In 34 days, Eric and I will officially be parents. I say officially because I kind of feel like we already are, even though our little cupcake has yet to arrive. After all, we spend most of our free time preparing for her. We’ve put off other things (some important, some not) to make sure her nursery is perfect. On Saturday, we started refurbishing her dresser. What we thought would be a simple project turned into us scraping wood veneer off one side of the dresser for two hours. Using box cutters. This was only after we tried steaming the veneer off using an iron and a wet towel. Thankfully, we were able to laugh about it while it was happening. What else could we do? I joked with Eric that if this had been an episode of Renovation Realities, the black screen would’ve popped up with some comment like, “Eric and Courtney would’ve known how to remove wood veneer if they watched DIY Network.” The thing is, we DO watch it. And I Googled to try to find the best way to remove it. That method just didn’t work. Even though it put us behind, it was worth it. I know the dresser is going to be perfect in our little girl’s room. After filling the holes and gashes with wood putty, I got to take a break and attend a friend’s baby shower while Eric sanded and primed the dresser. He put the first coat of paint on yesterday. Here’s a sneak peek at the color:

I’ll post before and after pictures of the dresser once it’s completed, which probably won’t be until this weekend. I can’t wait for it to be done so that I can start organizing her clothes and diapers. In the meantime, I have plenty of cloth diaper prep to be done so that they’ll be ready to go when we bring her home.

My induction date has been set for March 4 (thanks, high blood pressure). It feels weird knowing exactly when we’re going to meet her (assuming nothing changes before then), but I kind of like having a definite timeline to work within. If nothing else, I know when I need to start baking the snacks we’re taking with us to the hospital. I’ve got a few meal ideas in mind that I need to prep/cook, as well, and I’m hoping everything will come together in time.

My stomach didn’t pop for what felt like a really long time. There was this funky in between stage where I mostly felt flabby. Now that it has popped, it just keeps getting bigger. 🙂 I can’t believe I still have 10 weeks left to grow! Of course, I can’t blame all of it on Baby. The combination of cookware still being in boxes from the move and not having a refrigerator has meant that we’ve been eating out for nearly every meal. Thankfully, that will no longer be the case come Wednesday when our refrigerator arrives. I seriously cannot wait, and I’ve already asked Eric what we should cook for dinner that night. I think it will be quite some time before either of us wants to eat out again.

There are some gaps between photos, mostly because there wasn’t much of a change from week to week until recently. Now the change is very obvious. I can’t believe I’m already in my third trimester and that Eric and I will be meeting our girl soon.

19 weeks

25 weeks

28 weeks

29 weeks

30 weeks

2012 is going to be an exciting year for us. With our ever-growing list of house projects and our little cupcake’s arrival in March, we’ve got plenty to keep us busy. We’ll (hopefully) have some before and after photos to share in the coming months before Baby C makes her appearance. A few things that will be in the works soon: painting Baby C’s nursery, sewing a crib skirt and possibly curtains for the nursery, finding and refurbishing a dresser for the nursery, updating the fireplace, installing bamboo floors in the entryway. The house list is way longer than that, but those are the things we’re hoping to get done in the very near future.