Baby Update

Tuesday was our last sono! We went in hoping to find out two things. First, we wanted to make sure the baby was growing ok. We have been a little worried because, even though I've felt the baby kicking and flipping, I haven't gained ANY weight! I'm halfway through this pregnancy and, according to the Dr.'s scale (cuz mine doesn't go this far into detail) I've gained a total of .2 pounds. So... yeah, we were a little worried about how this little one was growing.

It turns out that everything is perfect! Our little peanut weighs 12 oz and is measuring just a little smaller then the average 21 week old fetus. The original due date was October 11, but the measurements put the due date as October 16th. Not too far off. Plus, Bryan and I aren't exactly big people. Bryan's on the shorter side of average for a man, and I'm just short! lol! So our poor kids are kinda doomed to be small.

While we were looking around trying to get a profile picture (which we never were able to get!) Michelle started fussing about wanting to see the baby. The sonographer let Michelle come pretty close to the screen and was showing her all the little parts of her new sibling when we got this shot (above). I'm not sure how clearly you can see it, but the baby's arm is up next to the head. During the sonogram the arm kept waving back and forth. It was pretty sweet; like the baby was say "Hi everyone!! Here I am!"

And finally the announcement you've been waiting for...

Another girl!! I'm so excited for Michelle to have a sister! When she announced that it was a girl I was so mixed with emotion about it. I really am glad to have another girl because we already have all girl clothes, sisters are so sweet, Bryan is an AWESOME daddy to girls, and I would honestly be a little nervous to have a boy... they just seem a little too active for me right now! lol! But, at the same time, I did want to have a boy eventually, but I don't know for sure if I want to have more kids, plus I knew we were going to have a name issue!

Or at least I thought I knew that. As soon as the sono was over Bryan's face lit up and he said "So... it's **** then!" Completely out of the blue, like he just knew that was her name. And then Michelle repeated him with "Baby sister, ****!" So we're pretty sure that will be the name we're using. I've already told a few family members and I think Bryan has told a select few people at work, but I'm not sure that I'm ready to publicly share the name yet. We got some pretty nasty comments about Michelle's name and I'm not sure that I'm confident enough yet with this name to say "I don't care what you think" to those kind of comments yet. Maybe in a week or two... we'll see!

I'm going there someday!

Bryan and I were talking the other night, discussing childhood memories, and it was pointed out that some memories that we make as children stay with us for the rest of our lives. I want my children to remember important things. Not just sitting at home watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or chalking on the back porch. So, I've decided that in a few years (like 2 or 3) I'm going to plan a family road trip. We are going to make two stops. First, to the most important place, and a place that I have very vivid childhood memories of...

I want to take my family to Temple Square in Salt Lake. I remember going there when I was little, during the winter months. They had all the trees light up, there was snow on the ground, and it was SO beautiful! I remember walking with my mom and dad and being amazed at how gorgeous the temple was. I want Michelle and our new baby to have those same memories!

I also have pretty magical memories about this place...

When I was young we lived pretty close to Disneyland. We got to go there pretty often and, while I don't remember exactly how old I was, I do remember having a BLAST on the tea cups! And running to the Dumbo ride as soon as it came into sight. And, even though I think it's pretty annoying now, I remember LOVING It's a Small World. So I must have been young enough to be able to ride those rides without having to worry about "Am I too tall or too old for this ride?" I know the most recent time I went I was no longer allowed to ride Dumbo unless I was the adult escorting a child on the ride. Michelle is just the right age now that she is old enough to know who Pooh and Mickey are, and she loves them. Lol! She even gives them hugs while they are on the TV. If we lived closer we might schedule a trip sooner, just so she could go and experience those things now. But, we aren't close, and we have a baby on the way. Plus, Michelle will still be excited abut Disney things when she is 5 and at that point she might even be old enough to remember some of it!

So I'm thinking we'll schedule a road trip to go to both of these places sometime around 2015. That way Michelle will be old enough, but not too old, and her little sister/brother (we find out Tuesday!!!) will be just old enough to be excited about it too. Let the count down begin!

Supervised V.S. Not

The past few days, when it's not raining, have been really nice outside. SO Michelle and I usually spend the majority of our afternoons outside chalking, chasing Jack, "digging" the grass, and going on walks. Michelle has gotten into a little bit of a bossy mood lately and, instead of drawing things herself, she'll tell me what to draw, and in what color to do it. The results turn out looking something like this:

Right now she's obsessed with "party hats" and "birthday balloons" thus the girl with a pointy hat and the multi-colored balloons! She is also really good at her shapes (circle, square, triangle, diamond, heart, star, and she's still learning rectangle) and has known her colors for a while now (everything from red, blue, yellow, to purple, pink, gold, and silver).

These past few days, as well as being beautiful days, have also been pretty stressful for me. I'm giving a talk on Sunday and didn't have a whole lot of notice to prepare this talk. So, unfortunately, many or our mornings have consisted of me turning on Mickey Mouse, or a movie for Michelle while I sit at the computer and try to focus on things like general conference talks, personal stories, and scripture meanings. Don't get me wrong- I love reading and studying them, but I just wish I didn't feel so hurried to do it. I feel, very much, like a horrible mom for using the TV as a babysitter while I work. The other day I turned around to check on Michelle and found that she wasn't in the living room with me. I figured she must have gotten bored with TV and moved on to her room to play. When I went into her room this is what I found:

She loaded up her crib with every doll/stuffed animal she could find, and all of her books, and balls! I guess that's what I get for not supervising my little girl!

P.S.- Isn't she too cute?! I honestly couldn't be mad at her after seeing how funny she thought it was!

Simple Kitchen Wall

So I decided to tackle my kitchen wall. I had big plans for a big clock on that wall. Here's the idea of what the plan was...

I found this idea off of someone else's blog and pretty much loved it. But it's a really bold thing to do. And I'm not sure I'm ready to decorate like that. I wanted to replace the art work with family photos so it would be kinda like a picture wall. I might end up doing it at some point in the future. For now though...I think the idea is really neat. If anyone out there is brave enough to do it pleas post pics! I would LOVE to see how it turns out!

So I stuck with my usual type of decorating instead and kept it simple. Here's how it turned out:

Not nearly as cool, but it's functional and has the family photos that I wanted. And it's something that feels "safe" to me. Plus it was super easy to do! lol!

I still need to print out a "Menu" to go on the cork board. I'm also going to find some decorative things to hang on the coat hooks. Next month I would put some sort of Birthday-crafty-thing since it's Michelle's Birthday Month. Then for July I would go patriotic, August would be all about Summer and Swimming, and so on. I just haven't gotten quite that far yet.

So there is it! My super simple, but totally "my style" kitchen wall.

Michelle's Mind

Michelle was playing in her kitchen (making a hamburger) and watching jungle junction (a show about these animal cars who are trying to fix the road that they "zip" on) when she came running up to me and, in a very excited voice, said,

"Mommy, I like.. I like Happy Birthday's!"

Mommy replies, "Oh, yeah?"

Michelle continues, "YEAH! And I like.. Mommy, I like Party Hats!!" followed by clapping and "jumping".

Mommy also claps and says "I like that too!"

To which Michelle says, "Yeah. I need sucker. I have a purple one?"

Lol! I think she get's her thought process from her daddy. Sometimes I just can't follow her jumps from one topic to the next! lol!

Painting

Project time is back in swing! Remember this hallway?

Yep, my bowling ally/mental hospital, hallway...

Well, Bryan and I decided that this weekend was going to be a great weekend to start the "fix the hallway" or "put in some chair rail" or "hang a gallery wall" project. We have a few names for it ;)!

We decided to go ahead and bring the color that is already in the living room and kitchen and carry it through into the hall. So we took a sample of the paint into Lowe's and had them match it. It turns out the color is called Belgian Waffle. Lol! My walls are the color of a fluffy, buttery, breakfast food! But it was either continue with this color or repaint the whole house.... So Belgian Waffle it was!

Then we needed to find a good color to match it to go on the bottom 1/3 of the wall. I think it looks nicer to have two colors with the chair rail between them. We tried a few different variations of the Belgian Waffle color and pretty much hated them all. So we decided to go with something neutral that would go well with both the current color and the color I would have liked to paint if we didn't have to paint the whole house. (Did that make any sense?) Anyway, we decided to go with a brown color. We tried a few light browns and didn't like the way those looked with the current color. We ended up with Chocolate Turtle. Again, my wall is the color of a food! lol! At least this time it's a yummy desert type of food!

Allrighty, so we picked out our paints, got a few supplies (rollers, tape, nail hole filler, etc.) and went to work... kinda! We had A LOT of prep work to do. Saturday afternoon we measured, marked, and leveled a pencil line all the way down the hall and in all the nooks and crannies. This would mark where the chair rail would go. Then we had to take a break to go to Bryan's mom's house for a game night. I have to admit it was a welcome break from all the leveling and marking and then erasing and re-measuring and re-marking. Which, by the way, is not easy to do when you only have two pencils and no pencil sharpener! So that was our Saturday. Sunday came and was full of taping and Belgian Waffle paint. I'm not 100% sure why, maybe it had something to do with the weird teeny tiny corners,

Or maybe it was all the "fixtures" that needed to be covered or taken down,

or maybe it has something to do with the fact that our walls are forever long and a little over 10 feet high and I'm only 5'2"! But for whatever reason it took us all day to paint just the top half! We took a break around 5:30 to go to my mom and dad's for dinner and a visit. It was also a much needed break!

When we got home Bryan quickly gave Michelle a bath while I touched up a few spots that didn't get quite enough paint. Then we read scriptures, said prayers and said night-night to Michelle. While Michelle slept Bryan and I spent the rest of the night painting the bottom half of the hall. It took literally all night! I think, with clean up, it took up till about 11:45 or 12:00 to finish.

This is how it turned out...

What do you think? I'm pretty sure I'm the worst color picker EVER! lo! But it is what it is and we can always paint over it later. I really like the bottom color. I'm just not too crazy about the way it looks with the top color. Maybe once we get the actual chair rail (instead of just the white line), and some pictures hung I won't hate it as much. Hate is a strong word... maybe I won't dislike it as much. And the next time we paint (which will be to repaint the whole house and cover up the Belgian Waffle color) I'm probably going to bring Jess or Mom with me so they can pick the new color. lol!

I just realized that I kept saying I was finished painting. I'm not. After we took the tape down we noticed that the dark brown was really good at getting under the tape. So we have a lot of this (see below) to clean up still.
I think I'll stick to simple projects for a little while. The chair rail might have to wait a week or two.

Congrats Bryan!

Congratulations Babe! For the past few years Bryan has been juggling School, a Full Time Job, Daddy Duty, Husband Responsibilities- I mean Privileges, and more recently Home Ownership Projects and Maintenances. Needless to say, he's had a lot on his plate. I am so proud of him for getting his associates last year! He worked so hard for it and graduated with mostly A's and B's!

This past weekend we got the letter in the mail accepting Bryan to UNT!

I know it's been a long road babe, only taking two or three classes at a time, but I am SO proud of you! You are an amazing husband and an awesome daddy! I'm so excited for you to start these next two years towards your BA! And I'm even more excited that you are going to a school that has...

SPORTS!!!! I can't wait to go to a game and actually have a college school to root for!

Congratulations again! I'm so excited for you!