More transitioning

I feel like we hardly had to make any changes when Ashlee was born, but the 3rd baby is a whole other story.

Our newest change comes in the from of a vehicle, a van to be specific.

We purchased a new (to us) van over the weekend.  A 2008 Honda Odyssey and we love it!  There is so much room for our growing family.

We picked it out 2 weekends ago, but waited a week to pick it up so they could add leather seats, a DVD player and new tires.

Chris was already in Utah for a recruiting trip, so we got to stay with him at the hotel. 

There was a pool so the girls were happy.  They would have swam all day, but we did have other things that needed to get done.

Their favorite thing is to stand on the side and jump in.  Chris tried to help Ashlee jump feet first, but she still belly flops almost every time.  

I think we are now done with our big changes, now just to get the babies room in order.

Writing is Fun

What Kindergartner doesn't love to write?  Not ours.  She LOVES to write, and she is getting really good at it.

The other day she wrote on some sticky notes and put 1 on herself and 1 on Ashlee.

They said:

 The she took another sticky and posted it on this door.

 It said:

She informed me that now when people come over to our house they will know just where the downstairs bathroom is.  Good thinking.

Getting Back Into It

Swimming lessons started again last week.  The girls wore old swimsuits and they were sooooo baggy and ragged that we had to pull out new ones.  They were so excited.
Caitlin is just a couple of skills short of moving up, so they are still in the same class.

 Caitlin is practising her front float. 

 Ashlee won't put her face in for the front float, but does well with the back float.  She is getting better all the time, but still likes to talk to her teacher alot rather than focus on swimming :)

I love when they do their stretches at the beginning so I recorded it to remember forever.

On Saturday...

...the weather was super nice so we took advantage and played outside alot, without coats even!

There is no snow to speak of anywhere in our yard, even in the back yard which does not see the sun in the winter.

 As usual, when we play outside, Caitlin rides the scooter or bike and Ashlee mostly walks around.  She has never been very interested in riding the toys. 
Caitlin is getting really good at riding her bike alone now.  She doesn't know how to stop yet so she hurries and bails before she crashes into anything.

 Later in the day we went to the park and played.  The girls took their coats off after a couple of minutes although I thought it was chilly.  They were the ones running around though.

 I'm glad we took advantage of the beautiful weather Saturday because now we are back to cold and we are having crazy high winds- but still no snow.

30 weeks

I'm technically not 30 weeks until tomorrow, but close enough I think.

Overall I still feel pretty good. 

I do feel like I've gotten huge, and I still have 10 weeks to go! 

The doctor also told me I'm a little anemic and had me start on an iron supplement.  This might explain the extreme exhaustion that I feel some days, but then again it might just be from being pregnant.

Really, I can't complain.  My pregnancies aren't that bad.  While I have gained plenty of weight (which I am not going to disclose now, maybe after my pregnancy when I have lost it again), I don't have any swelling to speak of and I do feel good.



Family Pictures

While in Colorado over Thanksgiving we had some Will Family pictures taken.  We had them taken in Estes Park, which is beautiful but it also happened to be extremely cold and windy that day.
We would strip of our coats, take a few pictures, and then put them back on.
The trick was trying not to look cold in the pictures.
We didn't do that great a job hiding the fact that we were freezing, but they are cute non the less.

More House Changes

Since Christmas we have been working on some changes to the interior of our house.  These are things that have been in the back of our minds for sometime, but got sparked to life with the coming of the new baby.

First we painted the stairway and hallway walls (just the same neutral color as our downstairs walls).  The stairway is SO TALL, so it was a lot of work.  The girls were ecstatic to help paint a little bit!

After that we painted our 3rd room that use to be the computer room.  It will now be the babies room/sewing room, so we painted it the same neutral color.  I couldn't find a single pic of what the old walls looked like, but just envision mustard yellow walls with a maroon accent wall and this wallpaper border at the top.  The old occupant of this house LOVED wallpaper borders, and since it was a misc. room we just left it.

The computer found a new home downstairs in the dining area.  It fits well, and really doesn't feel squished.

Then we got new carpet upstairs!!!!!!!

The old carpet was so horrible in every way.  It was impossible to vacuum, had no cushion, looked and felt like Velcro and was basically super cheep carpet.

We LOVE our new carpet.  The pictures don't do it justice, but it is darker color than our old carpet and sooooo, soooooo, sooooo soft.  I don't know why we waited so long to replace it!

Before carpet in our room.  It doesn't look so bad, but it was.

The master bedroom piled up in the babies room.  They laid the carpet over 2 days so we didn't have to move anything up and down stairs, so nice of them!

The stairs while they were working. 

The previous carpet was actually laid over mud on the stairs, I know- very classy.  So they had to scrape and scrape away the old dried mud and clean it all up before they could lay the new stuff.

 Pictures with the new carpet.  It is really a lot nicer in real life.
The second day they laid the carpet Chris left out of town.  So all of the upstairs furniture was in the master bedroom.  I couldn't move the furniture back in the state I am in, so our wonderful home teacher and his wife came and moved it back, thank you!
All the rooms are a huge mess, but they will get put back together eventually.

 We have a few more items on the list to get completed before the baby comes.  We have 10 weeks, so we should be able to make it.

ringing in 2012

Over New Year's Chris' parents came and visited for a few days.  We did lots of hanging out at home doing things like playing guitar hero.  We set it to beginner and the girls LOVE it.

 On New Year's Eve we went ice-skating.  Actually, they went ice-skating and I watched and took pictures.  It was the girls first time ever, so they had fun.  Caitlin started to get the hang of it, but Ashlee still needs more practice.

It is tricky to keep your weight balanced so their feet slid forward alot, so this is what they looked like a lot of the time.

 They ice rink is pretty big, so they would get super tired and take a break in the hockey boxes.  Ashlee took her first break after she was 1/2 way around.  They had a really fun time, so we will have to go back sometime when I can actually skate with them.

New Year's Eve is also my birthday.  The girls made me some lovely trivets, and I also got a Kindle, some hats, a gift card, a book and some more shelves in the garage which will be coming sometime in the not to distant future.  I love cheesecake, so this year we had a cheesecake sampler instead of cake, YUM!  Then the girls went to bed and we played Farming Game- which is one of my favorites but maybe not so much enjoyed by the other participants, and rang in the New Year with only me awake :) 

Now we are getting back to out normal schedules after the long break.  Caitlin went back to school last week, and Chris went back to work today.

Happy 2012!