The Baby's Room is Painted! (finally)

At long last, we (and by we I mean Cy) finally finished painting the baby's room.  Part of the reason it took so long is because it used to be Gemma's room.  Cy really wanted her to have the other room with the bigger closet, so he and his dad put in a chair rail in the [formerly purple] room, then painted it to look exactly like Gemma's old room.  Once we got her all settled in her new room, Cy moved on to painting her old room mint green and tan for the new baby.  The green is the same exact green we have in our living room and the tan is the same tan from our dining room but they happened to be a perfect match for the bedding stuff we had picked out for the baby so we went with it.  (As you can see, although the room is painted, we still have a LOT left to do.)

The bedroom stuff I got of course did not come with a curtain for some reason so I am attempting to make one.  I found a fabric I liked for the top but haven't found a good contrasting fabric for the bottom of the curtain yet.  So right now the curtain is just a ruffle and a casing.  I'm hoping to go to Hancock this weekend and see if I can find something to finish up the curtain.  If not, I will probably just go with a solid green that matches the walls, or I am debating sacrificing one of the baby's sheets in the name of matching curtains.  We will see how it turns out.

I'm hoping it will hang a bit more evenly once I get the rest of the curtain attached but I don't think it looks too bad, especially considering that I am just totally winging it.  I sort of looked at the curtain in Gemma's room then went and got a piece of fabric, cut it up and sewed it and...yeah, that's pretty much it. 

Baby Project #3: Boppy Cover #2

I decided to buckle down and get some more sewing done for this baby.  Yesterday I hit up Wal-Mart in search of fabric for a second Boppy cover.  (I am not terribly pleased with the way the first one I made Velcros shut across the back - it is extremely hard to get the pillow itself in and out.  Plus, it is always good to have an extra cover for when the first one gets thrown up on.) 

Anyway, I ended up finding this super cute robot fabric.  I debated about the striped fabric for the back since the main stripes were brown and the main color on the robot fabric was black (and my mom has ingrained in me for years that you can't mix brown and black), but I went with it anyway and I'm glad I did - I think it looks great. 

I am much happier with how this cover turned out.  I finished it way more quickly and with much less frustration than the first one I made (probably due in part to the learning curve).  It is SO much easier to put on and off with the zipper across the top.  And the piping on the first one was such a pain to do (having never done piping before), and even though it looked cute, I don't really miss it on this second one.

So without further ado, I give you Boppy cover #2 front view:

And Boppy cover #2 back view:

And BTW ("BTW--that means 'by the way'" - thank you, Damon Salvatore) Cy was really excited about the robots.

A Plethora of Goings-On

Well I've arrived in the third trimester with this baby boy.  We just passed 29 weeks yesterday and it is starting to feel real since it is getting so close now.  Especially since we still have yet to do anything with his room, or look at a single piece of furniture, or car seat, etc.  I am trying not to freak out because there is still time to get everything done (we are planning to do painting and furniture hunting this weekend) and Cy keeps reassuring me that if the baby is early and we are not ready, we do have everything in the house we need to take care of a baby - it just happens to be pink.  But we can use any of it if we have to, until we are able to get something a little more gender appropriate.  We *may* have decided on a name finally, too.  I say "may" because it is actually the same name we had picked out a while back and then rejected when we found out that it was more popular of a name than we would like.  In the meantime though, we've thrown out about a gazillion other names and I think we've decided just to go with what we originally picked, since it's pretty much the only name we both liked.  And now that I've said all that, I'm not going to reveal what that name is: we are going to wait until the baby is born to tell anyone his name (it's bound to change again anyway).

Along with the third trimester came the dreaded glucose test.  I failed the in-office test as expected.  Since I was "borderline" with Gemma, I knew they were just going to end up making me do the diet and the finger pricks regardless of the outcome of the 3-hour blood draw.  I didn't really want to sit through the 3-hour blood draw again (it's so unpleasant) especially since I knew how it would turn out, so I told my doctor (well, the midwife - my doctor is out on bed rest until her scheduled C-section on Feb. 3 - I lost my doctor to maternity leave when I was pregnant with Gemma too!) I would just go ahead and start the diet and finger pricks.  I wasn't eating a lot of carbs to start with, and I cut back some more, but I think I'm probably still eating a bit more than what the doctor advised, and yet I'm struggling...because my sugars keep dropping too low.  Yesterday they were 76, 74, 67, and then I finally got it up to 88 after dinner.  After my post-lunch sugar of 67, I ended up feeling dizzy and awful most of yesterday due to low blood sugar (combined with the fact that I had exhausted myself doing home cleaning projects).  I guess maybe I will try to add back in a bit more carbs today and see if that helps.  I am not sure exactly what is going on or how to fix it but it does seem like I again tested as being diabetic in the office even though I'm more hypoglycemic than anything.

In other news, I've entered the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest again, this year with Lunatics and Lycanthropy.  I wanted to enter the YA sci-fi novel I wrote this past year for NaNoWriMo, but I have a lot of work I want to do on it and didn't have enough time to get it quite where I wanted before showing it to an audience.  I'm not taking the contest very seriously - I cobbled my entry together the day before the contest opened, but I figured it couldn't hurt to try.  I'll find out around Feb. 23 if my pitch made it through the first round.

Anyway...that's what's been going on with me of late.  Just juggling the tantrums of an almost two year old, getting ready for a new baby, and squeezing in a bit of writing here and there whenever I can.  I'm trying to get as many house projects and as much writing done as I can before the baby boy arrives, because I know I won't have a second to spare after that!

Baby Project #2: Boppy Pillow Cover

This seemed like it would be a fairly straightforward project at first, but of course it ended up being painful and frustrating, as I was forced to use a pattern.  Patterns and I do not have a good relationship with one another.  I find patterns...confusing.  They BOTHER me.  (I love how good it makes me feel when I screw something up when using a "Sewing for Dummies" pattern too - good times.)  So this pillow cover will probably fall apart the first time I use or wash it, but it looks pretty cute:

Now that I've deciphered the pattern, I think I will make another one out of two contrasting fabrics.  Thankfully the monkey flannel I used for the first one was like $1 a yard so if it falls apart my feelings won't be that hurt.  And now that I've suffered through making one, I will use the pattern instructions for the second one more like guidelines than actual rules.  I'm planning to ditch the piping and the Velcro for starters, and instead put a zipper across the top like a normal Boppy cover. 

And just for the fun of it, I dropped about 3 movie/TV/pop culture references in the above post.  Did either of my two readers catch them? ;)

Some Cute Videos of Gemma

Gemma has been doing so much cute stuff lately and I have been trying to use my phone to capture it as much as possible.  Of course, she seems to have a sixth sense that detects exactly when I am videotaping her and she then stops doing whatever it was that was so cute, or doesn't do it as enthusiastically.  But after stalking her for quite a while, I was able to catch some of it.

For example, how she was helping her Daddy by drumming on the top of the paint cans while he was working in baby brother's room the other day (ignore my inane comments and just focus on the cuteness of the drumming):

Or how much she loves to clap, stomp, and shout "hooray" along with the song "If You're Happy and You Know It."  (Of course in the best video footage I got, she refused to stomp, but I'll take what I can get.)  She loves this song so much that sometimes after I put her down for a nap, I can hear her shouting "hooray" in her crib before she falls asleep.

 

Baby Project #1: Nursing Wrap

Well this poor little guy may not have a name or a bedroom yet, but at least I'll be able to feed him in relative privacy when he decides to arrive.

I've been lazy all week and haven't felt like doing any sewing.  Meanwhile, poor Cy has been slaving away painting chair rails and bedroom walls at night after Gemma goes to sleep.  I decided it was time to give up my precious hours of reading while Gemma naps today to work on at least one sewing project for the baby.  Using this tutorial I made a relatively easy and cute nursing wrap out of some blue and brown argyle fabric I snagged at Wal-Mart the other day.  It's kind of bugging me the way it's gapping open at the top right now, but I didn't seriously sit down and try to use it or anything, so I think it will do the trick.  And the one I already had was pink, which the little guy (more likely, his dad) probably wouldn't appreciate.

Anyway, here's how it turned out.  Next project: Boppy cover.

Recent Sewing Projects

I ended up sewing quite a few gifts for people for Christmas.  I was a bit overwhelmed at the responsibility of making Christmas presents for people and also worried about getting them all done in time, but of course it turned out fine.  And as far as I could tell, people seemed to like the things I made for them.  I took some pictures so I could show off my gifts on here after everyone had received them.  :)

For my sister-in-law Kelly, I made this car trash bag (her request):

For Lucy, the sweet little daughter of my college roomie, I made this corduroy skirt (I'm planning to make Gemma one for next year too - it's too cute!):

For my mom, a bed pocket and travel jewelry roll (both by request):

 For my sister, a bed pocket (by request) - I tried to match the colors of her dorm room:

And for my sister's birthday, I made her a new case for her Kindle:

 

And then because I wanted a new Kindle case too, I made this one for me:

Now that Christmas is over, I will be hard at work sewing stuff for the arrival of the baby boy in April. 

The 12+ Days of Christmas

I titled this post as such because I really felt like our Christmas ended up spanning more than 12 days this year.  I will try to keep the recap as brief as possible (but hey, I'm a writer by profession, so "brief" for me is relative).

On the 22nd, we left this beautiful, festive house behind...

...and drove up to my parents' house in Ellerbe, NC.  That was the first half of our trip.  We got smart this time though and invested in a DVD player for our car.  I don't know why we didn't think of this before - Gemma was glued to the screen the whole time and didn't even seem to notice or care that we were in the car for about 20 hours over the course of about 5 days.  (We are pretty sick of listening to Baby Mozart and Baby Beethoven by this point, but hey, it was better than listening to a crying 1 and a half year old.)  The evening after we arrived in Ellerbe, my parents were nice enough to babysit Gemma so that Cy and I could go out on a double-date with Rachel and David.  We had a delicious meal at Olive Garden and then very much enjoyed the new Sherlock Holmes movie.  And then the next morning, it was back in the car for 4 more house until we arrived in Bedford, Virginia, at my grandparents' house.  (Gemma also suddenly developed a horrible stomach bug while we traveling of course but I will not get into that.)

We spent Christmas Eve at my Uncle Jeff's house near Smith Mountain Lake.  Uncle Jeff and Aunt Carolyn were super thoughtful and had rounded up tons of stuffed animals and musical toys for Gemma to play with.  We ate the traditional Bradshaw Family Christmas Eve meal of ham and Marilee cheesy potatoes, then played some traditional Bradshaw Family Games (a "Wright Family Christmas" and our white elephant gift exchange), then exchanged some real presents.  By the end of the evening, Gemma was exhausted.  But she looked so cute in her little candy cane dress (I didn't make this one; my mom did):

We drove back to my grandparents' house and hurried to bed so Santa could come (I think Rachel was the most excited about this).  The next morning, the living room was crammed with presents.  Daddy helped Gemma open hers, and thought she was most excited about his M&M light saber (she learned to say the word "light" that day), she did pretty well opening presents and was very excited about her new slippers and her new pink Converse shoes. 

We spent the afternoon at Uncle Jeff's again, where we enjoyed some stuffed pasta shells and salad and some more time with family. 

Since we didn't know anything about any of the churches in the area (and the nursery situations), we didn't go to church on Christmas.  We are planning to spend Christmas in Charleston next year (since we will have two small children) and hopefully we can focus more on the birth of Christ instead of just rushing around frantically like we did this year. 

We headed back to Ellerbe the day after Christmas.  We debated driving straight through to Charleston because we were ready to be home, but decided to give Gemma a break from the car.  We should have just gone for it, because she refused to go to sleep that night (and this was not our first bad night during the trip), so we ended up just packing up the car around 9 pm and heading out.  We got home at 1 am, climbed into our own, and those next 5-6 hours were the best sleep any of us had had in about 5 days.

A couple days later, Nana and Pops drove down and it was time for Christmas with the Shealys.  (See what I mean about this 12+ days thing?)  We had takeout from California Dreaming and opened presents at Wes and Kelly's house.  My favorite part was giving Noah the giant Angry Bird we'd gotten him.  He insisted that everyone call it a "fat" Angry Bird and he seemed very excited about it:

Nana and Pops gave Gemma and Liam each a Cozy Coupe car.  It only had about a gazillion pieces, but we eventually got it put together and Gemma has enjoyed cruising around the house in it, scratching up our hardwood floors. 

While Nana and Pops were here, they stayed with Gemma and let us go see ANOTHER MOVIE!  We couldn't believe it - we normally see about 1 or 2 movies a year, and here we were, seeing 2 in one week.  Crazy!  We went to see the new Mission Impossible movie.  It was pretty fantastic.  Then Nana and Pops went back home and we kicked off the new year with all of us getting sick with a head cold.  Welcome to 2012. 

Okay, so I wasn't exactly "brief," but a lot of this post was cute pictures of Gemma, so that's okay, right?  And because she's so cute, here are just a couple more (I did a very chaotic photo shoot with her in her Christmas dress trying to get a good picture for all the grandparents):

 

Okay, I'm for real done now.  So Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Shealy family!  We are so excited about 2012 because in just three more months we will get to meet our baby boy!

Best Reads of 2011

I know I still need to post about Christmas, and I will, but that post will take longer, so for now: books!

Since I read between 100-200 books a year on average (although oddly enough, the number has been significantly lower the past two years since I've become a mom), I just picked a few of my favorites that I read in 2011.  Most of them are of course YA fiction and out of the list below, three books really jumped out as my top three:

1. Across the Universe by Beth Revis (only 7 more days until book 2 releases - I am SO excited!) For me, this book pretty much had it all: space travel, dystopian society, teen romance. I LOVE this book.
2. Delirium by Lauren Oliver (sequel in February!)
3. Matched by Ally Condie (the sequel, Crossed was good too, but I still liked Matched better)

And in no particular order, these books were also very good:
The Girl in the Gatehouse by Julie Klassen
City of the Dead by T. L. Higley
The Orchid Affair by Lauren Willig
The Trylle Trilogy by Amanda Hocking
Her Royal Spyness (Lady Georgiana) series by Rhys Bowen
Dark Road to Darjeeling by Deanna Raybourn
Dangerous to Know and A Crimson Warning by Tasha Alexander
The Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters - A Victorian-era female Egyptologist as the heroine? Yes please!  I also love the subtle humor of these books.
Matched and Crossed by Ally Condie
Virtue by Amanda Hocking
The Girl Who Chased the Moon and the Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen
The House on Tradd Street, The Girl on Legare Street, and The Strangers on Montagu Street by Karen White (also On Folly Beach by Karen White)
Bloodlines by Richelle Mead - I am so glad that Richelle Mead decided to continue the world of Vampire Academy through this awesome spin-off series!
Wither by Lauren DeStefano
The Maze Runner by James Dashner
The Declaration, The Resistance, and The Legacy by Gemma Malley
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
Enclave by Ann Aguirre

Worst/Most Disappointing Reads of 2011:
Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult - I think I am done with Jodi Picoult at this point - her books are more propaganda than plot these days
Beautiful Chaos by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl- this book wasn't bad, but it was just so weird and random that I was disappointed by it
The Scorpio Trials and The Death Cure by James Dashner - (see previous post on this)
The Returners by Gemma Malley - I loved her other books, but this really bored me.  And the ending wasn't great.
Blood Red Road by Moira Young - I wrote a review of this that I still need to publish.  This book got a lot of hype, but I just didn't love it.  I liked the folksy feel of the first half but after that it just got kind of weird and I wasn't feeling it.  Also I found the narrative style more distracting than anything.
The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian - I normally love Chris Bohjalian, and I was intrigued by the premise of this book so I kept reading, but the horrible ending completely ruined this book for me.
Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel - I'm not really a fan of zombies, but I read a sample of this book on my Kindle and thought it was really cool.  Unfortunately, the first few chapters are the best - after that, the book just felt really slow and I had to struggle to finish it.  I won't be reading the sequel.

And one more thought: I picked a fabulous book as my first read for the year.  Just before we went on our road trip for Christmas, I sampled 5 books on my Kindle: When She Woke by Hillary Jordan, The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, Dearly Departed by Lia Habel, Enclave by Ann Aguirre, and Divergent by Veronica Roth.  Based on the samples, I chose the first 3 for my road trip.  I wasn't that into the other two by the ends of the samples.  I did eventually read the last 2 also, and ironically, they were the better books - they just got off to a slower start.  Divergent had been my least favorite of the samples, but I had heard tons of good stuff about it, so I decided to give it a try.  And I'm so glad I did.  I could not put this book down.  It was amazing.  Although I'm pretty sure that by setting the bar so high on my first read of the year, most of the rest of my reads are going to be disappointing.