Lighting of the Commons

...at Oklahoma Christian which we actually didn't make the "lighting" part.  But we DID make it for a sit on Santa's lap and some crazy times running through Christmas lights with one of our BFF's Ava.

Her new-to-her winter jacket complete with hat and gloves. She looks thrilled!

I can do it!

 She was nervous to walk the "line" and kept shuffling across.  But she made it!!

Must lay down in every public place.  Although her jacket is so poofy, she had trouble getting up!

Future OC roommates checking their mail!!

Well, at least there were no tears.

Let the holiday season begin!!

Heaven in Your Mouth

At Thanksgiving, I didn't think to bring my camera to take pictures.  But I did think to have my cousin's husband forward me this recipe of the most amazing dip ever to meet your tastebuds.  I think I could have eaten it as my whole meal and would have been extremely happy.

Jalapeño dip recipe 

2 cream cheese blocks, softened 

1 cup sour cream 

2 cans chopped green chilies 

1 chopped jalapeño (the kind in the jar) 

1 bag of Parmesan cheese 

1 can of quartered artichoke hearts in the can, chopped up  

Mix together and bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes.

Sounds easy to make and trust me, your mouth will appreciate every bite.  It was delicious on crackers or tortilla chips.  This might have to be a staple at Thanksgiving...and every week at the Cornell house.

Straight Up Ugly

If you've ever been to my house (or even if you haven't) you probably know about my hatred of our dining room light.  To me, it's the 1970's ugliest creation and it's been hanging in our house since we moved in well over a year ago.  This light was on my to-get-rid-of-immediately but other projects took time and money first.

 When Justin was gone hunting, I decided it was time to look into finding a new one.  Renovation Station (Habitat for Humanity) sometimes has some good finds so I went down and hooray!  I found this gem.

It's in a "Antique Copper" finish, but I am not scared of a bottle (or two) of spray paint.

Finished product!  It took us awhile to get it up and how we like it and I might have broken a piece in my attempts to do things while Justin was away, but all in all, we got it up and I think it is an 1000% improvement over the ugly we had there.

And I paid less than $55 for it all.  Beat that Home Depot.

Thankfulness

I love that there is a holiday set aside to remember how thankful we are - for our freedom, for our family, for our health... I wish I was more thankful everyday though.  Just for the small things that I usually tend to take for granted.  So, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I want to document the things that I'm thankful for at this point in my life!

1. My husband and the fact that he is an active, LOVING father who works so HARD for Haylie and I!
2. My sweet Haylie even though I can complain about her and her crazy attitude, I love that little girl to pieces.
3. My healthy pregnancy so far - 2 more months and I can meet this little guy!
4. Great friends that I can call at any point during the day for advice, just to chat, to complain, etc.
5. My family - immediate and extended.

So, naturally those are the big things. 

I'm also thankful for music that can bring back many fond memories.  For Facebook so I can keep connected with friends.  For dishwashers because mine recently broke and I know what it's like to wash everything by hand.  For Elmo & Baby Einstein who can make my little girl happy when nothing else can.  For nieces and nephews who love Haylie and can make her smile at the sound of their names.  For cats who come sit on me every time I sit down. For crayons and colored pencils so we can get through church service.  For new light fixtures that can take your dining room from the 1970's straight to the 2000's.  For warm weather days in November.

I could keep going.  But most of all, I am thankful for God who loves me unconditionally and sends me reminders every single day.

I am blessed.

Elmo's Poopy

This morning Haylie had a really nasty poopy diaper (I know, great intro - just keep reading).  Well, I try to make a big deal about how gross it is to go poo-poo in your diaper just in case she wanted to try sitting on the big potty.  Anyway, we left it at that and I went on trying to get her ready for Sonshine School.  A few minutes later, she has gathered these three things:

 The bag of wipes, a diaper and Elmo.

That's right, apparently Elmo went poopy and needed a diaper change.

I laughed and kept going about getting her stuff ready when I see this:

Pretty adamant about that diaper, huh Haylie!

She was only satisfied once Elmo got his new diaper on.

I guess I need to put Elmo's potty training on my list of "to-do's".

Parent Fail

Being a single parent since last Thursday hasn't been so bad.  But having days in a row of being responsible for everything, I think that my brain stopped working when I was woken up last night at 11pm.  Knowing my child didn't have much to eat that day, I should have thought she could be hungry.  I'm almost positive she is teething but since I didn't give her Tylenol before she went down to bed, I should have thought she might be in pain due to teeth.  After a pretty long day of misery of teething or something, I should have at least thought these things to prevent the worst sleep night of my life.

She woke up screaming (as she did the night before) and  I had been asleep for *maybe* 30 minutes when this woke me up.  Since it wasn't subsiding, I went to go check on her.  She was sitting up in bed.  Normally I can pick her up, rock her for a few minutes and then put her down (as I did the night before).  Not this time.  So, since I was dead tired and she clinging for dear life to me and screaming bloody murder whenever I tried to put her down, I took her to my bed where I thought I was going to be asphyxiated because of the weight of her head on my neck- that was the only place she found acceptable to sleep at this point.  Needless to say, not much sleep was in the future for me.  She finally rolled over where I would have my breathing back to normal, but she kept kicking me in the stomach...which in turn made baby IN my stomach wiggle even more.  After a few hours of nodding in and out of sleep due to H constantly moving, kicking, and crying I hear this THUNK.  That's right, Haylie wormed her way so far over that she finally fell off the bed and hit the nightstand.  Oh man.  Drama, drama, drama.

Finally, my brain clicked on and we got up, got Tylenol, got milk and got into bed.  We still had a few hours of sleep and I was determined at this point to get just a little more.  She drained the milk & passed out.  Once she woke up fairly happy, I realized that we both could have had a pretty good nights sleep if I just would have thought of those things before putting her to bed.

Parent fail.

28 Weeks

For Haylie's pregnancy, I took a belly shot pretty regularly.  It wasn't every week, but I do recall posing for quite a few before 28 weeks.

Sadly, for this little guy, this is the first one.  I feel like I'm showing & carrying the same so maybe he won't notice if I just put copies of the 1st go round in his Belly Book.

Pregnancy Highlights:

Due Date: February 2, 2012

How far along: 28 weeks (3rd trimester is here...yikes!)

Size of baby: small cabbage (17 in, 2.9 lbs according to my iPhone app)

Gender: BOY!

Cravings: anything at this point sounds good.  I love to get a soda as often as possible, cherry coke preferable.  

Sleep: I randomly wake up.  Sometimes due to leg cramps, sometimes I guess the baby is moving, who knows.  I'm tired though.  A lot.

Symptoms: Weird nerve pressure in my lower region.  I can't stand up too long or else...it gets bad.  Working out is slowly going by the way-side.  Putting on shoes is also proving to be more difficult at this stage.

Movement: He moves a lot and has found a nice place right under my ribs to poke and kick.  He moves less than Haylie did though so I'm hoping that is foreshadowing a calmer baby.

Best moments: I love going to the dr to hear his heartbeat.  We are also getting a 3D/4D ultrasound at the end of this month.

And because I'm getting asked a lot, he still doesn't have a name.  I'm about to hold a contest for who can come up with a name for our baby (and have both J & I agree on it!)

Easy as 1, 2, 3

Yeah. Right.  Our master bath is finally to a point where it's usable. We still have quite a bit to do, but that will have to come in time.  Painting, putting back on the baseboards, getting a new countertop (when we do the kitchen), etc...but the 3 T's are done - the TILE, the TEXTURING, and the TOILET.  HOORAY!!!!!!

BEFORE:

Yellow ceramic 4x4 tiles, mixed with a little mold.  It's okay to throw up a little.  I just did.

DURING:

Looking better already!

AFTER:

TA-DA!!!  Justin did ALL the plumbing, tile work, electrical for the light, texturing...this is truly his bathroom.

The floor - brick pattern

My magic toilet.

We got a Kohler self-closing lid toilet and I am in love.  I couldn't wait for it to be installed.  Now instead of running across the house in the middle of the night, I can pee right in my own bathroom.  (TMI?? Sorry.)

My mom has asked me about 3 times if I'm getting a new shower curtain.  Should I take the hint?  I might, if I find the right one.  But at this point, I'm just so happy to have our bathroom put back together!

Sadly, our work is not over.  We still have bare concrete floors and nasty carpet to rip up.  We are just pacing ourselves...and our budget.

Haylie's Space

I realized I never blogged about Haylie's big girl room.  I know everyone is just dying to see it...in all it's pink glory.  Looking at these pictures, it's not a very "kiddy" room.  My "shabby chic" kind of turned into "grandma chic", but I like it regardless!!

I wasn't really happy with the way I had hung some of the wall stuff, so until I found my inspiration and re-did it, well, I guess I just let it go off my blogging radar.

Haylie's little nook.  She loves sitting in her chair, reading books by the window and looking at her cousins' pictures.  I have a blank frame up that will eventually get filled with our family pictures or something - maybe her brother when he arrives.  I'm not very good at frame murals so this is what I came up with.

The dresser.  This was originally in the guest room but we needed space for the crib.  Every girl loves to have a big mirror - so it was a perfect switch.  She loves to stand on her bed, look in the mirror and say, "pretty."  We might need to work on her ego before it inflates too much.

Notice her new lamp shade.  I love that thing with all my heart.

And her bed.  I took this awhile ago when I had the quilt all pretty.  Now its rumpled at the bottom of her bed and a mix of Elmo's and bears are taking over her sleeping space. 

Her transition to this new bed has been surprisingly easy.  We did take off the safety rail for awhile because we thought she was "just that big", but a few nights of finding her on the floor convinced us to put it back up.  We are so gracious.

Jackpot

Saturday was an unusual day where we didn't have separate schedules and actually had a relaxing morning.  I suggested that we do something (because why would we ever just sit around enjoying the morning?!) and thought maybe we could hit up some garage sales.  Well, I'm glad we did.  We hit the jackpot!  We rolled up on this sale (and actually found my mom and Evie at the same sale) and she pointed out this chair that had a price tag of $15.  It was this recliner chair that was a nice tan color and looked in near perfect condition.  The only problem - the part where you put your feet up on was broken.  Regardless, we paid the man $10 (because we don't ever pay full price if we don't have to) and thus Justin had a new Saturday project.

Instead of installing a toilet (which happened too), he worked all afternoon on fixing this near perfect LazyBoy recliner.  Well, he is a master at fixing anything and had it all fixed up by Sunday.  It was the highlight of his weekend and he couldn't wait to fall asleep on Sunday afternoon in his new recliner while watching football.

He might have told me I'm not allowed to sit in it because it's a LazyBOY and not a LazyGIRL, but what he doesn't know is that I might be blogging in his chair right now.

Let's Do This...

I feel like there is a lot to blog about, but I'm too lazy to divide them up into separate posts (plus, that might be just ridiculous.)  So let's just do this.

Last Saturday, one of the Bible Study babies and Haylie's good friend Brixton had his 2 year old birthday party!  It was a perfect day and a good time!  His mom Chellie made our cupcakes, but check out this piece of awesome-ness she made for him.  She should start a bakery.

She wanted to play in the sand, but yet, didn't want to play IN it.

3 of the 4 bible study babies!!

After the party, we raced home to get ready to go to Justin's co-worker's wedding at the Chesapeake Boathouse.  The bride was so pretty, but weddings just aren't as much fun when you both don't know them.

They had a chocolate/candy table where we immediately ruined Haylie's dinner and gave her chocolate which was promptly smeared all over her mouth and white dress.

Then, because you can't get away from Halloween posts quite yet, Haylie went trick or treating with Mickey and Minnie and thus added greatly to our already overflowing candy bowl!

Because you were all wondering what I decided to do with my board, I found a few frames at the local Goodwill and made a place where I can put Haylie's artwork she makes at Sonshine School!  (Thanks, Maria for the idea!)

Lastly, we got Haylie's school picture back this week.  I absolutely LOVE IT!!!!!!  EXCEPT - I hate the background.  Who picked this out and what were they thinking??  I know her outfit isn't exactly "fallish" but I didn't know we were going to be photographed with a background from 1992.

This weekend we are finishing lots of projects.  I'm so hopeful that my next post will be highlighting our new master bathroom!