Friday, March 28, 2014

Photo Update 3/28

For those of you waiting on pins and needles, no Baby E is not here yet! Instead I thought I would placate some of you with some photos of what we've been up to lately as we wait not so patiently for her arrival. Things have been pretty calm around here, especially with the odd weather we've been having in Florida (sun, rain, cold fronts), but here area few snapshots from over the past two weeks...

We were able to take the boat out last weekend
and  had another dolphin sighting out in the bay! These
guys are so adorable and this one swam right up to the boat without much prompting!

I noticed our milk expires on Baby E's due date! Things
are getting more and more "real" everyday!

We make pizza on the Big Green Egg almost every weekend
and this view never ceases to crack me up. The hubs makes and rolls out the dough and always ends up with his backside looking like this...it never fails ;)

Finally saw a bear on base! Yes, there are wild bears on base,
as well as turkeys and coyotes. 

Little Winston has enjoyed the sunshine when we have it!

 I don't normally post sonogram photos of Baby E. I figure most people probably have no interest as to what the inside of my uterus look like besides our family members, but this one was too cute not to share...

Baby E's 3D photo. She was being cantankerous and didn't want
her photo taken the other week, so this was the best we got. She's definitely got the Etheridge nose!

And here is a video to round off the post of Little Winston being a "real" dog. This was his first trip to the ocean where he could go off leash and actually enjoy the water. The hubs and I got a good laugh out of his "bobbing" technique to get his ball out of the water...



Love,
The Etheridges

Friday, March 14, 2014

Baby E's Nursery

Well, here it is, finally! C's nursery is officially complete now that we were able to order the crib skirt last week and put the finishing touches on it! It was so much fun to put together and I thoroughly enjoyed every second I spent doing crafts and projects for it. My in-laws were a HUGE help and came down for an entire weekend back in January to help paint and build things! My amazing father-in-law built the book shelves for the wall and he also painted the dresser with the help of my mother-in-law. They helped us put together the crib as well and it was so much fun to be able to have them close enough to help set up our first nursery :)

The shelves, dresser, ribbon curtain, and antique window pane were all DIY projects and I provided the links below their photos for the blogs I got the instructions from, for those of you that may be interested in doing them yourselves. We decided not to paint the walls since we will most likely be moving in a few months time, but I was totally ok with that. I HATE painting walls, literally loathe it, so I wasn't heartbroken when the hubs admitted it might not be the best idea.

Without further ado...


Although the simplest part of the nursery, this is my most prized
spot in the whole room. C can see her grandmother every
time we nurse in her rocking chair
and I love the Willow Tree my
sweet husband got for us.
This was an old window pane I found at an antique store back
before the hubs and I got married. We put some picture hanging
brackets on it and then found some knobs at Home Depot that
we just screwed directly into the wood!
The perfect place to hang C's bows that her daddy LOVES!


This dresser used to be an medium oak color, but
with the paint sprayer and some chevron stripes it
ended up matching the rest of the
nursery perfectly! The lamp is from Hobby Lobby.
{Source}

This was a card that I found at TJ Maxx and just
put inside a frame! And of course we had to have a
plane somewhere in the nursery ;) 

Some of C's baby shower cards displayed!

Note the I also bought some containers from Target
to slip under the crib. I'm storing extra wipes and diapers
in them so we hopefully don't have any of those
midnight CVS runs to grab more!

This crib bedding was the very first thing that I purchased
for C's nursery! I fell in love with foxes while I was pregnant
and couldn't resist this adorable printed crib sheet from Etsy
{Bought Here
This was probably my most favorite project! So cute and SO easy!
The C is from Hobby Lobby and the fabric I purchased
at Joann's.
{Source}

I found this awesome cart at Ikea in Atlanta and thought
it would be perfect for storing all of C's diaper essentials.
I love that it has rollers and can be carted around
the entire house if need be!
{Bought Here}
My father-in-law assembled and painted these cute, yet functional,
shelves! Reading was my absolute favorite thing to do when
 I was little so I'm hoping C loves it just
 as much and will use these shelves for
years to come :)
{Source
I'm already in love with the diaper bag my
MIL had monogrammed and I found this nifty
hanging laundry bag for C's dirty clothes!
{Diaper Bag Bought Here}

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Patch Board & 35 Week Bumpdate

This is one of those projects that had literally been sitting in the back of my mind for over a year. For those of you that are attached to a pilot you know that one thing that they have in excess are patches. Patches, patches, and more patches to be exact. There seems to be a never ending supply of them and each new squadron or training course hands them out. The hubs has only been a real pilot for a year now, but between patches from his USAFA days, UPT, IFF, and now his squadron here at Tyndall we have a pretty good chunk of them that had previously been collecting dust in the closet and moving from one place to another with us. I had seen some other crafty ladies make patch boards before and wanted to jump on the train as well. It's such a neat way to display their journey though the AF as each patch represents another stepping stone in their career.

The entire project took me about an hour (could have been less probably if I wasn't having to waddle around and maneuver around what seems to be a whale of a belly these days) and cost under $15. I purchased an old cork board from a garage sale here on base for about $.50, got one yard of felt chevron print fabric from Joann's with a 40% coupon at $4.99, and then the adhesive spray glue for $6.99 as Joann's as well (probably could have been bought cheaper at Wal-Mart). If you shop at Joann's often, like I do, be sure and download their smart phone app. They ALWAYS have a 40%-50% off coupon for a regular priced item and sometimes if you're lucky a 20% coupon for your entire purchase. It's awesome and very handy!

I totally forgot to take photos as I was making the board but here is a link to the exact instructions that I used from a fellow blogger over at Buggy and Buddy. I followed these to a "T" and thought they were pretty straight forward. I did use a box cutter, since I didn't have an X-Acto knife, and that worked perfect to cut the fabric around the edges to fit inside the frame.

Here is my finished project...


In other news we are moving right along here with Baby C's arrival swiftly approaching! Today marked exactly one month until her planned arrival, but goodness knows she could really make her debut anytime now! Hopefully she decides she wants to cook a little longer, but we will see! I've been blessed with a very easy third trimester so far. Don't get me wrong, I've still got all the aches and pains and at the moment a pulled muscle in my back that makes moving not so fun, but I think I can honestly say that it's been way better than the first half of the pregnancy (knock on wood). I'll get back to you though in a few weeks as April 4th draws nearer and see if I'm still as optimistic ;) 

I've been keeping VERY busy with finishing up projects I've had planned to get done before C was born for months now. I'm proud to say I've completed every single DIY project that I had planned from the beginning of my pregnancy, and others, such as this patch board, that I had simply been procrastinating on for months if not years. I will do a post soon with the DIY projects I've done for her nursery and planning for her arrival with links for those of you that may be interested in doing them yourselves! It's been a total blast preparing for our first little one's arrival and we simply can't wait to meet her!

35 weeks and counting!
Love,
The Etheridges

Monday, March 3, 2014

Savannah Shenanigans Round 2

We somehow wound up finding ourselves back in Savannah once again over Valentines Day weekend. The hubs had a TDY there for a little over a week and finished a day early so I drove from home, where I'd been hanging out with my in-laws for a few days, with my sweet sister in-law and her boyfriend (a close friend of ours from Laughlin funny enough) who was in town. We fell in love once again with the lovely town of Savannah and found a few new "haunts" to add to our favorite places to frequent when we visit. I know I've said this before, but seriously, Savannah is one of the coolest, most fun, romantic, quirky, southern towns I've ever been too and I can't say enough good things about it.

One of the new places we tried was the Byrd Cookie Company. The hubs had stumbled upon it in the city market area when he and his classmates were wandering around one day and he took me back when I came down the next weekend. Not only do they have free samples (yes people, free COOKIE samples, woot) but they have some of the friendliest staff and the cutest shop. Sadly I forgot to take a photo but it's totally worth checking out if you visit the area.

We also checked out one of the local candy stores, which Savannah is famous for if you didn't know. We were bombarded with free, flying taffy (it was literally falling from the ceiling and being thrown by the employes at us) and got free samples of their famous pralines as well!

That's a log of taffy people...in case you wanted to
know what that looked like.
Making caramel pralines
While strolling through Forsyth Park which we visited last time we came to town, we got to witness a military wedding which was held outdoors in front of the famous fountain found in the center. The creepers that we are we sat on the benches with the other gawking tourists and enjoyed watching this mystery military couple exchange vows. It was so sweet to see all the emotions and such that go along with a wedding, even if we didn't know the couple at all, and to reminisce about our own military style wedding almost three years ago! It was almost exactly 8 years to that day that the hubs and I went on our very first date as well so my emotions were already going crazy and I was being all kinds of sentimental watching this ceremony unfold. 

We then proceeded to walk around town and stumbled across the old Police barracks.


These old police cars were incredibly neat!
For dinner we went to a tried and true favorite of ours, The Olde Pink House. For those of you that follow the blog you know we went here last time for a fancy dinner and fell in love. This time we requested to eat down in the cellar which is where the laundry room and kitchen used to be back when it was the home of the first governor of Georgia. It was incredibly romantic with candle lit tables, a roaring fireplace, and built in wine cellar. Per usual the food was incredible! I tried the pecan crusted chicken with a blackberry sauce with cheese grits (duh) and the hubs had some sort of fish (please see photo below). I thought it looked incredibly disgusting but he swears it's the best fish he'd ever had hands down! We also made our reservations about two weeks out on opentable.com and requested to be seated in the basement. If you go during peak tourist season or on a holiday, I'd highly recommend doing this. It worked perfectly for us and we were seated right away at a reserved table! It's an awesome online service.

If you're thinking I look a little rough in this one, I had just
been walking around Savannah for 5 hours at 8.5 months pregnant ;)

The Fish
The trip was fantastic and we were able to squeeze in all our favorite things to do, including eating at Zunzi's for lunch, even though we only made a day trip out of the holiday. I hope everyone had a fantastic Valentines Day as well and was able to spend it with their loved ones!
In City Market
Love,
The Etheridges