One Last Project

I was looking for a dresser for our bedroom for months. When we moved into our house here, we decided to grow up and ditch the plastic drawers we had been using as dressers since we got married. Someone gave us a dresser to put in Maryn's new room, so we were able to use the dresser that went with our baby furniture for the last year. Well, for obvious reasons, we now needed that dresser in the baby's room. I had searched craig's list, the paper, yard sales, Ikea and any other store online that I could think of. Everything was A) too dumpy B) too expensive or C) both.
Finally the weekend before Ailee came I had decided that Saturday was my last chance to find anything. I was driving through a neighborhood near our home on my way to a furniture store and saw a sign for a street-wide yard sale. Being the kind of person that just can't pass up a bargain, I had to drive through. Lo and behold...the very first house I came to had this beauty: It was initially priced for $30, but as soon as I showed interest in it, the lady selling it offered it to me for $20. I told her I would take it and that I needed to find someone to haul it to our house. Much to my pleasure, she said they had a truck and could bring it to us. What nice people!!
The dresser itself is in pretty decent shape. It had some dings and was well used and out of date, but it's very solid and well built. The hardware was straight out of 1977--
But, that was fixable with some wood filler and a trip to Lowes. First I primed it with a gray primer (which was an awesome tip from the paint guy at Lowes).
Then I painted it black and antiqued the edges. I was very very pleased with the outcome. Ta-da!!
I love how it looks in our bedroom. Plus, it has more room than our last dresser.
I had to bust a move on this project. Ailee was scheduled to enter our lives on Wednesday, so I only had Monday and Tuesday to get it all done. It felt SO good to have it completed. It was one of the last things I had to get crossed off my list before I could feel ready to have my baby. I can't believe how perfectly it worked out in every way!

She's Here!

I'm sorry it's taken me several days to get to the computer, but I'm finally taking a few minutes to post some pictures of the newest member of the fam. Ailee Rae Roundy made her appearance into the world at 5:52 pm on Wednesday, July 16. She was 7 lbs 13 oz and 21 inches long. Her hair is brown, and I think her eyes will be brown, too. I'm happy to say she doesn't clash with her room. She has been a great baby! (I hate to jinx myself like that) The delivery was actually pretty easy. Of course I can only compare it to the previous delivery of Maryn. This time was much better. I had a really nice doctor, no stitches, and everyone was very willing to give me drugs! Those 3 things were very opposite with Maryn.

Well, here's how it all panned out: I called into my hospital at some crazy hour of the morning and all the beds were full. So, I called back a few hours later--still full. They told me it would probably be afternoon. I ate some breakfast, ran to Walmart and before lunch took Maryn over to the park. While at the park my doctor called me and told me that there was a bed open at the other major hospital next to mine...I could take it if I hurried. Not wanting to have the world's most disappointing day, I told him I would be there ASAP. We rushed home from the park and threw our bags in the car. Kade dropped me off at the hospital to get registered while he took Maryn to our friend's, Maria, house. She was suuuuuper nice about taking an emotionally unstable 3 year old off our hands for the afternoon. We got into our room and the doctor came, gave me the patosin (spelling???) drip, and broke my water. I got to gorge myself on yummy popsicles and ice chips while I watched TV. A few hours later when I was about to cry, I asked my nurse for an epidural. When I was all numb (I can't express how grateful I am for epidurals!) she checked me and I was only at a lousy 4 cm. About an hour later, the nurse came in again, thinking I was probably at an 8 or something. She pulls back the sheets and exclaims, "Oh, you're crowning!" She rushed out of the room to call the doctor. Meanwhile I could feel the pressure of another hard contraction. The nurses came in and were very quickly trying to get things ready. Something felt really weird, so I asked the nurse to check. She pulled back the sheet and Voila! There was the head. Not even having time to put on gloves, she picked up the head and said push. I might have pushed, I'm not sure, but there was little girl number 2! Ailee pretty much delivered herself.

All gross and slimy

Words cannot express how grateful I am that my doctor recommended inducing. I really enjoyed having a smaller baby...recovery has been much easier! Plus, I didn't have to sit around twiddling my thumbs for too long. It was great!

She has been an excellent sleeper. I can't ask for much more than this!

Maryn seems to have taken to her. She asks to hold her and really likes to share things with her...cars, raisins, etc. Coming home was nice. Kade has been an awesome husband and has been filling in on those mommy details I've been unable to. What a great family I have!

Oh, Baby, Baby

The end of my pregnancy draweth nigh.

Whoo-Hoo!!

So, good news from my doctor this morning. He hopes to induce me on Wednesday! Oh yeah! Unfortunately I have to call my hospital on Wednesday morning to see if they have any beds available for me...so it's still a little bit up in the air. (Is that normal??)

I don't know what makes me more excited: A) Holding my new little girl or B) Getting my ankles back.

And, I don't know what makes me more nervous: A) The pain or B) That I can't eat after midnight the night before.

I've got a lot to think about.

But, at least the baby's room is pretty much put together. That makes me feel very relieved. I spent late Saturday night and a little bit yesterday getting it all done. The only thing I have left on my list is to clear out the drawers in the dresser. Right now I'm repainting a dresser for our room because that was the dresser we had been using up until now. Another blog on that later...I know you can't wait.

Here's a general overview of the room. It's pretty basic. It took a lot of work, though. The wardrobe was once an ugly yellow color. We bought it in Germany for Maryn's room...I'm glad we moved it with us, I almost didn't. But the tiny closet in this room is already packed full of linens, crafts and medicines, so the wardrobe comes in pretty handy.

The curtains I made. I couldn't find anything that I even liked, and my mom gave me the idea to use black out curtain liner. I'm so glad I did. After I made the curtains here, I had some black out liner left over. I sewed some scraps together and every night I Velcro it up on Maryn's window. Our mornings no longer start at 6:00 am. The curtains I made, eh, they are ok. I wasn't too impressed with my skills, but they will do. The panel on the left I messed up pretty badly (it was the first one I made) and I had to spend about 3 hours extra patching up my mistake. Oh, well, they got done. I do love the curtain rod and pull backs. I found those at Target, and pretty much I think they are super cute.

I got my bedding off of a clearance rack. I really wanted to do pink and chocolate together. It must be a fad. Probably in 10 years I will regret it. Even her scrapbook is chocolate and pink. A little part of me really really hopes she doesn't have red hair--otherwise she will clash with her bed.

Now, I'm about to preview to you the pictures that I made for the wall. But, they come with a warning...This is an example of serious plagiarism. When I started out I decided that I wanted to do 3 long, skinny picture frames. I just didn't know what. Maryn's room was already done in flowers/butterflies. I couldn't redo that. So I decided to do little birds. I tried sketching something of my own, but apparently I don't have a knack for making things up on my own. However, I'm great a copying other people! So I googled pictures of birds and found this girl's blog that does the most creative pictures for baby rooms. They were SO cute and I loved the style of the bird picture. I took her little bird and made it my own. I'll give you her website so you can view her really cute products (someday when I have $$ and can afford to pay someone to do my hard work, I will for sure buy her pictures), as long as no one rats me out. I really don't want to get sued. http://emmiedoodlesdesigns.blogspot.com/

And a close up of one of the little birds. I did them all in fabric (which took way longer than it should have) then stitched in the eyes, legs, and notes with embroidery floss.My little birds aren't quite as cute as emmiedoodles (who was smart enough to do them in paper), but I think I like them. It's one of those projects that I wouldn't do over again, but I'm really glad that I did it.

That's the baby room overview. Perhaps I will have a little person to occupy the room by the end of the week...wish me luck!

He Knows Me All Too Well...

So, Kade and have will have been married for 7 years on August 4. Seven years is a pretty long time, and in such a long time, you tend to get to know the other person really well. Last night was a revelation to me that Kade truly knows my dark side/faults.
Sometimes I get obsessed (I think that's a good way to put it) about getting things done. I cannot go to bed without accomplishing the task I set out to do. If I go to bed mid-task, I will dream about it all night long....and that's no good. Well, we finally moved the baby's dresser into the room yesterday and I wanted to put the changing table attachment on. I got everything out, but couldn't find the hardware to attach it with. I searched all the boxes in the attic, through all the drawers of baby stuff, and even the tool box. No luck. At about 12:00 am, I was finally about to give up and just go to bed. Any normal person would have. But I'm not normal. I decided to look one last place. I sneaked into Maryn's room and looked in her drawers and, yeah! There is was! I came out into the office where Kade was and announced happily that I had found it! He turned around in the chair and said so very matter of factly, "You just couldn't sleep until you found it, huh?"
I went to bed happy. Late, but happy.

Weekend Update

Ah, summer. I love summer. There's something about the long days and the warm nights that makes me feel so free. I think that it's probably because I'm not bundled up in a million layers trying to stay warm, or maybe that I don't feel like I have to fight for daylight to get everything done. Probably a combo of the two.

This weekend we decided to live a little on the edge and squeeze in one last vacation before child #2 makes her appearance. I, of course had to ok it with my doctor first. after my check up the week before I thought for sure he would forbid it, but much to my surprise, I went in on Wednesday for my 37 week check up and nothing had changed, so he said "go for it." Admittedly I did have a little anxiety the first few days that I would go into labor while being so far from home where my health insurance covers me, but it was so worth it.

We left on Wednesday at about 4 pm and drove to Fayetteville, North Carolina, where Kade's brother and his family live. We got in at some crazy hour of the morning and tried to get a little bit of sleep. Mostly I dreamt about going into labor. Thursday was spent chillaxin' and playing golf on the Wii. On Friday, to celebrate our country's birthday, we went to the Airborne and Special Ops Museum to learn a little bit more about those who've served our fine country. Later that evening we went down to the Hope Mills 4th of July celebrations where we listened to music and watched fireworks when it got dark.
Saturday, I would have to say, was the highlight of our vacation (besides seeing Shad and Allison, of course!). We drove a few hours to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to spend the day soaking up rays and playing in the sand. We did soak up plenty of rays. Apparently you have to put sunscreen ALL over your body in order to not get burned. Any little patch of skin that was missed by the sunscreen was burning bright red by the end of the day. Ouch. That includes the little gap between Maryn's swim top and bottom that kept appearing every time she bent over.This turned out to be one of my favorite pictures of Maryn and her cousin, Ella. Anyone wanna drop a quarter in?

Kade's "Mayan Sandcastle" which later met the wrath of Maryn.

She is our little stinker.

It was nice to take some time just sitting uner the umbrella with Allison. Here's a picture of her perfectly pedicured feet and my fat nubbins.
The guys and the kids had a fun time finding tiny clams and watching them dig into the sand. I don't think I'd ever seen it before.

We had a really great time, and we are so grateful that Shad and Allison let us invite ourselves over for the weekend. It was so worth the 9 hour drives and thankfully it was all without incident.