Nursery

(Click to Enlarge)

Slowly but surely the nursery is just about finished. It still needs a few more things on the walls and some other minor touches, but it is mostly there.

Well I found a way to justify the mini chandelier purchase after all. It's called IKEA makes amazing things for cheap. Thank you, Switzerland. And thank goodness for a great friend that made the pit stop at IKEA in California to seal the deal. I also took the advice left in my comments from my previous nursery post and installed a dimmer light switch. Brilliant.

My friend Stephanie gave me some great dresser knobs from Anthropology for my birthday 5 years ago. I liked them but I thought it was a random gift at the time because I wasn't quite sure what to do with them. I am very much not a hoarder but I have felt the need to hold onto these knobs for all these years because I knew I would use them some day. Nice work, Sonk. They work perfectly and add nice character to the dresser.

My most favorite item in the nursery was the first gift I received about a month after we learned we were expecting. My extremely talented best friend whipped out this beautiful "egg money" quilt in five days. You can't nearly see how amazing it is from the picture, but there are about 300, 1"x1" squares of adorable retro fabric. All of the fabric is from scraps my friend either already had or that she gathered from her fellow quilter friends.

Recently I have been spending more time in this room than in ours, aside from sleeping of course. I really enjoyed nesting my little heart out during my first week of maternity leave. Who knew folding and hanging tiny clothes and sitting in a rocker could be so entertaining?

Baby Flood

This little girl is definitely equipped for arrival thanks to the amazing support of family and friends and to some incredible baby showers … 4 of them! I feel like it might be more fitting to say I was flooded instead of showered. We are still in awe every time we walk in the nursery and see all the itty clothes, blankets, etc., etc..

Unfortunately I didn't snap any pictures at my first shower with all my friends from church since I am a complete amateur at this baby shower thing and was having too much fun taking it all in to take any shots.

My second shower was a double-shower for me and another girl in the office that is due the same week as me but with a boy. It was so great to have someone to check-in with frequently and to compare notes with that was experiencing similar things as me. The shower was our boss' idea and they graciously sponsored the event and turned over the logisitcs to our marketing/PR department to make it happen. They did such a wonderful job with the food, décor, details, etc. etc. There are about 50 people in a pool for a gift card for guessing the closest date/weight/length.

Shower numero three was a great experience. My sister Jen organized it, but many people

pitched in to help her with all the details. There was just something so special to me about being in a room filled with most of my favorite people in the world … people that have essentially helped mold my character and are a huge part of who I am. People that have known me my entire life, childhood friends, high-school gals, college peeps and of course family. I went home that night so thankful for the people in my life. I don't believe in coincidences all that much. I feel pretty strongly that different people are placed in our paths at certain times and throughout different experiences and hardships to help us get along. Looking around the room at this shower reminded me of this very thing.

Shower number 4 was a total surprise. I am pretty hard to surprise most of the time since I am pretty intuitive but these ladies did a great job keeping under wraps. The Young Women and my fellow fabulous leaders were sneaky and planned a little party when I took a mini-sabbatical from mutual last month to take birthing classes on Tuesday nights. They set up a mini sweat shop and made hair bows and flowers. I am pretty excited about them and about the fact that they all met my acceptable head-to-bow-ratio size requirement. They also surprised me with a fantastic quilt they made.





Our little miss made out like a bandit after all of this was said and done, and there were literally only a handful of essentials left to pick-up. She is one lucky gal to have such an amazing fan club before she is even born. We feel incredibly lucky and blessed and are getting really excited for her to get here and play with all her gifts!

Go Gators

Handsome Devil

Niels' 10-year class reunion was earlier this month on 10-10-10. Clever, right? Even though I wasn't super thrilled to waddle in 9 months prego it turned out to be a fun night and on a whole it was surprisingly less awkward than we both expected. I was pretty grateful that we both went to the same school so I knew most of his friends and didn't have to be a wallflower all night.

I will say that I do think it is interesting how Facebook and blogs have eliminated much of the excitement/shock factor of class reunions. We show up already knowing what people look like, where they are working, how many kids they have, what they "like" and of course what they need for their Farmville crop. My prediction is that reunions will eventually become extinct because of this very thing. Perhaps the 10 year events will stick around but I am thinking that the 20^th and 30^th ones will eventually become a thing of the past. Just saying.

September

September started with the great news that Niels passed part I of the NBDE (National Board of Dentistry Examination, becasue I know you were wondering). In a previous post I celebrated the milestone of him just taking the dang thing, but I figured we shouldn’t get too rowdy until the results came back even though I knew he’d be fine. I'm so proud of him and it definitely feels good to officially be more than half way through this chapter of life we call dental school.

Both of us are especially enjoying the additional time he has after school these days now that he is in his third year and is mostly in the clinic working on patients. That basically means a decrease in tests and homework, and an increase of interesting patient/procedure stories. One of my favorites so far is when he had to extract a man's front tooth because there was no way to save it and when he was all done with the procedure the patient looked at him with an extremely puzzled face wondering where his replacement tooth was. Um, there was no replacement tooth to put in … poor guy.

I think I may have mentioned before that I kind of like my nieces. Avery, the youngest of the brood turned 3 last month. This kid makes us laugh nonstop and usually without even saying anything. We just look at her mischievous eyes and can tell she is always plotting something in her little head. It is so interesting how siblings grow up in the same home with the same parents and have completely different personalities. It has been so fun to watch these girls grow up. Unfortunately, it’s happening way too quickly but word on the street is that’s how it happens. I guess we will experience that for ourselves pretty soon.



September equals fabulous soccer weather in Las Vegas so we have enjoyed going out to a few of the girls’ soccer games. Sydney has played for a few years now and is really becoming quite aggressive. It has been fun to watch her team advance from all of them huddling around the ball a few years ago, to actually spreading out and having strategies and plays.

Now Taylor usually does dancing/acting classes but decided to try her feet at co-ed soccer this season. She's doing great, but I can't help smiling when she runs with her hands out like a dancer and occasionally calls her uniform her costume.

We also took 8 hours of "prepared" childbirth classes. They were worthwhile-ish but I am not sure how helpful they were for me since I had read about most of the content they were teaching or I had heard about it from friends. However it was nice to be able to ask the nurses questions and I also think it was good for Niels to learn more about the whole process. AND he got to learn awesome skills like swaddling.

One of the funnier memories of the class is when we got to tour the hospital and more specifically the delivery rooms. We walked in with our group and the nurses started pointing out all the amenites, the crazy amounts of machines and the stale hospital bed. I got slightly misty-eyed and then I looked at Niels and his eyes were somewhat frothy as well. When we compared notes later that night we discovered that we were both emotional for two completely different reasons. I told him that the tour kind of scared me and gave me anxiety becasue I was envisoning myself giving birth the entire time and he laughed and said he that he was emotional because he was excited. Classic.

FAIL blog

I get frustrated when I neglect the blog and then feel like I don’t even know where to start and how far back to go when I finally catch the wild hair to update. I feel silly for going back a few months because bc by then most things are not all that newsworthy anymore. And then I begin to argue with myself about why we even have a blog. I say, “Self, we really aren’t that interesting. Maybe I should dump this thing.” But then self rebuttals and convinces me that we are having a child any day now and cute children ensure fresh blog content regularly. Self wins debate. Let’s just hope she’s cute, and not just that motherly bias kind of cute.

So until our little content maker arrives in t-minus any day now, I will dig into the archives and post some of our latest happenings and whereabouts.

It feels slightly foreign yet very liberating when Niels doesn't have to do anything school related and doesn't have to feel bad about it. Sure there are nights where he decides to sluff and just hang out with me instead. But of course the consequence usually entails staying up late the next night or two to catch up. Pesky consequences. Technically he is on "summer break" but has been studying like the Dickens for boards so it doesn't feel like it. Not even one bit. But the good news is that BOARDS ARE OVER as of yesterday and it feels pretty dang good. (I love how I say it like I'm the one who took them.) But really ... it is a huge milestone for him, and I would venture to say for both of us because I swear our automated and programmed response to pretty much anything the last few months has been, "Oh we can't do that until after boards." Luckily he still has a week and some odd days to fit in a few fun things before he's back to the grind next month. It is sooo nice to be able to just lounge at night and and watch movies and not have to stop them half way for him to go study. I love it.

I'm pretty sure painting the nursery and registering aren't necessarily what he had in mind for "fun" the first day after his big test, but I am pretty stoked about our hot date to Babies R Us tonight and am thrilled that he is home taping walls as I type this. And I'm confident assembling the crib isn't what he had in mind for day two of freedom either ... thanks honey. I will be one happy momma when it is all done.

I don't know how to make these awesome photo collages I am seeing on other blogs (your shared wisdom would be appreciated if you do) but here are a few pics of inspiration for the nursery. Not sure exactly what we are doing just yet, but the walls will be aqua. I am loving the little dainty chandeliers right now, but I know it is kind of ridiculous to have one. I guess we will see if I can think of some way to justify it in the next week or two.

29 Weeks

She's cooking nicely.

Pros:
She is finally large enough that not only can we both feel her move, we can sit back and watch her move without even touching. Craziest and greatest thing ever.

Cons:
Don't have too many to name. In fact I have felt great overall and feel pretty lucky. The only minor beefs I have are with Charley and his horses striking my calves in the middle of the night, and the fact that little miss has decided that my sciatic nerve is super comfy to rest on.

Reality:
I am starting to feel some anxiety about not being as prepared as I would like to be at this point. A lot of things have been on the back burner because life has been crazy and we have felt like it is still so far away to start getting things ready. But we are realizing that 2 months will be here faster than we know it and we really need to get on the ball. Perhaps we should register, choose a name or maybe decide what hospital we are delivering at... just some minor details.

We did however order our nursery furniture and it came in this week (we went with rocker style # 3 if you care). Everything is just sitting in ginormous boxes in our living room waiting to be put together. It would be a grand understatement to say we are looking forward to Niels finishing his boards this month so we can go full-force on the baby business next month.

Hello Cupcake

Have you seen this book?

If not, you should pick it up next time you're at Target and thumb through it for some cheap thrills (I just assume you go there regularly becasue I do).

I hit a drought for ideas for mutual last week so we tried our hands at these creations, sans the Starry Night Masterpiece. While they all look pretty cool, let's be honest ... they don't look super delicious at first glance.

Corn on the cob: Super easy. Just frosting, assorted Jelly Bellys and a Starburst.


Spaghetti with Meatballs: Piped frosting, Ferrero Rocher Chocolate ball, Strawberry preserves

Sunflower: Mint Oreo, frosting and a red M&M

The New Diggs

So I’ve been MIA for a while. Mainly because July was the craziest month for us in a long time, if not since we’ve been married. The biggest of all the many events of last month is that we moved. Nothing too crazy, just a few miles south of where we were. But the hectic part was that we only had about 30 days to find something as it was somewhat unexpected, and it was almost as if we looked at the calendar and said, “When would be a really hot, busy, and inconvenient time to move?” and went with it. Besides it being a thousand and four degrees outside, Niels has finals and his National Boards this month and I am seven months pregnant. But alas, everything actually went very smoothly thanks to great family and friends who helped a ton.

Niels says I think the move went smoothly because I didn't have to do any manual labor (reason # 47 I like being pregnant). However, I did all of the nasty contracts and paperwork as well as most of the unpacking and organizing which is just as difficult in my book. I picked up some fresh Winchells’ Donuts for our helpers the morning we moved and I had to laugh at myself as I held a cake donut (white frosting with rainbow sprinkles in case you care) in one hand, and I directed everything that needed to be lifted and moved with the other hand. It was pretty amazing. I'm thinking child #2 might need be scheduled around our next big move in a couple years.

I'm not going to list our new address here for obvious potential creeper purposes, but I will say we have slightly upgraded in the street name department by no longer living on Anticipation Court.

We really like the neighborhood – quiet, friendly, clean and there is a nice community pool that doesn't have hoodlums in it.

We had several rental leads from friends, but most of them didn't have enough space for Bertha, Niels' big, black and beautiful baby. She arrived safely in the new place and fits nicely in our front room.

We are acclimating nicely and it is starting to feel more like home everyday. But there are a few quirks we don’t love about it. I discovered that’s kind of the name of the game with rentals. There is no such thing as a PERFECT rental so you pretty much need to make a mental list of things you can bear living with and the things that you can’t look past. While weeding through the dozens if not hundreds of rental listings I found myself thinking things like, wow that is an awesome floor plan but I just can’t do the mauve carpet, or the ivy wall paper or (insert any other heinous feature here) … I just can’t.

Sure, I realize that might sound ridiculous because it is only a temporary dwelling. And yes, I do realize that we are in dental school and should be living the stereotypical one bedroom apartment lifestyle with crate boxes and cinder blocks. However, with the way the housing market is in Las Vegas right now there is definitely room to be picky. There are so many places available so it is somewhat foolish to rent an apartment when most are just as costly if not more than rental homes. And again, it's all about having space for Bertha.

Anyway, like I was saying … overall, we enjoy the new place. We love having more open space which will be especially handy when little miss arrives. The features we don’t necessarily love, but make the "we can live with list" include things like having carpet under the kitchen table area, oak cabinets, hokey bathroom light fixtures (you know the kind with five 60- watt light bulbs in a row screwed into a silver rectangle), etc.. So while there are probably about 15 things that bug us about the house, there are really only two things that drive me crazy enough to spend the the time and/or money to change asap.

# 1 This brass beauty in the kitchen has to go.




# 2 White walls. We have TONS of wall space in this house and it is all white with white blinds. I don’t know why this drives me crazy but it does. We aren’t painting the whole house because that would just be a silly waste of money, but we thought we would give at least our family room and kitchen some pigmentation. A HUGE thank you to my step-dad for doing this for us since I can't inhale fumes right now (reason # 23 I'm happy to be pregnant) and Niels is up to his ears in Board preparations. Pictures forthcoming once we get things up on the walls.

The good news for you all is we still have a guest room. We have loved hosting a good share of visitors at Hotel Jensen the past two years and hope people will still come even after baby J arrives on deck. Actually, now that I think of it … if you come stay with us we will graciously allow you take baby night duty. Deal?

Humpty Dumpty

Some long-distance relatives and friends have requested proof of the following:

16 weeks

21 weeks

We Rock

Minor predicament.

I am having a real hard time deciding what kind of rocker to buy for the nursery. I have looked at probably hundreds online and we have gone to test drive about 30 of them. Gotta love how awesome date nights are when your pregnant. Anyway, while all of them are comfortable ... well mostly, none of them are shouting pick me. The above pics aren't the actual ones we like per say... but are more or less the 3 styles we are considering.

Your motherly (or fatherly) input please ...

Good Morning, Dad

I have been horrible at keeping a pregnancy journal, let alone a normal journal but I did want to capture this morning.

On a typical morning, Niels rolls out of bed 15 minutes before I do and showers, while I take advantage of those precious 15 minutes and sprawl out on our queen-size bed and assume my pre-marital, non-vertical conforming sleeping position. Don't get me wrong, I love being married and waking up next to my dreamboat every day, but my fantasy of a king-size upgrade cannot come soon enough.

Anyhow, like I was saying ... Niels typically comes in and wakes me up after his shower. He lies by by belly, offers a kiss to his daughter and then places his hands and cheek on my skin hoping to feel the movement that I have been telling him about and feeling myself for a few weeks. He waits for a minute and after no response, I reassure him that she's still pretty tiny and he'll feel her soon enough.

This morning he came in and followed usual morning protocol, only to get thumped back when he applied pressure with his cheek to my belly. He looked at me with such a priceless expression and held still as she bumped him back a couple more times. Good morning dad. I love you but can you please get off me? You're invading my space.

Will Work for Food

I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve such wonderful managers at every job I've had. I even enjoyed being a grunt-worker intern.

I should mention that I didn't start out on the best of terms with my current boss when I came on board. We had a rocky first few weeks trying to develop that working dynamic. But ironically enough, ever since I told him I was expecting (which btw, is on my top 10 list of hardest things I’ve ever done thus far in life) he has been overly kind to me. He came in my office after a lunch appointment one day last month and asked me what I had for lunch. When I told him I hadn’t eaten yet and that I was probably just going home to grab something since I live so close, he looked at me funny, put money on my desk and told me to go get myself something nice.

My face turned pink, and I’m not talking about pregnancy glow, because I was slightly caught off-guard. I told him it really wasn’t necessary but he insisted. And since I have certainly learned when and when not to challenge him - I just smiled awkwardly and thanked him profusely a few times.

Being a woman, my brain is instinctively wired to over analyze the motives of many given situations. I was so impressed/touched by his kind gesture - you’d have to meet the man to understand. But then again I couldn’t help but to remember that his offer came only after I mentioned that I was going home to eat. Perhaps he felt bad and pitied me. Or, maybe he thought I only have fill in the blank (weird, gross, unhealthy, etc.) food at home. Ok, I know neither were the case, but I still find it entertaining to think of worse-case scenarios sometimes.

Since then, he has graciously decided to sponsor my lunch intermittently every week now. In fact, he was leaving for vacation last week and came in before he left and said, "I won’t be here for the rest of the week so that’s for Wednesday," he put down some cash on my desk … "for Thursday," added another bill to the pile … "And for Friday. I want to make sure you are eating, and eating good stuff." It is all so incredibly generous.

I really do struggle accepting his money, but I know he genuinely enjoys doing it and obviously deems my healthy baby as a worthy cause. I have been trying to pay his generosity forward when I can by doing things like tipping for take-out food (which I usually never do), or by bringing back unexpected treats for my colleagues (depending on what I’m craving that day) like Sonic Cherry Limeades, chips and salsa or one of those trendy/fancy cupcakes.

Maybe when I get huge with child in a few more weeks, he will begin retracting his offers.

Part 1 of Baby J's nursery has arrived.

I. Love. It.

DVR-U kidding me?

So we decided to join the rest of the planet and get DVR. I have been sitting on the fence about buying it for last two years. I hear they say once you have it, you can never live without it. Kind of how I feel about texting, Diet Coke and The Holy Ghost.

We are only 2 days into ownership it and I can already tell it's going to be fabulous. I love the fact that I will be able to fast forward Mary Murphy's comments on SYTYCD and that I don't have to watch another political commercial for Nevada elections. It is beautiful.

I got it for Niels for Father's Day, but let's be honest ...