Oh Baby!

Guess what? We're having a baby! We've already told family and friends and most other people know by now. I decided to I needed to start keeping up with this blog again to remember everything that happens during this pregnancy. We waited until I was 8 and 9 weeks to tell family and close friends. I wanted to wait longer but we could not keep our mouths shut another day!

We actually found out on our anniversary! I wasn't late but I just wasn't feeling quite right. On our way home from dinner we stopped by Walgreen's to get Hunter some medicine and I grabbed a test. Hunter didn't even know I bought one and I didn't tell him I was taking it because I knew it would be negative. When we got home, he was taking the cake out of the refrigerator and I took the test. I was so shocked to see two pink lines! I really wish I would have told Hunter in some creative way but I just blurted it out! It's funny to laugh about now.

 

 

 

I called and made an appointment for the doctor which wouldn't be until September 19, two and a half weeks later. It seemed like it would take forever but it flew by. Since I work in the same building as my doctor, I scheduled it first thing in the morning after I got off. Hunter didn't get to come with me to this one since I just walked right upstairs to the appointment. Everything went great and it put all my worries at ease! Our official due date is May 5, 2013!

 

 

 

We really couldn't wait to tell our families'! We knew they would be so excited! First we told my mom, Richard (my step dad), and my moms family. We had them come to our house for my birthday dinner on Saturday night, September 22. I wrapped up a gray onesie with an elephant on it. I gave it to my mom and she wanted to know what it was for. So I told her it was a really late anniversary present just so she would open it and not think anything. She knew right away what it was! What was so funny was that the week before she had a dream that I was pregnant and when she texted me and asked me about it I didn't know what to say! I forgot to get a picture though!

 

Then on Thursday night, September 27, we told Hunter's family. We had them over for dinner because they were about to go out of town. We got help from Hunter's brother, Jake, his girlfriend, Katie, and their little girl, Emalyn. I bought a onesie on Etsy and while Hunter and his parents were outside, Katie changed Emalyn into it. When everyone came in for dinner, Lynn noticed it first. Chip had NO idea and when he finally figured it out, his face was priceless!

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, Saturday we told my dad, Allison (step mom), John, Bailee, and my dads family. His parents, brothers and their wives and kids were all in town to celebrate my Memaw's 70th birthday. Hunter and I went over to my parents house early Saturday but my brother and sister were both gone. So we had to wait and everyone ended up being there for it. I ordered shirts off Etsy for John and Bailee and let them tell the secret. They we estatic! My cousin, Abby, recorded it but it's at my dad's house. I'll have to upload it next time I'm there.

 

 

 



 We are so excited to welcome a sweet, little baby into our family next spring! We have a lot to do including clearing out our mess of a guest room and making it into a nursery. We also have a few updates we need to make on our whole house to make it more baby friendly. Overall, we know we are very blessed to have been chosen to be this little ones parents. Please keep us in your prayers during this special time for a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby!

 

Marry-Make Out-Muzzle

Cassie over at Hi Sugarplum! did a post yesterday on a fun twist to a Twitter game. It's called Marry, Make-out, Muzzle. It's an easy game. Just pick a celeb(s) that you would marry, make-out with, or the creep you just can't stand.

I know, I'm already married. Happily. But like Cassie said, "I'm not blind and dead!" So here goes my list:

Marry: Blake Shelton

I love him. He can sing and he likes to have a good time.

And, hello?! He's married to my fav, Miranda.

Make-Out: Robert Pattinson and Ryan Gosling
It's a tie. I mean look at them...could you choose? That's what I thought.

I mean, have you seen Crazy, Stupid Love? If not, watch it. THEN you will understand.

Hey, boy, hey! Do I really have to explain this one?

Muzzle: Taylor Swift and Rascall Flatts

Can. Not. Stand. Them. Every time either comes on the radio, I cringe. Then change it. And my husband will totally agree with me on these.

Well, that was fun!
Which celebs would you Marry, Make-out, or Muzzle? Maybe you have some new ones I can add to my list. :)

Happy Friday!

Pre-Baby Bucket List

No. I'm not pregnant. And we don't really "plan" on having a baby in the near future. But if it were to happen, we would welcome a new life with open arms. But it seems that everyone these days is asking Hunter and me, "When are y'all going to have a baby?" Shout out to my dad for asking us at our wedding reception during his toast. I've got it on video. I'll have to post it one day. Seriously, he wants a grandbaby so bad, I'm pretty sure he already has his "name" picked out. Because, if you know my dad, let's face it, he isn't a Pawpaw or Grandpa. Anyway, back to the subject of this post.
I love being married and while I would LOVE a baby right now, there are times when I find myself saying, "I am so glad we don't have anyone else to worry about." Like when we are out with friends having a great time, or when it's just the two of us doing absolutely nothing and sleeping until noon on a Saturday. I guess I'm being selfish, but you know what? I can be right now. And it's not like I don't have any babies to love on. I can do that 36 hours a week with the sweet babies at work.

While we don't really know when we want to have a baby, we do know that there is a lot we want to accomplish first. My girl, Katie, over at Bower Power created a post a few months back called Pre Pregnancy Bucket List. It's a list of everything she wanted to do before having a second child. Congratulations to Katie and her family as they announced a few weeks back that they are finally expecting baby #2!

So I wanted to create a list of my own, just for fun. Whether it's months or years before we have a baby, there are lots of things I would like to get done. And of course, if I don't complete everything on my list, life will go on. So, without further ado...here it is.

Pre-Pregnancy Bucket List
1. Eat sushi
2. Paint the kitchen
3. Stencil an accent wall somewhere in my house (I just don't know where yet.)
4. Go on a big vacation. This does not include St. George Island where we will be with about 40 members of my family in July. Preferably something out of the country. Like the honeymoon we never took.
5. Start Nurse Practitioner school (hopefully in January 2013!)
6. Buy a bigger house
7. Pay off all debt not including house and student loans
8. Build up savings
9. Go skiing and actually get Hunter on the slopes with me HA!
10. Run a 5K
11. Wine tasting at a vineyard
12. Clean out the guest bedroom (if you have seen my guest bedroom, you know how big of a task this is. Maybe I should post about it so I can have some motivation)
13. Lose 15-20 pounds
14. Buy a good camera

And that's all I can think of right now. But just going back over that makes me realize there's about an 85% chance it won't all get done before we have a baby. But, like I said before, life goes on!

If you don’t have kids, do you have a pre-baby bucket list? If you do have kids, do you wish you would have made one? What would you have put on it??

DIY Sewing Organizer

I know I said I would be back Wednesday with my project, but I got a little caught up with work and am just now getting to post. I found this project on Pinterest a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to do something similar to it, but hers was a little too complicated for me, being that I've only sewed a couple of things. So I waited until my Memaw was in town and showed her the tutorial. This is what we came up with.

I love it! We just made the easy version of this tutorial. I used Muslin and a cute fabric from Hobby Lobby. I used the same iron-on interfacing as the tutorial. I started by sewing the pockets onto the right side of the muslin first.

See that blue line? That is where I sewed a straight line down. I started at the top, went down a couple stitches, then back-stitched, then went all the way down and back stitched again. I also went all the way around the patterned fabric before sewing the whole thing.

Then I ironed on the interfacing on the other piece of muslin.

Then I made my stack of pieces ready to sew. I placed the piece above with the interfacing side down. Then I placed my other piece of muslin with the pockets, pocket side down and pinned it all! Then I started at the top corner and made my way around. When I got back to the top I left about a five inch opening so I could turn it all right-side out then top stitch it. I really like how it turned out! I also made a pincushion like the above tutorial did but haven't stuffed it yet.

So make sure to go visit Sherry, Katie, Erin, and Cassie and check out their cool projects!
Have a wonderful weekend! And Happy St. Patrick's day! :)
Jessica

Kitchen Cabinet Redo

When we bought our house last May (almost a year ago!), we knew we wanted to redo the cabinets. They were brand new but the color the seller stained them, wasn't very pretty. It was a pinky-orangey color. Yuk. So by July, I had had enough and I took myself to Home Depot to talk to their paint guy for some ideas. He really helped us out a lot in deciding which type of paint to use, and how to go about the transformation overall. Here are some before pictures:

Yeah, sorry about that mess. I'm embarrassed I just showed you that.

But first we used a liquid sander to remove any residue and prep the cabinets to be primed. For our primer we used Glidden Interior/Exterior White Primer/Gripper. For our paint color, we used Behr Premium Plus Ultra Pure White in Clear Moon-Semi Gloss.

Hunter hates white cabinets. He wanted to re stain them. I originally wanted to do the upper cabinets a light sage green color and the bottom cabinets a shade darker. We ultimately decided on white cabinets because the kitchen is so dark and we thought it would brighten the space up. Also, the two-toned cabinets may not be good in a resale. We plan on being here for about 2 more years and we decided that in our  next home we will do what we really want. I will say, we are very happy with the final look of the cabinets.

So next it was time to take off all the cabinet doors and take out the drawers. I cannot stress how important it is to number your doors and drawers as you take them off. Make sure to put the same number on the door/drawer and the place where it goes. Otherwise, when your are finished painting, you are going to have to try to put together a puzzle....not fun.

So once you have all the drawers and doors off, it's time to prime and paint!

Looking back, I can't believe how big of a mess my house was during this process. And now for the final transformation:

I really like how it turned out, but we are definitely not done with the kitchen. In the picture above, you can see where I didn't finish painting the section by the stove. There is a big gap between the cabinets and the stove so we are going to fill it in and you won't even see that part. And two pictures up, there is a beautiful piece of plywood over the dishwasher. You see, when we bought this house, the seller had remodeled the entire house. But no appliances were included. And for some odd reason, the seller didn't even include a space for a dishwasher. I'm not really sure why? It's 2012. Who doesn't have a dishwasher? So we had to extend the counter tops. The problem with that? We can't find the tiles that the seller used. So what does that mean? We have to completely redo the counter tops and backsplash. BUT I will say that we aren't in love with what we have now. So we have picked out what we want for our new counter tops and backsplash and are currently saving for it. Hunter and his dad are experienced in installing counter tops so we are going to save LOTS of money by them doing it instead of hiring someone. We are hoping to only spend about $500 on them so hopefully we can get by with that. I think we are also going to put another cabinet above the dishwasher where there is an empty space. So overall we spent about $150-200 on this redo. That includes the deglosser, primer, paint, paintbrushes/rollers, and cabinet and drawer handles and knobs.
Hopefully we will get to our counter tops within the next month or two. I will share the redo with you when it's done!
Jessica

It's back!

Dat's right. It's back. The Pinterest challenge project-Winter edition. A project to make you get off that computer and stop pinning (well don't actually STOP) and start doing. You know what I'm talking about. You pin tons of projects and never do them! I'm linking up with Sherry over at Young House Love, Katie at Bower Power, Erin from The Great Indoors, and Cassie from Hi, Sugarplum to do this fun project. So what do I plan on doing? Not sure yet. I'm about to go peruse my Pinterest pinboards and see what I want to do. So I'll be back in one week (next Wednesday) to share my project and link back up with the girls above. I hope you'll join me! Happy Wednesday!

What if your child was abducted and forced to kill you?

KONY 2012. Have you heard?
If not, WATCH THIS VIDEO!
It is 30 mintues long but it matters so much. It will impact you and motivate you to WANT to do something about this.

Then go HERE and make a donation. I make a $15 monthly donation and got my action pack for free. Who can't spare $15 a month? And if you can't, you can make a one time donation or just donate a couple dollars a month. No amount is too small.

"Where you live shouldn't determine whether you live."
MAKE KONY FAMOUS.