Homemade Bridal Shower Invites

My cousin Whitney is getting married in August so my cousins, bridesmaids and I are throwing her a shower! I just made them the other night and had a lot of fun with them!

I went to Hobby Lobby, one of my favorite stores, to get the paper i needed.Whitney has greens, yellows and browns for her wedding, so i bought numerous different green paper prints. Then i bought some card stock in different shades of brown. Finally I found some ribbon that would go with all the colors of the paper, so i figured i could figure out something to do with them!

I cut out the green paper to the size i wanted, as well as the brown paper to fit on top of the green. I typed out the invite wording and thought instead of cutting them out in straight lines, i'd do the "tearing" method. Makes it look neat and not so neat and tidy.
I used glue dots to glue them to each other. Then on the top, i punched two holes and decided to tie a bow from the ribbon i had bought.

Finally, for each of our showers, we always do a recipe exchange where people invited bring the bride their favorite recipe for her to have which is wonderful!! It all started with my shower 4 years ago...my aunts came up with the idea and we've been doing it since :) I found a cute saying on the internet (I cheated!!) and stuck it to the back of the recipe card.

After i stuck it all together, i thought it was missing a little something. I got a Cricut machine for Christmas, so I decided to cut out letter "B's" since Whit's new last name is Brown and stick them to the invites.

That was it! The only time consuming part was cutting the card stock, but it wasn't too bad at all. They're out in the mail and it's something to officially cross off the list :)

Here are the different green patterns i found for the background.

the colors don't look great on here, but they were dark brown, medium brown and light brown to stick the wording to.

The B's I cut out from my Cricut.

The invite wording

The ribbon

The wording for the recipe cards

The recipe cards i found for free online :)



Finished product! I think they turned out pretty cute :)



27 Weeks...Cauliflower

Finally into my third trimester!! WOO HOO!! The first trimester dragged on...and on...and on....but, the second trimester FLEW BY! my logic is because in the first you don't tell anyone, and you're impatiently waiting for that 20 week appointment to see the baby, and for some people, to find out the gender. However, once that 20 week appointment is over, you can start registering, getting the baby room ready etc. and you suddenly get pretty busy planning for it and getting things ready that days just fly by!
I'm hoping this third trimester goes just as fast so we can meet this little one! We have 3 baby showers, 1 bridal shower, a confirmation and a graduation in the next two months so our weekends are SUPER busy which will probably help speed things up! :)

So far this second trimester...i've noticed the following things:
 - I started off feeling GREAT! However, the last few weeks i've been getting tired more easily
 - Falling asleep early doesn't happen as often because from 9:30 - about 11:00 the baby apparently has aerobics and takes that time every night to flop around my belly...keeping me awake.
 - I can now feel hiccups, which cause my WHOLE belly to jump/move
 - Instead of just feeling a kick or jab here and there, we can actually feel body parts moving across my belly..and sit here wondering if the hard spot we feel is the butt or head :)
 - Meat no longer makes me nauseous, although i'd still prefer to eat veggies or fruit for dinner over a big meal with meat, luckily Pete's been forcing more meat into my diet lately!
 - Cereal is my favorite "night time" snack...frosted flakes, mini wheats, and cheerios for the most part.
 - My nails seem to be growing faster finally :)
 - If i'm on my feet for a long time my heels start to hurt more than anything
 - My belly button is officially 3/4 of the way OUT which is kind of funny...at least for Pete.
 - When Izzy lays next to me and my belly, and the baby is kicking, she can actually feel it! The other night she kept looking at my belly every time s/he moved and finally got up and moved lol.
 - The other day Izzy was laying by me and heard a car door and barked and the second she barked the baby jumped at the same time, so the baby can obviously hear!
 - Not knowing the sex of the baby is SO exciting!! everyone has their opinions and it's fun to hear them...plus, it's been fun for us to have a boys name and girls name picked out :) I think it's making the time go by faster since we have that to look forward to at the end! Plus, how many surprises in life do we get anymore? :)
 - My brothers both apparently are surprised i have 3 months to go and will continually get bigger lol.
 - Sleeping through the night is getting more and more difficult as I have to pee every hour...plus, you're not supposed to sleep on your back, so whenever Pete wakes up and sees me on my back he wakes me up and tells me to roll over lol.
 - Pete is starting to be more helpful which is nice...he doesn't let me lift things anymore..he even offers to carry the laundry downstairs so i don't have to. AND he offered to help me iron the other night. Jaw. On. Floor.

Anyway, I can't complain about anything to be honest. I didn't have morning sickness, no huge food adversions, no "bad" cravings (yet)...hopefully things continue to go well. Only thing i'm slightly worried about is swelling. Being due the end of July it will get hot and i dont want puffy feet/ankles etc. I hear sometimes it forces you to go on bed rest which would suck.Fingers crossed it doesn't happen :)
My next appt is May 1st :)




27 Weeks - Cauliflower! Can you tell this was taken in the morning...i look pretty tired :)



New Window Seat & Picture

At our house we have a bay window which has basically become Izzy's sitting spot to watch outside and bark at anybody that walks out front of our house. I've really wanted to do something with that area to bring in a little more color, and prevent her from scratching the wood.

Probably a year ago my mom suggested putting a little window seat in there and cover it with fabric...finally, after a year, i did it! With the assistance of my mom of course. We went to Hobby Lobby and found some AMAZING fabric that i fell in love with. Then i bought some foam (1" thick). However, I have no sewing machine and didn't feel like hand sewing this thing by hand...so i found some fabric tape and decided to give it a shot for the time being...after talking to my sister in law Whitney, i probably should have bought fabric glue spray, but we'll see how long this tape lasts. i may be buying the spray in the future!

After we got done with the window seat, i had leftover fabric. I've redone the colors in my living room as well. I used to have brown/red/ivory and decided i wanted to get rid of most of the red so i've been accenting in oranges, blues and browns. However, i had this big picture in my living room with red in it. My mom came up with the idea that we should just put the fabric in there and use that as the new picture! it looks pretty cool now! Here's what i did below!



The Fabric that we found.




I traced the width/length i needed for the window and cut it out of foam.



The fabric tape that i hope continues to work!

here's the before...



and the after! i love the print!




here was the leftover used for the frame.



26 weeks!

Second trimester is almost over!!! I feel like i'm really starting to "pop" but it could just be me :) Lately, instead of feeling little "kicks" we're feeling more movement....as in things slowly popping out of my stomach but lingering, not like a normal kick. Pete felt it last night and freaked out lol.

And the baby is some kind of English Cucumber i guess...not the best picture :)

25 Weeks

I'm not wearing Nick's t-shirts so i don't stretch mine out :)

Not much to say here. Had my 25 week appointment on 4/9. Now i go every 3 weeks until mid June! time will start to fly faster i'm sure!! :) Heartbeat was between 148-152 AND the baby had the hiccups! The first one i felt, i thought s/he was kicking me...then the doctor said, i'm pretty sure these are hiccups since they're very rhythmic! Sure enough. Every time we could hear a THUD on the dopplar machine that was on my belly. Pretty fun to hear! Next appointment is my 28 week which is the glucose test where i drink the orange sugar drink. should be interesting!

Happy Easter!!!

Easter came and went quick this year, just like every other holiday! I found this idea online for an Easter floral arrangement, so of course i decided to give it a try and make one for Pete's mom. It was pretty easy and nice and cheery looking! We dropped it off Saturday afternoon and then headed to my mom's house for the night. She was watching my brother's dog Cabela so her and Izzy played all day/night and wore each other out. Saturday night, as tradition on my side of the family, we all go out the night before Easter, aunts, uncles and cousins. This year we went to the Fort Atkinson Legion where my cousin Matt got a job bartending. I, of course, was the DD...which is fine, until it got to be 11:30 and i was completely spent and wanted to go home, but knew nobody was really ready to go back. Luckily my mom and Pete left with me so i didn't have to worry about how they'd get home. We left Nick at the bar (along with a $20 loan for drinks). I was sleeping by midnight. Nick however, got home around 2:30 and decided that was the perfect time to wake up his pregnant sister and give her $5 of the $20 he borrowed. Really Nick :) Brothers....that's all i can say. Then of course the dogs woke up, then i had to pee, then i realized my baby had the hiccups and my whole stomach was going crazy so i didn't get a great amount of sleep at all. Easter Sunday we went to church and then headed to my Grandma and Grandpa's house. It was a lot of fun seeing everyone and everyone was trying to feel the baby move and were so excited :) This baby is very loved already to say the least!! We headed back to Sheboygan around 3pm and i'm pretty sure Izzy didn't move much on the way home or once we got home, she was completely exhausted. Thank you Bela!

Happy Easter!!



Floral Arrangement I made my Mother in Law



16 weeks to Go!!!

I'm over 24 weeks now! 110 days left! I think I say this every week, but I can't believe how fast time is going. I remember the first 12 weeks took F.O.R.E.V.E.R!!! Everyone told me, enjoy it because before you know it, your baby will be here. Apparently everyone has been right because I don't have far to go anymore. The baby is now over 1 pound and over 1 foot!
In the last few weeks, I have been feeling some different movements. One for example...I honestly think the baby has a road map in there to my bladder, finds it, and decides it's a punching bag. I will be sitting here and randomly get a sudden urge like I'm about to pee my pants each time the baby starts kicking me on my bladder. I have definitely been running to the bathroom more often!
Another thing are my round ligaments STRETCHING. I was getting these awful aches on my sides whenever I'd walk or even move sometimes. I went to the doctor to make sure all was OK. It is just my Round Ligaments stretching inside of me as everything else is growing in there....so all is OK and we got to hear the heartbeat which was 150 :) The last three visits the baby has been 152, 147 and 150. Keeping it steady!
Other than that, I think I understand this "eating for two" concept. While i'm by no means eating 4 helpings at a time, I do wake up starving every morning. I know it's not me because I was never a breakfast person...but now, it's definitely the baby telling me s/he is hungry and wants me to eat. I thoroughly look forward to Saturdays and Sundays because that's when i can have a full blown breakfast meal. Sundays after church we go out for breakfast or make it when we get home and I am in love with breakfast foods. Pancakes, French Toast and Fruit mainly. Not all at once :) but this one place in Sheboygan has Raspberry French Toast...hello HEAVEN!

Also....my brother Kyle has started making the dresser for the baby! I'm so excited! It will be awesome to have before my showers so i can put things away. Right now they're in piles in the room....I'll have to post a picture when he's done with it.

Here's a few pictures from the last two weeks :)



Little Pomegranate!




As long as an Ear of Corn :)






Breakfast Burritos

I've been wanting to try Freezer Meals for quite some time. My mom and sister in law Becky sell WildTree products, and have been telling me about the Freezer meals they have so i'm of course, having a Freezer Workshop. I"m pretty excited about it. Pete and I have been running around every night it seems and some nights neither of us (well not him as he doesn't cook much!) feel like cooking. So the thought of just throwing things in the oven sounds like an amazing idea to me.
However.....since i've become pregnant, I wake up in the morning STARVING! I thought there had to be some kind of breakfast meals i could make ahead of time and just grab in the morning to make at work. I'm always running late in the morning and don't have time to sit and eat a bowl of cereal. I have gotten better and started cutting up my fruit at night and putting it in a tupperware container to take to work for a morning snack so that helps. Anyway....I found breakfast burritos!

http://www.momontimeout.com/2011/08/breakfast-burrito-bonanza.html
Last night Pete and i made these and i'm SO happy i did.
I cut everything up and Pete was at the stove making the bacon, ham and sausage. I cut up the potatoes and stuck them in the oven for about 25 min., and made the scrambled eggs. After each were cooked, i put them in separate bowls and made an assembly line and stuck everything in burritos.
Now my freezer is stocked with breakfast burritos for the mornings I'm running too late to grab something small to eat! This recipe made me 16 burritos. I only had 2-8 packs instead of 3 - 8 packs, so mine are a little thicker than necessary but it works!