Snow Cute

Hee hee.. I crack myself up sometimes! ;o) Its ok if you don't think I am funny... Isabelle thinks I am hilarious so that is all of the motivation that I need to move forward. One of Isabelle's greatest qualities is her sense of humor (ok, so maybe I just think its her greatest quality since she is one of 2 people out there who find me funny. I am the other one in case you were wondering. ;o) ) She seriously can find humor in everything! I hope this is something that will stick with her through life and keep her laid back and carefree. We went grocery shopping on Friday and when we were checking out she asked if we could go to Wendy's for lunch. I really have no clue why she wanted to go to Wendy's considering the only thing she will eat there is their yogurt that comes with the kids meals and we had just bought yogurt at the grocery store. But whatever.. she was really during grocery shopping (oh yeah, and Wendy's has this delicacy you might have heard of before called a Frosty!) so we went to Wendy's. We are getting ready to head up to the counter to get our frosty when this man says hi to Isabelle. She says hi back and he replies with, "you sure are a cute little boy". I was just kind of like "uhh...ok...."..I mean the girl is dressed head to toe in pink and has pigtails so what gives?? Anyway, Isabelle starts laughing hysterically and says, "Mommy, that man is sooooo funny! He said I am a little boy! I am not a little boy, I am a little big girl and a princess!" Well this man just thought she was as hilarious as she thought he was so he starts bringing his friends and Wendy's workers (I should mention that he and his friends were obviously Wendy's regulars) over to our table for them to hear Isabelle's response when he calls her a boy. Oiy! Wow, I really went off on a little tangent there...sorry about that....anyway my point is that Isabelle has a great sense of humor and loves when I say things to her like "oh you are snow cute" when it is snowing outside.

Back to the whole point of this post...
It was finally warm enough for us to actually go outside and play in the snow! I don't know if I ever mentioned it or not, but we supposedly got a blizzard...or were just on a blizzard warning... I don't know if they ever called it a blizzard. I think we ended up with like 6-8 inches on the ground. During the month of January we have had 3 days that were above freezing...two of those days were Thursday and Friday of this week. I think we have had the same amount of days that we were above 0 too! LOL!


So we bundled up and headed out to play in the snow! Kashmir was really excited for us to go out and play with her in the snow. She loves playing in the snow!!
Isabelle's favorite part of playing in the snow was making snowballs and throwing them. Kashmir loves to eat snow (oh yeah and frozen poop too.. so grosse and disgusting..makes me want to vomit just thinking about it) so she had a blast catching Isabelle's snowballs. That girl really has an arm on her too! I am sure a lot of it has to do with the fact that she has been throwing balls for Kashmir since she was like 6 months old! HAHA!


She started out just throwing them at Kashmir and then turned on me! I mean, look at that form! LOL!

You can see that she was very focused when making snowballs.. she wanted them to be perfect. She gets that from her Daddy, I think.


She would throw a snowball at Kash and Kash would catch it in her mouth and run around like a crazy dog. It was pretty funny to watch! Isabelle just kept throwing snowballs at her over and over and giggling when Kashmir went insane!

Landscape break... here is our creek. I wasn't brave enough to step on it so I don't know if it is frozen over or dry. But there were deer tracks along the creek. We always look for deer but I have yet to see one. I am not sure if I am up late enough at night or early enough in the morning to see them though.
I was pretty impressed with how well Isabelle ran through the snow! I mean, she appears (at least at this point) to have inherited my..hmm..how do I put this nicely..my "gracefulness". We buy normal shoes but I am pretty sure we actually have 2 left feet if you get my drift. ;o)
She did great though running in all of those layers, snowboots that I am pretty sure fit, and limbs scattered throughout our yard from the ice storm. It was rather impressive if I do say so myself. I can assure you that I did not attempt to run in the snow.
Another landscape break... This is our Crabapple tree that split in half. I think that is how you spell Crabapple tree.. I am not really sure... and I have to go get ready to paint so I don't have time to go find out..so sorry..
Another favorite thing was to dig in the snow like Kashmir. This wasn't my favorite activity though because her mittens kept falling off. I was pretty happy that this didn't last as long as the snowballs!


Ok, well it is time for Isabelle and I to go wash down the walls and then start painting. I think Jason is going to be painting the ceiling. We bought a wet/dry vac and a sander yesterday. It was a very exciting day...especially for Jason who had quite a bit of sanding to do in the nursery!! So we are off to be workers!

Let the remodeling begin!!!

We have officially started remodeling!! YAY!! The nursery is the room we are starting on...which is the old spare bedroom. Two weeks ago Jason scraped the popcorn texture off of our ceilings. We put plastic up on the walls and construction paper on the floor to help aid in cleanup. It seemed to really help a lot. The prep work takes longer and is harder (well, at least for me since I am not the one scraping! hee hee!) then the actually scraping itself. I forgot to take some pics before we started so here are some from after Jason scraped.


Then Jason did a knockdown (or spanish lace) texture on the ceiling. This was pretty frustrating at first. He tried it during the week after work and the sprayer wouldn't spray the stuff right. He went through an entire container of the texture stuff. He couldn't figure out what he could possibly be doing wrong so he called the sprayer company. We waited the rest of the week to hear back from them. He decided that something must be wrong with the sprayer and he was just going to exchange it. So of course he is at Lowe's when the sprayer company finally calls him back! They said that they didn't think anything was wrong with the sprayer that it was probably the mix had been sitting on the shelf for too long. Jason had already exchanged the sprayer at this point so he picked up some new texture mix. Then that Saturday he did the knockdown texture on the ceilings. I don't know if it was the mix or the sprayer, but it actually worked this time!! He said it was pretty easy too so that is good! We still have to paint the ceiling but here are some pictures of the knockdown sprayed up.



Like the purple stripe on the wall? We are thinking of keeping it! Hee hee! There used to be shelves there so it was quite a shock to us when we took the shelves down!

So then this past weekend we removed all of the moulding and outlets. We are replacing the trim and casings and also adding crown moulding. The outlets are currently almond and we are going to get the tamper proof white ones. Jason is really excited about the outlets. They have them set up at Lowe's with keys and hairpins and stuff to try and stick in them and he loves trying to stick stuff in them. We did a circuit of all of our home improvement stores (with hairpins in our pockets) to try out the different tamper proof outlets and the Lowe's outlets win! This weekend we also spackled.

This is before we removed the trim.




And here is after we removed the trim and spackled (I am going to have to look into exactly how to spell that word.. I am thinking that isn't right..). We are just going to paint the inside of the windows and doors white instead of replacing that wood. Especially with the windows since we will eventually be getting new windows.





So that brings us current with our remodeling projects. Next we are painting the walls and the ceiling and starting on the moulding. I am excited for the part where we get to do the shelving and stuff in the closet! I am loving all of these walk-in closets!! And of course I can't wait to fill it! ;o) Hee hee!!

Now for some other randomness.. we were so good about taking belly pictures with Isabelle.. every week on the same day of the week Jason took my picture. Yeah, not happening so well this time! I was looking through old pics a couple of weeks ago and realized we started taking the pictures at 15 weeks.. woops! So here is the only picture that has been taken so far. I am going to try and remember to take one today.
Anyway, I am not even sure how far along I am in this picture..I am thinking 18 weeks but it might have been at the end of 17 weeks. I think we will go with 18 though then I feel like I haven't missed as many weeks as it felt like I had.



You know what.. I am just going to go take a pic right now so I have 1 for 20 weeks. Then I will have just missed 19 and that's not sooooo bad! Ok, I will be right back with a new pic.... oh here's a cute picture of Kashmir sleeping from last night..


Ok..I am back.. its not the greatest picture, but oh well. Anyway, here is the picture I just took... 20 weeks. I'll be back in 2 days with week 21 picture.. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! If you believe that then you obviously really don't know me. ;o)

A Little Comedian

This girl cracks me up!!! We have this book, "Potty Time with Elmo" and it is one of those books with sounds. One of the buttons says, "Let's try and use the potty. HAHAHAHA" Well, here is Isabelle's impression of Elmo.... my favorite part is her imitation of his laugh.



What a goof, right??!?! I recorded the video on my phone the other night and have watched it probably a thousand times. It always makes me giggle.

We converted Isabelle to a big girl bed! Isabelle helped me set up the big girl bed and rearrange her room on Monday. Her crib converts to a double bed so it took her a little while to get used to it. I was cooking dinner while Jason was attaching her furniture to the walls and she said that she wanted a little big girl bed. Awww! The first night she was a little nervous, but now she says she loves her big big girl bed!

She hasn't even gotten out of the bed! She has some dolls in bed with her and some books on her nightstand. She will read and play on her bed but never gets out of it! We are enjoying that time now! I can only imagine how long it will last!

First potty training and now the big girl bed, she seems to be growing up so fast! It is bittersweet, but I am really loving every moment of it! I love how proud she is of herself that she goes in the potty...I love laying in bed with her and reading books before naptime and bedtime...I love jumping in bed with her in the morning....I love how she got a basket from her shelves, turned it upside down and uses it to climb in her bed...and I love not having to lift her into her crib!

She is so fun..I know she is going to be a wonderful big sister. Speaking of, Jason started renovating the nursery. He scraped off the popcorn ceiling and did a knockdown texture on the ceiling. He has also torn down all of the shelving from the closet. This weekend we are hoping to get the trim off and paint the ceiling. It has been a lot of fun looking at all of the trim out there, but is also overwhelming with all of our choices! We are really excited to have gotten started on renovating and remodeling!

Have I mentioned lately that I am DYING for some ice cream????

Only a pregnant woman

would be sitting on the couch, freezing, wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants, under a fleece blanket thinking about soft serve twist ice cream when it is 9:30AM and -18 degrees out.

I swear this sweet tooth this pregnancy is going to be the death of me! I am so not a sweets person normally (and didn't have a sweet tooth with Isabelle) so it has been kind of fun enjoying all of the stuff out there! Jason is really excited about my newfound sweet tooth since he is always enjoying those things alone. He is also excited about the potential of having a fellow little "sweet-toother" in the house since Isabelle doesn't really like sweets at all (well except donuts! LOL!)!

We're having a....

BOY!!!

The Dr said everything looks perfect so far! I am so happy and so relieved and so thankful! I forgot the feeling that you get when you see the baby on the screen...arms and legs moving all around..it is so wonderful! I feel like we are so blessed to be having one of each, and I am so glad Jason is going to have a little boy to teach all those boy things to! (oh yeah and take to the potty when we are in public! LOL!)

Isabelle loved getting to see all of the little baby's parts on the screen. She was most excited about seeing the mouth for some reason. She kept asking our ultrasound tech, April, to show her the mouth..I have no clue why!

So everyone knows that Isabelle was convinced the baby was a girl. April announced that we were having a boy and Isabelle says, "No Mommy, the baby is a little girl". I thought she was going to start crying. I felt so bad for her! Everytime someone at the office would say something about us having a boy Isabelle would correct them to let them know the baby was in fact a little girl! HAHA! On the way home I asked her what she thought we should name the baby now that we knew he is a boy and she said Siren. I said that I thought Siren was a girl's name and Isabelle informed me that Siren is a boy's name or a girl's name! Awesome cause I was really worried about not getting to name the baby Siren!

I will try and scan the ultrasound pics this week!!

Tomorrow is a big day!

Gosh, sorry for the post overload! I know it is a little much and I am sorry for posting like a gazillion things all tonight!

Tomorrow is the day we *hopefully* find out the sex of the baby...provided the baby is cooperative! Jason and most of my friends say we are having a boy, but Isabelle is convinced it is a girl. Today I told her that tomorrow was the day we would find out if the baby was a boy or a girl and she replied with, "Mommy the baby is a little girl". Duh, Mom! HAHA! And then she proceeded to remind me what the baby's name (according to Isabelle that is! Very important detail!) is. Let me just say that I have no clue where or how she came up with this name.. I mean we don't let her hang around watching American Gladiators or wrestling or anything! The name Isabelle has chosen to be the baby's name is Siren. LOL! She is too funny. The girl cracks me up nonstop! But seriously, where did she come up with Siren!?!?!? I have no clue!!

So then I said "What are you going to do if the baby is a boy?" and she was silent for awhile and then she said "I don't know Mommy. What are you going to do if it is a boy?" LOL! It was so hard to just not burst out into hysterical laughter!!!

Well, I will let you all know tomorrow if baby Koons #2 decides to cooperate tomorrow! I hope that everything looks good developmentally too. I am really nervous about that. I keep having dreams that the baby has 3 arms..random, I know but still a little unsettling! So I am more excited to hear that everything looks good on the ultrasound then I am to find out the sex.

Welcome 2009!

We had a pretty low key New Year's Eve..it was surprisingly uneventful considering we had two two-year olds running around all night! We had some friends come over and Isabelle was excited to get to hang out with Adan! They played so well and we let them even stay up to watch the ball drop! They were both really excited to be a part of the excitement and wear party hats! Here are some pics of our little party animals!



We had a lot of fun hanging out with friends and it was really exciting ringing in the new year with Isabelle too. She loved counting down and blowing her noisemaker!

We are excited for 2009 and all of the exciting things we have planned already! From the remodel to a new baby.. it is all going to be quite an adventure and very exciting!! We are really excited to watch Isabelle continue to grow and see how she is as a big sister!! I think 2009 is going to be a great year!

Our Christmas Part 4 ~ Christmas with Papoo and Grandma

Saturday morning we hung out at my mom's house until Rick and Shirley got to town. Isabelle got the Tinkerbell movie for Christmas so she wanted to watch the movie. Of course she had to put on her Tinkerbell outfit!



Then we headed over to Courtney and Dan's house to celebrate Christmas with Jason's dad. They had just gotten to town from North Carolina. They left at like 3AM I think! Crazy! They are tougher then us.. we leave the night before and stay halfway in a hotel! HAHA!

Again, Isabelle was delighted to see some princess wrapping paper under Aunt Courtney and Uncle Dan's tree! LOL! When we got there Emily was napping so we ordered some pizza for lunch. While we ate, Isabelle didn't waste any time checking out Emily's stash of toys! Emily woke up not long after lunch. I felt so bad for her.. she was sick and you could tell that just being awake was a struggle enough for her. Poor girl.. I hate seeing sick babies. :o(

Then it was present time! I think Isabelle saw Aunt Courtney and Uncle Dan helping Emily open presents so of course then she needed my help! She was very excited about getting to open all of the boxes once she had the presents unwrapped. She had fun checking out Emily's new presents too!

I have no clue what is up with this smile but its the one we get when we tell her to smile!

Sleepy and sick Emily with her new doll

Grandpa Koons and Emily

Grandpa (Papoo) with his girls

Grandpa and Grandma Koons with Isabelle and Emily

Isabelle snuggling with Aunt Courtney

Decorating Daddy with Christmas bows!

Awww! Hugs for Emily!

Ooh and I just have to add that Jason and I got the BEST toffee in the world from his Dad and Shirley for Christmas... omg seriously it is melt in your mouth delicious. I urge you all to order some..trust me you won't regret it. I am trying to keep myself from ordering more because I don't want to end up weighing a million pounds. I am serious.. it is that good! Here's the link.. now go get some! ;o)

Our Christmas Part 3 ~ Christmas with Pap and Mel-Mel

Friday morning we woke up and got ready to head to Mechanicsburg to celebrate Christmas with Pap and Mel-Mel. Mel was making lasagna (which I was very excited about! Big surprise, huh!?!) to give us a break from all of the traditional holiday foods. Boy was it delicious too! Isabelle was very excited to get to play with Jack (their Jack Russell) and I think he was actually kind of excited to play with Isabelle too. The cat was a different story though.. she was not very happy to see Isabelle. Statistically though, most (ok in our instances ALL) cats are not excited to see Isabelle! I think this was the best that Jack and Isabelle played together. Isabelle has this amazing love and acceptance for all animals (and I mean ALL..the other day we were grocery shopping and she wanted to stop to look at the lobsters in the tank...she told me they were soooo cute!) and she thinks that all animals love her just as unconditionally as she loves them. To further prove my point, her favorite place to go (after Target) is to the vet office, and when we drop Kashmir off for boarding she begs to stay with her and the other animals! haha! What a silly girl!

By this point Isabelle had pretty much figured out this whole Christmas thing. So she knew after we ate that it was time for presents. She had scoped out the tree when we got there and saw some princess wrapping paper so she knew there were some for her!

Isabelle and her own camera!

Telling us who is on her new robe

Showing off her new jammies that she has been drooling over at Target! I am glad I didn't cave and buy them!