An exhausting (and fun!) Thanksgiving!

Our Thanksgiving was turkey-filled and fun! This was the first Thanksgiving in a long time that I've been able to spend with my mom, so that was a big bonus. She came to town and helped me whip up the traditional Thanksgiving feast. Then she taught me to sew! SCORE! Hopefully I'll have those curtains done soon.

My mom came bearing LOTS of old childhood toys to hand down to Ben which, let me just say, is one of the coolest things I've experienced in a long time. Digging through all the Little People, banging out some tunes on my old keyboard, pretending to eat fake pizza, all the things I loved as a child MY child loves, too. I had no clue my mom had saved most of this stuff, so that made it double cool. She even brought my going home outfit which Tim thinks we should put baby girl in. I have my reservations seeing that it'll be January and FREEZING and it's a little short-sleeved dress. But we'll see. :)

My Grandad joined us for Thanksgiving dinner which was a fun treat. This is only the second Thanksgiving that I've hosted, but I must say I really enjoy it! Even though it's a lot of work, it's super rewarding to be the hostess. Do I see dinner parties in my future? Perhaps.


Grandma and Ben with his new (old) little triangle.


My old Halloween costume my mom sewed.


Great-Grandad, lil Jo-Jo and Benji, sporting a major cheese.


This might be the most unflattering picture of me ever taken, but it's for all of you who comment here saying I'm so small. Ha! There were about 15 pictures just like this that surfaced over the weekend. Yikes!

And finally, baby girl doing a little jig in the belly. Finally caught on tape! Ah, and mom's hand thrown in for good measure.

Why our children remain nameless until birth

My Christmas cards arrived via Shutterfly!



You're looking at seven different varieties of Christmas cards. Yep, SEVEN. Because I couldn't narrow them down to even three or four, I had to go with seven. And even that was really difficult. I started out with 18 designs in my cart.

This is why our children remain nameless until I'm forced to decide by impatient hospital staff waving birth certificates in my face. So far, I think our little girl has had 29 potential names. Now, our "final list" is five names long. And sure to change.


"Would you just decide already, Mom? Your indecisiveness is really wearing on me!"

Slowly but surely

I remember Ben's nursery came together fast. I guess that's easy to do when you don't have a toddler under foot. So baby girl's nursery is taking some time, but it'll be done when she gets here! That I know.

This weekend we got the nursery painted, so she's now a lovely shade of tan instead of gray. Observe:





Now here's my question. The dark gray doors looked fine when the room was light gray. But now that it's tan, do I need to paint these doors white? That sounds about as desirable as scrubbing toilets, but if I really need to, I will (and I'm guessing it's going to take eight thousand coats of white to cover). Thoughts?

Now I just need to take this lovely fabric and whip it up into some curtains.



Like how I made that sound so easy? Like I can just whip up some curtains in five minutes or something. Please. I can barely sew two pieces of fabric together to make a square. I think it's the whole measuring thing that scares me more than anything. Oh well. Details, right?

From the land of the sleepless.

Well, I suppose you can expect more posts from me as we enter into the days of extreme pregnancy insomnia. That's okay, though, because after snuggling with a brand new baby a few days ago, I remember why all of this misery is more than worth it.

My old college roommate and dear friend had her baby boy a few days ago. I'd originally planned on waiting a month and letting them get settled in before we loaded the family up to visit, but since it's a four hour drive and I'm already dilated and HUGE and MISERABLE, I decided sooner is better. I made the trip alone, kissed and cuddled this absolutely precious and gorgeous baby boy and then enjoyed an evening all alone in a hotel room. Shhhh. Don't tell anyone that I actually enjoyed myself. Moms aren't supposed to admit that, right?

Today we had a family photo shoot done by an awesome little chica named Whitney. She's a new mommy, too, and we used to work together...until we both decided parenthood trumps work and bid that place adieu. She runs Whitney Leigh Photography and we had a ball with her today on my old stomping grounds at the University of Kansas. All was going well until we heard a panicked cry and look over in the middle of a picture to find Ben waist-deep in the ice cold lake and clinging onto the ground of the shore for dear life. Eek! A kiss, some wiped tears and an outfit change patched things up and now we can totally laugh about it for years to come. Whitney even snapped some pictures of the aftermath for memories sake. I'll post some of them when I get the high resolution pictures next week.

Not much else to report that wouldn't bore your socks off, so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Um? He insisted on the shoes and the thermometer I'm not entirely sure about. Delish?

Haircut from Daddy! We frugal like that.

31 weeks and counting. It really blows my mind how I've fit all the old wives' tales in this pregnancy. I carry this girl so much higher than I carried Ben! Last laugh will be on me when SHE ends up coming out a HE, right? I don't know why, but I can't shake the feeling that that's going to happen!

Baby Girl's Nursery!

Well, we've finally gotten her room cleared out. Tim still wants to discuss the idea of having the kiddos share a room, which makes sense, but the logistics are just overwhelming me so I'm pretty stuck on the idea of separate rooms...at least until he finds a way to convince me otherwise. So anyway, for now, here's what I have in the works!

First, the empty(ish) BEFORE room:









We'll be painting it this color (Aviary Nest) courtesy of FreshAire:



And I'll be making some curtains and a bedskirt with this fabric, courtesy of Michael Miller:



I'm going to stick with a basic dark pink bed sheet to keep it from being too crazy in the room. I'm thinking this color:



As for a rug, I'm CLUELESS. If I do a smaller pink rug that matches her sheet, is that too much? I'm afraid tan will clash with the floor/walls if it's not the same shade. I think it'd be almost impossible to find a green rug the color of the curtains. I don't know, I'm not all design-y, so I'm totally open to ideas here! What about a pink and brown and cream striped one? Too many different patterns? Obviously I won't be on Design Star anytime soon.

The glider is also up for discussion. We really cheaped out on Ben's and you can tell. It squeaks and it's uncomfy as all get-out. I've already decided to pool together all my Christmas money for a good, solid, comfortable glider. After all, I have zero doubt I'll be spending A LOT of time in that thing. So here's where I need another opinion. Do I go basic with a light tan like this:



Or a little bolder with a chocolate like this:



Or all out with a green to match her curtains:



And of course, no potential design dream is complete without a mood board, so voila!



Thoughts? Opinions? You totally won't hurt my feelings!

Halloween recap and fingers crossed for another early (but not TOO early) labor!

Halloween was a blast! We took part in several festive activities, starting with a trip to Missouri to hang out with our friends and attend a Halloween-themed library storytime. In true Chelsea form, I had my camera on me the whole time but forgot to snap a single picture. So you'll just have to take my word for it. Following that theme, a few days later I'm getting Ben ready for our playgroup's Trunk-or-Treat event when I realize that half of Ben's adorable monkey costume has mysteriously gone missing. A few frantic texts later and I realize it's in Missouri. Brilliant Mommy left half of my son's costume out-of-town!

Enter a friend to the rescue! Ben sported a bear costume, complete with pink bow, loaned to us by a great friend. He then busted his head open and that same friend rescued us again with a pink Hello Kitty band-aid. Hey, we have no shame in this house! Nothing wrong with a little pink action for my son. Trunk-or-Treat was great! Everyone decorated their trunks and the kids went from car to car collecting candy and unleashing some pre-bedtime energy. Because I just can't seem to get things right, I of course forgot the camera for this event but managed to snap one semi-decent picture with my phone.

Sunday night we sat by the window, waiting anxiously for the first trick-or-treaters to make their appearance on our sidewalks. Hey, we're new to this, we don't know what we're doing and we didn't want to be the first ones out and about! And it's a good thing we waited, because we thought 5:30 was a good trick-or-treat time. Turns out we were way wrong. It was close to 7:00 before people hit the streets. So off we went. It took Ben a little time to warm up to the idea, but once he realized that he could go up to someone's door, mumble "trckerhumphjasdf" and they'd give him candy, his eyes lit up.

It also turns out that Ben inherited my love of all things chocolate. Totally unsure of his costume at first, once we bribed him with a Kit-Kat he was all smiles. He may look nothing like me, but he has my good taste!

In other news, yesterday was my 29 week check-up! It's hard to believe we're already here, at the appointment-every-two-weeks mark. Soon we'll be down to weekly! Everything looks fine and the appointment was as boring as ever, but I did get some half exciting/half nerve-racking news. Monday night I had some intense contractions. Nothing like a braxton hicks but everything like my real labor contractions with Ben. They lasted a few hours but never got regular so I brushed them off. My OB decided to check me yesterday and announced that I was 1 cm dilated. She said it's not concerning since this is my second and I was early with my first. She also said my cervix is still thick, which is the most telling. So I'm trusting her on that and keeping my fingers crossed that this means she'll be a little early like her brother and it'll be another quick (albeit PAINFUL) labor.

Finally, I think I did a million of these little belly slideshows during my pregnancy with Ben. I guess the second time around, you just slack more, huh?