Due dates...just a suggestion

Due date, schmue date.  Come and gone and no baby in sight.  Well, I guess he's technically in sight since I'm sporting this bowling ball midsection thing, but...you know.  Does it look like he's worked his way downward at all?  Everyone keeps asking if he's dropped...well, I don't know, maybe...so then maybe not because should it be really REALLY obvious?  I haven't exactly done this pregnancy thing before.

So what do you do with a pregnant lady who's hit her due date and hasn't had a baby yet?  You take her out to dinner, preferably somewhere with awesome pregnant lady food like biscuits and fried chicken.

I love you, Babe's.  Although it's a little sad that I have limited tummy room these days.

We do have an induction end date in sight, which is both reassuring to KNOW Holden will be here within the next week and also a little weird to KNOW something like that.  Still hoping he decides to make his appearance on his own; I keep telling him it's ok to come out, but he seems pretty content to keep baking in there.  Stubborn kid.

Might as well get as ready for everything as I can!  The tax department is shifting to a new space in our building over the summer...so on Thursday I went ahead and packed up all of my stuff, which definitely felt a little strange.

And I was feeling mushy anyway since the sweet work gals got me flowers and a card AND cupcakes and took me to lunch at Uncle Julio's - talk about some of my favorite things.

So sweet!  I managed to not cry, which is a big accomplishment for the pregnant lady.

It's strange to think about having a completely different routine in the next week.  I mean, we know change is coming and we've done a million things to "get ready" for this ridiculously large life event, but I just don't think it's going to hit me until it really, really HITS me, like with an actual baby actually here.  It feels very real right now...but still just a waiting game.  Yeeps!!

Let's see if anything happens at 40 weeks and 1 day...last child-free weekend EVER.  Weird.

Operation Nursery...complete!

It's definitely been a work in progress, but now we finally have what is probably the only "complete" room in our home.  Holden, I hope you like it!

He really does have an army of puppies in there!  Quilt by my wonderful mommy, crib skirt by me, puppy prints from Etsy, crib from Pottery Barn Kids, crazy wall camera to watch him sleep installed by Craig.

All ready for changing!  Dresser and mirror are from Ikea, and random assorted things are from random assorted places.

The giant alphabet wall!  Alphabet decals are from Etsy, chair from Buy Buy Baby, storage ottoman from Target.  Learn your letters, Holden.

The tiny clothes await!  Itty-bitty plaid shorts, I die at the cuteness.

Lots and lots and lots of tiny clothes...and diapers and toys and books.  Thank goodness for plenty of storage space.

Cute things on shelves, yeah yeah!

Alllllll ready for lots and lots of reading, courtesy of wonderful friends building his library at the baby shower.  Yes, we probably need an actual bookcase or something, but for now a basket on the floor works for me.

All ready for you, Holden!  Curtains by me

See, we at least appear to be ready for a baby...

I love the "little man" banners from the baby shower, so they're on the wall now!

Here's your cozy place, Holden.

The puppies are waiting!

Sooooo pregnant

You know what's exhausting when you're 39 weeks pregnant?  EVERYTHING.

I'm rocking wet hair and flip-flops in this one...BECAUSE I'M 39 WEEKS and tired, y'all.

Here's what's up lately...I've been hyper-aware of Holden's movements since his heartbeat was a touch slow last week...but at my doctor's appointment last Wednesday he was jumping around like a crazy bean and had a right-on-target heartbeat of 122.  And he's doing a really good job of kicking and punching in there, so I'm not worried about it - except when I get focused at work, pause, can't remember the last time I felt him do anything, and then frantically poke at him to make sure he's moving around. "Knock it off, Mom!"

As of last Wednesday, there's a whole lotta nothing going on down there right now.  So we'll see how the next week goes, but have already scheduled a date for induction since I'm not really interested in being pregnant FOREVER (which is how it feels right now).  A scheduled birth!! Yes, that appeals to the accountant in me, but I'd rather my body and Holden just come to terms with each other and do this thing. We'll see what happens. And my doctor reminds me that this could all change at any time. Yeeps.

Anxiously awaiting his arrival around these parts!!  And distracting myself by doing things like sewing curtains for bedroom (which Harrison may or may not approve of)...

...and snuggling with the fur children, who have absolutely no idea how much their worlds are about to be rocked even though we keep telling them a baby brother is coming...

...and approving betting pools at work on the birth of our child, which I don't think Craig was a huge fan of, but someone should at least have fun with this waiting game...

...and playing in the dirt by replacing last year's sad dead herbs with adorable new ones, plus a citronella plant that will theoretically keep mosquitoes away.

I also cleaned out the fridge and freezer - like, CLEANED.  I suspect I'm over-nesting.  But I have to do SOMETHING.  And yes, every activity is followed by a break on the couch because I'm just tired.  More tiredness to come in the near future, though, so I might as well get used to it.  See you soon, Holden!  We just don't quite know when!

A new addition

Faked you out, didn't I?  A new addition?  You thought the baby came!!  Nope, we just had a built-in wine bar installed between the kitchen and breakfast nook - a lovely new addition to our home.  I think this may qualify as the male version of nesting...we'd talked about doing it for a while, but then Craig kicked it into high gear and made this thing happen.  Do you know how many options are out there for wine fridges??  It's a little redonk.

Here's how things were looking about three months ago...

We committed to a wine fridge (this was actually the second one we bought...the first one didn't exactly run quietly...quite the opposite, which was causing me to go bonkers, which meant we definitely got a different wine fridge), and Craig did manly things like move electrical outlets and switches to make room for the new cabinets.  Electrical things scare me...Craig, not so much. He's very brave.

Fast forward a few weeks...

...and amazing things have happened!  We now have granite people and a cabinet guy and staining guys (yes, different people for each one...apparently this is not a one stop shopping endeavor), and the whole thing is really coming together.  They did an awesome job of matching the existing kitchen cabinets, but the process was a little scary - I actually spent two nights at a hotel while Craig held down the home fort and kept the animals alive while battling truly epic fumes from the varnish/staining/painting process.  We decided it was probably best if I didn't expose our unborn child to scary fumes...yeah, they were pretty bad.

And then we debated backsplash options and found yet another guy (the tile guy!) to come make it all happen and NOW...

All done!!  It's awesome.  And I told Craig I didn't care if the wine fridge matched the existing appliances, but now that it does, it makes the crazy person in me really happy.  Not that I'm enjoying wine these days, but soon enough.  Yay for successful home improvement adventures!! And it's alllll done before baby comes...which could really be any day now.  Yeeps.

Puppies, paint, and paying people for perfect corners

Remember how we reached "just need to perfect the chair rail...and the crown molding...and do eight million other things to really make this room a nursery" several months ago?  IT HAPPENED.  BEFORE THE BABY'S BORN!!!  That's really a major victory.

Here's that chair rail in progress, which we did finally get done in February:

And then there was this crown molding thing going on...you see that funky angle on the wall with the window?  That slope into the wall and ceiling business?  That makes crown molding kinda tricky.  We gave up and called in the pros, which was a really excellent decision.  Because then things started looking like this:

Sometimes that yellow just comes out really, really bright...I promise it won't blind the kid

Yeah yeah!  Totally painted walls and totally painted chair rail and beautifully installed crown molding AND then we could do cool things like set up the crib and make it start to feel like a baby room.  Major, major props to Craig on tackling the painting and ladder work and general furniture assembly.  I sure hope Holden appreciates all the physical labor his dad put into his room.

Then that's where mom steps in - time for decorating and sewing and putting things on walls and cute-ing up the place.  Remember those little puppy dogs I was working on?  I made an army of them...

...and overanalyzed spacing them out and practicing just the right stitch length to applique them to the background fabric...

...and finally, finally made it all come together in a crib skirt!  Huzzah!  Again, busy season really puts a damper on getting projects done, wah wah.  But at least it's done now!

Yay for puppy dogs!  Full nursery pics coming soon...because it's DONE, y'all.  Totally ready for a kid.  At least the room is ready...I don't know if that has any bearing on us really being ready...