Week 30: Testing, holiday prep, and paint

Week 30... this sounds sooo much closer than week 29.

Baby is about the weight of a head of cabbage - 3.3 pounds and he's measuring 31 centimeters - or about 12.2 inches long.

This week I had to take the dreaded 3-hour glucose gestational diabetes test. Fourtanetely, I  don't have gestational diabetes but the test to find this out was pure torture. Let me walk you through some of the highlights. 

9:00 - the night before: fasting begins

8:30: arrival, check-in with my doctor's office and received a lab slip

9:00: checked in with the lab

9:15: had my blood drawn for the first time

9:30: drank the glucose drink (100 grams of sugar that tasted like straight Sprite syrup)

9:30-10:30: focused on not throwing up the glucose while starving and thirsty

10:30: had my blood drawn for the second time 

11:30: had my blood drawn for the third time

12:30: had my blood drawn for the fourth time

1:00: finally got to eat after not eating or drinking for about 16 hours

What I felt like eating after fasting for 16 hours!

 The next day we had a doctor's appointment and received all good news:

1) no gestational diabetes

2) great blood pressure 

3) great weight gain (they have me at 10 pounds so far but it is more like 13 or 14)

4) baby's heartbeat and size are all looking good as well 

www.nataliedee.com

This weekend I might have had a bit of an anxiety attack with so much to do, and it being the holidays. Owen helped me to focus and complete a few goals we had in mind - thank you honey! Here are those that we accomplished:

1) clean out and paint the back of the nursery closet

(image coming once the paint dries!)

2) pond TLC: this isn't exactly baby-related but we'll have a baby when the Springtime maintenance rolls around so we needed to get a head start. The pond is my baby so while Owen worked on #3 I fixed the pond pump, skimmed, de-algaed, added bacteria to derail the sludge, and added pond netting to prevent any more leaves and debri from dirtying the water.

3) completed stripping and sanding the baby furniture

4) completed Christmas shopping, gift wrapping, and our travel plans

5) prepped the house for holiday vacationing - meaning lots of cleaning and laundry 

Bring on Christmas... and week 31!

Week 29: Christmas Parties, vinyl cling installation

Here's a quick look at what we've been up to during week 29.

What baby has been up to:

Baby is about the weight of a butternut squash this week. He's been working hard continuing to develop his lungs, brain and muscles.

What mom and dad's been up to:

We had our first Christmas party on Friday night and our second party Saturday night.

In between partying we installed our new tree vinyls from Etsy. 

For our first party I took home the movie Eat Pray Love and a box of chocolates from my Secret Santa at my Christmas party. 

And, I won $100 Best Buy gift card at Owen's Christmas party - it was a fruitful weekend! I think we'll use this towards a new camera for our little one that will be arriving soon.

Week 30 - here. we. come.

Week 28: Stripping, baby shower, more nursery fun

Stripping baby furniture that is! This is week which happens to be our lucky roulette number and our anniversary date so it should be a good week!:

According to What To Expect When Expecting baby is settling into the proper position for that Feb. 24 due date. He is about 2.5 pounds and almost 16 inches long. His skill set includes blinking, coughing, sucking, hiccuping, and taking practice breaths. He also now goes into REM sleep so he can dream.

We had another doctor's appointment this week - now being in the third trimester we see her every 2 weeks. The appointment went well, baby's size, heartbeat and mom's weight gain and overall health are doing great.

This is the week that we were asked to provide names for the shower invitees. This might have been the most stressful part of the pregnancy thus far - the last thing we'd want to do is offend anyone by inviting them or sending them an invitation if you haven't kept in touch. My second mom, Kelly and other good friends from my home town will be throwing the shower for me. Thanks friends! 

Organic baby rattle: http://goo.gl/3PsBa

The week went by far too quickly so we waited to start our nursery projects this weekend. We (by 'we' I mean Owen) stripped and sanded my old baby furniture so that next weekend we can repaint it a bright white and repurpose it for the nursery.

We also ordered the vinyl wall clings for the nursery from Etsy. There are so many great clings but we finally made our choice based on the size, color and style. I can hardly wait for these to come in which, since evidently I ordered them from Malaysia (that's not a joke... really they are coming from Malaysia), should be Wednesday of week 29.  


Etsy: http://goo.gl/Fl5lm

We bought the wood for the bird cutouts I'm making for the ceiling. But first I have to make a decision on which shape(s) to actually go with. These are some I have narrowed it down to:

After that is determined then I will be painting and/or fabric'ing those and adhering them to the ceiling.

During week 29 we have 2 Christmas parties to attend. I'm sure there will be a post regarding what I will be wearing!

Week 27: Thanksgiving!

It's week 27. Only about 13 weeks to go!

Baby is about 2 pounds and 14.5 inches long and is growing rapidly... so is mom's belly! According to the His Boys Can Swim that's about as big as a man's boot.

We had a baby doctor appointment this week and got a great report in terms of weight gained - I'm at 10 pounds total so far, baby size and heartbeat - 150 bpm.

During this appointment I had to take the dreaded glucose test and of course it came back high and I have to do the even more dreaded 3 hour test (I don't know very many people that hasn't had to do the 3 hour test that didn't have gestational diabetes - doesn't seem like a very accurate test if you ask me.)

This week is Thanksgiving week. We drove to Hobbs, NM for Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday and we headed to Lubbock Saturday morning for a late Thanksgiving. We took family photos while in Hobbs... check out a few here. 

Next week we have to get moving on a few baby-related tasks and planning for our Babymoon in December.

Week 26: More Room for Baby

Week 26 is done and our baby boy is 14 inches long this week. That's about as long as an English Cucumber.

As the reality of an impending family drew nearer so did the idea of a new vehicle. The basic criteria was enough room for our new family of three (and also our future family of four... or five) with enough room for luggage and 3 dogs for a road trip. 

Owen really liked the Yukon but the size was too large for me - especially for the typical daily commute with just me and the new little guy. 

So, I started researching vehicle that had 3 rows of seating but didn't look like it from the outside. After test drives and some contemplation this was the week that we decided to bite the bullet and trade in my Jeep Liberty (yes, we kept the MINI Cooper in the family).

Here are some of our favorite features:

• OnStar (already loving the turn-by-turn direction feature)
• XM Radio
• Dual sunroofs
• Back up camera
• Entertainment package with DVD player for the kiddo
• 3 rows of a seating with the second row being bucket seats

And the convertible car seat and stroller will match great in the new car.

http://goo.gl/OX1mC

 And a pict of the interior:

And finally, here is our newest addition to the Hein family - a GMC Acadia. The answer to the most important question? It's black with a black leather interior. So, goodbye Jeep and hello Acadia!

Week 25: New nursery paint, floors and crib

Week 25: Baby is now as big as an eggplant weighing in at almost 2 pounds. I can hardly believe that the baby is already this big in my belly!

The baby now looks about the same as he will when born - just thinner and smaller so we'll spend the next 10 weeks getting him plumped up. Speaking of plumping up - mom is up to 10 pounds gained so far. Guess I can look forward to at least another 6 if the baby's born at 8 pounds. And yes, I know I won't be able to get away with not posting a baby bump picture for much longer!

Baby's hands are now fully developed and he can clasp and grip. 

This week mom had a long work week full of client visits and meetings but the weekend was completely dedicated to baby and the nursery. And dad spent his Veteran's Day off on Thursday adding crown molding and chair railing to the nursery and guest rooms. Here are some snapshots of what happened this week.

Thursday: Nani (my mom) sent another care package... we think she's excited! The last couple were addressed directly to me so she addressed this one to Owen which he was super excited about. The care package had pacifiers and paci clips, tiny baby hats, socks, onesies, little jeans and some super cute stuffed animals.

Care package from mom!

Friday: Owen added crown molding and chair railing to the nursery. By adding I mean he bought the wood, made the cuts, measured, installed, puttied and then later painted. Yeah, he's handy.

Saturday | Part I: Paint reveal! We repainted the entire room a color called Foggy Day (pictured above) and Laguna Green (pictured below) below the chair rail. Check out our color palette here.

Paint reveal!

Check out the nursery plan on the Week 23 blog

Saturday | Part II: Hardwood floors! Our contractors from Sierra View Flooring (contracted through Lumber Liquidators) were punctual and very efficient. They installed hard wood floors in the nursery, guestroom and the Master closet by 3:30pm on Saturday and then came back Sunday morning for the final touches.

No matter what I tried this picture wanted to load sideways - even though the original wasn't even taken in this orientation. So, I'm just posting as is and asking you instead to turn your head 90 degree counterclockwise.

Sunday: Finishing touches. 

1) Today our contractors finished up the finishing touches on the floors.
2) Owen made a "No Kande" sign as he finished up the room so I'd be surprised.

3) He painted the crown molding and chair railing and touched up the rest of the paint.

4) Then he put together the crib.

New paint, floors and crib

Week 25 down, a possible 15 more to go. Look out week 26!

Week 24: Clean slate garage sale and gifts

 Baby is a about a pound and a half and a foot long - about as long as an ear of corn. 

His brain is also growing quickly and the lungs are developing "branches" of the respiratory tree. His skin is still translucent but he'll start to pink up next week. And the taste buds are continuing to develop.

This week is the week of getting rid of "someone else's treasure." And, oh boy did we have a lot of it. $850 worth of take home to be exact.  

We've been collecting garage sale items for a while now in a growing corner of the garage so we started on Wednesday evening collecting more unneeded things from around the house and the attic. 

We began the sale on Saturday morning at 7am... coldest day of the Fall so far - of course. We didn't have many customers until about 9:00am but we really started picking up around 10am.

Half-way into our day a lady walked up to me with a box like she was ready to pay. Come to find out it was our mail lady hand-delivering me a package from my beautiful and wonderful friend Cami.

Cami bought the baby a great package of gifts from a store in Lubbock called Hollyhocks. The gifts are adorable! We got a cute onesie, a jellycat stuffed animal, sneaker socks, a pee-pee teepee (I'm about to learn so much!) and a sleep mask for mom.

The onesie is maybe the cutest thing I've ever seen. The back even has a cool little design:

Speaking of gifts my mom sent another care package full of toys and clothes. Some of my favorite items are some cute little shoes.

 She also bought us a new blanket that will match perfect with our color palette.

All in all it was an exhausting weekend but we were able to get the garage, attic and the nursery completely cleaned out so next week we can get the new hardwood floors installed and start putting together the nursery.