Lately.

Ahhhhh, it's good to be living in the most beautiful place in the world! It sure does make my daily walking goal a little easier when I have this to look at! Anyway, these days I have been feeling more and more pregnant and less and less ready for this baby to come... not the best combo ever. We have about 2 months to go! I will be at 32 weeks in just a couple days, the end is in sight! And it's freaking me out! 

This picture was taken last week at 31 weeks along. I'll give a bit of a detailed update... not going to use that little question format though, just going to wing it!

The last few days have been filled with zero lung capacity and lots of Braxton Hicks contractions! Not the most fun, but it's pretty cool to see how my body is already doing so much to prepare itself for labor. And now that this baby is getting big enough to totally take up any room my diaphragm may have had before, I'm looking forward to this baby dropping a bit lower! Limited lung capacity for an already asthmatic person is not very fun, but I'll get through it!!

I get totally freaked out whenever anyone plays Christmas music or talks about Christmas in anyway as if it's super close. Christmas time= Baby time. YIKES!

My diet has been fairly good. Lots of protein and I have been keeping up with my vitamins really well. I have been letting myself have coffee more often now that pumpkin lattes and Trader Joes pumpkin spice coffee blends are around! Everything in moderation, right :-)

ps- the Babe has hiccups right now. so. cute. 

About to have our third week of birthing class tomorrow! These classes are at our birthing center and have been amazing! I'm learning so much about how my mind and body deals with pain the best. It's scary to think and focus on the pain so much... but feeling better prepared has been very empowering! I'm realizing more and more that it is a huge passion of mine to help other women/ couples feel as knowledgeable and empowered as the amazing midwives, doulas and birth educators at my birth center have helped me feel! I would definitely love to pursue becoming a doula after this baby is born.

Ryan has been nothing but pure awesome.

Thank you dear brother for the lovely photo bombing.

Sure, it's hard sometimes when I'm feeling like life is unfair because he doesn't have to deal with all the "joys" of pregnancy. And I know I act like a total whiny brat A LOT of times, but he has been so amazing and encouraging though all of the times of feeling good and feeling not so good. He even painted my toe nails for me when I realized I could no longer reach :-) I love how confident he is in my strength and ability to have this baby. He totally gets it. Which is totally awesome. and sexy. Never once has he tried to talk me into birthing at a hospital, or questioned my convictions. Instead, he educates himself. He reads books about birth and being a good birthing partner. He's not scared of witnessing the birth of our son, he's even hoping to be the one to "catch" our baby!

Had my glucose screening test done last week. I'm assuming all is well since I have not heard back from the midwife. Dang that drink was NASTY!

Also, cloth diapers. I'm in love with my cloth diapers. Talk about addicting! I already have about 20 now. I'm going to stop there because I know I wont need many more, and I'm going to leave some space open for gifts since I still have 2 baby showers coming up. Never know what people will give! I'm just hoping the kind of diapers I purchased actually work! I've been prewashing them, and it just makes me so happy to see all the cute little diapers up on the clothes line :-) This is what my living room looked like for about an hour the other day while the diapers were waiting their turn for the line..

As you can see, we're doing cloth wipes too. Found a great deal on Etsy and now have about 30 wipes and have only spent $7 on them!

Okay, I think I'm finally out of pictures and info to share.... for now. I would love to get my act together and do a post dedicated to where we're living. Yountville is totally awesome beautiful, and well, a very weird place to live.

Hope this lovely October day finds you well! Ryan and I have plans to go "up valley" to see if there is anything fun to do in St. Helena today. We dont usually go north of Yountville, so we're excited! Peace and love to you all!

xoxo elyse

Flowers and Acorns

This is what I spend a lot of my days doing. More acorns and more flowers. constantly. :-) It's actually a lot of fun, and I have been having a great time getting creative with the flowers and trying techniques and designs that I have always been too intimidated to try!

Every morning when I go on my walks with Bruce the Yorkie, I always make sure to do two things.... Pick a ripe and juicy fig to eat for breakfast, and to pick up as many acorn caps as humanly possible. I usually prove to be quite successful in both areas.

I love these little acorns! I sold a ton of them last year to people wanting a fun center piece at their Thanksgiving table. They are just so darn cute and charming! Some are needle felted, some are wet felted.... all depends on my mood (and the state of my poor fingers). Who knew needle felting could be so dangerous?! My fingers are covered in puncture wounds. Maybe I'll stick to wet felting the rest of these babies until my wounds heal.

And these flowers! So much fun. I love keeping them out on display in the apartment because they're so colorful and happy.

 

Well, that's it for now. A lot of these flowers and acorns will not be available in my Etsy shop because most of them are for a custom order/ I'm building my inventory for a craft festival I may be involved in next month. But let me know if you are interested and I'll be sure to work something out! Happy Tuesday everyone! 

-elyse 

Scrub a dub dub

Soaps are back in the Heart Felt Etsy shop! To be honest.... Before a couple days ago, I had gone about 6 months without having felted a bar of soap. And it was a needed and nice break. BUT it feels so right and so good to finally be back into the soap felting groove! I have come to understand that I have been spreading myself a bit too thin when it came to the felted soaps. Trying to get too crazy and fancy with them proved to be good for my creative growth, but not that great for an increase in sales. SO, with that said... to keep things reasonably priced and to keep my sanity in tact, I have decided to go back to the basics of felted soap. I am still going to be creating some special wet felted/ needle felted specialty soaps around the holidays, but that's about it. Simple is good for me right now :-)

With that said, here are some recently listed soaps in my Etsy shop! More will be gradually coming as well! Enjoy!

Baby Update!!

How far along?: 26 weeks 4 days

Overall Emotion last month? Happy, a little stressed about finances, and very hungry :-)
Maternity clothes?: More and more often now. Thanks goodness for my belly band! (Becky- that thanks was to you!)

Sleep: Better! Hallelujah! Still pretty tossy and turny, but at least I'm not up and ready to start the day at 4:30 am everyday :-)

Best moment this month: Getting asked for the first time by a total stranger when I'm due :-) being able to tag along and take my cousin in college, and having my first real appointment at the birthing center.

Weight Gain: total +18 pounds. Thankfully my weight gain has slowed down enough to where I'm back with in the normal range. 

Movement: Yes! All the time still! We were listening to his heartbeat at my midwife appointment the other day, and he totally kicked the doppler. It was super funny :-) 

Food cravings: Not really anything in particular. I was telling Ryan the other day that I feel kind of left out of the "stereotypical" pregnant woman image because I'm not having those crazy cravings! Pretty much everything and anything sounds good... all the time.
  

Anything making you queasy or sick: Nope! Feelin good!

Have you started to show yet: Yes, I feel like I'm getting huge! 

Wedding rings on or off? on 

Looking forward to: Hopefully having my in laws come visit later this month, having the birthing center become more and more familiar, starting the classes there and (oh my gosh!) starting my THIRD trimester in a couple weeks!

One thing I did well this month?: Walked... a lot. I've been trying to walk at least 2-3 miles a day. I've been feeling great and my weight gain has totally slowed down. I've been eating pretty well too, trying to pack in the protein.

Protein intake this month: Better 

Book Currently reading: Just finished reading A Good Birth, A Safe Birth. It was amazing- I would totally recommend it! Just checked out another book from the Birthing center library about getting a baby to sleep better through the night (Can't remember what the title is....). 

And now to answer some other questions that my darling Lindsey asked me on my facebook the other day...

I'm really liking my job- I'm working part time as a teacher for the aftercare program at First Christian School. 

Things at our church are going very well! Ryan's been leading the worship a lot lately and I'm usually on the worship team as well. I also teach first service Sunday school for the elementary aged kiddos. We found out some really awesome history about the church and the apartment int he church that we're living in. I'm hoping to do a post all about that sometime very soon! 

Names for the baby.... hmmmmmmm...... We're pretty set on one BUT we're not telling people!!!! Muuuahahaha! Nothing is actually for sure, but there are a select few that we like and a certain one we like the best. 

Okay, this post is wearing me out... time for a nap! 

Back in Business!

Finally! I found some inspiration as well as time to act it out! Made some cool things recently and actually put them in my Etsy shop! Much more is to come, but here is a sneaky peeky...

Mini Chalkboard Trays!

Lovely Wire Coil Bracelet

Lots of earrings!

Be sure to head on over to the Heart Felt Esty site to check everything out! More items will be added hopefully daily this week. It's nice to be back!

Bye Bye Dreadlocks

 Some of you may be wondering why I decided to cut off my dreadlocks. Not that I want to make a big deal about my hair... because that's just the thing I'm trying to embrace, the fact that it is just hair :-)

I remember the day I got my dreadlocks, I felt like I looked how I always thought I should. I felt like myself. I liked how easy it was for people to instantly see that I'm unique and a bit strange. I loved how in Germany, a couple of my very closest girl friends also had dreads. I loved all the attention and questions (at first...) that people back in the States gave me. I did love my dreadlocks, and I do miss them... but I don't regret my decision to get rid of them.

I went from loving dreadlocks, and the fact that I felt beautiful with them even though many people thought dreadlocks as not very attractive... to not feeling very beautiful anymore, but feeling like I HAD to keep them because other people thought they were cool. I don't know if that really makes sense to you... but it totally did for me. Therefore... time to cut.

Anyway, I'm embracing the fact that it's just hair. It will grow back and I definitely do plan on getting dreads again in the future! Me deciding to cut them off had nothing at all to do with the fact that we're having a baby soon. I'm not trying to seem more adult/motherly/grown up by getting rid of the dreadlocks... I don't buy into that crap, quite honestly. I'm just trying to focus on my needs and what makes me feel most beautiful, free and confident.

Falling into place

I was telling Ryan the other day about how I have been feeling so much more confident in my ability to deliver this baby. Seeing how this baby inside of me is growing and developing perfectly and totally naturally has given me this new found confidence in my body and it's crazy cool abilities!

We had my 20 week ultrasound a couple weeks ago and were so thrilled to see that our baby BOY (yyyaaaayyyy wooohoooo!!!!!) is totally healthy and developing wonderfully and on track! I'm very low risk and am doing great as far as health wise, so Ryan and I have seriously been weighing our delivery options (and thankfully we now live in a place that has MANY amazing options!). I went from check ups at a normal OB office in Illinois where everything exciting turned into clinical routine, to a great midwife office here in Napa (who works through the local hospital) where check ups were exciting and I felt warm and welcomed.

Ryan and I feel comfortable there with the midwife office, but were still holding out for one other option. In Santa Rosa (about an hour away from us) there is a free standing birth center that I have been looking into for a few months. When my midwife here in Napa asked me last week if I had decided where we want to deliver the baby, I told her that we were still waiting to see the birthing center. She was so encouraging and even excited about me possibly delivering the baby there! She said she is very familiar with the center, knows and respects the owner/ head midwife, and thought that would be a great place for me! Ryan and I were almost surprised with with her lack of concern- but also thrilled and even more excited to go check out the place! Last Monday I went with my aunt (She delivered one of her children at the same center) to go on a tour of the center. Unfortunately Ryan had to stay behind to work, but I promised we would talk everything out once I got home before any decisions were made.  And thankfully I have a a crazy amazing and supportive husband who value the same things in birth that I do and totally trusts my instincts and judgment. Love him. Anyway... thankfully the owner/ head midwife was free so she took us on the tour and I got to speak with her about many different things. Long story short, it was amazing and everything I had hoped it would be! We have yet to officially make the switch, but Ryan and I both feel like this would be a great place for us to deliver our son! Ah, it's so exciting!

We are so blessed to live in a state that allows birth centers to exist and operate, and even more blessed to be so close to one (yes, an hour away is super close, especially considering how far some mamas are willing to drive to be able to go to a birthing center!). Thank you God!

 And now for the fun little pregnancy update questionnaire thing :-)

How far along? 22 weeks, 2 days

Overall Emotion last month? Peace with where we are, stress over starting a new job, and most of all...thankful for a healthy BOY!!!

Maternity clothes?  Sometimes, but not usually. Still wearing my normal jeans with the rubber band trick to keep them comfortable!

Sleep: Terrible. I'm SO restless and always uncomfortable. Midwife OK'd melatonin to help with falling asleep- and that aspect has been better.... but I feel like I spend more of my time changing positions and rolling around at night than sleeping. Sucks. 

Best moment this month: Finding out were are having a SON! (He was very proud of his boy parts and the technician was 100% sure it's a boy haha!)

Weight Gain: Yikes. ehhhhh like +16 pounds. Hoping to slow down on the gaining! 

Movement: oooohhhhhhh man YES! He is so active! I can feel him all the time and I can even feel him from the outside with my hand when he's moving around! Ryan has felt him many times too! And just this evening we could SEE the movement. His little knees and elbows poking up- so amazing! 

Food cravings: Pizza and fresh tomatoes. ooooo and those tacos from the taco truck that comes to Yountville from time to time!
  

Anything making you queasy or sick: Nope! I'm feeling great!

Have you started to show yet: Yep! Still not a whole lot though.

Wedding rings on or off? on 

Looking forward to: Starting to see my midwife at the birthing center! Taking control of my weight gain.

One thing I did well this month? I walk all the time now that we live in the most beautiful location in the world :-) And our pup doesnt have a yard to be loose in, so we're always talking him out on walks. I've been great at taking all my daily vitamins (prenatal, calcium+vitamin D, fish oil, sometimes B12 and melatonin at night). I have been drinking at least one cup a day of my pregnancy tea, and I have been trying to go to bed early so I can get as much sleep as I can.

Protein intake this month: Good 

Book Currently reading: The Complete Book of Pregnancy and Childbirth, by Sheila Kitzinger (one of the books I borrowed from the birthing center on Monday- I'm excited to read more from their library!).