How far along: 39 weeks, we’re almost there!

Musings on Weekly Photo: I think my watermelon drawing is pretty much to scale with my belly! Also, can we note that my shirts are seriously stretched to the max? It looks like there is no definition between the boobage and belly. Ha!

Maternity Clothes: I’m pretty much wearing whatever fits.

Fruit of the Week / Size of Baby: Baby is the size of a watermelon! Holy moly! Any guesses on poundage of this guy? I think he’s going to be 7.9 lbs. Matt guessed 6.4, I laughed in his face at his optimistic thinking.

Movement: He’s totally squashed in there. His kicks are really noticeable when you watch my belly.

Cravings: Nothing new this week. I’m still downing my spinach smoothies (I can’t believe I typed that).

Annoyances: 3 hour wait at the doctor’s office. There was some scheduling snafu and it was horrible. There were some very angry, very pregnant women up in that office.

Highlights of the Week: Pool party! My friend Emily and I spent the day at the Terranea Resort Pool. It was heated, salt water and overlooked the ocean. We ordered lunch and it was glorious. I’m sure we were a spectacle though, two big pregnant gals in floppy hats and too small suits waddling around!

How far along: 38 weeks. We could be saying Happy Birth Day to our bambino any day now!

Musings on Weekly Photo: I changed my shirt just for this picture. Here’s what 38 weeks really looks like.

Maternity Clothes: As you can see, I’ve moved on to a super fashionable wardrobe of too small yoga pants and Matt’s t-shirts.

Fruit of the Week / Size of Baby: The size of a pumpkin! Let me repeat, a pumpkin. My mind is blown by that.

Movement: Yes. Definitely getting cramped in there.

Cravings: Coconut water. Hat tip to one of my favorite baby mamas – delicious hydration with the benefit of no leg cramps? Yes Please.

Annoyances: Not too much to complain about here. Excitedly waiting for this baby to arrive.

Highlights of the Week: Maternity leave! The girls at work threw me a mini-baby shower that included lunch at one of my favorite Mexican restaurant, Don Antonio’s. You can’t ask for better gals to work with!

Or we could man up and buy the glider of my dreams for over $1000 bucks.

Obviously, neither option was looking good. Then I saw this tutorial on how to turn a regular chair into a glider/rocking chair. We really didn’t want to buy another chair (or add another slipcover to our laundry routine) so we thought we could use Matt’s “man chair” from our living room. We bought this chair for around $170 at Ikea. It’s not online, so you’ll have to scope it out in the store, it’s called the Jappling.

We bought the swivel adaptor online here for around $65. Luckily (?) due to my Saturday morning insomnia I got to work on this project early, seriously – 4:45 am early. Just flip the chair over…

Remove the legs and all 1 million staples keeping the felt on the bottom of the chair. At this point I had no idea what it would look like underneath so I wanted to keep the felt intact just in case I needed to reuse it.

Fist pump! The chair already has a sturdy base to screw the glider mechanism to. I was happy to skip this step but the tutorial above gives you the play by play if your chair needs additional support.

From there, all I did was center the base on the bottom of my chair based on the manufacturer’s directions, flip that baby right-side up and we were in glider chair business!

Holla back! $65 to turn an all-ready-had-on-hand chair into an awesome nursery glider? I’m not sure why this project makes me so smug but I feel the need to shout from the roof tops, “save your money! buy a glider kit!”. Added bonus? Being Ikea faux-leather an all, this chair is completely baby proof. All bodily fluids (gross) wipe right up and the best part, we can turn this chair back into Matt’s favorite lounge chair at any time.

So there you have it, one item checked off the nursery to-do list. Do you have any smarty-pants projects that you’d like to share?

How far along: 37 weeks! Woot woot! We are full term baby!

Musings on Weekly Photo: My hair is looking a little wonky. Hopefully that distracts from my enormous baby belly!

Maternity Clothes: Yes and they’re getting really tight. The maxi skirt was my best purchase by far.

Fruit of the Week / Size of Baby: The size of a stalk of swiss chard (?!) He should be weighing in around 6.5 pounds.

Movement: Definitely. It’s equally creeping/awesome to be able to see him move so easily.

Cravings: Still loving the ice and water. I have to thank my friend Emily for introducing me to this smoothie recipe. Never in my life would I have thought I’d be chugging spinach smoothies. Ca-razy.

Annoyances: Still pretty swollen. I had to say sayonara to my wedding rings this week. Sad.

Highlights of the Week: We had dinner at Spago on Saturday and it was SO delicious. A perfect way to celebrate our upcoming five year anniversary and baby’s arrival!

Pregnancy related reads

Your Pregnancy, Week by Week: This book came highly recommended from all of my new-mama friends. It’s the “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” minus all of the it-could-all-go-wrong-at-any-second drama. Loved it!

Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy: Quick, easy read. This book gets real and doesn’t sugar coat any ahem, unpleasant aspects of pregnancy. It definitely reminded me of sitting around with my gal pals asking “did this happen to you too?”

Babble and Baby Center: Seriously addicted to these sites. Babble is lot more “hip” and I tend to read the articles/blogs more. I love Baby Center for its How Big is Baby Chart that I use to update our weekly chalkboard.

Pregnant Chicken Blog: Seriously hilarious.

269 Days: Comic book version of pregnancy. I cried I was laughing so hard.

Child Birth related reads – I’ll give the full update once I’ve passed the milestone of ya know, having the baby!

Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth: This is for the inner hippie in us all. We’re leaning towards a natural birth and this was really helpful in making that decision. Lots of information (regardless of your epidural preference) about birth, hospital procedures and what to expect.

The Birth Partner: I bought this for Matt on my book purchasing binge. I think it helps break down what will be happening to your lady friend in labor and how to help. I’m no expert but I’m hoping this will take some of the shock and wtf is happening out of delivery day for him.

Big Book of Birth: This is also a great read for a newbie. It gives a lot of information about hospital procedures and what your options are. If you’re looking for something a little less granola than Ms. Ina May, here’s your book.

After Baby – Apparently they don’t hand out instruction guides with newborns at the hospital.

I’ve bought a few books for life after baby after my friend said she was completed in the know about all things pregnancy but didn’t really have a clue about taking care of the baby. I definitely would have fallen into that boat so I’ve stocked up on a few reads (mostly suggestions from friends).

Baby 411: The bible to all things baby. I’ve skimmed through and it looks like a great reference for all of the “is this normal?” questions I’m sure all of us new parents have.

Baby Wise: I’ve heard a lot of good reviews about sleep training and scheduling from this book. We’ll play it by ear and see if it works for Baby A.

Tell me if there are any other books I need to add to my already sagging book case!

PS- I bought all of these books with my own hard earned cash- no perks here!

How far along: 36 weeks! I only have a week and a half left of work before I go on maternity leave.

Musings on Weekly Photo: Let’s not take any more pictures at the end of the day. Especially days that include work, pre-natal appointments and grocery shopping. It just doesn’t end well people.

Maternity Clothes: You betcha.

Fruit of the Week / Size of Baby: We’ve got conflicting melon descriptions on the Bump (Watermelon) and Baby Center (Crenshaw Melon). Either way, he’s running out of room.

Movement: Yep. I can tell he likes to keep a schedule (like his mama). He prefers to be up and kicking in the early afternoon and have a little dance party before bed.

Cravings: Water. I have been chugging away!

Annoyances: Lesson learned this week, I need to ask for help. Not a fun task when you’re independent and impatient. I wore myself out this weekend running around like a crazy person!

Highlights of the Week: We have our hospital tour this Saturday and Matt’s taking me out on the town for dinner before it’s all macaroni and cheese and take out pizza up in here.

How far along: 35 weeks. Yowza! It is crazy to think D-Day is close enough to count in days, not weeks.

Musings on Weekly Photo: That belly is loud and proud!

Maternity Clothes: Yes! But rocking a non-maternity cardigan for fun.

Fruit of the Week / Size of Baby: Baby is the size of a butternut squash. We’ll have an ultrasound in the next two weeks to confirm his actual poundage. Any guesses?

Movement: He’s still moving around a lot but I can tell he’s getting cramped in there. So can my kidneys.

Cravings: I would kill for a Sonic Happy Hour. Why Los Angeles do you deprive me of the slushy deliciousness?

Annoyances: Still swollen. I also had to take my wedding rings off this week. I felt like Teen Mom but I was scared they were going to cut off my circulation.

Highlights of the Week: Putting some last minute touches on the nursery and folding more baby clothes! We are ready for this guy to arrive!

How far along: 34 weeks. The days are going so slowly but it seems like the weeks are flying by.

Musings on Weekly Photo: Please excuse the pregnancy brain. I’m aware I misspelled cantaloupe but I am too lazy to retake the picture.

Maternity Clothes: Yes!

Fruit of the Week / Size of Baby: Baby is the size of a Cantaloupe.

Movement: He’s moving and a shaking all of the time.

Cravings: No cravings this week. We’ve I’ve been eating a lot of macaroni and cheese but I think that’s just how I roll. I made Paula Deen’s recipe this week and it was amazing!

Annoyances: The swelling. For the love of god, I have cankles. I’ve been propping up my feet and drinking around 90 ounces (NOT and exaggeration) of water everyday. Gals, it doesn’t get pretty here at the end.

Highlights of the Week: Just relaxing! We didn’t have anything on the calendar which was a nice change. I think I’m feeling more excited than anxious about our boy’s arrival since we have everything put together and ready for his impending arrival.

a few notes:

• Whew! Sorry for the wheezing. Homeslice is all up in my rib cage and compressing my lungs. Apparently, walking and talking does a number on a pregnant gal!
• I’m trying to get better at the Blair Witch style videography. If I’m making you queasy, you may want to skip to the pictures below!
• Lulu looks so offended that I am taping her eating dinner.
• We are making some serious progress on the nursery. I can’t wait to show you all.

Kitchen: A tiny but bright white kitchen. Here it is on moving day!

We haven’t done much to personalize the kitchen. I love my counters clutter free so it’s looks pretty similar now. Here’s a peek back at the kitchen from the living room.

Living Room: We chose this apartment over another in  the complex because of how many windows we have. It gets so much light, it’s great. The carpet is not great.

Sorry for the blown out pictures, I’m still trying to get a handle on how to photograph with all of these windows!

We’re working on swapping out the random collection of photos for a fun collage of prints or maybe popping some family pictures in there. Still undecided, but let’s all Keep Calm and Carry On.

Master Bedroom/Bathroom: This bedroom is much smaller than our last BUT the closet is huge which is fantastic since our dresser didn’t fit up the stairs. We do have big plans to shimmy it up through the window.

Nursery: This room is pretty tiny too but again, the glorious closet space. Which I hear will come in handy as apparently babies come with a lot of stuff.

We’re still working on this room (it feels like we’re moving at a snail’s pace). Here’s a sneak peek.

We know you’re jealous of baby Ahrens’ water view. Ha!

So that concludes the tour of our humble home. What do you think? Any willing volunteers to move the dresser upstairs?

The wait was worth it though. Originally I had my sites set on a campaign dresser. Something a little larger than the dresser I re-finished at our last place. Unfortunately, the word is out and campaign dressers are no longer on Craig’s List. People are snapping them up, refinishing them and selling them for bagillions of dollars.

So, last week after I had made my usual thrift shop rounds (and come up empty handed) I decide to peruse Craig’s List one more time. AND THEN! There they were. Two little midcentury dressers for $45 (for both!). I drug Matt down to the LBC and 40 minutes later they were ours. *Matt gets props for driving me down to pick up the dressers right away since the Final Four game had started about 2 minutes into my dresser discovery.*

The Hyundai amazed us again with it’s hauling capacity. We unscrewed the legs and hauled those babies home.

Unfortunately for us all, I didn’t snap a true before picture. Bad blogger! So just imagine dirty, yellowing dressers just asking for some love. So let’s skip to part 2, the beautification process.

Since these were made before 1970 we opted to not sand them down due to potential lead based paint. We used Kilz No VOC primer and it worked like a charm. While the primer was drying I gave the brass around the dressers a quick shine with my salt and vinegar trick.

I then added 2 coats of Behr’s Low VOC paint. We picked up new hardware at Home Depot for about $2 a pull and by golly we were in business! I painted the dressers in the nursery since they were so heavy and Matt only wanted to haul them up one flight of stairs. The no VOC paint was perfect, you can’t even tell that anything was painted in there.

I’m so glad I waited for the dressers to come along. I feel so much better about paying $45 for two real wood dressers instead of some Ikea version that is sure to fall apart in a few years. I can just imagine these flanking twin beds some day!

So here’s our little dresser set up now. All ready for baby! We’re adding some pictures and shelves to the wall later this week. Stay tuned!

What’s your latest Craig’s List find? Has anyone been lucky enough to score an awesome campaign dresser?