Thanksgiving, Family, Black Friday, & Decorating

As previously mentioned, we went to the doctor on Wednesday and had an ultrasound. We found out that we are having another girl. The sonogram that shows that it is a girl was apparently taken from a weird angle. I seriously cannot tell that those little dots are not toes. So... hmmph.

That night my brother, Nick, came to stay with us. Claire really likes Nick. We had dinner while Peter worked late in preparation for the extended weekend. Peter came home and cleaned out and rearranged the garage some more so that we could fit a second car inside. We are currently borrowing his dad's car for commuting while he is in China. So we needed the drive way space seeing as no one is allowed to park on the streets from 12a-5am. Peter also installed the TV antenna in our attic. Hooray!

Thursday was fun and relaxed. We woke up and ate hot chocolate and toast for breakfast with strawberries and Cutie oranges. Then we watched the parade after Peter did a bit more tweaking with the antenna. I made sweet potato casserole--mandatory Thanksgiving side dish. And we headed to Aunt Jana's for Thanksgiving dinner with some of my extended family--and my brother.

Claire became obsessed with Grandma "teasing" her. She loved chasing.

Aunt Jana had gingerbread houses ready for us to decorate. Claire was only interested in the candy.

She loves playing with her uncles too.

That night Peter ventured out to Walmart at 6pm to try and buy some movies for cheap. He left without buying anything after realizing that I was right about the ridiculously long wait to check out.

Phillipa and Francesco arrived around 7:30p to have a movie night with us. They stayed over too so that they could get up with Claire the next morning if we were still out shopping.

Nick and I went to the Outlet Mall across the freeway at midnight because I mistakenly thought it opened then rather than 9pm when it actually opened. We got some sweet deals on outerwear!

Then at 4:20am Peter and I went to Home Depot to wait in line for the 5am opening. We fortunately got our Christmas tree that we were hoping for! It's a 7.5' Denison Fir with DUAL color/warm white LED lights that we bought for $70. The entire stock was gone within 10 minutes of opening the doors. Peter also bought a really versatile extension ladder for cheap. Home Depot was actually a great place to shop. It wasn't terribly over crowded and the workers were SO GREAT. All of the lanes were open in addition to people standing by with scanners to check you out wherever you happened to be standing. We stood in line outside--about 1/3 of the way back from the doors--and ate and drank the complimentary hot chocolate and donuts while we watched The Santa Clause 3 for 30 minutes in the cold. We were done and in the car again by 5:20am. Awesome and worthwhile trip for great savings!

We then headed next door to Walmart to see if there was anything left. We scored some great deals on various toys and games. By this time, the store was pretty much deserted. There were carts, in various locations, stuffed full of random items, and some of the shelves were in serious need of reorganizing. But we found some great stuff and were home just after 6am.

I made bacon and pancakes for breakfast and then everyone started leaving. Peter played with Claire
while I took a much needed 2 hour nap until 9:30 when Russell and Lis showed up after their adventures in Black Friday Shopping.

We went back out to fix a purchase and found a coupon on our car for Pizza Pie Cafe when we got back. So me, being pregnant, of course had to have pizza after such a suggestion! So we went to lunch.

And that was our Thanksgiving holiday week.

BOO!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Here's a picture of my two loves heading out to trick-or-treat! Sofia the First and Steve Jobs.

 

Claire was SO excited to get dressed up and go trick-or-treating when daddy came home. I waited until after her nap to tell her that she would be going trick-or-treating. It was my incentive to get her to practice saying "trick-or-treat."

This picture is just adorable!

And here is the after trick-or-treating:

Claire's "smile"

 

Obviously, we've been pretty busy over here for the last couple of months with birthdays and parties and MOVING and now unpacking. We are finally at a place where I'm not compelled to unpack a box each day. So I can start blogging again--hopefully regularly.

So here's a virtual tour, through pictures, of the main living areas of our house--the downstairs.

Here's the front of our house--with grass!--all decorated for the big day! Until this afternoon there were only pumpkins on the front porch and a mummy door. Now there is caution tape, spiders and spider webs, and jack-o-lanterns! And a cute little girl ready to go trick-or-treating.

And would you look at that porch!

Would you like a close up of the carvings?

BOO!
Did you get it?
Are you surprised?

I'm already 15 weeks along. It hasn't been too terribly difficult keeping the secret because I don't really have good friends to talk to about that sort of thing here yet. But that has also been the hardest part, not joking about/complaining about the worst part of being pregnant. One friend said she liked waiting to tell people because then those people weren't bugging her so long about "how much longer" she would be pregnant. I dunno. I got bored of not telling people. I'm ready to be excited about having a baby!
Sometimes it's still unreal. Last time I was SO eager. This time, now that I'm feeling better, I've pretty much forgotten that I'm pregnant until I hear that little heartbeat at the doctor's office!

Another factor in us choosing to wait to tell people (mostly just me) was that we know at least 5 other people or more who are having babies early next year--a few of them in April. So I thought we could wait and try to be less white noise in the baby announcing frenzy.

But enough about that. Here's the rest of the house.

 The first room on the right as you enter the house. This is the music room and library. This is also where I'm storing all of our boxes of pictures.

Claire's window stickies in that room.

The stairs are next.

The door to the left of the stairs leads to the basement.

 On the wall opposite the stairs and basement are the coat closet and then powder bathroom.

Straight ahead is the living room.

 To the left is the tech center, dining area, and kitchen.

And the mess of toys in between the two areas.

Off of the kitchen is the mudroom/garage entrance.

And here is my kitchen. To the left of the fridge is my pantry door. It currently stays closed. :-/

I honestly haven't had much trouble keeping the counters "clean." Generally I like it clutter free, but I am also referring to crumbs and marks. I only wipe the whole thing down once a week or so (it's a lot of counter to wipe!). I do big spills as the come.

So there it is. All of the exciting things happening over here are all out now! Hooray! Yay for the holidays!

A Week in June

The week of June 16- 22 was crazy busy and full of events for us!

Sunday, of course, was Father's Day.
We celebrated with breakfast in bed (croissant, egg, bacon, and cheese sandwiches with fruit) for Peter and sloppy joes for dinner at his request.
Claire was super helpful in opening gifts. Surprised?

Tuesday was my birthday.
Peter made me breakfast in bed (McDonald's imitation McGriddles).
The day was pretty uneventful.
For dinner we had pulled pork sandwiches and Peter baked and frosted a cake just for me! Love that man!

Wednesday my mom and Nick arrived for their vacation and we went to Olive Garden to continue my birthday celebrations.

Friday was our 5th anniversary, but we postponed our celebrations until Saturday so that I could attend Lis's bridal shower in Ogden.

We played a few games, but first, Lis had to make a chocolate cake without a recipe.

Lis's sister Kathy hosted the party and did a GREAT job. These are pictures from guessing spices.

Then Saturday night Peter and I got a babysitter and went out on our anniversary date.

He took me to dinner at the hotel where we spent our first night together and we walked around temple square and finished with a horse-drawn carriage ride. He also bought me a wedding band.

And that was just one week in June.

Happy Father's Day!

We are so grateful for the dads in our lives and all of the hard work that they do and the sacrifices they make in order to provide for their families!

Today we are especially grateful for our very own daddy.

He's always there for us whenever we need him. He loves to help and play. He's our provider, protector, and priesthood holder.

We love you daddy!

Some things Easter

Here are some pictures from Easter. Like I mentioned before, Claire was sick on Easter and wasn't the happiest kid on the block. But she sure looked cute! If you ignore her face.

Talking to Gigi. You can see her sad little face with watery sick eyes. Poor thing.

My Aunt and Uncle were kind enough to let Claire in on their Easter egg hunt. She was reluctant to stand on the ground on her own though.

I just LOVE how her dress poofs out around her when she kneels down.

She was really interested in what was inside because her own Easter eggs that she found at home had treats like M&Ms and jelly beans inside. Money wasn't so appealing to her.

Front view of her outfit. She wasn't really interested in being outside any more.

There are other pictures, but these actually turned out better than the ones of her alone, if you can believe that.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter Everyone!

As a celebration of the resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ, Easter is my favorite time of the year. I love spring and the reminder it brings of rebirth and renewal. While I am so grateful for the sacrifice Christ made of His own life, I rejoice in His resurrection. He is risen! His death and subsequent resurrection mean that our bodies and spirits will one day be reunited as eternal beings. And through temple ordinances, we can be with our families forever in this eternal state. How lucky are we?
Check this out:

We also celebrated with candy, a few toys, and lovely new clothes.
Gigi bought Claire the CUTEST dress from Gymboree along with matching cardigan, headband, necklace and bracelet. She wore her black dress shoes and ruffled socks. She looked super cute.

That is, if you are just looking at her clothes.

She was SO sad. She has been sick since Tuesday. She had a high fever through Thursday. Friday she started coughing a lot worse and her nose was super runny. Saturday she seemed a little better. Last night she woke up several times and coughed all through the night. Every time she coughs she cries. It's really sad to watch. Today she was coughing and crying and her nose was so runny. She took her first nap at 8:30am and continued napping all day long. We got home from our Easter dinner with my family around 5:30 and promptly took another nap/ went to bed for the night.

Holy cow! It's a lot of sleep. She probably needs it. We've been trying to get her to drink juice and giving her fruit & vegetable squeeze pouches every time she wakes up. Mostly she just wants me to hold her.

It makes my nights really long. Or rather, really short. It's so hard to sleep with a little one wiggling and coughing into your side.

Peter and I also accessorized our wardrobes with new spring attire. I found Peter the perfect tie for a dress shirt he hasn't ever been able to wear. And I bought myself a new kelly green cardigan with argyles woven on the front. I love it. And the new cute white ballet shoes I bought. :)

So, happy Easter everyone!

Don't worry. I will update later once I have uploaded the pictures.

Happy Valentine's Day!

The month of February has been so much fun around here! Lots of love!

At Christmas I did 12 days of Christmas for Peter, and so Peter did 14 days of Valentine's for me. We've been doing 14 days of Valentine's for several years now, but we've decided that it's a bit nerve-wracking planning and executing 14 full days of surprises. So we may or may not continue. BUT my 14 days of Valentine's culminated in a beautiful bouquet of tulips in my favorite colors!

It could not have been any more perfect!
These flowers even came with care instructions and they are the first tulips that I haven't had fall over in the vase. Apparently the trick is to let them soak in the food/water for 3-4 hours with the sleeve still ON and then cut it off. A bit of delayed satisfaction there, but oh so worth it!

And despite packing and moving, I was super on top of things and made and mailed Valentine's cards sufficiently BEFORE Valentine's day that they should have all arrived in time!

I saw the idea on Pinterest and thought Claire would have a lot of fun doing it. Here is the final product.
I later learned from a friend who actually read the tutorial (I just looked at the picture) that the heart in the palm of the hand was not punched, as I thought, but a heart shaped piece of paper placed on the kid's hand after the paint and before putting their hand on the full piece of paper! Genius! Oh well.

We did two colors because Claire really likes purple, and she likes to say "purple." Thinking of you Rachel Lamb Kunkel!

During our photo shoot I tried to get a picture of Claire making her kissy face, and this is what I got.

I decided to go with this one though because it's just an ADORABLE smile!

Then I stripped her down to her diaper and let her play in the paints--kind of. I had to help her a lot to get a few good looking hand prints!

She really wanted to do purple! (This is her while saying "purple")

We had so much fun!

And a Valentine's day gift that I made for Peter was an "i love you because..." frame. The idea is that you use the picture frame as a white board with dry erase markers and leave quick little love messages for each other. I'm hoping that it just keeps us in a lovey mood because we see it often and try to think of reasons why we love each other.

Here is the link to the site where I got the idea from. I don't feel like taking a picture of mine right now, but it's almost the same. My writing is at the top and I don't have flowers on the frame.

I just printed the words onto an 8.5"x11" piece of scrapbook paper.

If you're interested in the pdf I made, email me and I'll get it to you. I even included faint gray cut lines to fit the 8x10 frame. You're welcome!

Super easy. Took literally 3 minutes. And then I complained that I took so long going to the Dollar Store to get a frame!

And my gift to my family is always food. So for breakfast I made heart-shaped Red Beet Pancakes!
They were delicious, and Claire ate them if I distracted her. Recipe found HERE.

And in case you were uncertain, those little hairs sticking out of the sides of Claire's head are completely natural curls. They get super tight after naps, especially if she sweats. (gross but true).

These are untouched. Beautiful!