100th Day

Isabel's class is going to be celebrating their 100th Day of School at the end of March!! The teacher asked each of the kids to use a t-shirt and put 100 of anything they wanted onto it. On the 100th Day of School they get to wear their t-shirts to school and show everyone what they made! We had A LOT of notice on this project so we have been thinking about it for a long time. I wanted to do something that Isabel would enjoy that she could do mostly by herself and that wouldn't take us 100 hours to complete. We tossed around several ideas before we found the one the stuck......

100 FINGERS!!!!!

We were supposed to use an old t-shirt, but we didn't have any that didn't have some sort of print on them or that weren't stained in some way so we went to the craft store and bought a pretty pink shirt! Then we picked out some fabric paint! We took our supplies home and got started on our project!

We only had one minor mishap when Isabel layed her ORANGE hand on the shirt to push herself up from the table. I admit I overreacted at first, but with a strategically placed orange hand print all was well!!!

The mishap.


All fixed!

I think the finished product turned out beautifully!! I'm looking foward to going to her class in a couple of weeks to help with the 100's Day Party!!

This continues on the back all the way to 100!
We had to buy a big shirt to fit all of the hand prints on it, so I told Isabel she can wear it as a nightgown after she's done with it at school.

Making Room

My nesting instinct has kicked in!! I keep coming up with things that need to be done before this baby comes and I'm feeling very anxious to get it all done NOW! Mentally, I still feel like we have a long time before the baby comes so I feel a little silly about all this anxiety, but when I really think about it I realize that we are only about 3 1/2 months away. That really isn't that much time and since I'm not Super Woman (despite what I want you all to think) it is going to take me some time to tackle each task. Joel has been good enough to humor me these past couple weeks and we have been working hard to get things ready for our baby boy's arrival!

Our first step was going to the storage unit to bring some things over to the house to be sorted through. We only brought the most neccessary things for this first trip and the stack of stuff we gathered compromised our entry way for about a week. The good news was this gave me a week's worth of work to do so my nesting instinct was satisfied for as long as the pile lasted. The bad news was that this stack was in front of our coat closet and we couldn't get anything in or out for a week which created a pile of stuff on the living room sofa which drove me and my perfectionist personality crazy!!!

The second step was for us to switch the kids' rooms. So far, Isabel has always had the bigger room. She was the first born and received the bigger room my default before and as she got bigger she accumulated the larger amount of furniture. So, when we moved she got the bigger room again. At first I was thinking that we'd have to split the baby stuff up between hers and Gabe's room because I didn't think we'd have the space in any one room to store two kids' stuff. Originally the plan was to put the crib in Isabel's room and the changing table in Gabe's room. I made the mistake of voicing this thought early on and getting myself into a bit of trouble. After careful consideration I began to realize that putting the crib in Isabel's room was a bad idea. She is a very light sleeper and would inevitably be kept awake when the baby was up. Gabe, on the other hand, could sleep through an earthquake so it just seemed like putting the crib in his room was a better idea. Plus, the two boys sharing a room is also more logical. Unfortunately, Isabel had been looking forward to having the baby in her room and was pretty disappointed when we told her it wasn't going to happen. We decided to move the boys into the bigger room and move Isabel into the smaller room and we smoothed over Isabel's disappointment by promising a new bedding set to go with her new room. (She's had the same one since she was 2 and it was beginning to show it's age) So, last week Joel and his dad moved all of Gabe's furniture into Isabel's room and all of Isabel's furniture into Gabe's room and then set up the crib and the changing table! I was surprised when this task only took 1 day!! The guys moved the furniture and I moved all of their clothes, toys, etc. Once the rooms were switched I could begin to put away the things in the pile compromising our entryway!!

SCARY!

The boys' room. Still needs some work, but all the big stuff is in place!

Isabel's room. Again, still needs some work, but the worst is over!

The third step, which wasn't as much essential to making room for baby as it was ridding me of a major annoyance, was reorganizing the play room. I had this room in pretty good order before, but had been dying to get some shelves in there so that I could stack the toys up instead of having them neatly spread out all around the room. The kids didn't have much room to play in the playroom before. It only served as a home for the toys, but was pretty much wall to wall stuff. So, we went to Walmart and found a bookcase that would serve our purpose! Joel put it together for me and I spent the next few days organizing and consolidating toys so that they would pretty much all fit in the new bookcase and the one existing bookcase that we already had. Thanks to my super-human organizational skills all of the toys are shelved, there's plenty of room to play and I even scored myself room for a sewing table!!!!!

The mess!! I forgot to take "before" pictures, but this is what it looked like half way through.

Almost done!

The finished product!! All of the toys are right here and to the right is my sewing area!!

The last step in phase one of making room for baby was getting Isabel that new bedding! I had picked up a few catalogs for her to browse through and told her to pick something that she liked. She looked through the catalogs and announced that there was nothing there that she wanted. She had her heart set on ladybugs ... not just any ladybugs, they had to be black and red ladybugs. Having previously broken my baby's heart by taking the baby crib away from her, I wanted to get her exactly what she wanted if I could do it in a costly manner. So, I began to search the internet to see if there was a black and red ladybug bed set anywhere out there. Thanks to overstock.com I was able to find exactly what I wanted and at a good price too!! The bedding arrived yesterday and I had it all set up when she came home from school! She went up to her room to change when she got home and I heard a very excited gasp when she turned the corner!!!! She loves it!!!!!

There are curtains that match, but those aren't hung yet.

So, that is what we've been up to lately. The next phase is cleaning out dresser drawers and washing baby clothes!!!! Should be very exciting! And then after that.....YARD SALE!!!!

Ahead of Schedule

We saw Merrie last week! We are entering the stage of pregnancy where things become very routine and there is not much to report. We are done with the ultrasounds and there won't be any more exciting news until the end, but I have enjoyed looking back at my blogs from Gabe's pregnancy so I'm trying to do a decent job of blogging about this one so some of these little details don't get lost in time.

The general outcome of my appointment was ... everything looks good!! I have made up for the weight I lost at the beginning of the pregnancy, so I guess that is good. (Depends on who you ask!) The baby sounds terrific on the doppler and is moving around regularly!! The most eventful news I have to report is that my belly is measuring bigger than it's "supposed to". I was around 22 weeks 5 days when I saw Merrie and the measurement came back at 25 weeks. You'll remember that last time my belly measured big and I doubted Merrie's mad belly-measuring skills so I'm issuing a public apology here: "Merrie, I am sorry I doubted you. I was in denial and have now accepted that I have a big belly." I believe my response to her measurement was "HOLY MOLEY". She said that it is not an exact science and it isn't even that big of a deal or that important, but they like to keep track of that kind of stuff just in case. I looked back to Gabe's pregnancy to see exactly when I started to measure ahead of schedule and my first record of it was at 24-25 weeks so it looks like I'm right about on schedule ... for me!!

We have been having fun trying to catch the baby's movements. It seems as though this baby only likes to move for it's mama! Joel and the kids have been wanting to get involved in all this movement excitement so I've been trying to let them know when the baby is moving so they can feel it too. Every time someone lays a hand on my belly he gets very still. As soon as they give up, he's back on the move! His movements are becoming much more deliberate. I'm starting to feel rolls and jabs instead of just flutters. Last night he was moving around quite a bit while Joel and I were watching TV. Joel placed his hand on my belly (and was actually patient this time) and he got to feel several big kicks! A little while later I began to feel a hard (painful) knot on the right side of my belly. After a few investigative pokes, we determined that it was a knee or foot! So cool!!! (although somewhat painful :))

We are making some great progress where the name is concerned. I won't tell you what we are thinking at least until we have made the final decision, but I think I can say with relative certainty that his first name has been decided on!!!!!!! Yay us!! Also, we are starting to make some big plans for the arrangement of bedrooms and baby stuff once he arrives! I am feeling the nesting coming on strong so I'm starting to nag Joel about getting things done!! We only have 4 months left!! Not much time in the grand scheme of things ... especially considering I haven't really done a thing yet! So, we will be working on that in the weeks to come. I'll try to post about our progress!

Just a Reminder

As you may have noticed, I added a pregnancy ticker to our blog. The truth of the matter is I am having a very hard time remembering what week I'm in! For instance I thought I was 21 weeks along and when I set up the ticker, it turns out I'm 22 weeks along!! A pleasant surprise! I'm chalking it up to "pregnancy-brain" (which I have a very bad case of this time around). I've been known to do silly things like put my contacts in the wrong eyes and forget conversations 5 minutes after I've had them. It's bizarre and disconcerting and I'll be glad when I'm back to normal! But for now I'm getting really good at giving myself reminders! In truth the pregnancy ticker is more for my benefit than for your enjoyment, but I guess it will help keep us ALL informed :)



P.S. Speaking of silly things that I've been known to do: I forgot how to spell "bizarre" and had to google it. Sheesh! Is it June yet???

Ice Festival

This summer, Joel and I discovered several local and semi-local events to take the kids to. The great thing about these events is that they are all within driving distance and they are FREE!! One of the best places to find these little events is Cripple Creek ... a town just about an hour away in the mountains. You'll remember that we attended the Donkey Derby there this last summer and took a train ride through the historic mines too. It seems that summertime is not the only time that Cripple Creek hosts these various festivals! This last weekend Cripple Creek was home to the Ice Festival!!! They have several artists and sculptors come out and carve things into ice. We had an unseasonably warm weekend here and it was a perfect opportunity to take the drive and see some ice sculptures! The theme this year was something to do with storybooks so all of the designs were of things that we recognized!

Fire-breathing dragon.

The Lost Boys

Neverland

Peter Pan, Wendy, and Captain Hook

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

My personal favorite ... Star Wars. This one was pretty awesome!

In the process... see the flying snow?

The Cheshire Cat

Are you wondering why there are no pictures of us at this fine event? Well, as I said before it was unseasonable warm this past weekend and the ice sculptures were actually melting faster than they could be finished. Occasionally a chunk would fall off of one of these sculptures and we were afraid that one of the kids would get clobbered by one so we made them stay away! So, you'll just have to enjoy the lovely sculptures and look forward to more family pictures in our next post :)

Winter Fun

I did not forget that I promised to be better about taking pictures. While I was not as good as I was hoping to be, I did keep my promise and I did take more pictures of the kids. We have had some very cold temperatures here and several snow storms that have left us home bound and snuggled by the fire. Sometimes when we have a snow day we like to put a fire in the fireplace and watch a movie and we like to have popcorn and treats for dinner :) Here are a few pictures of one such evening and then some pictures of the kids' activities the next day while Joel was shoveling the deck!

"Ring Poppers"

The effects of the "Ring Poppers"

On his way to bed.
I love this picture because it reminds me of that Little Golden Book "Goodnight, Little Bear". It was one of my very favorites when I was a kid! Plus, it kills me how Gabe has his hands wrapped around Joel and Teddy Bear at the same time :) CUTE!

Snow Angels

Daddy shoveling the snow AT the kids!

The kids got these snow discs for Christmas. They were so excited to use them ... even though we did not have any hills!! They made it work!

Half Way

This last week marked 20 weeks for me and baby! I am half way done already! I've been amazed at how quickly this pregnancy is going, and to tell you the truth I'm glad! I really enjoyed being the pregnant the first two times and was not really in any hurry to have it done and over with, but this time is another story. I just can't wait for this little guy to get here. I want to be done with being pregnant and I want to hold my baby!

I know it has been awhile since my last official pregnancy update. So sorry about that, I was wanting to get some pictures to post on here and then our household came down with a cold that lasted for a couple of weeks. I now have the pictures and we are all healthy again so I am ready to post!!! Things are moving along very nicely now. My tummy is very noticeable now and I'm starting to notice it getting in the way when I bend over. I'm also feeling the baby move a lot now. Remember before when I said that I wasn't sure if I was feeling the baby or gas? Well, I am now sure that it was the baby and I now feel him throughout the day every day. I love to feel those little flutters!! I think that is the one thing that I will miss about being pregnant. Joel has even been able to feel the kicks on a few occasions. You usually can't feel anything on the outside, but every now and then if I lay really still and he gives a good kick, Joel can feel it!

We saw Merrie the week before last and she did a follow up ultrasound to make sure that we are still having a boy. It took about 10 seconds for him to go bottoms up and for us to get the proof we needed. He is DEFINITELY a boy! He was very active during the ultrasound and did some pretty cute things while we were watching. Merrie measured my belly for the first time during this appointment ... she said that I was measuring 21 weeks which, at the time, was about a week and a half ahead of schedule. I was a little skeptical about her measurement because I was able to feel the top of my uterus and it was just below my belly button ... Merrie's measurement went well above my belly button. We'll see what the next measurement says. I think she had somewhere to go after my appointment and was a little bit rushed this time. So, those were the highlights from my last visit. I'll go and see her again at the end of February.

We have been making small plans and adjustments already in preparation for this baby. A friend of ours was kind enough to give us their old infant car seat. I had saved everything from the other two kids, but have recently found out that car seats have expiration dates, and our infant seat expired and had to be thrown away. But thanks to our generous friends we now have an infant car seat for our little guy! Also, I found a diaper bag that I loved so I bought it!!! I usually peruse the baby section whenever I step into a Walmart or Target and have had my eye out for things that we need that I would like to have. I've had a hard time finding a diaper bag that was small enough to be convenient and not so purse-like that Joel would never carry it. So, when I saw this one, I just bought it lest it disappear off the shelves never to be seen again! The name debate is still going strong. Joel and I are having a hard time agreeing on a name that we both like and had actually just stopped talking about it all together for a couple of weeks. I do think we made some progress today when the subject was very gingerly brought up! We might be very close to naming this little guy! :) Haven't decided yet if we'll announce the name we choose before hand or make everyone wait until he arrives.

Here are a few of the new pictures of the baby as well as one of me. (I thought it was time that I posted one.) Sorry about the quality of these scans ... for some reason they came out kind of blurry when we scanned them into our computer.

I think it looks like he is going to have a little button nose!

Can you see his little fist with his finger pointed up?

"OH BOY" is what I said when I saw this image on the ultrasound! Merrie thought it was cute and used it to title this picture!