Decorating of the Twinkle Box

Over the last few days of play in our twinkle box, we've decided that we needed a little color in our lives.  The bland, boring walls of cardboard just weren't doing it for us, so we decided to perform a little home renovation by painting the walls and floor (and dog) with a fresh coat (or two or three) of paint!

BEFORE: Bland, boring.

The arteest gets a feel for the space.

She chooses her first color and starts the renovation!

Deciding on the next color...

As an artist, concentration is key!

So is color mixing.

Once again Jack wonders what the heck is going on now.

Grape jelly or paint mixture?  You be the judge.

Clearly freedom of expression is what art is all about,
and if it takes fully immersing oneself in the medium to feel
the next movement, then so be it.

Choosing yet another color!

While concentration is key, so is letting go!

Adding a splash of color to the floor...

...and the dog!

AFTER: A masterpiece in the making!  I'm sure we'll
pick up more painting in the next day or two!

The arteest of the hour then proceeded to jump around the kitchen and run around the house threatening to plant her grape jelly covered hands on our gray couch.  Apparently that needs some color too!

We were able to prevent the couch coloring and got washed up in a bath while we let our masterpiece dry!

Our Twinkle Box

We bought a couple sets of twinkle lights to make a canopy over Kate's bed in her bedroom.  Since we have not yet made said canopy, we have a couple sets of twinkle lights laying around the house!  In my opinion, you can never have too many twinkle lights and they are not just for Christmas, so when we started playing in our new trash bin box, we had the bright idea (pun intended) of adding some twinkle lights to make it even more fantastic!  This was so simple and Kate has LOVED playing in her box since!

Jack wonders what project we are up to now...

Our box door has been cut and Kate is eager to test it out!

Yep, works like a charm!

Kate partakes in our twinkle light testing to be sure our lights work!

While Mommy partakes in the punching of the holes in the box
roof with a Phillips Head screwdriver.  I counted the holes as I
punched so we'd have enough for all of the lights.

And then I pushed the tips of the lights through the little
holes in the roof to start our twinkling!

It looks like it takes a while but this entire project took less
than 20 minutes.

I then taped the roof of the box on the sides because
it had been opened and cut a little handle in the door.

We plugged our twinkle box in and set a little cushion at
the bottom!

Kate added her blanket...

And her backpack...and herself...and has made it just like home!

We need to get a little extension cord because I did not think of leaving any sort of slack in our lights and plugged them all in the top of the box.  This hasn't left very much opportunity to plug our twinkle box in anywhere other than RIGHT NEXT to an outlet but it still works and it is still super fun to play in!  I actually kind of what to get a bigger box and do this again so that I can play in it too!

I imagine our twinkle box will be a favorite place for the next week or two and I can't wait until we do have a bigger box!  Then again, I suppose I'll be bigger at that point too...

Car Wash Creatures

We live in central Ohio.  That means winters are freezing cold and sometimes snowy.  When inclement weather does make its appearance, roads are covered in salt in preparation of hazardous conditions.  For those of us that drive on these salted roads, you know how quickly a car of any color can turn salt white.  This is the situation we were graced with: a salty white car.

What's more is when you are carrying a bunch of items or just a purse and a child and/or attempting to maneuver your pregnant self out of the car in the very tight parking spaces at your child's daycare, or anywhere for that matter, you very quickly find that this salt ends up getting EVERYWHERE.  Your coat, your boots, your purse, your bags of groceries...your child...everywhere.

Since my normal dark-ish gray car turned a salty white, and the temperatures were above freezing for 24 hours, Kate and I decided we'd stop by the car wash on the way home from school.

It dawned on me that this was Kate's first time at an automatic car wash!  And I personally thought she'd enjoy it!  What I didn't think about was how frightening a bunch of large sea like creatures coming straight toward you and engulfing you might be to a two-something year old.  The moment the car wash started, Kate became silent and her eyes got SO BIG.  Like, I have never seen her eyes this wide, people!  She didn't ask questions, she didn't laugh, she didn't cry, she just experienced sheer two year old terror for a few minutes...

What the?!  Mommy, there's something coming toward our car...

And it's on the right...

And the left!

She hunkered down in her car seat and stayed like this
for the whole wash.

Bless her dear little heart.  Of course the car wash would be scary as a first timer.  It would probably scare me too, but I'll tell you what, Kate has asked to go to the car wash every day after school for a week now!  Perhaps it was the lollipop that she received at the start of the wash, perhaps it actually ended up being fun.  We did survive car wash creatures after all!  I imagine in just a few car wash visits, Kate will be a seasoned pro at tackling these fellas!  Plus a little bribe with a lollipop will pretty much win Kate over anything these days!

First Little Flutters

When I was pregnant with Kate, it took me all the way to 19 weeks to confirm her little movements!  By then she was the size of a grapefruit.  As of today, marking just over 14 weeks, I have confirmed the little movements of our second baby, who is just the size of a small peach!  Our sweet little peach is already making sure he or she is heard over his or her older sister, and over my coworkers in meetings!  I guess when you're the second child you've really got to be extra loud to make sure you are heard/seen/felt.  Well, Baby #2 has already grabbed our attention!

And, just for the record, being able to feel baby move has made me a lot more excited for this pregnancy!

FAQ on Baby #2

Since the cat is officially out of the bag, we thought we'd answer some frequently asked questions about Baby #2.

1. Were you trying to have another baby?
Yes, we were.  We started trying with Kate and got pregnant on our third month of trying.  I had read countless articles that stated it typically takes twice as long to get pregnant the second time, so I had fully expected us to be trying for at least six months.  Turns out the third time's the charm for us because we got pregnant on our third month of trying with this pregnancy too!

2. How many kids do you want to have?
If you ask Brian, he will say 2.  He is more than happy to make this the last baby in our household.  [Insert me sobbing here at that very thought.]  If you ask me, you'll get a much more vague answer: I don't know.  My initial thoughts are 2 or 3, but I came from a family of 4, so...who knows?  I'd like to take one step at a time before I say a definite number and then get locked in stone to that number.

3. Do you have a preference on the gender?
Yes, yes, and yes, if we are being honest.  Seeing more pink in our future would delight us to no end.  I say this for a few reasons: 1.) When this baby arrives, we will have almost 3 years worth of girls clothes.  That's a lot of clothes!  2.) If we are only going to have two children, I would love for Kate to have a sister.  I know that she can have a great relationship with a brother, because I am part of that type of relationship too, but there's something really special about sisters, so that's what I would hope for.  And, 3.) it's what we know.  This pregnancy has been a bit overwhelming and a bit more frightening than the first so if we are having another little girl, that would make me feel a bit more at ease.  It's a "we've done this, we've got this" kind of sign for me.

4.  Are you excited?
I joke when people ask me this question.  My response has been, "Actually, I'm terrified.".  But it's kind of true.  I have so many emotions right now.  I am scared how this will affect Kate.  I am worried that I won't have enough time for either of my babes and I know that means absolutely no time for me.  I worry how this will change my relationship with Kate, for we are extremely close now.  I wonder how I will juggle it all, successfully.  A lot of my terrified-ness comes from my unknown and my concern for Kate.  I know we will all be transitioning to a family of four and I know that we wanted this, but, for some reason, it's a bit scarier when it's actually happening.  I know it will all work out like it should.  Sometimes it's just easier said than done.

If any other questions arise, we will start adding them.  Until then, stay posted for more baby news!

One More Gift

As the holiday season comes to an end, we have one more gift to share: we are having another baby.  Another baby!  Another wonderful, beautiful, new baby!  And he or she will be all ours come sometime mid-July!

We are nearing the end of the first trimester and I would say this pregnancy has been more or less identical to the pregnancy I had with Kate so far.  I've had less tenderness/soreness in my breasts than I did with the first pregnancy (perhaps they are now used to what breastfeeding entails?!) and I've had less afternoon/evening nausea than I did during my first pregnancy (perhaps my body is accustomed to the surge of hormones now!?), except over the last week I started having pretty consistent 24/7 nausea which is really uncomfortable.  I'm hoping this is fleeting since we are nearing the end of our twelve week mark.  Other than that it has been very similar.

I feel a lot more tired being pregnant for the second round but during the first round I wasn't chasing around a toddler, so that very well may be what is causing the extra exhaustion!  We have confirmed there is only one bambino residing on board the mother ship so my tiredness is not due to muliples for those of you wondering...

We had our first doctors appointment on December 4th where we confirmed we were expecting and confirmed this pregnancy was a singleton.  We also confirmed our due date of July 16th, based on baby's size and my last missed period.

1st appointment/1st ultrasound: approx. 7.5 weeks.  Heart beat was 150.
Confirmation of one bambino.  (Phew!)  ;)

And on the last day of 2014, we had our level 1 ultrasound with the Maternal Fetal Medicine group and got to see a lot more of our confirmed healthy, growing bambino!

2nd ultrasound: approx. 12.5 weeks.

And check out how cute this little baby is stretching and getting cozy in utero:

The ultrasound technician said baby was already snuggling up against Mommy!  Do we have another Mama's girl in there or is it a Mama's boy?!  Seeing our little baby snuggle up against me melted my heart.  I mean, it was one of the most adorable things I have ever seen!  ❤  We have already fallen in love.

Snuggled and cozy!  Mommy's here sweet baby! 

So, that's it!  Now you know why I have been going to bed at an ungodly early hour, leaving my "Erin-time"/blog time dwindling to absolutely zero throughout the day.  That's a fair excuse, right?!  We're making a baby over here, people!

Stay tuned!  We'll be sharing more as the pregnancy continues and finding out if we will be decorating in blue or more pink come sometime in February!

A Series of Unfortunate Events

I touched on this briefly in our 2014 recap but I felt the need to elaborate a bit more.  By a series of unfortunate events, we are WAY BEHIND on our blog posts.  I mentioned in the last post we are four months behind (gasp!).  I really have nothing other than a list of very viable, very real excuses about our posts...or lack thereof.

Fall started out with us getting semi-caught up with our blog.  But when September came, our Just Be Productions business was offered what seemed like a great opportunity to film an event so we took this opportunity.  What this meant was filming, then preparing a video, then producing, printing and delivering said video.  We anticipated this process to take 3 weeks.  It ended up taking 16(!!!), and to be honest, I'm not even quite sure that it is complete.  [Sigh.]  This client has put us through the wringer and has literally tested our patience.  It really has been an unfortunate event.

Then, October came and with that came the planning, preparing, and hosting of Kate's 2nd birthday.  I don't know that we will always have a themed birthday party.  I don't know that we will always decorate our house full of said themed items, but throughout the two birthdays we have celebrated, I have made each and every decoration that adorns our walls, mirrors, ceiling, and fireplace.  And I'm proud of it.  It's something I like to do and it allows my creativity to flow freely.  So, while the event certainly was not unfortunate, the timing of said event was.  Couple that with the difficulties we had been experiencing with our film client and it made for yet another...unfortunate event.

As most of you know, November and December seem to appear and disappear in the blink of an eye no matter what you have going on.  The holiday season months are a blur.  I'm sure I've got pictures to remember what we did.  Other than that, all I can say is we lived through it.  Couple that with the fact that I had started going to bed at an ungodly early hour (more on that later!) and Brian had more or less been travelling non-stop since the beginning of December, leaving Kate and me to fiend for ourselves, we were still handling our film client, and we were Christmas shopping, packing for our Maryland trip and juggling that time that is still so elusive, that left for...Yep, you guessed it: a series of unfortunate events.

In addition to all of these unfortunate events, my camera broke AND my phone broke at almost the same time, leaving me helpless with no way to take pictures and document our daily moments.

Fortunately, however, we are back up and running!  AND, I have a new camera and a new phone just in case!

How, do you ask, do we plan to remedy this issue of our missing posts?  My goal here is to keep our current lives up to date while slowly filling in the details of the last quarter of 2014.  So, if you'd like to get caught up in that last quarter, stay tuned and check back often.  (I make no promises on a deadline to have this completed.)

I know it can be done.  It's just going to take some time.  I'm missing out on one of the things that I enjoy the most (blogging) and it's about time I figured out a way to incorporate it again.

If you've not gathered, I'm kind of glad 2014 is over.  I'm very much looking forward to 2015!  It's gonna be big!  Real big!

Just you wait!