Nursery Projects

During the later part of January and most of February, we have spent the majority of our free time working on nursery projects...

We used spray paint, ribbon, and some crystal dots to transform this rocking llama from Sean's childhood...

into this masterpiece.  More suited for a little girl.

We used wooden blocks, scrapbook paper, mod podge, and scrapbook embellishments to make a nameplate for her bookshelf...

and wooden size dividers for her closet

Painted a canvas for the area above the changing table

Transformed an old wooden side table into this new girly one with some homemade chalk paint and a new knob

Made a place for bows with a picture frame and ribbon

Stained a ceiling medallion

And let Dad hang it up...

Made new lampshades for the chandelier with gray fabric and ribbon embellishments

And last but not least, started washing and organizing tiny clothes

This Great New Baby

Again, I have neglected this blog, but I want to start writing again, especially as Sean and I embark on the newest journey in our lives:  being parents.  Namely to a sweet little girl to be born around Mother's Day.

I started out trying to document this journey with a Tumblr, or in a book, or in a journal with letters to her, or in some other pinterest-inspired way that I could one day share with her, but even with these high aspirations, I'm 24 weeks in and have not done it.  Hopefully when she arrives, I will do better in the way of creating memories with her and documenting her life.  As a side note, and a confession, I also had delusions of eating all organic food, running, continuing a dedicated yoga practice throughout this pregnancy, etc. and have fallen short of those goals as well.  I think that these delusions were fed by a belief that pregnancy entailed mostly sporting a cute soccer ball sized stomach and the joy of feeling the baby move, but I think that most people know that those beliefs were delusions as well.  Just in the past week, I've been able to stop taking an anti-emetic several times a day, and have traded those pills for lower back pain, heart burn, and varicose veins.  But I'll take it :)  And there is a lot to be said for the joy and excitement of feeling her move and watching her tiny body roll over in my stomach.

So to backtrack, mainly so that I can write it down while still fresh in my head, here are some highlights of her life so far.

September:  On the day before Sean and I left on a vacation in Italy and Greece, I found out that I was pregnant after noticing that I looked sort of chubby in the bathing suit that I'd purchased a few weeks before for this trip.  I had to confirm this pregnancy with no less than 4 pregnancy tests.  Sean was on a business trip, and while I had the best of intentions (see my success rate with intentions above) to wait until he got home to share the news with him in a pinterest-inspired way with banners and cupcakes, I ended up succumbing to telling my mom no less than 30 minutes into "waiting".  For full disclosure, I also told my sister-in-law, Lyndsey.  When Sean got home, I had gotten him a "homecoming present" of a book entitled "Dude!  You're Gonna Be a Dad!".  It took him a second to connect the dots on this one, and he asked me if I was pregnant.  In typical Sean style, he was never anything less than completely thrilled and excited, and thus we began our lives as the parents of an Appleseed-sized baby.

Later September:  We came home early from Italy because of horrible morning sickness that settled in a little over a week later.  I have never felt so sick in my life and was sure that I would die.  Zofran helped with that, but I spent the next 4 months of my life revolving everything that I did around when I could take my Zofran.  And later my Phenergan as well.  Zofranigan-again as we call it.  I learned at this point, that everyone has advice for pregnant women.  Eat before you get out of bed is popular, but didn't help.  And all of the other google-friendly solutions that people offered again and again didn't help much either.  I eventually accepted that it would just have to go away on it's own and hopefully that would happen before May.

October:  We shared the news of our baby with Sean's family over Patrick and Stewart's wedding weekend with a video that we'd made on our trip.  We shared the news with my family inadvertently shortly after when my grandfather died suddenly.  While we'd wanted to share it with them obviously in a different way, God's timing was so clear and perfect in offering the joy of new life in the midst of incredible grief.  The baby is due the day before my grandfather's birthday, and I think that it reminded all of us that "for everything there is a season" and that we serve a perfect and loving God who may take, but who also gives, and gives in abundance.

November:  I was eventually admitted to the hospital for dehydration, which helped tremendously.  I also felt the baby kick for the first time around 16 weeks.

December:  We found out that Appleseed, as we'd been calling "him", was a her.  We went in with intentions (intentions again) to have the tech write the baby's sex on a card for us so that we could find out the next day with our families.  In the end, I didn't have the patience for that, and we went ahead and found out in the ultrasound room.  We went to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory in an effort to teach her not to be a cheap date and talked about what it would be like to have a little girl.  The next day, we had a gender reveal with our families and let our moms cut the cake.

January:  We've been working on the nursery, and picked out a name.  We also started being about to see her move, and feel her much better.  So sitting around watching my stomach, and then subsequently talking about how smart and strong she obviously is, takes up most of our time in the evenings.  Strangers began for the first time acknowledging my stomach (I think that's pretty courageous) and asking when she was due, so I must look fatter.

And now here we are, so maybe I'll keep up with this blog again.

Catching Up..

An update since I've abandoned this blog...

In March, we celebrated my then future sister-in-law in Greenville with a shower.  Sisters are fun, and I am psyched to have a new one.

And we moved my mom away from the house that I grew up in.  This was so bittersweet.  Bitter in that it's the only place that I remember ever living, a place where all of my memories from growing up reside, and to quote Miranda Lambert, is the place where "under that live oak, my favorite dog is buried in the yard".  It was sad to pack up and/or throw away so many things that had meant something to me at one point or another, and to know that I couldn't ever "come home" again.  But sweet in that the house that I loved so much had become a burden in the past several years.  My mom lived there alone and the upkeep was a lot to handle.  Things would break and it was expensive and the mortgage was too high.  So while it was a blessing to grow up in such a great neighborhood, it really was time to say goodbye.  And since then, my mom has moved into an apartment nearby.  I think that everyone who's lived in an apartment can attest to the simplicity of that life, and it's been really good.

In April, we celebrated Easter in Hilton Head with Sean's family.  It was kind of a cold weekend, but I can't complain about the beach!

In May, we celebrated Jensen and Laura as they graduated from college.  Jensen received the President's Award, and I can't say how proud of him that I am.  He was the student body president, the editor-in-chief and founder of the Anderson University Centennial Yearbook, a member of SGA as well as a member of the homecoming court (which he does not claim as an "accomplishment", but as his sister, I will) for the duration of his college career, a Presidential Ambassador, an intern for a company in Greenville, a board member for a business society (that I don't remember the name of), and still graduated Cum Laude with a job to start the following Monday.

Laura graduated Summa Cum Laude with a perfect 4.0 GPA and a teaching job to start in the fall.  She also had an impressive list of accomplishments including being a Teaching Fellow and the preschool director for a local church.  I know that she will be a phenomenal kindergarten teacher.  She already has tons of great ideas for her classroom and is so passionate about it.  It makes me wish that I could be in her class.

In June, we celebrated Jensen and Laura again as they got married in Florence.  My youngest brother, my cousin, my husband, and myself were all in the wedding, and it was fun to have a time aside from Christmas to all be together.  Since I've already bragged on Jensen and Laura a lot during this blog, I'll just say that we're really proud of them and love them very much :)

L to R:  Kristen, Wallace, Bo, Jensen, Laura, Me, and Sean

In July, Sean and I went to Orlando to visit his grandparents and go to Disney World.  I had not been to Disney World since I was pretty young and it was awesome.  After a lot of debate, we decided on Hollywood Studios as the park to visit, since that was the one that I thought I'd never been to and I think it was a good choice.  My mom pointed out later, sounding almost hurt that she had gone to the trouble of creating this memory for her children only to have me forget all about it, that I have actually been there.  Tower of Terror was amazing, and as someone with little Disney World experience, I was blown away by how much went into each ride and show.  I'd love to go back in January and run the Disney Half Marathon, but that's still up in the air :)  Sean said that he would settle for just going back in January, sans 13 miler.

I insisted that we wait in line with tons of little kids for the half an hour that it took to get this picture.  Sean said that he "didn't mind SEEING Mickey, but didn't have to have a picture".  I begged to differ, as this is part of the experience.

Disney's own Chinese Theater

We celebrated July 4th with Nick and Lyndsey in Charlotte in typical 4th of July fashion on the lake kayaking and finished the day grilling at our house.  Hanging out with our best friends/siblings makes me feel bad for people without them.

And...that's about it.

This Great New House: Front Door

I've been making a point to go into our house through our front door instead of the garage so I can take a minute to be happy with myself for our DIY front door :)

Pre-makeover

Since making this wreath, a bird has made her nest in the flowers which makes me feel particularly spring-y.

 I saw a welcome sign similar to this on Pinterest, took a trip to Home Depot, and there ya go.  Since I love painting and holidays, I'm psyched about this switchable sign.

 The finished product

This Great New House: Powder Room

This is one of my favorite rooms in our house because this is where I get ready.  We painted it grey and put in a few other little things to improve it including a medicine cabinet, a rug, and some white towels.  I'm so happy with it :)

Original

Winter Sports, Summer Sun

Last week, Sean headed out to Sun Valley, Idaho for a conference with work.  In addition to being home of the Power Engineers headquarters, it's also one of America's premier ski resorts, so I flew out later in the week to meet Sean for the recreational part of the trip.  I can honestly say that, randomly, this was one of the most fun vacations that I've ever been on (and I consider myself a beach person...with an appreciation of the mountains).  In Idaho.

Sun Valley Club, where we had dinner with Sean's company on Thursday night

 Dollar Mountain.  This is the beginner mountain, a build up to Bald Mountain.  This one is 1000 vertical feet and proved difficult enough for both of us.  Neither of us even managed to be able to safely ski all of the green slopes.  There's like, 30 slopes on this mountain and over 2 days we couldn't even attempt all of them.

 Bald Mountain in the background of the top of Dollar.  That one is 3000 vertical feet, but other than eating on it, we stayed on this safer choice :)

 River Run Lodge, at the base of Baldy where we had an amazing breakfast Saturday morning

 We rode a gondola midway up Baldy for lunch at the roundhouse

The Roundhouse.  One of the most beautiful places I've ever seen.

 The level of talent that skis here is unlike any I've ever seen.  This mountain is covered in almost straight vertical moguls.  But even little kids were zipping down these and into the trees, no problem.  Unbelievable.

 Natural hot springs in the west are pretty cool.  We drove almost 7 miles down a tiny snow covered dirt road to get here, to this isolated little hot spring in the river.  It's a little weird to strip down to a bathing suit in the middle of the snow and maneuver down a hill into hot water, but it's one of the cooler experiences I've ever been privy to.

 Brunch in the lodge dining room.  While we look pretty beat here, this was so relaxing.  We spent a couple of hours eating an unbelievable breakfast and drinking coffee in this cozy dining room while watching it snow outside.

Ski Boots

This weekend we celebrated Sean's 24th birthday with a trip to the mountains.  I booked this trip a little while back, and would have loved to have been someone who could keep it to myself until Friday when we left, but secret-keeping isn't much of my strong point, so I had to give it to him at Christmas.  So so much for that :)

We stayed here, which ended up being a decent place to stay, and the food was awesome, but when we got there I was surprised to find that instead of the bed and breakfast, lodge with a fireplace environment that I'd envisioned, that we were staying in a cabin room at the top of a dirt hill (advertised as "mountain view").  It had a bed with a quilt, a shower that was literally a glorified tile corner, a toilet that you couldn't use if you were much bigger than me, and a space heater.  We had to follow 'Jacob' up a sketchy dirt hill in the middle of nowhere to find it.  If you watched LOST, then you know why we were prompted to go ahead and text Lyndsey to let her know where we were staying in case we didn't ever come back.  That said, it'd be nice in the summer and if you were expecting these accommodations, really.  But I wasn't.  Since I'm married to an eternal optimist though, Sean didn't cry, and instead saw the bright side.  This was all he could come up with:  "Do you have the rest of your Nutter Butter?  You should leave it outside to see if we can lure a bear.  You think bears like Nutter Butters?".  Later, when I apologized for my lack of research concerning a place to stay, Sean looked on the bright side with the following:  "But Maria!  If we hadn't stayed HERE, we'd never be able to see a bear eating a Nutter Butter!!".  We didn't end up seeing a bear eating a Nutter Butter.  Or any bears for that matter.  But we did find a fireplace in the multipurpose room above us which lessened the blow.

Aside from this small detail though, we had a great time.  I highly recommend the place to eat or camp.  The food was SO good and the service was great.  And it was relatively close to a lot of things.  On Friday night, we hung out by the aforementioned fireplace with a glass of wine from the resort's vineyard (a nice touch on their part) playing games.  That sounds lame, but I love hanging out with Sean, and it's pretty freeing to be in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone reception...even if it did start out a little creepy.  We spent Saturday morning at Grandfather Mountain where I spent plenty of time in my childhood, Saturday afternoon and night trying to sharpen some of our skiing skills, and Sunday hiking and shopping in Blowing Rock.

The view from part of our Grandfather Mountain hike

The top of Grandfather.  At the risk of sounding dramatic, I'm not sure what the wind speeds were at the top of this mountain, but I felt like I needed to sit down to keep from blowing over.  According to the weather report from the mountain, they've charted wind speeds at 115 mph and temperatures as cold as -32 degrees F.  Obviously, it wasn't that cold or that windy, but it felt like it to me.

1 mile high suspension bridge at the top of Grandfather.  As a civil engineer, this suspension bridge was pretty much the highlight of Sean's entire trip.  At his request, I also have pictures of the turnbuckles and springs that operate this bridge in a way that Sean would have to be the one to explain.  But I'm just keeping them for us to enjoy :)  He crossed it, but like I said, I was scared.  Even as a non-civil engineer, this is pretty cool.  But I've been here on a sunny day as well, and it's still scary.

Sugar Mountain- the reason for our entire trip.  Hopefully in that afternoon/evening, we've sharpened our skills enough to ski Idaho in 6 weeks, although that's doubtful.

Casualty of the trip.  In addition to Sean's elbow.  Sean is insisting that this "isn't that bad", but he can't feel it, and as long as there's any visible evidence of this catastrophe, then it's "that bad".  Naturally, this wasn't my fault, but the resort's since it was the result of a huge patch of straight ice :)

Sunday short hike to a waterfall near the lodge on the Toe River.  It'd be a good place to swim sometime around July, I'm sure.

This is such a fun place to go, and there's so much to do, especially in the summer.  And it's always fun to spend some time in a place so different from home.  Happy Birthday Sean!  You're such a blessing to me and I hope this year's the BEST EVER!