Touchdown!

My mom (and her awesome sewing skills) have struck again!  This time?  An awesome football blanket!

Awhile back, I had pinned a link to a Football Blanket that was minky fleece on the front and football team fabric on the back.  Momma K decided that would be easy enough to make, and now Baby P has his very own Husker football blanket!

 

Here is a horrible picture of me opening it…

And a slightly less horrible picture with me, the grandparents to be, and Baby’s new blanket!  It’s so soft and cuddly and the cotton on the back makes it a perfect all purpose blanket.  I know it’s destined to be one of his favorites!

Want to make your own?  This tutorial seemed pretty darn good.  Quick, easy, and AWESOME baby gift, should you be needing inspiration for one of those

 

Baby Talk Wednesday: Fall Showers {Part 2}

True story, I’m tired.  Sorry for the delay

Without further ado…Shower #2!  My sister was so sweet to plan me a shower in Sioux Falls so I could celebrate with my family as well.  She was very top secret about her planning, I mean, how would you ever plan a shower without pinning a single thing??  I have no idea, but she did!

We kept the invite list small and man did we have fun!!!

First up?  The food of course  We had delicious fruit, bars, baby cupcakes (normal cupcakes with chocolate chips for eyes and pacifiers in their mouths), and Whoopie Pies.  All was delicious, but my favorite?  The blue “bathtub” punch she whipped up, I can’t even tell you how many cups I drank…Baby P was on a sugar high!  Recipe is adapted from here to be lactose free.

I also realized in the pre-shower prep that Steve and I don’t have very many pictures together…so we rectified that before him and my dad took off.

36 weeks, proud daddy  (You may notice he’s sporting a goatee…don’t ask… haha)

Once our guests arrived, we got to work.  Our first “game” — freezer meal prep!  This was seriously a genius idea if I do say so myself.  I picked out 7 recipes ahead of time that sounded good to me and my mom prepared the ingredients ahead of shower time (browned hamburger, boiled noodles, etc).  I did my best to pick recipes that used overlapping ingredients to make prep time easier.  Come shower day, there were 7 stations set up to prepare anything from Taco Soup to Lasagna.  Shower attendees split up into teams (2-3 people or so a team) and got to work.   Since it is just Steve and I, we put all the recipes in smaller containers — so 2 meals per recipe.  All in all, we put together 15 meals and it only took about 15 minutes!

My mom had pre-printed slips to tape onto the meals with cooking directions.  My Aunt Tammy and I ended up with too much baked spaghetti for two tins, so we went for a 3rd!

My mom had cleared space in the deep freeze, so we put everything in there and when my parents come down to visit Baby for the first time, they are going to bring us the precious cargo.  All in all, it was really fun, I’m REALLY pumped up at having food to eat, and Steve’s excited to not have to figure out what to cook for a few weeks.  Shower game win.

After that, it was time for presents.  Little sister had one more game up her sleeve, she passed out some BINGO cards to everyone and we filled in our cards with 25 different baby gifts.  As I would open things, people would place their stickers in the spaces to get BINGO.  She had prizes for the first 3 people to get BINGO.  There was a lot of strategizing going on and it was a great way to spice up present time.

I made more awesome present opening faces…like this one…while talking about what a white noise machine does and how it’s going to fulfill all my dreams for a good sleeper of a baby

All in all, it was a great time and I felt so blessed by such fantastic friends and family members.  I’m a lucky girl and Baby P is going to be so lucky to join such a large, loud, loving family.

Consider me showered!!!  Thank you, Thank you, Thank you everyone

And yes, as a side note, I’m way behind with blogging, we’ve been going like gangbusters over here trying to get some misc. things done before Baby arrives.  We’re wrapping the nursery up (just in time, right?) so updates coming soon!  

Friday Sweets!

Just popping in to say a quick hello.  I’m guest posting today over at H & M Kitchen sharing my favorite pregnancy treat   In the mood for some sweets?  Come over, check out Mel’s blog and say Hi!

Baby Talk Wednesday: Fall Showers {Part 1}

Happy Wednesday!!!

Today I thought it would be fun to talk about baby showers.  Now, I’m not a big “shower” person, I don’t like being the center of attention and I don’t ever want people to feel like they have to bring me gifts…I do like the part of showers where you hang out and eat delicious things and generally celebrate whatever event is coming up.  My BFF offered to throw me a shower for a few of my Omaha friends to do just that, eat YUMMY desserts and celebrate!

Melissa knows me well, and the treats were PERFECT — cheesecake dip cups, strawberry and grape skewers (the only fruits I really really love) and funfetti cupcakes in ice cream cones.  For everyone else, she threw in some veggie cups and some crackers and cheese  She also got some really fun plates and napkins!  It was so darn festive (and tasty).

We did the shower at my house so friends could check out the nursery.  It was really nice to not have to drive anywhere, I must say.

She set up a drink station over on our coffee bar, it was so cute (and also super refreshing).  I had no idea that Trader Joe’s limeade was so delicious!

She also got some ADORABLE onesies and socks to decorate with.

She made some paper poofs (technical term) for the dining room to greet people as they arrived.  (as you can tell, I have gotten REALLY far with the table refinishing project…if only the table cloth could also cover up the legs).

She may have even inspired me to actually decorate my mantle because it was so festive and cute with the banner hung.

She also made a front door sign that I LOVE.  I’m definitely going to put it up when Baby arrives.

For entertainment, we taste tested some baby food…(I’ve never had it before, but man, that stuff is not very good), played a game of trivia about birth customs around the world, and tested our memories on some common baby products.  I have no memory and therefore failed this test miserably.  Everyone also put in some name suggestions since we’re still undecided.

All in all, it was a fantastic day and I felt so blessed by all my great friends and so spoiled with gifts!

I’d include more photos, but I apparently make a lot of strange faces when I open gifts.  For example — look how I am modeling nasal saline…

Ha!

I’ll be back next week with Shower Stories part II!!!  In the meantime, anybody else hate pictures of themselves where they are opening gifts?!  Gotten really excited about something random?  Or do you even like showers?  I need my friends to hurry up and get pregs so I can throw a shower.  Hear that friends, I’m talking to you, Baby P needs some more friends.  :-)  Just kidding!  I haven’t turned into that pregnant married lady I swear…..

Baby Talk Wednesday: Tub Side Kneelin’

I don’t know if you know this, but my mom is kind of a genius.  See, I have this habit/skill (depending on how you look at it) of looking at something, thinking about it for awhile, and if I don’t like my existing options, I eventually come up with a way to make it on my own and make it how I want…I didn’t fully realize how this trait had been passed on until my mom came down to visit me a few weekends ago.

Let me back up for a second…

About a month ago, I pinned this:

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I thought it was a pretty cool idea to make bath time easier, and I even added it to my registry, but I had a hard time finding it in stock.  It was sold out pretty much everywhere.  Well, Momma K saw the pin (and also the corresponding sell-out status), and decided she could take matters into her own hands.  To make it even better, she also read the reviews and modified her design to hopefully alleviate the flaws.

She made this out of 100% cotton so that it would be easy to dry when it gets wet.  It’s also fully washable, and has suction cups to adhere it to the tub.  An additional bonus, I can suction it to the tub wall when it’s not in use to dry it out and ensure it doesn’t mold.  She put two pockets in the front to store things, I’m picturing probably bath toys, possibly clean wash cloths, or even baby soap.

She made it specifically to fit my tub, who knew that tubs vary in size…Our tub is 17″ tall and has a 6″ thick lip on the top and it fits to a tee!  For the kneeling portion, she actually divided it into 3 sections and used garden kneeling pads that she picked up for a dollar each.  They are also fully removable to to ease cleaning.

I’m so excited about my new tub kneeler, and the fact that my mom came up with it makes it even more special.  It’s a trait that we both share that I really hope gets passed along to Baby P as well!

And as a bonus…

35.5 weeks!  I can’t believe how fast it’s going!

 

Linked up with: YoungHouseLove, Our Fifth House, Ugly Duckling House, and BowerPower.

Baby Talk Wednesday: Books Galore

I’m a reader and always have been.  Naturally, one of the first thing I started doing was checking out some books and seeing what I could learn about all things baby.

First up — when I went to the doctor for my 6 week check up, she gave me the book, “Your Pregnancy & Childbirth Month to Month”  This was the first one I dug in to and I really liked it.  It was very straight forward, easy to read, and organized in a logical flow.  I would definitely recommend this to anyone newly pregnant!

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Fresh off this book, and continuing my quest for knowledge, I took on the standard, “What to Expect When you are Expecting“.  I know I’m in a minority on this one, but I didn’t really care for it.  A lot of it seemed focused on absolutely every last thing that could go wrong.  It was also organized differently and it didn’t seem to me like something I would want to come back to for reference very easily.  I didn’t make it all the way through this one…overall, not my recommendation for moms to be.

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With my new found pregnant lady knowledge, the next topic I decided to tackle was ” Babyproofing Your Marriage“.  I found some parts enjoyable and I laughed out loud at some of it, but I found some of it also as negative towards dads.  This was something I hadn’t paid much attention to until I was actually pregnant, but I really don’t like the implication a lot of baby/marriage books make that mom is the only one capable of anything with baby and dad is merely the accessory to help her out.  I was raised with two great parents who were both very involved in raising my sister and me.  We are planning the same kind of partnership, and I never want to diminish Steve’s role as the hapless husband.  Overall, this book was entertaining and we did use it for some discussion on how we would like to bring up our family.

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Steve read through the book I got him with his Father’s Day to be gift, “Dad’s Pregnant Too“.  He found it entertaining, but again, somewhat diminishing of the man’s role in raising a child.  Overall, it was the only “dad specific” book he read, so in fairness, he doesn’t recommend or not recommend it.  :-)

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Next up was our favorite book by FAR, “Bringing Up Bebe“.  I first learned about this book when the Wall Street Journal ran an excerpt of it.  This book is easy to read, entertaining, and I think brings up several good points that jive with how Steve and I were raised, and values we would like to instill in our children.  Concepts that feel almost lost in the other parenting techniques currently in the news.  We both really enjoyed this book, and if you are looking for a different perspective than what is frequently published, I highly recommend it!

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Still left to tackle:  The Happiest Baby on the Block, How Do You Tuck In a Superhero, NurtureShock, and The Last Boys Picked.  My library card is getting quite the workout!

What are your favorite pregnancy/parenting/raising boys/etc. books?  Any that I should avoid??  I got 6 more weeks of reading time to fill!

Spokeo

This your public service announcement from DIYTheory.  I learned about a pretty freaky website recently, call Spokeo.  It catalogs everything about you from any available public source or social media site.  In addition to your phone number, address, etc. the site pulls in your family members, your estimated economic value, and more.

The sort of good news?  Most of the additional information is only available to subscribers of the site.  The bad news, it’s $4.00 a month to subscribe and then anyone can see all of your personal information.  I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer to not have people up in my business!

After some research, there are directions available to remove your information from this site.  Just go to this link: http://www.spokeo.com/privacy, enter your email address and it removes your listing.  I went through and did this for all the various addresses I’ve had over the years to remove me from the site.

::end of soap box::

Hope you are all having a fantastic Saturday!  We’re doing some relaxing and more house projects…I’m so behind on blogging, can someone make more hours in the day pretty please!?!?!?!