Jury Duty

I've been summoned to jury duty at least five times over the last three years. I keep deferring it for various reasons, but I can't defer anymore. So tomorrow is my big day. I had to call the night before (tonight) to see if they even had cases for a jury. Jurors 1-36 need to report. I'm number 33!!!!! I was so close to not having to go. I'm not sure what to expect, or even what to wear. But I do know I got a package in the mail today from Shaun's sister that had JELLY BEANS (my biggest craving these last few weeks) in it. So I can sit and eat jelly beans for the day, with out my kids mooching them off of me! :) It could be a good day!

Chinese New Year

I decided to forgo making fortune cookies this year and just get Chinese take out for dinner and enjoy their delicious cookies. Too bad the guy didn't put any in the bag. It's really the only reason I eat Chinese food! Anyway, we were talking about the different Chinese signs and which ones we all are. Shaun and Maisey are both boars! I made a joke that they are both bores! I thought it was clever and funny. . .  Shaun, not so much. See what I mean? Such a bore! Gage is the year of the ox, which means he should be dependable, calm, and stubborn. Well, we've got the stubborn part down, but we're still working on the calm part. And me, I am the year of the tiger. Supposedly I am hot tempered, impulsive, impatient, but giving. That sounds pretty close to me! And, since 2012 is the year of the dragon, Shaun thought it would be funny to tell the kids that we were having a dragon baby, but he did it in a scary dragon voice. Now Gage is scared of the baby and really thinks I am having a dragon! GREAT!!! He keeps saying, "No dragon baby! Just baby baby!!!"  I guess maybe Shaun's not such a bore after all!

24 Weeks

I haven't written much about this pregnancy so far, so this is a little update. I am 24 weeks today. I feel like I've been pregnant FOREVER!!! I can't believe I still have 16 weeks left to go. I have a lot to get done between now and then, but it still seems so far away. This pregnancy has been very different from my others. With the other two, by 15 weeks I was on a prescription for heartburn and by 20 weeks I had this crazy numb spot in my rib cage. At 24 weeks with this pregnancy, my heartburn isn't any worse than pre-pregnancy (just a night or two a week, and tums totally do the job) and no weird numb spot! This baby is sitting really low (so low, at my 19 week ultrasound they couldn't get full pictures of the brain because it was so far down in my pelvis) which has led me to two conclusions: 1)Maternity pants don't fit the same when you feel like your baby is hanging between your knees. They don't stay up because my baby hump isn't firm like with the others. The pants just slide right down. I've been opting for lots of leggings and sweatpants. I think I wore jeans one night last week, and that was for mutual for an hour and a half! and 2)A low baby causes lots of pressure, swelling, and varicose veins in not fun places! At my appointment today, my doctor told me that I need to have scheduled rest time each day! (HA!) 3-4 hours of normal activity, then an hour of laying down on my left side, repeated until bedtime. It will be pretty interesting to see how this will actually work in real life, but if it will take a way some of the discomfort, I will make it work. Overall, I just need to take it easy and not push myself (like trying to get 3 bedrooms completely made over in a week!) My blood pressure has been normal so far with this one, but with Gage it didn't get crazy high until 36 weeks. So far, I've gained 11 pounds and I'm on track to gain the least with this one! I did however, cancel my gym membership because it hurts to even walk. So it will be interesting to see how well I can keep it up. But I'm pretty sure chasing Gage around all day and keeping him from bugging Maisey will be exercise enough. I've been craving mostly salty things: chips, popcorn, pickles, chicken in a biskit crackers. And a few other things like poptarts, m&m's, and sugar snap peas. We are pretty sure we are naming her Miley or Mylee, haven't decided on the spelling yet. We are excited for her to be here, but we are kind of nervous. Shaun and I both slumped down on the couch the other night after a particularly long day with the kids and we were both thinking the same thing (but I said it first!!!): "What did we get ourselves into?" Are we really ready for another child? To be outnumbered? To be in the baby phase again: bottles, binkies, no sleep, no sanity. It's a little too late to be having second thoughts though, huh? I'm sure everything will be put to ease when she makes her grand entrance into the world and melts all of our hearts.

Until then, you get to see me:

at 24 weeks, taken at our traditional picture spot in our house--the front door!

Bedroom Transformation

 This is what the kids' rooms looked like Sunday night.

 (bottom half of Gage's room primed, ready for white coat Monday morning)

 This is what the 3 rooms looked like Monday night

 Baby's room (old play room) painted yellow! Thanks mostly to my mom!

 Gage was very concerned that his furniture was missing. He said, "Oh no! Where did my bed go?" It was pretty cute!

Carpets in all three kids' rooms got shampooed Monday night = sleep over in mom and dad's room = NO SLEEP!

 

This is what the bedrooms look like tonight!

Gage's new room (Maisey's old room) is halfway put together. At least he has a bed to sleep on!

And this is where Maisey is sleeping tonight. You see her little sleeping bag set up in the back corner? 

We are picking her bed up at IKEA hopefully this weekend. We got it all picked out, we just need to go back up and get it.

You should see our garage! All three rooms were stored in our garage at once, so my car was parked outside. On the only snowy week of the whole winter season, might I add. :(

It's getting done slowly, and my Goodwill pile is growing!

Painting

Painting has never been my favorite thing. But this weekend I realized that it is a lot harder this time around. Why? Because I have two crazy kids running around wanting to be every where I am and wanting to help. I am pregnant with a baby that is sitting so low I feel like it could fall out at any time. And the fact that I have to prime first then paint makes it that much more tedious and annoying. Oh, and did I mention that I am not even very good at it? I've spilled so much on the carpet today. I'm ready for this phase to be over! Hopefully by tomorrow night!

P.S. IKEA rocks and totally came through for us! I just can't wait for it all to be done!

Date Night

I have a date tonight! I'm so excited, I even curled my hair this morning! My date is with IKEA and The Container Store (and my mom and Shaun). We are going to get ideas for the bedrooms! I have a few in mind from different blogs and sites, but I'm anxious to find more! And to have two opinions there!

P.S. the painting starts this weekend! Eeeeek!

The Underwear Epiphany

Clear back on black Friday, I found myself almost in tears while standing in line to check out at Fred Meyer. They had a BOGO sale on  underwear, and I decided to buy a pack for each of the kids. No big deal, right? But in my crazy, emotional, no-sleep-all-night, and pregnant (you can blame everything on the baby on board) state of mind, it was a big deal to me. I was buying Maisey underwear from the little girls section. THE LITTLE GIRLS SECTION!!!! Not the toddler section. It was a big realization to me that she is growing up and getting bigger. I mean, I just turned in her application for kindergarten! That's just crazy to me. And then there was buying underwear for Gage. He's my baby. He's got the cutest little diaper bum. Part of me wants him to stay my baby forever. Especially since the next baby is a girl. He's my baby BOY! This probably makes no sense. But while standing in line I just had this realization that my family is getting older, that I'm getting older, and there is absolutely NOTHING I can do about it. So I tried my darnedest to fight the tears in the Fred Meyer line that early November morning, while appreciating my little (but getting older) family. Funny what underwear can do to your mind!

The Story of the One-Armed Monkey

There once was a family with two crazy kids!

This family was blessed with an awesome babysitter!

The said sitter made sock monkeys for the crazy kids for Christmas!

One day, on the way to church the sock monkeys got in a fight.

And one of the arms "fell off".

 The little boy was devastated.

The mom couldn't help but laugh, maybe hysterically!

The mom promised the boy she would try to fix it after church.

So the one-armed monkey made it all the way through church with, well, one arm.

He also survived nap time in his amputated state.

After nap time, the mom attempted her sewing skills, with no luck.

The dad suggested they wait until Tuesday and have the babysitter fix it when she comes over.

The mom was too embarrassed to tell a 12 year old that she can't sew a monkey's arm back on.

So she called up her friend and before they knew it, he was a two-armed monkey again.

And the family was thrilled!

The Great Bedroom Swap of 2012

Once we found out our baby is a girl (!!!) we had a lot of thinking to do. Good thing Shaun and I have spent 54 hours in the car together over the last three weeks. We've had plenty of time to discuss the bedroom situation. We love having a play room, but we also love the fact that Gage and Maisey have their own bedrooms. Our biggest debate was do we turn the play room into the baby's room and keep Maisey and Gage separate, or do we keep a play room and put Maisey and Gage together, or Maisey and baby together? I think we decided to do three separate bedrooms! So now all of the planning and executing needs to take place by the end of April! There are a lot of decisions to be decided, a lot of work to be done, and a lot of purchases to be made. Can you tell I'm starting to stress. . . just a little? I'm sure I'll be posting updates along the way, so stay tuned!

New Year's Eve in Spokane

We made a quick trip to Spokane over New Year's weekend to go to Ryan and Hannah's open house up there. Sadly, I didn't take a single picture at the open house! I was too busy keeping my crazies from getting into trouble, while also trying to help keep the food table stocked! It was a lot of fun to catch up with some friends that we haven't seen since we graduated from BYU! Wish we could have spent more time with them! But our weekend was jam-packed full of open house preparations, games with the fam (mostly Mexican Train Dominoes!!!), and eating at all of our favorite places.

On New Year's Eve, we took the kids to Dock Side at the Coeur d'Alene Resort. The years that Shaun and I have been in Spokane for New Year's this is what we've done, so it was fun to share that with the kids also. Maisey fell asleep on the ride out there, I carried her all the way inside, still sleeping, and we had to wake her up for ice cream! She would have been pretty sad to miss out on that! After dessert, we walked around on the boardwalk and looked at all of the pretty lights! The kids seemed to have a great time. We got home at like 9:02 pm and missed the ball dropping in New York. Maisey was really bummed that there was no party this year. Next Year!!!

 The sundae is almost as big as Gage's head!

 I can't believe how fast our family devoured that thing!

The nativity! 

(I LOVE that that is my kids' favorite Christmas decoration!)

We enjoyed spending time as a fam!

We drove home New Years night and met up with Kelsey and Brian who had flown into town after we left! We played games and ate ice cream (surprised?) late into the night! Once we saw Kels and Brian we had seen every single member of both of our families during this Christmas time. It was a special year! We felt so blessed to be able to spend time with each one of them! What a way to end 2011!!!