Pregnancy Survey- 29 Weeks

How Far Along: 29 Weeks- We're in the 3rd trimester! I know I missed last week, but we'll just do a combo.

Size of baby: Your baby now weighs about 2 1/2 pounds (like a butternut squash) and is a tad over 15 inches long from head to heel. His muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and his head is growing bigger to make room for his developing brain. To meet his increasing nutritional demands, you'll need plenty of protein, vitamins C, folic acid, and iron. And because his bones are soaking up lots of calcium, be sure to drink your milk (or find another good source of calcium, such as cheese, yogurt, or enriched orange juice). This trimester, about 250 milligrams of calcium are deposited in your baby's hardening skeleton each day.

Total Weight Gain: 15lbs

What I miss: Nada

Sleep: Sleeping pretty good with the occasional bathroom breaks

Symptoms: My lower back pain has actually gotten much better as the pregnancy is progressing even without the yoga as I've been traveling and haven't done it in a few weeks. Unfortunately, I am also sick right now. Not sure if I caught it before I left or at home with all the sick people around. It's a throat, stuffy, head cold type of thing. It's not so fun, but I called the DR and they said I could take tylenol cold (even the nighttime one) so I finally was able to sleep last night. Hopefully it'll be gone soon.

Cravings: My appetite isn't up to par with the sickness, but I am loving the chicken soup Davids parents brought me yesterday! Thank you Frank and Cora!!

Gender- Max David is his name :)

Movement: I have started to feel him higher up. Even as high as my rib cage on the right hand side. He's trying to push up in there with some part of his body. I can feel him lower and upper at the same time sometimes. It's very cool. 

Maternity Clothes: I bought some things at Old Navy on Thanksgiving. Thanks to my Mom and Sister for helping me pick stuff out! I got some jeans that pull over my belly and some shirts.  

Best Moments this week: Spending time in NY with my family and David celebrating Thanksgiving and baby Max. 

What I'm looking forward to:  I have a doctors appointment tomorrow where we're going to have an ultrasound of baby. This one is because they couldn't see his lips at the 20 week appt. so they rescheduled another one for tomorrow. I am very excited since he will be much bigger since the last one. We are also hopefully putting up our christmas decorations this weekend! 

Milestones: We are also having our first childbirth education class this weekend put on by our doctors office. We have a few more we'll be doing in December/January. Our crib parts are in at BRU and we're suppose to pick them up asap so we can assemble it finally. We are trying to also plan out the decor of the nursery (all we have figured out right now is the furniture). Lots to do coming up in December and January! Here are some photos from last week, I am not feeling well enough to photograph myself this week. 

28 Week shot from the party

Thanksgiving photo

Yummy NY Food

Charlies has pickles in bins and I just couldn't get enough of them. I know I am pregnant, but I have always loved pickles. Their burgers are fantastic as well.

David had a Charlies Trash Plate. Mmm

 

We also had sticky lips bbq. Those sweet potato fries were amazing, they had cinnamon on them and so sweet!

Herman's Cider & Donuts and Wegmans Bagels were the breakfasts

No visit is left complete without Mark's Pizza! So delicious. We also had Wegmans subs but those were consumed so fast we must have forgotten a picture.

NY Baby Shower

We had a shower for baby Max the day after Thanksgiving in NY. Michelle and David had fun with the games, they made them minute to win it style (with most coming from the actual game).

Here they are practicing them all. They decided to fill their bottles with beer (not a good idea) if you drop them, they start foaming and spewing out everywhere! Michelle found she was pretty good at most of them.

Time for the shower to begin. Mommy and Daddy to be photo.

They did a great job with the decor. The theme was our colors of blue and lime green (nursery colors). Sandie made animal sugar cookies with ducks, elephants, turtles and bears! So cute.

Next we played the minute to win it baby shower games. We did the Kleenex game (David suggested baby wipes, but I was afraid it'd get too messy), Vaseline cotton ball nose game, baby block stacker and baby bottle drinking game.

Everyone had fun routing their teams on and participating. Great idea for shower games. I also wanted to share that little Delilah (seen in the photo in red tights) thought we were going to wash the baby because we were having a shower for him. She kept wanting to know when he was going to come out. So cute.

Baby Max is already spoiled. He got so many great little clothes, a homemade crocheted blanket, baby furniture and gift cards for us to purchase things down here. We overstuffed our suitcases and just love looking at all the little goodies.

Even Mima (that's the name my mom has requested for grandma) got a gift.

Thanks to my sister and mom for hosting a great shower. We missed you Chris and Marla! I also had a wardrobe issue where my dress was too tight and Michelle's was too loose so we swapped. So fun.

Mom and the girls after the shower.

I can't believe we are 28 weeks (at the time of the shower). It's about to get super busy these last couple of months! Thanks to all my NY family for coming and showering baby Max.

Baby W Has a Name!

We waited until the NY shower to reveal the name of the baby. We had it on the cake so everyone could see. Baby W's name is....

Max David

MDW

We choose the name for a few reasons, but we really wanted it to mean something and Max means the greatest. It has a math reference and is just a solid name for us. We will just be using Max, no Maximilien, Maximus or Maxwell. We debated over the middle name for a while, but decided that we wanted to name him after David. He is the greatest man I know :) Close seconds for first and middle names were Blake, Connor, Corbin and Eli. 

Our Handmade Ruffled Tree Skirt

This weekend I was set on making a ruffled christmas tree skirt. I knew that if we didn't do it this year that I would prob. never have enough time to do this again. It was a very long process, but SO worth it. I love it so much and am so glad I only have a week to wait to put the tree out and use it. I am warning you though, this is a very time consuming project and is not for beginners. You will qualify though if you have 2 novice sewers. My thinking is 1 medium level sewer = 2 novice/beginners so David and I put together were able to do it. There are other tree skirts out there that are no-sew, but I am wanting this to last forever and be passed down to generations lol. I got inspiration and tutorials from this site and this site I found via pinterest. They have step-by-step instructions that are way better than I could ever tell you. We did a bunch of math though to convert their 44" tree skirt to a 60" one so if you're interested I can email you our spreadsheet, but it's way too long to explain here.

 I started with some fun fabric, man were those craft stores busy this weekend. We had a few run-in's with the fabric cutter ladies at Joann's (they were stashing all the good material behind their area and wouldn't put them back or let us see them). I was lucky enough to buy 4 yards of that lime green and candy cane fabric last year at clearance so that was a great deal!

 We started out knowing that we needed a 30" radius circle to make our 60" tree skirt so David devised a smart plan to draw our pattern on this red felt (a necessary item).

 I'm sure you are all aware, but David is def. my secret weapon on inventing smarter/easier ways to craft.

 He got into it by making himself a headband out of the scrap material. We were a bit delirious on saturday night as we got started pretty late making this.

 Our first layer had to be completed the next day because I got crazy with the ruffles on saturday by making them too tight and our material didn't cover half of the tree skirt. So we had to undo the stitching and redo it Sunday. We finally got the hang of it and measured each ruffle length before connecting them all together.

 I just wanted proof that I did some of the sewing as well.

 There is a lot of sewing involved so I really got practice on doing hems, creating ruffles by making the thread tension a bit higher, and just practicing the basics.

 Our finished product!!! I will put some final tips about the process since I am not putting step-by-step instructions.

-Definitely use felt as your pattern and template holder

-Please hem each piece, I know this takes a while to iron the hem and then sew it, but if you want this to last you need to hem each piece or it will fray and fall apart. 

-Know how long each ruffled piece needs to be before ruffling and sewing them all together

-Do your math to calculate how much fabric you will need (or just follow those other tutuorials for their exact sizes). I think we used close to 6 yards of fabric total

-Have a helper, even if its just to iron all the pieces to make the hem and help cut all the fabric.

-Go buy your christmas fabric now, all the good stuff seems to be being used up

-Get a fabric cutter, we used something like this and a mat of some sort (we used some spare piece of something David had).

-We used thicker red ribbon for the top part of the tree skirt and just assembled it over the top ruffle to make it more durable and cover up the top ruffle sewing area.

 -Last tip, be sure to wear your tree skirt and be proud of it. It was so heavy I could barely keep it up.

It also makes a great regular skirt. haha. Truthfully I think we were doing this for a good 10-12 hours total plus shopping and math calculation time. Good thing David and I get along!

Pregnancy Survey- 27 Weeks

How Far Along: 27 Weeks- almost in the 3rd trimester!

Size of baby: This week, your baby weighs almost 2 pounds (like a head of cauliflower) and is about 14 1/2 inches long with his legs extended. he's sleeping and waking at regular intervals, opening and closing his eyes, and perhaps even sucking his fingers. With more brain tissue developing, your baby's brain is very active now. While his lungs are still immature, they would be capable of functioning — with a lot of medical help — if he were to be born now.

Total Weight Gain: 12-13lbs

What I miss: Nada

Sleep: Sleeping pretty good with the occasional bathroom breaks

Symptoms: Just some lower sciatic back pain. It gets worse if I am sitting for a while and then get up to use the bathroom at work. I need to just take breaks at least once an hour and move.

Cravings: This isn't a craving, but it is some good food. I went to Chipotle with the girls from work on Tuesday and that burrito was awesome. It was a bit spicy, but so good. No heartburn yet, I should have def. gotten it after that burrito. I know I am a Moe's traitor, but their chicken is so much better. In fact, I could go for another one right now. Just wait until I eat all the good NY food next week, planning is already underway.

Gender- BABY BOY! We're 95% there on the name.

Movement: He's a good little mover.

Maternity Clothes: Same.

Best Moments this week: Starting our projects around the house, buying some clothes for BW and getting the glider. We had it professionally cleaned and it looks pretty good. It's still in the garage so the lighting sucks. When we move it in, I'll post better pictures.

What I'm looking forward to: The upcoming thanksgiving holiday and time off from work!

Milestones: Well, I passed my glucose test! I had to call as they never followed back up with me, but I guess no news is good news.  I am enjoying the 2nd trimester and cooking more so things are pretty good.  As you know, the glider is purchased and cleaned. Still waiting on crib parts, was suppose to hear something this week... We're going to sign up for a few more classes/tours at the hospital soon as well.

Pregnancy Yoga/Pilates Reviews

I have come to learn that I love yoga. I have always been semi-flexible with all the cheerleading and gymnastics I've done through my life, but I definitely have lost most all of that. I like how yoga combines relaxation with strength and stretching. It's not a vigorous exercise (unless you do it P90X style), but it's great for pregnancy. Now I mentioned in one of my surveys that I have sciatic lower back pain that has gotten worse with pregnancy. The yoga is helping by strengthening the area and just making it easier to move. Let's get started with the reviews.

This first video is Yoga Mama and I am borrowing this from Leah and I really love it. She says silly things like "Take the love you have in your heart and the love you have for your baby." She's says it in that exact pose above. It's cheesy, but I do like her voice and the workout is about 40 mins and it's a great routine for overall fitness. If I have to choose, this is my favorite.

I like this Yoga for pregnancy because she has 6 different routines, so you don't have to do the same thing over and over. The major reason I like this is because she has a 20 min workout just on back pain and sciatica. Each stretch is designed specifically for that reason and when she says you should feel the pain you get right now and every time I do so I know it's hitting the areas I need. Warning though, her setting she does the yoga in isn't ideal. She is basically floating on a background so it's a bit odd.

Shiva Rea is popular in the yoga world and she has a pretty good overall yoga video. It's a bit longer than the others, I think its a 60-70 min workout. I just like the variety between the 3 so I don't know what's going to happen after each move. 

I thought I would mix it up and try pilates. Now, I have never done pilates before so I didn't know what to expect. Bottom line, I did not like it. It was a harder workout than the yoga, but that's not the reason why I didn't enjoy it. It was a lot of leg/ab work with just a lot of repetitive motions and I didn't see how this would help me.

If you are new to yoga and just want to try it out, I'd recommend trying one some videos on youtube or even renting from the library. Here is a youtube channel that has a variety of videos and you can see some beginner classes on the right.