Today's Coffee: Trader Joe's Bali Blue Moon

I'm usually not so good about posting blogs on an even remotely consistent basis. 

I know this. 

But here I am. 

Well, I'm mainly able to do this because W is down for a nap and my dear sweet husband has a migraine, so I find myself with a few minutes to myself. 

So, I'll tell you about our evening last night. 

We finally got around to putting together M's room. Which is a good thing since we are only 5 weeks away from bringing her sweetness home!

Here's what it looked like before. Kind of our place to store everything and forget about it. For instance: I've been looking for a specific piece of music for weeks now, but couldn't find it. (As you might imagine, between T and myself, we have a lot of music in our house.) And it wasn't until Thursday I 'discovered' 2 unopened boxes, which had been stored in her room just full of violin music. Thankfully, I found the music I was looking for. But you get the idea. 

This is technically better than the real before picture (which I forgot to take), as we had to find crib pieces :)

Another angle of the room. 

First, we put together the crib. 

We had W get involved as he was a bit confused with the whole process. 

We had him go to his room and help pick out some blankets and stuffed animals that he might want to share with M. Needless to say, as soon as we were finished he wanted them back. But it was really cute for the first 5 minutes. 

Crib all set up and ready for Baby M!

One of our dilemmas was that we don't ever ever ever want to paint again. And her room is a very lovely blue. After brainstorming different ideas on how to not paint her room, we decided to just paint her closet doors pink and put up some curtains to frame her changing table. I'm hoping that in the future I will be able to get my mom to paint a window scene under the curtains.

Crib is in place, and curtains are hung. 

Another random thing about me: I love Starbucks' Caramel Apple Spice. It is one of two drinks that I buy there (the other, is the Caramel Macchiato). So, I love this season. Problem is: they are still really expensive. Crazy expensive. So, after some research, I found a copycat recipe. 

apple juice

3 TBSP cinnamon dolce syrup (I made my own)

whip cream

caramel

The syrup was just 4 cinnamon sticks boiled in 1.5 cups of water, simmered for 15 minutes, then the sticks were thrown away. I then added 1 cup of brown sugar and stirred until melted. Boom. Cinnamon dolce syrup. 

You just warm up a cup of apple juice, 3 TBSP of the syrup for 2 minutes. Then top with whip cream and drizzle caramel on top. As someone who buys a lot of these drinks from the Bucks, never again. This is so close to the original that I cannot see myself every spending a near $4 for it again. 

Anyways, this happened when we all got a little tired of being around each other in the smallest room in our house. :)

Yum!

Unsure if it was going to be good or not.
It was. 

After our delightful drink experiment, we headed back upstairs to put the finishing touches on M's room. I'm quite pleased, but I'm not sure if it's due to getting her room ready for her, or that I don't have to look the other way every time I walk by it as it was a constant reminder that we had not fully unpacked yet. Maybe some of both. 

Yay for a cute nursery!

Other side, with a glimpse of the pink closet doors. 

Baby M, we can't wait to meet you!

In Christ,

Julie

Today's Coffee: Pumpkin Spice and Tums

Well, I had written out an outline of sorts to update the blog with, because a lot can happen in a month! But, I lost it. Also, my memory is pretty horrendous these days. I'll see what I can do here. 

I've been sleeping on the couch for the past several weeks due to my heartburn. That's not been fun, but I'm starting to get used to it, and sleeping a bit better now. I'm currently 34 weeks pregnant and feeling every bit of 44 weeks. :)

Our little sweet pea gets the hiccups a lot. Many hours a day it seems that she has the hiccups and she loves getting wedged into very uncomfortable positions, so that mixed with the Braxton Hicks and the heartburn makes me miserable. But, then I see a mom carrying a baby around, and I am reminded that this is all worth it. W has been really sweet about it all too. Each night he kisses M goodnight and tells her he loves her. 

W standing next to our lemon tree, that I grew from a seed from a lemon we used in a recipe!

Our fall garden: spinach, kale, broccoli, and carrots. 

Our good friends got engaged recently and we hosted an Engagement Party for them! My mom would have been so proud! Here's just a couple of pics (I'll have more in a new post):

Beautiful flowers and yummy food! The cupcakes have toppers with famous literary couples and quotes from their love story. 

This was the sign-in table. Decorated with books and pictures, a game where we had to guess who said what on facebook and a jar for their honeymoon fund!

So, I could just be hiding a pumpkin underneath there :)

Our family at the pumpkin patch!

Things are really coming together with our house and we are so ready for the feeling of 'moved in'. We had our new countertops installed recently. They look great! And Thomas got the sink installed. That was pretty cool. 

W has lots of words and it's fun to talk to him now. Car rides are more interesting as motorcycles and tunnels are obviously reasons for great celebration. He usually wants us to follow the motorcycles as he says "Hurry Dan! Hurry Dan!" (He can't say his ending 'd' sound, so he calls T - Dan instead of Dad. It's cute. 

Anyways, chores are calling my name. Please be praying as we are about 5.5 weeks away from meeting our sweet pea. 

In Christ,

Julie