Life interrupted

Hello again, dear readers (if there are still any of you out there)!

I am here to announce that I plan to start blogging again. After Nora was born, life got (expectedly) hectic and I decided to give up on it (save for a couple of brief, photo-less posts), and eventually even took the blog down from public view. (I always kept it active, but only visible to me, in the hopes that I might get back to it someday.) Well, that someday appears to be now. I have been reading through the years' worth of posts the past couple of days and it was so much fun to go back and reflect on time gone by. It reminded me of how special it is to document the milestones and funny, memorable moments in my family's life. And how cathartic it is to just write again. It's been a couple of years since I've written anything substantial, but I'm feeling the pull to get back at it, so... here goes!

(And hopefully I can get photos to upload again. I was having issues with that...)

So, just to dive right in, we have moved. Again. We are currently living in Johns Creek, Georgia (near Atlanta) and have been in our new home for about six weeks. So far, I really like it here. There's a lot of things to do with the kids and the town we live in is pretty affluent, so public spaces are clean, schools are excellent, the people are friendly and educated, and life moves at the pace with which I feel comfortable. Things were beginning to feel a little stagnant for us in Muscatine and, although we loved many things about our life there (namely our friends, church, kids/moms groups, and proximity to family), we decided it was time for a change. So, here we are.

We bought a two-story house (which I've always wanted) and did so sight unseen (for me anyway). Ryan was here working out of a hotel since the beginning of June and, although I did come down for one house-hunting visit at the end of June, it wasn't until July that we found one we love. I got to "meet" the house for the first time only hours before we went to closing (a daunting task that really tested my faith in my husband!) and I am happy to say that I couldn't be more pleased with the house. It is lovely and we are having fun adding our own little personal touches. Hopefully I'll have more to share on that progress in the coming weeks.

Owen, who turned 5 in July, is doing very well in pre-K at a nearby preschool. There was a bit of a learning curve for me, adjusting to Georgia's school requirements (primarily their policy that if you're 5 by Sept. 1, you must go to Kindergarden), but we worked it all out and were able to "hold him back" a year, prolonging Kindergarden for another year. We struggle with lots of personality/behavior issues with Owen (these have been ongoing for the past few years), but he is certainly starting to mature and - although he's still quite hyper and LOUD most of the time - we enjoy more and more moments of intelligent conversation with our bright, and quite funny, little man.

Nora is 2 and is just as cute as can be. I am so sad that I haven't recorded all the milestones of her first couple years the way I did for Owen, but I suppose that's often how it goes for second (and subsequent) children. She is always smiling, plays quite well on her own (usually with baby dolls and princess costumes), and loves her big brother. Her vocabulary is superb, just like her brother, and we always get lots of "oohs," and "ahhs" whenever we go out because, I must say, she is absolutely adorable!

That's about all the time I have for now. Just wanted to get some of the basics out of the way. I hope to be back soon with lots more good stuff to share, here in Peterson land (coming to you now from hot and steamy Georgia.) Stay tuned...

Pom Poms and such

Today is the LAST day of April. And my April baby is not here. All along, I've thought that I was having a baby in April and now it's clear that her birthday will be in May. I'm not sure why it matters, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around that one. But, anyway...

As promised, I am posting some pictures and a few words on the last little design details that I was able to get accomplished in the baby's room — since I acquired all kinds of extra time that I hadn't planned on.

The first is actually something I had nothing to do with. A very lovely, very talented, and very generous woman with whom I am acquainted through a Bible study group at church offered to paint what she called a "baby name mural" on one of the walls in the nursery. It was her gift to me (and all the other expectant mommas) at a group baby shower held a few weeks back. But, since I already have plans to affix a vinyl print of the baby's name on the round mirror above the changing table (you can read more about that and the rest of what we did in the nursery here), I didn't feel like we needed to also have her name painted on the adjacent wall. (Not to mention the fact that she doesn't officially have a name yet. We have it narrowed down to two and are waiting to meet her — as we did with Owen — before we decide on one.) So, instead, I searched around on Pinterest for other interesting images that might work in the sad, empty wall space above the crib. After a quick consult with Davella (she's pictured below) to address size, space, and color issues, here is the finished product.

How sweet is that, right? The phrase printed on the larger bird, "I carry your heart in my heart," is a spin off of the E.E. Cummings poem, "i carry your heart with me." Here is the artwork shown to scale above the crib.

And, of course, here is the lovely artist herself, Davella Santiago.

Based on this original artwork found on Pinterest (via Etsy), I couldn't be more pleased with it. It is so sweet and whimsical, which is the vibe I was going for in this room. And the colors are absolutely perfect! Way to go, Davella! I just love it!

See that odd, pink, poufy, ball-type object resting in the crib in the picture above? That brings me to the other project that I'm proud to say was completed before baby's arrival. Inspired by this idea (also found on Pinterest), here are the "pom poms" hung above the glider.

I would encourage you to click on this direct link to the tutorial where these came from for more detailed instructions, but basically, these were made using three paper lanterns (which can be found at any party supply store) and a ton of inexpensive fabric. I guess I also used scissors and a hot glue gun, too, if you're keeping track of my supply list.

I couldn't find the exact size lanterns that the tutorial describes — these are actually much bigger, which I kind of like for the size of this room — so I just increased my fabric yardage accordingly. My lanterns were 8, 10, and 12 inches in diameter, so I purchased 3, 3 1/2, and almost 5 yards of corresponding fabric. (At $2.99/yard in fabric and $5 for the lanterns, this little project came out a bit on the high end at just over $40.)

Basically, I made a 4-inch circle template for the two smaller lanterns (I went with 4 1/2 inch circles for the largest one) and then traced and cut out a bazillion circles in all of the fabric. Then, I folded each circle in half, secured it closed with a dot of hot glue, folded it in half again (making a triangular shape) and affixed it to the lanterns (in alternating directions) with another dot of hot glue. I didn't do exact counts each time, but I would say I probably used between 250-350 circles for each pom pom. It was time consuming, but mindless, so I was able to complete the project in a few evenings while parked in front of the TV. Again, for the full details on how to do this simple project, click on over here.

Unfortunately, my camera doesn't take the gorgeous pictures that I dream of. And I've kind of been waiting for another sunny day to take advantage of better lighting. But this is April after all, and so the somewhat dark images you see here are the best I could do, I'm afraid. I assure you, though, that in person this room is really light and airy and exactly as I had hoped. I just can't wait to get that little peanut in there soon!

Wetting the bed (sort of)

As an update to my last post, my AFI on Friday was 8.8, which is consistent with my fluid level earlier in the week. And the baby tested very well again during the NST, so the midwife (and consulting doctor) does not recommend any further testing at this point. That means I can go back to having regular weekly appointments, but no more need for ultrasounds or non stress tests. I was a little surprised by that recommendation and may still ask about testing the fluid levels again when I go back next Friday, but for now, I am breathing a sigh of relief and appreciate having the next week to just relax and take it easy. Oh, and keep drinking lots of water...just in case.

In other news, we had some pretty powerful thunderstorms combined with strong winds over the past 24 hours or so and last night, at 12:30 a.m., after waking for the first of several overnight potty breaks, I settled back into bed only to be woken moments later by a strange gushing sound. Huh? Then I touched my pillow and one corner of it was soaking wet. I was SO confused. I woke Ryan up and told him (probably in some incomprehensible way) that there was water falling on me. We eventually discovered that water was dripping in (after one initial big gush) from the can light fixture in the ceiling directly above my side of the bed. Since there wasn't much we could really do in the middle of the night and the dripping stopped after that one big storm passed (it only lasted maybe 10 minutes at the most), we just pushed the bed over about a half a foot so we could put a bucket on the ground to catch any more drips and went back to bed.

Ryan has spent some time today trying to figure out if we have a leak in the roof, but from the best we can tell, it seems like maybe the rain was just coming down sideways and came in through the gable vent that is just above the big window in our bedroom. The good news is that it doesn't seem like there is anything we can or need to do about it. But let me just tell you, it's pretty funny to be woken up by water dripping on your pillow! And truthfully, if it hadn't happened right there, we probably would have never known about it. If we had found some random wet spot on the carpet the next morning elsewhere in the house, I'm positive we would have blamed the dog for having an accident. Poor Kinnick!

Nursery pics and a status update

Let me first preface the nursery pictures you are about to see with a notation about my perfectionist desire to have absolutely everything done before I posted these. That is to say that there are still one or two more decorative details that I wanted to get done before baby arrives (and I still may), but decided that — just in case (more on that below) — I better just share with you the very nearly completed room as it looks today.

So, here you are. Again, point-and-shoot camera..., amateur photographer..., intense morning sunlight..., blah, blah, blah. Enough apologies. I actually LOVE this room and it turned out pretty much exactly as I pictured it in my head (which is really rare for me). I hope you (and baby girl!) enjoy it, too.

The walls are a soft gray (I think it was Martha Stewart "Nimbus Cloud"), the furniture (which is the same as what Owen used) is soft white, the curtains and crib skirt (which I made myself...you can congratulate me, it's ok) are a charcoal gray and white damask fabric, and the crib sheet and changing pad cover (and just a few other small details) are soft pink. I also wanted to use the very comfortable, but not my favorite color, glider and ottoman from Owen's nursery, so I just covered it with a big ol' white throw blanket and pillow, hoping to hide the minty green flavor. Meh. And although the carpet has a weird pinkish tint to it in these photos, it's actually just the plain old beige plush that's found just about everywhere else in this house.

The wall right above the crib is one place where I hope to get an additional decorative element completed, but it will just depend on how much time I have before D-day.

And this round mirror will eventually have baby's name applied to it (via some vinyl lettering I ordered), but that won't go up until after she's here and has officially been named. In case you're wondering — and I know you are! — we have two names picked out that we like equally well, but just as we did with Owen, we will wait until we meet her to decide which one fits best. So, yes, I ordered vinyl decals of both names. Ha!

Now, as for an update on my situation, here's the latest. As many of you know, I was (and still am) planning to attempt a "trial of labor" (VBAC) with this baby after having a c-section with Owen, who was breech. You can read more about my experiences last time around here and here, but here's a brief summary for you. In the process of trying to get Owen to turn, I had lots of regular ultrasounds performed in the last few weeks of that pregnancy. And during one done at 37 weeks, they discovered that my amniotic fluid volume (AFV) was very low. (Does anyone else automatically think of America's Funniest Videos when they see the acronym AFV? I did!)

Anyway, they gave me a week to see if the fluid level would come back up, but it never did (in fact, it got much lower), so we ended up having to deliver him the very day they discovered that. Although he was considered full-term (38 weeks), and I knew I was facing a c-section (because he was breech), it was still a bit terrifying leaving the doctor's office and heading to the hospital that day.

So, fast forward almost three years to today where I find myself in a strangely similar situation. First off, the good news is that this baby is NOT breech. She is head-down, fully engaged, and has even "dropped." However, at my insistence, an ultrasound was performed yesterday (at 37 weeks) to check the AFV and, lo and behold, it is very low again. (I was told that just because that happened in a previous pregnancy, there shouldn't be any reason why it would happen again in subsequent ones, but for once, I am grateful for my neurotic request for additional testing because an ultrasound — which is the only way to measure AFV — would not normally have been performed at this point.)

Although none of this was actually explained to me by my practitioners, here is a link to some good information I found myself about this condition (called "oligohydramnios") by just Googling it today.  Lots of stuff in there to freak me out. Good times.

Anyway, the plan of action at this point is similar to last time. They are giving me a few days to do what I can to bring the fluid level back up. The only advice I have received is to rest and drink lots and lots of fluids, so that's what I'm doing. Oh, and apparently that new-ish sugar substitute that's on the market now, called Truvia, has been shown to have the unintended side effect of increasing amniotic fluid in pregnant women (weird, huh?), so I bought some of that to add to my fresh brewed ice tea today. Can't hurt!

If the AFV continues to decrease to an unsafe level by my next ultrasound, scheduled for Tuesday, they will have to deliver the baby immediately. That would be fine — I'm totally ready to meet baby girl! But unfortunately, because of my previous c-section, they can't (and won't) induce labor. So, of course, that would mean another c-section delivery, despite the fact that everything else was looking very promising on the VBAC front. (Here's a bit more on my feelings about that, but let's just say, I was really, really hoping to be able to at least attempt to deliver this baby vaginally. Major bummer.)

I'm praying that my AFV comes back up to a safe range (and stays there!) for a couple more weeks to allow my body the time it needs to go into labor naturally. Alternatively, I would also be happy with going into labor before Tuesday and, to that end, I'm going to try some of the old wives tales recommended to induce labor. Oh, and pray some more.

But to be totally honest, I'm going into my next appointment on Tuesday with the assumption that my AFV will be even lower than it was and they will send me immediately to the hospital to deliver this baby via c-section. (Basically, exactly what happened to me with Owen.) In a way, that's exciting! There could be a new baby in my arms in just three short days! I'm so anxious to meet her! But of course, I would much prefer to wait it out a bit and see if we can't do things the old fashioned way and avoid the c-section.

Ultimately, however, my prayer is for a healthy baby, regardless of the way she is delivered. And I am learning, through all of this, to let go of my desire to control things that are truly outside of my control. I've said it a lot — that I put my full faith in God — but it's officially time to put my money where my mouth is and really do that. I assure you that I have not lost sight of just how blessed I am to be carrying this child and to finally get to hold her in my arms very soon. God is SO good!

Happy Easter, everyone!

Bedroom Makeovers

All three of the upstairs bedrooms in our house have been under a constant state of upgrade over the past several months. Obviously, we needed to get the former spare bedroom ready for baby girl (due in just 4 weeks!), which meant that most of the furniture pieces in Owen's room needed to be moved in there instead. And that, of course, meant that Owen's room needed some new (or, in our case, repurposed) furniture. When considering our options, we decided to pass down some of the old furniture (that wasn't in the greatest shape after several moves) from our room to O and used our tax refund money to buy ourselves a brand new, properly "grown-up" bedroom set! It's something we've wanted to do for a long time, but never seemed practical until this year. And there's nothing like getting brand spankin' new furniture for a room to make one want to finally get around to painting the walls in there and call the room "finished" (after 2 years of living in this house).

So, all this to say that I have two bedroom makeovers to reveal here today. The third (the much anticipated nursery) is nearly finished also and I vow to get pics of that up soon, too.

Let's start with Owen's room. Here is a shot of his room back when he still used a crib (which he's been out of since last September when we moved him into a toddler bed.) Would you believe I had to go back over a year and a half to get these photos? And I don't have any other angles to show than this, so you can't really get a good perspective of the room, but you get what you get.

Unfortunately, I don't have a good photo from when the toddler bed replaced the crib, but here's Owen helping to build it, last September. (I should really get better about taking photos of rooms — especially bedrooms — since they seem to change so frequently around these parts.)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, but apologies for the bad quality of these photos. I really wish I were a better photographer and/or had a proper camera (these were all taken on my little Nikon Coolpix), but a trained photographer is not who I am, so this is the best I can do.

Anyway, here are the "afters" of Owen's room.

I did not want to repaint this room because I really still like the colors in here. They are kind of crazy and bold, but they totally work for Owen. And the crisp, white lines surrounding the horizontal green stripe always make me smile (I was pretty particular about that when I painted it two years ago).

Changes consist of a twin-size bed to replace the crib mattress/toddler bed (with a side rail for safety), new bedding (which I found for cheap at IKEA and loved because it actually matched the crazy color scheme in the room), one of the old white dressers from our room (to replace the changing table/dresser that went to the baby's room), a new art easel where the glider/ottoman used to sit (which also made it's way into baby's room), and some fun, bold green curtains (just because).

I still intend to hang three aqua blue picture frames above the dresser, which I plan to fill with some homemade artwork...if I ever get around to it. And the bed desperately needs a bedskirt (that blue box spring is just NOT cutting it!), but I'm not entirely sure what to do about that just yet. I'm sure this room will continue to be a work in progress, actually, since Owen's age will dictate the kinds of activities that take place in there. For example, he is not allowed to have crayons, markers, play-dough, etc. unless he is fully supervised because...well, because it would just be a total mess. But someday, when he's a bit more responsible, I would love to have a little art corner for him. Or a reading nook. Or maybe just more of his toys to play with on his own. But for now, he seems to enjoy his room, and for that, I am glad.

Now, onto our master bedroom.

Here is the ONLY "before" shot I can find of our master bedroom. This was from almost two years ago, shortly after we moved in, so it's evolved very slightly since then, but honestly, not much. And again, I only have this one angle to show, but whattaya gonna do?

It was beige, beige, beige (like the rest of the house when we first moved in), had old and broken IKEA furniture, and no headboard/footboard. Basically, blah. I've known for some time that I wanted to paint the walls a dark gray/blue color, which is one of my very favorite color schemes. And since it is a large room with white trim, light carpeting, and lots of natural light, I knew it could handle such a dark shade. There has actually been a big ol' paint swatch painted on one of the walls for quite some time (at least a year, I would guess), but finishing that room has just never been a very high priority for some reason. That is, like I said, until we got our new furniture. And then, all of a sudden, it lit a fire under me.

Since I really shouldn't be inhaling paint fumes in my condition — and because I wasn't really up to the physicality of painting a bedroom with tall ceilings at 35 weeks pregnant, my loving, awesome hubby took on the challenge all by himself this past weekend. He never complained once. Did I mention he's amazing?

So, without further ado, here is the finished room, as of today.

I still plan to hang some picture frames (probably a symmetrical line of four dark wood 5x7 frames I already own) above the bed, and possibly one more piece of art above the arm chair. Oh, and maybe some solid white curtains for the window if I can find any that are long enough. But in the meantime, I just lurrrrrve it in here! It's so sophisticated and exactly what I always dreamed it could be!

Next up, the nursery....!

Pantry Purge

Maybe it's because the craziness of the holidays is officially winding down, but I have been in the mood to organize lately. And as my mother would advise, I decided to take advantage of that positive energy and just jump right in. There are several closet spaces in my house that need a good makeover. (You may recall this previous burst of organizing energy applied to my master bedroom closet last spring.) But this morning, I decided that the one closet that seemed to need a facelift the most was my often-used (think, daily) kitchen pantry.

In addition, I've also been in the mood to chat here on the good ol' blog (as you've probably noticed), so I decided to document my little project here for you. To be fair, you should stop reading now if you do not care in the least about the contents of my kitchen pantry and other various cabinets. I'm warning you...it's not exactly riveting content you're about to read.

Ok, you've been warned. Moving on...

I took lots of pictures because I love a good before and after comparison. Here was my kitchen pantry when I woke up this morning.

I have always longed for a home with a kitchen pantry. I've lived in lots of homes and this is the first one that actually had one. It was one of the things I was super excited about when we bought this house. But as you can see, I have not been using it to it's fullest potential.

It's a pretty great space — plenty large and far enough away from the rest of the kitchen cabinets, but still right in the heart of the kitchen space. But I do have one complaint about this particular pantry. Well, two actually. The biggest is that there is no light in this closet. ALL of the closets in this house came equipped with an overhead light managed by a nearby light switch. ALL.OF.THEM. Except this one. And I guess the hallway linen closet, too, which is another major disaster area in need of organization, but I'll get to that another day. Seriously, though, of all the closets in the house (bedroom closets, front coat closet, laundry room closet), why would the builder skimp out on a light in the two closets that house the most small and hard-to-find items?

My other complaint is that there isn't a power outlet inside. I would love to hang my wall-mounted hand-held vacuum in this closet (since most of the messes I use it to clean up are in the kitchen), but it really needs to be plugged into a power source so that it stays charged and, unfortunately, that just isn't an option in the pantry. So it lives in my laundry room instead (yet another space that could use a good once over).

But I digress...

Anyway, I'll skip right to the "after" photo and then give you a few details on how it all went down.

Here's a fun side-by-side comparison.

Oooh...it just makes me giddy looking at this space now! I do love me an organized closet. (Truly I do, I even wrote about it in my bio.)

A couple of things worth mentioning...

I had a lot of smallish packets that always seemed to get lost on the wire shelves, so I collected them all and stuffed them into this basket (which oddly, was already in the pantry on one of the top shelves not being used for anything at all).

I think it looks nice and cheery when I open the doors. And it can quickly be moved so I can access the items on the shelf behind it.

These two shelves house all of my foodstuffs. I would love to attach labels to the front of the shelves that show how things are divided up so when I come home with groceries I know right where to put everything. I'm thinking of making some small labels — "baking goods," "canned goods," "coffee/tea," etc. — and attaching them to the wire shelves with zip ties or something, but we'll see how ambitious I remain...

I also have a kind of a crazy amount of what I'm calling "baking and cake decorating materials" — things like cookie cutters, sprinkles (LOTS and LOTS of sprinkles!), food coloring, muffin wrappers, etc. I used to have them in a smaller (shoebox size) bin, but they were exploding out of that so I put them into a similar, but larger container.

This will make it much easier to access this stuff when needed.

Then there is this poorly misused cabinet above our microwave that just housed a mish-mash of paper plates and other disposable party supplies (plus one rarely-used tea pot). As a rule, we do not generally use paper plates in our household, even for things like sandwiches or pizza, but it's always good to have them on hand for parties and other times when it's just not practical to wash a bunch of dishes.

I actually had items like this stashed in a number of places (three, to be exact) and never knew what I had on hand. So I took a cute basket that was also already in the pantry (not being used for anything purposeful) and organized all my paper goods in it.

In doing so, I took a quick inventory of our plastic silverware and it made me wonder if everyone else ends up with a disproportionate number of plastic knives as compared to forks and spoons. Seriously, I never need to buy another plastic knife...EVER!

Here are the bottom two shelves that include both of these bins and other miscellaneous, though commonly used appliances and other items.

I also moved our "inside" recycling container (we transfer it to a larger bin in the garage when this one gets too full and on garbage pick-up day) from the kitchen lazy suzan to this adorable basket on the floor of the pantry. (It's woven out of rolled up pieces of recycled plastic. I got it at Michael's a while back.) And I organized the mess of paper bags that used to clutter the closet floor into the faboo Thirty-One bag I got from my SIL for Christmas. (P.S. I anticipate using this bag for other things, but it should be pretty simple to just take the paper bags out and temporarily dump them on the floor whenever that happens.)

I decided to stock the above-microwave cabinet with my various supply of oils and vinegars. I think those things should be OK over a heat source??? I also stashed our pitiful supply of liquor — two bottles of whiskey that Ryan got for Christmas — up there.

There are also two triangular shaped cabinets in the kitchen island that I could never figure out what to do with. As of this morning, one housed the blender (which isn't used often enough to justify taking up precious counter space) and the other had my old coffee maker (which I only use when company comes over since I use my single-serve Tassimo on a daily basis.) Both of those items got moved to the top shelf in the pantry and instead, I decided to put a previously removed shelf back in one of those cabinets and relocated all my cookbooks into it.

The cookbooks used to live in the cabinet above our "deskette" area, but now that it's practically empty, I can use this space for some of the junk that's collecting in and around my "home office," which is just a small desk with my computer and printer. I'll have to tackle that one another day.

Here's a couple more views of the completed pantry.

So glad that I finally got around to hanging this decorative hook (that I probably bought four years ago!) for my aprons. The space next to it is reserved for a plastic grocery bag stasher that I've got lying around somewhere, but couldn't put my hands on today.

There were just a few items that came out of the pantry that I wasn't sure what to do with. I ended up dividing them among some other cabinets for now, but I thought this was a pretty manageable number of items resulting from the major mess of stuff I started out with.

I am lucky enough to have the "problem" of having a few spaces that I just don't know what to do with. I will never complain about having too much storage space. Never. That is another thing I love about this house...an abundance of storage. But this above-the-fridge cabinet is a big question mark for me. Just not sure what to do with it...

And I am going on record to say that I am not a fan of lazy suzan cabinets. Again, I'm not really sure what to put in here, so it sits relatively empty for the time being.

So that's a lot of words and pictures about how I spent my day reorganizing my kitchen pantry (and other cabinets). If you're still reading...you might want to think about finding something better to do with your time. Kidding! Thanks...I appreciate your interest in my mundane existence!