Updates from my phone

I have been taking a lot of random pictures with my phone recently of what we have been doing.. so I decided to share them with you today!

However.. before I do, I have exciting news!  This weekend three of my best friends from college are coming in to spend the weekend!! I am so excited to see them.  We are going to be spending a night in the city too so we're *hoping* for good weather.  I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend as well!

The beginning of the nesting stages

Dan was very patient with me :)

After we got the furniture moved around!

Now the baby has a little corner to him/ herself

Michael stopped by to visit! So great to see him!

A new Yogurt place opened up in Arlington Heights.  This may have to be a tradition after our birth classes...

My brother and sister in law got us a pack n play! And we successfully figured out how to put it together!

Can you guess where Dan and I went last Friday?  And yes, Ikea always overwhelms me.  No purchase made yet.. however maybe in the near future...

Sneak Preview of my baby shower this past weekend!

I completely reorganized our closet on my day off... and put in the new closet organization that we got :) As you can see baby clothes are washed and ready to go!

However... we still have some work to do with the rest of our bedroom...

I also put up the poms that Becca made for my shower! So excited that I have some decorations up for the baby's "corner/ nursery"

The Yawn

A couple times now I have mentioned this yawn that our baby did during the 30 week ultrasound.  I was so taken back and excited that we got to witness our baby do something like that.  Even though I know I have a baby growing in me, to actually know that it is yawning and doing "humanlike" things still amazes me.  However, then I had a wonderful and horrible realization all at once: I am going to be one of those parents who ooh's and aww's over every small milestone their child reaches.   

So, why not start now when our baby is still in the womb?  Dan spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get this clip together and I so appreciate all his hard work...so, here it is!  Hopefully you can tell what everything is... if you can't figure it out let me know and I can give further details :) (For starters, the head is on the right)

My Weaknesses

"Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Recently I've been thinking about the above verse.  Paul says that if he is going to boast at all, it will be in his weaknesses. (2 Corinthians 11:30)  Doesn't that seem crazy?  Who boasts in the areas they are weak in?  To me that's like putting up a super ugly picture of yourself on Facebook.  Or when catching up with a friend telling them about all the failures you've experienced in the past year.  I'm not sure about you, but that's not usually the first thing I bring up in a conversation.


A definition of boasting is to "Talk with excessive pride and self-satisfaction about one's achievements, possessions, or abilities."  Paul completely flips this definition upside down.  He does the total opposite, boasting in areas he is not good at, that he has failed, and where he can't do it on his own.

I am most likely going to go through situations that not only make me feel weak and helpless, but also make me appear weak as well.  Paul mentions that he was insulted, experienced persecution, hardship, and difficulties.  That's kind of a hard pill to swallow.  I don't want to appear weak, I want to appear like I have it all together.  I have mistakenly thought that maybe if people see that my life is put together, they will want to be a Christian because they will see how great I am making it look.  Oh, the lies I believe.  Claiming to be a Christian means the exact opposite- I have nothing together and daily need to rely on God.

I think it's good to note also here that that Paul's discussion of weakness is not centered on sin because Romans 6:12 tells us to put sin to death.  We are not to be ok with sin.  But we are to be content, even boast as Paul does, in the moments we feel weak. 

Why?  Because that is when God is most glorified because His power rests on me.  That is when I am humbled, having admitted that I need God's help and surrendered to my own abilities.

As Christians, we're pretty much guaranteed to be weak.  In 1 Corinthians 1 we are told that when we were called, we weren't wise, powerful, or noble.  God specifically chose the foolish, the weak, the low, the despised of this world to shame the strong SO THAT we would boast in God.  God didn't pick us to be a light in this world because we were awesome.  In fact we were the complete opposite.

Really the whole story of the Bible is about being weak.  We're not good enough.  We're sinful.  God had to send his Son to die to take away our sins.  We can't do it on our own.  I'm too weak.  This circumstance is too difficult for me to handle alone.

Yet I need to learn that that's when I am in the BEST place.  The perfect place, really.  Because I'm not rejoicing in my perfect checklist that I acomplished for the day, or the way my life plans are prefectly coming together, or basically, how self sufficient I am.  Most likely I'm a little terrified, feel inadequate, very unsure, and totally relient on God.  

If you want to hear a great story about a couple who boasts in their weaknesses, you should read this :)  

35 Weeks

We are *almost* at the 9 month mark; only one more week to go! I hoped to post at 34 weeks, but it seems like time slips away from me so here we are at 35 weeks.  

Overall, I am doing very good.  I'm definitely feeling the occasional back pain and swelling in my feet, however the most pain related to pregnancy these past two weeks have been with the leg cramps.  I have woken up with them multiple times in the middle of the night.  Dan was so sweet the other night because he could tell I was up and trying to stop one so he asked if me if I wanted him to try to rub it out.  However, usually within 5 minutes they are gone, so that is really nice :) Honestly, I feel bad for this baby.  I can tell it is pretty close quarters in my stomach right now- I can't imagine what it feels like to be cramped in there and we still have a month to go!  

Other than that fun leg cramp update we are doing well!  I am slowly starting to make a list of all the last minute things we need to get to prepare for this little one! Right now the baby is about 20 inches long and about 5.5 pounds! This past week we took a tour of the labor and delivery rooms in the hospital and it was so fun because we got to see a baby who was just born!  It is surreal to think that in a couple weeks we will be in one of those rooms and our baby will be laying next to us.  The other day I told Dan to feel my stomach because you could definitely tell the baby was pushed to my right side, and he got this frustrated look on his face and said, "I just want him or her to come out!  I am tired of feeling it through your stomach!"  haha that makes two of us.  We just cannot wait to meet this little guy/ girl!  

My husband's theory

So there is this running joke in our group of friends based off of something Dan said a couple months ago.  Right when we got pregnant, Dan told everyone how he believed that the first born child always looks like the dad.  I look like my dad, Dan looks like his dad (it's crazy how much he looks like his dad actually...) and since he knows a couple other people who look like their dads (and are first born) his theory emerged.  Well, because of the joking nature of our friends, this has been blown out of proportion and they make fun of him every chance he gets for his theory.  And they try to point out the second they think they have proof that his theory is ruined (aka a baby looks more like the mom). 

Naturally then, when we were in Texas, I asked Dan's parents to get out some baby pictures of Dan, because if this baby is going to look like him, I kind of wanted a sneak preview of some new born/ baby pictures :)  I've seen baby pictures of him, but it honestly was almost 4 years ago at our wedding so it's been a while.

We had SO much fun looking through all of the pictures!  And, what is really odd is how different Dan looks from birth to around 5 months.  He honestly looks like a totally different kid.  He went from having dark, almost curly hair, to completely blond.  While Dan tends to joke that he wasn't the cutest baby out of the womb, his mom insists that he was so cute, he just had a nose that was a little flat :)

Whether our child looks like Dan or I, I am sure we are going to be totally in love and smitten and think that he/ she is the cutest thing.  I'm fine if after we post 500 pictures on this blog/ facebook you want to talk about us behind our back about how alienish our baby looks, because I am sure we will be totally blind to any of that anyway.

So, here are some pictures of Dan when he was a baby.  I will definitely be posting some of me later and then we can compare in a couple weeks!

I hope I look as good as Dan's mom did after birth!

So sweet :) Dan and his dad

Bringing Dan home!

Hellloo cheeks.

Love this one.

Such a great picture :)

Getting more blond...

totally blond!

Cute sibling shot!  Dan is on the top left

so cute!

I love this shot- I'm sad it's a little dark!

TIU baby shower

This past weekend my wonderful co workers threw Dan and I a baby shower!  They used yellow and green as a decorating theme (which worked out so well- lemon bars, guacamole, pineapple and grapes- the food was really good!).  They also planned a baby trivia game which Dan ended up winning (just another point to prove that he's SO ready to be a dad lol - knowing answers to questions like "Who named their baby Phinnaeus" has got to mean that, right?).  And then we opened gifts.  They were all very generous and we felt so loved and encouraged by the effort they put into making us feel special!  Here are some pictures :)

mmm food.

I drank probably a whole pitcher of this water.  Why does fruit make it taste so much better?!

gifts!

Jordan holding Clara :)

Opening gifts!

Dan looking at the cute onesies :)

Yes my co workers are awesome and they gave me coconut M&M's :)

I have heard so many good things about the Aden and Anais swaddle blankets! Excited to use them!

Ashley commented how taking pictures was difficult because I kept moving so this is me stopping for her to get an "action shot"  She did a GREAT job taking pictures!!

Hello belly.

My wonderful co workers!

Ashley with Caleb :)

Krystal and Jordan!

Jacqui and Jordan!

My boss' adorable baby girl :)

Time to eat!

The nesting has begun

The nesting stage has definitely begun in the Cinadr apartment.  I was starting to think this whole "nesting phase" was a scam.  I haven't really had a chance to clean, let alone a desire to clean and organize.  However yesterday I had some time to go through some of the baby items we have gotten and I started to think about what we still need to buy in preparation for his / her arrival, and then it hit me pretty hard... an incredible urge to move all our furniture in our bedroom to make room for the baby.  Before I knew it I was on Pinterest and baby websites looking up ideas for nurseries in small spaces and I found some really helpful ideas (which I will share below :)

And, can I just say how amazing my husband is?  He woke up yesterday at 6:30 to make it to church and apparently slept on his shoulder wrong because he was really struggling lifting anything, and he still spent 2 hours moving around furniture in our bedroom to help prepare for the baby.  I love him so much :)

Ok, so here are some pictures I found of actual nursuries in a bedroom- what we will be doing for the first few months until we move out.

via

via

Here are some additional ideas I found from here and other random websites on line about decorating a small space:

1. Use baskets!  For diapers, blankets, wipes, anything!  They even recommended buying a large one and keeping it in the living room or family room to store extra baby blankets/ additional baby items (diapers, toys, etc) that you don't use on a regular basis. I like the idea of possibly using them and then labeling them with a label and a ribbon like this here.
2. Closet Organizers.  Thankfully a friend in my small group got me one already so my next step is totally reorganizing our closet to make room for this baby!  Hopefully I get to that this week!



via

3. Hanging shoe holder.  We will be getting one of these to put on the door of our bedroom to create some extra storage for shoes and other small baby items.
4. Use the space under the bed.  Unfortunately, we already thought of that so it is filled :/ 
5. Many people recommend turning your closet into a nursery.  However, if you are like us and store EVERYTHING you own in your closet, it doesn't make sense to do that :)  Some of them were cute though!
6. Use your own dresser as a changing table.  Also, I am planning on cleaning out one of my dresser drawers to store baby items.  Lord willing, I can go without that space!
7. Put a rug in the area where your baby will be so it feels like a separate space for them. I like something like this.. we will see if we can find a cheap yellow one!  When we rearranged our room we kept this in mind so the crib has a separate little corner and we hope to put *most* of the baby items there.
8. Some people recommended buying a room divider because babies like to sleep in the dark.  I am not sure Dan and I are quite sold on that idea... we may try it later if we feel that we need it! 
9. We are definitely going to purchase a sound machine for our baby.  With the small quarters that we will be sharing, I really hope that we won't need to be tip toeing around everywhere when the baby is sleeping!
10. Lastly, we are looking into purchasing this (partially because it's gray so it will go with our yellow and gray theme!) but if we have some baskets we can store some extra blankets, onesies, and books on the shelves as well. 

As you can tell I found some really helpful ideas that definitely got me thinking and planning!  We are obviously hoping to do this as cheaply as we can, so wish us on luck on that, too :)  Here are some other fun small nursery spaces that I found inspirational. 

via

via

via

via

Hopefully I will be able to show you our little space when we have everything set up!