May the Fourth be With Us

I originally wanted to wait until today to make the big announcement...I mean, what would have been more perfect than announcing on May the Fourth, aka Star Wars day?!?

But, I couldn't wait another month, so I had to announce last month to family and friends! Haha!

I'm due October 21st, so I will be 16 weeks tomorrow...time for a bump update! :)

Week of Pregnancy: 16 weeks

Baby size: Baby is the size of an avocado this week!

Baby is 4 1/2 inches long from head to bottom and weighs ~3 1/2 ounces. 

A fun website, babysizer.com, also states that the baby is the size of a can of pop, or a can of SPAM, or a duct tape cardboard roll. Haha.

Seriously?!? I'm 35...

Symptoms: Nausea hit me hard just after week 6. Ugh. What's more fun than a Caribbean cruise while you feel sick to your stomach 24/7?? Pretty much anything. So, not the vacation I had in mind, but we still managed to have a good time. I never actually get sick when I'm pregnant, but sometimes I think that would be easier than feeling sick all day if it would make that nausea go away! So I tried both Phenergan and Zofran, but neither provided much relief. Jolly ranchers helped some, but continually popping those all day got old. Ginger beer wasn't bad, but not something I wanted all the time either. Finally, Ethan's teacher gave me the idea of chewing gum (she's also preggo - due today!!)! I don't know why I had never heard of that one in my 3 previous pregnancies, or tried it, but I'm so glad she clued me in. I've been chewing gum pretty much non-stop since then and that has been the biggest help! I am finally getting to the point now where I don't feel like I need it all the time, but I'm still chewing my fair share. Hopefully, complete relief will come soon as I progress farther into this 2nd trimester. The 1st trimester left me exhausted as well. I don't remember being so tired with the others, but this time I was going to bed by 9 pm and still needed an afternoon nap daily! I guess given my "elderly" status this time around, I shouldn't be surprised. Hahahaha. Fortunately, I have more energy now and I'm not requiring as much sleep. I even started my maternity workouts again today! Go me! With most of the nausea and exhaustion behind me, I'd like to start eating better again and working out more regularly. I still have my Beachbody on Demand membership, and Autumn has a great Active Maternity workout. I'd love to go into this delivery in better shape than I usually do. Here's hoping I can keep it up.

Food cravings: Cereal. Cereal. Cereal. This seems to be a trend for me while preggo, but even more so this time around. With Amos, I craved eggs, over easy in the mornings, but this time, I just want a big ol' bowl of cereal. Preferably LIFE right now. I normally crave the sugary kids stuff (i.e., Captain Crunch, Apple Jacks, Sugar Crisp, etc), but this time, adult cereal does the trick. Haha. Add to the list fruit, especially grapes, and all things lemon (I craved lemon with Noah and Amos, too!). I've had to start avoiding the bakery section at Kroger. Their soft top cranberry-orange cookies are my weakness. I'm trying to do better now. I love a glass of ice cold milk with dinner (it literally needs ice cubes in it) and a glass of grape-orange juice at night before bed. A glass of lemonade during the day is awesome, too. Need to work on that sugar intake before gestational diabetes testing time...

Food aversions: Coffee!! :'( So, so sad. I went from drinking my fair share every day to none at week 6. I can't even stand smelling Josh's coffee brew in the morning. Ten weeks later and I'm still not interested. I guess that's good for baby, and I seem to have adjusted to the lack of daily caffeine. With the others, I was still good with my favorite, iced caramel macchiatos, but this time even those don't sound great. I also despised water at the beginning. Not good. Finally a couple weeks ago, I was able to start drinking it again without issues. It just has to be very cold. :)

What I'm excited about: Meeting this little guy/gal! Despite my sister's lack of faith in my ability to go this entire pregnancy without finding out the sex, I am determined. We found out for all 3 of the boys, and with this definitely being our last, it's my final chance to be surprised in the delivery room, so I want to do it. It will probably drive the OCD planner in me insane, but hopefully I'll manage. :)

What I've done to prepare for baby: I've purchased a few gender neutral clothing items. Given the fact that I donated all of the newborn and 0-3 month baby clothes I had (when I thought I didn't want any more babies, sigh), we will need to get some things. Oops! Fortunately, my sister still had all the bigger items that Amos had outgrown, so I'm holding on to those now. ;) I guess it won't matter if it's a girl, but I have a gut feeling this is boy #4!

Funny moment: Amos's preschool teacher let me know that Amos has been talking about being a big brother and that he was going to get the baby out of my belly for me. He's been pretending to get babies out of bellies at school, too. I guess I don't need that midwife. Amos will be a pro after practicing for another ~5 months! LOL.

Amos's {Burlap and Bowties} 1st Birthday Party

Wow. So, looking back through my posts, I see that I never posted about Amos's 1st birthday party!! #thirdbabyproblems  In my defense, it all went down not long before Josh left to work in VA, leaving me with the 3 boys by myself during the week for the next 4.5 months. I don't miss that! I guess I should probably post about this one before I post about his 3rd birthday...it appears I had most of it ready to go, so I'll fill in the blanks now! :)

Now that I've updated you about Amos's 1st year, it's time to talk about the party!! On my 3rd boy now, I decided it was time to finally do a "little man" bash. So, away I went planning an adorable navy blue, aqua, and lime green "little man"/bowtie-themed party for my little guy. I decided to incorporate burlap to the theme, too, for a "burlap and bowties" party. First on the agenda, the invitations.

I love including photos of the birthday boy on the invites, and I thought it might be fun to make this a 3-D invite, so I added the bowties (made from lime green grosgrain ribbon) with hot glue. :) I also decided to mount the invites on pieces of burlap, to complete the 3-D effect. I was very happy with how they turned out!

After the invitations were mailed, I started brainstorming ideas for the party. To decorate the house, I bought some navy blue, aqua and lime green latex balloons (inflated with helium and hi-float) at the local party supply store. I also bought a 1st birthday balloon and lucked out that the colors coordinated fairly well! I made a custom banner that read "Happy 1st Birthday Amos" using the same bowtie/color theme. I used aqua baker's twine to string together the pendants and made the bowties from burlap. It worked well and looked great! I also made a coordinating banner for his highchair that read "I am 1".

From the mantle, I hung a string of pictures from Amos's first year - the monthly pics I took throughout the year. I decorated this banner with more bowties and put it on a burlap background. I also framed the print I made summarizing his first year.

For the party favors, I bought little burlap bags (from Michaels) and added personalized tags to them. Inside the bags, I added little bags of bright blue, aqua and kelly green chocolate candies (from Fresh Market). I also made clip-on bowties for the boys and bow barrettes for the girls, and added these to the bags. To help decorate the room, I set the bags on our bookshelves and tied a balloon to each one.

This year, I made cake bites for the party guests and a small smash cake for Amos. I used aqua blue candy melts for the vanilla cake bites. I purchased the lime green cupcake liners, to hold the cake bites, from our local party store. All of the plates, bowls, napkins and utensils were purchased at our local party store. I wrapped the utensils in a napkin, then taped a piece of ribbon around the middle to make them look like bowties. For the tables, I used dark blue plastic tablecloths, then draped pieces of burlap on top as table runners. I placed more of the colored chocolate candies in candle holders to make for a colorful centerpiece.

For the dinner menu, I chose:

• Burger Bites (beef patty sliders on Hawaiian sweet rolls)
• 'Lil Smokies ('Lil Smokies cooked in Montgomery Inn BBQ sauce)
• Sweet Tator Tots (homemade roasted sweet potatoes cubes)
• Caprese Skewer Bites (cherry tomatoes, mozzarella pearls and basil)
• Bowtie Pasta Salad (bowtie pasta, Italian dressing, mini pepperoni, roasted red bell peppers, shredded parmesan)
• Bowtie Pasta Crunchies (fried bowtie pasta with roasted red pepper hummus)
• Mini Fruit Pizzas (mixed berries and homemade whipped cream in deep dish sugar cookie)
• Baby Carrots (served with ranch dressing)

I wanted the food to go with the party theme, which is why I chose the "little" items for our little man. :) Thanks to my sister for helping me get all of the food ready, as usual! We also had homemade vanilla ice cream (courtesy of my dad!) to go with the cake bites. Yum!

Here are some pics of the birthday boy enjoying his day!! :) I sewed the suspenders and bowtie to his plain white onesie for his party outfit. He also wore it for the one-year pics that we had done.

The final item to take care of was the thank you notes. I added one of the professional pics to a simple thank you note matching the theme. Plenty of room for a sweet thank you for friends and family!

It was an adorable, fun party for my tiniest little man!

Happy 1st Birthday, Amos!

All items you see above are available for customization and purchase. Please contact me via my Etsy shop.