Front is finished- before and after pics!

Well except for landscaping of course. DH is ready to pull all the bushes out and start over again. That big dead looking bush is our bougainvillea I talked about a little bit yesterday. We still need to paint the back and right side of the house.
Before- plain stucco


Primed and painting




After


Oh and I did help him a little. I taped off the door and windows. There is still some touch up work to be done though as it's hard to tape around stucco. I also feel like the front needs something. I'm just not sure what. Dh thought we should buy some wooden blinds to put behind our room darkening blinds as they look good from the outside(we have them in our dining room window). I like shutters but we took the last ones down as they are wasp attractors. Hmmm... oh I should add, we are thinking about adding a front porch. We don't have much overhang though so I'm not sure how that would work. I'd prefer screened in so we can sit outside without having to deal with bugs but I also like the open look.

A Picture Post

I will hopefully be back later with something more worthwhile to talk about but until then, I give you a few shots I took today.

Dh is hard at work priming the front of the house. The primer was supposed to be tinted but the idiot at Lowes apparently didn't do his job. Hopefully it won't effect the paint color too much. The side of the house that is painted was what we had left of the old paint/primer. Oh and you can see my bouganvilla that looks so dead thanks to that last freeze. It needed to be cut back anyway. It's still alive though as I did some pink leaves/flowers underneath it. We also found a shrimp plant that we thought died out a couple of years ago!



My new Scooba is hard at work too! I ordered the cheapest model from HSN at the beginning of December. It didn't worked properly so after talking to CS at iRobot, they had me send it back to be replaced. UPS LOST my package though and from Dec 10 when it was "out for delivery" and earlier this week, it was MIA. I even filled out all the claims forms for it. Lo and behold, I suddenly got an email from iRobot that mine had been shipped and I got it the next day! (I had written to them too so see if they could trace it from their end). Not only did I get a new model, I got a more expensive model. Yippee! This one actually works too. Double bonus! LOL So here is our new Scooba which may/may not be called Donald due to his blue color. We haven't really decided.
ETA:He just finished up and boy was that water nasty! Dh just handmopped the floor a few days ago!



A few nature shots I got it today while outside with dh. This butterfly decided to come over and have a drink.





And because Ian seems to get all the attention on my blog, here are a couple of pics I took of Logan.



And finally, I tried once again to install 3 car seats across my Pilot and was successful! I'm not able to use LATCH on the Marathon to do it though. I had to seatbelt it in which is fine. I'm able to get a tight install either way. Now Bella can use the Snugride for a couple of months and then I'll get her and Ian a new seat. Ian's MA expires next year anyway. I went looking at Petite Elite today to see the Radian but they didn't have them yet. I did see some bedding I fell in love with though. Of course, it's too late since I already ordered the PBK bedding. Oh well!

Adventurous eater?

Could I possibly have one?? Or was it a fluke? We went out to Macaroni Grill tonight and Ian actually ate bread with olive oil on it, some of our parmesan artichoke cake(like a crabcake) appetizers, some seafood (scallops) and some of my pasta with it! Now why can't he eat dinner at home that well?? He also ate pizza and ice cream. He must be a) feeling better or b) going thru a growth spurt or c) both. I'd prefer C because he's been looking really skinny since getting that last cold that seemed to last forever! He's been asking for food ("nack") all the time even right after he's eaten! Let's hope he keeps it up although I know in his preteen to teen years, I'll be regretting that statement. Haha.

You riding the cotton pony?

I LOVE Carol Burnett and Vickie Lawrence. I miss watching that show. I wasn't old enough to see the beginning shows but I've seen a few and watched Mama's Family. I was watching some clips on YouTube and came across this one. So LMAO funny! CB can't even keep a straight face!

And some Blasts from the Past...
NKOTB- you know what that means if you're around my age! You got to have the Right Stuff. And don't forget Step by Step.

New Edition! I had their record! Candy Girl, Mr Telephone Man (loved this song!)

How about some Tv? Silver Spoons with Ricky and Alfonso! Punky Brewster was the best. Who could forget Kids Incorporated?

How many of these do you remember? I didn't see the Snorks or Smurfs in there though! I love that Logan loves to watch a lot of these now too.

Okay, enough for now! I'm sure you'll be busy for a while checking all these videos out!

Baby names and Ian-isms

Dh and I are stuck. We have been calling the baby Bella and now we're not sure whether to stick with Isabella or just Bella. I like them both and they both sound good with her middle name. On the plus side, if we name her Bella, noone can call her Izzy. ;-)

~~~~~~~~~~
And a few Ian-isms to start your day... I'll try to be back with more later.
From Yo Gabba Gabba- Pawy Tummy, so Mummy, so Mummy (There's a party in my tummy, so yummy, so yummy)

Pirate song- no ho no ho, piwate I O Me.

Swords- Yayayas

My newest creation

One of Logan's teachers is due with boy/girl twins just 10days before I'm due. She's now on partial bedrest and we're having a surprise shower for her today in class. I love baby showers and making diaper cakes so I decided to try something new- diaper cupcakes! They are 4 diapers each, a bib or lovey and a pair of mittens I rolled to sort of look like a flower bud. I picked up a cake box from Publix and they fit perfectly. She also has a 2.5yr dd so I found a princess doll on clearance at Target to throw in for her. The bibs and loveys were also clearance. I think I spent less than $30 total not counting diapers. I of course will use the leftovers once Bella is born. I think they came out really cute! Here are some pics:









Oh and I need to give credit for the scrapbooking supplies I used to make the Babykakes by Karlise label. Since I'm not actually selling these, I don't think I'm violating any copyrights. The paper and ribbon are from the Sweet Sprinkles kit by Shabby Princess.

ETA: These were a HUGE hit with all the moms who were at the party today. Everyone loved them. :)

Labor Prediction

I was lurking over on the March '08 board and came across this Labor Predictor Quiz. It's all in fun of course. I was late and induced with Logan and late (nearly 2 weeks!) with Ian. So of course, I'm assuming Bella will be late as well. Here's what my prediction said:

I know you were hoping we weren't going to say this, but don't expect this baby to come early. Your baby is nice and comfy tucked away in your womb and has no interest in joining the rest of the world. We predict your baby will be born after its due date. Your baby will most likely be born in the morning. Justmommies predicts that your baby will weigh approximately 8.3 pounds and that your labor will be about 17 hours long.

I think I'd much rather go a few days early this time. Shake things up a bit. LOL A fast labor would be so nice too for once!

Nesting

I hate my house. It's dusty and cluttered. I hate cleaning even more but I have to get it decluttered before Bella arrives. I just have to!!! Today I started in on my room. I threw away a huge box of magazines that were hidden near the pack and play and filled a bag of trash. I have 2 boxes of books I have nowhere to put yet. I have multiple Disney snowglobes still in boxes bc I have no where to show them off. Ugh!! I also put a bunch of stuff in a bag for charity. That was only a quarter of my room. I had to stop for lunch and to take a break. A little bit each day, right? I think this is what they call nesting. I'm also making dh do a lot of "nesting". LOL He needs to paint the house, the boys' room and when I get around to buying the baby bedding, Bella's room. He's already cleaned out the laundry room for me so I can at least walk into it.

I did pull out the exercise ball/birth ball which the boys are having fun with and got the infant carseat out. I'm going to see if I can fit it in the car between the boys' seats later so I know if I need to go buy another convertible or not. If it fits, she'll be in a neutral colored seat but I'm okay with that. It's a perfectly good carseat (will be nearly 3yrs old) and it's been in the AC the whole time. Dh also put my Hypnobirthing scripts into my iTunes so I was able to sync those last night to my iPod. Now I just need to listen to them and practice. I signed up for a waterbirth class at Labor of Love which is the birth center I plan on going to as well. I don't think a homebirth will be in the cards for me this time (unless I just don't make it!). Am I rambling yet? There's just so much on my mind!

Another Which Bedding post!

This one is for my boys though. Just leave a comment on which one you like more. This is for the QUILT only. FWIW, the walls will be a pale to medium grey and the room will have red/blue accents.

PBK Lucas
Company Kids Railroad
PBK Henry

Sunday in Hyde Park

I really wanted to go check out that quilt from PBK so we went down to Hyde Park Village today. It's such a nice area. It's really too bad there's not much down there anymore. PBK did not have the quilt for me to see so I guess I'll have to buy it and hope I like it if that's what I choose. I did see some nice quilts for the boys' beds though. I'm also looking at these for their beds. We shopped at Williams-Sonoma and got a couple of things and walked over to Nature's Table Cafe for some lunch. That's it. We're boring I know. Later we get to do some really exciting stuff like head to Lowes for paint! Ohhh ahhh.

Tomorrow we're going to the zoo with some friends and Tuesday school starts back again. Wed. we're having a surprise shower for Logan's teacher who is due with twins in March. Hopefully she made it thru winter break. I know her Dr didn't think she'd make it until Feb but we're crossing our fingers for her!

ETA: Duh! The PBK quilt is a catalog/internet exclusive. Should have read further! I think that's what we've decided on though. Yea!

Post holiday breakfast

Every year our playgroup has a holiday or post holiday breakfast. We were going to hold it earlier this week but it was in the 20s-30s and that was just too darn cold. Brrr. So we held it today at the park instead. Sadly, there were only 3 of us. Everyone else was too busy or didn't come (ahem Julie). Oh well, we had bananas and bagels and donuts and oj and my Too Much Chocolate Cake which was yummy. The kids had fun which is what mattered. Logan, much to my delight, played happily (and nicely!) with his brother while we were there. They ran together, slid together and Logan even helped me push him on the swings. Unfortunately, they also fell together and while it didn't seem to phase Ian much, he still has a huge goose egg on his forehead. Not pretty. I didn't remember to take my camera to the park, but I did get a picture of his poor head when we got home.

For your viewing pleasure!

Here is our beautiful little girl, Isabella, in 3D! She was head down today, no feet in the way. She did have one arm over her head for most of the hour but we did manage to get her to move. Then she started sucking on her fist. Awww. Looks like she's following the boys and will have my nose and the pretty Gerber baby lips they had. She was pretty active which made getting non-blurry pics tough. The cord was right over her head tickling her lips so they were constantly moving, like she was talking in there. Haha.

My next appt is Feb 4th at 35weeks. We'll be able to see more details then.

This is the 1st pic I've actually gotten of her girly parts. Picture her sitting on a copy machine. LOL


See her arm over her head?










Little smile...


Isn't she the cutest thing inside the womb you've ever seen??

What about this one?

Anyone like this from PBK? I think it's purty! And will grow with her.
http://www.potterybarnkids.com/products/fd2660/index.cfm?pkey=cbdgnbd%7Cb

Guess I need to take a trip to PBK soon and see it in person!

Shopping for a girl & Pg. Update

I finally bought Bella's first outfits. For 5 years, I've complained about how cute all the girl stuff is and there's nothing for boys. Now that I can actually shop for a girl, I had the HARDEST time! I must have spent over an hour at BRU just browsing. I did get to help a couple of moms looking at car seats though so my time was well spent. I also checked out the baby bedding hoping it would help me decide which one to pick but I still haven't picked one. Gotta get a move on so we can get her room painted! (Keep voting!) I realized I'm going to need a few baby things too so when I got home I created an online registry in case anyone asks what I need. This way I don't have to remember everything since my brain is fried. My registry # is 70440509 for anyone wanting to see. Don't you love all the pink?! I wasn't sure if I'd be a "pink" kind of mom, but I'm drawn more to that than purple it seems. I LOVE those Sleepsacks! Both of my boys lived in them when they were babies. I saw they are making them for toddlers now too. Cool!

Okay, so here are her first 2 outfits. I didn't buy the matching shoes for the dress since I don't know how big she'll be (not that she needs shoes yet) or the hat cute as it was bc as Jen always tells me, Your kids have big heads. She means well when she says it. :) Her kids' heads are just small! The hats were all newborn size anyway I think.





And finally, a pregnancy update. I'll be 29 weeks on Saturday. Can you believe that? We still have so much to do!! I have a MW appt tomorrow morning and right after that I go back to the 3D/4D ultrasound place to try again. Bella seems to have moved head down again so *hopefully* we'll get a decent shot of her. I'll post pics if I get some!

Popcorn and a movie contest

Orville Redenbacher is having a contest to help promote their natural line of popcorns which come in a bunch of flavors. You could win a 6pack of popcorn per month for a year PLUS a 1 yr sub to Netflix! Who wouldn't like free popcorn and movies for a year?! I found all this out over at Roni's Weight Watchen blog. Go check her out!

Which baby bedding?

Go vote for your fave bedding for our new baby girl. Here are the links to the pictures... oh and the poll is over there --->

Sweet

Tiger Lily

Love Bugs

Hippy Flowers

Happy New Year! and blogging news

Hope everyone had a safe NYE last night. We were supposed to go around the corner to a friend's house but the party didn't start until 8:30 and that's past bedtime for the boys. Normally I would have let them stay up but Ian will also be missing naptime today and I couldn't do both so we stayed home. Dh and I played the Wii for a while. I'm sore! I used muscles I didn't know I had. It's a lot of fun though. We did watch the ball drop in NYC before falling asleep. Dick Clark is looking and sounding sooo old. How old is he now? I half think he should retire but then again, if he's enjoying himself, why not keep going?

Blogging News
Who knew my friends were so competitive?! Okay, well I knew Jen was. LOL We are having a blogging contest to see who can blog the most over the next month or few months depending on if there's a tie at the end of January. We're each putting $5 in and whoever wins, gets the prize. So far, Jen and Melodie have sworn they are going to win. I'm sure I'll be reading it on Julie's and Stacy's blogs next. I'm hoping my poor pregnant brain will just let me come up with some topics to talk about every day. I swear my brain cells are dying away even as I type.....

Picture time!

Thought I'd post a few pics I took today of my boys- well mainly of Ian since Logan wouldn't cooperate. Forgive the stuff on Logan's face. Looks like leftover lunch. LOL



Don't you love the hat?? Dh found it and stuck it on Ian's head and Ian loved it! This from the boy who won't wear any hat. He looks so cute though!


Checking out what Daddy's doing. Dh got the top bunk ready for Logan to sleep on and we'll get a mattress for the bottom tomorrow. We're also going to start decorating their room and get rid of the pastels.

In the play tent...

My new toy!

Dh has been scoping out our CompUSA store for a couple of weeks now waiting for everything to drop in price (they are closing all stores). Last night he came home and said I have a surprise for you. Okay.... I'm thinking, what now? We just had Christmas. And he hands me an Ipod Touch! This think is sooo cool! I can get on the net with it anywhere there's WIFI (including our house) and it moves pretty fast. Of course, it's also an Ipod so I transferred all my music and videos to it. He got it super cheap as it was a floor model and was missing the headphones. He even talked them down in price from what they wanted. What a good bargain shopper he is! Now I just need to find all the places in the area that have free WIFI. Too bad Starbucks isn't one of them. I love me some SB!

New fave games

I opened up one of the boys' gifts today that I got free thru a Playskool playgroup website (sorry, I got in late and the deal was nearly over so I didn't post it). It was the Honeybee Hop game and the boys love this thing. It plays music and goes round and round and you are supposed to "hop" over it. It makes noise if it hits you and there are 2 speeds to it. I took some shots of the boys playing with it today.





My new fave is our Wii. I played for the 1st time tonight (we've had this thing for a couple of months I think) and it's a lot of fun! Dh and I played golf and bowled. I actually did pretty well. Far better than I do in real life! LOL

Christmas Day...

I can't believe it's over already. All the shopping and cooking and wrapping...all over for yet another year. It seems like it takes forever to get here and then poof! It's over.

So let's see...we were woken this morning about 7:45am by Ian who wanted out of his room. He was really too cute in asking too. "Let me out please..." was heard over and over again. I had put a childproof doorknob cover on the inside so Ian couldn't come out without us knowing this morning. I also put a bell on there if Logan were to get up and come out. Dh had set up the camcorder the night before so we could catch their reaction when they walked into the room. They wanted to start ripping into the gifts right away and I think Ian did too without even knowing whose was whose. LOL

Logan got his new bike, 3 Lmax games, movies, pj's and more Cars. He's been playing his new Sonic Lmax game all day.

Ian got a police car ride on which is really too small for him, pj's, cars, Thomas train, and his fave of the day Pat Pat Rocket. I'm glad he likes it!

I ended up getting dh a new electric razor last minute at Sams yesterday of which he used and loved this morning along with his new TAPS hat and shirt, push up bars and game.

I got a new camera!! It was totally unexpected. I had asked for a new Elph camera I could throw in my purse but instead I got a new Canon 40D and a new lense. This thing is soooooo fast at taking pics! I love it! I've been taking photos all day long. LOL I also got 2 charms (baby related) for necklaces.

My mom and her BFF came by for breakfast. Yum! Dh made cinnamon rolls, french toast, eggs and bacon. More gifts...

We took Logan out for his 1st bike ride and he loved it until he stopped paying attention to what he was doing and took a couple of spills. He hurt his wrist so we stopped for the day. I was able to take some great action shots of him though. My camera can take continous photos so I have a pic for each pedal he took at one point! LOL

Tonight we went to my grandparent's house for dinner. The boys played with their cousin Tyler. We ate and opened a few more gifts and talked. It's much quieter and laid back than with the IL's it seems. I was ready to come home though. I'm tired, my feet are tired and it's nice just to end the day in peace and quiet.

I guess tomorrow we'll have to start cleaning up. There are toys all over the place right now and I have no clue where we'll put them all! It's really time to purge the house of all the clutter so hopefully we can start this weekend. Cross your fingers. LOL We need the luck!

Oh and here are some pics for you...
Christmas Eve

Christmas morning (back of pj's)
Riding the new bike

Bumblebee

Hiding under the table

Playing with my camera for closeups

Hubby and I

Family pic (Logan was running around and was sweaty and this was the best we could get out of Ian)

Christmas Eve is here (finished writing a day late)

It's 10:35pm and the IL's are still here. Not only did almost all of them show up late (between 30-60min late!) but they brought 3 extra mouths to feed, not including another child!! Can you say rude?! We had enough food thankfully but these people only show up once a year and they don't talk to anyone else. Ugh. I wanted to have a nice sit down dinner and I feel like they ruined that so next year, it's back to paper plates and eat wherever the hell you want.

We didn't have gifts for them and I really don't care. I did fish out a gift for the little boy. Thank goodness for my stash! It's not his fault. He and Logan and Ian had a great time together. He and Logan are pretty close in age. The boys got more toys (!!) and some movies. I got a couple of giftcards and a movie and dh got GC and a game and new Bucs jersey.

Logan fell asleep pretty quickly but man it takes forever for Ian to fall asleep. We still had to get the bike out of the shed and put together Ian's new ride on car (which is too small for him). It was after midnight when we finally got to bed. I didn't sleep well for the 2nd night. I just can't get comfy.

Christmas morning in the next post...

My son is a GRINCH

I must have the only 5yr old on the planet that doesn't want to look at Christmas lights. He also balked after a few house when we trick or treated at Halloween. We went thru a few neighborhoods(4?) tonight and he complained thru the last neighborhood that he wanted to go home. He was just out of luck though bc the rest of us were enjoying it! We saw some wonderful displays tonight. We still never made it to see the Dover lights, but maybe next year we will.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and we have all the IL's coming over for dinner and gifts. I baked some Magical Peanut Butter Cookies tonight for BIL who just found out he's diabetic. Dh liked them! Dh baked his yummy cheesecake and I made his veggie gravy ahead of time which also came out yummy. All the rest will get cooked tomorrow. I think all the gifts except for dh's are wrapped. Logan's stocking is missing so dh ran out to buy another one this morning. I'm hoping to have matching personalized ones next year. I can't believe Christmas is here!!! This year has flown by.

We have confirmation!!

She is definately a GIRL!! Saw it in 4D at that. I don't have any pics to share though as she just wasn't cooperating so I'll go back on the 4th (one more sleepless night) to try again. She was in a breech position(she was head down just a week ago!) and had her face completely covered by an arm/elbow and both legs with ankles crossed the entire visit. (picture this- you sit on the floor with your ankles crossed and put your head between your legs and your arm over your face) I tried walking, drinking a Sprite, laying on my belly and on both sides and she wasn't budging. Stubborn little thing! The 4D images were amazing though. I got a good look at her bottom, legs, feet, arm and one hand. LOL The 2D (reg. type u/s) showed us a great pic of the 4 chambers of her heart- all working perfectly. I hope to be able to share pics after my next appt!

Oh and as of right now (things may change), her name is Isabella Carlise G. We'll call her Bella for short.

Homemade gifts

Thought I'd share a couple of my homemade gift baskets. They aren't anything fancy but I like making them.

The large tea basket has Lemon Poppyseed Scone mix, 6 different teas, honey spoons and Strawberry/Raspberry Jam.
This one is for my Aunt. It has a Massage music CD in it (she's a massage therapist), teas and spoons.

I didn't take a pic of it but I also made a picnic basket. Well, I bought the basket on clearance a long time ago but I filled it with plates, utensils and cups for my other Aunt who just got married. She has a stepson now and just found out she's pregnant so I'm glad I filled it with 4's of everything!

In addition to the baskets, I made peanut butter balls (Buckeyes) last weekend. Yum!!! I bought some cute tins to put them in for gifts if I can stay out of them!
Dh took a few pics for your viewing pleasure...