DIY Madness!

I have NEVER in my life considered myself to be a crafty person.....in the slightest. At all. That was my sister's thing -shout out to you, Lindsey! hehe-.
When I was growing up I just wanted to play the piano all the time and didn't have any interest in arts and crafts.

[Quick trivial fact: I actually know how to sew the old fashioned way as well as with a sewing machine. I have patched a ton of shoes (because for some reason my big toes stick up when I walk and therefore create holes) and I have also patched a ton of jeans and leggings (oh, the glory of having curvy thighs that rub together when you walk and wear the fabric down) ]

However, Phillip and I paid a huge security deposit the other day on an apartment that we'll be moving to in August (I promise this is relevant). We both fell in love with it and told the owner on the spot that we would sign a lease. I will post pictures once we're moved in come August :)
We want to stay in this apartment for as long as possible, which inspires us to put a lot of effort into decorating it and making it look cute.

Which brings me to talk about my first (and definitely easiest) project, which I shall call: HOOP WALL

I saw this picture on Pinterest:

How you do it:

1. Acquire Fabric

2. Acquire embroidery hoops of varying sizes

3. Cut fabric to size

4. Place into hoop & tighten

5. Hang on wall

That's all.

Um, easy enough? Especially for a "non-crafty beginner" like myself? Yes. Super easy.

Lightbulb moment: I got the idea that instead of paying $12 a yard for fabric, I would just go to D.I. (Goodwill) and buy some huge dresses with a cool pattern and cut them up! 

(I'm sure everybody does this & I'm just behind on the crafting times...I thought it was brilliant, though!)

So, Phillip actually picked out this HIDEOUS dress, with an AWESOME pattern on it (he did well!):

$4.00 well spent, if you ask me!

Next, since we had just paid that huge deposit for our new place we had like 4 cents to our name (over-exaggeration, don't worry!) which allowed us to, sadly, only purchase one embroidery hoop from the craft store.

Here is the one hoop we could afford (at a whopping $2.00). 

I had never seen an embroidery hoop before, they're neat!

I then cut the fabric to size, and just slid it into the hoop!

The Finished Product:

 (Um, I didn't realize my preggo stomach would be visible in this picture...well then...)

But that's not all!!

Oh no, this fabric is SO versatile that the other side has the opposite design!

So, if I wanted to, I could easily take this fabric out, turn it around, and have THIS color fabric showing

BE AMAZED.

I didn't feel like taking the fabric out and doing it all over again (I don't want to stretch the fabric too much) so this part would obviously be against the wall (after I did some trimming/stapling/whatever)

Anyway, once I can afford more hoops and take more trips to D.I. then I can have a better collection for my HOOP WALL.

Stay tuned for more excellent DIY projects....including re purposing freaking old furniture!

Gender Reveal!!

I'm posting this a little late, and also a little out of order with my other post, but I think it's important!

I would be lying if I said that I wasn't excited about the fact that a mini me mixed with Phillip will be arriving in a few short months (though I like to pretend that I'm not excited, haha). What I'm even more excited about is that as of Tuesday, March 4th, 2014 we now know the gender of the baby!

IT'S A BOY!!!!! A MINI PHILLIP!!!!!!!!

And here's the proof:
It's a view from the under side, and you can clearly see an extra "limb" between it's two legs.
That's 100% boy!

I KNEW IT. I KNEW IT ALL ALONG.
When we had the first ultrasound at 8 weeks, and the baby looked more like a peanut than a human, from first glace I just had a "feeling" that it was a boy. The word "boy" screamed in my head! I never forgot it. And then all of the gender-telling wives tales such as weight gain placement, amount of acne, morning sickness, and a bunch of other stuff all pointed to a boy......so I wasn't too surprised!!
However, since I'm from a family of two girls, I just assumed I would have a girl....which would have been fine, but it's fun to have a change for once :).

I was really hoping for a boy first. I absolutely HATED being a female oldest child. I mean, I turned out fine, but I always really wished that I had an older brother. So this worked out very well :).

 I like to brag about this, but when the ultrasound tech was going near the baby's genital-area, I saw the penis! I saw it before she even said anything!! So I blurted out, "THAT'S A PENIS!!!" She paused for a second to make sure, and then says, "You're exactly right." And then of course, I humbly exclaim, "I KNEW IT ALL ALONG!!" Oh yeah, I'm impressive.

Anyway, here are a few more pictures of the baby's cute face and it's lil' foot. My mother appreciated the foot picture to a great degree :). And we couldn't be happier with the gender reveal!

 

King of Hearts - A Dramatic Tale

A scary thing happened to me last week!

I'll give you a quick timeline of my Tuesday night (March 11th, 2014):

11:30 pm - Phillip goes to sleep. I'm not very tired so I decide to stay up later and make his lunch
12:00 am - Finally get ready for bed and lay down to sleep
12:30 am - My heart starts pounding at an extremely rapid rate. This happens to me sometimes so I didn't think much of it. It usually passes within 10 minutes.
1:00 - 2:30 am - Drift in and out of sleep, but wake up every 10-15 minutes from the rapid pounding.
2:30 am - Wake up from pounding, switch side that I'm laying on (I know that pregnant ladies should only sleep on their sides!!) and suddenly notice the room spinning. What the heck!!!
3:00 am - My heart is still pounding. By this time I begin to think that there may be a problem! The stress begins.
4:00 am - I decide to get up and pee.....it's clear! I'm not dehydrated, so that's ruled out. Dang it!
5:00 am - I go to the couch with hopes that sitting up will make me feel better. It helps a bit & I sit there for a while....of course the whole time I'm looking up my symptoms on my phone :)
5:30 am - I lay down again, and of course my rapid pounding heart beat returns!!! So I wake up Phillip, who feels my forehead, and apparently I'm burning up also! A fever, excellent.
~ 5:35 - 7:30 am - I finally fall asleep, with continued waking up every 10-15 minutes with the same symptoms. Boy was I tired!

So at 7:30 I take Phillip to school, and by 8:00 I realize that my stupid heart has been rapidly pounding for SEVEN HOURS STRAIGHT. That's unheard of!!
At this point I'm starting to worry if whether or not if my heart is doing it's job and supplying enough blood to the baby. Luckily, he was kicking the whole night and it didn't seem to affect him, but I still can't help but worry!!!

I call the doctor's office at about 9:00, and when I told the nurse my symptoms she said "Yeah, let's not even play any games here. Come in at 10:00."
I could have cried!!! I was so scared that they'd be like "Oh you're just dehydrated" or something, but it was obvious that this wasn't normal at all.

I got to the doctor's office, and the nurse took me in and did all the weight/blood pressure and stuff. My blood pressure was 108/something, which is actually less than the 118 I had the week before, so that was good. However, my weight jumped up 5 pounds in ONE WEEK. What on earth!!! I don't even recall noticing any weight gain, haha.
The nurse then proceeded to attempt to find the baby's heartbeat with the Doppler device. She found it in like 2 minutes....which is a first. Usually it takes the doctor at least 10, haha. He had a healthy heartbeat of about 154....what a relief!!!

Then the doctor came in. I told him my symptoms, and I had a huge fear that he would be like "Oh it's normal for pregnant women to experience this" or "were you dehydrated or stressed?".
But that wasn't the case, and much to my surprised he actually seemed rather concerned.
YES!!!
Once again I'm not crazy and what I'm experiencing is not "normal".
He listened to my heart and told me that I have a heart murmur, which I actually already knew about, and have had for about 10 years or so. It's called sinus arrhythmia and when I breathe in, my heart beats faster, and when I breathe out, my heart rate slows down. It's never been a big deal, and it still isn't.
What my doctor did say, though, is that he would like me to be on a heart monitor for 30 days. Holy shiz, 30 days?
The device is called a "King of Hearts". While wearing it, I'm supposed to press the "record" button every time I have a symptom. The device picks up my heart rate or EKGs or whatever, not sure of the terminology haha, and then I send it to a company in Idaho Falls that then evaluates the symptoms I record.
Pretty cool, eh?
I like having it because it gives me peace of mind, knowing that anything weird that happens can be recorded and evaluated, so I can't complain!
Here's a picture of it:

The downside, which was actually an upside for me, was that I felt the need to finally quit my job 3 weeks earlier than I had planned on. It's just too stressful for me to work and be pregnant at the same time. Especially with my huge appetite and the limited amount of food that I can bring to the office, haha :).

So my weeks have slowed down considerably, but I am grateful that my symptoms haven't FULLY returned....and I think less responsibility/stress can definitely get some credit for my improved condition :).