Ellery Kate Walker

She's here!  And has been for 6 weeks :)

We have a daughter, I'm a mom.  Its crazy, and I am still getting used to that fact.  I'm also still adjusting to what baby cues and signals mean because its all over the place.  And this little one is crafty.

Heres a little bit about how Miss Ellery came into the world:

Saturday March 29th at 9pm my water broke.  We drove to Seton and checked in and by that time, the contractions got worse leading up to some pretty painful ones by 11pm.  But by midnight I had an epidural and settled in for the night.  I was given pitocin at 3am because nothing had progressed.  We waited a bit.  I watched Golden Girls while David and my mom slept.  By around 6am, her heartbeat started to drop at each contraction, so we were hoping to get to 10cm fast, and sure enough we got there soon after.  I pushed for about 45 minutes and then our little girl was born into this world.  She was perfectly healthy and I wasn't too bad myself.

David was amazing, and my mom was amazing.  Having them both in the delivery room was very important to me and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

We've been adjusting here at the house and figuring out how to manage it all.  I couldn't do it without my mom and my mother in law.  Both are here to help me whenever I need it.  Which is such a gift.

One other thing I will mention.  Breastfeeding is and will be the hardest thing I have ever approached in my life.  For me, it didn't work.  I wanted it to SO badly.  So afterward, I turned to exclusively pumping.  And then pumping and feeding was like having twins and everyone around me that cared and loved me advised me to stop pumping and save my sanity.  So I did, 3 weeks in.  It was gut wrenching and emotional.  I wanted so badly to keep giving my baby this wonderful gift my body could give her.  But the more important thing to me was to give my child a happy mommie.  And because I knew if I weaned myself, Id try to keep it up... I stopped pumping cold turkey, which might have been the 2nd most painful thing to giving birth.

On to more happy things, here are some interesting facts about our lives with a baby.

- the bumpier the road for the car ride the better, stop lights are not our friend
- my hair will 90% of the time be up, I haven't "fixed" my hair in over a week.
- I have mastered the art of "shushing"
- the 5 S's are genius, and swaddling is the best thing since sliced bread
- we should have started using the exercise ball sooner for rocking/bouncing to sleep
- my hands have never been more dry and cracked from washing my hands at every turn of my day
- I have contorted my body in every which way to reach my crying baby and put the pacifier back in her mouth in the car, as well as feed and change her in the car, its our own mini home
- my mom or I has made over 50 trips to buy buy baby in her 6 weeks of life
- I will never get a full uninterrupted 8 hours of sleep again, or at least it feels like it
- our lives are so immensely full of love!

thanks for everyone's support and love, we appreciate it so much!

{ 6 weeks old }

38 weeks and... The nursery!

I'm 38 weeks and getting ready for baby!

The nursery is finally about complete. It took awhile. It took a lot of back and forth about what I really wanted. But I love it!  These aren't the best pictures, but it does the trick. 

Reba enjoying the crib already. We'll have to figure out how to nip this in the bud.

Old fence wood wall and my inspiration prints in gold frames.  The bedding was custom by Picket Fences.  Thanks to my good friend Kathryn Kenjura for her help on this!

The beginning of our gallery wall above the changing table/dresser.  It will be expanding with time.

And of course some more shelving and storage.

38 weeks and ready for baby!

4th day of maternity leave

37 weeks 4 days.

I'm feeling so relaxed. It's one of the best feelings knowing that I've taken all the stress away with work and the time I'm away from the house. I know I've done the best thing for baby girl. Because if you know me, I have a history of being a very high strung person. 

Overall I cannot complain about pregnancy. Obviously there are the uncomfortable normal things, morning sickness - check, heartburn - check, and the constant peeing - check. But I have had very little absolute discomfort. Except for that one night we had to go to the hospital because I apparently was passing a kidney stone. Yep. My family's claim to fame, kidney stones, hit me during pregnancy. Just my luck. But even that wasn't too bad. Scary because I was having true but mild contractions at 30 weeks. But we were home in a jiff. 

Of late, I've been a little bit weary of the fact that I havent gained any weight since about a month ago. I've gained 23-25 pounds at this point which is great and people say I'm all baby. Which is true. I feel so lucky to have gone through this process with the semblance of a figure to come back soon after delivery. 

So at my appointment Thursday I requested to have an ultrasound. Just to ensure myself that baby was on track with her weight and size. And sure enough. She is growing perfectly. Estimated weight is 6 lbs, 14 oz. holy moly. And I still have 2 1/2 weeks till my due date. 

And the best part was I got a sneak peek at her little face. Not a lot of room in there. But she already has a pout going on. 

So, dr says she gives me one more week after checking my progression. Let's just say we've started the progress in a great way! 

1st Day of maternity leave

1st day of maternity leave. The best feeling ever. Not because I don't like my job... Because I love my job. But best feeling ever because:

I know I can take a nap whenever I want. I'm super tired lately. 

I can fix up the nursery at anytime and get closer to feeling "ready". 

I can put my feet up more easily. The swelling has started. 

I can spend time with my mom. Who is just beside herself with excitement. Lots of shopping trips with breaks for sitting and snacks :)

More fun posts to come this week as we get ready for baby girl! Including nursery sneak peaks! Of course it isn't done yet.  

Sunday sharing!

This weekend is beautiful in Austin and that means outdoor projects. 

We've been very excited to start a deck project out back and as always with the Walkers, well David, that means a DIY project. Why hire someone to do the work when you've got all the tools to do it yourself?

Currently our back patio consists of a  concrete pad immediately adjacent to the house but with very little sprawl to allow for a dining table or just space to be. And also we have a lot of trees and the grass immediately next to the concrete just doesn't grow. So there is typically a lot of mud. 

This is the before. 

David is in the beginning stages of pouring the footings. Hence the forms. And concrete is being poured today.  The footings will be the structure that will make the deck nice and sturdy. 

Work in progress. 

Bowie as spectator. 

Bowie burying his chewy under a footing. He's a regular little mobster. 

And here's a belly bump pic for the week. 33 weeks. 7 more to go. 

Happy weekend projects to you all!

three funny pregnant moments, just today

These all happened today, and I had to share.  Enjoy.

1.  I went to Lowes instead of Home Depot JUST because the restrooms at Lowes are closer to the entrance.

2.  The shoe department employee at Nordstrom had to buckle the strap on the sandals I was trying on.

3.  I made a separate trip to the gas station after the grocery store to buy beer for David, because there are less people to judge me.  But I really don't care.        But I do.

Think of what happens weekly in my life.

Happy Sunday!
xo

Kitchen Office & Nail Head Tack Board How-To

When we re-arranged our guest bedrooms to make room for baby Ellery, we lost our office.  Granted, we could have crammed a desk into the guest bedroom, but I'm not a fan of cramming.  And I like having a dedicated guest bedroom.

So, one night David and I were brainstorming as we often do, and he offered up putting a desk, a furniture piece, in our kitchen where our bar used to be.  Well then that brought up the discussion of where our bar would go, obviously.  But after some thinking and re-situating, we found the solution.

Move the bar to another area in our living room.  We have the perfect place.  And instead of a furniture piece to be our desk, make a cabinet style kitchen desk.  David put the plan into action, finding a great cabinet maker to make the cabinets, and then had them painted, and we installed ourselves.

This was the before.

And this is the after!



The paint is the same as what is at the fireplace wall paneling.  (The wood cabinet manufacturer from our kitchen went out of business, so that wasn't an option.)

The worksurface is from Ikea, butcher block, cut down and sanded.  We cut the worksurface down to only about 20" instead of 24" or even 30".  We just don't have the depth there because our kitchen table is right behind this chair.  But overall, this depth works great and is all we need.

Our personal file folders are in the bottom drawers and we can stash SO MUCH STUFF in the cabinets and drawers.

The cubby holes are great for bills, sorting tax stuff, and just odds and ends papers that we would like handy.

The tack surface was a definite must.  1} Because we had to move the light switch to accommodate the upper cabinets, and in David's doing so we had some patches we didn't want to have to spend the time to make look perfect.  2}  It just finishes it all off  3}  Its super handy and organizes the things that we want to be able to reference all the time.

The undercabinet light was a surprise add by David and it looks very "hot" in this picture, but gives a nice warm glow to that area.

Here's how I made the NAIL HEAD TACK SURFACE

{MATERIALS]

- Homosote type material from Lowes (cut to your specific size)

  (Its really an insulation type material, black in color, and comes in 4' x 8' sheets and is located in the lumber area, specifically insulation aisle.  Costs about $10 per sheet, and if you are super nice to one of the employees, they will cut it down to size for you!)

- staple gun

- thin felt lining fabric (to give a little padding and hide the black color of the material behind your fabric)

- your preferred fabric

- nail heads (all kinds of finishes and sizes, and can be purchased from JoAnns or fabric stores)

- hammer

- ruler/pencil

{HOW TO}

1.  With the cut to size insulation material ready, we covered it with the felt first, then the fabric, making sure that we were pulling all sides even, etc.  David helped with this.  Much faster and probably more effective if you have 2 people participate in this step.

2.  Then, I used a ruler to make a light pencil line, the thickness of the ruler, from the edge.  (Using the ruler as a straight edge guide was much easier than marking off exactly 1" or 2" from the edge.)

3.  Then from each edge I started marking off 1/2" dots with a pen.  I had to test out this spacing with my 3/8" nail heads first.

It looks like a lot of nailheads, and it was, but once you get the rhythm, it goes fast.  Any angle or slight misplacement off that 1/2" mark will make a bigger difference to your eye than you'd imagine, so attention to detail is key.  But the fabric we used (linen) was very forgiving.  And sometimes you had to just guide the nailhead into "straight" with your other hand as you hammered.  But like I said, after a while, you get the hang of it.



So that's it!  Our newest project to make our home ever more efficient and refined.

Soon to be posted to the blog, professional photos of our house.  Yes!  We have some new adventures under our wings as of the beginning of the year, and we needed some professional photos of some of our work.  More to come on that.

Have a great weekend and a great Superbowl Sunday!