October Break

This past week was Steve's fall break, and boy was it needed. It was so nice to spend so much time with Steve (and to have so much of his time to help me with the girls!). We decided to go up to Utah for several days for a couple reasons. 1. General Conference. I have never been to a session of conference in the Conference Center and the timing was perfect, so we went for it. 2. To visit Steve's parents (who live in Ogden), his sister, and a few of Steve's friends. 

While we were at conference, during the Saturday afternoon session, Steve's friend in Bountiful watched our girls for us. After we got back, and "the men" watched the priesthood session, they decided the night could not end without them playing a few songs together. It was just like the good ol' days, except now there are a million kids running around and dancing, and of course an Avery girl with no pants on, naturally.

Sunday was spent relaxing at Steve's parents house and watching the last two sessions of general conference. We pretended it was colder than it actually was outside and turned on the fireplace and drank hot cocoa.

That Monday we drove to Steve's sister's house and met her new little baby daughter, Meena. She was a little sweetie. Then we spent the next few hours playing at a park, where golden leaves kept magically falling from the trees. It was wonderful and made me not want to come back to Arizona.

The park we went to had a small Zoo attached to it, for only a couple bucks too! I know the Phoenix Zoo is all exotic animaled out, but this little zoo was so much more enjoyable for the small kids (and this pregnant woman appreciated how small it was too). 

Two monkeys, looking at monkeys.

Feeding the reindeer. I love Avery's face as he is licking the food off of her hand, classic. 

Is there anything more attractive than a man holding his daughter's hand whilst carrying a diaper bag? I think not. 

Monday was an active day for us. Right after the zoo adventure, we went straight to a trampoline jump house. Seriously, best place ever. Mothers, imagine a place where you can let your children run totally wild, in a really safe place, where they are having the time of their lives, and you just sit on a comfy couch and enjoy the sounds of their laughter. 

On Tuesday we went to a children's museum with Steve's parents. The girls had never been to one before, so it was lots of fun.

That same evening, we said our goodbye's to Steve's parents and drove down to Provo to visit Steve's college friend. We went out to eat (but not before I got "grumpy hungry", unfortunately) to Brick Oven Pizza, and stayed up way too late watching stupid videos on the world wide web.

The next morning, while loading up our car to go back to AZ, Steve's friend noticed that our front left tire was low, then he checked all the other tires and saw that the actual tire belt was showing on our back tires. That's how blow-outs happen, people. So without hesitation we made a quick stop at Wal-Mart and got two new tires and a huge nail removed from our front left tire. We felt so blessed that his friend is a car guy and just naturally looks at these things, because we are obviously not!

The trip home was....long. 12 hours in a car, 7 months pregnant, and a two little girls who tend to be naughty, did not equal fun. 

The rest of the week was spent at home doing house projects, going to "Meet the Mormons" with said naughty girls (we did not get to see the end due to some rather rambunctious behavior), and going to my niece's baptism. Steve is sad he has to go back to work tomorrow, but the dream can't last forever, pal. 

Girls' Shared Room

Look at me go, posting two days in a row. That never happens, except for when I have fun things to share, which I totally do.
I recently finished re-doing the girls room. I have been working on the little man's nursery and the girls' room simultaneously but couldn't really finish either room until we moved Avery in with Heidi. That was a scary little leap for us, but shockingly the girls do better sleeping together than in separate rooms. Its sort of insane, but totally wonderful. Its really fun to listen to them chatter and laugh at each other as they are falling asleep.
Sisters are so fun. And decorating a girls room is way more fun and about a million times easier for me than decorating a little boy nursery. I'm naturally drawn to feminine things, what can I say?
So, two years ago, I totally redesigned this room for Heidi's nursery and it looked like this:

I really loved this nursery. It was calming and girly and just fresh feeling. But because we are having children like rabbits over here, we need this space to accommodate both girls, which in my language translates to: "Change everything!!". So I did.

To my credit I didn't change everything, the chair and crib are the same, aaand that's about it.
Obviously I was over the whole "calming, pastel" look, so I just kind of went nuts with colors and bold patterns and tried not to overthink it.
First thing I did was paint over all the yellow walls with a fresh coat of white paint. Then I stenciled that one wall of trees, which was super hard and annoying. Avery loves those trees though, and it makes my heart happy when she lovingly rubs her face against them.

That rug, aka "the rug that pretty much everyone has in their house", is from a little hole in the wall called IKEA. Ever heard of it? I know its an overdone rug, but the price it great and even better than the price it adds so much to the room. It really makes the space feel bigger. Also, you should know now, this room is really hard to photograph, so I apologize for the weird angles.

I really didn't want to spend hardly any money on the curtains, so I used the curtains from Avery's old nursery that were peach, and dyed them this bright and poppy tangerine color. They are far from perfect as far as the dye job goes, but you can't beat $5 curtains. 

The girls' bedding is all fabric from Joann's. Their blankets are just duvet covers, basically just sewing big pillow cases. And because their beds are weird sizes for regular down comforters, I bought a twin size down comforter and cut in half, then serged it and they were the perfect size for their beds. Donzo.

That bench is my favorite piece of furniture in the room. I got for $7 at goodwill and recovered it with fabric I already had on hand. I talk a lot about how much things cost because getting a good deal for something awesome must be rubbed in other people's faces, I kid, I kid. Sort of, mostly.

That painting....I had this idea to let the girls paint something to hang up on the wall. So I bought a bunch of cheap acrylic paints, took the girls outside in their skivvy's and let them go wild. It was apparent really quick that if I didn't intervene, this painting was going to look like Avery had gone back to her days of fecal smearing. It was brown. Duh. A ton of wet colors mixed together by two crazy girls was going to turn brown. So I let it dry, then attempted, without their help, to bring some color back onto the canvas. It turned out okay, not what I had in mind, but Avery loves that she helped paint it, which was the point. So I am calling it a win.

These pictures are total fantasy land, by the way. What I mean by that is, this room is NEVER this clean. We don't have a separate playroom, so this room is where all of their toys are kept and played with all day. It gets crazy real fast. Honestly, I am surprised I was able to keep it clean long enough to take these pictures.

The end.

Bizarre to Best

Yesterday was super weird for me. After I finished singing time at church, I went to pick up the girls from nursery and they had the bubble machine going full blast. Looking at all the bubbles floating around made me extremely dizzy, almost to the point of blacking out. So we got out of there ASAP. Then I noticed a headache coming on.
By the time we got home, I slumped down at the kitchen table and tried to talk to Steve, but literally couldn't form words, much less sentences.
I started laughing because what was coming out of my mouth was total gibberish, then I started crying because I felt confused and frustrated. Steve was more than a little freaked out, so he walked me to bed and brought me some lunch. While I was eating lunch in bed my right hand went numb and my headache worsened. At this point I realized I was having a migraine. This was only the second one I have ever had in my life, and they are strange and painfully awful, I might add.
The migraine substantially subsided after Steve gave me a blessing and I got a little nap in. Then the rest of our Sunday afternoon was bliss.
In my book "Bliss" equals spending quality time with my family, while simultaneously relaxing, and being outside in perfectly comfortable weather.
In case you are wondering, this is what it looks like: (sans Steve, he was taking the picture obviously)

Heidi was cracking us up. She looks so comfortable with her little body strewn across the berm like that, doesn't she? 

I guess we did try to get one of the whole family, but it really just turned out to be Steve's head making Avery look like she has a giant man head. The thought that counts, right?

After the mosquitoes chased us me away we went for a jolly little stroll around the neighborhood where there were still plenty of mosquitoes to be found, go figure.
Yesterday day certainly had a weird and rough start but it ended so perfectly (as long as we aren't counting Avery's tantrum right before bed, which we aren't). It gets me so excited for more long term cooler weather. Only in this blasted Valley do we ache for the winter to get here already, its so backwards.

Our Little Man's Nursery Tour

Our little guy's nursery is finally done! (well, almost, knowing me I will probably be making changes forever because I am insane). I feel like I have been working on this room for the entirety of this pregnancy, so it definitely feels nice to put a big 'ol fat check mark next to that "to do" item.
Before I show you the nursery as it stands today, lets rewind to 4 years ago when this room was Avery's and it looked like this when we moved in.

We got rid of the lime green walls the previous owner painted, and added some faux paneling on the bottom half of the walls, and painted the upper half a brown/gray color.

 It was very shabby chic, very girly, and really never quite finished. I never even hung one thing on the walls, it was pretty pathetic.

And here is how that same room looks today:

The walls are stenciled, and they were a major pain. I literally spent two weeks of working on those walls every waking moment...which makes this next statement hard to swallow for me : I don't love the walls. Yes, I like them, but I wish I had chosen something less busy and a little more modern and not so fancy. But given that I pretty much got carpel tunnel from doing those blasted walls, they are staying that way for, I don't know, at least a year :)

The crib is an Ikea crib that I got on craigslist for $30 less than what Ikea is currently selling this crib at, so that was fun. The curtains are also Ikea and I paid way more for them than I would like to admit. I had some curtain drama where I bought some really cheap curtains and tried to ombre them with blue paint and my spray gun. The results were a disaster so I forked out some real money for nice curtains after that little fiasco.

The rug I got from Urban Outfitters, and I love it even though it tends to move around and bunch up. The chair is a craigslist find. It is a la-z-boy rocker recliner and I could live my life on that thing forever and be totally content, it is so comfortable. And the best part is, it was only $40 bucks and I didn't need to reupholster it, winning!

The dresser is a vintage craigslist find, and it is actually the second dresser I bought for this nursery. The first one I refinished with new stain and it came out darker than I wanted it to be, Steve liked it, but it was driving me crazy. So I plead insanity and told him I wanted to find a different one and he begrudgingly allowed such happenings to, you know, happen. I married a good and patient man, I tell you what.

I decided I wanted a knit blanket for this little boy, but I didn't know how to knit...yet. You Tube taught me all I needed to know, and a month later I had a blanket! I sort of love learning new skills.

This awesome cross stitched bear is probably the most meaningful item in the nursery. Steve's dad made it for Steve when Steve was a little boy, in fact all of Steve's siblings have a different animal that their dad stitched for them. It goes so perfectly in our nursery, I just love it!

That side table is a dried out Saguaro Cactus, pretty neat right? Again, a craigslist find.

That's the end of the nursery tour. And now, I think I will go sit in that rocker and day dream about not  being pregnant anymore and maybe I'll dream up a name for our little boy while I'm at it.