1.  I have decided to hang a couple of these pinwheels that I made from old maps and some star paper lanterns I ordered from PB Teen above the crib in the nursery.  I really like how these pinwheels turned out.

2.  We have decided to name our son Liam Finn.  I am pretty excited about it.

3.  Ben and I started our parenting classes on Monday.  Ben got called to the front to help her demonstrate the baby moving through the pelvis.

4.  Little Zoe was posing for me.  She is too cute.

5.  Last Sunday, The Starkville Daily News ran a story about Pinterest.  Ben and I were featured in the story talking about how we are using Pinterest to plan our nursery.  It was a cute story.  Check out my Pinterest It’s a Boy board here.

Oh and all of these photos were taken with Instagram (iphone app).  If you are on Instagram follow me @SelenaFaye

For New Year’s Eve this year, some friends and I attended a murder mystery dinner at The Stone Lion Inn in Guthrie, Oklahoma.  My friend Cristina Kinney planned the weekend to celebrate her 30th birthday and it was a blast.  I have been friends with Cristina since 10th or 11th grade and she is one of my favorite people in the whole world.   So when she told me what she wanted to do for her 30th birthday,  I was of course thrilled.  Ben, Katie Doughty, Chris Doughty and I left Starkville on 12/30 and drove about 5 or so hours to Little Rock, Arkansas.  We went site seeing, had a nice dinner and stayed the night.  Little Rock has a fun River Market area and we really enjoyed our short visit there.  The next morning we drove another 5 or so hours to Guthrie, Oklahoma, while of course site seeing along the way.  Although I didn’t see any buffalo, the weekend was wonderful.  I love getting dressed up and celebrating the New Year with good friends.

1.  This is Ben and I with ”Le Petite Roche,” the namesake for Little Rock, Arkansas.  The river behind us is the Arkansas River.

2.  This is Ben at the Oklahoma Welcome Center.  Traveling with a pregnant woman leads to many bathroom breaks, but we didn’t mind stopping here.  We loved the tee pee pavilions.

3.  This is The Stone Lion Inn, where the murder mystery took place.  We had a blast and if you are ever near Guthrie, Oklahoma you should attend one of their murder mystery dinners.  I would recommend it for sure.  The food is great, the owner and staff were a delight and I loved staying in The White Peacock house.  I would recommend the French room.  Our bathtub was huge!

4.  This is Ben and I as the characters, Forrest and Virginia Lawne.  Our murder mystery was set in 1928 and we had to dress the part.  I loved getting all dressed up, even though I am 6 months pregnant.  Thank God my character was pregnant because my baby bump is pretty hard to hide these days.

5.  Everyone looked so great, but sadly the lighting wasn’t the best for pictures.  (From Left to Right:  Katie Kester, Cristina Kinney, Me and Katie Doughty)

Oh and all of these photos were taken with Instagram (iphone app).  If you are on Instagram follow me @SelenaFaye

A couple Saturdays ago, Ben and I were lounging around watching Raiders of the Last Ark when our baby boy started kicking.  Ben got to feel him kick for the first time and it was a really special moment for the three of us.  Ben thinks it is pretty bad ass that it happened during Raiders of the Last Ark.  Since then, he has been kicking and moving non-stop and we love it.

Lately I have been feeling great and really enjoying this part of my pregnancy.  Feeling my baby move inside me is probably the most amazing thing I have ever experienced.  It doesn’t matter what I am doing, when my baby starts kicking or moving around I always stop and enjoy the moment.  I love it and him.

I am also getting pretty big.  At my last doctor’s appointment, I was told that I gained 7 lbs in the previous month.  This is the 3rd time I have been told I had gained 7 lbs in the previous month.  My doctor says I am gaining weight kind of fast but that is wasn’t bad at this point.  I am only supposed to be gaining about 4 lbs a month and I am only 9 lbs away from my total pregnancy weight gain goal of 30 lbs.  So I am a little upset.  I don’t want to let down my doctor or myself by gaining way to much weight.  Plus I already have trouble getting up sometimes and it was only funny the first few times.

Pregnancy Stats

• Weeks Pregnant: 23 weeks and 4 days
• Size of my tiny baby:  An Ear of Corn  (Length:  8.5  in.  Weight: 1.5 lbs. )
• My Weight:  136 lbs.  Total Gain: 21 lbs.

How am I feeling?

• Emotionally:  I have been good, not too emotional or moody these days.
• Physically:  So I have started having nose bleeds occasionally.  Although it is common during pregnancy, there isn’t anything cool about it.
• Fun Pregnancy Stuff:  I really love all of the kicking that I am feeling and I especially love that now our little boy is kicking hard enough for Ben to feel.  Ben has had his hands on my belly a lot.
• Cravings:  Nothing crazy lately.

Supplies Needed for 6 Gift bags:

• Cute paper gift bags (I bought the Snowman bags above for .25 each at Kroger)
• Small plastic bags for your goodies
• Cute ribbon for the bag ties
• 1 pack of Christmas Oreos (Each pack contains 30 cookies which equals 5 cookies per child)
• 6 candy cane shaped containers filled with Christmas M & Ms (I think they were about a $1 each)
• 2 packs of Fruit Roll Ups (Each pack contain 10 roll ups which equals 3 per child with 2 left over)
• 2 packages of assorted colored Goldfish
• 1 pack of Candy Canes (Pack contains 18 canes which equals 3 per child)
• 1 pack of Christmas sugar cookies shaped like Christmas Trees from the bakery at Kroger (Pack contains 12 cookies which equals 2 cookies per child)

All you have to do is divide everything up and put the cookies, Goldfish and Oreos into the small plastic bags and tie with a ribbon to secure.  I finished this little project in under an hour.

1.  This year is Olive’s first Christmas!  She loves our Christmas tree too much.  She likes to climb into the tree, so we haven’t put any ornaments on it yet.  We have started spraying her with water from a spray bottle every time she tries to climb it and that seems to be working.  She is precious.

2.  I love Christmas Oreos!  They put me in the best mood.

3.  Last night, I went to the paint your own pottery place here in Starkville and I made this ornament.  I think I’m going to start making Ben and I an ornament every year, even if it does look like a child made it.   This picture is of the ornament pre-glazed.  It will look better once they glaze it.

4.  Our first Christmas album on vinyl arrived yesterday and I am so happy about it.  I love She & Him and their Christmas album is the best.  Plus I love that the album is on red vinyl!

5.  Last weekend I bought Olive this little hat and scarf set at Target.  She loves hates wearing them, but usually it only lasts about 3 minutes.

Read how I made it here.  Oh and if you like the paper I used for the grass, you can make your own at Japonizer.  Japonizer is a neat little Japanese inspired background generator site.  I use it all of the time to make cute paper for craft projects.

I hope everyone is having a great holiday season, Cheers!

1.  I adore this paper airplane nursery from Project Nursery.

2.  I love this Maskros Pendant lamp from Ikea and I think it would look great in our nursery.

3.  I pinned this image onto my nursery inspiration Pinterest board from here.  These dolls are called Ugly Dolls and I love them.  My friend Nikki has already bought me one of them for the nursery and it is so cute.

4.  This Joel Dewberry fabric is called Herringbone in Pond and you can get it here.  I ordered a couple yards of it last week and I plan on using it for the nursery curtains and maybe the crib skirt.

5.  This fabric is from Premier Prints, Inc.  Not only is their fabric really cute but the company is based in Mississippi!

Are you on Pinterest?  If so follow me here.

1.  I love the pegboard that Ben hung for me in our craft room.  It makes everything seem more organized.

2.  I made these little pecan pies on Thanksgiving day to take to my parent’s house.  They were so tasty.

3.  Olive and Ben have the cutest little relationship.

4.  Ben bought me this Vintage Latch Hook Rug Kit at a local thrift store and I love it.  I can’t wait to make it.

5.  The other night while reading What to Expect When You Are Expecting, I got up for some reason and June got in my place.  She really needs to know what to expect.

Skip ahead a couple of weeks and I’m actually at the half way point!  Oh and we had our ultrasound on the 18th of this month and guess what?  It’s a boy!  We are very excited but just to be honest, I was shocked.  I had such strong feelings that it was a girl but he surprised us all.  Since we thought it was a girl, we don’t even have a boy name picked out yet.  We have a few that we like, so hopefully we will have a name for our little boy soon.

Pregnancy Stats

• Weeks Pregnant: 19 weeks and 2 days
• Size of my tiny baby:  A Mango  (Length:  6.5  in.  Weight: 10 oz. )
• My Weight:  129 lbs.  Total Gain: 14 lbs.  (I gained 7 whole pounds last month!)

How am I feeling?

• Emotionally:  I have been feeling better emotionally.  I am still kind of shocked that we are having a boy, but really excited.  I have been having crazy scary dreams, mostly about someone trying to break into our house.  I think these dreams are probably happening because I am feeling more protective of myself because of our growing little one.
• Physically:  I have been less exhausted for the last week or so.  I hope this continues.  I have started having trouble sleeping and had to buy a body pillow.  It helps but I still wake up a couple times during the night to switch sides or readjust.  Oh and my hands and feet have started swelling!  For the last couple of days I haven’t even been able to wear my wedding ring.
• Fun Pregnancy Stuff: Seeing out tiny baby during our ultrasound and finding out the sex  has been the most fun part of my pregnancy so far.  Lately I have started to feel him move inside me and that is pretty cool as well.  Yesterday I even felt him move from the outside of my stomach which was really neat.  Hopefully he will continue doing this so Ben can feel him as well. 
• Cravings:  I haven’t really had any crazy cravings lately but I have enjoyed eating all of the sweet Thanksgiving treats and desserts.  I love pecan pie and I’ve had my share of it this season for sure.

1.  Sometimes Olive likes to cuddle and recently she has become a fan of cuddling with my baby bump.  It is really sweet.  Sometimes she even rests her little paw on it.  I pretend she knows there is a baby in there.

2.  This past Tuesday I voted NO on Proposition 26 along with the majority of Mississippi.  I am honestly surprised and proud that we stood up as a state and voted No to such a horrible piece of legislation.  Tuesday was a good day and I am thankful.

3.  I have such a handsome husband.

4.  I heart my new Minnetonka Moccasins a whole bunch.  They are so comfy.

5.  I know this photo is kind of dark but its not hard to see how much these two love each other.