Our New Place

I've been meaning to post a tour of our new digs since we finished getting settled in (which has been quite a few months now thanks to my parents and the Herndon's help), but life has been busy and I'm just now finally getting around to blogging about it and posting photos. 
I figured this was a good time to post a tour as well because the house is decorated for Christmas and my mom has asked to see pictures, so why not give the tour now. 

Here we go...welcome to our new home in Boston.
When you walk in the front door, you enter into our dining room and living room which have an open concept.
When we moved from Chesapeake, we knew we wouldn't have space for my nana's dining room set, which I so enjoyed while we lived there, so it went into storage at Brad's store and we picked up some new furniture at Ikea soon after arriving in Boston and completing the painting of the apartment. Speaking of paint, we went shade darker in our new place than our last with a color I describe as almost a Belgian hot chocolate whereas our Chesapeake color was more of a milky cappuccino color. With all the windows and light, the darker hue is really lovely and warmed up the whole space while making it really feel like home. I am so thankful we were able to paint!
We sold a few of our oversized living room pieces from our previous decor and then scouted out what we wanted in our new place. With our new furniture additions in the dining and living room, we went with a much darker brown wood that also has a bit more of a contemporary feel rather than the cherry finishes we've been drawn to in the past. The new dining table is also dark brown under my holiday table cloth. I'm loving the new pieces because they still store and display everything beautifully while be more suitable to the space.

The dining room is open to the living room and thankfully our red couches made it into the apartment. This was quite a saga because our couch is oversized and didn't fit on the elevator and almost didn't make it up the stairs. I was SO thankful it scraped by (literally...there were red lines left on the hall wall where it just squeaked by!)
Hi Samson...he likes our new place too! He's still adjusting to walking across the street three times a day to Boston Common, which is our new front yard, but he LOVES being in the apartment.
You may have noticed our bare living room wall...this is because I plan to print and hang some large photos of our new city once I capture a few that I love, but this project is still a work in progress.

The kitchen is behind you when you walk into the apartment and continues the whole open concept, looking our into the dining and living rooms. 
Thanks to Brad's Appliance Enterprise hook up, we were also able to bring up some new kitchen appliances to update the ones that had been in the apartment since it was built about 15 years ago.
The kitchen is a nice size with plenty of cabinet space and a great view of Boston Common. 
(All the windows in this part of the house look out on the Common actually. The view is AMAZING!)
Down the front hall are our two bedrooms, the bathroom, Samson's area and the back door which leads out to our laundry room.  
 Samson's area
 The bathroom 
(excuse the lighting...there isn't much natural light in the bathroom or hall of the house.)
The commercial toilet is pretty laughable but understandable since the apartment is part of the church.
 Last on the tour is the two bedrooms.
Our bedroom has a really spacious closet that Adam and his dad spiffed up with GREAT closet organization! (The closet served as a bedroom to the youngest child of the two families that have lived here prior to us...both families had three kids, which I could see being a bit tight in a two bedroom.)
I also LOVE the tray ceilings in our bedroom and the rooms a little bigger than our last bedroom, so our bedroom set is a much better fit.
The nursery is almost complete and will have its own post once it's all finished, but here's a sneak peak of my favorite corner in the meantime. It's turning out REALLY cute if I do say so.
We've been asked how we like living in the church, and I will say it's been WONDERFUL!
We are SO centrally located right in Beacon Hill on Boston Common. We could not live in a more picturesque part of town. Adam's commute is awesome...he just walks to his office which is one floor below our place (and his office is where our home office furniture found a home...I'll have to take and add a few of those photos too.) He says work feels pretty separate from home. We have some storage space for Christmas decorations, suitcases and such in the basement, which is nice too. Most people don't even realize there are residences in the building, so we don't get many unknown knocks on our door and I love having Adam so close by. I'm sure this will be really nice when the baby arrives too.
We feel so blessed to be in this new home and are excited about all the memories that will be made here!

Great Expectations: 31 weeks


How Far Along: 31 weeks

Fruit Size Comparison: Pineapple 

Weight/ Clothes: The bump continues to grow of course and I'm looking and feeling VERY pregnant for the most part lately. My face continues to get rounder, but what else can you expect with weight gain. It's all for a good cause when you're growing a baby (at least that's what I'm telling myself, so humor me)!

It is so funny to see the difference an outfit can make in terms of how large the bump appears to be! I wore a black maternity top and jeans on Thanksgiving and from the front in pictures you can't tell I'm expecting, but then I wore a purple maternity dress to the shower the next day and I looked SO pregnant from any angle. It was definitely the clothes not what I ate on Thanksgiving because the difference was so drastic!

Cravings: My favorite Thanksgiving dishes...broccoli casserole and sweet potato souffle. Mom brought the ingredients for these two staples with her from Virginia to New York and I REALLY enjoyed my share of both dishes.

Gender: Baby Herndon got a clothes line of BOY clothes from my sister at the shower...one outfit complete with socks and shoes for EACH month. 

Movement: I may have had my first Braxton Hicks this week. I thought the baby was just laid out horizontally across the bump making the bump pretty solid all the way across, but then I thought perhaps this is actually a practice contraction. My mom has asked me a few times if I experienced any yet, so it's been on my mind. I'm not positive that's what was going on...but I have a feeling it is.

Symptoms: The pain in my ribcage is waking me up at night. I am having a terrible time getting a good nights sleep this week, which is frustrating because I'm subbing a couple days meaning I have to get up early and without a good nights rest I'm left exhausted in the afternoon/evening. I'm going to ask my midwife about it when I head to my centering appointment this Thursday. I've been trying to eat blander foods that won't irritate my stomach as much. It's an on going saga...me and this heartburn! I am definitely looking forward to it going away after giving birth (at least that's what I'm hoping.)

Mental State: I'm feeling more forgetful lately. This could have something to do with my extra fatigue or just one of those normal pregnancy side effects. 

Appointment Updates: I have a centering appointment this Thursday right as I begin week 31. I have to begin the dip tests for preclampsia this week too just to be safe because my midwife wants to be sure my ribcage pain isn't connected. She doesn't think it is truly, but she wants to be sure to keep an eye on things, so like I said...better safe than sorry.

Best Moment of the Week: My sister threw a baby shower for Peanut with all my New York family. She planned such a wonderful shower with dinosaur shaped tea sandwiches, chocolate egg creams, fun games including a baby pool and THE cutest cake! I felt so lucky to be able to celebrate Baby Herndon with my Grandma, cousins, and aunts!

Great Expectations: THE GENDER REVEAL

There was a time before getting pregnant that part of me thought I would consider being "Team Green" and wait until the birth to find out the gender of our first child, but my mind slowly changed through the waiting for Baby Herndon's conception. 

I still wanted to enjoy the surprise with Adam and make it special for the both of us as well as our family and friends, so a gender reveal party cabin weekend in Virginia seemed like the way to go and I have a wonderful friend, Lindsey, who volunteered to keep the gender secret until the party and plan how we would find out the news. My only hope was that whatever it was she planned, it would be fun in pictures.

The ultrasound tech put the gender results in the envelope pictured below and I mailed it directly to Lindsey. She called me once she received it and even opened it on the phone, but she made sure not to give any hints that could give the results away and she went to work planning the big reveal.

What did she decide to do for the gender reveal?
Build a rattle pinata in our nursery colors...that's right, she MADE this pinata from scratch for the reveal! She is one crafty friend!
She hung it from the trees and there were enough strings attached for everyone present to pull and reveal the pink or blue goodies that waited to fall inside.
Saturday afternoon we were all ready and excited for the reveal!!! 
(especially our parents, Peanut's grandparents!)

Adam and I were the first in place...
...followed by the rest of the crowd!
 On cue, we were all told to pull...
and pull we did...
 pretty hard...we were extremely excited to see the color of the contents inside...
you would pull hard too...so...
DOWN CAME THE PINATA!
 BUT we continued to pull...and within seconds we saw IT...
 Something BLUE!!!
Adam had been right all along...

Baby Herndon is a BOY!

Adam's theory was that the baby must be a boy because all the first sons in his family had had boys and therefore he would have a boy as well.
  There were many hugs, smiles and cheers...
...followed by much excitement as we all celebrated together!
Even the kiddos got in on the fun checking out all the balloons, ribbons and fuzzy puffs of blue.
The reveal was so exciting and was everything I could have hoped. 
I am so thankful we had so many friends and family with us for the big moment.
Thanks Lindsey for making the reveal a reality and Darren for capturing the moment on film.
We are so glad you ALL were able to come to cabin weekend and share in such a special time with us.
It was TOTALLY worth the wait!

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