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3 Days Until Advent...

and 3 weeks (or less) until we meet our baby boy! Wow. I'm still in shock that this weekend starts December and the beautiful season of Advent. We've been enjoying the new feel of things inside the house and the cool weather outside the house! I love to sit on the couch during the quiet nighttime hours, just gazing at the tree and thinking about the exciting month to come! I can't get a very good picture of it in the dark, but here's how things look (I know it looks the same as the last post, but I did change a little on the fireplace)...




Tuesday my mom came to watch Mary Clare perform again at dance class and the girls enjoyed playing with NeNe and doing puzzles and all the other fun stuff I keep up high! Yesterday the girls decided to make a bunch of paper ornaments so Daddy could have a chance to put something on the tree after he missed the Monday morning decorating. Today we had a nice Holy Hour with my Regnum Christi team, followed by a yummy lunch at Lupe Tortilla (where there is a sand playground for the kids!), and a special surprise "Welcome Peter" cake and gift, thanks to my teammmates :)

This weekend we're going to have a little celebration for our non-thumb sucker, and Steven and I will have our last "date" before baby at his company Christmas party. I still need to do a little shopping but mostly feel ready for this new month and season to begin! Okay, off to try to get everyone (especially me) down for a nap before tutoring tonight!

Blessings to you all this Thursday!

Starting to decorate...

Tree is trimmed! You might notice a lot of toys on the floor...I also found a box of baby toys from the attic which has kept the girls entertained today!

Altar is moved to the other side of the room, Nativity is up, and some various other Christmas items are around the fireplace still to be organized.

Next in line are some outdoor lights on the hedges. I love decorating for Christmas!

He knows me too well...

This morning Steven came home from work for a bit to watch the girls while I went to my OB appointment (almost 36 weeks. Wow!). He and the girls set up the free craigslist Christmas tree. I got home and was ready to put up some outdoor wreaths (thanks, Lillian!) and lights. And I somehow convinced myself I might as well go back up into the garage attic and fetch the Christmas box with all the ornaments, lights, and decorations so hubby wouldn't have to get it all out when he got home.

As the girls and I were having fun decorating the tree, Steven called. Wanted to be sure his almost-36-week pregnant wife wasn't lugging big boxes down from the attic. Too late, honey. He knows me too well. A tree with no decorations can't stay up more than an hour at my house! Still lots to do, but hopefully I'll have some pictures up later today :)

Craigslist Kindness

I've been scouring craigslist and online classifieds for a Christmas tree for a few weeks to no avail. Last night I found one...7.5 ft, pre-lit, one yr old for $35! Since my parents live very close to the seller, they went to pick it up for me this afternoon before it got snagged. They told the seller we were a young family with little kids and she said that "the light of God is shining on you and I cannot accept any money"! YAY for my free Christmas tree! And God bless Z (the seller) and her family. I can't wait to get home from my parents' and set it all up :D Pictures to come...

And Happy Feast of Christ the King! Today our Regnum Christi Movement celebrates our feast day. We had a lovely Mass and reception in the midst of this cold and rainy weather. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend! God bless!

Quick photo update

Hanging out with Bop-Bop before the Turkey dinner


Making turkey puppets



Holding up their puppets


Our adventure to the mall yesterday


On the carousel with Daddy!


Hanging out with friends watching the Aggies beat t.u.!


And the girls playing pregnant mommy today :)

To show off...

to the family today, my continued nesting efforts! Peter's room coming together and our bedroom.

Happy Thanksgiving Day, Everyone! Enjoy that turkey! This preggo can't wait :)

Thanksgiving blessings

At this special time of year, I give thanks to God for all the wonderful blessings in my life.

For my wonderful husband and precious children...I can't imagine spending my days with anyone else and feel truly blessed to be a full-time mommy to my girls and my baby boy who I get to meet very soon. For our extended family...Steven and I always comment on just how lucky we are to have parents and grandparents with wonderful, long marriages, and a family who all gets along and enjoys each other's company!

For the wonderful friends God has blessed me with, those from childhood who I still stay in contact with, those who I met in school, those who I met through church and mommyhood, my amazing homeschool group, and especially all my dear blogging friends who I learn so much from!

For the blessing of the Holy Catholic Church which provides me with the Sacraments, the graces, and the spiritual "food" I need for this journey of life. For our priests and consecrated friends and mentors who have dedicated their lives to the Church.

For the freedom we have here in the great USA, and for those who work to protect this freedom. For our ancestors who made great sacrifices so that we can live in a free nation. And for our government leaders who work to support life, liberty, and our pursuit of happiness.

And for all my small material possessions...my house, my car, my food, our books, and toys, and even this computer, which help me to live a more comfortable life and help me to fulfill my vocation as a wife and mother.

I am so blessed!
Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

More of our dancing queen!

Especially for the grandparents! They let the family come in to watch yesterday afternoon. Get ready for the "Hokey Pokey" and "My God is so Great!"

Nursery coming together!

I'm having so much fun getting all Peter's stuff ready! He'll likely be co-sleeping with us, so the room is more for me (and his belongings)...at least in the beginning.

Here's the finished dresser with new knobs and the changing table we already had. I've spent several hours washing and folding baby clothes and blankets today. I forgot just how generous my sister-in-law and friend were to give us SO many gorgeous clothes! I can't wait to dress him up!


And here's the crib that took Steven and I a few hours to put together! Somehow we succeeded. The bedding still needs to be washed and ironed but I had to see how it looked!


And here's who is using the nursery right now...dolls!


May your Sunday be blessed!

Friday fun

An attempt to get them to smile for a quick picture before going into their homeschool class at church today! Thanks NeNe for their cute new matching outfits!



Ellie decopageing her box


Mary Clare working hard


Finished products!


What was put inside the boxes, their little hearts to give Jesus for Christmas :) We've put them on our family altar.


They also sang "The Little Drummer Boy" and played with drums, and made sock puppets for the sweet Christmas poem, "The Friendly Beasts". Ellie was so proud to perform in the little puppet show! It was a fun Fine Arts class!

Here are my usual dinner-time helpers putting salad together :)


And here's what they do all day, play "girly" things like wedding! Ellie was the flower girl who already came in, you can see the coffee table becomes the altar, and Mary Clare always plays the beautiful bride!


It was a nice relaxing Friday afternoon and evening. I hope you all enjoy the same sort of weekend...God bless!

Snowing in Texas!

Tonight was a big tree lighting ceremony nearby. They had a great band, a children's choir, the tree lighting complete with fireworks, and a SNOW MACHINE! The girls had a fun time and I enjoyed it too, except for my constant concern that I was going to lose a child amidst the hundreds of spectators!

Sisters as we arrive


It's snowing!


Wow!


You can kind of see the flakes here, they were like little soap suds :)


The girls by the big now-lit Christmas tree!


The cooler weather has come back to Texas, even though we likely won't see real snow! My 34 week doctor appointment went well, only 5 weeks (or less) till we meet Prince Peter! The blanket/thumb-sucking situation is going alright, just some whines and tears at bedtime, naptime, and wakeup. The thumb is still ending up in her mouth, but hopefully as she adjusts to life without the blankies the thumb-sucking will slow down. We might try the dentist's advice of gardening gloves at sleeptime if we need to. And I'm sure there will be some sort of reward program we'll have to start! But at least we've conquered the first step of losing the blankies.

Tomorrow we have a homeschool class where they'll be doing some Christmas crafts and making puppets, and this weekend should be filled with continued preparation for Peter's arrival...getting this house in ship-shape!

Hope you all have a fantastic Friday!

Bye Bye Blankies!

The dentist went really well today. It was nice that the place was a children's fantasy land, with a ship in the waiting room, toys everywhere, and hygienists that totally know how to relate to preschoolers! Ellie still had a bit of a hard time, but Mary Clare was a trooper. She did get a nice lecture from the dentist (which I told her would probably be coming) about how she needs to stop sucking her thumb. And so I hid the blankies, finally. But she still fell asleep sucking her thumb. Maybe I will need to try the dentist's advice of putting gloves on her...or some kind of reward system. It's affecting her teeth so we do need to work on it...

We had a great time shopping with my mom and aunt for a few hours, but then my body felt it tonight! I know I've been overdoing it with 3 days of painting and a day of shopping in the past week. It's so hard with this nesting instinct plus the fact that Christmas is coming very soon and there's a lot that needs to be done before Peter's arrival! My body is gearing up with lots of Braxton-Hicks contractions and tonight a great case of indigestion. Let's see if I can still get to sleep...and actually get up in time to make my 8:00am OB appointment!

Night night.

Miss Twinkle Toes

They left the curtains opened during dance class today, so I took a video of my happy little "Twinkle Toes"! Note Ellie's head watching intently. She might already know Mary Clare's tap and ballet moves better than her sister!



Mommy is still in recovery-mode from the painting...whoa, that wore me out! And I think some of the stuff still needs another coat :( But at least the headboard is done now, and I'm on a roll with the white paint!

Here's my "lovely" 34 week picture of me with paint all over! Please excuse the attractive painting attire! We happened to have a mirror sitting by the fence, so I thought I would mark this crazy day with a crazy shot (as I talked on the cell phone)!


Tomorrow morning is the girls' first dental appointment so please say a little prayer for us!

Painting projects continue...

My little helpers this morning...

Before we start


Big helpers!


Well, the furniture didn't get painted over the weekend, nor did we go on a fishing trip! We spent Sunday going to about 4 different Wal-Mart stores looking for the paint sprayer thing that Steven needed. No luck. Then I was ready to paint the furniture with brushes, only to discover that the only white paint I had was some kind of textured paint! Needless to say, the painting didn't get started until today. I'm painting Peter's dresser, 2 nightstands, and 2 wall shelves. The girls helped with the first coat before getting tired and ready to clean up! So now, they're fresh and clean while Mommy is covered in white paint with still a coat or two to go! Hopefully I'll be done in time for ballet class this afternoon!

Oh, and while at one of the Wal-Mart trips, I went ahead and bought paint for our master bath. Looks like November is painting month for me! Hope you all have a terrific Tuesday and thanks again for the complements on my headboard (which also required some more paint today since I didn't paint it low enough for the bed to cover the white part!)...

Signed,
Blair the preggo painter-mama

Finished!

The camera lens is dirty, the bed isn't moved to the wall yet since the paint is still wet, and the end tables didn't get painted yet (hopefully tomorrow!)...but you get the idea! It was an all-day project and I can't wait to get the room all put together. I just realized that almost every item in the room besides our bed and bedding were given to us! "Design on a Dime"...that's for sure! I think I'd still like to find a different comforter since ours is getting really dingy and is too hard to wash, but other than that, I'm very happy with my new room and look forward to hanging out there with my new baby very soon :)

And edited to add a big thanks to all the encouragement and advice about my little project! Especially to Emily and Colleen for the stripes-advice!

Progress

Getting closer to finishing my headboard project! Here are the stripes so far, still need to complete the stripes and add a few more coats of paint!

Advice?

Here's what I've done so far on the faux headboard. Gonna take awhile! I'm also still adjusting the outline where some other paint dripped (why the outline looks light in color). I'm having fun playing artist :) But my question is, inside of the flower border I was going to paint stripes. But what kind of stripes? Horizontal? Vertical? Thick? Thin? We have very small blue pinstripes on our pillowcases and will probably have a plain blue or white comforter. I'm all ears for ideas!

Thanks and happy Saturday!

Girls

I really enjoy being the mommy of my two girls. I love watching them play together...dolls and doctor, house and dance recital, coloring and painting. Both of them are very much "girly girls" who like to play dress-up and put on my makeup. They do like to play outside and get dirty or put together a train track here and there, but most of their activities are of the typical female sort.

It's funny to imagine how our family will change once Peter joins our family and later gets older and starts to have his own interests and want his own "boy toys" and boy games. I'm excited about the new adventure but also a bit apprehensive about what it will entail. I know virtually nothing about sports...never played a team sport in my life. I was a dancer through and through! I'm not a big outdoors fan or a great lover of fishing and hunting.

But my husband is all of those and more!!! He speaks the male language of sports. I cannot for the life of me translate what he discusses with his brother and nephew of all their fantasy sports drafts or quoted movie lines. He loves camping, fishing, hunting, wildlife, outdoors...we are truly complete opposites in that regard. My dream vacation is a cruise or fancy resort and his is a trip to the Grand Canyon (which after seeing a show on it recently terrifies the daylights out of me...I formed a fear of heights after having kids!). He just called me at 10:00pm from work, asking if I want to go to the beach tomorrow so he can fish. Fishing and hunting run deep through his veins!

We compromise our interests in a lot of ways, and try to share his love of nature with the girls, but it's also exciting to know that Steven will have a little buddy to take out to the ranch, the fishing pier, or the hunting trip. He's tried some of these with activities the girls, but for the most part they have been scared of fish and large animals. They don't care to be outdoors in the heat for long hours or be around the loud noises of things like tractors or baseball stadiums.

Here's what my girls spend their days playing with:

I'm embarrassed to admit that this is not even all the dolls. There were others in the playroom and probably in other areas of the house and at their grandma's house! I finally went to work purging some of the toys yesterday, including a few of these dolls, a handful of which were actually dolls from my own childhood! I put them aside to see if they miss them, before donating.

I'm going to have to start collecting some more masculine toy items, some dump trucks and swords, maybe another train set and some more matchbox cars and balls! The poor little boys who come to play have a really hard time finding suitable toys. A new adventure for me indeed!

I'll end my post tonight with a sweet video of Ellie from my parents' house tonight, and I'll watch the rest of "Ratatouille" while awaiting my husband's return. We'll see if we finish this weekend with painted furniture or fresh fish in the fridge....To Be Continued

New Look!

I've been meaning to fix up my banner and template, but can only do it here at my parents' house with the Photoshop program! So here's my fall look :) It's back to warmer weather here again, so it doesn't really feel like November. Thanksgiving in two weeks? Baby in less than 6 weeks? Wow. I am just amazed that I am going to have a baby boy in my arms NEXT MONTH! My next blog banner should show THREE children!

I haven't worked on the faux headboard painting yet, maybe tonight. This weekend will hopefully be filled with lots of house projects, mostly furniture-painting. Then we can get to put the nursery and master bedroom back together...I'm anxious for that! I've done a little Christmas shopping and planning, and got to work purging the playroom yesterday. I'll have some pictures of that to show you. Let me just say that we have way too many dolls!

Well, I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend!

Finished

at 12:45am! Whoa, am I a tired mama! But with all the furniture awry, the room a mess, and the brushes to wash...I figured I'd be better off finishing the job tonight rather than tomorrow. The exact headboard plan is still TBD; hopefully I can work on it tomorrow! But I think I like the color a lot and will be happy to see it with the pictures and bedding back in the room.

Deep breath. And off to bed...

Painting

has begun! I bought my supplies this afternoon and have gotten to work painting our bedroom. It's the perfect weather to leave doors and windows open for ventilation. And we have nothing planned this evening, except to attempt to finish painting and eat a dinner of crockpot macaroni and cheese!

I've had three crises already today, though, and I'm a bit exhausted from them. We've had a tripping incident resulting in a very damaged toy guitar (one of Ellie's favorite toys). Then we had a red slush drink spilled in the carseat all over a child's clothing on the way to Wal-Mart! Finally, I spilled a ton of paint, thankfully it was on the tarp but soaked through my pants. I am really a mess when it comes to painting!

I've only got one wall painted so far because I have a bed that needs to be moved and an alarm box that needs to be removed from the wall, and I can't get through to Steven's cell phone!

Maybe this nesting thing isn't quite what it's cut out to be. And I've got a long way to go! Hopefully in the late night hours I'll have an almost-completely painted room to post...we'll see. Back to the brush...

Nesting

It has begun! A friend asked me last week if I was nesting yet, and I was so focused on the events at hand (All Saints', Halloween, First Friday), that getting ready for baby wasn't quite at the top of the priorities!

Well, things have changed as of yesterday. I cleaned the kitchen and used my foot-mopping technique to clean the kitchen floors. I washed probably 6 loads of laundry (none of which have been folded or put away) and cleaned out the laundry room. I scrubbed the floor of our bathroom, which had embarrassingly never been done before :-O! The tile is a very dark color so it shows no dirt, but the dust was horrible! I cleaned the shower. I took care of 2 girls with tummy viruses all night long :-( (They're feeling better but still upset tummies)

And here are some other nesting things I've been doing...

My mom ordered crib bedding for Peter...our little "Fisher of Men"!


I found a dresser for free on our area's online classifieds. It needs a little work.


Here's what the nursery looks like right now. We have a long way to go! And a lot of things to give away! But at least we have the basic furniture and a theme idea to start with.



Yes, that pillow says "Tempurpedic"! We got a coupon in the mail to a furniture store for $200 off when you spend $200 or more. So, we treated ourselves to some new pillows for just the amount over $200!


We've been taping our bedroom for painting...finally! I've had the paint since January! It's going to be a denim blue color.



I was thinking about painting a "headboard" on the wall, but a friend gave me the idea to use tin tiles like this. What do you think?


Okay, better get my sicklings down for naps and continue my cleaning marathon! It's been a pretty good Monday so far...not quite as "manic" as the past weeks...

More Celebration!

Yesterday our homeschool group had the big All Saints' Day party at a family's beautiful home and ranch out in the country! I think there were probably over 100 people there! It was a gorgeous afternoon and so nice to be outside the city, to hear the crickets, see the stars, and breathe in the fresh air. Our week of excitement is over and now we're on to preparations for the coming months of Thanksgiving, Peter's arrival, and Christmas! Here are some highlights from yesterday...

A peaceful drive there for Mommy ;)


A beautiful drive out to the country


Coming up on the beautiful home


Ellie talking to the chickens


MC as St. Queen Elizabeth of Hungary minus her crown and basket of bread and flowers


Little "Mary" is not sure what's going on...


The saint parade begins!


Steven was my photographer and had to leave early, so I'm without any good pictures of the various saint games (18 booths, everything from face painting to bingo to tractor rides!). But here is a beautiful butterfly shot he took.


Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! I've been doing lots of nesting, less than 6 weeks until our bundle arrives!