30 Weeks

We're 30 weeks... what a milestone! This week, the baby is the size of a head of cabbage, weighing in at almost 3 pounds.

And here is what he looks like:

This week, his eyes continue to develop. When he's born, his vision will be 20/400 which means he will only be able to make out objects a few inches from his face.

As for me, I am starting to feel much more pregnant. A few of those 1st trimester symptoms are coming back and my heartburn is awful. I wake up at 3 a.m. barely able to breathe it is so bad. I don't like taking medicine while pregnant, but my doctor urged me to start a more powerful anti-acid and that seems to be helping. I have also been pretty fortunate so far to not have any crazy mood swings, but here lately, I am finding myself becoming more hormonal. I don't knowif it's stress related with everything we have going on as well, but I know that stress + 3rd trimester hormones = poor Brian. I hope he realizes I love him and am just not always myself lately. I am also starting to have some fears about labor and delivery. We have our class coming up soon, so hopefully that will ease them. Actually, it will probably make me more scared to know ALL the details!

Here I am at 30 weeks:


30 down, 10 to go!

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is my husband's favorite holiday. I love being with him on Thanksgiving because he is so funny to watch! The food, the football, the family... he loves every minute of it. This year, we have so much to be thankful for it is overwhelming! God blessing us with a healthy pregnancy and baby, a new home for him to grow up in, our jobs and successes at work, and family and friends who couldn't be more supportive and happy for us. I have been looking forward to this Thanksgiving for a few reasons... it is the last Thanksgiving with just us and Brother, it marks 30 weeks of pregnancy, and we were able to spend it with both our families.

Wednesday we drove down to Alabama to my family's farmhouse where my family has always spent Thanksgiving. It was so great to spend some quality time with my grandparents, aunt, my parents, and my brother Joe. We missed Mark, because he was stuck in Memphis working. Here we are on the dirt road that leads to the house.

We were lucky this year because we got to eat two Thanksgiving meals! The first at about 11 a.m. on Thursday at the farm. We drove back to Memphis and ate with the entire Fields clan around 5 p.m. Needless to say, we were totally stuffed. Here with are with the Brian's immediate family.

We are so thankful for the blessings in our life!

Preston's Nursery: Chapter 2

Once we get moved in to the new house, I'll post a floor plan of his room and closet for you to see. But just because we are moving, doesn't mean that work on his room has stalled :) Here's what we have been up to.

I blogged a while back about a trip to Atlanta we took in September. We went to Ikea and found some GREAT stuff for Preston's nursery, including his crib! We went with the Sniglar, found here. I read up on it before our trip and the crib had good reviews. I wanted something simple and didn't want to spend a lot of money for something he will sleep in a couple years. Obviously, safety was a priority too, and it received good reviews on safety. Our plan was to paint it white. When we got home to Memphis, Brian got to work.

Ikea directions are pretty interesting. No words, just pictures. Hopefully we aren't idiots and can figure this out.

Here's my cute husband unloading the box in the backyard.

For the crib paint, I read up on the safest, low-odor spray paint for cribs and all signs pointed to Krylon H2O Latex paint. As Brian began to apply the first coat, we realized that this stuff was not going to work. It was sooo runny... not substantial enough for what we needed. Cribs are hard to paint because of all the small spindles. Brian had to go back and sand down some of the run marks and then we went with a safe paint applied with a paint brush to cover the crib. It looks much better now!

Did I mention that we got all this stuff at our most favorite hardware store, Ace? We have one down the street from our house and it is seriously the best store ever. While we were there picking up the stuff for the crib, we decided to go ahead and grab the paint color for P's room. We went with Gray Horse by Benjamin Moore.

Ben Moore has a whole line of low-VOC and VOC free paints and because we are first-time parents and probably a little over the top, we went with VOC free. Of course, anytime you add paint color in with the original paint it adds a small amount of VOCs, but this is the best we can do. Plus, using this paint, I can help paint his nursery too! And, since we will be painting very soon before Preston is set to arrive, we wanted to make sure there was no paint smell when we brought him home from the hospital.

Sorry, no "after" pictures. Those will have to wait!!!! ;)

Nashville Baby Shower

Last weekend, my mom and I headed to Nashville for my baby shower with my college friends and immediate family. We got there Saturday around dinnertime and immediately went to Home Goods. We do not have one of these amazing stores in Memphis, so we were excited about what we could find for the new house. I got a rug for the family room and two lamps for our master bedroom. Then we went to Joanne's next door to Home Goods to look for fabric to recover my dining room chair seats. Thankfully they were having a sale, and we got all the fabric we needed for $8!

Sunday morning we got up and went to the outlets in Lebanon. Preston racked up. We kind of went a little crazy buying stuff for him, but they have a Carter's outlet, Gymboree outlet, Gap outlet with kids stuff, and a Polo outlet with kids stuff. It was fun to just spend some one-on-one time with my mom.

Then we headed over to Hurt's parents house for the shower. Meg and Hurt through such a sweet shower for me and Preston! Thank you so much girls!

Hurt made the cutest banner ever for the shower. I plan on hanging it over Preston's crib.

The hostesses and me

My mom and me

We played a cute game where they had to guess the size of my belly with a ribbon. My mom and mother-in-law won and guessed it perfectly!

Here they are, very focused :)

Natasha helping my mom

It was so great to see so many of my college friends. They got Preston the cutest stuff ever! I know Candice has more pictures of opening gifts and everything, so hopefully I can share those on the blog one day.

From L to R: Adrianne, Natasha, Hurt, Me, Meg, Candice, Jocelyn

Lauren and Amber had to leave early and unfortunately, I didn't get a picture with them!

The family that was there, L to R:

Marley (Brian's cousin), Mom, Mallory & Brittany (Brian's sisters), Debbie (Brian's mom)

Now to the food! They had quite a spread.... it was awesome! Cute cupcakes with a "P" on them. Meg found the cute toppers :)

Here's the whole spread of food... so much good stuff!

For the centerpiece, they had pretty flowers with the invitation to the shower framed. Hurt painted the cute little magnetic train that has his initials in it.

Cutest favors ever! They got popcorn bags and on the front it says "Cami's about to POP!" I think they found them on Etsy.

It was so great to see everyone and I had such a great time. I got home with all the stuff and Brian helped me take it all out of the car. When I was telling him about it, I kind of got choked up because it just meant so much to me and was so sweet. I am so fortunate to have the friends I have :)

Also, I forgot to post this picture from my work shower. This is the diaper cake Julie made me... how cool is that?

Preston is one very spoiled child :) Thanks everyone for doing all this for our little family. We are really looking forward to meeting him and can't believe he will be here so soon! This Thanksgiving, we have the most to be thankful for!

29 Weeks

We're in the 7th month and the baby is the size of a butternut squash!

Here is what he looks like:

For Preston, all five senses are officially working. He is doing great so far! I turned in all my stuff for maternity leave at work and am looking forward to a few months at home with him.

Here is what I look like:

29 down, 11 to go!

28 Weeks

Woohoo! Third trimester is here!

Preston is the size of a chinese cabbage... what the heck is a chinese cabbage?


He weighs 2 and a quarter pounds. I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and she told me he is measuring on track perfectly and his heartbeat was in the 130s. He is still SUPER active and moves constantly. It's a very strange sensation to feel him move... I don't think I'll ever get used to it. This week, the baby has eyelashes and layers of fat are beginning to form on him. We are really hoping for a chunky baby, so grow baby grow!

I am still doing great. This past week I battled a sinus infection and the lymph nodes in the my neck swelled up. You could see it just by looking at me! Thankfully, it was nothing an antibiotic couldn't fix. At my doc appointment, they did the gestational diabetes screening test and thankfully I passed with flying colors! My iron was a bit low, so they told me to take a supplement with my prenatal vitamin every day.

I am continually amazed at the inappropriate questions I get on an almost daily basis. A lot of people told me to prepare for this. It's like people think you can ask pregnant women ANYTHING and it's okay. I mean, I will have random people in the grocery store come up and touch my belly. GROSS - I don't know you. The thing that bothers me the most is when people ask about my weight, mainly how much I have gained so far. I have tried REALLY hard to still eat healthy and I don't snack or anything, mainly because I am only hungry at normal mealtimes. It is HARD (mentally not physically) for me to gain weight - I am a Weight Watchers fanatic and work hard to stay small, so for me, gaining weight has probably been the toughest thing to go through in pregnancy. I hate looking at the scale. So far, I have gained 17 pounds. Apparently, most women gain 11 pounds their last trimester. If I stay on track for that, I will gain 28 pounds. The normal pregnancy weight gain is between 25 and 35 pounds. I really don't want to have to lose a lot after the baby comes. I know gaining weight is what's best for the baby, so I am accepting it, but it isn't easy. If Preston is a big boy, it will make up for it though!

Here I am at 28 weeks!

I'll be heading to Nashville with my mom today for a baby shower with all my Nashville friends. Can't wait!!!!!!!!

Introducing.... Our New House!

I am really excited about this blog post! We finished up the inspection and after no major problems, we can finally celebrate our new house. We knew we wanted something we can live in a long time, and hoped for a "forever home." After looking at lots of houses, we found one we both love very much. We knew the neighborhoods we wanted and we knew we wanted an older home that needed a little bit of work.

In true Young House Love fashion (they announced their new home today) I'll show you pics and give you the stats.

Info:

• Built in the 1960's
• Colonial style
• Long time owners, maybe even the same owners all these years
• 3100 square feet
• 5 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms with walk-in closets in every bedroom (2 in the master)
• Hardwood floors throughout with thick crown molding (character!)
• 2 fireplaces
• Located in East Memphis, very close to good schools, interstate access, and very centrally located to everything in the city
• Potential for the house to be a "forever" home

WARNING... the house needs a little work! The bones are great, but we'll probably be removing wallpaper and painting for years to come :) Also, these are the interior shots as the house is now with the current owners stuff. We do not own "little old lady" furniture. The owners do have some of the most beautiful antiques I have ever seen! They are having an estate sale before we move in, so Brian and I can't wait to hit that up.

Back of the house... it also has a detached 2-car garage

Double doors that lead to the dining room

One of our favorite things about the house is a large screened in porch off the side of the house. It has so much potential we can hardly stand it.

The door below leads from the screened in porch to the family room. On the right, behind those double doors, is the laundry room.

The family room - love those wooden beams! This is one side of the room.

This is the left side of the room with a large wood burning fireplace and mantle.

Just off the family room is a half bath. It is located in between the downstairs master bedroom, which we will be using as a playroom, and the large entryway area.

This is the downstairs master. We'll be using the 2nd master bedroom upstairs and this room will serve as the playroom, since it is just off the family room.

Also off the family room is the kitchen. To us, this room needs the most work but we are going to wait a while. Gorgeous wallpaper! ;)

The house has an eat-in kitchen and bay window... we've got some ideas for this space.

Off of the kitchen is the dining room. Double doors lead out to the backyard.

Check out the cool knob on the french door.

Moving from the dining room is the formal living room and entry way. We swear that the fireplace HAS NEVER BEEN USED and is in perfect condition. It's really a beautiful room with large windows on one side.

Ahhhhh the entry way. We love the slate floors but that wallpaper is a nightmare. Just look at how high it goes up!

Upstairs, there are two bedrooms on each side, four total. The master and nursery are on the left, the office and guest bedroom are on the right. The room below will be Preston's :) He has a huge walk-in closet with a window inside. It will be funny to see his tiny clothes hanging in there! Also, there are all hardwoods in the bedrooms, the current owners have rugs down now.

The master bedroom... right now it looks like Lucy and Desi live there. It is a large room though, and we can configure it lots of ways. We can't tell you enough how excited we are to have our own walk-in closets to ourselves!

Below is the master bath. This is the sink, the shower, tub and toilet are to the left and one of the walk-in closets is to the right.

This bedroom will serve as a guest bedroom for now, but will probably eventually be the upstairs den for kid hangout space once our little one(s) are older.

This is the upstairs hall bathroom.

Finally, the last and smallest bedroom will serve as an office. More wallpaper to remove!

Here is one of the walk-ins, this one in the bedroom shown above.

So, there she is in all her glory. The house was originally put on the market in March, so we were excited to snag it up after multiple price reductions :) I'll keep you posted on how we update and change the house, starting with Preston's room first! Excited for this next step in our lives.

The best part? We move in December 1.