Nursery "finished"

This weekend was another productive one. On Saturday we "finished" the nursery for the most part. I have 2 pictures at the frame shop which should be done in the next 2 weeks...we'll hang those over the crib when we get them back. I also haven't decided whether or not to poly the changing table. If we decide to do that it won't be for a few weeks. Sorry for the blurry pictures...I'd like to blame the camera for that.

So we started the morning hanging the other window blind. It took a couple of tries, but Jeff exercised great patience in getting it installed.





Trixie's favorite tool is the drill


Then we hung the curtains back up


Then we chose a spot to hang the mobile above the crib




We then finished putting the crib together. Daphne is a getting little suspicious about why we are spending so much time in this room...


Then we hung some art. The girls played assistant decorator and gave their opinion on spacing out the frames.


And we're done! Here is the wall with the crib


Here is the opposite wall


The wall with the changing table and closet


Crib close up...which reminds me...I still need to finish the crib skirt. It will be white and either have pom-pom fringe or a green ribbon around the bottom. I haven't decided yet. But either way it's just a quick sewing project.


A close up of the closet. The "B" is for Beswick, not a first name.


Close up of the changing table area. That's an inflatable changing table pad on the top. I tried to inflate it myself, but just don't have the lung capacity these days. Sad. Anyway, because the changing table is from Ikea and is a weird size we had to buy their pad, which unfortunately, resembles a floaty. At least it will be easy to clean! Those crazy Swede Ikea designers!


The mobile over the crib...it's kind of hard to see.


The rug


Bookshelf (no books yet!)


A little elephant toy basket


Close up of the garland


That's about it for now. I'll take more pictures as we add things over the next couple of months. Only about 10 weeks left to go!

Now we can relax a little...only 3 days until vacation!

Wollaston Beach

I forgot to mention that last weekend Jeff and I went out for breakfast then stopped by our local beach. Wollaston Beach is by no means fancy, but they've really improved it over the last few years. And best of all it's only about 5 minutes from our house. I took a few photos with my iphone...

You can see some islands in the distance. Beyond that is the ocean.


You can see the city way in the distance in this shot


That's about it...

2 appointments today and pictures!

Today was a busy day.

I went to the nutritionist this morning for a follow up appointment. I've lost 4 pounds. Like me, you're probably thinking "awesome!". Well, apparently they don't like the pregnant ladies to lose weight when they put you on a diet. Go figure. So I've been advised to be "liberal" with my fats. Who ever thought that would happen!?!?! It's every girls' dream come true! Too bad the fats consist of things like margarine and almonds. :( Can't I be liberal with french fries and chocolate shakes? No? Ok, fine. I go back in 3 weeks and we'll see how I am doing.

I went to the doctor this afternoon as well for my now-weekly check up. She measured my stomach, listened to the baby's heartbeat (she kicked the whole time which was kind of funny), and that was about it. She said my sugars were ok...I have to email her my sugars on Sunday and she'll decide if I need to add a bit of insulin in the morning. She said that in about 2 weeks I will have to start doing a non-stress test when I come in. I think that just involves me sitting in a chair with some monitors strapped to my belly while they take some sophisticated measurements of the baby's activity.

On Tuesday the handy man came and fixed 6 doors in our house...we now have a house full of doors that close!!! Never thought that would be something to get excited about, but it is. Look, it's a hallway full of closed doors!


Today the handy man came back to finish up the nursery...he installed shelves in the closet. We would have done this ourselves, but couldn't find anything narrow enough to fit in the tiny closet and frankly don't have all of the equipment to cut shelves to fit...so we figured rather than buy all of the saws and whatnot, we'd just get a professional in here to figure it out for us. This is what it looked like before




This is what it looks like now with glorious shelves! He also installed a bar for hanging clothes, even though we won't be able to fit clothes on the sides, just in the middle because it's so narrow. The idea is to be able to store most of her toys, books, extra diapers, folded clothes, etc in here.




The fireplace guys were back over here today as well. We installed a gas fireplace back in November for the winter. It was nice, but didn't really cut it during the colder months. Today we had them add a blower fan to circulate the heat in the room better. So the baby will be nice and toasty when we hang out in the living room come January and February!

And the stupid radiator got fixed earlier this week as well. I will spare Jeff and I the embarrassment of saying exactly what the problem was...but just know that the plumber was here for all of 2 minutes and the "fix" was free! We like free. Look at it just sitting there, ever so glib.


These are a couple of nursery shots I took this week. This is one window with the curtains and garland (handmade by a lady in France I found on etsy.com)...the bookshelf really didn't fit anywhere else. We actually took the legs off of it so it would fit right under the window sill. The roman shade that is hanging there now will be changed to a white wooden blind.


Here is the half-finished crib with a bunch of stuff in it


Here is the cute armoire we got from Ikea for her hanging clothes. It also has a couple of shelves and a drawer at the bottom which is nice. I am going to eventually change out the generic Ikea knobs for something cuter. That's Jeff's bear from when he was a baby sitting up there watching over everything.


Here is the changing table I stained over the weekend. It's a white stain...kind of like it's been white-washed. You can still see some of the wood through it. Jeff wants me to add a coat of polyurethane to it, but that sounds like more work and I kind of like it the way it is. We'll see. It's still sitting in the kitchen because I haven't decided on the poly situation yet.


We plan on pretty much finishing up the nursery on Saturday. I still have 2 pictures to get framed and then we can hang them. Other than that we'll be done! I'll be sure to post pictures next week before we go on vacation.

Speaking of vacation...my brother James is coming to town this upcoming Wednesday evening. We've got a bunch of things planned to show him around lovely Boston, including catching a Red Sox game next Friday night! I'll post some pictures of our shenanigans as well. He heads back home next Sunday morning, then we (including the girls) head to New Hampshire for the week. Our friend Anne's Mom has a lake house on Lake Merry Meeting in NH. We went last year for a few days over Labor Day weekend and they invited us back. They have a dock, a boat and even a dog beach! Anne and her boyfriend will only be able to stay a few days, but because the baby is on the way her Mom was nice enough to give Jeff and I the house for the rest of the week so we can relax before all hell breaks loose. So generous! I'll be sure to take some pictures and post them when we get back.

I finally had a chance to get out to the yard and take some pictures of what it looks like as of tonight...check out all that lush grass! We'll definitely need to add some flowers and stuff next spring as the beds are looking a little sparse. But all in all we think it turned out great.






So our next major project is the front door replacement. We have the original 1895sidelights and transom (which I love no matter how much they are falling apart) and a cheap door that the previous owners installed haphazardly, and which is now cracked. You can literally see light shining through it in the morning. Because our house is so old (and we can't afford a custom door) we are going to install a new door, sidelights and transom but a carpenter will have to make some modifications to the area surrounding the door to make it all fit. Should be interesting. This is all supposed to happen some time in the next month. Then in October we'll have the insulation installed in the kitchen (hopefully the baby doesn't decide to come too early or we'll be under construction!). Then we're done with projects for a long, long time. Not only will the baby be here, but we'll be out of money!

Ok, time to go check out some Olympics...

Til next time!

Our weekend and an Ultrasound!

Jeff dubbed last weekend a "no work" weekend...so we did things that didn't involve getting ready for the baby. On Saturday morning we saw the new Batman movie at the IMAX theater with Doug and Amy and then had a nice lunch out with them. Sunday we went to the Cape and had a beach day and bbq with some of Jeff's friends from work. We got a little baby time in as well, as they have a one-year-old little girl who is super duper cute and very well behaved. Makes us think that this could actually be easy!

This weekend, however, it was back to work! Although August thus far has been filled with mostly rainy days, luckily the last 2 weekends have been gorgeous...sunny and in the 70s. This weekend was spent outside for the most part. Saturday Jeff worked in the yard pulling weeds and cutting and fertilizing the new grass while I touched up the crib (again) and rocking chair and stained the changing table. As you can see, Trixie was nice enough to help me (Daphne spent the morning barking at the neighbor's dog).




Jeff measures the grass to see if it's long enough to be cut and fertilized


The new front yard is looking great. I didn't take pictures of everything, but check out the zinnia patch! We still haven't had a chance to pick out a bird bath for this area yet. We've had a few plants die so far but overall things are looking good.


Sunday morning we took the girls to the dog park. Then we ran a few errands and I finished up the changing table while Jeff tried to fix the radiator. They always say "never plumb without a license" and it's true! We ended up making the radiator leak worse (oops) so now the plumber is coming over today to fix it. Anyway, we've really been neglecting the dogs the last couple of months because we've been working so hard to get the house ready for the baby. They've only been to the dog park a handful of times this summer. Usually we go every weekend! Poor girls.

On the way to the dog park...happy Trixie


Happy Daphne


Heading in to the park...not a lot of dogs there yesterday for some reason. Maybe everyone was out shopping during the tax-free weekend.


A view of the water along the path


Normally the girls get to swim, but unfortunately they'd just gotten their flea and tick medicine that morning so they couldn't get wet. They still managed to have fun anyway though...walking along the path


In the middle of the park is a big hill, which has really nice views of the surrounding water and marina. Jeff took some pictures of me and the girls. You can't really see how big my stomach is in these...they are just really unflattering in general. Maybe I'll be a supermodel in my next life!




Nice views...




A plaque at the top of the hill...can you read it?


The measure of a truly happy dog...rolling around in the grass!


All good things must come to an end...eventually it was time to head out.


This morning we went to our follow up ultrasound to check on the baby's kidney and see how she is growing. I was a bit nervous but it all worked out in the end! The kidney problem seems to have resolved itself for the most part...once she emptied her bladder (ew, someone is peeing in there) they were able to see that her kidneys were within the normal range. In general she is also measuring within the normal range so the extra sugar in my system has not had any negative effects so far that they can tell. Good news all around. In fact, the doctor said that the placenta is working so well that it is causing the diabetes and insulin resistance. I thought that was an interesting way of looking at things...a silver lining of sorts. It was neat to feel her kick and watch it on the screen as it happened. So fun.

Here are the pictures. Again, they are pictures of pictures so they might be a bit hard to see. A profile of her head...that's her nose and mouth with a little hand right under her chin


A straight on shot...she looks like she has fangs! Scary!


So everything is looking good and they want me to go back in one month (Sept 15) to check her size. I emailed my doctor my blood glucose levels this morning and she wants me to go up to 16 units of insulin at night. I will see her Thursday and she'll take a look at my levels then. On Thursday morning I also go back to the nutritionist. I think I have been doing pretty well on the diet, with only a couple of slip ups (a blueberry muffin one day, french fries another day). I am secretly hoping she adds a chocolate shake in there once a week, but I don't see that happening. :(

So tonight the plumber will hopefully fix the radiator in the nursery and tomorrow the handy man is coming over to hang shelves in the closet and fix the doors that won't stay shut. Super exciting! Once those things are done we can finish the nursery!!! I will take some pictures and post them soon.