36. Latin for Now's the time to FREAK OUT. The Sequel.

On Monday October 20th I hit the big 3-6.  Weeks of course.  Obviously in years I'm holding strong at the 2-1.  (Here's the same post for Emykins.)

My, oh my, what a whirlwind of activity this 4 week time frame was!  As I alluded to in my last pregnancy update post, right after 32 weeks I think I realized that things were starting to get real and it spurred my behind into action.  We'll get to that though.  First, how was I feeling?  I was feeling tired and generally like smacking people should be considered acceptable (see here), but really in the grand scheme of pregnancy life, that is really nothin'.  I was (and still am) a very, very blessed girl to have had the pregnancy that I have and despite my frequent sarcasm, I certainly realize this.  Oh, also, I was (and again, still am) very tired of almonds and eggs.  Can't wait to get some carbs and/or wine into this belly!

33 weeks.  Obviously I find my own image shocking.

34 weeks.  Look at me straightening my hair!  I must have had a meeting this day.

35 weeks.  Baby girl is looking like a hood ornament.

36 weeks.  Yikes.

Okay, and now for the but-what-do-you-have-to-show-for-it portion of this post.  As I previously discussed, I decided that in lieu of finishing out Baby Bucket's room as originally envisioned for Emery, I was going to try to do a little snazzing up to make it her own.  I thought to myself - well, this room is already painted.  What can I do to make it a little different?  I know- I'll paint a stencil.  Amped up on nesting horomones the Friday right before I hit 33 weeks, I dropped my sweet Princess off at school and set off for Home Depot thinking I would knock out this stencil on my day off.  Ha.  Ha.  Hahahahahahaa.  Anyone who has ever done a stencil is rolling right now and I don't blame you.

By the end of the afternoon I had about 1/2 of 1 wall done.  Out of 4.  I was so engrossed in what I was doing that I asked Ryan to pick Emery up from school which allowed me to get a whopping maybe one more move of the stencil done.  This kicked off a 2 week stint of my stenciling each evening after Emery went to bed, on the weekends during her nap and one more FULL Friday off.  I poured well over 24 hours into this endeavor.  At the end of the day though, I have to say that I am pretty pleased with the result.  I'm sure it's also single-handedly raised the value of our home at least $100k (completely unbiased remark).  Word to the wise- if you're going to tap into your inner stenciling guru, don't choose to do so when you have a basketball-sized belly to hunch over in a month when you also have 57 hours of CPE to complete.  

This is definitely not a progress shot after day 1.  This is probably more like after day 41.

After the stencil was finally finito, we were able to schedule delivery of Bucket's furniture and things really started coming together.  Shortly thereafter Nonnie the resident Queen Seamstress finished her bedding and curtains which look FABULOUS.  If only I had inherited some type of talent in this arena!  I also finished spray painting some bird cages, painting the letters for above her crib, etc.  

Not pictured: the pink bumper ties.  You get the idea though.  Three cheers for Nonnie!

When it's officially finished (read: there are things on the walls) I'll do a Baby B's room post.  Fingers crossed this happens prior to her arrival.

I also managed to transfer Emery's clothes from her old closet into her new closet AND to do LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of laundry so that I could fill baby Bucket's closet.  Phew.  Just reading all that makes me exhausted.  Basically by the time we hit 36 weeks, if our newest lady bug had decided to pull an Amy and make a 4 week early appearance, we would have survived it.  We didn't have every single item on our list crossed off, but we definitely could have managed.  

Small mountains of pink laundry is my new life's work.

I am outrageously thankful for all the items we collectively got checked off the to-do list during this chunk o' time.  It has definitely helped to keep this mama's blood pressure stable.  Now that things are mostly done we just need the most important element of this equation- our sweet bebe!  Annnnny day now Princess, annnnny day.  :c)