Countdown to Baby: Only 2 more weeks!

My mother-in-law came over and helped me paint the dresser and night stand in the nursery, so that's a great check off my list! I had almost given up on getting it done, because I figured it wasn't very important, but I'm so happy and thrilled that we did it, both pieces of furniture look so much more fresh and cheery now! We also went shopping to get new handles. Matt installed them, and it's made them look like new pieces of furniture! Now I just need to get in there and decide where best to keep everything and get it all organized in the drawers. 

My mom and I are continuing to work on the curtains, which are becoming a bigger project than expected. I thought I already had black-out backing, but it was "thermal" not black-out, so we had to go buy black-out liner for the curtains. We worked on them some today but they're still not quite finished. Hopefully tomorrow we'll get them all done! As for the crib skirt, I think I might just skip it. The striped material I have for the curtains doesn't look right behind the slats, and now that the mattress is in, it doesn't look so bare and desperate for a skirt. Maybe I'll wait until I have a baby girl and make her a ruffly, girly one! 

As I'm typing this, the used diapers are soaking in their bleach bath. I'm so scared the colors will all come out ruined, but I'm following the instructions, so fingers crossed it works properly! I hope it was worth collecting so many used diapers... I really didn't want to spend $200-$300 getting the size stash I thought I'd need, used was so much cheaper. 

I doubled some pumpkin bread that turned out SO much better than the zucchini bread. I should just always make pumpkin bread instead. But I'm still slacking a bit on actual dinners. Although I did find a quick, easy one that we've been enjoying the past couple of weeks: Korean Beef! I throw some rice in the rice cooker, steam some broccoli, and by the time I finish browning up the Korean-seasoned beef, dinner is ready. (It's on the menu for tonight!)

This weekend we celebrated our first wedding anniversary! Matt took me to a fancy French restaurant, it was so romantic and relaxing, and he gave me a beautiful necklace. It was a lovely weekend, with lots of time to relax. And that's my excuse for this post appearing so late on this Monday!

To-do's:

Continue doubling meals

Research and prep all cloth diapers
Organize nursery
Sew curtains

 

Countdown to Baby: Only 3 weeks left!

We had our "birth class" appointment with our midwife yesterday, just going over generally how everything's going to go, how to handle the different stages of labor, and they even had a model pelvis and a baby doll to demonstrate! It was a good appointment, Baby is measuring a week ahead again, and she said he was pretty far down. But still hasn't officially "dropped." He's keeping up the enthusiastic squirming, kicking and punching!

I tried to double some zucchini bread, and it was a massive failure. I baked and baked and baked it, until the outside was nearly burned, and the inside was still gooey. I think my zucchini was too juicy. I've been eating toasted slices and it's tolerable, but I'm afraid it's going to go bad before I can finish it, and it's too unappealing to freeze and eat later. Besides that, I made some more freezer waffles, but I've definitely got to amp up the meal doubling these last few weeks. I still have space in the freezer!

Finally buckled down and did the research about the cloth diapers. Unfortunately, I have to buy a different detergent than we've been using for our clothes. And I have to buy some bleach to properly disinfect the diapers that I bought used. And after I buy those two things this Sunday, I hope I'll finally get the diaper prep off my list! It's not vitally important that I get it done before Baby gets here, because we'll be using disposables for a little while at first, but the more I can get done before he gets here, the better.

The crib mattress arrived today! Its impending arrival finally motivated me to start organizing a bit earlier this week, so the nursery is a little more tidy and I pre-washed some sheets and receiving blankets, but I still have lots of organizing/decorating that I probably won't finish until after the dresser and end table are painted. I wasn't sure I was going to try to paint the dresser before Baby's arrival either, but we found an end table finally, and it could really use a new coat of paint too, so that's on the to-do list.

My mom spent the morning working on sewing the curtains with me, we got them cut out, and she did all the sewing because I couldn't get my machine to cooperate. It's old and probably needs a tune-up. So while she sewed the side seams and tabs, I gave up on my machine and just ironed what she had already finished. We had lots of fun, and it went pretty quickly! All that's left now is for me to find the black-out panels that I left at their house somewhere, and then we can sew the tabs, curtains and black-out panels together, hem and be all finished with the curtains! I'm rethinking the crib skirt because of how much more complete the crib looks with the mattress in it finally, so I'll keep thinking about that.

I am also excited to share a few of the maternity photos my sister took!








































To do's left:
Continue doubling meals
Research and prep all cloth diapers
Organize nursery
Sew curtains and crib skirt
Paint dresser and end table

Countdown to Baby: 4 weeks to Due Date!

Monday was a nice errand day, picked up some supplies for the birth and bought some fabric stiffener for the snowflakes I've been crocheting. Later in the afternoon/evening Matt and I made hot chocolate and did some Christmas decorating. All the ornaments on the tree (except the snowflakes that I'm making) and stockings hung, wreath on the door. The decorating is continuing in a very slow trickle, but I'm marking it as a check on my list!

Midwife appointments are now weekly! I can't believe that (assuming he arrives on time) we'll only have 3 more appointments before delivery! Everything is still going along normally, he's still in the perfect position and growing just like he should be. After palpating, my midwife estimated he's about 6-6.5 lbs right now, and therefore will probably be around 8 lbs at birth. 

He's pretty active in the early evening, and his movements are definitely visible from the outside! It's a little freaky to see my whole belly squirming and wiggling. I keep accidentally startling him with loud noises, it's so cute when he jumps but I also feel bad. I wonder what it's like to be just hanging out and suddenly hear a loud noise from the world outside that he can't see. 

We finally bought a crib mattress! It actually wasn't the one that I thought we had settled on. I just happened to come across a list of healthy crib mattress recommendations, and figured I'd look over it just for kicks... there was exactly one that I hadn't already looked into, and when I checked it out, it was 65% off for Cyber week, and looked even more awesome than the one we'd been thinking about, for half the price! So I ordered it.

Also, our registry fulfillment order arrived, so I've got everything now, which means it's time to finally buckle down and organize and decorate the nursery. There's nothing else to wait for, and I really should get it done before he gets here! Even though he'll be sleeping in the co-sleeper in our room for a while, it will definitely be easier to just get it done.

Prepping the cloth diapers is a separate item from organizing the nursery on the to-do list because it's so daunting to me... I have to make sure I use a safe detergent, correct water temperature, and get them thoroughly clean, since most of them we bought used, without accidentally messing up their absorbency. Hopefully it'll be easier than I'm anticipating, but I admit I have been procrastinating terribly. 

I'm afraid the curtain and crib skirt project will end up being an "after he arrives" item, as it's definitely lower on the priority list. But I might get around to it if I can convince myself to do it instead of crocheting some time! I'm just having too much fun with these snowflakes!

To do's left:

Continue doubling meals

Research and prep all cloth diapers

Organize nursery

Sew curtains and crib skirt