All about baby...

For all of my pregnancies my most favorite t-shirts have been the GapMaternity short-sleeved stretch crew neck T and the Shade Maternity Baby Tee because both are much more fitted than any other maternity t-shirt I've managed to find. That being said - the Gap ones don't really look all that cute until I have a respectable bump and the Shade ones are just so plain-jane (which is okay on occasion) - so what to do in the meantime? First, I found a great tutorial here on how to add ruching to the sides which has made all the difference in the Gap shirts! They're still a bit big, but give me (and baby) a few more weeks and I'll be rockin' them non-stop! :)

As for the Shade shirts - I didn't add any ruching to them since they're not quite so tent-ish, but I may try anyway because they're incredibly long (which is great for full belly coverage at 8 months, but a little too long for right now). For now I just added some iron-on letters I picked up at Michael's. I still need to make my requisite, "Due In ..." shirt (as I've done with each previous pregnancy), but I ran out of letter 'e's' ('September' alone has 3 of them! Not to mention the one I need for the word 'due'.. That means buying TWO sheets of letters since each sheet only has 2 'e's'. Grrr.), and am too cheap to buy one new sheet of letters - let alone two - at full price just for the 'e's', lol! I'll be waiting for Michael's 40% off coupon :).

Gap shirts pre-ruching. The white one I had from my last pregnancy and the watermelon one I ordered at 50% off a few weeks ago. :) They've just been hanging in my closet - patiently waiting to be needed...

See what I mean about the tent look?! It's a size small and still much too big to wear without feeling like I'm frump-girl (a-la My Big Fat Greek Wedding ;).

But with a small strip of elastic and a little bit of sewing....TA-DA! See how much better it looks?! Still big, but definitely wearable - at least it will be very soon!

And here's the watermelon one...

I decided to dress up the watermelon shirt a little more because I had extra letters and well, why not? :)

This is a Shade shirt I added iron-on flocked letters to. I really wanted to add, "#4" - and would have if the letter set I bought included numbers and the # symbol, but it didn't. :( I'm not ready to give up on it just yet, but this will do for now. :)

And another Shade shirt that I added studded letters to. Love it. :)

And for anyone wondering what baby Sprout is looking like at 18 weeks - here you go! :) I've finally been able to feel the baby move more frequently - though it's still fairly lightly and only down pretty low - beneath where the placenta is inconveniently located. But I'll take what I can get! :)

Nursery Update: All walls have been spackled and will be sanded and taped before Saturday's painting marathon. I chose a few different paint colors last week and finally made the trip to Home Depot last night to purchase samples of my fave four colors. After applying them this morning and then seeing how they looked at various times throughout the day - I have officially decided on which two colors to use. :) Pictures to come this weekend (I hope!) :).