Bradley Classes

Yesterday was David and I's second Bradley class so I thought I'd share a little bit about that.

For those of you who don't know, the Bradley method of birth is different than Lamaze in that it's training you to keep your body and muscles as relaxed as possible during contractions, instead of teaching distraction methods of patterned shallow breathing. Unlike Lamaze, which has you pant while in labor, since humans do not pant naturally, the Bradley method focuses on deep belly breathing and relaxation of your muscles, such as when you are in a deep sleep. You can read more about it here.

What I love about the Bradley method is that a lot of the focus is on having your husband be your coach. David is my rock, and there is no where I'd rather have him by my side then when I am in labor. Our classes teach him massage and relaxation techniques that he can use to help me stay calm and relaxed during contractions. He is already a natural at calming me and massage, so this labor thing should be a piece of cake! ;)

Bradley method also puts a lot of focus on healthy pregnancy nutrition, excercises that prepare the muscles important to labor, and on aiming for a natural drug free birth experience.

Our biggests goals in taking Bradley classes are to learn to manage pain and stress during labor and to ultimately use those skills to avoid medications or interventions during the birth of our daughter. I have faith in my ability to trust God, David and my body to lead me to the unmedicated and natural birth that I am envisioning. I believe a natural birth is the best possible scenerio for my health and Sophia's.

At class our teacher said that you can really make birth your own when you realize the contractions are yours, are your body doing what it needs to do and when you work with them instead of against them. This really stuck with me and I hope that I can keep this in mind and in my heart when the time comes for me to embrace the contractions instead of struggle against them.

Thinking ahead to the birth is so exciting and scary at the same time, and I can't wait.

Looking forward to another weekend of working!

So, Sophia is making herself well known this morning. I'm imagining that she is picking up on my excitment to get more projects completed this weekend.

We finished siding the front of the house yesterday. That leaves one side remaining and Verizon should be out today to remove the box so we can get that side done too.

Also on our list of this weekend's projects are replacing the kitchen lights, boxing in the electric in the kitchen, and starting the railing on the back porch.

I can't wait to see that for sale sign in the yard!

Started looking at new houses

Victory seems so close. We have only a few more things to do before the house can be put up for sale. With that in mind, I started skimming the MLS for available properties in our price range (more fixer-uppers of course). Found a handful that were under $150,000 all in the same area. Drove around there after work and really liked the area. It isn't ritzy or glamorous, but it will definitly do.

Hopefully I'll be a position to actually start putting in offers soon.

Here's our current to-do list:

Patch kitchen cieling (these wires became exposed when we took down an old cabinet)



Remove and replace kitchen cabinets (hope to order these in the next few days)



Finish Drylocking basement walls



Finish removing old nasty insulation from basement cieling



Finish siding on front and side of house




Have masonry repaired around house and stairs under x-door removed (getting a professional to do this)



And I really can't think of anything else. Hooray! Almost time to get a new home!

Sophie's Closet

Although we have made tons of progress since my last post, not many of the changes were huge; just a lot of odds and ends have been completed.

The crown molding is now up in the bathroom, and the floor trim is complete. This means the bathroom just needs a coat of trim paint and its finished!

But... my favorite project completed this week was Sophie's closet. Since we are hoping to be in a new house when she is born, we aren't working a nursery into this house. So, David refinished a dark dirty closet into one just for Sophia's things.

It is beautiful!

Here it is, already with some of her things in it. I also bought 3 more used gdiaper covers from craigslist this weekend. I'm so excited to try them out in a few months.

Labor Day Weekend Project : Siding the House Day 2

So day two started out well. By 10:36 a.m. the back of the house was completely finished:

By 10:57 a.m, the side door was completely removed and ready to be patched up:

At 1:36, the side door was framed out and ready to be covered.



Here is my dad (my parents have been sweet enough to come lend a hand this weekend)and Dave waiting to put the particle board up over the old door frame.



By 5:30, there as a lot of siding up on the side of the house. But we decided to stop before doing the top part because our legs were ladder-tired and we thought it would be best to move to the front of the house.



Unfortunately... upon removing the siding under the front door... we found this:



We are not sure if it is water rot or termite damage. Unfortunately, it stops us from finishing the front until it is repaired. I have a call into the company that did our termite inspection so hopefully we will have a gameplan on how to repair it soon and we can get the siding finished.

Today we hope to complete at least the half of the front unaffected by the damage, the top of the first side and finish some work to the porch we have yet to do.

I'm bummed we can't finish the front today, but it is important to do things right.

Labor Day Weekend Project : Siding the House

Here's what we got done so far:

Yesterday morning 8:16 a.m. - taking down the old yellow siding from the back



Yesterday morning 10:57 a.m. - old siding is gone, putting up window sealing tape and J-channel siding around the windows



Yesterday 6:33 p.m. - new siding is going up. It doesn't seem like a lot changed from the last picture, but the detailed cutting takes time and practice. We definitly got faster as we went, and only made two mistake cuts, which I think is pretty good.. especially since we were able to use most of our mistake pieces for other places.



Last night 7:50 p.m. - This is the last shot of the day. A few more pieces went up on the left hand side of picture before we called it a day, but we didn't have enough light for more photos. All in all, we didn't get as far as I had hoped, but it looks flawless, so I'm still thrilled.



Today we are hoping to finish the back side and one of the sides of the house. Will be super elated if we can get the front started before we call it a day today. The side we are going to be working on has a door that we are removing, so that will slow us down. More pics tomorrow :)

Nursery Ideas!

Love the colors in this room. Wouldn't go with the flowers though. Definitly a tree.

Sticking with my forest theme, I'm going to have forest critter decals on the walls throughout the room. I think I'm going to go with this set by "Forwalls" because I love the squirrels:



I love the colors in this, and would love to use all of these colors against the cream walls in the first picture:



Also love these bookends.. unfortunately they are $80 A PIECE



I also fell in love with this framed verse of "You Are my Sunshine." I sing it to Sophie all the time already.



Now its off to help David work on the house..

I have been sitting in the waiting room of my OBGYN for over an hour, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to catch everyone up.

I am now in my 21st week of pregnancy, more than half way! Sophia has been making herself known often by kicking and moving which I just love.

Our bathroom is almost finished the remodel and our siding has been ordered and will be ready for us to install over the holiday weekend. Once that is finished, only the kitchen remodel is left before the house goes up for sale! Very excited to sell this house and pay off our debt and start raising our baby girl. :)

I also can't wait to get in a new house so
I can start working on Sophia's nursery. We have picked out many little ideas and hope it will all come together quickly once we have a room to put it in. Moving is going to be hard pregnant (or with a newborn) but less debt means less stress and ultimately a better situation for Sophie.