus. The good thing about this new phase is that she's also become interested in dressing herself. At this point, she is learning to put on some more complicated shoes & is getting comfortable getting her pants on & off. The hardest part is pulling those pants over the buns when your arms are a little bit too short!

Picture taken at Auntie Jen's birthday dinner at our house. She had been sampling the "creams." Look at her looooooooong hair, another thing she has some real fixations about. She doesn't want a pony tail or clips or bows. She tells me, "I'll just do like this, mom," as she sweeps her bangs back with her hand. Oh really! I feel like I'm dealing with a teenager. I remember having the exact same conversation with my dad about my horrible trying to be trendy bangs that always fell over my eyes. I hear myself echoing dad's words: But I want to see your beautiful eyes.

patterns in nature

*p.s. Kate & Lydia both call the sweet gum balls, gum drops. I wish they were that sweet in reality!