No sleep for me this early morn...

Between the heartburn, Brooklyn's non-stop kicking (I think she is hungry again), two different dreams of me going into labor, and some other discomforts that I won't go into details about, I finally gave up on sleep about 20 minutes ago and just got up out of bed. It wasn't even 5am yet. Yep, I think this is going to start being a "habit" so to speak here for the last couple of weeks. I've had to sleep propped up on a pillow to help with the heartburn I feel just about every night. So here I sit, eating 5, yes 5, biscuits with butter and jelly and drinking a tall glass of ice cold chocolate milk. It's delicious. I'll have to go to the store to buy more though because this was my last can of biscuits. I get those little 5 biscuit cans which are perfect for Waylon and I (today, just for me though, lol) because then we don't have left overs, plus, they're cheap. I'm making rice and beans today so I've had the beans cooking all night and they are smelling up the house right now. It isn't the most pleasant smell. 

So about my labor dreams. They were so real! When I woke up, I was so disappointed to find it was just a dream because it was all going so perfectly in the dream! I was just getting to the point in my contractions where I was going to start pushing her out...then I wake up...darn! Both times! I really think that all this working in the nursery and going through her stuff and setting everything up is really getting my mind going and thinking more about having her than I did before...and I didn't think that was possible!  I think she knows I'm talking about her because she's going 90 to nothing right now in my belly. She's got hiccups, she's kicking and punching AND she's stretching - all at the same time! I hope this isn't an indication of things to come! lol.

I have a new picture that Waylon took of me on Sunday to put in his power point presentation for his Spanish class. He had to do one on his family tree and have pictures of each of the family members he spoke about. He also had to give his speech "by memory" with as little help possible from note cards for 4-6 minutes. He worked very hard on this project - with a little help from his Spanish teacher wife! Seriously though, I've never heard a speech so many times as he went through his here at home. I'm surprised he needed his note cards at all! Anyways, his presentation was pretty cute. He put a lot of humor into it. So when he spoke about me, he started by saying "I'm married" (in Spanish of course) and the picture that came up at that point was a ball and chain! lol. Then he put an actual picture of us up. Then he starts actually talking about me and shows a "before and after" picture - "This is my wife when we got married. This is my wife NOW...prepare yourselves..." LOL. I didn't mind b/c I know Waylon and he's told me a million times how he thinks I'm still beautiful no matter how big I am with this pregnancy (he's also told me several times how huge I'm getting too but it's kind of hard to get upset when I look in the mirror and see that it's true). Anyways, he thinks he'll get a really good grade on it because the crowd really liked it and the teacher laughed through the whole thing. I hope he does, he worked very hard. So here's the picture he took. It's the most recent. I think you can pretty much tell that the baby has definitely dropped...at least I think she has! It sure feels like it. You can just barely see my left foot at the bottom of the picture and see how swollen it is. Ugh! I can't wait to not have that symptom anymore!

Thursday is his last day of this summer class. He won't be taking another summer class at my request. While we both love the idea of him getting lots of classes out of the way during the summer in 4 week segments, however, the work load of those classes is much more stressful and time consuming and with Brooklyn arriving right in the middle of the second summer semester, I just didn't want to have added stress in our household. I am going to need his full attention and help with her and if he was taking another class, he wouldn't be able to give me that AND give his class the attention it needed to do well AND work 5 days a week (his work finally bumped him up and has given him 5 days a week which we needed so much - Thank you God!). So I asked him if he would mind not taking another class this summer like he originally planned on and he said that would be fine with him. He wants to bond with his daughter as well and that makes me happy!

Last thing. Baby's R' Us sent me an email with the tracking number for my bedding set. I checked it yesterday and it's scheduled to arrive today sometime! I'm so excited! I won't be leaving the house of course! lol. As soon as it gets here I'm setting it all up (after washing the crib sheet of course!). Last night my mom and I took all of Brooklyn's new clothes, blankets, wash cloths, towels...etc. and put them in the wash. Today I'll fold them and put them away. We also painted the dresser for her room to match the crib and changing table (yes, we got a changing table!). We also got a pack n' play for her to sleep in while she's staying in our room when we first bring her home. So we basically have everything and we spent a good amount of time yesterday evening putting things up in her room. It looks like a real nursery now! As soon as I get the bedding in today, I will take pictures of it. I can't wait!! 

Alright, now I'm done. I'm hoping to start getting sleepy soon as I have finished the 5 biscuits and chocolate milk. Waylon will be getting up in about an hour and a half to go to school. I hope to be able to be back to sleep at that point. Brooklyn really needs to calm down - she has been moving while I wrote this entire post and still hasn't stopped! Good grief girl!

Preggo insomniac signing out...

The new bedding set for the nursery.

So this is the actual nursery set I ordered for Brooklyn's nursery - it's called Lady Bug Lucy. I had to change from the previous one I posted for a couple of reasons. First off, they didn't have it - online or in stores. Every time I looked it up, it said N/A. The other reason is that the crib we ended up getting is espresso and not black. The other nursery set was black, white, pink and green which wouldn't look good with an espresso colored crib. So I decided to go online and find a different crib set. I found this one and it's $3 more than the other one BUT it's a 10-piece set instead of a 4-piece set and I have to say that I actually like it even more! I get everything in the picture here for $124! I thought that was a great bargain. I also like the fact that it's not overwhelmingly pink but is still very girly. I also love the brown and pink combination and green is another favorite color of mine so it just has everything I could want. I think it's going to look fantastic once I get it in the mail and set it all up. I'm very excited about that part! Anyways, I wanted to post it to show everyone! 

Baby shower pictures and other wonderful gifts!

Ok, so this post has already taken me almost half an hour and I'm just now starting to write! The downside of Blogger is that it takes forever to upload pictures! If any of you other blogger users knows a quicker way to upload pictures on here, please let me know, it was really frustrating and I ended up not posting as many as I wanted simply because it was taking forever. That being said, if you're my friend on Facebook, I have these and more that I just posted so you can check them out on there as well.

Oooook. So I thought I would post some pictures of some of the big items we have received lately as well as pictures from my baby shower that my church had for me today. The first thing I'll show pictures of will be the travel system my parents bought for Brooklyn. I picked out a relatively inexpensive one in neutral colors that could be used down the road if/when I have a boy. I really liked it, thought it looked like good quality and it's also not huge and bulky like some that I've seen and pushed around before. So here it is: It's got a jungle theme and I'll be buying the matching pack n' play for it for Brooklyn to use to sleep in our room when we first bring her home.

The whole thing put together
Close-up of it so you can see the print.
Mom/Geemaw showing off what she got. :)

The next group of pictures are from my baby shower today. I didn't post a bunch on here because of how long it was taking. I have several more of these posted on my Facebook account if you want to see them. Sometimes I feel like posting too many pictures from a shower is boring for other people since it's me sitting in the same seat opening up different presents. So I just posted a couple so you could get an idea of how it went.

The adorable cake which read: Special Delivery: Brooklyn. I thought that was really cute!

"The" picture of me opening gifts. Heather sat next to me and wrote down what each person gave me. Thanks!
The pile of loot! We got so many wonderful gifts and I just can't wait to get to use them with Brooklyn. Now I have the fun task of putting everything away and organizing. I have one more big item to get - a changing table - and I'll have everything I need for the nursery (minus the bedding set which is coming in the mail and will hopefully be here by the end of next week!).

The next group of photos are of what Uncle Bryan bought Brooklyn. I was in shock when my mom called me from Babys R' Us to tell me that Bryan was looking at cribs and wanted to know which one we would prefer. I had already picked out a cheap one we found at Walmart because we couldn't afford a super nice one. Well, he was very generous and wanted to get Brooklyn a much nicer crib and mattress. We ended up getting this crib in "espresso" color, which is fancy for dark brown. It's real wood and very sturdy and it's a 4-in-1 crib that will convert into a toddler bed and day bed and will last us for all of our kids to come. Here are some pics of Bryan and Waylon putting it together and then a final pic of it when it all got finished. While they were putting it together, I looked online to find a bedding set that would go with this one better than the one I had previously picked out. I found an AWESOME deal on a 10-piece set so my mom and I hopped in the car to go buy it. When we got there, we were very disappointed to find they didn't have it in the store. So we came back and I went to order it online and that's when I saw right next to the picture of it that it said "This item only available online." DUH! I could have saved us a trip if I had just read that. Anyways, I went ahead and ordered it and we will hopefully be getting it in the mail in the next week. I can't wait to get it and put everything on it. I'll find a picture of it and post it on here if we don't get the bedding in here pretty soon. 

Waylon reading the directions before doing anything   

The dad and the uncle working hard to achieve a common goal...

The finished Product! Very Nice!!

Sorry these last pictures came out all over the place - I had a really hard time with getting them in the right positions and finally gave up. Then blogger kept putting the font into blue with underlining! I was getting so angry!

This last picture (hopefully I can post it right!) is a picture of the diaper bag aunt Mel sent for Brooklyn. I love it and think it's so pretty! I put it in the crib because there was nowhere else that was a good background for it to where you could see the bag clearly without being distracted by everything else. 

So there you have it. Some pictures to tide you over until the next batch. I do promise to have some pictures of the house now that it is complete. The problem is that I can't seem to keep it clean because as soon as I get something organized, we open another box and there's more stuff to put up. I'll probably spend this next week organizing like crazy, getting the nursery all set up and then once the whole house is in order (for all of 1 hour) I'll run through and take some pictures to post on here. I really do want to do that, it's just been crazy for me and I've been so tired I haven't been able to do as much cleaning as I would like to.

I'm very thankful for my wonderful family who has showered me with wonderful gifts and for everyone who came to my shower today at church and showed their support and encouragement to Waylon and I as we bring a little life into the world. We can't wait to meet Brooklyn and bond with her and watch her grow and share her with our families. I can't believe I'm going to be a mommy! Once the crib was set up yesterday, I think it finally started hitting me for real. There is going to be a real baby sleeping in that room! WOW!! It's hard to imagine!

Well, I'm going to go now b/c I've been working on this post for an hour now and I need to lay back and try to get Brooklyn to get in a better position. Right now her little rear-end is up in my ribs and I'm VERY uncomfortable!

Time for a new post

I've been pondering whether or not to write a new post before my appointment Thursday and have finally come to the decision to take the plunge. I'm not sure why I've felt hesitant to write a new blog lately. I think b/c I want to post pictures but with all the move and stuff I haven't had time to take any new ones and then when I do take the pictures, I'm not sure where my stuff to upload the pictures is. Sigh...how frustrating. So you guys will simply have to visualize in your minds what my house looks like as I explain everything we did. Hopefully soon I'll find all my stuff and be able to take some pictures to show you all the new changes and how it looks finished. 

First I'll list off all the things we did to improve:

- painted all the walls: the living room, dining room, kitchen and master bedroom are a nice grey color (I know it doesn't really sound like it would look good but it really does) and the nursery and office are a light creamy beige called "almond paste"

- we laid vinyl flooring down in the living room and hallways that looks like stone and matches the grey on the walls and laid vinyl flooring in our room that looks like wood. The bedroom wasn't originally part of the plan in putting new flooring down, however, the hot water heater decided to leak through the wall and into the master bedroom. The carpet was soaked and started stinking. Since it wasn't very clean and we couldn't get it dry after 2 days, my dad decided to go ahead and pull that carpet up and lay down new flooring in there as well. The guys were speed demons with that room! They got it all laid in less than two hours! It looks great now.

So those are the big "improvements" we have made and it truly has made the house look completely different than it did before. Wednesday was our first night to sleep here at the house. Since we had just finished laying the new floor in the master bedroom, we put our mattress in Brooklyn's room (since there isn't any furniture in there yet) and slept in there for a night. Friday we brought in the last load of stuff from the apartment. Now all we have to do over there is give it a good cleaning and turn in all our keys and such. We want to get it looking as good as possible in hopes to get our full deposit back as well as half the pet deposit that you can get back.

What I now have left to do in the house:

- unpack and organize/put away all of our clothing. This is going to be a much more difficult task than I had originally thought. First of all, we have SO MANY CLOTHES!! It's ridiculous! I've started a Good Will box because we are totally getting rid of the clothes we haven't worn in over six months. Secondly, I've borrowed a ton of maternity clothes and I've gotten them from three different friends. I have already begun sorting out the stuff I can't wear and putting them back up in the containers they came in so that after I have the baby it won't be so overwhelming. All three of my friends who lent me their maternity clothes had their babies at different times of the year so their "big" clothes are all different seasons. There's a lot that I can't wear from two of them b/c they had winter babies so I simply can't wear those clothes now. One of them had a summer baby so I'm still able to wear her clothes. Anyways...I got off there on a rabbit trail. The point is that putting the clothes up is a huge task hanging over my head. Thankfully I have a wonderful mom who is helping me with everything and will be coming back over tomorrow morning to help me deal with the clothes. Hopefully we can have it all done in a couple of hours.

- I also have to unpack and organize the office. The office is where all my Mary Kay stuff will be as well as all our "paper" stuff. We have a small desk that was piled with stuff at the apartment. I fully intend on going through everything and throwing out EVERYTHING that isn't absolutely vital for us to keep. I'm so hoping to become a clutter-free person and get rid of the paper that takes over my house. I don't know how we end up with so much paper junk around our house but we do! It irritates the heck out of me! 

- Brooklyn's room is actually one of my top priorities to get done in the house as well. We have all of her stuff in there, the problem is, we don't have very much "stuff" at this point. lol. We don't have a crib or changing table yet and I have a dresser but I still need to re-paint it. We also don't have the stroller/car seat yet but I think my parents might be getting that for us. I also don't have the nursery crib sheet set that will be the theme of her nursery. I need to get that. I think I'll order it this week. I can't wait to have it all cute and decorated - it just seems like there is so much to do and now I'm running out of time. 

- Last and probably least important is the two bathrooms. I still haven't unpacked anything for our bathroom and the second bathroom has nothing in it - not even a working toilet at this point. My dad is taking care of that though.

So there you have it. I've been so blessed that my family has been so extremely helpful in getting this house looking the way it does now and getting our stuff moved in. My parents have gone above and beyond and helped us so much and I'm so very thankful for them. Even today, on Father's Day, my dad was over here finishing up the tile and other little things that needed fixing. My mother-in-law has also been a huge help. She helped us paint the rooms and pack stuff from the apartment and haul it over here in this wonderful Texas heat! Thanks Mitzi! We couldn't have done it without you either. My brother has also helped a lot. He's become quite a tile-layer. :) Thanks B-ryan! I have to say that I have never needed my family more than I have lately and they have been there for me. I've been physically miserable for the past 2 weeks with all the horrible swelling in my feet and ankles and hands and they have bent over backwards to make sure I don't over-do. I really appreciate all the help from both sides of our family and everyone else who has played a part in helping us with this transition. My hubby has been working his tail off as well. Between school and his regular job, he has gone out and spray-painted curbs to make some extra money and then has used his spare time to help my dad and brother with the tile and has had to carry the load on moving since I can't do much. I know he's exhausted and needs some rest but he just keeps trucking away and doing what he knows needs to be done. He's been a wonderful husband and I'm so thankful for him. I know he's going to be an awesome dad. I love you Waylon!

Ok...I think I'm done with all the mushy stuff. hehe

I have a doctor's appointment this coming Thursday and it will be my 37 week appointment. I'm REALLY hoping she has some good news for me on the progressing towards labor front. It would love to hear the words "we need to induce you next week" come out of her mouth. I would like it not to come before next week because I have my church baby shower this coming Saturday and there's still just so much I need to do to be ready for her. I'm also not getting my hopes up that I'll hear good news like that because I don't want to be too terribly disappointed. Even if I have only progressed a tiny bit, I'll be excited. If I'm still the same as I was two weeks ago, I'll be a little disgruntled but I'll survive. I don't want her coming until she's ready but I'm really hoping she's ready early! lol. I'm ready to see her little face and hold her and kiss her and love on her. I just can't even fathom what it's going to feel like seeing her for the first time. It's one of those things that seems way too surreal for me right now. *sigh* Can't wait but I have to. ;-/ When I went to see my cousin Lydia and her new little boy Cooper on Thursday, it just made me all the more excited and anxious to see Brooklyn. Cooper was adorable and it was great to see Lydia and him. I also got to see my aunt Donna who we picked up from the airport and took to the hospital to see her new grandson. It was a good afternoon. The hospital Lydia delivered in is HUGE!! Baylor Dallas is like it's own city! My tiny little hospital looks like a dollar store in comparison! lol. 

I'll also hopefully have another picture of myself to post up here when I post the pictures of the house. I'm getting quite large and uncomfortable. My hobbit feet are really gross to look at too. My face is swelling and I noticed the other day that even my nose is swelling! I have a bigger nose right now than I have ever had! I don't like that at all! lol. 

Well, I think this post has gotten long enough. Waylon should be getting to leave work here pretty soon. He just called me and told me he only had two cars left to deliver (he's a vallet at the DFW airport) and then he was going to get to come home. I like it when this happens because his normal hours on Sunday nights is until 1:30am! I don't like going to bed before he gets home but I can't always stay up until then either. 

Next post I'll hopefully either have pictures or at least some good updated news about having this baby - or both!

Big update blog - pictures, pictures, and more pictures!

I'm finally getting around to posting some pictures of the house. I won't post all the pictures because there are some rooms I haven't gotten to take an "after" picture of. So I'll show you a "before" and "after" picture of the rooms I have pictures of and then I'll show you the others when I get the after pics. I also have a more recent picture of myself. I cut my head out of the picture because I had major "helmet hair" and looked like poo. I also have to warn you that I'm in a swim suit. I took it today before Waylon and I went out on a swim and thought it was decent enough to post. In no way, shape or form do I think I look good, I'm just showing how big my stomach has gotten.

Ok, here we go...

First, the house:

Before - had a bit of a nineties look with the maroon and green

After - still not done but we got grey on the walls and a marble-ish vinyl tile. That's my dad working on the corners that had to be trimmed.

I'll have more pictures of the house as we finish more of it but that's a start I guess. I'm going to try to use Waylon's camera next time b/c mine is not doing so great. It apparently has some spots on the lens that's coming out in the pictures.

Now for the picture of my big belly: Ta da!! This is a maternity two-piece that a good friend/family member, Jackie, lent me from her maternity clothes stash. She's been the one who's clothes you've seen me in several times on here. She had some great maternity clothes that fit me and kept me looking trendy! So there I am at 35 weeks and 2 days. I'm growing at a daily pace. 

Pregnant life is coming to an end and I'm greatly looking forward to it. I can't complain too much b/c I've had a complication-free pregnancy. I'm just so darn uncomfortable and hot all the time! I also am getting up more in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. 

Now we are focusing on getting moved into our house before the baby comes. I do NOT want to still be moving things when we have a newborn. If I were to go into labor or be induced before my due date, I don't want any moving hanging over my head. 

I will have to post more later when I have a little more time. I've got music practice in half an hour and I still need to shower from my swim. 

35 week appointment

Today's appointment was slightly more eventful than the rest. I had an ultra sound first to check and see that Brooklyn is indeed head down, which she is, and then the much-awaited "internal" exam. I'll start with the ultra sound. Brooklyn has definitely grown since her 3D ultra sound. The u/s tech said she weighs 6 pounds on the nose which is slightly large but he said not huge or anything. My doctor said she is in the 66th percentile so I guess that's not too bad. She likes it when they go over the 50th percentile. I'm not even sure what all that means but she says it's good and I believe her. Brooklyn's face was much chubbier in the ultra sound pictures this time. We got a very good look at it. I'll have pictures posted soon hopefully but not today as our printer is under a pile of stuff on the kitchen table. She has some super chubby cheeks and her mouth and nose were very distinct. We also got a great profile shot. The internal exam was quick and semi-painless. As always, those types of checks are never fun but I welcome them now b/c it indicates the end of the pregnancy being near. She said things looked good and to be exactly where I should be right now. I won't go into any further detail. I'm not dialated yet though so I'll be having one more 2 week visit. At my next visit I'll start coming in every week. Hopefully at the next appointment I'll hear some good news that I'm dialated and headed in the direction of having her before my due date. :)

After the appointment, I came home and laid on the couch and have basically been doing that all afternoon. I was told by my doc to get my feet up b/c they were pretty swollen this morning. After two days of hard work over at our house, I decided I would take a day and rest and not go over there. It's coming along very well. We only have one more bedroom to paint and we're basically just waiting on the carpet to get cleaned and see what it looks like and go from there. The living room carpet is so filthy that we really don't think the cleaners  are going to be able to get it clean enough to use. We will be getting a vinyl flooring for the living room and hallways if this is the case. It will look so much better too if we are able to do this. Once the floor situation is resolved, we can finally move our stuff in. I'm getting a little frustrated at how long it's taking them to get a carpet cleaner over there. My parents haven't been able to get ahold of the rental agency lady who is in charge of getting the house back to pieces and I'm starting to feel like she's dragging her feet on purpose or something. We don't have an indefinite amount of time to wait here for this - our lease is up on June 30th and by then I don't want to still be moving when my due date is 2 weeks away! Grr! This is not the type of frustration I need right now. I'm thrilled to be able to get to move into a house, but I also didn't think it would be this difficult to get the previous renter's crap taken care of before we got to get in there.

That being said, I still have a lot of apathy in the "getting things done" department. I just want to lay around most days b/c doing anything else is extremely tiring and uncomfortable. I did just put a load of dishes in to wash and that felt like a huge accomplishment. Waylon is out making us some extra money by spray painting curbs. He used to do this in the summers when he was in high school to make extra money and now it's coming in quite handy as his work is only scheduling him to work 2 days a week. He picks a neighborhood and goes from house to house, knocking on doors and offering to spray paint the house numbers on their curbs. He charges $8 for one curb and $10 for both sides of a driveway. He does very well and can usually make $30-$40 in just an hour and a half. He goes out in the evenings after five since it's cooler and people tend to be home more in the evenings than in the middle of the day. It's good to see my husband being willing to go out and do this to help support us. He's also taking Spanish 1 during the first summer semester and he's doing quite well! He has used a lot of his spare time to study and calls me regularly when he's studying at work to ask me questions. I'm glad I am able to help him and it's been fun for me as well. He was pretty frustrated in the beginning but I think now that he's getting the hang of it, the frustration is less. He likes his teacher though and says she is very good so that always helps.

Today is my second day of official "summer break". It still feels a little weird just waking up whenever I want and sitting around the house. I could get used to this! lol. Soon I won't just be sitting around though - I'll have a little baby demanding all my energy and attention. I am looking forward to it. I watched three episodes of "A Baby Story" and one episode of "Birth Day" today. Of course I cried every time the babies were born in each episode. I'm such a sap. lol

Well, Waylon is headed back from spray painting and when he gets here I'm going down to meet him and go to dinner. Will be back soon with ultra sound pics of Brooklyn and a couple shots of me so you can see just how big I am right now.