35 weeks, Braxton Hicks, and Hot Chocolate

I'm now officially 35 weeks and a day along in this pregnancy, and it's turning  out to be WAY different than my first pregnancy. Last time around I didn't really get any contractions or Braxton Hicks until I went into labor... Now I have Braxton Hicks ALL THE TIME and intermittent contractions. In fact this morning while I was walking with Jax I had one long Braxton Hicks through the entire walk, talk about uncomfortable! I don't know if that means that I'm going to go into labor early or what, but before all this... activity... I fully expected to go until my due date like I did with Jax, but now I have no idea.

Also, I have a really hard time sleeping now. Last pregnancy I just needed to sleep a lot, but now I wake up around 3 am and can't go back to sleep. Luckily I've found that getting up and taking a shower helps me get back to sleep... except this morning... which was lame. I read an article about sleeping during the last trimester and they recommended drinking a hot drink before bed, so I've been on a strict regimen of drinking a mug of hot cocoa before bed :D. Now that I think about it I didn't have any last night, which may be why I had a hard time this morning. Well I'll definitely have to get back into my regimen tonight and see if it helps.

I've still been nesting like crazy, which of course is taken out on sewing... And I must say I'm pretty impressed with myself, I'm getting to the point where I can wing it pretty well. Here are some pictures of the things I finished last week!

Of course I only saw the light was wacky after I got it loaded on my computer : / Anyways this is everything from last week, 2 dresses, 4 pairs booties, 2 skirts, a pair of boots and a jacket. 

 Here are the dresses, I found a tutorial online and adjusted the sizing. I decided most of the things I was sewing were for spring/summer weather (which doesn't fly in Utah) so these are supposed to be more for the winter...

This is the jacket and pair of boots, the jacket I made without a pattern and it's lined in fuzzy cream fabric. The boots I made by altering the pattern I have for the booties and winging it. They're also lined with the fuzzy cream fabric... Again, I'm aiming for winter.

This dress I made the week before, but couldn't take a picture of it to share, but it's one of my favorites! It was a more complicated pattern than I was normally doing but I'm so pleased with how it turned out!!!

Ya, besides chasing my insane toddler around, this is how I've been filling my time. I have so many more ideas but I'm also needing to make Christmas presents and a quiet book for Jax. It's so hard to divide up my time for these last few weeks before the new baby, but at least it's all fun stuff :) 

Projectaholic

I have a confession, I am a projectaholic. I honestly am only complete when working on some hair-brained project. This past week I've been busy making Christmas presents (which I hope to go into more detail about later) and dresses for the anticipated princess due Oct 22nd! For the sake of brevity (my toddler just woke up), here are the pictures of the dresses I just completed!

This one I made from a maternity top and the orange is from our old pillow shams.

The above two I made from fabric remnants and a 

pattern given to me by a friend.

And for the sake of giggles, here's my toddler thinking he's hilarious when he does the splits :)

Yay projects!

Frantic Nesting

Well as of right now, I'm 31 1/2 weeks along in this pregnancy, and all the sudden I want it to DRASTICALLY slow down. I had my midwife appointment on Monday and she gave me the list of birthing supplies, which I'm now accumulating, and set up our next appointment at the house so she can get a lay of the land. . . Because I'm going to have this baby in like two months... WACK. I guess you could say I'm nesting, but it's more like, "Crap! I have so many dresses to make! And I need to make the Christmas presents for this year before she gets here because after she comes I will have NO time to do so! Where the heck is my thread holder for my sewing machine?!?! Graaaahhhh!!!" Yeah, that's basically it. In lieu of sewing my darling baby girl's clothes (I'm still missing a sewing box from the move that has important things in it... like the thread holder... and bobbins... and my thread...) I am focusing my efforts on completing the non-sewing crafts at this time.

Some family friend's daughters are pregnant and having a joint baby shower next month and I made them these amazing... well I guess in case they read this I shouldn't say... Anyways it took like a week but it was so worth it... So now I'm moving onto Christmas projects, which, I know, is ridiculous... But again, I'm afflicted with crazy nesting, and since we don't live in our own place to decorate right now, I'm focusing my efforts on preparing for Christmas. I've always wanted to just make my own presents for Christmas, and this year I feel like I really have a chance to do so. I have everything mapped out and organized, so I should be alright.

Well I'm off to clean the shower and make a $1, 10 minute Christmas present for my wonderful husband... I can't wait to figure out our camera situation so I can post more pictures :( In the mean time, I hope everyone is not as frantically nesting as I am!

Back in Action

We're back from our vacation in California! It was pretty insane to think that I hadn't been back home for a year and a half, and half of my family hadn't even met Jax yet!

The week before we left Josh had his finals, which basically meant we didn't see him the whole week. While we were in California we stayed at my mom and step-dad's new house so they got to spend a lot of time with Jax. If you'll notice, I'm not posting any pictures because I WASHED MY CAMERA :(((((( I have this wonderful luck with getting camera's wet... Really, it's awesome. Anyways, now that we're back I'm super loaded with projects to do before Lilian comes and, believe it or not, before Christmas comes.I have so many things planned, I hope I can get them all done in the midst of dealing with my crazy toddler!

Moving Craziness!

Well I haven't posted in a while because we've been a little... busy. We ended up moving into my inlaws' house for the time being while we plan to build next summer. Right now we're trying to finish prepping our old house for the new lease tenants. Hopefully we'll have all that figured out soon so I can start planning for the trip we're going on next week- home to California! And MAYBE when I get back from the trip I can start focusing on having this baby... I am in my third trimester now and all.

Needless to say moving takes a toll on pregnant women, and I've been feeling all the craziness. It doesn't help that even though Jax had a few days of his normal 3 hour nap, ever since he's had HORRIBLE naps. I know one of his molars is coming in, and with the changing environment... I don't know, it really wears me out. Sorry this post is so short, my kid just woke up from ANOTHER horribly short nap. ://///

Emily

Us Crazy Hippies

So remember how our plan was to pick up and move to San Francisco? Well after much prayer and research, and entertaining NUMEROUS scenarios, we've decided to build a house, probably in Summit County. This way Josh can attend either BYU or the U of U, and we can be in a permanent situation. Here's the kicker, we're building our home out of earthbags...

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Basically it's an extremely sustainable, durable, and efficient natural building method used all over the world. It's becoming more popular in the U.S. as building codes consider sustainable buildings.

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So we're moving in to my in-laws in two weeks and will be preparing ourselves to build this home ourselves next summer! Here's the plans we've decided on.

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The great thing about this plan is that it's designed to be extremely energy efficient. It utilizes passive solar energy and is extremely insulated. It's also geared to be totally ideal to convert to a completely solar house. Oh, did I mention these things are extremely cheap to build? And they're more stable, insulated, and weather resistant than traditional stick built homes. Awesome, right? Oh, and it takes a very low skill level to build these, which is great because we're doing it ourselves. Our friends and family may receive invitations to help next summer, we do have a building window before the snow comes... So right now I'm doing all kinds of research and budgeting, I figure the more I know the better. Some days I get really overwhelmed with it, but last night I felt a lot of reassurance from Heavenly Father. Hey, if He can help Nephi build a ship to cross the ocean, He can help Josh and I build an earthbag house in a summer, right? Right.

Footprints and Footsteps

I love baby feet, particularly my baby's feet.

When Jax was in my tummy, I would wake up with bruised ribs because he'd kick me in the night, so excited to get out.

When he was out, he'd kick his feet to show his excitement for living.

When he learned to crawl, his feet would paddle like a bike and he'd crawl like a charging baby rhinoceros.

Now that he walks, his feet show him the world one step at a time.

I know now I'm supposed to say something profound about footsteps for his future... But I guess all I can say is I hope he studies ours and makes his own.  I know his footsteps will be fleeting and I need to cherish every one.