Super Active and Snickerdoodles

Little Joseph has gotten extremely active in the past few days. Yesterday, he was rolling around non-stop! Usually he'll be active for an hour or two, then calm for a few hours. Not yesterday. He was bumping and knocking around for most of the day, calmed down for a bit after dinner (I was up making cookies, so maybe he was trying to be good so I'd finish and eat them sooner!), and then was moving around constantly last night. I can say it's the first time I really haven't slept well because he was moving so much. I also woke up with a sharp pain in my ribs, which went away on its own after a bit, so I'm wondering if that was him or just another achey pregnancy symptom.

Gary took Joe and me out to dinner last night, and afterward I really wanted to bake. I didn't really care what I made, just had that desire to do the baking. So Joe decided he wanted Snickerdoodles. I found a new recipe (at least I think it's new) that went together really quickly, and let's just say that after making just under 5 dozen cookies at 8:30pm, only a dozen were left this morning! Joe and Gary gave it great reviews, so I thought I'd post it. I'd post a picture, but the remainder went to work with Joe, and if I had to guess, they're gone by now!

Snickerdoodles

Ingredients
1 cup shortening (I actually only had 1/2 c. shortening, so used that plus 1/2 c. unsalted softened butter)
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 3/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon salt
Cinnamon to taste

2 tablespoons white sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
In a large bowl, mix together the shortening and 1 1/2 cups of white sugar until smooth. Stir in the eggs one at a time, blending well after each. Combine the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt; stir into the batter until blended. I also added cinnamon to the batter.
Roll the dough into balls the size of small walnuts. Roll in a mixture of 2 tablespoons sugar and 2 teaspoons cinnamon. Place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. The cookie balls didn't pick up much of the cinnamon/sugar mixture, so I sprinkled more on top after flattening the tops of the cookies slightly.
Bake in the preheated oven for 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned, but still soft.

These are the perfect texture - light crunch on the outside, but still super soft on the inside, and oh so good!

Baby Steps

We've been making slow progress to getting the nursery ready to paint. Gary, Joe's step-dad, has been staying with us this past week while Grandma is in the hospital recovering from surgery. In his free moments, he's helped us continue to scrap wallpaper paste from the walls. Last night I continued working, and realized we'd gotten to the point where it was more effective to use a wet rag to wipe the walls down, scraping the hard bits off when I got to those. After a few hours of scrubbing walls, my fingers and forearms were tired, so Joe's arrival home and suggestion that we go visit Grandma (now that she's out of the ICU) sounded great! I got about 1/4 of the walls done in about 3 hours yesterday, so I'm hoping that another night of scrubbing walls tonight will get us very close to being finished! Then we just have to mud and prime, and we'll be set.

In other baby news, we're continuing to gather items in preparation for little Joseph's arrival. I found a really cute diaper bag last week. It's rather unconventional looking, (Joe had already told me he wants one himself that's more manly), from the Gap, but is fun, has a bunch of pockets and changing pad, looks more like a big purse than a diaper bag (this picture doesn't reflect just how big the bag is), and best of all, had been marked down to $20 from $70! The bottom also opens up wider so that it could theoretically stand on its own when loaded up.

So if I find something I like better or seems more functional, I can always return it, but for now I'm kinda excited about my cute, pink diaper bag. At first I felt a little silly getting the pink one with a boy on the way, but I figured, hey, I'm a girl, I'm carrying the bag, I can do whatever I want. So there! :)

We have also made the decision to try cloth diapers on little Joe. I'm excited about the possibility of less blowouts and diaper rash, faster potty training, less trash/better for the environment and the cost savings over using only disposables. I know we may decide it's not for us down the road, and we still plan on using disposable diapers when we're traveling, out of convenience, but for now this is the goal. The other fun part is how much cuter cloth diapers have become than what our parents used on us, and they seem so much easier and convenient now!

While we could buy everything and it would still be relatively affordable, I've found some patterns to make my own fitted diapers (they resemble the shape of disposables) out of things around the house (old towels, sheets, etc) and cheap fabrics. They still need a waterproof cover, but those aren't too expensive. I went to a variety of places yesterday to start gathering supplies, and I think I may have enough fabric at this point to make a newborn/infant stash of fitted diapers that will in the end have cost us about $30-40. I still need to get elastic and aplix, a form of velcro that is softer and apparently holds up better through the millions of washings. I figure once I get the hang of the pattern, I'll be able to knock out a bunch of diapers at a time.

When he's big enough, we'll probably switch to using AIO's (all in ones), or AI2s (all in twos) which don't require a cover as they have the water-resistant material built in. The difference between the two is the AIOs have the absorbent pad sewn in, whereas the AI2s have snap-in "soaker" pads that can be swapped out and help the diaper dry faster after being washed. These diapers are pricey, but use an ingenious system of snaps and velcro so that they adjust to fit babies from about 8 lbs to 35 lbs, so they should last through potty training. Check out this website to see the variety of diapers that are on the market: http://www.pinstripesandpolkadots.com/ Aren't they adorable?? Many people can use these diapers through multiple children, which would be fantastic. The hard part will be not going overboard with all of the variety of options and cute patterns/colors!

Nursery updates

This is what the old guest room/new nursery looked like after we cleared the room of furniture. (And yes, mom, the mirror is now finally hanging above the dresser in our bedroom! :) ) At first glance, the room looks painted, and like it'd take no time at all to prep and repaint, right?

Wrong! Here's how the room looks now.... mid wallpaper paste removal. The white is the clear plaster, and the tan/beige is the remaining sections of paste. The bits of green are paint that was mixed in with drywall mud, that can't come off, so it'll all get covered when we prime. We have some light sanding to do after we get the last big spots of paste off, then repair the bad spots in the plaster (from removing two layers of wallpaper).

So far, all we have purchased for the room is our rocker/glider and ottoman, which is white wood with a beigy-tan cushion, a whimsical red lamp that'll sit on a nightstand next to the glider, and a few fun area rugs. We definitely have a lot of work ahead of us!

Fall fun

The leaves have officially turned and fallen, so this past weekend Joe was working in the front yard to clear the leaves. I started in the back yard, but quickly realized that raking is a task I just can't do for very long. The dogs were having a blast enjoying the nice weather and their toys, so while they're still our only "kids", here are a few new, cute pictures of them. The picture above is Lucy with a frisbee in her mouth, running it back to Joe.

Molly was having a blast jumping in the pile of leaves I was raking, so Joe started taking pictures of her. She was even totally fine with me dumping more leaves on top of her, as long as she had her ball!

Lucy's all healed at this point from her fight with Molly back in September, and now it's just a matter of letting all of her fur grow back out. (She had to be shaved down in a number of areas, and looked really goofy!) We're still working on finding her a new home, but haven't had any success yet.

Almost 100 days!

So tomorrow marks the 100 days left mark, and this week I'll be 26 weeks pregnant. I feel like I look so much more pregnant than the picture above shows, but I guess my growing chest doesn't help matters. The baby is doing well, he's getting really active and particularly enjoys kicking whichever side I'm trying to lay on when I go to sleep. Thus, I'm starting to get to the point of not being able to sleep soundly most nights. I know it's only going to get worse, so I'm trying to enjoy the few goods nights that I have when they happen!

I've started my work-from-home phase, but while I was in St. Louis, Joe started (much to my surprise) to work on the nursery. We had moved all of the furniture out a few weeks ago, and swapped our queen sized bed with my parents for a daybed/trundle that would fit up the stairs into our old office/new guest room upstairs. We haven't decided on how to paint the room, but Joe went ahead and tried to start priming the room. Unfortunately, the room has not one, but two layers of wallpaper, both of which were painted over, and made the prep a nightmare! By the time I got home, the wallpaper was all down, but the last layer of paste was still up and quite challenging to remove. We're still working on it, but hopefully will get it all off in the next few days so we can fix the cracks and bad spots in the plaster this weekend.

We think we've decided on a crib, and when we went to buy it, the salesperson let us know that the store was going to be having a big one day sale on the 14th. She advised us that they had plenty of the model and color we want in stock, and to wait to buy until then. Hopefully all of this will be worth it, as I'm starting to get nervous that we don't have any furniture at all!

Future dancer?

This past weekend was my sister's wedding. Things have been rather hectic in the couple of weeks leading up to the wedding, but it went off without a hitch and everyone had a great time. Now she and Mikael are off to Mexico to enjoy their honeymoon, and I'm back in KC, packing up the store. Friday was the last day open, and we're in the process of moving everything out of our current location and back to St. Louis, where we'll decide if it makes sense to re-open another version of the store in KC again in the spring.

Anyway, the baby has been growing and getting stronger. It's fun to feel him moving around each day, but Joe still hadn't been able to feel him. Last night, I'm pretty sure little Joseph decided to have a dance party, b/c he was going strong for a solid hour and a half! Joe kept his hand on my belly for a little bit and felt him once, and again a little bit later for what was probably the strongest kick I've felt yet. Now that I'm past the halfway mark, it's crazy to think how soon we'll be able to meet this little guy, but we're definitely excited about that. I'll try to remember to take a belly picture this week for a progress update, but have no fear - it's definitely growing!

It's a BOY!

After finding out at the ultrasound that we are the future parents of a very un-shy little boy (guess he is a Jeppson boy, after all!), Joe and I went over to a little mall near the doctor's office to start shopping. We had been wanting to get Mizzou specific clothing for our future tiger, and ended up with this outfit, so he's all set for a football game next fall!
Then it was off to baby gap to check their clearance rack, and found this really cute onesie on sale, along with a sun shade hat with monkeys on it. It's going to be really hard to not continue buying cute stuff for this little guy, and remember that we still have almost 5 months until we meet him!