Silhouette Tree (12.7.13)

I took a few pictures in front of the tree yesterday.  Google turned one into a gif and made the tree sparkle. Luckily I was able to download it and crop it so you didn't see all the boxes on the ground around the tree.

I used photoshop to darken the background so the lamp isn't so prominent in the background.  I took quite a few pictures and think the one where you can see tree on both sides of me is my favorite. It was hard to do that. I kind of jammed myself into the tree so that depth didn't make it even worse. Here's a time I miss my old bigger tree.

Here's another one I liked since you can't see any tree behind me.   If I was mailing Christmas cards this year, maybe I'd have a picture like this included.  Maybe I should just email it to people.  Well maybe I'll do a second photoshoot from a different angle to compare. Santa is facing a different way after all. I just did these quick.   These kind of want to make me go somewhere with a huge tree to get some cool pictures.

37 Weeks (12.7)

I feel like I've finally started to not want to move. Getting up from the couch can be more difficult. After I went for a walk then I waddled a bit the rest of the evening.  While seated, it is really difficult to reach something from the floor. I also don't like bending to the refrigerator. Granted I didn't like bending in June when we moved here. But now it's a lot more challenging. And for some reason I hit my head on the freezer when I'm getting up.

We started to hang up onesies on Monday night. Based on how that worked out, I have to figure out a possible better way.  I made a few more onesies. I made some for someone else and Dave liked them so then I had to make the same thing for us.  I actually hung up a second row. I bought clothes pins to swap out the binder clips. I'll take a final product at some point. I still need to hang another row.  These are hung based on size so as a baby grows it's easier to pull some down to wear.

I had my doctor appointment on Thursday. The baby has not moved positions at all. I knew this based on how I can feel her head. (See the animated gif at the bottom of the post to see me pointing to the baby's head.) She'll move an inch or 2 but no more and she usually moves right back to putting her head in her favorite spot. The doctor confirmed this with an ultrasound of course. She is less likely to flip the larger she gets. Every week, she will continue to check the baby's position, but we will schedule a c-section. She has to look for available times and sort of dates.  She wants to be on call at the time but also the times are 7:30 AM,  9:30 AM some more in the middle of the day and then like 5 pm or 7 pm. I forget.  Earlier is better since you can't eat for 8 hours before the surgery. I won't say the date yet plus it's not even scheduled. But this might affect what people fill out on our baby pool.  Even the day of the scheduled c-section they will check the baby's position and if she has moved into the proper position, then they won't do a c-section. I can keep up doing the exercises or not. If they haven't helped already she thinks they won't.  The bigger the baby gets the harder it is. Maybe if I would have started them weeks earlier, it would have been better. There could also be a reason she's not moving. On one of the youtube videos I watched, someone said a baby didn't move because the umbilical cord was wrapped tightly around it's neck and moving would have not been good. I think more about this because a friend of many years just lost her baby at 35 weeks pregnant because the umbilical cord was wrapped tightly around his neck.  I'd say before I was nervous about actual labor and now it's just changed to being nervous about c-section recovery. I don't feel like the thought of an actual c-section makes me nervous.

In the book I'm reading (Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy), it mentions so many things. There is one entire section on mood swings. It says one minute you're giddy with happiness and a few minutes later, you feel like crying.  I can say I can't even think of a specific time this happened. Someone at DBC mentioned that I have mood swings and this person I had only talked to about twice ever so I don't know how she could judge. Now I've been annoyed with people but I would have been annoyed for those same reasons if I wasn't pregnant. Sometimes Dave commented that I was crazy. It's been awhile since he said that so I can't think of an example.  From talking to many other pregnant women over the years and reading a lot of blogs, it seems like they all admit or know about mood swings. But I'm curious if they realized themselves or just went by what other people were telling them at the time. 

There's also a small section on Stretch Marks. The main reason I wanted to mention this is because numerous people told me to use cocoa butter or something like it. I said since the beginning that I didn't think they did anything. I was told after knee surgery that the scar creams are all a hoax and they don't actually help your scar heal better.  I was using that as part of my justification. But everyone made me think I was crazy. I felt weird so I bought some anyway even though I thought it wouldn't work. The bottle says to use it 3 times a day. I use it about once every 3 days or more. But my favorite part was the book says "Contrary to popular belief, no creams or ointments can prevent stretch marks or make them vanish. Because stretch marks develop from deep within the connective tissue underneath the skin, they can't be prevented by anything applied externally.  I feel better about how I felt before everyone was telling me things but now I feel like a sucker because I did buy some!

Size of baby: Leek, 19.1 inches long from head to heel. My app on my phone says the baby weighs about 6.5 pounds.  The baby gains a half a lb a week. 

Total Weight Gain/Loss: 38 lb gain overall. I gained 3.2  in the past week.  I'm getting pretty fat now. I think my back has some rolls on it.  I gained 13.2 lbs in the last 4 weeks. That number should be 4 lbs. 

Maternity Clothes:  Same as previous weeks: Mostly. Some t-shirts and hoodies aren't maternity. I also sleep in my yoga pants that aren't maternity. 

Movement: Same ol' same ol'. She moves around. Her head will bob around but I try to get video of it and she stops. So I stop recording and put down my phone and then she's moving my entire belly again.

Sleep:  Sunday night I couldn't sleep for about 2 hours in the middle of the night and I didn't like that at all. I just couldn't get comfortable. Monday night I slept a lot better but realized my back hurts if I'm on my left side because of the mattress. Tuesday night Dave slept differently and I felt like I was propped against him instead of falling backwards in the bed and I woke up without any back pain. I told him about this then he cuddled with me Wednesday night so I was leaning against him and that helped. He had his hand on my belly while we were falling asleep and he couldn't believe how much she moves.

What I miss: somewhat the same: Exercising and running. Being able to stand for a long period of time without having to interrupt what I'm doing to go sit. Going many many hours in a row without going to the bathroom. 

Symptoms: The same I guess. I get lightheaded a bit after doing too much but I feel like the definition of "too much" is a lot more than it used to be. My back gets sore. Waddling around a little maybe.  Just this week I started having to pee a lot more than before. I probably go 7 times in a day now! My ankles were swollen a few times this week. I got swollen after I was in a hot room for too long for a meetup and my fingers and ankles were swollen. Then the next day my ankles were still somewhat swollen. Then Saturday (today), my ankles are swollen again. My feet are also slightly swollen.

Best moment this week: I can't even think of something baby related. Dave did some nice back tickling this week when we were reading in bed. That's pretty nice but now I want him to do it daily and he isn't going for that

Looking forward to: Finishing setting up the nursery and actually having this baby

Exercise:  Monday I went for a walk. Dave asked if I used mapmyrun. I said "No. I used strava and my garmin." He just laughed at me. Tuesday I went shopping at Target and then Walmart. I was walking around for probably 1.5 hours. Thursday I walked pretty far to and from lunch. I bet that was over a mile but I didn't use Strava so I don't know for sure.  I also shopped for a few hours today.

I accidentally zoomed in to far so I made a gif

I'm pointing to the baby's head

DIY Onesies (Tutorial Sort of)

All onesies created as of November 20

I delayed in posting this to see how all the different types of paint washed.

 We used Tulip Soft Matte fabric paint or Sharpies for the onesies created in CA.

In PA, we used Tulip Dimensional Fabric Paint and Sargent Art fabric markers. The onesies created with the markers needed to be ironed for 4 minutes to be set. That was quite annoying and I cut a lot of them short.  The puffy paint seemed easier to use than the fabric paint since you had a tip to write with. But there were air bubbles so they were also challenging.  With the markers it said to wash them separately the first few washings. I did not do that and none of the markers bled on anything. I did do a sample onesie first before just washing everything.

I have washed everything and the puffy paint didn't hold up as well. Long lines are broken apart.

The iron on transfer that I used for the fabric, didn't work by itself. I needed to sew around the edges. Once I did that, everything stayed on fine. I've watched some of them twice since I sewed and they do fray a little but not past the stitching. You can see the star above the one on the left was just ironed on and then on the right I stitched around the fabric.

I'm not sure the best way to have a onesie work with the sewing machine. The first one I sewed I accidentally had 2 stitches grab the back of the onesie. As you can see above, I just had it bunched up but kept the portion I was sewing on flat. That worked fine.

There were numerous ways onesies were created

1. Cut out fabric, iron it on, stitch around
2. Paint onesie with tulip paint (Freehand or with a stencil)
3. Paint onesie with puffy paint
4. Use a Sharpie to write words
5. Use fabric markers to create designs
6. Make a stencil with Freezer paper then paint on the fabric
7. Paint onto a rubber stamp and stamp directly onto the onesie

 At the baby shower, we had a table set up outside and hung a string for onesies to be placed to dry.

The computer and the butterfly are stamped. The 2 with only text had a piece of paper with the text printed out inside the onesie so the letters were sort of traced. I love math used letter stencils with a freehand heart drawn.

A few people at the shower used stencils. I had trouble finding letter stencils small enough and got these at Walmart. Someone wished we had numbers and I've since tried to find numbers but failed.  One thing I noticed is that if you were spelling a word, you could easily smear the letters to your left. I hear guests put a piece of paper down over the letters so that they would not smear. I didn't hear this tip and smeared my I love math a bit. Since I was doing mine at home I just did a letter and did something else and did another letter so there wouldn't be more smearing.   We used sponges to paint on the stencils. 

In PA, some things were freehand painted and others used stencils. We also used stencils for a few of the fabric ones.

There were 7 of us and we made onesies for less than 2 hours and we got this many! I feel like stencils and puffy paint went quicker than the other paint. Or maybe having flower and animal stencils just helped with ideas.

To attach fabric to onesies, I used EZ-Steam II. I would not recommend this since it didn't work so well but it was the only choice my local craft store had. Once I sewed, it seemed to work but I think as long as something had a temporary hold before sewing it would be good enough.  After it didn't stay through the wash, I did a lot of googling and found out that most people stitched around the fabric and the blog posts that didn't mention stitching didn't actually describe anything after anything was initially washed.

 As you can see above you can see through the onesie to the paper underneath. I used a paint brush and tried to trace around the letters. It looks like you can distinctly see the logo but it was a lot harder without a camera flash. Once I did the outline, I had trouble seeing anything from inside. I could still tell a little here or there.  Words were a little easier. I used a sharpie each time I had words.

Paint to the stamps faded a bit after 1 time through the wash.

If I had more stamps that would be useful, I might like rubber stamps the best because they were the quickest. I was done with a onesie in about a minute including cleaning the stamp pad. The stamps were a little more challenging to clean than when I stamp with regular ink onto paper which is why it took a full minute to make a onesie. The butterfly took a little longer because I mixed colors of paint.

Freezer paper is by far my favorite. I didn't have it until after we had quite a few onesie making sessions so there haven't been as many things created with it as there could be.  You can buy freezer paper in the grocery store but not all of them have it.  I ended up using Google Shopping Express to get mine since they did not have it at Target when I was out. The next day I saw it at Safeway.  I've heard of freezer paper over the years when dealing with crafts. I've never actually heard anyone talk about using it in the freezer.

1. Print images from your computer that you wanted on the shirt.  Print them the size you will need. Or if you are brave you can draw what you want directly on the dull side of the freezer paper.
2. Trace the image onto the freezer paper. Keep in mind that freezer paper has one shiny side and one dull side. You want to trace the image on the dull side. I traced using a sharpie pen because a ball point pen just didn't work. 
3. Get your exacto knife and cut out the image(s). ( have a little craft board that I can cut with my exacto knife on and not ruin anything. If you don't have something like that, I think cardboard will work just fine. The sharper the curves the harder it is to cut out. Granted my exacto knife is about 10 years old and I got it at the dollar store and I use it a lot. It came with 5 blades and I'm still using my first or second one so it's probably a bit dull. When I traced "Future Nerd" I changed the font slightly so that the lines were straighter and easier to cut out. Note how I cut out the inside of the glasses and the inside of letters with separate pieces.
4. Iron on the freezer paper shiny side down to your onesie. I ironed the main piece first then placed the inside of the glasses and the inside of the letters one at a time and put the iron down on them without having them move.  Iron for a few seconds until you can tell the paper is fused to the fabric.
5. Paint!  I used a sponge.  (Note: don't use a wet sponge that you just cleaned or it will cause the paint to be extra liquidy and you will ruin your shirt (see white Future Nerd onsie below.))  After dabbing on the entire image, I took my sponge and wiped across the image. It gave it a smoother look.
6. Let dry. It doesn't have to dry the full 4 hours that the bottle says. I let mine dry about a half hour. 
7. Apply second coat if desired (I have done a second coat half the time). You can kind of see if onesie fabric is showing through and if it is, I tended to put a second coat.
8. Let dry again just 30 minutes or so.
9. Peel off the freezer paper. It should come right up. It's a little more challenging on the inside like the inside of the d or the glasses. I used a paper piercing tool to get under the paper to find a spot to start pulling it up.
10. Let dry the full 4 hours. 
11. Some paints say to heat set them but mine did not have this step.
12. Wash onesie but not for 3 full days!

If you plan to make a million of these they have specific cutters that will cut out freezer paper and you don't have to trace or use your own exacto knife.

The face you make when you realize the corner wasn't ironed down enough so the paint is now under it.

I only tested last night if you can iron freezer paper over what you have already painted and you can. I was testing it out thinking about making superman 2 colors but I decided not to do that because the little pieces in the logo don't line up perfectly.

I used the superman freezer paper cutout twice and a rebel alliance one twice. It was slightly trickier to iron it on the 2nd time because of the paint. I got paint on my iron initially. I immediately wiped that off. Then I put down a scrap piece of my EZ Steam backing and ironed with that as a buffer. Then I stopped getting ink on my iron and the freezer paper still ironed perfectly to the onesie.  I seem to have a problem with whatever I'm painting ending up crooked. I think because the cheap onesies are crooked at the next. All of the newest 18 month onesies have a higher left shoulder than a right shoulder. Now I have crooked designs. They really bug me but I'm hoping others don't notice.

 I was making a Future Nerd onesie for my friend and I made it shortly after making mine so the sponge was wet and had been cleaned. I didn't think about it. Well it sure ruined the glasses. Please be careful and try to dry the sponge if you are using it after washing it.  I tried to salvage the onesie by painting glasses on a piece of fabric. At first I was going to use yellow fabric but you could see through to the messed up glasses so I had to pick darker fabric.  I made the glasses smaller the 2nd time to have enough room for fabric on the edges.

The difference between freehand and freezer paper stencil

Starcraft fans might recognize these

A trick that Matt did that I wished I had thought of was that he found the Protoss silhouette on his nexus 7 and then put that under the shirt. He had a bright screen versus just paper and he had a much easier time seeing the outline than I did the same day with my purple superman. He did learn that you could accidentally zoom or switch to a new website through the shirt so then he took a screen shot since only having a picture had fewer choices.  I know there's a risk of ink going through the shirt to the nexus but he removed it right after painting and could have wiped any ink off. There was also cardboard inside the shirt so that when it dried, it didn't seem through to the back.

I've made at least 15 onesies myself. The only thing I didn't personally use was the puffy paint but I was there when 5 other people used them. If you have any questions let me know.

I created even more onesies and have a newer post on them. 

Miles 2013

Here are my biking totals for the year. This is on an actual bike not an exercise bike.

10/6

Total Mi.	Month
62.15	January
7.1	February
7.45	March
17.3	April
0	May
2	June
27	July
37.5	August
31.4	September
17	October

That's a total of 208.9 miles. That will be my yearly total too since exercise bike mileage isn't counted and I've decided I'm done riding an actual bike for the year.  I had 0 miles in November. The last day I biked was October 25.  My second longest bike ride ever was when I was 28 weeks pregnant.  I had days where I biked more but they weren't continuous.

I'd say this isn't too bad considering how busy I was, with being pregnant, and how riding a bike is scary and I think I'll get hit by cars or fall.

9/17

While I'm at it, I might as well share my running miles for the year. This will be a joke.

Total Mi.	Mo in 2013
70.84	January
36.89	February
70	March
25.06	April
0	May
0.57	June
0.76	July
0	August
0.54	September
0.65	October

That's a total of 205.31 miles. I didn't run at all in November and I won't run in December. Therefore that's my yearly total too. Wow I can't believe how similar that is to the biking mileage. I remember telling someone back in February that I was making my biking goal equal my running goal for the year. Biking is easier but I hate it so I decided to make the goals the same. It's funny how I was far from my running goal of 700 miles but I made that before I got pregnant. 

I "ran" 4 times since may. Less than a mile for all of them. I was going to build back up but then running just wasn't sitting well with me so I never did get to build back up. I could have run twice in a month to get over a mile but I never did. Also in March my mileage goal was 100 miles so it wasn't like I ran an exact amount on the last day of March to hit 70 exactly. That was just a coincidence.

I'm pretty sure all my runs are included but I do know a few times my strava didn't start up on me so I don't have data from a few times that I biked. But since I don't have data for it, it doesn't count. 

I'd have to go back too far for running photos so you only get biking ones on this post.

Man just writing about this makes me want to run and bike!  Instead I sit here with a sore back.

Outfits (Nov 16-30)

11/16

11/17

11/19

11/20

11/21

11/22 (athletic pants first. jeans later but didn't get a real pic in jeans)

11/23

11/24

11/25 (it got hot so only wore the cardigan a little)

11/27

I felt like these leggings weren't so bright green in person. They are more of a moss. Oh well.

11/28 (2nd outfit was after I had on PJs but then we decided to go shopping so I half got dressed)

I finally wore the shirt Dave liked the best that Jen lent me. It is a bit dressy and I don't really do anything that requires dressy. I decided to wear it for Thanksgiving.

11/29

11/30

I'm still bummed that I bought leggings but don't have tunics to wear so I can't actually wear them. I'm even more bummed because my jeans suck. The Old Navy ones aren't bad the first 2 times I wear them but after that they stretch out and fall down. The crotch ends up far too low. And I don't do laundry every 3 days so I wear them more than twice.  I don't stay in people clothes all day either. So wearing them twice might only equal 10 hours if I'm wearing them a long time each day.

I forgot about that cardigan I wore on the 25th. It was huge at first but then it got put in my closet between regular clothes so I missed it.  I like it but it's so hot around here that I didn't even make it 2 hours before I took it off.

I think I still have 2 sweaters Jen lent me that I never wore. I also have 2 other black shirts that I haven't worn. I think I wore everything else.  It's so hot for sweaters but maybe if I leave the house before 9 am, I'll be able to wear one.  I left the house early on 11/24 which is why I wore a sweater. I'm not a huge fan of the color of that one because it just looks too close to my skin tone.

Are you getting sick of the same outfits and clothes?  I'm not and I thought I would.

11.25

I did a ton of things on my to-do list. I had typed up the first 30 things so I didn't have to flip 4 pages in my notebook and it helped.  I went to Goodwill Donation Center, Babies R Us, Target, Goodwill (to donate the weight bench since it's too big for the donation center), and then to Sprouts. That was a busy couple hours.

I did some laundry. I cropped some pictures. I added some pictures to my CA album. I finally sewed the hem on my one running shirt. I've had that on my to-do list for 5 or so months. I sewed the fabric on 2 onesies that needed to be sewn in black.  I forget what else I did but there was actually more. The only TV I watched was a half hour show while I ate lunch. I didn't clean the kitchen or dining room though.

Dave and I cooked dinner. Then we weren't productive and watched Suits from back in September. Now we are caught up.  Poly sure favors me. She is restless when she's on Dave and she was only on Dave twice because he snatched her from me so I could have a break from her.  She would lie on him but she would stare at me and look slightly uneasy on him. It was funny. She'd just hop right on over to cuddle with me.

I haven't done a collage of pictures of my day in many months so decided to do a few. I included too many but I also have many I did not include.

Gifts

When we got home, I finally got to go through the gifts. There were 2 things that I couldn't figure out who they were from. They weren't from the registry but lacked a note or packing slip specifying who sent it.  There were also some books that I didn't know who they were from.  Dave guessed the books were from my brother and later I figured out who the other gifts were from when I texted Jen telling her that Poly likes her gifts and she asked which ones so that's how I figured it out.  It took a couple days before I figured it all out though. Now I'm much less stressed.  We got so many nice things. We got some stuff on our registries and some stuff not on our registries, so it was like Christmas going through it all.

Dave put together the swing and the diaper genie. We still have the rest to put together.  I had to move the stuff out of the way so our crib could be delivered and assembled.  Since that is done, we should start putting things together.  Somehow in my mind, I think I shouldn't put a thing together until all the thank you cards are written. Too bad I still have to design and make all the thank you cards so that may be a little while.

I wrote the above a few weeks ago. Since then we bought a glider or rocking chair depending on my mood I refer to it as different things. We also bought the majority of the stuff from our registry. We have put a few things together.

I mainly wanted to show off. In my head I figured we didn't get many gifts because we got so many gift cards but when I was looking at all the gifts, we really did get a lot. I can't believe how generous everyone is.

I know the collage at the top has far too many pictures in it but I just mainly wanted to show all the generosity of everyone. It's just crazy.  I don't know how people do it that don't have anyone around to help like this.

We are still waiting for the BOB stroller to come. I'm most excited about that even though I won't be using that for many months.

Dave likes to try out the gifts 

So does Poly