Baby Girl's Nursery - Part 1

Lots of people keep asking me how our nursery is coming.  My answer? Slowly but surely.  Its kinda hard since the future nursery is currently our guest room and our basement isn't finished to allow a space for our guests to sleep.  I want everything to be just so and with my taste (ahem, and budget) its hard to find exactly what I want in my price range.  I am also an extreme DIYer.  I find it hard to buy something when I know I can make it.  Its really a curse, because I have an on going to-do list and the bigger my belly gets the less my body lets me do. So I've become practical and know everything is not going to get done before she gets here.

I have finished one major project and that is the changing table.  I wanted to find an antique dresser and paint it.  I had this certain shape in mind and knew it would be like looking for a needle in haystack, but lo' and behold it popped up on Craigslist and we bought it for $75!  Here is a before and after.

I am soooo happy with how it turned out!  I love the color and the technique I used to paint the dresser (which took forever, but was worth it) resulted in a super smooth factory-like finish.  I had a hard time finding drawer pulls that I liked that weren't $10 a piece!  I got a little creative and found some brass knobs at Lowes, the shape was what I was looking for, so I just spray painted them and they ended up working perfectly!

So if you want to learn about the technique I used to paint the cabinet visit this online tutorial How to Paint Furniture by Centsational Girl.  The only thing I did different was I used a foam roller for the drawer fronts, sides and top of the dresser instead of a brush.  Here is another tip! Our drawers were sticking really bad after we finished painting and we purposely did not paint the wood runners along the side.  My dad said to use beeswax for them to slide better.  So I thought, "Ok, where am I going to find beeswax!" I stopped by a honey booth at the local farmer's market and sure enough they had a small bar of beeswax for $0.75 and it worked like a dream!

Joel Dewberry - Herringbone in Pond

I've selected the fabrics for the baby bedding, which my wonderful Mother-in-law is sewing for me. Here is one of the fabrics that I fell in love with! I'm also using some greens and corals in the room!  Can't wait to see it all come together!

Next on my list......
1.  Sand/Paint Child's Armoire
2.  Sand/Paint Glider
3.  Make fabric for Glider Cushions out of drop cloth
4.  Recover Glider Cushions




Here is a picture of my next project which my parents refinished for my room when I was little.

To be continued...........................

2012 Garden

I do not claim to have a green thumb whatsoever.  I do enjoy planting and watching things grow.  It is so exciting to see the perennials that you planted last year start to emerge in the spring or see your tomato plants begin to bloom. In the past I pretty much just planted the plants and watered them, I didn't fertilize or anything, but I am determined to have a healthy and yummy crop of veggies this year.

You might remember one of my first posts about Brendan building me a small raised bed, well he built me another one, but double the width.  If you are interested in building your own raised garden bed here is the link to my post. Fall Garden Prep/Raised Cedar Garden Bed. Spring in Nebraska happened very early in March, so I took a chance and planted my spring veggies around the end of March.  We planted a mixture of lettuces, baby spinach, and sugar snap peas (Brendan's favorite).  I planted them all from seed, which I've never done before.  I couldn't believe how easy it was! I didn't buy lettuce for an entire month!  Our peas are just now starting to bloom and I picked one serving of peas just this morning!

Sugar Snap Peas

Spring Veggie Garden, the peas have taken over!

Baby Spinach

In our larger garden bed we have planted our summer veggies: Big Boy Tomatoes, Yellow Cherry Tomatoes, Jalepenos, Orange Bell Pepper, Green Bell Pepper, and Zucchini. I purchased all of the plants from a lady at church who starts them from seed and then sells them to support the girl's ministry at our church.  Just in case you were wondering, our dirt is a mixture of some organic soil we moved from Oklahoma, yes we moved dirt, and free compost we can get from the city of Lincoln. If you don't know us that well, the Williams are FRUGAL!!!  My Zucchini plant has quadrupled in size already and my tomato and pepper plants have blooms already!

Summer Veggie Garden

Zucchini

Isn't that little guy cute!

 Oh, I also planted strawberries and then found out that it takes like 3 years to get an actual crop.  Oh well, here's hoping we are still at this house in 3 years!

Strawberries

 I've also attempted to spruce up our curb appeal in the front flower beds.  Last fall I found a great deal at Lowes on 1 qt. Hostas for $0.77! So I bought a few and planted them in the front.  They all came back and are healthy. A friend also gave me some Hosta's from her flower bed and they came back as well. The only thing I added this year is some annuals, Impatients and Asylum. I also have Lily of the Valley in the skinny flower bed, its kind of taken over, but there is no way I'm attempting to dig those suckers up.

Beautiful Tiger Lily in my backyard

Front large flower bed

Front small flower bed

ReRoofing the House

So life has been crazy busy, but a good crazy busy! We have been traveling, working on house projects, gardening, and working on the nursery.

In April we decided to replace our roof. Our Sunday School class at church volunteered to help us. They are not new to this kind of service project since they have replaced several family's roofs in our class.  I cannot tell you what a blessing and testimony this was. Financially is was a huge savings, but more than that, seeing a group of 12 men sacrifice time away from their families and their weekend seriously touched our hearts. They started Friday night around 5pm and were able to tear off the old shingles and put new shingles on the entire back of the house by 7:30pm.  Saturday morning they started around 8am and got the rest of the roof done by 11:30, literally 10 minutes before the monsoon hit!  We had about 4-5 neighbors comment to us that they couldn't believe how fast these guys worked.  What an incredible testimony of how the Body of Christ serves each other! Not only did the men help with the roof, but their wives also sent food to help with Friday's dinner and Saturday's lunch, which I very much appreciated! Here are some pictures of the project.

Brother's in Christ at work

They are working on the front of the house, but I had to take pictures, just in case we got hail that afternoon.

As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. 

I Peter 4:10

A Love-Hate Relationship

Yesterday I had a baking adventure.  At least that's how I'm trying to look at it.  You see, baking and I have a love-hate relationship.

I love eating baked goods, I hate the mess it creates.

I love smelling the yummy things baking, I hate when dough sticks to everything.

I love a slice of fresh baked bread, I hate letting things rise, I'm too impatient.

I love cooking! Mixing different herbs and spices, experimenting with different dishes (much to my husband's dismay sometimes), and I really like a good piece of steak or anything covered in gravy...brown gravy, cream gravy, chicken gravy.  Yumm! Can you tell I'm pregnant? 

Ok, I digress.....Don't get me wrong, I can bake...cookies, sweet bread, etc.  I usually steer clear if the recipe involves a rolling pin, you know what I'm talking about, that round piece of wood stuck in the bottom drawer of my kitchen.  I mostly reserve the rolling pin for pounding meat since I don't have a meat mallet or crushing crackers for a topping.  My husband knows that I'm baking if he hears me yelling at the dough or sometimes a bad word might escape my lips. I know this is bad, but I'm just being honest and admitting this so you understand the kind of relationship I have with baking.

In the last year or so, I have become more adventurous with baking.  I've made homemade bread, biscuits, dinner rolls, Pioneer Woman Cinnamon Rolls (baking frustration is totally worth these babies! I included a link for the recipe), and pound cake to name a few. Most of these things have turned out, I had a loaf of bread that was still doughy in the middle and something was wrong with the pound cake, I don't know what it was, but I served it to my in-laws and they were more than gracious in eating it and consoling me that its hard to get a pound cake right.

So, yesterday, I attempted making Cinnamon Cherry Bagels and Wheat-Thin Style Crackers.  Now that I'm approaching my 19th week of pregnancy I'm realizing that my stamina is not quite what it was pre-pregnancy.  So I definitely should not have done both of these in one morning (which turned into a baking afternoon as well).  Anyways, it was a success! Both items turned out very yummy and what makes me even more excited is that I could control the ingredients and I knew exactly what was in them!  So whole grains, honey (no refined sugar), and dried fruits. The bagels were interesting, I've never boiled dough before, the the recipe I used (linked above) recommends broiling the bagels in the oven and then boiling them in water, and then baking them.  So as you can see this is a process. The recipe only made 10, so next time I'll make a double recipe and freeze them. See I'm making progress, I said next time. The crackers were super easy and I'll do those again for sure.  I'm glad to say the Lord has given me grace and I was able to keep my cool the whole time in the kitchen!  However I did almost cry when I surveyed my tiny dishwasher-less kitchen.  Let's just say I took a well deserved nap after all that baking and washing.

My next battle to overcome in the kitchen needs to be baking a layered cake and icing it.  I would like to make a cake once in my lifetime that the layers don't crack on me and the icing isn't full of cake crumbs.  We will see.... until then Happy Baking!

Pregnancy Brain

We first began to notice the slip in my mental capacity to remember things when I heard this from my husband, "So are we letting it mellow around here?" Referring to the fact that I had once again forgotten to flush the toilet.  Oops!  My response, "I've heard that when your pregnant you start to forget things."  Which resulted in a friendly argument, err...I mean, discussion about whether that was true or I was just blaming something else on the pregnancy. Well as the weeks have progressed so has my forgetfulness and fortunately my back-up to prove that pregnancy brain is real.  Just a few instances that have occurred.

1. While telling Brendan a story, I forgot the name of the person in my story.  Halfway through
he says: "Oh, so and so (actually said her name) said that?"
me: "Oh yeah, that's her name..."
him: "Sara, you said her name when you were telling me the story."
me: "Are you sure, I don't think I did."
him: "YES! You said her name."
me: "I'm losing it."

2.  Drive all the way to my weekly women's bible study, only to find an empty parking lot and remember they had canceled for that week.

3. Put my lunch in the oven to heat up and set the timer.  Timer goes off, I check my food to discover that I had not turned the oven on.

4. I was filling up the sink and ran outside to tell Brendan something.  Forgot that I was filling up the sink and almost overflowed the sink.

I'm pretty sure I could go on (and so could my husband).  But after talking to several other moms and dads.  We have found that I am not the only one to suffer from momnesia.  It took a lot of convincing, but I think he will finally admit that its the pregnancy that has induced my forgetfulness.

Any of you mom's have any good stories about your pregnancy brain?

Valentine's Day

I think when we got married I initiated the rule that if we gave each other gifts on Valentine's Day they had to be homemade.  Which for me is not hard, but for Brendan....well its a challenge. But he has always pulled through and given me some cute stuff! One year he made me a chocolate cream pie (my favorite) from scratch! Another year I got a silly poem, like he used to write me when we were dating. 

We forgo the waiting 2 hours to get a table at a restaurant and stay home. I usually go to a meat market and splurge on some nice steaks.  Our cut of choice is New York Strip. Brendan braves the cold and grills the steak.  I make mashed red potatoes with the skin and some cream cheese, butter, and sour cream and then bake them.  Oh they are delicious! A cesar salad on the side and usually something chocolate for dessert. Yummy, Yummy! 

I have to share the story of our first Valentine's Day as newlyweds.  Cue the candlelight and Nora Jones. I made the above meal and afterwards we were relaxing on the couch drinking some red wine from our new hand painted wine glasses my sister gave us for Christmas. I was cuddled in Brendan's robe he got for Christmas because it was so warm and soft.  I reached to put my wine glass on the end table next to the couch. I wasn't really paying attention and missed the coaster and there went the glass of red wine all over the carpet of our rental house (YIKES!). Then they came....the tears, I was upset because 1.) I spilled the wine and 2.) I broke my brand new wine glass.  I was attempting to help clean up the wine with all my blubbering. When Brendan yelled at me, "Your on fire!". Again, not paying attention, I had dragged the sleeve of Brendan's new robe through a lit candle and was now on fire! I froze! I didn't know what to do! So my knight in shining armor came to my rescue and saved my life with his bare hands!  Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating, not my life, but for sure he saved my arm from going up in flames. But this was a polyester robe and now my new hubby was screaming because he had melted plastic on his hands. All I could do was just cry! I had ruined our first Valentine's day as a married couple! Now, 5 years later, it makes for a pretty good story.  I hope your laughing, I am...now.

Baby Williams

We are so blessed to announce that our family will be growing in September 2012! We are so grateful to our Lord for blessing us with our little miracle and every day with our little one is a gift. We always thought we would wait until we were at least 12 weeks to announce because then we would be "in the clear", but we want to take this opportunity to bring glory to God! So we hope that if you are believers in Jesus Christ you would join with us in rejoicing and praising the Lord and if you are not believers that you would be able to get a glimpse of the grace that He gives when you do believe in Him. About 2 years ago we decided it was time for our family of 2 to grow. We had no idea the journey that laid before us. I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome(PCOS) which, in general terms, makes it harder to get pregnant naturally and increases chances of miscarriage. We have known this for several years, so it wasn't a surprise that it might take us longer than most to get pregnant. In April of 2011 we decided it was time to pursue fertility options, even though neither of us had a huge desire to start any type of medication. One day before our appointment to discuss fertility options with our midwife I found out I was pregnant! We were overjoyed, surprised and so excited to see God had answered our prayers. Four weeks later we had our first appointment and ultrasound. We anticipated hearing our baby's heartbeat, but God had other plans for our little one. There was no heartbeat and we learned that we had lost the baby around 6 weeks. Our hearts were broken, but we took great comfort in knowing that, "for those who love God all things work together for good,for those who are called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28). We knew that losing our first baby was for our good, even though it was difficult to understand at the time, we KNOW that God is good and used this to refine us. Over the past 8 months we have prayed and asked the Lord for His will to be done! Of course we prayed He would bless us with another baby, but ultimately we desired His will be done. I'll be the first to admit that the past 8 months haven't always been easy, but I have seen His grace in our lives and His peace that passes all understanding. Brendan and I have grown closer to each other and to our Lord. The day after Christmas the Lord answered our prayers (and the prayers of many of our family and friends). We were pregnant! Overjoyed! We began to cherish everyday I was nauseated and tired, knowing that these are good signs, but also knowing that the Lord is totally and completely in control. At our first major ultrasound we heard the most amazing sound of our little one's heartbeat! We met with the midwife and she told us that there were concerns and we could miscarry again. Not the news we expected, but again, we trusted in the Lord and his sovereignty. I memorized Isaiah 26:3, "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you." When I began to worry about this little one I just focused on HIM and His truth and His peace was there! So 2 weeks later (February 1) we were back for another ultrasound. The Lord is so good! The baby had grown, the heartbeat was strong, and we even saw Little Williams moving! There were no concerns! Everything looked good! Praise the Lord! We are so grateful for each and every day! We know that He is in complete control and He is the Creator.