Christmas 2011

December flew by...didn't it? Christmas has come and gone and I completely forgot to post the one thing that has made me the happiest this holiday season. I found out the week of Christmas that I was NOT gestationally diabetic with this pregnancy. I'm thankful that I won't have to have all the extra tests and ultrasounds. This saves us money and headache with scheduling and being stuck at the doctor for hours on end. I'm also super stoked I don't have to drink the larger fluid for the 3 hour test they would have me do if my results had been positive for diabetes! Hallelujah!

We celebrated our Christmas on Christmas Eve with Ben's parents. Then Sunday we celebrated again with our Ben's family away from home at the fire hall. The crew that he works with right now has been my favorite by far. They embody the term family. These guys look out for one another, serve one another and all try to be understanding of one another's idiosyncrasies. The shift is being moved around AGAIN come the first of the year and I'm going to truly miss Ben working with this crew. It was nice to have one last big hoorrah with the crew before it changes in January. We even found out later that day that of all the crews working on Christmas day, Ben's station was the only crew that organized a dinner and family get together. It just really shows the kind of crew these guys are. Anyway...then we went to visit and celebrate with my family. It was a wonderful weekend and Alli loved EVERYTHING everyone got for her. She got so much in fact that she can't possibly play with it all. I need to organize her room and donate some older items to make room for her new toys.

Hope the new year is bright for all!

Santa's Little Helper

I hope Shannon doesn't mind me posting this but I had so much fun helping her make this that I wanted to share with my extended family. Shannon wanted to make this adorable playhouse for her girls for Christmas and I helped her sew it. I hate the idea of cutting all this out but maybe one of these will be in the future for our kids...It will have to wait though. I have too many things I need to sew first before the baby gets here and I want some time to think of things to go on the play house that would be interesting for both a girl and a boy.

Doorway with mailbox that opens and closes.

Apple tree where the girls can pick the apples and put them in the basket.

Dog house with a door to crawl through...I think the dog is adorable.

And finally, the window with curtains and flowers

Once I finished it, Ben thought it looked really neat and said Alli would love one. So maybe I'll get creative in a few months after Ethan (yes we decided on the name Ethan...Ethan Gabriel Smith) is born and figure out how I want to do one of these. Hope everyone is looking forward to the upcoming holidays. I've made a few of the kids gifts, so I hope that they like them. Merry Christmas!

"Pupper" love

Alli loves "Pupper". Pepper is very tolerant to Alli rolling all over her and today was no different.

Dining Room Changes

Our dining room/breakfast nook has always been a forgotten area in the house. The official dining room (according to the builder) is technically the front room when you walk in from the front door. We don't like that as a dining room so we've always used the breakfast nook. We've always wanted to do something to set it apart as the "dining room" but don't have a traditional room to do a lot of the nice things you can do in other house. So we thought it would be a nice touch to do a faux board and batten like what we did in our 1/2 bath. Eventually we will do crown molding in the whole downstairs but for now we thought this was a cheap and quick fix that would help set the eating area apart.

BEFORE

FRAMING the board and batten look

AFTER
We really like how it turned out. I don't have it pictured here but we also did this to the mini sections of drywall to each side of the pantry door. So now this has totally sectioned off our "dining area".

Next on our to do list is the Kitchen Remodel:
Tile back splash
New sink
New Faucet
Install garbage disposal (house came pre-wired for disposal but didn't have one installed)
Replace awful overhead light
One day down the road switch out our white appliances for black/stainless look to match the dishwasher we got on a super deal last spring.

Focusing on being thankful

I'll start this with a few pictures from our fun today. Ben found this play tent at Burlington while I was shopping for maternity clothes today. We had a feeling Alli would love it and we were right.

The blanket we put in for padding turned into Alli's blanket for "night night".

The final two smiles sum up the focus of this post. We've had quite a few things going on this week that could cause distractions, be taxing or bring us down but we've made a point to focus on the positive and be thankful. One of the most taxing things on me lately is that Alli has officially become the 2 year old that I hear most mothers complaining about. Alli's always been a good sleeper...she's 99% of the time well behaved and I'm so thankful for that. I posted back on Monday about Alli realizing she can now get out of her bed and open her door. This new found freedom has switched some thought process in her brain in regards to her sleep and the routine we "used" to have. This is where I have grown frustrated.

For the last 4-5 nights we've done our normal routine which usually put Alli in the mindset of bedtime and even though she might not want to go to bed, she was ok with it. Now this routine means nothing. As soon as Alli knows we're getting her ready for bed, the waterworks begin. Alli becomes extremely emotional and wants nothing to do with it. As soon as we say goodnight and shut the door, Alli gets out of bed and tries to come downstairs. We played this game the first night but the second night we had to lock her in her room to get her to realize bedtime is bedtime. She gets mad for about 5 minutes but then settles in and goes to bed. I don't like locking her in. So that second night I went back and unlocked her door after she went to sleep. Well this only resulted in Alli coming into my room in the middle of the night thinking it was time to get up. I had to snuggle with her for a minute and then get her back to bed. My sleep is broken enough as it is pregnant that I can't handle it. So we've had to leave it locked all night. Between the battle at bedtime and Alli's broken sleep, we've had an abnormally cranky toddler to deal with. Today was by far the worst. Alli whined all day long and I knew it was a result of no sleep so I couldn't be mad at her. It was so nice and refreshing to see her smile and laugh when she played in her tent. It made me smile and be thankful for such a wonderful little girl. She is a blessing and no matter how cranky she or I can get going through this stage, I'm trying to remember this and handle this stage with patience.

"ok, night night, bye bye"

Today was a day for a few firsts for Alli. Ever since being in her toddler bed, Alli has remained in bed until we come get her. This holds true even if she has been lying awake in bed for 30 minutes playing with her stuffed animals. Ben has been home the last three days and it has been wonderful. I think it played with Alli's mind though and she expected daddy to be home again today. I heard Alli wake up around 7:15 and got out of bed. I went to the bathroom to get my contacts. While in the bathroom, I hear a loud bang. The dogs didn't bark so I just chalked it up as a strange noise and went on. Shortly after I hear my bedroom door slam closed. Now this can happen if the door isn't shut all the way and the A/C or heat kicks on. But I knew that door was closed because I hadn't opened it yet. So as I'm thinking "who in the world is coming into my bedroom", in pops Alli's little head. I was shocked (yet relieved at the same time). So I told her good morning. She then asks me, "daddy?" I told her, "No baby, daddy is at work today. You are home with me today." She then says, "ok, night night, bye bye" and shuts the bathroom door. I couldn't help but laugh to myself. Then I called out to her and she opened the door back up. I asked her if she wanted to stay up. She then said no and tried to shut the door again. I followed her out and she ran down to her bedroom. When we got to her bedroom, she shut me out and went to lay on her bed. I turned on her monitor to watch her for a minute. She tucked herself back in bed and laid there for a few minutes. I guess she decided mommy was enough for today and got back out of bed asking to play. Ben and I both got a good laugh out of this this morning and we thought we would share. I told Ben that the days of Alli staying in bed were over. She did well going down for a nap so we'll see what she does when she wakes up.

Another first for Alli today was finding more independence. We spend a lot of time downstairs and therefore don't get to play much in her room. This morning I told Alli, instead of bringing some of her toys downstairs, why don't we go and get breakfast, then come back upstairs to play. She liked this idea and when we came back upstairs she immediately went for her toys. I turned her bedroom light on so she wouldn't be afraid to go in and out. I went to get a shower and to my shock, she pretty much left me alone the whole time and played in the her room or in my bedroom. I'm glad to see her achieving independence. It would be nice to be able to work on some crafts in my bedroom while Alli plays in her room.....yay!

Happy Halloween

Alli borrowed this fun red/white tutu from Shannon for Halloween this year. I tried wings on her in the store and she didn't like them on her back so we just let her go with the tutu and just have some fun. Here she is below with some new foam toys we got at the dollar bin at Target. She loves to rough house with these! Watch out puppies! (Seriously considered letting her go as "Alli warrior princess"
Alli really seemed to enjoy getting candy from all of our neighbors. We walked with a huge group of people from our street. It was a fun night!

Happy Halloween!

Boy vs. Girl

Well first I will start with the ultrasound pictures. There were only a couple good ones so here they are.

Face and hand....although hard to see when he was buried away from the ultrasound.

Face

And...the money shot.

I'm not sure how to express my feelings on us having a boy other than I was a little surprised. I'm not sure why. I've had an inkling that this baby was going to be a boy just because of some of the differences with this pregnancy. We are happy either way and it will be nice to have a boy and a girl. As I mentioned this pregnancy has had some differences. I think for my own personal record, I'll post the comparison.

Alli:

• Sick 4-6 weeks (24/7 nausea)
• Gained 17 lbs total
• Normal appetite except when I was sick
• No noticeable food cravings other than milk...couldn't get enough milk
• Allergies weren't bad and didn't get bad sinus headaches
  

Baby Boy

• Sick 1.5 weeks (wasn't 24/7 nausea but just an occasional feeling)
• I'm 19 weeks and already gained 11 lbs
• Hungry all the flipping time!!!
  
• Craving meat a lot - especially burgers...
• Allergies are HORRIBLE and have terrible sinus/migraine headaches that last 2-3 days. All I can take is tylenol and that just doesn't cut it.
  

The pregnancies also share some similarities:

• Both babies were stubborn and buried so deep during the 19 week ultrasound that I have had to return for a second ultrasound for further review. Alli stayed low the entire pregnancy. Not sure if this one will too
• Constant fatigue. They say you lose energy during 1st and 3rd trimester but the 2nd you should feel great...yeah...NOT SO MUCH! I think my Achilles heel is my allergy/sinus problem. I can't be on my normal allergy medicine while pregnant and what I can take just isn't strong enough. The end of summer and fall has killed me in regards to the dry dust and wind blowing around whatever is blooming.

Anyway, so there's the scoop. We are contemplating the name Gabrial. Normally this name is seen spelled Gabriel but in our family history the ancestors name was spelled with an A...so who knows. Anyway we haven't figured out a middle name that works with Gabrial yet. Also, I've determined the middle name cannot start with an A. We don't need our child having the initials "GAS". So there ya go. :)

Bedtime Fun

We love it when daddy is home and a typical bedtime routine for us always includes some fun. The most recent addition to the routine appeared one night when Ben was checking out his sleeping bags in the closet. Ben has a wild idea which looks painful to me but Alli LOVES it. Enjoy!

One of my favorite things at night is sitting with Alli and reading through some of her books. Recently she started reading with me on one particular book "Moo Baa LaLaLa". Alli loves the books by this author and this one might be her favorite. The first time she read along with me just made me laugh so much. So I hope you guys enjoy it too.

Final note...we find out the gender on baby 2 tomorrow...stay tuned. :)

Come on fall!

Our family is so ready for Fall!!! I've loved the days that I can dress in long sleeves. A week ago we were visiting the fire hall and Ben showed us their newest resident. A stray kitten had made its way to the fire hall and had been hanging around for 4 days. Alli became infatuated with this kitten. Ben saw the way Alli was playing with this kitten and immediately fear struck in...haha "oh no...I foresee her wanting a cat when she's older." He's enjoyed not having cats and a litter box around the house :) I love kittens though, so it was nice to have 30 minutes or so to play with a cute cuddly kitten. The funniest part of this story was that while the guys were gone on a call, some off duty fire fighters showed up to man the station. During this time the kitten climbed into one of the guy's truck. No one knew this had happened and he unknowingly took the kitten home with him! haha. He called the firehall and told them hey I got your cat. He asked if they wanted him to bring it back and they said....hah no its your cat now. :) Hopefully he called PAWS in Murfreesboro and found it a good home.

Here is a cute snapshot Ben was able to get of Alli playing in the backyard on one of the cooler nights we had a week or so ago.

Conference Weekend

As I get older, I really look forward to General Conference. This weekend was no different. Friday we were running a bunch of errands around town and the check engine light came on in my car. Ben got an appointment at Mazda and they set to work on figuring out what was wrong with it. We have an extended warranty on the car and figured anything that was wrong would be covered minus our deductible. They determined that the actuator motor went out (now forgive me here as I'm not a mechanic and I may not remember all the terminology or details specifically to the T). Anyway, this thing controls a lot of stuff and absolutely had to be fixed but it is on the underside of the engine so there would be a lot of labor involved to get to it. They said we were lucky that it didn't run the timing belt when it went out. So they called the warranty company to make sure we got everything covered and the warranty company decided to be a pain. They didn't think we had enough routine maintenance records and work done on the vehicle. So they wanted Mazda to strip down the engine enough to get to what needs to be fixed and take a picture. If there was "sludge buildup" then they weren't going to cover the repairs under warranty. So we were potentially facing $2500 in repairs....if there was sludge... This unfortunately is where we were left hanging Friday afternoon. It wouldn't be until Monday that they could have the car stripped down and get back on the phone with the warranty company.

I prayed all weekend that the Lord would help us. I was in a fog all Friday evening stressing over the impending costs that could lay ahead of us. I NEEDED conference. I needed the uplifting words and spirit that only the Prophet and Apostles could bring. It was so refreshing to sit down Saturday and Sunday and be so inspired by their encouragement, their laughter, their faith and their love.

I was anxious today to hear about the car. We finally got tired of waiting around and called the dealership around 2 pm. They gave us an update on the car and said yeah they are replacing the timing belt now....Our jaws dropped...WHAT!?! We hadn't been told the timing belt was ruined. So Ben asked the obvious question in our minds. "So I'm assuming the warranty came through and we are approved for all these repairs since you are replacing the timing belt without having called us first?" The guy on the phone said..."oh yeah I spoke with your warranty group this morning and it was approved. Once we got everything taken apart we realized that the timing belt had been ruined and needed replacing."

So needless to say, after that phone conversation where we realized the $2500 in repairs quickly jumped much higher....I was saying many prayers of thanks! Hopefully I will have my car back on Wednesday and it will be good as new! Ugh...repairs! Some days I hate being an adult!

Day 2 and Slaying the Dragon

Much to our surprise and amazement Alli slept the whole night in her new bed. At one point as we were getting ready for bed, we realized she had her legs hanging off the bed. This woke her up and it took her a good minute to adjust her body to where she wasn't falling off and then she went back to sleep. I was fully expecting her to cry out and need us to go in to her bedroom. She is so used to not being able to get out of bed due to being in a crib for 2 years and never climbing out, that she doesn't get out of bed even after waking up in the morning! Nap time went well too and she didn't cry very long at all before settling in and going to sleep. So far tonight she is doing even better and had quit crying before I'd made it half way down the stairs! We're so incredibly proud of her!

Tonight we went to visit daddy at work. One of his co-workers had been working on a mock wall with a window hole in it. Fire week is coming up and they do a huge open house for the community to bring awareness to fire prevention. Anyway, this mock wall has fake flames made out of wood and set up on hinges so that the kids can spray the fire and be just like the fire fighters. It is a really cute set up and he had just finished it while we were there. Being like big kids, they had to test it out. Alli go her chance to slay the dragon (a term sometimes used in fire fighting) too.

Night 1

We ran out of time yesterday to move Alli's room around and did the switch this afternoon. Alli loves her bed which is helpful but this summer has been disastrous for her sleep schedule. We haven't had a consistent bed time for at least 2 months. So the last few weeks putting Alli to bed in the crib have involved a lot of crying and us having to walk out of the room to let her soothe herself. I knew that the new bed would add an extra level of emotion for her.

We continued out regular routine but as soon as we got close to getting her in bed where we sing songs she lost it and cried. We sang anyway and told her we loved her. We told her to go lay in her bed and we left the room. It was so hard to leave her unhappy but I can't rock her to sleep. Alli has never been a child who liked rocking. We watched her on the monitor and although she isn't happy, she went straight to her bed and hasn't moved. I'm sure it won't always be this way but we hope she will eventually find peace and comfort with the new situation and enjoy bedtime. I don't think it's easy for any toddler.

So here are some pictures of her new room layout.

Here is the other room/nursery. I'm so excited to be able to fit the rocker/recliner in with the baby room!! Once we know the gender, then we can paint and finish decorating. I still need to move all of Alli's things out of the changer table but I'm not immediately worried about that.

Transition Time

As many of you already know, I've been debating for a long time which bed would be the best for our space and for Alli to transition to. After going through numerous ideas (transitioning Alli's crib to a day bed/bed, buying a twin bed or day bed/trundle) we finally settled on keeping Alli in her room but reusing the crib for the new baby. So we are going to move the crib and the changer table/dresser to the other room. Alli will keep her tall dresser and we will get her a new bed. We initially decided against a toddler bed because it uses the crib mattress and Alli would grow out of it quickly, but after looking at costs of beds and potentially not finding one to match her cherry dresser, we found a toddler bed at Walmart that was pretty and cherry. It was SUPER affordable and once we got it home, we realized the cherry matched her dresser perfectly! We are hoping this bed will work for Alli until the next baby is ready to use it and then we will upgrade Alli to a bigger bed.

Last night Alli helped her daddy build her bed. She hasn't understood what getting a new bed really meant but I think as the process went a long in building it, she realized what was happening.
Alli built with her blocks while daddy built the bed.

Headboard/footboard

Alli wanted to help put the screws in

The finished look

As soon as the mattress was on the bed, Alli grabbed her pacifier and blankets and hopped onto the bed.

We didn't let her sleep on it last night because it isn't in her room yet. We still have to move the crib out but it was so late by the time we finished the bed that we needed to get Alli in bed. We will try the new bed out on Saturday when Ben is off to help me move the crib out and get her room situated. I'm excited that Alli loves the bed. We hope this will help the transition be smoother.

Sisters in town

Ben's sisters and brother in law Don were in town this week and we were able to go visit twice in Winchester while they were in. The weather was beautiful and we spent a lot of time outside. The kids all loved the bubbles. Alli was practically running the entire time we were there in Winchester. I love the wide open space of the farm. Every time we visit we realize how much we miss the peace and quiet serenity of the farm and country life.
Showing a little love for big ole Moroni!
My favorite new picture. This just captures her fun spirit and beauty.
Like I said, this girl practically ran the entire time. Grammy and Papa took all three little ones on a mile walk right before we came home Sunday night. They said Alli ran 3/4 of the way. She didn't seem tired at all once she made it back to us at the house. I want an OUNCE of that energy!
Special time with daddy...
On a side note having nothing to do with this post...I just bought an apple corer/slicer...It's my new favorite gadget! Alli doesn't like apple peels and therefore didn't want to eat apples. So I got this bad boy for a decent price and it makes life oh so simple. Now I don't spend 10 minutes peeling an apple and wasting parts....plus Alli loves it! This things makes it so quick and easy that I want to try making an apple pie or cobbler soon. I used it the other night for fried apples and it seriously saved me 30 minutes. That is so worth the $18!

Driving miss Diva

Today we went for a quick trip into town and told Alli we would put the windows down since it was a beautiful day out. Ben noticed as we were pulling out that the sun was in her face. I recalled that her sunglasses were still in the truck, so I reached behind and gave them to her. Now normally her sunglasses only last a moment on her face and then she is pulling them up into her hair like I do once I walk inside and don't need them on my face any more. I've never seen her wear the glasses for any length of time. She realized today the benefit of the glasses keeping the sun out of her face. She thought it was funny that all three of us had sunglasses on and she kept them on all the way to Walmart....she then wore them into walmart for 5-10 minutes. haha. Here are some funny Diva-ish pictures.