T Minus One Month

Happy September 30th! You know what that means, right? It means that our little princess is due in a month! I couldn't let today go by without posting a shot of my 8-months-pregnant belly for all of you to see.

I am still feeling great and getting anxious to meet our baby girl. Hopefully we'll find some time to put her nursery together amidst all the MBA school applications going around over here! Anyway, have a great day- and bring on October!

Over Our Heads

You know that lesson on priorities where you have big rocks, pebbles, sand and water that is all supposed to fit into one bucket? The trick is to put the big rocks in first, then the pebbles, the sand, and the water. If you start with anything but the big rocks, they will never fit, but somehow when you do it right, all of that stuff gets in together. Well, we are surviving on big rocks and a couple pebbles right now.

Brian is up to his elbows (or maybe his neck) in applications for Masters of Business programs. He has been working diligently on essays and application materials every night for the past little while and I try to be as helpful as possible. With applications taking up our evenings, and working during the day, we are struggling to find time for much else, but it will all be worth it, right?

Anyway, I pulled some of my morning time out today to start sewing my circles! Aren't they pretty? I only got about 20 of them sewn, but hey, it's a start!

I also put up my (make-shift) Halloween decorations and we are enjoying the fall season in our little apartment. Most of the stuff I use to decorate is just ribbons, tissue paper, and fabric that adds the spooky colors of Halloween, but it works for us and it's cheap!

Wonderful Weekend

Have I mentioned before how absolutely wonderful my husband is? I hope so. He deserves all the credit he can get. Over this past weekend, Brian surprised me with a beautiful hotel room in Park City. I have been telling him how I want to get away before the baby comes and he took that idea and ran with it. On Thursday night as we were falling asleep, Brian asked if we could "stay in" the next night. I said that was totally fine and that I would love to plan something for our Friday night if he wanted me to. His response was that he wanted to "stay in" in Park City and that he would like me to pack a bag. How FUN! :)

We headed up after work on Friday and went swimming at The Lodge pool and then just hung out in our sweats and watched some redbox movies together. I LOVE lounging in hotel rooms. Seriously, such a welcome break from 'normal' life. :)

Our room had a full kitchen, a family room, two bathrooms, and a very large bedroom.

The view from our balcony (notice that we are overlooking the alpine slides).

On Saturday morning we headed out for a gorgeous drive up Guardsman Pass to see the autumn leaves. The bright yellows and vibrant reds made me giddy. I love this season!

And did I mention I love this guy? Well I do!

On Saturday night, we met up with my parents and Tara & Ryan for dinner at The Garden at Temple Square and then went to The Lion King. Brian and I slept in line for tickets about 6 or 7 months ago and we were so excited to finally see it! Dinner was delicious and the show was even better!

Our seats were on the first row of the Grand Tier. That means we basically had the best view ever! Thanks again for a wonderful weekend babe! I love you!

The Era of Naps...

I came to the conclusion over the weekend [with a little help from Brian] that I am wearing myself out. I know I've been busying myself with projects and whatnot, but I have had a whole mess of energy inside me that has been put to good use. The problem now is that my energy storage is getting smaller. With our little girl coming in just over a month, my body is starting to need more rest and more naps. So, while I didn't promise Brian I would stop doing my projects, I did promise to take more time to sit and relax with my [swollen] feet up. He, in return, is doing everything he can think of to give me more rest. What a wonderful husband!

Now, I have some good news, some great news, and some bad news. Let's start with the bad... I did not get my quilt bound this weekend while I was at my parents. It was the one project I brought, but my mom's rotary cutter needs a new blade and I only brought enough fabric to cut it just right.

Good news? I went to Brook's Fabric [probably my favorite fabric store ever] AND made my very first trip to Hobby Lobby over the weekend. My mom and I had a great time going through fabrics and home decor- especially the new fall stuff! I love spending days like that. Just walking through craft stores and looking at project ideas. Inspiring.

And the truly great news? I didn't spend a penny at either store! My won derful mom bought me a yard of 2 fabrics from each store. THANKS MO M! I already have one of the projects from these nearly finished and I plan on getting them both done by the end of the week. Too ambitious? I promise to take a nap in between! :)

Also, I got to spend time with these two cute little girls! They played dress up and danced around in these dresses for a long time. So cute! And on Saturday night, Abbie had a surprise visitor. I'm so glad I got to be there to see her reaction. Priceless!

100 Days...

YUP! One hundred days 'til Christmas. Does it feel like it snuck up too fast to you? Not to me. I am fully in the Christmas spirit already. I think part of that is realizing that I won't have time to do as much Christmas preparation after our little girl gets here in SIX WEEKS. I have already started my Christmas list- comprised of some craft supplies, as usual, and more importantly, I have started my Christmas crafts list. Some of the to dos are:

Make stockings for Brian, myself, and our unborn little princess

Create a pillow after this idea to go in our front room

Hopefully get around to making some fun blocks for our kitchen that say "Let it Snow!"

And try my first attempt at making a table runner.

This one is super cute and doesn't look TOO hard...

So, I'm definitely in Christmas preparation mode, but don't worry, I'm not letting my favorite season (Autumn) pass buy without fully enjoying it. Yesterday, I surprised Brian with a picnic dinner that was ready to go when we got home from work. We headed up the Provo Canyon and looked at the pretty changing leaves and just enjoyed the gorgeous weather. I neglected to take any pictures of the picnic, but I did get some shots of a mouse Brian was feeding our dinner to.

I snagged this quick shot of a spider web on the bridge at Glen Park. I didn't even notice the spider at the time. Probably a good thing!

After our fun trip up the canyon, we headed to Spanish Fork to grab some penny candies at a place Brian used to go as a kid. We each got a paper bag and filled them with these goodies.
I love my hubby. Really, he's so wonderful to me and is always up for one of my crazy adventures. He is very supportive of my crafts (even when I spend a little money on them) and even gives me ideas to work on. I am so proud of all he does and I can't wait to see him as a daddy! Love you honey.

QUILTED!

YAY! I finally have this blanket ready for binding! For a while last night I thought I was going to have to take my machine in to get repaired because the bobbin tension was too tight and none of the regulators were working. But after a quick cleaning under my plate, I got right back to work. I finished up the tail end of this before work today and just decided to go with squiggles on the pink part. I like how it turned out. Now, I just have to make the binding. :)


One quilt ready, one more to go (as if I will actually get 2 ready to be bound this weekend...). Here is the beginnings of the next quilt.

Other news: We are just a month and a half away from meeting Baby Nielsen. We are getting more and more excited as the days (and the aches and pains of the third trimester) go by. Brian's nose is doing pretty well for post-surgery and we are so glad he was able to get it done. Hope you all have a great day!

Took a Break...

I know, I know... how dare I not blog for a whole week and a half!?!?! Well, the truth is, we took a little bit of R&R over last weekend and I figured it was a good time for me to sink into a good book (Mockingjay) and give the sewing machine a little rest as well. Thursday, Sept 2, Brian had his nose operated on to fix his deviated septum. He has had some trouble breathing easily through his nose and getting surgery now versus when the baby comes sounded like a good idea to us. Well, that 'good idea' turned into this:

... for a week straight. He slept on the couch to stay elevated and to not wake me up. For the whole week after surgery his nose was blocked up and he had to breath through his mouth. No fun at all. But he was a good sport through it all, even with the added pain of canker sores in his mouth and throat.


So, he got to spend a lot of time playing his Gran Turismo racing games and just chilling/working at home for a week. A week later we headed back to the doctor and took the splints and (most of) the stitches out. Brian is breathing through his nose much better now, but there is still lots of healing for those broken bones and the raw skin.


So, after the weekend was over, I dove back into some projects to keep busy. I finally hemmed the curtains I hung in our bedroom:


I took a razor blade to our crib box:


Taped pieces of it together for thickness and painted them:

{ignore the spill down the front of me... I blame it on the baby.}

And then added paper to them to hang on our bathroom wall. These still need to be mod podged, but I didn't have a sponge brush to do it with. Maybe after work today....


My sewing machine got busy again and I started quilting on this quilt. Notice the walking foot on my sewing machine? Thanks for letting me borrow it mom! As for the actual quilting on this quilt... it's a challenge. I am all done with the white portion and I almost finished up the top brown part, but my bobbin tension got all messed up and I was not in a mood to deal with it, so we'll see when I get back to this one. My goal was to have two quilts ready for binding by this weekend... I'll let you know how that goes.


My new inspiration is this little roll of preciousness. Doesn't it just make you giddy?


And I know exactly what I'm going to do with it. The only problem is, I can't start that one until I get my project with this fabric going.


Look how ADORABLE those turtles are! :) I guess that's inspiration enough.

Ode to

I know, I know, it's only the FIRST DAY of September... But the way I see it, September is the gateway month. It always leads to the holiday months which starts with OCTOBER! Oh, how I love October. I love the fall leaves and the halloween decorations. I love the corn mazes and haunted houses. I love wearing light sweaters and jackets. I love the BYU football season. And I love the feel that the holidays are here!

So call me crazy, but I'm jumping into the holiday feel. I even had a cup of hot cocoa last night to get in the mood of fall! You know, that excitement and all the planning? That's what I'll be experiencing all month long- and all next month too! I'm already picking out my holiday projects. LOVE IT!

Speaking of projects, I managed to get my rag quilt washed and mostly dry this morning before work. Due to the massive amount of lint, I took it to a laundromat and the dryers took too long so I just hung it up before work to let it finish. Here is a picture of the finished product:

{Not too bad for a quilt from mom's scraps!}

And another little tidbit of a project I did. I decided I love these flowers and I made a little one for our baby's headband. Super cute! I am planning to make a bunch of these with clips on them so I can change out the the flower colors with different outfits.

{oh my goodness! I'm having a baby!}