Bollywood Night

Its good to have a night out with the ladies every now and then. My friend Sharon is the one that put this together. They do a Bollywood night in Seattle about once a month. They play remix Bollywood music that is fun to dance to and they have a lady there that does Henna Tattoos, it's not really advertised she just looks like she's there to hand out but she does a really good job.

Jeff stayed home and watched Rory (her new nickname since people really want to give her one and I'm anti Nikki, Rory is short for Lorelai which is her middle name).

We had a blast and burned about a million calories dancing.

Cutest Baby Ever (sorry everyone but it's true)

I mean this in a very proud mama sort of way not that your kids aren't cute. I had a lot of fun taking these pics, but naked pics are really hard to do at least for me because every time we did them she had an accident on the blankets, oh well it was worth it, I think we captured some really fun expressions and moments.

Nicolette Lorelai Church

Nicolette is an amazingly sweet good baby. I feel so blessed to have her. Labor was long and exhausting, but my midwives and nurses were the best anyone could ask for, they were really helpful and kind so I would totally recommend Evergreen Hospital. I did end up getting an epidural which for me was a good decision, they ended up having to give me pitocin and they had to break my water since after hours of labor it never broke. But it was a great labor experience and the only thing I cared about was the end result.

She rarely cries and I have to wake her up to change her and feed her, she is easy to please and calm down, so part of me wonders if this is how it will be or if she is just easy now and will become that child that won't stop crying that you always hear about. Either way I'm really grateful to have her and look forward to watching her grow and can't wait to see how her personality develops.

I am healing well, I have been able to get out and walk everyday, my mom was in town for the birth (she was born on 3-23-11 weighing 6lbs 12oz at 7:44am) but she had to leave Saturday night, which was a bummer but I am blessed to have a lot of Jeff's family close and willing to help.

I will continue to take pics and keep you posted on her progress, My goal is to get birth announcements out but we'll see. Jeff was amazing at her birth by the way and he was also the one to update all of our facebook pages and friends and family with pics and news.

Belly Pictures

Jeff and I got out our camera the other day and finally took some belly shots, This is me at 36 weeks pregnant. We'll probably take some more before I deliver but not sure if it will be outside as it snowed last night and they are calling for more snow over the next couple of days. Anyways we had fun taking these.

Final Nursery and Baby Shower

This is a blanket that Jeff's Aunt Kim made for my new little girl. Kim is also the one who co-hosted my baby shower with Jeff's mom, it was a lot of fun and really beautiful. We made headbands for my new little one and played games.
Here is the diaper cake that they put together, I know some of you have seen these before but I thought this was particularly creative, they took little socks and made them look like roses and then decorated with other baby stuff.
This is in order from left to right, Jeff's cousin Julia, his Aunt Kim, Aunt Linda and cousin Morgan, 4 very gorgeous and fun girls.
So these are just a final few shots of the nursery.
The mobile is now hung as you can see and the closet has been hidden behind some curtains.
And thanks to the dentist that I work for (her mom actually) I now have pictures on the wall. She won these at an auction and decided to give them to me. Little did she know they would fit perfectly into the scheme of my nursery. The pom poms in the corner are from a baby shower that the ladies in my church threw for me. They were hanging above the food table but they gave them to me and I thought they would look perfect in her room. Now all I need is a baby.

Finishing Touches

So the nursery is mostly done however I have been working on a few finishing touches. I completed the mobile today but it's not hung up in the nursery yet. As you can see it's currently hanging above my dining room table which is where I assembled it. It's butterflies and flowers.
I got some double sided scrap book paper, cut out different sized butterflies and then glued them together in the center so that I could spread their wings and give them a 3 dimensional look, then my friend Corrine helped with the flowers as she is a mad scrapper and has some crazy tools like the cricket that I had no idea existed.
The top is the center of a cross stitch hoop which is what I tied the fishing line and ribbon to and then covered it with paper that has been cut with fancy scissors anyways it was a fairly quick totally cheap project and I can't wait to get it hung in the nursery.
I added more flowers to the mural so I thought I would post an updated pic.
So my curtains were looking a little naked so I made some fabric rosettes out of scraps of fabric that I had left over from making the curtains. I'm so thrilled with how they turned out and I think it has really given the added touch that they needed.
This is what it looks like now, I put the flowers on both sides.
So I'm 33 weeks now, I finally broke down and bought a pair of maternity jeans, uggghh so close. Anyways we're getting really excited as you can tell. It will be fun to bring her home and start actually using this room.

Nursery

So I'm 30 weeks along now and feel great. It's been a pretty easy pregnancy. I'll post some pics of me here shortly. However I have pretty much finished the nursery now, everything except for pictures on the walls. Pretty much everything you see I have made, trying to do the whole thing on a budget and had a blast. It's not perfect but I'm excited.

The chair was originally blue gingham so I bought a king size bed sheet from good will and created a chair cover by making my own pattern and then I dyed it pink. The sheet was only $5 so I was able to spend a little extra on the cushion covers. Which I bought the material the day after Thanksgiving on sale and with a coupon so I think the whole cover was about $30. The rug which is peeking out was free, thanks to my friend Laska. The dresser was Jeff's when he was a kid, originally his grandmothers. So his mom had it in her garage and let us have it. We refinished it and painted it and lined the drawers.

This was the first thing that I made for the nursery the curtains and the lamp shade. I saw the pattern in the fabric store and decided it was easy enough to wing so I did. I used a mixing bowl to create the scallop edge and was originally going to put buttons at each point but have since changed my mind. We'll see I may leave it or do something else.

I used left over material from the curtains to make this lamp shade. I got the shade at goodwill for $3 and recovered. it. So I think the shade and curtains total were something like $15 can't remember but I know the fabric was on sale.

This mural was really fun to do. Never really done anything like it before, I knew I wanted to do something like a cherry blossom branch for many reasons. First this little girl is a spring baby, also Jeff and I took many engagement pictures in the cherry blossoms and also just cause it would look cool. So I drew the branch on with chalk to make sure I liked the shape then I painted over it. I made a stencil for the leaves out of plastic disposable plate because I didn't want to spend hours painting each leaf by hand. The flowers however I did do by hand but they are a very basic shape and it all went together rather quickly. Also as a side note the crib was a craigslist item and a gift from Jeff's mom. And the walls are a pale slightly pastel green, it's hard to tell because it hasn't been sunny lately and the lighting is different in every picture. Hope you guys like it. We are getting exciting for our baby girl to arrive and enjoy her new space.