Week 26

Officially less than 100 days until my due date. I'm well aware that a "due date" is a 5 week window (full term is 37-42 weeks), but getting under than 100 day mark feels like a huge milestone. This past weekend was focused on Brian and I hanging out, getting ready for the baby, and of course, church. Brian was at the church for 8 hours on Sunday so I'm always glad when we take time for ourselves on Friday and Saturday.

Friday night was supposed to be our night in- ordering pizza, watching a movie, reconnecting on the couch. I had marked on the calendar for a couple of weeks and we even turned down an evening with friends, which we never do. However, when your husband comes home and says "do you want go out for tacos?" the right answer is yes! At the end of dinner it was still before 7 and I said "it would be awesome to go to some dive bar and play pool right now." So we ended up a bar with a bunch of college students (but not many, seeing as how it was only 7) where the bartender happily served me water, complimented us on the pregnancy and we played two rounds of pool. We finished up the night walking to Whole Foods for cannoli and gelato. Brian and I see a lot of each other still, and baby Caleb isn't here yet, so I don't think of us as needing "date nights" but that night out was a great reminder of how much fun I have with my husband, even when I lose both games of pool.

We went to a "Bringing Baby Home" class at our hospital- it was nice, but also kinda of...useless? I mean, you get to practice putting on a diaper and "bathing" a baby doll, which is huge and not moving. Babies are teensy, squirming, crying and surprisingly strong for their size. So while it was nice, I'm not sure it had a lot of information I couldn't have gotten from a "First Year" book, my mom or the internet. I was surprised by how much emphasis they place on germs: Don't let sniffly people come over! Wash your hands every time you're going to touch the baby! Don't take babies to places with lots of people! (Like starbucks? Or church? Or the mall, if it's 15 degrees out but I cannot stay in the house another minute?) From what it sounds like, the medical community would prefer if you could sanitize your entire house, administer flu shots to everybody as they enter and never leave. EVER. Its viral season, are you crazy, what are you thinking?? Frankly, I think kids who are exposed to germs are stronger for it. I have every intention of handing off Caleb the minute I get to church for Wednesday dinners, so I can eat dinner, hello and there's no way I'll be interrogating everybody on their handwashing/cold/flu shot status.

There was also painting of Caleb's dresser- sneak peek before, final pictures forthcoming!

Sneak...

Peek...

It's amazing and depressing that I'm going to get so.much.bigger. I feel like I'm passing the point of "cute little bump."

This isn't nearly as exciting as...

Kale! I was really worried it was getting too cold to germinate, but we're off and running. It'll be nice this week, but the temps drop by about 10 degrees this weekend, so we'll have the garden covered by then.

Week 25

We built Caleb a dresser!

A multitude of IKEA hardware, plus bump.

Finished! Now it just needs to be painted.

Went to the local fall festival. We saw super giant pumpkins being weighed!

It took a good 10 minutes to get this pumpkin off the platform.

This one was more than 1,000 lbs and it wasn't even the winner y'all.

I feel like about 1,000 lbs right now...

Finally, a let up in the rain made for garden progress. I pulled out the dead cucumbers and the dying peppers. The extra stakes are for plastic sheeting to create a hoophouse for the fall kale plants.

We took down the side support system, tying up the tomato to its stake.

Behind this tomato is four rows of kale, direct seeded. I'm hoping an Indian Summer results in yummy, yummy kale.

Dinnertime: Fast, fast, fast!

Not fast, as in fasting. I didn't ever fast pre-pregnancy and it sounds like a horrible idea now. No, I'm talking about getting a meal on the table fast. 

I'll be honest: this isn't my specialty. My specialty is getting home from work at 5:15 and having dinner on the table sometime before 7. I like to pour myself a drink and stand, hip to the counter, chopping and stirring. I like to let Brian work a little longer and listen to some music. Or I ask him for help and the kitchen fills with conversation about our day. I don't like to rush. But this season in our lives, the last pre-baby season, the working three jobs for Brian, prenatal yoga class and bible study for me, youth group and church council meetings season? It's not conducive to long bouts of simmering soup. I make our meal plan most Fridays and here's how next week goes:

Sunday: Brian is at youth group from 4:30 to 8. This is my night in the kitchen, West Wing on my laptop, baking bread and making dessert and long dinners. We're having our favorite "risotto" - Heidi's Lemony Risotto with Greens.

Monday: Now that Brian's on staff, we're both going to church council. It's at 7pm. We'll have leftover risotto.

Tuesday: I have Bible Study with girlfriends at 7:30, so I'm making a quick dinner of Tortellini with pesto. I'll be swapping out parsley in the pesto for the spinach I saw at the farmer's market last weekend. I'll make the pesto on Sunday.

Wednesday: Now that we're back to the school year, Wednesday is a night off for me. We eat at church before youth group.

Thursday: I have prenatal yoga from 5:30 to 7. It's not conducive to cooking, but I can stick something in the oven when I run home to change. Praise Jesus I live 15 minutes from work and my yoga class is 2 minutes from my house. I'm trying a pinterest recipe, Spaghetti Squash Alfredo with chicken Milanese-style. The squash will roast while I'm at yoga and the rest will come together quickly.

Friday is up in the air. It's our only real, uninterrupted night in next week. I might decide to take the night in the kitchen or I might decide to pick up a pizza.

I'm aware that this is the direction our family is going. In few years, when Caleb is playing three sports and I'm forcing him through piano lessons and we've got other kids we haven't even dreamed about yet, this is going to look like a cakewalk. But right now, it's new for us and it's bittersweet to slowly ease away from the days of leisurely wine and chopping.

The TV Corner: Before & After

When I met Brian, his roommate's TV was sitting on this huge side table, rescued from a curb at some point or another. When we got married and moved in together, the huge side table came with us, holding up our tv. It was decent. At holding up a tv. There was enough room to hold the PS3 and the cable box, although all the wires had to come around to the front.

It looked like this:

The table stuck out funny under our sleek tv and the wires sat around, just waiting for us to have friends with children over. 

This was my inspiration for a new tv stand. It's from The Marriage Confessions, an adorable blog about raising a family, but it was the white toy shelf/bookcase that caught my eye. You see, our apartment is not even close to a "forever" home. So we knew that any tv stand solution would probably be reconsidered whenever we move again. I thought, perhaps we make a piece that eventually goes into a kid's room...much like this one: 

Photo Credit: The Marriage Confessions.

 This is what we came up with:

It's smooth and sleek. It doesn't stick out into our living space anymore. The open space behind the upper shelves let the wires run behind the piece. They're hidden by the middle box. The boxes will hold toys and things for Caleb. The brown and green fabric boxes match the colors in our furniture and can be cheaply replaced to match colors in Caleb's room someday. 

The white doesn't match the rest of our living room wood furniture, which is dark, but it does match the white wood I'm putting in the nursery. Also, you know you've become an adult when you say things like, "As long we've got that spot cleared, let me just vacuum and scrub the baseboards real quick!" 

We love it and the living room feels like a whole new space!

Week 24

24 weeks pregnant, racing towards the third trimester. This is the week in which Brian admitted that, previously, he didn't believe nesting was a real thing. Now he understands better.

Did so much this weekend and yet the bedroom felt too messy for the usual "selfie." Asked Brian to snap this silhouette. Bonus: You can't even see that I'm not wearing make-up!

This weekend was a fantastic mix of lazy and productive. We felt like we accomplished a lot, but got lots of downtime together, watching football and a movie.

Accomplishments:
Bought a crib off of Craigslist! It's still sitting in pieces in my car, but we'll get it pulled out and put together as soon as Brian moves his desk out of the office/nursery.
Switched out our tv stand! This deserves its own post. It looks SO much better. In the process, we rearranged the living room slightly and the whole place looks awesome as a result.
Brian did a serious clean-out of his woodworking shop.
We ran the dishwasher probably four times. All the dishes are clean now. ALL OF THEM.
Laundry.
Ordered a photo for our frame that we had everybody sign at our wedding. Which was 13 months ago.
Booked our pre-baby in-town getaway at the Iron Horse in October.
Cleaned out the fridge. It was so scary.
In addition, the bathroom and kitchen floor are squeaky clean and there's new sheets on the bed. It doesn't happen every weekend. Sue me.

A cool, rainy, fall Sunday afternoon makes me want to bake ALL THE CARBS. This is cinnamon-raisin swirl bread. Not shown: the cranberry-orange muffins I made as well.

I also managed to squeeze in some girls time on Friday night and Saturday morning, catching up with dear friends who I don't get to see nearly enough. On Sunday Brian had to lead confirmation orientation during our usual traditional worship service, so we attended the earlier "contemporary" service. One of the priorities in our marriage is worshiping together, so we don't mind switching around the schedule. Not only were we pleasantly surprised at how much we connected with the contemporary service, I loved having the extra hour and a half in my morning. I went grocery shopping and to the farmers market and was still home by 11:30. I won't be disappointed if we go to that service more often.

The Caleb's stuff bin is now overflowing, which is a good sign that things need to get moved into the nursery...

We're still having one boy child. Our friends, who have two little boys, are expecting a baby girl soon. We were gifted a beautiful pink and brown bouncy seat before we knew we were expecting a boy. We switched! The girl seat is off to friends' house this week.

The all-day rain on Sunday meant I did not get in to plant kale or clean out the garden.

Grow little Brussels Sprouts!

23 Weeks and the nesting seriously starts

Major baby bump happening this morning.

Nesting starts outside.

Voila! It's hello fall on our porch.

And hello fall in our dinner table. That's braised red cabbage, pan roasted chicken with sauce and mashed potatoes.

Plus apple tart. No, I couldn't wait to cut it before I took a picture.

This is not high season for the garden. Kale hasn't gone it yet. Everything's just about done except...

The Brussels Sprouts! Teensy, teensy sprouts.

Teensy, tiny football butt for Caleb. Love it.

Trust Him

As Brian and I enter into another school year, our lives begin of time that is both stable (classes! church dinners!) and emotionally harrowing (apply for all the jobs! where might we live in a year?!). This year, of course, we've thrown a baby right smack in the middle of the year. And then my job got incredibly stressful and it's not going to stop anything soon. And Brian, my sweet, responsible husband, took on two extra jobs to benefit our little family. So yeah, basically it's crazy times up in our house.

This morning one of my favorite writers, who I discovered at this time last year when she promptly turned my world upside down (we should adopt! we should go be missionaries in Africa! no, we should be missionaries in our communities!) posted an adoption piece from two years. It's rather long winded, so I'll sum it up for you: they were in the middle of their adoption process when roadblocks kept going up and they told God they were confused, because obviously God had directed them to adopt. God said, "I'm not done yet." And he wasn't. They finished their adoption process with the most wonderful results. (Of course, the process of bringing the whole family together is still a piece of work. Read her latest post for that update.)

It came to me as I was reading her post Trust Him. It was so clear that God has a plan for our family, just as he did for Jen's. I want to paint on our living room wall and tattoo it on my body. Trust Him. Brian and I are so outrageously blessed: not only do we have every first world luxury you could imagine: two cars, vacations, a spacious apartment, clothes, more food than we need, a healthy savings account, running water, health insurance, we have family, friends and a church that love us beyond measure. Our baby on the way is healthy and perfect. Our community is without a doubt more than we could ever ask for. We have each other and a happy marriage, blessings we don't take lightly. So why on earth wouldn't we trust the God who has already so richly blessed us?

When we feel as if we're in turmoil, all I want to think is Trust Him. Don't get bogged down feeling sorry for yourself. We're just in the middle right now. He will lead us to the right place.

For the love of pete, I've even got the best Starbucks baristas.

Glorious Fall! Week 22

I always look forward to the beginning of fall, but this year especially. With the pregnancy, the heat wears on me so much more than usual. In the past couple of weeks, not only has it been hot in my house, it's been hot at my office. I don't feel much like cooking, I don't feel much like eating and being productive goes out the window as I sit on the couch with a bowl of ice. This past long weekend in Washington DC was a wonderful, HOT goodbye to summer. We walked all over the Smithsonian and the Mall, ate an incredible amount of good food and got to hang out with far-away friends. We had such a good time that Brian and I are determined to go back for trip when I don't have to carry Caleb around the entire time.

We came home to an 81 degree apartment and threw open all the windows to the 65 degree air outside. By morning, it was 73 in the apartment. The middle school kids were shrieking their hellos across the street, a sure sign that summer is over, finite, the end. I want to make squash, farro, braised pork, roasted chicken, chili, soup, Brussels sprouts, kale. The a/c is working in my office again. The chill is coming and I want to buy tiny socks and hats for our winter baby. I feel like a million dollars.

22 weeks pregnant in the fall morning light.

The garden at the end of summer. Still coming in are cucumbers, eggplants and tomatoes. The peppers are picked and done. The Brussels sprouts are coming along nicely and I'll plant three kinds of kale this weekend.