We are 30 days out!....for baby that is.

Hey guys!

I can't believe I still have 30 more days till due date....although some believe Oliver is coming sooner than later :)

Yesterday was a complete whirl-wind of house stuff! I recommended Marc send our builder an email to see if we are 30 days out from closing (since he was going to try to get us in before baby) and that must have set off a chain reaction!

We got a call to get all our lighting to the house for installation. We made a mad dash to Lowes to pick up items from our bulk order...typically they need 24 hours to pull everything and would have delivered it but if we can get it there faster....we may be able to close faster. Well that was my rational.

So after lots of coordination with Lowes, our realtor, the electrician and the locksmith (who's locking up our house already!) we got just about everything into the house and ready for install.

With all the action going on around me....I think Oliver was feeling it too cause there was lots of action in the belly! I had to take tons of breaks yesterday and today will be a day of rest for my big belly. Probably a PJ day until Marc get's home:)

Here's some picture updates of the house. Sorry we were so busy loading/unloading stuff we forgot to stop to take a picture of my belly and Juliet.

Tile's almost done in our master shower:

 Here's our garage door foyer. Marc picked out the door style :)

Here's the "dining room" (which we will use as an office for now) looking into the living room. More stuff to install on the floor!

 Our "dining room/office" ceiling is painted!

Our front door is stained!

And finally....we have STONE! :) More updates to come.

Juliet's School Art Show!

They had an art show at Juliet's school, and all the kids worked really hard to make things for the art show. Here are some picture of Juliet's wonderful creations! ENJOY!

House updates

Hi all, things are moving along with the house. The siding is done on the outside, just need the stone on the remaining areas to be complete. Inside, the hardwood floors are installed, and the tile is installed in the floor, none in the shower yet. Drywall is done, they did the trim last week, and the painters are coming this week! Moving quickly, we will have to see if the house can be completed before Oliver comes!

Master Bedroom

Master Bath Shower

Column w/ trim in the dining room

Oliver's Potluck shower!....and the House has some tile!

Oliver's on the way (well in mid-June) and my college "sister" Aimee, threw us a Shower Potluck that we just loved! Thanks Aimee for hosting a wonderful chill get together!

And thank you to the Bryan's, Amy, Strahl's, Bernard's, Hortons, and Kiefer's for the many necessities Oliver will use AND for your wonderful creative onesies!



Aimee had everyone decorate a onesie for Oliver...which I just loved as we will think of each of you as he wears your personal designs! :)

 

As many of you know my MD was concerned that my glucose levels may be a bit high after drinking that nasty glucola (100g glucose) but since I'm not "technically" diagnosed as a gestational diabetic and passed my test (he want's to call me borderline) I celebrated by doing what I've been waiting to do....BAKE! And as a Thank you to our host, Aimee..(and thank you JoJo for the recipe) I transformed Aimee's favorite cookies into a cake! This Italian cake has a few names....such as Italian Rainbow, Italian Flag or Tri-color.

This next part is for my "Cookie Creating" Blog followers....and since I've been watching my carb intake, busy building a baby and helping Marc build a house, there has been no time to bake :( As you can tell since my last post was in the fall. So a quick cake breakdown...Overall the Tri-color cookies are better. You loose that nice almond dense-ness of the cookies when you fluff to a cake, the hard chocolate coating becomes a lighter frosting/ganache for a cake and this cake recipe had me use a layer of raspberry and a layer of apricot preserve (Aimee and I agreed we didn't see a difference with the apricot addition). Oh and this recipe has you dye a cake yellow (no need the non-color white is closer to the Italian colors). Finally, I need to adjust bake time a few minutes to reduce dryness. Would I make this again? Yeah, only if it had to be in cake form :)...cause I'm more of a Cookie Monster :)

Key Learnings: This is my first attempt to "decorate" a cake with frosting and design (I know crazy, right!) I have learned from past chocolate coverings that if you decorate right on the glass cake stand your stand becomes dirty...so my prego brains thought I was smart by putting down parchment paper under the cake but once the cake was covered I had a hard time ripping the paper around the cake. Jojo I couldn't remember what you did when decorating but I think I'll use strips of parchment next time around the cake (not under) and simply pull away once decoration is complete. Any other ideas out there....I'll take em! :)

And YES I had to save the rest of the frosting for our Frosting Freak, Bill! hehe. I've never seen anyone enjoy frosting...straight up, like Bill. We love ya man!

Now for my FAVORITE Cookies ever! Sara you made my sugary dreams come true (how I only ate 1/2 a cookie is beyond me but I only did it for the safety of the baby! :) Here is the true inspiration to my "Cookie Creating" and she's done it again only now I have to Print a picture of these cookies and frame them! In fact, you may see this hanging in Oliver's Nursery! :) Thank you thank you for your most amazing artistic talents in cookie decorating Sara! I just loved the ducky, gator and Oliver cookies. And all by hand...you still astonish me! :) Keisha had an idea...you should start a tie-in business 919-cookie! And you can add cookies to your food orders!  Just look at this artwork!

 



You rarely find something that LOOKS and Tastes so good!:) And for my final baked good indulgence...check out these BEAUTIFUL cupcakes Sandy (Sara's Mom) made. Yes it's obviously in the genes! :) These cupcakes were a yummy orange flavor! Love the light spring flavor and nice orange tie-in to the gator colored cookies :)

Here's the artists...at work creating artful onesies....where else!

 

 

And don't worry Uncle Michael...I've included a picture of our "Princess" Juliet! She decided to dress like Cinderella for Oliver's Shower since it was "blue"! Got to love this creative Monkey! "Mommy, we are going to Oliver's Shower? Maybe when he's big he can go in our Shower or maybe the bath tub...? Where's my princess crown?..."

 



Well, as my belly continues to grow and transform.....

 



So does the house!

Ok so we were a bit disappointed since we expected a big transformation with siding but that wasn't the case:( We are meeting with our builder again Thurs for another "walk thru" and hope to see siding then. In the meantime, check out our tile! This first pic is in our Laundry room aka Mud Room.

Here's our Master bath tile:

And a few shots of the Deck area....Marc putting in one more outlet under the deck area just before they installed this wood.

And I have to include my beautiful Butterfly Princess! Juliet saw Oliver moving around in my belly for the first time and said..." Look Mommy! Oliver's trying to get out!!!". hahaha love it.

OH and some EXCITING ANNOUCEMENTS! Congrats to our good friends Bill and Keisha Bryan who are expecting their FIRST baby!!! :) Baby Bryan is due Oct. Can't wait to attend their gender reveal party!

Also SENDING LOTS OF LOVE to Matt, Mel and Wes...as baby Eleanor (ELLIE) is due any day now! We can't wait to meet her.

Love you guys
Jenny

A BIG Thanks!

It's almost week 32 for Baby and week....I have no idea for the house. Both continue to grow although I think Oliver is ahead:)

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all who have helped us through this new home process. From listening to us brainstorm to hands on help! And again some recognition to my hubby who's worked oh so very hard on and off site.

As you can see, a lot of blood (Marc's), sweat (mostly Marc's) and tears (mine) OH and Split Pants! have gone into the creation of this house. Good thing you have underwear on...oh wait there's a hole in that too! :) hahaha (sorry baby, don't be mad, I just had to).

A special thanks to those On Site, giving Marc a hand! Dan graciously spent his time off swinging from rafters helping Marc with speaker wiring and more detailed wiring stuff I don't understand but know it will be awesome! :)

 

 

 

Another special thanks to Bill who came to help Marc as well as the project seemed a bit bigger than expected and it was crunch time for Marc to finish up!

 

 

And to our amazing munchkin who can't read this yet but maybe someday...will look back at this experience. Juliet has been amazing and just as excited to make trips out to the house weekly to follow up and see the progress.....although movies and loads of snacks helped especially for those extended periods of time we were there.

 

 

 

 

Despite the fact that Juliet will have a brother....I think Juliet will always be "Daddy's little helper!" :)

 

 

 

Look forward to seeing some real physical transformations this weekend.....as we should be getting siding and shakes on the house! :) Oh and look forward to seeing our local friends this Saturday for a Potluck Baby Shower! :)