bumpdate

Month 8 has begun...

 

The "bump" is now a meaningless term as my belly has full out gotten huge! Still feeling great, a little tired now and then but for the most part enjoying the pregnancy.

Our lil Molly is now starting to stick her appendages out and we try to identify which body part is protruding out of my stomach. Its a fun game.

Things like tying my shoes, picking things up off the floor, rolling over in bed...all getting increasingly difficult. Chase enjoys watching me struggle. : )

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Baby Stats:

33 weeks

17 inches long

Weighs over 4 pounds

Compared to a pineapple

pinterest

I finally got around to signing up with the invite I got several months ago. I knew it was going to suck me in so I put it off as long as possible.

I was right...I am obsessed! It is such a great way to find inspiration and ideas for almost everything. Plus the organizational nut in me loves the way the site is set up to group all your ideas together. Love.

As you can see, I am just getting started. Follow me!

the nursery: closet makeover

When Chase and I first moved into our house the closet in the master bedroom was not very functional. While huge (which is rare for a 1958 house) it lacked any real usable space. It only had a single rod across the middle of the entire closet...not going to cut it.  So one of our first projects (with some major help from my Dad) was to construct a custom closet set up.

We ended up with a very organized and usable closet space. 

So when it came time to make use of the closet in the nursery we knew we needed another custom closet build from good ol' Dad (so I asked him and I used "daddy" which gets him every time).

The closet started out like this (another single rod, seriously?!):

And after all was said and done, it now looks like this:

With these awesome curtains I found at Ikea.

We now have lots of storage, rods for tons of baby clothes (which we keep buying-they are so tiny and cute), and cubbies for toys and blankets and other nursery items. We love it!

Thanks Dad! 

Chili Dogs & Politics

Sounds delicious and interesting right?!

One of our stops on our Washington D.C. trip was Ben's Chili Bowl. A famous establishment in DC since 1958 and a favorite among several of our presidents including Obama. We first came across this little gem while watching Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on the Food Network. Food lovers that we are, we immediately added this to our list of "must visits" while in D.C.

It did not disappoint.





The place was first made famous by Bill Cosby, who was said to be the only customer who ate for free (they since added the Obama family to the list). The Half Smoke is their signature item, 1/4lb. half pork and beef smoked sausage on a warm steamed bun and topped with mustard, onions and spicy homemade chili sauce. Chase went for this and loved it. I opted for a good ol' fashion chili and cheese hot dog. Yum!



While we didn't spot President Obama (it would have been crazy in there!) we did see some very official government people with ear pieces kicking people out of booths to make room for some dignitary. It was pretty cool.

So chili dogs and politics...a must stop if you are in D.C.

BabyMoons

As of today, exactly today, Molly is two months away from coming into this world and joining our family (based on her due date).  While we are absolutely ecstatic about meeting our little bean in person we also realize how dramatically our lives are going to change. So, we took the advice of many and went on a couple babymoons over the past month.

babymoon noun a special holiday taken by parents-to-be before their first baby is born


Our first trip was to Washington D.C. to visit my cousin who recently moved there and take in the history of our great nation. Chase had been a couple times (in middle school and high school) but I had never been before.


We squeezed our trip in right after the earthquake and weathered out a tropical storm while we were there. Very exciting. We spent most of our days seeing the sites/monuments/museums and eating delicious food.




















Our second trip was a weekend baseball trip to St. Louis. We are huge Atlanta Braves fans going back to my Dad's childhood and they were playing the St. Louis Cardinals. My Dad called us up a few weeks back and said we are going to St. Louis to see the Braves play...And so we did!


The Braves played three games and we went to all of them. Unfortunately they got swept (they lost them all for you non-sport ppl) but we still had a blast!  Again there was lots of sites to take in and good food to be had. We even found a famous BBQ joint called Pappy's to indulge in. It was delicious.













We are so happy and fortunate we were able to take these trips, spend some time together and hang out with family before our world is turned upside down (in a good way of course).


Now its time to focus on Baby Molly's upcoming arrival. The final countdown is on!

A New Toy

This past week Chase and I embarked on a vacation adventure to Washington D.C. (more on that in another post later) and before we went we purchased a new toy to help document our trip.

A Nikon D3100 Digital SLR camera. And we are in love with it! And we don't even really know how to use it yet.

I had been wanting a DSLR for a long time and had almost purchased on several occasions but never ended up pulling the purchase trigger. With the baby coming, presenting tons and tons of picture taking moments we thought it was finally time to hit that "Buy" button.

We decided to buy it for our D.C. trip so we could get some great shots of our nation's capitol and get some experience using the camera. We ended up with great photos but we definitely have a lot to learn about this new camera. The options with this thing are endless ya'll!

In the near future I plan on taking a photography class that will help hone my skills and hopefully make for beautiful snapshops of our soon to be here bean.

In the meantime, here is a sneak peak of our DC trip, photo taken with the new Nikon.

Happy Friday!