Trimester Three & Halloween!

Tomorrow is Halloween! One of the top holidays of the year. I love decorating and baking and dressing in costume. One of the best parts of the day is handing out candy to the cute little kids in our neighbourhood. We rarely get more than 50 kids but it's still very fun none the less. We're handing out a various assortment of chocolate bars (which I plan to stay far away from) and scary sour gummy candies. Of course we also have glow in the dark bracelets to hand out. A tradition I've kept going almost a decade.

Today, I spent the afternoon baking chocolate-chocolate chip cupcakes and making homemade icing in orange and purple. Phil picked out some halloween sprinkles to decorate the cupcakes and we also bought cute little cupcake paper and napkins in a halloween theme.

Fresh out of the oven!

Decorations & Homemade icing.. yum!

Homemade Halloween Cupcakes!

We carved our pumpkins this evening together. It's our halloween tradition. Phil was wonderful and scooped out both pumpkins because I didn't really like the pumpkin smell. Once they were prepared, Phil carved a scary face in his and I carved a pumpkin with a ghost coming out of the top. We used the templates from the little kit we bought. I think they turned out nicely. We also decorated the outside of our house but I didn't get a photo before dark, so will try to take one and add it here tomorrow.

Our family jack-o-lanterns this year

I am looking forward to tomorrow and hope that at least some of the people in the office will get into the halloween spirit. This year I am dressing up as a Pumpkin Smuggler. At least it's original. Also, likely the only year I'd be able to pull it off.

Beware the Pumpkin Smuggler!

This year marks another exciting milestone. We are now officially in the third trimester! Less than 90 days to go! Suddenly it is becoming more real. I am enjoying feeling the babies kick and I often rub them and talk to them. I've also been nesting like crazy, buying them things and crafting for them. My mom (aka Grandma - because she hasn't told me what she would like to be called yet..) is also crafting up a storm. She's made two matching baby quilts, a valance, two raggy fleece blankets, two knit baby sweaters, two knit baby hats and is working on the second of two knitted angel wing design baby blankets. She is also working on adding a zipper to the diaper bag she found for us and still plans to knit baby booties, quilt a crib skirt, make crib sheets and likely more I don't yet know about. They already have so much love.

I spent the morning organizing the nursery some more and putting the teeny baby items into their respective wicker baskets. Once the nursery furniture arrives I will post photos. We expect it within the next four weeks. Yesterday we spent a part of the afternoon baby shopping and brought home a second towel/bath set (this one in pink) and some other small baby items. We also ordered a baby tub, a change pad for the nursery and the crib mattress from Babies-R-Us. This morning Phil tested out the baby monitor from the basement and is happy to report that it works wonderfully, you can see and hear everything in the nursery. I washed all of our cubs' newborn sleepers (they each have six) and their tiny little scratch mittens & hats, along with the sheets we bought for their travel sized pack and play and the cover for the nursing pillow. It will be good to have everything clean and ready to use.

I plan to start packing a hospital bag soon so we have lots of time to add items that we may forget. I am sure this list is by no means complete, but my list so far consists of:
~ newborn sleepers (all of them - since I have no clue how many we may need)
~ newborn hats
~ scratch mittens
~ preemie/newborn diaper packs
~ penaten cream
~ soothers/clips
~ car seats/buckets
~ warm blankets for the ride home
~ receiving blankets (my Mom is currently making)
~ clothes and toiletries for myself

Lately, I have been in a baby crafting whirlwind myself. (I am also addicted to Etsy, but that's a whole other ball of yarn.) I went on YouTube and learned how to crochet baby hats and flowers. I also learned two new crochet stitches. I am now attempting to crochet two little baby hats in size 3 baby wool (very fine and soft) for our cubs when they come home from the hospital and perhaps for a newborn baby photo shoot. I plan to decorate our baby girls hat with a crochet flower/leaves and our baby boy's hat with a cute wooden button.

Work in progress.

I am also still working on crocheting the pink and blue fluffy baby blankets with the Red Heart Yarn. I made the main portion of the pink blanket using seventy-six stitches across and have been doing the same with the blue blanket. However, for some strange reason the blue blanket is a few inches shorter. I am guessing I'm crocheting tighter, but have no idea. once the blue blanket is finished I will have to crochet a bit around the edges to make them the same size. Then finally I can add the white fluffy borders. I will post photos once they are complete.

My newly found craft addiction is minky fabrics! I ordered a bunch online, and my mom also bought me some more at a sale today. I can't wait to sew 100% cotton prints onto minky fabric to make baby blankets! I just hope that I can find the time. If I can mass enough baby crafts I may post them on my own Etsy shop and hopefully make some extra money while on maternity leave.

This week coming up, we have our second prenatal class on Tuesday night, where we will learn all about labour and birth. Then on Wednesday, I have my second OB appointment in the afternoon. I am not sure that I will learn anything new that the perinatologist didn't already tell us at our last ultrasound appointment, two weeks ago. I imagine that our OB will measure my belly, weigh me, check my blood pressure and let me listen to the babies' heartbeats as per a normal check up appointment.

Then on Friday we have another ultrasound, this time at Foothills Hospital in a new clinic we have not been to before and we will meet with another (or possibly the same) perinatologist. We are hoping that the news will be as good as the last ultrasound, and all will be looking great.

It is going to be a long busy week. I hope that I can muster some more energy than I've had lately. I look forward to Friday afternoon already...now it's late & time for bed..