The end of 'before'

This is it; a day I thought would never come. Today is the last day that we will be able to do as we please, when we please, of sleeping in on the weekends, of eating meals uninterrupted, or of going out and not worrying about bed times. The last time we will leave our house as DINKS (double-income, no kids) - We will return as parents! How strange/wonderful a feeling knowing that this truly is one of the most important days of our lives.

We really hoped that Samantha would come on her own, but here we stand, 40w4d and she is no more ready to enter the world today than she was 3 weeks ago. She is still only 1cm dilated and I have had no more progression or signs towards labor. Our doctor will not let us go past 41 weeks, and with this being my first, I really wanted her to deliver the baby. She is of course not scheduled this weekend when Samantha would officially be 41 weeks, so tonight we go to the hospital. I just got a call from the doctors office letting me know that my original check in time of 6:30 this evening has been pushed back to 10:00, which is kind of better, so we don't spend all evening at the hospital. I will get my first dose of cervidil once settled and they will give me two more doses over the following 12 hours - the ultimate goal is that once I get the cervidil, 'natural' labor will then occur, however if not, I will be given Pitocin in the morning to start the induction process. If all goes well, we will be able to meet baby Samantha by tomorrow evening!!

I never thought I would say this, but we are so ready for this next step in our lives. To share our love with our child and to raise a family together. Its such a wonderful/scary/exciting feeling and I can't wait! Here is hoping/praying that all goes well and that the doctors on staff know what they are doing :)

Lookout world, we are almost parents!!

Random events throughout my pregnany

 Below is quite the assortment of photos over the last few months with our families.  

 

Also a quick recap of who is who when it comes to photos of my nieces and nephews:

My oldest brother Shannon and his wife Amie have Dominic (2.5 yrs) and Miranda (4 months). My other brother Adam and his wife Sarah have Lucas (3 yrs) and Eli (3 months). Stephens older brother and his wife Amy have Luke (almost 4) and Lane (2). Stephens younger brother and his wife Lisa have Jainy (15 months). He also has a younger sister Jennifer and a step sister Amy that you will see in photos. And yes, for those of you confused - Samantha will think all boys are Uncle Adam (one on each side) and all girls are Aunt Amie/Amy (3 Amies!)

 

My very first baby purchase - Stephen and I went down to our friends Chase and Jen Blevin's, who live in Bedford, because Jen was so amazing and gave me all kinds of maternity clothes! We of course had to pick up Mother Bears pizza and stop at the Bookstore to see what we could find at the ol' Alma mater.

 

 

My brothers and SIL's came down for a visit one last time before the 2nd round of siblings were born. I wish I would have gotten a picture of all the DeVon girls hanging out sober and pregnant as all our friends/family cooked out and played card games all night!  Dominic and Lucas were testing out bath time in our tub. (This was in April)

 

 

Shannon and Amie had Miranda in May, so on our way to visit, we made a pit stop at Wrigley Field. Its hard to tell in the picture, but it was a 'first time at the park' certificate for Samantha.

 

 

Miranda's first outing! A diner close to where Shannon and Amie live in Lockport.

 

 

Eli came next, this was our first time meeting him in June. Dominic and Lucas already look like proud older brothers!

 

Our good friends Chad and Rachael got married at Purdue at the end of June and to say it was a PARTY was an understatement!

Jainy and Aunt Jennifer share the same birthday - July 13th - matching shirts for the birthday festivities.

 

All of the Wiley women at Jainy's birthday party

 

Lane's 2nd birthday in August. Amy and Michael had his birthday at the park and it was a great day!

 The 3 Wiley cousins at the party.

 

Stephen and I working on the nursery this summer.

 

 

Mac had to get in on the action too. She is not quite sure what to think about all of this.  

 

Yep, my pregnant swollen feet - awesome. Haven't worn anything other than flip flops in a month...

 

We went to South Bend for Lucas's 3rd birthday at the end of September. It was our last trip before Samantha is born and was quite busy. We went to the ND game, went apple picking and celebrated Lucas's birthday.

 

Lucas being a good big brother to Eli.

 

ND vs Michigan State - we must have been good luck charms, they won!

Dominic loved picking apples and eating them!

 

This past weekend Adam and Lisa came home from Pittsburgh and we had some of Stephen's family over Saturday night so everybody could be together to see Jainy. This was our prom picture of all of the Wiley children/spouses/grandchildren with Grandpa Glenn.

 

 

The best we could do trying to get a 1, 2 and 3 year old to cooperate and take a picture together :)

 

And finally, just because you all know I am a crazy cat lady and don't want my first babies to feel left out once Samantha comes, a few pictures of Mac and Louis.

PS - I added my 38 week photo to the Growing Baby Bump post.

 

 

The Nursery

Our goal for the nursery was simple - Not too girly/baby and no painting. There were only 2 rooms in the house that we didn't have to paint; two of our guest rooms. One is grey and the other is the light lilac/purpley/grey. If we were having a boy, we would use the grey room, if we had a girl, the lilac room. It wasn't our first choice, but hey, we figured we would work with what we have. (The only problem is that we don't have the color/paint, so no touch-ups)

Below is our simple, not too overdone nursery. While I loved all of the great inspirations on Pinterest, I wanted to keep the cost down.

Before:

 

Your standard guest room.

 



After:

 We had a really cute bumper, but quickly learned that was a big N-O for newborns, so off it went. Stephen created the the Samantha sign with some trim, decorative corners and letters that we sanded and painted. Stephen's mom was sweet enough to buy us our crib for our baby shower present and we love it. Clean, simple and white (and convertible). We aren't sold on the paper lanterns, and might switch these out, but for now, they are staying.  

I wasn't looking for anything in particular when I found this cute Hedgehog picture at TJ Maxx Home Goods. I thought it was really cute/silly and had fun colors in it. I left without buying it, but realized that I really liked it and went back and bought it the next day. We didn't want all of our furniture to be matchy-matchy, or spend $1500+ on an entire nursery set, so our goal was to mix and match. We got the dresser from IKEA and it works great as a changing table, my only regret is not getting the bigger one!



I was going to make curtains for the nursery just to make it more 'special' but once I started looking at fabrics, I quickly realized the only ones that I liked were way to expensive, and it would be more cost effective to buy these cute pink and white striped ones. I was a little nervous they would give it a 'circus feel' but luckily they don't. Eventually our goal is to build a window seat under the window, but for now, the standard Target storage shelves will work. As I said, I didn't want it too 'girly', so we tried to incorporate some blues/browns/greens in where we could. Don't get me wrong, there is a whole lot of pink and lilac, but hey, she is a girl after all :)



 

Thanks to my mom for the glider- part of her gift to use for the baby shower! The pink blanket on the chair was actually mine from when I was a baby - my mom saved so many of my things from when I was a child, and I am really grateful for it!

 



 

Speaking of things from my childhood - the two ceramic cats on the left were two other things that I found in some of my childhood boxes. We found these and bought some spray paint, and 4 coats later - voila -  silly, cute, colorful cats :) The vase was a gift from the South Bend Baby shower - Molly and her mom had all the guests write 'wishes' or words of wisdom for Samantha, its the perfect touch in the corner.

 

 

This looks really random - but it is a small wall between the door and the closet. This was a mirror that I found and we decided it would be fun to spray paint in the same green as one of the cats (and the storage bins). While I wish the mirror was a little bigger, I wasn't willing to shell out for a large mirror, knowing it would be covered up a majority of the time.

 

 

 

And lastly; Samantha's closet - YIKES- The poor girl already has as much clutter/stuff as her mom! For not even being born yet, its amazing how much 'stuff' she has. Stephen's friends threw him a diaper party last weekend, and we are so grateful for all of our friends who contributed to this awesome diaper stash :) Look how cute all of the clothes hanging up are, its hard to believe that she will even fit into some of them, they are so tiny!

 

 

 

PS - I added my 36 week photo to the 'growing baby bump' blog post below. I am 38 weeks and 2 days - to say the anticipation is killing me is an understatement! We just can't wait to meet Samantha! 

A look back on my pregnancy journey

I am 35 weeks pregnant! I never thought I would get here. I know I still have 5 weeks (give or take) to go, but thought I would recap some of my thoughts about pregnancy here.

Pros:

• Knowing that we are creating and growing our 1st child together
• Discovering that Stephen gives the BEST foot massages
• The generosity of our friends/family - Everybody is wanting/willing to help out where they can. Whether it was donating maternity clothes (Thanks Erin and Jennifer), offering their children's clothes/gear/toys (Thanks Beth, Sarah and Amie), coming to a shower (Thanks everybody), or offering to help with day to day tasks - It has been amazing to see!
• Eating dessert more often
• Not needing an excuse to NOT run :)
• Not spending money on shopping
• Bigger Boobs!

Cons:

• Sleep! I haven't been able to sleep through the night in 20 weeks. I know that everybody says 'get used to it'. However my hope is that once Samantha comes, I won't be in pain anymore, therefore, when I am able to sleep a few hours in between feedings, they will be solid/uninterrupted.
• CONSTANT peeing. I mean seriously - like every 1-2 hours.
• Expensive maternity clothes - you know I love a good deal, and let me tell you, there are NO good deals to be had when it comes to maternity clothes. They know that they can charge an outrageous amount and you have no choice but to fork it over.
• Not being able to buy new shoes - I really wanted some new fall boots a few weeks ago, so I went and tried some on. Not a good idea. Actually, like one of my worst ideas since being pregnant, so depressing.
• With that being said - swollen feet. I don't know what pregnant women in the winter do, none of my shoes fit. Thank goodness for flip flops.
• My patience is gone - I no longer have tolerance for stupidity or excuses. Its hard to be at work and bite my tongue....
• No wine
• No deli sandwiches (I pretty much lived on turkey sandwiches for the majority of my life)

Typical Pregnancy Symptoms - what I did and did not experience:

• Morning Sickness: I would get queasy and feel 'hung over' every evening in the first trimester, but only actually got sick one time.
• Loss of appetite: I definitely experienced this in the first trimester - nothing sounded good, (especially meat!) I lived on cereal and peanut butter and jelly. Stephen had to fend for himself because I never wanted to cook, I ended up losing about 7 lbs during that first few months.
• Cravings - Not really. I have been eating a lot of fruit, and more dessert than normal, but nothing that I 'need' to have.
• Being overly emotional: I think something is wrong with me - I am just not an emotional person. Some women complain about crying at the drop of the hat, overreacting, getting mad easily, etc - but I have been pretty normal (I think) through the entire pregnancy. Although, as I said earlier, my patience is gone now, but that's not really an emotional thing.
• Nesting: I am not sure I would call it 'nesting'. Yes, I have wanted the nursery to be complete, but its more of a taking it day by day thing. I have never had a huge urge to clean the house, as many of you know :) I do what needs to be done and clean about every other week or so. However anytime I ask Stephen to complete something in the house or nursery, he says "its your nesting..." No, I just want it done! :)
• Insomnia/Backaches/heartburn/charlie horses: Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes. ugggg.
• Stretch marks: not yet, but I still have 5 weeks to go - most people say that theirs happened in the last few weeks, so this could change, but so far, so good.
• Pregnancy Brain: Nope, not yet

Kitchen redo

The kitchen has been our labor of love. It was the thing I hated most about the house and wanted changed asap. I know this sounds bratty, as there was nothing 'wrong' with the kitchen, but you can blame my mom and dad for spoiling me with new, updated kitchens (OK, houses) throughout my childhood! We knew that this was going to be our biggest cost of any of the projects that we had planned for phase 1, so just like with the carpet, we held some of our down payment back so we could afford to make these changes without going into debt or being broke.


Before:

SO MUCH OAK, and laminate, and white, and 'custom' valances and futuristic light fixtures...

First things first - new appliances. Now even though this was extremely important because the previous owners took the fridge with them and pretty much told us the dishwasher was crap, this wasn't something we wanted to spend money on. We just did it 3 years ago in our first house! Not good planning on our part. Luckily my Sister in law Sarah works at Whirlpool and she was nice enough to help us out with a discount!

Next came the paint. We wanted a light grey in here to coordinate with the darker grey of the family room.

Then a very important DeVon Custom Home feature if you have ever been in any of my families previous houses - a cat hole :) That way we can keep the basement door shut, but the cats can still go up and down the stairs to do their business in peace - a win-win.

 

Next was the big undertaking - sanding, priming and painting the 1001 cabinet drawers and doors. We had to do it in stages as there wasn't enough room for them all at once.

 

 

It was at about this time that we found out that I was pregnant - therefore I was able to put down the paint brush! Poor Stephen had to power through the bottom half without me, darn :)  

 

While we were re-doing the cabinets, our friend Chad was also working on our new concrete counter tops. So not only did our kitchen not have doors for a while, it was also missing counters at the same time, there was lots of take out and PB&J during these few weeks.

After the counters were installed and we FINALLY finished the cabinets, the back splash was next.

 

With our friends recommendation, we didn't use mortar, instead we used a peal and stick adhesive to hold the back splash in place. It was a little more expensive than mortar, however with the new counter tops, we wanted to be extra careful that nothing got on them.

After that - we were in the home stretch - we just needed install the hardware (they didn't have any on the cabinets before which left for very greasy corners), change out the sink, install the new faucet, and switch out our light fixtures. Not that there was anything terribly wrong with the others, but the very modern look just didn't fit with the house.

After:

 

 

So much better!!

 

A few things still to do:

1. Put the crown molding back up above the cabinets

2. Window Treatments

3. Replace the floors

Main Floor - Phase 1

Below was the next step in our house update after we did the upstairs updates. This meant paint, paint, and more paint!


Living room:

First things first, the 'custom' valances that the previous owners were kind enough to leave, the moss green blinds and the black media wall and mantel needed to go:

 Before:

During:

Two things we quickly found out - after painting the entire room this 'grey' color, we soon realized that it was the complete wrong shade of grey, it was way too purple. Second - the green blinds were even worse when they didn't match the green walls. EEK.

 

So after we re-painted the entire room, and replaced all the blinds (along with all the blinds in the house, as they were nice enough to custom match all rooms with their blinds) We both felt much better.

 

After:

 

 

 We had done the stencil in the half bath a few weeks before, and really liked it. I knew I wanted to try it in the same color but different finish on the media wall, so Stephen surprised me when I was on a work trip and finished this feature wall before I got home!

 

Ahh, no more black and moss green. So much lighter.

 

 

We still have a few small things to do in here:

1. Replace the green tile around the fire place with a more neutral tile.

2. Add window treatments - I am sewing these, about half way done, but no motivation to finish the other half :)  

3. Crown molding - eventually.

Back entry/hallway:

Unfortunately I only got the before of the hallway, not of the back entry, and I could kick myself! PS, please note the 9" ceilings - while this is a great feature to have in your downstairs to open things up, it is not a great feature when you are painting every room in your house! I never knew my arms could fall asleep so many times.

 

Before: 

 

After:

 

Just imagine the back hallway all white, brass handles and no coat rack. One of the many projects Stephen was nice enough to make for me - Thanks Pinterest :)

 

 

Half Bath:

Nothing to major to do in here, for some reason, this was the one room in the house that they updated - it had a pedestal sink, brushed nickel light fixture, etc. We just needed to get rid of the white. I had been wanting to try out a stencil that I had seen all over Pinterest, so I figured I would try it in this small space before doing it on the large Media wall (pictured above but with a different finish).

 

Before:



 

 

During:

After:

 

 

Other projects we would like to finish on the main floor:

 

1. Add board and batten around the combined living/dining room.

2. Paint the top portion of the living/dining room

3. Crown molding (throughout entire downstairs)

4. Laundry room: The previous owners decided it was a better use of space for the washer and dryer to be down in the unfinished basement instead of in the actual laundry room. I on the other hand, do not need an extra level of stairs to hinder my lack of laundry love. So we had one of Stephen's friends come in and plumb the 'mud room' so that we could move the washer and dryer to their rightful place. I can't explain how happy this made me! Who wants to go downstairs to a creepy unfinished basement when you can have it on your main level.

So anyways, while I am thrilled that the appliances have been moved, that means a few more updates:

 Hide the huge cut-out square hole behind the washer/dryer with board and batten (along with all of laundry room). Paint the top portion a fun color. Add a small counter top for folding/storage. Add a cabinet above for more storage.

5. Replace all downstairs flooring with hardwood. If you are standing in our family room, you can see 4; yes 4 different types of flooring throughout a tiny area. We have white tile in the entry way, carpet in the family room, laminate flooring in the back hallway/laundry room, and a different faux wood laminate flooring in the kitchen.  This will be a big project that we need to save for.

 

 

 

Next up: Kitchen remodel pictures; where most of our time and energy went this spring.