Saturday, November 23, 2013

30 days of thankful: week 3

Day 15: for gorgeous, warm fall weather. It's been the perfect playground and walking weather. #30daysofthanks
day 15:  thankful for gorgeous, warm, fall weather.  it's been the perfect playground and walking weather.

Day 16: for a backyard. After so many years in apartments it is so nice having a little space of our own. Also very thankful that @mr_deland takes such good care of it.  #30daysofthanks

day 16:  for a backyard.  after so many years in apartments it is so nice having a little space of our own.  also very thankful that charlie takes such good care of it. 

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day 17: thankful for health and lots of happiness.

Day 18: (forgot to post yesterday) thankful that  these two are now best buds again. Daddy is now cool in Avery's world as evidenced by the matching broncos shirts and fist bumps for all. #30daysofthanks

day 18: thankful that these two are now best buds again.  daddy is now cool in avery's world as evidenced by the matching broncos shirts and fist bumps for all.

Day 19: thankful my mom is here!!! Avery's so darn excited. She can't stop patting her and saying "hi grandma". Also, she brought early birthday presents. Lucky A. #30daysofthanks

day19:  thankful that my mom is here! avery's so excited.  she can't stop patting her and saying "hi grandma".  also, she brought early birthday presents.  lucky, a. 

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day 20:  thankful for healthy food and the ability to cook while someone else (an awesome grandma) is entertaining my baby.  

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day 21:  thankful for homemade biscuits and tomato soup, christmas decorating, hot chocolate with marshmallows, a solo target trip, warm oatmeal cookies, snow in november, and catching up with a good friend, all of which were had today.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

23 months.

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the last month before two.  crazy town.  and the last month that avery is an only child.  also crazy.  
can i say it again?  i love this age, she's challenging and fun all rolled into one.  

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avery's been really into her little animals this month.  we play with them at least 5 times a day.  "mommy, play animals?" is something that i never grow tired of hearing.  we have a few games that we play with them.  we sort them into categories according to where they live:  farm, ocean, and wild.  we also play silly games, attempt to see how many we can stack on top of dunkin, and sing songs and make up stories.  she'll play with them by herself, too.  and i love to spy on her while she plays and makes up games with them.  adorable.  along with the animal theme she still brings her animal book with her in the car a lot and also loves to watch the "pole to pole" episode of planet earth.  

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she's also gotten really into coloring this month.  another activity that she loves to do both with us and by herself.  we have a little table and chairs set up in the 'playroom' and i leave out crayons and a book for her to draw in.  she'll go in there on her own and color and also request that we "go upstairs and color" throughout the day.  she requests that we draw christmas trees all.the.time.  and is also into us drawing shapes so that she can color them in and she also will ask for certain letters, too.  i've noticed that she's gotten a bit better about identifying colors and letters this month.  we're nowhere near mastering these yet but not everything is purple and not every letter is a "k".  

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one of my favorite things that she's started doing this month is asking "what is this" when she wants to know what something is.  most often she'll ask this as she flips through books but she'll also point and ask about random things when we're out and about, too.  i love that she's so curious about what things are.  and she always repeats whatever the object in question is.  

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speaking of books she still loves to read.  she'll happily read to herself and it's a mix of made up words and things that she can either identify on the page or if it's a story that she knows she'll mimic some of the words that charlie and i say when we read her the story.  we read several times a day but we always, always read on our bed right before she goes to bed.  she's still into a lot of the dr. seuss books but we've also started reading a few christmas books and she still likes some of the shorter board books that we used to read a lot when she was a baby.  she always insists on turning the pages and is pretty good about waiting for us to finish a page before flipping to the next one.  of course sometimes she refuses to let us read to her and insists on reading to herself, which is pretty cute to watch.  i love reading books with her and i love that she loves to read.  i think she knows that reading is one of those things that i'll never refuse even when it's reading clifford's first christmas for the 10th time in a row.  

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she still loves our animals.  she always wants dunkin to come and sit with us when we play with the animals or come upstairs when we go up to play.  she'll always ask, "dunkin come?".  she has lower expectations for henry but she still loves him.  the other day she wasn't being very nice and squeezed his face really hard and he whimpered.  so we had a discussion about how that hurt henry and that what he was trying to say when he whined was "ouch".  for some reason the conversation really stuck with her and she will repeat the conversation to me over and over.  or she'll tell henry about it as she's petting him.  it was pretty awesome that she not only understood what i was saying but respected it enough to then be nice to him.  i think henry's appreciated it, too.  we all know that he's a huge baby and really cannot handle being picked on.  

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she's still sleeping really well at night and terribly during the day.  she has always, always been an awful napper and i think a big piece of that just has to do with the way she was made.  i've always been a little jealous of parents who's kids were champion nappers as i cannot count on any time during the day to do things.  every minute she's asleep is a gift but i basically hold my breath the entire time until she wakes up.  her naps are anywhere from 20 minutes to 1.5 hours with the average being somewhere around 40 minutes.  it's really not enough nap time for her but she won't go back to sleep after she wakes up and there's not much else i can do.  she'll sleep better if she's in the car or being held (i've held her through 2 naps this week since she was sick and couldn't breathe) but obviously i can't drive around every day for an hour and a half or hold her during that time.  i do wish she could sleep better on her own during the day because she does such a great job of it at night, but whatever.  if i have to pick i'd choose good nighttime sleep over daytime sleep.

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we went to the aquarium twice this month.  once with friends and once by ourselves and she still loves that place.  i have a feeling that we'll be renewing our season passes in march because we've definitely gotten our money's worth out of them and she really loves going.  i also love that i can take her any time "for free".  

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she's sick again this month, which is the third time this fall.  i'm really not looking forward to winter if this trend keeps up,  i think it was mostly a cold although it started out with her just super tired and whiney and with a low grade fever.  i'm hoping that these little bugs are at least building up her immune system and praying that she's better before this baby comes.  a snotty toddler is one thing but a snotty infant is way worse in my opinion.

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she's still eating really well although we probably need to be better about getting her to use utensils instead of feeding her or letter her use her hands.  yogurt is pretty much the only thing that she'll feed herself and it's always one huge mess and i find it really stressful to watch her drop yogurt all over the place.  i probably need to just get over it and feed herself more often.  

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she loves her broncos shirt, "booming" or fist bumping with charlie, watching the broncos: "go broncos", playing with her football, helping clean if she's in the mood, looking at pictures, playing on her pillows, christmas trees and lights, m&ms, coloring in the bathtub, singing silly songs like the ones from her gymnastics classes, bunny and tiger, helping me cook and bake, playing on the playground, and going to the doctor to listen to the babey's heartbeat.  whenever she picks up the black crayon she starts singing miss mary mack and then starts laughing.  she insists on taking off her shoes and jacket off as soon as she gets in the house and demands that everyone else does as well:  "daddy, shoes off".  she says "excuse me" when she burps and will tell charlie to say it, too if he forgets.  she says goodnight to her 'fireplace' and 'elephant' each night before going to bed and always reminds me to put a blanket on her.  she loves the real fireplace downstairs and is a little ocd about having her hands clean at all times.  she says "bye, love you" whenever we get off the phone with someone and will randomly tell charlie that she loves him.  she's so excited for grandma, grandpa, and alex to come out and keeps talking about how she's going to take everyone to the playground.  she calls herself avery and "avery do it" has been a very popular sentence this month.  she's also still my little baby who wants to be held, pats me on the arm when she's happy, and always wants to hold my hand outside and sit in my lap when we're playing.  she gets angry and frustrated but can usually stop from completely freaking out with some help and say 'please' or 'help me'.  chasing her around is exhausting but also so much fun.  i love watching her learn and grow and i love that i'm the one around to wipe away her tears and fix the broken things in her world when she needs it.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

30 days of thankful: week 2


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day 8:  dunkin feeling better to join us on walks again.  

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day 9:  i know some people would be annoyed with their kid climbing all over things but after taking over 18 months to walk i'm just so thankful that she's walking, running, and climbing at all. 

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day 10: so thankful for how much this little one loves books.  love reading with her. 

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day 11: thankful for time with the hubs after the baby is asleep.  taking advantage of this time while we can.  

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day 12:  this awesome dog and how much this kid loves her animals.

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day 13:  the fact that my sweet, sick baby fell asleep in my arms for an hour.  i miss those snuggly moments with her.  hoping she feels better but i'll take those snuggles anytime.  

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day 14:  thankful for tinfoil and a cat.  throwing the 'ball' to toby gave me all of 5 minutes of peace while cooking dinner. 

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

fall home tour.

i know i recently posted a tour of our house in the spring/summer that was just about a year after we moved into it.  but part of our 'to do before baby' list was to move a few rooms around and to finish a few things here and there around the house and while not all of it is finished i figured i would try and take some pictures of what our house is like after some work this summer and before the chaos of baby #2 hits.  

outside

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i don't have a full house shot because i never took one before we took down our halloween decorations and the mums died.  really, let this be a lesson to you that plants don't keep themselves alive.  we didn't do anything different really outside aside from getting rid of our summer plants and getting a few mums and pumpkins.  next year i'll water the mums.  i have to give all of the outside work credit to charlie as i don't really do anything out here and he spends a lot of time each weekend taking care of everything.  i think eventually we'd like to rip out some of the existing shrubs and replace with some more native plants but i have yet to work up the motivation to do much out here.  we also really need to paint the house. i'm guessing that will be on next year's list and i would actually like to change the whole color scheme because having a dark house not only makes the house heat up in the summer but also means that any fading is a lot more noticeable than it would be if we had lighter paint.  so we'll have to figure that piece out, too.  i would also love to replace that storm door one day.  maybe after we paint the house? 

living room

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 still love our living room which is really a playroom/office.  we spend so much time in this room which is so funny to me because when we bought the house i thought it was a waste of space and figured we would never use the room.  and now we all love it and spend a ton of time here, despite it being one of the smallest rooms in the house.

family room

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kitchen

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we haven't done too much down here.  we did get new chairs for the kitchen table.  avery moved out of her high chair a few months ago after she kept climbing out and giving charlie a heart attack and i found a toddler chair for her at ikea that has been perfect.  i would still love to eventually build a bench along the wall behind the table, add some moulding to the top of the cabinets, and fix the lighting under the cabinets.  we've also talked about getting a different island in the kitchen that we could actually pull up chairs to, but those are all maybe long term plans.  i'd really like to replace all of the light fixtures down here, too, and that we'll sort of tackle as we find fixtures that work over time.  no real hurries with anything as this space has everything we need and is completely functional at this point.   

master bedroom

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our bedroom was one of the places that i wanted to invest just a little bit of money and time in.  we replaced the curtains, the yellow ones just never worked for me.  i actually found some really nice curtains that i think would have been perfect in here but they were pretty expensive and these white ones were sitting in our basement so we went with these for now.  we also replaced the curtain rod with something that doesn't fall down each time i open and close the curtains and it's been worth every bit of the $30 i spent on it.  we finally, finally, finally painted our nightstands white.  my mom did a bunch of the work for that and i just finished the last few coats of paint. i have loved not having blue nightstands.  we also replaced the art over the bed as it felt like the previous frames we had were too small for the space.  i love these frames but i still need to figure out the pictures.  they're crooked and i've already fixed them twice.  i got us a new quilt that wasn't stained on super clearance at west elm and a new duvet cover without a hole at ikea.  it's like we're grownups or something. i also took advantage of target's $24 flannel sheets this month and picked some up for us and they've been amazing.  charlie still needs a lamp for his side of the bed but we're done enough for now.  

master bath

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we painted!  actually, we hired someone else to paint.  i feel really lazy about this but i'm 9 months pregnant and it was pretty amazing to have the room painted while we both worked.  the color is somewhere in-between winter white and moonshine.  i was originally planning to do moonshine and cut it by 50% and then charlie said, just go with the next color, which happened to be winter white.  but i really wanted it to be a really light grey that was in the same color scheme as our bedroom and winter white turned out to be really white.  big surprise.  so i was that annoying person at home depot that had them add more color four more times because it just wasn't grey enough.  i actually love the way it turned out, definitely much brighter than before but there's definitely some color on the walls.  we still need to hang some art work  and soonish i'd like to paint the cabinets and frame the mirror with some moulding.  if we stay here forever i think charlie would really like to completely renovate as he hates the shower and the counters and the floor.  but we'll see how long we stay.  i wasn't a fan of how the fracking vote went in the election.

avery's room

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avery's room has seen a few minor changes.  mostly we stole a few things from her room and moved them into the nursery.  the rocker and the ottoman/pouf ended up in the baby's room and avery's been really into sitting on pillows on the floor so i picked a few more up and made this sort of nook area for her to play and read books.  she really loves her pillows and plays up here a lot during the day.  she likes to play with her stuffed animals and read books on them so for now it's been a good use of space.  i didn't want to do anything too drastic since i know we'll have to rearrange her room once she finally transitions into a bed.  i also replaced the 'art' that i painted with this pinboard.  i had an old cork board that covered with some fabric from hobby lobby and then ordered some prinstagrams.  she loves looking at her pictures and the 'halloween' sign has actually been really useful for teaching her some letters and occupying her during diaper changes.  i'm sort of slowly trying to transition out the aqua that i had in her room to navy blue, but i'm not about to replace anything before i have to.  she really loves her room and we play in here every day.  i really hope that she continues to love it as she gets older and hopefully one day will want to play in here all by herself.  although no hurries with that one yet, she's still growing up way too fast for me.  

master retreat/playroom

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the playroom/master retreat ended up getting all of the leftover furniture that didn't really have a place anywhere else but that we didn't really want to get rid of.  i would have loved to put the futon in the basement for guests to sleep on but the hallway to our basement is so narrow that we can't fit it down the stairs.  i like it in this room, but it would have probably been more useful downstairs.  she is still way too young for the train table and playing trains in her world equals destroying the tracks and then yelling at charlie when he tries to fix it.  the little table and chairs is from ikea and she loves them.  she sits and colors and plays with her pictures at them all the time and will request to go upstairs to color just about every day.  the only thing that i don't really like about this space is that it's actually in our bedroom.  it's really the weirdest master retreat that i've ever seen.  we've talked about turning this into a fourth bedroom if we end up staying in this house long term, but that would probably be pretty expensive as we'd have to reroute some ductwork and also shrink our master bedroom size pretty significantly.  so who knows if we'll ever end up doing that.  maybe we'll just knock down the one wall and make one enormous, amazing master bedroom.  but probably not.

nursery

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my favorite thing in the whole room is this picture.  avery painted it and i wrote the words on.  i really love the lyrics to that song.

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i have to say that i wasn't really that motivated to put this room together.  the only thing that actually motivated me was the fact that i couldn't stand walking upstairs and seeing an entire room being a hot mess.  we tried to buy as little as possible for this room and use what we had.  the dresser and the crib were new and i have to say i really love the crib.  i did buy the picture ledges/book shelves from ikea and the bigger shelf above the dresser.  i contemplated making the picture ledges since we did the ones in our family room and they were pretty easy but laziness won out.  i'm sure this room will change over time, especially once we find out if our little one's a boy or a girl.  i can see some navy blue or pink making its way in here once we know for sure, but for now it's done enough.  avery slept in our room for the first few months and we're planning the same thing with this little one so this is really just a fancy place to store some clothes and change some diapers. 

basement

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this space still probably needs the most work out of anything.  we moved charlie's office down here in the summer, got the fireplace to help heat the space, and hung picture frames over the couch.  the tv above the fireplace doesn't currently work because we don't have cable and it's not hooked up to anything.  i sort of see this space as being good for family movies as the kids get older and eventually we'd like to get a soft ottoman for in front of the couch.  i still need to put pictures in the frames.  i know what i'm doing but i just need to order the prints.  i also want to make/get some sort of window treatments for the windows down here.  there's no reason for them to be functional but i want something to just soften the space so i was thinking of making some fake roman shades or something similar.  i'd also like to build a console table behind the couch and i would really like to replace the lighting down here.  it would have been nice if they did recessed lighting when they finished the space off, but they didn't.  we still need to organize the storage area and charlie would like to turn that space into a bathroom if we stay here long term.  i really don't want to do that as i think it would be a waste of money and i like the storage space.  so we'll see.  since the addition of baby #2 we're now using all of our bedrooms which means that this is where people get to sleep when they come and visit.  i wish that the couch was a pullout but i'm told that it's pretty comfortable.