Pregnancy Recap// Weeks 22-26

Recap

Watch Video Here: 

Weeks of Pregnancy: 22-26

Important Events: During this time we had two doctors appointments, we spent a week in Hawaii for our babymoon and we did some work on the nursery. 

Symptoms: 

Overall still feel like my symptoms are pretty minor but am experiencing a few things. 

• Lower back/tailbone pain: Still struggling the most with lower back and tailbone pain. Pretty much daily, some days it is much more severe than others. However I did get a yoga ball to swap out with my office chair which I think does help a lot, since sitting at my desk for long periods of time was when it was bothering me the most. I also do roll, massage and stretch the area which I think helps.
• Swelling while traveling: The flight to Hawaii is ovbiously a long one and something our doctor brought up so I did wear compression socks and made sure to get up and move as often as possible. However I still experienced swelling on both trips. After we arrived in Hawaii the swelling went down within an hour or two and was fine. On the way back though it seemed a but worse and stuck around for about 24 hours after we made it home. I soaked and iced my feet to help. Other than from flying I haven't had any other problems with leg or foot swelling since. 

Cravings: 

• Still just don't feel like I have really had many if any cravings 
• I suppose fruit if anything 

Aversions: No aversions during this time 

Miss Anything: Didn't miss anything, in Hawaii I had some virgin Pina coladas which were actually better than the real thing so I was happy. I also had some yummy sushi in Hawaii all with cooked fish/shimp. 

Weight Gain: During this time my weight did make a significant jump that I discussed with my doctor but I think baby went through a growth spurt. Plus my weight gain before this time had been on the slower side. I am keeping an eye on it and being aware to make sure I am not gaining too much/ too fast. 

Workouts: I have still been able to be pretty consistent with workouts and I am really loving it, I feel great when I get workouts in. I am still working out at the gym with weights, doing incline walks on the treadmill, hikes and walks around the neighborhood as well as occasional yoga. 

Self-Care: Something I want to add in here that I think is part of the reason I have been feeling pretty good is a couple things I have done to take care of myself. Aside from the actual workouts I am doing I am making sure to get in lots of stretching as well as foam rolling. Also I have never taken so many epsom salt baths in my life. I think these things have helped my body from becoming too sore or achy from all the extra strain. 

• Foam rolling- this I think is huge and if it wasn't something you were doing pre-pregnancy it may not even occur to you. Since being pregnant my muscles/ joints have been much tighter however it helps so much when I foam roll. I even had to make some late night runs to the hotel gym in Hawaii to foam roll because I felt so tight and it made all the difference. I typically roll my lower back area, my shins, my quads and most importantly my IT bands. My IT bands get really tight which causes more tightness in my lower back and other areas when I don't do this. 
• Epsom Salt Baths- like I mentioned I don't think I have ever taken so many. I find this really helps if I am sore to help take some of that away. Also just being in the bath and floating while pregnant feels great, especially when my lower back is bothering me. I feel like it just takes the pressure off my lower back while I float in the water. Epsom salt baths also help you absorb magnesium which is great for you especially when you're pregnant. 

Favorites: (I am going to keep adding here) 

• Snoogle Pillow- Serioulsy every pregnant woman needs this pillow or a similar it is a game changer and I really have been sleeping well 
• Get here: https://amzn.to/2JvHNXa
• Palmers Skin Therapy Oil & Cocoa Butter- I put the oil on immediately before I get out of the shower then pat dry. It has roeshemp oil and others in it perfect for stretch marks as well as my very dry and itchy skin. Then later, usually before bed I will also apply their cocoa butter on my belly. 
• Get here: https://amzn.to/2JxzFWb 
• Epsom Salt Baths- with all the tailbone pain I have been taking so many epsom salt baths, they help sooth all my muscles and it also feels nice to just float when my tailbone is bothering me. I use both the Dr. Teals salts and the salt soak, often in the same tub.
• Water Pick/ Water Flosser- This helps treat and prevent the bleeding and agitated gums that pregnancy can cause and is great for just everyday use if you're not a great flosser like me.
• I got this travel size one here 

Bump Pics

Lost Footage: Our Dallas House Tour

While going through all my SD memory cards the other day I found a full video tour I took of our Dallas House. I took this footage right as we put our home on the market to move. My intent was to do a series on moving and the process however that was one of the most stressful and packed times in our lives so it just didn't happen. When I found the footage I figured it would still be fun to share. This was our first home and we truly didn't know what we were getting ourselves into when we bought it but it is full of sweet memories and will forever be our first home and for that I am beyond thankful.

So I complied the video tour of our house, which will below for you to watch. In addition I also pulled all of the photos that we used to list our home since they show the entire home. Please note since these are real estate photos they do have an interesting filter on them I would not have choose myself but they still do show a good representation of the home.

Our home was built in the 1950's and you will definitely see a lot of that original charm throughout. That also means there are some quirky things you are not used to seeing in newer homes. All of the houses in our neighborhood were built at this time and had our neighborhood was our favorite part of owning this home. The whole neighborhood was full of huge, beautiful trees and was super green. We absolutely loved long walks through the neighborhood.

On to the inside of our home, starting when you walked in the front door, you came right into the living room, which was also connected to the dining room. View the past tour and post I did of that space here, where I go through the sources for everything in the two rooms. Here is the overall view of the space. As you can see it is one long, narrow space anchored by a huge picture window. The entire home other than the kitchen and bathroom had beautiful original hard wood floors that were in great shape.

Here is the view from the opposite side, you can see the front door in the corner. The best way for us to set up this space was to find an L shaped couch that fit that space that could go up against the window on one side. This allowed us to position the TV on the main open wall. We eventually surrounded the TV with a gallery wall and loved how it pulled it all together. 

Within this space was our dining room, with a small door into the kitchen. The door to the kitchen actually featured a pocket door, as it was common to close off the kitchen completely during the time our home was built. See a before and after of the dining space from when we moved in here. 

Here is the view of the kitchen from that door. It was actually a very large space but the space just really wasn't maximized like it could of been. If we hadn't moved this is the part of the house where we would have made some changes. As you can see we actually had the original 1950's style flat panel cabinets they had just been painted white and topped with granite by the previous owner. (Note we actually changed the hardware before putting the house on the market, after these pictures were taken and kicked ourselves for not doing that the day we moved in since it made a big difference and was such an easy and inexpensive change)

And here is the opposite view. What you don't see in these pictures but you can see in the video is right next to the fridge was our washer and dryer. Which the previous owner built into the kitchen as a "bar area" with granite top. This was something else we wanted to improve if we had stayed in the home.

We also had a dining nook in the kitchen that was sandwiched in between two sets of glass sliding doors. One lead to the courtyard and the other to the backyard. The third door is to our garage.

Here you can see a peek of where the washer and dryer are next to the fridge.

Moving out one of those doors here is a look at our courtyard patio. You can see the full makeover of that space here. There you can see that we had to replace the broken down fence and we planted grass and filled with new furniture. This was our favorite outdoor space, we spent much more time here than in our backyard. Our pup Benny also loved this space for hanging out.

Also off the kitchen was one of two doors into my office. One of the unique/quirky parts of the house layout was this room which was considered a "pass through room" we are not sure what it was originally used for when the house was built. The layout worked perfectly for an office. However if we had ended up using it as a bedroom we would have closed off the door in the kitchen.

It was actually a very large room, technically a little bigger than our master so there was lots of space.  In this photo I have some but not all of my Burn Boutique inventory out to make it the most visually appealing for buyers.

Right outside my office in the hallway was our guest bathroom. You can also see a post on the before and after of this space here.

At the end of the hall was our guest bedroom.

Then at the other end was our master bedroom and bathroom.

And finally a couple pictures of the backyard, it was in need of a little bit of an overhaul out there but still a very nice space with a large deck.

I hope you enjoyed taking a trip down memory lane with me and taking a tour of our very first home. It was full of so many sweet sweet memories and I do get a little emotional thinking about it. We love you first home under the trees!

Watch Full Video Tour Here: 

Other Posts & Video of our Dallas home: 

• Living and Dining Room Tour Post & Video 
• Dining Room Makeover 
• Patio Makeover Post & Video 
• Guest Bathroom Makeover Post
• Coffee Bar Post 
• Living Room Gallery Wall Post 

Dining Room Makeover & Tour

Good Morning Everyone!

We recently completed a makeover on our dining room space and I am so excited to share with you. I will have the video I put together linked at the bottom of this post, that will show the space when we moved in as well as what it looked like a couple months ago.  It also gives sources for everything in my dining room.

The lower level of our home is a completely open concept space. The kitchen dining room and living area are all completely open to one another. Since it is so open our dining space is more of a "nook" so we wanted to do a couple things to define the space better, as well as add more storage.

To do this we started by adding in a row of cabinets along the wall for extra storage. We purchased these cabinets as stock unfinished cabinets from Lowes. We actually used upper cabinets because they are shallower which is what we needed for the space. Our contractor installed the cabinets for us then we painted them to match the cabinets in the kitchen and stained wood to use as the topper. This created a buffet style addition that we use as our coffee bar.

Above the cabinets we built some Farmhouse style open shelving, see post with video on how we built them here. The addition of these shelves was great for again some extra storage but also to decorate and really make the space homey.

Our dining room table is still the same table we had at our last home, we love its unique look. We got it at Nebraska furniture mart, it is a faux concrete top, that apparently has some concrete in it because it is very heavy. It is paired with 4 of the chairs that came with the table then the two captains chairs on each end we actually purchased separately from At Home and they somehow matched perfectly. I love the look the white fabric brings into the whole table.

All these additions made the dining room a completely different space, both aesthetically and practically. We are so happy with how it came out, it met all of our expectations. Something else to note is we did this makeover for a very reasonable budget. We purchased the 4 cabinets, on sale at Lowes for $75 each, the wood top we did for about $30 and the shelves we did for around $40 total, so everything was done for less than $400. This is an amazing cost, my in laws actually priced doing similar addition of cabinets in their dining room and got a quote for $4000 for that only (with granite counter top) so we did this for 1/10th of the cost.

Watch Full Makeover Video Here with Before & After 

Sources:

• Dining Table- Similar
• Dining Table Captains Chairs- At Home
• Unfinished Cabinets
• Wood Cabinet Top- Lowes
• Wood for Shelves- Lowes
• Shelf Brackets 
• Lantern Chandelier
• Espresso Machine- Starbucks Verismo now discontinued
• Shelf decor- all given in the video above 

DIY Farmhouse Shelves + How to Video

Happy Monday all!

Today I wanted to hop on and share with you one of the latest home projects we completed. Which was some DIY shelves for our dining room. This also completes our dining room so full tour of that will be coming soon as well.

When we purchased our house we loved the open concept of the main floor, the kitchen opened up to the dining and the living room. Our dining room is less of a room and more of a "nook" since everything is so open. We decided to make a couple updates to make it a more defined space and more functional. First we added in some cabinets along the wall for storage, more on this in the dining tour.

Originally there was a large painting above the cabinets but what I really wanted was to add some shelves above for some additional storage and to decorate. My husband wasn't 100% sure when I pitched the idea but agreed I could go ahead and try it out.

To start this project I went and got the wood for the shelves from Lowes. I got the same wood panels from Lowes that we used as the cabinet top in the dining room. I then had them cut the panels down for me to correct size. The man in the lumber department actually said they are typically not supposed to cut anything that small but was super nice and did it for me anyway.

Once the wood was cut and I got it home I stained it to match the cabinet tops as well with the decorative glaze that came in our Rustoleum cabinet kit. It is super simple to use, you just brush the glaze on then immediately wipe off the excess. I did two coats of glaze on the shelves.

For the brackets, I actually found exactly what I was hoping for at Hobby Lobby by accident and was thrilled. Especially because they were a killer price point, making this a very affordable project.

Once it was time for install I handed that over to my hubby. He found the studs and drilled the mounts into the wall then attached the shelves. On the bottom shelf he also mounted on these coffee cup hooks on this bar we had at our old house so we can hang up all of our mugs.

After all was installed it was time for the fun part, decorating! A lot of what is on the shelves are things I already had at the house but I did add a few extras from Homegoods.

How to Video: 

Stay tuned for the full dining room tour next :)

Decor on Shelves: 

Shelf Brackets
Letter B- Hobby Lobby
Blue Plaid Canisters- Rae Dunn from HomeGoods
White Shiplap Board- At Home
Magnolia cotton wreath- Similar
Mercury Glass Vase- HomeGoods
Corbels- At Home- Shanty to Chic line
Cook books- Joy of Cooking & Magnolia Table
Cutting board- Custom wedding gift, from etsy
Glass Apothecary Jar- HomeGoods
Lemons
White Pitcher- Homegoods
Mugs- Rae Dunn- Homegoods/ TJmax
Cake Stand- Target Dollar spot
Cream and Sugar Canisters- Rae Dunn- HomeGoods/TJmax

Maui Babymoon //Road to Hana & VLOG

Catch up on the rest of our Maui Babymoon trip:
Days 1&2- read here
Days 3&4- read here

On our last full day in Maui we planned to do the "Road to Hana" journey. This is a popular thing for visitors to do. On the trip to the town of Hana there are countless waterfalls and other beautiful sights to see. When we took off we weren't sure if we would make it all the way to Hana and just agreed to go as far as felt comfortable and enjoyable for us then turn around. My main goal was just to see some waterfalls and I would be happy.

**Just an FYI we used the Shaka Guide Road to Hana guide app to guide our trip and can't recommend it enough**

This is an all day event so get up early and get on the road. We got up, got coffee and breakfast then got on the road by about 7:30am. Our first stop was in Paia town to see the Ho'okipa lookout, we were hoping we would see some turtles but didn't find any that day.

Then back in the car to our first stop on the Road to Hana adventure, Twin Falls. This was something I really wanted to see, so that no matter how far we made it I got to see some waterfalls. The first pair of waterfalls aka twin falls is just a couple minute walk from the car and accessible to everyone. After checking those out we sought out the trail to the bigger waterfall known as caveman falls.

To get to Caveman falls you go through a gate with a sign that says for "experienced hikers only" although it was a very easy/moderate hike in my opinion. The only challenge is having to cross a little creek. After walking the trail, crossing the creek and walking across a little bridge we were met with the the most beautiful waterfall, in a cave-like atmosphere.

Seeing that first big waterfall was a killer start to our day and we were thrilled, also not knowing how far we would make it on the trip we felt content knowing we had already had this experience. Next we hopped back in the car. Our next stop was to see Honomanu Bay from an overlook along side the road.

Then we made a quick stop at Changs pond which is a swimming hole with a small waterfall. It was actually full of families with kids swimming, jumping off rocks and hanging out. Definitely a must stop if you have kiddos on board.

Before we knew it we were at the Halfway to Hana stand, and of course we had to stop for snacks and photos. This stand is known for their banana bread so we grabbed a loaf of that and a shaved ice to enjoy before getting back on the road. After this point it did start raining and that did affect some of the places we did and didn't stop. There were several awesome waterfalls you could see from the car and side of the road during this part of the trip.

Next stop was at the Hana lava tube cave, which is something we never would have known about or seen if the app didn't tell us to pull over. You enter from a serious little hole on the side of the road. Then the cave opens up, It was a very cool sight. There is a good amount of footage of this in the blog video.

Soon enough the app let us know we were almost to Hana, we truly didn't think we would make it that far but based on timing it worked out. So we decided we would go to Hana town, grab lunch see the red sand beach then turn around and possibly make a few stops on the way back that we missed on the way up.

Once driving into Hana we headed in the direction of the red sand beach. We parked the car then set out on the trail. After a few minutes on the trail it started to sprinkle. A passing hiker heading back said it is sunny at the beach keep going so we did and to our surprise it sprinkled the whole trail and then the beach itself was somehow super sunny. The red sand beach was an absolutely beautiful sight, something I am glad we saw. However what makes the red sand is broken up lava rock so walking on the sand was miserable, your shoes sunk in and got stuck and bare feet was like walking on rocks and glass lol, just an FYI.

We got lunch at the Hana Ranch restaurant, one of the only sit down restaurants in Hana. Other than that there were mostly food trucks. Honestly the lunch was not impressive and we happened to decide just to split something when it was time to order and very glad we did. Then we hopped back in the car to head back.

We only made a couple stops on the way back. One was to see another waterfall we missed on the way up, honestly I am not sure which waterfall this is but it was beautiful and an easy walk from the car.

We ended up making it back to our hotel a little before dinner time and we were wiped from a full day. Overall I loved this experience and would definitely recommend it to anyone visiting Maui, especially if you are the outdoor type and like hiking and waterfalls.

See our full day in this video below: