weekend fun

Last weekend we spent some good time OUTSIDE!! I was so glad not to have to dress the kids in multiple layers and jackets or be stuck inside watching blah weather. (It even feels a bit weird saying somethign like that)It has finally warmed up here and it was gorgeous. My mom came out to see the kids and they had a blast playing in the back yard. I just love some of their expressions!

This is Cole's sidekick companion...he LOVES this horse. ( well, anything horse- notice his boots too!?)  He rides it, carries it, and yes, it comes to bed with him. He and "stick pony"  are inseperable.

We spent Sunday afternoon making Valentine cupcakes...it's not such a big holiday in our house because Brian and I have never made a big deal out of it but I knew the kids would love making something fun so we did pink cupcakes and sprinkles. They did such a good job!

And my favorite part were these-the kids made Brian and I Valentine's last week and gave them to us on Monday morning! I just adore them and think they are so special.

These are Riley's:

This is Cole's :

and last, but definitely not least, Chelsea posted a second sneek peek of our pictures she took for us if you want to check them out. I am SO SO SO pleased with them!! Click here!

33 weeks

Pregnancy highlights:

How far along? Today I am 33 weeks!

Size of baby: Ryann is the size of a pineapple and about 4 lbs

Total weight gain: 23 lbs.

                                   Maternity clothes: most definitely- except these pants I have on are normal (love my Bella Band!!)  but usually I wear all maternity every day. Although I am running out of options on bottoms.

Gender: a sweet little girl: Ryann Elizabeth

Movement: mostly in the evening or when I'm trying to sleep!

I am getting feet sticking out on my left side and big moves that feel like rolls.

What I Miss: Sleeping through the night ( potty breaks are starting)

and sleeping on my stomach! Or maybe being able to bend over and not gasping for air.

Cravings: Lately it's been tangelos ( ever had them!? They are so good)...

but tonight my milkshake craving will be put to rest...for now!

Symptoms: a few Braxton Hicks and some pressure. Not a whole lot.

The usual winter/pregnancy related congestion that clogs me up at night and apparently makes me snore. HA!

Best moment this week: besides the movement!?...the nursery. It's coming right along

 and I am so excited!! I have all these ideas in my head and I can't wait to put them all together! Just ready to get it all done and stuff put back in the room.

I must give a shout out to my hubby (and "Boppy", my FIL, who re-textured all the walls for us!) who has spent the last 3-4 weekends in Ryann's room working hard. He's spent Friday nights, Saturdays, and given up his Sunday naps (that's BIG ya'll) and watching the playoffs in the last few weeks ( that may be BIGGER)  to be up there working.  The window is done, the walls are primed and painted, he has fixed the walls inside her closet which had some minor dings and holes and repainted it all.

I think this weekend we he may be doing new doors!

What's left? baseboards, crown, and some woodwork.

So what have I done? well, when it comes to the work...NOTHING. I've been a good supervisor and distractor. When it comes to the decorative elements...that's more my area. I went with  green, pink, and white. We have her bedding, curtains, and some decorative accessories.

I have so many ideas in my head of what I could do/want to do....all it takes is money right!? LOL.

I'll leave you with  a sample of the wall color:

 

Family photos!

Last Saturday we spent a few hours down at Hermann Park because we needed some more recent family pictures of the 4.5 of us. In my last post, I mentioned that we were doing them with Chelsea Davis, a friend's sister in law who does a fabulous job!

She met us down there and was so patient getting the shots that she wanted. She spent a long time with us and went through 3 memory cards! Needless to say, I think Cole gave her a run for her money and made her work for it. Once we got down there, he was so excited about the train and all the squirrels running around, that's all he wanted to do. He did cooperate at first, then decided that running and chasing squirrels and finding sticks was much more fun than taking a thousand pictures with us. He's all boy, what can I say!? As one friend put it when I explained this to her she said, " Typical boy. Typical Cole." I think that sums it up about perfectly. Even at 2 the boy knows what he wants and when we wants to do something. I call it the pitbull approach. He locks his jaw on something and that's it. ( I'm gonna go ahead and point the finger at dad on that one. Sorry Brian). Now of course I had it all planned out...you know with the outfits and what he was going to change into for a different look when Riley changed her outfit. Nope, didn't happen. Oh well, as long as he was happy so I let it slide. I guess changing into a nicer shirt that mom wanted wasn't so important. Chelsea still got some great shots of him and the kids together and I am so super pleased with what I've seen so far! I've seen some of the others from her camera and i can't wait until they're done!

So, she's posted a sneek peek on her blog....wanna see!?

Yeah, I thought so.... go ahead and click here!

photography give away

Just wanted to share a little something great with everyone! My dear friend Lindsey's sister-in-law has started her own photography business: Chelsea Davis Photography! We already have her booked for a maternity/family session next weekend ( which I am SUPER excited about) and she has graciously decided to do a give away for a photo session!

She truly has an eye for the camera has tons of talent. Who doesn't like love great pics of your family and kiddos!? She is giving away two regular photography sessions ( for two hours and up to 4 people) for HALF price! Great deal! All you have to do is go to her blog and enter!


You should enter...you won't be disappointed!


Oh wait! Did I mention she also has her own paper/invitation design company? Yep, she's very talented at that too! She designed Cole's 2nd Birthday invites which I LOVED all from me basically kind of telling her just the theme of what I wanted and a few ideas. You can check out all of her paper goodies here!

a sneak peek!

Today we got a sneak peek at our little baby girl! I am 30 weeks today and so we had a 4D ultrasound done and she is such a cutie! She was so cooperative that it was very easy to get LOTS of pictures of her! She is just perfect with her ten little fingers and ten little toes.

She's also was a busy little thing smiling at us and sticking her tongue out. She stuck her toes in her mouth and curled up and was sleeping just like I do with her hands tucked right under her chin. I can't believe we only have 10 weeks to go "officially" before we get to meet her.

Here is a current belly pic of me:

I am feeling pretty good still for the most part. Some days I feel like I have NO room left to grow- I guess just because of the way she moves around and postions herself sometimes I feel like it is hard to breathe, even though I'm not really trying to get air...if that makes sense. Sometimes I get told it looks like I swallowed a basketball because I am "small" and other days kids at school tell me, " Mrs. Peterson, you're really getting big!" Ha ha. Love the honest truth coming from a 4th grader.

She's got her feet in my side and her bottom up towards the top of my rib cage so I still get the hard kicks and jabs, but I am now starting to get the "belly rolls" where your whole belly just looks like a bunch of weird movements. Ten weeks are going to go by so fast that I will quickly miss these moments.

It seems like just a couple months ago that stick turned positive and she was saying " Surprise!"

nursery progress

Today began a new phase of "honey-do's"... we officially started working on Ryann's room. Hooray!! I am ashamed to say that her room did not always look like this:

 In fact, it used to be organized and clean and well, used as a guest bedroom. It did have a bedspread, nightstand, lamp, and floor space.You could walk around the bed, there wasn't random stuff piled in there like bassinets and a crib and well, all that crap baby stuff and bags from Target on the bed. It somehow became a storage "dump everything in here and deal with it later" room in the last 9 months. My sister in law was here not even a year ago and it was clean.
In fact, I know how it happened: Riley grew out of her toddler bed and we got her a new big bed this summer. Then I cleaned out her closet and started piling stuff in here and the cycle began. Just for the record, this behavior is not typically me. Just to put it out there. I normally can't stand anything in excess that accumulates.

BUT! today it got cleaned out. We decided not to rip out the sheetrock down to the studs like we did in Riley and Cole's room and re-do EVERYTHING. I just didn't want to mess with it. ( I say it as if I am the one who always did the work.)

I'm just about sure ( well, I know) Brian is probably tired of me nagging him to get started. It seems my urge to have it done/organized/clean/girly (does that qualify as nesting?) has kicked into high gear. Throw in a few hormonal surges at 30 weeks pregnant about design ideas and I can only imagine what he may be thinking. (ahem, crazy, pregnant wife that is anal retentive and has a running list of "to-do's"). Luckily, being the great guy he is, he seems to "forget" those moments. I guess I feel like the next 10 weeks will be here before we know it and I hate getting stuff done at the last minute. I've got baby stuff everywhere.

So today the room got a new window:
                          
It is super nice to have a handy man around but I wouldn't probably advise that most take this approach:

 he got as much as he could out cleanly...and the rest went on the roof and back porch. His dad showed up to give a helping hand and voila!

 and just for giggles...this is what the room looked like when we bought the house. It was probably the most "un-wallpapered" room in the entire house. Just one wall of library books. Lovely.

We are going to add crown moulding and new baseboards, then re-paint. So that is coming soon enough. I am going to try and keep documenting the progress. But, I am excited about some ideas I have and the colors we chose.

Pismo Beach, Part II

Did I say somewhere in my last post that we spent a week in Pismo Beach? I can't remember so if it's redundant, sorry! Pismo is a very quiet beach town- more of a touristy town, rather than probably a permanent spot for most, but their were some fantastic houses! Prices were high, but no surprise there, it's California. brian and I went to the grocery store to buy a few snacks for the room during the week- ha ha, what a joke. We are so lucky here.  Here's a summary of what we bought:

• a small pack of diapers
• 12 pk of root beer (to appease the preggo)
• grapes
• fruit snacks
• string cheese
• 12 pk water
• travel size contact lens solution
• half gallon of milk
• triscuits

That's it! Our total was $63!! My jaw dropped when the poor guy hit total, but I laughed. He asked us if we had a  "super saver" type card for the discounts to which I said, " Um, no, but if you wouldn't mind, you could enter yours" and he obliged so we walked away spending about $50. Yes, I expected it but it was kind of jaw dropping to compare the prices. I have no idea how people live out there.

The weather was pretty good - low 40's in the mornings, highs in the 60's and sunny- for the most part. And beautiful sunsets! With all the rain in LA and california that had been happening, I think we all thought we'd get more than we actually did. It rained and rained and the winds howled on Christmas Day but the other days were great.

Brian and I packed up the kids on one of our first afternoons and decided to head North on the Pacific Coast Highway and see what we could find. We tried to do some exploring on our own and happened to

stumble across some tide pools further down the beach..

 

I just loved this house up on the cliff...personally, I was wishing I had their view every morning.

On the way back into town, we found this great little park- with a beachview!- and the kids had a blast! We let them run around for about 30 minutes and burn off some more energy. They loved this digger and we had to pry their little fingers off of it when it was time to go.

Daddy had a great time making them dizzy...Riley didn't hold on too well the first time and she flew right off, got up with the giggles, and jumped right back on. I just love their expressions.

and...at the end of day after day looking at the gorgeous beach ...this was our view at sunset from our room: