A big piece of history

Somedays it's as if I look back on this pregnancy and think, "Wow, the time went so fast! It seems like only a week ago we were telling people we were pregnant." Now everyone knows with only a glance in my direction. But somedays I feel like I still have a while to go and it's taking completely forever.

So, to pass the time while I sit at home staring at my dirty dishes that I swear I wash every single day, I came up with a couple "baby projects" to do.

To start, I got this adorable rocking chair from Emmett's grandma in Idaho. It's been in the family since his mom was a kid and we all thought it needed to stay in the family. The poor piece of history definitely needed some TLC though. It was two shades of white, had scratched off paint and needed a good cleaning too.

So I took it to the back yard, painted for 3 hours (thanks to my mother in law for the paint) then later added some cute buttons to the head rest for some color. (thanks to my mom for these).  I want to do some more button themed projects for baby's room. I just love buttons!!

Here's our result:

All I want to do next is get a little cushion or two and maybe sew up cute covers for them. Make it a little more comfy :) DI trip anyone?

Another littlte piece of history I'm super excited about is the bassinet that has been in my family since my grandma was a baby. Her and every child since her in our family has been in this bassinet. It  even survived Pearl Harbor's bombing when lent to a family friend back in the day! It's become a tradition to decorate it for the new baby and present it to the mom at the baby shower. This is what I got. I definitely teared up the moment I saw it. I have been waiting for this since I was a kid.

These pictures really don't do it much justice. It has polka dot fabric on the inside with pink bows and the skirt is lace...ahhh, perfection. 

First day of school

Aaaaannnd it's back to school he goes.  Three more semesters. Just three more semesters. Whooohooo! I got up early to make my husby breakfast and a lunch-he didn't want it. So at least I got to see him off on his first day. Looking all cute and ready to be edjamucated. I got as much cuddle time in as I could last night and this morning too.

Here's a little taste of what I put him through on his way out the door.

D: "Let me take your picture!"
E:  "Why?"
D:  "It's your first day! We have to document this and you look so good! One day you will look back and like it."
E:  Shurgs and puts on a happy face for me :)

D: "Did you get your granola bars!?"
E:  "Yes. For the 3rd time."
D:  "And your phone? Ok, ok, make good choices and remember who you are!"
E:  "Thanks, Mom."
D  "And don't forget about your girls at home!"
E:  "How could I forget!?"
D  "I love you!! Have a great day!! Don't forget to eat your granola bars!"
E:  "I love you too, mom, you have a great day!!"

Hey, I have to start practicing, "proud mother on kids first day of school" early right? At least he laughed about it with me. Trooper.

Here's my star student! <3

Maternity Pictures 33 1/2 weeks

Today Emmett and I thought it would be fun to go and take some pictures of this precious baby we have growing inside me.  Amateurs. We are just so excited for her to be here we have to keep ourselves "baby occupied" I guess you could say.

In all appropriateness we went to our wishing field to take some there <3 Then, about half way through it it started to rain. So we left and will continue next weekend.
But like I said I am so excited so I had to share a few favorites that we took today. Hopefully we can get some with Emmett in them as well eventually.

Any takers on who would like to photograph us? :)

Ps, It took me a while to decide whether or not I wanted my bare belly on here or not. Mostly this blog is for my close friends and family living far away anyways that I know would like these and they are the ones that actually read this... So, be nice when judging. Thanks :)

More to come next week!

Fruity Deliciousness

Recently I was craving fruit rolls ups, fruit leather, fruit almost anything last week so I decided to do something about it. I'm trying to be better about eating sugar and sodium since I'm coming into the last stretch of this pregnancy and trying to avoid swelling up into the Pillsbury Dough Girl.

 (Good luck to me..I know) I was tired of just eating fruit and wanted to try getting a little creative so I decided to make my own delicious, healthy, fruit leather. And mmmm it was. 

Here's what I did...in brief explanation.

I went and walked around the store for a good while glancing at all the good smelling fruits around. I went with peaches, pears, strawberries, green grapes and bananas. I didn't end up using the bananas though so I'm thinking of doing a bread with those later. 

 To start, I washed, peeled, pitted and cored everything. The grapes I just de stemmed. 

I then chopped and decided what fruits I wanted to put together. It was decided that I would make a peach-strawberry leather and a pear-grape leather. Yummmy!

After chopping I put the two mixes into separate pots and boiled them about 12-15 mins. When this was done I drained only a little of the water. I wanted to keep some to add to the blender to help make it thinner all the while keeping the natural fruit juices.

At first I tried using my KitchenAid mixer but with the peaches it didn't get all the lumps out. I would suggest using a blender on the puree setting from the start. MUCH faster.
I also added maybe a tsp of sugar to each mix to sweeten it up but try the fruit before hand because if it is already really sweet you probably don't need to add any sugar.  The baking will heighten the flavor.

Next, I lined the cookie sheets with regular ceran wrap. I left about an inch on the edges to hang over and didn't fold it under. This was in case it shrunk in the oven. Which it did but not much. It's on such a low temp that you don't need to worry about it melting to your pans either :)
The recipe I looked at for an oven temp was 140 degrees. My oven's lowest setting was 200 so I just put it on warm and they were done in 6 hours. Right on schedule! I checked every hour or hour and a half just to see how they were doing.

After they were done I left them to cool for about 20-30 mins and then ate up! They peeled right off and rolled right up.
The only thing I would have done differently in this is MADE MORE!! :)

Life's surprises

We have been in our new house for roughly two weeks now! We got the majority of our things moved around, put in their places and we are almost all unpacked. This last week we were both so busy both working full time that we didn't have much time to finish the rest. 

So Emmett decided to get it all done on Saturday while I was at work. He wanted everything left to be unpacked and the place to be super clean. Well, that was his plan and plans don't always work out how we want...

I went to work early in the morning and was to be home around 5:30 that night. Then we had plans to go to the Orem Owls game with my brother in law and his wife and call it a night. At work that day I left about an hr and  half early because I was feeling really tired, hot, my feet hurt and my growing uterus putting pressure on my other insides makes it hard to breath these days. Emmett was taking days to answer text messages so I didn't bother telling him I was coming home early so I would just surprise him. Welllll....surprise was on me. 

I pull up to the front of the house and see the car belonging to my sister in law, Andrea, and two big trucks. Eh, no big deal, Emmett has company, no wonder he wasn't answering texts very fast. Then I continue around the back of the house to smell something kind of really yucky. Then I see pieces of carpet in the driveway, then wet towels all over the back yard. I continue down the stairs to the basement. There are pieces of our nice bookshelves at the base of the stairs. The door is open. I walk in annnnnd.....DUN DUN DUN!!!...I see Andrea sitting in the kitchen next to our other bookshelves and other random things that don't belong in our kitchen, I see our land lady and a couple large men all in my house. They all stopped in their tracks when they saw me and looked super nervous. I immediately knew something was up. Emmett greeted me looking concerned and then I saw the reason why.

 THIS WOULD BE OUR LIVING ROOM CARPET. PULLED UP, SOAKING WET WITH HUGE FANS BLOWING ON IT SMELLING TERRIBLE.

Apparently they were all hoping to have everything with the carpets done before the wife got home and  she'd never have to see or hear about the huge mess. Again, things don't always go as planned. 

Our furnace along with water heater and all that jazz is located in a huge closet between our bedroom and the living room. I'd been saying for a few days that the house smelled funny, especially the carpets but we never noticed anything wet. What happened was our water softener hose sprung a minor leak and over the course of who knows how long it had been soaking into our carpets till it eventually completely busted. Leaving half our living room soaked and our bedroom. WONDERFUL. 

Here's part of the bedroom.

A carpet guy and an electrician came over to inspect everything and they say the carpets are almost all dry, there is no black mildew and they don't need replacing. But we will have people in and out this week and coming weekend to check on it all and get us new water heaters. 

Oh the joys of life's surprises!

Road trips of late

There isn't much of a clean, organized way to do this that wouldn't take a long length of time..SO, get ready for a slight picture overload of the past few weeks :)

First let's start with the drive to Ca. In a car with no AC. I think it goes without saying that while 7 months pregnant this was a terrible idea. Especially when going through Vegas, mid day, at 106 degree weather. Slurpees helped a lot though! Big. Giant. Cold. Slurpees. MMM.

We had a minor set back with my plan to swim every day, as much as I possibly could while home. My uncle broke a pickle jar in the kitchen one day and thought he had gotten all the glass picked up. Not exactly. My poor husby ended up stepping on a lingering piece and the cut was so deep he probably should have gotten stitches but refused. (WARNING: GRAPHIC PICTURES TO COME) sorta.

I guess you can't really tell how bad it was in these but trust me, his foot had lips for a while there.

We got it all cleaned up and superglued shut though. Now it actually looks like it has healed pretty nicely.

One of my most favorite parts about going home is I get to see my Little. She's a ball of fluff, the sweetest thing and loves to cuddle. Her name is Lola. And I luff her soo much! 

We spent our mornings outside on the porch watching the golfers, eating fresh oranges and shnuggling. THE. LIFE.

I was also able to see one of my good friends for breakfast, Hilary! It's been so great to be pregnant so close together even though we lived so far apart. Emmett, her and myself went to have breakfast and she brought along her best friend, Felicia. This was the first time I met Felicia but I've heard so much about her and I just love her. So sweet! We were all pregnant (except Emmett of course) and so I'm sure to anyone else it probably looked pretty funny to see us all together.  Hilary gave birth only 2 days later and Felicia is due only a short month ahead of me!

Our plan was to arrive in Ca Sat and leave the following Sat. super early in the morning. Well with Hilary in the hospital and me not knowing when the next time I'd be able to visit there was no way I was leaving without meeting her baby. It took 33 hours, we left about 4pm on SUNDAY but I got to meet my little nephew, Wyatt David Bartlett<3  He is perfect in every way!

Emmett and I sure are getting our baby holding practice in these days.

I decided I would do a short blog post about my baby shower so I will save those pictures for a later date. A sooner-than-later-date. 

We had such a blast in Ca and we recently just went to ID for a family reunion as well for Emmett's mom's side of the family. I don't think I have many pics from that but it was sure fun and HOT! I was nearly dying while out there. 

Have you ever played liars dice? If not, you should. It's way fun! 

Now, back to our some what normal life...maybe.