Weekend Projects

Apparently I've decided to forego the traditional cleaning side of nesting, and instead make craft projects like a mad woman. I spent the majority of my weekend either painting, ironing, or sewing, while my house was left seriously neglected.

Btw, for a good laugh you can just picture my almost 37 week pregnant self sitting in the floor leaning over my giant belly to pin fabric together. I'm sure it was a pretty entertaining sight to see. Thankfully, only my husband and the cat had to actually witness this, and they're smart enough to not make fun of me. Well, at least not to my face, I'm pretty sure the cat laughs at me behind my back all the time. ;)

The following are the products of my weekend crafting spree...

Friday night, I spent about 5 or 6 hours painting a large, (it's 30x24), canvas for Henry's room:

The color is a little off in this picture, the letter H and the border are navy blue, not black, and the border around the chevron is orange, not red. It's cloudy here today, so there's kind of a shadow on everything.

I plan on painting Jeremiah 29:11 - "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." in the green area on the canvas, but I've been putting it off because I'm not 100% sure I can make the whole verse fit, so I'm chickening out and putting it on hold for a couple days to work up some courage to finish it up.

Saturday someone I follow on pintrest pinned this cute little owl taggie, and I set out to see if I could make one too. This was my finished product:

It was pretty easy to do, and didn't take too long once I figured out a couple things. He definitely has his flaws; I think his wings are a little too small, I forgot to allow for a seam allowance when I put his eyes on, and I accidentally sewed one ribbon tag back into a seam, but I thought he didn't look too bad for a first attempt.

I decided to see if I could remedy some of the boy owls flaws by making a girly version, so here is my boy owl's girly cousin:

I managed to fix some of the boy owl's flaws, while coming up with a whole new set on the girl. Go figure. I'm really disappointed in her "a" applique, because I somehow pulled a thread that made the A pucker up a lot. There's also a stray line of stitches at the top that should be inside. Oh well, live and learn. The perfectionist in me wants to make a few more until I get them perfect. ha!

Here are the two owls together:

I finally finished Henry's bedskirt:

I only started it before Christmas! You know how when I was talking about the name canvas for his room earlier, and I mentioned putting off something when I got nervous about messing it up. Well, that's why it has taken me so stinkin' long to get this bedskirt finished. It wasn't hard, but somehow the instructions I used and the dimensions of our crib weren't quite adding up and it frustrated me to no end! Someone forgot to mention to me that there's actually quite a bit of math in sewing! Last night I just decided to stop thinking about it and just finish it up once and for all. Besides the side that looks the worst faces a wall and no one can see it anyway. ;)

While I was working on the bedskirt, husband finished up hanging the curtain rods in Henry's room, so now he has curtains:

The canvas will eventually be hung a little higher, right now it's just on a nail that was already in the wall.

Now that the rods are up, I have to go back in and iron the curtains and hem them, but that's the least of my worries. After everything else that won't take any time at all!

And finally, here's a project that I did one day last week, (or maybe the week before?), that I never posted. I saw a couple of cute things on etsy that had paper airplanes on them, so I thought I would try it out on a pillow cover to put in the chair in Henry's room, and here's the end result:

It doesn't actually have a pillow insert inside right now, (it's just draped over the top of a pillow I swiped from the living room temporarily), because I need to go pick one up at JoAnn's, so the bottom is still unsewn, but you get the idea. I was pretty proud of the airplane applique because it actually came out looking more like a paper airplane than any paper airplane I was every actually able to create out of paper! ;) Plus, I just used scraps that I already had to make the entire thing, so it was free and didn't even take me an hour. That's my kind of project!

That's pretty much it! Did you make anything fun this weekend?

Jennifer

This Week...

Just some random pictures/goings on of the last week or so...

We've been working hard to try and get things checked off our baby to-do list as my due date draws ever closer. In the past week we've:

installed the car seat in the car:

assembled the pack and play in our bedroom, and now have to deal with this:

Or this:

when we come in the bedroom sometimes. We've discovered if we put something else in the pack and play she won't get in it, so Curious George has been camping out in it lately. Poor George, he's basically been our baby model for the past few months, he's modeled cloth diapers and homemade baby bibs, and now he has to stay in the pack and play. ;) ha!

We took a TON of classes at the hospital!

Seriously, we took childbirth classes, breastfeeding, baby care, infant safety and CPR, and a car seat class. It may seem like a little much, but I feel so much better about bringing Henry home now. A lot of the classes consisted of things that we already knew, but we really did learn a lot at each one of them. We also realized that between the two of us, we might actually be ok. ;)

I finished sewing the curtains for Henry's room! I'm so excited because they took a lot less time to do than I thought they would, even with my hugely pregnant self having to sit on the floor to pin 12 yards of fabric. It was my first time making lined curtain panels and I was so happy that they actually turned out well. Husband has been practicing using my big camera so that he'll be more comfortable using it when Henry arrives, (he's getting a lot better!), so I found lots of pictures like the following one on my camera when I uploaded pictures.

We got one of the curtain panels hung in the nursery, but will have to wait until this weekend to get the other one up because we had to go in search of a matching curtain rod. The Target we bought the first rod at only had one in stock, so I had to go to another Target to find another rod. I can't wait to see what the room looks like with both panels up!

After that we just have to wait for a couple of prints I ordered off etsy to arrive, and I want to paint a large canvas for above the crib and the nursery will be done!

Speaking of the nursery, I've been on the hunt for an orange lamp to go in the nursery for months now. Who would have thought it would be so difficult to find an orange lamp? I finally gave up finding one in person and ordered this one:

from Lowes.com thinking that it would be just about perfect. Unfortunately, I was seriously disappointed when this is what we got:

it is not orange at all. I was so upset! The dresser that the lamp is sitting on is a cherry stain, (you can see it better in this post), and the lamp was almost the exact same color as the dresser. It's a horrible dark reddish brown. I guess it's really not an awful color, unless you were hoping for an actual orange lamp. Needless to say it will be returned.

With the disappointment of the Lowe's lamp, I pretty much gave up on finding an orange lamp. I've looked at every store I can think of for months and hadn't found anything like what I had in my mind. Also, I didn't think about the effect of the orange lamp sitting on the cherry dresser until the failed Lowe's lamp attempt, but I decided that even the orange I have in my mind might not be the absolute best. wah, wah...

The next night I found this combo at Target:

It wasn't at all what I was looking for, but I really liked it! Best of all the base was on clearance for $12.48 and the shade was on sale! I decided to give it a go and see what it looked like, (worst case scenario, it would have to be returned which is no big deal since I go to Target about 20 times a week). The verdict, we really like it! I tried to take a picture of it with one of the finished curtain panels in the background, but it didn't turn out as well as I like and today it's too dark and dreary to get a good picture, so we'll just have to wait.

On another front, in the past week I think I've eaten black bean nachos about 5 times. No lie. I am hungry all. the. time. I'm very thankful that I've not been hungry like this the entire pregnancy! I have to eat every few hours, but can only eat about a 1/3 of a serving of food each time because my belly is out of room. This means that I eat lots and lots of snacks and very few meals. I've been trying to eat foods that will fill me up, are quick to fix, but still have food value, (i.e. not eating cookies, pudding, pretzels, etc. all the time). Nachos are one of my solutions to this.

I take a handful of tortilla chips, a couple ounces of reduced fat cheese, and 1/4 cup of black beans and stick them on a plate in the microwave for a minute until all the cheese is melted. When it comes out I put less than a tablespoon of light sour cream, salsa, a slice of tomato or a few grape tomatoes, and one sliced green onion on top. And then I scarf it all down in about 10 seconds, because it's delish.

But, the most exciting thing that happened in the past week...

I became an aunt!

This little beautiful bundle of joy is Miss Adelaide Elisabeth, (don't you just LOVE her name?!!), and she was born to my youngest brother and his wife last Friday. We're so unbelivably excited for them!! I'm so glad Henry has a cousin!!! We actually found out that Haley was pregnant the exact same day that I found out I was pregnant with Henry, so it's been really fun to be able to talk pregnant talk with them since June! :) I absolutely cannot wait to meet her; I'm just a tad upset she waited to make her appearance until I was too far along in my pregnancy to travel! ha!

That's pretty much all we've been up to! Have y'all done anything fun lately?

Jennifer

Crock-Pot Red Beans and Rice

First of all, let me just say that I know that this is not a super authentic red beans and rice recipe, I'm a Texas girl. ;) However, I've been making it for years, (it was actually the very first recipe I ever posted on my blog about three years ago, back when I had like 3 followers), and we think it's pretty good. Plus, it's in the crock-pot which makes it easy-peasy.

A couple of notes about the recipe before we get started:

-I use one package of dried small red beans NOT kidney beans. I know there are people who make their red beans and rice with kidney beans, but I'm not a fan. I honestly don't like kidney beans much, (which is a little ironic because they're an ingredient in my Crock-Pot Chicken Tortilla Soup recipe, which gets more hits on my blog than any other post by far!). I don't mind them in small doses, but the thought of eating an entire bowl does not appeal to me. If you prefer kidney beans, by all means use them, I just wanted to take a second to differentiate between the two.

-The recipe calls for 3-4 cloves of garlic, but I like garlic and a lot of times I use 5. I'm a garlic rebel like that. ;)

-Touching on the not being authentic side of this recipe, I use beef smoked sausage the majority of the time I make this dish. I know that andouille sausage is the correct choice, but I also know that it's not the easiest to find at all stores all the time. Plus, I usually have some smoked sausage that I bought on sale/with coupons in my freezer, so it's just easier to use it. If you like andouille better and can find it, use it!

-On that same note, I've listed below using 3 slices of bacon but most of the time I use leftover ham, (or a ham bone), that I've had in the freezer. I usually make one of those spiral sliced hams at Christmas and by the day after Christmas I'm so sick of eating, I bag all of it up into little freezer bags and toss it in the freezer. I usually have a couple bags of the good slices of spiral ham, a couple bags of little ham pieces, and a bag that contains the ham bone. For this recipe I will often use one of the bags of little ham pieces or the ham bone in place of the bacon, and it's delicious. However, I'm not crazy enough to think that everyone just has a ham bone lying around in their freezer, and three slices of bacon is a good substitute that still gives this that good smokey, salty flavor.

-I have listed below to use 2 cans of low sodium chicken broth, and that's really just a personal preference. I only ever buy low sodium chicken broth because I grew up with a Momma who was always very conscientious about our salt intake. Basically, you can always add more salt, but it's tough to take it back out. When I'm using other ingredients that include salt, (bacon, sausage, Creole seasoning, etc.), in a recipe, I like to err on the side of caution and not add too much in from the get go. If you make this and your red beans and rice needs more flavor/salt, just add some more of the Creole seasoning to your tastes.

-In an effort to make my life more easy in the mornings, (I am not a morning person. at. all.), the night before I make this recipe I usually chop up my veggies, sausage, and bacon and put them in tupperware containers in the fridge. I also rinse and sort my red beans and set them to soak in the crock-pot basin and put my cans of chicken broth and diced tomatoes, and all the spices out on the counter. In the morning all I have to do is drain the water from the beans and throw everything in the crock-pot and it literally takes less than 5 minutes.

All my ingredients ready to go in the morning.

Ok, enough with the housekeeping procedures...

Red Beans and Rice

Ingredients

1 pound bag of small red beans, soaked and drained
1 onion diced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
2 celery ribs, finely chopped
1 package smoked sausage, sliced
3 slices of bacon
1 can of diced tomatoes
2 cans reduced sodium chicken broth
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon dried Thyme
2 teaspoons Tony Cacheres Cajun seasoning
*1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, optional & see note below*

Everything in the pot first thing in the morning before cooking.

Combine all ingredients in Crock-Pot and cook on high for 8 hours or low for 10-12 hours. *If you're using the cayenne pepper, add it in the last thirty minutes or so, (I put it in when I start cooking my rice so it doesn't make the whole pot too spicy). Serve over rice.

After cooking 10 hours on low. I apologize for the atrocious lighting in this picture, our kitchen is basically a windowless cave which makes taking pictures of food awful, especially in the winter!

The finished product!

Enjoy!

Jennifer

35 & 35

35 weeks down, 35 DAYS to go. Yes, just 35 days until my due date, how's that for freaky?! At my appointment last week my doctor said that if I go into labor now she won't do anything to stop it. I realize that first babies are more often late than early, and I've had that in my head throughout this whole pregnancy, trying to prepare myself for the fact that it could very well be March before Henry is born. Hearing that he could technically be born anytime now, totally freaked me out and sent me into full-blown nesting mode!

Which is good because this was the state of Henry's room last about a week and a half ago:

Yeah, how's that for a sneak peak of the nursery? ;) Honestly, this picture makes it looks about 100 times worse than it actually was/is. This was the night after my baby shower, (which I still need to do a post about, I've been a slacker blogger lately), and I was sorting through everything trying to get it organized while husband worked on hanging things on the wall. So the piles on the floor are actually separated into loads of laundry, a pile of packaging to go in the recycling, and things to go to other rooms of the house, (adorable whale bathtub!). Oh, and the big bare spot in the floor was where my big butt had been sitting while sorting everything. ;)

Trust me, it looks nothing like this now! I spent a big portion of last week ironing and sewing:

so his curtains are almost done now. I just need to find some new hardware for the windows so I can get the curtains hung and then hemmed to the appropriate length. All his cute little things have been washed and put in their proper locations, (except a few things that I can't figure out quite where to put and are just folded and in the crib, ha!). I've got to say, the kid has a pretty stinkin' cute wardrobe. Here's one side of his closet:

We got several packages of hangers as gifts, about half white and half blue. My OCD self had to separate them out so this side of the closet has the blue hangers and the other side has white. Otherwise I'd probably have to have every other hanger be blue, white, blue, white... or some other even crazier pattern.

A few random observations about the last couple of weeks:

-I think about food way more than what is probably appropriate. I've never been much of a meal planner, but I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about what I'm going to eat next. Like right now, while I'm writing this post I've been clock-watching and counting down the minutes until it's time to start making spaghetti for dinner tonight. It's actually pretty funny to me because I've really not been hungry much this whole pregnancy, (I'm still not and can't eat much at a time), but I have gotten very focused on what my next meal is going to be. The upside to this is that we've eaten really well the past week and are doing well at keeping to our goal of eating out less this month.

-We've been taking lots of classes at our local hospital this month. So far we've taken a class on breastfeeding, car seats, and 2/3 of prepared childbirth. This week we'll finish up the prepared childbirth and take infant safety and CPR and a baby care class. I realize that it's probably overkill to take all the classes, but I really feel like we've learned a lot at each class, and I'm glad we signed up for them.

I really wanted to take the breastfeeding class because it's something that's very important to me that I knew absolutely nothing about, and the prepared childbirth class because I would ideally like to do a med-free birth and I was interested in learning more about techniques to deal with the pain. The car seat class I really didn't think was too necessary going in, (except that we spent 30 minutes trying to install our seat one night and couldn't get it right!), but I really learned a lot! I think the craziest part of it was that they said that only approximately 4% of the car seats in the DFW area are installed correctly! Isn't that scary?!

-I'm up a total of 16-17 pounds. According to my doctor's scale last week I had actually lost a pound from my appointment two weeks before, but I'm sure that was a total fluke, and she didn't seem worried about it either. My belly is still measuring right where it should be, so as long as it's still getting bigger I don't get in trouble for losing a pound. ;)

-This weekend I had some pretty intense back pain that started Saturday afternoon and got progressively worse through Sunday night. We went to a prepared childbirth class Sunday afternoon where they discussed preterm labor and back labor, and I'm pretty sure the instructor had husband convinced I was in labor for a little while. She had a powerpoint slide that had I think 8 signs of labor on it, and because of the back pain and a stomach ache, (from eating pizza and french fries the day before), I met all but one of the criteria. Jonathan kept giving me the side eye while she was going over everything and I had to convince him that I just didn't feel good, I was not going into labor. ;) Obviously I was right because I'm still very much pregnant 3 days later and I'm feeling much better!

-I am still having braxton-hicks contractions sporadically, mostly when I try to do too much or have been on my feet too long without taking a break. I'll tell you what, pregnancy can seriously damper one's sense of independence! I always make a to-do list every night before I go to bed, and usually only get a few things crossed off every day because the simplest things just wear me out too quickly. If you know me well, you understand how incredibly frustrating this is for me! ;)

-My sleeping has gone progressively downhill to the point that it's basically non-existant at this point. On a good day I take three 1-2 hour catnaps. Yesterday I wasn't tired at all until 7:00 in the morning, and still didn't fall asleep until sometime after 7:45 a.m. It was really beginning to irritate me for a couple of weeks, but I've just decided that I'm going to sleep when I can and not feel guilty about it. Trying to fight my body into going to bed at a certain time or get up at a certain time just makes it worse. Oddly enough, despite having not slept at all in weeks, I feel like I have a lot more energy lately than the entire time I've been pregnant. Of course this makes the whole contractions when I do too much all the more frustrating because I feel like I'm ready to go and my body just won't let me!

-Last week I was washing all of Henry's stuff, (clothes, bedding, bath stuff, everything), and there were a couple of items that said "hang dry" on the tags. I pulled out our drying rack and stuck it in front of the window in the dining room and didn't think anything about it. When husband got home from work he asked me what kind of operation I was running, because it looked like I had a skinning rack setting up in the dining room. ;) He's silly, but between the monkey bath wash mitt and stuffed bunny, he might have a point:

And finally, here we are at 35 weeks. You can definitely tell my belly has gotten bigger. No wonder my back hurts!

Jennifer

2012

I'm a little behind on the New Year's posting because we were out of town and still celebrating Christmas on New Year's day, (and then I wrote this post a week ago and never published it). I've been giving a lot of thought to New Years Resolutions and such, and have come to the conclusion that I'm not making any "resolutions" per say this year. I'm about 6 weeks away from Henry's due date, and as a first time mom I'm trying not to set any great expectations about the period directly after that. Also, it's kind of hard to do the normal resolutions and resolve to lose weight when I know I've still got 6 weeks of gaining weight to do first. ;)

Additionally, our 2012 is shaping up to be a pretty big year, off the top of my head here are some of the bigger events coming up this year:

-We're expecting our first niece to be born any day now!

-A couple of people (not mentioning any names here, but you know who you are), in our family turn the big 5-0 this year

-Henry is due in February, as are our best friends' twins!

-LOTS of our friends are having babies in February, March, and April

-My sister-in-law graduates college and then gets married this summer!

-Our lease on our house will run out in August and we've decided not to renew it, so we're going to have to do some house hunting this summer, and in the meantime we have to narrow down exactly where we want to live

So, yeah, with all that coming up, I just don't feel like coming up with any resolutions that I'm sure will not last too long! Instead I've decided to take a page from Katie's book and make monthly goals instead that will hopefully be more manageable. ;)

So, without further ado, my goals for January:

-Take more pictures! I really slacked off on taking pictures in the second half of last year and there's really no excuse for it, I would really like to get better at documenting this crazy busy time in our life. (This is more like an all year goal, but that sounds like a resolution, so we're going to play it month-by-month).

-Reign in spending and step up saving. This is another all year goal, but I feel like it's especially important this month. I always feel like we hemorrhage money during December, (even though I'm pretty sure we spent less on Christmas this year than last by far), and my normally budget-crazy self is ready to get back into my normal money-hoarding ways. Also, we just got my pre-admission bill for delivery from the hospital last week, and there's nothing like getting a bill for two grand in the mail to really motivate you to stop spending money! The next two goals also fall under the umbrella of this one, but I decided to separate them...

-Start couponing again. I had gotten really good at using coupons this fall, and then around Thanksgiving I skipped getting newspapers like three weeks in a row, (at least), and really fell off the wagon. It has pained me to buy things in the past few weeks that I know I would have had coupons for if I had just been keeping up with it. I'm not a fan of paying full price for stuff!

-Start eating at home more often. Something about December and it's craziness always leaves us eating out just about constantly. Three years ago I remember adding it up that we had only eaten at home 3 days the whole month, and I don't think we did too much better than that last month. I know that we eat healthier food and save a ton of money eating at home, so I'm really trying to keep that up.

-Lastly, finish Henry's room! I worked on it a lot this weekend, and I've got loads of baby laundry going in the washer and dryer right now, (which I have to say is more fun than regular laundry, but it takes a TON of tiny clothes to make an entire load!), and it's really starting to come together. A trip to JoAnn's for some drapery lining, a couple hours sewing, and a few more things ordered coming in the mail and it should be done! I can't wait! :)

And now, because I don't like picture-less posts, here's a picture of our rainbow of cloth diaper fluff...

I ordered some clearance BumGenius prints from Cotton Babies last week, and when they came in I just couldn't resist taking a picture of our current stash. Yes, I know, I'm weird. I just like all the colors and thought they looked so pretty all lined up in the drawer, (you know, as pretty as diapers could possibly be). I think we're up to 15 diapers, there are a couple repeat colors that weren't included in this picture. I've tried to only buy ones that were on sales/clearance etc., and a couple of different types so that we could see what we liked, but I'm really considering ordering 3 more of the artist series BG prints while they're still on for buy two get one free. I just don't want to end up with a lot of the same kind and then have them not work out well for us. Decisions, decisions....

I hope you all are having a fabulous 2012 thus far! Perhaps I should make a goal to blog more since the month is almost 1/3 of the way over and this is my first post! ha ;)

Jennifer