Baby #3 so far...

Now that I finally have the blog up to date, I feel like I can post a little about this pregnancy.

This has definitely been the hardest of the 3 pregnancies so far. It could be that I am not 24 anymore or that my body is a bit worn down from already doing this twice or maybe because I am chasing 2 other little ones around. I still have it pretty good compared to a lot of women I know. I am blessed to have mild and pretty easy pregnancies!

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Two of my biggest complaints at this point:

1. The varicose vein that appeared at the end of my last pregnancy made it's appearance early this time (maybe around 14 weeks?). I get to wear compression tights for the remaining 5 months of the pregnancy. Good thing we don't live somewhere where it actually gets warm outside before July!

2. For the past 6 weeks or so I have had on/off stabbing pains under my left ribs. I can't pin point what triggers it and the only thing that helps is to sit still. A pretty hard thing to do with the 2 other kids. Daniel has been so great and on the days that it's really hurting me, he sends me to lay down as soon as he gets home. He makes dinner and get the kids in bed. I am glad it's off and on, it usually only hurts 1 (sometimes 2) days a week. I am going in for an ultra sound tomorrow to make sure everything looks good.

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Other than those 2 things, everything is going great! I feel so much bigger this time that I did with the last 2. I go to Zumba 2-3 times a week. It makes me feel good although I have gained more weight at this point than I did with the other 2. At 20 weeks I feel like my belly really looks like a baby bump. It could be because I gained 6 pounds between 16 and 20 weeks!! The baby much have grown a bunch! We thought about finding out the sex of the baby this time around but we've decided against it. This baby sure does move around a lot! Daniel has been able to feel it but every time I get Addie to put her hand on my belly the baby stops kicking. I am waiting to see Addie and Johnny's reaction the first time they get to feel it kick!

6 weeks

12 weeks

16 weeks

20 weeks

Addie's VIP Day and Daniel's 29th Birthday

Last week Addie had her VIP day at preschool. This is just a glorified show and tell basically. The VIP is allowed to have family, friends, cousins, whoever come to the first part of class to see what she does in the classroom and her show and tell. We did it on Daniel's birthday again this year. It was fun to see her at school and celebrate Daniel turning 29 on the same day! She was super excited. The night before she said to me, "Mom, I'm too excited to sleep!".

We made a poster all about her with a few photos.

First thing she did when we got there was write her name on the board and pick a letter that she wanted to do for the day. Surprise, she chose A!

This picture makes me laugh now. At the time it was a little stressful because Johnny D wanted to be up in front helping her with everything. The teachers were really nice and didn't mind him running around. She is handing out every ones name cards.

Using the giant pointer to show the letter A.

We had to get a picture of Addie and her Dad with the birthday hat on!

She really wanted to bring Sammie our cat for her show and tell. I convinced her that the cat might not like that. So she settled on our toy piano.

I have some cute videos but I can't figure out why they won't upload! After show and tell the class read books, worked on a whale picture then headed outside for a few minutes on the playground! Addie chose to stay outside for a little longer and just give her friends their snacks (popcorn and M&Ms) to go. It was so fun to see her in her classroom and see what she does everyday! Johnny did better than I was expecting and Daniel and I both got to stay the whole time even though it was during nap time.

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After preschool we headed over to see our midwife. At 20 weeks everything is looking good! I'll post more about the baby later!

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Our tradition is to eat at Red Robin for every one's birthday. So after we left the midwife we headed over to our favorite restaurant. I didn't get the camera out in time to video the servers singing to Daniel. I also failed to take any pictures of him opening his cards and gifts. :/ I did make him a banner though! Daniel and I celebrated his birthday by shopping and dessert on Friday night.

Randomness

One night for our family night we talked about the Wise Man and the Foolish man. The kids were really in to which makes me happy. I love it when they have fun and they can remember what we talked about! I got the lesson idea here. We filled a plastic bin with sand and a big rock from outside. The website had little houses to cut out and use for the 2 men's houses.

They had fun pouring the water on and watching the house in the sand fall apart.

And they wanted to keep pouring...

And finally after a dozen pails full of water (and some hands in the muddy bin) this is what was left. I think Addie got the idea, Johnny just liked the mess. :)

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Addie likes to play anywhere that Johnny is not. She comes up with games and things to do upstairs all the time where he won't bother her. One day I found her on the stairs with her pillow, blanket and lots of books. Of course once I discovered that she was there little Johnny D wanted to join her. Our stairs are not the safest to play on but I let them do it as long as they were being calm and no one fell down.

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My little guy is super destructive. I seriously cannot leave him alone for more than 2 minutes. The pictures below are just 1 example of messes I have to clean up every day. I am really going to be in trouble when this new baby comes along and I am distracted.

This was about 2 rolls of wrapping paper and an entire package of pulls ups dumped out and unrolled in less than 2 minutes. He is so quiet too, I usually don't know he's even in to anything until it's too late!

Valentine's Day 2012

I stayed up late finishing Johnny D's Valentine's Day bag the night before. I made Addie's 2 years ago and I just haven't had the motivation to make his. I knew this year he would notice if he didn't have one like his sister so I finally sat down and started sewing! I also started one for the baby and hopefully that will be done soon so next year I will have 3 to pull out and no sewing to do!

The day before Valentine's Day, Addie asked me if she was going to get a balloon on the back of her chair. Sometimes her fantastic memory scares me. I've gotten her a balloon for the past 2 or 3 years, I guess by now she knows it's tradition.

I can't believe we bought this kid his first set of Lego's. What was I thinking?!? I've always said we will not be a Lego house. I don't want to have to deal with finding little pieces all over (especially with a baby on the way who will eventually be putting everything in his/her mouth). We were at a friend's house and Johnny sat and played with some of their Lego's for like 20 minutes so I thought let's try it! Anything to get this kid to sit still for more than 2 seconds. So far he loves them. At first I don't think he realized how easy it was to break apart the pieces. That was short lived. I am now having to put it back together several times a day for him. He tries though, so maybe he will learn quickly how to do it himself.

Addie's goodies. They always get a small toy, a book and a treat.

My attempt at heart shaped pancakes for breakfast. I think I only made the kids 1 heart each, the rest were normal pancake shape!

Addie's best friend Jack got to spend the morning with us. They played then had lunch before they went off to preschool. At school they handed out Valentine's and made french toast! She was so excited to come home and look through all of her cards and candy. The sweetest part is that she is always super willing to share with her brother. :)

For dessert we had strawberries and marshmallows dipped in melted chocolate. Sooo yummy. The kids were scraping their bowls trying to get every last bit of chocolate out. I'm not sure where they get that from...

Daniel and I got to have 2 dates the weekend before. Friday night was shopping and ice cream. Saturday night we went to see 'The Vow'. This was a treat for me because we usually save the chic flicks for red box and netflix and see the action movies in the theaters where there is good surround sound. Happy Love Day!

The house That Could Have Been

I have to say this makes me a little sad to blog about. I was hoping when I posted these pictures it would have more words like "we're moving", "we bought our first home", "can't wait to start painting". Unfortunately we are trying to be adults and make good decisions so this post will be about how we are not moving and we could have just bought our first home but changed our minds.

Let me give some short background. We moved to Downtown Puyallup about 3.5 years ago. There were 2 houses that I fell in love with. One was on the market awhile ago and they were asking $550,000 for a three bedroom. It was gorgeous and updated but that was ridiculous and my heart wasn't set on it like this other one. House #2 is closer to where we are now. Corner lot away from the busy street. One block away from the train station. 2,750 sq ft of beauty.

I really felt for the past 3 years that this house was meant to be ours. I know it sounds silly. It's not that I just WANT this to be ours but I can totally see us living here forever. Kids in the yard, us on the huge wrap around porch with lemonade. Every time we walk by it we can't help but slow our pace and talk about what color we would paint it, which windows we thought belonged to which rooms and how wonderful it would be to live there.

The house is currently a 4-plex. So there are 4 bathrooms, 4 kitchens, 4 living rooms and 2 bedrooms (2 of the units are studios). This would have complicated the remolding process but would have also given us more possibilities.

Back in September/October I noticed that some of the tenants appeared to have moved out. I was excited because I could tell no one was really taking care of the place and it looked like a place that could be going into foreclosure. By November there was just one tenant left and one say she too was gone. So we started searching online. The county assessors website said it had foreclosed in June but I couldn't find out anything else about an auction or when it would be on the market. One day while walking with Johnny, Daniel saw a man there taking pictures. He asked the guy if he could take a look inside. So while trying to hide his phone that he was using to video the tour and hold a squirmy 2 year old, Daniel took a quick walk through the house. I was so bummed that I had not gone with him on that walk to see it too! We still didn't see anything online about listing dates. By this point we were driving by it frequently waiting for a for sale sign to appear. On one such drive by I saw the appraiser outside. We talked for about 5 minutes about some of the things she saw that would need to be repaired and she guessed it would be on the market in about 2 weeks. So we went to a mortgage broker and got pre approved. We found a realtor. Even with her help we couldn't get any more info. on when it was going to be listed. One morning I drove by and I saw the sign! I was super excited to find out how much they wanted for it.

Fast forward a week. We had looked at it twice and the bidding was only open for 8 days and all bids had to be in by Sunday night. Saturday the mortgage lady called and said there was an issue with the financing because it was a multi family unit, we needed to have more money in the bank, blah blah blah. Sunday evening around 5pm, the realtor had another mortgage broker call us and we got pre approved over the phone. Our bid was submitted and the wait began. Monday morning at 8:30 the realtor called and said our bid was accepted! Whoo hoo! We were really going to be getting our dream house! Then came paperwork and cashiers checks that were wrong and more complicated online paperwork. Then the feelings of doubt. I think I was doubting it first but Daniel was still hard core about buying it. We both really wanted it, but was it a smart thing for our family? Could we afford it? Yes. Would we be able to take any trips or do anything fun for the next 5 years? Probably not. I was ready to back out. The idea stressed me out. I came up with a calculation on our budget sheet that figured if we stay where we are we can be out of debt in about 2 years. If we bought the house (and nothing major went wrong) it would take us about 9 to pay off that same debt. And the house would be unfinished for awhile until we could afford to fix it all up. We were planning on getting a $50,000 renovation loan on it to cover the necessary improvements (paint, windows, tearing down walls). Daniel had his painter come look at it and he quoted Daniel $15,000 just to paint the outside. And that was if Daniel helped him. We knew that $50k was not going to go very far.

One night while listening to the Dave Ramsey show, Daniel finally got his answer to what we should do. The caller was telling Dave that they were about half way through their debt (like us) and his wife was house hungry. Should they stop wasting money on rent and buy or keep paying things off. Dave told the guy to stick it out for 2 more years, get out of debt and buy a house the right way. He also said don't let your emotions make decisions for you. Like how our WANT and our love for the house was driving us to make this huge investment. It was like Dave Ramsey was talking to us. So first thing Friday morning I called the realtor and told her we were backing out. She had to cancel the home inspection that was to be that day and start the paperwork saying we declined. We are both bummed but relieved. They say a happy mom makes a happy baby and moms who are super stressed while pregnant tend to have kids who have temper issues. I could tell this was all going to get very stressful and for the sake of this baby and my 2 little ones it's probably a good idea we didn't go through with it. But it really is and could be a gorgeous home. I hope who ever buys it treats it nice and keeps it in good condition for us to buy in a few years. :)

I love all of the huge windows.

Arched doorways and decorative windows.

Unique built-ins.

Dark hardwoods and sitting areas.

And the decorative stairway. You can't get these things in a new home. These old homes (this one is 1905) have sooo much character. I wish the walls could talk and tell me about the people that lived there long ago.

There were endless possibilities. Like this kitchen. Craft room or nursery? Leave the arched doorway that leads into the bedroom next to it and have a joint master/nursery? Or joint craft room nursery? Master upstairs or down? Leave all 4 bathrooms or tear out 2 and make a Jack and Jill type one for the kids? So many ideas!

Have I mentioned Daniel's favorite part? The 4 car garage with a work space in the back and a finished 'man cave' above? I'm pretty sure that's what sold him. It definitely was not the hours and hours of painting and repairing that was needed.

I didn't post a picture of the other side of the house but there is a small back yard. The porch overlooks it and would have been perfect for those summer days. Sigh. Addie was kind of bummed when we told her we were not buying it. Sometimes she still tells me she wants to live in that house. I do too. And maybe one day we will.

Snowpacalypse 2012

We had a few days back in January where the weather people were predicting tons of snow. So they cancelled school one day and then there was no snow. Everyone was waiting for this huge snow storm that was supposed to be arriving any day.

It finally came. And the kids loved it. (*The weekend before this we were worried that we weren't going to get any more snow so we headed up to the ski resort and went tubing at an actual tubing place. It was tons of fun, of course we did not get any photos of it.)

I found Addie a some snow pants at Goodwill last year that went unused. She was so excited to get to use them this year!

So this was all fun until all that snow turned to ice and freezing rain. And people's power started going out. We woke up one morning around 4 or 6 (I don't really remember at this point!) to the sound of all our appliances going off. We thought oh no. This house is cold enough with the heater running, I knew we were going to freeze without any power! I think there were some 300,000 people without power. Some for like a week! Luckily our water heater is gas so at least I got a hot shower (in the dark) then we started trying to figure out what we were going to do. Daniel called in to work to tell them he wasn't going to come in because he had to help us. We thought about going to a hotel but figured all the people who had lost power in the day or 2 before us would have filled all the local hotels, and we are cheap and don't like to pay for things like that! Thankfully our good friend Katy took us in. Her husband was out of town so we spent the day with her and her 2 boys.

We brought our 72 hour kits with us. We thought it would be a good chance to eat some of the food that's been in there. I wanted to see how well packed they were in case we were in a REAL emergency. We also ended up bringing what felt like a ton of other things. I felt like we totally invaded their living room!

We spent all day Thursday there and still had no power. Daniel went home to check on the house and cats around 9pm and said the temperature inside was down to 42 degrees! I can't imagine what it was upstairs or what it got down to in the middle of the night. He brought our air mattress back with him and we slept over there for the night.

Katy's kids wake up just a little earlier than mine do. I think the older 2 were up around 6am. Right at 7 they were downstairs with us wanting to turn the TV on. I don't usually let my kids watch TV in the morning (because they sleep in late there is never any time!) so Addie thought this was great. Pajamas, TV and her best friend. She didn't want to leave!

We hung out all day Friday and sometime in the afternoon I got word that our power was back on! When Daniel got back from work we packed up our stuff and headed home. I am thankful that our power was only out 1 night, we know many people who were without it for several nights. We are not cold people and would not have survived well.

New Year's Eve 2011

Our anniversary was on December 30th. We got home to pick up the kids around 5pm on Saturday Dec. 31st, New Year's Eve. Addie was less than thrilled we were there to get her. We got her to calm down when we told her our plans to go get something to eat and then head home to make ice cream sundaes. So after a stop at Burger King and the grocery store to get ice cream and New Year's hats and noise makers we headed home.

We bathed the kids then broke out the noisy stuff.

Then the ice cream.

After we were done eating we tried to watch the ball drop on TV. Except it never did on any of our channels. Doesn't it usually drop at 9pm our time? Yea, it didn't. The kids didn't care so we put them to bed and I barely made it until midnight. Happy New Year!! And yay that this is my last 2011 post!!