Owl Baby

Our friend Andrew saw me trying to sell yarn projects at the Church Christmas Craft bazaar. He asked me if I could make an owl blanket and hat for his baby nephew's Christmas gift. So I did.

He was very pleased.

I think I just helped him to win Uncle of the Year award at his family Christmas this year.

Cake Party

I have been in party hosting withdrawal. Our house has been such a mess with construction we haven't been able to have people over. But last week we did it anyway to have a cake party. Lots of people are having parties to reveal if their baby is a boy or a girl. Commonly the inside of the cake is colored blue or pink. BUT since Josh wanted his sister to make the cake I said it wouldn't be fair for her to know first so we had one of Josh's favorite kinds of cake and planned a party! Here is the cake.

It was a huge 12x18" chocolate cake with strawberry filling between the two layers. Even with all of our family helping us, we still hardly ate half of it at our BABY BOY party!

Everybody had to cast a vote before they got a piece of cake. We had eleven votes for boy, four for girl, and the following unique votes.

Missionary, one of each, 1/2 vote for boy and girl and the 

name suggestions of 

Boy:Bill 

Girl:Pansy.

We had a fun time celebrating together and we all look forward to seeing a holding our new baby.

Drywall lady

We have been putting up a lot of drywall. Which means I've been doing a lot of mud and sand work.  I don't like it...but it will be good in the end. Here I am (taking a break from working on the ceiling) trying to keep my hair from looking like I'm 70!

all dolled up

Panel

Josh and his Dad worked on insulating and preparing for new siding around the electrical panel on our house. They put this cool PVC board on the wall so the siding guys don't have to do so much work around all the individual boxes and we have good insulating foam on our wall!

taking off the old stuff

Josh's handywork

Dahlia

The deer finally left me one Dahlia in my garden!

Baby Bumping...

This is a video I took this morning. I really think it exaggerates the size of my belly right now because I have only gained four pounds...

It takes a couple of seconds, but I'm holding my breath the whole time. Flip isn't!

For those of you who are wondering...here is a video of my baby belly and why I have nicknamed him Flip! Today was my 16 week check up and the doctor was surprised at how active the baby is this early in the pregnancy.

P.S. we don't know if the baby is a girl or boy yet, I'm just saying he because it sounds better than it

Front Windows

Ever since we bought our house we've been planning to replace the front windows. I wanted to keep them as large as possible, but Josh wanted them smaller. We settled on a 6 foot casement style window group. It was the biggest I could convince Josh to order. I lost six feet of window :( but gained a MUCH better quality window in its place.

Josh taking out the old windows, they were big, heavy, broken, and custom built.

Libby and Naomi helped me take off the siding while Josh did the window.
(we are getting new insulation and siding up on the house)

Josh framing in the new opening

Josh's nice neat hole in the front of our house

The new window (inside of the house view)

From Julie

Thanks for shopping for the baby and I! (sorry my bathroom is under construction so the mirror isn't too great. :(

 

 

visit my great sister's blog to see what she got for me

http://juliezambia.blogspot.com/2016/09/maternity-shopping.html

Frankenmuth

Poor Mom no longer has any preschoolers to take on adventures. So I filled in for a day and we went to Frankenmuth. Libby was our driver and photographer and laughed at us for our preschool day. We went to the farthest out of town fudge shop, and poor Libby wasn't sure we could walk that far. We knew why they had a coupon for a slice of free fudge with purchase...

We took my dirty wool to the woolen mill for them to clean and prepare it for batting and roving. That might make some Christmas presents.

We walked through the little shops area and did obey the signs that said "Do not allow children to swirl around on chairs and tables." It was hard, but Libby and I obeyed. :)

I had to pop my head into the shop called "Funky Skunk." Neither Libby nor Mom felt so inclined.

At the castle shops we viewed all the "babies" in the nursery. We ohhed and ahhed over the doll faces and cute sizes. We left them all there, for now.

We ate snacks and had a great time together.

We wanted to go to the toy store....it has a great selection of Melissa and Doug toys....but we will have to save that shop for another time.

When we went to pose for this picture a very nice passer-by-lady offered to take the photo so that Libby could be in it too, but Libby assured her that she was just fine.

Oh well. Not everyone is able to maintain the fun adventure style of being a preschooler with their Mom!

Mom and I at the visitors center

Baby Bump

Start of week 13. 

Josh was able to come with me to my Doctor appointment this Monday. It was fun to see his smile when we got to hear the heart beat! The Doctor said our baby was flipping around and moving a lot. Everything seems good and although the scale says I lost three pounds in four weeks, I don't think my belly says that. But its okay. Ice cream here I come!

New Niece

Josh's sister just had a baby last week. We hope to go meet her tomorrow. Jessi (new Mommy) says she doesn't want to put her down so I'm not sure how much of a chance we will get to hold our new niece, but I'm pretty sure she will share!

Raspberries

Amy shared some of her lovely crop of berries with me. 

So yummy!

Living Room Progress

Josh's sister and Dad came over last night. They bought us pizza for dinner and helped tear off the drywall that needs, replaced, re-insulated and rewired. It was hot dirty work and I was SO tickled that they came and did it with us.

picture from my iPhone (my camera is broken right now)

Also Josh screwed up the drooping ceiling drywall so now it won't fall down on our heads with the two feet of insulation it has up on top.

First Baby Picture

So for those of you who are interested...Here is the first "picture" of our baby.

This really truly is an 8 week old baby, I even saw the heart pulsating and heard it through the ultrasound. The doctor said everything looks great and we are on track for an April 10th delivery date.

If you are like me you have no idea what is supposed to be what this is what the Doctor told me. 

The black arrow points to the head, the red arrows point to the arms and the yellow area points to the end. If you still can't tell...don't worry, it took awhile for her to explain it to me too. 

The actual baby length today is 1.9cm.

Project

I'm making a collection of snowflakes. Here are a couple.

p.s. check back Thursday morning for a super cool post.

Canning

Last week while Julie was visiting, the two of us spent some quality time with Dad picking his LONG rows of cucumbers. Later on our parents helped Julie freeze corn, and Mom helped Julie pick blueberries to take back to Pennsylvania.  The last two days Mom has been helping me with canning peaches and relish.

When I was recently lamenting the terrible deer/rabbit problem with my garden plot, my friend asked me, "Don't your parents have enough in their garden?" And yes they do. I've recently been realizing that we have those really cool parents now. The ones that are retired, have a huge garden, and help all their kids put away food all summer!

I'm just saying world, you should be jealous.

relish on the left and pickles on the right

fifty one beautiful quarts of peaches!

New Bedroom Door

I recently re-finished the door to our bedroom and with some help from Josh, hung it up! 

Its an adjustment to sleep behind a closed door….after just having a sheet there for the past year!

It is so great!

Inside

Outside

Nurses Week

These packages came from a local nursing home to all of us!

Holland Michigan

Downtown Holland has quite a few sculptures along its streets. This one caught our eye.

Me and Ben :)

My love for farmer's market made this visit our first event of the day for my Birthday.

Farmer's Market

This huge tulip farm is still run by the ninety year old farmer.
He loves tulips.

These tulips already looked "old."

Josh trying on clogs. He didn't get this pair.

straw roof at the tulip farm

Great Grandma's House

Josh was kind enough to help me search for my Great-Grandma's house in Holland, Michigan. Thanks to Uncle Keith (he told me it was on 9th street), we had no problem finding it. We parked over at the park and then walked across the street to get this picture.

Little Dolls

Amy found this pattern on Etsy

Naomi put the faces on them

Drywall Progress

framed in kitchen utility closet

fresh drywall

first load of mud

trying to make progress

Eventually I'm sure I will have the mud ready to paint in my kitchen, but for now I slowly putts along seam by seam, spot by spot, corner by corner.

Tile

Aaron came over and finished putting up the tile in our tub.

Julie is coming

i got something for her

New Front Door

Saturday we had a project day out our house. LOTS of work got done! Once Josh's project was finished he asked if Logan wanted to help put in the front door....Josh said I would get everything we needed. I quickly found the shims, exterior screws, caulk, etc.

old door

tear out

installation

new door

While Josh and Logan went and got some door trim, Brian and Dad figured out how to put the door knob and dead bolt in properly. I was super glad for that, because I don't really like doing door knobs.

p.s. When I got home from work last night, Josh had painted the trim....so I now need an updated picture!

New pattern

Libby found a new pattern for me to try. It was supposed to be a bunny, but.....

Oh well. I still think it's cute.