Nursery Transformation - Part 1

Thanks to our families, the past two weekends we have made gargantuan leaps forward in getting ready for Baby Trey. I mean huge. I've kind of had this frustrating feeling that we were behind the game in our nursery room prep. That, coupled with a (probably ridiculous) fear that he might come a month early, were just causing needless stress and worry. I'm sure it would have been fine if we had gotten around to everything next month, but it sure does feel good to be pretty far along on the nursery progress, and we're so grateful to both sets of our parents and my brother who helped us get this far!

So Trey now has a nursery, and it actually looks like a nursery for a sweet little boy rather than an office/man cave/catch all room. There's still work to be done, but there's no mistaking his room is "his room." Robert very kindly gave up what was his designated room in the house for our son. With the nursery, the new guest room now double-functioning as a guest room/office, and our master, our little 3/2 Homewood bungalow is working nicely for this growing family. I mean, the larger house the more to clean, right? I think we'll be content with fitting nicely in our space because goodness knows I don't have time to clean - as much as I love too (type A neat-freak true confession).

I didn't do a great job of taking before pics of the office, but let's just say there was a mix of furniture and random items we had collected over four+ years of marriage and even during college for which we found new homes in all parts of the house (attic, etc.) or in donations to my brothers' college apartment collection or to Hannah Home.

So here's your before pic - aka mental image because I didn't take a before pic - lots of stuff, gray walls, nice hardwoods, and need of a good de-cluttering and then just a good cleaning in general.

Our plan was as follows: new paint for walls and ceiling, add crown molding and chair rail molding, replace light fixtures and wall outlet/light switch covers, clean hardwoods and blinds, put together crib, paint antique armoire. I'll save my color scheme/fabric selections for a later post, but suffice it to say we decided to go with a neutral pallet that would work well if a baby girl later occupies this space, and that also would work as an office/third bedroom if we ever have the house on the market. Didn't want any potential future buyers to be turned off by a room that screamed nursery.

We picked out paint colors on a Thursday night after I mostly finalized fabric selections and painted the ceiling (that was actually all Robert) and top half of the walls on Friday night, which was actually St. Patty's Day. Surprisingly, it was honestly more fun getting ready for Trey than going out for a green beer and night on the town. Saturday morning Robert purchased the molding and borrowed a nail gun from a handy and generous friend while I started on the paint for the bottom half of the room. Later that morning my parents and Kyle came over to help, and we honestly couldn't have gotten it all done without them. Mom and dad helped me paint (don't worry - the room was well ventilated) while Robert and Kyle measured, cut, and installed molding. There was lots of nailing and caulking and touching up and painting, and after burgers and more work that afternoon we had made major progress.

We finished painting the molding, cleaning blinds and hardwoods, and other touch-ups on Sunday afternoon with just enough time left in the weekend to put together the crib. It was so neat to see it in the mostly finished room. We definitely slept well that night after a long weekend of satisfying hard work (aka physical labor). The next morning it was so strange, but exciting, to see Trey's little room (almost) all ready for him.

Now for the few pics I did take:

Taping for chair rail molding. Room is the old gray. (And, yes, I picked a different shade of gray to paint as the new color, and it's nearly identical. But it's honestly a completely different shade that goes much better with the new color scheme. I love it and am thankful to my husband for seeing beyond the similarities and letting me buy an almost identical (to some) but completely unique shade of paint AND for repainting the room for me.

New shade of gray on top above chair rail tape. You can see if has more silver, blue hues/tints.


With the new white painted below the chair rail.


Lots of help with taping and painting trim work from my parents.



Robert and Dad installing and caulking the chair rail molding.


While Kyle caulks the ceiling molding he and Robert cut and installed. By the way, from this pic you can see the new color we painted the ceiling - a cloud-like, light blue. Robert did it all, and I'm sure it was back-breaking work. Again, much appreciated!



A (mostly) finished product (minus new door handle hardware)!


More pics of the nursery transformation to come. Thanks mom, dad, and Kyle for all the help! We couldn't have done it without you!

Junior League's 5K for Kids

This year was my provisional year (first year) in the Junior League of Birmingham. Our provisional project was to plan and host a 5K race in West End, which we held on March 5 at and around Legion Field. The day of the race and free community fair (think health screenings, bouncy houses, free healthy snacks, and other fitness, nutrition, and community health vendors) was actually the culmination of months worth of planning and also several weeks of nutrition and fitness training we conducted in five elementary schools in West End.

This project was huge, but a great opportunity for me to take a leadership role serving as co-chair of the In Community/Civic Awareness Promotions Subcommittee. I loved working with the many amazing women on our committee and with the other co-chairs and race leadership. We learned a lot from this first year, which I think will be valuable to next year's provisional class when they repeat the project in 2012 - hopefully taking it to new and greater heights. We formed some great community partnerships that will only strengthen in the years to come, and I'm especially proud of the League leadership for embracing and committing to a true, interracial community partnership in an area of town that many over-the-mountain Birminghamians consider dangerous.

Here's one of the promotional pieces we developed.

I only took a few pics (with the iphone) at the event, but despite the rainy day we had a great turnout and lots of fun. It was especially fun to tweet live about all the activities taking place.

Some of my favorites....

Jones Valley Urban Farms Smoothie Bike - Too Cool!

UAB Minority Health Research Center Mural Painting Station

Face Painting!

The kids' one-mile fun run around the inner concourse of Legion Field. Winners got gift certificates for new pairs of tennis shoes.

There was a little confusion about our race name - 5K for Kids - that made it sound like the race was only for kids, when in fact it was for everyone but benefited the kids since proceeds were used to purchase and supply PE equipment to the elementary schools. Something we need to better address next year in promotions to the community.

Robert ran in the race along with his former co-worker, Matt, a big local runner who always races in costume and didn't disappoint on March 5 as the banana man.

Robert ran one of his better 5K times!

My friend Laura and her friend also ran. Thanks guys! Trey and I sat this one out, primarily because I had to work the event all morning with the other provisionals, but the whole family plans to participate next year once we have the trusty jogging stroller!

www.tagxedo.com

Robert found this really neat website that makes a fun word image based on the words (and frequency in which they are used) listed on any particular website, in a twitter feed, etc. The above image is what resulted when he tried it out on our blog. I think this is just the neatest thing. Obviously, based on the word selection, our blog content has taken a turn in the last six months to baby news, which must have influenced the large pregnancy-related words. (I think Robert customized the image to the duck with the blue background, so it's unrelated to content.) Actually, all this would really be based on blog content in the last three months, since we didn't announce our pregnancy on the blog until early January. Regardless it's very cool.

Check it out at http://www.tagxedo.com/, and my apologies to any readers I've lost because of what has obviously become a blog with 90% baby news content. Part of it is just our current stage of life, but I'm definitely going to make an effort to diversify my posts to be more comprehensive of all that's going on right now. I already treat our blog as a family journal of sorts, and right now our family is certainly focused on getting ready for Baby Trey, but still -all this baby news might be a little rediculous. I'll work on toning it down a notch.

Also, as a writer, this image and the words that compose it are very revealing. For one, I use the words "sweet," "certainly," "definitely," and "amazing" entirely too much. These must be my crutch words I go to when I'm lazy and don't want to think of better, sharper adjectives. Another item to work on. Here's the image Robert got for University of Alabama's website: http://www.ua.edu/. I'm pretty sure that he appropriately picked the elephant shape to display it in. Still pretty tight though.

Here's the image from my twitter feed - @tiffanyadams. I think it's a really accurate representation of my feed content.

Try it out and let me know what you think.

25 weeks

25 weeks today. Baby is definitely bigger. How big is debatable.

Three different email updates stated the following, so next time you’re in the grocery store and spot an eggplant, small bag of sugar, or rutabaga, think of Baby Trey. Or don’t – because I don’t think he looks anything like any of those, though his size may be roughly comparable this week.

Your baby weighs 1 1/4 pounds and is a little more than 11 inches long, about the size of a small bag of sugar.

He rivals a rutabaga - about 1 1/2 pounds. (Length: 13 1/2 inches, head to heel.) Head to heels, your baby now measures about 13 1/2 inches. His weight — a pound and a half — isn't much more than an average rutabaga

Baby's now the size of an eggplant!

And apparently there’s only more growth to come. In the last third of pregnancy, he'll double and triple his weight. Here we go.

New developments this week – MAJOR movement!

I knew Little Buddy was getting active, but didn’t realize until the past three or four days just how strong and more frequent his kicks have gotten. The other night he was going crazy. I had a hunch Robert might be able to feel his punches and kicks if he put his hand to my stomach, and sure enough dad was able to feel Trey in there practicing his dance moves or soccer kicks or whatever it is he keeps doing with those leg and arm muscles. It was a special moment. And confirmed I wasn't going crazy whenever I wince or react to a random punch or kick.

Other baby developments:

That oh-so-handy sense of equilibrium is kicking in, and baby's learning to distinguish right side up from upside down. (Hence the flipping I think is going on in there.)

Baby can touch and hold his feet and make a fist (and then punch mom with it in utero)

Dad may be able to hear his heartbeat by pressing his ear against your belly (I thought this might be the case. Some days I think I can feel the beat of his little heart rhythm in there, but didn’t know if I was making it up or not.)

Baby has a regular sleep schedule now and active and inactive periods. (Yep, we just need to get our patterns on the same schedule. This late night activity is keeping me from falling asleep. An experienced mom and work told me to literally rock him back and forth, either by swaying in bed or standing up, or walking around the room, to put him back to sleep. Might have to try this technique if things keep up.) You may or may not be able to discern what those periods are. (Nope, I got them. Cycles fully discerned.)

His nostrils, which have been plugged, open up. (Yea for a working sniffer.)

Baby is beginning to exchange his long, lean look for some baby fat. (Finally!) As he does, his wrinkled skin will begin to smooth out and he'll start to look more and more like a newborn.

He's also growing more hair — and if you could see it, you'd now be able to discern its color and texture. (Can’t wait to see. Baldness is acceptable too. I’m not going to be a picky mom. We’re going for healthy here, people.)

Third Trimester Confusion

So, apparently there's differences of opinion on when "technically" the third trimester begins. Here's what I discovered after doing a little online research (not always recommended but in this case surprisingly helpful).

You are only technically pregnant 266 days if you go full term. The 280 days is full term plus 2 weeks prior to ovulation--when you weren't even pregnant. If you go by the 40 weeks (280 days) the math would be 13.3 weeks and you would be in your third trimester at about 27 weeks. If you go by 266 days, you would be starting your third trimester in the 25th week. So, docs go between 25-28 weeks for that reason.

We'll, since I'm now 25 weeks, one of my weekly baby/pregancy email updates sent me the following message:

Welcome to the third trimester! You're really in the homestretch now. While reaching the third trimester feels like great progress, with it comes a return to fatigue, dizziness, and constant trips to the bathroom. To relieve back, hip and leg pain now, try to keep walking, swimming, practicing yoga or doing any other nonweight-bearing activity. This also can help you recover faster physically after childbirth. To make sure you'll enjoy your baby shower, schedule it between weeks 30 and 36; you'll still be spry enough to enjoy it.

Well okay then, I guess we'll just embrace the third trimester now since fatique, back pain, and restless sleep are starting to again become my constant friends. All a small price to pay in the long run for a little buddle of joy. Overall, I really am feeling great (can't complain) and have had a very nice and uneventful (someone please knock on wood - immediately) pregancy to date.

Here's hoping for smooth sailing in the home stretch. I can't believe we're already to that phase. Enjoy each stage of life because they certainly do fly by.

Hostess Gifts

If you read the baby shower post you know how blessed I was to have seven amazing friends host such a special event for us. I wanted to give them something they would really love for their hostess gifts, and ultimately decided on monogrammed beach towels! What better way to welcome spring and summer.

I purchased some huge white cotton terry clothe towels on cottage.com. They are huge (even long enough for Anne!) and so soft. Shipping was super fast and then I passed them off to a friend a work who has a monogramming business. She did the super cute double monograms with the initial and name in black and pink with a really cute font. (You can check out her online store - The Gathering Place Boutique - on Facebook.)

I wrapped them with some fun ribbon and we were ready to go. I think they were a huge hit! I sure loved them (almost got one for myself but resisted) and hope my sweet hostesses did too.

Trey's First Baby Shower

Some sweet friends threw me a baby shower on March 12, and I was honestly so overwhelmed with gratitude for all the wonderful love and support from everyone who was there to celebrate with us. Such great generosity and excitement about welcoming Baby Trey to our family! We are truly blessed by amazing friends and family.

My sweet hostesses were so creative and energetic. The shower was amazing! I was touched by the cousins, aunts, and family members who traveled from afar, the old friends and college roommates, bridesmaids and special friends both old and new from so many stages in my life who came to be with me from Auburn and Tuscaloosa and all parts of Birmingham. Even sweet friends who mailed gifts because they couldn't be there in person. It made it all so special. Here are some pics from the shower. (My sweet mom did an amazing job of capturing all the memories for me!)




Katie Crawford - truly a hostess with the mostess, who opened up her home for the shower and designed the cute invitations. Sweet Michelle made Trey's beautiful diaper wreath with the cute elephant. Laura made and iced and decorated the delicious cake with cream cheese icing! Jess came from Jacksonville and Amy came from Arkansas just to be there and help host. Ash and Anne did so much to help plan from Birmingham, buying our Chico pack n play for the hostess gift - which I was so excited to get - and making sure everything was great. These ladies are amazing and sure know how to shower a friend with love and support during a special time.

Cute decorations for our "III" and the delicious and beautiful cake!

Thanks everyone for making the day so special!