"Estimated" Due Date = Overdue (again)

The end of my pregnancy has (kind of) arrived! Yesterday, Thursday, April 25th I was 40 weeks pregnant with our second child. I have been feeling great for about three weeks now which has allowed me to do all sorts of walking, playing and climbing with my sweet William. Last weekend exhaustion hit me like a truck and I felt like I could barely function. Midweek I got some energy back, but daily naps are a must. Being overdue is a feeling I know -- William arrived at 40w3d.

At my OB visit on Tuesday (39w5d) my weight was the same as last week so I have gained 35 pounds. My BP was healthy and thankfully baby is head down, my body is dilating and this baby and family are just waiting for his/her birth! I have contractions and other paints every day (seeping is not too enjoyable on my side with the extra weight) but none of the contractions have forced my water to break or stayed consistent enough to send me into active labor. So here I am…impatiently waiting…again.

I took a photo of myself last Friday before we went out to dinner, but it is still on my camera so I don't have it to share now. I will try and add it here soon. This week has been all about my little boy. We have gone to different parks several time, visited with lots of friends, gone on a tour of the post office and taken several walks together down our lane to get the mail, something he loves to do. Whenever he sits on the couch, I snuggle up with him since both my arms are his still and I just tell him how much I love him over and over and what a good big brother he is going to be.

At two years old he is rather interested in every baby he sees which will hopefully bode well for us in the coming days, months and years. And if it doesn't, Daddy is taking time off, then my sister will be here from May 11-19 and his Nana and Grandma and Grandpa will be around scattered between and after those dates. It might not hit him (or me) for almost a month that there are two kids and one Momma during the day. I hope the first few weeks with the new baby allow me time to relax my body and mind while others are here to help. But, I don't want William leaving to go to an activity every day either because I want time with him and for him to start adjusting.

My husband repaired all the walls in the new nursery, painted the walls, ceiling and trim. It looks great. Look for another post on the nursery soon :).

Bubble Fun

Last week during my OB appointment (I was 38w5d in these photos) my mom rode to the office with me and took William to a park right around the corner. There is a pond full of geese and a sidewalk that goes around it. Also some shady area with picnic tables. So, a toy lawnmower, bubbles and a ball provided 2+ hours of entertainment! Here are some sweet photos she took of us playing together since we will soon have a brother or sister in the mix.

I have been making an honest effort to pay less distracted time with William. The weather has been beautiful and we spend hours at a time outside. My phone is inside. Everything else can wait (unless my husband is away on travel for work). I realize that our lives will soon change and I want him to have my full attention as long as possible. It has also left me with mixed emotions about asking his grandmothers for help even though I may need it. I feel bad "passing him off" even though he has a wonderful time with them.

I LOVE his sheer joy in this photo!

Another fun shot except my eyes are closed so darn tight...

Sharing bubbles with the baby

Closet Facelift

On the same day that the carpet installers were at the house, I decided a little closet facelift was in order. All of the closets at our "old house" had white wire shelves. That is not the case here. This is the closet in the master bathroom upstairs. It is an obscenely large bathroom (no photo to share now) in need of several updates, but with a smaller size closet. There is also a similar size closet downstairs adjacent to the full bathroom on the main floor which I am grateful floor. Right now, that houses everything child related since it is near their bedrooms and extra towels that are not under the sink. Note: without locking bathroom cabinets, the only thing safely stored in them are towels! Back to the closet...

The closet shelves were in need of new paint. As you can imagine hair products, lotions, etc sitting there over the years. Well, I didn't want to paint because that would mean sanding, cleaning up dust, etc and we will probably paint the closet when we paint the bathroom down the road. 

So, I used the next best thing, a material I am very familiar with…Vinyl! I purchased two large containers of this distressed chevron vinyl at JO-Ann's back in the summer for $2.97. The rolls were huge. Time to use them!

I simply measured the shelves, cut the vinyl and adhered it to the shelves. WaLa!

Now the shelves look updated, clean and it was a much quicker process than painting.

Progress - Flooring

While I haven't posted, we have certainly made progress on the house. I am going to break it up into all different posts so I have updates to share as I choose :).

Lessons Learned in Reno Progressively: You get more work done when you don't live at the house. For us this rings true because we have a toddler in bed by 7:30pm which restricts what improvement projects we can do because of noise. And we had family in town for William's birthday party/real birthday/Easter so we enjoyed three days with them instead of working.

So let's talk flooring since I did a whole post on it earlier. The carpet installers from Lowe's spent 7.5 hours installing carpet in 6 bedrooms of our house. We used two types of carpet: one for the four bedrooms and another for the two "bedrooms" in the basement.

Basement guest room

New carpet pad down

New carpet installed!

Removing the old and installing new carpet breathed a fresh breath of life into our house. It smelled fresh, it looked fresh and it looked updated and was what we wanted. We are glad we decided to go ahead and install all of the carpet at one time because the original carpet was old, discolored and stinky. Plus, since we spend alot of time playing on the floor, it probably wouldn't have been the best healthwise for young children.

Now Brad also finished our beautiful Pergo floor in the living room (large area, about 28x17). He did a great job and we are working on putting up new floor trim. Everyone compliments our floor and we are so happy with the color and material selection we made.

How did I contribute to the flooring process? Well, besides painting the floor trim in the bedrooms once the old carpet was removed, prior to the new carpet being installed, I also decided to pry up the flooring in the entryway (shown below). You don't need to remind me I was 34 weeks pregnant, my husband did that. I just sat on the floor and pulled up the pieces with a small crowbar, it wasn't too difficult. This area is going to have the same Pergo floor once we get the time to make noise for a couple hours to get it installed.