Bumpdate: 26 weeks

Good morning loves! I hope your mornings are starting off well. As you can see from the title -- it's time for a new bumpdate!!! And believe me, we have a lot to cover, so let's not waste anymore time and get this show on the road:

Quick stats
     

26 weeks 2 days! My hair looks amazing!!!

In my last Bumpdate I said I was going to try and crank these out weekly...well not a lot happened last week so I decided to skip it, but now in my 26th week of pregnancy I am over the moon excited! I mean think about it, I'm 5 days shy of my third trimester! That's 13 short weeks until Monk Monk is here!! (Honestly I think it'll be more like 10 or 11 weeks but we're trying to keep with the schedule here). We don't have a scale but I'm sure I've gained at least a pound since our last chit-chat, and although earlier in my pregnancy I expressed some apprehension about gaining the dreaded pregnancy weight I've more or less come to terms with it because I know it's what's best for my little Prince. I'll admit, it is still a little hard to look down and see a belly but aside from the occasional freak-outs, I'm finally starting to adjust.  


Baby Buys

     A little over a month ago I put myself on a strict no buy until after the baby shower and believe it or not I've been doing pretty darn well if I may say so myself. We did end up buying another crib but I'll talk more about that during "Operation Nursery". We also bought some art supplies, but I don't really count it even though they are for decor purposes. (Again, we'll talk more during ON).
     I am going to order the baby shower invitations this week, so I guess you can count that as a baby buy. They're beyond adorable...gotta love Etsy! Oh, and speaking of the baby shower, we have released our registries!!!!

• Amazon 
• Target 

Please feel free to take a look at them and if you do plan on ordering, especially from Target, do it ASAP. The baby shower is scheduled for August 2nd and Target is slightly notorious for putting even the smallest things (i.e. a really cute jacket) on a boat (6-8 ship time...minimum). It doesn't happen all the time but we don't want to take any chances.

Don't Forget About Mama
     
       I bought my first maternity shirt!!! I got it second hand so it was only $5 and while it is pretty cute, I probably won't be buying a whole new wardrobe. It is super hot in Okinawa and I plan on living in maxi skirts and dresses the entire time. I might get a pair of shorts or two but I don't want to get ahead of myself.
      Not really baby related but I took my Senegalese twists out last week and although it takes me longer to get dressed and ready now I am loving having my hair back! I love my curls!

Operation Nursery

      Now it's time for what you have all been waiting for!!!! Operation Nursery is definitely a go and although I won't show you everything (got to leave a bit for the imagination --- aka a big nursery reveal in August), I will give you little sneak peeks of our progress. Last week was all about the dresser and as you can see from the before and "kind of after" photos, it's undergone a major face lift.

                 

Before

Kind of after

      Eeek, I can't wait until you all get to see the finished product! It was definitely a labor of love but I think it looks great! As mentioned earlier, we bought another crib and while it was a hard pill to swallow, it's better this way. Originally I had purchased a used crib from Okinawa Yard Sales and with every intention of painting it I was super excited about finding such a quality piece of furniture for "cheap". As I researched different ways to paint and refurbish the crib, I met a lot of resistance, especially regarding the safety and toxicity of whatever paint I would ultimately choose. Nonetheless, I pressed on, fully determined to sand, prime and paint my dream crib. Well, insert rainy season, a broken sander and a husband who sleeps during the day because of mids, I quickly realized that this was project I was simply not ready nor equipped for. After licking my wounds and coming to grips with a failed project, I put on some pants and headed out to the BX. Luckily, I found the perfect crib for an even more perfect price and we're putting it together tomorrow morning so I'm a happy camper. 

***DISCLAIMER*** For anyone thinking about refurbishing a crib, please do not let my experience discourage you! It is definitely possible but please do your research, gather an abundance of materials and prepare for a lot of work.

      Is it just me, or does Pintrest bring out your inner arts and crafts guru? While licking my wounds about the crib, I decided to get a jump start on some of the decor I want in the nursery and since I had all the material for my canvas boards I figured why not knock these out of the way. I still have a few left to do but I'm loving the results so far. 

I love it! And it was super easy!!!

Extras

     I do have a few extras to report but I think I'm going to do a separate blog post on them because they're kind of a big deal and really cool! 

<3 ya!!

REGISTRY!!!!

A lot have been asking so here ya go!!

Amazon
Target

<3 yall!!

Horrible Blogger!!

Hi all! Remember me? I know it's been absolutely forever since my last blog post and normally I have some kind of excuse but not this time, I really just never got around to posting. My sincerest and deepest apologies, I didn't forget about you...I swear!! After finishing the semester, the days and weeks just rolled past me. I was so focused on catching up on sleep and being lazy...it's kinda sad now that I think about it. Regardless, I should've kept up with my blog so I promise this won't happen again.

In my defense, my absence wasn't just sleeping and eating cereal all day, aside from finishing up my first year at LUO (woot!!) I was able to finally tackle a big project that has been on my mind for quite some time. Living in Okinawa is great, but living on base kind of sucks because most of the housing layouts are so weird. Ex: our living room is a horribly shaped rectangle and without some serious imagination, and Pintrest we're really limited on what we can do. Luckily, I have some imagination and am hopelessly devoted to Pintrest, so I spent about a week moving things around, decorating, reorganizing and just making everything feel more home-y. I meant to take before and after photos but I totally forgot to do the befores, and I'm not all the way satisfied yet so the afters will have to wait but what at I have done definitely qualifies as a major improvement!! Ugh! I swear we have the worst designed housing ever...imagine a cement box with really big, ill placed windows and way too many random closets. Oh! and two really small bedrooms, a unnecessarily large kitchen, decent sized bathroom and a laundry closet (it doesn't qualify as a room).

But in other news, can you believe I am 24 weeks pregnant!! It's all going by so freaking fast! A couple weeks ago, my friend and I started planning my baby shower and obviously I'm super, freaking excited! It isn't until August 2nd, so I won't go too far into what we talked about but as we get closer to the date I'll definitely get y'all up to speed because you already know it is going to be AWESOME!! For now, I'll let y'all in on the theme because it's kind of my favorite part: CARNIVAL!!! Initially I was going to go with a circus theme, but clowns are at the circus and quite frankly clowns are really creepy. Since baby shower planning has officially started, Jeremiah and I figured it would be a good idea to get a registry (or two) in order and dun-da-dun-tah!! here they are: Amazon & Target.

Yes, for the purpose of addressing proper etiquette, we realize that we are releasing the registries earlier than "acceptable".  Well darling reader, some companies, particularly Target, can be very iffy with their shipping and if something can't be shipped via plane, they will more than likely place the item on a boat which means we won't see it for at least 6-8 weeks *hint, hint*. Of course this is not the norm but we don't want to take any chances. (When we first moved here, it took two and half months for our bathroom trashcan to get here because it was shipped via boat). Also, we want to give people a chance to shop around. Personally, whenever I'm presented with a registry, I take a look at it to get an idea of what the parents need and if I can find a similar or the same product somewhere cheaper it's a win-win in my book. And of course, a lot of family members have been asking about it so I am happy to finally deliver "the goods". HOWEVER PLEASE TAKE NOTE!! MY ONLY RULE!! Because it is so early, if you do not want a package opened before the baby shower please let us know!! Send a text, a Facebook message, call us on skype, e-mail us - do whatever you have to do to get us the message. I love getting packages and its really hard to resist the urge to tear the box open and reveal the hidden treasures. (Okay, maybe it's not that serious but still just give us a heads up.) And if for some reason the links above don't work, you can search for our registries by name and city: Tiffany or Jeremiah Dobson/APO, AP.

I have some pregnancy updates but I'll do a separate post for that (I'm going to post it right after this one...I SWEAR!!)

<3 ya!!