First Christmas Cookies of The Year

On December 3rd, I am having 3 of my good friends, their husbands, and their babies over for a small holiday dinner party. We have all known each other since elementary school, and will all have children super close together in age. I decided on my day off today to do a test run on a batch of cookies I wanted to make for this occasion! They are called Peppermint Kisses, and this recipe was taken from Family Circle Magazine. Start to finish it took me maybe 30 minutes to complete them, and they are delicious! If you like peppermint I definitely suggest trying these!

Finished Product??

YUM!

Our New Casa!

Moving day on October 15th came and went. It was stressful and tiring, but the end product is totally worth it! The apartment is old, but it's cute, and we are doing upgrades to it that we were told we can take the cost off the monthly rent for the supplies/materials. First - a few before photos!

So, outdated and old fashioned, yes, but we love it! Here's a bit of the work we've put in so far :

 We painted the nursery before moving day! The color is called Luminary by Behr. Our nursery bedding is raspberry pink, brown, and orange, and we didn't want a typical pink nursery, so we went orange on the walls and love it!

This closet is right outside the bathroom on a half wall, and clearly visible from the bedroom. There is no door that we could get to stay up on it, so I made the green leafy curtain to contain all of our toiletries. 

We've done a few other things, but I have not taken pictures of all of our progress. We did however find time to put the Christmas tree up :)

33 Weeks!

Baby Camera Happy is 33 weeks and 1 day today.

My belly is protruding A LOT now and I feel HUGE. Like just swallowed a house huge. My lungs cannot expand, and just rolling over in bed or walking to the bathroom to pee for the millionth time in a day makes me short of breath. Baby girl is quite active, and she likes to kick and flop around, especially at bedtime. I cannot believe in under 2 months I will be able to snuggle my outside baby!! I passed my glucose test with no problems whatsoever, so it's been nice not having the added worry of that.  :)

Past Events?

October 22 - Our Maternity Photos

November 6 - family baby shower

November 13 - friends baby shower

Upcoming events?

-December 4th - Having a dinner party with a few friends and their babies 

 - December 9th - Work luncheon/baby shower

 - December 10th - Having another dinner party with a few friends

 - December 11th - Work Christmas party

 - December 25th - Christmas!

 - January 9th - First day of maternity leave!

 - January 16th - Baby Camera Happy's due date!

Check In:

• How far along?: 33 weeks and 1 day

• Total weight gain: I was up 25 lbs at my last appt.

• How big is baby?: Little one is the size of a Honeydew Melon this week

• Maternity clothes?:Oh yes. And I've upgraded to the full panel on my maternity jeans, thankyouverymuch. Got a bunch of hand me down scrubs from girls at work so that I should be able to make it through my pregnancy without having problems with work outfits.

• Movement: Baby likes to have dance parties. Upside down dance parties, where her feet dig into my ribs and her head smooshes my bladder. She especially likes bed time!

• Stretch marks?: Not yet! Fingers crossed! <--Still this! My belly is shiny and I have quite the linea nigra going though.

• Sleep?: I am tired all the time. Not just sleepy, yawn a couple times and deal tired. More like falling asleep on the nurses station at work tired.

• Symptoms?: Right now it's rapid pulse, shortness of breath, swollen hands and feet, and pregnancy induced carpal tunnel syndrome. Not to mention continuing on with restless leg syndrome and heartburn so bad that I can throw up foam sometimes. FUN!!!!!

• Food cravings:  Popsicles. All kinds of popsicles. I can eat 12 freeze pops in a sitting. I especially love the Snapple Sorbet bars from Walgreens. They are delish!
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• Food Aversions: Seafood (which I normally dont' like anyway) smells so vile to me that it can induce vomiting.

• Belly button in or out?: Still an innie, but it's completely flush with my belly.

• What I miss: I miss having energy. I miss being skinny. I feel so fat and uncomfortable right now!

• What I'm looking forward to: I am looking forward to meeting my little girl!

• Best Moment this week: This week started my new, less hours at work due to pregnancy. Love it. It also put me under the 2 month mark in terms of due date!

It's That Time Again!

Christmas cards anyone?? I cannot believe how fast this year has flown by! It seems like a whirlwind since I got pregnant, and I can't believe in 2 months I will get to meet my sweet baby girl! Unfortunately she isn't set to be here by Christmas, so I had to find other ways to incorporate her into our photo card for the year.

Last year I joined the Shutterfly promotion for free holiday photo cards in exchange for a blog post. I was SO happy to see that they were doing it again this year. Especially since there were so many card designs that I loved. And I'm a big fan of the cards with multiple spots to put your photos, and Shutterfly did not disappoint in that department either!

Two of my faves were:

 Mod Merry Ornaments

Flurry Of Snowflakes (available in 4 colors!)

This year I decided to go with this card:

Cheers Filmstrip

They showed up a few days ago and they look amazing as usual. Shutterfly has never disappointed me with the quality of their photo products before, and this year is no different.

In addition to cards, Shutterfly has a lot of other holiday gift options! More and more people are going the route of personalized gifts :) 

Some of Shutterfly's Holiday Products available include:

FLEECE Photo blankets (how cool are these?!)

Holiday Greetings

Invitations

And of course my favorite:

Holiday Photo Cards! Go browse through their amazing selection :)

Time's A Wasting!

When oh when will life slow down for a few?!?! First off, Baby Camera Happy is 25 weeks 3 days today.

My belly is protruding quite a bit more now, I think little one had a growth spurt this week. We had our 20 week anatomy scan, and baby is measuring right on track, and is quite playful! She continuously kicked the u/s wand on my belly as the tech moved it around, and we even got to see her stick her tongue out at us! She's also quite the diva, as her foot was in front of her face, one hand under her chin, and the other hand behind her head. It was adorable, and we love her to bits and pieces already!

In more recent news, we are moving! We found a great old apartment (it's in a big old house that's split into 3 apartments). 2 Bedrooms, 1 bathroom, we get a parking spot in the garage, and the best part? It has a huge fenced in yard and deck, so Riley can be outside playing with the upstairs neighbors dog. We met them on Monday when we did our final walkthrough, and both the neighbors and their dogs seem great! Our moving date is set for October 15th! So there is a lot to be done in a short time span. But it'll be worth it to have a nice separate nursery for Baby Camera Happy to enjoy :) Will post pictures of apartment when we move in, and then as we update it :)

Past events? My birthday was yesterday! DH and I celebrated by staying in, eating chinese food, packing, and watching TV.

Upcoming events?

 - October 12 - My glucose challenge test! Wish me luck!

-October 15 - Moving day!

 - October 16 - Maternity Photo Shoot

 - October 23 - My best friends baby shower (she's due on December 27th!)

 - HALLOWEEN!

 - November 6th, my family baby shower

- November 13 - My friends shower

 - November 18th - BREAKING DAWN PART 1! Can't wait :)

Check In:

• How far along?: 25 weeks 3 days

• Total weight gain: I was up 15 lbs at my last OB appt.

• How big is baby?: Little one is the size of an eggplant this week

• Maternity clothes?:A Million times yes. I don't think my tummy will fit into normal clothes for a while!

• Movement: Baby is a party animal. She's relatively motionless when I'm up and walking around, but when I lay down to fall asleep she starts kicking, and if I'm sitting and eating she kicks as well.

• Stretch marks?: Not yet! Fingers crossed!

• Sleep?: I am still tired all the time. I fall asleep with no problems at strange hours.

• Symptoms?: Nausea has stayed away pretty well. I have troubles bending over to tie shoes or put on pants or socks. I grunt like an old man when getting into or out of my car. I feel kind of like a turtle, and have begun to master to art of rolling off things when I need to get up.

• Food cravings:  Changing all the time. My biggest desire the last two weeks is chocolate milk. I have no idea why, since I hate milk....
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• Food Aversions: Red meat still skeeves me out. And the smell of popcorn is enough to turn my stomach.

• Belly button in or out?: Hanging on as an innnie by a thread! It's now very shallow, and wide. I'm glad I took my belly button ring out early on!

• What I miss: I miss being able to go out for drinks with the girls, I also miss being able to go out. I'm always too tired to do anything.

• What I'm looking forward to: I am looking forward to lots right now. I can't wait to move into the apartment so I can begin the nesting process. I can't wait until October 16th for our maternity photo session. Most of all I cannot WAIT to meet Baby Camera Happy.

• Best Moment this week: Our final walkthrough on the apartment, and getting told by the landlords that they had absolutely no issues with us painting :)

Busy Bee!!

So I'm still horrible at updating, but I swear I'm trying to get better about it! The pregnancy has been progressing smoothly! I am currently 19 weeks and 2 days.

 We went in for an elective ultrasound on August 19th, and found out that Baby Camera Happy is .........
A LITTLE GIRL!!

My hubby and I are both very excited as we were hoping our first child would be a girl. Her name is Piper Harlowe, and she enjoys kicking her legs and playing with her umbilical cord.
We are working now on getting the nursery together!

We have purchased a crib for a KILLER deal at Babies R Us ($299.99 marked down on clearance for $99.99)

 

Cute bedding from Burlington Coat Factory:

In The Woods by Cocalo ($169.99)

We found a glider at a garage sale:

$10.00, we purchased fabric to make new cushions though, as this color doesn't go, and the cushions themselves have definitely seen better days.

We are also getting a free dresser in fabulous condition from a close friend, but I don't have pictures of that yet! 

All in all I would say we've gotten a good jump on baby things! 

Now if we could only find the right place to move to....

Check In:

• How far along?: 19 weeks 2 days

• Total weight gain: I was up 9 lbs at my last appointment in August.

• How big is baby?: Little one is the size of a mango this week!

• Maternity clothes?: Yes please! At work I'm wearing big scrubs, and in everything else it's maternity all the way!

• Movement: I felt my first movement last week. I was singing along with Adele in the car, and I'm pretty sure baby was telling me to shut up :)

• Stretch marks?: Not yet, but my Linea Nigrea has shown up!

• Sleep?: I am tired all the time. Still. I think the majority of this has to do with getting up at 3 am for work.

• Symptoms?: Nausea has subsided for the most part. I'm still sleepy all the time. My boobs are getting huge. I call them circus boobs.

• Food cravings:  Still changing constantly.
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• Food Aversions: Red meat. Ick.

• Belly button in or out?: Still an innie. Although it's gotten a lot wider at this point.

• What I miss: I miss being able to go out for drinks with the girls.

• What I'm looking forward to: My next ultrasound (September 9th!)

• Best Moment this week: This week we are still high on life after finding out little one is a girl.

A Surprise On Mother's Day!

I know it's been ages. Sorry blog world! There's been a lot happening in my life, and I intend on catching everyone up today!! Which basically means this will be long long long!

Let's start with mother's day. Was just like any other day, when suddenly something amazing happened!

I was in SHOCK! I was questionable about certain symptoms I'd been having which is why I took the tests, but I was definitely not expecting a positive. Let alone 5 of them, since my natural worrying personality couldn't trust just one test. or two. I took 5. All different brands.

I called my primary care doc that day and left a message on the machine there asking if I could come in for a  blood pregnancy test, they referred me to my now OB, who I have my first official appt with on June 8.  I got 3 beta tests done to confirm the pregnancy! 1st test was at 3 wks, 5 days : 321. Second was 4 wks, 1 day : 1104. The third was at 5 wks 6 days: 27290. The doctors said my numbers are phenomenal.

Unfortunately that didn't keep me away from having a couple trips to the ER. On May 22, out of nowhere my blood pressure plummeted and I nearly fainted. I had also been having some abdominal cramping. We took me up to the ER, where they monitored me, gave me fluids, and gave me an early ultrasound to make sure everything looked okay with the pregnancy. The ultrasound was great, and we even got to hear a faint heartbeat at 5 wks 6 days, which blew my mind! I cannot wait to hear the heartbeat now! The md determined that the low blood pressure was just a symptom of my being pregnant, and told me to monitor myself carefully, and eat salty snacks like pickles if I started to feel lightheaded. So far the blood pressure has been stable. Still a lot lower than it usually is, but not totally unmanageable like it was that couple of days.

My second trip to the ER was on May 25th. I had been throwing up nonstop for over 48 hours. I couldn't keep ANYTHING at all down. even water. Once my vomiting turned to vomiting up a decent amount of blood, my dear husband decided it was time for another trip to the ER. They ran my labs up there, gave me fluids once again, and gave me the most amazing thing ever to happen to morning sickness. Zofran! It's an anti-nausea medication available by prescription that is safe during pregnancy. Dissolve one tablet on your tongue every 8 hours and you are golden. I actually have not thrown up at all since I began taking it. I'm hoping to be able to stop taking it soon. I am weary of any medication during pregnancy, but it's either this, or starve, and at least this way I'm able to get nutrients to the baby.

My Estimated due date is January 16th, 2012. This dates me at 7 weeks and 3 days today.  We are very excited, and hopeful for a healthy and happy pregnancy!

Weekly Check In:

• How far along?: 7 weeks 3 days

• Total weight gain: Won't know until June 8th.

• How big is baby?: Little one is the size of a blueberry this week!

• Maternity clothes?: I had to switch to maternity bras almost immediately. When they say sore boobs, they mean business! My poor girls couldn't take regular bras another day. I also bought a maternity dress on clearance that can work even if one isn't pregnant. Since I wear scrubs for work and have not gained much weight, I have not deemed it necessary to make the change over to maternity yet.

• Movement: I can't wait until I can report something in here!

• Stretch marks?: Nothing yet!

• Sleep?: I am tired all the time. Not only am I tired all the time, but I find I have the ability to sleep for 14 hours if I don't have to go to work or anything.

• Symptoms?: Exhausted, sore sore sore boobies, I'm extremely queasy when I don't have Zofran in my system. I'm peeing at least twice as much as before.

• Food cravings:  They honestly change daily. Yesterday I decided I wanted a beef sandwich from the pizza place. The day before that the thought of meat made me want to vomit. Today it's been fruit. Bananas and canteloupe to be specific
• Food Aversions: Anything sweet. Chocolate, ice cream, candy. ICK.

• Belly button in or out?: Still an innie.

• What I miss: I'm missing my Coca Cola. I figured by this point I would miss my cigarettes too, but that wound up being easier to quit than I had expected!

• What I'm looking forward to: My first official prenatal appointment on June 8th.

• Best Moment this week: So far it's been all the time my husband and I have spent together dreaming up names and talking about baby.

• Milestone: Baby is about 1/2 an inch long this week. Hands and feet are emerging from developing arms and legs, and the brain continues developing. Baby has an appendix and pancreas.

Monkey Baby Shower Take 2!

February 5th we hosted a baby shower for my good friend Rachel who is due on March 22nd! She registered for a lot of monkey things, like towels and blankets, so we opted to throw together a monkey themed baby shower! Sound familiar?? Kinda like this one?  

The main difference between the two is that for this one, we had to prepare all of the food rather than get it catered. Mama to be can only eat gluten free, so me and my ladies put together everything gluten free!

We reused a decent amount of what I already had from Laura's shower! Figured I would share some more photos!

Above is the first gift bag I've decorated using my Cricut Expression! I used the Create A Critter cartridge!

The setup!

Centerpiece! Flowerpot and monkey came from the Dollar Tree, Coconut bowls and ostrich feathers were left overs from  Laura's shower!

Coconut bowls filled with nuts, chocolate covered raisins, banana chips, banana runts, and banana Laffy Taffy!

For the favors we poured soy candles into Earth's Best baby food jars, and adorned with ribbons! They came out fantastical, and they smell terrific!

We hung paper lanterns for decorations and made "palm trees" out of crepe paper. The baby shower plates are from Target

These are the appetizers I chose to make! I know penguins don't really fit the jungle/monkey theme, but they were way too cute to pass up! Cream Cheese Penguins recipes and instructions found here

 Mary putting the finishing touches on her amazing deviled eggs!

and Ashley's fantastical gluten free cupcakes!

We ate, then mama to be opened her gifts:

All in all it was a great day! She loved all the little details we put into the shower, and it made her even more excited for baby Ethan to arrive!

Linking up to:

Freebies!

Who doesn't love getting mail? I know I do, and sometimes it doesn't even matter what it is! However I have found 2 great freebies that I thought I would share with my readers!

First -  

Zoya Nail Polish & Treatments is offering:

3 FREE bottles of nail polish when you use promo code FB2011 at checkout thru 01/07/2011. Shipping still applies. (Shipping costs are only $6.95
Restrictions apply. See Facebook page for complete details. Online offer only. Valid Credit Card or Debit Card w/ sufficient funds needed to process orders. Offer valid in continental US only. Offer not valid in conjunction with other offers.

I ordered these three colors: 

 From top - Robyn, Cheryl, & Jancyn

I can't wait to see these colors in person!

And Second Freebie?

"Like"Go Red For Women on Facebook, click on "Free Dress Pin" and fill in  your information to get a sweet free red dress pin to sport!

Crafty Goodness

I wish I had this many days off in a row more often! I'm actually getting around to all the projects I've been wanting to work on, and it feels GREAT. Too bad the next few weeks will be all work and no play!

Tonight I decided to make some wall decor for my friends nursery.

I started off with two unfinished wood craft squares from Hobby Lobby.

Gave them two coats of white acrylic paint:

I measured the small square on the top to be 4x4, so I cut out two pieces of scrapbooking paper that size. Then I whipped out the good old Cricut, and cut out two images from the Cindy Loo cartridge 3 inches tall.

Then it was time for Mod Podge to secure the paper and cutouts to the wooden squares.

The end-product?

Cute wall decor for under $5!

After those were done, and the glue was drying, I decided to tackle a mini-project!

I love my camera. It's my baby, I treat it as such. However, I was getting very bored with the Canon camera strap. The back, while strong, hurts when it rubs up against your neck for too long, say when you're photographing a wedding. I decided to sew a sleeve to cover the strap, and add a little more excitement to it! It took about 5 minutes to do, which was nice, and it was a perfect fit to the width of the strap.

I'm obsessed with polka dots, so this fabric from my stash seemed fitting! I want to make a few more camera straps so I can switch them out as I please, though next time, I think I will try to put some quilting batting in there too for some extra cushion! All in all, I'm a happy camper, and this will do just fine for now!

What projects are you working on? Care to share? :)
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