Lebanon Baby Shower

This past weekend, David and I traveled to his hometown for a baby shower.

It was awesome--David's parents have some really creative friends, so the decor was fantastic.

Of course, I only got one photo...because I was too busy eating and looking at everything.

They even used the quilt that Grandma made as part of the decorations.

The tables all had centerpieces that had various owl themes... names we could use "Owlbert, Owlexander" etc and other things from David's childhood.  

We also received some very generous, personal gifts.  The baby might never wear the same outfit more than once for the next 6-9 months :)  He also received a car seat, so he can come home from the hospital!

Outside of the shower, the weekend was pretty good.  We got to spend time in David's home town--we hadn't been there since LAST Easter.

Shameful, I know.

The only shadow over the weekend was that my grandpa went to the hospital so Mom and Grandma weren't able to come.  He's still in the ICU...keep him in your prayers.

Sausage Hands

To the tune of Smelly Cat...

Sausage Hands,

Sausage Hands,

Why are you so fat?

 Sausage Hands,

Sausage Hands,

It's not your fault.

Turns out, that trying to walk 3 miles at 35 weeks pregnant during a heat advisory makes me all puffy.

Who would have guessed?

I don't think Maggie's dealing with the heat very well either.

She's been sleeping like this...I think her undercarriage gets hot.

In the summer time...

...when the weather is hot, 

I don't just sit around and complain, promise.

I'm trying SUPER hard to be productive.

For instance, I hung the second shelf AND sewed The Cactus his changing pad cover. 

 I love the colors.

I decided to keep the mirror there AND stagger the shelves, mostly because I'm going to put the sweet window Mom had made in the place I was considering sticking the mirror.

I need to get some sort of basket for diaper needs and bolt the changing pad to the dresser and that area is done.

Hello sigh of relief.

I also made some pillow covers to match the quilt and the crib skirt.

Thank goodness Grandma gave me the leftover scraps from the quilt!

The back of each of the pillows is leftover minky from the changing pad... I love the way it feels, but minky is a pain in the butt to sew with.  I was going to use more of the scraps to make a little stuffed owl, but now that's not happening unless I get a rush of energy.

A girl can hope, right?

Also, I know that nothing goes in the crib but the baby.   But since he's still safely inside me, I'm going to store stuff in there for now :)

I'm also trying to figure out what's going above the crib...so I busted out craft paper to get a visual of where things might go without putting holes in the wall...

 So... my idea now is that it's going to be this print (Link) 

from Stinkerpants surrounded by yellow embroidery hoops with leftover quilt fabric inside.  And an orange clock.

Hard to explain....

That, or I'm going to scrap it and make a banner with the fabric.

Or I might move everything around.  Who knows.

Like I said, only one wall is done.

I'll leave you today with a shot of my poison ivy.

 It's hard to tell, but it's getting better.

And I'm going to say that my legs are swollen from the heat.

Not just large.

Oooof

I'm used to being a fairly productive person most of the time, and this whole pregnancy thing is making it harder and harder...plus it's hot, which makes even non-pregnant me lethargic.  And I have poison ivy all over my right leg, which is a bit annoying...

So, to summarize, I'm kind of broken lately.  I hobbled downstairs a couple hours ago to offer to make dinner and David suggested he just pick something up...he returned with a yummy dinner and a sweet card.  The card actually has a cartoon of a dog swallowing a Frisbee on it...the inside says, "This too shall pass."

Awww, how sweet.  The only way he can top the card and dinner is to go get me Dairy Queen later :)

Kansas Shower Weekend

I was blessed to have an awesome shower in Kansas over the weekend.

My aunt Sue and cousins Becky & Lisa threw me a shower in my mom's hometown...

I received some awesome gifts, including a little bit of Royal Purple.

Which we needed to balance out the bombardment of Old Gold in the closet right now.

He received TONS of awesome things--clothes, blankets, bath stuff, carriers...you know, all those things that a baby needs.

I also received THREE homemade quilts--The Cactus is a lucky little guy.

This is the quilt that my grandma Stainbrook made for him.

She let me pick out the pattern and the fabric.  Then she did all the hard work of creating an heirloom.

I love it.

Love.

My mom had this made to match the quilt... isn't it awesome? 

The lady who paints her nails did it after looking at a photograph of the quilt.

The word Cactus can be removed after we announce his "real" name and replaced...

but the REALLY cool part is that the cactus on the right has "David & Darcie Brady" hidden in the script AND the little owl is purple (for K-State) with Gold wings that have "MU" hidden in them.

 I can't wait to get the nursery all decorated with his new stuff!

Extreme Couponing

Lately, I've been quite a bit more lethargic than I typically am...which I realized over the weekend when I watched several episodes of Extreme Couponing in a row.

I hadn't ever seen this show...and couldn't turn it off.  I also couldn't make myself be productive (or even constructive), so I watched.

First of all--I think these women must have a single-minded focus on saving money.  It's impressive to walk out of a store with $2700 worth of merchandise for like $30 or something like that.  However, I have no desire to start doing this--I have a fear of too much junk (I think the baby makes me want to purge like crazy) and these people are accumulating stuff just because it's free.  Seriously, they had these twins on who had HUGE stockpiles of diapers--but neither had kids or was even considering kids in the near future.  They just stored it.

This other lady had over 400 rolls of toilet paper stored in her shower.  I think I would rather have that shower usable.

They also showed this couple who managed to do two months of grocery shopping in one run--but that means that they're eating NOTHING fresh and won't be having dairy very long into that two months.  I have no desire to eat that much processed food--because she didn't buy anything that could be considered "ingredients."  It was all pre-made and pre-packaged.

Yeah, that whole thing is so not for me.  I think I'll keep shopping for generics and at the Farmer's Market.  Of course, the people who are into this problem think I'm nutso for trying to run while pregnant.  It takes all kinds, right?

I can't make decision

 So...back to shelves.  I cannot make a decision to save my life.

I have decided that there needs to be another shelf.  I just can't decide where.

Here's my first choice--above the original shelf, but pretty darn high.
I'm thinking for "breakables" that the Cactus won't be allowed to touch.  Not that he has any yet, but I'm sure that there will be things that I will need to display and protect, right?

Here's another option--it's what David wants. 

He wants to move the (awesome, btw) orange mirror and place the other shelf staggered like this.

What do you guys think?  I'm not going to rush on this since my drill broke and I have to wait for the new one to get here...but I am getting ready for this room to be done!

Less than seven weeks, people!