To-Do Lists, Insurance, and Maternity Pictures

I have way too much to do today to update the blog, but I sat on the couch and now I can't get up. I guess that's what I get for staying up entirely too late last night trying to finish reading Bossypants (And I'm still not done. Sigh.) because Avery sure didn't care at 6:45 this morning when she successfully climbed over the baby gate at her door and entered our room proclaiming, "I'm awake!"

So here was my to-do list for today:

• Wash Avery's "new" toys from Mom and Dad's (aka all my old toys that are still in surprisingly good, albeit a little dirty, condition)
• Finish sewing project (completed one of the three of said project last night, so now I just have to make two more)
• Make my Kindle case
• Put up Avery's laundry
• Change bed sheets
• Vacuum comforter (Yeah, this is why I swore I'd never let a dog sleep on my bed. Gross.)
• Make thank you notes
• Write thank you notes
• Update big to-do list (who puts "update to-do list" on a to-do list?!?)
• Print instructions for Avery and Meg for while we're at the hospital
• Start packing hospital bag (you know, just in case; although I'm pretty sure that by packing a bag, I'm ensuring that Landon will not want to come out until well past his due date)
• Go through new Sunday School curriculum
• Empty dishwasher
• Put away the rest of Landon's clean clothes
• Get gift for Avery ("from" Landon)
• Balance checkbook
• Cut fabric for Allison and Emily's pillows I'm making for their apartment

As you can see, I clearly haven't made enough progress today. In my defense, we did spend the majority of the morning at Joann with Allison and Emily. And since we were out at lunchtime, you know we had to eat at Chick-fil-a (I might have a problem).  Anyway, Avery's napping, so I'd better get to work.

By the way, I hate dealing with medical insurance stuff. Matt has his insurance sign-ups today for next year's plan, and since I didn't find out about it until last night, I didn't get all my research done for my own coverage. (It's gotten way too expensive to cover our whole family under his plan; thanks, TRS [and Obama Care].) So last night we had a romantic (ha.) number-crunching date, during which I think we found a tolerable solution for our coverage for this upcoming year.

Oh, and this afternoon Allison is taking maternity pictures for us at a top-secret (and super awesome) location that I can't wait to show you! Admittedly, I haven't been too excited about this photo shoot (since I feel like a whale and all), but I know I'll regret it if we don't do it, and I'm excited to get some updated shots of the family.

And now I'm really going to get my butt off the couch and cross a few more things off the list. Later.

38 Weeks

Okay, seriously, can I get any bigger?!?

Pregnancy Highlights

How Far Along: 38 weeks! Only 2(ish) more to go...

Size of baby: Over 19.5 inches long and around 7 lbs

Total Weight Gain/Loss: Gained 29 lbs.

Maternity Clothes: I'm in mostly maternity clothes because I don't want to stretch out my "real" clothes, but I still wear some regular tops (today's picture is proof)

Gender: We're having a boy! Landon Matthew. :)

Movement: This baby is very active. All the time.

Sleep: Getting comfortable in general is really difficult, so finding a way to fall asleep is no exception. Just a couple more weeks though! I do remember how much better I slept after Avery was born (yes, even interrupted sleep!), so I'm very much looking forward to that. :)

What I miss: Feeling normal. That should encompass the multitude of things I miss.

Cravings: Coke and Rice Krispie Treats (why can't I crave fruits and veggies?!?)

Symptoms: Constant back pain, tons of contractions (that lead absolutely nowhere), and OH THE HORMONES!!! My poor husband.

Best moment this week: It was a pretty good week overall, but now we're just playing the waiting game! I feel like I still have lots to do before Landon gets here, but the major stuff is pretty much done (and he now has a clean car seat!).

Oh, and for the record, I was 2.5 cm dilated and 50% effaced at my 37 week appt. on Tuesday. While I'm pretty sure that's farther than I ever got with Avery pre-induction, it still means virtually nothing. I have my 38 week appt. today, so we'll see.

Friday Five

1. I haven't had too many cravings this pregnancy, but the ones I've had all seem to revolve around cereal. The past couple of months, I've been wanting Rice Krispie Treats pretty much all the time. So what did Matt make for me while I was out with my mom and sister last weekend? A whole pan of them, plus he got extra marshmallows so we could make more. Let's just say that they don't last very long when I know they're in the kitchen.

2. I finally got a Kindle! When they first came out I seriously couldn't see myself switching over from real live books, but I finally caved (plus, since Matt got some extra cash by working at a choir competition and we made a nice little chunk of change via garage sale, Matt finally convinced me to buy something for myself). I'm SO excited to start using it! Any recommendations on good downloads (preferably free ones until they start library loan, lol)?

3. Teacher Appreciation Week at Avery's Mother's Day Out was this last week, and since I'm terrible at coming up with gifts (especially for people I don't really know), I just went on the assumption that everybody loves coffee (right?) and made reusable coffee sleeves to accompany Starbucks gift cards. I used the Cottage Home tutorial, and I love the way they turned out! They were super easy to make (okay, minus sewing the stupid button) and were a great use of some fabric scraps that I had and couldn't bring myself to throw away. I'm pretty sure I'll be making more of these.

4. Matt left yesterday for the annual choir trip (this year to San Antonio), so Avery and I are on our own until Sunday night. Boo. I'm so spoiled; I hate it when he's gone. (I have no idea how military wives do it!) And while I'm trying to mentally prepare myself to go past my due date again, I'm secretly hoping I go into labor this weekend so he has to come home early. There, I said it.

5. We do have pretty fun weekend plans though! Avery and I spent this morning running errands (okay, not so fun but totally necessary!) and then met up with Whitney and Pearson for lunch at Chick-fil-a (shocker!). After Sleeping Beauty wakes up from her nap, we'll head up to my cousin Amy's house for pizza and Canasta (and Avery will get to watch her new Tangled DVD) for the evening. Then tomorrow we're going to Kendra and Carlos' apartment to celebrate Carlos' birthday, and on Sunday one of my best friends, Candie, and her little boy are stopping in town on their way back to Austin, so they'll go to church and lunch with us! And then Matt will rejoin us that evening, woohoo!

Sickies.

This girl has two ear infections.

This boy has had a crazy sore throat for a week.

This girl has had yucky allergy snot for the past month.

And this girl thought that she just had sore ribs from baby kicks, but it turns out it might actually be gallstones.

Awesome.

Button Bouquets!

I've already sung the praises of Craftgawker, but can I just remind you how much I love it? I'd seen this project multiple times before (it's not a new idea), but I was re-inspired by a Mother's Day that was approaching without any gift ideas in my brain.

Enter the button bouquet. There are a kajillion tutorials for all different types of these bouquets online, but I found the ones at WhiMSy Love and Blue Velvet Chair to be the most helpful.

Unfortunately, I don't have an abundant supply of miscellaneous buttons, so I raided my mom's stash (classy, I know. I stole her supplies to make her gift. Judge all you want.) and was able to put together a fun little variety. I wanted a little more than just the buttons, so I also added in some scrapbook embellishment flowers to about half of the button flowers, and I just love the way they turned out!

**Just a note about the flower embellishments: Since they didn't have two holes in them, twisting the wire to secure the flowers just made them slide down, so an easy fix was to add a very small button as the base and the problem was solved.

Here's my mini-tutorial:

{Supplies}

• Green floral wire (I used 24 gauge, and the smallest package/spool was way more than enough)
• Buttons (I made 30 flowers with 3 buttons each, so if you're not good at basic math, that would be 90 buttons)
• Flower embellishments (completely optional; I used plastic, but felt would work also)
• Mason jar for vase (save those spaghetti sauce jars!)
• Ribbon/hardware for vase
• Clear marbles for vase filler (you could use whatever filler you want though; I found the best deal on these marbles in the floral department at Hobby Lobby, 50% off, of course!)

{"Flowers"}

• I started by sorting through buttons and putting different combinations together. The color schemes are endless! (Well, endless depending on your supply. Nevermind.)  I used three buttons for each flower. You could always mix it up, using 2-5 for each, but I'm a little obsessive and couldn't bring myself to not be consistent. I have issues.
• Once I had my buttons ready to go, I cut all of the wire at one time. 13ish inches was a good length, but you might need to adjust based on the height of your vase. You can always trim up the length when you're done with all of the flowers so you have some height variety in your bouquet, so don't get too worried about the length of your wire yet. 
• Then thread the wire through one button hole of each button (send lots of excess through also!), bringing the excess back down through the other hole.
• You should have a couple of inches of wire to twist tightly around the stem.
• And there's your flower! Repeat for as many flowers as you want to make.

{Vase}

• Be creative with your vase! I used mason jars, but I've seen some precious button bouquets made to fit into more unconventional items like salt shakers. I'm also planning on making a bouquet for myself using a glass Coca Cola bottle as a vase. 
• For this particular vase, I just tied a thin ribbon around the jar opening, including a little charm hanging down from the knot. Then I hot-glued my fingers the coordinating wide ribbon to the bottom of the jar. Hey, I was going for simplicity, but you could be as creative or as simple as you want to be.

• When I went to arrange the flowers, I found that it was much easier to adjust the height of the flowers while I held them in a bunch in my hand. Once I had them arranged to my liking, I trimmed off the ends and tied the bunch of stems together with floral wire. Then I set them in the vase and filled it with marbles. Easy breezy. 

22 Months

Avery, you are 22 months (and one week, haha!) old!! 

• You're 35.5 inches tall, and you wear size 2T/3T clothes and size 7 shoes. You are no longer in diapers because you are...
• ...potty trained!! Well, you still wear a Princess Pull-Up to bed for naps and at night because I just don't feel like washing sheets that often, although most days you wake up dry.

• You absolutely love for us to read to you, and Dr. Seuss is by far your favorite. You always ask us to read "Socks in Fox Sir," and you already know a lot of the book! The other night at dinner, Nene asked you what you wanted to talk about, and you promptly answered, "Tweetle beetles" because one of the sections of the book starts off by saying, "Let's have a little talk about tweetle beetles." Daddy and I could not stop laughing (not to mention we were amazed that you made that connection)!

• You're speaking in so many sentences now that I really need to write down the things you say! You're just hilarious, mostly because the things you say are just so unexpected!
• You love to sing! Your favorites are "Jesus Loves Me," the ABCs, "Twinkle Twinkle," "Deep and Wide," and you sing lots of others when we sing with you.

• You count to 10 (although about half the time you forget about 2), and you can identify a few letters and colors. You know tons of animals and their sounds though!
• While you still love Elmo and Sesame Street, you've recently developed a love of princesses. Go figure! I think it started when we let you watch Tangled.

• Speaking of things you love, you are a huge Texas Rangers fan. You've already been to 4 games this season, and you actually sit and watch and cheer during the games. You were even on the big screen at the last game we went to! It's so much fun to take you with us! You'll randomly chant, "Let's go, Rangers!" when you're falling asleep in bed (after you sing "Jesus Loves Me" to yourself!). One morning when we were on our way to Mother's Day Out, you started crying and whining, and when I asked you what was wrong, you just cried, "Listen to Ranger game!" I had to explain that they don't play in the mornings. :) And you got a new Rangers shirt from Aunt Carrie this week! You threw a fit when I made you take it off (after wearing it for a game and then sleeping in it overnight!). 

• You have such a sweet, sensitive heart though. If someone is upset, you always give them a hug, ask "What's wrong?" and tell them not to cry. And while you definitely test the limits with Daddy and me, you have a good grasp on what you should and shouldn't do, and you seem genuinely remorseful when you get in trouble (which isn't that often).
• Bedtime has been a little bit challenging this month. You've figured out that there's nothing keeping you in bed anymore, so naturally you get out as soon as we tuck you in. After trying numerous techniques to keep you in there, the one that seems to work is putting up a baby gate at your door. You get out of bed when we leave, come to the door and talk for a little bit, sometimes whimper for a minute, and then get right back in bed and fall asleep.

• You are such a morning person (you do not get that from me!). Whenever you wake up, you start yelling, "Daddy, Mommy, I'm awake! I'm awake!" You're just a happy little camper when you get up!

You are just our precious girl, and we're so blessed and thankful that God gave us YOU! We love you!

Mommy and Daddy

Weekend Update: Mother's Day Edition

We had such a great weekend; I'm just sad that it's over already!

{FRIDAY}

Matt's mom and sister were originally going to come in town on Friday night, but since they weren't going to be able to leave until late, they decided to leave on Saturday morning instead. We were bummed that they wouldn't be here on Friday, but then we got a call from a sweet lady from our church who offered their extra Rangers tickets to us for Friday night! In a suite! For free! With fireworks after the game! Yes, please. :) We even made it up on the big screen for the first time in my whole life. Needless to say, it was a nice, unexpected way to spend the evening.

Discovering the joys of Oreo cookies

"Charge!" Every time they would have the little "charge" melody, she would get really excited and dance around squealing, "I say that! I say that!"

{SATURDAY}

Matt had a party for his choir kids on Saturday morning/afternoon, so while he left to set up, Avery and I went to "help" fix up the church playground (we weren't much help, believe it or not, haha! and they were pretty much done by the time we got there) and then stopped by to "help" with my parents' and their neighbors' garage sale that they let us crash. (We even made a nice chunk of change from putting our stuff in the sale!) I left Avery with my mom while my dad and I ran a few errands, and we made it back just in time for Avery and me to meet up with Arlene (NeNe) and Carrie at the house and leave to meet Matt at the park (I had all the food for the party!).

After the party, Avery got a little nap, and then we went out to Genghis Grill for dinner (yum!). We finished off the evening by watching Morning Glory and eating ice cream before bed.

{SUNDAY}

I started off the morning by dealing with a major toddler tantrum (happy Mother's Day to me!), and then Matt and I went to church early while Avery stayed and played with NeNe and Carrie until they met us for the worship service. Avery wore the most adorable outfit to church, and I didn't even get a picture! Aah! Well, the picture of her coloring is in the outfit, so maybe you can get a glimpse.

We came home and made PW's Cowboy Calzones for lunch (SO yummy!), and Avery couldn't even make it through the meal without falling asleep! The poor girl has just been worn out the last few days!

I had a movie date with my mom and sister (to see Something Borrowed, which I actually enjoyed despite the poor reviews, mostly because of John Krasinski-- love him!), and everybody else hung out at the house, made Rice Krispie Treats, and had hot dogs for dinner.

After Avery (finally) went down for bed, we attempted to play Phase 10 before we were so tired that we quit in the middle of the game. And okay, I think I was the most tired (aka the party pooper).

{MONDAY}

I know Monday isn't really part of the weekend, but since we had built-in babysitters for another morning, I actually got to take a long shower and get ready for the day without being interrupted by my (adorable but intrusive) toddler. 

NeNe and Carrie had to leave this morning, so Avery and I met up with some of Avery's friends (and their moms, lol) at Chick-Fil-A for lunch, and then we'll do our grocery shopping after nap time. It's almost more excitement than I can stand. :) 

Hope you have a great week!