Quiet Book Pages!!!!

First of all, can I get a Woot woot!? This post should probably wait until the quiet book is totally done, but I'm so excited about it tonight! Over a year ago I decided I wanted to make a quiet book for Eli. My friend Jessie and I went in on the project together. We have been stalled along the way, but tonight I have my pages finished!!!! I decided about 2 weeks ago that I really wanted to get this project off my to do list. It has taken over my sewing room, and I want to move on to other things. Plus, Eli is getting to the age where he could really use it. And, I needed something to do during nap time that didn't involve the TV. Several pages just needed little things: a button here, glued on eyes there. And a few pages needed more work. But here they are, in all their glory!

 {Alphabet Page: Felt on felt sticks well to each other. If it is terrible/doesn't work, I'll suck it up and do velcro}

 {Build the caterpillar: caterpillar pieces snap on and off, and can be put in cocoon}

 {Tie the Shoes}

 

 {Zipper page, camping style!}

{Dress the Boy page. More outfits in "dresser"}

{Five Little Ducks page. The Little ducks snap on and off and can got into the pouch "behind the hill"}

 

 {Puzzles! Three different puzzles in all}

{My scariest/hardest page. Each Animal has a touch and feel aspect (lion's mane, elephant ears, seals are polar fleece, lift the aquarium flap and feel the "rocks" and fish), plus it is a counting page, the wheels button on and off. I'm thinking about adding some balls above the seals' noses to snap on and off, but I don't think it is needed since so much is going on already}

11 pages in all! Can't wait to get these all bound and covered so Eli can play with it in Church. Like I said, it has taken over my sewing room, and I am ready for it to be done. Just a few more days to finalize everything. I'll do another post when it is ALL done! I'll also post where I got my inspiration and several patterns in that post.

Gender Reveal

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This post is mostly for posterity sake, since practically everyone has seen the results via text or facebook. :) But, I wanted to write down how we did the gender reveal for Baby Bass #2

When we were pregnant with Eli, we were so excited about everything, we just wanted to tell our family right away that we were having a boy. Well, this time around, we decided to have more fun with it and do an actual reveal. So, we decided to get the family together and make a Jello cake, with the jello being the color of the gender.

I posted this picture on facebook first, and received SOOO many votes for "pink".

Then on Sunday I took this picture of the completed cake. :) No one was getting any ideas before it was cut!

On Sunday, during a lunch to celebrate Lincoln's blessing/Mother's Day, we cut the cake. No crumbs came out on the knife while cutting, so we got to delay the news until the first piece was pulled out! A BOY!!!!

We had fun keeping it secret, and making it a fun surprise for the family. We will definitely find another fun way to reveal gender whenever we have baby #3. :)

Gotta Admit, I'm Kinda Proud of Myself....

First of all, this is another extension of this post from last year about keeping a clean house. So, I have never professed to be a neat-nick kind of person. And with a toddler running around, things haven't gotten better. While I don't consider myself a slob, I have really struggled to keep my house clean.

A lot of people would say to worry more about taking care of Eli, and coming baby, than worrying about my house. However, I have to respond back that I am the manager of two complexes, and my apartment doubles as the office for both. So I kind of have to, or at least feel extra pressure, to keep at least my front room clean. Unfortunately, my "front room" consists of the dining room, living room and kitchen area. All visible from the front door. As manager a need to set a good impression, but I have struggled to keep this area tidy. Well, I think I have found a solution!

When we were married, we agreed that whoever cooked, the other person did the dishes. This works often, except when David is extra busy or tired, etc. Then dishes would get left until I was eventually ready to just do them myself. So to help this issue, I originally thought that if I "clean as I go" when I cook, that might help him feel less overwhelmed by the dishes. Well that idea quickly extended. It has now become me being really vigilant about keeping up on the dishes throughout the day. Amazingly enough, this doesn't take a ton of time during the day. The dishes stay in control, and we are only running the dishwasher once a day, twice at most.

I have managed to have a clean, or mostly clean, kitchen for almost 3 weeks! And the clean kitchen has magically extended into the dining room as well. Now I don't feel so bad when tenants, etc come over because I have a clean table for them to sit at, and I don't have piles of dishes on the kitchen counter. Like I said, I'm pretty pleased with myself. And the fact that it doesn't take much time and effort throughout the day means that I actually can do it!

Now... keeping the living room clean from toys? Completely different story.... :)

Baby Bump and Haircut

So I have not been as diligent about taking Baby Bump photos this pregnancy. The best I can do is show you a "before" picture and a current photo.

Before: I was about 4 weeks pregnant here. I was hoping I was pregnant, but didn't know yet. This was taken during family photos at our McKee McCall Ski Trip in January.

And this is today. I will be 17 weeks tomorrow. Oh, and this is my new hair cut.

I know, I know. I am barely even showing, and I have a few other pregnant friends who are mad at me for it. Sorry? sorta...

My friend Kirsten cut my hair last night. It is kinda hard to tell from the picture, but it has choppy layers all the way up. I love it! My hair was at least halfway down my back (imagine that it came to about 3-4 inches above my elbow in the picture). I could no longer do anything with it, and I wanted a change. It is so fun, and I'm pretty sure I lost a couple pounds from her chopping it all off. :)

Tulip Festival

There is a gorgeous Tulip Festival about 30 minutes from our home. We have been saying, for at least the last 2 years, that we should go. Well this year, we made it! We went the second weekend in April, and it was perfect timing. All of the Tulips were out and blooming, in all their glory. We had a wonderful time as a little family. :)