Mr. & Mrs. Martha

Some of you may have noticed that I haven't been posting on here as much as I used to.  My only real explanation is that with the beginning of my 3rd trimester came the full force of the nesting urge.  I suddenly want every room in the house to be perfect and finished and clean.  I'm sure part of this has to do with the fact that we've had three rounds of fun house-guests over the last month or so, but I don't think I've ever been THIS determined to get the house ready for people before.  I even went out and vacuumed up the dust and spider web corners in the garage, which I usually leave alone as it is part of Jeromy's Man Domain.  

But I'm sure it will come as no surprise to anyone that most of my nesting urges have centered around the nursery, and I am pleased to say that we have made a lot of progress! 

My mom overseeing the crib assembly

The crib finally arrived and has been set up, and we made a big trip to Ikea to get the rest of the big furniture for the room.  Jeromy successfully used his Tetris skills to fit ALL of the boxes into the back of our small/medium SUV; it was pretty awesome.  I'm pretty sure that the lady in the car next to us was wishing that her husband had played more video games, because he was having a lot more trouble fitting all their boxes in, even though their car was substantially bigger!

Jeromy started painting the nursery this weekend.  It took him a big chunk of the weekend to do just the ceiling and crown molding, partly because he is working by himself, and partly because white paint apparently doesn't cover very well and needs at least three coats. So last night my darling husband declared that the prerequisite for conceiving our next child will be that I have to paint the new nursery ahead of time......by myself.  Which is fair, I guess.

As for me, I put the finishing touches on my first crafty contribution to the nursery last week:

 I did most of the baby quilt in one of my sewing classes, and am now feeling like I MIGHT be ready to start some more sewing projects at home, all by myself, without hand-holding from a sewing instructor.  Up next is the crib skirt, pillows, and maybe even another quilt. May the Martha-Force be with me.

I think Jeromy and I truly hit our crafty Mr. & Mrs. Martha Stewart peak about a month ago, though, when we took a knitting class.  Yes.  I know.  My husband willingly attended a knitting class.  I was shocked, too, but also just tickled, of course.  We were both pretty surprised by how hard knitting was at first, but we both got the hang of it after some practice at home:

PROOF!!

Jeromy successfully completed a very nice, manly washcloth, but it sounds like he's not planning to continue in his pursuit of knitting.  Which is ok. He has other hobbies.  I was just impressed that he was willing to try it.  I'm planning to keep it up; it's a perfect fidgety activity for me to do when we are hanging out in the evenings.  Here's my first completed knitting project:

A cozy wool scarf--a.k.a. belly-hider--just in time for.....Spring.

More of those to come soon, too, I hope.  I only managed to learn the one stitch, but I'm going to learn to purl if it kills me.