Sacrifices

I got this sent to me a moment ago. My favorite part is that the website is titled "Manly Guys Doing Manly Things."
(click to enlarge)
I love it. Co-sleeping isn't Denny's favorite thing in the world. Even when it was just the two of us, I would often snuggle up to him. He would roll away, so I snuggled closer... and so on and so forth. The man only ever gets room in the bed when Sophie and I go visit my mom.

I bet he can't wait until he'll have not 2, but 3 ladies to share the bed with. :D

This and That

Several bits and pieces of news.

1 - Baby is definitely a girl. She's growing well and developing a week ahead of my due date. (so she is about where my original due date was) I'll expect her between Jan 7 and Jan 14th. (no we don't have a name, we are slackers - deal with it)

2 - I've made it half way. I hit 20 weeks last Friday.

3 - Our loan was approved, our yard is being fenced in, and the annoying chip in our window is being replaced. Aside from the seller being an ass, the house buying is moving along.

4 - Sophie is completely potty learned. We very rarely have accidents, and haven't touched a diaper in weeks (even at night). My baby girl is so big. :(

5 - I've decided on Christmas gifts. Ladies -brown sugar body scrubs. Men - hot packs and/or wrist supports. Now to just make them all in bulk.

6 - We got to spend Saturday at Ikea. Tina was nice enough to come play babysitter (toddler chaser), so that we could actually focus on shopping. We got lots of goodies for the new house. :) A good 6 hours well spent.

7 - I'm playing with ideas for Halloween costumes, they shall soon be unveiled.

8 - It must be said, my boobs are super awesome. Pregnancy/nursing is the only time I actually get boobs - I enjoy it.

9 - I have the urge for tamales, I plan to make a giant batch once we are in the house. Those things last me weeks. :) If I love you... I might spare some. Give me like $10 for the ridiculous amount of meat and spices that I'll need, and I'll reserve some for ya. :P

10 - I procrastinate. I have maybe 10-15 boxes packed.... and that's it. Someone will have to come play babysitter so I can get the rest of our things ready to go. 9 days until closing!

My Mother's Daughter

The other day I was threatening Denny, and realized just how much I am like my mother. I don't remember how the conversation started, but I'm pretty sure it had to do with HIM taking care of his stinky dog. I think it went something like this.

me - "the moment that thing bites my kids, i'll get rid of her"
denny - "then i'll get rid of you"
me - "pfft, i'll do it when you're at work"
denny - "i'll kill you"
me - "i'll feed her to you. you'll think its delicious, then ask where your dog is. and i'll tell you she's in your stomach"
denny - "you're a dick..."

(ok so fine, I wouldn't kill the dog. The idea of eating dog grosses me out, and I can't even kill large insects) A pet is a pet. We had oodles of them growing up, and at least half were bested by my mother. Including my turtle which she told me ran away, but really threw into the field behind our house.

Other reasons I am undoubtedly that crazy lady's offspring:

I pee with the door open. I have a 2 yr old that cannot open the door, and I want her to be able to come in if something is wrong. Denny is also quickly learning that closing the door just results in pounding little fists. (To this day, my mother still does this. It's just how we roll.)

When I go out into public, I simply have to make fun of people. Granted, I'm not as vocal as my mother is about it, but I still do it. Whenever we would go to family dinners, we would all end up being the loudest family there - laughing at all the people we saw.

I really don't give a hoot what people think of me. If someone is talking crap, sure I'll give them a piece of my mind, but I don't let it affect me. Who cares? I'm me, I'm awesome, that's all that matters.

Something that all 3 of us kids inherited, the tendency to speak our minds. We were taught to be fearless, if someone didn't like what we said, sucked to be them.

I craft. My mother had a craft/sewing room and it was always full of goodies.

When Denny doesn't want to eat what was made, I use the phrase "eat poop then." We were told this each and every time we whined about dinner, but in Spanish.

I have every intention of using El QuQui, La Vieja Blanca, and La Llorona to scare my kids into going to bed.

Most importantly, my children are my life. There is nothing that I wouldn't do for them.

Love you mom :)

Meet Medved

See that grown ass man laying on the floor? Under his computer desk? He's cuddling a sleeping puppy. Talk about a softy. :P

This little ball of fluff is known as Medved. (pronounced Medva) It's Russian for "Bear." Obviously, Denny picked the name. This is, after all, his dog. He has always wanted a lab, and I promised he could eventually get one - once we got a house. Lo and behold, house = dog.

We were originally going to get a chocolate lab from Denny's co-worker... but yea. The mom ended up killing 5 of the 6 puppies. So much for that. Being the wonderful wife I am, I set out to find a different lab. (he wanted a BLACK one to begin with anyway) I found this little gal in Henefer.

Sophie is also a big fan of the puppy. She's two, she's a big fan of any small animal.

I suppose she isn't too much of a pain. Especially since Denny adores her and will be doing the things I hate. (i.e. taking out the dog, cleaning up the mess, dealing with the annoying whines at 3 am)


The above picture was taken once we arrived at the vet's today. Adorable no?

18 Weeks

In case you haven't noticed, we've started taking weekly pictures. This one was taken at 18 weeks, also the day we found out that we were going to be getting the house. :)

Sophie HAS to have her picture taken when she sees the camera.

I told her to make a silly face, and she did this... Weird kid. She pulled her eye lids apart.

Cooling Off

Earlier this week, Sophie and I walked over to dad's.

I gave her the towel to dry off, since she had been playing with her little worm toy that squirts water everywhere. She had different ideas.

Step 1 - Get towel soaking wet.
Step 2 - Squish some water out onto the concrete.

Step 3 - Scream "HAPPY BIRTHDAY OREO," while flopping the towel on the dog. She claimed she was "drying him off."

Step 4 - Repeat several hundred times.

Silly Oreo thought he could hide from her in the kennel.

Fat chance.

Laying out her towel.

Then jumping over it.

As you can probably guess, I eventually had to get her a new towel to actually dry off.
Brightly colored toe nails make me happy.

And a belly shot. I'm not THAT big, I had to arch my back to get the picture right... at least that's what I'll continue to tell myself.


ENJOY!

The House

Get ready for the picture overload.
You can make them all bigger, just click them.

First, a quick look at the layout of the lot.

The main floor.
The basement.
My flower garden out front.
The house :)
Carport.
East side o the house. ie - our yard & shed
(the posts are where the guy is finishing the fence)
Other side of the house, from the 2nd driveway
Back of the house, from the shed.
Back of the house, from the 2nd driveway.
Front room. I LOVE the windows. :)
Front room, from the other side.
Sophie hanging in the front room.
Sophie in her room.
Bathroom upstairs.
Looking from Sophie's room, toward the kitchen.
The kitchen.
Dining area.
Basement family room.
One of the rooms downstairs. My future craft room.
Bathroom downstairs.
Storage room.
She totally loves her new house. She even knows which room is hers. :P
Being a dork on the car.
Making faces.
Soon enough house... you will be ours!

So, Guess What?

Should everything go according to plan, we will be home owners as of Sept 8th.

Yep, HOMEOWNERS! Most people that both Denny and I grew up with, are complete failures at the moment. So needless to say, we're rather proud.

The home is a 4 bed, 2 bath, about 2000 sq ft. Ginormous family rooms. (mostly) Fenced Yard. Two diveways (I want to fence one off). A shed. Shaded yard. Little garden area. Green grass. A carport. Freshly updated. New carpet and paint. Completely finished (aside from our storage area).

Too good to be true, yea? We have quite literally spent 2 years looking for a home that would fit our needs, that was affordable, and was NOT located in Ogden. Not such an easy feat with only one income. Denny supports my decision to stay at home and raise our children, so we make due.

I'm horrified that with buying a house, we'll most likely be stuck in this state for years. I hate Utah. I cannot stand the kind of people that live here, they drive me nuts. Everything is ugly here, there aren't enough trees. Also, the members of the church here just aren't the same. My hope is that in 10 years, we'll be able to move FAR away from here. I'll keep my fingers crossed...

We first saw the house when we were driving up to my ultrasound last week. On the way back I called the number to see if the house was even in our price range. It sounded delightful, so we got in touch with our favorite realtor and went to see it the next day.

This was the only house we've seen (and believe me, we've seen a lot) that we actually liked, the moment we walked in. Being the opinionated person I am, I generally have a lot to say about the houses we see. My only gripe with this one was that the backyard won't be completely fenced. I figure I'll have Denny finish that next spring, since winter will be here soon enough anyway. I just don't like the idea of people being able to wander into my yard. And the stairs are steep, but it's an older house.

I've already started the decorating in my mind. I've got paint colors picked out for half the house. Being both pregnant, and not having money to spend, I'll be painting the house next spring. In fact, the house will be pretty empty until we get our tax return and buy things to fill it. But I'm ok with that, just gives Sophie more room to run all over the place.

Also with both a yard, and a friend who has a fresh batch of puppies - I've promised Denny a dog. For some reason he likes labs, but I'm not so fond of big dogs. Our friend, Mary, has a bunch of puppies that were born on Friday the 13th, and I've got my dibs on one of the girls. I like the idea of being able to stick the dog on a chain, and throw it outside when it annoys me. (not so easy in an apartment) So in a few weeks, you will see Denny's new bitch. (tee hee, get it, girl dog?)

Aside from scaring myself silly by looking up our address on Family Watchdog, I'm still pretty darn excited. Being traumatized by sexual abuse as a child, you can bet that I'll be printing out the pictures of the offenders in our area. I'm crazy like that.

Tonight I get to go back to the house, so I'll be sure to take lots of pictures.

Revised Diapering List

So, should we make a certain GIANT purchase next month... we are going to have less play money. My play money is pretty much baby oriented. I'm a sucker for tiny things.

Remember my super awesome diaper want list.... yea... I've decided it's just more financially responsible to make the diapers myself. *tear*

So I've had to come up with a revised list of sorts. (which doesn't include any diapers) Depressing, no?

I need tiny prefolds, they are the most convenient thing for newborns that need to be changed 12 times a day.

$10 - 1 dozen preemie size prefolds (apparently I make small babies)
$18 - 1 (i really want 2) dozen newborn size prefolds

I'm going to be making most of the diaper covers from fleece, but it's nice to have a few PUL ones for out and abouts.

$11.50 Thirsties xs cover
$12.50 Thirsties newborn cover
(I want to get a pair of size small ones too, but I'm trying to be cheap here)

My goal is to use cloth wipes this time around. We tried with Sophie, but it didn't impress me. This time around I plan to use a wipe solution.

$12 baby bum drop wipes solution

I'm ok with the solid poo, you just plop it into the toilet... not the same story with breastfeeding poop. tmi? Too bad. If you have a baby, you know the stuff is like mustard. I definitely want a diaper sprayer. It hooks up to your toilet so you can spray the diapers off before tossing them in the pail.

$45 BumGenius diaper sprayer

I hated the ammonia smell that came from washing Sophie's diapers in hard water. Freaking Utah. The "Hard Rock" detergent is make specifically for hard water.

$16 Rockin Green -Hard Rock- detergent

I don't imagine the diaper smell being bad, but just in case - I'd like to get some odor helpers.

$6.50 Rockin Green pail freshener, just shake it over the stinky diaper pail (works with the detergent I want as well)
or
$6 Bummis odor remover, but this has to be sprayed on each individual diaper

With a pail, I then need a pail liner. I hate the having the diaper smell forever stick to the pail.

$15 Kissaluvs antibacterial pail liner (two would be awesome, but I think I'll make due with one)

Cloth diapers need their own special bum cream. The normal kinds make them all icky.

$16 Grandma El's diaper rash cream

Ways to close the prefolds, I've heard Snappi's are much easier than pins.

$4 Snappi (I'll need at least a few of these)

The tar poo isn't my favorite thing. You know, the stuff they make the first few days of their life. Plus going out is ok when baby pees, but I don't much want to cart poopy diapers along with me.

$6 Cutey Baby flush-able diaper liners


That's still $180.... that I don't have. :( Plus, a lot of those things only last so long, and need to be bought again. Maybe I should take up robbing banks?

I've been trying to trade with other mom's for the things that I want, but shipping adds up. I'll probably end up cutting my list down, yet again, in a few weeks. ON WITH MY QUEST OF DIAPERING!

Ultrasound Pictures

I had to argue with my dad's stupid space scanner to get these things on here, so you all better appreciate it!

Click to enlarge them.

First picture, the arrow is pointing to where something would be sticking out on a boy... and there is nothing there.

Second is the bottom view of baby. Rump and thighs. Again, no boy bits.

Lastly, baby all curled up in a ball. :) ENJOY!