25 Week Belly Picture and Other Randomness

As promised, here is my 25-week belly. I can't believe that I only have 15 more weeks to go (hopefully not more than that!)

Last weekend, Daniel and I got our Christmas tree and decorated it! I really like the way it turned out, and it looks even better now that it has presents to go underneath it! We started and almost finished our Christmas shopping yesterday! I am a very last-minute shopper anyway, and so yesterday morning, I made a list of the stores we needed to go to and we got almost all of it done! It helped to pretty much know what we were buying at each store. But I was rather surprised that we got most of it done in one day. Not to mention yesterday had to be the worst day to shop as far as weather was concerned. Only a couple more things to pick up this week... not too bad! So here is a picture of our tree...

Also, A couple of weeks ago I made a valance for our kitchen. I am wanting to make curtains for our living room, but I thought I would start off small and see how it went. It went really well and I can't wait to make the curtains now.

I am working on some placemats that I will hopefully finish this week. I have gotten 3 out of the 6 done so I will post pictures of those when I finish. This past Monday was my last sewing class and I really enjoyed that a lot! I made a pair of pajama pants so that was fun! They turned out pretty big, but my instructor encouraged me to make them much bigger than normal so that I can comfortably wear them at the end of my pregnancy. They even have pockets! I can't think of anything I need to put in my pockets when I am sleeping, but at least now I know how to sew on pockets...

I learned some really good things in the class, but I have to admit I am glad to have my Monday nights free again. Life has been so busy lately! I know a lot of that just comes with the time of year, but 4 Monday nights in a row, from 5-9, took up a lot of time!

Well, I hope everyone has had a great weekend! :)

Ready For a Break

As much as I absolutely love my job, I must admit I am looking forward to Christmas break oh so much! I think it's because there are a lot of things I am anticipating about the break. First, we are going to be spending about 5 or 6 days in Nashville which will be a lot of fun! We only got to spend the weekend a couple of weeks ago, so it will be nice to have a longer visit this time. Another thing we plan on doing is working hard on Maddox's nursery. I can not wait for this! I know it is still so early considering I still have 3 1/2 months left to go, but it will be nice to have a span of about a week that we can concentrate on it. Weekends tend to get so busy anyway, and I don't know how much time we will have after the first of the year to work on it.



On a similar note, our baby bedding came in yesterday! We decided to go a different direction with the bedding than we had orinigally planned on, but this was something I had my eye on from the beginning. So we ordered it last Thursday night, and it was here by Tuesday... and it was on sale! So yay for having his bedding!! Here is a picture from the website..


I am still very undecided on what the color of the walls will be. I am afraid that if we do blue, it is going to be too much blue and that it won't look good. I just don't know! I am so happy with the print, though, and I think it's going to look so good in his room! We still have a lot of work to do on the furniture, but it will all get done I know. We did not get any of the accessories to go with the bedding. I am going to make the valences for the windows, probably a solid brown, and we already have baskets that came with the changing table for diapers, etc... I can't wait to see how it all ties together! I am so excited!


Another thing I am looking forward to about the break is having some time to read. I go through phases with reading and the last time I read a book was this past summer. I have to admit, even though I am a teacher, reading comes and goes with me. I went through a reading phase in the summer and read 2 really good books. But I don't think I have picked up a book since then. I went by the local library today and checked out a book by Alice Sebold called "Lucky". It is a memoir and I really do enjoy true stories. I wanted to read either "The Last Song" by Nicholas Sparks or "The Lucky Bones" by Alice Sebold. But the library did not have either one. That is the only bad thing, in my opinion, about checking them out. You have to wait until it's in, obviously, to get it. I am just not into buying the books because I never read them more than once. And I can't see paying $17 + dollars for a new book that is just going to collect dust on a bookcase after I read it one time. I know I'm crazy! Anyway, I might get started on it tonight... we will just have to wait and see.


In other news, Daniel and I are, well, addicted, to several t.v. shows right now. We have DVR and I don't think that is something we could very easily live without now that we have had it. We record so many shows and then go back and watch them when it fits into our schedule. Some of our current recordings are... The Biggest Loser, Trauma, Mercy, Grey's Anatomy, The Office, The Amazing Race, and Survivor. I am somewhat ashamed of this long list, but I can't help it. They are all so good! Having a baby will probably cut this list down by several shows!


I have been saying for forever that I am going to post a belly picture, and I promise that I will by the end of the week. I am almost 25 weeks and the time is flying by! I can't believe that we only have about 15 weeks left. This pregnancy has been such a blessing and I hope that in the 3rd trimester (only 2 weeks away) it will continue to be the same way. I really have enjoyed being pregnant and I love that Maddox is starting to be on the move so much! On the weekends when I am not working and preoccupied all day, I really feel him a lot and I love that! I can't wait to see what he is going to look like and what his personality will be. The time is ticking away...

Well, this was a long enough post so I will end here. I hope everyone has had a fabulous humpday! Stay tuned later in the week for a 25 week belly picture.

Thanksgiving Travels

The weekend before Thanksgiving, Daniel and I went to Nashville to spend some much-needed time with his family. We had not been there since July so we were both so excited to go. It was a great weekend of relaxation, playing cards, eating yummy food, spending time with family, etc... It was so much fun and I am so glad it won't be that long until we go back for Christmas. Here is a family picture that we took while we were there...

We only got to spend 2 days there because I had to come back for 2 more days of work :( Those couple of days working went by very quickly and before we knew it, it was Thanksgiving day! We spent Thanksgiving day this year here with my family and went over to my aunt's house for a great lunch. It is a tradition with my family that every Thanksgiving we go to the movies that afternoon. The movie we saw this year was "The Blind Side". I highly recommend this movie if you have not seen it. I thought it was great! So that night we came home and tried to get things packed because we left bright and early Friday morning to spend the weekend in Gatlinburg for our 1st anniversary!! Our actual anniversary was on the 22nd when we were in Nashville, but we wanted to plan a weekend away, just the two of us, but we couldn't go until the weekend after our actual anniversary. We had a great time, and I am so thankful for such a great husband! The past year has flown by, and I can't wait for many many more! I love Daniel so much and I don't know how I got so lucky! We just got back from our trip a couple of hours ago and I am pretty exhausted! But it truly was a blast! Here are some pictures from our trip...







We went to the Dixie Stampede Saturday night and we had a great time. I had never been before, so I had no idea what to expect! The food was great and so was the show. By the way, I thought we stayed in the cutest little cabin. It was 11 miles outside of Gatlinburg so we really had to plan our outings so we didn't spend half the day driving, but it was well worth it b/c we got a GREAT deal on the cabin. It was so cute and cozy and I would recommend it to anyone! If you have never used VRBO.com you should give it a try! I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!! :)

Weekends

Boy do I love weekends! They are so much fun! This one has been no exception. I came home Friday and decided to get to work on some sewing projects I wanted to get done. I had two baby showers to attend this weekend and I wanted to make some things for the moms-to-be. I have been wanting to do a burpcloth, and so finally last night I did my first one. My husband is so much help! He is great with the whole measuring part, which is wonderful because I love the actual sewing part of it. Anyway, these are the 2 projects that I completed...

I went to my sweet friend Brooke's shower this afternoon and I gave her the set in the 2nd picture. I have the other shower tomorrow and I am giving her the set in the 1st picture. I am still new to all of this, but I never realized how much fun all of this sewing could be! I think I am going to try to do a blanket next. I still need to do some brainstorming on that one. It couldn't be too hard (yeah right).

Here are a few pictures from the shower today. There were 4 of us pregnant ladies there and we got a couple of cute shots.

All of us are at different stages in our pregnancy... going from left to right in the first 3 pictures is 39 weeks, 32 weeks, 21 weeks, and 16 weeks. We are all in the same church share group and it is so much fun to get to share in this experience together!

Also this afternoon Daniel and I planted some pansies in our front flower box. I have never been great at keeping flowers alive but I am hoping that this time will different. We definitely needed some color in there so hopefully the life span of these little guys will be longer than in the past.

And tonight, we went down the street to some friends' house for dinner. We are so glad that they have moved in only 4 houses down from us. There will be many fun times ahead I am sure!

Well, I had great intentions this weekend of getting some school work done for the upcoming week, but obviously that hasn't happened as of yet. I do still have tomorrow, but I am kind-of known for my Sunday naps around here, so I am not promising anything. Either way, this has been a fabulous weekend and it's not even done yet. Oh, how I love weekends!

Busy, Busy, Busy!

This last week has been so busy but it's been so much fun! It all started last weekend. Our good friend Brad came into town and spent Saturday night with us. Daniel and I were both up early Saturday morning cleaning and trying to get the house in order. I totally can not sleep late anymore. I think I can blame getting up at 5:30 every day of the work week for that! But it was good to get going early and be productive on a Saturday morning. We had fun with him over the weekend and we wish we got to see him more often! Then Monday I started my sewing class that I mentioned a couple of posts back. It was a great class, although it was very long! I got there at 4:30 to buy my supplies and it did not end until 9:00. I was exhausted when I finally got home, but I think I learned a lot and I know that I am going to enjoy the rest of the class. I am making a pair of pajama pants so we will see how that goes!

On Tuesday, I took a 1/2 day off of work and my mom and I headad up to Atlanta for our bi-annual shopping trip! We have so much fun and I look forward to this so much. This trip was a little different, though, because I got to shop for Maddox which was soooo much fun! I didn't get too crazy considering he is not even here yet and we have no clue what size he will be, but we did get a few great things for him! Baby clothes shopping is much more fun than I ever realized! I did find great deals on maternity clothes, too. The Gap Maternity in Lenox mall was having a huge sale and I took full advantage of it! We got back late Wednesday afternoon. One of the highlights of the trip was on the way home, we discovered the ORIGINAL Chick-fil-a Dwarf House. Those of you that know me well know that I am hopelessly addicted to some Chick-fil-A. It was so cool because it was so old! All of the ones I have ever been to are so new looking. It was built in 1946 and it was just so neat to me for some reason. Sad, I know! Later that night, the 2nd grade teachers got together and had dinner at Cock of the Walk. We try and have dinner together once a month and this was our eating out month. Usually we all go to someone's house and cook, but this was a nice change of pace. We really enjoyed ourselves!

Also this week, I have been feeling Maddox move like crazy! I feel him every day now and I LOVE that feeling! It was frustrating in the beginning because I was able to feel it and by the time Daniel tried to, he didn't move anymore. But last Thursday night Daniel was able to feel it for the first time. It was so neat for him to feel it too. He has felt it lots of times since then, though. He moves the most at night when I am sitting still or lying down. He is pretty active, though, during the day when I am teaching too. Sometimes when I am teaching and I feel him move, I will just stop and put my hand on my belly, and my sweet class says, "I think Maddox is moving!" They are so sweet and I am going to miss them for the last part of the year!

Finally, today, things are beginning to slow down a little bit. I am hoping for a nice, relaxing weekend. I hope to do some sewing and maybe even some reading. I need to enjoy these last few months of weekends with "nothing" to do! Have a great weekend everyone! PS - I am SO behind on belly pics but I promise to do one this weekend! :)

Some Other Creations

I have been a little obsessed with my newly discovered hobby and here are a couple of things I have made in the past 2 days...

I think I am officially addicted! :)

Adventures in Sewing

So lately I have had this bug to learn how to sew. I am sure it has something to do with the fact that I am going to have a baby. But either way, I think it is a great skill to have. So I did some thinking and called a local sewing store to see if they offered classes. It turns out they do! I start November 9th and I am so excited! I have a little sewing experience but not very much. Before I was in education, I was in apparel merchandising and I took a sewing class. But it has been so long since I have done it, I really don't remember anything. So I decided that I am going to give this a try. I wanted to start small, and get good at easier things and then progress forward. I began by purchasing a really inexpensive sewing machine Thursday night. It is a Singer Simple and I think it is going to be a great machine to learn on and practice with.

I decided that my first project was going to be a bib. I did some googleing and found a downloadable pattern and thought I would start with that. Wow, was that a disaster! It was extremely round and very hard for some reason. So then I thought with my handy dandy math-oriented husband's help, we could come up with our own pattern and go from there. So that is what we did. Daniel drew out the pattern and it seemed much easier to follow than the first one I tried. There were more straight edges on the one he made which made it easier. I got some old fabric from my grandmother and thought I would make a bib out of it first before I messed up any fabric that I had bought. That one turned out ok so I thought I would go ahead and make one from the fabric I wanted it made from. Here are the two side by side...

I wanted to make it reversible so the next picture shows the fabric on the other side...

I am really happy with the way it turned out. After running into several problems that had to be worked out and after being up until midnight last night (very unlike us) I am liking the finished product. I still have a lot of both fabrics left over so I am trying to decide what to tackle next. Any ideas??

Lastly, here are a couple of pictures from a get-together at some friends' house last night...

Happy Halloween everyone!!!

Fabric Ideas and Belly Picture

Ok, so here are the fabric samples that we are thinking about using for Maddox's bedding. I am pretty sure about the first 2, and am still thinking about the third. We'll see... I think we will decide by tomorrow. We are going over to Brooke's tomorrow night so that we can look at the fabric larger scale and hopefully see some samples of things made from this fabric. I am loving it!

I really love the touch of red in the third fabric and we have a bookcase that will be in the room that I was hoping to paint red, but I am still thinking about it. We still have plenty of time to figure it out! And I know it will turn out great because all of Brooke's things are wonderful!

Lastly, here is a 18 week belly picture. I have not been as good as I planned on about taking these pictures, but oh well. I have skipped a couple of weeks. So, here is 18 weeks, 3 days...

I am still feeling great and little Maddox is growing! I am beginning to feel him moving now, at least I think I am. It does not always feel like "flutters" or "bubbles" like most people describe. But I am pretty confident that it is him that I am feeling. Sometimes it feels like he is just poking me a few times. It is so hard to describe! But anyway, I look forward to these movements getting more and more recognizable and becoming more frequent. Well, I hope everyone has had a great Monday!

Crazy Week/Weekend

This week got off to a busy start right from the beginning! At school this week, I had to have 16 conferences with parents so that I could give out the first 9 weeks' report cards. I really haven't written anything about my class, but I do have to say that I LOVE my class this year! They are the sweetest things and it really stinks that I will not get to be with them the whole year since I will be on maternity leave the last 2 months of school. Anyway, work was crazy this week. There was so much to get done! This upcoming week is Red Ribbon Week and we have to decorate our doors with a "Just Say No" slogan. Thanks to my friend Jamie I ended up with a cute slogan and a pretty cute door if I do say so myself. You can't see all of the details really well, but it turned out better than I thought it would considering the amount of time I had to do it...

On Monday night we went to eat dinner at Cock of the Walk for my brother's birthday and it was so yummy! I have not eaten there since the night of our rehearsal dinner, almost a year ago! My how time flies! Then on Tuesday night, a group of teachers came over for dinner and we had a blast! We try and have a dinner at someone's house at least once a month and this was my month to host it. I look forward to these nights so much because things get so crazy during the workday that we rarely get much time for all of us to talk! The rest of the week slowed down a little bit, but with so many conferences at school and different appoinements in the afternoons I was very much looking forward to the weekend!

A friend of mine that I graduated college with is getting married in December and there was a shower for her Saturday afternoon. I was really looking forward to going because I have not seen her since she came down a year ago for one of my showers. Another reason I was excited about the trip was I got to spend some good quality time with one of my very best friends, Courtney, who lives in Birmingham. We met at the Galleria and shopped and had lunch, and just hung out/caught up and had a blast. I had no idea that there were any actual Gap maternity stores. I was under the impression that you had to order online, so boy was I excited to find out that there is one in the Galleria! I got a great pair of jeans and 2 shirts that I am really excited about! Another thing I wanted to do while I was there was look at fabric for Maddox's bedding. But I ended up running out of time and needed to get back home. Here is one picture from the shower. I have more, but I will have to add them later because my camera is dying...

Then on Saturday night, Tucker got to spend the night with us! We had a great time and he was so much fun! I will have to add some more pictures from the weekend later today. And last, but not least, I think we have decided on a fabric for the bedding. At church this morning, Brooke brought us her fabric samples and we found a couple of prints that we loved. I think they are going to coordinate very well together and I am very excited about the "vision" of the room that is forming in my head. Daniel is sanding the final piece of the crib as we speak and then he'll only have one more piece to sand before it all gets stained. I am so thankful for all of the hard work he has put into this! I think it's going to turn out really nice! Stay tuned for more pictures coming later...

IT'S A BOY

I am a tad bit late posting this, but Daniel and I found out on Thursday that baby Mundie is a BOY!!! We are so excited that we can't stand it and we have decided to name him Maddox Jeffrey Mundie. We absolutely love the name. His first name is a name that we just both really liked. His middle name is after my oldest brother, Jeffrey, who died 7 years ago. I never knew how difficult it was to come up with a name. You would think as many names as there are in the world that it would be a little easier to choose one, but that was not the case with us. We are really pleased with it though. It makes it all so much more real!! Needless to say, we have spent the weekend being crazy busy making plans for the nursery. I wanted to start with picking out some fabric for the bedding and man is that hard, too. There are not too many places to choose from around here so I may have to venture out of town for the fabric. Also, our house only has 2 bedrooms, so we spent a lot of the weekend moving furniture out so that we can start moving baby stuff in. We cleaned out closets and got rid of some things to try and make room. It is all so much fun. I am trying to decide on a color for the nursery, but I will have to wait until I choose the fabric for the bedding. A friend of mine is making the bedding so I am super excited about that! All of the plans are coming together nicely. I just have to space things out so that I don't have everything done months before Maddox gets here. We will see about that though. I am sure there are plenty of things to do that I have not even thought about yet. I also need to get on some reading. A friend of mine let me borrow the book "What To Expect The First Year" so I am going to start reading that soon. I need to start doing less reading on the pregnancy and more on what to do after he is actually here. I will go ahead and post some of my favorite pictures from the ultrasound. I go back to the doctor on Tuesday b/c we were not able to meet with him after the ultrasound.

The last picture is one of my favorites because I think he was touching his toes! I have also spent quite a bit of time lately trying to choose a travel system. There are so many to pick from and there is one in particular that I have had my eye on since the beginning. No matter how much I look, I keep coming back to it. I think this is the one we have decided on...

It is by Chicco and I have just loved it ever since I first started looking. I love the colors and I feel like they are very gender neutral (keeping in mind future kids). So as of now, this is what we are going with. Also today, I finally broke down and bought a Belly Band. For those who may not know what it is, it is a band that goes around your belly and makes it so that you can wear your normal pants for longer. I am still able to wear my normal clothes, which I am thankful for, but my pants are getting a little tight in the waist. So you wear this band with your pants unzipped/unbuttoned and it makes it to where you can't even tell. I think I am going to like it. Here is what it looks like... (This is not my belly)...

Other things that happened this weekend... last night Daniel and I enjoyed a fun dinner and a movie night. We were going to go to dinner and then go bowling, but after doing so much earlier in the day, we decided to hang out at home after dinner. So we went to Cracker Barrel and we had not been there in forever. It was soooo good! I love going there when it gets close to the holidays because they have so much neat stuff to look at. Then we came home and watched a movie. It was a very fun/relaxing night! Well, I think that's all I have for this post for now. I hope everyone has had a great weekend!!

Door Pictures and Counting Down

This weekend Daniel was able to finish the door/front porch. He put the door in last weekend and painted it, but now everything is done. We have new trim, new numbers above the door, our wreath from our wedding, and a freshly painted porch. I think it is going to take me a little while to get used to the porch because I have been used to an old, clashy, reddish color. I really like the new color though. It is just going to have to grow on me a little. I absolutely LOVE the door! It turned out so good! Daniel really is quite the handy-man and I love that about him! Here is a before... I never got a full shot of the whole porch. This is the best I can do.

Here is another one of just the door once it was taken off...

And finally, the finished product...

I am really happy with the way that it turned out! Just in time to do some Fall decorating soon. I am planning on getting a Mum and a pumpkin and we are also going to plant some flowers in the flower box under the main window to the left of the porch. I just pray that I can keep flowers alive. I have not had good luck with that so far. It would help, though, if I could remember to water them! We will see how that goes!

As for the countdown part, only 5 more days until we find out the sex of baby Mundie. I can not believe that it is so close! The time really is flying by! My mom and I went to Columbus today on a spur of the moment trip and I did some browsing in Babies R Us. Oh my word! We are going to have some fun in there! I think on Thursday everything will seem so much more real! So stay tuned for the reveal! The last picture is my 16 week belly. I somehow forgot to do a 15 week one. Oh well. Have a great rest of the weekend!