It could be a big one!!!

So we have less than a month to go and I had my 36 week appointment yesterday. All is still good in the blood pressure, weight, and position of baby departments. But I am now measuring ahead and enough ahead that my Doctor wants me to have an ultrasound next week to confirm how much is baby and how much is fluid/placenta. If it is as much baby as I'm measuring that would mean they would estimate at least an 8-9 lb baby at birth. I think I can mentally handle a baby in the 8lb range but anything over 9lbs makes me cringe. Guess she might need to wear those newborn clothes very quickly, good thing most of her stuff is 0-3 months and not a ton of newborn clothes:) When I told Adam he first laughed (not nice!!) and then reassured me that it could just be a lot of amniotic fluid and she might not be huge, thanks Honey!

The nice thing about it all is I get to see my little girl next week and I wasn't expecting see her again until she was in my arms, so that part if fun!

On the preparation front I think we have everything at this point that we were wanting to get prior to her arrival. We picked up the carseat last weekend and I think we are going to install it tonight so I can take and get it inspected soon. I put the bouncer together and Adam's co-worker who had twins let us borrow their swing. So we have a bassinet ready to go, a crib ready to go, a bouncer ready to go, and a swing ready to go, hopefully one of the 4 she will want to sleep in, at least that is what we are hoping. This weekend we need to make a Goodwill run to get some "crap" out of the house, do some last minute organizing of the nursery, and I should probably get her diaper bag ready and my bag semi-packed. Anything beyond that will just be bonus that we can accomplish.

And for your viewing pleasure, I'm doing a comparison shot this week:

15 Weeks , 20 Weeks, 27 Weeks

32 Weeks , 36 Weeks

1 Month to go and the Nursery is Nearly Done

Were on the home stretch both with the pregnancy and with completing the nursery, good thing, huh :) So I'll just label pictures and let them speak for themselves.


These need a little straightening up but these shelving units/cabinets were in our kitchen originally. We kept them and then refinished them and painted them white to match the nursery. I think they came out pretty cute and they were really cheap stable hardwood bookshelves.

Here is the nursery as you are looking in from the doorway.

Here is the far wall and we are pretty much done filling the dresser for now, thank goodness we got a decent sized one!

Here is our beloved recliner/glider and the adorable owl pillow my friend Kim gave me at my shower last weekend.

The crib wall with a little decal saying above the crib "Dream on, Dream on, Dream until your Dream comes true."

This is the owl mobile that was my DIY project for the nursery. The little owls are made from socks. I then used an embroidery hoop and wrapped it in ribbon, and used the pink ribbon to attach the owls and attach the mobile to a ceiling hook (basically like a plant hook).

Our last free weekend EVER.....and 32 week belly

This last weekend I had a wonderful time going to Brown County with seven of my girlfriends and renting a cabin. We ate (a lot), fellowshiped, of course talked to the wee hours of the morning, went to downtown Nashville and ate at the Artist Colony, played games, and just enjoyed each others company. Below is a picture of our little group on the deck of our cabin. (Someone please remind me in the future that when pregnant do not be the only one to wear white and be standing sideways in a picture, seriously could I look any larger!!)


And as requested by my brother-in-law (since they are now in Boston), here are a couple of 32 week belly shots.

I keep telling Adam that I don't understand how I'm going to continue to get bigger over the next 8 weeks, there is not room. He just smiles and says, "I don't know but your are going to get bigger," thanks honey! She is definetly a squirmy one lately, I feel like most of the time I'm sitting still my stomach looks like an earthquake is occuring.

Shower #1 and the Nursery

Now its been nearly two weeks, but I had my first shower with mostly my family and several of the family friends we have known over the years. It was great seeing everyone and having our little girl blessed with a lot of people excited to meet her and clothe her :)

You know how everyone knows the "hometown" cake maker in small towns, well one of my aunts knew one, and that cake was delicious.

I'm sure her Daddy was happy that this onesie first of all wasn't pink and that she can wear her gear to cheer on the Boiler basketball team this year. I'm sure there will be bonding time with Daddy, watching games, Mommy will just have to make sure Daddy doesn't get too excited with special cargo in his arms :) I'm not even mentioning football b/c that might require we make it to a Bowl game and... um... yeah that isn't happening.

She did get plenty of "girlie" things including a bunch of adorable dresses one of my aunts found.

And this was all the shower goodies spread out on the nursery floor to try and organize after we got home. As you can tell this kid is really going to be doing without, especially in the clothing department!

And now for the Nursery, taaadaaa it actually looks like one!!! (please ignore the glass cabinet doors on the floor, that is for another project in another part of the house) Adam surprised me this weekend by going and picking up the crib and having it put together by the time I arrived home on Sunday, bonus points for Daddy.

And here is looking from the other side of the room, the crib is a little bare right now but I think everything is going to come together really well. We obviously have bedding to put in, a changer for the top of the chest of drawers, some decorative things for the walls, a couple bookshelves, and curtains to hang. And just in case anyone was wondering that recliner/glider is definitely suitable for naps, I tried it out for a few minutes on Sunday :)

And here is all that stuff that was on the floor in the previous picture actually organized in a closet. We got this organizer from Ikea and it really maximizes the space. We have a few more shelves and stuff to get up but its functional for now. We also need to get the doors painted and hung, I guess the list never ends, does it??

No Pictures....but hey at least I'm updating

Just realized if I didn't update this blog soon, I will have gone a month without an update. So what has been going on around the Phillips home well after our Ikea trip we have done the following:

1. I can't remember exactly when but we finished all but a couple of like 4 x 12 inch spaces of the wood floor in the dining and kitchen, I think Adam has mentally blocked that there is any more of that to do :)

2. We set-up our dining room table and chairs that had only been the boxes probably close to a year, and installed the light fixture above the dining room table.

3. We built the Ikea bookshelf for the office and started putting some stuff on it, but then I figured out I have way more decorative stuff (or crap as Adam would probably refer to it) than I thought so I kind of stopped that process until we are ready to actually hang pictures and do the fine detail decorating.

4. We finished the horizontal stripes in the nursery, we have a few places to touch up but no one else would probably even notice them, so I don't see that at the top of the priority list.

5. We got all of the plastic up off the floor and nursery clear of non-nursery items so that we could start filling it with the stuff Baby P actually could use.

6. One night Adam and our friend Cory cleaned everything up and built our closet organizer system (again from Ikea) and moved our recliner/glider into the nursery.

7. I had my first shower last weekend so once I got home I went through everything and started filling her closet and organizing everything else into piles based on where it should go (i.e. chest of drawers, kitchen, bathroom, car, etc)

8. This week we unpacked the chest of drawers from the boxes and assembled it, other than putting on the knobs it is done and ready to be loaded.

It's so fun, her nursery is really starting to look like a nursery, I know pictures would be nice and I will have to take some and post them soon. We still need to paint and hang the closet doors, finish sanding and then paint the bookcases, pick-up the crib and put it together (hopefully our task for next week), and then eventually I need to get window treatments and hang things on the wall. So really not that much, I feel like we might actually be ready to bring this baby home sometime soon.

As for the rest of the house, it is honestly a bunch of little stuff that once the nursery is done we can hopefully check off the list pretty fast.

This weekend is what Adam is calling our last free weekend EVER! I think that might be a little dramatic, but I'm going with 6 of my good friends to stay in a cabin in Brown County from Friday until Sunday and Adam is doing.....well I'm not sure....but I will assume it will have a lot to do with watching football and weather dependent maybe visiting a state park and doing some outside activities.

Other than that we are just staying busy with Birthing classes and showers, and I'm very thankful that the sciatic nerve issues I was having a week or so ago have disappeared. I think I have a very obedient child or God had mercy on me, b/c after pleading that she please reposition herself somewhere besides the left side of my sciatic nerve she miraculously moved last Friday night and I was overjoyed to be able to walk and move like a normal person by Saturday morning, just in time for my shower. I'll be 32 weeks next week, so not much longer before she is no longer able to cause Mommy any pain, at least not from the inside :)

A once in a long while shopping trip....

That is hopefully what a trip to Ikea will be for us, because if we went and spent what we spent today, very often, we would be living in the cardboard they use to pack your stuff.

So our adventure started with a trip to Cincy to visit the closest Ikea we have and we had planned out what we were getting. I had a list, and with their handy-dandy website, I was even able to note the aisle and bin where the merchandise could be found.

Items on our List:

Hermnes 8 drawer white dresser for the Nursery
Expedit bookshelf and some of the storage containers for the office
Antonius closet storage system for the Nursery closet

Items we ended up taking home that were not on our list:

A glass front kitchen cabinet (Lindingo style with glass)to put above our kitchen cart, we planned to put a cabinet up there but we were going to either DIY or pay someone to replace the solid doors with glass fronts, now we don't have that project anymore!

A really cute and very soft golden retriever stuffed animal for Baby Girl

A little farm set for our niece for Christmas, she is obsessed with Horses and Cows right now and the set had both of those.

Very cool chair pads for all the dining room chairs and the 2 bar stools

2 drawer sets for the Expedit shelf system

A little kids table and chair set, we figured the other little ones in our life can use it now and our little girl will also be able to use in a good year or so.

There was also just a plain mirror to put on the back of my closet door, but in the process of removing stuff from the cart, the clumsy pregnant girl, knocked it out of the cart and it went crashing down to the floor. We were too worn out to go get another one, so I guess I just left with 7 years of bad luck and no mirror.

A nice surprise of the day was that our good friends Kim and Eugene had already planned to travel to the same Ikea today, so we ended up finding each other in the store. We had lunch with them in the quite yummy yet very inexpensive cafeteria area. Eugene also offered to help Adam load the truck with all the stuff, what a blessing that was, I am no help these days, and some of those boxes were pretty heavy. It was funny b/c before running into Parks we actually ran into another couple from our church, I guess it was Indy Common Grounders travel to Ikea day!

As if that wasn't enough damage done to our bank account, Adam thought it would be a fine idea to stop at L. Fish on the way home just to see if they had any glider or rocker recliners we might like. We actually did find one that we agreed was aesthetically pleasing, wasn't huge and would be to scale in the nursery, and most of all it was super comfortable. So that was our final purchase of the day.

At least I can now say that we have virtually everything we need for house and nursery (with the exception of the crib which I'm ordering this weekend). Anyone really good at assembly??? We have more items to assemble then I think we are going to care to assemble :)

I guess next up will be pictures of all these things in their proper place in the house.

Hello 3rd Tri and Nursery Sneak Peek

I have officially entered my 3rd trimester, this little girl is making her arrival in hopefully no more than 3 months :) I have heard the comments "Ok, now I can really tell you are pregnant" or "I can finally tell you are pregnant" a lot the last couple of weeks. I didn't think this bump was hiding anywhere for awhile, but I guess I finally hit the large enough to not confuse weight gain with pregnancy spot?

Here is the honorary belly picture:



We've also made some headway on our little girl's bedroom. Adam got done with the insulation, drywalling, and drywall finishing on Friday and then my parents came up and helped get the nursery to a point to paint. On Sunday we did some paint sampling with the little samples you can get at Lowes (what a lovely little invention) and determined our initial wall paint was too dark so we decided on something a bit lighter and then tried out our idea for the horizontal stripes. Adam then went to town and painted the whole rest of the nursery walls last night. We have some touch ups to do and then need to put the stripes on the wall. After that we will put up all the mouldings (window, door, and baseboard). Then it will be time to actually get the real stuff into the nursery.

A blank slate:



Our little horizontal stripe project:



Nursery nearly completely painted: