High Five for Friday!

I seriously feel like I was just sitting down to write my last H54F post. These weeks are just FLYING by! Which is funny, because when I'm pacing the house with terrible heartburn or climbing into my second bath of the day in attempts to ease the massive hip pain (you know, they're just doing a little expanding for baby. So, that's depressing), there would be NO WAY you'd be able to tell me about how fast time flies.

Funny how that works, huh?

Since the whole country re-entered winter again this week, let's focus on some positives and think about the best five moments of the week, shall we? Here are mine:

1) I talked here about how Kirk was making some special "healthy" dessert bars to bring to our birthing class. I'm happy to report that the second attempt was a win, and everyone in our class was impressed that a husband actually brought something homemade for the group to enjoy. Kirk was pretty proud of himself, and I was impressed too. In fact, I couldn't even snap a quick pic, they were gone that fast!

2) I have resumed a four day a week yoga practice. Ohhhhhh, my, y'all does this make a difference in how I feel!! The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and the days that I get to move and stretch are filled with glory. Read more about it here, and if you happen to be pregnant, take up a practice of your own. Fo realz.

3) Adrianne Mathiowetz Photography sent over our finished maternity photos! I'll share a few photos with a few thoughts in a future Mommy Monday post. But until then, here's one more preview shot for you:

4) While it was ABSOLUTELY delicious, I have officially overdosed on banana bread! It has been my breakfast and a good portion of my snacks for nearly every day this week. So, my banana bread craving should be satiated for about, oh... A good week or two :) Want the recipe? Check it out.

5) The day I posted this about my Birchbox subscription and Inika eyeliner, I got my April box! This one was full of goodies, so I'm really excited to get to tryin' them all! No makeup in this month's box, which I actually prefer - it's really tough to send out makeup samples that flatter a specific woman's skin tone. I really lucked out with the eyeliner. I thought it was going to be a ridiculous shade of green, but it wore beautifully and was a perfect match for hazel eyes. It's been added to the regular rotation!

Here's to hoping everyone across the country gets their turn with spring! Cheers to the weekend.

Playing Beauty Salon

Well over a year ago, I signed up for Birchbox, which is box of beauty/hair/skincare/makeup products that gets delivered to my door each month. You fill out a profile in your online account, and they select about five trial sized, non-drugstore brand (read: nice stuff) items to send you each month. It costs a whopping $10, which is great, but the thing I like best about it is the exposure I get to various new products without having to shop! In fact, I don't even need to think. I just get to open the mail and play!

Initially, this month's box was a bit of a disappointment. The first thing I opened was a European hand and body lotion, which smelled so strongly of perfume that I nearly gagged. It promptly got tossed in the trash! Then I noticed this eyeliner, which looked nearly full sized (bonus!) but it was a bright green. Hmmmm, I thought... Not really my style. The other items ranged from some hair repair oil, to a cucumber face wash (that smelled FANTASTIC and felt great, but the sample was a one time use deal) to a skin and lip ointment creme. Skin ointment?! What the heck? (It's actually come in quite handy and I'll be the first to say that my initial impression of it was wrong)

Inika eyeliner in Green Lagoon

After the eyeliner sat on my vanity for several weeks, I decided I needed to try it and either keep it or toss it. It IS certified organic, so you know it had my name written all over it. It was just... So... GREEN. Bright green. Almost a blue-green. I mean, look at how green that is, right?! I have dark hazel eyes made up of grey, green and brown, so I usually enjoy green to bring that color out in them... But this looked a little "Jersey Shore" for my taste. "Oh well, let the beauty salon game begin!" I thought.

Can I quickly note that I decided to play beauty salon shortly before I headed over to the Texas DMV to get my license updated with my married last name? Down here they take a new photo for every I.D. issued, so... That was a dumb risk to take!

Anyhow, I paired the "Green Lagoon" color of Inika eyeliner with some Mary Kay shadows (they have the BEST colors!), inner-eye illuminator, and black mascara. Drum roll, please...!!! (While I might regret this decision after publishing this post, no photoshop or filters were used to edit these shots so that you can see the color true-to-shade on my skin tone. Do beauty bloggers edit their photos?! I dunno; thus the very few beauty/product review posts from me!)

..

I took this SUPER close up so that you can see the eyeliner doesn't apply anywhere near as obnoxiously bright as it looks in the stick! I used a deep brown shadow liner on my upper lid and used the Inika eyeliner on my lower lid. Paired with a deep, earthy green shadow in my crease and a taupey-brown shadow in the outer corners of my eyes, I think the "Green Lagoon" actually makes my eyes pop nicely.

If you click the link for the eyeliner, you'll see that Inika offers a number of colors of this product. So, if you have blue, brown, green, or a different shade of hazel than my eyes, you'll be able to find something to make your eyes pop too! It comes with a sharpener in the lid, and I always appreciate clever packaging.

The "complete" look that emerged from playing beauty salon: Mary Kay eye shadows, highlighter and lip gloss; Smashbox blush; Clinique foundation and concealer; L'Oreal mascara. Too bad my new driver's license picture isn't this flattering...

Interior Design: Sneak Peek UPDATE

I made mention in this post that we had made some major progress in the nursery. Several weeks ago now, we realized that we had done absolutely nothing to prepare for this baby outside of picking out our midwives and going to prenatal appointments. So we shifted into high gear and started to get our act together... You know, since he's scheduled to be here in less than eight weeks. Oops!

This was the first post I did about the nursery. Here's where we're at now:

As I mentioned, I think it's important to have a calming space for a newborn. Little baby had to endure a lot of trauma to enter the world (hey, whoa! So did mama) and they just excited the only place in the world that would provide consistent, perfect climate and care for them (you know, the womb). So I'm not a real big fan of bright colors and loud prints in a nursery - I want to keep it as calming and comforting as possible.

As you can see, I've kept up with the neutrals, soft greens and blues. Oddly, it's been extremely easy to find this shade of green everywhere. The chair-side table was found on overstock.com; the shelf is from Home Goods; the safari prints in the frames are from Etsy; the monogram letters I made myself with supplies from Micheal's; the elephant light is from Pottery Barn Kids off our registry (thanks, mama!); the grey giraffe blanket is also from Pottery Barn Kids; the chair and gliding ottoman are from Babies R Us.

Things are starting to come together! Our crib, crib mattress and changing table are scheduled to arrive the last week of May, and after those get put together, we'll pretty much be set. We have a few more necessities to purchase. You know, like an adequate supply of diapers (we learned this last weekend that newborns go through 70-90 diapers a week. WHUT), some bathing supplies, and a few more sleep sacks (we also learned this weekend that Kirk needs to work on his snapping skills. Thus, baby boy will be sleeping in sleep sacks as the hubby is on burping/diaper duty after my feeding duty... and I do NOT want to hear him struggle with the snaps of a footie pajama when I'm trying to go back to sleep.)

Outside of that, we're ready! Now. We just need to get prepared. Nobody around here is prepared, I can tell you that much.

Baking Follies

I have a massive pregnancy sweet tooth. I try to keep it in check and only indulge in sweets a few times a week. But wouldn't you know, we just so happened to have three overly ripe bananas sitting on our counter, and banana bread just happens to be one of my favorites!

Clearly, the only just and fair thing to do was make some banana bread to serve those ripe bananas justice. Justice straight to my belly.

I found this recipe on Pinterest and it had over 1,000 repins, so I figured it had to be pretty decent. Also, it had just a few ingredients, which I like. Double also, it's a pretty sweet blog that I now follow called Domestic Superhero. #winning

Anyway, I mentioned here about how I'm an absolutely terrible baker! I hate following recipes exactly, and since baking is a chemistry, one must follow it just so. But dangit if I didn't want some banana bread, and I had everything I needed to make it already (kinda) and the justice for the bananas, y'all!

I thus embarked on my baking adventure. First, I lined up everything I would need to put it together.

That shot forgot the eggs, and eggs are definitely involved in all baking adventures. So I grabbed the eggs, and started to mash up the bananas. When your bananas are super ripe, it's easy enough to smush them with a fork - no need to bust out the food processor! Yessssss, fewer dishes to deal with.

I got my smushy banana on, then proceeded to stir together the butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla into the mixture. An optional ingredient was nuts, and my husband and I just happen to be nuts for nuts, especially walnuts, so I chopped up some of those, getting them ready for their grande debut. (Walnuts are a great, healthy fat source! And really complement the flavor of banana well. Go ahead, add some to your next batch of banana bread and see how delicious it is!)

After mixing in the salt, I realized the recipe called for baking SODA and I had baking POWDER. Oops. Oh well, it was close enough! So then I realized I couldn't find my teaspoon - only my tablespoon. Meh! So I added a not-quite-full-tablespoon of baking powder, which was not part of the deal. Then the flour and walnuts. I didn't even measure both of those... After my soda/powder debacle, I was quickly growing tired of this baking nonsense. Baking fail.

It was looking and smelling good at this point, and looked like most banana bread batters I've seen before despite my lack of measuring. However, my next folly was that I didn't have a friggin bread pan! Since I don't bake, I've never bought one and didn't put one on my wedding registry. I DID put a sweet set of Pyrex baking dishes though said registry though, so I I figured that would do. Low and behold, the not so perfect, slightly altered, non measured and non bread pan banana bread!

I put that bad boy in the oven and stared down the batter encrusted bowl... Now, I *know* pregnant women shouldn't eat raw dough because of the eggs in it. But this is per the FDA, the same federal bureaucracy who tells pregnant women diet soda is "safe" to drink throughout their pregnancies (UMMMM, it's not safe to drink, ever) and I had just got the eggs and heck they're pasteurized anyway, and my belly was screaming JUSTICE PAIGE JUSTICE!!! So to hell with the FDA. I licked that bowl CLEAN. And it was amazing.

The bread itself was equally amazing. Voila! Le pain est fini!

In all seriousness though, this bread was fantastic, it was easy to put together and forgiving of my inability to properly bake, and Domestic Superhero is a pretty fun read too.

Mommy Monday: Prenatal Yoga Review

When you have (or, errrr, had...) a body that is in continuous motion, it gets "shocked" when it becomes consistently still. After a week of bed rest, my hips and back ached, my restless leg syndrome was off the charts, I was agitated and  to be perfectly honest, I was just plain old mean!

Since my contractions had completely stopped for over a week, my midwives said I could go to prenatal yoga classes. Yes, movement! I knew it wouldn't be the same as a regular yoga class, or a good run, or a circuit training class, but I was so excited for the opportunity to move and get on a mat again, I didn't care.

So I went. And I was right.

It was very gentle. Mostly stretching. No cardio or "flow" of a typical yoga class. No long holds of poses, no extreme strength moves. Not even any sweat was produced. But it was the best hour and a half I've had in a long, long time.

Clearly, the class is full of other pregnant moms, which built an instant sense of community in the room. We started the class going around an introducing ourselves, saying how pregnant we were, and listing any particular body part that was especially nagging us. The bulk of the women were between 25-35 weeks pregnant (one woman came on her actual due date! Get it, girl!), with a very small handful of women in the 13-18 week range. Hips and low back was a common body part cited that needed relief.

Now, if I had taken this class prior to my preterm labor situation, I would have been annoyed and frustrated with how slow it was, how I wasn't working up a sweat, and how I wasn't engaging enough muscle groups. Now that my perspective has been entirely changed, prenatal yoga classes are the highlight of my week!

The instructor was kind and assisted any woman who needed help with a pose. Nothing about any of the poses was challenging or would remotely put any woman in any sort of risk in her pregnancy. All the poses felt wonderful, and stretched what pregnant women need stretched, focused on the breath and relaxed us.

We focused on stretching and strengthening our hips and low back - no shocker there. But last night (my fourth prenatal/gentle yoga class) we spent a lot of time opening and stretching our ribs, chest and heart. I had been feeling like my lungs were cramped and breathing hard for most of the weekend, and after this class, I felt about ten pounds lighter and found it much easier to breathe. I'm not kidding! I cannot wait for my early afternoon class today. Who knows what will get worked on that I didn't even know needed some attention?

Sadly, prenatal yoga is NOT cheap. At my studio in Dallas, it's $135 for 10 classes, and individual classes are $15 each if you don't purchase a "package." Expect to pay roughly this, with national pricing ranging from $12-$25 per class.

What you'll need:

•  Fitted but stretchy clothes
• Water bottle - even though the room is cool, you'll want to drink lots!
• Yoga mat, if your studio doesn't have them available to you or you don't prefer communal mats

The yoga studio will likely give you some props to use while in class. These typically include cork/foam blocks, sturdy wool blankets and straps (used to assist flexibility around your baby bump). The instructor will tell you what prop is appropriate for which pose, and inform you how to properly use each one in that pose for your (and baby's!) safety.

Here's my advice for all the mama's reading this that are considering forking over the money for a prenatal class(es):

- If you didn't have some sort of a workout practice pre-pregnancy, or weren't consistent with anything, it is 100% worth your time and money to begin prenatal yoga classes! Do yourself and your baby a favor and begin going to a few classes a week. You'll notice a reduction in aches and pains, and begin to focus your breath for pain management during labor. There are also numerous benefits to your baby when you exercise while pregnant. Read this article if you need further motivation to have an exercise plan throughout your pregnancy!

- If you're struggling to keep up with your pre-pregnancy workouts, have some undesirable symptoms (round ligament pain anyone?), or have been told to scale back your workout efforts, start going to prenatal classes in conjunction with a few of your "old" workout habits. The prenatal class will seem like a nice break and breath of fresh air, and work to stretch any sore muscles you developed in your normal workout. As you get more and more pregnant, consider dropping more and more of your former workouts to include more and more prenatal yoga. It will help to maintain the shape you were in pre-pregnancy without exposing you to any risky situations. And it just feels so dang good.

Bottom line: just go! You will not regret it.

P.S. - If you're in the Dallas metro area and curious to where I go, I'm at Uptown Yoga Dallas and Lifetime Athletic Dallas

High Five for Friday!

This week has been MUCH calmer than last week, thankfully. I'm back to feeling great, contractions are gone, and I can even attend a few prenatal yoga classes a week! (A review of prenatal yoga is coming up next week... heh heh!)

Just a little bit of a contrast from last week, y'all.

Given my new/re-found good attitude, here were the Top 5 moments of the week:

1) We made some serious progress in the nursery! There is now actually some furniture in there, there are things up on the walls, crafts have been completed, clothes are hanging in the closet, and the delivery date for the crib and changing table has been moved up by a week so that it just actually might be here in time for his arrival. Who knows, I won't hold my breath on that, but time shall tell!

2) I shared in this post some pregnancy symptoms I was struggling with. Well, I managed to find a decent fix for one of them! Behold my new treasure: Booby Pads

Find Bamboobies here

I had another brand of cotton pads that were ok... They were much, much thicker, and frankly there just isn't room to put that level of padding in ye ol' bra! These are fantastic. The heart shaped pads are thin and perfect for small leaks that are often experienced in the third trimester. The round pads are thicker and described as "overnight pads" which will come in handy after I start nursing. They're made from bamboo, so they're extremely soft. They're washable so you can use them over and over, and the heart shape is not only cute - it's functional by wrapping around the shape of your chest. They were quite a bit more expensive than the cotton pads I initially tried, but SO WORTH IT. I learned they make nursing bras and I just ordered one. I'll let ya know how it is! My order was processed and shipped within a few hours, so I'm impressed thus far.

3) Kirk had an especially long week of travel, so I've been flying solo since Monday morning. Two of my favorite ladies in Dallas came over on Tuesday evening to keep me company (and bring me dinner)! It was a fun evening spent on the patio, enjoying the beautiful weather, drinking wine (or salivating at it, anyway), and talking about security systems. Yeah, we did that.

4) Have you ever moved, and packed something in a strange place last minute, then been completely unable to find it afterwards? I had misplaced the book I was reading since we moved in late February. I looked IN A SUITCASE, of all places, and found it! So I was able to spend some of my alone time this week enjoying the insanely gorgeous north Texas springtime, catching up with my book and enjoying a glass of raspberry lemonade. Cheers!

Yes, it's a pregnancy book. Yes, the baby likes to hang towards my right side.

5) I mentioned a few weeks ago that we had started our "natural birth" birthing classes. Now that we're a few weeks into them, we've been surprised at how much we're enjoying them, and really enjoy the company of a few of the other couples - we even look forward to the three hour class smack dab in the middle of our Saturdays!

We're asked to bring a snack to share given the length of the class, and last week Kirk wanted to make a special "healthy" dessert bar. He looked up a recipe for these bars, picked up ingredients at the store, and was fixing to make them when I meandered over to the kitchen (am I alone here, or can you just SENSE when bad things are going down in your own kitchen?!) I find my husband pouring corn oil into a pan. A lot of corn oil. "Honey... What are you doing?" I ask. "It says to melt the sugar in the corn syrup, so that's what I'm doing" he replied. "Ummm, then why are you pouring oil into a pan?" I ask. "No, I'm melting sugar into the corn syrup!" he defended, clearly annoyed that I was checking up on him. "Honey. That's corn OIL. Corn syrup is completely different." "What?! No. This is what it says to do!" he said, wide-eyed and realizing things were going quickly awry. "Babe, you CANNOT substitute corn oil for corn syrup..." To which my sweet hubby lowered his head in defeat.

We did not bring a snack last Saturday, but after a trip to the store, I ensured he has everything he needs to make these "healthy" dessert bars for our group. Don't worry, I'll be keeping my ears open and half an eye on how round two of preparations proceed!

I'm also pretty impressed I was able to completely avoid the bag of butterscotch chips he purchased to go into these "healthy dessert bars" since butterscotch IS MY JAM! It's my thang. Mmmmm, butterscotch! But he was so distressed about his blunder, I couldn't disappoint him by eating the dang butterscotch chips, ya know?

HAPPY WEEKEND TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD WEEKEND! 

Share Worthy Ideas: "Cleaning House!" (aka, Finding Affordable Baby Buys)

I am NOT a bargain shopper. I am NOT a good-deal hunter. I am not, even, a "shopper" at all. When picking out things for myself or gifts for others, which historically has been my only experience with shopping, I know what I want, I don't want to dig through piles of junk to get it (I enjoy a nice experience and will pay to have a nice experience) and I want out of the store as soon as I pick it up.

My snobby shopping philosophy does not hold true with baby items.

Gasp! Am I turning a new leaf? Here's the deal: this little guy is going to grow like crazy. He's going to poop on things, including his clothes. He's going to spit up and vomit on them. So in my eight-months-pregnant-nesting phase, I just COULD NOT EVEN with paying full price for baby clothes. And the name brand/designers I love? No way!

This does not change the fact that I myself enjoy nice things. But I'm done growing and believe in buying quality over quantity because I won't wear the knees out on a pair of Hudson jeans... I will wear them for years and years. Baby will wear them once, vomit on them, and the next time I go to put them on him, they'll be too small. Hmmpppffff!

So what's a quality snob to do when she can't seem to justify the enormous expense for baby? (And y'all. It is ENORMOUS. $40 for a 0-3months-sized polo shirt?! Is that some kind of joke?) Church consignment sales! This past weekend, my friend Kate introduced me to this glorious find. We met up at The Church of Christ in the Preston Hollow neighborhood of Dallas early Saturday morning to hit up this sale. She discovered it last year (she has a beautiful one year old daughter) and has been talking about it for months now. I was so desperate to get an hour out of the house with my bed rest nonsense that I jumped in the car and headed right over.

And here is a SMALL handful of the things I found:

Ralph Lauren (not Polo Ralph Lauren - actual Ralph Lauren label... I don't even own any of that!) romper and shorts

Petit Bateau (French designer) cardigan and Ollie & Bess seersucker and crab diaper cover

MudPie long sleeved shirt and Ralph Lauren label khaki pants

Kit & Lilli onesie and Baby Gap bear sweatpants

Here is how the sales work: folks can either donate the clothes to the church, and the church collects the proceeds as a fundraiser. Or, they can decide to sell it on consignment, and a fraction of the proceeds go towards the church while the seller gets a premium for the garments. Either way, the church gets a fantastic fundraiser and the donor either gets cash from sales or a tax deduction for the donation. Win-win!

But the BEST part?! Is that the shopper gets access to all these high end label clothes for DIRT CHEAP. I didn't pay more than $3 for any one of these items. The shorts and the diaper cover even had their original tags, so they had never been worn! The other items looked as though they had been worn once - maybe twice. I ended picking up roughly 20 items, ranging in size from newborn to six months, and spent a whopping $63.87. Everything was name brand or designer label. WHATTTTTTTTT!!!!

I highly suggest for all my mama, daddy, soon-to-be mama and soon-to-be daddy readers to look into this idea in your area. Target church sales that are in the most affluent parts of town, as they'll be likely to have some of the best name brands donated from wealthy residents, if that's what you're after. If you're not a quality snob like myself, just look for sales around town to save serious money on new or gently used baby items. These sales are an excellent way to save serious money on baby gear while maintaining a "quality snob" status. I can't wait to go to my next sale!