Nesting Update 37 weeks

3 weeks left here and I thought I'd give you an update on what I accomplished this weekend. Dan has his 1st rough draft for his paper due Wednesday so I made him promise to let me work on my own this weekend and not get involved. We've got one week left until our carpet should probably arrive. I took the opportunity this weekend to figure out what we needed to do with the baseboards and painting etc before that gets installed. The old baseboards are still on the ground there, but I painted the chair railing and I think it really looks sharp. it's so much more fresh.
I also painted the 120 ft of baseboards in preparation for putting those on the walls in the living room and kitchen. We could have tried to salvage the old baseboards but we figured that chiseling off the old floor would probably ruin them and if we got wood ones like what we already had, it would be super expensive and require priming and painting. Instead we went with a 120 ft package fiberboard deal which cost us less than half the cost and effort of going with real wood. I think it will work out great. Sure there's 40 feet of baseboard that we don't need in there but the savings were worth it. I also managed to salvage the old door frame and painted that as well so we can put that back up too.
Here's another shot of the painted chair rails. i think they look great. You can see the baseboards on the far wall, but the wall under the window doesn't have baseboards on it so don't look there.
I started getting the baby's room organized only to discover that our crib is recalled. So I took care of mailing in a request for a voucher to get a new one,.. so work on the baby's room pretty much halted. Not sure how much longer it will be a train wreck in there.
The baby's dresser is setup and stocked with 0-3 month clothes and the closet has the 0-3 month things hanging up and everything is ready to be organized I just haven't quite got it together yet. I did however at least put away the older clothes in the storage bin for now and got rid of the gift bags that were in the way and got things a little bit closer to being organized.
And Lastly,... you'll remember what Dan and my stockings look like. He has a moose and I have a penguin. I was at home depot today and came across this cute puppy. It happens to also play music and has annoying bells on the ears but I think the baby will like it. :) I just hope the other kids don't get jealous when they're stockings don't sing or wag their ears. ... Now I just need to figure out what the baby's name is so I can make up the letters and sew it onto the stocking. yay!

Excellent Christmas Toy Advice...

I subscribe on google reader to a blog called No Time For Flash Cards and I love all the cheap, crazy fun activities this mom presents to both teach and entertain her son. She recently posted a favorites gift list to help parents find good tested and proven toys for Christmas for their young kids. I sure hope she does this again next year because there's so many toys on here that I agree are huge hits and I want my little girl to have as she grows up. http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2009/11/2009-holiday-gift-guide.html

I will probably be buying 2 of the infant toys and all of the books she recommended if I can convince Dan that it's a good idea. :) He's never even heard of this blog or that I follow it or anything so I'm sure he's going to be a little blindsided by this post haha. Little baby girl is going to get the best 1st Christmas of her life if I succeed. :)

If you've got young kids from infant to 5 yrs or even a little older it's worth taking a look at her list, the parents submitted list, and I am surprised with how much I liked her selection of recommended books...I don't usually go for other people's book recommendations because they often look boring or poorly illustrated to me. There's so many awesome toys on those lists that inspire and require imaginative play time that you can't pass it up. And all the toys are linked on amazon.com so you can easily find where to purchase them. It's really too bad I don't have a couple hundred bucks or I'd buy a good amount of the toys and save them up for when baby gets old enough to play with them. I'm just afraid No Time For Flashcards is not going to post the list again next year and then I won't know where to find them. oh well. I'm sure there will be plenty of other toys to consider next year. Goodluck on your Christmas shopping if you've started already!

Painting done!

Assuming we don't decide to do another coat (which we might,...) we are done painting the ceiling! yay. We told the trick or treaters that we were being painters for Halloween every time they asked us if we were "renovating" or "just moved in" or "remodeling",.. I'm impressed at their range of vocabulary. I cashed in on a Christmas present we got from Seth and Skyler last year and had Skittles come over and help us paint so that things would go smoother and quicker than they did priming. He did a great job cutting in while Dan did the rolling and I cleaned up paint spills and passed out candy. Thanks Skittles it helped a ton!

I'm not going to get any better pictures than I did yesterday so I won't bother posting what would look like the same pictures. Hopefully the job looks even enough that we don't need to do another coat. You can see lines in some spots where we rolled but overall I think it looks good. I'm not sure a second coat is going to make it look sufficiently better. We'll see how it looks tomorrow when it's dried. Yay!

Primed and ready,...

So we're working on the project we both feel pushed into and neither of us wants to do right now but it's probably the best thing to avoid ruining new carpet. Since I want the ceiling painted it's probably best to do it before we carpet so as not to ruin the new carpet. So we got the priming done tonight. :) We may decide to do a second coat for good measure.


There wasn't a ton of these drop cloths to be able to cover the entire floor and all the fixtures. And we kind of jumped into the painting before we were ready with everything taped off and cleared out as well so some of this is a little haphazard.
I really hate how yellow the lighting makes my paint look. You can see how much better the wall paint looks in the next picture where I took the same shot using the flash instead. But in that picture you can't see the contrast of the white against the color as well. oh well. I already love how it's lightened the room so I like it. I just hope we can get the paint on smoothly so it doesn't look as choppy as the primer does.

real transforming transformer's costume

This is either an attention seeking family or a really cool dedicated Dad. Check out this awesome costume. I want to be a transformer for halloween,.....( ;) transform from a pregnant lady to a not pregnant one,..:) ) j/k.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=8490529

Pregnant & Halloween...

I'm not planning to dress up this year for halloween. However, I find myself wondering what kind of possible costume I would even consider if I did. The only thing that ever comes to mind is the coolaid man. So I thought I'd see if there are any good costumes out there I haven't thought of,..knowing full well there would be. I am correct though in my assumption that all of them are pretty stupid looking and terrible. lol. I did find 4 of them that I thought were creative or cute.

Exhibit 1: the pearl. I thought this was a really creative costume to be an oyster with a pearl inside,...


Exhibit b: I thought this ref and basketball player ensemble was cute,...

Exhibit c: Dan keeps suggesting that I laugh like a bowl full of jelly so maybe this is appropriate...

Exhibit d: This one is cute if it weren't for the fact that they were out of wedlock and this particular part of the series is very sad for me and makes my heart ache because it's when Anakin snaps and goes bad and padme dies.


So the winner is,...ding ding ding ding,.... the pearl! I think I would pick the pearl,.. though if Dan had his way I'd probably be Topo Gigio (st. nick)!

Random Happy Halloween

We went up to Grandma and Grandpa's last weekend for Grandpa's birthday. Grandma bought these fun ginger bread house kits. Jenna and I were a team and made up this one. A combination of 2 of the examples on the cover of the house. :) I think it turned out pretty well!


I love my new backsplash btw! It reminds me of Chocolate..which is weird that I like that since I'm more of a caramel girl! Don't you just look at this and think chocolate? It makes me want to bake something with chocolate in it...I find myself really hungry when in my kitchen lately which is maybe not the greatest side affect but since I love food and cooking so much I think it's a plus. :)
Also,.. my last post wasn't meant to be a negative post really. I thought it was funny that I was getting kicked from both sides at the same time so I was sharing the story,..but then I reflected a little bit on how much time is left before our lives are turned upside down and it really wasn't meant to be a negative reflection,..just a comment on how things are going to change and in some cases have already changed and at least in the case of my baby I'm excited to have someone to need me and to take care of even if it means losing precious sleep sometimes. Hopefully that clears up that I didn't mean it to be a negative post. :)