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.