37 Weeks!

I'm 37 weeks now and if baby decides to come now, it will be fine with me! It's been a hard last couple of months with a lot of pain. I didn't think I was going to make it past those last few weeks of work, but now that I've been home on maternity leave for a little over a week, I've started to feel a lot better. This pregnancy has become manageable. I even scrapbooked last night!!

It has been lots of fun being home with Grace. She is such a joy! And I love the long naps she takes every morning. One day she napped for four hours! I kept checking on her that day and in awe that she was still asleep. She's great!!

Now it's baby watch time. I went to the doctor this morning and there are no signs of labor at this point, so doesn't look like Caleb will be here within the next week. Which is fine, because my best friend shows up next Monday to help us with Grace. Hopefully, Caleb will make his appearance while she is here. I don't feel ready at all for this baby. It's funny how at this time with my last pregnancy, everything was ready, all was organized and set up, and clothes were laundered and put away. Nothing is ready...I've got what we need, it's just still in packages and boxes. We are getting a dresser this weekend so after that I'll tackle his clothing. The crib will have to wait to guests leave...sometime after Christmas. That's okay by me. Even though I am such an organizer, I need to take it easy and with experience, I realize that not everything needs to be ready when he's born. Just the basics!!

This is an old picture of me...from October 27th. My co-workers threw a baby shower for me. I was big...and bigger now!!

And here's our little princess...pretty in pink! She will be 16 months old on Wednesday. And boy is she a busy little toddler.

I can't believe Thanksgiving is a just a few days away. My how time has flown this year. We'll be spending it with some of my family locally. It will be a "healthy" Thanksgiving meal much to Jonas' dismay. Even though my sister asked me not to, I may have to cook up a couple of "Southern" style sides for my Southern hubbie. Any suggestions?

Blessings,

Beth

Our Little Artist

Well, Grace tried out crayons today for the first time. Other than trying to stick the crayons in her mouth, she did well with them. She knew to keep the coloring on the paper. I was so proud of her. She is such a little grown up!

Here is her masterpiece...not sure if she will grow up to be an artist, but I sure am proud of her first creation. She kept putting her foot on the paper so I tried to draw an outline of it. It didn't work out that well, because I definitely am not an artist! This will be scrapbooked!

And she stole an Oreo off my plate the other day. She loved it! We weren't going to introduce these types of sweets to her quite yet, but she obviously had other plans.

This week I had to go to the hospital to get checked out. I was having intense pain and having a hard time walking. I thought it was better to be safe than sorry. Turns out I was having mild contractions. The doctor gave me medication to stop the contractions and ordered me off work till I see my OBGYN this Monday. It has really helped to rest. The pain has subsided and I almost feel normal. It's just really hard for me to sit still. Other than a haircut today, I have stayed home and rested. I have a little less than 8 weeks left till my due date. Caleb, stay put buddy!!

Blessings,

Beth

Sesame Street Numbers

I've been inspired to craft lately. Or shall I say, feeling pressured to get things done before Caleb is born. I've had an idea for Sesame Street themed numbers for Grace's closet door. I've been working on it here and there for a few weeks now and this afternoon decided to finish it up. Grace loves Sesame Street, as evidenced by this picture.

She especially loves Elmo and when he comes on, she climbs on the couch and sits as she watches. It's really adorable to watch her do this.

I made numbers 1-10 and decorated them with Sesame Street characters. I also put rhinestones on each letter. I used my handy dandy Cricut to cut out the Sesame Street characters and the numbers. I cut out the characters at 5 inches tall and the numbers at 7 inches tall.

Grace likes them. When she walks in her room, she stops to look at them. I am considering making more sets to sale on Etsy. Yes, with all that free time I have these days. Five more weeks till maternity leave...

On another note, Grace said, "I love you" to us for the first time last night and has been repeating it today. Wow! Such an awesome moment. It really warms our hearts to hear her say it. It's one of those things that makes being a parent so darn cool. Love it! I love that she is such a cuddle bug. She loves giving us hugs and kisses. And now, saying, "I love you" is like the cherry on top. We are blessed!

Blessings,

Beth

Monday Blues

We're sick! Not a great way to start the week. Grace had a runny nose on Friday and Saturday and by Sunday, both Jonas and I were sick. Grace is better. We had a garage sale on Saturday and it was a lot of work. Both Jonas and I were tired so I'm sure our immune systems were weakened and primed for catch what Grace was fighting off. At least Jonas can take cold medicines...I'm toughing it out with the help of Tylenol.

I'm 30 weeks pregnant now! Only 10 weeks to go. I am so big and feel so ready. I don't think I'm going to make it to my due date in December. I have a hard time walking sometimes and am not sleeping through the night anymore. Yesterday, I was literally making bathroom visits almost every 15 minutes. And this baby moves so much. It's almost like he's practicing karate kicks in the womb!

We had a rough day yesterday, between us being sick and Grace fussy from getting over being sick. Poor thing had much to cry about yesterday. But as always, she always makes us smile. Last night, she was showing us her latin dance moves! She has done it before, but last night I was able to catch some of it on camera. When she dances standing up, she also moves her little hips. Enjoy.

Both Jonas and I are staying home today to rest. Hopefully, we can both get in good naps. Grace is off to daycare!

Have a great week!

Blessings,

Beth

Lazy Sunday

We had a wonderfully restful weekend. Not much on our agenda, but rest. And it was much needed! Aside from church this morning, Jonas and Grace took long afternoon naps and I actually watched a movie!! I watched Soul Surfer. It was a good movie.

Here are a few pictures we took this afternoon. This picture looks like Grace is begging Jonas to take her off-roading! We love her hugs. She gives such great hugs!!

We though it would be a good photo op to get Grace next to Max and Zeus. She looks pretty small next to Zeus! While we were hanging out outside, Zeus walked by and whacked Grace on the face with his tail...that was bound to happen!!

And here I am looking oh so very pregnant! I'm 29 weeks now. 11 more to go. I can't believe how fast this pregnancy is whizzing by!! We met a neighbor tonight who only has one month to go in her pregnancy...and her belly was a lot smaller than mine!! What's up with that?!?!

Hoping you have a great week! It's busy, busy for us again. I'm counting down the days till maternity leave!!

Blessings,

Beth

Nursery Banner

Happy Friday! It has been another very long week! And I am so glad it's the weekend. I am now almost 28 weeks pregnant and officially in the third and last trimester. I can't believe how fast this pregnancy is moving along and how big I am getting! I'm getting a lot of comments about how I look like I'm ready to pop! Not ready yet, but I definitely feel ready! I walk slowly these days!

I've had a lot of projects on my mind to do and one of them was making a banner for Caleb's room. I have a lot to do in preparation for his arrival...like organize his room and have a yard sale. My scrapbook room will become his nursery. Not sure what I'm going to do with all my scrapbook stuff or where it will go, but it must be put somewhere else!

The banner is quite large. Jonas picked out the shapes so that it would look masculine. I used K & Company paper from their baby boy collection and cut out the animals from a Cricut cartridge: Animal Kingdom. I like how it turned out.

His nursery will be decorated in a Noah's Ark theme. This banner will fit right in. I've got more ideas for picture frames. Next up, I'm making Sesame Street numbers for Grace's room.

Blessings,

Beth

Speaking In Tongues

It's Saturday and I did nothing, but enjoy my family. It was great! Well, actually, I did do a bit of crafting this afternoon. Grace took a four hour nap today!! She was making up for a very tiring week. She is transitioning herself from two to one nap a day...much to my dismay.

Here she is showing us all kinds of new sounds and ways to move her mouth. I have a feeling she will be talking in now time. And she's quite the talker now...she communicates to us with such emotion and cute facial expressions. If only we knew what she was trying to say to us.

Isn't she just so cute? Well, we think so.

I'm about 27 weeks pregnant now. This is such a different pregnancy from my first. I am feeling now what I felt toward the end of that pregnancy. And I am big! I still have about 3 more months to go! It seems like a long time left for all that I am feeling now.

Blessings!

Beth

Craziness!

Wow! I'm back into the full swing of work and it has been crazy! If for not Grace and Jonas, I would be a huge, massive stress ball! It's the 2nd week of school and I'm not sure if pregnancy hormones are to blame (I'm sure they have some part in my inability to cope), but the whole start of school, schedule changes, and appointments galore are driving me crazy! So time to take a serious chill pill and believe it or not, scrapbooking is helping me cope. Even though I have been tired at home, I have been crafting. I've done some scrapbooking and am in the middle of two projects. One for Grace's room and the other for our soon to join us baby boy. Can't wait to share!

In the meantime, I'll share a few pictures of our little sweetheart.

Here she is getting her 2nd haircut by her favorite hair stylist...daddy!

And the finished product! Tada! Daddy sure did a good job. Grace doesn't leave hair ties or bows in her hair for very long so we're forced to give her bangs so we can keep her hair out of her eyes. This haircut makes us a bit sad because it makes her look more and more like a toddler than our sweet baby girl.

Blessings!

Beth

And more crafting!

I survived my first day back to work! I was so tired and I only worked a half day! I sure did miss little Miss Grace. She was so happy and smiley when I got home. We spent the rest of the afternoon together and I let her stay up a little past her bedtime.

I have been inspired to create! Over the weekend I made two baby boy themed chipboard albums. They are both for sale in my Etsy store. I picked up this paper at Michael's from Recollections. When I saw the paper, I immediately thought, "baby boy album!" It's perfectly sweet. The album spells out BABY.

The first pages has room for two pictures plus I added a journaling tag to include name and birth information.

I used K and Company embellishments. Really cute embellishments.

I love the trucks, train and cute little animal images.

I am going to have to make a third for baby Caleb. I actually never made one for Grace...guess I'll have to make two! One for Grace and one to welcome Caleb. I am also in the process of making two baby girl themed albums.

In all my free time, I also made a banner for my friend Tamara's new baby girl. I used this really cute scrapbook paper from Die Cuts With A View that is perfect for a fun and bright banner. The paper has glittered and embossed elements.

I also love this bright pink ribbon. I decided to give it a different spin by tying bows between each letter.

I'm inspired to make a banner for Caleb's room. The theme to his room will be Noah's Ark. I have found the perfect bedding set at Babies R Us from Lambs and Ivy. I'm now 21 weeks! A little more than half way there. Can't wait to meet this little guy!!

Blessings,

Beth

New Layouts!

Right when I learned that I was having a boy, all of the sudden I was motivated to scrapbook again! The first thing I wanted to do was by a scrapbook album for this baby. In the last three days, in between Grace's nap times and after her bedtime, I made six layouts!

I did need a little inspiration...I was a bit rusty. I used sketches from the Got Sketch blog. I love Valerie Salmon's sketches. They are simple and highlight the pictures. I don't like layouts that are all about the design and where you feel like the pictures are the afterthought.

This layout was taken from this sketch:

This double layout documents when we first found out we were pregnant and baby's first ultrasounds. After we got over the shock, we were pretty excited. Even though it seemed so soon, we know the Lord's timing is perfect.

This sketch inspired the next layout.

Oh, I used baby boy themed K and Company scrapbook paper for these layouts. This layout highlights the 2nd round of ultrasounds. Since my pregnancy with Grace was considered high risk, there were a lot of ultrasounds at the beginning of this pregnancy to establish that all was well. And it was. So luckily no weekly appointments will I was out of the first trimester.

This sketch was a bit girly, but I adjusted it so it would fit a baby boy layout.

I wasn't supposed to get an ultrasound at this visit, but the midwife (my OBGYN was out of the office) couldn't hear the heartbeat so she pulled out the ultrasound machine. I love this ultrasound because it looks like the baby is waving hello.

I love this sketch because it's a double layout spread and it fits lots of pictures.

This is the set of ultrasounds where we found out it's a boy.

Next of my list of scrapbooking? I have some ideas for chipboard albums to sell. And I am really behind with Grace's albums. This is my last week of vacation...Yes, say it isn't so!! I am still in denial about it. I just want to make sure I enjoy this week as much as I can, rest, and get as much done too. Tall order!

Blessings,

Beth

Party Details

Now that Grace's party is over and we've gotten some rest, I thought I'd share some of the things I made for her party. The theme was cupcakes and I made a lot of cupcake themed items.

I made this yummy banner with my Cricut. Love it! One reads "Happy Birthday" and the other reads "Grace."

I made cupcake centerpieces. I bought the buckets for less than a $1 each at Party City. I cut out the cupcakes using my Cricut and glittered each one. I filled the buckets with jelly beans so they wouldn't fall over and to cover the green foam.

I made cupcake toppers. I used cupcake clipart and each cupcake topper said, "Grace's 1st Birthday." I made strawberry, lemon, and chocolate cupcakes. I used a frosting recipe I found on Rachel Ray's website. It was yummy!

The favors were really fun to make. I bought frame magnets from Walmart. Then I used scalloped cardstock and foam cupcake stickers. A co-worker found these stickers in the dollar section of Target and bought them for me. There were about 6 or so per package. I made half with a picture of Grace and half with no picture.

I loved how everything came out. This was my first time making party favors and decorations. I loved how the theme was carried out in everything. I don't know if I'll do it again though...it was a lot of work and I had to get started early to make sure everything would be done and I'm not sure I actually saved money. I don't think I'll have this kind of time to craft when I have two little ones running around.

Blessings!

Beth

p.s. coming soon...ultrasound scrapbook layouts!

Happy 1st Birthday Grace!

We celebrated Grace's 1st birthday today. We had a great time! I can't believe our baby is now officially a toddler. This year went by way too fast!!

Our little cupcake!

Well now that the party is over...I can rest and get ready for our next big event...the birth of our baby boy.

Blessings,

Beth

It's A Boy!

Well looks like we will be welcoming a son on December 12th! We are very excited. Grace will have a little brother and Jonas will have an off-roading/camping buddy!! It's just perfect. And what was the first thing I wanted to do after the ultrasound appointment??? I wanted to go by Michael's and get a baby boy scrapbook album and scrapbooking supplies!! I feel very motivated to scrapbook now.

This is one of his feet.

This is a hand.

This is a side profile of the baby.

Yesterday I baked a little over 60 cupcakes and tomorrow I will be frosting them. I don't consider myself much of a baker, but the cupcakes came out looking and tasting good. Jonas and I tasted each one of the three flavors...

Blessings!

Beth