Thursday, February 26, 2009

I'm so loving these...

Have you seen this site yet??

http://www.youtube.com/MormonMessages

It's the LDS channel on YouTube: Mormon Messages

Ben and I spent our Sunday Evening watching these and just loving this Church! They're all great, but I especially Love Dieter F Uchtdorf's message "Create" and President Hinckley's "Lesson's I learned as a Boy". I highly recommend taking a few minutes out of your day to watch these to videos! I'm now anxiously waiting for the new message for this week. LOVE IT!

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

My Life...

Even though nothing really exciting happens around these parts...I really just LOVE my life. I've got a great husband and wonderfully entertaining daughter - with another on the way. Things are good...and I'm grateful for that. We live in a tiny, but beautiful home (which just grew by 50% this last weekend - due to some much anticipated carpet in the basement), Ben has a decent job, and we all have our health - for the most part. I may disagree on that last part when I'm trying to roll over in bed at 3am. But really, such discomforts are a sign that I'm blessed with the ability to have another child - for which I will always be grateful. Anyway, I was just thinking about this blog these last few days and how I often just poke fun at myself or my family - or at least that's what I intend to do. We really are a funny bunch...but sometimes I feel like I need to just express my gratitude for what I have. Especially since I write this Blog with the intention to keep it as a record (of some sort) of this time in my life. So I want to be able to look back and remember the fun times...the crazy times...but also the grateful times. And today I'm grateful just because I am.

Anyway, enough sappiness from me. Here are some recent pictures:

So last weekend was Valentines day/our 6 year anniversary. We contemplated celebrating...but ended up just working. We spent the Saturday laying tile in our basement bathroom. Then our anniversary (the Sunday) was spent going to church and then to a family dinner. So not the typical way to celebrate our anniversary or Valentines - but it could have been worse. Our gift to each other this year was the basement. Because let's be honest - it is NOT cheap to develop a basement. So although the weekend was pretty uneventful, we still found time to have a special little Valentines breakfast... little heart shaped French toasts. Cute hey?


Now for the random pictures - I just have to share this one:
This is Hailey's 'special' time after a bath. She gets to bundle into our bed and watch TV while I race to get a diaper before she pees all over. She takes her TV so seriously though, which is what cracks me up about this pic.

She also takes her reading pretty seriously:

And I wouldn't dare break the news to her that the book is upside down...because like I said, she's busy doing important work - and that's serious!

Speaking of taking things seriously:
She obviously takes her fairy duties very seriously. And in case you're wondering - that is the basement carpet she's walking on. Oh how sweet to have a basement!

And finally...since I know everyone is wondering what a typical day in my house is like - wonder no more:
A usual day/evening around here is spent just like the picture above. Ben's always working on one project or another, and Hailey's always right on his heels...in her tutu. And I'm usually laying on the couch watching...and sometimes taking pictures. The amazing thing about this picture is that Ben's actually reading the instructions. AMAZING!
And that's it. That's our life. Just the way I like it.
p.s I promise I'll post some Belly pics soon - I just haven't taken any in a while. But maybe today will be the day!

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Hailey's First Hair cut

I decided it was time for the mullet to go. I was kind of hoping it would just grow out and things would look good. But it was getting more and more obvious that things were just not working out.


So last night I pulled out the scissors and got started. Ben was totally opposed to the idea - he still has nightmares from the one and only time I tried to cut his hair. But I told him that it was a right of passage that every mom must go through. Plus if I really butchered it, we could always get it fixed professionally - besides, Hailey wouldn't care either way.


So here are some befores:

From behind


The embarrassed Hailey - who did NOT want her picture taken without her hair done

Afters...the next morning after I trimmed things and fixed it all up:
behind
And the side - the best shot she would let me get.


Cute hey??

It actually turned out ok, but I think that next time I'll leave it to the professionals - It was way too stressful.

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Sometimes I'm so boring

So we've been busy! It's amazing how busy life gets. We're still madly trying to get the basement done - Ben's hanging doors right now and trying to tile the bathroom before the carpet guy comes next week. He's also working very very hard on his theatre system down there. What-ev. I'm excited for the toys to be out of my way! And I'll admit, it will be fun to watch movies down there...maybe we'll have to have a party. But it's still not my #1 priority. Carpet? yes...tv? no.

Besides that I've been busy teaching piano, trying to keep a somewhat clean(ish) house, playing with Hailey, going to doctors appointments and ultrasounds, and cooking without an oven. Yep that's right.

Three weeks ago our oven just shut down. Ben was pretty proud of himself when he discovered that the circuit board was fried. So we ordered a new one - $260 and 2 weeks later we installed it in the oven only to find out it still wouldn't work. Hmmm....so Ben took more of the oven apart and realized that the element had blown up. Literally. So after $50 this time and a very nice delivery service called 'grandma' we installed it and we now have a working oven - finally. But $300?? Seriously, what a rip off! We're so annoyed because the only reason the element blew was because it wasn't even screwed into the oven like it should have been - so totally a manufacturing error, but still not covered by warranty. Anyway, I'm glad I have a somewhat handy husband, it saved us a LOT of money. I couldn't imagine paying labour on TOP of the cost of parts. So we've spent a few weeks trying to come up with yummy meals that don't require the oven...here's a Yummy example, remember This post from a while back? Well here's the Ratatouille. All I can say is Y-U-M-M-Y.

Anyway, that's probably the MOST boring of all boring stories...so on to bigger and better things.
We have been having some really beautiful sunsets around here lately. It's making me LOVE where I live...the end of the 'minus 20 freeze everything on you' stuff has helped too. But really, this is beautiful! And this picture is totally unedited - so those colours are 100% real. Gotta love it.

Hailey turned 16 last week...I kid you not.

I decided to grow a bit of a Belly - and obviously decided NOT to wear maternity shirts yet. I probably should think about that again. This is me at 19 weeks.


Hailey found a new friend in the mirror - we LOVE friends around here.

We finally decided to venture out into the "outside world" as Hailey and I both call it. The poor girl doesn't have snowpants that fit her. It's just something I forgot to buy this year. So, what does she get to wear?? Her snowsuit from last year - let's just say she had some serious diaper wedgie. Poor kid.

She really loved the snow though - enough so that I almost got a smile out of her.

And onto the story of the week. Hailey did NOT have a fun Super Bowl Sunday. We spent the afternoon with Chris and Lauren and everything was going fine - until Hailey decided to take a closer look at the fire in the fireplace. All I can really say is that it was one of the hardest things to see. My poor baby girl placed her hands directly on the burning hot glass of the Fireplace. And the hours of tears that followed were enough to break anyone. I was doing all I could to hold it together - but I honestly think my heart broke into a million pieces as I watched her cry and knew that there was almost nothing I could do. Cold water and Ice just made her more hysterical - but we had to force it on her. It definitely paid off big time. We took her into urgent care, and got her all wrapped up. They said the burns were so much better then they could have been and partly because we made her ice it so quickly. She just got her last little 'glove' off today, and besides a few blisters, her hand looks pretty good. The doctors' pretty sure there'll be no scarring - and are amazed at how well it healed. So we're really grateful things turned out as well as they did.

Anyway, here she is the day of the 'event' - what a little trooper.

And then the next day - wearing her glove...I'll admit, it is pretty cute!


And finally, I had another ultrasound today. Baby was still a little squirmer - but at leat we were able to get the missing shots from last time. I also asked for another guess on gender; and once again the tech guessed girl. But it was a really really iffy guess she said. Not a 100%, or 90% or even 75% sure guess. So I don't know, I'll just assume we're having another girl. Which will be all sorts of fun and crazy! And if it ends up being a boy - which I'm sure it won't (in case you're counting all the way back to 2006, we don't know how to make boys) he'll come home wearing pink - and will eventually make his way into some blue clothes. But I'm 95% sure it's another girl - what else would the baby be??