The arrival of AJ

Early labor started during a staff meeting at work on Monday Evening, I was getting short sharp stabbing pains in my back, which slowly worked their way to the front over the next couple of days. By Wednesday morning they had gotten very intense, so we decided to head into the Ob’s to get checked out. I was only at a 1 so they sent me home and said to come back at my normal appointment time, where we underwent a NST.

Fast forward to Feb 3^rd the consistent time able contractions over the past 3 weeks suddenly increased in pain level but got further apart, so we decided to just wait it out a little and relax to see if they came back down. I took a shower and took my blood pressure which had shot up to the high 150/90’s so we decided now was the time to go into L&D. When we got to L&D I was at a 4 but close to 5 so they decided to admit me and get me all hooked up to the IV’s and ready to get an epidural. Within an hour of being admitted I was at a 6 and the OB broke my water all in time to have the epidural placed. This is where I stalled out for 3 hours before getting hooked up to a very low dose of pitocin to help get things moving again. I was admitted around 7pm and was ready to push just before 2am, as a first time mum I was expecting to be pushing for around 2 hours if not longer and was very surprised to welcome our son Alexander James at 2:59am on Feb 4^th 2013 a week before his due date. I wasn’t able to hold him right away as he needed additional oxygen just like mummy did while I was pushing as he didn’t give much more than a little moan and had fluid on him lungs. Other then the oxygen he was in perfect health and was breast feeding within the hour.

He is such a happy and content baby and we are truly blessed to have been able to welcome him into our family. My recovery has been very fast, with a bit of cramping and slight pain from tearing, but it’s all worth it and am so glad I have my mum here.

Face time with my English nanny

After they took me of Oxygen

Mummy and AJ

Baby AJ

After Bath time

7lb15, 20inches long

And then there were 3

And the nursery is done :)

So I have come to realize that I am not very good at this whole blog thing especially when you work 7 days a week. Then when I am at home and not cleaning or decorating I am sleeping, oh the joys of pregnancy.

I am now 33 weeks along and we have completely finished the nursery for baby A. when I think about it, Its the only finished room in the house.

This is the only before photo from when we moved in:

Even though the walls were white, the room always felt very dark and was used as a junk room while we decorated other rooms in the house. Well baby A wasn't expected this soon, so we skipped doing the master bedroom and went straight to this room, Now the junk is scattered all over the house but we have an awesome place to bring baby home to.

view from the door

As I seem to pick out all the other colours, I thought it would be nice to let daddy pick out the wall colour and I think he did a great job. It makes the room feel so much bigger.

We had new windows installed

The crib, my mum gifted to us

all ready for baby

The letters are wooden ones from hobby lobby that we sprayed.

The family area.

View from the window.

The Mirror is just on of those cheap door ones from Target, which I took out of its frame and made a newer thicker one, I also had a friend make the shipping pallet shelve.  I also wanted the room to grow with the baby so didn't get a changing table and the clock is from when I was little.

I hope you like it as much as we do.

Mason Jar Lamp

So the pinterest bug has hit me :) I saw this awesome Jar lamp that I loved here so just had to give it ago myself. Boy was I not disappointed. I took an Old blue Ball Mason Jar with zinc lid, a lamp kits for Lowes, some spray paint and a lamp shade then just put it all together to come up with this.

I need to figure out what I wanna do to the shade, I have a few ideas, so far I am so in love with this. Next to come is a mirror overhaul :)

Happy Wednesday Everyone

Getting busy

Well its been a busy few weeks, since I last posted but I wanted to share with you a couple of the projects I have been putting together.

The first was a wedding present for a fellow Girl Scout and second was putting together a focal point for a huge blank wall for our loving room that was driving me crazy.

So the wedding present was a pinterest project just slightly modified found here i brought a plate from a local discount store, wrote on it with sharpie and covered it in tissue paper and modge podge so the sharpie didn't just rub off.

The focal point used the family transfer as the starting point, but I didn't want to just put it on the wall and waste the $30.00 i spent of it so in comes a friend to the recuse and gave me an old window i really loved. I took two planks of wood and painted them white added them to the window, using metel brackets and wood screws and placed the transfer on the wood. Adding hanging bars to the back and wire across the window for more photos and i was ready to hang.

I then took two fence posts, cut them down to create 3 shelves. sanded, painted and polyed them before attaching them using L brackets above. I think they create a perfect balance to the photos as well as more depth. I haven't fingered what to add to the final shelve yet but I doubt it will take long to fill up, esp with my growing collection of willow tree. 

So let me know what you think.

New freedom :)

So I finally saved up enough to go buy this baby :)

Its a 2006 Jeep liberty :) and I love it. I never thought I would buy an SUV but loved the drive and price of this so we snapped it up. Me and Alex now no longer have to share cars, which will help a lot esp with our work and all my girl scout and church stuff. We still have to make payments on it but they aren't to bad and we have been able to work it into our budget nicely. To start with we were going to just buy a cheap worn out one for a few grand but after looking around and not finding anything decent enough we decided to get something a bit more, but should last a lot long esp as we did give in an buy the warranty and gap insurance :)

Happy Driving

Guest room pre floors and windows, as well as bathroom demo

Who ever said you should finish one job before starting the next job never met me :) today's post will show you the progress on our guest room as well as the first stages of our next house project.

Guest Room Before

Don't you just love the green and brown...I didn't hence why I didn't even wait a week after moving in before I started working on it. Firstly I filled all the holes with the pink to white Spackle stuff then sanded all the wood work before I set to work on the painting. This were slow because I have messed up my SI joint so it took about a month before I was able to get to this stage.

 We went for 2 walls blue and 2 wall toast...It took me about 6 trips to Lowes and Home depot before I finally found the blue tone I was happy with. Notice the nightstand that was given to us for nothing and with a bit of paint its turned out great (still have to put the finish coat on it)

This will eventually hold all my craft stuff, but before that its needs refinishing. It will be white, with blue on the inside where the glass is and I have some old rafters that I am going to cut down and use for feet to get it up for the ground. Also you can see the window need some work, we are currently having all of them through out the house replaced so will get to them later.

 This was one of my fav projects of the room, we have an old picket fence in our shed so I took some of the pickets and hammered the nails out, cleaned them up and used some corner supports to mount them to the wall. Each shelve cost me a total on $2 for the corner supports.

One of my summer camps closed down a few years ago so I made the mount and framed the bandana, ashes, camp dirt and a couple of photos. I love how it has turned out and now it will always remind me of the great summers I spent at Camp Kate Portwood.

Project 2

The bathroom went from this

To this

All because I hated the tile, and it had to go, little did I know that I was going to find 2 layers of drywall, laminate tile and a tonne of Mold. Hence now its become a full renovation but I don't mind because if I am going to spend money on it then I am going to do it right.

I still have a dry wall to remove but the tile is gone and I have sprayed bleach on the wood you can right now to kill of any more mold. That window is the whole reason we decided to redo all of our windows.

Keep looking back to see how its going.

Oh and we decided on refinishing the hardwood floors we all ready have :)

To do list!!

This is why I should not be allowed to spend to much time in doors...I create huge to do lists.

Right now on my to do list includes;

• Finish gutting the bathroom - we have mold so all the drywall and installation around the bath tub needs replacing, plus i hated the tile on there.
• Sand and re-seal all the Hardwood floors through out the house
• Refinish craft closet and add legs
• Hang shelves in guest room
• Clean up the front and side flower beds
• Clean and organize pantry 
• Make TV shelves for living room
• Seal dresser for guest room
• Finish touch ups in guest bedroom
• Start ideas board for what will become the nursery 
• Turn king size shams into standard size
• Order new pool pump.
• Work on the gallery wall for the living room

I'm sure this isn't everything that i need to get done, but if I can get most of it done in the next month or at least all the bedroom stuff then I'll be happy. My deadline in June 23rd as that will be our house warming party :)

Now I will close in Thanking all those out there who have or who are serving in the military for everything that have given us.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend
Jenine