I'm still pregnant. Bah humbug. ;)

I wanted this baby to come two weeks ago. And she's still in there. It's making me cranky. Which is silly, because she's not even due for another 9 days. But when I was dilating and effacing the first week of December, I thought for sure she would come soon and I've been expecting her every day for weeks now and it's stressing me out.

We did end up decorating our tree on my birthday and it turned out beautiful. I love our decorations collected from my grandparents, different memories over the years, our kids' school projects, and our tradition of painting an ornament as a family night activity each year before Christmas. Plus ribbon I thrifted the day after Christmas and some dollar store stars and balls and we've got a tree that's just full enough.

I also repainted parts and pieces of my nativity that week. I painted it originally the first year I got married to Kirk back in 2000 and my tastes and decorating have changed. Since it's not glazed, I can change it whenever I like and that's kind of fun. I wanted the pieces to be brighter instead of muted like they've been.

I finished all my Christmas shopping, all my decorating and wrapping, redid a wreath (I love how it turned out), finally got around to the pile of mending that's been sitting on my bedroom floor for months, rearranged my bedroom to fit the pack-n-play where the baby will sleep and a small bookshelf to hold her clothes, bought nursing bras and took Cecily to the mall playground, completed the second draft of my memoir, took the girls shopping for gifts for each other (at Dollar Tree and DI), made two kinds of Christmas cookies, and made two gifts--which I can't elaborate on because if Steve or Emilia reads the blog, they'll know what I made them.

The wreath on the left is the wreath before I redid it.

This is after. I reused all the pieces except the striped burlap and only added the white berries and one red flower.

Last Tuesday for family night, we painted our ornaments for this year. I forgot to take a picture of the finished products. Since we were painting though, it reminded me that I got a big bin of acrylic paint from my mom that she'd gotten free from Megan who'd gotten it free from some other lady. Nobody knew if the paint was even any good and at first glance, it looked like there weren't a ton of good colors. The original owner of the bin REALLY liked "rose" and "deep green," neither of which are on my list of favorite colors. But after shaking all 140 or so bottles, separating them by color group, and painting each one on a paper so I could see swatches, I ended up keeping about 50 colors and giving away over 80 to the neighbor kid who likes making slime with it.

This is the paint I gave away:

I've been keeping myself very busy nesting. lol

Last week I came down with a cold--nothing too bad, just tired and a bit of a sore throat for 3 or 4 days. But I didn't make it to church, which made lots of people wonder if I'd had the baby. :)

We'll see how this week goes, but I have no plans except having a baby.

(Cecily wanted me to take pictures of her when we were at the mall.)

(One day while I was showering, Cecily scavenged a toilet paper roll and made an octopus by taping pipe-cleaners to it and drawing on a face. I love her creativity.)

Thanksgiving n stuff

So it's been a while . . . fortunately for you, that means I'm not going to remember all the details, so you get a general overview. :)

I decided that I wanted to make a gingerbread house for the Festival of Trees this year (it's a charity event where Christmas trees, wreaths, centerpieces, nativities, and gingerbread houses are donated and then auctioned off to benefit the children's hospital). My mom said that as a birthday gift, she would help me with it.

Once we decided on a style and shape, I baked and iced all the pieces. Then we "glued" them together, and decorated the house and yard. This makes the process sound simple. It was anything but. It probably took me about 25 hours. And the house, though it only cost about $50 to make, if my mom and I were paid minimum wage for our work, it should have auctioned for about $225. And this is not minimum wage work. But--it auctioned for $135. So, although I'm glad I did it, and it really was fun despite the long hours, I don't think I'll be donating a gingerbread house again. A wreath would take me less than 10 hours to make (probably closer to 5) and they were going for $350 - $500. I'll do that next time.

I also did an activity days activity where we went to the local Food Pantry. It was interesting to see how they worked behind the scenes and understand their goals and needs.

Mira had the toothfairy visit twice in two weeks. I helped with the Thanksgiving activities in both Mira's and Cecily's classes. I babysat for a friend whose baby is in the NICU because of complications with the birth.

For Thanksgiving, we drove down to St. George since Nick and Wilda were going to be down there to close on their new house and my parents were going to be in Colorado for the holiday. It was a fun weekend of good food, "gingerbread"-house making (I made 2 more to give to friends, though they're still sitting on my bookshelf because I've been to busy/overwhelmed to take them), playing games, and enjoying the outdoors. Mira hyperextended her knee on the trampoline our last day there and she's been very sad about that ever since. It seems to be healing properly, but it still twinges every once in a while and she'll say, "I wish I never hyper-extended my knee" in her sad, Eeyore voice.

This week, my mom and I took Cecily and Mira to the Festival of Trees, I did a lot of Christmas shopping, Cecily had a play date, we wrote letters for Family Home Evening, we had eye appointments and a doctor appointment (I'm already dilating--YAY!), and Steve and I went to the temple and out to dinner while my parents watched the kids last night.

I'm hoping this kid comes this week. That may be wishful thinking. And I probably should pack a hospital/diaper bag and get out the bassinet, if I really want that to happen. But today is my birthday, the kids are outside building a snowman, and if we have time before my birthday dinner, I'd really like to decorate our tree.

So have a happy week, everybody!

Baked gingerbread:

Iced gingerbread:

Glued gingerbread:

Mira's class party:

A set of doors and shutters that didn't work, but tasted good(!):

The finished house:

A free apple pie from my mortgage banker that was WAY bigger than I expected it to be.=:

Cindy's house Thanksgiving day:

I decorated the table with Haley's help:

My gingerbread house #1:

#2:

This is Cecily + Steve's. It's the castle in Voltron:

Mira's pagoda:

Emilia gave up on building and just made the symbol from her favorie Manga series.

The infamous trampoline ;) :

My belly is huge and this kid needs to come out.

Cecily is getting so grown-up!

Cecily and Mira spent hours making these paintings the other day. When they finished one, they would hang them up in the hallway. When I asked what they were doing, Mira said they were pretending to be famous artists who were so good, they named a museum after them. I love their paintings and their ideas.

new car

We bought a new car! Woohoo! We were able to pay cash for it, but it depleted our savings, so now we get the fun job of building that savings account back up. I'm too lazy to go take a picture of it--especially since it SNOWED last night. But this is what it looks like.



Sexy, right? ;)

That was Monday night. Tuesday, I decorated for Thanksgiving. And it took me ALL day. I roll my eyes at myself. I didn't want it to take that long. But I did a ton of stuff in the name of decorating: I swept up all the stray leaves on our sidewalks, pulled out the plants in my two pots out front, filled them with decorative stuff I cut from our yard and the neighborhood, shopped a pumpkin patch for $1 pumpkins, painted jars to match my decor, put up all the decorations inside, made a decorative tray for the table, made two evergreen "flower" arrangements, and roasted two pumpkins that I didn't realize had soft spots on them when I bought them.

Wednesday was insane, too. I knew at the start of the day that I had a lot going on, so when I said my prayers that morning, I asked for the energy to do everything I needed to that day. Boy did Heavenly Father deliver. After I got my scripture reading in, Ces and I went to get the temporary registration on the new van and picked up a home carpet cleaner at Home Depot. We've been wanting one and they were on sale. Then I took her home, made lunch for her and played a computer game for a few minutes before taking her to school. Then I ate lunch, went to the regular grocery store, had a friend come over for a chat, and picked up the kids from school. They had a dentist appointment at 3, so we hurried to that, and since they didn't have any cavities, they got a free ice cream cone at Sonic, which we had to get right away, of course. Then we headed to Costco (we were completely out of milk and I got a rotisserie chicken for dinner) and the library (all of our books were due back). When I got home at 6:15, I remembered that Steve was having game night and we hadn't picked up the basement where they play, so I cleaned and vacuumed the basement before feeding everyone dinner. Then after the kids were in bed, I worked on my writing. I almost never have enough energy to do half that stuff while pregnant. But I had energy all the way to bed time. I felt very known and blessed.

Thursday, I did almost nothing. Haha. Steve and I had to take the new car to the dealership for a recall on the automatic sliding doors right away in the morning. For most of the rest of the day, I processed the pictures I took of Ben's family and napped. I felt like I was coming down with something. I did make dinner for the family and went to writing group in the evening, but I still felt wiped out and went to bed early that night.

Here are some of my favorites from Ben's shoot:

Friday morning we picked up the van, and since I was already in Orem, I took Cecily with me to Winco to buy stuff for the gingerbread house that I'm making for the Festival of Trees. I've been wanting to do one for years now and my mom volunteered to help me do one for my birthday this year. They are due right after Thanksgiving, so that only leaves me this week coming week, really, to put it together. So I bought all the decoration items that I'll need (hopefully), and tomorrow I'll start baking.

Steve has made a habit of cleaning the church every Saturday, so he went to that Saturday morning and after all the girls got up, we cleaned bathrooms. I felt kinda run-down again, so after we finished with the cleaning, I rested by outlining a new book. Steve, on the other hand, worked his butt off. He replaced a headlight in the Pontiac, mowed the lawn, figured out our date night, scrubbed the kitchen floor, and payed bills. We dropped the kids off with my parents and went out for Indian food at the Bombay House with Nick and Wilda. SO yummy every time. I liked everything we got except the lamb cabob, but I was the only one. Everyone else liked the lamb, too.

It was a wonderful Sunday at church and now my kids are playing Pokemon and I think I'm going to take a nap. :)

Halloween madness

These last two weeks have been action-packed. The weeks before Halloween start the holiday ramp-up, I think and it will only be busy from here to Christmas. I'll admit, part of that is totally my fault. I like making Christmas gifts, but they're definitely more time-consuming than picking something off Amazon. (Though with my troubles with indecision, picking something off Amazon can be pretty time-consuming, too.)

I had a doctor appointment two Mondays ago. Everything looks good with the baby--they're not worried about me or her. I, on the other hand, worry that I'm not going to make it another seven weeks. All those pregnancy hormones that make your joints and ligaments loosen up are making me fall apart. I thought I was in pretty good shape before I got pregnant, but I can't even go on regular walks without hurting myself these days. Plus, my big belly is making it hard to sleep because the muscles/ligaments by my sternum that attach to my belly get stretched out so bad that I wake every hour or so with pains shooting from that spot. I haven't found anything that helps except trying to sleep sitting up. Does anyone have a miracle product that they discovered? I'd love to know. I don't want to be sleep deprived before this little one even shows up!

I got my hair cut the next day and though I love this stylist, she cut it much shorter than I wanted her to this time. It's a good haircut--it's just barely past my chin and it makes me feel self-conscious. Unfortunately, getting pregnant significantly slowed down my hair growth, so it's going to take a while to grow out. On the upside, I won't have to pay for a haircut for a while. :)

Wednesday night of that week, I went over to the Childresses to paint the second-oldest child's room. They are going to have to sell their house in the next six months because (I feel) the father is being pretty selfish in the divorce and asking for 1/2 the proceeds plus alimony. Despite the fact that the mom, Camber, is supporting all 4 of his kids and won't be able to afford more than a 2-bedroom house with only 1/2 the proceeds of the house sale. So--I decided, since I'd already been gathering stuff to decorate her room, that I would go ahead and do room makeover for her so it would be well-staged for selling. And they can take all the decor with them (or sell it) when they go.

Thursday, I was able to do family history, go to the temple, attend parent/teacher conferences, and take the girls to gymnastics. Steve made dinner that night. :)

Friday, I made Cecily go to DI with me in the morning. I wanted to see if there was anything else I could add to Camber's room the next day. She made me promise to buy her something if she was going to go happily. She picked this scooter.

Cecily had her kindergarten Halloween program that afternoon. She got to wear her costume to school and family got to go watch them sing 30 minutes worth of adorable Halloween songs. Me and my mom went and Cecily was so fun to watch. She had a smile on her face the whole time, she sang all the words to all the songs, LOVED yelling "BOO!" at the end of some of them and "scaring" us, and basked in the attention. She is so much fun.

We had a trunk-or-treat and chili cookoff at the church that night, too. But none of us wanted to go except Mira. So I got one of the neighbors to take her with them and sent the other two to Nana's while Steve and I got some fast food and played two new games on a short date.

Cecily was upset and needed some cuddle time. So we made funny faces with fake monster teeth.

That Saturday, Steve and my dad and I went to the Childresses at 10:30am and started the makeover of Crysta's room. Since Camber's been so stressed out lately, I wanted to make some progress on her room too, so she would have a calm, safe space to relax in at the end of a long day. So I made the guys disassemble the bunkbed in Crysta's room, move the bed in Camber's, reassemble the day-bed w/trundle in Crysta's, carry in a dresser, a table, two side tables, and the ENORMOUS mirror I'd framed for Crysta's room. When that was all done, I sent the guys on their way and got to decorating. I didn't get everything done I wanted to in Camber's room, but I finished Crysta's and at least got about 3/4 of the way through Camber's I mostly just need to figure out how to make a work-from-home computer desk not look conspicuous among the rest of the stuff in the room, and add something to the walls that won't look underwhelming with vaulted ceilings. She'd also like to paint the walls a two-tone ocean blue. But I didn't want to undertake that in one day. (Also, there's a lot of stuff in these rooms from Great Grandma Watts and Haylee Frohlich. See if you can spot the items. :))

Once again, I forgot to take before pictures. Which is so frustrating to me. The transformation in Crysta's room was remarkable. She used to have bunkbeds pushed up against the window wall and dark minty teal walls. It felt so small and cramped in there. I love how light and airy and teen-fashionista it feels. It's exactly what I was going for.

This shows the contrast in paint colors the ragged blueish green is the before color.

Here are the after pictures:

It is such a tiny room. I did a panorama to show how small it is. It's not a great picture, but it shows the whole room as if you're standing in the doorway. Do you see the size of that mirror?

In Camber's room, she had her bed shoved into one corner with a particle-board headboard that screamed early 90's with it's shelves for storing knick-knacks. Probably fifty or more picture frames were being stored in one corner, there were no curtains, the TV was on a particle-board TV stand that was missing its doors, and the desk was shoved up next to the bed and doubling as a nightstand.

It was a long day. I was working until around 8pm and I hadn't had dinner. Camber was nice enough to find costumes for all the girls and take them to their ward trunk-or-treat. So the kids got to go to one this year even though they didn't go to ours. :)

When we got in the car to go, Camber wasn't there because Crysta was competing at a ballroom dance competition nearby and she went to watch. We all piled in the car--and it wouldn't start. Steve had just finished a long day of his own--he went to help the Childress father move from his apartment to his new residence after I released him from duty at Camber's. He didn't want to drive up, so we waited for Camber to get back and I was SO tired and SO cranky and SO hungry. But she finally made it back, jumped the car, and we all ate McDonald's on the way home. I was in so much pain from my hips that I thought I might need a cane to walk for the next few days.

After a good night of sleep, my hips were thankfully feeling better. I'd been worried because I told Ben I would do family pictures for him Sunday afternoon. Sunday was the only day he could do it because he got a second job that he does nights and weekends. He and Haylee are both superheroes for doing that with 4 little kids at home. So I was grateful I could keep that appointment--without a cane! :) I haven't processed the pictures yet, but I think there a number of good ones. I'll post some next week.

Then we all headed to my parents' house for Sunday dinner and to celebrate Steve's birthday. We had pork parmigiana and it was delicious.

This week didn't involve so much physical labor. But it did involve costumes and trick-or-treating. Emilia was sick on Monday, and I was still pretty tired out. So we had a pretty low-key day. Tuesday, I came down with what Emilia had--nothing too horrible, just a fever and fatigue--so I slept a lot and didn't do anything I didn't have to do. Thankfully, no one else seemed to come down with it, so we were all ready for trick-or-treating Wednesday night. Wouldn't it have been sad if someone had to sit home sick that night?

I volunteered to help with Emilia's class Halloween party. She had the idea of playing Halloween Hedbanz and it worked SO MUCH BETTER than the games I came up with for her party last year. I think I'll let her come up with the ideas from now on. Her teacher thought the idea was so fun that she asked all about where I got the cards, so I just gave them to her at the end of the party. She was super grateful.

After the party, the school did their annual costume parade and then I got to take the kids home. We headed to Nana's so she could see their costumes and hand out some candy to her grandkids. :) Then we relaxed at home for a bit, had a quick dinner, and headed up to Nick and Wilda's. It was around 45 degrees and we actually all stayed pretty warm and really enjoyed walking the neighborhood. But to top off a good night, we got donuts from Krispy Kreme (which is just down the street) and ate them with hot chocolate.

Thursday was a "I need to get stuff done" day since the rest of the week had been taken up by Halloween and illness. And Friday, we took down Halloween decorations and got stuff to decorate for Thanksgiving. We watched Little Princess with the girls and had pizza for dinner that night.

This is a picture of The Great Pumpkin that Cecily made at school. If you can't tell, it has googly eyes with a purple mask over them. It also has curly hair. She said, "I thought The Great Pumpkin was a boy, but I guess I made it a girl. That's okay." There's also an owl on there and when I asked her if that was The Great Pumpkin's sidekick, she told me, "No. That's it's symbol." I asked if she meant the logo that would be on her chest if she had a body and she said that was right.

Yesterday, Steve and I had the pleasure of shopping for a new car. My battery has died 5 times in the last week and isn't holding a charge the way it's supposed to. Which means I've had to ask neighbors, Steve, and my dad to come jump the car, and Cecily has been late for school twice in the last week because of it. This car has been SUCH a lemon for us, and we need more room anyway with the baby coming. We drove six cars yesterday and have made an offer on a Toyota Sienna being sold by owner. I never wanted to be a minivan mom. But I'm swallowing my pride and getting what's going to work the best for our family. Wish us luck and send prayers that this car will be seven hundred times more reliable than what we've had for the last five years.

Now for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and welcoming a baby! Adventure awaits, right?