Pictures of Pregnancy

I am loving pregnancy...not because it doesn't come with its difficulties, but because I'm so thankful to be pregnant. Isn't is crazy how perspective works? I don't think 2 years ago I would have appreciated the morning sickness, weird pains, exhaustion and increasing numbers on the scale. But, between the rough sleepless nights, largely swollen hands and feet, there is also the fabulous feeling of having baby boy kick and squirm, and the excitement of baby coming home and joining our family!

Here are some pictures of pregnancy:

Loving these oh so close parking spots!

 I think ALL stores should have this awesome perk...whose with me!?

Oh my swollen...rings? long gone!!

Registering for goodies for baby!

 Uh, is there an instruction book on how to use these items?!

So thankful, so excited for this little gift! He is definitely worth all the little complaints!

Daddy's Hospital Bag

Gifts for nurses? Check!
Nursery done? Check!
Hospital Bag for Dad? ...Check!

Since Tom works at the hospital, and has a locker with some basic items waiting for him, I wanted to keep a hospital treat bag simple and cheap. [He doesn't need a toothbrush, deodorant, etc., as those essentials are in his locker, and packed in our toiletry bag. Tom also thinks he is going to wear scrubs the entire time we're at the hospital. I finally broke the news to him that he will need to bring at least ONE regular outfit to wear!!]

 Basically, I raided our basement storage area, and used the leftovers from the nurse gifts to come up with a simple bag of goodies that I know Tom will enjoy.

I included:
2 bottled waters
2 Diet Dr. Pepper bottles
beef jerk
peanut M&Ms
Snickers candy bars
Clif Bars
Gum
Almond snack size bags

I found the adorable *free* printable via Pinterest here. Print, cut, done!

The MOST important thing I included in the bag? A hand written letter expressing how thrilled I am for us to go down this parenting road together!

Summer's End

The last day of summer. It came WAY too soon this year. With the snow day make up days tacked onto the end of the year, and the ever earlier start of the school year, summer was shorter than ever. It didn't help that I tutored an insane amount this summer...I really only had one free day each week for summer activities!!

Therefore, the last day of summer? I had to SOAK. IT. UP.

I did a little poolside reading of What to Expect the First Year while feeling huge in the maternity swimsuit my cousin let me borrow. But I didn't care, I had to enjoy the last time in about 15 years I'll probably sit at a pool and just enjoy quietly reading a book. And I had to learn what in the world to do with the baby once he comes out!! I feel a bit like Rachel from Friends at her baby shower.

I took a nice dog walk with Maggie. The poor thing, I learned at the vet that she's gained a few pounds and I'm sure it is MY fault. Since my feet starting swelling like watermelons two weeks ago, our walks have gone from daily to almost non-existent. She's getting really good at bringing the tennis ball directly to my outdoor lounge chair, though,...which I think is an important skill for her to learn!

I made some finishing touches on baby boy's nursery {more details and pictures coming soon}! Here's a little teaser:

I'm getting super excited for bringing the Read Right Run Marathon to my school! It is such an awesome program and I have so many ideas for making our monthly meetings fun. I really want to build up the positive reading climate in my building.

And now, back to school! Which is another time of year I love, but I will still miss the long, lovely, lazy days of summer!

Thank You Gifts

With the upcoming arrival of baby boy, this summer I spent a large part of my free time organizing and creating. With my crazy tutoring schedule, I didn't have as much free time as I had hoped, so I enlisted a lot of help from my mom to complete all my projects. Boy, was that a huge gift!!

One project was creating thank you gifts for our nurses at the hospital where baby boy will be born. Typically, you might need or want a few thank you gifts for your Labor & Delivery nurses, and a few for your Post-Partum nurses, and in other instances, even less if these are the same people because your hospital doesn't have various wings or floors. However, because Tom works with these fabulous nurses on a daily basis, and they are so [sweetly] excited about our baby's arrival, we wanted them each to have a thank you token, and feel appreciated for what they do--even if they don't directly care for baby boy and I.

SO...that meant a LOT of gifts! After a little research, in order to hit everyone on the day and night shifts of Labor & Delivery, we needed 20 thank you gifts for L&D, and the same for Post-Partum. Whew, 40 gifts was quite a project, and could become quite expensive.  We wanted to keep it cute, and meaningful, without breaking the bank. Here's what I came up with:

Clear Treat bags from Wal-Mart

Hand Sanitizers from Bath & Body Works

Mini Orbit Gum Packs from Amazon

Candy Bars from Sams Club

Next I used my fabulous Silhouette Cameo to cut these cute tags out! We then hole punched them and added fun ribbon to attach them to the baggies, once they were filled with goodies.

I created 20 white tags and 20 blue tags, so I could easily see the difference between the ones that need to be on set out on L&D versus PP. That was just easy for me to keep track. Besides the difference in candy bars and hand sanitizer scents, the thank you bags are all the same.

The final product...in a {unused and unneeded} bowl for easy delivery to the nurses' station. I can't wait to hand them out after baby boy's arrival!