Sneak Peek at the Nursery, & A Baby Name

So, we've announced at least part of the baby's name to most of the family, I figure that everyone else deserves to know at least that much as well!

We will be calling our baby girl:

It is short for something, we're not telling you what yet - so just be happy with what we're giving you! LOL.

We've also finished her nursery for the most part, only waiting on the letters my sister will be painting to hang above her crib. Here's a few shots for now of the room. It's been a long process, and for those of you who had seen the room when it belonged to Paige, you will understand.

It was originally the tongue and groove paneling you see, which we did decide to leave up but paint to save some money. All the trim had to be done as well as the walls, and then came the pink. I have to say that I am really pleased with how it turned out. Here's a little walk through our journey to finishing the nursery.

The room before we did anything to it at all!

This is the room after it had gotten a good coat or 2 of white

And after the pink walls and furniture has been added

This is where she will be sleeping - a perfect little nursery. We worked hard!!

She's Graduated!

Okay, so it was only from preschool, but none the less it was rather moving to see my little girl get her "diplotah", as she calls it. Paige was the most vocal of all 22 kids, announceing on one occasion that I did not like spiders, even little ones. And then hollard out at a quiet moment that she had a "huge wedgige" and proceeded to yank it out in a very unlady like manner in front of everyone. Thank goodness they had her in the front row, I would have hated for someone to miss her pink underwear.

She only managed to get in trouble twice, once for sticking her hand in front of the projector making it difficult for people to see the photo slide show, and the other was during a song she was forbidden to hold the boys hand next to her because he was pulling her back and forth instead of swaying like they were supposed to. She was the only child to get into trouble more then once, but if you're going to do something you may as well do it well....lol.

After all the songs and photos, they put on little blue paper caps they made and lined up to wait for their names to be called so they could walk down the isle and cross the bridge and shake their teachers hand.

Here's out little graduate!

Singing The Grand 'Ol Flag

Waiting For Her Name To Be Called
Proud Little Girl!

Hello Double Chin!

Oh, what - you can't see it in the photo? GOOD!

Alex took about 14 photos of me this evening where I'm looking directly at the camera, smiling proudly of my huge pregnant belly. None of them turned out, I didn't even look like myself! Even Alex knew before he let me look through them that I was going to hate them.

So, new rule of pregnancy - in order to not photograph my double chin (lovenly names "Leann" by my sister Ashley...ha ha.) I will no longer be looking directly at the camera for photos! At least not until this baby is born!

That being said, I give you the masterpiece that is: 37 weeks Pregnant

A little update, I had my 37 weeks appointment today. The baby's heart rate was 131, perfect. I was dilated to just about 2cm, and Dr Goudge stripped my membranes so when I left I was around a 3 cm - and hopefully this will get things moving right along.

It's almost baby time!

Welcome Elora!

A friend of mine had her beautiful baby girl a week ago and I was lucky enough to be able to make her birth announcements for her! Congrats Croft Family on the arrival of your newest addition, Elora! And thank you for letting me me photo birth announcements! It was an honor!

This design and others are available for creation BY ME for YOU! Check out a few of my samples on my Facebook Page - all occasions, all types!

Announcements & Cards Part 1
Announcements & Cards Part 2

Happy Birthday Katia! Again...

Just like Paige, my neice Katia got to have more then one birthday party this year. Though It was Katia's 1st birthday so she need a big bash, not just a little family get together! Being the awesome aunt I am, I let my sister have it at my house and helped with all the details which I LOVE doing. I think I'll go into party planning.

Here's a few shots of the big day and all the prep! Ashley and I had a blast setting up.

The theme of the day was a Punk Rock Party for a Punk Rock Princess, my mother was none to happy with the skulls on the cake and tages, but I pointed out they had bows and were pink....she still didn't like it much :0) However it suited Ashley & Katia perfectly.

Cookie Favors - we baked, and frosted 80 cookies that night.

Last minute cake design idea as we (and by we, I mean me) lost the 16 in round cake pan needed to make the original one we had planned.

Birthday Girl and her cake

And of course no party would be complete with out a thank you card made by who else - ME!

All Swelled Up & No Where To Go!

I realized the other day, my wedding ring was stuck on my finger. Not a bad thing, I mean this way I couldn't lose it it. Only trouble was, I was starting to lose feeling in that finger and it was rather uncomfortable.

It took sticking my finger in my mouth, and using soap (in that order....don't worry) to pry the beautiful ring off my fat sausage like fingers.

I keep trying to put it back on, but it won't so much as go over my knuckle. Sigh. I don't know what I will do if I can't wear my ring for the next month.

If You Give A Pregnant Woman A Broom.

Have you ever read the book "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" by Laura Joffe Numeroff? It's about a mouse who makes a million requests to the young boy who owns him, simply to get through eating a cookie. For instance, he couldn't possibly eat that cookie with a out a straw, could he? Or drink that milk with out a straw? No! And he'll have to lean up the crumbs, right?

Well if you are familliar with the book, you'll be familliar with my comparison from it to my rather ADD way I go about cleaning, or as it's so been called over the past few days due to my pregnancy - "nesting" . Let me explain....

A typical day of cleaning would consist of me tidying the kitchen, finding a book of Paige's on the table and returning it to her room. While in her room I'll notice her bed is unkempt so I will make it, making me notice the cup of water on her headboard. This will bring me back to the kitchen where I will continue on with whatever it was I was doing before heading to Paige's room. I'll get something partially done again and see that the laundry detergent hasn't yet made it to the laundry room from the last trip to Target, so I will being it down. While in there I'll see that the laundry is piling up, head back upstairs to grab the bin of whites from the bathroom and head back down to start a load of laundry.

This could go on forever. You can now see how it's very like much a "If You Give A Mouse a Cookie" kinda cleaning schedule, though we should call it "If You Give A Pregnant Woman A Broom".

I have went to clean the kitchen up only to end up emptying and straightening ALL the drawers, re-organizing them, and making sure that the 50 some odd markers and 200 pens we have all worked, so I could throw away what didn't. They all worked. Why do we have so many pens!?

I went then into the bathroom to find my hair binder and wound up cleaning out all the cupboards, closets and drawers in there, and re-organizing.

I went into the baby's room to put some hair bands away, and wound up finding a board to hang on the wall I could clip them all too and organize them from there....

By the time the baby arrives I will have cleaned everything that probably didn't really need it right away...and left the stuff that still is in dire need of being completed! Oh-well, I suppose I've learned to deal with my "Cleaning ADD" so far in life, I can deal with it now.

I'm off to find something to eat, which could very possibly lead to me cleaning out and scrubbing the fridge.....hey...not a bad idea :0)

It's A..........Kidney Infection?

Tuesday evening around 7:30 I started to have contractions, nothing major but I decided to use my handy little iPhone and the application iContraction to keep track, just in case. They weren't regular in anyway, until later that night when they were about 90 seconds long and every 5 minutes apart.

I woke up Alex at 1 am to tell him they weren't going away, and we called the L&D department of the Woman's Center where I'm planning to deliver. The nurse on the phone sounded half asleep but said that it sounded like I was in labor but I was free to stay home until my water broke. Being the hour it was, I did stay home, toughed it out and tried to sleep.

Alex and I went into the clinic first thing in the morning and had a variety of tests done. I was hooked up to the monitor and was definitely having contractions, but also Baby wasn't moving around quite as much as they liked so I then had to have what they call a bio-physical" where they use the ultrasound machine to monitor certain things on the baby for a time to make sure she is ok. She passed that part of the test, completing all the movements and things they needed her to.

We did a urine test and sure enough the constant underlining pain I was feeling between contractions, is due to a kidney infection. I had a lot of these with Paige's pregnancy but figured I'd get past this one with out one. Wrong! I'm taking amoxicillin, which by the way in case you didn't know - turns your pee bright orange so don't be alarmed (as I was) when you see it.

I'm still incredibly tired and the whole house has come down with some sore throat thing that's adding to the fun! Other then that, looks like we're staying pregnant a little longer. Which is good. I realized last night I had a bunch of things left to do :0)

We'll keep you updated on baby's arrival or delay when we have more information!

A Pregnancy Update from Mommy Central.....

No C-section required!

Yippie!

I was surprised to see that the baby was in fact head down at the ultra sound we had last Friday! The continued kicking on my left upper side, is her feet and the lump I feel on the opposite side is her butt. Most days I think she's trying to dig herself out the side! I may have internal bruising form the beating I'm getting, after I have her.

My doctor has me going in every week now, with the exception of this week as she is on vacation. I can not go into labor this week. Okay, I can.....I just don't want to because I want as much of a chance for her to deliver this baby as possible. Basically, if it's office hours, she's on call or not totally exhausted from an 80 work week to come in on her time off, she'll be there.

The ultra sound also determined that it's estimated the baby is a little on the small size. About 5 lbs she said. The machine is never really accurate, it's a "give or take a pound" kinda answer. So I'm trying not to be too worried about it. I, on the other hand am the correct weight. I've gained 24 of the minimum 25-35 required. I'm sure I'll have no trouble putting that extra pound on, and it will more then likely be accompanied by a few friends. Food seems to be a friend of mine these days.

There's nothing more to report on the pregnancy for now. So until next time please enjoy this photo of me balancing a serving bowl on my stomach while taking over sized bites of marshmallow, whip cream fruit salad. :0) Or as I like to call it, "Stupid Human Tricks"

Wanted: Physics Degree So That I May Properly Function Cordless Phone

3 months ago I called Uniden about the cordless, two base/ answering machine unit we had received as a wedding gift, after several friends commented that the answering machine part was not working when they called. I had also begun to notice that when in my home, 2 feet from the base the phone would disconnect and tell me I was "Out of Range". Obviously there was an issue with the phone, so I decided to look into it and called up Customer Service.

The woman I spoke to, was helpful and gave me a list of configurations of button pushing, battery removing, clapping, spinning, dancing and yelping to complete in sequence to make the phone magically work again. Basically every short of an Indian Appliance Repair Dance.

None of the things she told me to do worked. Frustrated I just let it go, until today when I called back to get some better answers. The woman I spoke with today could very well be the reason each village still needs and idiot.

I explained the issue I was having, told her that after 3 months things hadn't been fixed. She asked for the model number of the phone, and I, not having been trained by Uniden myself stupidly read the number off the top of the phone "DECT 6.0". This annoyed her and she told me that wasn't the model number but the frequency number. I then asked her where I could find the model number and she sighed an exasperated sigh and instructed me to look on the back of the base.

While pulling it off my wall she asked me where in my home I had my phone base, to which like most Americans I assume, I replied "In my kitchen". Before I could say anything else she told me that was the problem and I had to move my phone base out of the kitchen if I wanted it to work. She even made sure to note that had I read the owners manual when I got the phone I would have clearly seen photographs explaining this.

Dumbfounded I asked why, and she replied in a way I would normally be proud of if she hadn't actually been speaking to me in that tone, she said "Don't you have a refrigerator in your kitchen?" of course I do so I said yes, and she again said the bit about looking at the photos in the manual and that the frequency of the fridge was interfering with the phone. I asked if this was all I had to worry about? Again the bit about the pictures in the manual....argh! and she said "Well don't you have a stove?" and I laughed. Which obviously was not good for her. I said "Yes of course I have a stove, but it's gas so how could that possibly be interfering with my phone?"

Oh come on, like you wouldn't think someone accusing the gas stove of messing with your cordless phone wasn't a total moron. And I was actually really wanting to know the answer to the question...I didn't ace science but common sense tells me that is total bull shit.

Her response: "Well I'm just not even going to get into that with you."

Did this girl forget where she worked....again?

Among the other useless bits of conversation many questions were asked, and not very well answered. Things such as:

Q: "Whats the range that the phone needs to be away from certain things in order to work?"
A: "We don't have that information"

Q: Why did my answering machine work for several months before hand when it was in the kitchen and then just stop?"
A: "You'll have to send the phone in to be looked at for that answer"

Q: "I haven't yet given you the model number, so are you sure that the location of the bas is the issue"
A: "You gave me the model number, DECT 6.0"
Q: "But you just told me that was not the model number and asked me to look on the bottom of my phone?"
A: "No, thats the model number, I never said that"

I called my husband after finishing my conversation with "Debbie Dumbass" from Uniden, laughing as I explained the phone wouldn't work because of the stove. He was interested in these much talked about pictures and looked up the owners manual on the comptuer, here is what he found:

Could someone please tell me where the hell I'm supposed to put my phone then? If I'm not mistaken it's midway through 2009 and many great advances have been made with electronics over that past 20 years. With a list of stupidness like that above, I feel like the phone should have a 40 foot retractable antenna on it and weigh 30lbs because of the battery.

Our house isn't that big, so I guess I'm going to have to move the phone into the middle of the back yard and hope the marching band practicing in the field behind our house doesn't qualify as "a noise source"....

Adding Uniden to the list of products we no longer buy. How are they still in business?

35 Weeks - and counting

I'm 35 weeks pregnant this week - Woo Hoo! That means about 4 and a half more weeks until my due date.

We have a very stubborn little baby girl in there who refuses to get head down...and stay there anyway. Best we can tell at the moment she's favoring a diagonal position where her feet are on my left side and she she kicks I swear she's kicking me in the back!

We have ANOTHER ultra sound on Friday to determine her position for sure and if they don't find her head down, we may be scheduling a c-section (which I really don't want!) Aside from the long recovery time, it's hard to be in pain and scream "You did this to me" at Alex when I'm just having surgery...lol. And I was so looking forward to making sure he experienced that! :0)

Part of the reason behind the c-section option is because, as my doctor would put it "she doens't trust this little girl"...lol. Even if she goes head down, she doubts she will stay there and the worst would be going into labor, rushing to the hospital, laboring for hours only to find out she's turned wrong and then having to go have a c-section anyway....

Aside from all that in-utero information...I'm getting puffier, gaining more weight, and I can hardly wear my wedding ring anymore...*snif* *snif* that part really bothers me.

Here's a snapshot of the ever growing belly!

Puff The Magic.....Mommy? (a.k.a surviving the last month of pregnancy)

I've been trying to "nest", or at least clean for one of the million parties I'm stupidly having weeks before I'm due. :0) Paige's party this weekend took it out of me like you wouldn't believe. I puffed up like the Stay Puff Marshmellow Man, I even had a hard time getting my wedding rings off - which is odd I have always been able to wear at least my band. Now I feel naked, and like people look at me as if I'm that knocked up teenager....(okay, I wish I could pass for a knocked up teenager some days......)

My face is starting to resemble the days after I had all 4 of my wisdom teeth pulled and I can't get any shoes on other then my flip flops (or "thongs" for my European readers) Only about 4 or 5 weeks left then I can start the deflation process :0)

But, in order to get me through these last few weeks, I have found some pregnancy humor that's sure bring a smile to your face. Even if it's one of those "I'm so glad it's her and not me" smiles!

Pretty sure the creator of this comic knew me personally.....
Soon I won't have the "I'm pregnant" excuse when I fart or burp. I will however have the raging post partum hormone excuse and that might work even more efficiently. LOL
It's so true.
And in honor of another reason I am only wearing flip flops these days...

Who's Your Daddy?

On Thursdays I've been watching my 1 year old niece Katia for a few hours while my sister works. She's pretty low key and naps around that time usually so I really luck out.

Today I was exhausted though, up half the night before with contractions and what not. So after Katia's short nap, lasting all of an hour, I changed her diaper and went to give her a bottle hoping she would be just as content as she had been for the beginning of the day so I didn't have to be required to do a whole lot.

But of course you know, kids never do what you want them to do and she was NOT having her bottle. I sat her on the ground while I sorted out something else to feed her, while she screamed she turned herself in circles and then would lay her self on the ground to continue her fit. I picked her up, she stopped crying immediately...of course yet after holding her for a few minutes, and being 8 months pregnant I couldn't anymore so I sat down and held her. Bad idea.

Resume screaming here.

Tried to offer bottle again. No go.

Crackers. Not a chance.

Figuring she just needed to get it out, and because my arms were tires I sat her back on the floor and off she went with the greatest 1 year old tantrum I have ever seen. I would reach out for her if she wanted me, but she wanted me to stand and not sit holding her and that was not going to happen because I was just too tired to do it.

The tantrum went on for another 2-3 minutes and finally I handed her a magazine off the table as a last resort, on the cover was Robert Pattinson, and 2 other guy celebrities.

The crying stopped instantly. She stared at the cover for a seconed, then pointed directly to Rob Pattinson over the other two guys, smiled and said "Dada!" and then went on to squeal and talk to the cover like she hadn't just spent the last 5 minutes washing my floor with her tears.

I took my chances and picked her and the magazine up and sat at the table. Offered her the bottle which she took a drink of, then tried to feed to her "Dada" from, as well as the pieces of banana that I have sliced up during the scream fest. She happily jabbered on to the photo in the magazine, yelling 'Dadadadadad!" in between stuffing her mouth, and fed him occasionally until her banana was nothing more then a residue left on her hands from smashing them up.

I guess Robert Pattinson even makes a 1 year old happy as can be. I wonder though who's going to break it to her that he's really not her daddy?

Would You Rather Have...

Alex and I were chatting about the upcoming delivery of our daughter, while we cleaned up after dinner. Paige was still seated at the table finishing up. We talked about what would help going into labor and I mentioned that his sister said today:

"Just have some Tai food and lot's of S-E-X" the latter of which I spelled due to the 5 year old set of ears listening in 5 feet away.

Alex got a huge smile on his face and very seriously meant it when he said "Ohhhh Tai food, yum!"

I started laughing and said, "Are you serious? I see that the choice between food and me is clearly made"

After unsuccessfully trying to remove his foot from his mouth, which only made me laugh harder as he explained that my saying Tai Food reminded him of the pace he went out to eat at with the guys from work and the appetizers he had. I vowed to tease him about this for the rest of our lives, and I will!

Men. SIgh. :0)

Aaah Chooo!

Normal responses to sneezing: "Bless you", Gesundheit", heck even something like "do you need a tissue". All acceptable normal comments, right?

Well yes, unless someone is in my house and I'm the one who's just sneezed. In that case someone would be saying "Did you hurt yourself?" or "Did you wet yourself again?"

Oh yea, the joys of being pregnant are never ending.

My sneezes have been so violent lately I literally almost pull a muscle each time. If my computer chair was on hard wood I would blow myself backwards ten feet from the desk each time. Thank goodness for carpet! And even worse then that, now from time to time I actually pee a little when I sneeze, I'm going to start needing to wear Depends to avoid ruining our furniture soon.

As the pregnancy winds to a close there are a lot of things I will miss about actually carrying my little girl but even more that I won't really miss too much. I can't wait to have full control of my bodily functions back and not be worried that if I sneeze in public that I'll cause a mess like a new puppy. Can't you just see that one happening in line at the grocery store. Ew.

Dear Idiot....

It amazes me sometimes, the morons that are allowed to have a license. Since I won't ever be able to get the rest of the ding dong's off the road, and the State of Minnesota turned down my application for an "Amber Only Road" system, I instead am left making this list of helpful tips for the driving impaired.

1. Dear Mom of 19 driving the mini van, it's not a tank. You hurt yourself and the ones in your vehicle if you don't pay attention to the road in front of you. Stop yelling at your kids, they don't listen to you when they are not in the car, what makes you think they will listen to you now? Buy a fly swatter to better reach them, smack them at a stoplight with it and move on.

2. Dear Jack Ass going 95 in a 60. It is not ok to flick me off because I checked my mirrors and properly merged into the lane you were speeding up behind me in. I can't see 2 miles behind me. Try driving at least somewhat near the speed limit or go around me.

3. Dear 100 year old couple driving in your Lincoln. I know that the years have weathered on your eyes, but I doubt very much you reading abilities have withered away too. 20 is not the new 30. Go the speed limit or go home.

4. Dear Unprepared Driver looking for an address or turn off...BRING A MAP, get a GPS or at least look at a map before you leave home. Contrary to popular belief slamming on your brakes at every single turn off to read the street signs, or to see if you remember that road is not fun for the line of cars growing behind you.

5. Dear Loser who thinks they are above the laws of driving, it's called a blinker. Using it suddenly as you make your turn does not constitute actually properly using it. And it doesn't help the person(s) behind you.

6. Dear Teenager with crap car - buy a muffler and stop putting so much money into your stupid stereo or I will find your car, and stab those sub woofers with a screw driver until they are usable no longer.

You're Invited!

I got back to my creative roots this week, making my aunt Colleens bridal Shower invites. The initial idea was I would design them and my step mom, who's hosting the spa themed shower, would print them and mail them. But per usual, I got a little to into my design and took over :0)

As it turns out it worked for both of us because I got to see my design all the way through the process and I saved my step-mom some time.

Here's the invites I made, they are printed on simple card stock in a cream color 4.25 x 6.25 in size. A sage green and brown color theme for the ink colors.

I backed them on a simple brown card stock in a 5 x 7 size.

On a separate 4.5 x 4.5 card, in the same cream color I printed the info for the shower/spa trip, booking the service of their choice, info on lunch - so as not to crowd and take away from the actual invite itself.

I designed, put together and mailed out the invites in about 3 days. Though part of that was due to the fact that only about a dozen invites in total were needed!

The Baby Shower

My shower was on the 18th of April, and I apologize for not getting the photos up sooner. Seems like I go through spurts of either being extraordinarily tired, or extraordinarily busy. Ah, the joys of pregnancy.

My shower was host by My 3 Moms and I couldn't have asked for anything better! The food was amazing, the cake was beautiful, and the company of all my family and friends was better then any gift I could have received!

Here's a few photos from the big day.

This is the amazing cake my MIL designed and had made by the same lady who made the grooms cake for Alex and all the cookies at our wedding in August, Miss Sarah's Cakery

The cake, is covered in a fondant "blanket" to represent the beautiful white blanket MIL crocheted for for Baby Sweeney as part of her baby shower gift.

My hands hurt after opening all these wonderful gift! I'm very lucky and blessed to have so many great people in my life! This is one spoiled little Baby Girl I'm having!

My SIL organized a great baby shower game - NASCAR Stroller Racing! It was a BLAST! Guests pushed a doll stroller around a figure eight course in the front yard and competed to see who could get the fastest time.

This is the diaper cake my great friend Staci made for me and Baby Sweeney! I love it!

Looking over the photos taken with my camera, I notice that I don't have any photos of the food, or decorations really. I really bummed out about this because everyone worked so hard on this shower - hopefully someone else got some and I'll put those up when get them.