Happy Halloween and Weekend Re-cap

Happy Halloween, everyone!  I'm living vicariously through all you moms out there and love the cute Halloween pictures I've seen so far out there!  I have to admit, I'm excited for next year when we get to dress our little girl up.  Too cute!  This is our first Halloween in our new house/neighborhood, so we're hopeful that we get lots of trick or treaters tonight.  Otherwise, I'll have to eat all of that candy all by myself.  Don't get me wrong...I'm up for the task, but it's probably best the kiddos get the majority of that. 

 

 

We had an actually nice and relaxing weekend for a change.  It was surreal not having somewhere go and something to do.  Having a weekend to actually just be at home allowed by T and myself to be productive and catch up on other things.  Here's what I was busy doing:

 

 

 

These are some of the gift sets I put together for the holiday season with my Mary Kay business.  I also put together invitations for my two Holiday Open Houses I'm having.  So all in all, I got a ton of MK stuff done over the weekend.  I'm not normally a creative person so I was pretty proud with the finished product. 


Saturday night, I made a nice meal for T, and we had homemade lasagna.  YUM.  It was good, trust me. 


Sunday we went to church and then headed to Target to finish our baby registry.    We dug around in the basement through boxes T's parents brought down from his home with all of his old toys and books from his childhood.  I bought a book shelf last week for us to start putting together a little library for our baby when she arrives, so it's a start.  T was also Mr. Chef yesterday and made us one heck of an apple pie...super impressed!  Come to think of it, talking about that now is making me seriously want some apple pie...man, I should have brought some from home with me...oh well, it'll be there when I get home! 


We relaxed the rest of the day.  Towards the end of the night, Half-pint was kicking like a fiend.  T was able to feel a few of those kicks, some of them pretty hard.  Since she was so active, T decided he's going to start reading a story to her every night (So sweet, isn't he?)  So he read a little book to her, and he had his hand on my stomach while he was doing it...the whole time she was just kicking away.  Sure, she might not be able to understand words or anything, but from what I've read, she's hearing noises...so maybe she knew her Daddy was talking to her?  Either way, it was too precious. 


Hope all of you had a great weekend and have a very Happy Halloween!  Hope it's all treats with very few tricks today! 
  

Just like Christmas morning

Yesterday, as T and I were getting ready, he excitedly asked me, "do you know what today is?"  "Thursday?" was my answer.  "No, it's a special day..."  I stared blankly at him, trying my best to inventory a list of special dates he and I shared from our days of dating.  Surely I could have missed something.  "Beavis and Butthead are back today!"  He could barely contain his excitement. 

 

 

Yes, folks, it was like Christmas morning in the Nain and T household last night. 

 

 

See, my husband is stuck in the 1990s.  All of his music taste come from the 90s grunge era.  His glory days, I call them.  And Beavis and Butthead?  He's obsessed.  It was actually my first Christmas present to him...I got him the Beavis and Butthead complete collection - Seasons 1, 2, and 3, and the movie, in a boxed set.  The perfect present for him.  

 

 

I mean, this is the the same man who makes Beavis impersonations when he's vacuuming and thinks I don't hear him.  He impersonates Beavis's "fire! fire!" when building a fire in our fire pit.  He chuckles like Butthead every time he hears the word "cock" included in a phrase or other word that could be construed as some sort of dirty phrase.  Oh, T...

 

 

So as soon as he found out his favorite show was coming back on the air, he was elated.  They made this announcement some time ago, and he's been waiting for that day when it came back.  And last night was the night.  I was a fan of the show back in the day, too, and I must say...it didn't disappoint at all last night.  The show was as funny as I remember it.  Too bad they have to make fun of other MTV shows instead of just music videos, but I guess that's what you get when they don't play music videos anymore.  But it was hilarious.  And the constant smile on T's face as he watched the show?  Classic. 

 

 

Oh it takes so little to please my man.  This should last him for a good few weeks....

 

Halloween: Then and Now

This week's Spin Cycle brought to you by Sprite's Keeper is on Halloween...a then and now perspective.  I didn't participate in last week's ghost story one, mostly because I couldn't come up with a good enough ghost story to share, and honestly, I don't have a "now" perspective to share, but I'll try.  But Halloween has always been a fun holiday in my family.  I know it's one of my mom's favorite holidays, and we always had fun picking out costumes and running the neighborhood trying to get as much candy as humanly possible. 

 

 

I guess if I had a then and now comparison, it would seem to me that costumes now aren't really as creative as they were when I was little.  Having a homemade costume was so common where I grew up in Alabama.  You came up with a costume "idea," not necessarily a character you wanted to be.  So many kids I see out trick or treating where costumes where they are their favorite super hero, princess, movie character, etc.  And there is totally nothing wrong with that at all!  But when I was a little kid, we never bought costumes in the store.  Part of it had to do with money, but another part had to do with the fact that we never really wanted to be a specific thing or character.

 

 

Case in point...when I was a kiddo, I remember one Halloween where I wanted to be a princess.   Not the Disney kind, but just a generic member of royalty.  So my mom made me this yellow silk-type dress and pointy hat with a flowing ribbon out of the top.  I had a wand, and I think that was that.  We went to our school's Halloween party, and I remember winning first prize for costume.  I was so proud.  Another Halloween towards the end of the 1980s, I wanted to dress up as an 80s pop star.  So I donned a jeans skirt, pink button down top with it tied to the side, of course, hot pink fish net stockings and high-top tennis shoes.  Add crimped hair sprayed with that pink spray to make it look like I was a Jem wannabe (she IS truly outrageous, you know...), and I was seriously rocking it.  And my mom let me wear some makeup to finish that true pop star look.  I tried to think of other costumes, and sadly, I don't have pictures to share with you.  Those are all at my parent's house.  But trust me when I say I truly rocked that costume.  Bitchin. 

 

 

My brother doesn't read this blog, which is good because I totally have to call him out on a few costumes he had as a kid.  I'm not sure where he came up with some of these ideas, but my parents helped him with the costumes.  One year he was a computer.   You know, one of those first computers out in the 1980s?  I can't think of the type/name of them, but I'm sure he remembers.  All I remember is his head and body was just this giant computer with screen, keyboard and everything that my Dad helped make.  Dork, right?  But hey, it was creative.  One year he was Pac-man, and my Mom sewed a huge Pac-man costume to go over his head and body.  (Sense a trend here?  I often wonder how easily he saw or walked in those costumes...)  The funniest was when he went as a  yellow crayon.  Honestly, I don't know what brought that costume on.  But he was a yellow crayon.  My Mom made him a yellow crayon crayola body and he wore a yellow hate with eye  holes over his head.  Face didn't show.  And looking at pictures, he kind of looks like he's some messed up version of a yellow crayon KKK member.  But we were so innocent back there, and that totally wasn't the intent.  It's still funny though.

 

 

You just don't see little kids dressed up as computers or yellow crayons.  You see kids dressed up as the most recent Disney princess or Spiderman or insert (popular pop culture character here).   And honestly, I think if I were to make my daughter's costume like my parents used to do, that might actually embarrass her some day.  It's just the way the times have changed, I guess.  All I know is I do look forward to next year when I get to dress our little girl up in her very first Halloween outfit.  I do love me some baby Halloween costumes.  So cute! 

 

 

So that's my "then and now" perspective.  See what other people have to share at Sprite's Keeper!  Have a great Thursday everyone!

 

Baby update!

So we're back from another fun doctor's visit!  Nothing quite like seeing the doctor every two weeks.  It's sad that I'm already at that point where they all recognize me there, but I suppose that's to be expected. But I do love the fact that everyone there is very nice, friendly and seems to genuinely care about me and the baby.  You do have to love that. 

 

 

Anyway, I'm rambling.  You probably aren't really wanting to know any of the above information.  You want to know about the little one, right?  Well, she's doing just wonderfully!  We had an ultrasound today to monitor her growth, and it turns out that she is about 1 lb 5 oz and is in the 93rd percentile for growth at her gestational age.  And here I was worried that my heart condition would cause her to not grow, right?  She was actually quite funny today, too.  Very very active.  The ultrasound tech was having a hard time getting pictures of her vital organs to measure because she kept moving.  She actually kicked while the ultrasound tech was doing her measurement.  We got to see a pretty clear picture of her face, even though she kept hiding it behind her hands, almost as if she were playing peek-a-boo with us.  So the good news is she's healthy and doing very well.  Mommy breathes a sigh of relief. 

 

 

My health?  We're still watching it closely.  My blood pressure is always a concern, and my OB and cardiologist are working closely together to make sure that everything stays as it is.  So Nain must start taking it easy.  It'll be hard because I'm so not that girl who sits still, but...if it is for her, then I will and have no problem doing that. 

 

 

So that's your update!  I'm at 23 weeks and 2 days.  Getting bigger every day!  Maybe, just maybe...I'll post a bump picture soon for you guys.  (I make no promises, though!)

   

Oh, the mood swings

I am going to be 100 percent honest with you, folks.  I've always been a bit of an....err...how do I say this?  An emotional person?  Yes, that's how you say it.  I've been known to be moody once or twice in my past.  I think most women can say that with certainty, but I'll admit, that I have a special skill in this department.  I may or may not have been known to overreact in my past.  To dwell on things when I shouldn't.  This is one of the reasons why having a girl scares the crap out of me.  I remember how moody I was as a teenager.  Is karma going to come bite me in the butt with this?  Will my daughter be a reincarnation of her mother?  Will I pay for what I did to my parents? (Okay, I'm sure I wasn't that bad, but for purposes of a point here, I am being a little dramatic...)

 

 

So yes, I'm moody.  I'll admit that.  So that being said, this whole pregnancy mood swing thing is seriously messing with me. 

 

 

Sure, when we first got pregnant and someone warned me about the mood swings, I thought "it couldn't be that awful, right?"  Ha, oh how wrong you were, Nain.  Because lately, I have no control whatsoever with my feelings and how I react to stuff.  And it is driving me absolutely insane, guys. 

 

 

I can go from happy to sad to aggravated in less than sixty seconds.  In ways I never dreamed possible.  It doesn't help that on top of all of the hormones, I have other stressors.  The constant worry about my family and my Grandpa are always there.  I can be sitting there, enjoying a perfectly good dinner with T, and bam, sadness.  An overwhelming feeling of just sadness.  Or T and I could be having a conversation, say, about our registry, and he'll say something that makes me start thinking...and thinking...until I'm in tears about it thinking that "oh God, no one in our family is going to buy the stuff we registered for, and we're going to have to find the money for it all ourselves, and it's just awful."  Rational?  No.  Did it happen.  Yes...(sorry, T!)

 

 

I don't want you guys to think I'm going off the deep end here, and yes, I do have someone to talk to about all of this.  But I needed to vent.  Because I'm not a big fan of this irrational form of myself.  I'd like the regular Nain to come back please!  And soon, too!

 

 

I'm not the only one out there like this...right?

 

 

 

  

Just another rambling Monday post

I have to admit, I'm struggling a bit with what to say in today's blog.  It's Monday...I'm dragging...and I've got nothing basically.  So bear with me as I type out a rambling blog for you :-)

 

 

I'd like to thank the three special ladies who contributed guest blogs last week while I was away at work conferences:  Amber at Amberlashell.com, Jen at Sweet Pink Ruffles, and lastly, Brynn at Wicked Sweet Tea.    You guys rock, and I loved each of your guest posts!

 

 

I'm dragging this morning because my weekend was kind of short-lived.  I was at a work conference until Saturday morning, not getting home until afternoon.  We did get some relaxing in, but most of yesterday involved work...laundry, T mowing the lawn and sealing the driveway.  I wanted to help, but all I could do was sweep it off.  Baby can't be exposed to chemicals...but it did actually look like fun in a really sick kind of way. 

 

 

We managed to get our registries started for the half-pint.  I still have stuff to add, I know, but at least it's a start.  We're registered at Babies R Us and Target (of course!).  I'm anxious to start working on the nursery.  I can't wait until it's no longer just an empty room where we hang up our laundry.  But that does get me thinking...where are we going to hang up our clothes once she arrives?  Hmmm....

 

 

I promise to give all of you a baby update later this week.  We have a doctor's visit on Wednesday with another ultrasound to monitor her growth.  The unfortunate part of my heart condition is that I have less blood flow going to her, so there is a small risk she will be smaller at birth.  So the doctor is being extra cautious and monitoring how she's doing, as well as how I'm doing.  Next week we have to go to my cardiologist to check on the whole blood pressure thing.  Basically, I'm always going to the doctor, but it's a good thing, I suppose, because that means I'm being monitored and everything is going well!  But it does make it hard to make up the hours that I do miss at work. 

 

 

I should be a little more careful when walking.  We got some rain this morning, and I slipped on a wet spot outside of our building.  I almost ended up doing the splits before catching myself on the door handle.  Scared the crap out of me!  Let's not hurt yourself or the baby, Nain! 

 

 

Oh, and Mary Kay plug!  I do have a Facebook page for my Mary Kay business, so if you can, check it out and become a "fan!"  It'd make my Monday, trust me :-)

 

 

Okay, I promise to be back tomorrow with a more cohesive post.  Happy Monday, everyone!

 

Guest post: Lessons from my thirties

Today's guest post comes courtesy of my favorite Southern Belle, Brynn, over at Wicked Sweet Tea!  This fabulous lady is in the midst of wedding planning (less than 30 days away from the big day!)  So stop by her blog and send some love!  And...here's Brynn! (Thank you SO much for your post!)

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Things my 30's have taught me


I turned 30 last December and I've been reflecting on some of my biggest lessons I've learned this year.



Shifting Happens




One of the first things I noticed this year was that although I was the same size as I was last year, my body "shifted" in a manner akin to a house settling. Everything on my body is lower. My booty is a good inch lower and let's not discuss the difference between 20's boobs and 30's boobs, shall we?



Not only are your laugh lines a little deeper, but so are your friendships.



I think what I've appreciated most about this year is that your 30's have a way of refining your friendships into really solid bonds while letting the frivolous ones go. As your life is maturing and your biggest stressors are along the lines of "Can we afford this house?", "Should we have a child", "We need to cut out salt for our blood pressure", you value the friendships that have matured along with you. Friends who have an appreciation for the interest rate, how to fold napkins for your first Thanksgiving you are hosting your "particular" mother-in-law, and whom you can call at 3:00 a.m. asking for advice with a baby's raging fever or whooping cough start replacing the friendships that start appearing superficial.



This year has been the worst and best year of my life. I have gone through one of the hardest times in my life and it showed me what friends would be there in the rough times. I was truly surprised at the friendships that became stronger and which ones fizzled. When doing the guest list for our wedding next month, I realized I really only wanted to invite friends to the wedding who were there in the times of difficulty and in the times of celebration. Because at the end of the day, I realized friendships are investments and I only want to be surrounded by people who are invested in our lives.



How you define yourself changes



In my 20's, I tended to define myself in superficial ways such as how I looked, what job I had and what circle I was a member of. These days, I define myself not by my superficial merits, but in values and in how I enrich others' lives. & not only do I change how I define myself, I define my friends differently. No longer is Beth Anne referred to as "my super skinny, gorgeous, sorority sister who works for THE ::insert pseudo famous name here::". Beth Anne is now referred to as, "my amazing friend who is incredibly organized who can not only make 48 cupcakes from scratch for her son's classroom, but also manages to go on a mission trip to Haiti with her husband". Now Beth Anne is still everything I first referred to her as, but she's so much more than that.



Just like I am.




There's many, many things I've learned during this past year but I guess everything sums up to this... I've learned who I really am, what really matters to me and who really matters to me.



& that my jeans will never fit the same again.