keeping busy

I've kind of been nesting this last month or so...I don't know what the deal is. I think I'm just trying to tie up any and all loose ends because this baby will be here and then I'll blink and the holidays will just be crazy busy after that. So I'm pretty much planning for my world to just stop this next month, so that I can just enjoy this new little man while he's so teeny - I hope he's relatively teeny anyway.

Here's some of what we've been doing:

• We finished up most of the yard work/patio stuff. Found some patio furniture on craigslist! Gotta love it!
  
  


• I have cleaned out every closet in my house


• Sorted through all of the stuff in our garage and found plenty of things to sell or donate.


• Deep cleaned every room in my house


• Had the carpets cleaned - so nice to not do it myself.


• Restocked most of my pantry/shelves/closets with things I will probably be needing, so that I don't have to make those trips to the store when I'm sleep deprived and find that when I get there I've forgotten why I went in the first place.


• Officer built me shelves in our closet so that I have places for all my craft stuff. He's been really great to help me finish lots of little projects without too many crazy pregnant woman comments ;)
  


• Finally finished reupholstering a glider in the nursery

• Bonus - Officer also built a mantel for our Fireplace - I love it - I've wanted one for so long!

• Miss peanut and our new little man will be sharing a room for a while which I tried to keep fairly generic, so I freaked out that I needed more boyish stuff in the room and made two quilts.

My sister made one For Miss Peanut like:

and I copied her genius and came up with this: of course mine has plenty of imperfections, but for my first "involved" quilt I thought I did alright.

• I crocheted several hats for various things; one for our little man to wear at the hospital. It's camo because Officer is really hoping to go hunting the week I'm due. We'll see what happens, but we had to add camo to something. (It's being modeled by Miss Peanut's baby)

• I've been working on homemade Christmas projects - no pictures of them for now or they wouldn't be a surprise, but they have been lots of work and I'm determined to get them done in the next week or so and then most of Christmas is out of the way. With the exception of shopping for officer and getting a stocking for our new little man.
  
• I think I'm just about to the end of my to do list...finally. Officer's parent will be here next weekend and they'll be here until we bless this little man on October 25th (totally bugging me that I call him little man because we still don't have a name yet - that is the top of the to do list). My doctor said he would induce me the week of October 12th, so as long as all goes we'll we wanted to bless him while Officer's parents are in town.

Miss Peanut has been:

• Talking up a storm - you would not believe the vocabulary of this chick! It is such a blessing though because she can tell me what she needs, wants, whatever. She knows most of her alphabet and can count to 13. She is also learning to sing a little - or at least repeat the words or fill in where we pause - so cute.
  
• She's totally getting her own sense of humor which we just love - It's so hard to keep from laughing sometimes when we probably shouldn't be encouraging her.


• Loves to be a pirate! I need to get that on video for the full affect, but it's hilarious!


• Loves Disney CARS, Curious George, Superwhy, and little Einsteins. Then she picked up this thing for Elmo when she was at my mom's house.


• Growing like crazy - we measured her a week or so ago because she has been waking up at night saying oweeee my wegs (legs). Sure enough - had to be growing pain - she's grown 3 inches since may. She is 35 inches tall now and hasn't gained any weight, so she is tall and skinny like her daddy.


• She now has her 2 year old molar - they were brutal.


• She can recognize and name most of her cousins/aunts/uncles. We had pictures taken this summer with everyone and I put together a little book for her to look through with all the pictures. She has over 30 cousins, plus their parents and lots of grandparents and she has amazed us by naming them all. Most people would probably say I should try something like state capitals or nations, presidents etc, but I feel like family is more important and I don't really want to be one of the parents that pushes their kids so hard in school. They're already pushed way more than I was (it's crazy what my nieces and nephew have for homework!).
• I can't believe that she will be 2 in November! Her birthday is actually on Thanksgiving Day this year, what to do about that?

So anyway, there you have it. We're still here, just been a little preoccupied. We're so excited for this little man to get here - please feel free to toss out any names that you like/love whatever, I could use some extra help!

Peanut Pull-ups!

This was a few days ago - I just crack up at this girl. She has begun mimicking Officer and I a lot. She watches Officer do pull-ups most nights and this is how she does it! The rest of the video is just silliness, but I love her silliness!

More picutres from our California trip in no particular order.

Thanks to the efforts of all other family - I have compiled more pictures from our trip to the coast. Thanks!

Officer loving on our newest neice

Miss Peanut and me - all my loveliness

Hanging out at glass beach - reflecting maybe?

All pictures with these boys, they are always trying to puff up their feathers a little more than each other - silly boys

Miss Peanut learning about fishies and how to gut fish - very important stuff.

Which fishy do you want for dinner?

The men, looking manly after having provided dinner for their families

My super cute girl wearing the hat I made for her.

My adorable niece in the hat I made for her.

Da-da kisses - it's now my desktop background and that's what miss Peanut says everytime she sees this pictures - and when the computer is off she says where da-da kisses go?

Miss Peanut loved Madi's dog ro-ro (roxanne) and she kept asking "where ro-ro go?

Peek-a-boo - taken by by brother-in law

the view from the other side of the log

I'm just a little tired...

So - no excuse - I've just been lazy about blogging. Not much to report, summer has been so much fun and its winding down. Here's a couple of pictures from today.

Big shoes to fill - she is alway getting into our closet to try on shoes. Such a silly girl!

And......drum roll please - probably won't see another one of these this time around...a belly shot. 33 weeks

Home again, home again....

I'm working on getting pictures on here - it's taking me forever to finally catch up on things since we've been gone for almost a month, so here are a few to start you off. I'm totally one of those lame mom's that forgets to take the camera or had dead batteries in the camera, so I'm sure I'll post more after I've gathered some from family.


After girls camp my brother and his family finally made it "home" this summer and we were able to take family pictures. and have a little reunion. You can see that little isn't really the right word when it comes to our family and it just keeps growing. It's always a party.








We were able to spend most of the week at the family cabin first with some friends and then most of my family came up. It was so great to spend time with them even though it was short.

Officer took Miss Peanut went for her first ride on a 4-wheeler, she wasn't real sure what to think of that.



Miss Peanut had her first "pedicure" sort of, don't look too close - she doesn't like to have anyone play with her feet.

we took the kids to play in the river




of course we ate plenty of smores and sat around the campfire - or at least watched officer chop wood - fascinating really.

and Officer took our's friends little boys (one was the dad and the other was the son) to go shooting and teach the "Kermit" about gun safety. (I borrowed her pictures thanks for sharing:).

Once again - I'm lame and didn't pull out the camera while my family was at the cabin - so I'll have to gather some from everyone.

We were home long enough to unpack and repack and we then took off for California to spend time with Officer's family for almost 2 weeks. So nice to get a way that long.

We stayed at his parents newly remodeled beautiful home for a few days before we headed for the coast for the opening of Abalone season. When I say coast I don't mean sunny Southern California - I mean beautiful much cooler Northern California. It was such nice weather compared to the summer heat at home; I loved actually having to wear a coat cause I was colder in the evenings. Officer spent most of the time in the water working on spearing fish this year rather than diving for Abalone. His brother has developed some great spears and it was really neat to see at probably a dozen new divers this year between all the grandkids.

I was a little nervous to have Miss peanut at the beach - cause hello I'm not moving as fast these days and I will blink and she'll disappear. I was grateful to have so much help with keeping track of her. Glass Beach is always a favorite in Ft. Bragg and Miss Peanut loved it.
Daddy with Miss Peanut at Glass Beach

Michael showing Miss Peanut a crab he found.

Just playing.

We were also able to get family pictures with everyone - those are in the process of being edited by my wonderful sister - thanks for helping and letting us borrow your camera. Anyway, it was a wonderful trip and we were sad to come back, but we're here and now we've got a handful of weeks to get ready for this baby. I didn't think summer would go by quite so fast and here it is August.

Girls Camp

I have been absent from the blogging world for a few weeks - again. I can't believe that it's almost August! Where has summer gone! Nothing to much to report, just busy from week to week and my belly is getting bigger everyday. This week especially, it seems like. We've got a few more busy weeks before summer settles down and then we only have about 8 weeks until baby will be here which is totally crazy - we still haven't decided on any real possibility for naming him...Anywho

I had the opportunity to go to girls camps with the Young women in our ward this week - and had such a great time getting to know the girls a little better. Our ward is pretty small and there were only 5 young women at camp, but they are such a unique group of girls and I just love them! This year was stake camp and they had a busy schedule planned out for the girls from sun up to sun down; um, who goes to bed at sun down at girls camp? And, of course girls camp is never complete without pranking, but I won't reveal my secrets - wah-hah-hah-haaaaa! Needless to say we had a lot of fun! I wanted to get the pictures up quickly so that the girls could have a look, but you're welcome to check them out. And I'll probably add more later.

For you sister

My sister is in Peru for a couple more days and I got to play with her cute kids today. I thought you'd love to see them playing in the pool and you're probably missing them a lot. La La was hilarious and this was after she got the hang of it a little better, but we were seriously crying because we were laughing so hard. She kept bending over and putting her leg up to get in the pool at least a couple feet away and when she didn't get in the water she had the funniest confused faces. Anyway - they're ready for you to come home - they miss you too!

Another year goes by...

Officer and I have been married six years, today is our Anniversary. I recounted most of the story last year if you want to read all about it. A little detail I didn't share was that after our reception we were starving and stopped at the Wendy's drive thru on the way to our hotel. When we arrived at our hotel, Officer was trying to be such a gentleman and carry our luggage to our room as well as a fun little basket that his sister put together for us - that we topped off with our Wendy's food and frosties. As he took everything past the threshold of the door - he tripped... and frosty went all over the room - no joke! His pride was just a little hurt or maybe a lot, but when he recovered we sat and ate our soggy frosty burgers and fries and will forever have a good laugh about it. We've kind of made it a tradition that every once in a while on the 28th - not necessary just June, one of us will surprise the other and pick up a frosty on the way home. Since our Anniversary fell on a Sunday this year and Officer works, we didn't plan to celebrate this weekend, but I picked up a frosty on my way home from running errands last night for us to share. Thanks Officer for six great years! Happy Anniversary Love!

Honey Do...

We seem, well I guess I seem, to have a big honey do list lately. I'm sure officer thinks I'm a drill sargaent or something, but we've gotten a lot of things done around the house and I'm so grateful! I just can't do as much as I think I can these days. Of course inside is never-ending with cleaning and little things here and there that I try to keep up with, but we've had so much to do in the yard this year and we finally got some of the big things done that we've been talking about for years!

The biggest project has been in our backyard! Our backyard is west facing so in the evening we get huge amounts of sun into the back of the house and it makes it pretty stinkin' hot and the A/C runs like crazy, but just doesn't make it any better. So...last fall Officer and his dad poured an extra concrete pad out back so we have more patio space. And this past month - in between huge rainstorms - we had a very talented man in our ward add on a patio cover/overhang to the roof in the back and painted the house(of course he does this for a living - so it's probably no big deal to him, but HUGE deal to us!). The patio cover has made a world of difference! It stays cold in my house now! Amazing work - here is the before and after. The paint color isn't all that different, but we didn't know what else to do without being totally drastic becasue we have such dark brick around the garage. Officer wired the patio for lights and he and my dad even put in a new front door! Thanks for all your hard work, honey. Someday - patio furniture.

Before:

After:

Eat your Veggies!

Miss Peanut loves her veggies; I don't know many her age that will chew on a piece of celery, but she does. She loves peas, carrots, corn, beans, zucchini, squash, pretty much everything she's tried and just recently grandma offered her raw broccoli and she loved it! This was yesterday as I was cooking dinner - I just laugh at the way she says broccoli - too funny!

Sorry for my lack of blogs - I've just been busy doing to many other little projects trying to get things done while I'm motivated. I'll fill you in on a few things soon.

Miss Peanut has something to share...

We went to the Dr. today and everything is looking great with Squirt. Fingers, toes, heart, kidneys, and a a few other details, it all looks great. I'm always amazed at the detail you can see in an ultrasound. Peanut was hilarious and this took us a little while, we had to cut out quite a few things - but hopefully you get the right idea. We're really excited - we just have no clue what we're going to do for a name?! Throw some at me - I'll take any ideas.

Who's her daddy?

My sister took this adorable picture of my Peanut yesterday. It just makes me smile!

This is a picture of Officer at a fairly close age to Miss Peanut - Who's her daddy? What do you think?

Go, go "Pauk"

I know that I've put a lot of video's on here lately, but I think it's fun for grandma and grandpa and extended family who don't see her in person that often to actually see her in action. When she got up from her nap yesterday Miss Peanut said go, go pauk - translation lets go to the park. I took her in the evening yesterday to feed the geese and then we repeated this video at least a dozen times before I finally had to take her home for the night. She loves so much to be with all the big kids and do most everything herself.

(For some reason the video seems really pixely and there is a high pitch squeal, but it's fine when I view it on my computer - maybe because it's small? I don't know, so sorry. And love the videography of the pregnant women climbing the jungle gym :)

I had to keep her in her stroller while we fed the geese because the 2 mommy geese were quite protective, hence I didn't take a video of them because I was thinking I was going to have to wring myself a goose. I would give Miss Peanut a piece of bread to throw and she would hold it out and laugh as I'd throw more to them, then she would eat the piece and repeat until we ran out of bread.


After bathtime last night she finally got to see daddy who has been working a lot since we've been back and I just never can get enough of these two together especially when she laughs like this.