Making Progress on the House

Just a some pics to show what progress we've been making on the house for the past little while. Most of the progress we've made has been Jeff's doing. I can't do so much of the heavy labor, so Jeff has really been awesome about jumping in and getting stuff done.

Jeff has been taking loads of boxes and stuff over, things that have been stuffed in the closets and the corners of the bedrooms for the whole time we've been here in this apartment. We've got lots of stuff in the family room, and the bedrooms. It's been nice to get some of the extra stuff out of the apartment!



A couple days ago, Jeff worked outside and raked up all the leaves that have been taking over the yard. Unfortunately, we forgot to bring trash bags to put the leaves in, so they're still sitting in piles in the yard. Well, we'll get around to that eventually.


Jeff has also been working hard to peel the wallpaper in the kitchen and hallway. We bought a ladder today to help with the high stuff that he hasn't been able to get thus far. Working with his water spray bottle and a scraper, Jeff made fast work of the yucky gluey paper today.



I helped out by gathering all the paper and stuffing it in trash bags, then by starting to tape the baseboards and fireplace in the living room. It's nice to be able to help with little stuff like that. I can feel useful, but not overexert myself.



We've already bought the paint for the walls. The main walls in the living room, dining room, kitchen, and hallway will be white. Just a nice, simple white that will be easy to decorate around. The accent wall in the living room will be a rich, dark green. Oh, it's gonna be so pretty!

The longest three hours, and a new diaper

This morning I got to go through the longest three hours of my life!! My midwife told me this past Wednesday that my numbers on the glucose screen were just barely over the cutoff, and that I had to do the three-hour glucose screen. Oh the joy!...

So I went in this morning to get it over with. Fasting is hard enough when you're not pregnant, but put a baby in your belly and it's much harder! After one super-concentrated, sickeningly sweet orange drink, three hours, and four needle pokes, I was feeling lightheaded, had a backache (from sitting on the waiting room chair for so long), was getting a migraine, and was super hungry!

But I survived, made it to the parking lot, and scarfed down the tuna sandwich I had brought. Tuna sandwich has never tasted so good! Anyway, here's hoping that my numbers come out okay. I'd really rather not be diagnosed with gestational diabetes right before Halloween and Thanksgiving. Boy, what a bummer that would be! Michelle, I totally admire your ability to keep with the GD diet, because just thinking that I might have to is making me grimace!

Anyway, on to funner matters - I finished making my first cloth diaper!



This is just the diaper pocket - there's an opening in the back where you stuff in a thick, absorbent soaker (I'll use prefolds, washcloths, whatever I find that works). I've got a couple other diapers that I've started, and enough fabric to make 30-40 diapers! Plus I have all that fleece for making water-repellent covers. I'm getting really excited about all this, making diapers is fun!


***Updated: As soon as I finished posting this, my midwife called. My glucose screen results are already in, and everything was fine! Hooray!!!! I don't have GD. I'm very relieved. :-)

I have a new obsession...

Here is my new obsession: Making cloth diapers!

Since we'll have our own washer/dryer, I'm finally taking the plunge and going full-time to cloth diapers. I tried cloth briefly with both Zaylee and Thomas, but ended up getting too frustrated with the coin-op laundry situation and the difficulty of using cloth diapers.

I have lots of prefolds from Michelle that will work great for when the baby is small. But I have learned that cloth diapers come in so many more shapes and sizes than just prefolds, even when they're very high quality prefolds (not the Gerber cheap-o's you get at Wal-Mart that are pretty much only suitable as burp cloths).

So I'll be making a nice big stash of cute pocket diapers - elastic around the legs for a better fit, and a pocket in which you stuff an absorbent insert. Since this particular pattern is one-size-fits-most, it will work for both the baby and for Thomas. Easy to make, easy to use, easy to clean, and waaaaay cheaper than disposables. It can cost a lot of money to buy quality cloth diapers, but since I'm making them myself I can save a ton of money. I hit up D.I. today and came home with all this:


These fabrics on the left are flannel sheets that I will use to make the diapers themselves.


These three fabrics on the right are fleece blankets that will become the diaper covers. Did you know that fleece makes good diaper covers? The fabric is water resistant, so the pee won't leak through. If you pour a bit of water onto fleece, it will just bead up instead of soaking in; that's what makes it a good fabric for covers.


The total cost of all this fabric was about $25. That's what we currently spend on two boxes of diapers for Thomas, which last only about a month, maybe a month and a half. These diapers will last for years! I will need more than what I have here, to have enough for both baby and Thomas, but this is a good start. And as an added bonus, I can use the scraps to make wipes and bibs, saving even more money. Woohoo!

I have printed, cut out, and pieced together the pattern for the diapers, but will need to wash the fabrics and buy some elastic before I can start actually making them. Super excited to start my stash of super-cute homemade cloth diapers!

I just won't go to church today.

Yup, not gonna get all dressed up, not gonna pack the Sunday bag with diapers, not gonna rush to get everyone ready. I'll just stay home today. With Thomas. Because he's sick.

I noticed a couple days ago that Thomas was feeling really warm, and when I changed his diaper and he had a huge diaper rash, he didn't scream and try to squirm away, he just whimpered and looked at me pathetically, as if he just feeling too weak to be vigorous. I checked his temperature and it was 101 degrees. Yikes! So I drugged him up (with the age- and weight-appropriate amount of medication, of course) and gave him lots of cuddles.

By Saturday he not only had a fever, but a very phlegmy cough and a sniffly, runny nose, all of which are still present this morning. So no church for the little guy. And since Jeff is teaching the lesson in Elder's Quorum today, I get to stay home with Thomas.

Poor little guy, I can really tell that he is just having no fun. Little things that normally wouldn't upset him now make him curl up on the floor and cry softly. He wants lots of cuddles, and lots of water to drink. So today it's all about him - while Daddy and Zaylee are at church I get to do everything I can to make him feel comfortable and loved.

The real bummer about all of this is that, as Mommy, I'm almost sure to catch whatever it is that he's got, and then it'll spread to everyone else. Sigh. That's the way it is in families.

Fun Little Discoveries

This morning we headed over to the house to do some measuring for painting, and to just explore our new domain. We made some fun discoveries that have us pretty excited!

- The three sheds in the backyard are huge, and all three have wonderful shelf space - deep, sturdy shelving for all our storage needs. One of them has a work table with a vice, and lots of grass fertilizer for the lawn. Another has electricity - we might put a chest freezer in there.

- The couch downstairs that came with the house isn't just any couch - it's a hide-a-bed! That was on our list of "someday we'll have" stuff, but now we don't have to go out and buy one.

- The below-stairs storage is even bigger than we realized; we thought it was just under the upper stairs, but it curves around below the lower stairs as well for additional storage.

- There's a covered sandbox in the back yard, complete with lots of sand toys... and tons of earwigs. We'll have to clean it out and put in fresh sand, and clean the toys really well. But that will be a lot fun for the kids.

- There's so much more space in the kitchen! I can work at the bar/counter while Jeff works at the stove or the sink, or at the counter next to me. And when we have to get from one spot in the kitchen to the other, we don't have to bump into each other. Awesome!

- We're right down the street from Seagull Books and a branch of the bank we use. Nice and convenient.

- We're within walking distance of a little river where Jeff will be able to fish. He's really wanting to get into fishing next season, so he's excited to have a place where he can fish without having to drive there and pay for parking or a day pass or anything.

- The keys we were given unlock the front door - but not the back door. So we either have to never be able to unlock it from the outside, or have the knob replaced. That one's not such a great discovery, but not the end of the world.

- We measured the dining room and kitchen, and realized that it will take several hundred dollars to put in laminate flooring. So we'll probably wait on that, save up for it, and take care of that in a few months or something. Eating on carpet isn't all that bad.

- The kids absolutely loved being able to run around in the family room and in the yard. I think having this house will be absolutely wonderful for them.

Yup, we're pretty excited about all our little discoveries today. After spending a couple hours at the house, we had to leave because it was lunchtime, and Jeff set off the bug bomb on the way out. So no more being in the house for me for a while - dangerous neurotoxins and pregnancy don't really mix... But anyway...

It still doesn't feel completely real. While we were there today, it felt like we were still touring it as potential buyers, instead of as the official owners. Is it really ours? It it really true? I guess it will start to sink in when we start pulling the paneling and paper off the walls, but for now I just have a hard time believing that it's finally ours!

Got the Key!

We were supposed to get the keys to the house on Tuesday, but there were delays in getting the house funded. It's been an impatient couple of days! But the funding finally went through today, and our agent just dropped by to give us the key to the house. Hooray! We have the key! Now the only problem is that Jeff is at work and he has the van. So I can't just go to the house and revel in the fact that it's all ours, not until tomorrow morning. Well, we've waited this long, we can wait a little while longer. :-)

Anyway, I'm just so excited to finally have the house key. We can finally get started on all the stuff we want to do with the house - bug bomb, measure walls, pull down paneling and wallpaper, paint, and move!!!

Closing Day

Well, today we closed on our house. Yippetty Yay Hooray!!!! We should get the keys on Tuesday and then we'll be able to start working on the house (starting with a bug bomb - the house has been vacant since January). It's still so hard to believe that this is actually happening.

Alright, let's get updatey. Yesterday was our anniversary. After putting the kids to bed, we celebrated with an absolutely fantastic meal, then watched the original Pink Panther movie, checked out from the library. We're nothing if not cheap, lol.

Earlier yesterday we stopped by Lowe's just for fun, and ended up buying a nice hefty moving dolly. That should be super helpful with our upcoming move, especially with the long hallway and all the stairs we'll be dealing with, both here at the apartment and at the new house. Jeff even rolled me around the store aisle for a few feet on the dolly, to prove how sturdy it was, before I made him put me down - it was fun but kinda scary! When we moved from Idaho, Zaylee loved to be rolled around on our rented dolly, but she tends to be a bit more adventurous than I am.

This morning, we planned on leaving at nine to take the kids to Joy and Jim's house (Jeff's sister and her husband) and then go to the title company to sign all the closing documents. Of course, we happened to sleep in! Zaylee woke me up at 8:40 when she came out of her room to go to the bathroom. We were in a mad rush for the next half hour, getting everyone dressed and fed and ready to go. But the kids were dropped off and we made it to the title company only a few minutes late.

Then we spent the next hour or so signing paper after paper - seriously, the stack of papers you have to sign to buy a house is at least an inch and a half thick! That's a lot of papers to sign! Anyway, after all that signing and everything, we headed back to Joy and Jim's. Since it was nearly lunch time, we decided to celebrate closing and pay them back for watching the kids by taking everyone to a Chinese buffet. Special bonus - since it was lunch time, and Joy had a reward card for that particular restaurant, we were able to feed four adults and three kids for only $28. And it was so delicious - I love Chinese buffet! Of course, I totally ate too much, but it was all so good, and after all, it was a special occasion. :-)

The rest of the day has been spent lazing around digesting. Tomorrow I'm going to get to work sorting through the boxes under Zaylee's bed, deciding what to keep and what needs to go to D.I. I also still need to go through the kids' clothes, pack away the stuff that's too small, and get out anything that they might have grown into. Sigh. Organizational tasks aren't my favorite things to do, but it'll be good to have them done.

Fluid Scans and NSTs

Well, my prenatal appointment didn't go quite as planned yesterday. Everything was fine until the midwife checked the baby's heart rate. She listened for a really long time, long enough to actually make me concerned that something might be wrong (which takes a lot, I'm generally pretty laid back about stuff). Finally she told me that baby's doing fine, but her heart rate is significantly slower than it has been previously. She was concerned that my long-term diarrhea that I've been dealing with might be causing low amniotic fluid levels and a low heart rate for baby.

So she sent me up to the fetal diagnostic center for a fluid scan and non-stress test, just to make sure that everything is okay. I got a quick ultrasound to check fluid levels, and we were happy to find that there is plenty of fluid in there for baby. Normal is 8-20, and my levels are right around 16. So that's good.

Then we did the NST. It took sooooo long!!! Baby continued her propensity for not cooperating. Her baseline fluctuated between 125 and 135. When it was down at 125, her movement spikes (small spikes in the heart rate when the baby moves) went high enough to be fine, but when the baseline was 135 the spikes just wouldn't get quite high enough. Since that wasn't happening, the tech decided it would be fine if we could just get the baseline to stay at 125 or so for a decent amount of time. But baby kept moving and wiggling and raising the baseline over and over again. Okay, so I don't completely understand everything that I just wrote, but basically baby would not cooperate! It was after 12 and I was getting hungry, I hadn't brought a snack or anything, and that silly baby just wouldn't give them the heart rate they needed to let me leave.

Anyway, the tech had me turn on my side and somehow that calmed baby down enough to establish the baseline they needed and I was able to leave. Long story short, baby is uncooperative but doing well. I just have to keep an eye on the diarrhea thing, make sure to drink plenty of liquids, and that's about it. It's nice to know that she's doing well and nothing is wrong, but it was a bit annoying to have to have that really long unscheduled visit to the diagnostic center to make sure of it!

Lots to Look Forward To

I'm really looking forward to this week, for several reasons.

-First off, Jeff started his "off work" week today, so he'll be home with us all day for the next week. Hooray!

-Tomorrow I have a prenatal appointment. I always love going to my prenatals - I get to hear the baby's heartbeat, talk about any concerns or fun stuff going on, see how much too much weight I've gained (okay, so that part isn't always fun...), and basically see that everything is going well with the baby.

-Then, on Thursday Jeff and I celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. With wanting to save money, we celebrate special occasions with a special homemade meal, usually eaten after the kids are in bed. This saves us from having to arrange for a sitter and spend a whole bunch of money on a restaurant dinner. We're planning some yummy stuff. I'll be doing a variation of Pork Chops with Apples and Stuffing (This is a delicious recipe I got from Michelle. I'll be doing it in the crockpot, and using homemade apple pie filling!), and a slightly chocolaty version of the Anniversary Pie I made for our anniversary last year. We did the shopping for this meal today, and now I'm excited because it's gonna be so good!

-Then of course, on Friday we'll be closing on the house. I think this is the thing I'm most looking forward to. We'll have a house! We won't be moving in right away; we have the apartment through November and have to pay a whole lotta money to get out of the lease earlier. So we'll take some time to fix stuff up in the house - we'll take down the wall paneling in the living room and the peeling wallpaper in the hallway, and we'll paint the walls a nice color. We'll pull up the carpet in the dining room and refloor the kitchen and dining room with stone-style laminate flooring. We'll probably do a bug bomb or two to get rid of any unwelcome visitors (the home has been empty for a while). And then we'll take our time moving stuff from the apartment to the house, organizing as we go. I love that there won't be one big whirlwind day or weekend of moving, ending up with a big mess of boxes all over the place. I like that I'll have time to unpack and put things away without having to live in the mess at the same time.

-Lastly, I'm looking forward to Sunday, because we have a Linger Longer after church. I love our ward Linger Longers! This week it's going to be a potato bar. We signed up to bring a topping, something to put on the baked potatoes. We're bringing some homemade chili, yummy. I can't wait to see what kinds of toppings everyone else brings. The members of our ward are always so great about bringing delicious foods to the Linger Longers. :-)


So yeah, I've got a lot to look forward to this week. It'll be a good week.

House Update

Just a quick update on the house. Our loan has been completely approved and is ready for all the closing documents and everything. The closing date was originally set to be Oct. 12, but our agent called this afternoon to let us know that won't work - that day is Columbus Day, which is apparently a get-the-day-off holiday at the title company. So the closing date has been bumped up to Friday Oct. 9. That's just one week from today! I'm so excited; we're just one week away from getting a house and starting to make it a home.

Pregnancy Pic

Time for another belly picture, I haven't done one in a while. I took this today, at 31 weeks.


I love watching my belly grow bigger and bigger. It's also super fun to watch it dance and morph and wiggle around as the baby moves, sometimes she can be quite the acrobat!

Glorious Fall!

Today was just wonderful! Last night it was a bit stormy, with lots of rain and some lightning and thunder. We woke up this morning to a delicious chill in the air (we sleep with the windows open). There was snow on the mountains, where there wasn't before. We went window-shopping at Wal-Mart and Sears, and I actually had to put on a jacket! I was ecstatic! All day I was able to look out the window and see a beautiful cloudy sky and yellowing leaves on the trees across the street. And I made some deliciously spiced bread yesterday that I've been eating bits of periodically throughout the day. The whole day has just spoken "fall" to me. Yes, this has been a wonderful day indeed.

Is it Time Yet?

I brought the kids with me to my prenatal appointment this past Wednesday, because Jeff had an eye exam and couldn't take them. They were quite well-behaved, and interested in everything going on. Listening to the baby's heartbeat was especially fun!

I've been having some gastrointestinal issues lately, so the midwife wanted to check my cervix and make sure it wasn't a sign of preterm labor (it wasn't, everything's fine). As they draped me and put on their gloves and prepared to check, Zaylee started getting really excited. She gasped in awe and said, "It's time to take the baby out!"

I had to explain through my giggles that no, we weren't taking the baby out right now, we were just checking on Mommy. She was a bit disappointed.

Treasure Hunting

Wow, I'm on a roll with posting lately. What can I say, lots of fun stuff going on.

We needed to drop some stuff off at D.I. this afternoon, so we figured we'd wander around the store to see if there was anything we just couldn't live without. Thrift stores are just awesome like that - you can go in with something specific in mind, or not looking for anything in particular, and you'll almost always come away with treasure of some sort! I picked up a towel to make some big cover-the-whole-front bibs for Thomas, and some lace to use for random sewing projects (nothing in mind yet, but I'm sure it will come in handy). Jeff got a couple little picture frames to display pics of the kids at work.

We wandered around the furniture section. I've been reading lots of decorating magazines, courtesy my mom. She has a whole shelf full of them and I love to flip through them! She even let me take some home with me last week. Anyway, it's got me all excited about redoing furniture - painting, reupholstering, making accent pillows, stuff like that. I just wanted to wander around and gleam ideas for things I would or wouldn't be willing to redo. And as we wandered, I saw it.

Sitting there between the rusty garden bench and the falling-apart table, there it was. It stared at me, begging to be brought home and loved. I couldn't resist, I just couldn't.


Isn't it beautiful? A sturdy, hardwood rocking chair. I have always loved wooden rocking chairs - there's something so timeless about them. Lazy boys and ottomans are well and good, and usually quite comfortable, but a good solid wooden rocker is just so beautiful. I think I've wanted one for a long time, so to find one at D.I. in this great condition was unexpected and wonderful!

It's unfinished, which means it's a blank canvas to be painted and prettied up. It will go in the baby's room when we move into the house. I'll make a cushion for the seat, and paint a little design on the top. At $40, it was a bit of a splurge for us - the second highest price we've ever spent on furniture the whole time we've been married (the highest price was the crib, used, at $50). But I can see this chair being a treasured piece of our household for years to come. And I looked up wooden rocking chairs online to check pricing - a comparable unfinished chair of almost this exact design would be about $150 on sale, plus shipping and having to assemble it yourself. So this really is a pretty good deal.

And now we get to be extra careful about our spending for the next while, because this was a bit of a large unplanned purchase....

Crochet Fun

I've been working on a special crochet project for a while, and I finally finished it!


This is the baby's blanket. It's sort of been my tradition to crochet a blanket for the baby while I'm pregnant. Zaylee's is white and a variety of pastels, all in zig-zag stripes. Thomas's is little hexagonal teddy bear motifs, joined with blue yarn. And now this baby gets a sweet lacy white blanket with a green and purple edging. Here's a close-up:


I loved the green, but didn't have enough of it to go all the way around. So I only put it on the top and bottom edge, while the purple is on all four edges. Anyway, I'm excited to have this pretty little blanket completed. That's one item I can cross off my "to do before baby gets here" list. :-)


Still wanting to do some crocheting even though the blanket was done, I made a hat last night (the power went out yesterday evening so it was interesting trying to finish the last bit in the dark!). Here it is on our lovely model:


It turned out so cute and was so easy that I made another one this morning. It was much easier to make with enough light!


Anyway, that's what I've been working on with my hooks and yarn lately. :-)

News About the House

We got the appraisal report for the house a couple days ago. Something very rare happened - with very few comparable houses sold in the area, and the price those houses sold for, the house we are buying was appraised for much less than we originally offered. And apparently, the rules are that when a house is appraised for a certain value, the seller cannot sell the house for more than that value.

What this meant for us was that the sellers could either choose to sell the house to us at the lower appraised price, or just take it off the market and not sell it at all. They met with their agent this morning to decide what to do. Oh goodie, pins and needles again!

We waited for our agent to call and tell us what they decided, but finally got impatient and called him a little after 12 this afternoon. The verdict? Drum roll...



















We get to buy the house for $14,000 less than our original offer! Woohoo!!!!!

We feel so very blessed and grateful right now. I know this is probably very hard for the sellers, they've been trying to sell this house for a really long time and we all know the house is really worth so much more than what we're paying, but this reduced price is going to be so much less stressful for us financially. We would have been okay with the original price, but to have the price drop so much is just so incredibly wonderful! Our agent says this is something that rarely ever happens, to have the house appraised for less than the offer, especially so much less. It's just nice to know that Heavenly Father is looking out for us. We really are so blessed!

Zaylee Bakes a Cake

Our gift to Zaylee on her birthday was a baking set, with a big pink mixing bowl, pretty white mixing spoons, an apron, and several baking mixes. Today I finally got it out of the van (where it has been stashed since our Idaho trip) and Zaylee and I got to do some baking together.

Zaylee chose to make the chocolate cake mix, and we put on our aprons and got to work. She did such a good job stirring the batter.


I baked the cake, and while it was cooling Jeff helped Zaylee make a small batch of chocolate frosting. Once it was frosted, Zaylee was so excited to have it all finished and ready to eat! Look at that beaming face!


Enjoying the fruits of her labors.


My yummy piece, mmmm...


It's so fun to play in the kitchen with Zaylee and make yummy things together. She really loves to help me cook, so it's fun for her to have her very own things to cook with.

Our Week in Idaho

We just got back from spending a week with my family in Idaho. Oh, how I love visits with my family! We had a pretty busy and fun week, lots of playing and canning and reading and talking and cooking and all sorts of fun stuff.

We headed up on Tuesday afternoon. We would have gone on Tuesday morning, but I had an ultrasound scheduled to check on my placenta position. Everything went well, the placenta moved up out of the way, and the baby looks very healthy and very cute. We got some pictures, which I'll post later after I scan them into the computer.

After a very long but uneventful drive, we arrived at Mom and Dad's house, where the kids settled right in, making themselves at home with the toys. I think one of their favorite things about Grandma and Grandpa's house, besides all the aunts and uncles to play with, is that there's more of everything! Thomas discovered the big box full of toy cars.


And Zaylee found the big box full of My Little Ponies.


They also had a great time throughout the week playing with K'Nex, Lincoln Logs, puzzles, blocks, and books.

Anyway, Wednesday was Zaylee's birthday. Jeff and I took the kids shopping for supplies to decorate the cake, then I went to town! Two layers of cake, a large amount of white and pink cream cheese frosting, lots of candies, and four ice cream cones later...



A princess castle cake! This really is my favorite style of cake to make - decorating with things like candies and cookies is easy and fun, and always turns out cute. Zaylee really liked it, and everyone had fun picking and choosing which piece they wanted based on the color of frosting and types of candies. Then came the fun part - opening presents! She got all sorts of fun stuff, from pretty princess dresses, to a princess coloring book and crayons, to princess bracelets (are we seeing a pattern here?). Jeff and I gave her a baking set - a mixing bowl, a set of spoons, a homemade apron, and several small baking mixes for things like cake, cornbread, and biscuits. Zaylee loves to help me when I cook, so we thought it would be fun for her to have her own special baking supplies. Maybe for Christmas we'll supplement it with some fun baking pans and colorful measuring cups and spoons or something.








A neat little tidbit about the apron - besides being so darn cute, there's only one strap for the back. It goes all the way around and velcros onto the other side, so she can put on her apron and do it up all by herself. I saw the idea online and thought it was just brilliant. Zaylee thinks it's pretty neat too. You can kind of see it in the pictures where she's holding up her princess dresses.

From Wednesday to Friday, Mom did a LOT of canning, aided by Janelle and I. We did pears, salsa, relish, and pickles. It was so fun and relaxing to be able to work side by side with my mom and sister, peeling and chopping and slicing and stuffing things into jars to be preserved. Janelle and I each took a turn accidentally peeling off part of our finger with the extra sharp vegetable peeler - ouch! But it was still a wonderful experience. What's especially wonderful is that we got to bring home some of the fruits of our labor, plus extra - pears and salsa and cherries and peaches, yummy!

On Saturday afternoon we went to Michelle's baby shower/luncheon. But before we got there, we of course had to have an adventure. We (Mom, Janelle, Marie, Rheanna, and I) were driving to Mountain Home in Mom's van when suddenly we heard a popping/bursting sound from the general direction of the motor. Then a continuous whirring sound and a strange smell. Mom pulled over and tried to pop the hood. Being five helpless women, we found it hilarious and a bit embarrassing that it took us about five minutes just to be able to open that silly hood! Anyway, after a bit of examining, we found this broken foam tube:


And this burst-looking thing.


Mom called Dad and explained as well as she could what had happened and what we had found. He deduced that it was something to do with the air conditioning, and figured that we should be okay to keep driving as long as we didn't run the a/c. Right about the time Mom was announcing that we would be okay, someone finally pulled up to see if we needed help. After reassuring him that the van was running fine and we would be able to drive okay, we went back on our way to the baby shower.

We had a really good time at the luncheon. Such delicious food! There was chicken salad on crescents, fruit salad, and a green salad with simple homemade vinaigrette. Then there was the adorable cake that Michelle made and decorated. Look at those cute little fondant buttons!


We had a good time visiting with Michelle and meeting the other ladies whose pregnancies were also being celebrated (it was a joint luncheon for three women). There were a couple fun games. We had to guess how many M&M's were in the baby bottle - I was only off by 16, but the lady who won was only off by 9, drats. Then there was the game where we guessed the total price of a group of baby items. Being the tightwad that I am, and constantly thinking that things should cost much less than they really do, my guess ended up being $10 under the actual price. And that's after I added a couple dollars to my guess to try to make up for my tightwad tendencies. I thought that was pretty funny. Marie ended up winning, at just a few dollars off. Lucky her, she won a huge Symphony bar, which she shared with us later in the van.

Sunday was nice and relaxing, we pretty much hung out all morning and then went to church at 1:00. Thomas actually fell asleep in my arms during Sacrament Meeting. He hasn't fallen asleep in my arms in such a long time! It felt so nice and cuddly. He woke up partly through Sunday School, so I took him in to nursery then. Mom is one of the nursery workers, so he settled in there just fine, despite having just woken up.

This morning we took off for home, with a considerably larger load in the van than when we left! Michelle's friend Amanda (bless her wonderfully generous heart!!!) gave us several bags of clothes for the baby and some for Zaylee, and a cute pink walker for the baby as well. We had garbage bags and grocery bags of clothes completely filling the back seat of the van. Plus, Michelle gave us a large box of cloth diapers and supplies. We are feeling very blessed and very well supplied for this baby!

The drive home was slightly less unevently than the drive up to Idaho. The kids were fine - they always travel extremely well and were pretty happy the whole time. But the weather was less than cooperative. The temperature was wonderful, nice and cool, but it was raining so hard during a great portion of our drive. It was coming down so heavy at times that it was hard to see the road. It would let up for a few minutes, then start pouring in sheets again, over and over! I was just glad that Jeff was driving, not me.

But anyway, we made it home safe and sound, and Jeff has even unpacked the suitcase already and put all the clothes and stuff away. He's so awesome! Now Jeff is reading to the kids and we are already feeling settled back in. We had a great visit, but it's good to be home.

I may end up regretting that...

We had a medium-sized zucchini that needed to be used up before our trip to Idaho, so tonight I got the brilliant idea of frying it up just like fried green tomatoes. So I sliced it up, mixed some milk and egg, and some flour and salt and pepper, and heated up some oil. And I fried up those zucchini slices and boy were they good!

My original intention was to serve them with rice for dinner, offering some to the kids just to see if they might like it. I ate the first one done just to test it, and decided that I couldn't wait until the rice was done! I ate another, and another, and kept eating as they finished cooking.

The more I ate the more I thought to myself that there was no way the kids would want to even try these. They looked funny, the texture was sure to turn them off, and the flavor was far too grown up. I shouldn't even offer them any, because it was sure to go to waste. After all, only a grown up could fully appreciate how delicious these slices of fried heaven really were.

Thomas came up as I was eating and asked for some (read: he opened his mouth and looked at me expectantly). I reluctantly cut off a small piece and gave it to him, sure that he would screw up his face and walk away after tasting the strange new food. Nope. The little stinker came back for more! He ate about the equivalent of one slice.

I ate all the rest. The entire zucchini. All but one slice of that greasy, batter-fried deliciousness!

And something tells me that having consumed all that crispy greasiness (they really were quite greasy), I'm sure to regret it somehow later tonight, due to heartburn, stomach distress, burnt tongue, etc. But for now, I don't care. I enjoyed every single delectable bite.

Ending the Suspense

The sellers accepted our offer yesterday, signed and everything. No counter offers, no changes - everything exactly as we wrote it. Hooray - we get the house!!!! I'm so happy. :-)

Oh the Suspense!

Our realtor called us last night. We had set the deadline for accepting or declining our offer to be early this afternoon. But apparently the sellers' realtor is out of town until late tonight, so he won't be able to go over our offer with the house's owners until sometime tomorrow. So we have an entire extra day of wondering whether or not we get to buy this wonderful house that we have allowed ourselves to fall in love with. The suspense is killing me!

Anyway, just wanted to post this little update and get it out of my system. I'm just so ready to be done with this and move into a house already!

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!