Our Family

Our Family

Monday, June 28, 2010

P.S.

Tomorrow is my birthday!

Baby Shower for Anderson!

Saturday was my sister-in-law Lacie's baby shower!  She is just a few short weeks out from her due date and meeting her sweet little boy Anderson.  I wanted to give her something personal, maybe not so practical :), and most definitely beautiful.  I found a website that lets you design your own word clouds! You simply input the words you want to incorporate and input them as many times as you'd like that particular word large.  The downside is the site doesn't have a way to save your art, but with a little help from the wonderful Brandon and Anna, I was able to have it printed up at Staples! The frame was one I already had on hand making the grand total of this baby shower gift $1.05!  I think it came out wonderful don't you?!  If you'd like to try it go here.


The shower was so fun and absolutely beautiful!  I loved the candy bar, the monkeys, and all the fun desserts! I really can't say no to a cream-filled strawberry or mini cheesecake bites. It was heavenly! With such a party thrown for him before he's even born, Anderson is gonna be one lucky boy!

The DIY Show Off

I'm obsessed

I don't know why but I can't get enough of interior design these days! I spend my free time browsing through blogs, reading DIY articles on decorating, and trying to imagine it all incorporated in my own home for way less than I see on TV.  I have Anna to thank for introducing me to this fascinating world. At first, JT was a little skeptical and thought his wife had gone off the deep end.  To be honest, I probably did!  But thankfully he's "seen the light" and really likes what I'm doing with our home.  The fact that I'm doing it with as minimal an impact on our wallet as possible also helps. ;)
This all leads me to my main point: I love turquoise!!! I really don't know when this came on. It might have something to do with all the beautiful and gorgeous designs incorporating the color I've been seeing in blogs.  I could honestly be following the crowd since turquoise was named the official color of 2010 (if you don't believe me go visit Colour Me Happy by Maria Killam. She's a color expert. Seriously!).

If you still aren't convinced that I have a problem, allow me to enlighten you.
Our living room:
The walls are currently a blue gray (I'm not loving the dark blue aspect of it to be honest).  I had originally decided to accent it with white, orange, and yellow.  The black in the room was just a neutral to tie in with the gray. Well out of left field came turquoise. I now have a $4 turquoise vase sitting on an end table.  I KNOW it's too many colors. But it looks SO pretty next to the orange.  But I really do think I'm going to pull back and do my original color scheme. I can always put the vase back if I decide I still need it.

Our kitchen:
In a perfect world this would be our house and my first line of business would be to paint all our cabinets white. Since it's not, they get to stay a dark oaky brown. I have FIRM plans to paint the walls....you guessed it! Turquoise! I'm going to accent with white and red.  I'm super thrilled about this one.  I cant wait to get the go ahead from our landlord to paint that dining room table white. But that's a project for later.

Our nursery:
The walls are a minty green with a little more blue in the hue than usual.  It's usually called seafoam green. I can't help but look at it and think "hey, I think I see turquoise!".  We're accented with a strong yellow and then any other color we can think of since we want it to be fun for the kids.  We're not gonna stick with a strictly 2-color palette in there.  That wouldn't be fun for them!

The guest/baby bathroom:
The walls are a darkish yellow (I'm wondering why the former tenants would've gone with such a DARK yellow.  There's probably even a little orange to it. Not bright and airy at all).  We're accented with orange and dark turquoise.  Oh, and the occasional rubber ducky.

Our bathroom:
JT saw a picture last night with black and white vertical stripes painted on the walls with a large white tub and hot pink accents (minimal though).  He really liked it! But he doesn't think he wants black and white stripes.  Bummer since that was the whole point of that particular design. The countertop is a turquoise (I know right! It's fate!!!) and everything else except the cabinets are white.  I'm wondering if I should embrace the turquoise and white theme and just have a few black pieces for contrast. Hmmm...

Anyways, save me or indulge me! Hehe.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Is it bedtime yet?

As I type this I am waiting for JT to get home.  We ran out of milk and I'm pretty sure I'll want a bowl of cereal before going to the dentist tomorrow at 8am. I'm super exhausted, but I'm glad JT has had a fun night.  We had dinner and sat out on the front porch while he watered the lawn.  It wasn't long before neighborhood kids began showing up.  Since JT is still really just a big kid, he had a blast.  He chased them down the street with the hose and even threw one over his shoulder to claim as a hostage!  They made it a game to sneak into our garage to steal his tools.  He held his own pretty well!  Although I would venture to say it wasn't fair when he began pulling out his arsenal of fireworks.  Thankfully I was able to stop him in enough time before he shot one into our neighbor's tree. Little boys, big boys...they're all still just boys!

Pogo

We have had a new kitten running around here for a little less than 2 months now.  I felt so bad for JT over losing Snickers.  I thought a new little kitten would help him feel better.  Plus, where we live has a mice problem and word on the street is a cat helps to keep it at bay.  When one of my neighbors had kittens I thought it would be a good surprise for JT!
Poor guy.  He woke up from his Sunday nap with a cat in his face and me enthusiastically asking him if he liked it.  Looking back on it, I was soooo psycho.  He liked the cat but I've come to realize that a cat isn't what he wanted.  He wanted Snickers. :(  If I had it to do all over again I think I'd take him to the pound and have him pick out his own cat.
Anyways, this little kitten was super adorable but too young to be adopted out.  We didn't know that and ended up having to buy it formula for food.  3 babies on formula in my house!!!  The kitten got to the point where it assumed I was making him food when I was prepping bottles for the twins.
The little guy had too much energy and gusto for his little body.  He'd run down the hall and have to double hop to get his back legs to catch up with his front legs! So we decided to name him Pogo! I think it fit much better than our first choice of Taquito.
Pogo is the neighborhood clown.  As soon as he was old enough, he was relegated to the outdoors with the garage as his personal abode. He still thinks that he's a house cat and sneaks into any house with an open door.  He attacks myself and our neighbors ALL the time!  JT will be pulling groceries out of the car and find his feet getting swatted from under the car.  Our neighbor was gardening and soon had her hands being attacked by Pogo and his amazing back flips over her flowers!  The neighborhood kids love him and are really sweet with him.  He's a goof ball and I love it.
Thank heavens for no more animals IN our house!

Friday, June 11, 2010

5 months old and the BETRAYAL

I can't believe Porter and Delilah are already 5 months old! Time has flown by SO fast!  I know for a fact it won't be long before at least one of them is mobile. *cough cough* JT is a traitor *cough cough*



Delilah is smiling away now to her little heart's content.  She's still our little drama queen, but she loves the attention and will usually gift her audience with a sweet grin.  Delilah is growing more hair atop her little head and is packing on the rolls.  Poor girl has daddy to thank for the "saddlebags" nickname.  I'm working on getting it thrown out.  The last time she was weighed they put her at 12 lbs 8 oz.  Even though she'll pay more attention to toys (like the colorful rings you can hook together) than she used to, her first choice is personal contact with people.  She is SUCH a girl.  It's all about contact and relationships with her.  Oh, and she LOVES to talk.  Not only talk, I mean SHOUT.  We don't have to worry about her at night because we know she'll cry herself to sleep in about 20 minutes.  The problem is when she wakes up at 3am and starts babbling SO LOUD she wakes her brother up--who for the record cannot cry himself back to sleep.  So most times one of us ends up racing out of bed and crashing into their nursery to try and grab her before she really gets going. Tummy time is progressing slowly--just the way I like it. :)  She can hold her head up and will even push her chest off the ground from time to time.  But for the most part, Delilah has no interest in becoming mobile.  Well, scratch that.  She would like to be able to walk. Thank heavens I have a little time before that happens.

Porter has always been our smiley little boy.  He giggles, laughs, and smiles constantly.  He's the charmer and a lot of times people call him the happier baby because he's so social (which mom and dad know isn't true! Delilah just needs to be warmed up!).  Porter is a whopping 14 lbs even...and my arms are positive he's put on more weight since that weigh-in! 

OOH, speaking of weight, I am SO unimpressed with their pediatrician.  The pediatrician's assistant weighed them in at 6 and 7 lbs and the doctor didn't even bat an eyelash and told me I needed to feed them more and introduce solids at 4 months! How in the world could a doctor who saw them at birth think they only weighed that much?!  Thank heavens we got that cleared up.

Anyways, back to Porter. Our little boy is well on his way to becoming MOBILE!  I laid him on the floor on his back, left for 5 minutes, and came back to find him on his tummy!  He was so upset about it. He really doesn't like tummy time and now keeps getting himself stuck in that position.  Poor kid will either have to learn patience or how to roll.  I've got my money on rolling.  Although Porter really enjoys  playing with people, he is 100% happy to be left alone playing with his toys.  His favorite are some rings and a light-up ball Grandma Trout got them.  He grabs everything now.  It's fun to watch but not so much when he's napping with you and decides to say hi by twisting his fist into your hair and pulling.  I'm gonna like when he learns "no".

Lastly, I will tell you about JT's betrayal.  Having had much younger siblings, I explained to JT that although watching babies learn mobility is fun, it gets old in a hurry.  We agreed to be completely hands-off so it would take them longer to learn.  Well folks, I was BETRAYED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The night before Porter learned to flip over I found JT excitedly helping him! Not only was he teaching rolling, he was teaching crawling!  Porter knows already how to work his legs.  
he gets up on his knees and pushes off.  He just needs to master his arms.  Well if Daddy keeps helping him he'll figure it out very soon!  Since I don't think JT can restrain himself, it's time to dust off those baby gates.  :)

Monday, June 7, 2010

I'm so sorry

I've wanted to update but haven't been able to.  My laptop is down and it's taken a long time to get around to getting it in order.  Also, our camera doesn't load pictures onto a mac.  So I will continue to wait for a knight in shining armor to fix my computer problem.  One day......I hope it's sooner!

*quick update in the meantime
1. The twins are now 5 months old!
2. We went to California for Memorial Day Weekend
3. I found a great find at a garage sale!
4. We have a cat that I keep forgetting to blog about
5. We got a dog
6. My sister-in-law had her baby
7. We're staying in Utah for the 4th of July
8. JT's mom was able to come up and visit
9. My 14 year-old sister and I had a shopping adventure

I think that's it. Life is pretty amazing.  I've been musing on it a lot lately and I've come to the conclusion that I wouldn't change a single thing.  Not even a bad hair day!  I am who I am and we are who we are because of the good and the bad.  I've been reading in 2 Nephi and the whole knowing the bitter from the sweet concept just gave me warm tinglies. I really like where my life is at right now, and I really like where I see it going.  I know that things are going to get really hard.  But I don't think I've ever been more sure of myself or my situation.  Let's hope JT and I can keep this perspective going once the twins learn how to crawl!