The luckiest Friday the 13th

After waiting each and every day past December 1st with no baby, I was starting to get uncomfortably antsy. My due date was not until December 9th, but I had truly thought I was going to deliver early. Was I wrong.... Again. 

I had officially taken maternity leave the first week of December because I had already been dilated 2cm and effaced 70%. I was very uncomfortable and unable to keep up with the fast pace of the surgery center. Waiting and waiting with several false alarms got very frustrating. I finally offered to pick up a small 3 hour shift to float and help out the other nurses. 

Go figure when I'm taking care of a more critical phase one patient that I get such a powerful kick, it breaks my water.

I didn't realize it at first until I notice trickling and my underwear becoming soaked. Since I work in the hospital I walked over to L&D where they checked my fluid. Sure enough I was ruptured! 

Pitocin was started since I wasn't regularly contracting. Justin collected our things from home and came to my room. Dr. Powell places my epidural that worked beautifully! I was numb the entire time! I can't remember the exact time, but I think my water broke around 11:30, I was admitted around 2:00, and pitocin was started around 3:00. 

I was finally complete and so numb I didn't even know the baby was practically crowning at station 3+. I wasn't even allowed to push until the Dr. arrived. After three contractions and maybe 6 pushes she was born at 9:09 pm. 7ibs 11oz and 20 inches long! Estelle Charlotte was by far a much easier labor. We watched Christmas movies the entire time! 

Sisters meeting for the first time <3

Going home! 

Settled in at home :)

Christmas with the Pittard Family {Our December Diary}

The Christmas decor is up, the holiday music is on pandora, presents are wrapped, & our bank account is drained. There are still 15 more days until Christmas and our little baby Estelle is still not here! This is going to make things a lot more difficult from a shopping perspective. Justin and I will most likely have to take turns finishing up. Luckily we  are about 75% done with most of the family. Some of the last tidbits are gift cards that I can completely trust him to handle! 

Shopping for Isla this year was fun and definitely not as big of a wallet buster than I had anticipated. Toysrus.com was having a huge online sale so I got her several toys for just over 100.00 dollars. Justin and I don't believe in breaking the bank for our kids at this age. We want them to have a great Christmas and of course we want to spoil them just a little, but they really don't understand the point, so why splurge?....Besides the attention span for one toy lasts about 20 seconds. Most items I bought were less than $15.00 each so I won't feel bad if she is "just not that into it" for awhile.

We did get Estelle a few things, but spending a lot on a newborn just doesn't make sense. We will depend on family to get her fun things. :)

So far this month has been uneventful other than having a good time Christmas shopping. My last day of work was Tuesday, December 3rd. I was grateful for that, but now that it is the 10th I am thinking of the extra Christmas money I would have been making. Oh well, I'm just consumed by trying to get this baby out. Nothing seems to be working and as of now I'm 40w1d. 

Decorating the house kept my spirits up and this year {to my surprise} I didn't find too many Christmas items to buy. I'm going to wait until clearance sales to buy anything I like. Below are some pictures of the family room all spruced up for Santa. 

Isla has been pretty good with the tree so far. She does occasionally pull of an ornament, but other than that she just really likes the lights. We did put a few wrapped gifts under the tree and to our surprise she has no real interest in tearing them a apart! 

Other than Christmas being the center of our December, football has been pretty intense for Justin and his fantasy league. I just laugh at the competitiveness of these grown men! Isla and I just have fun hanging out with the fireplace going, eating all the good football food on a Sunday afternoon. It's the perfect way to end the week! 

I have changed so many ways in the last couple years that some of my newest interests have been all about how I present things. I have always cared about the way I look and how I present myself, I have also always cared about how I present the way I live (specifically by being clean and tidy). When we closed on our house, I just became a different person with how I wanted to present my house. I was and still am obsessed with home decor. I mean.... Obsessed. I walk around my house and constantly think about what I want to do next. The wheels are always turning. Lists of projects keep getting longer and longer.

I also have tapped into my inner DIY-er. I have always been artsy fartsy and it has seriously paid off in my adult life. Crafty things come natural to me and (not to brag, but} I do them well. So well that it even looks professional. {Check out my kitchen re-do if you haven't seen my entry in re-finishing cabinets.} 

& call me nerdy....

.....but one of the more recent things I have been particular about is gift wrapping. Yes, that's right.....wrapping presents. Ever since our baby shower, I have saved, collected, and organized a gift wrapping bin. It has tons of items that I never even bought, it was all given to me with a gift and I saved it to shell out to someone else. It's quite a large collection! However, I'm lacking in Christmas items. So the purpose of this entry? I am

now obsessed with Christmas wrapping paper and how I present my gifts. I want them to look elegant and striking. Even though it will be forgotten, I want my gifts to look like someone paid to have it look like that. If you haven't seen hobby lobby's paper - check it out because it is all beautiful. I'm just waiting till after Christmas to stock up on gorgeous paper, bows, and sparkley name tags. It really makes me excited. 

Tonight my husband said "You used to be easy to Christmas shop for, now you are so difficult. Your taste has changed so much". That's right Justy, I have champagne taste with a beer pocketbook! Once the Christmas stuff goes to 80% off look out! I'll be the crazy lady with two babies stocking up on all the paper!... But when you get a gift from me, the wrap job will take your breathe away! :)

 

For the first time Justin and I hosted Christmas Eve. We wanted to start our own traditions and had fun with the siblings over. Auntie Jill and Uncle Brad never fail in providing great gifts for the girls. Isla got her first car (cozy coupe) which she adores! Dinner was great - a simple ham with lots treats. My parents stopped over after visiting at the Meyer Christmas. After a glass of wine and some very tired kids, we all turned in anxiously awaiting Christmas morning! 

Christmas morning was upon us and the girls were thoroughly spoiled. Opening our gifts first thing in the morning followed by a stop at my parents meant lots of toys! Grandma and Grandpa Pittard stopped by later to also drop of gifts. The generosity was unbelievable this year. We are blessed and so grateful to everyone! 

A day of Thanks everyday! {Our month of November}

{I'm not a big fan of these daily thankful posts in November. I feel that one should be thankful everyday! Why just November? Today and everyday is my day of thanks!}

On a different note, all of the Halloween decorations are gone. This saddens me since it is my favorite Holiday. The positive side of this is I keep up my fall decor for thanksgiving which gives the house a similar feel. I tried scavenging the stores for discounted Halloween items, but they were seriously picked over this year! I found a few great buys at Kohls and believe it or not, Jewel. I have my eye on some items at HobbyLobby, but they are not discounted enough for me to jump on them. I need to see 75% off or more to even consider them! Below are some decoration photos.

 

I'm thankful this year that we can enjoy times like this with Isla. So little time is left before baby sister Estelle gets here. I'm already feeling the anxiety of trying to share my time with both girls especially when Estelle will depend on me entirely for everything. All I can do is pray it will transition smoothly. 

I am so incredibly thankful for the surprise baby sprinkle given by my Tri-Cities family. An amazing gift card to a steak house, movie, and money for a baby sitter was just the beginning. Not to mention the boxes upon boxes of diaper and wipes. We celebrated with a potluck luncheon which was amazing as usual. We do have the best potlucks! 

Loving my diaper cake! 

So many generous gifts! 

37 weeks and 2 days. Loving all of my gifts and so incredibly grateful. I work with a lot of amazing people! 

So Thanksgiving finally arrived and it was such a great day. Justin got up and out for his annual turkey bowl football game. Isla and I got ready to Christmas music and ran around the house until we went to my parents around 10:00 to watch the parade! 

Hanging out at my parents with the Thanksgiving Day Parade on and a roaring fire is my favorite memory of Thanksgiving. The smells of delicious things cooking and the plethora of tasty snacks on the table just make the day so special. Deviled eggs, Fannie Mae Trinidad's, and endless cheese and crackers fill us up before dinner starts.

This year it was just immediate family which was nice and relaxed. Tommy, Sarah, and Hossana were in town which made Isla very happy to play with her cousin. They were inseparable best buds. The meal was delicious and shortly after eating at my parents we packed up and headed over to the Pittard residence as usual. We stayed there for a few hours and enjoyed some more treats. Isla ran about getting into mischief and we all got to catch up on family time. 

The day was over so fast! Sadly we have to wait another year to enjoy such memories again. We are blessed with a beautiful family and are thankful everyday for the beautiful life God has given us. 

"The Catch All" finds its place!

 

Our spare bedroom has conveniently become an extra storage room/closet that was well needed for readily available items. Not to mention it stores all my seasonal clothes that I swap out every few months along with all the other shoes that won't fit into my bedroom closet. Yet with another little munchkin coming into this household it was time to turn the "grey room" into Isla's big girl room. 

This room is a great size and has excellent natural light as it's facing the east. It is a little hard for me to see Isla leave her nursery, but is just that, a perfect nursery. I need the new baby to go into her current room because of the amazing layout and functionality of the room for a newborn. 

The transformation of the room was a pretty uneventful one. It was obvious that it would be an extra bedroom. The only question would be "what color?". I always wanted a grey and yellow room. It  was a color scheme that I always thought worked so well together. The original swatch I picked out was called "Pewter ring", a darker grey. However, on the walls with the natural light it appeared purple! You have to be very careful with greys. They can have a hue of so many other colors- such as brown, blue, or purple... I hated this color! So I went back to home depot and choose another swatch that had less purple and more black!

 

The second swatch was called "Suede Grey" and was definitely less purple. After it dried I was still seeing some blue, so I hung some black and white photos to see if it would change the hue a little. You would be surprised what artwork and decor can do to a wall color! It can totally pull color from the artwork to change its tint.

The pictures below show the process from start to finish. The old wall paper was removed & the walls were painted.

This is the first grey that appeared blue-ish/purple. It looked horrible!

This is the second choice I made with black and white artwork. That stayed there temporarily until we started working on changing it to Isla's new bedroom. It's a huge difference in grey right!?

As for the yellow and grey theme - I lost interest in it & wanted to try grey and coral. Well let me tell you that a coral colored comforter is not easy to find! I settled for an "orange-ish coral" color. It still looks great with the grey, especially with a pop of turquoise!

A photo of the pretty bedding...

However not such a beautiful scene below with piles of clothes to sort through and a bookcase to paint! 

The bookcase was mine when I lived at my parents. It needed a nice facelift. I used a flat matte white paint. I love the way a flat paint looks on furniture. I'm not always a fan of the glossy finish, besides I had the whole can left from a previous project & put it to good use! I spray painted the hardware with krylon brushed bronze & it looks like new! 

Almost done... Just need some more decor, but absolutely loving the color scheme! 

A little art project I wanted to get started incorporated the letters auntie Jill had made for her previous room that were once white with red ribbon to match the lady bug theme, but now they are painted a bright blue and glued on top of cute orange chevron fabric. 

I used left over insulation board from a previous project. I cut them to size then stapled the material on to the board. Here is a picture of the first few stages...

I wasn't sure what I wanted to add to the letters I painted blue. I wanted it to be bright and colorful. It was the perfect decision to go with large rainbow colored gerber daisies. I hot glued them around the letters making the signs look so playful and bright! I think they turned out great :)

I moved some of the artwork around and added some additional items that I had bought and painted. I wanted the room to have endless color. I'm very happy with the asthetic of the room now! 

Ok friends - after a couple months and getting settled, I think Isla's room is compete with decor and all! Here is a final look! The only thing we have yet to do is install the bifold doors for the closet - so for now, it is an open concept. :)