snow days

A feel like I have been hibernating since Christmas day afternoon. The snow started to fall late Christmas night and didn't let up until late Sunday. We had a total of about 15" and to say we had a white Christmas would be right on target (the first in SH since 1948 - wow!). We had a wonderful Christmas. The weather forced us to stay inside and rest, watch movies and enjoy each other's company. It was nice to completely veg for a few days with my sweetie. Work was cancelled yesterday so we had one more day off to enjoy. While Jake drove to Wilson to check on a few things at the office, I forced myself to do two loads of lingering laundry, run a load of dishes and vacuum. When Jake got home he put together the few remaining baby items we had in boxes. Baby now has a functioning swing, bouncy seat and pack n play ready to go. Now, I just need to purchase $500 worth of batteries to keep things running for the next few months.

Have a holly, jolly Christmas!

I have finally found the Christmas spirit and merry things are happening in the Green house. We host Jake's family for Christmas brunch, so I have the menu ready and did all my shopping this morning. I'm excited to try a new French Toast Casserole recipe I found on Pioneer Woman yesterday. It looks freaking de-lish! I don't think it would make its way onto my low glycemic diet plan, but we are going to make an exception just this once.


Oh Christmas Tree - 2010

A few of my favorite ornaments:



Wedding gift

  

Denver momento - 2009







Hawaii - 2008



Wedding gift



My mom is coming up tomorrow to go to church with us tomorrow night. Word on the street is that she has been in the kitchen all day today making goodies. Hope she brings a few to our house. I would love just ONE sugar cookie. Christmas Eve service has become my favorite tradition. It's a community, candlelight service at our Methodist church with beautiful Christmas carols and hymns. At midnight, we take communion to celebrate the birth of Christ. It's such a lovely way to start Christmas day. Here's wishing you and yours a very merry Christmas! 

Hallway - After (well, sort of)

The more I thought about the "big" reveal of this after shot of the hallway, the more I knew no one except Jake and me would be excited about this transformation. We haven't had a chance to decorate this space yet, so we will consider this the almost after photo. A few disclosures before you look - yes, I should have mopped the floors before I took these pictures. Yes, I should have cleaned the glass in the french doors before I took these pictures. And yes, I should have waited for Jake to put on the outlet covers before taking these pictures. haha.


Hall - view from Living Room


 

Hall - view into Living Room


 The paint color is SW Essential Grey. It changes throughout the day, which I love. All the trim is BM Decorators White in Semi Gloss. The Living Room is now painted the same color and it ROCKS. My plans for the hall are to find a jazzy runner, add an accent table with a lamp and mirror and to create a gallery wall of family portraits on both sides. I might get Jake to build a bench for extra storage if there is room. It would be nice to have a place to hide store all our extra items that seem to accumulate in the Living Room. Don't ask me why I keep capitalizing Living Room. I just like it.

a few questions about newborns and a teaser before picture

I have been trying to finish up my shopping for the impending arrival my first born child and am curious about the following things. Any opinions would be greatly appreciated!

1. How many newborn outfits should I have ready. Now I know this depends on the weight of the baby so let's just assume we have an average size newborn (around 7-8 lbs). I am all set for 0-3 months, its just the first week or three that have me nervous.

2. How many blankets do we really need. We currently have 3 really fuzzy/fluffy blankets, 3 muslin swaddling and about 4 or 5 misc receiving.

3. Your top 10 have to have baby items and any items you needed but didn't think about ahead of time?

Now, for a "before" picture. This is our hallway. It is directly off the Living Room. The nursery is that door to the right and the guest bathroom is the door on the left. The door straight ahead leads into the back of the house which currently houses a weird entry foyer (that used to be a porch) a bedroom on the left (which is housing Jake's gym/man room that I am not allowed to enter),  our "master" bathroom and our bedroom to the right. Confused yet? Yeah, so am I. Let's stick to the hallway for now. Please note the gorgeous green plaster and the previous owners love of dark paint colors. Forest green was such a forward thinking color choice for wainscotting. This picture isnt a true before, it is actually a mid point. It was even worse before, if you can believe it. In this picture, Jake has removed the wood paneling walls  down to bare plaster and started demo on the ceiling. Stay tuned for the after - It makes me happy!



Before: Hallway mid demo



Its beginning to feel a lot like Christmas...

We had a family friend shoot some pictures of us to commemorate baby bump and because we didn’t have a picture to use for our Christmas card. I think this was the best picture and the one we used for the card.

This picture is my favorite. I think it captures me and Jake perfectly. I am going to print this one for the baby’s room.

We are heading into our 31^st week. Only 9 weeks to go. It’s so exciting. And scary. And almost unbelievable that we will have a sweet baby boy in about two months. I know I have haven’t been in the best of moods on this blog the past few weeks, but this morning I looked outside and it was snowing. The ground was covered and the house was cold and still. It made me think of my life growing up in Pennsylvania and the limited memories I have of cold weather, snow suits and making cookies. I felt so at peace this morning. My little one was giving his morning kicks, Jake was dressed in snow boots and his red as fire, Kris Kringle beard. My life is good.

Our work Christmas party got cancelled tonight because of snowy weather. I am actually glad it is going to be rescheduled. Jake is heading out of town tomorrow to go skiing so I am glad I get to spend the evening with him. I think we are going to turn off the tv, turn on some Christmas music and the lights on the tree and wrap some presents.

give me some sugar

Well, I don’t know where to start. I am in this half funk/half elated mood. First the funk. I failed my second glucose test. MARGINALLY failed I might add. Two of my readings were slightly higher than normal. They are still putting me in the category of “Gestational Diabetes.” Ugh. This makes me feel so horrible on so many levels. First, I feel like a failure. I do have a tendency to snack and I do adore all things sugar, but honestly, before the glucose tests, I have been pretty darn proud of myself. I have kept my weight gain down, blood pressure is good, etc. I’m trying to be positive about the whole thing and keep it all in perspective. I meet with a nutritionist on Wednesday and the nurse at my office assured me that if I follow a regimented meal plan and exercise plan that I will not have to go on medicine and me and baby will be fine. I am positive about this too. It’s just ... I feel like such a statistic. An over weight statistic at that. Lovely. The nurse did mention that we would receive additional sonograms and fetal monitoring the closer we get to our due date. I can’t help but be happy about that because I miss seeing baby g’s sweet little profile inside my black and white womb. She also mentioned that we would probably go before our due date of Feb 18^th with an induction or c-section. Now, a c-section scares the ever-living daylights out of me but an induction has its own fears. I am praying each day that God knows my strengths and what we need to all be healthy and safe. So, I am handing this over to Him and I know he will keep us close and give us the best situation we can handle. Jake is pretty stoked about going early. His birthday is the 8^th. His dad’s is the 9^th. It would be neat for baby to be born close to either of those dates or even share a birthday with his daddy. We shall see.

On the elated side, our house is magically coming together. After three years of blood (Jake’s), sweat (Jake and Jenna) and tears (yes, mine) we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. The nursery is 90% complete. All I need is artwork and final decorations. The curtains I chose are about 4-5 inches too short and its driving me bonkers every time I go in that room. I am going to take the hem out this weekend and see if that helps. More on house renos later. I am going to get with the program and actually add some pictures to this blog.

Let’s not even broach the topic of Christmas. I am almost done shopping and we finally got a tree up and decorated. That’s about that at our house this year. Next year we will do better.

glucose this

I failed my glucose test. darn it. going back tomorrow for the three hour test. Here's hoping and praying that we get good results.

gobble gobble... oh, I mean Ho Ho Ho

Another holiday down in the books - Thanksgiving flew by in flash. We traveled down to SC to visit Jake's brother, Daniel. We had a nice dinner (with no turkey, stuffing or pumpkin pie).  That is the thing about  Jake's family of three brothers, Jake being the oldest and the only one married, the "boys" always want steak on special occasions. So sad I didn't even get one bite of pie :(

Jake did indulge me and let me go to the Gaffney outlets on Black Friday afternoon. They were packed but  I was able to pick up a few things for baby at the Pottery Barn outlet. If I would have had two more hours, more patience with crowds and a uHaul, we would have been packing up some furniture and fixtures for the drive home.

Saturday morning we drove from Gaffney to Monroe. My step-sister, Angie, got married that afternoon. It was a really nice ceremony and we love her husband, Rob! After the wedding, Jake let me drive through Waxhaw to pick up a treat at Pizza Works and to see the Christmas lights. Sara was home at the Byrums, but we didn't think to stop by. At this point, the trip had completely worn me out ... let me rephrase that ... eating every meal out for four days straight and living solely on diet coke had completely made me feel awful. Oh, did I mention my glucose test was that Monday bright and early at 8am? oops.

We drove home Sunday and caught up on routine chores before it was right back to work. Monday (28 weeks), I had my glucose test. I personally didn't think the drink was that bad. Now, it wasn't great, but the way people talked about it I thought it was going to be the most awful thing in the world. I think it helped that it didn't smell funky. I don't do weird smells. I haven't heard back, so I am assuming everything checked out okay. My blood pressure was a little high. I think my extra ordinary levels of diet soft drinks and sodium may be the culprit, so hopefully when I go back next week, my bp with check out fine. The baby has been moving like crazy, which makes me happy. My baby bump is officially visible to the outside public. I had my first stranger "when are you due" questions last week. That was nice - everybody gets happy talking about babies and pregnancy stories.

Lately, I have been getting up anywhere between 4-5am. I mean wide awake, no way of going back to sleep. The first day I fought it,  now I am embracing it and tackling laundry, dishes, etc first thing in the mornings. Mom is on her way today to help me organize the baby's room. She is a complete cleaning nazi so hopefully she will motivate me and help me knock a lot of things of the to do list. Maybe one day I'll post a picture, this blog is lame. Also, I better start thinking about Christmas - we at least need a tree.