Week 35

+ This week I am feeling VERY pregnant. Everything feels so compressed.. Like Charlotte has officially run out of room! Oh and I am pretty sure I am waddling...

+ We got our maternity pictures back this week. I purchased a Groupon deal for Constance Avellino Photography and am really pleased with the way our pictures turned out. Here are a few of my favorites from the session.

+ I have been dealing with HR trying to work out my leave. It is way more complicated that I originally thought. Hoping to have things sorted out by the end of the week.

+ This week we are attending a breast feeding class at Morton Plant. I have been reading  "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding". I find that the information is good but agree with a lot of the reviewers who found it a bit judgemental. Hoping that the class will present a more open minded approach.

Guest bedroom

This  post originally was just going to be about the fact that we added Crown moulding to our guest bedroom. Then I realized that I have never posted about our guest bedroom before. See we don't really have that many "guests" but I was sick of having two empty rooms on that side of the house (we would literally just dump stuff that didn't have a home). So maybe 6-12 months after we moved it, I decided to make one of the rooms into a guest room. My parents were in the process of converting my old bedroom into a "man cave" so I took the bed, sold my old bedroom furniture and decided to make it work.
Since the room doesn't get a ton of use, I didn't want to invest a ton of money into it. I selected three coordinating fabrics from Joann's for curtains, pillows and a headboard. I ended up using the fabric sample to have Lowe's color match paint for the walls. I made the headboard using pegboard. I used this tutorial and picked out a fun zebra print and used solid black fabric buttons for the tufting.

I made the curtains myself using fabric and hem tape. It was very easy and they have held up surprisingly well. I simply hemmed all 4 edges and attached them to the rod using curtain clips.

I purchased all the furniture at Ikea. The dresser and two nightstands are both the Hemnes collection in black-brown. The two side lamps are Magnarp table lamps. The floor vase in the corner is the Havtorn collection and is available in two colors, we went with the black.

The mirror was actually a Kirkland's find. There was one right by our house that went out of business. I think it was under $20. 

The bedding is a duvet set from Ikea. The trunk was  moved in from another room and currently houses my sewing machine. The black pillows were handmade but the red center pillow was a Kohls find. The pictures over the bed are from Bed, Bath and Beyond.

 The room remained 90% done for the past year. The only recent addition was the Crown moulding. Because of the texture of our ceilings, we didn't really have a nice smooth line where the wall met the ceiling. This is probably the best example.. notice the right side of the wall.

While we were doing the nursery moulding, we bought a Pro-pack of Crown and realized we would probably be able to get both rooms done with the one pack. We did end up having to buy one additional piece to account for the cuts around the closet but its DONE. And its amazing how much crisper it makes the room feel.

Week 34

+ 34 week check went great! Baby is head down.

+ No weight gain since my last checkup! Belly is still growing so no one is concerned.

+ For the past several weeks I have been feeling kicks in my ribs and it has been difficult to breath at time. I think Charlotte "dropped" some this week. Not only has breathing gotten easier, I feel like my bump looks lower.

+ This weekend my mom and I made a trip to Buy Buy Baby. The nearest one is in Brandon which is about 35 miles from here. LOVE the store. They carry a lot more variety than Babies R Us. However, I was disappointed because they had a roof leak the night before and half the store was closed. I was able to get most of the things I went for. Baby stuff adds up SO quickly!!

+ I am starting to get a little anxiety about the birthing process. I am really trying not to put unnecessary expectations on myself or think about all the possible medical interventions.

Week 33

+ I definitely feel pregnant these days. This weekend my feet and my back hurt from cleaning the house. I think my feet may even be starting to swell a little.

+ Charley Horses... who knew this was another pregnancy side effect? I had them in the second trimester and they seemed to go away. Well they are back in full force. I have been trying to drink more water, stretch my calves before bed and make sure I am taking a vitamin everyday.

+ This weekend I spent sometime in the nursery, sorting clothes and determining what needed to be washed now versus later. All the newborn clothes and all the bedding has been washed and put away should Charlotte choose to join us a bit earlier.

+ I still have a few things to pick up for the nursery but things are really shaping up and I am hoping to share final pictures soon.

+ Oh and I have to share this adorable outfit I received from a friend a work:

It's from an the Lilmamas Etsy Store. Is that not the most adorable thing ever?

Week 32

+ 32 week check-up last Friday- strong heartbeat on baby. Belly is growing but no weight gain. I also got the TDAP vaccine.

+ We picked up a video monitor at Babies R Us. Tim installed it and we have had a lot of fun testing it out in different conditions. We opted for the Motorola MBP41

+ Tim was gone again last weekend at a bachelor party in Ft. Lauderdale. Typically this would be a non issue for me. But considering the whole 8 month pregnant thing combined with the fact that I had a houseful of dachshund....made for a long, exhausting weekend! In addition to our three, we have a friend's two doxies until Friday.

+ Monday night when Tim got back in town, we went to the hospital for the birth center tour. I use to frequent Morton Plant's NICU when I worked in Child Protective Services. Back then it was the Sarah Walker Women's Center which is where I thought I would be delivering. I found out Monday that they are building a new Women's hospital and Labor & Delivery are temporarily on another floor in the main hospital. The con of this is that the rooms are rather small. The pro? Most of the mom/baby rooms are water view.

+ Charlotte in intruding on my lung space more and more these days. So much so that I often find myself breathless. This happened during the hospital tour simply from walking from the elevator to the delivery room... I thought about asking them to strap the monitor on right then!

Nursery Rugs

I never thought it would be so hard to pick out an area rug. When I first started designing Charlotte's nursery, I fell in love with the Addison Rug from Pottery Barn Kids (PBK).  Tim and I both liked the design and it was the perfect color pink. However, once we hung the curtains we realized it was just going to be too pink.

I LOVE Pottery Barn Kids. I don't love their prices or that they charge a ton for shipping and handling but overall, I think they offer quality products. While I wasn't set on having a rug from PBK, I knew the colors would match perfectly which was a major plus. Their rugs pretty much only come in two sizes that would work in my space 3X5 and 5X8. I was really hoping we could make a 3x5 work, mainly due to price, but when we taped it out on the floor it simply looked too small. So then we taped out a 5 x8 rug onto the floor. At first I was thinking it was too large but after Tim centered it in the room, I felt like it could work.

I looked on the Internet and narrowed it down to several rugs:

1) Pottery Barn Kids' Addison rug- I thought it was a gray but it turns out it is a true tan
2) PBK's Chevron rug in gray
3) Overstock Moroccan Gray rug 
4) PBK's Chevron rug in Pink
5) Overstock Soho Gray Rug

As you can tell from the pictures above, I was clearly leaning toward gray. So last week while I was on my way home from working in Tampa I pulled off at the Pottery Barn Kids in old Hyde Park. They offer "free design consult" so I showed the clerk pictures of the room and she too agreed that we should go with the gray. Then she remembered that she JUST got a brand new grey rug in that day that hadn't even made it to the floor yet. I waited while she lugged the rug downstairs and was immediately sold. They accepted my coupon and loaded the rug into my car and I was off.

Tim was out of town again but I managed to get the rug home and rolled out. Its called Floral Bouquet and while the colors are perfect, I didn't love it.

Even though I had text Tim a picture, he told me to wait till he got home to see it in person before returning it to the store. A few days later I got an email from PBK again with a link to some new rugs... one of which was the floral bouquet I had already purchased. They also had another new rug called the McKenna. As soon as I saw it, I know it would work so much better in the room due to the medallion print: its mimics the pattern in the bedding without being too matchy.

So I had Tim load the rug back in my car when he got home and I tried to return it for the McKenna rug but they did not have it in stock. And of course shipping was an additional $47... not what I wanted to hear. Luckily, the sales people are always so accommodating. They ordered the rug for me, waived the shipping, honored my coupon AND had the rug shipped to my house. It came in the mail yesterday and we both agreed that it works so much better.

Unfortunately, the room isn't looking quite a clean as in the above picture. Its was a dumping ground for baby shower presents that we need to go through and organize. I  also need to buy a no slip mat for under the area rug once we get everything else put away. So excited that the nursery is almost done :)

Week 31

+ I am feeling quite large these days. Charlotte is sitting rather high which often makes me feel breathless and generally uncomfortable.

+ I am still trying to remain as active as possible. The gym is mainly walking/bike and light weights. If I don't make it to the gym, I walk the neighborhood.

+ This weekend my mom, mother-in-law and several of my friends threw me an AMAZING baby shower. Since I was so busy chatting the whole time, I didn't get any pictures on my camera. I am hoping guests email me pictures so I can post all the cute girly details. We we blessed with so many necessities for baby and it was SO nice to be able to see so many people in one place.

+ Tonight we are doing a few maternity pictures. I really wish we could have done the pictures closer to 28 weeks as I felt so much better about the way I looked then! As long as we get one or two good images, I will be happy!

+ I had to move my 32 week check-up to Friday due to a work conflict. Hoping to get a better idea of position and size of baby!