Tuesday's Doctor Visit

Tuesday I had a doctor visit-a pretty boring one consisting of nothing really too exciting, but yet another time to listen to Nora's heart beat and see how I'm doing. At this point I'm 25 1/2 weeks along and feeling good. I've started to take naps again-something I haven't been doing for the past 6 weeks, but I'm not sure if DST has anything to do with that or not. I'm feeling the stretch in my belly and sometimes the pressure is unbearable, but I'm trying (hard) not to be a wimp (even though I know I am) about it yet because it's only going to get worse as I move into the 3rd trimester.

Lately, chocolate, candy or cookies have been my cravings and they are all hard to avoid eating too much of. Outside of last night (I think I was just excited about going to the doctor and Thanksgiving tomorrow), I'm still sleeping OK at night-just wishing I could lay on my back/stomach and it would be comfortable, but for now tossing from side to side will have to do. For the past 2 weeks, Nora has been kicking like its her job to get out soon! I've heard this continues until around week 28 and then the baby still kicks, but there isn't enough room for major moving.

So, about today's visit: Nora's heart rate was 150 bpm, my blood pressure was 120/62 and I'm up to ~16 pounds at this point. Next visit comes in 3 weeks (28 weeks) and the infamous glucose testing-yum!- looking forward to that flat orange pop. Ultrasound, as mentioned from the doctor visit before, is now going to be at 32-34 weeks so in ~8 weeks to see if the placenta has moved.

On that note, here's the belly progress so far at 25 1/2 weeks:

We have a name!

After hours of thinking about the perfect name-I think we both already had our minds made up a long time ago! Baby Girl Standeford can now be known as Nora Sue! We sat down and thought of every possible thing that could be bad about the name- and couldnt think of one that bothered us. In fact the only thing we could think of was "nora nora bo bora banana nana bo bora, etc.." you get the point! Kids did that with my name-it didnt go well, but they still did it!

We knew we wanted a short name since our last name is sooo long S-T-A-N-D-E-F-O-R-D, that's right, 10 letters! I know you counted them :) And, we wanted a sweet, precious, girly name that wasn't overly used and I think we found it.

Jake's Grandma's middle name was Sue-thats where we came up with it, and again short and sweet. N.S.S. (her initials) don't stand for anything we could think of and since deciding on her name we have been so at ease calling her by her name.

We are excited to see what she will look like and whose personality she is going to have-too much to look forward too! However, we are very much taking advantage of being kid-less for the next few months by sleeping in, going out to eat or out at all, and working on things we want to do since we both know lots are going to change when Nora comes.

On another note: I wanted to spell out her name for decoration in the nursery, but didnt like any of the harsh, 90 degree angle wooden or cardboard letters at any of the craft stores so I came up with my own idea.

I first started out by printing 'nora' in lower case letters in the font I liked-not a stiff, block font. Then I carbon copied the letters to 8x8 in. painting canvases.

Then I painted the letters with black paint-that has a slight shimmer in it. Glued and stapled ribbon to hang the letters from and shaded the corners and here is the finished product!

The canvases were on sale at Jo-Anns for 50% off, the ribbon for the entire spool was $2.00 and the paint I already had so it was a nice, cheap project (thanks to her short name!). Lately, it has put me in the crafty mood so I've been trying to come up with other projects to keep me busy when I'm bored.

Making Progress with the Nursery!

Away with the blue! Friday I taped off the nursery in hopes to get the painting finished soon, Saturday I patched all the holes that were there from the previous owners (they had a baby boy-obviously) and the ones we made too, and Sunday I sanded and then Jake primed the room. Pheww....that was a lot of work-well for him, not me, but still. Here's part of the room before:

Last night Jake painted the cream/beige/whatever color it is, but it needs a second coat-darn that blue! Good thing is we bought a gallon and since we have the bead board up-he only used 1/4 of it so we have plenty, bad news is its another 90 minutes of painting for him. But it looks so much better with just that different touch. I'm excited to see the entire nursery come together!

Here is the dresser I was talking about-isnt it cute? Perfect and distressed, black, tall, wide, long...everything I was looking for!

And I just love the mirror that goes on it! Thanks again to Jake for going to a "bad neighborhood" (38th street-didnt end up being as bad as he thought) to get it for me on a whim! I can just picture the changing pad and basket full of diapers ready to go on it, can't you?

Oh yeah, one more thing....right before I uploaded these pictures, the door bell rang and I jumped up-knowing that it was the crib-ran to the door and it was sitting up against the house! Exciting, except its raining, cold, and the crib is not light. So as the UPS man drove away I was stuck thinking of what to do with it! I ran to the garage and pulled out a tarp-and there it will sit until my buff hubster gets home to bring it in. Side note: I actually tried to lift it. Which is only funny if you can picture the shape and akward lift I would have to do to get it in the house...I guess that's the next project!

And.....Its DONE for!

Remember the "ropie" we were so happy Jersey started chewing, playing with, etc...well, its seen better days! I pulled it out of her cage and the head was dangling by a thread. Then when I held it up for a picture she came running and jumped to grab it from me so here it is in pieces. Guess that's what she'll be getting in her stocking this year.

Jake and I-so happy (that shes a dog), but so confused that it happend in 1 day! Look at her thinking-what are you doing with my toy?

Dead ropie, now hoarded in her cage with her other toys-she's got her entire toy collection in there I guess in case she gets bored.

Oh yeah, those are Christmas decorations. We put the tree up today!! We usually dont until the weekend after Thanksgiving, but with 2 family functions & Black Friday I'm usually too tired to do it so I convinced Jake to let us put it up today :)