Joy to the World

My sewing machine is fixed! Wahoo! Now, I think I kind of actually like sewing! This weekend I finished some really simple curtains and valances. I also sewed a few other things, but don't want to post them, seeing as some of them mights end up being Christmas presents!




Speaking of joy, how can you not smile looking at that handsome, happy face? These pictures kind of shocked me when I was looking back at them because he looks so grown-up to me! Not to mention sitting at the kids table all by himself! We we able to have dinner with some great friends on Saturday and all these little kiddos are about the same age. Miles thought he was so cool!

Making a List and Checking it Twice

Got the downloading pictures problem figured out, so here are some pictures of things that have been occupying our time lately! For some reason we feel a sense of urgency to get all these little projects and things accomplished before the end of the year, so we've been busy around our home making lists and checking things off. Love that feeling!

We finally finished painting the office areas of the storage facility! I didn't bother taking before pictures, but it was just regular white walls and the boxes we had for sale etc. Now there's a cheery coat of paint and a bit of decor! It was a big project for Richie and I to undertake in our spare time, so we feel accomplished.







We also finished Miles' new big boy bed! I know the color probably looks crazy on the pictures, and it is a little bright, but you'll just have to trust me, if I can do everything I want to do in Miles' room to make it over, the bed will look super cool. I hope... For now, it just looks kind of out of place. Who said getting your toddler to sleep on a big bed would be hard? Holy cow, easiest transition of any transition we've made yet! He never tries to climb out, goes right to sleep just like he's in his crib. I'm wondering if once he gets use to it he'll start being sneaky, but I'm just going to knock on wood for now. :)




I made this the other night! We had some friends over to celebrate Christmas and I was so excited to make this gingerbread, raspberry trifle. It looked amazing!! Too bad the taste wasn't as good as what I was expecting. Still good, just not worth the effort.


Richie is such a good dad! The other day he came home from his lunch break and decided to take Miles sledding on the huge snow plow mound behind the storage units. I'd venture to say Richie was more excited than Miles. Miles hated it the entire 5 minutes they were outside. I don't blame him. It was cold! Maybe next time sweetheart!

All is calm, all is bright

I don't have any pictures, I think our downloader usb thing is broken, so for now you'll just get the written word. You know those times when you just feel humbled to be living your life? As if there are bad things that happen, and not everything goes your way, but if you have enough perspective you can see how really blessed your life is and then the unfortunate things don't seem so bad at all! I've been feeling in awe of my life lately, despite some small trials.

Last weekend I got to go to SLC to hang out with some old high school friends! Richie doesn't understand why I felt like it was so important to go since he doesn't really associate with anyone from high school, but he's sweet enough that he hauled us all down there anyway. Friday night Miles' cold evolved into this season's croup. Not just any croup, but a terrible croup that resulted in a sleepless night for everyone involved. Saturday morning he was improved enough that I felt ok to go be with friends. We had a great time! I think there's always room for girl time. Richie had left his phone in the car, so we hadn't been in contact all day. When I called later in the evening to see how things were I was shocked to find out that Miles, Richie and his mom had been in the hospital insta-care with Miles for the better part of the day and that if this last breathing treatment didn't work, he'd have to spend the night in the hospital. I felt like a terrible mom and left the gals to go be with my family. Long story short, he didn't have to stay at the hospital and actually slept amazing that night. He's since recovered from croup, but is still battling a bear of a cold.
Blessings of that weekend:
*Near a great hospital
*With a nurse (Richie's mom) all weekend to help Miles in ways we couldn't
*Readily available Priesthood holders to give blessings
*Family willing to fast and pray
*A small miracle that Miles' breathing improved so much in such a short time after a blessing and fasting and prayers
*A cuddly boy
*An early Christmas present from Richie's brothers to help us pay for the bills. :)

Now how could that burden seem even slightly heavy with such blessings happening all around us?? I could go on and on about how blessed we feel, but suffice it to say these feelings have been more poignant around this Christmas time. If you have a few minutes, check out this video of the choir singing "Silent Night". I think I shared it last season, but it's my favorite.

Deck the Halls

The halls have been decked. Check and double check. Here's a few picture of what our place looks like as of today! My mom taught me a good rule when decorating for any holiday. Always take down something if you put something else up! It helps it look like you did it on purpose and it's not half so cluttery. Our camera isn't that great, so the quality of the pictures doesn't do the real deal justice. Guess you'll just have to come up and visit! Not that it's amazing, it's just fun and I like the way our house feels. How about that home-made tree eh? I'd still like to make a tree skirt, but we'll see what I get to. One of the pictures wouldn't download, but I re-used the shiny, glass ornaments that we inherited and gave them new life in glass vases. Really simple idea and you can find those type of ornaments at the DI anytime. Happy Holidays!

A Man's Holiday

It was decided this Thanksgiving that this holiday is best suited for a man. You eat a lot of food, watch a lot of football and sit around. Nevertheless, I enjoyed myself as well! We went to Nampa to spend it with Richie's mom's side of the family. There's always a lot of nice people there whom I don't quite recognize or know and enough food to feed us for at least 3 Thanksgivings. I love the tradition they have of doing a Christmas craft after the big feast! What a great idea right? This was also my first experience with the infamous black Friday. We didn't go really early, and it wasn't nearly as crowded as I expected. I got some really good deals actually! I'm not totally converted, but it was a good experience. It would have been even better if I had more money. :)
However, we were more than ready to be home after this trip. Why does anyone with kids in their right mind ever take a vacation? WHY???? It just exhausts the child and thereby the parents. Miles was totally off schedule and one night stayed up basically all night. Finally at 630 I got up with him and we went on a drive so we wouldn't wake anyone else up. We drove and drove and drove, all within a 10 mile radius to avoid getting lost and I had some good retrospective time to cry and think about all things deep like, "Why do these stupid birds settle on the road?? Don't they know another car is coming in about 10 seconds?" and "That house is beyond huge! I'm almost positive the owners are involved in illegal activity." Thank goodness for good family around to take Miles from me when they can tell I'm this close to beating him, and who cleans up the massive amounts of puke he just created after Thanksgiving all over the floor. For the few major negatives, the trip was definitely positive over all. Miles even traveled great and we were blessed not to slide off the road like so many others.




I took a real belly shot (24 weeks) on Sunday because I was feelin' cute in my new early Christmas present from my mother-in-law. When I got to church a very sweet woman was asking me when I was due etc and then proceeded to politely tell me that every time she sees me I just get bigger and bigger! I must have looked shocked, surprised or like I was going to shoot lasers out of my eyes at her because later on she tried to dig herself out of that whole by telling me I was just "blossoming". Thanks a lot. I still have a sense of humor (thank goodness) at this point in the pregnancy because this is my favorite stage of the whole process.

It was a hit!

Saturday was full of errands to run, projects to work on etc and by dinner time I was ready to have a real weekend. Fat Cats in town is doing a deal where you bring in cans and they let you bowl for free! We brought in a bunch of cans, called up some friends and had a great time! It was Miles' first experience with arcade games and bowling and he was in heaven! We were all shocked at his strength. He had no problem picking up 6-8 pound balls and lifting them over his head to put them on the little ramp kiddos can use. Unfortunately no naps and a little sickness cause him to tire quickly and the trip was cut short. We'll be doing it again in the future though I'm sure. As for Miles' sickness, we took him to the doctor today and had that awesome experience of paying $20 for the doctor to tell me everything is fine. It's just a virus that's causing a rash and it's no longer contagious and the only thing to do is wait for the rash to go away. Wohoo!

The reality

My mom reminded me last night that this blog is overdue for another post. I heartily agreed with her, but argued that nothing going on is post worthy. She said that if I'm doing this for family history in any part (which I am) that it shouldn't matter if it's exciting and that even the day-to-day stuff is fun to read for her. I give you the reality of the past few weeks:

Exhibit A:
When the old owners left, they took the nicer fridge they had bought for this apartment and gave us the extra one they had. It worked just fine until water started leaking out the bottom. No problem, we can put a towel underneath! Ta-Da! Then it started smelling like something crawled in and died. I cannot adequately describe how horrible it smelled. Thank you pregnant nose. No, well my nose is not actually pregnant, but...oh you know what I mean. But we dealt with the smell also. But then all of our food started going bad at a rapid rate. Not fair! The new owners are not really into treating us like we're renters, so they said we should just go buy a new one ourselves that we could take with us. To make this story a bit shorter we found one for $100 on craigslist that has been working great! But as I sat there sanitizing it for the one millionth time I wondered if there would ever be a day that Richie and I would feel justified in buying a brand new appliance that I wouldn't have to pick a few bugs and hair out of before using it. TMI? Well, that was the reality.




Exhibit B
Over the summer we noticed a rather gamy smell coming from our closet. My first assumption was that Richie's shoes smelled extra bad. I was wrong. It was flooded. Something from the furnace wasn't working and was leaking water into our closet. It was a minor repair, and after a few days with fans going 24-7 all was well. Until this week when the carpet was soggy again. Still need to get it repaired. Ugh.



Exhibit C
One of the lights in our kitchen broke about a month ago. It's amazing what a difference one light can make. With it getting darker at night, I found myself cooking meals and cleaning in the twilight it seemed. Richie's no electrician so this repair took some prodding, nagging, threatening etc. It's finally fixed! I celebrated by doing a little dance in the well-lit-kitchen, and then doing some dishes. See above picture of the amazing 2 light kitchen!


Exhibit D
With a new one coming, the nesting bug is overpowering these days. I want a complete makeover of Mile's room. We'll see what our budget actually allows us to do. But yesterday my old dresser arrived all the way from St. George via my wonderful parents! In order to make room for the improvement, we decided to get rid of this old desk that was in the closet. Then I took it a step farther and decided to play the game, "We're hypothetically moving and I have to get rid of stuff to save space in the truck." I was ruthless. If I hadn't used it or worn it in the past year, it's gone. If I'm not going to use it in the next 2 years, it's gone. This is what I came up with. One measly box. Either we're very resourceful and use our things well, or I'm a hoarder.




Exhibits E, F, G...etc etc
Oh and yesterday I got 2 notices from different places saying I owed them money, which I don't and can prove with bank statements, and Miles threw up. How is that for reality? So just in case some of you thought I was leading a very glamorous life, this shows that I don't sit around and eat bon bons every day, only sometimes. :) For the most part my life is awesome and I eat my fair share of bon bons, life just gets in the way sometimes you know? Have a fantastic weekend! Here's to hoping there's something fun to post on Monday.

Fun Little Projects

Any news kind of pales in comparison to finding out you're having a little girl, so I haven't found much lately that's post worthy. But for the sake of posting, I figured I'd show you some really cheap, fun little projects that keep my nesting hands busy these days.

I decided to make all our Christmas tree ornaments by hand this year. I don't know why. But I wanted it to remain super simple, which is great since there's no way to justify buying new ornaments! Everything I'm planning on putting on the tree will probably cost us maybe $10 at the most. That includes hand made paper ornaments, cinnamon ornaments, strung popcorn, and a new tree skirt! Here's some snowflakes made of cardboard tubing and those fuzzy pipe things. Can't remember the word. Not being able to remember words has been extremely difficult and frustrating this pregnancy. Anyway, I found the idea in Family Fun magazine last year!

Here's some cool looking ball ornaments made out of old book paper and cardstock. You just cut the paper into circles, fold them in half, glue 1 side to another and then stick a ribbon in the center before gluing it shut! Easy! Found the idea on a blog. The lady does a whole series of hand-made ornaments. Pretty cool stuff.


These I made for Fall/Thanksgiving. Miles and I kept finding the most awesome leaves on our outings, so we dried them, then glued them onto old book paper (I'm a little smitten with the whole book paper craze right now) and put them in some old frames hanging around. I also found this idea on some blog. I'm a very good copy-catter. Do you have any projects I could copy cat?



And just for fun, here's Miles. I guess his movie wasn't as entertaining as usual one morning and when I came out of the bathroom from getting ready for the day, this is how I found him. We've also had similar experiences with syrup. So much fun right?

Miles couldn't wait any longer

He found out he was going to have a little SISTER and decided to break in some clothes for her. How considerate right? Actually these pictures were taken in the summer with some hand-me-downs we got, in hopes it would be a girl. Richie got him ready for church one day and this is how he got him dressed. It may look like he's smiling, but he really hated being in that cute, pink, frilly dress!

We knew it all along!! It just HAD to be a girl. We're so excited we were right though! We had a sweet ultra sound tech who let us look at her for a long time and make predictions about her personality based on how wiggly she was. :) She already looks like a beautiful, sweet little girl. Half way there till we get to meet her!! We've got a couple of names picked out...What do you think about Gwendaline, Lindy June, or Eloise??

It's fun having a kid around Halloween time. It's even better when they start to understand the holiday a bit better. I think Halloween may be Miles' favorite holiday. :) He inherited my sweet tooth and he got a kick out of everyone just giving away free candy!! All he had to do was say "treat" and "thank you" and they just gave it to him!! Many times after he had the candy in hand and had said his dutiful thank yous, he would walk away laughing like a crazed person. He absolutely hated being in his costume. Good thing I got it for .50 last year at Wal-Mart after Halloween. He was a monkey. Although without his hat, everyone mistook him for a lion. Whatever. We got one of him smiling, but the rest of the time he was in it he was crying, as featured in the other picture. Oh, and see that amazing trick-or-treat bag? Yeah, I made it. I even appliqued stuff and everything.


I tried to make the day special for us with a out of the ordinary breakfast of cinnamon roll pancakes with homemade buttermilk syrup. I found the recipe on "The Idea Room". They didn't look ANYTHING like the pictures, but they tasted mighty good. We also had our ward friends Mike and Maryanne and their son James over for dinner before the trunk-or-treat. Last year we made sloppy joes and made it look like pumpkin brains as we scooped the joes out of the top of a pumpkin head. This year, Richie decided to make the pumpkin look like he was "losing his lunch" so to speak.


Today for the actual Halloween I tried my hand at my very first pumpkin roll. Heaven on a pan I tell you. Good thing we shared and didn't bring home any left-overs or I'd eat it all up! I must be the only one around this house with a high enough sugar tolerance. Miles had some "fun" diapers and an accompanying rash over the weekend and now Richie's feeling on the down side. It's a life-long effort to build up a tolerance to sugar like I have, but if I can do it anybody can! It makes the holidays so much more bearable. :)

Drumroll please....

I was so sick and tired of my hair!! It's pretty much been the same since my sophomore year in high school, with a few short lengths in between. The final straw was when I was in line at Arctic Circle while Richie and Miles were in the play area and the girl next to me asked me if I was in high school! I told her no, but before I had a chance to explain she then apologized and assumed I must have been in college. I chuckled and said, "No, I'm finished with that too. My husband and son are in there." I probably should have taken this as a compliment, but it only fueled the fire to chop my hair. Not that cutting my hair will automatically make me look more sophisticated, but maybe if I stopped wearing band T-shirts and flip flops it would do the trick. Regardless, here's the new cut. I had a few more drastic options, but I gave the lady some pictures, told her my concerns and that I trusted her, and away she went. This is what she came up with. She made it sound like it's so easy to do, like I wanted, but we'll just have to see about that.... The pictures don't do it justice in my opinion. I really like the way it turned out. I'm just wondering if I should have gone more drastic while I had the guts because the cut is still pretty simple and I'll still be tempted to style it the same easy ways.


And since I figured this would be the best my hair would look for a while since a pro did it, I should give in and take some belly shots. Haven't been as excited this time around to document my growing tummy, but now I have at least one. I still feel like I look fat rather than pregnant sometimes, but for the most part, it's obvious I'm pregnant. We find out the gender next Wednesday!! Can't hardly stand waiting!

"The Best Things Happen When You're Dancing"

Dancing has been on the back, back, back burner lately. With Richie's new job and class, there is no way to fit dancing in on a regular basis. It was hard enough before just trying to get a sitter etc. But this Saturday The Woodside held a workshop weekend with guest instructors and a live band dance that night so we made extra sure we could go. We looked forward to it all month and it was fantastic. Of course we couldn't go to the workshops all day, but the dance was so much fun. I forget how quickly you get sore dancing when you're pregnant! I'm still feeling the repercussions of my actions there, but it was so worth it. I didn't even mind not dancing every dance, or not being able to dance the really fast ones, it was just fun to dance with Richie. I'm so glad I married my best friend. We have so much fun together and it was nice to remember that on Saturday by just spending some time with just the two of us.


On Monday I'm sure LDS families everywhere celebrated FHE by carving pumpkins. We were no different. Although we were a little weak this year since Richie was writing a story for the paper and trying to carve with Miles was more difficult than expected, we only did one pumpkin. So really, it was just me doing pumpkin carving, but then again, I kind of enjoy that stuff. I found a free template on Family Fun's website. I'd never used a template before that I can remember. What a fantastic idea!! It was so much easier. I call it my spider motif pumpkin. I used the template all the way around.

Today I.....

Woke up at an alarmingly late 8:30!

Felt like I was in my first trimester all over again, decided today would be a movie day

Put on some sweats, got Miles, got frustrated when he refused breakfast and all he wanted was to watch Tarzan.

Gave in, fed him bits of toast while we watched Tarzan for the one millionth time

Put my tennis shoes on, and laid on the ground waiting for Miles to come near enough to me that I could grab him and put his on.

Caught him. Strapped him in the bike trailer.

Rode "around the block" to visit sister Virgin. Was disappointed to find she wasn't there. Instead, Miles was entertained by the neighbors roosters, chickens, dogs and cats. Not to mention the number of cows we passed while riding.

Thought to myself, "I kind of like the smell of manure. Wait a second...what??" Decided it was just the style of living and the areas of the country where you smell cow manure that I like.

Got ambitious, made an effort to be a good mom and pulled out the cookie tray, layered it with corn meal and traced shapes with Miles.

He loved it for 2 minutes. Next activity.

Got even more ambitious and pulled out finger paints for the very first time. Loved it even more. Lasted 4 minutes.

I wanted to keep finger painting, but wanted Miles to have nap time even more, so I stuffed some lunch down the kid and laid him down. Breathed a sigh of relief when he didn't fight it and actually looked tired. Shouted Hallelujah when he fell asleep without a bink at naptime.

Read some scriptures etc, read some Mockingjay. Felt guilty that I read Mockingjay longer than the scriptures.

Went to the bathroom again. 99th time of the day and counting.

Did some office work for the storage units, then began painting. (The owners have "hired" us to paint the entire front area so that's where all of our free time has been going lately)

Squished myself into a corner between a toilet and a wall to try and tape off some floorboards and thought, "That is not going to be fun to paint."

Miles wakes up, we take Richie some food at work, we go to Wal-Mart and buy toilet paper and drano since Richie tells me that something may very well have crawled into our pipes and died in the bathroom because it smells so bad. You'll just have to trust me, it really does smell that bad.

Score a clearance Elmo potty book that has sound buttons for $2 and the least girly looking baby doll for $4 so that Miles can start getting used to the idea.

He immediately takes it, smothers it in root beer sucker kisses and points out facial features.

I grin like an idiot and think I have the best root beer sucker covered child in the world.

Come home, let Miles watch a movie, clean up the house so it appears to Richie as if its been like this all day. He's never fooled.

Heat up some left overs, let Miles play bubbles in the sink while I read more Mockingjay. Dang book controlling my life. Richie leaves for seminary classes and I sigh inwardly.

Don't feel like doing anything super fun. Takes too much energy. Play some toys with Miles, do some dishes.

Miles discovers the potty book and falls in love. When I ask him if he wants to go potty, he lights up and runs for the potty. (He hasn't liked it much these days, so I'm shocked and think I may have just spent the best $2 of my life.)

Bath time. Yes! Read more mockingjay. Miles wants to sing. I sing every song from nursery that he knows including the chorus to follow the prophet 23 times. When I say that song is all done he's very distraught and asks for another one. I can't understand him, but he's being very specific. I'm frustrated, he's frustrated, bad situation. Distract him with a towel.

Out of the bathtub, into pajamas, brush teeth, scriptures, (which he actually sits for since I'm reading it to the baby) put him down, don't give him a bink, listen to him cry himself to sleep again as I blog.

Now what to do....Painting or Mockingjay????

"Howdy Neighbor!"

Our friends Mike and Megan that were going to be gone for a while ended up being back sooner than they thought! Hooray! We had dinner on Saturday complete with a delicious fall treat. I thought I'd share the recipe because it's full of all things yummy and therefore terrible for you. I saw a fun idea in a magazine and thought we'd try it out this time around. We cut the tops off the apples, used a melon baller to scoop out the insides of the apple and filled the insides with carmel! That way everyone has their own little bowl of carmel and can double dip all they want! We decided it probably cancels out some of the calories from the carmel since it's inside an apple. Right? You can dip all sorts of things, but that night we dipped apples, bananas, angel food cake and pretzels.


Carmel Recipe:
1/2 C butter
2 C brown sugar
1 Can sweetened condensed milk
1 C light corn syrup
1 t vanilla
*mix together in sauce pan until mixture is almost boiling. Remove from heat and dip away!