Pregnancy 1: Week 31

31 Weeks:

Symptoms: The upper abdominal pain is REAL! It hurts really bad. I sit normal and I can’t breath so I feel like I am forced to lay back more often than not, but if I lay too far back then the heartburn increases. Heehee. I love being pregnant with our little guy, but I have to say there are more moments lately where I just wish there wasn’t so much pain. Constant peeing, nausea (okay this is just Patrick is really picky about foods, I can’t eat any sweets without getting sick but certain other foods like chips makes the heartburn worse, so I am balancing on a fine line these last 10 weeks or so and really learning that more foods are affecting me than before -which is why I ended this week throwing up and not eating much for a couple days).

Weight: 13 lbs gained so far. Which is sticking to that 1 lb a week gained.

Graduate School: First of all WOW! It has been exactly a year since I completed my very last day of graduate school classes. Having a family was without a doubt the next step for our family after I finished my program. It was a little difficult as part of me was still stuck on that college rollercoaster. I was accepted into a doctoral program and planned on starting that program (literally 3 days from now) July 2018. However, I think a huge blessing was having the time to really think about that choice before continuing. I would love to just stay in college all the time (if it was free!) but I realized financially my husband and I were so well off where we were and going to do better for our family by me NOT adding a $100k debt/loan for us to have to handle for many years to come. I am so thankful for my education and do plan on using it one day but I am so blessed beyond measure that my husband is able to support us and our future little guy so I get to stay home with our little man for a while instead of having to put him in a daycare or someone else’s home.

Cake Process: So Sunday is our baby shower and I decided I wanted to make the cake myself! Why? I don’t know I am just crazy like that. However, you can’t just make a cake (especially this fancy) just the morning of! So here is my 3 day process!

Friday: Friday was spent making fondant decorations that will go on top of the cake. This included Harry Potter glasses, A wand, a Sorting Hat, and Snitch. This was done because I really needed them to be dried out when they went on top of the cake otherwise they would be more likely to bend, fall off, etc. All of this was pretty easy to do except 2 notes: Glasses- I was going to make lens for the glasses but couldn’t find circle silicone molds so that was cut from the design idea AND Snitch- Okay this one was rough, mostly because I should have made it out of gumpaste instead of fondant but I don’t know how to make it myself and when I went hunting at the stores for it it came in bulk only. So I made this same snitch 3 different times and in the end I settled that it was okay, it wasn’t my favorite but my back and everything was hurting and I truthfully just wanted it to be done. So All of these set out to dry Friday through Sunday when they were finally added to the cake.

Saturday: So my goal was to finish the start of the cake today. This didn’t mean everything. But the goal was to make the entire cake (4 separate 9x13 cakes: 2 strawberry stacked and 2 chocolate stacked), level them, make buttercream and put it in between each layer, stack then, and finally get a crumb coat (base buttercream layer) around the entire thing and then let it sit overnight. This was doing great, sticking to my time schedule….UNTIL we had a little villian break into my kitchen while we were gone decorating my MIL’s house and eat a pretty solid line off of one of my strawberry cakes! So, needless to say I had to make 1 more and didn’t finish this entire process until midnight.

Sunday: So after a long night I woke up early and started dying my fondant that I wanted to top the cake with (I didn’t want it to be straight up white so I added in some brown so it had an semi aged color). My amazing hubby came to the rescue. Normally I do all of the cake stuff myself but trying to knead the fondant and rolling it out was just some intense movement that was hurting me. So he came to the rescue. Tomek also helped with placing the fondant on top of the cake. We smoothed it out and extenuated the creases down the middle and then I shifted gears to making the gryffindor scarf I needed to add to the top. While doing that Tomek was a genius! He decided to use a pizza roller to add the appearance of pages on the side and then the alcohol and brown food coloring mixed lightly (the alcohol dries off) which added a slight color variation on it too! He helped me get the scarf on the cake, we added all the decorations I had already made and all we had left was the lettering! Initially I planned on using bigger letters but I had cutters for this size and we knew it would be better for time! So we took the black fondant, rolled it out, and cut out the letters that we then added on the cake and VOILA! Done! I was so excited to have this process complete and even more so that this was the first cake ever made for Patrick and his mommy and daddy both made it together!

So other than the cake on Saturday we packed up all the Harry Potter decorations we had and I made to take over and decorate the shower areas. :) So maybe the easiest way to express all of this is in this break down:

Foods: In general our food was definitely meant to be cook-out oriented. We initially figured we would have people outside, but it just got so hot outside we all stayed inside the house instead. Food included Hamburgers, macaroni & cheese, macaroni salad, watermelon, chips, pretzels, a special fruit tray, and a special veggie tray. We also of course had drinks (sodas, water, beer) and Tomek even made Butterbeer for our HP theme. We did forget to get pictures of some of these elements, sorry!

Decorations:

There were so many elements in our decorations (going beyond just the fact that I had a lot of Harry Potter memorabilia that we also used). So here is the break down of these elements:

Diaper Cake: This one had so many elements on it. It is a 3 tier rolled diaper cake with a simple 4th tier (3 and 4 aren’t rolled just wrapped around each other) to hold up Hedwig on top. We have elements like POPs characters of Harry, Ron, & Hermione (I just got the new one they came out with her holding a mandrake!), some glasses, golden snitch, ribbon, and pins. Obviously those aren’t for little Patrick as much. However, we have obviously the major element the Crochet Hedwig hat that I made for him. I kind of combined 3 different patterns along with some of my own twists to create this version (if you want it let us know!) also I have a super fun cute Mandrake hat I made for Halloween so I can share that too if anyone wants! Other components include a pair of Harry Potter booties (tip: If you want booties on your cake stuff them with something and then cover it with the ribbon you use), HP bib, 2 HP pacifier clips, custom dragon egg I made with our family name on it, and a custom pacifier I was able to make online and order super easy!

More Decorations:

-Welcome Banner: So I took gold banner background, used my cricut (seriously if you don’t have one I highly recommend them...I still have the same one I got in high school!!) to cut out the letters. Now I didn’t have a way to do the same for the onesies so I actually printed a onesie template, traced it onto the red paper, along with a lightning bolt template and then I cut both out (onesie with scissors the inside bolt with an exacto blade) and then I used my sticky runner tape (better than glue) to attach each one!

-Magic Boxes: These boxes were wrapped in gold wrapping paper and again I used my cricut to cut out the letters for easy attachment to the boxes. Now we chose the word Magic but on pinterest a lot of people use the baby’s name or the word baby but we felt that Magic just blended in with our theme so flawlessly!

-Niffler on Cauldron: This is a massive cauldron that apparently my husband’s family have used forever for candy and so it was just filled and covered in a brown colored cloth. Then the cute little plush Niffler was set on top and we went and bought gold chocolate coins, a few red to break up the color, and the Ferrero Rocher chocolates and placed them all around the Niffler and on the table overflowing. (Niffler: magical creature from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them that is attracted to all things shiny….attempts to take money and jewels repeatedly!)

-Table Runner: So as I shared before I had 2 Harry Potter books that were already destroyed by their previous owners and I decided to use the pages to decoupage 2 side tables for Patrick’s nursery which is beautiful (A nursery only post coming soon). However, with so many pages left I decided to use some more pages (yep I still have many left) to create a table runner for the cake table. My major note- which naturally the amazing Tomek thought of- is that if you choose to make this make it shorter than the table, not overhanging or you are more likely to have it tear off during the party.

-HP Book Centerpieces: These were super easy to make. I just took extra red ribbon and tied all of my Harry Potter books together (Note not just the regular books but also special editions, tales of the beedle the bard, quiddich through the ages, etc.) Then I used a little POP or other random decoration I have - such as our prophecy- to sit beside it. I used 1 book as the base just to make it easier to set up and move if needed.

-2 & 3 tier Diaper Cakes: These came from our 1st baby shower that my cousin made and I decided instead of just taking them apart when we got back I would use them on tables as well so we had 1 by the Diaper pong and one on the Diaper writing game table.

-Favors Display: Not only did I make all of these favors but I really enjoyed the way we were able to display them. I had the owls inside a metal tin that I got for Tomek as a gift years ago with a red satin table cloth as the visual. The front of the tin says “Heil Family” so we really enjoyed having that their and then I took a regular box, wrapped in paper and named it Celebratory “Cigars” to hold and displays those in a prettier way as well.

-Play Doh Display: The play doh table had some of our fun decorations like the illustrated editions of 2 of the Harry Potter books (the 4th comes out next year and I can’t wait!) as well as chocolate frogs, and a golden snitch that was gifted to me by a wonderful bride (Thanks Dacia!) who had a touch of HP in her wedding and I happily reuse for all sorts of things.

Favors & Prizes:

I also custom made the favors and prizes for the party.

-Coke & Maker’s Mark: Initially I was doing Jack and coke as a play off of Tomek’s favorite drink. Unfortuantely we couldn’t find mini Jack bottles and so we switched to mini bottles of Maker’s Mark instead. Each one was tied to a glass classic coke with a tag that stated: “You Won! *Beware* Baby Making Potion -Congratulations in Advance.” (Note: Initially I didn’t factor in the potential for underage players. Thus, underage winners received the Coke bottles!) These were the prizes for the top 4 winners of the Diaper Pong Game.

-Nail’d It Kits & Bertie Botts Jars: These were pretty basic easy gifts to make. We got Jelly Belly jelly beans because they actually all taste good and put inside a nice glass jar and applied a simple label (that way it could be removed and the jars reused). The Nail kits had cotton pads, nail file, blue polish (for baby boy) and a clear coat along with a label that said nail’d it you won that again easily can be removed to repurpose.

-Celebratory “Cigars”: It is a tradition for guys to have cigars when a baby is on the way. So I decided to do a fun play off of that. I took 6 rolo chocolates and wrapped them in brown paper, put a blue band around it and finished it off with a blue heart that says Oh boy!

-Owl Washcloths: okay this one was definitely the most time consuming but everyone loved them so much, well worth it! I rolled basic washcloths into the owl shape (comment if you want a step by step guide) used a hair tie to secure, took red and gold ribbons for a cute cover piece, I used self-adhesive googly eyes (way easier!), and cut felt to look like the beaks.

Games-Activities-

-Diaper Pong: The diaper pong was the game that required the most work to play. But with our friends playing water pong since we met, I just thought would be a lot of fun (plus something the guys would enjoy a bit more since this was a co-ed shower!) I took a trifold black foam board covered it in red and yellow (Gryffindor colors) squares. Used my cricut (hint hint!) to cut out the letters, stuck them on along with the directions (on the left) then attached some random tiny stickers (harry potter and baby boy themed along with 1 of our ultrasounds of Patrick). After a lot of trial and error the best way to secure these diapers on the board is beyond me. We had the most success with the clear packing tape and assume that duct tape would have been best but we didn’t have any. We put a clear plastic punch cup inside each diaper to keep them open and make it a little easier to actually get the ball inside the diaper.

-Baby Item ABCs: (I actually created the forms for all of these myself- happy to share if requested-) The baby items abcs was a game where people had 4 minutes to fill in A-Z baby items without repeating (no writing B-Binky AND P-Pacifier) AND something I recommend only now after the experience is make sure people know they can’t just list different types of stuffed animals I.e. Giraffe, Zebra, Hippo). Person with the most filled in wins!

-Baby Name ABCs: This is a speed game! We made it a little extra cute by filling in our son’s name for everyone P-Patrick. Whoever was able to fill in all the letters first won!

-Late Night Diapers: This was an activity we had out that people did on their own time. We had lots of drawings on the backs of diapers as well as inspirational or funny sayings. I do recommend hiding any extra diapers, I didn’t realize a backup pack was broken into until the party was over...Trust me you don’t need more than 1 pack open and written on heehee.

-Baby Bingo: Baby bingo is where each person has to fill in their sheet before you start opening gifts with what they think you will open. They are only allowed to write down ONE item that they brought themselves. Also fun secret: If you have any items that come pretty open (we got a basket that you could see all of the medicines and such inside) leave it where people can see fine, but open it last...doing so will ensure someone doesn’t get a bingo just from writing down all the items they could see.

-Let’s Make a Baby: This was our play-doh table game. It typically is setup for just the mom to be but we were co-ed so I easily created my own sign stating each person to write their name on the bottom of a cupcake liner, take their ziploc baggie of playdoh (each cup can be 2 baggies easily) and make a baby out of it, then sit it back down on the table and by a certain time each of us (he picked and I did) would choose our favorite baby creations! Those 2 people won prizes.

-Guest Book Sign In: This was again an activity that people did on their own time. (Though I would recommend when guests sit down for presents maybe before starting it passing the book around, we had quite a few people forget to sign it) The book had a custom sign asking everyone to sign in with their names and a special little note to our Patrick. We chose to use a Harry Potter inspired book (that fortunately we also had an extra copy of: Tales of Beedle the Bard; and when we have his baptism we will likely take the same book there for guests to sign one last time).

-Guess the Baby Food: The last game we played (sorry not pictured as their wasn’t a special sign or anything for it) was the guess the baby food game. We went around and Tomek and I both served 6 separate jars of baby food to people. We bought a huge bag of plastic dessert spoons that were perfect for this game. Each person got 6 spoons so there wasn’t any double dipping. They then wrote down what they thought the food was (I covered it in the left over red paper and numbered them--make sure to give yourself a cheat sheet) whoever got the most of 6 won! Needless to say there was a little concern that this may be too many games but people loved them! And even my husband who is not a fan of games said that there was the perfect amount!! (He loves me so much!)

Fun Pictures: Just Kidding we will share these some other time...most of these images are currently in editing by our amazing best friend Carly who photographed the event. At the moment we only have pictures of people playing diaper pong and a couple of people sitting around chatting, so I will wait for those at another point. BUT trust me we all had so much fun, the games, prizes, decorations couldn’t have been more perfect, and we received wonderful gifts for Patrick and are so thankful for all who attended or even weren’t able to attend but sent something to him anyway! We are all truly blessed.

Okay So that was a long section just about the party but I had to break it down for my HP lovers that are interested in doing similar things! Remember you can always contact me if you need extra help on figuring out how to do anything for your HP extravaganza!

So needless to say we spent the next couple days recouping (okay I did, Tomek went to work) and going through the baby stuff we received and trying to sort stuff out.

OB Appointment: So obviously there was a goal to just sleep in and relax but my phone started going off after Tomek went to work and OH NO! It was a notification for my OB appointment that was 10 minutes later. I managed to call, figure out which office, and get dressed and get to the appointment only 2 minutes late. I couldn’t believe it but was so thankful for being quick (though I grabbed a shirt I wore to make the cake and so it had cake stuck on it, haha classy). My appointment still went really well. I talked to my OB about packing our bags, our natural delivery, delayed cord clamping as well as donating cord blood, & my hospital tour. She is very good at helping me ensure we are able to follow through with what we are really wanting to do. My blood pressure is still doing great (116/70) and she said my weight gain is doing really well. Also Patrick is measuring right on track and his heartbeat is 134bpm). All in all a very successful appointment especially since I was able to schedule out all of our appointments through 40 weeks including our ultrasound at 36 weeks where we will more accurately know Patrick’s growth and weight!

Birth Class #2: I really enjoyed this class tonight. Tomek and I practiced comfort techniques, birthing techniques in each stage, and learned quite a bit about natural ways to ease pain. Another benefit was Tomek saw the information for the doula through our hospital and he decided cost wise, we were doing it! I was open to having one before but I just figured the cost was too much and Tomek could coach me himself fine. However, a great benefit of hiring our doula isn’t that she will be coaching me instead of Tomek but she will be coaching Tomek, helping him help me, and suggesting ideas that him and I may not think about in the moment. So the beginning of August we will be interviewing with a doula in preparation and we will also be taking our natural birthing class then as well. Lastly the teacher talked about certain issues extra stress or anxiety can create and this caused me to really think about some things I was worried about and so she talked with me after class through them and I already feel so much better (though still plan on talking to my OB about it at my next appointment- as my teacher suggested).

I spent the last day of this week having so much fun buying the last of the clothes we still needed for Patrick. This was my first time going out and actually shopping for him as we have been waiting until after the showers. Not only did I find clothes he needed for sure I also found a wonderful outfit for him to be able to wear to some special events we will have coming up after he is born, I went to Target and got him a cute Gryffindor sweatshirt and plan on grabbing more at a different target, and lastly while at Target they had a great deal and so I spent $100 on diapers and got a $30 gift card back (it brought the cost of the diapers down from 14-16 cents a piece to 8 cents!).