Amazing What Can Happen in A Week

Day One: After weeks of hassle and struggle and waiting for PG&E, they came to move the gas meters to the front of the house.

Day Two: Forms built and cement foundation poured.

Day Three: Demo stucco off side of house, start building floor joists

Day Four: Deal with uptight building inspector, finish laying floor joists, and put up walls!

Day Five: All interior walls up, girls old room demo'ed and hall wall and new closet walls up. Roof trusses being built.

And that was our whirlwind weekend! After months of waiting for the plans to be redrawn, permits issued, PG&E, and other things to be ready, we have begun our addition. I'm pretty impressed with all that was accomplished in 5 days and hope we can finish the rest of the addition before bad rain comes. I'd say before the baby comes, but let's be honest, that ain't gonna happen. No way, no how. I'm learning to deal with the noise outside, the dust buildup in my house from construction, and having the girls and all their stuff in our bedroom since their old room is being converted into the baby's room. It's a bit crazy around here to say the least, but it will all be worth it in the end. :)

A Project Every Few Days...

In keeping with my hopes of completing a new project every few days, I made these nursing covers. They are fabulous and I totally look forward to using them. I'm excited to not have to use a blanket that will constantly fall off my shoulder. These covers go around your neck and are adjustable and have boning in the front so you can still see your baby while nursing. I made a few more to give to my pregnant sister-in-laws too.

I am in love with this material! I made matching burp cloths from the leftover material for my sister-in-law.

I got the idea and the so simple tutorial from this fabulous blog: http://sewmuchado.blogspot.com/2009/02/description-stylish-and-practical.html

I also used leftover material to make a covered wipes case to match the nursing cover. Got this idea and tutorial from one of my new fave crafty blogs: http://angieasplund.blogspot.com/2008/10/covering-wipes-case-tutorial.html Not a completely NECESSARY accessory, but totally cute nonetheless! :)

Painting the Belly

So, Mikayla remembered that she got to paint my belly when I was pregnant with Megan and asked if she could do it again. We let the girls each take a turn and it's amazing how much they loved doing it and how much time they spend on their individual creations. Megan only wanted to use purple and pink and mixed them around and concentrated really hard on her painting.

She had trouble keeping her hands off the wet paint! So, into the bath she went after this next pic!

Mikayla painted a sun, grass and flowers, and herself swinging on a swing. She had it all planned out and spent her time picking out her paint colors. I asked them to completely cover the stretch marks, but alas, it's too big a task!
She was quite proud of her creation and now keeps asking when they can do it again. I'm 36 1/2 weeks now so we probably won't do it again, she'll be here before we know it! It's a fun tradition for the girls though. :)

Pacifier Clips

I've been trying to do a project a day lately (or every few days!). This is the latest, I made a bunch of paci clips for me and to give away. So EASY! I took the metal clips off name badge clips, ran ribbon through the hole and hot glued the end down. I stitched along the end to reinforce it and added velcro at the top. These could be fastened with velcro, snaps, or a number of other things really. Such a fun, easy way to use up ribbon scraps since it uses less than a foot per paci clip. I'm excited to have new clips for my baby and hopefully won't lose so many pacis this way!

34 weeks?!

Yep, starting to feel blimp-like now. This pregnancy's been such a breeze and I've been at the gym and running errands and everything just fine and then all of a sudden I'm havng trouble walking. I did as little as possible today which still meant running the girls back and forth to school and play group, going to work, cleaning house, etc. The groin muscles are basically giving out on me and I can barely walk, I was seriously waddling today. It's frustrating because I still feel great and she's still kicking like crazy, but limited mobility is not so fun. The sad part is, the only reason I want to hurry up and get her out is because my dang skin does not stretch well and I'm getting more stretch marks. Seriously?! I'm not even THAT big but have lots of those dang stupid things. Oh my dang stupid vanity I tell ya...I shouldn't care I know... but I do and though I am in no way ready for another baby right now (like, don't even have a car seat yet) I want her out just so I don't stretch anymore.... uggh. Okay, ranting over. I tend to treat my blog like my journal so there's my thoughts and commentary.... :)

Vinyl on Plates

So simple if you have a Cricut! I got some purple plates--some salad and some dinner-- from D.I. last week. I cut the letters out of vinyl with the Cricut with the Tear Drop font and the spider from the Doodlecharms cartridge. P.S. I get my vinyl from Lowe's in the wallpaper department. It's called WallPops and comes in a tube that is 6" by 12" which is perfect for the regular-size Cricut. I thought it made a pretty cute Halloween decoration. I plan on scouring the thrift stores for more plates to make some for other holidays.

Go Cheetahs!!

All the kids on Mikayla's soccer team got their faces painted like Cheetahs for their game last week. They looked so cute! It was fun to watch all the kids with running around trying to look intimidating with their painted faces.

So fierce!

Megan, of course, had to join in on the fun!

My Cheetah girls

This would be Erik's cheetah leap I believe. :)
At the end of each game, the parents make a tunnel for the kids to all run through. Poor kids had to run under Megan and Brock's tunnel too! Hahaha, it was pretty funny to watch!

Pint-sized Cheetahs!

Pretty Matching Dresses

The girls before church in matching dresses from Grandma and Grandpa D (Trent's parents).

How cute is she?!

She loves how much the dress flares out when she spins around! So fun!

This might be one of my new favorite pictures of Megan. I asked her to smile and this is what I got! Hilarious!

Megan's Turn

Megan's first day of play group! She is so excited to have something of her own to go to now. Megan and her friends Brock, Eve, and Carson are all doing a play group together every Wednesday and we'll trade houses (which means for 6 weeks in a row I can grocery shop, make crafts, clean my house, or do whatever I want until it's my turn to have the kids over again!). Sounds pretty fabulous to me! While driving Mikayla to school last week Megan was so happy and said, "I go to Eve's house, Eve's house, Eve's house!" She was happy to play and have somewhere to go.

I worked in Mikayla's Kindergarten class that day so Kelsey took the kids to the park until it was time for play group. Thanks for the help and the pics Kelsey!

These two are just too cute!

Sprinkler Park

The girls have been begging me to go to the sprinkler park before they close it up for the summer. I packed a lunch and we surprised Mikayla by going right after kindergarten the other day. We had so much fun! I think we need to try to go back again real soon!

Yes, Megan is eating. She's always eating. She's got a soggy cracker in her hands/mouth. I don't know why the kid isn't humongous with how much and often she eats, but soggy or not she was going to keep eating in the sprinklers!
Mikayla loves action shots lately.

New Twilight Trailer!

Yesss!!! Is everyone as stinkin' excited as I am for this movie?!?! It looks sooo awesome!! Who's up for the midnight showing? It looks so freakin' good I can't stand it! 2 months left! Woo hoo!

Seriously?! She scored?!

Yes! Mikayla scored her first goal in soccer at her game and made two assists that led to 2 more goals! The kid might actually understand what's going on in the game now. That's a major improvement from a few weeks ago! She doesn't tend to like to be right in the middle of the pack so she hangs around the perimeter of the pack waiting for the ball to pop out into the open and then tries to get her kicks in.
When we congratulated her at half time on her score, we were saying "that was awesome, you did so well, etc. etc." and she said, "I can't talk right now guys, I'm just too proud." And she walked over to get her half-time snack of oranges--that was that. Always one to leave me wondering where she comes up with this stuff!

Last game, she ran around the field hanging out talking with her buddy Erik or clapping and shouting to her team to, "Run, run, run!" "Turn the ball around, other way!" and other such things. Fine and dandy if you're the coach or a stinkin cheerleader, but not when you're a player on the TEAM!!! So we had a talk about getting in the game and "trying your hardest" and lo and behold--she did and it paid off with a goal! Yea! Way more fun to watch than just a cute 5 yr. old jogging around socializing with friends on the field. :)

No, a HYPOPESIS

Driving in the car yesterday we were having a conversation and asked Mikayla why she thought something was the way it was.
"Well, let's make a hypopesis about it," she said. "A what?" "A hypopesis," she insisted. "Uh, what's that?" we asked her.
"You know, a hypopesis, we'll make a guess about it and then see if we're right."
"Oh, a hyPOTHesis!" We said in understanding. "No, a hypopesis!" she again insisted. This smart lil cookie's vocab is expanding far too rapidly for us!

The response to the question, "How was school today?" is often met with, "It was BRILLIANT!" or marvelous, or fantastic and fabulous or something along those lines. :)

Soakin' Up the Last Bit of Summer

We have loved having a membership at Del Norte this summer! We have gone swimming almost every day and Mikayla now goes off a diving board by herself, swims a half lap, can do forward and backward somersaults in the water, touch the bottom of the pool, and semi-dive off the side. ALL things she didn't do last summer! She also loves when I put the camera on sport mode and capture some action shots!

Daddy and the girls in the "baby pool" (as Megan calls it).

Busy Lately...

I've been busy lately with work, Mikayla in school, Trent's back to school, got a new calling at church as Primary secretary and am still doing Achievement Days, Trent got a new calling as YM President, making hairbows and other crafts, soccer practices/games, and life in general. But, I did take some time out last week to take some pictures of this cutie! This is Dagny's baby Kate and I had fun taking some pics of her and always love baby pics in black and white. I wanted more practice before our little one comes in less than 2 months and look forward to taking lots of pics of her (whatever her name will be!).