While I'm updating...

A progression of the belly...to where it stands now...

Here we are at 6 weeks. After our softball game..which I've been benched from.

And 7 weeks...
And at 12 weeks...which looks bigger than the next one for some reason...big dinner maybe :)
13 weeks
And today.. 15 weeks 1 day. It's starting to grow...I'm beginning to get to the point where my shirts aren't all that comfortable. Thankfully, I'm still going strong in my jeans so only a few purchases thus far to make me feel like I'm not squeezing into clothes two sizes too small. I'm loving it though!

Hard to believe in just 5 short weeks we'll know if this little peanut is a boy or a girl! SOOO very excited!

Sweet Baby Showers

So over the past few weeks we've been able to celebrate new babies and kiddos coming into our friends' lives! It's been so fun!

First, a few weeks back we had a shower for Aaron and Shauna to celebrate them and their foster care certification.


Check out their blog to read more about that. So we were super excited to have a day to just enjoy together and get them *sorta* prepared for kiddos. We love these two and the hearts that they have! The two children that have been placed with them are precious, and it's been amazing to watch as the Mullins have become parents literally overnight. They're doing an AMAZING job! It's amazing to see how God works! So seriously..check their blog. (P.S. Miss Shauna now you'll have to update more often..you know in your spare time!) Pictures below...








Today we were able to celebrate with Marisol, Vicente, and Melina Duran the coming of baby Camila! She's due to arrive in September and we're so excited to meet her! The Duran's are in our small group and we just love them! We're so thankful they came into our lives two years ago! You guys rock! We're so excited to watch them raise a precious baby, they are an amazing example of following Christ! All the ladies in our small group helped with Melina and it was a special day! More pictures...







Then...my SWEET husband finished out the flooring and has started the massive painting job he has ahead of him.
*For the record..I have offered to help because I have heard that you can paint if you're pregnant...but Brad has banned me from this. There's part of me that thinks he's using my pregnancy to keep me out of the way...kidding only kidding.*

Anyways..so he has done a great job! We found a paint color for the trim that we liked after only ONE sample! If you know us...you know this is PROGRESS!! It helps that two of Brad's awesome coworkers are painters. For the office color it only took 6 samples..and it was sample #3 that we went with! I kinda like it so much I want to paint the rest of the house in the color...obviously this won't happen. So we have some more paint hunting to do. Anyways..Brad tackled the trim in the office, he now realized that he has to paint the rest of the trim in the house so that's fun for him. (NOTE: I did realize this before and asked if we could have someone paint it for us....he said yes...but I'm not sure we were on the same page because when he "realized" we have to paint the whole house he said "Oh, whoa, that will be way to expensive." So I guess I still need to work on communication) Either way..it's going to get done and we're going to LOVE it! Now...I don't usually like to post pictures before it's completed...but I've been talking it up so I better post. We still have some more work to do like paint the hallway, and some more furniture for the office, and a rug - but we're on our way.





And that's it..until next time.

Well..

Want to hear a funny story?

For the first 10 weeks of this pregnancy or so, I couldn't even IMAGINE eating chicken. The thought of it made me weak.

But now...I crave Wendy's chicken nuggets at all times! Had them for the second time this week..before that I can't actually tell you the last time I ate Wendy's. AND I'm making chicken for dinner. That's just crazy.

Oh and this is for El...because I saw your wipe out story...yesterday at work I knew the housekeeper was behind me and I KNEW she was mopping, but I wasn't paying attention...so I turned to run out of the room to grab something for my patient and WIPED OUT! In front of the patient and everyone else. So embarrassing. I didn't fall on the belly or anything...just on my ankle and knee..but whoa. Haha life gets more entertaining every day!

Have a great day!

It's August...which means fall is on the way!!

So...today has not been my favorite day. Why? I'm not sure...I think some days recently I just wake up grouchy..which makes me very sad because that is SO not like me. That will pass though..crazy hormones.

HOWEVER...this past weekend it dawned on me that it's already August...which means fall is on it's way. Soo very many things that I love about the fall...

Things such as:
*Cooler weather
*Pumpkin Spice lattes from Starbucks (decaf now)
*These lead to Peppermint Mochas (also decaf)
*Sweater weather
*Jacket weather
*Football season
*Pumpkins
*Hot chocolate
*Family time

Just to name a few...I LOVE these coming months!

This year it's even cooler because at the end of my favorite months comes a BABY! This will obviously be the best part of our year.

Last week we heard the heartbeat...um..AMAZING! 154 beats a minute strong and it was so neat to hear my heart beat mixed with the baby's heart beat. Still sometimes hard to believe there really is a little life in there...but whoa! Brad recorded it for me on his phone...good man! Wish I had new news is this department but my doctor told me I'm boring, and that this is a good thing. She said it's always good to be a boring pregnant woman. So woooooo!!!

Really though..each day I wake up and I'm amazed. I find myself sitting with my hand on my belly like the baby can feel me...or if I forget to eat lunch on time and I'm starving then I start apologizing to the baby. Every time I get grouchy for no reason I think oh the poor baby is probably stressed out because I'm being mean. (SERIOUSLY?!) I'm just crazy!

So that's about it for today..FALL is COMING!! We're pumped! Brad finished the floors...they look fantastic! I'm so proud of him for all his hard work! Thanks to Dave and Aaron for all their help too!

A skill I missed out on

Ironing. I hate it. Just thinking of it kinda makes me tingly with anger. That's right..anger. Which I realize is just crazy...I'm hoping it's just the crazy baby growing hormones that make me angry about ironing...but I wouldn't know because I literally just started ironing like two months ago. Convenient timing huh?

I seriously avoided it for a good 2 1/2 years of our marriage...but then I decided Brad's shirts looked sloppy for work and that I should fix it..since I am the reason they look sloppy. (In other words: I tend to leave things unfolded a little longer than they should be..which quickly results in wrinkles.) Well, my excuse was that our iron was bad...we had one that I used in college (maybe once) and when J.D. came to visit last summer it rusted his shirt...I'm so sorry friend...and so I declared it unusable. So I did some research and bought one I REALLY like...and I can be honest and say now that the reason I liked it was mainly because it was pretty. It's a shark iron and it really did have good reviews...so I bought it. I still didn't use it for a good two months.

Then I decided to try it, but I didn't want to use steam...I was afraid of the rust situation again...so I've been ironing for the last couple of months without steam. A few weeks ago we had a shower for Shauna and Aaron (pictures to come of that) and I was ironing the table cloths...Dave and Brad (men) informed me that it might be easier if I used steam..I didn't..and of course they easily wrinkled again after I ironed them. Boo.

So today, I gave in and tried with steam. I was feeling great as I started because you really could tell a difference...but then I finished with the first two shirts and discovered the arms are still wrinkled. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I went to work and tried to fix them, but still. They are short sleeved shirts so I made the executive decision that Brad will bend his arms and they'll wrinkle anyways and no one will know the difference..so don't judge him if his armpits have wrinkles..it's my fault. I skipped ironing my sundress too...because really who cares if that's wrinkled?

Anyways...I KNOW my mother is good at ironing. I specifically remember 10 years of 4H and Lynette always saying Mom would always make the pieces we sewed look great because she pressed things so well. (And yes...my mother ironed my 4H projects..my dad fed my 4H pigs...I was not known to be a perfect 4Her.) I know she taught me...right mom? So I apparently just am not patient enough to do it. Boo.

So that's my skill I missed out on. I think instead of perfecting this..I will perfect the skill of taking the clothes out of the dryer immediately when they are done and hanging up the clothes that need to be...so we'll just avoid wrinkles completely! Woo!

In other news....the floors are really coming along! Brad is finishing up with the quarter round on the trim and the transition pieces today, and we plan to move some of the office furniture back in tonight. We also picked out trim paint and a couple of samples for the office and front room. Can't even lie...I'm SO excited about that!

Other news I'm excited about...
Shauna and Aaron and the kiddos that were placed with them this week. It's amazing to see God work in situations. It's amazing to see His had on the life of our friends. So thankful for how they follow Him!

Rox and Jake are having a baby! We're just about a month apart..that's just crazy and awesome!

Manders and Joey, Marisol and Vicente, and Nicole and Jesse all have babies due in just about a month! Can't believe that! So excited for them!

Times are changing..it's exciting!

Have a great week!

What we've been up to...

We've been super busy but I'm thankful for that. The summer has been awesome! I feel like we've been all over the place, but at the same time we've been able to have some serious quality time with friends and each other and that has been so great! Recently, we've been working on the house. We had made a list of the things we still wanted to do to the house about a month before we found out about the baby (by we I kinda mean me) and had decided we would work on knocking things out over the summer.

Well then we found out about the baby...(wooo!!!)...and that put a little bit more of a rush on the plan to get things done. So..thus far we have landscaped a little bit out front and this weekend Brad (with the assistance of Aaron and Dave) put in pergo flooring down our hallway and into our office. I'm so very excited about that! The one thing I made Brad promise when we moved in here was that we could replace the carpet before we had kiddos. Well, we also love the floors that we already had..and decided to just rip out the nasty carpet down the hall and in the office and put in the laminate there. Later on our list is replacing the rest of the carpet with new carpet. Yay!



So here are some pictures of our weekend and of our awesome friends who helped us! It started on Friday night when the Mullins came down and Shauna made us all dinner, and Aaron and Brad worked on the floors. When I came home from work Shauna and I watched Julie and Julia, I LOVE that movie!! Dinner was delicious and we so appreciated their help! Saturday Brad knocked out a lot of the hallway on his own...so proud of him!! Then, Sunday after Brad and I grabbed lunch with Tom and Shannen, we headed home and Dave and Aaron again headed over to help! Kathrin and Shauna knocked out some serious organizing at the Mullin's house...I bailed on them because I'm a loser and I took a 2 hour nap while everyone else worked. Then the girls came down and we hung out while the men almost completely finished laying the floors. So we're not all the way down..but already I know I'm going to LOVE it! Here you go Mom!

Here are some before shots of the carpet...


And the craziness of our house right now...if you know me..you know I'm going CRAZY!

Our office has taken over the front room...This is my contribution to the mess...I showed Shauna all my crafty ideas..and just left them laying there..REBEL!

Some during shots...

Dave was busy waiting on those two to figure that part out..
And some afters...remember we aren't quite done yet. We still need transitions and quarter round, and then we have to paint the hallway and the office, and have someone paint the trim. Lots to do!

That's it for now! Sorry it's late Mom!