Dr. Suess Baby Shower

Once again we got super spoiled at our baby shower!

My friends here threw this shower, and they also did a great job!

It was Dr. Suess themed!

I remembered to take pictures of the decorations this time, so this is what it looked like when you walked up:

 I missed the sign in table some how in my picture, but this was right behind it

 Moving on over to the food tables

 Each had a cute little Dr. Suess name to go with the food

 I'm not usually a big shower game fan, but they played some really fun ones that I'd never played before.

This pictures shows the little babies frozen in ice cubes,

how you play is whoever's ice cube melted first had to shout out "My water broke" and that person got a prize. It was really funny because that was one of my fears, that my water would actually break at the shower. It didn't, thank goodness! They also had some advice cards to fill out. Another game was making up Dr. Suessish names using the letters from my name and my sweet husband's name. People were pretty creative, it was really funny! And the last game we played was a Dr. Suess/Baby catch phrase game, it was really fun! We played against tables, so whichever table made it through first, won. 

 Each table was decorated like a different Dr. Suess book, my friend that spear headed the baby shower was smart and delegated a lot and got different people to help decorate and help with the food. It really turned out cute. This was the table I sat at.

Horton Hatches the Egg

 Yertle the Turtle Table

 Cat in the Hat table, there is even a real goldfish in there!

And we thought the diaper hat was such a smart idea!

 The Lorax Table

 The Sneeches Table

 After the games and everyone was finished or mostly finished eating we opened presents.

Boy were we spoiled!

 They also had a cute little Dr. Suess photo booth with props to take pictures with.

My friend has most of the pictures, but my mom got some with my camera too.

 The wonderful ladies I work with in Young Women that were able to make it

 My old coworkers that were able to make it.

 My little nephew loved this little tree, I thought this picture my mom was able to get was adorable.

 And last but not least, this is my awesome friend that threw the shower! She will try and correct me and tell me that tons of people helped, which is true, but she spear-headed it. She did such a great job! I'm so lucky to have such an awesome friend! Thank you again!

I'm so grateful to everyone that helped with the shower and for everyone that came, some people traveled quite a ways to make it! And I know there were people that weren't able to make it, but wanted to and I'm grateful for them! I'm so glad to live in such a great place with so many wonderful people!

Projects: Misc and thoughts

I thought I would share a few miscellaneous projects I've done recently.

This first one my sweet husband helped me with because I couldn't get the router bit out by myself,

and I was up to my ears in red fabric... lol aka working on the bench cover.

I have some seasonal decorations I put in this frame, but I haven't finished the ones for spring and summer.

So it tends to hang empty for those months.

One day I was reading my scriptures and a conference talk or something and I thought, "ooh, I really like that quote, I should make it into a sign or something and put it on my wall."

Then a little while later I thought the same thing, by the end of reading I had like 5 quotes I really liked.

So then I thought to myself, "You don't have that much wall space."

Thus, I needed a different plan,

and so the chalkboard idea came to be.

You can buy the already made blank chalkboards at the home improvement stores,

for a while they had ones that were just about exactly the size I needed,

but apparently those were promotional items and weren't being sold any more.

So I got the bigger one and had them cut it down. 

 I really like it because I can change it as often as I'd like.

I really love the bottom quote,

it says, "Marriage is a gift from God to us; the quality of our marriages is a gift from us to Him" 

(Elder L. Whitney Clayton).

I've never thought about marriage quite like that. I love being married! I love my sweet husband! But I've never thought about how the effort and love I put into our marriage is a gift from me to my Father in Heaven. Which is also neat because we can't give a lot of gifts to Him,

but showing Him how much we love our spouse and truly cleaving to our covenants and our spouse are ways we can show our appreciation for the wonderful blessing of marriage He has given us!

The other project is one that we've been meaning to do for a while.

Our food cupboards have been getting quite cramped, so we cleaned off one of the shelves we had in the garage that wasn't very full and moved it into the laundry room.

Someday we hope to have cupboards in there, but until then this works.

I like that I can see everything really quickly!

We had an ant invasion a few weeks ago, and that is what really kicked us into gear to get this done!

I pulled everything out of the cupboards to vacuum them out and then decided, rather than shoving it all back in I may as well organize it all and finally put it on the shelves like we'd planned. So my sweet husband helped me clean off the shelves and then moved it into the house for me.

Then I organized it all! I then organized our canned food and noodles and all the other food that didn't fit on the shelves in the cupboards in the kitchen. I was even able to fit all the extra cans we've had under our guest bed for food storage in the cupboards so that we can cycle through them as well! It was a very productive day!

Projects: Nursery

Ever since we decided to buy our home I dreamed of a window seat in the bay windows.

In one of my favorite tv shows growing up, The Torkelsons, the main character had a window seat in her bay window and I always wanted one after that. To sit and read and think, Dorothy Jane (from the show) would talk to the Man in the Moon. I don't know how long we'll be in this house, but maybe our little girl will be able to do some of those things thanks to this project.

While I dreamed of it, my mom was actually the one to convince me to actually do it, plus we really needed a place for our children's books, I love children's books!

I thought up a design, nothing too fancy, but something nice and practical.

I had my sweet husband help me determine everything I would need,

we got the supplies and my sweet husband cut out the boards for me so I didn't have to do the heavy lifting.

Then one day while he was at work, I assembled it!

Here is the first layer of bookshelves

 The second layer of shelves

 And the other end

 This was the picture I sent to my sweet husband to tell him that I finished assembling it and that I was super tired... lol!

 Another day I cut and installed the face framing.

Close up

 Whole shelf

 Another day I painted it... well some of it.

Laying on your side trying to get into all the corners is difficult, then add being pregnant into the mix and I was worn out! So my sweet husband helped me finish painting it one night.

Then I ordered the foam for the seat, that's what I was waiting on for so long. Amazon Prime spoils me, having to wait longer than 2 days kills me! But we made it.

While my parents were here helping with the patio, the foam arrived!

One morning my mom and I cut out the foam.

Monday, I made the cover and my sweet husband helped me get it on,

it is SO tight! I put a zipper on one of the sides so that if we needed to wash it I could take it off... I'm not sure we'll ever be able to take it off.. lol!

Now the room is complete...

 Except we need to get a crib mattress, but we'll get one.

 Oh and I sewed this cute little curtain to hide the totes and things on the top shelf of the closet

 While I was organizing the room, I decided to put a shoe organizer of things we'll need fairly handy on the back of the door. A few of the things in it are swaddling blankets, nursing cover, pacifiers, shoes, and hair bows and flowers. Hopefully it will be helpful, if not, at least they have a place to be.. lol!

Getting Closer!

For 32 weeks, you have to be a little creative, I was out of town and forgot to have someone take an actual belly picture for me. That was the week my sister got home so I had other things on my mind I guess.

Also, apparently I wear the same clothes a lot... lol but I guess that happens after a while when you only have so many clothes.

We are now only FOUR weeks from our due date! I can't believe how quickly time is FLYING!

We've been busy preparing for our sweet baby girl to arrive.

We've been reading and practicing labor relaxation techniques and other things we need to know about labor.

My sweet husband will be an awesome coach!

We went on a hospital tour yesterday and I think that made things seem a little more real.

Now we know where everything will take place,

we just don't know exactly when!

As far as the baby goes, she is doing very well! She measures perfectly each time the doctor checks.

I have an appointment on Thursday and will have one each week from here on out!

Baby Girl has discovered my ribs and sometimes I'm afraid she'll come out all black and blue from hitting them! Also, when I lay on my side sometimes she'll wiggle a ton and it feels like she's trying to tickle me, DEFINITELY her father's daughter. My sweet husband loves to tickle me!

As for me, I'm still feeling great! I definitely get tired, but I can handle that!

I love to feel her move and stretch, sometimes she settles in the funniest positions, I often wonder if when she is born if she will prefer the same positions and we'll be able to know exactly what she was doing.

One of her favorite positions is on the right side of my belly! It usually happens after I eat, so I think it may have something to do with my full stomach, but I could be way off... lol!

Each day we feel extremely blessed to have this little miracle growing inside of me!

Sometimes it still feels too good to be true!

We are SO anxious to meet her, but we can wait the 4 more weeks, 

or however long it takes for her to make her debut! 

Projects: Back Patio

We've been very busy trying to get a few projects done before the baby comes.

Our most recent project was the back patio.

My sweet husband spent a few days jack-hammering out the old back patio.

 My parents came down to help put the new one in.

My dad finished taking out the last little bit while my sweet husband was at work.

 Then they all had the fun job of loading the old cement into the dump trailer to take to the landfill.

Our brother-in-law helped with that part at one point but I forgot to take a picture.

 After three trips to the dump Wednesday morning our backyard looked like this:

 Also if you look close in the previous picture you will see where my dad started rototilling the dirt.

Then came round one of compacting the ground.

They started with a jumping jack we borrowed from a friend,

but after fixing a part and changing the oil, the oil cap busted and shot oil all over part of our house and my poor husband! So we rented a compacter, which we needed later anyways.

 Then came round one of fill dirt

 And several more rounds of dirt

 More compacting

 Compacting and leveling

Then finally it was time to start laying the pavers.

Our original plan was to pour cement, but after some discussion, we decided on pavers.

 Many hands make light work... 

 And here are many pictures to show our awesome helping hands!

 It went on like this for a while, they would lay out pavers for a few rows, then set them in place, and then start laying out more.

 I was banned from most of the work, but I was able to help sweep the sand that would help keep the pavers in place.

 They worked until it was pretty dark

 And started again the next morning pretty early.

This was Friday morning, Thursday night they had made quite a bit of progress.

 On Friday, they finished up the main area and then worked on cutting the little pieces to fit up against the house.

 All three days that they were working on the patio, I was great moral support and quality control.

This is how I spent most of my time, under the shade of the umbrella.

I felt a little bad I couldn't do more, but they were all really great about not giving me grief and actually they would have given me grief had I tried to help!

 After they finished laying all the pavers and the little pieces up against the house we swept more dirt all over it and then they compacted it again. They finished up around four Friday afternoon.

That night to celebrate we had our first BBQ on the new patio!

 It looks SO good!

Here is what it looks like from the back edge of the grass.

 We finished off the night with some campfire popcorn.

We are SO grateful for the help our family gave us! It was a lot of work and they worked very hard! We couldn't have done it without them!