life lately ...

i seriously can't believe that it's already november.  we're supposed to have a baby this month!  again, something i haven't completely wrapped my head around and i feel like november is just going to been a little crazy between wrapping up work, getting ready for our newest addition, thanksgiving (which i really hope that i'm home one way or the other for), and finishing up some things around the house.  

... we're finishing up some house projects, although i'm pretty sure there will always be a list of things that we want to do either soonish or someday.  we hired someone to paint our bathroom and i really don't care how lazy that makes me at this point.  at almost 37 weeks pregnant, taping, caulking, priming, and painting are not on my list of things that i want to be doing.  and i figure my back hurts enough just from keeping up with the general cleaning and picking up.  

...  the nursery is almost finished.  i have one more project that i may or may not do.  it's far from a perfect room as we ended up using a lot of things that we had around the house instead of buying new.  one of the things that i remember after having avery is that i wanted to make her room more personal after she was born and we knew she was a girl.  so i've left a lot of things very neutral at this point and i'm sure i'll end up changing things slowly over time once this baby's born and we actually meet him or her.  also, the baby won't actually be using this room for a awhile so it's basically being used for clothes and diaper storage at this point.  

...  the baby is finally head down!! yay.  at my 30 week appointment it was head down and it flipped at some point between 30 and 32 weeks.  i remember waking up one morning and telling charlie 'the baby flipped' and he was sort of skeptical but sure enough it had.  at 36 weeks when it still wasn't head down my midwife scheduled an external cephalic version and when i went in for my 37 week appointment the baby had flipped back into the head down position, which means i don't have to have the version.  it's been driving me crazy the past few weeks trying to get it to flip and figure out exactly where it was.  i had a feeling it flipped this week as it was a lot lower and my ribs were a lot less sore but i didn't want to get my hopes up too much.  really hoping to go into labor on my own this time around when charlie is not traveling.  :)       

...  i've also been trying to enjoy these last few weekends as a family of 3.  i know that avery's world is about to be flipped around soon and i sort of feel guilty about all the attention that she's currently getting but won't be soon.  i think she'll be excited about a baby (at least at first) but i think not getting what she wants when she wants it will be hard for her.  hopefully she's built some good independent playing skills from all of the days that i work from home and will be happy to occupy herself during times that i can't be two places at once. 

 ...  i have 2 more freezer meals to make this week and then i think we're done (or at least our freezer won't be able to fit any more food) until the baby comes.  i didn't make a lot but i've tried to have enough so that we have something decent to eat on those days when cooking seems like an impossibility.  i made some chili, potato and broccoli soup, and meatballs for spaghetti so far and am hoping to do a meatloaf and chicken and sausage casserole this week so that we'll have a few freezer meals to rotate in with cooking those first few weeks.  

avery calls this her work computer and insists on working on it when i have to work.

...  i have one more day of work left at my current job.  it feels really weird to say that.  i'm planning on finishing up a few things at home the rest of this week and also trying to take avery to some fun places.  

...  i 'think' we finally have names for this baby.  still not 100% positive about the girl names as we've been tossing three around, but we've committed to a boy name and i like all three of the girl names that we have, too.  we're definitely last minute name pickers unlike a lot of our friends who seem to have names picked out before the end of the first trimester.  i still sort of feel like i'll need to see the baby first to make sure.  i remember when avery was born it felt a little weird to call her 'avery' for the first week or so.  still feeling like this baby is a boy although not as strongly as i was before.  my midwife always refers to it as a 'him', which makes me wonder if she knows something i don't.

...  dunkin is sort of feeling better.  i mentioned that he's been limping a lot.  we noticed it a while ago but figured it was arthritis (he'll be 10 in less than a month) but it got worse and so i took him to the vet.  they couldn't figure out exactly where or why he was limping and so they put him on an antiinflammatory, which has made it slightly better.  the vet thought it was probably either a shoulder or elbow thing and something we'll have to manage the rest of his life.  at this point we were sort of happy that it wasn't anything more severe (he had a mast cell tumor when he was one and we've always been paranoid that it would return) but i think his intense ball playing days are over.

  

nursery #2

i think one of my favorite parts about having a second baby is actually getting to do something what our third bedroom.  currently there's a ladder, a tv stand, and a closet full of things that we shoved in there when we first moved into the house and it drives me crazy every time i walk up the stairs.  henry does like to sleep in the room so i wouldn't say it's completely wasted space.  just like avery's room we're planning on doing this one on a budget and shopping around the house for things that we already have and can use.  the two things that we'll have to buy are a dresser and a crib, but everything else will be from the rest of the house.

the walls are a really light cream and we're not finding out the gender of this baby, either, so i want lots of color but nothing that screams 'boy' or 'girl'.  i also already have some aqua items that we'll be using, and i love the idea of mixing those with some yellow and orange.  i'm hoping that i can find some orange accents that are on the lighter side, more peach and coral than bright orange, but we'll see what i can find.

here's what i have in mind so far:

1.  baby mod modena crib -- i can't decide if i should get this in white or grey.  i have a feeling i'll chicken out and go with the white.  i originally wanted a different crib, but this one is almost $100 cheaper so it wins.  unless charlie wins the bed vs. crib debate or avery starts climbing out of her cir we'll be ordering this from walmart in the next few months.
2.  orange curtains -- i definitely want light orangish curtains for the room.  i have a feeling i'll be making these from fabric i have yet to find.
3.  colors and tissue poms -- the previous owners of this room left lots of hooks in the ceiling and we didn't remove them and paint the ceiling.  i'm thinking of making some of these to cover up and use those hooks.
4.  a DIY mobile -- i've seen these circle mobiles everywhere.  they look cheap and easy.  also see above about needing to use some of those hooks.
5.  ikea hemnes dresser -- we already have 2 of these dressers and i'm thinking the smaller version would work great as a changing table/dresser combo.
6.  ottoman/pouf -- this is currently in avery's room and we use it as an ottoman with the rocking chair.  i'm hoping she won't mind donating both to the nursery when the baby finally arrives.
7.  animal art -- i made a moose picture for avery's room when she was born and i'm hoping to do something similar in this room, too.

we'll see how it turns out.  these things never end up looking like i pictured in my head, but as long as we end up with a place for the baby's clothes and diapers we should be fine.  we're planning on keeping the baby with us for the first few months anyway since it was so much easier with middle of the night feedings.  although charlie did say that he wasn't looking forward to sharing a room with a baby again so we'll see how long we last before moving the kiddo into his or her own room.  who knows, maybe we'll get one that likes to sleep this time.  

things to do before baby.

avery's brother or sister is due at the end of november.  november 27th to be exact, which happens to be the day before thanksgiving.  someone actually said to me already, 'that's too bad, a thanksgiving baby'.  i really don't get what's too bad about that, but whatever.  anyway, there's a few things that i want to get done around the house before this baby comes.  some of this is in preparation for the baby, like turning an empty room into a nursery and other is just random stuff because i know it will be so much harder to get things done with two kids instead of one.  there's also a few things that i want to get.  nothing near the amount of stuff that we got before we had avery, but a few things here and there that i like to spread  out over several months to make things less painful.  so here's the current list.  i'd expect to add a few things over time and hopefully cross most of this stuff off, as well.

things to do.

1.  paint the nursery.  
we actually picked out a paint color for this room before we found out i was pregnant.  the previous color was a dark blue, which we hated and i just wanted something light and bright for the room whether it stayed a guest room or became a nursery.  charlie did all of the painting by himself, which was awesome for me.  :)

2.  sell avery's baby things that we know we won't use.  
so far i want to get rid of our old monitor, the travel swing, the baby bjorn, and some clothes.  i'm hoping to add to this when i finally pull out all the newborn stuff that's currently boxed up.   

3.  organize the closet in the nursery
this closet currently contains a bunch of bedding, bags, gift wrap, etc..  it's a mess.  i need to buy a ew rubbermaid containers for the extra bedding and then move that stuff to our storage area in the basement.  i want an empty closet that only has baby stuff!

4.  figure out the car situation.
done.  i blogged about this in our fourth of july post.  we traded in my car for an outback and then charlie and i switched cars.  i'm now reacquainting myself with stick and happy to have a car that can, just barely, fit a double stroller.  

5.  clean out the garage 
ugh.  this is such a mess.  we have a ton of crap on the sides of the garage.  we need to buy more hooks to hang things up with, reorganize the stuff we have, and get rid of the stuff that i know we don't need.  this isn't so bad that we can't fit the cars in the garage or anything, but we just need to organize a little better.  we've contemplated buying a shed, although i have a feeling we'll hold off on that for now. 

6.  paint our master bathroom
this is the last room in our house left to paint.  we're going to be painting it the same color as the nursery.  basically almost white.  and i made a deal with charlie that if he did the taping and the caulking then i would do the painting.  neither of us have worked up the motivation to get started but i really, really hope we do soon because i cannot stand the current color and ironically it's the only bathroom in the house that we use.  

7.  update our bedroom
nothing huge in here but i want to replace the art above our bed, get a new quilt that doesn't have nailpolish spilled all over it, and finally paint our nightstands because electric blue just isn't working for me.
8.  decorate the nursery.
well this is just fun.  i'm waiting to get started until after our 20 week ultrasound.  the only two big items that we have to buy are the crib and the dresser and everything else is just little stuff or will be stolen from avery's room.

things to get.

1.  either a crib for the baby or a bed for avery.
 i'm on team crib and charlie's currently on team bed.  she's sleeping really well at night right now and i just see no reason to mess with that especially because i can't see her climbing out of her crib for a long while, if ever, and her crib does convert to a toddler bed if we needed to do so.  in the long run we'll buy her a twin but i'd rather not mess with her sleep when i don't have to.  

2.  a dresser
we'll be getting the 3 drawer hemnes from ikea one of these days when i make the solo trip so i can fit it in the car.  

3.  newborn diapers
i love cloth diapers but didn't end up starting with avery until she was 3 months old because she was so tiny and i refused to buy newborn diapers.  i want to buy 2 dozen newborn GMD workhorse diapers.  i already have 6 thirsties duo size one covers that should work just fine with them.  i have a feeling this baby will be pretty small as well, which means we should be able to use the newborn size for a while. 

4.  double stroller
after almost no debate we bought the bob duallie.  we love our single bob and we had a ton of rei points to use so we took advantage of a bob sale they had in march.  

5.  monitor
this was a definite want not a need.  we got a video monitor that we can use for two kiddos at once.  i'll admit that this was more for avery's sake (now i can spy on her) than for the new baby.  

6.  fireplace for the basement
another want although i can argue that this is very practical.  our basement is freezing.  all the time.  and we now have the train table, a tv, a couch, and a few other toys for avery down there.  we talked last year about getting an electric fireplace to heat the space in the winter so that we can hang out down there.