The Story on Morning Glory

I feel like I haven't written much about being pregnant...I get caught up in the things that I'm doing to get ready and wanting to share that kind of stuff, I forget about what's going on with me! I'd love to one day print this blog out as a keepsake...and at that point, I doubt I'll care how I made an owl onesie...

So, last night I had nachos. We went to Yucatan Taco Stand (if you live in Fort Worth and haven't been, you need to go) which is so yummy, and I ordered my favorite, the nachos. The nachos here are not what you're picturing restaurant nachos to be. It's a huge (literally, huge) pile of chips with white queso, white cheddar, some garlic cilantro sauce, tomatoes, finely chopped jalapenos, lettuce, purple cabbage, and either chicken or beef. And on top, they pile a huge pile or guac and sour cream. I found a picture! Told you they were big!

As you can imagine, it's delish! And more than enough to share. Needless to say, I ate too much, but I'm pregnant! I can do that, right?!? As I was feasting on all things good, I could tell I was going to regret it...I was already getting a little bit of indigestion...but pushed that to the back of my prego mind and forged ahead. Indigestion in pregnancy is like nothing I've experienced before. In fact, before being pregnant, I don't think I'd ever gotten indigestion before! I regretted those nachos for about 24 hours after eating them...it's ridiculous! I had Tums when I got home, Tums in the middle of the night, Tums when I woke up...all told, probably consumed about 15 Tums! Out of control. I shouldn't blame the nachos alone...the night before, I had lasagna, which probably didn't help set the stage!

It's been amazing to see how God created my body to do this, to carry this baby. Things happen that seem so crazy, yet my body is fully equipped (with a few Tums to help it out) to do this! My skin is literally stretching. My organs are all crazy funky in there somehow, and there is a 5 pound alien growing inside of me! How could you do this and not be amazed. God is good.

Jack is so smushed up in there right now (the reason for my monstrous indigestion), that when I feel him move, I know that in a second, the indigestion will be worse. Or I'll be sitting on the couch and all of a sudden I have to go to the bathroom like a racehorse! I jump off the couch, run to the bathroom, and it's like I barely have to go at all. He knows the targets, I swear.

He's so cramped in there that he doesn't really "kick" anymore, he just kinda rolls around. Sometimes my bump is even lopsided when he picks a side and sticks to it! Especially in the morning when I get out of bed. It's totally lopsided!

I try to picture how he's in there...at our last appointment, we had a sonogram and she said that his head was down. With not much room in there to move around, I'm assuming his head is still down. So now I try to think, "if he's moving right there, it must be his arm" and things like that. I think that sometimes he's tired of being so cramped (if he's like his mama, he doesn't like to be restricted!) and tries to stretch out his legs...which makes his little bottom poke out of my bump! Who knows what's really going on in there, but that's what I imagine. He's also been getting the hic-ups a lot! I usually feel them the most in the middle of the night, when I wake up to take my Tums or run to the bathroom, or just to roll over. At this point, I literally have to grunt to roll over or get up off the couch. I can't imagine what it will be like in 5 more weeks!

Five weeks? That's all? I was telling some friends this weekend when they asked if I was ready...heck no! That's scary! What am I supposed to do with him when he comes out? Sure, I've taken the baby care class, and I know to feed him, bathe him etc, but really, what do I do with him!?! Other than just try my best to keep him alive. I can be pregnant, I've got that part down. No big deal. I can handle a little indigestion, grunting to roll over or just get up, swollen hands and feet, getting up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and being crazy tired...but once that baby comes out, oh my goodness! Ya'll better pray for me!

This week I'm not working, and although I've missed the munchkins at Van Grow, I've gotten so much done!! Today was a super crafty day, I didn't have much going on...well, really I was here at the house waiting on the people to come replace the windshield on the Accord. You know that feeling of just because you can't go anywhere, there are a million places you can think of that you should go? Honestly, I probably would have been at the house all morning anyways, but all morning, all I could think of were places to go! JoAnn's, WalMart, (yes, I was even contemplating WalMart), Babies R Us...I NEEDED to go!

A rock cracked our windshield on the way back to Fort Worth from Palestine on the weekend of the 4th, and pretty much since then, we've been trying to get it repaired! We called the windshield place the week after it happened, and I swear, we've had like 8 appointments that have been canceled or rescheduled since then! I think 2 of the appointment days, it rained, then their truck broke down, they were running late in the day so they weren't going to make it, etc. Anyways, I was locked up in the house this morning, hoping they could make it over between rain showers so we could just get it done. It was actually great, because I forced me to spend the whole morning finishing the curtains!

They look so cute, I'm so proud! Of course I didn't measure the windows when I went to buy curtain rods, so I came home with the wrong size for two of the windows (typical, and why I needed to go to JoAnns!), but one of the rods worked perfectly so here it is! I love them. I'm using the ribbon to tie back the curtains, and I need some kind of cool dodad to add to it on the end. I'll have to look around...I'm thinking like a cool button or something. Who knows what will end up on it!

My mom had a nice glider and she was kind enough to donate that to Jack's cause. I was upholstered with a grey-blue material that just wouldn't work! :) She recovered it with this cute yellow quilted material and it looks great! She even made the cover Velcro at the bottom so that I could take it off to wash it. I can't imagine why I would need to wash it! Sweet Jack, he'll never get anything on that!

Once the windshield people got here (By the way, it was a woman who came to replace the windshield, which is just not what I was expecting! Not that I think a woman can't replace a windshield, but she did it all by herself! That's pretty amazing.) I made this adorable little bird applique onesie for a friend of mine who's having a shower this weekend. I really like this one. The bird is so cute! I didn't have any ribbon that would work for the legs, so, as usual, I just walked around the house aimlessly thinking, "surely there's something around here that will work for this!" And sure enough, I remembered all of my beads! Beads for bird legs! Perfect. I think it turned out pretty cute! Hopefully she'll like it.

I also cut out and ironed on 4 other onesie appliqued that need to be stitched. I think on those, I'm going to tackle the blanket stitch (which is apparently the stitch you're supposed to use for applique). It's a little confusing to me...honestly, I haven't tried, but I've looked at it and thought about it and don't get it. Most things like that, I can look at it, think about it, picture how it works, and do it. The blanket stitch has me a bit puzzled. But nothing a little Googling won't fix! Wish me luck and I'll put up pics of the new ones when I've got it mastered! So check in in a few weeks...

This baby will be well dressed. I am sure of it. Thanks to my generous friends! A few weeks ago 2 friends who both have boys passed down to me a bazillion baby clothes. From onesies, to sleepers, to gowns, to socks and shoes, it was amazing! Like 5 baby showers thrown into one exciting day! I had so much fun looking at all of the clothes, picturing Jack in them. One day last week, I got on a nesting spree and washed, folded and put away all of the clothes. At least all of the clothes that would fit! There were so many!

And tonight (yes, tonight) I forged ahead on my first appliqued onesie! I didn't know I could be so proud. I actually want to put it in my purse and carry it around with me so every time I see someone I know, I can pull it out and show it to them. I know, crazy, but I am just so proud! I found this applique pattern on the Internet (thank you, amazing mae) and used all of the material from Jack's room to piece it together. I did the applique by hand (oh my bleeding fingers) because the onesie is just too small to try to twist around the machine!

I know, I know, he'll grow out of it in a minute and he might even be too big to fit in it to begin with (um, that's scary!) and if that's the case, I'll actually be pretty excited to pass it on to a friend, just like so many wonderful things have been passed down to me. But surely he can wear it once, right? At least wear it for as long as it took me to make it?

Yesterday, I walked into Jack's room just to look around, which I do at least once a day, just to check things out and get excited, and decided that today was the day to hang things on the wall! I've been nervous, but then again, sometimes you just have to take the plunge and get started.

This adorable diaper pin is huge, like 2.5 feet long, and it looks so cute by the changing table! My wonderful friends from school gave me this, and I love having it to hang on the wall. I really love that they contributed to decorating Jack's room! The distressed look is just perfect and it is so crafty looking, which is perfect!

It was also time to bite the bullet and just hang the pictures that I've had for months now. Just like the design shows tell me, I laid out all of the pictures on the floor and did my best to arrange them! I've had the ABC cross stitch and the All God's Animals needle work and the "You are so loved" ready to go for a while, but hanging just 3 pictures wasn't working for me. Jeff's mom found an adorable owl needle work that she did when she was in college and passed it down to me. It was in a pretty old frame with the "no glare" glass that had yellowed, so it needed a little help in the framing department. Now, when I'm determined to do something, I will do it, right then. I guess my options were to jump in the car and go to WalMart or something, or find something around the house. I'm pretty good at making things work, so I go on a scouting mission around the house. SURELY there is a frame that will work around here somewhere!

For those of you who have been to the house, you will probably be familiar with what I like to call "the hall to nowhere." It's a hallway that is, in my opinion, completely unnecessary to the flow of the house. There is not a room on the hallway that isn't accessed by another hallway or door! It is truly useless. Anyways, when we moved it, I just made a type of gallery, using all of the picture frames we received as wedding gifts with engagement and wedding pictures. Few people ever see them, fewer people will notice if one of the pictures and frames went missing....found my frame for the owl! :)

Now I have 4 pictures. I can hear my mom's words "never hang an even number of pictures and never plant an even number of plants" playing in my head, so again, I think, SURELY there's something else around here somewhere that I can hang on the wall in this group! Again, I go looking. And sure enough, sitting right there in Jack's bookcase, I found it! A friend from school gave me these adorable alphabet cards with amazing art work to go with each letter. Well, there was the owl right on top of the pile! Perfect! This sends me on another frame search. One missing picture in the gallery isn't too noticeable, but two? People might wonder. It's then that I remember my stash of colored frames that was hung in the house I lived in before Jeff and I got married! And, believe it or not, one actually fits! Never mind that it has no back and that I had to tape a Pottery Barn catalog to the back of it to keep the owl in place! Nobody will know that! :)

It takes a while, and I'm still not sold on it, but a few nail holes later, here's what I came up with. Except since I took the picture yesterday, the two frames on the left have been switched. I just couldn't I have two owl pictures on the same level! How dare I! I'm thinking there is still a little re-arranging to do, but I'm having issues. I don't really want the two matching frames together, but then again, I don't want all of the needle work to be on one side or both of the owls to be on the same side...oh the decisions! For now, they'll stay where they are, and I'll double think it each time I walk in Jack's room...I've already re-thought it today. Maybe the "You are so loved" print needs to be in a colorful frame...I think I'll try that tomorrow.

I have to take a moment to welcome the newest member of the Jamison family....no, not Jack, it's our new refrigerator! Who would have thought I'd get sooooooo excited about a new fridge! But alas, I am. Our old fridge was pretty old...not quite sure how old...when Jeff bought a house in Shreveport, the house came with a fridge. And that fridge came with Jeff from there. It wasn't a bad fridge, the ice kinda tasted funky (who knows what was growing in there) and the water filter hadn't ever been changed, but it worked...at least for the moment.

See, for the past, oh, 6 months or so, it's been making this crazy noise when the motor started up. Like it was shuttering into action, ready (or not quite so ready) to tackle it's monstrous job of cooling all of our cool and frozen goods. It usually didn't shutter long, maybe 5 seconds, 10 at the most. No big deal, it wasn't super loud, and just slightly concerning. Well, lately, it's been shuttering for pretty much 30-45 seconds. Ok, fine, when Jeff reads this, he'll remind me that it was probably 20 seconds at the most, but it felt like it went on forever! The worst thing that can happen, foodwise, is for the fridge to go out. You loose all the food, every thing's a mess, yadda yadda. So we decided it was time. Time to venture out to find a new fridge.

One of the great things that my mom passed down, is the excitement of getting a deal. A deal on a shirt or a bucket of ice cream evokes the same amount of excitement as getting a good deal on a house or a car! It's really kinda crazy...there are many times I go on a shopping spree, only to come home and not brag about the clothes I bought, but on what a good deal I got and how I should have payed this much, but really, I only paid this much! And that's probably the only thing that can get me out of bed at 8am Saturday morning to go to WalMart. I don't like WalMart...there are millions of people, all walking slowly (which is why Jeff won't go with me anymore), and although there are literally 40 checkout lanes, only 2 of them are open. And let me warn you, just because there are only 3 people in front of you doesn't mean that you'll be checking out anytime soon. There is very little respect for time at WalMart. But........once you've braved the people, walked the store a few times searching high and low for everything on your list, and waited for what seems like 9 years just to check out, you get to come home and make your husband guess how much you paid for ALL THIS! And THAT is rewarding. Just one other good thing about WalMart, putting on make up or anything other than your pajamas makes you one of the ones who "dressed up" for your trip out. And sometimes, that's a good feeling.

I truly diverge, but all that to say, I was determined to get a good deal on our fridge. I think all of our new appliances growing up (there weren't many, but there were a few) were bought at the "scratch and dent" place in downtown Palestine. It was a little defeating to think that I didn't have that option, and would have to shop at Lowes or something and not get that great deal that I knew was out there somewhere. Until a friend of mine mentioned that when they redid their kitchen, they got their appliances at the "scratch and dent place". As you can imagine, my ears perked and I did the 20 questions thing to get the info. So exciting!!!!!

So Jeff and I head out to Arlington to the "scratch and dent" place. The excitement's building, isn't it? We get there, and head to the back where they keep the goods. When I say "head to the back" I really mean that we head to the unair-conditioned warehouse behind the showroom. Nothing can stop me from that deal...even being 8 months pregnant isn't enough to stop me from walking that warehouse 6-7 times in the 104 degree heat! It's like heaven (and a little like hell) back there, we walk through the ovens (and of course I stop to look...can't wait for that new appliance!) and dishwashers (again, so exciting) and through one more door and there are rows and rows of fridges! My favorite thing about scratch and dent is that you truly have to look for that scratch or dent. They're not beat up beyond recognition, to the naked eye, it's like they're good as new! Perhaps a little of my "It's good enough, nobody will notice but me" comes out, but this time it's perfectly fine with me!

We walk around for ever, sweating like we're in Africa, until we find that perfect fridge. Jeff brought the tape measure and we've measured pretty much every fridge in the place, and decide on this one. You might want to imagine us walking around, sweat soaking through our clothes, me big as a house, Jeff bending down to measure the height of each and every fridge in our price range. Priceless, really.

Once the fridge is chosen, I'm so super excited. It's perfect! I can just picture it in my kitchen. We pay and head out. And did I mention the deal we got? We saved about $700! Um, that's amazing. If I do say so myself. And to this day, I don't see the scratch or dent. So when you come over, don't look too closely (like pretty much everything in our house) and if you do happen to see the scratch or dent, keep it to yourself, ok?

The fridge was delivered last Tuesday and with some mild construction (picture Jeff with a jig saw) the fridge fits and it is fabulous. No shuttering to get started, no ice that has a kinda funky smell and taste, just a nice, quiet fridge, fresh filtered water and clean ice. What more could I ask for?

For a week, I did think it had one small flaw. The freezer just wasn't wide enough to fit a frozen pizza. But today, I found this sweet little frozen pizza space beside the ice bin! I'm beyond excited. That was the one downside to my new fridge and it is no more! Yay!

As I posted on my facebook status on the way home from the store...does it mean you're getting old when you get this excited about a new fridge and dream of the day when you can get a new oven and dishwasher? And the consensus was yes. But every time I walk into my kitchen, I love my fridge more and more! So that must mean getting old is pretty much ok.

Every time I walk around in a craft fair or spend ungodly hours searching on Etsy (guilty!), I have a hard time buying certain things. If it's something amazing and nothing like I've seen before, then OK, I'm in. I have found some of the cutest things for the nursery on there! It's then that I say, "How much and do you take credit?" But other things, I convince myself that I can do, and therefore, it would be ridiculous to "pay that much" for something! Well, cute appliqued onesies are one of those things.

This sad little planter is hanging on our back fence, which is pretty much the only spot in our shaded yard to get any amount of sun. It's actually in the sun quite a bit! I go out and water it every other day because the sprinklers just don't reach that high. Well, when we were in Phoenix, I put the planter on the ground to get some water, but apparently, that didn't really work, because ever since we've been back, the poor tomato plants and sweet potato vines have looked so sad. As you can see, the sad little plant is even growing a tomato! And the only tomato I've ever grown. I'll have to make a special salad for that sweet tomato.

What an exciting day! Yesterday, Mom and Jenny (Jeff's mom) came over and helped me get started on sewing all of the bedding for Jack's room. Actually, Mom and I had cut out the pieces for the bed skirt, and I'd actually sewn a few pieces together, but I really needed their help for the technical side of things...like hemming and rick rack.

I confess, I'm a complete hack sewer (or seamstress, so you don't think I'm sewing on the toilet). Mom made me take sewing in high school (yes, sewing in high school, take a minute to picture my peers, would you?), and that might have been the last time I actually used a pattern. I made a wonderful pillow, it had ruffled edges, fancy edging...and it was even a cylinder neck pillow! I think my teacher was definitely impressed...and knew that my mom "helped" me quite a bit.

Anyways, at this point in my life, I just kinda put stuff together, hoping it will work, pretty much expecting it not to...and then getting annoyed and frustrated when it doesn't. At that point, I usually say "Whatever, it's good enough, nobody will notice," and move on. All that to say, when you come to my house, don't look too closely at things that appear to be homemade. But I didn't want Jack's bedding to be like this! I mean, I actually have a pattern! That's a big step. So I had a little more confidence than usual that this one would go pretty well...even though there's rick rack involved, which in and of itself, makes me nervous. But I have Mom, who's been sewing for pretty much forever, and Jenny, who majored in home economics in college! The odds are on my side.

So it's a sewing fiesta! We're ironing, cutting, pinning, and stitching like my dining room is a sweatshop in China! Things are going pretty well. Every one's working hard, and things look great!

Two hours later, the skirt is hemmed, the edges are stitched, the rick rack is on...it's go time, and I'm beyond excited. I've had this material for months, and every time I walked in Jack's room, I just got more excited about the way things looked. Now to see it all put together is so exciting! I mean look at it! It's adorable!

I was very against the typical pastel blue and green that most baby boy rooms are bathed in. I wanted it to be bright...bold...different! And this material is definitely bright, bold and different. I just love how everything turned out!

So, we take the mattress out of the crib, slip on the bed skirt and........it's too long. Not just touching the ground, but laying on it. Ugh. Are you kidding? I used a pattern, for heavens sake! In my usual sewing self defeating way, I said, "Whatever, it's good enough, nobody will notice except for us." Dang it, I didn't want to do that.

Thankfully, I'm working with 2 master seamstresses, and they convince me that it won't take but a minute to flip the hem up one more time. So we take it out, flip the hem up (which really didn't take more than a few minutes) and back on it goes!

It's then that I realize that all of my rick rack expertise (I must admit, I'm pretty good at rick rack these days) is in vain. The bottom rail of the bed is in the EXACT spot that the middle strip and rick rack hang. Are you kidding? But I just can't help it, it just comes out! "Whatever, it's good enough, nobody will notice except for us." But all of my rick rack work! Mom convinces me that it won't be that big of a deal to take the skirt off the top and raise it a few stripes to make the middle material show. I'm worn out at this point, so although I'm semi convinced that taking up the skirt would be a good idea, I'm just too tired to do it.

The moms head home, and Jack, Vincent and I just rest on the couch for the rest of the afternoon. I think we caught up on our "Tori and Dean" watching.

So today I came home from Van Grow and felt like after making dresses and box pleats galore with a glue gun (it's fashion week) I was up for a challenge, and decided to go for it! My nursery would not be caged by the "Whatever-it's-good-enough,-nobody-will-notice-except-for-me" syndrome! That's just not good enough for little Jack! So once again, out the mattress comes, and the bed skirt goes to the dining room table for a little more adjusting. I get started, and after a few ripped seams and accidental backwards attachments, out comes a bed skirt that doesn't look too bad (minus the one little accidental cut that I made in the back of one of the box pleats...don't worry, I patched it up!) It works!

Funny thing about it...I did let a little bit of the "Whatever, it's good enough, nobody will notice except for us" get in...see, when we were hemming up the seams, I just did the front and the two sides, and opted not to hem up the back. I mean, who's going to see that? Well, now THAT side is actually the only side that the hem hangs long enough to look nice! See? It worked for me that time!

Being so proud that I actually fixed the bedskirt, I thought, "Why not start on the bumper pad?" So I did! I'm actually covering an existing bumper pad...hopefully I measured right and cut right...probably not, but I'll make it work! You can see in the pic, I did one side of it this afternoon! It looks super cute. The top is the adorable Alexander Henry owl print, and the bottom is more of the yellow and teal swirl. Love it!

And I can just picture it, one day little Jack will look at me with those unbelievably sweet eyes and say, "Mom, thank you so much for flipping up that seam one more time and restitching my entire bed skirt to make it the right length. I just love my bumper pad, it's just so wonderful. You're the best mom ever!" I'm fully anticipating it. :)

So on vacation, Jeff decided to grow a beard. He pulled out a little bit of his rebelious side and wear it on the air on Monday morning! For a normal person, it wouldn't matter. But in the TV business, if you're going to change your apperance, like cut or dye your hair, etc. you're supposed to check with the higher ups to make sure it's ok. For some reason, my rule following husband decided to skip that part and just do it...so not like him! Anyways, his news director chatted with him yesterday and the verdict was...keep the beard! I have to admit, I didn't think I'd have a bearded husband. Don't get me wrong, I like it! It's just strange!

So, now it's become a big deal on the air, they're talking about it all the time and it's been a little out of control.

Check out this news segment:

http://cbs11tv.com/video/?id=43764@ktvt.dayport.com

Really? I reminded him that he's pretty much now locked in to having a beard for the next 20 years of his life...if it's this big of a deal to grow the beard, just imagine the craziness of the beard shaving! He found a barber shop yesterday that he can go to every few weeks to get it cleaned up and news worthy...so random...and now Jack will have a daddy with a beard!