Keeping Up With The Cassidys: maternity leave

So I've been on maternity leave since March 1st and I knew I had to keep myself busy or I'd go nuts. Here's a summary of what I've been doing:

COOKING UP A STORM

Over the past four weeks I've made the following that are tucked away nicely in the freezer for after the baby comes:

spaghetti sauce

meatloaf

baked ziti

baked chicken

chicken pot pie filling

chicken and dumplings filling mac and cheese

breakfast casserole

I've also been baking homemade chocolate chip cookies, cupcakes, blueberry muffins and pound cakes that we've been enjoying now! Yum!

READING BOOKS AND WATCHING MOVIES

PLANTING STRAWBERRIES WITH ETHAN

One beautiful Saturday a couple of weekends ago, I wanted to have a fun project with Ethan. Of course I was into it more than he was, Mr. 5 Minute Attention Span. But we did get them planted and they are thriving well and growing strawberries, especially with all this rain. We go out and check them every other day and he says "Look Mommy - mine is growing strawberries. And look -yours is too!" It's fun to watch something like that grow and certainly makes me want to plant a vegetable garden someday.

BOYS BATHROOM

For seven years we've had the guest/hall bath the exact same way. It was time for a change especially since it's really the two boys that would be using the bath the majority of the time. When I set out to find something, I originally wanted some kind of safari or animal theme. I could not find what I was looking for. I stopped by PB outlet in Gaffney one day back in January and found this really cool shower curtain for $20 and quickly changed my theme to surf/beach theme. I am excited about how it came out and you cannot tell from the horrible quality of the pictures how bright the green and blue are. It's really pretty. We are hoping to get something above the toilet like a surfboard or paint a silhouette of a surfer with seagulls, but we are undecided. So there is a clock there now. And of course we have both names monogrammed on towels, but we can't let you see that now can we? :)

NURSERY

We are very excited about how this room turned out. It's very peaceful and serene in there, which is exactly what I wanted it to be. Sorry for the notebook paper over the name on the wall - it's still a secret ... to most of you that haven't talked to Ethan. He's a big mouth and has spilled the beans to well, pretty much everyone! LOL. At least it is a secret to the general public! The trees are vinyl which was our saving grace from having to actually paint them. Thank God for those! They were a piece of cake. Above the crib I do have his first and middle name along with the meaning of the name. Nana Cassidy made the beautiful bumper and is in the process of making a baby blanket and pillow with his monogram on it with leftover material we bought for making the bumper - THANK YOU SO MUCH NANA! You will never know how much this meant to us!

ETHAN'S BIG BOY ROOM

Well, here it is folks - Ethan's big boy room. What you've all been asking for for months now. I haven't wanted to show pictures yet because it wasn't 100% complete, but it still isn't. LOL. I think the running theme in our house is it's always a work in progress, but who's house isn't? We finally finished the truck painting and put it up this weekend. We still have a chalkboard frame that we will eventually get around to to the left of the window and growth chart as you can see below. We like how it turned out and we hope E does as well.

OUR WEDDING ALBUM ... 7 YEARS LATER!

I am so behind on this project it's not even funny. We will be celebrating our 7 year anniversary on April 10th and I'm JUST now completing this book. No time better than now that I had five weeks to do absolutely nothing but catch up on unfinished business! I would show the rest but I'm not 100% complete. I'm hoping to finish up today! Very exciting and a wonderful gift I can give Chris, besides a new son, in 10 days!

YEARLY BOOKS I MADE FOR THE BOYS

I've been doing this since Ethan was a baby, so I have a mini book for every year, 1 - 3, for him. In these, it's like a baby book where I record milestones, weight, and what's going on in his world. I also put in a picture or two - ones that I don't make an actual scrap page of but I still liked the picture. It's a lot of fun to go back and take a glimpse of how much he has changed through the months and years. I've also started this for baby #2 as well, in an owl theme to match his room.

So in summary, I have been keeping myself quite busy. I'm to the point where I am done. Ready to have this baby. That will certainly be keeping me busy for the next 18 years! I'll keep everyone updated! Love ya'll!