17 days...and a GREEN bathroom!

While I will continue blogging about the new house and decorating (hehe!), I can't forget to post about the pregnancy!

Today is May 1st....Andy will be here on the 18th! Soooo....17 days and counting!

Here is a picture of me (looking like some kind of a mess!) in the boys' bathroom-- yes, it is that green!  This will be a little sneak peek for the tour of the bathroom...which is becoming one of my favorite rooms of the house!  If you can't be loud and crazy with colors in a boys' bathroom, where can you?!?!

This was taken today, but it could really be any day...I am living in workout shorts and crummy tanktops/t-shirts with my hair in some kind of a messy thing on the back of my head.  Cute, huh?  Whatever, I am hard at work!

This is almost 37 weeks-- I'll be 37 weeks on Wednesday.  Andy is moving a ton, and now that I know he's breech, things make a LOT more sense to me-- the big hard thing I feel going into my rib cage is not a foot (or a bum, like I thought), but instead, his little head!  And I feel him kicking like crazy right now...down low, so it's not his head banging against me over and over again, like I thought it was....! ha!

Last night I woke up with KILLER heart burn.  I have never had heart burn in my life.  This was AWFUL.  It felt like someone poured acid down my throat, and with every inhale and exhale, they added more.  It hurt to breathe and swallow and really do anything.  Since I've never had to deal with this before, I had no idea how to make it go away.  This is really pathetic, but I remembered some commercial on TV where the guy sleeps sitting up to make the pain go away-- now, for all I know, this commercial was for constipation, I have no idea-- but in the middle of the night, I thought it was a great idea to try!  I propped pillows all around me and tried to sort of sit myself up...well, Andy didn't really like that very much-- I don't think it gave him enough room (my ribs were ramming his head, I guess), so it didn't last very long. 

And on another note-- Cal Boy has not slept through the night since we moved.  Sigh.  He has grown attached to this one paci-- he can only use pacis in the car and in the crib, and he has a favorite for both spots-- and when he loses it in the night, he freaks out and screams until he passes out, only to wake up again shortly, or until we come in and give it to him.  I've been doing the latter.  And it's wearing me out.

I am so so so soooooooo ready to drop the paci all together, but I know it's a horrible thing to do to a kid right before his world gets rocked with a sibling.  I don't want to clip it to him because I am afraid he would choke himself or, since he sleeps on his belly, the clip would irritate his skin or wake him up.  Everyone says to limit the amount of changes in a kid's life before the arrival of a sibling.  I think we have reached our "change" limit with the new house, new car, etc, etc...

Just a little vent about the paci...I will suck it up (no pun intended: ha!) and let him keep it since he will need that with all the excitement coming his way, but for the record, let me just say I am OVER it!

Looking forward to my next appointment, on Wednesday, to see if Andy has grown more!

Before and After: Andy's room

disclaimer: these pictures of the "afters" are NOT done yet....we have not hung pictures, etc....keep that in mind! please!!!

Showing you all of the changes in the house will take a LOOOONG time. I tried to take a lot of "before" pictures so that I could share the after pictures as well.

I think I am just going to break it down and do it post by post...

Let me start by saying that we have made a TON of progress.  This is like nesting...on crack.  My mom is a freaking saint and is being super helpful with everything, thank GOD!  She had a huge event last week that she was co-chair of so she was really busy during most of the week, but every free second she had, she ran over here to help me.  Again, she's a saint.

I am wishing I took even more before pictures so you could see just how awful the carpeting was and how blah the paint was.  We replaced all carpeting and painted just about every single room....ahhhh! It feels like a new house!  Our countertops are being installed next week so I will not be showing before and afters of the kitchen just yet.

Also, in order to make sure Eddie's mom feels involved all the way from Texas, I have been taking videos of the rooms and taking her on a "walking tour" of the house as we complete a room.  I'll try to include those as well, in case you are curious...

We will start in Andy's room (keep in mind that this is not 100% complete yet and we have not put up pictures, etc...)

BEFORE: Andy's Room

take note of the curtains (they came down the Monday we closed...about 10 minutes after closing) and the paint which had not been updated since the house was built 10 years ago.

AFTER: Andy's Room

New carpet, fresh paint, new window treatments

Bumpers for Andy with his monogram (courtesy of my mom):

Crib with crib skirt and bumpers (it's hard to see it all in the picture, taken from my phone!):

Amazing Roman shades (my mom made these too-- is she talented, or what?!?!)

I hope you like the first room on the tour! I will try to take more pictures of the rooms as we hang pictures, etc... it's not easy moving with a 19 month old, that is for sure!  He's being good...for the most part....!

Easter Weekend

I have some catching up to do!

After a long week of packing and getting things done at the OLD house, we headed to the beach for Easter Weekend.  We debated if we should go or not-- the movers were coming on Monday morning and we still had quite a bit left to do to get ready, BUT, this would be my last time at the beach for a while, and I realized that I have been working myself really hard lately, just trying to get things ready, and that a weekend of relaxing (with round the clock help from my mom and aunt!!!) would be wonderful.

We got up on Friday morning and headed to the beach.  We have been going around and around about getting me a new car-- my Explorer is big and I love it, but we just needed more room.  The car debate has been a recurring one in our family for the past few months.  I really wanted bucket seats for the backseat so that the boys could each have a seat and Hank could lay on the floor in between the two and then we would have the whole truck still for storage space.  This probably sounds ridiculous to most people, but Hank is in my car ALL the time-- and he needs room!

Long story short, Eddie found a car in Wilson that met ALL of our "wants"-- BOTH of our wants (Eddie wanted 2 wheel drive, I wanted bucket seats, a pretty color, and heated seats-hehe).  This car was even in our price range.  Eddie spent the week leading up to Easter on the phone with the dealership doing the "wheeling and dealing" part of it.  When we were pretty much on the same page, we decided that we would stop there on the way to the beach and I would test drive it.  If I liked it, we would go ahead and get it!

I am now the driver of a REALLLLLLLY nice Ford Expedition!  I LOVE it!!!! It has all the bells and whistles and I really wanted and it drives great-- with TONS of room in the back for the boys and all of our stuff!

So, that was Friday-- even after doing all of the negotiations ahead of time, we were still at the dealership for almost 3 hours.  We left our house in Durham at 7:45 am and we didn't get to the beach until after 4:00.  It made for a loooong day for all of us.  (but so worth it to get that bomb car!)

We had a great time at the beach.  The whole family was down, so that's 7 adults, 3 (and a half) kids, and 3 golden retrievers.  Our house is not big.  At all.  Good thing we all get along :)

Cal and Jackson playing on the back deck-- they each had a lollipop and Cal drooled all over his shirt (he isn't very good at eating suckers yet...).  That stained his shirt, btw.

 Grandpa took all the boys on a boat ride.  Rules are that little boys have to wear life jackets on the boats!

 Eddie and Cal

 Grandpa with his two boys!

(side note: my dad had a boat made when Jackson was first born and named it "The Little General", now that he has all these grandkids, he has decided to rename the boat: "CHAOS."  Fitting, no?

 Heading to an Easter Egg hunt.  Cal found a pair of Jackson's boots and, of course, had to put them on immediately.

 Running down the path to the cars.

  

Waiting for the hunt to start.  It started at 11:00 and it was 100% over by 11:02-- hilarious!

 Sweet little guy-- didn't care a thing about hunting for eggs.  He preferred throwing them...and other kids would pounce on them immediately! HA! Also, you can't really see them in this picture, but his legs are COVERED in bruises... he is such a little boy!

 And all three cousins sat next to each other to eat breakfast one morning-- my mom has high chairs for everyone-- that's a gooooood Grandma!!!

We got up early on Sunday morning, extremely anxious to get home and get things moving.  We hit the road and were home early and we were ready for the movers to come on Monday morning. 

I hope you all had wonderful Easters.  I meant to get a picture with Cal's Easter basket, but I guess I failed with all of the chaos of getting ready to go.  He got some cute clothes from "grandma bunny" and a few Lightning McQueen items from momma bunny :)  Andy also got the hook up too-- have y'all checked out Mud Pie baby clothing?  They have some ADORABLE things.  Since Eddie is such a golf lover, the boys for a few golf related outfits....too cute.  They also have a bunch of nautical themed outfits-- seersucker with little crabs, etc.  Cute stuff!

xoxo