Pregnancy Reflections

I just can't believe how incredibly fast (and easy!) this pregnancy has flown by. For nearly nine months, the developing baby inside of me has consumed all my thoughts and the majority of my actions (no wine?! no sushi?!). But even though I can hardly remember not being pregnant, it still feels like it was only yesterday when Alex and I heard the baby's heartbeat for the first time on my 28th birthday last year.

Unlike many of my pregnant friends, I had no morning sickness and very little nausea (which can be attributed to prenatal vitamins on an empty stomach, the foul stench of the Bart train, or the thought of raw chicken). Other than that, I had virtually no cravings (outside of my usual penchant for anything sweet, but especially fresh fruit during the third trimester).

I did my best to eat as healthy as possible to ensure that the little bun would be fully baked with the best ingredients for life. I gained the majority of my pregnancy weight quickly in the beginning, which prompted me to cut out sweets altogether and exercise for an hour nearly every day during the second trimester when my energy level started to pick up. This was the best thing I could have done because I honestly never felt better.

Practicing yoga at 7 months was the first time I found it to be a challenging workout.
[Please ignore the construction dust on the floor as we've been remodeling.]

And it's been no surprise that sleep has been my very best friend throughout the first and third trimesters. Now that I'm on maternity leave, I've been loving my 10 hours of sleep routine. But of course, this will all change in the next few days... and I have a hunch that every minute lost will be more than worth it, even more so than during the college days when we lived by the motto, "Sleep is a luxury."

Queen of Hearts Invitation Tutorial

I just finished these invitations for my friend's baby shower. We're having a Mad Hatter tea party in March but I thought it would be a good idea to send them out (or at least have them stamped, sealed, and ready to deliver) before I might go into labor.

I wrote out the invitation text in a simple Word doc and printed this White Rabbit image in the bottom-right corner of some 5x7 white linen card stock I ordered from CutCardStock.com.

I was trying to figure out the best way to decorate the backs of the invitations to make them look like actual playing cards. I was just about to glue a diamond patterned scrapbook paper onto the back of each one when my mom came up with the brilliant idea of enlarging a real playing card and photocopying it onto the back of each invitation. We also photocopied the front side of the Queen of Heart card (but covered up the center where we printed the invitation text).

Then use something like this to cut the rounded corners... et voila! 

 P.S. You might want to seal the deal with these awesome postage stamps.

Do you still love me?

Whenever Alex and I fight, this is what I say, playfully, to smoothe things over. I started doing this before we started dating (yes, we did have a couple little tiffs before we even started dating) and long before he first told me he loved me. Sometimes it frustrates him when I say it now and there's a real issue that needs to be discussed, as if I'm glossing over the problem or not taking it seriously. But for some reason, all playfulness aside, I need that reassurance at that particular moment when hostilities between us are escalating to know that even though we're fighting now, everything is going to be okay between us. And maybe subconsciously I also want to remind him not to be too harsh with me, because if he can still love me despite it all, maybe it's not really worth fighting about.

A Time to Nest

Though Ava is not due for another month, I am officially on maternity leave until June! (Not bad California!) Assuming Ava is on schedule of course. My job has been insanely hectic these last couple months since my boss left the company and I took on his role in addition to my previous one. Now that I will finally have some time to myself, there are so many things I want to accomplish. First of all, we are in the middle of major remodeling (we have to finish the nursery!) so of course that will take up the majority of my time for the next few weeks. But one project that has been hanging over my head is our wedding album that I am determined to finish before I have to start working on a baby book. I also want to start cooking more. I haven't really cooked much since Alex is home all day while I'm at work with an hour commute each way. But now it will be my turn to be the domestic housewife, if only for a few months. Oh, and in the next month or so I will also be caring for a newborn, and from what I hear that can be a pretty demanding job by itself, so we'll see how long I'll be cooking and cleaning during this limited "nesting" phase.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Holiday cookie party time!

For the last several years, one of my best friends Jenne (who hosted my adorable little birdie baby shower) throws a fantastic holiday cookie party. We each bake about three dozen cookies that we bring to share so that we end up with a sample of everyone's goods.

But the best part, everyone agrees, are the many, many sugar cookies Jenne provides that we decorate together. There are some very talented artists in the group, and my humble works pale in comparison, but here are some of my own sparkly-sprinkled favorites:

Jenne has the best cookie cutters and frosting colors! How about an ugly cookie sweater contest?

A Mad Hatter Tea Party Baby Shower Game

I'm planning a Mad Hatter baby shower for one of my besties. She doesn't want to play any of the traditional shower games but she suggested another game that would be appropriate for the party's theme: Since the white rabbit was always talking about being late and looking at a clock, the mother-to-be will pick an activity from a hat whenever the timer goes off at random intervals throughout the party.

Here are the activities I came up with:

1. Everyone move two seats to the left.
2. Everyone move one seat to the right.
3. Everyone switch seats with the person who has the closest birthday to your own.
4. Caucus Race: Walk clockwise around the table, and when Katie shouts "Stop" the last one to find a chair is out.
5. "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" Everyone write down a silly riddle. Katie will choose the most outlandish as the winner.
6. Contrariwise Violet: Everyone must refer to baby Violet by her backwards name (Teloiv) until the timer goes off for the next activity.
7. Name Contrariwise: Everyone must call each other by her backwards name until the timer goes off for the next activity.
8. The Mad Hatter said, "If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” Katie will ask someone a baby-related question and she must give the opposite answer.
9. Contemplate things that begin with the letter M: You have 3 minutes to write down as many things related to babies as you can that begin with the letter M. The person who can name the most is the winner.
10. Pass a box of bloomers around while the music plays. The person who ends up with the box when the music stops will have to wear the bloomers until the timer goes off for the next activity.
11. Everyone sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star as a group.
12. The first person to write down 6 impossible things wins.
13. Whoever can dance the Lobster Quadrille wins.
14. Whoever can do the Mad Hatter's dance wins.
15. Who Is the Queen of Hearts: Each person will draw a card until someone draws the Queen of Hearts. Musical chairs version of the "I Never" game: Move one chair from the table. Katie starts by saying something that she has never done before. If anyone in the circle has also not done that thing before, they have to get up and change seats. The person who does not have a seat is the next person to say something they have never done before. Play this game until there are no seats left around the table.

What do you think? Can you think of any others? How many would you recommend so that we get through all the activities during the party?

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice...

I insisted on being very involved in every aspect of the planning of the baby shower my mom threw for the family. Ever since impressing myself with the results of my wedding DIY projects, I'm obsessed with finding creative inspiration from the blogosphere, shopping around for the best deals on materials, and making as much as I can myself. Even though I was working crazy hours at the office, I did not spare myself my own baby shower to indulge in this guilty pleasure.

Once the theme was decided upon, my crafty mother and I started with the invitations.

Why yes, we did hand-cut every single one of those onesies and their embellishments out by hand, thank you very  much. I could not for the life of me find a die in the shape of a onesie!

I wanted to contribute something extra to the dessert table, so me and my enormous belly stayed up way too late the night before baking and decorating cookies in the shape of onesies to match the invitations.

Et voila! A few of the finished product...

On game day, the pathway to the house was dressed in painted Styrofoam lollipops.

Alana claimed dibs on her favorite.

Another crafty project my mom and I did was make these banners out of scrapbook paper (we just left the pages at their original size but they're also cute cut into triangles) and printed and glued on the letters in the same font as the invitations.

 Sugar and Spice was the theme of the party.

My parents' house is already very vintage-looking (it's an early 19th century Queen Anne Victorian). You can faintly see a couple of the paper pinwheels in the background above which made for festive and easy decorations around the rest of the house.

Daddy-to-be smoking a bubble gum cigar.

Then you cross the threshold and enter into the sweet shoppe...

 ...where a decadent vintage candy buffet awaits. My mom made the awnings out of cardboard and fabric. My baby sis made the cupcakes decorated with heart-shaped candies. We shopped around for the candy and ended up buying it in bulk online. (Even with shipping, the prices were still miles behind any local competitors.)

We looked everywhere for the apothecary jars and the awesome vintage baby scale (which I had to have ever since I saw it on a blog a while back). The labels didn't quite make it onto the jars but if I had an extra ten minutes before guests started to arrive, they would have been attached to neatly tied ribbon around the top of each jar instead of just scattered about the buffet top.

We had goodie bags from the dollar store for the guests to take home their favorites.

 I wanted to make sure my baby brother Troy was a part of the celebration, so we had a series of his childhood penguin drawings screen printed onto onesies that we hung along a clothesline with hand-decoupaged clothespins.

My aunt Tami made this great diaper cake that we used as a centerpiece.

Me and the little sweetheart Olivia.

It was a wonderfully "sweet" celebration.