30 Day Shred

It is beyond time to drop the baby weight! I know everyone says, it took 9 months to gain it so it should be 9 months to lose it. It’s been 6 months and I think it’s time to kick start this whole process! I need some accountability so I’m putting everything out here so you faithful readers can encourage me and maybe even play along if you so desire!

My 30 day shred started today on November 7th so that would make my 30th day on December 6th. I’m sure I’ll miss a day or two here and there with travel plans this month, but my goal is to complete as many days as possible. I’ll also be bumping up the levels every 10 days since Jillian has 3 workouts on the DVD. Now Jillian, it says on the cover that I’ll lose 20 pounds in 30 days. I believe that to be a false claim but maybe you’ll prove me wrong!  I’ll also continue my (almost) daily 3 mile walk with Badgeroo and Lulu in addition to attempting to eat healthy foods. It’s the holiday season and I love food too much to commit to a 1200 calorie daily diet.  But I will be more aware of what I’m eating and try to cut back.

Before I was pregnant, I weighed about 140. Two years ago when I was running 5 miles a day, I weighed 125. So I started out my pregnancy not too thrilled with my weight. Right before I gave birth, I weighed 175. For the last few months, I weighed around 160. I jumped on the scale today and I’m down to 156. I lost 4 pounds and didn’t even try! That’s a start!

I’ll update my stats on here every 10 days to see how the progress is going. I would love for you guys to guess how much weight you think I’ll lose. My guess is around 10 pounds. What do you think? And who wants to jump on the 30 day weight loss train with me? Just think, you’ll look fantastic for all of those Christmas parties!

Stats on November 7th:
Weight: 156
Arm- 12 in
Thigh- 24 in
Upper Waist- 31 in
Lower Waist- 38 in
Hips- 41 in

Take a look at this photo I found on Pinterest:  That is some excellent motivation!!

Our House- Downstairs

Here are the pictures of our new house! It has been a long process moving with a little babe to take care of, but I’m pretty happy with how the downstairs looks for now. We still have a lot of little projects to do and furniture to buy- doesn’t it stink that it takes time and money to accomplish all this? Ugh, baby steps!

Dining Room Before
Dining Room After
That yellow/gold paint had to go!  We used the paint color Magnetite by Martha Stewart. The buffet was our media stand in the condo. I love that we were able to use it for a different purpose and it stores all my platters perfectly.
Plans for the dining room:
Find a table and chairs- antique or reclaimed wood
Artwork or frame for the left wall

Living Room Before

Living Room After

We painted the entire house but for some reason the paint color in these rooms isn’t reading right in these photos. The color is a much warmer brown in person.

For the collage wall, we used black frames from our wedding reception and a cardboard A from Joann’s that I painted black. Most of the frames have our engagement pictures still in them so I switched out 2 of them to add Badge into the mix.

Plans for the Living Room:
Add something fun over the fireplace (we know what we want, just haven’t found it yet!)
Pull together frames and photos for the shelves
Get a Baby Grand piano to go by the stairs (I want a piano so bad!!)
Add more seating- the lawn chairs totally need to be upgraded to something a little more comfy!

Kitchen Before

Kitchen After

The paint color is the same as the living room and it’s looking a little too yellow/tan here as well.

Breakfast Nook Before

Breakfast Nook After

Plans for the Kitchen area:
New stools for the bar- The current ones from our condo aren’t the right size and are a little too bulky.
New table and chairs- Normer’s mom let us borrow the green table until we can get a new one. Eventually, I would love to do built in window seats with extra storage. Not sure if that will ever happen, but one can only hope!

We still have a lot of work to do upstairs, so I’ll be back soon with the upstairs reveal!

Tricycle Quilt and more!

Way back before we moved into our house (it’s only been a month but feels waaay longer), I finished up several gifts. In fact, I had set a huge deadline on myself to finish these before we moved. Otherwise, they would have never happened. The first was for my sister-in-law, Lindsey. I made a quilt for sweet baby Ayce, who was just born on Friday. They have a black and white tricycle theme in the nursery which made things easy for me to plan out this quilt. I had a hard time finding fabric that worked, but it worked out in the end. I chose fabric that has buildings, lines, maps and a vintage newspaper print. Here it is!

I just love how it looks like newspaper print from afar. I hand embroidered each bike after either drawing it or finding the image online.
Tricycle
Tandem Bike
Bicycle

Radio Flyer Wagon- my favorite!

I made this little dress for my friend Angela’s new baby girl. Cute and easy!
Now this pillow took weeks to make- I started it the week before the wedding which was too late. Caron received it about a month  later when it was finally done. I hand embroidered the entire front and then sewed it into a pillowcase. I copied the idea from here although theirs is mainly screenprinted and only embroidered on the heart.

Did you catch the tiny preview of our new house in the picture above?? Things are finally coming together inside so I hope to share more pictures very, very soon!

Cowboy

O the cowboy works such a long, long day

And he rides his horse such a long, long way

O the cowboy wakes up at dawn each day
First he feeds his horse, then is on his way

When the sun goes down it’s the end of day
When the boy and his horse are tucked away

We are finally home owners!

We finally closed on our house last week and have been working on it non-stop ever since! We managed to paint the entire house with the help of Normer’s parents and brother within 4 days. Thankfully, everything is in really great shape but we still have a lot of little things to fix. Like none of the toilets upstairs work but it should be an easy handle switcheroo.
Tomorrow the movers are bringing our furniture! All of our stuff has been in storage the past 5 months so it will feel like Christmas to see it all again! Hopefully I will be able to post some before and afters soon!

House #2

Thanks for all of your input into our house hunt!! For those of you that guessed, House #2 is the one we have under contract. Unfortunately, both the blue house and red house are now off the market. I was most sad about losing the blue house! Loved it!
We’ve had the house under contract since the end of May. However, the banks are taking their dear sweet time on approving the short sell and still could say no deal. The house is also scheduled to go into foreclosure in September so we might lose it that way as well. Since things are so unsure, we’re still looking at other houses every week but haven’t found anything we love yet. I never thought buying a house would be this exhausting! I keep hoping we’ll hear something about the house any day now.

House Hunters

We finally have a house under contract! However, it’s a short sell so it could all fall through. Our offer was accepted the beginning of June and we are still waiting for bank approval. We got an amazing deal on it so it will be wonderful if it all works out. Since everything is so unsure, we are still looking at houses. We actually applied to be on House Hunters and they emailed us back! They said to email them once we know our closing date. I’m not sure if they will actually film our house search but we’ll see!

So let’s have our own version of House Hunters, right here! Some of you may know which house we have under contract, so don’t just pick that one because of that. Pick the one you think will work best for us. I’m interested to see what you guys think!

House #1 is located in an Atlanta neighborhood that is somewhat transitional. It has 4 bedrooms and 3 full baths. It’s brand new with top of the line finishes. The shower in the master is large enough to fit 10 people (not that we would ever need more than 2). It even has two shower heads! There isn’t a bathtub in the master though The inside of this house is my favorite so far. I love the layout, granite counter tops, and cabinets. I also like that the whole house has hardwood floors throughout. It has adequate closet space but no basement. There is one bedroom on the main floor which would be convenient as a guest bedroom/sewing space. The worst feature of this house is the backyard. It’s tiny tiny and has an awful shape. The houses next door are pretty close and we wouldn’t have much privacy in the backyard. There is also not a garage.

House #2 is located just outside the perimeter and would be a 30 minute commute for Normer. It’s in a large safe neighborhood with sidewalks, tennis courts, walking trails and two pools. It is 2, 278 sq feet with 4 bedrooms and 2.5 baths. All of the bedrooms are upstairs including the super large bonus room. The backyard is huge with a nice deck and patio but there is no fence for Lulu. There are hardwoods throughout the main floor, on the stairs and in the hallway upstairs. The bedrooms have carpet. This house has the most storage space with tons of closets and an unfinished basement that is bigger than our old condo. My least favorite part of this house is the outside of the house. I also would prefer to be more in the city. The master bedroom is also abnormally small but does have a bathroom. My favorite features of this house are: the storage, kitchen (double ovens!), dining room, and large laundry room.

House #3 is located in south Atlanta and is 5 minutes away from Normer’s office. You can’t beat that commute! It’s located in a neat neighborhood right next to Woodward Academy. It has 3 bedrooms and 3.5 baths. The master bedroom is on the main floor with the other 2 upstairs. There are hardwoods on the main floor and carpet in the basement and upstairs bedrooms. The living room is pretty small but there is a nice finished basement with more room to hang out. Things I don’t like about this house; stone fire place that is a safety hazard for babies, that the bedrooms aren’t located altogether and the lack of outdoor space. I love the outside of this house, quaint front porch, screened in back porch and kitchen. It has a 2 car garage but there really isn’t a great area to put a grill. There is no backyard and the front is pretty small, so there wouldn’t be a place to put in a fence for Lulu. We could possibly put in a picket fence in the front for her but it’s not ideal. I really love the look and style of this house. It would also be nice to live so close to Normer’s job since he could come home for lunch.

Which house should we choose????

Update and Badge’s Birth

Us Normers have had a very busy life lately!! First, Badge was born on the 22nd, and then on the 23rd, we moved! Yes, you read that correctly!  We had to move out by May 1st, so we only had a week to pack before Badge was born. It was actually the perfect distraction for me to pack since I was doing nothing but waiting for Badge to come out. So the day after I gave birth, Normer and some of our amazing friends finished packing and moved all of our furniture into storage. Then they brought our personal stuff over to out temporary place. Normer’s parents generously offered to let us stay in their condo downtown. We live on the 13th floor and have views of Centennial Park. The plan is to live here until we can find a house of our own!  We have looked at several houses in the Atlanta/Peachtree City area but everything was already gone by the time we saw it! Until yesterday! We just put an offer on an adorable house right by the airport. It’s a short sale, so it could take a really long time for the offer to go through if they accept it! I’m trying to not get my hopes up but I just can’t wait to finally have my own house, with a backyard!!! And a grill…a GRILL!! AND a sewing room/corner for me!! Yippee! (Update, our offer wasn’t accepted but we have a few more houses we are looking at).

For those of you interested in the story of Badge’s birth, please read on!

I was due on April 18th and finally had my first contractions on Wednesday the 20th. They started around 9pm and lasted all night. I couldn’t rest at all between them. Around 4 or 5am the contractions suddenly stopped and I was able to sleep for a few hours. That morning, Normer and I went for 2.5 mile walk, packed and then went for another 2.5 mile walk that afternoon. My contractions started back again after the second walk and they were all over the place. 7 minutes, 5 minutes, 3 minutes, 7 minutes. We had planned to labor at home as long as possible but I was already in a lot of pain and really wanted to head to the hospital. We were supposed to have a midwife helping with our delivery, but found out that she wasn’t going to be on call that day. I immediately called my sister-in-law, Chantel, to come be our doula. She has so much experience and I knew she would be a huge help.
We arrived at the hospital around midnight on Thursday the 21st. I was in so much pain because the contractions were so intense. I was so disappointed when the nurse checked me and I was only 2 1/2 cm.
We labored all night only to find out at 4am that I was still 2 1/2cm. I was already asking for the drugs at this point because the pain was so unbearable. Thankfully, I had an amazing birth team who encouraged me and reminded me of our birth plan and why we wanted to do things naturally. Finally around 8:30am, I threw up and immediately felt a ton better. They checked me and I was 6cm with a +1 station! Progress!! At this point, I felt normal between contractions and even carried on conversation! We met our doctor at this point who seemed nice enough. I had never seen him before but had been assured by my midwife that all the doctors in that practice would be supportive of our natural birth.

At 10am on Friday morning, the nurse checked me again and declared that I was 10cm! I starting sobbing with joy that this would soon all be over. (Dun dun duuun….little did I know it wasn’t going to be over anytime soon!). I pushed for over an hour, my water finally broke but the baby wasn’t coming out! At 11:30, the nurse checked me and with much dismay, said I was only 7cm and my cervix was now swollen. This meant that I couldn’t push through the contractions even though I had the urge to. (We aren’t sure why I was only 7cm, don’t know if the nurse checked me wrong or I had regressed. I’m not even sure it’s possible to regress that much. All I know is that it was a huge problem).

From this point on, I was in the most horrible pain. During every contraction, I would grip the sides of the bed and scream. It was the hardest thing I have ever done to fight the urge to push. Both the doctor and the nurse came in several times and physically tried to push my cervix open. That. was. not. fun. I screamed the entire time. I was so exhausted and mentally worn out. I was begging for an epidural. All I wanted was for someone to just knock me out so I wouldn’t have to feel the pain anymore. Our doctor kept coming in the room and pushing pitocin on us along with an epidural. Even though I wanted the epidural so bad, I knew that it wasn’t the best thing for us. The baby was never in distress and all we needed was to get me to relax so my cervix could open up. Normer was such a supportive husband. He was there by my side the entire time, helping me through everything.
I ended up getting two doses of Fentanyl. Each dose only lasted about 45 minutes, but it was enough to take the edge off and allow me to relax. Our doctor came in the room several times saying rude things like, “This is the room of no interventions” or “This is how a Bradley birth is…”. I was so angry with him, he had no compassion and would just burst in while I was in the middle of a contraction and start talking to me. I couldn’t do anything else but focus on not pushing so there was no way I could have a conversation with him! Around 2:30p, we had a turning point. The swelling finally was going down! The doctor still wanted us to take the pitocin but we declined. At 4:00pm, they checked me and I was ready! I was at 10cm again with NO swelling! I started pushing and we tried out various positions. The nurses all came in and told us that this doctor only delivered in the typical position and I had to get on my back. I was so angry. Everything we had learned in our birthing classes said to not get on your back! It slows things down! The doctor also went off on episiotomies. We had in our birth plan that IF I was going to tear badly, to give us a pressure episiotomy (google it if you don’t know what that is). Our doctor apparently did not know what that is. Um, hello??
We finally ended up with my legs in the stirrups and the baby started crowning. The doctor gave me an episiotomy  without  consulting us. I didn’t even know he had done this until 3 days later. He also gave me a local anesthetic which I did not want. He was so rough with me that I couldn’t even tell when I was having a contraction because what he was doing was so painful. After an hour and 20 minutes of pushing, our sweet boy finally arrived at 5:21pm. We were so over joyed to see him that all most of the stress from the delivery went away. We wanted to not cut the umbilical cord right away, to give it time to deliver last minute nutrients to Badge. I had an unusually short cord, and the doctor immediately clipped and cut it. It wasn’t a big deal that the cord was short and I can’t believe that he didn’t respect our wishes (once again).  The doctor started stitching me up and I keep asking what he was doing, how many stitches I was getting, but I NEVER got an answer. I still don’t know how many stitches I got! Needless to say, I’m never delivering with this practice again. It was hard enough what we were going through without someone else just making things harder for us.
And to end on a positive note, despite all the pain, Badge’s birth was simply amazing. When his head and shoulders were finally out, they had me reach down to pull him out all the way. I will never forget the moment I first touched him and put him on my belly. He is such a beautiful baby and I love being his mom. I’m so grateful that God blessed us with a son after such a long journey. We love you Badge!

Badge Lee Adams

Badge is now 3 weeks old! He was born on April 22nd at 5:21pm. I’ll save his birth story for another post but man, it was quite the birth!

We named Badge after his great grandfather, Marvin Lee Badgerow who passed away a few months ago. We are so honored to name our son after such a wonderful man. We have gotten a few weird looks from people when they first hear his name, but we could care less! We love it and think it fits him perfectly!

Badge with Mommy on his first morning. This picture is obviously not how I looked right after I gave birth. That picture will most likely never see the light of day! Ugh!

Badge with Daddy

I just love this little sweet face. He is so adorable!

My first Mother’s Day! We are standing in front of the swingset in Normer’s Parents’ backyard. They have name plates for all of the grandkids and Badge has his just added!

I absolutely can’t believe I have this little guy to take care of- We’ve waited so long for you Badge!!

When is this baby gonna come out?

Ha, that’s what I’m asking everyday at least! I have most certainly loved every second of being pregnant and I’m super thankful for an easy pregnancy. However, let’s just say that I am quite the opposite of comfortable and so ready to meet this little boy! Here’s a list of b-day predictions:
March 22- Robin
April 2- Lindsey
April 3- Jen
April 4- Diana
April 7- Kelly
April 8- Caron
April 10- Grandmommy
April 11- Aunt Diane
April 12- Laura
April 13- Michelle, Julia
April 14- Carly
April 15- Donna, Julie
April 16- April
April 17- Angela, Granddaddy
April 18- Jackie, James
April 19- Chantel
April 20- Amy G., Jill
April 21- Amy Y.
April 22- My mom
April 23- Autumn

My official due date is the 18th. I have always felt like he is going to come early but I guess he is out to prove his mom is wrong already.

When do you think this baby is going head out?

***I’ve been updating this list everyday so make your guess and I’ll add it!***