Noah Has Arrived!

Okay, so this is WAY late but what can I say? I hit a wall in my last month of pregnancy and I just went into hybernation. That is until my mom came and then I was out doing everything I could do to try to go into labor. I ended up asking to be enduced because I just couldn't take it anymore. I swelled up like a blue whale those last three weeks. It wasn't pretty. Noah finally made his debut on March 9th at 8:56pm. He weighed in at 7lbs 15oz and was 21.5 inches long.

I'm not going to share any stories to try to scare other women or sing songs about my battle wounds to et some kind of sympathy. I will tell you that I had a 12 hour labor, 3 of which were spent pushing. Noah did get stuck because he was turned sideways but a merciful God and a helpful hint from my first labor and delivery nurse allowed me to dodge the c-section bullet and Noah made it out just fine. Pushing was more intense than I thought it would be and I was completely exhausted but 2 days after giving birth it was all a distant memory and I was ready to do it all over again.

Isaac and I are adjusting to being proud parents and life is returning to our normal hectic schedule. Unfortunately my blog and etsy shop were temporary casualties of the birthing process, but I'm bringing them back to life starting today!

Finishing Noah's Nursery

Well, I decided that it was time to finish up Noah's nursery. We are down to the final month countdown so I don't want to be caught off-guard should he arrive a little earlier than expected. Isaac helped me put together the swing and I put together the bouncer last night. Let me just say that those things are not so easy to assemble. I could barely get the covers to go over the frames. I'm afraid the seams might pull apart they are stretched so tightly!

We also put his bedding on his crib and I went through the closet and pulled out all the blankets, bibs, socks, and clothes that still needed to be washed. The real time killer of this task was sitting down to take all the tags off of the clothes and socks. I bet that took me a good hour. I've been running loads since late last night and I have two more left before all his things will be ready for him. The next project will be sterilizing all this bottle nipples and pacifiers. Probably not going to happen today, but hopefully some time this week.

Today, I'm going out with my friend Sarah to finish buying up what supplies we don't have but still need. My second baby shower on Saturday was a lot of fun and I ended up getting quite a bit of what was left on our "still need" list. I just have things like batteries for all the equipment, breast feeding supplies, a Bumbo, baby gates, etc to pick up today. None of the fun stuff. The real challenge will be not buying him any more clothes! Babies R Us is having a big sale right now and in their ad there are at least two things that I really want to get for Noah. They have a onesie that says "Handsome" on it and I think I might just have to buy it. We could also end up at the outlet mall at some point today if I'm not too exhausted and my giant swollen feet aren't killing me too badly.

Speaking of swollen feet, if it wasn't so sick I would take a picture and let you all see the glory that comes with the last month of pregnancy. I haven't had too much of a swelling problem until the last few days. Isaac said that my feet look like the Nutty Professor movie where he changes from thin to like 400lbs. Ah, that's love. The most annoying thing about it is that because they are so swollen they itch like crazy and then off course if you touch them they are painful because my cells are probably on the verge of bursting! So if Noah wanted to come a week or so early and save me from the swelling, I would love him all the more.

Wednesday out dresser for the nursery comes and then I should have the whole thing complete and the long awaited and promised pictures up for all to see!

Great Free Printable Coupon Site

So one of our New Year's resolutions was to come up with a budget and stick to it. In order to stick to my designated grocery amount, I realized that I needed to start using coupons. My mom sent me a link to a website called couponmom.com that has a lot of printable grocery store coupons. I used the website to find several coupons that I could use when I went to the grocery store earlier this week. The site even has a free ebook called Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half that gives you some helpful hints about how to maximize your coupons.

Another cool thing on the site is that you can look up any of the grocery store sales for your state or area. So essentially you can find which stores have the best prices on what items and then if you have a coupon for that item the price is even better! I'm loving this site and will definitely be checking it before every grocery trip from here on out. I hope that you enjoy it as well and save a little of that hard earned money.

Stamps For Sale

I've been cleaning today and I decided to clean out all my stamps and get rid of the ones that I'm no longer using. I have quite a few Close To My Heart clear My Acrylix stamp sets that I would like to sell. I've listed if they are new and their condition if they are used. If you are interested in purchasing any of the stamp sets, please leave a comment with your email and which set(s) you would like and I'll email you. Some of the sets are retired so I can send you a scan of the set if you'd like.

To view most of the stamp sets go here and type the set's name into the Find Items box on the left-hand side.

Stamps For Sale
B Sets
Baby Accessories (new) $11
Little License (new) $11
Reminders (new) x2 $11 each
Swirl Stroke Lowercase (a few letters used) $9
Baby Accessories (used) $7
Baby Blocks (new) x2 $11 each
Alfresco (lightly used) $9
Blossom Blocks (one lightly stained) $9
Fall Leaves (2 lightly used) $9
Love Is (lightly used) $9

C Sets
Birthday Celebration (used) $10
Le Chic (lightly stained) $12
Accents, Etc (one lightly stained) $12
Let’s Shop (lightly stained) $12
Floral Charms (lightly stained) $12
Smitten (used) $10
Goodness of Life (new) $15
Simple Blossoms (used) $10
Totem Carvings (new) $15
Swirl Stroke Caps (used) $10
Kissy Fish (one lightly stained) $12
Bow-Wow (lightly stained) $12

D Sets
Doodle Alphabet (new) x2 $18 each
Doodle Alphabet (a few lightly stained) $15
Treasure Life (new) x2 $18 each
Happy Haunting (new) $18
Delightful Alphabet (new) $18
Wedding (lightly stained) $15
Elegant Script (lightly stained) x2 $15 each
Seasonal Celebration (used) $12
Small Pleasures (lightly stained) $15
Card Sentiments (used) $12
Eastertime (new) $18
Friendship Flowers (lightly stained) $15
Life’s Creation (2 lightly stained) $15
It’s A Party (lightly stained) $15
Love Tags (lightly stained) $15
Magical Season (1 lightly stained) $15

A Bad Dream?

Yesterday started out so nicely. I was feeling very motivated to work on some new designs and products for my etsy shop and to work on our family budget with Isaac. I worked the morning away and before I knew it, Isaac was up.

I was upstairs calculating our expenses so far this month when I heard his phone ring. About 10 minutes later he came up the stairs and said that he had something to tell me that I probably wasn't going to like. He had just received a call from his First SGT and Isaac was put on a list to be mobilized to Iraq. At first, I don't think I really believed him. I knew that some of his soldiers were going because he had received an email on Friday that 8 of his lower ranking soldiers were being called up to join another unit. However, they didn't request anyone with a ranking as high as Isaac's so we thought he was safe. Well, for one reason or another, there are a lot of soldiers in his platoon that don't qualify to be deployed (because they are terrible soldiers that never get there paperwork and tests done on time and generally just suck at life) so they decided to take Isaac since they didn't have the number of lower ranking soldiers that had been requested.

Then he told me that he'll have to start flying to Texas in February to do his monthly battle assembly with the new unit. That's when I started to freak out. The March battle assembly is the weekend that Noah is supposed to be born and Isaac was going to just make it up later in the month. I don't know if he'll be able to do that now or not. I cannot have our first child without my husband present. I just can't do it and at this point I started crying. He continued to tell me that he would have to go from training in June and July and then his deployment would start in September. He'll miss Noah's first everything, first Thanksgiving, first Christmas, first birthday. Plus, I'll be essentially a single mom for a year. I don't want to be a single mom. That's why I waited to have children until I was married and we were settled. I mean, by the time Isaac comes back, Noah will have no idea who he is. How heartbreaking is it that my son will not know who his father is?

I realize that we are not the first and will not be the last family to go through this situation. I know that many women have given birth while their husbands were in Iraq either watching on a web-cam or not present at all. I know there are countless fathers who have missed years of their young childrens' lives but I just don't want to be one of those women.

And I'm just so irritated at the recruiter who got Isaac into this unit with all his promises that the unit wouldn't deploy, but if it did they would only deploy to Hawaii to replace the full time Army there. In all his scare tactics about not going into the IRR because you'll be mobilized so join this Reserve Unit so you'll be safe, he never once mentioned that you can still be mobilized if any bigger company requests soldiers from your unit. AND we got screwed out of the $10,000 bonus for signing a 3 year contract because the guy wrote it 3 days short of the full 3 year period. So Isaac didn't get a cent for this.

I just feel like this is all one really bad dream and that when Isaac wakes up this morning he'll come downstairs and not know what I'm talking about.

It's Good To Be Home

On Friday, Isaac and I headed to my parents' house in Indiana for my baby shower. My aunt Robin threw the shower for me and it was good to see so many people that I haven't seen in months and even years. My childhood best friend and her mom came and I was so happy to see them. I haven't seen her mom in probably 8 years and it had been a year and a half since I had seen Ashlee herself. It's funny how you can get together with old friends and once you get talking it doesn't seem like you've ever been apart.

Here are a couple of pictures from my shower:
Wow, not a flattering picture of me but the only one I have so please don't poke your eyes out!
A beautiful blanket that my grandma made for Noah.One of my aunts gave me some tights for Noah to wear. I'm not thinking I'm putting tights anywhere near my son, unless he chooses to do ballet or something.

I received lots of fun things at the shower and I also received a lot of gift cards so I can't wait to go out and get the rest of the things I need with those.

Yesterday I was thinking about the few big things that I still needed to purchase and I wasn't sure where I was going to get the money to pay for them. One of the items was $500 and the other was around $280. I was listening to some pod casts from Crown Financial Ministries and just deciding that I would have to do without the one item and I'd just have to trust that God would provide us with the finances to purchase the other. Just as I was thinking that, my mom called me and told me that someone had given her a check for me covering the cost of both those items! I couldn't believe it and I know it was from the Lord. How good is He to his children?! We feel so blessed and now I know that we'll be completely ready for Noah. I'm so relieved that I can just relax for these last 6 weeks and not stress over anything.

Noah's Bathroom

We sort of have this monkey theme going on for Noah, with his jungle bedroom decor and his cute monkey coat and onesies from Gymboree. So my mom found this really cute monkey shower curtain and accessories at Kohls a few weekends ago and she decided to buy them for the bathroom that is attached to his room. She ended up having to order everything online because her store only had a few things left so I just got the package in the mail yesterday.

Last night I set up everything that she sent and I think it looks super cute. It at least looks better than it did before because we only have a white plastic liner hanging for the shower curtain. We didn't want to buy shower curtains for all of the bathrooms when we only use the shower in our bedroom for the most part.

So here are pictures of the bathroom:

And I promise to get some pictures of his nursery up soon. I have one project to finish before I start snapping pictures!