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??