Random Pictures from December 2013

Rachel found some pliers one day and decided that they were perfect for carrying around one of the Barbies.

I heard Buddy barking a lot outside one day, so I looked out to see what he was barking at. An orange cat was sun bathing on our neighbor's fence, completely oblivious to Buddy. It was pretty funny.

No cares in the World

Allie and Rachel built the manger in Bethlehem. Apparently, the wise men traveled by train.

A day shy of 35 weeks, I painted the girls' nails. I decided to attempt to paint my own, too, and it worked out pretty well.

Snow Day in Early December 2013

We had a snow storm come through in the first week of December. Daddy got to stay home from work, and the girls were extremely excited to go out in the snow. However, Rachel's excitement only lasted until she felt the snow hit her face when we opened the door. That was as far as she got.

Dressed and Ready to Go

Buddy enjoys playing in the snow, too, especially when he has someone to play with.

 Buddy is about to pounce on Jared as he is making a snow angel.

A little video clip of the three who played in the snow.

Joy!

Rachel was warm and happy inside with Mommy.

After coming in, Buddy warmed up inside the tee-pee.

And lastly, a picture that isn't breathtaking, but is one that I like. Snow on our dead hydrangeas.

Some of Our Projects

We've had several projects the last few months. Some of them were directly related to preparing for baby, some were related to organization that I wanted before baby's arrival, and others have been related to trying to earn money to help us save up for the medical expenses of baby's delivery.

Crib Skirt and Curtain for Baby's Room

We had a different crib skirt when Allie and Rachel were babies, but it was one of very few things that Buddy has destroyed. I'm not sure why, but he decided to tear it up. I had in mind that I wanted to make a new one, but it wasn't a high priority. One day, we went to Goodwill to look for cheap sheets that we could put up in some of our windows to help decrease our heating bill, and we found a cute sheet that I figured we could use for a crib skirt. I can't remember how much it cost, but I know it wasn't more than $3.00, which is a great price for that amount of fabric.

I kept it pretty simple and just did a straight or flat crib skirt, with the material hanging down on just three sides. I was pretty happy with how it turned out. 

I had extra fabric, so I figured I'd make a curtain to match. We had been wanting to put curtains up, but the windows are an odd size and we couldn't find exactly what we wanted. So this was the perfect opportunity. Being my first time making a curtain, I've learned from the experience. It isn't perfect, but I'm happy with it. It will serve its purpose and is still pretty cute.

Thank you, Grandma Terri, for the cute quilt that goes well with all of the different colors.

TV Stand

We got a great deal on a TV on Black Friday 2012. We did not, however, have a TV stand. For the past year, we had just had it on the brick in front of our fireplace. We were nervous to have it that low with our kids, but they did surprising well with leaving it alone. There were a few instances of coloring on it with crayon and touching it, but it never really got hit by anything or knocked down.

We originally figured we'd buy a TV stand off of Amazon. We earn Amazon money through doing surveys and Swagbucks, and we almost had enough to purchase a stand that we liked. Well, it was the design we liked. We didn't love that it wasn't hard wood. Then we learned about the skill that one of our friends has. Sarah is great with woodworking. I talked to her about the possibility of making a TV stand with her help, and she was all for it. We knew that lumber could be expensive, but figured it would end up being about the same price as an MDF piece that we could purchase. We wanted it to be solid, so we planned on making it. We just kept waiting for the right time (in the budget) to purchase lumber. Then we were blessed abundantly.

Jared's work received two LARGE crates that had transported equipment. No one else wanted them, so Jared got to bring them home. We got a lot of lumber for free! I knew it was good lumber, but I was a little skeptical about all of the nail and staple holes that was in the wood. But we figured we'd go ahead with it.

One of the two crates we got from Jared's work

I came up with the basic plans for the TV stand, basing it off of one at Target and plans from Ana White's site. Jared then took those basic plans and drafted up detailed plans for us to use.

We needed some plywood for the top, bottom, and back of the TV stand, and we were blessed again by coming across a listing on Craigslist for free plywood. It was definitely not the prettiest piece, but we figured we'd try to make it work. We still had to buy another piece of plywood and some wood for trim, but our overall cost was dramatically decreased by being blessed with so much free lumber.

You may or may not be able to see how warped the piece of plywood was. Here, our friend and her husband (who is actually seen) were helping us cut it with their table saw.

Before getting too big, I helped with measuring, cutting pieces of wood, sanding, and putting a few pieces of wood together. Our friends became foster parents, which is awesome, so the scheduling of working on our piece became a little bit tricky. We had planned on getting together on a Thursday to finish putting it together, but then they surprised us by bringing the assembled stand to our house on Monday night. I almost got teary from gratitude. My back had really started hurting in the few days prior, and I had wondered how well I would be able to help, but I wanted to get it done. So I truly could not express how grateful I was and still am for the time and work Sarah did to assemble our TV stand.

Having it in our garage, it was now time for finishing it. As I mentioned above, my back was not feeling great. My belly was definitely larger, and I was very uncomfortable. I wanted to be really involved still, but I was also happy that Jared took over and finished the stand. He sanded it all and then prepared it for staining.

We had seen a fire distressed TV stand on Pinterest, and we thought we would incorporate some of the burning effects. Since the top of the stand was plywood, we decided (from the suggestion of our friend's husband, Mike) to burn the edge well so that the bands weren't as plainly visible. We also just did some minor burning along the other edges. Here are some pictures of the burning we did. We used Sarah and Mike's little torch. We really were blessed to be able to use so many of their tools.

After burning the piece, it was ready for the stain. We chose a dark walnut from Minwax. After a few coats of stain, we polyurethaned it, let it dry, and it was ready to go.

 The Finished TV Stand

Organizing Girls' Shoes

Everyone knows how quickly kids go through shoes. Well, I had let the shoe situation get a little out of control. I had shoes out that were too small for Rachel, shoes that were too small for Allie and a little too big for Rachel, shoes that were just a little too big for Allie, and of course shoes that were the right size for each of them. Finally, I decided I was going to tackle the problem. It became a project that I started but couldn't finish right away due to a lack of bins. And then the girls decided that the bins were perfect for playing with, emptying shoes from some of them or just putting toys in with shoes. But I eventually got more bins and finished. The bins then promptly went up into a closet so that the girls could not play with them.

Allie wanted a picture with the stack of bins, and of course her baby and kitty had to be in the picture, too.

Refinishing Dresser to Sell

Around the same time, which was near the end of summer, we purchased two used dressers that we figured we could refinish. We considered using one as a TV stand, but ultimately decided against it. It was not solid wood but MDF. It was beat up some, too, so we knew we had some work ahead of us. We got it for $27.00, if I remember right. We forgot to take a before picture, but we were pretty happy with how it turned out. We sanded it down, primed it, painted it, and coated it with polyurethane. We definitely learned as we went, especially about painting furniture. Spray paint is the way to go, at least in our opinion. We also used spray polyurethane. Oh, and we also replaced the hardware. And here is the final piece:

Refinishing Dresser for Girls' Room

The second dresser we got was a true hard or solid wood piece. It needed to be refinished, but we were excited to be able to stain it. Again, we forgot to take a before picture, but below is a picture of the finished piece. We are using it in Allie's and Rachel's room. It is mostly full of Rachel's clothes. Her clothes were previously in the baby's dresser in the baby's room, so once this dresser was done (which was completed only in the first week of January), I could put baby clothes in the dresser in the baby room. Rachel was excited to have her clothes in a "new" dresser.

When taking a picture of the dresser, the girls insisted that I take a picture with toys on it. They then proceeded to put down some ads from the mail with some of their dinosaurs on top. I snapped the picture below, and they were excited to see it.

Upon seeing the picture, they were disappointed that they were not in the picture. So I then got the following picture, which is actually quite cute. You can see the new color of the girls' room, a light purple that Allie picked out. Painting the room was another project that we undertook and accomplished in the last few months.

Crystal Bridges with Uncle Monte

Monte moved from Nashville to Seattle, and we were lucky to get to have him stay with us from late Tuesday night before Thanksgiving to the Sunday after Thanksgiving. We all enjoyed having him with us. The girls were especially disappointed when he had to leave.

For the most part, it was a pretty laid back visit. We did take him to Crystal Bridges, the local, free art museum. There are a lot of neat pieces to look at, but we/I forgot that it can be hard on the kiddos. I think we all had a good time, though.

Super cute picture of Uncle Monte with the girls

The girls enjoyed looking at this piece with waves, "Along the Shore" by William Trost Richards.

I know I've mentioned it on Facebook before, but i can't remember if I've mentioned here on the blog, that the girls are very good at recognizing what is modest and what is not. There were several statues, including the one below, that were not modest. Rachel was especially quick to point out the immodest statues. They were, however, fascinated by the ball that this statue was holding.

We tried to keep the girls close. Rachel liked holding Monte's hand.

To keep the girls moving, we kept telling them we were looking for Pinocchio. We finally found him. I don't think Rachel was very impressed.

A very impressive piece, "Man on a Bench," by Duane Hanson. It really looked like a man was sitting there. Some of our party really thought it was a man at first.

Allie looking through a red lens

For some reason, Rachel saw this piece, "Cello Player" by David Smith and said it was Daddy. I don't quite see the resemblance, but it made us all chuckle. 

The girls loved it when they could see the pond in the middle of the museum. 

By the pond, there's an outdoor area where people can walk around or sit. There was this piece that the girls called the "ant." They wanted to see the ant the whole time. Before leaving, we finally visited the ant. It made them, and especially Allie, very happy.

A happy Allie on the "ant"

Both girls on the "ant"

November 2013

We really just have some random pictures from November. Of course, Thanksgiving is in November; however, we forgot to take pictures on Thanksgiving. We do have some pictures from a trip to Crystal Bridges with Monte, but those will be in a separate post.

There's an early episode of Reading Rainbow called "On the day you were born." Given that I'm pregnant, Allie has been fascinated by the episode. She has watched it three or four times. It shows a woman having a baby, though you can only see it from the side. It is not graphic at all. But because of this episode, she understands very well that I need to go to the hospital to have the baby. I've explained to her that our baby will come out differently, that they'll cut me open, and she seems to understand. 

Yet, one morning when I got up later than everyone else, I walked down the hall and found the girls like this in the front entry. Allie was in the corner, waiting for Dr. Rachel to come deliver her baby. If you look closely, you can tell that Allie had a baby under her pajamas. Dr. Rachel was actually in the process of putting her baby in her pajamas when I snapped the picture.

 Rachel with the baby in her "belly"

Allie has some awesome fashion sense sometimes. It occasionally reminds me of when I was little. Though, some days Allie refuses to pick out her outfit and wants me to do it for her, and others she is very opinionated on what she will wear, including her accessories. Below is a picture of Allie showing some bling, some large Mardi Gras beads we had received from a friend, with her cute sweater dress, tights, and tennis shoes. She insisted on the tennis shoes and the necklace. It made me smile.

The girls really enjoy building with blocks. Allie has always enjoyed building temples. One day, she even included a couple getting married inside of the temple.

Rachel continues to be our goofy little girl. She loves to get smiles and laughs out of people. The goggles she is wearing have been a favorite item to wear, for her and other little girls before her (Allie and their cousin Hailee).

The week before Thanksgiving, we had a dinner at church. Jared invited a coworker, who accepted and ended up coming with us. Rachel was extremely tired and at one point climbed into Jared's coworker's arms. She fell asleep there. He held her for quite awhile, but his arms eventually got tired, so we put her down on the table. She slept there for the remainder of the program. There was a talent shoe after the dinner, too. She woke up when we tried putting her coat on. It was too cold for her to go without.

Asleep on the Table

 Despite my growing belly, the girls still love to get on my lap. Rachel especially loves trying to squeeze onto my lap, even if there is clearly no room, such as at the computer or at the dinner table. One day, she was happy to discover that my belly made a pretty good pillow. She sat using my belly as a pillow on the couch as we watched a few shows.

I mentioned above that we had Thanksgiving at our house. My sister and her husband came, as well as my younger brother, Monte. Maria and Jon's kids were at their exes' houses, so they came with their dogs. Monte, who unfortunately ended up working for a dishonest man in Nashville after graduating as a chiropractor, was able to get out of his contract and was able to stop at our house for Thanksgiving and a few extra days on his way back to the Seattle area. It was wonderful getting to be with two of my siblings. I wish it were possible for all of us to get together more often, but it is hard when we are all spread out.

The only pictures I got from Thanksgiving day were a few of Rachel helping Auntie Maria make breakfast. They made us some mini spinach quiches. I can't remember all they had in them, but I remember that they were delicious. Rachel loved helping Maria make them. She even got to crack a few eggs, something Mommy has been a little too OCD to allow.

Our Thanksgiving meal turned out great. To us, it seemed that everyone worked together to get it ready, and it was all delicious. 

Near the end of November, Allie consistently weighed in at 40 pounds. We were waiting for the four years old AND 40 pounds to let her transfer to a booster seat. She was thrilled to finally get to use her pink booster seat.

Rachel was equally happy to move into Allie's old seat. We got it from Maria, and it is super easy to adjust the straps, so we are all happy that she is in it now instead of her old one. The picture is a little blurry, but you can see that she is happy.

Inspired by a page on Facebook, or something shared on Facebook, Jared decided to pose the girls' dolls a few nights in a row. The first night, they ate some of Rachel's left over pancakes from dinner. (Don't mind the messy table.) Allie got a kick out of it the next morning. Barbie also helped paint the girls' room. It was fun to see Allie's excitement and confusion. Rachel didn't quite catch on.