Baby Girl's Nursery - Part 2

Only 9 days to go until our due date!!! The past 2 weeks have been full of NESTING! My extra long (and always growing) "Before Baby" To Do List has been mostly checked off! Nothing is more satisfying than a To Do list with all the boxes checked and sometimes I highlight too, just to make me feel a little more accomplished. :) Are you a TO DO list addict? Do you sometimes write things on your to do list that you've already done just so you can check it off?

Ok, moving on.....

We have decided that we will be keeping the nursery a guest room for the first month or so after baby girl is born. Since both our mom's are blessing us with a week of their help we want them to be as comfortable as possible. Which means they won't be sleeping in our unfinished, cob-web infested basement. So there will be a Part 3 post with the nursery completed.

Before

In the Part 1 post about the nursery (click here to read Part 1) I told you my next project would be to finish the 2nd dresser that my sisters and I grew up with.  I later found out from my Granny that the dresser was used by my mom, aunt, and uncle and then by my cousins too. I even found my cousin Micah's signature in the floor of the closet.  So when I was 36 weeks preggo I decided to get the dresser finished.  Thank you 100+ degree temps for making me wait to get going on it.  Here is a before and after:

After
(like all the extras stuffed in the corner?)

I know it doesn't look that different since I just painted it white again, but believe me, it looks A LOT better after sitting in the garage for 10+ years.  I painted it using the same method as I used to paint the blue dresser.  I lined the drawers and made my own fabric liner.  I love this method and will do it in the future to all my dresser drawers.  You can find the tutorial here at Blue Eyed Yonder.  I did eliminate the ironing spray, although I'm sure it would be lovely to open your drawers and the scent of lavender greet you.  Here are a few detail photos:

Cheap brass knobs painted the same color as the 1st dresser
and distressed.

Drawer Liner

Isn't it so cute with little clothes! Thanks Jenn Huff for the
adorable handmade dresses!

Next on my to do list was the glider.  I did not get it painted, but I did make my own fabric out of canvas drop cloth and recovered the cushions.  Again I should not have waited to do this so late in my pregnancy, but its done and that's all that matters.  I have to thank my friend Kathy for giving us the glider.  She noticed that I had pinned an idea for a glider on Pinterest way back in January and offered the glider  to us (she didn't even know we were pregnant yet)! So far this glider has only cost me about $15 which was for the dropcloth, fabric paint medium, and stencil. I already had the green paint. 

Please don't look at my horribly unorganized basement!

The paint has a little "worn" look to it.

Another friend, Janna, was cleaning out her basement and found some toys and this cute little toddler rocking chair she offered me.  I had a rocking chair when I was little and loved it, so I couldn't turn this down! I painted it the same color as the dresser and decided to distress it. I rubbed a tealight candle along the edges of the arms, legs, and back before painting.  While the paint was still wet, I used a wet wipe to remove the paint where I rubbed the wax. Then after it was dry I used sand paper to distress the rest of the chair.  I think it turned out cute and I'm going to try to use it for baby girl's monthly pictures! Thanks Janna!

Before

After

Do you know how hard it is to find fabric in a coral color?  HARD! When I saw this fabric (on the discount rack...score!) I knew it would be perfect for her room. Another easy project that took less than an hour, but adds that punch of color was sewing a changing pad cover. I used the super simple tutorial found here at Sir Bubbadoo blog.

Hopefully my next post will be pictures of my beautiful baby girl!

Babymoon

Babygirl's due date is fast approaching! Only 7 weeks to go! Yikes! Before I was restricted to travel we wanted to getaway for a weekend and I didn't want to be in the car for a very long time. So we decided to head to Kansas City.  My only criteria was it had to be relaxing and I needed a pool. We had a Bedandbreakfast.com gift certificate that we had been hanging onto and decided this would be the perfect time to use it. So after researching many options I came across Inn on Crescent Lake in Excelsior Springs, MO (just North of Kansas City). (check out their website for the story of the Inn and pictures of the beautiful estate) It had what I wanted....a pool! I would highly recommend this B&B to anyone! It was so beautiful, breakfast was simply scrumptious, quiet (even with a full house) and the story behind the B&B is truly romantic.  So here is how we spent our mini Babymoon.

Friday:
Brendan took a half day and after lunch we hit the road.  Our first stop was the bank for some spending $$$. We have been collecting our change in a jar for 6+ years. The jar was just about full so we decided this would be our gas & food money. Brendan guessed there was $93 and I guessed $108.  We were both surprised when they said it totaled to $244.10! Who knew!

We checked in to the B&B relaxed for a bit and then headed to Ventana Gourmet Grill in Downtown Excelsior Springs.  This is the innkeepers favorite restaurant. They had a live piano player and the seriously some of the best cheesecake I've ever had.

Saturday:
At the Inn breakfast is served in the Solarium which overlooks one of the crescent shaped lakes that surrounds the property. We enjoyed some coffee and then had a wonderful breakfast of egg casserole, sausage, biscuits, hashbrown and watermelon.  The innkeeper and her late husband (a frenchman and romantic at heart) created a walking trail that ended at "the Kissing Point"so we decided to walk off breakfast.  I wish I would have brought my camera because this was the most amusing part of our trip....ok most amusing for me.  The tree canopied trail follows the curve of one of the Crescent lakes and it really is quite beautiful.  We *ahem* Brendan figured out early that some friendly spiders had created their webs from one side of the walking path to the other. So my arachnaphobic husband got a stick, a LONG stick, and was waving it in front of him our entire walk. He looked like he was casting a spell or like the Catholic priest who signs the crucifix in mass.  I had to stop several times because I was doubled over in laughter, which is pretty hard when you can't really double over any more.

The rest of our day was spent by the refreshing pool. It felt glorious on the 98 degree day.

This is pretty much what he did all afternoon. Couldn't stop reading....

For dinner I had read about a winery about 20 minutes from the Inn that served brick oven pizza. So we ventured to out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-Missouri to VanTill Family Farm & Winery. The pizza was wonderful! I think they grow most of their own vegetables, it was so fresh! They made their own whole-grain pizza crust and of course wine.  Which Brendan said was pretty good.

Update on Baby Girl: 

She is still moving like crazy! She is positioned sideways and no matter what position I put myself in she really likes to stay sideways. So we are praying that she will flip soon so this momma can stop stressing out!

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?