In Case You Haven't Heard...

We are expecting and found out last week that it is a BOY! I am around 17 weeks and am due on December 6th. We found out what the gender is earlier that most people generally do because I am super impatient and decided to pay $50 for an ultrasound to specifically find out the gender. I just had to know and now. 
I really felt like it was a boy, I even had a dream it was a boy (and so far I am 3 for 3 with my dreams being correct with the gender thing), but I was mentally prepared for it to be another girl, which would have been fantastic too.

I love this gestational age because you can get the best profile pictures. Isn't he a cutie??

As soon as the ultrasound tech positioned her little wand on my belly and stopped moving, I knew. I knew it was a boy. Steve was oblivious and dealing with our girls, the tech hadn't said a word yet, so I tapped him and said, "Steve....its a boy, its a boy." I think I was in disbelief for a few days after...that is until I started designing a little boy nursery. Now it feels real :)

I recently have been obsessed having a lot of fun with creating mood boards, and it is super easy with Powerpoint. Here is the concept i have come up with for our little man's abode.

If I love his room half as much as I love this mood board, when it is all finished, I will be totally happy.  I also have a plan to do it on the cheap as well. For instance, the rug is a bunch of $7 rugs from Ikea that I am going to whipstitch together. I already have the crib. I am currently on the hunt for a cool mid-century dresser like the one pictured. I have ordered the wall stencil for the upper half of the walls (to get that  wallpapered look). I am going to dye my own fabric for the curtains The rocking chair. Um, ya,  I am not going to get that exact chair but I like the color. That chair is like $1700, crazy right?? I am hoping to find a vintage recliner-rocker that I can reupholster.
And since we are adding a little one to the family, that means Avery and Heidi will need to share a room, and you know me, of course I have to redesign their room also. Here is their room's mood board:

Their room will be fairly simple to do. I already have all the furniture and the tent, I just need to stencil the walls, make curtains, make some fun but simple bedding, and buy a rug...okay that sort of sounds like a lot, but to me the hardest part is finding all the furniture and that is donzo. 

Lots to do, but this is my most favorite type of "lots to do" in the entire world, so I don't mind one bit.

More Summer Fun-stuff

We are checking things off of our summer bucket list left and right! This past weekend we went up to Ojai, CA (an amazing little town 2 hours North of LA) where Steve's Uncle and Aunt live. We actually got engaged exactly 5 years ago in Ojai (technically on Ventura beach) so that was fun to realize.
Here is what we did this weekend:
Friday we spent the day at the beach and Steve and I got fried...but that is beside the point. The point is, the girls LOVED it, especially Avery. She really loved the waves and searching for seashells. We also got to see a lot of dolphins jumping around close to the shore line. Through our Arizona-touristy-eyes, it was the coolest thing to ever see, ever.

I even boogie boarded in the cold ocean water, not as much as Steve did, but he's a freak. But before I ventured into the ocean, methunk to myself, "Self, take your wedding rings off so you don't lose them in the ocean." So I took them off an put them in the outside pocket of our beach bag, a zipperless pocket.
That evening we were eating a delicious meal that Steve's aunt made when I noticed our beach bag laying on their back patio...empty. So I said to Steve, "I forgot to tell you, I put my wedding rings in the outside pocket of the bag. You didn't shake the bag out, did you?"
Long story short, he did shake the bag out and neither of my rings were in the bag. Happily he quickly found my main wedding ring with the big diamond just laying of their lawn, but my wedding band was no where to be seen. We looked for that ring for hours. Steve eventually drove half and hour to find a Harbor Freight and bought a metal detector and went back to the beach which was another half hour the other way...at night...and he forgot a flashlight. Needless to say, he did not find it at the beach.
When he returned with the metal detector we were testing it out, and Steve's aunt was shining the flashlight on the lawn and saw something sparkling, my ring! It was literally in the very spot we had been looking for the previous 3 hours. Steve was a little sad we didn't find it with the metal detector he just spent the last 1.5 hours procuring.
I felt so stupid during the whole ordeal. I told Steve the lesson to be learned here was, "Communicate with my husband!" and he said the lesson was "Don't put expensive rings in pockets that don't zip." Touche. Touche.
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The next morning, Saturday, we got up at 5am, loaded the girls up and drove 2 hours South to the one and only Disneyland. Avery turns three next week, so we figured we better take advantage of her free admission while we can, because after next week, a fairly cheap Disneyland trip will no longer exist for our family.
It was a really fun day, with about a billion other people, and two impatient toddlers. In our young parenting years fun=exhausting. There is no way around that one, toddlers are work, especially in a place like Disneyland.
Steve and I have concluded that we are the worst at taking vacation pictures, so we got virtually no pictures worth sharing of our Disneyland adventure, but here are a few that {sort of } made the cut.

As you can see, we have problems getting Avery to LOOK at the camera.

Just waitin' for the Jungle Cruise, might as well pick your nose, right?

This is what happened, literally 5 minutes after we got in the car to drive home. I swear she was out before we were even out of the parking garage.

Avery's favorite attractions were: "Mickey's Magic Map" show where several princesses sang and danced (her absolute dream come true), Its a Small World, Mad Hatter Tea Cups, the Train Ride, Jungle Cruise, the Tiki Room, and the Carousel.

Steve and I wished we could sleep the whole drive home like our girls did, well, I sort of did, but poor Steve had to drive the entire 6 hours. We didn't get home until 12:30am, aaaand we have 9am church...aaaand today is Steve's birthday. We are tired, to say the least, but being tired from too much fun is pretty much the best.

Travelog Time

This blog may turn into a travelog, and I just don't even care. I sort of, a lot, love that I have things "travel worthy" to blog about for the first time in a LONG time. Life is so busy during the school year, so fun weekends like the one we just had, don't happen ever.
This past weekend, like as in a few days ago, our little family went on a camping trip with our friends Cami and Brady. We went up high on the Rim, past Happy Jack, on your way to Flagstaff, to some of the prettiest country you've ever seen. And beyond the beauty, it was breezy (when I say breezy, I really mean pretty darn windy) and fresh and most of all cool.
For a lot of the 2.5 hour drive up, Avery was sitting her carseat saying over and over in a sing-songy voice, "Camping, camping, camping, camping!" She was pretty excited, especially since we got her, her own pink sleeping bag. Parents for the win!

 Do you see that little turkey sitting on that bed? She looks all cute and innocent, but when it comes time to sleep at night she wanted NOTHING to do with her pack n' play, but instead tormented Steve and I all stinking night long in our slowly deflating air mattress (which we are throwing away, we have patched that thing too many times). I would be fast asleep, and suddenly her little finger would be jammed in my mouth, and she would be playing peek-a-boo with her self, or rolling all over us, or simply sitting there, staring at us like a creepo. Avery, on the other hand, slept like a champ, but Steve and I, not so much. We just had to laugh and concede to the fact that camping with a kid who doesn't sleep is nuts, but so worth the memories.

Handsome man right there, naively smiling just before he had an hour long struggle trying to screw a small propane tank on to our portable grill so we could eat some delicious buffalo burgers.

Cami and Brady are in those ginormous -40 degree bags...somewhere...I think.

We brought Steve's hammock that he brought back from his mission in Honduras, and as you can see, he thoroughly bonded with his little girls in it.

 Giving her a red vine made her life complete.

 Steve's stoic side.

This little girl was obsessed with her "princess chair", and would literally just kneel down in front of it and gently touch the princesses' faces with as much adoration as an almost 3 year old can muster. By the way, when we were packing up and she realized we were leaving, she got really sad and kept saying, "No, I don't wanna go home!" Steve said that was like music to his ears because she loved camping so much. Both of the girls did, it was exhausting but totally worth it.

 Red vine aftermath. She looks like The Joker...but you know, minus the evil part.

 We found this cool tree all by itself in the middle of a meadow and snapped a quick one....the wind was blowing and little did we know Heidi's hair was doing some gravity defying tricks. I zoomed in on the picture and......

 Behold! I was cry-laughing when I discovered this after we got home.

Another fun surprise I got after arriving home and charging my dead phone, was to discover Sharla had her little girl while we were gone! So I showered and zoomed over to the hospital to meet my newest niece, Elizabeth. Such a cutie pie, and Sharla looked like she had just spent a week at the spa, she looked amazing.

Welcome Summer!

In our house, the season of "Summer" is usually not greeted with a smile and open arms. For the past several years summer has meant Steve working long, very hot days, spraying pest control. As a result I am  usually stuck in the house all day, because it is insanely hot in this place we call the Valley where literally, life should not exist, but I digress. I spent so many summer days and nights alone waiting for Steve to come home from a very tiring day, and once he was home, he would pretty much eat dinner and sleep, just to do another 10-13 hour day the next day. Not the happiest of times.
This summer, however, has been very different, so far, in the best way possible. Steve is not spraying pest control this summer, instead he is teaching summer school for 5 hours a day Monday through Thursday. Can you say, hello quality family time!! It has been amazing, so much so, that I don't even mind the blistering heat, seriously.
We have big plans for this summer, which include, but are not limited to, 2 camping trips, 1 trip to Ojai California, 1 trip to Disneyland, 1 trip to Utah, and whatever the heck else we feel like doing. Its pretty fun to actually enjoy the summer like all teachers and their families should.

^^^This is how Avery feels about this Summer too....mmmmwah!