Art Class

Whew...we made it to Friday. This has been the craziest week. I've been working at the office two full days a week since my sister had her baby last fall. We have a sitter who comes in to watch Andrew for me.

She's wonderful with him, and it's really been nice for me to have some time to focus on work and get a lot done while my sister (and co-worker) has been on maternity leave/reduced hours.

But our sitter has been out of town for the last two weeks, and I've been trying to work from home. Ha! Seriously I'd be better off trying to work in a room full of monkeys (Remember that weird commercial from the Super Bowl a few years ago? No, just me.).





Clearly I haven't gotten much work done lately.



So I've been home with Andrew a lot more than usual and it's really been fun! He's so wild and full of energy and he talks so much. It's a lot different than when I was home all the time with him as a baby. We have full two-way conversations about crocodiles and great rescues, how he's "working really hard" and what we're going to have for dinner.



Our sitter will be back next week and while I'm looking forward to getting my piled-up work done, I'm a little sad to be leaving Andrew for two days (plus his MDO days) again. But let me tell you, working on my computer at the office is a whole lot less physically tiring than being home with Andrew all day long - especially on the days that Brian has class or meetings after work and I'm on solo duty for bath and bedtime.

Those long days really wear me out.



But look, I have art to hang up on my refrigerator!

Pink!

I'm linking up with You Capture over at I Should Be Folding Laundry this week. The theme is Pink, and I just couldn't resist because there's suddenly an abundance of pink in my house.



I had fun setting up these photos because I got to go through all my cute dresses and sweet bedding.



My baby girl will be wearing these dresses before I know it.

We're doing lots of work on the nursery this week. The painters were here yesterday. After ten sample colors we finally decided on a soft gray/blue with a light pink ceiling. And it turned out beautifully!

I have a trim carpenter set up to install a chair rail on Thursday and then we'll be ready to start putting it all together.

And remember my indecision on the bedding? I decided to go ahead and go with the Pottery Barn bedding.

When I get it all together, or at least make a little more progress, I'll share it with you.

In the meantime I'll be shopping for pink prints on Etsy. :)

25 Weeks

I can't believe I'm already 25 weeks pregnant. I'm a little unsure about this because it means this baby girl will be here very, very soon.



I mean, I'm excited to meet her and see what she looks like and if she's going to be a climber like Andrew, but I also know that it's going to be crazy to have a toddler to entertain while taking care of a newborn.

I'm feeling pretty pregnant now. Just last week strangers started commenting on my belly. We went to the Mavericks game last night, and as I walked out of the bathroom in to the hall a young girl (early 20s?) walked by and exclaimed "pregnant!".

Well, yes I am. But I don't think I look like I'm about to pop or anything. And then today at Home Depot the checker told me surely I was going have a huge baby. Hrmph. I just don't think people should say things like that to pregnant women.

One of my dear friends from college had her first baby last month. When she was pregnant I remember telling her that after you hit 30 weeks it's pretty much all downhill from there.

Well then, I've got five good weeks left! I better finish up that nursery.

Happy Easter

We're currently on our way home from our Easter weekend with Brian's family in Houston. Andrew is absolutely exhausted, but has only snoozed for a little bit. Sadly a few tears have been shed on this road trip, but so far they've just been Andrew's.

(I may have just saved the day with an episode of Super Why on my phone. We'll see how long the silence lasts.)

He was so happy on our way to Houston; we left at 7PM and arrived at 11PM and Andrew was awake and talking (and singing!) the entire trip on Friday night. He's usually so happy in the car that it's made me sad that he's been so upset today.

I think it's a combination of too much Easter chocolate, too much playtime outside in the heat and not enough sleep time.

Oh well, either way we've had lots of fun on this trip to see family.

Last night we went to an amazing Easter service at Woodlands Church in Brian's mom's new neighborhood. It was such a dynamic exciting service and best of all the Pastor delivered an amazing Easter message that reminded me of God's unconditional love for each and everyone of us.

And, y'all, the music at this place was incredible! I left feeling renewed and renergized.

Andrew even got to go to a little service for the kiddos and they made a craft. He said he had a great time, too.

The Easter bunny came to see us this morning and we had a blast going through Andrew's Easter basket and finding all the goodies.





Elmo toothbrush and toothpaste! I loved that he opened these first. It was like he knew all the chocolate was coming, and he was going to need to brush those teeth.



There's the first piece of chocolate for the day.







Fun wind-up bugs!



He was ready to blow bubbles, but we had to get dressed and go outside first.

And y'all this is how we hunted for Easter eggs:



Um, could he be any cooler?

As I'm finishing this post we are home and Andrew is safely asleep in his bed. The iPhone Super Why saved the day in the car. I think we're both looking forward to getting back to our regular schedule (with less chocolate) tomorrow.

Sweet Baby Photos

I was so excited to be asked to photograph this beautiful baby girl. She was one day shy of nine weeks when I met her last Thursday.

She was so sweet and cuddly and happy. She barely made a peep during the whole session - even when I sat her up in a bucket. :)



Spending all that time with a little girl in pretty dresses and cute bows really got me excited about my new baby girl! Can you imagine how many photos I will have of her?



She was so strong! I loved that she'd hold her head up for me and flash those gorgeous blue eyes.







Such a sweet family.

I hope I get the opportunity to photograph another baby soon. It kind of wears me out, but it is so much fun and so rewarding.

And it reminds me of what it's like to hold a brand new, teeny tiny baby. It's a little scary, but a whole lot awesome, and I'm excited I'll get to hold my own baby so, so soon!

24 Weeks

I'm 24 weeks today!



Still feeling pretty good. I've been dealing with some nausea again the last few days,(I'm pretty sure it's due to insane heartburn.) but other than that I can't complain.

I had a routine doctor's appointment yesterday, and I brought Andrew with me. It was the first time he's been with me and poor thing thought we were going to get to see his pediatrician whom he loves.

Our pedi's office is in the same hospital as my doctor and he kept pointing and saying "Dr. Kabits over there!".

He's the only toddler I know who asks to go see his pediatrician.

He was so good at the doctor's office. He sat (on his bottom!) in a waiting room chair and colored. And then we colored on the paper on the exam table while we waited on the doctor. Andrew did think the big flashlight on the foot of the table was a microphone - ummmmm, no!

When he got a little antsy I handed him my iPhone with the SoundTouch app and he was good to go.

I'm so thankful for this healthy tiny little baby whose heartbeat was loud and clear yesterday. And for my big healthy toddler whose voice is always loud and clear. :)

Girl Nursery 101

When I was designing Andrew's nursery it all seemed so easy. We'd paint the room blue, find some cute bedding, accessories and a comfy chair and we'd be good to go.

Seriously - there aren't all that many options for baby boy nursery bedding that isn't blue with sailboats. So it seemed kind of easy, especially now that I'm looking back on it.

Because oh my word this girl nursery is so hard!

I thought I'd found my bedding a few weeks ago:

(Lily Nursery Bedding from Pottery Barn Kids).

But then I decided I really wanted to use a pale blue/green/aqua color in the room and maybe on the walls.

Like this:

(Photo Credit: Project Nursery, Amelia Kate's Nursery by nickipasqualone)

Or this:

(Photo credit: ohdeedoh, Nora's Nursery Tour)

Soooo I don't really know that my blue/green color will work with the bedding I've picked out. So I decided to look for different bedding and I'm just not finding anything I'm crazy about.

There's this from Serena and Lily:

I like the sheet a lot - it's aqua and melon. I could do that and still use the ruffly crib skirt from Pottery Barn and a pretty blue/aqua color on the walls.

I also really like this from Little House at Lyla Grace:

But the bed skirt makes me think of a man's dress shirt. So I'd have to find a different skirt to go with it. Also, I think the bumper is just plane jane cream color on the inside and that's no fun for baby!

Do you see where this is going?

Maybe I'll just stick with the first bedding from PBK and use the soft blue color for my walls. I think that's what I've talked myself into by writing all this down.

Thanks for the help, y'all!

Moving on Up

Andrew is getting a big boy bed soon!



I think I've mentioned a time or twenty that Andrew is a climber. Sometime around Christmas he got out of his crib once, but then he didn't do again so I thought we were safe for a while. I even debated buying another crib for our new baby girl because Andrew was sleeping so well in his crib.

Well, fast forward to his second birthday, and it's a whole new ball game. My mom was here one night recently and put Andrew to bed for us. She came out of his room and asked us if he ever got out of the crib because he was standing and acting like he was going to get out when she left the room. I confidently said no, and he laid down and went to sleep after Brian rocked him for a little bit.



The next night I put him to bed and five minutes later his door opened, and I heard "mama?" at the top of the stairs.

That night he would NOT stay in his bed for anything. We were up until midnight and I had a panic attack thinking I'd never sleep again, and we're having another baby, and Brian is at school every night, and what am I going to do?????

But it's gotten much better the last week or two and we haven't been up past 10:30 or so which doesn't seem that bad after our crazy midnight night.

The funniest part is that he doesn't fall out. He just climbs down, and he will climb back in too. He has monkey feet. :)

So it's time for the big boy bed. We've been talking it up and he seems really excited about it. We were going on and on about his new sheets the other night and Andrew said, clear as could be, "comfortable blanket in big boy bed!". So I think he's really looking forward to it.

Now I'm just hoping we have a nice, smooth transition and he'll love it so much that he'll never want to get out. That's not asking too much, right? I'll let you know in a few weeks.

Parenting Books

I'm currently reading five books on parenting. All this information is a little overwhelming, but I'm hoping maybe if I take in little bits from everything I'll get it right.

It's not like Andrew seems to be particularly hard to parent. In fact, I think he's pretty laid-back as far as 2-year-old boys go, but I have this great fear of totally messing things up and more information will surely help this, right?

Our biggest issue right now is getting him to do things we need him to do. Like get dressed, eat dinner, get in the bathtub, come inside after an afternoon playing in the backyard, go to sleep, STAY in bed.

He thinks it's funny now when he does something wrong, even though I immediately put him down/stop playing/interrupt dinner and take him to time out. He even says "Time out Mama!" as soon as he does something he knows he's not supposed to do.

So I think he gets it, it's just a matter of being consistent, firm and assertive.

I'll give y'all a rundown of the books when I've finished them all as I know there are lots of toddler mamas out there looking for more information.

But so far I'm happy with the ideas behind 1,2,3 Magic for Christian Parents, which I'm reading on my Kindle. And I think Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood is going to be really, really helpful.

My aunt gave me Wild Things: The Art of Nurturing Boys when Andrew was a baby and it's a great read for mamas of boys. I love that it tells you about their brain chemistry at different ages and stages and why they are doing certain things at certain times. It also spells out just how different boys are from girls even at birth and I just think that is so cool.

Most days I think I'm a pretty good mom. Andrew is happy and thriving. I think we're giving him what he needs, and he's going to turn out just fine. But then I'll read something about how absolutely key these first few years are to creating healthy, well-adjusted teens and adults and I get a little freaked out.

But I do the best I can, and pray a lot - for Andrew and this new baby girl and for Brian and me - that we're making the right decisions and doing the right things.

And then I get down on the floor and play with cars. Because that's what boy-mamas do.

Recent Photos

I got really busy and really tired there for a few weeks and didn't get my camera out nearly as much as I usually do.

I missed it a lot and I'm feeling a smidge less tired these days so here are some snapshots from a few afternoons last week:



I love the light in this photo. And the look on his face. He gives this to me a lot.





Out to play in the backyard. He looks like he's just about to smack me with the bat, but he was just warming up.





"No mama, I'm NOT ready to go inside, thank you very much!"





He's a very expressive child. Ha!

Happy Monday, y'all!

New Blog Design

Did you see my new blog design? If you're in a reader you should click on over and check it out.

I'm so proud of it because I did it myself! I've learned a lot of new Photoshop skills over the last few months and they're really coming in handy.

I designed Andrew's birthday party invite last month:



And these cute little stickers that I used for decorations at the party:



I made these birth announcements for my friend after I did her newborn shoot in January:





I was super happy with these, and I'm planning to do announcements for our new baby this summer, too.

If you're at all interested in design I'd be happy to point you to some good tutorials. I used online tutorials and trial and error to create these. But my first piece of advice would be to download the templates from your printer so that you know the exact printing dimensions. Then you can work within that frame.

And I used the tutorials at The CoffeeShop Blog to help me with the HTML code for the new blog design. Rita's site is so helpful and full of great tutorials on photography, blogging and photo post processing.

Thanks for letting me show off my work! I'll have some cute photos of Andrew to post soon!

Busy Andrew and Baby News

Andrew is keeping me super busy these days which is why I haven't been around here too much.

I'm so grateful for pretty spring weather. It makes our days so much more fun if we can get outside and play! Andrew got this little preschool-sized backpack for his birthday and he's really looking forward to taking it to Mimi and Papa Jack's tomorrow.







Andrew tells us every day that he is "working really, really hard!" He likes pushing his lawnmower and using his power drill and saw on just about anything he can find.



He's so cute.

In other news, here is my baby bump at 21 weeks:



And guess what we found out last week?

This baby is a.....

GIRL!

She's perfectly healthy and was kicking her little feet all over the place during our short peek. My doctor was very happy for us. He said we're going to have a gentleman's family - a boy and then a girl. Have you ever heard this phrase before? I hadn't, but I thought it was pretty cool and Brian was certainly proud.

So I've been on the hunt for girly things to decorate the new nursery. I put up a baby girl nursery board on Pinterest. Have you been there before? It is so awesome.

Here's the link to my nursery board: MeaganMusing Baby Girl. Sign up and follow me!

I'm thinking of this for bedding:

There are just so many choices for a baby girl's room. It's a little overwhelming, but I'm excited about all the ruffles. :)

Happy weekend, y'all!