Maybe this is the one?

Well, we looked at this other house this morning and remembered why we had liked it so much in the first place. It dropped out of the running earlier because there's no garage or carport. But that's livable, and we love everything else about it! So we wrote up an offer and will find out tomorrow if we get the house. Great, pins and needles again!

This house is currently empty, no one living in it. So I took the opportunity to snap some pictures of it while we were there. When I loaded them onto the computer, I was disappointed to find that many of them are pretty blurry - I didn't take the time to really focus them and make them look nice or anything. But here's an idea of the house. P.S. Thomas is in several of these pictures because he was following me around. He's so cute!

About half of the big family room downstairs (I couldn't get the whole thing in the shot, and yes, the couch comes with the house):


The entry for the laundry room, I love the shutter doors!


The upstairs living room, complete with fireplace and mirrors on the wall:


The dining area, viewed from the living room - you can see those mirrors again, and the kitchen is behind that wall:


The kitchen. Lots of counter space, and the appliances (fridge, oven, microwave, dishwasher) come with the house:


Upstairs bathroom, it's prettier than it looks in the picture:


Now let's look outside. Here's the deck, with stairs leading down to the back yard:


And when you go down, you can see the gas grill/barbecue that comes with the house. It's all hooked up, and it works and everything!


A separate garden bed, great for a vegetable garden (ivy growing on the fence):


And though I won't post what the house looks like, here's a glimpse of the beautiful ivy growing up the wall:


We're really hoping for this one. Now that we know we aren't getting the other house, we like this one even more than we liked the other one. ;-) So now we're just really hoping that the seller accepts our offer and we can get on with buying this place!

Oh Well

I guess our first choice of houses just wasn't meant to be. Another offer was put in, for much more than we offered, and the seller went with the other offer. I'm disappointed, because we really did like that house a lot. We prayed that we would get the house, if it was the right house for us. Apparently it wasn't.

However, it's not the end of the world. As we waited on pins and needles this evening to find out the seller's decision, we looked through the pages of other houses that we've viewed and were reminded of another house that we really liked. A tad bit smaller and only four bedrooms, but still nice and big with plenty of room. It has a fireplace and a large backyard, ivy growing beautifully on the front of the house (it's a much prettier exterior than the other), a really big family room downstairs, and much more counter space in the kitchen,. And this one has fruit trees in the back yard (apple, I think). We could definitely be happy with this house just as easily as we could the other one. So when the call came that the other offer had been accepted, we weren't too distraught, having already chosen a wonderful backup house.

So we are going to look at this house again, hopefully sometime tomorrow morning, and will likely put in an offer. This is all just another step in the journey of finding the right home for us.

A Good Day

Well, today has been a pretty good day. The kids got to sleep late last night after we picnicked with Jeff's sister and her family (which was so much fun, I'm glad we got to hang out with them). So they slept later than usual this morning, not waking us up until about 9 am. So we got to sleep in, which is always a nice way to start the morning.

After a quick breakfast, we were off to look at a house. It's one we've looked at before, and it was our favorite of all the houses we've seen. We just wanted to see it one more time before making an offer. Well, we saw it, we still loved it, so we sat down with the realtor and wrote up the offer right there. There were toys in the living room so the kids played quietly while we did all the paperwork (thank you, kids, for being so good!!!), and now we just wait until Monday for the seller to respond. I really hope everything works out, because we really like this house.

Some specs on the house - it's about 3 times the size of our current apartment. It has 5 bedrooms, a fairly open and spacious layout, a nice kitchen with a beautiful dark red accent wall and gorgeous counter tops, a very big family room downstairs and a nice-sized living room upstairs. There's a very large laundry/storage room that will be absolutely perfect for food storage (I think that's one of my favorite parts of the house). Outside, there's an unattached garage and a decent-sized backyard, with a large covered patio. The yard is fully fenced, so I don't have to worry about the kids running off when they're playing outside. And best of all, even though the house is easily worth much more than what the seller is asking, with the market the way it is, it's within our price range. Hooray for the buyer's market!

If everything goes well, we hope to close in mid-October. We can spend the next month or so after that slowly moving to the house and cleaning the apartment. We'll take our time because I'll be hugely pregnant and not up to a whirlwind weekend move.

I'm so excited that we will very likely be living in our very own house by the time the baby is born. I've wanted a house for such a long time - a place that's big enough to raise a family, a place with a yard, a place that I can decorate and paint and do stuff with, a place to call our own. And it seems that soon, finally, that dream will be a reality.

Yes, it's been a good day.

Popcorn Popping

Jeff started singing Popcorn Popping to Thomas while changing his diaper this evening. Unexpectedly, Thomas started singing along and doing the motions - he must have learned it in Nursery. We thought it was so cute that we had to get this totally adorable video of him doing the song. Isn't he just darling?




He also sings along to the ABC song. But when he sings it, it sounds more like "A ace ace ace a a ace, Ace ace a a ace ace ace!" Sigh. Surely someday he'll learn to enunciate!

If You Can't Stand the Heat...

...Don't come to my apartment.

We got our power bill yesterday. It was astronomical. The only change we've made in the past month or so has been to run the air conditioner every day, from about 10 in the morning to about 10 at night. I figured the heat justified the use of the A/C, and it really wouldn't be all that expensive. That power bill changed my mind. After all, we are saving to buy a house and all.

So yesterday and today, we only used the fan, turning on the A/C only a couple times for a few minutes at a time when the heat got unbearable. Figured that should save money and we'll still be able to buy a house like we want to.

Problem is - IT'S HOT!!!!!! The kids and I have been miserable the last two days - their cheeks have been flushed, our hair is matted, our skin is sticky and smelly, we've all suffered from heat-induced grumpiness, and it's just so darn uncomfortable! I spent two hours this evening lying on the couch in a semi-stupor, unable to do anything else because it was so hot. Ugh!

I feel like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. If we run the A/C enough to actually be comfortable, we rack up an enormous power bill that we can't afford. If we don't, we're absolutely and utterly miserable. Grrr, I just don't know what to do - be an overheated, grumpy tightwad, or be a comfortable A/C user with an impossibly high power bill.

SOB!

I finally did it. I took clippers to Thomas' long and unruly (yet adorably curly) hair this evening and took him from this:


To this:


It really does look so much better, especially in the back, where it was so long and scraggly. But I miss his curls! He doesn't look like a baby anymore, he's a big boy! I can't decide whether to laugh at the expression on his face and smile at the fact that he's growing up so handsome, or cry that he's not my little baby anymore. Sigh.

By the way, that first picture has a story behind it. You may notice that Thomas is wearing two shirts. A couple days ago I decided to give him a choice between two shirts. He picked one and I put it on him, thinking that was the end of it. Apparently it wasn't - he had seen both options and wanted them both! So after putting on the first, he grabbed the second and settled down for me to put that one on him too. He made me button it up and everything. He was so pleased with himself for getting to wear two shirts instead of just one!

A Lesson in Being Prepared

This morning, due to stormy weather, the power went out. It was right around the time we get up and get ready for the day. Because of the weather, it was still fairly dark, and thanks to the power outage, that meant that we got to use Jeff's helmet light for using the bathroom and ate our breakfast by candlelight.


The kids thought it was really neat. As for me, I was just glad that I made granola a few days ago. It was the only breakfast food in the house that didn't require any energy - we don't generally buy cold cereal. Normally we do oatmeal or cornmeal mush, or scrambled eggs. We had pancakes leftover in the fridge, but would have had to eat them cold, yuck. So I was grateful for granola, raisins, and dried banana chips, which made a delicious, electricity-free breakfast for us.

It made me realize though, that we need to have some sort of non-electricity-powered cooking device for emergencies like this. Most of the delicious foods I prepare, especially the ones using food storage items, require some sort of power to cook them, and in this we are completely unprepared. The power was only out for about an hour this morning. But what if it had been longer? I didn't really have anything that we could have prepared for lunch, unless we wanted to eat cold leftovers. I didn't even have any bread for sandwiches (mental note: time to make bread again). Just sort of struck home that we need to get our home more prepared to deal with emergencies. More candles, fresh batteries for the flashlights (the only light that has good batteries right now is Jeff's helmet light), something to cook with, extra water, all those things that we are always told to have when we learn about emergency preparedness. And yet we still don't have them!

It was a good reminder.

Busy Day!

The day started with my latest prenatal appointment. We went over my headache diary, and the midwife asked me to go another two weeks without dietary triggers - though she said I could go ahead and have chocolate since I was missing it soooooo much, woohoo! We listened to the heartbeat, where Little One once again showed defiance against being monitored, this time by kicking the doppler probe every time it came near her.

After my appointment I went home for lunch. Jeff was making mac n' cheese, which I was not allowed to have because the cheese is a trigger, so I had leftovers from yesterday's dinner. It was still very tasty - teriyaki chicken over rice, mmmm! After lunch I headed to Wal-Mart to fill a prescription. That ended up being the next big adventure of the day. I got there just after the pharmacy closed for the pharmacists' lunch break. Oh joy. So I had to wander aimlessly around the store for the next half hour until the pharmacy opened up again. Once I dropped off the prescription, I was told it would be 45 minutes before it was ready! So that meant more aimless wandering. By the time I picked up my simple $4 prescription, I had spent well over an hour walking all over Wal-Mart, my feet and legs were aching, my eyes were killing me (old contacts...) and I had a migraine. Yuck.

Soon after getting home we had dinner, then it was time to head out again, this time for more house hunting. We looked at 5 houses this evening, a nice big marathon house-hunting session! The kids were good at first, but as time wore on they definitely showed signs of being tired of the whole thing. By the last house we were all ready to go home! So home we went, and sliced up some watermelon for a special treat.

Boy, I'm just ready to put the kids to bed, put my feet up, and veg in front of the TV for a while. And I'll have Jeff massage my feet. Then I'll listen to my super awesome hypnobirthing relaxation CD that I listen to every night, and it will totally put me to sleep. And it will feel absolutely, blissfully wonderful.

Last Minute Company

On Saturday evening, after Jeff went to work, anything strenuous or related to physical labor was the last thing on my mind. In coming up with what to fix for dinner, I mentally turned down a whole list of delicious meals simply because they involved too much work. Finally deciding on pb&j sandwiches for the kids and leftovers for myself, I got to work spreading peanut butter on the last couple slices of bread when the phone rang.

It was my brother Owen - "Hey, I'm in Utah, can I come visit?"

"Uh," [glancing around furtively at the disaster that was my apartment] "When?"

"Tonight!"

I calmly and cheerfully asked if he would be wanting something to eat, to which he answered that would be great, and we agreed that he would come over later in the evening after visiting with one of his old mission companions.

The call ended. The panic began.

I started running around the apartment like a chicken with its head cut off, grabbing toys and books and clothes and random junk off the floor and throwing it into the appropriate room, tossing random bits of trash into the garbage can, and probably making the kids seriously wonder if I had lost my sanity. The dishes were tossed recklessly into the dishwasher, and the vacuum was thrown frantically about the living room.

Once the apartment was looking less like the abode of pigs and more like the abode of humans, I turned my attention to dinner. As previously mentioned, my plans had been less than impressive. I had gone ahead and finished the sandwiches for the kids, which they ate cheerfully as I was cleaning. But I needed something more substantial. The thought briefly crossed my mind that it might be a good idea to call and order a pizza, but my frugal tendencies wouldn't allow it. So instead I broke out my super quick and easy pizza crust recipe and made my own. I, of course, had no real pizza toppings on hand, so it was a simple mozzarella-and-olive pizza, but it turned out quite good anyway.

By the time that Owen arrived, the apartment was spic and span (well, the most visible parts anyway...) and the pizza was done, sizzling hot on the pizza stone. The kids and I had already begun to eat, as kids and pregnant ladies aren't the most patient when it comes to waiting to eat, but we made sure Owen felt completely welcome and served him up some delicious homemade pizza.

The rest of the evening was definitely more relaxed - the kids climbed all over Uncle Owen as he wowed them with his cell phone, then they went to bed and Owen and I just hung out for the evening.

He came over again this afternoon, before leaving to go back to Idaho. This time Jeff was here also. We made a yummy lunch of biscuits and hot tuna salad, watched a Barbie movie (Zaylee's choice, but I think Owen enjoyed it as much as she did, don't tell him I said that!), and just hung out again.

It was fun to have family visit, I miss being able to see my family all the time like I could when we lived in Idaho. And even though I had a doozy of a time getting the apartment company ready in such a limited amount of time, I'm really glad he came and visited!

Belly Pic :-)

Just wanted to share my latest belly pic. I'm getting so big! This is me at not-quite 23 weeks. It's weird to think that I've only got 4 more months. I can't wait to meet this special little lady I'm growing! :-)

House Hunting

We've begun our house search in earnest. We signed on with a realtor (he's been really awesome, and specially caters to first-time home buyers), and we've looked at eight houses in the last 2 days. It's been quite a whirlwind of homes, and we're not done yet! We'll keep looking and looking, viewing as many homes as we can to really firm up in our minds what we want and what we don't want. We have a few favorites already - there really are a lot of large, beautiful homes in the area that are within our price range!

All this house hunting has been kind of hard on the kids though - going from one house to the next, running up and down stairs, in and out of bedrooms and bathrooms, looking at backyards without stopping to play in them - it's rough for the little ones! But they've been really good about it. Especially since we brought the mei tai with us today and had Thomas strapped up the whole time, teehee. That kept him out of trouble, but he was pretty fussy by the time we were done. We'll take a break over the next week or so, because Jeff's work week starts again tomorrow. That'll be nice for the kids, they have time to relax and let things get back to normal. But once Jeff's off again, we'll be running around to see more houses!

This whole house hunting thing has been pretty neat so far, a good learning experience. It's interesting to see the various styles of homes available, and to dream about how awesome it will be to live in our own house. We'll have a big kitchen, lots of bedrooms, storage space all over the place, a nice backyard where the kids can run and play! It'll be awesome, and I can't wait!

Prenatal Appointment with some Ramifications

I had my latest prenatal appointment yesterday. The midwife had the official results from the ultrasound, and said that everything looked really good - except that my placenta is low. It's not covering the cervix, but it's lower than it should be. We're not too concerned, because placentas tend to "travel" upward as the uterus grows. But just to be sure, she's going to have me do another ultrasound at 28 weeks to make sure it's moving up like it's supposed to. Low placenta - not so good. Another ultrasound and an extra peek at the baby - hooray!

We listened to the baby's heartbeat - after a few minutes of trying to find it! She wouldn't hold still enough to get the heartbeat for a really long time. This is the third time this has happened. I think that this little lady is getting to be quite the little fireball! But eventually we found the heartbeat and it sounded good - 150 bmp.

Also at my appointment we went over my headache diary. For the last two weeks, I've kept track of everything I've eaten, taking special note of common migraine dietary triggers. I also kept track of other triggers (bad weather, stress, etc) and when I got migraines and how bad they were. We're trying to figure out what things in my diet may be affecting my migraines. Well, the diary proved to be inconclusive. Some days when I had eaten several triggers I ended up with a migraine - other days after eating the same triggers I didn't. So now we're going to try completely cutting out all the common triggers from my diet for the next two weeks to see if my migraines improve. If they do - great, it just means that I have to avoid those foods. If not, the next step would be to see a neurologist, get a brain scan, and figure out what's going on to cause the migraines.

What this all means for me right now is that for the next two weeks, I can't eat: cheddar and other aged cheeses, hot dogs and other foods with nitrites, anything containing MSG, peanuts and peanut butter, sour cream and yogurt ... and chocolate. That's right - no chocolate for two weeks! I'm a little sad about that, but am determined to find acceptable substitutes for all these foods. For instance, I can't eat cheddar, but I can have mozzarella or Monterey Jack. No peanut butter, but almond butter is okay. I just won't make any foods that require sour cream (or I have a recipe substitute for baking and cooking that works okay). And instead of chocolate chip cookies I can do oatmeal raisin, sugar, or snickerdoodle. Yellow cake instead of chocolate cake. Fruit pie instead of chocolate pie.

And after all, it's only two weeks.

But I guess my yummy nighttime snack of banana or apple spread with peanut butter and sprinkled with chocolate chips is out of the question. Sigh.

Sunday Bag in the Making

I've decided to put together a special Sunday Bag to bring the Church to keep the kids occupied and quiet during Sacrament Meeting. Usually we toss a book or two and some snacks into the diaper bag and hope that works - sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. So I decided to get crafty and put together a special bag with special Sunday quiet things for the kids to play with.

After a very fun (and a little more pricey than I would have liked) shopping trip in the craft section and office section at Wal-Mart, I was ready to get started. The first craft I worked on was one that I started many months ago at a Relief Society enrichment activity back when we lived in Idaho - the Gospel ABC Book. Basically, there's a page for each letter, and each letter goes with a gospel topic or word, and a picture (that I drew myself) and phrase based on a scripture or a Primary song. I got all the pages put together at the activity, but had yet to laminate them and turn them into an actual book. So today I used those self-adhesive laminating sheets and some book rings and finished the book. Here's the title page and a few example pages:





The next project I started working on was a Crayon Pouch. Wal-Mart had those Crayola 24-packs of crayons for 25 cents each, and I grabbed one to use for the Sunday bag. I like brand new crayons! :-) But it's inconvenient and frustrating to pull them out and push them back in those little boxes. So I made a roll-up pouch for them, with individual slots for each crayon. Yeah, that took a while...



But holy cow! Didn't that turn out so cute? Now it'll be much easier to pull out individual crayons for coloring. I'll pack coloring books in the Sunday bag to go with the crayons.

I'm also in the planning stages of making a cloth Quiet Book, but haven't really started on it yet. I'm excited about it though - I've already bought the fabric and felt for it, and have a list of pages that I'll be making for it. I also have plenty of yellow flowery fabric left after making the crayon pouch that I can use for the Quiet Book cover.

Other things in the Sunday bag will include small toys, a couple regular books, and of course, a snack! I may or may not make an actual bag to put all this stuff in. If I have one that will work already I'll probably just use that. But I think it would be fun to make a nice big bag for all of this stuff, and sew the words "Sunday Fun" on it or something. Haven't decided yet. Whether I make a bag or not, I'm really excited about this fun new project to work on!

Somebody's Sleepy...

I was hanging out on the computer while Zaylee finished up her pancake from lunch. I planned on maybe watching a Disney movie with her when she was done, since Jeff and Thomas are both napping and it would be just the two of us girls. However, I suddenly noticed she was being really quiet and looked over to see what she was up to. Here's what I saw:


I guess the boys aren't the only ones who are sleepy this afternoon! Awwww, she's so cute... :-)

I Love Our Ward!

More specifically, I love the chair of the activities committee, Sister B. She always plans the neatest ward functions, and they always include food. Then, she gives away the stuff that didn't get used/eaten. For instance, today she approached me and said that there was still some pancake mix and syrup left from our recent ward breakfast, and would we like it? I said of course, and she gave us a bag full of two boxes of pancake mix and several specialty pancake syrups. I'm really excited - we have regular pancake syrup, two containers of roasted pecan syrup, some whole blueberry syrup, whole blackberry syrup, and maple praline syrup. Yummm.....

Yeah. Sister B. is awesome. :-)

Growing Up

Well, Zaylee has passed an initiation rite into the realms of big-girl-hood. Tonight she got her first bloody nose, poor thing. She was running around the corner to her room just as Thomas was running around the corner coming out of the room, and they collided. He came out perfectly fine, but she immediately grabbed her face and started crying. I tried to make it seem really cool and grown-up, so she wouldn't freak out - "Hey, look at that, your first bloody nose! Wow, you're being such a big girl!" I was cheerful and encouraging as we went into the bathroom and pressed tissue to her nose. It worked, she calmed down quickly, and was more curious about seeing the blood on the tissue than she was upset about the pain.

Ah, growing up. She just keeps doing it! Like earlier this evening, she was at the table and I was busy at the computer. When she wanted more water, instead of making me get up and get it for her she took things into her own hands. She carefully poured water from the pitcher into my larger glass, then poured it from my glass into her little cup. She did this a little at a time until her cup was as full as she wanted. Wow, she really is getting to be a big girl.

Outside My Window...

There are two fire engines parked outside our apartment, and fully-geared fire fighters keep going in and out of the building, with hoses and axes and all the trimmings. I'm really not sure what's going on, but assume that if there were something dangerously wrong they would go through all the apartments and get everyone out...

...Okay, as I've been typing it looks like they're packing up now. Wonder what that was all about? I dunno, maybe there was a cooking fire or something. Gosh, this whole thing has me a bit weirded out.

Freezer Meal Progress

I've been making lots of progress on my freezer meals project. So far I've made chili, curry, frozen burritos (out of homemade refried beans), and bean soup. That's approximately 14 or 15 meals (depending on how many burritos we eat at each meal). I've got more beans on the stove now to make baked beans with hot dogs, which will add about three more meals. My freezer is getting so full!

This has been such a fun project to tackle, and I like knowing that those meals are there, ready to be used. They sure beat those piddly little Banquet entrees Jeff and I used to buy all the time (my excuse is that we were students and they were convenient for eating on campus). I've got a few more meals planned, but am not entirely sure how to make them fit in the freezer... I really wish I had room for a chest freezer! Anyway, just thought I'd do a little update on my progress, because I'm sure having fun with it.


As for pregnancy news, I've been feeling strong kicks and wiggles several times daily for a while now. They're strong enough for Jeff to feel now too, which he's excited about. My midwife has me keeping a headache diary for two weeks. I get migraines two or more times per week, and we're trying to figure out some of my dietary triggers so that I can do more to prevent them. I know most of my other triggers (bad weather, stress, heat, exertion, TV/computer, etc) but never paid attention to how the foods I eat affect my migraines. Apparently there are several foods that are common migraine triggers. Cheddar, chocolate, MSG, peanut butter - all the good stuff! Upsetting, but if I learn my personal triggers and avoid them, I can have much fewer migraines. Sigh, I guess I knew all that chocolate, cheese, and peanut butter wasn't doing me any favors. :-(

Happy Birthday to Thomas!

Thomas turned 2 years old today. We had a low-key party, just the four of us with some cake and ice cream after naptime. Thomas has been enjoying his birthday - first we opened gifts from Grandma and Grandpa B.

Ooh fun, it's a colorful puppy book!




And some really cute clothes! Grandma has great taste.


Mommy made a really fun cake with alligators on it. The alligators are made out of green chocolate.


But they won't let me eat the cake or the alligators until after they sing! Phooey!


Mmmm, this was worth waiting for! See the cars that Mommy and Daddy got me? I've been playing with them all evening!



I wish we had better lighting in this apartment. Half the pictures I took of Thomas' special day turned out really weird because I couldn't get the camera to cooperate with what little light we had. Yucky. And please, don't notice/judge the mess in the background of some of these pictures. Please.

Happy birthday to my favorite little 2 year old!

Me Time?

Today there's a Primary activity, and there's also a Relief Society Enrichment activity. Jeff is taking the kids to the Primary activity at the Church History Museum, while I wait around the apartment for Enrichment. They just left, which means that I get some precious "ME TIME" all to myself - two whole hours just for me!

Now, what on earth am I supposed to do with it?

It's a ....

We had our ultrasound this morning. First the tech took care of all the important and boring stuff (measuring the head and abdomen, looking at the heart, checking the spine), and we got to see a bit of our baby's attitude (wouldn't cooperate and actually flipped us the finger, yikes!), then we finally got to see the gender:


It's a girl! Here you can see the arms and hands curled up by her face, then the gender shot. Sorry the pics are blurry, we don't have it on CD and the sheet of pictures they gave us wasn't the best quality. You can click to enlarge the pics. The next pictures are her face and then her left arm/hand:


Then her little foot and curled up little legs:


She weighs about 13 oz. and the tech said that everything looked normal and healthy. :-)

My Hands Are Cold

My hands are cold, because I just went through our highly disorganized freezer and wrote down everything inside it. I pulled everything out, wrote down what we had and how much of it there was, and put it all back in. Funny, when you stack everything nicely, it makes it seem like there's more room in there somehow. Nice. :-)


The reason I did all that strenuous work is because I want to put together some freezer meals. I want to be able to just pull something out of the freezer to thaw in the morning, heat it in the evening, and have a delicious meal without having to do all the work of putting it together every day. Plus, it will be good to have some experience with freezer meals under my belt for when I'm further along in pregnancy and preparing for when the baby's born.

But before I can start putting together freezer meals, I have to clear out some room in the freezer, which means figuring out what's in there and how I'm going to use it! That's the next step - deciding what I'm going to use and how. For instance, I have four baggies of pureed squash. Gotta figure out something to do with that! What should I do with my 3 quarts of broth? What about that loaf of bread dough? I'm sure lots of the chicken and ground beef will go into my freezer meals, so that's taken care of. But what about the brown bananas and shredded zucchini?

Anyway, I'm just excited about having completed the first phase of my freezer meal experience. Next, I've got some planning to do!


Completely off-topic here - Baby is hiccuping! This is the first time I've been able to feel hiccups with this baby, so fun!

Another New Toy, hehehe

Since we're going to be adding to our family later this year, we decided to make a nice big purchase that is necessary but exciting - a minivan!


Our entire afternoon has been dedicated to the purchase of this big, shiny, new toy. We looked up places and prices online (we've actually been looking casually for quite a while), then headed over to the Ken Garff in West Valley after lunch. We wandered around the show room for a while, waiting for our sales rep Rhett, then it was off to look at vans! We test drove two separate vans, one a silver Kia Sedona, and the other a silver/blue Dodge Grand Caravan. The Sedona was fun, it had lots of little nooks, crannies, and cubbies in the front, and handled well. But we ended up preferring the Grand Caravan, with its bench seats and plentiful trunk space.

So we went to the little office space, armed with little water bottles and a package of crackers to occupy the kids (thanks Rhett for the snacks), and signed a bunch of papers. The kids took the opportunity to wander around and climb all over the 4-wheelers on display in that area of the building. Wish I had brought the camera - it was so cute! Then we went back to the show room and waited for a nice long time, while Rhett and the accounting person took care of a bunch of stuff. He provided us with cold water and lukewarm pizza (again, thanks!) while we waited. Then finally we went in another office and signed a whole bunch of other papers. Then waited a bit longer, took Zaylee to the bathroom, an elderly gentleman gave the kids some nice big helium balloons, and the van was ready and we were off!

The kids really love balloons! I think that for them, the balloons made the whole trip worthwhile, and they haven't let them out of their sight since. :-)


All in all, I feel like it's been a productive, enjoyable afternoon.

Hooray!!!!

We've been storing some food storage for Aunt Annette for a couple weeks. Esther came and picked it up today. Yay for our space back, though the kids will miss being able to climb on the buckets. Plus, Esther and Nathan brought a super special surprise for us...


An ice cream maker!!! Jeff and I are so excited, we've wanted one for a while. I'm excited to be able to make all sorts of frozen desserts with our new toy. :-)

Our Fourth of July Festivities - Lots of Pictures

Figured it was time for a good long picture post, and our fun day yesterday was the perfect excuse.

We headed over to Joy and Jim's house late morning to spend the day with them. First we went to the parade in Magna - Magna is a fairly small town with a cute little parade. The floats were simple, mostly cars with signs, but they all threw lots of candy and the parade wasn't overwhelmingly long. Lots of fun for everyone.

Here we are waiting for the parade to start - Zaylee sitting beside cousin Jaime, and Jeff and Thomas hanging out together.



Zaylee wasn't exactly an assertive candy-grabber, so Aunt Joy helped her. Zaylee was more interested in the eating part.



There were a couple more creative floats that I wanted to share. First was the local theater company, who were advertising their production of "Once Upon a Mattress." That got me excited because my school did that show when I was in the 8th grade. It was my first time being in a school play, and led to my lifelong love of the theater. This float brought back memories!


Then there was this amusing float advertising a business called Forever Roses. Click to enlarge so you can read it. I thought it was kinda funny.


The weather cooperated pretty well for the parade. It was mostly cloudy, with spurts of sunshine. Just as the parade began to wrap up, it started raining. I thought this scene was fun, this was a group of people sitting in front of me, all with their different colored umbrellas, watching the end of the parade.


After the parade, the rain let up almost immediately as we walked back to the cars, which was nice. Then it was nice and sunny/partly cloudy for the rest of the day. We spent the next several hours at Joy and Jim's house, just hanging out and having a good time.

We went outside for a while, where the kids had lots of fun. Zaylee and Marilee played with this little shopping cart and doll, while Thomas enjoyed scooting around on this bike thing that he absolutely loved! We'll have to get him something like that when we actually have room for it, because he was playing on it practically all day Friday and Saturday.



Jim hooked up the guitar and amp outside and was rocking out, hoping that Thomas would do his crazy funny dance again like last night. He didn't really dance the same, but he had a great time running around excitedly! I think he was just too excited about being outside. That, and this time it wasn't 10:00 at night... Anyway, this is the closest he got to dancing like last night. I still think it's cute because it shows his adorable running - I love how his arms flail when he runs!

Later, back inside, Joy broke out karaoke mike and hooked it up to their CD player. Zaylee had a great time singing along to Ozzy Osbourne, rocking an awesome hairdo (if it hasn't been made clear, this is a family that really enjoys their rock music).


In the evening, we went with Joy and Jim over to Joy's friend's parents house for a barbecue. Joy's friend Marlise invited us to come along last night when she and her girls came over, even though we'd pretty much only just met. Friendly folk! So we went and, despite not knowing anyone there, had a great time! We were welcomed as part of the family.

Thomas, having already had a long day, fell asleep on the way there and stayed conked out for quite a while.


He later woke up and found a great deal of enjoyment on the kiddie swing. Look at that face!


Zaylee found the bounce house immediately, and spent much of the evening there.


Marlise's mother brought over a box of corn husks for the kids to feed the horses, and Zaylee had a blast with that! Unfortunately, she was only wearing socks at the time, having just come from the no-shoes-allowed bounce house. All the weeds and stickers that stuck in her socks rendered them unwearable for the rest of the evening.


Dinner was absolutely delicious! They had grilled steak, grilled chicken, corn on the cob, lots of fruits and vegetables, chips, potato salad, rolls. Yum!



Unfortunately, I ate waaaaayyyy too much and ended up getting sick in the middle of the night, and feeling slightly ill and super sluggish all day today. But boy howdy, it was some delicious food!

Of course, a highlight of the evening was setting off fireworks. Some of the older kids took responsibility (with adult supervision) for lighting the fireworks. There were some really fun ones!



Thomas and Zaylee were enthralled - they didn't get even a little bit scared. During some of the bigger, louder ones, Thomas even got so excited he was clapping his hands and laughing. So cute!

So there you have it - our Fourth of July festivities. We had a great day!

Last Night

We had a fun time last night. Jeff's sister Joy and her husband Jim (lots of 'J' alliteration there) were going to the temple with some friends, and asked us to watch their girls for them. We gladly agreed, eager to get the kids out of the house and let them play with their cousins. So the kids had a great time playing with Jaime and Marilee (I don't recall Jaime's exact age, she's going into the fifth grade, but Marilee is Zaylee's age). I forgot my camera so don't have any pictures, but it was fun. After Joy and Jim got home, we stayed and hung out for a while. Joy's friend brought her two girls over for a little while, so there were six hyped-up kids running around the house having a great time! Then Jim and Jeff and several of the kids went down to the basement, where there's an electric guitar all set up. Jim started rocking out and boy did Thomas love that! I really wish I had brought the camera because I could have gotten some hilarious video. Thomas was shaking and boogying and dancing up a storm! He was grabbing chairs and shaking them around, running around with a gleeful look on his face, trying to jump up and down, it was absolutely hilarious! We're going back there again today to hang out for the Fourth, and I'm definitely bringing my camera. Jim said he'd play again so I could catch Thomas on camera rocking out again.


You know, I think my blog posts are boring. I really just don't have the talent of making our days seem interesting. I just write what happened in the driest possible way. Reading back over my post, even though I lived it and we really did have an entertaining evening, just bores me to tears. Does anyone have any suggestions for making my little online journal here more readable and fun? I don't like that I can't even stand to read it.

My latest project

I made some super cute maternity shorts! I had a pair of pants that I planned to cut off because of some enormous holes in the knees. Then I got pregnant and the pants were forgotten, since they no longer fit anyway. But I realized yesterday that they were good candidates for adding a maternity belly, since they fit everywhere except the belly. Some cutting and sewing and a panel of cute fabric later, and they are now maternity shorts. I love having a sewing machine!

A New Arrival

Jeff's work gave all the employees a bonus in honor of its 25 year anniversary. We have been wanting a printer for a while, so although most of it went into savings, we used part of the bonus to buy ourselves a printer! Here it is, in all its newly installed glory:


It's one of those multipurpose printer/copier/scanner things. Technically, it's a photo printer, but it also does regular stuff like documents, and it was one of the most inexpensive printers at Wal-Mart, so we went with it.

The packaging included a little paper that talked about this great website done by Canon, called Creative Park, where you can print out all sorts of free neat stuff - gift cards, paper crafts, calendars, scrapbook stuff, etc. Most of the stuff uses a ton of ink (gosh, it's like they want you to have to go out and buy more or something...) but there's some fun stuff! So far I've resisted the temptation to print lots of stuff, choosing only to print a small origami box. You know, just to make sure the printer works okay and stuff. ;-)

Anyway, that's the exciting news of the day. We haven't had a printer the whole time we've had a computer (well, except one my dad gave us, but it never ended up working), so we're excited to finally have one. I'll probably mostly use it for printing recipes from the internet, up to now I've just been jotting them down on whatever scrap paper I can find, but this will be so much easier.

The rest of the trip

I figured I should post and say we got home okay on Monday evening. I'm so glad that we got to spend a week with my family, it was really great. Let's see, on my last post I left off with Friday evening, so I'll hop on with Saturday. We went back to Grandma and Grandpa's house for the second half of the reunion. I ate way too much again, heehee, but this time it was lighter fare like fruit for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch, so I didn't feel as full and kinda sick as I did from overeating on Friday. I haven't weighed myself yet, but I'm sure that I've more than made up for having only gained 1 1/2 pounds in the three months previous to this little visit...

We had a big FHE on Saturday night to finish off the reunion. The activity after the lesson was Family Bingo - my aunt and cousin had put together cards with pictures of all the family members. Then my aunt read off the names of family members one at a time, and we marked them on our cards with elbow macaroni noodles (I think that's the most creative Bingo marker I've ever used). The prizes were these really cute painted wooden magnets, in the shape of butterflies, palm trees, school buses, little kids, all sorts of cute random things. Since there weren't enough cards for everyone, we were put in groups. I was partnered with Owen, and he graciously let me choose and keep a magnet as prize when we got a bingo - I picked a butterfly. When Jeff and Thomas' team got a bingo, Thomas chose a school bus, which Jeff gave to Zaylee to play with; she is fascinated with school buses and had a blast playing with that little magnet!

Sunday was Owen's homecoming talk in church. Janelle and Marie had decided to sing a song together and asked me a couple weeks ago if I would accompany them. When Owen got home, he asked if he could participate too. So the three of them sang while I played. I'm glad that we practiced the song several times before performing it in church - I got all the tears out during practice and didn't end up sobbing while playing in the middle of church! The first time we practiced when Owen started singing his verse we had to stop altogether, because I started crying, then we all started laughing because we were crying - it was so emotional and spiritual to hear him singing about doing the Father's will. So anyway, yay for practicing because all of us made it through the song without getting too misty-eyed.

After church we had a big family get-together at Mom and Dad's house and had barbecue beef sandwiches. Several family members who were in town for the reunion were able to come to hear Owen speak, and stuck around to be fed and to hang out with all of us afterward. Lots of people running around, but it was fun.

Monday morning we got all packed up and hit the road, after lots of hugs and goodbyes. Then it was six hours of sitting in the car wishing that I wasn't going home - after a week in that large, clean house it was hard to come back to a tiny, messy, cluttered apartment. But I was motivated to clean up the kids' room on Monday evening. The room they slept in at Mom's house was empty except for the pack-n-play and the mattress for Zaylee, then the suitcase and whatnot in the corner. It was so clear and nice! So I dug in and cleaned up all the piles of junk all over the kids' floor. Now all the clothes, books, toys, blankets, and random bits of everything are all put away and the room looks great! And I've actually been able to help the kids keep it that way all day! Now I just need to force that cleaning motivation to stay just long enough to fix up the living room... and the kitchen... and our bedroom... and the bathroom... and oh dear, I think I feel the motivation slipping away as I think about all the other messes that have to be cleaned up to get the apartment looking and feeling half as nice as Mom's house. Phooey.

I mentioned in my last post that I bought a vintage maternity pattern at the thrift store, and was excited to make a dress. Well, today when we went shopping I bought some fabric and I spent the afternoon and evening making this dress. Then I went to try it on and realized that I had made a cross between a hospital gown and a tent. Sigh. I guess it really is true that maternity clothes have come a long way since this pattern was made. Now they're made to hug and accentuate the feminine curves of the pregnant body, instead of completely hiding them in billows of extra fabric. Well, at least I can use it as a nightgown or something. And maybe by the time I'm nine months pregnant I'll actually wear it outside of the house - by that time I might not care so much what it looks like as long as it's comfortable.

I still haven't uploaded any pics from my camera. But as soon as I do I'll do a picture post with all the pictures from last week. I'll also make sure to post a picture of my new "dress" for everyone to laugh at. Seriously, it really does look exactly like a hospital gown.

A Quick Post From Idaho

Having a great time with my family! We left on Tuesday morning and after driving for a really long time we arrived. Had dinner with Grandma and Grandpa D. Tuesday evening, and got to see Owen for the first time in two years. It was great! Dinner was simple: hot dogs, baked beans, chips, salads. The visiting was what was most fun - hearing some of Owen's mission stories, catching up with parents, siblings, grandparents.

We spent the next couple of days just hanging out and enjoying being with family! That's what I like about my family, we don't have to be constantly out and doing things when we're together. It's enough to sit around at home and just be together. Takes a lot of pressure out of visiting, in my opinion. :-)

Anyway, this weekend is the family reunion on my mom's side. Our family was responsible for lunch today. Mom and I did all the shopping for it yesterday, and apparently shopping and cooking for approximately 80 people of varying ages and appetites is no small matter! The shopping took all day long. We visited the different stores to collect price information for everything we needed, which took a couple hours. Then we took a break and wandered around a couple thrift stores to get our energy back up. :-) I bought a really cute vintage maternity pattern, and am looking forward to getting fabric to make a dress. I also found newborn diapers for a good price (at a thrift store! how cool is that?) and some new Church shoes for Zaylee.

Then it was back to business; we went back to all the stores we had previously visited and actually bought all the food, getting each item at the place wherever it was cheapest. We completely filled the van with all the stuff we ended up buying!

Today was the first day of the reunion. Again, in our family there isn't much in the way of super planned activities and such. There were a few things - decorating T-shirts, sewing children's clothes for a humanitarian service project, little things like that, but mostly just visiting. I had brought my sewing machine, and enjoyed sewing together little pants and shirts. Grandma L. has an antique treadle sewing machine that still works - it's the machine she used when she was growing up. She graciously let me take pictures of her using it, then suggested I give it a try as well. So I got to use the treadle machine and it was lots of fun! It definitely runs more slowly than an electric, and takes a bit of practice to get your rhythm going, but I got pretty good at it and made a cute pair of pants with it.

Zaylee and Thomas have been great today. Grandma and Grandpa L. have a play area in their living room that has been popular with the kids ever since my mom was a kid there. Zaylee and Thomas spent a lot of time there today, playing with toys that have been in that old toybox ever since my mom and her siblings were young. There's even a little toy tractor that has my mom's name etched into it! So neat. Anyway, the kids had a great time playing with the other little cousins and getting to know all this family they never knew they had. :-)

I have of course been taking a few pictures, though not nearly as many as I should have! I don't think I'll bother with uploading them from the camera for now though, too much work. That will be a later post I suppose.

Hmm, I really did mean for this to be just a short, quick post to let everyone just know that I'm alive. Well, I guess it turned out a bit longer. That's okay though, right? :-) I'll do more later, but for now I'm pretty tired, and I need to put my feet up - they're swelling like crazy! I don't remember them swelling this early with my other pregnancies...

That's Better!

The sun is shining, and Owen gets home from his mission today!!!! Yippee!!!!

I did have a really hard time yesterday. At one point I just sat on the couch and cried, while the kids climbed all over me trying to make me feel better. Thomas was such a sweetie, he kept giving me kisses and patting me on the head, over and over again. It was so sweet it made me cry even harder.

But I really am feeling quite a bit better this morning. I'm officially 15 weeks pregnant, we leave for Idaho in four days (yikes, that means I have only four days to clean the apartment, do some laundry, and pack for the trip - sounds easy but if you saw the apartment you'd know it really won't be), Owen is getting home!!!!, and the sun really is shining. The grass is green and the sidewalks are almost dry. I don't know how long the sunshine will last, but I'm sure enjoying looking out the window at it while it's here! Maybe we'll walk to the library later today (Zaylee and Jeff are still in bed or I'd go right now) if it stays nice. There aren't even any clouds in the sky! Yay!

Rain Rain, Go Away!

The weather is really getting me down. Really. It's been so wet and dreary and rainy for about a week already, and according to the weather forecast, we've got at least another week of bummer weather ahead of us. Zaylee keeps running to the window and exclaiming, "It's raining again!" It's really cute, but it hardly makes up for how dreary it all is. Not ever seeing the sun is really getting me depressed. Not to mention that the air pressure changes that accompany rain storms are a major trigger for my migraines. I've had a migraine nearly every day for a long time now, and it's getting so old!

Well, maybe the weather will be nicer in Idaho, where we'll be next week. Crossing my fingers!

Well, on the positive side, the baby has been fairly active today. I haven't felt it for several days, so it was nice to be feeling little kicks and wiggles today.

Sewing Again

I haven't been sewing much lately, in the first trimester it just felt like too much work. But yesterday I finally pulled out the sewing machine and got working on projects again. First I finished the mei tai I was making for Michelle. It looks pretty much the same as the one I made for myself. I had to get it done because we'll be up in the area in about a week and a half, and I wanted to be able to give it to her then. So Michelle, your mei tai is finally finished, and I'll get it to you when we come up to visit!

After my successful sewing venture yesterday, today I decided to take on another project I've been putting off. A few months ago we found a moses basket at D.I. for very cheap, so I bought it. It was "naked" though, no lining and no sheets for the pad. Well, today I finally made the lining. I cut up an old pale green sheet and sewed it up. Considering that I'd never made anything like it, and didn't use any kind of pattern at all, I think it turned out pretty cute.


Later I'll get around to making a couple sheets too. I don't have the elastic I'll need to make them, but once I buy some I'll just use fabric I have lying around the apartment to make some cute sheets.

It's fun to be sewing and making useful things again! Next I need to pick up the hooks and start crocheting again - I need to make a blanket for the baby.

Excited!

I'm getting so excited! I don't think I've mentioned on here yet, but my brother Owen will be getting back from his 2-year LDS mission on the 12th, and we're going up to Idaho to visit the next week! Yippee!!! I'm excited to see him because he's been in Alabama for two whole years, he hasn't seen Zaylee since she was just a little thing, and hasn't seen Thomas at all. And from his e-mails it's obvious that he's done an incredible amount of emotional and spiritual maturing in those two years, and it will be wonderful to be able to see that first hand.

I've been thinking this morning of all the things I need to remember to bring when we visit - all the stylish ties he used to pad the box of Christmas presents he sent, the deep fryer that Mom gave to us because they never used it (Owen had written an e-mail a while back that he was excited to use the deep fryer to show us some good southern cooking. I had to reply that it we had it here in Utah. He replied back that we better bring it when we visit!), super cute maternity outfits to show how awesomely pregnant I am with my little belly bump. The belly showing-off isn't just for Owen, of course, I want to show my bump to the whole family!

Plus, the weekend that we'll be there will be a family reunion, with my mom's side of the family. This also has me really excited, the timing worked out perfectly. More family to show the bump to!!! Oh yeah, and to visit and hang out with and catch up with and eat wonderful food with and stuff like that.

Here's that belly bump I keep going on about. Isn't it cute?


The shirt is one that I just got at D.I. yesterday for just $4. I love thrift stores!

A Nice Updatey Kind of Post

Sorry I've left that icky-sicky post up for so long. After Saturday, I have been feeling much better. Sunday I was weak, but not throwing up anymore. I stayed home from church and rested, and by that evening was feeling better. Yesterday I was pretty much back to normal. I'm glad it went away so quickly this time, but I'm definitely considering asking my midwife for a Zofran prescription that I can have on hand in case this kind of thing happens again - it's pretty miserable to go through!

I realized that I haven't been posting updates on the kids lately. All the little day to day things that they are learning and doing, I just sort of forget to record for posterity. But here's some of what they've been up to:

Thomas has become more vocal, though nothing he says sounds like it's supposed to. "Ahhh, shee!" means "please!" And "Zhezhe" is how he says "Zaylee." He also signs the word "more" by tapping his fingertips together when he wants more to drink or eat, though we usually have to remind him.

Zaylee is completely potty trained. She runs to the bathroom all by herself when she needs to pee or poop (yay, no more poopy undies!!!!!). Very rarely she gets there too late and wets herself a bit, but for the most part she does wonderfully, and I'm so proud of her! Now if I could get her to stop playing in the toilet water when she's done...

Thomas is the nursery jewel! He is always very well behaved and plays so nicely (I'm going off what his nursery teachers tell us). He's also the cleaner-upper after snack time: After all the other kids leave the table to go on to the next activity, he finishes up their snacks for them. He's definitely a voracious eater!

Zaylee has been doing better and better in Primary. At first she was a bit wild and would run away from class, pull other kids' hair, the normal brand-new Sunbeam stuff. But she has been much improving, and sits still in her chair and usually keeps her hands to herself. I got to observe her firsthand a couple weeks ago as I was subbing for the Primary pianist. She was so excited I was there she kept calling out, "That's my mommy!!!" She has been assigned to give a scripture next week, which means that I get to choose a scripture for her and help her learn it. How do you help a three-year-old learn a scripture, I wonder?

As for me, aside from the sick episode on Saturday, I've been doing well and enjoying the pregnancy (mostly). I feel the baby move occasionally, and it always brings a smile to my face! I've been super tired though, and usually drop into bed as soon as I put the kids down. I never thought I would be giving myself an 8:30 bedtime after I graduated elementary school! But by the time the kids are in bed, I'm so tired that I just can't stay up later. Plus it saves on the power bill - no lights are on and I'm not using the TV or computer! :-)

Jeff continues to enjoy his work. His schedule is sometimes hard on him and us, but we survive okay. Apparently Jeff is really good at what he does. He says his gels and interpretations are some of the best. Nice and humble, he is. ;-)

In other news, we have been scoping out houses in the area. No way will three kids fit in our tiny two-bedroom apartment, so we're looking to buy a home. We saw one yesterday that we're really enthusiastic about. It's a slightly older home (1984), and needs a bit of work, but it's within our price range and we both really like it! It has new wood floors in the living room, dining room, and kitchen. There's 5 bedrooms and 1 3/4 bathrooms (the 3/4 is a bathroom with toilet and shower, just no tub). One of the biggest pluses of this place is the lot size of 0.34 acre - in the back yard there's enough room for a sizeable garden, swingset, clothes line, fire pit, grill, picnic tables, gazebo, play house, and anything else we would want to put in there! Seriously, it's an enormous yard.

The house is a bit of a fixer-upper. Not a gut-the-entire-place-and-start-from-scratch kind of fixer-upper, but the kind where it just needs some TLC and a bit of work. The kitchen cabinetry will need to be repaired, some lighting needs fixed, the deck/porch in the back will need to be repaired or replaced. Then there's the basic stuff like redoing the carpets and painting. Plus maybe replacing the toilets. You know, just basic stuff. :-) With some work, this place will be gorgeous. The cool thing is that with Jeff's schedule, he has every other week completely off, and that gives plenty of time to work on a house. We could take on one project or phase at a time and finish it before he has to go back to work again.

Anyway, even if we don't get this particular house, it's fun to be looking, and forming ideas as to what we're looking for exactly - what features we definitely want (like a dining area - the first house we looked at didn't have one), and what things are optional (dishwasher would be nice but it's not a deal breaker), and what kind of work we're willing to put in if we buy a house that needs work.