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Week 40

The last of the baby journals. Bring on baby girl I'm ready!

I wasn't planing on doing this composite or I would have planned the photos a little better I was just curious to see my growth unfortunately it's not that exciting

Baby Shower

My friends threw me the most amazing baby shower I couldn't believe it. They went to so much work and it meant the world to me. I have to post a ton of pictures of it just to show you how cute it was. I'm so grateful for all my friends that came and spoiled baby girl. I felt such a weight lifted off of me after the shower because I finally felt prepared. I have the best friends in the world and don't know what I would do without each of them and the love they show me. 

Cali is an amazing artist and totally outdid her self with the invites. I had to post a picture of the envelopes because even those were cute

The food was amazing and decorated so cute

I'm such a fan of muffins and breakfast breads and don't you worry I tried every one of them

I thought this was such a cute idea they did a yogurt bar. It made for a delicious brunch

The lucky winner of the raffle got a gift certificate to a spa how nice is that!

I was totally surprised by this. Emily got some baby pictures from my mom to display. A lot of them I hadn't seen in a while and it was fun to see what baby girl might look like. 

The AMAZING ladies minus Lindsey that helped throwing the shower. They truly are the best friends anyone could ask for and I'm so blessed to call them my friends.

My favorite group of ladies. It really doesn't get better than having most of your close friends all together at one time. Love you all!

Emily put together the shower and I'm so so grateful for her what an amazing job she did. She is one of the most thoughtful people I know. Thank you Emily I loved every detail! 

My work family

I have to say I have the best job and work with the best people. Most people aren't lucky enough to say they will miss their job and co-workers while on maternity leave, but I'm going to miss these guys. Tenae my boss and the person who hired me recently left the hotel, so we took some group pictures before she left. Most of them ended up being goofy but we're not so much the serious type.

When I found out she was leaving there were many tears. I have too many good things to say about Tenae to even begin to list them out. She is missed terribly by this lady. I'm excited for her and the new opportunity she has but it was hard news to hear. She has helped me so much through everything, she has helped me grow in my career, she was an AMAZING boss, and just a great person. Shayna is now the Director of Sales and will most definitely lead our team to rocking it! I can't forget to mention that Jason is pretty much the best General Manager ever and our hotel is the best in town because of him.

We are all a little crazy but that is what makes us great!

All three of the sales girls are pregnant and we didn't want Tenae to feel left out so I photoshop'ed a belly on her. She had to leave the hotel before she caught the bug that must have been going around :)

Maternity Pictures

I have to say it's very handy having a photographer for a dad. Like I've mentioned before I had this perfect idea of how I wanted my maternity pictures to be and because I couldn't have that I decided not to do any at all. I have the journal pictures I've taken and was going to call that good. Then I changed my mind. I love being pregnant and wanted one more thing to remember it by and most of all hate regretting things. So I decided if I hadn't had the baby by now I would do pictures. I had to change my idea of what I wanted but I think they turned out great and baby Abby unexpectedly joined a few pictures. Thank you dad for taking your Saturday to document this time for me!

Laughter

My dad took our family to the Brian Regan show and it just happened to be my Mom's Birthday so we made a night of it. He bought the tickets forever ago so we had killer seats, try second row. I swear it made it that much funnier to see his expressions up close. We laughed harder than I've laughed in a long time and it felt good. We always love referring to Brian Regan's jokes in all its real world applications. We started the night off with Red Lobster and ended with Kiwi Loco. It was a perfect night! 

My Girls

I'm a little behind on my blogging, this picture is from a girls night last month. I had to post it because these are the things that just make me happy. I love these girls more than words can express ok just thinking about it makes me start to cry. I have so many friends that I look up to and admire. They get me through tough days, they make me laugh, they give me mommy advice, they are the BEST!!! I have been feeling so much love and I can't say thank you enough. I always wished I had a sister, and I've been blessed because I have lots of them! Baby girl is super lucky to have many mommys and already formed relationships with her boyfriends and girlfriends :) 

A room fit for a princess

The nursery is finally complete, well almost. I'm of course going to adorn the walls with enormous prints of the little princess, but that will have to wait so the walls are a little bare for now. The nursery has been in progress since November and its nice to see it all come together. I found the color combo on pinterest and then started creating from there. I'm proud at how thrifty I have been putting the room together. We have been doing lots of do it your self projects. I feel as though the nursery has been an outlet for all the things I can't control. I realize it's a little overboard but it's the one thing that couldn't be taken away from me. A perfect princess room! 

I bought this mirror at the crazy garage sale Emily and I went to in Boise a while back. I knew I would use it somewhere one day 

My mom helped me sew everything. I feel like we made a trip to a fabric store about every other day. 

Here is just a short list of all her work: Sheets, Crib Skirt, Bumpers, Decorative Pillows, Changing Pad Cover, Canvas Totes, Curtain Tie Backs, Cornice Board, Rocking Chair, and Throw Blanket

My mom is seriously amazing and can just sew anything up. I really think she needs to open a baby boutique because she has made so much for this little girl. I feel very spoiled. 

I bought this lamp a while ago with no purpose so by default it ended up in the room. I made some fabric flowers to tie it all in. The dresser we bought at a DI in ogden. It was a weird off white color and was missing one of the top handles. Other than that the dresser was really good quality and in perfect condition. My dad tried a new painting technique from pinterest of course and I loved how it turned out. It totally looks professionally painted. I bought new knobs from hobby lobby for the top drawer that had the broken off one. My dad is so handy what would I do without him!

The Process......

Brett and his family painted the nursery in December while I had a break from work. They were very patient with me and the fiasco it was to find the perfect color, and when I later decided to paint the ceiling. Brett's dad is professional at crown molding so he came to the rescue when our first plan with the tulle didn't work and now I love it even more. 

I knew the room had to have a princess chandelier and my dad came up with the tulle on the ceiling and helped me execute it. We bought the tulle for $0.50 a yard on black friday. Then we sewed a gather in the strips of tulle. We used double sticky hemming tape to adhere it to the edges of the room. Then we gathered each strip and tacked it up in the middle of the room under the chandelier medallion. It took us about three times before we finally got it right, but now I LOVE IT! 

One of my parents good friends gave me this glider. It wasn't the dream chair I had wanted, but when I realized how expensive that would be I came up with plan B. My mom spotted a tutorial on pinterest of recovering a glider that gave us a brilliant idea of transforming it. This project was one of those that many swear words were said and maybe some tantrums thrown. If it was a chair just like the tutorial it would have been a million times easier but this chair had a curved back which made sewing a cover near to impossible. There were many steps in transforming the chair. 

1st- We cut large sheets of foam padding and board and nailed them to the chair to give it its new shape

2nd- We used spray adhesive and attached a layer of batting to help smooth out all the pieces of foam

3rd- We made a tight slip cover out of fleece to hold everything together nice and tight

4th- We made so many patterns of all the pieces out of everything from news paper to old sheets to make sure we cut the white fabric correctly. Measure twice cut once right :) 

5th- We made the white cover, cushion, skirt, etc. 

When I say we I really mean me mom, but I was there for moral support. She hated the project but we ended up with a really comfortable and perfect glider for less than $80. I appreciate her and her diligence in making it work.