Welcome Spring!!!

Some random pics of Isabelle playing outside with Kashmir and throwing sticks in the creek

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Last weekend Jason scraped the popcorn texture off of Isabelle's ceiling and sprayed up the knockdown. I think we finally figured out the right water to powder mix this time. Hopefully we won't forget it by the next room! It was slow going and very frustrating for him at first because the sprayer was having all kinds of issues. Once he got it all figured out it went pretty quickly.

This past weekend Mom, Jeff, Jess and Josh came for a visit. It was a very relaxing visit.. well at least for me considering I got to take a nap every day with Isabelle. Hee hee!

How convenient to have an expert handyman in the house during remodeling!??!! LOL! Of course we couldn't get through the weekend without putting Jeff to work! ;o) Jeff, Jason and Josh installed the baseboard, casing and window sill in Isabelle's room. Jason and I were amazed at how quickly it was all installed considering what is a weekend project for us only took a few hours with Jeff here! We really learned a lot and had a lot of questions for Jeff. I think it was good we had already completed a room on our own so we knew what questions to ask. We also learned a lot of time saving tips which is always nice!!

The guest expert hard at work! LOL!

Jason and Josh trying to figure out what all those lines are on a measuring tape! ;o)

It just dawned on me that I forgot to take a picture of it all finished. I'll have to remember to go do that!

I had taken Isabelle to It's Playtime on Wednesday and she picked up a bug that must be going around. She had a low grade fever from Thursday to Saturday evening. Every one of those days she asked if we could go to the mall, but I told her that we couldn't go until her fever was better. Well Sunday she woke up without a fever and didn't have one all morning so she was determined that we were going to the mall! It really is one of her favorite places to go. She tells me all of the time that she loves the mall. Of course we had to oblige and head to the mall! I am pretty sure everyone was ok with it though because that meant lunch at our family favorite, Red Robin!

Our weekends have been so packed and busy that it was so rejuvenating to have a relaxed weekend with lots of quality time together! I don't know about anyone else, but I know me and Isabelle both had a great weekend! Oh yeah and I know Kashmir did too! LOL!
This morning was really hard for Isabelle when they left. Seeing her little eyes fill with tears just broke my heart. :o( I am pretty sure Kashmir shed a tear or 2 when her buddy, Josh, left too!

Disney on Ice

We took Isabelle to see a Disney on Ice show..I forget the exact name of it.. Mickey and Minnie's something. It was almost a month ago so you can see why my brain is a little foggy on the details! LOL! She LOVED the show! It was a really good show and they did a lot of movies that Isabelle knew. The only one she didn't know and neither Jason or I have seen it either is Lilo and Stitch. The other movies were Lion King, Little Mermaid and Peter Pan.

You probably can't see it here but Daisy's shoes were pink. Well, Daisy does not wear pink shoes on the show Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Isabelle was very distraught about this error. It was the first thing she noticed when the characters came out for the first time. She got this weird look on her face and said, "Mommy why is Daisy wearing pink shoes? Her shoes are purple." HAHA! Jason and I just looked at each other.. you can't get anything past this girl! I'm not kidding!

The Peter Pan part was really neat when he was trying to catch his shadow. It really did look like that was what he was trying to do!







We all had a really good time! I am so glad that we went. Isabelle sat still the entire time and was completely entranced with the show. Of course it left all of us really wanting to go back to Disney again soon!!!

SOOOOO EXCITED!!

I am pretty sure I have posted that I was participating in a best brands consignment sale this weekend to start getting rid of Isabelle's old clothes. Well the sale was Friday and Saturday and I just looked at the totals this morning... I sold 472.00 worth of stuff! I feel so rich! LOL!

I didn't know what to expect so I didn't send up that much stuff. Well you better believe that today is going to be spent trying to get through as many bins in the attic as possible! LOL! :o)

Science is cool!

Ahh.. how sad is it that children these days are growing up without the teachings from Bill Nye the Science Guy? Thank goodness for youtube I guess! Yes, I was a dork.. I liked that show! LOL! Anyway, Isabelle and I had some science fun a couple of weeks ago we went to Science Central.

We hadn't been to Science Central since Isabelle turned 2 so it was rather amazing how many things she remembered. The first one being the hot air balloon. Last time we were there she just liked watching it go up and down but this time she enjoyed being the one to push the button (all by herself of course!) and watch the balloon rise.






There is also this room that they have that is tilted. Isabelle loves it.. me not so much. It really thrown off my equilibrium and makes me feel dizzy. Of course she wanted to go in it like a million times!

Then we headed to the preschool area which has lots of activities (and a SLIDE! LOL!) that she really enjoys. She loves the water table.

OCD you think? LOL! She definitely has her same and different's down!

Reunited

Look who's been found!!! I am pretty sure I posted that Boo had been missing since January and that I had been randomly tearing the house apart trying to find him. Well the search is over!

I was on the computer during naptime when all of a sudden a thought came in my head that I should check the bins of Christmas decorations in the attic. Our ceiling in the garage is really high and I have been known to be a clumsy person so I am generally not allowed in the attic unsupervised. LOL! I climb up the ladder that is falling apart and get myself into the attic only to find that the light has burned out. So back down the ladder and into the house to find a flashlight. Flashlight in hand I head back into the attic. Jason has the attic really organized so all of the Christmas stuff is all together. I got through each bin looking for Boo. I get through all of the bins with no luck. So then I am looking at the section of the attic with all of Isabelle's baby stuff and seeing what we are going to have to be pulling down soon. I spot a box sitting all by itself with red fabric coming out of it and it looks familiar like its a Christmas box. So I open it up and on top is our santa bag. I lift it out and there is obviously things in it. Inside were all of Isabelle's Christmas themed stuffed animals and..... BOO!!!!!!!!!

Let me just say that I am really glad that I did not pass out and fall through the hole! Isabelle was so happy to see him. She held him and giggled for like 10 minutes straight. It was the cutest thing.

I am excited to finally get a sound sleep tonight without the constant thought of "where is Boo" running through my mind. I have insomnia around 4am and have been laying in bed during that time thinking of all of the places Boo could possibly be. Tonight I will have nothing to think about so hopefully I won't have insomnia and if I do wake up then I won't have anything to keep my mind busy and I will fall back asleep. My fingers are crossed!

Needless to say it has been a very exciting afternoon in our house!!!

Words some of you thought you would never hear...

guess who is a working woman!??!!? MEEE!!! can you believe it? its ok.. i know there were many of you that said no and i am ok with that because quite honestly i think jason and i are still both in shock too! and wait till you hear this.. i have not only 1 job but TWO! ok..i use the term "job" loosely. lol

so my first job is a question answerer.. how cool is that? on one of my moms boards a lady posted about how she works for this company called ChaCha and that they were looking for new guides. she doesn't have a schedule and can work whenever she wants to and has some extra time. the words "doesn't have a schedule" and "work whenever she WANTS to" were pure music to my ears..i am so not good with schedules..they make me feel tied down and overwhelmed. so i checked it out and applied. i had to take some tests and the final test i had to wait 2 days to see if i passed..it was quite nerve wracking! i did pass though! so now at night when we are watching tv i am also making some extra money for myself! oh, so the service is free...basically you can text a question to ChaCha and then guides are logged into the site on the computer and we look up the questions and answer them. some people are really fast and make decent money.. i am still a little slow, but i am working on my speed. so if you ever have a question just text it to ChaCha (242242) and maybe i will be the one to answer it! i get excited when i see a question from ft wayne or a neighboring town and i have even gotten a few from lancaster!

oh and my 2nd job! this one pays better so i am excited about that. lol! this one i have thanks to my dad who told me about it! i work for a marketing company that does online video listings for houses that are for sale. i am one of the writers for the company and i write scripts for the videos. i haven't started doing it yet, but i think it is going to be fun.

obviously the thing i am most excited about is having a little extra cash on the side that is just mine to do with what i want..i am sure 9 times out of 10 it will be spent on the kids, but now if there is something that i want for me then i can save up and get it on my own. anyway i am really excited! and i have started selling off isabelle's old clothes. i am participating in a best brands consignment sale on march 28th. i just sent off 2 boxes of clothes to that and i have a bunch of stuff to start listing on ebay. if you can't tell i am very excited about all of my money making opportunities that i have right now!

Who doesn't love a newborn!?!

yesterday Isabelle's best friend, Adan, became a big brother! his little sister, Blair Marie, was born at 6:57PM. she was 7 lbs 12 oz and 20.5 inches.

isabelle and i went to go meet her this morning and OMG she is the most precious little thing! i was so thankful a baby had already taken up residence in my uterus because she made my ovaries ache! lol! too much information, i know! ;o) she reminded me so much of isabelle as a baby. she is 1 oz bigger and .5 inches smaller then isabelle was at birth so it was crazy to think isabelle was at one time almost exactly that size! oh and she smelled so good. i wish i could bottle up the smell of a newborn. she is so perfect and i think she resembles her big brother so much. i can't wait to see her and hold her again. i was so completely engulfed with looking at her and smelling her that i forgot to take a picture! well, good thing i know i will be seeing more of her soon! :o)

for the past 7 months i have been waiting with mindy for her to have her baby.. it really seemed like it was never going to get here, but now it has come and gone and now i am left yearning for sushi and wine all by myself..woe is me..lol..ok focus jen back to the point.. and now next is my turn! yay! oh but this is how strange i am.. on sunday when mindy was texting me updates throughout the day i was so wishing i was in labor getting ready to have a baby..and not because i am sick of being pregnant or anything.. just because it sounded like fun. yeah, i need help..i think that is pretty clear now.

House stuff...

we are officially finished the remodeling part of the nursery! yay!!! it has taken a little while but we have learned sooooo much! we can already see how much we have learned and how much faster isabelle's room is going to go.

saturday we moved isabelle into the nursery so she is trying out the room to make sure it is in good shape for her little brother. she was very excited about her big responsibility!

here are the pics of the completed remodeled nursery...

jason's windowsill that he made all by himself! it is very impressive! he had to extend the sill then do the fancy stuff underneath to make it pretty. i love the way it turned out!

pay no attention to the tinker bell in the closet! lol!

we are really happy with how everything turned out. we weren't sure if we were going to keep the doors wood or sand them and paint them white. they are really nice doors and the stain was a color that we both liked so we decided to try them out like that first. we really like the way it looks...it adds a little character and breaks up all of the white..at least we think so! with the new moulding and the new door hardware they really feel like new doors! now i just have to get some wood cleaner and clean them up and then they will be good as new!

also with the crown moulding we ended up having to do a 2 piece crown to get the look that we wanted. it was quite a bit more work but we are so happy that we did it!

sunday we demo'd isabelle's room. she said that she wants a pink and purple princess room (this girl could seriously not get any more girly..i am not kidding you!!!) so we told her that while she is trying out the baby's room that we will turn her room into a princess room. well on sunday she came in the room while i was removing the old moulding and jason was tearing out the closet. the look on her face was priceless. she said, "what are you guys doing?" so we told her then she said, "you are supposed to make this a princess room. this is not a princess room". lol! she was so serious..it took all jason and i had to not burst into laughter! she is really excited for painting her room. she carries around her paintbrush all the time just in case it is time to paint.

oh here are the before pics of her room





we got all of the demo work done really quickly yesterday. this week jason is going to patch holes in the walls and scrape the popcorn ceiling. then saturday he is going to spray up the knockdown texture and hopefully sunday we will be starting on the trim and casing! it is already going so much faster then the nursery! also *fingers crossed* i won't have a nightmare with the electrical this time!

so that is what is going on house-wise. i think the bedrooms are all that we will get done before the baby gets here. after that is the kids' bathroom and we really have no clue what we are doing in that department so i think it is probably best if we aren't down 1 bathroom when the baby is born considering my mom will be here! lol!

26 weeks

here i am at 26 weeks.. i know that was a couple of weeks ago. i can't remember if i took a picture at 27 weeks or not..i either didn't or it is on another memory card or camera. either way not too much has changed.



i know you are all loving how much time and effort i am putting into getting myself ready before taking the pictures.. this was another day that i remembered i needed to take a pic right before i was going to work out.

not too much exciting happening right now pregnancy-wise. my last appointment on 3/5 was the glucose test for gestational diabetes. assuming everything went well with that since i never heard anything..no news is good news, right? that was my last 1 time a month appointment and now we are to the every other week part. i really can't believe we are already in the 3rd trimester! it is truly flying by!

"You guys...

need to settle down!" That's what Isabelle said to us at the dinner table last night! LOL! Nothing exciting was even happening. The things that come out of this girls mouth! She is constantly making us laugh!

I have so much to update about, but we have just been so busy lately with life. Hopefully this was our last crazy week for awhile and I will be able to update and share pictures soon!