Today is the day.

I go in this evening to start my induction. I am assuming that this little one will be born tomorrow unless this turns out to be the worlds fastest induction. I feel like there are both a million things I should be doing today and nothing all at the same time. This whole knowing when baby is coming is very anticlimactic. I enjoy spontaneously going into labor. It is exciting. In the end all we want is a healthy baby, but still I wish things were a little different. Oh well.

This morning I made the boys pancakes and am doing some laundry. I will probably find some ridiculous things to keep me busy throughout the day too. I will probably be too anxious to try and nap though. I need to finish up the Belly Journal and make sure I bring that and the baby book to the hospital to get foot and hand prints. My hospital bag has been packed for weeks, but I will go through it 5 times at least. I hate this waiting!

G&G R have been here for a week now. The boys are still loving it! They spent practically all day at a Children's Museum last week. They went in the morning and then we all went back in the afternoon. It wasn't a very large museum, but it had plenty to keep them happy. There was a model train and a big sandbox that was a hit with Fletcher. Archie enjoyed role playing at the train station. He kept giving me a ticket to Chicago! There was also a bubble platform that you could pull a cord and be enclosed in a bubble. Fletcher was not interested but Archie liked it.

Over the weekend, Dave and I headed to IKEA and got a lot of odds and ends for around the house. We put up new shelves above my desk, got a coffee rack for the wall, magnetic knife holder, storage boxes, and a light for the boys reading corner. We hung up the curtains that my Mom made for the nursery. We finally have the co-sleeper attached to the bed and ready for baby. I got some Aden & Anais swaddling blankets and some more waterproof pads. I finally finished a scrapbook page that I started about 2 months ago too. I am going to get some photos from Archiver's today since I have a coupon and need my 39 week belly photo. I know I am babbling, but I didn't think that my nerves would be so jittery today. Gah!

The beautiful linen curtains in the nursery!

I should probably get started with my last day as a mother to two children. Hopefully I will be able to post a birth story blog within the week. If not, at least I can post some pictures of our new little boy or girl. Here we go!

The nursery...for now

I have done everything that I can with the nursery to this point. Fletcher is still sleeping in the crib so I cannot set that up, G&G R. will be sleeping on an Aerobed in there while they are here so I cannot set up any big things, but I really don't have any big things to set up. The walls are painted, the art work done, closet stocked with freshly laundered clothing, the swing, bouncer, and play yard have fresh batteries, the changing table, pack n' play, and co-sleeper are ready to go, and the car seat is installed. I wanted to take pictures of the nursery in the glow of the afternoon sunshine, but you wouldn't you know we have had two rainy, overcast days in a row. We get maybe 10 overcast days/year here in CO and they happened when I wanted the sun. Oh well. Here are the pictures I was able to get of the nursery.

My Mom made curtains and a valance for this window using THIS and THIS fabric from Joann's. They are going to look so great!

 The changing table/dresser. Nothing terribly exciting. 

The owl artwork I made is finally on the walls! I love how it turned out. Each canvas is 11" x 14". I painted each canvas with 2 coats of acrylic paint in a neutral. All of the shapes I cut using my Silhouette Cameo. Here is the OWL SHAPE, TREE BRANCH on right canvas, TREE BRANCH on left canvas, SWING, and FLOWERS. 

We will eventually put in mirror sliding doors on the closet. There were bi-fold doors when we moved in, but I hated them and they fell off anyway so we just took them down. At least I have easy access to everything in the closet. Storage baskets are my friend!

Here is a rocking chair that Dave & I found on Craigslist while we still lived in Michigan. The people we bought it from stained it themselves when their first child was born some 20 odd years ago. The green table was an old Sauder telephone stand that my Grandma gave to me when she sold her house in Redford. It was an ugly stain that I recently painted over and put a new owl knob on the door. A 110% improvement.

Close up of my night stand with owl knob.

I love the Treetop Friends collection by Skip Hop and this pillow is just too adorable. The orange pillow I found at Cost Plus on clearance. It was too perfect to pass up. I would like to get a nursing footstool for this chair.

My DIY paper leaves mobile. The whole project probably cost me $15 and about 6-8 man hours. People on Etsy charge upwards of $90 for something like this! I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out the leaves in 5 different cardstock colors. I took a sewing needle and poked a hole near the top of each leaf. I used some jewelry making line (looks like fishing line) and tied knots to keep the leaves from all falling to the bottom. 

I used glass beads and necklace charms to weight down the fishing line. My hot glue gun was my best friend on this project. 

I struggled with the top on this one. I ended up using these buttons and some hot glue.

The wreath was a nice base for hanging the leave strands. I got it in the floral section of a craft store. I think it is 6-8" wide. I took floral wire and made an "x" across the top to give me more surface to hang from. I didn't need to wrap the brown ribbon around it, but it helped hide some of the hot glue that I used to keep the wire in place. You can still see a few hot glue marks, but that is only if you are standing on a step stool inspecting the wreath. I can live with that!

Here are the closet dividers that I made. Of course I didn't take into account the distance that the rod hung down from the shelf so they didn't fit when I hooked the over the rod. Luckily the ribbon works just as well. I used 4 different cardstock colors, but just took pictures of two of them. I made these going up to 4T I think. Again, I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out the shapes and the letters/numbers. I also laminated them myself. Being crafty has its perks! THIS is the shape I used for the owl.

Here it is in green. 

Ideas for #3's nursery

The beauty of a new house is that I get to decorate a new nursery! I did a brown, green, and cream bunny themed nursery in the old house. I loved it but we left the curtains, bunny tie backs, and painted room behind us when we moved. This time around I decided on owls in oranges, blues, greens, and browns. I love starting off with a gender neutral palette and it was all inspired by the Treetop Friends bedding by Skip Hop. I bought the pillow, blanket, and sheets from this set. We don't do bumpers so I see no need in buying an entire set if I'm not going to use half of the products in the bag.

Skip Hop Treetop Friends

I decided on grey for the walls. I wanted a color that would could handle a lot of different styles so we won't need to paint again down the road when owls aren't cool anymore! I bought Dolphin Fin Grey by Behr and now am just waiting for it to magically put itself on our walls. 

Dolphin Fin Grey

My Mom is graciously going to make curtains for the baby's room. I really like an owl fabric from fabric.com, but it was a little busy. Mom suggested using it as a trim on the bottom and as a valance. That's why she's the pro. I am not sure what solid colored fabric I am going to use for the main part of the curtain, but hopefully Marlene can help me with that! 

Michael Miller Cocoa Berry Swedish Owls fabric

Here are some products that would be so adorable in the nursery:

3 Sprouts storage bin

Oopsy Daisy night light

White Owl accent lamp

Crane Owl humidifier

Sprout 6 Cubby Shelf in orange

Of course I have been working on my own special artwork for this little one's new room. It is a work in progress, but here is a sneak peak. I have had this project looming in the back of my head for months so it has felt great to finally get started. 

It is a 2 canvas project, but so far I love it!

I cannot wait to get the room painted and get started on decorating!

We are getting stuff done!

The last two days have been pretty productive around here. I am not sure that I would call it nesting b/c my baseboards are still dirty and I don't care, but things are getting done. Yesterday Dave and a co-worker/friend drove down to the Springs and emptied out our storage unit. A lot of the baby stuff was down there along with a majority of our DVDs. I was really missing my Pride & Prejudice! While they were gone, our sitter came over to watch the boys while I was able to work without interruption. I cleaned the kitchen, baked some mini muffins, sanded and painted a nightstand, worked on art for the babies room, and cleaned some more. The boys were having a ball with their sitter which was nice too. 

Today we cleaned some more. I sprinkled the basement carpets with baking soda and let it sit for an hour. Dewey has been peeing down there and upstairs as I discovered today. Dave is going to make a vet appointment because this is not typical behavior for him and if he has an infection I want it to get taken care of ASAP. Also, this means we will need to get the carpets cleaned before the baby arrives. I spent half the morning scrubbing six different pee spots that I found. The joys of pet ownership. 

 Dewey the Menace

Anyway, today Dave worked in the yard a bit but his allergies were really acting up. I am so glad that I don't have seasonal allergies! He looked miserable poor guy. I finished painting the nightstand for the nursery and now need to wait a few days before putting on a few coats of polyurethane. It was an old Sauder telephone stand that my Grandma gave me years ago. Solid a rock, but an awful faux wood finish. It looks fantastic already plus I bought a cute little owl know for the door. 

A work in progress

For dinner I made a lentil loaf, mustard greens from our garden, and chopped up a watermelon. My blood sugar levels have been great so I am doing something right. We took a walk afterwards in the 80+ degree heat. I was definitely dragging, but the only time my sugar spiked was when I ate fruit with dinner and did not take a walk. Yesterday I made two mini muffin recipes. One was from the diabetic living and it was vanilla cake donut muffins and the other was a healthy mini muffin recipe I found online. The vanilla cake donuts I made in my mini muffin tin and I used regular brown sugar, but I did not put the cinnamon and truvia mix on top. The other mini muffins I used applesauce in place of the juice, added about 2 Tablespoons of unsweetened almond milk to thin the batter, and did 1/2 cup blueberries and 1/2 cup diced apples. I also replaced one egg with egg beaters and baked them in a mini muffin tin at 350 F for 15 minutes. Neither of them spiked my sugar either! It is so nice have a glucometer so now I can be a little more adventurous in my eating. Before I got it I had absolutely no added sugar for over a week and I am a dessert girl. 

my mini muffins

In the past 2ish months we have been making changes with how we handle the boys' tantrums, eating habits, and general behavior. They are eating their meals much better since we switched to only 1 snack in between meals. The snack is also way more healthy than before. They now get cottage cheese with fruit, yogurt with cinnamon and flax, apples with peanut butter, pretzels with hummus, cheese and crackers, etc.. Gone are the days of processed foods for snacking. This also means they are eating their breakfast, lunch, and dinner too. They are eating lentil loaf, quinoa with tahini and spinach, beets, and all the other healthy meals I have been cooking. It is a far cry from Archie throwing up food that he didn't like and Fletcher running away from the table after two bites. 

I also read the book "1-2-3 Magic" by Thomas Phelan. It's funny because I talked with Grandma about it and she was like, "Isn't counting how everyone does it?" I am surprised at how effective it is and how i am yelling far less than I used to on a daily basis. Most times they stop at the count at 2 and they usually only get time outs when they physically hurt someone because that is an automatic 3. We have seen the biggest improvement in Fletcher. He is still a handful, but at least I don't feel like I am constantly treading water with him anymore. They are both good boys though. Right now Archie is sharing his most favorite toys with his baby brother. They are very sweet with each sometimes. 

 Fletcher is allowed iPad access again. 

"drink like a big boy" 

Playing at the new park

He is getting so big!

Mid May Roundup

So we are officially into our second cycle of meal planning and already we are seeing the benefits. I spent less money on the 2nd shopping trip of the month. Dave said he saw a difference in the amount we had leftover from the previous paycheck. The best improvement for me, however, has been cooking one meal that we all eat together as a family. My kids are getting better at eating what I put in front of them and the food I am giving them is nutritious, healthy, and hopefully not terrible tasting. Yesterday they ate their entire dinner which consisted of peas and lentil pancakes. Fletcher got seconds! The lentil pancakes were courtesy of an old issue of Vegetarian Times. Following is just the copied and pasted recipe for Jack Burgers, which was a reader submitted recipe.

Jack Burgers

Makes 10 patties  |  30 minutes or fewer

“Working with children and youth is my calling, so most of my cooking experiments are kid-friendly,” says Mary Jane Wagner. “My husband and I have five children of our own (three grown, two teenagers), plus two teenage boys from Ghana live with us. I make these for my family, and four teenagers can eat quite a lot! They enjoy them with ketchup or barbecue sauce.”

1 15-oz. can Eden Foods lentils with onion & bay leaf, rinsed and drained
1/2 large onion, finely chopped (1 cup)
2 medium carrots, shredded (1 cup)
3/4 cup prepared marinara sauce
3/4 cup walnuts, finely chopped
3/4 cup Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free pancake mix
1  Tbs. Bob’s Red Mill nutritional yeast

1. Combine all ingredients in large bowl.

2. Spray large skillet with cooking spray, and heat over medium heat. Scoop batter by 1/3 cupfuls onto hot skillet, and cook 3 to 4 minutes, or until bottoms of patties have browned. Flip, cover pan, and cook 5 to 7 minutes more, or until browned on both sides and vegetables have softened.

I couldn't find the Eden Lentils so I used Eden Brown Rice and Lentils instead. We put a little mustard on them when they are done and called it a meal. They ended up making more than 10 patties though so I have leftovers to give the kids for lunch. I added this one to our tried and true recipes spreadsheet. I also started a Meal Planning Binder, but cannot get much further on it until we get more ink for our printer. I plan on printing out my spreadsheets, scanning some recipes from cookbooks, and printing our more used recipes off of Pinterest and Keep Recipes. 

In other news, I have officially hit the 3rd trimester of this 3rd pregnancy. Scary to think that in less than 3 months we will have newborn around these parts. He/she still moves around all the time and those kicks are powerful! However, this is my favorite part of pregnancy. I love feeling that little one and knowing they are safely growing inside of me. It is once they are born that I have far less control! The nursery is finally cleared out and ready to get painted. I chose Behr Dolphin Fin Grey for the walls b/c I feel it is a color that handle a lot of different styles as our children grow. For right now, I plan on decorating in oranges, blues, and greens to match the Skip Hop Treetop Friends bedding I bought.

Skip Hop Treetop Friends

The nursery in progress

I am slowly going through the 6-8 bins of clothing and purging what they boys haven't really worn too much. It only took having two kids to realize that they really don't need massive amounts of clothing especially with the amount of laundry that I end up doing on an almost daily basis. If this baby is a girl, I will probably get rid of a lot more since we are pretty much content with having 3 kids. Having less space for storage also makes it easier for me to get rid of things.

Mother's Day was this past weekend and it was quite a nice day. I got to sleep in, the boys gave me picture frames that they made at a Lowe's Build and Grow clinic, and we went to out for breakfast at one of my favorite places. The boys were pretty well behaved and we took them a park afterwards.  All good things must end though and Fletcher ended up getting croup again and then Archie got it a few days later. At least the weather has been lovely so we can play in the backyard while they are sick. The last time we were sick  we were cooped up inside and it was cold and snowy. 

Me and my boys on Mother's Day

Well I am going to straighten up before the handyman gets here to fix a pipe and install a fan. With all this money we are saving meal planning we can finally get someone in here to get a lot of our odds and ends sorted out!

Also, I am going to try and keep this blog updated more often from now on. My lovely sister and brother-in-law will be moving to Japan soon and I want to be able to keep her updated as often as possible. Living away from family hard, but thankfully with blogs, social networking, VOIP, etc.. it can be a little easier. 

Painting the kitchen

We are still in the process of getting out house ready to put on the market. We have had a new deck built, new carpet put in, new light fixtures, door knobs, fire door, repainted all the trim, switched out the thermostat, packed, cleaned, donated, etc.. You name it, we've done it. However, the kitchen was a sight. We have old, 1980s cabinets that I've hated since we've moved it, but dealt with b/c it was functional. I just knew that it would be a rough sell for anyone coming in and immediately seeing this depressng kitchen. 

We went to Home Depot and I asked the lady at the counter what the best paint was for cabinets. She directed me to this kit from Rustoleum that included everything we would need to redo the cabinets. Sold. I chose the color espresso as our walls are light, the floor is light and there is a window that gets great light for most of the day. It was a lot of work to get these cabinets. We worked 3 hours every night after the kids went to bed for over a week. Dave has sworn he will never do this again, but the transformation was less than $100 and made a world of difference. I am impressed. 

Busy times around here

As our due date approaches I find myself getting very anxious. In some respects the 2nd time around is easier, but in others it is even more daunting. I feel like I don't have the time to really prepare for Fletcher's arrival with chasing after Archie, the increased annoyances of pregnancy, the constant fatigue and desire to catch up on sleep and the worries that are constantly flowing through my head about having two boys 18 months apart.

That said, I am still me and we are knocking out my to-do list a little every day. This past weekend Dave finished the walls of Archie's new room, set up the co-sleeper, set up the pack 'n play/changing table in the front room and moved Archie's car seat behind the driver's seat. I got the Moses basket ready to go, hung up Fletcher's clothing, got the swaddlers ready, worked on birth announcements and did some more on-line shopping for baby stuff. Amazon Prime is awesome!!

Tonight we have our preadmission appointment at our hospital. Basically that means when it is go time we can skip all the paperwork and just be admitted and have a baby. We also have a babysitter for Archie so Dave & I can go out to dinner after our appt.!!! We don't get to eat kid free very often so we are pretty excited.

Archer is growing and changing so much everyday now. All the information he has been absorbing for the past 18 months is finally breaking through. He can recognize and recite most of the letters of the alphabet, count to 10, say words back to us and remember what they are, he is drawing lines with crayons instead of making dots and trying to eat them and doing dozens of other things that we think are simple amazing. He also is learning the art of the tantrum, which is not so amazing but sometimes amusing. We just ride it out and he usually gets over it in a minute or two. I know that they are going to get more impressive as time goes on though.

Bipedal child

It took 15 1/2 months but that day has come...sort of. Last week was huge for Archie. He stood up by himself for the first time, he took 2 wobbly steps and then he took 4 very confident steps all within in 5 days. He loves to stand on his own because Dave and I start throwing our hands in the air, clapping and cheering him on. What kid wouldn't love Mom & Dad acting riotously happy over something he thinks is fun anyway? Since Friday though he hasn't really shown any interest in walking. The same thing happened with crawling. He tried it, but he vastly preferred the butt scoot. Perhaps he vastly prefers crawling now to walking. He will soon learn what doors walking can open though, both literally and figuratively.

In other news, I am seriously trying to get Dave serious about some home improvement projects. We are holding out for another month or two until we hone in on the deck, fence and kitchen. In the interim I want to start on the study/guest room and Archie's new room. Dave moved the queen bed from one room to the other yesterday. We also got rid of three large items from the basement and moved the dresser and futon over to our future basement tv area. It's a pretty good start.

I am on week 2 of knitting and am getting a little more confident in my ability to manipulate my mistakes. Last week I just lost all confidence and would get really frustrated. This week I am trying my calm approach and it works surprisingly well go figure. I have learned how to both knit and purl and have worked in the Garter stitch, the Stockinette and the Reverse Stockinette stitch. Next week we are learning the Cable stitch, which I think will be really cool but has the potential to be very frustrating. After I finish the scarf I really want to learn how to make cute little hats for my 2 boys, but that requires using one of those fishing line looking circular needles. Those scare me!

My sisters are thinking about coming to visit in April which would be totally awesome if it pans out. They would be coming out right around when I hit my 37th week, which was when Archie was born. My Mom would be coming out shortly after they left so hopefully someone will be be here when I go into labor so Dave & I don't need to stress about who will watch Archer. Besides who better to take my mind off of the last few weeks of the 3rd trimester than my sisters?