It's been a month since we announced Baby Frey was on its way... here is a little update on what's been going on, just in time to wrap up 2014:
How Far Along? 20 weeks down, 20 weeks to go! I am so excited that we're halfway thru! (I can't wait to be done and have this little one in my arms!)
Baby Size: Banana - about 10 inches long from head to toes :) (and weighing in at about 10.5 oz)
Gender: It's a secret! We're planning on spilling the beans, though, sometime in January!
Movement? I wish!! I thought I'd feel more by now, so I've been disappointed not to, especially since they tell us at the ultrasounds that this baby is really active! Sometimes I think I feel something, but I just can't really be sure its baby.
Weight Gain: About 9 lbs! Which I'm pretty pleased with considering we just indulged in two very delicious and filling Christmas meals!
Maternity Clothes?: I've been wearing maternity pants a good bit now (I feel like I got big so fast - ugh!), but some days my belly does seems smaller and I can still get away with my normal jeans. Just bought a few maternity shirts for the first time, but I really don't need them yet. :)
Stretch Marks? Nope! None yet. Someone gifted me a jar of belly butter and I will probably start using that pretty soon to help things along.
Cravings: Over the past month I've had some random ones including donuts, fun dip, and Chinese food.
Aversions: I've been enjoying some sweet things again... for the longest time, I couldn't stand candy and couldn't even think of eating chocolate (which most of you know I usually love). Carrots are the only food that still makes me kinda queasy to think about... (had a bad experience with those in my 1st trimester). I've also started to drink coffee again occasionally. That was another horrible aversion for a long time (and I really looooved me some coffee before that...).
Symptoms: For the past week or 2, I have been ravenously hungry pretty much all the time. It's not even really that I feel like eating, I just get soooo hungry and if I don't eat I get sick! / My nose has been super stuffy ever since I got pregnant, I have pressure in my ears, and I sneeze a lot. I found out that this is probably because of Pregnancy Rhinitis. / I have been having some pretty horrible headaches on an off over the past month. / A little bit of heartburn, especially in the evenings... Tums have become my close friends :) / I have been tiiiired - I know they say there is usually more energy in the 2nd trimester, but I often get really sleepy throughout the day and need to take a nap. / My prenatal still makes me queasy sometimes. / My back gets really sore, usually when sitting, and I have pain under my ribs a lot - the doctor said that the top of my uterus is up there pretty far (I guess normally it's about even with the belly button right now... but not mine!) And the poor ultrasound tech had such trouble getting to see the baby because it was curled up near my ribs the whole time.
Sleep: Ugh... didn't sleep great before the pregnancy, I'm sleeping even worse now, and I have a feeling after the baby is born sleep will continue to evade me. It's been really difficult to get comfortable at night, and my hubby is constantly rolling me onto my side since the doctor says I shouldn't be on my back anymore. I'm still sleeping on my stomach though :) My in-laws gave me a Snoogle body pillow for Christmas which I have been really looking forward to, so I'm hoping that will help me some now! I also simply just wake up all the time. I joke with Chad that I'm already getting up for nighttime feedings... it's just me that I'm feeding! lol! I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night so hungry that I feel like I'm going to vomit. That's definitely been a part of this pregnancy I didn't expect.
What I Miss: I'm not going to lie, I miss having a drink now and then. :( / I miss just eating without questioning what's in things. There are SOOOOO many things that the experts warn you not to eat when pregnant - deli meats, soft cheeses, store made salads, leftovers from restaurants if they don't get straight to the fridge, certain seafood, dippy eggs, certain teas... I mean the list just goes on an on and I feel like I'm constantly google-ing to find out what's okay or not. I am pretty lax about eating some of those things anyway within reason, but it just feels like it's a constant job! Plus eating out has become more difficult! Did you know that Carrabba's makes nearly ALL their salad dressings with raw eggs?! Sigh. I can't have those (unless they are pasteurized). / I miss the medicines I'm not allowed to take - ibuprofen, I wish you were here.
Favorite Moments So Far: Working on the nursery. We got a crib! It's been fun to get everything designed and planned out. / Seeing the baby on the ultrasounds. We had one at 16 weeks to find out the gender, and we had the official anatomy scan done at the hospital 2 weeks ago. It took more than an hour and it was interesting to see the little one moving all around.
Least Favorite Moments So Far: Our anatomy scan showed everything was measuring good and developing well, except they saw a bright spot on the baby's heart called an Echogenic Intracardiac Focus, usually caused by small calcium deposits. It in no way hurts the baby's health or heart function, but they did explain to us that these are considered a "soft marker" of chromosome abnormalities like down syndrome. So, because of that, they scheduled us to have a more detailed ultrasound at Maternal Fetal Medicine, which will happen next Friday, where they will check to see if the bright spot has gone away (it usually does eventually) and if there are any other soft markers present. There's only a very small chance something is wrong - We're believing and praying that Baby Frey is completely normal - but it's a very nerve-wracking thing to find out!
Looking Forward To: Friday's Ultrasound, and (hopefully) hearing great news that will ease our concerns! / Getting the rest of the nursery furniture, working on some DIY projects, and starting to decorate! / The gender reveal get-together we plan to have sometime in January to tell our family (and the rest of the world, too) the baby's gender.
We hope everyone had a lovely holiday! Chad & I had a fantastic time celebrating with our
families the past few days (My sister and her boyfriend got engaged on
Christmas!!! AHHHHHH!!!! So so exciting!!) AND, of course, it was wonderful to officially make it halfway through this pregnancy as of Christmas day! Baby Frey even got in on a little Christmas action this year. Aunt Tanya & Uncle Brandon got us an adorable little onesie that I can't wait to see on this little one! :)
Christmas decorating is now in full swing at the Frey home! Chad & I put up our tree on Thursday, a week BEFORE Thanksgiving, and I hung my garlands on the stair banister, along with some Christmas lights! (not quite done with that, though, because I discovered that one of my light strands isn't working, and I need to go buy some more!). And my wreaths are up. I finally threw away the very dead mums on my front porch... There are still some pumpkins out there though, because Chad said, "Well, it still isn't Thanksgiving yet for another week...", so I had mercy on those and they can stay a little longer. But for the most part, Fall decorations are coming down, and Winter is taking over.
And last night, we had the first snow flurries of the season, so everything, indoors & out, is really starting to feel like winter now! I get very excited about all this, if you can't tell! :)
Yesterday, I also took a few minutes to change out the Apothecary jars I have sitting on my bathtub in our master bathroom. I normally have these filled with bath bombs, sponges & other bath tools, soap flowers, and yes, Epsom salt! I saw several months ago, on pinterest, some really cool projects that used Epsom salt to look like snow! I thought this was such a cool idea, because it really is so sparkly and white, just like freshly fallen snow. And I've definitely seen some apothecary "snow globe" decor ideas this year. So I thought, I've already got Epson salt in this apothecary jar, why not add some trees and make it a pretty winter scene??
This was the simplest project ever. I love the simplicity and calmness of the look. Now there's just a little added feeling of serene winter in our bathroom!
All I needed for this project was Epsom salt, which was already in one of these Apothecary jars. I just emptied the other two and spread the Epson salt out between all of them. And I grabbed a few more of the bottle brush trees that I recently purchased at Lowe's, and to finish the project, I just arranged them in the "snow". You can see my other Christmas in a Bottle Project that I made with them HERE. And that is it! Done. Simplest way to "winterize" a bathroom ever! ;) They definitely bring a smile to my face every time I walk in there!
I had a very realistic dream last night that I woke up and noticed this soft sort of glow outside our bedroom window, and I knew right away what it meant. I jumped out of bed and rushed over to push the blinds back and saw a thin layer of crisp white snow over everything. It had just started to fall, only just covering the grass and laying so sparkly on all the trees... *Cue a nostalgic sigh.*
When my dreams become entirely about snow, I know that I'm in full blown Winter Mode. I love winter. I love snow and ice and being stuck inside. I guess that's the introvert in me. Christmas is my absolute favorite holiday. Being in warm, cozy, soft sweaters is my Happy Place. Especially if there is cuddling-with-my-husband, a good book, and/or a fire involved. I love going to stores during winter and looking through all the new Christmas decor. I'm as pale as a vampire and practically burst into flame when I go outside in the summer... I just wasn't built for it. But during winter, I get a glow, and it has nothing to do with the sun. And I'm excited that now the time has come again, and I finally get to start my Christmas/winter decorating for the season.
I have yet to go all out and really decorate like I would love to because it would take quite a large budget to buy all the decor I've had my eyes on over the years. This will be Chad & my 3rd Christmas together as husband and wife, and we've been slowly accumulating things each year! I've also been trying to do some DIY projects for decorating to make this year the most decorative ever! Which brings me to the reason for this post! I wanted to share a cute little project that only took maybe an hour to make and I think turned out super cute!
The inspiration behind this project is snow globes, which I'm not so much into anymore, but I loved as a kid. I still love those winter village scene collections, though, where you can buy all the individual houses and people and add to your scene each year! My mom used to do that with my sister and me each Christmas... Maybe one day I'll start a collection of my own. I've seen similar things to this on Pinterest, especially with mason jars, but I couldn't find much of anything at all with wine bottles.
This was so easy to make and there aren't a ton of supplies involved. Here's what you need:
-Clear glass wine bottle (emptied, "delabeled", and cleaned)
-The cork from the wine bottle
-White thread & needle
-Small pushpin
-Small bottle brush trees assortment of your choice
-Epsom salt
-Thin cardboard or card stock of your choice
-Sissors
-Some kind of long thin stick that you can use to stick down into the wine bottle for maneuvering the trees
I pull the labels off my wine bottles and clean them out usually as soon we're done with them, so this one was all ready for me to use. Fill the bottle with as much Epsom salt as you'd like. One suggestion I have with this is to go ahead and use a funnel or be sure to pour in the salt as carefully as possible. If the salt touches the edges a lot, it can leave salt dust on the walls of the bottle that make it look cloudy and are next impossible to get off without emptying the bottle and cleaning it out with water again.
Next I selected my trees. I recently got a big pack of these bottle brush trees from Lowes and I used 2 of the smallest size and 1 of the next size up (which was still pretty small). Remember it has to fit through the mouth of your bottle. The bigger one that I used was a tight fit. The first thing that I had to do to make these trees work, was take them out of their bases. This was a piece of cake because mine are just threaded in there like a screw and secured only with a small amount of glue. It was easy to unscrew them and pull them out with just a small amount of force. And I think once I'm done with these, I could always screw them back into the base again and they'd work just fine!
I inserted the large one first. I sort of scrunched up the fat part of the tree to make it a little narrower and then I just pushed it down into the bottle. It doesn't matter that much how it lands, as it's not too difficult, with some patience and maneuvering, to get the tree into the position you want it to stay. After all the trees you want to use are inserted, take a stick, or something long and thin, and use it to push the trees into place. I just used a stick I picked up outside and also a wooden BBQ skewer. Again, it actually wasn't as hard for me to place the trees as I thought it was going to be, but it did take some patience and some time. Once your trees are how you want them, the hardest part is over. Really, you could just leave it like this if you wanted.
I wanted to add a star, though. For this, I simply cut a star out of a thin piece of scrap cardboard I had laying around. You could also use cardstock if you prefer. To hang it, I threaded a needle with some white thread and pulled it through the tip of the star. I tied one end off so it would stay attached to the star. Meanwhile, I pushed a short pushpin up into the bottom of the cork. Then I simply hung the star to the length I wanted it to be hanging down into the bottle and tied the other end of the thread around the pushpin in the cork. All that's left then is to insert the cork back into the bottle, and there you go. A gorgeous Christmas scene!
This could be a really fun project to do with older kids (it may be a little to difficult for younger ones). Or you could be like me, and just make it to enjoy a pretty scene on your kitchen counter! I think this could be a super fun decoration to have at a Christmas party. It would be especially cute sitting with the other wines you might be serving!
I'm sure there will be many more Christmas projects for me in the next few weeks to come! :)
See how I dressed up the other wine bottles in this picture above HERE.
Happy Winter!! :)
