Name Letters

Time for another nursery projects update! Today's project: Name Letters. These will be hung on the wall above her crib.

MATERIALS:
wooden letters
paint (background color of choice)
scrapbook paper
scissors
modge podge

I actually found these wooden letters at Joann's Fabrics, and being they were a font I actually liked other than the usual boring ones most commonly found, I couldn't pass them up. Since baby's nursery is being decorated with mostly green with accents of pink and brown, I decided to paint these green before getting started as the sides of the letters will still be visible for the finished product. This way I could also find paper to coordinate and match with the green I used.

I found my scrapbook paper at Michael's and really liked how the colors seemed to all go well together considering the patters are all quite different from each other, but that was what I was hoping for!

I then traced the letters, face-down to the back side of the paper, and cut out the letters. Once the letters were all cut out of the paper, I was ready to use the modge podge to cover the wooden letters with the paper. I applied a thin layer of the modge podge to the front surface of the letter and then pressed the cut out paper to the letter. I then allowed them to completely dry before covering the paper and sides of the wooden letter with more modge podge to seal the paper and paint to the letter.

And the finished product! They turned out great and I absolutely love them! Of course being that we are keeping baby's name a secret, I won't hang them up until the very end. So for those of you that just got excited that her name was Eja, please refrain from getting anything personalized just yet :P

Oh, and I found these adorable little frogs to accent the letters as well :)

Hair Bow Organizer

With SO many ideas on how to add a little frill and color to our second, white-walled apartment bedroom for baby, it seems like I only ever get to work on a little of each here and there and not actually have anything COMPLETED yet! But I decided I was dedicating one night to completing one of these projects from start to finish, perhaps to make myself feel like I was actually making progress on something :P

So here it is! A hair bow organizer for the clip-on bows baby girl will have (who knows when she'll actually use them though considering she'll most likely be BALD!)

MATERIALS:
1 rectangular canvas
paint
modge podge to seal the paint and add shine
ribbon
nails/staples to attach ribbon
decorative flowers (optional)

I purchased my canvas as Michael's as they had them on sale for 50% off, and who wouldn't like a sale like that?! I painted the canvas (3 coats) bright pink to match the pink in the thickest ribbon I had. Once the paint was completely dry, I covered it with the modge podge to seal the paint and add that shine that looks a lot better than flat paint does. And it doesn't scratch as easily either! Once that was dry, I started laying out the ribbons (froggie ones of course!) in the order I wanted, one at a time of course. I attached the ribbon to the back of the canvas with small nails (rolled up the ends of the ribbon to keep them from fraying or ripping out of the nails). After all the ribbons where in place, I glued on the decorative flowers just for a little more flair. I LOVE it, and it'll definitely add some color to those white walls! :)

Mexican Chicken Alfredo

It has been far too long since a new recipe has been posted on here, and it's not that we haven't been trying new ones, they just never get any farther than our mouths :P

We tried a new recipe last night called Mexican Chicken Alfredo. I decided to try this recipe not only because of all the good reviews it had, but also because it seemed to be an interesting twist on the traditional Chicken Alfredo. Personally, I am not a big fan of anything alfredo, but Axton is. But I AM a huge fan of almost anything Mexican, so I thought, why not give it a try? Perhaps it would change the alfredo taste enough that I would like it, but not so much that Axton no longer would.

You can find the recipe here. Of course, I cut the recipe in half since it makes two 8x8 dishes, and being just the two of us, that would just be way too much food! But this recipe is also freezable, so it could come in handy in the future. It is quite simple to make, and the flavor was one I wasn't expecting--delicious. But it is a dish we will definitely have to make again.

Update!

As mentioned in our previous post (here), we were awaiting the results from our follow-up ultrasound. We finally got our phone call yesterday, nearly a week later and after 2 phone calls to the clinic asking if the results were reviewed yet. We are more than thankful to say that baby's cyst is GONE and she is looking great! Such wonderful news, and we truly have an amazing God who hears our prayers and heals and protects His little children :) Thank you for all your prayers!

22/23 weeks

Our 22nd week of growing baby girl wasn't exactly one that we had expected. We received a phone call from the nurse explaining to us that at our last ultrasound (at 20 weeks) they had found a cyst on the baby's umbilical cord, so they wanted us to go in for a level 2 ultrasound to check things out in better detail so we could determine if further special care would be necessary for the remainder of the pregnancy. Our follow-up ultrasound was scheduled for the morning where baby would be 22 weeks, 4 days old. When we arrived at the clinic we were informed that we had actually been MIS-informed about why we were having a second ultrasound. The cysts that were found were not actually on baby's umbilical cord, but rather they were located in her brain--a great, and even more nerve-racking surprise to us! We still aren't sure how they mixed the two locations up, but either way we were already there and the follow-up ultrasound was still necessary. Brain cysts that do not go away during pregnancy usually point to chromosomal abnormalities such as Down's Syndrome, but when we received negative results back from testing for these abnormalities over a month prior, we were not too concerned that this was the case for her. But most cysts that are found during pregnancy dissolve and disappear before baby is born without any complications. We are still awaiting the results from this past Tuesday's ultrasound, but as the tech told us, we would not have left the clinic if they had seen something still there. We are also hopeful that if they cysts were still present in her brain, that they would have contacted us in a much quicker manner. We will definitely keep you updated once we know more, and your prayers would be greatly appreciated :)

On a more positive note, having another ultrasound meant getting to see our little girl again. It was crazy how much bigger she already was after 2 1/2 weeks, and she was all about putting on a show for us! She spent the majority of the time sucking her thumb with one hand and playing with the umbilical cord in the other. She was also poking herself in the eye at one point (taking after daddy I'm guessing!) and waving to us with each of her little fingers. Everything looked perfect and she even weighed in at 1 pound 3 ounces, so she's growing right on track! So here are a few more pictures of her to enjoy, as well as another growing-belly pic!

sucking her thumb!

her little foot!

her little nose & lips!