24 Weeks!

This past Friday was the 24-week mark, and on March 29 there was another OB/GYN visit that went well and was overall uneventful (in a good way).  So we also thought it'd be time to show another advanced belly photo (soon enough we'll probably get to post a video of the baby moving inside!):



Baby belly, much bigger than the last time we posted a photo...Tamara now refers to her belly button as the "Ever-Expanding Amazing Cavernous Belly Button Of Doom"!  Ok, maybe it's just Jason that refers to it that way, but it is getting bigger...

Just in case you thought we spent the entire weekend painting the nursery wall, we did not!  We actually went yesterday to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston exhibit on Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, and it was fantastic.  In baby-related news at the exhibit, Jason was able to feel the baby kick two more times during lunch, and earlier, when she was kicking up a storm in there, Tamara went to use the restroom where a group of young musicians were warming up for a performance of some kind at the museum.  The baby was busy kicking away until Tamara stepped into the restroom and the sounds of a young girl practicing her violin echoed around the restroom in a really amplified way.  Olivia stopped kicking immediately, like she was listening to the soothing sounds...so, we've decided since she can now hear with fully developed ears in the womb we will start playing Vivaldi to her in the evenings or when she seems to be especially active.  Who knows, maybe she'll have a deep appreciation for music like some of her relatives...

In addition to the nursery painting, since the craft room was recently spring cleaned and Tamara's been feeling a bit more energetic lately, she's taken on a few other projects.  One of those is to construct a diaper cake for the upcoming baby shower, a photo of which is below.  It's still a work in progress, with flowers and other decoration yet to be added, but here's what it looks like so far:

 

The diaper cake in progress, with pretty ribbons and bows


Another project just underway is to start making some baby clothes from store-bought patterns.  The first little dress and baby hat combination outfit is starting to take shape, as seen in the next batch of photos.  We've got several patterns and a handful of fabric options to play with, so there will be plenty of crafting going on between now and the due date.
 

Tamara holding up part of the unassembled dress



The unassembled pieces and dress pattern

 

Another close-up of the unassembled pieces


And that rounds out the blog posts for this week.  Stay tuned next week for more updates on the nursery wall and whatever else might happen over the week between now and then.  Olivia's going to get her first taste of Cajun crawfish on Thursday night, so we'll see if she starts to dance to the zydeco instead of her usual soccer practice in there!

Painting the Nursery, Part 3

It's been another week and we've made a few more strides forward on the nursery painting, this time finishing off branches and leaves, completing most animals, starting to add a lot more detail, and altogether getting closer to being finished with the project.  As a bit of a sneak preview then of the final product, we went ahead and moved the crib back into place, brought in some of the bedding and stuffed animals, and arranged things close to how they will finally look on that side of the room.  Without further ado, here's the latest batch of pictures, the first of which is a stitched together photo composed from 8 separate photos that shows the nearly completed wall with crib centered between the trees:


Stitched together "panoramic" of the crib and the wall - the crib is centered just right between the trees, our dark green hill in the background fills all the slats in the crib, and you can see the bedding next to the animals now to see how they compare both in color and form



The right-hand tree, now with bears added to the hill in the foreground, and birds, opossum, and bees completed



The left-hand tree, with many animals you've seen before, but with several new birds added and butterflies to balance out the bees; also, additional leaves and branches are now added to fill out the tree compared with the other one



A close-up of the left-hand tree, showing the owl, butterflies, a lady bug, and two little cardinals



A close-up of the right-hand tree, showing the deer with his legs shaded darker, bees and beehive completed, and birds above



The two little bears on the right-hand wall; the photo came out a little washed out for some reason, but the color is pretty close to the bedding; we'll probably start adding in some tufts of grass around the bears and on the hill outline soon



A close-up of the right-hand tree, with owl, squirrel, and more complete birds' nest



A close-up of the right-hand tree with opossum and lady bug...we're still wavering a bit about the look of the opossum, but that's why it's good to step back and re-evaluate as you go along



A close-up of the left-hand tree, with the racoon and birds shown



A close-up of the left-hand tree with owl and cardinals shown



A full-on shot of the crib, with nursery quilt, nursery blanket, crib mattress, and stuffed animals (Bambi and Boyd's Bear with Bee Costume)



We also just got the stroller and car seat set in from Grandma this weekend and thought we'd set it up in the nursery - the colors are well coordinated, and Bambi looks comfy riding around!

 

A little wider angle of the stroller and crib



The car seat/carrier hood slightly pulled forward while set in the stroller


That's it for nursery pictures this week.  We just hit week 24 last Friday, so we'll put up a separate post in a bit with new baby belly pictures and a statement or two about how violins can soothe a kicking baby...

Painting the Nursery, Part 2

So, this weekend the nursery painting continued in full swing, and we made a ton of progress (even though we're still far from finished).  We focused primarily on adding leaves to the trees, but also fleshed out the pond, filled in some sparse areas on the right-hand tree with more branches and leaves (we've still got to do that for the left-hand tree once we've got all of our animals figured out), drew in some new animals, and painted a few that had already been drawn in.  We think it's coming along great, but judge for yourselves with some new photos:



An overall shot of the trees in their current state; the leaves are complete on the right-hand tree and the only gaps left in the branches are filled with animals; we'll be filling out the left-hand tree with the next pass we make

 

A closer shot of the left-hand tree; the pond is now much more developed, and more paint was added to the fox and squirrel in the tree; most of the leaves that had already been drawn before today were painted, but there's still alot left to fill in

 

A close-up of the fox and pond; we've now got a lily pad placed beneath the frog, a jumping fish added, reeds and cat-tails around the pond, and the turtle painted



An even closer image of the pond, where you can see the fish drawn in and partially painted



Another image of the pond, with a better view of the turtle - we're going to need to add a bit of outline around him to get him to stand out better from the grass



Another view of the fox and squirrel, now both nearly complete



A close-up of the owl in the left-hand tree; we've now added a lady-bug to one of the nearby extra-large leaves



Here's the raccoon in the left-hand tree, with the beginnings of his body and tail painted in



The squirrel and owl in the right-hand tree, with a bunch of leaves now painted in



The baby deer at the base of the right-hand tree



Above the baby deer, we've now added a beehive and some buzzing bees, as well as three little song birds to add some girly color into the mural



The right-hand tree, with a better overall view of the leaves



A close-up of the beehive and song birds



And a better view of the bees...the bees on the baby quilt are brown and orange, but we thought we've try them as more realistic yellow and maybe brown instead of black...we'll see how it turns out



We also decided today to throw an opossum into the mix...he's not on any of the baby bedding, so this was a freehanded departure we think will be a fun addition



Finally, we added a bird's nest (kind of abstracted) with three baby birds and a mother bird with worm to one of the higher branches in the right-hand tree



That's it for this week!  We will post again if we get a chance to work on it before next weekend comes around - otherwise expect some big changes by this time next week!