Random's

Random Pics ~ Random Thoughts:

Weather has been wet here.  LOTS of rain... LOTS of time spent indoors.  Seems like every day last week it rained... non... stop.  Yesterday I ran a few errands and I saw so many hoses coming out of basements spewing water out and garbage bins full of wet carpet and other water damaged items.  This is our first spring in this house and we didn't have ANY water!  Woot woot!

I've been working on lots of little projects.... I think I'll do a separate post on this later.  So far I have made a wreath, redone a couple of old stained glass window cabinet doors, finished sewing curtains for the bedroom, painted a stool, transplanted and trimmed rose bushes, repainted a couple of flower stands, painted a mirror frame... that MAY be all for now.  I do feel like I'm missing something....here's a before of one of my projects...

Makenzie has been VERY busy... she finds ALL the trouble.  Being cooped up in the house with the rain wears on ya.  We had a couple of days of really nice weather and were outside a LOT of the day.  Thank GOD!  Today is kind of a yucky day and she just wants out.  She is tired of being at home. 

Matt has a huge list of projects that he is working on. 

Making dinner is difficult in this house... I have to pee every 5 mins it seems like, so I go quite often during making dinner and always come back and seems like something is missing...

My plants are doing fantastic in the basement!  The tomato plants look great!  I have 9 good looking plants.  The green peppers are a bit poky... not sure how they will turn out yet.  Jalapeno plants are looking good too!

We planted our potatoes and onions in the garden.

I'm so anti animal right now... Ruger (who was in Makenzie's room while she was sleeping) just threw up all over.  And of course it woke Makenzie up and she is ticked!  We have learned not to wake her up.... if you do she is horrible!  So she's got the mad cry going on right now and I'm crossing my fingers she falls back asleep.  Our cat has WAY too much hair and it ends up all over everything.  Gross.  The bunnies are eating my tulips that I planted.

I like ducks... we had ducks in our yard with all the rain...

Contractions come and go.... I over did it one day last week and spent the next 3 days having quite a bit and in a good chunk of pain. 

There's a giant spider on our basement stairs... I needed to go down stairs to get some meat out of the freezer.  Scratch that idea! 

A neighborhood girl was wandering out in the rain yesterday, not at school, her hair was died pink.  She's probably 6 or 7.  Hmm....

To the Butterflies!

Blogging has taken the back burner for awhile over here... and it will probably continue to do so.  I think I am working on getting into that nesting stage and am craming in all these little projects that I wanted to get done before the baby.  So Makenzie's nap times (my blogging time) have been working on these projects, getting some chores done around the house, or just resting.  IF I had a lap top I could rest and blog at the same time :-)  But we don't! 

A few weekends ago we ventured out to go see the butterfly exhibit at the Frederick Meijer Garden's!  We had been wanting to do that for awhile but were waiting for some nice weather so we could do the outdoor activities as well.  Unfortunately, Mother Nature isn't cooperating too well this spring and we headed out in the snow.  I was kind of worried that it wouldn't take us long to go thru there and it may be a wasted trip, but it turned out great!! 

Looking at the caterpillar in his new "home"!

Can you find the two in here?

Where are the "wormies"?

Makenzie had a great time spending time looking for the caterpillers and watching them wiggle around.  Then we headed into the room with the butterflies and whew!  She was in awe!  You can't touch them and she so desperately wanted to chase after them and catch them.  We were actually there for quite a bit and had a great time.

Look at those blue eyes!!

I was waiting for this one to open up... the other side of the wings are bright blue!

They had butterflies hatching too!  We watched a butterfly come out of it's cocoon!  

When we were done we had a little picnic lunch in the truck and then headed back home... in the snow...

Ultrasound #2 - Healthy Baby!

Last Thursday we had our follow up ultrasound on the cyst that they found on the baby's brain.  Matt and I weren't too worried about it because our doctor has been in the business for a LONG time and has never had a bad situation with these.  So, we decided to have a fun family night. 

Matt met Makenzie and I at the hospital, where they played for a bit.  We were SO excited to "show" Makenzie the baby that is in Mommy's tummy.  She was into it for about 2 mins and then totally over it :-)  I don't think she really liked me laying on the table.  LOL, she kept wanting to hug me and get closer. 

We ended up leaving with two pictures, this ultrasound tech wasn't nearly as good as the last one was.  We did get another foot pic!  Yup, the baby is sure growing!

                     19 Weeks:                  23 Weeks:
Weight:            .6 lbs                         1.5 lbs    The baby doubled!!!
Foot Length:    3 cm                           4.3 cm

Fun little stats!  Wish we could do that every 4 weeks!  This past Monday I then had my dr's appointment and the dr was right.  Nothing to worry about, all the cyst were gone! 

After the ultrasound we headed to a local restaurant downtown for some burgers and fries!  Yum yum!!  What we DID forget... is they are known for their malts and shakes.... we left without getting one!  Crazy... I know.  Just an excuse to get back there :0)

Just Ducky

 Sunday night we headed over to a park to feed the ducks!  Makenzie had a blast!  I love how she talks to them.... although... she doesn't pronounce ducks or quacks right.  An "f" is thrown in there :0)  So if you hear something a little off in the video it's that "f"!  Her quacks sound more like "facks".  You get the picture!

First Weekend in April

We didn't have a whole lot going on this past weekend.  Saturday was a chilly (a spring chilly!) and cloudy day.  Sunday started out cloudy and in the afternoon the sun came out!

This was the first Sat AM in about a month that Matt was home (he's been fishing), so it was SUPER nice having him get Makenzie up.  She seriously almost can jump to the moon she gets just SO excited when she sees Daddy walk in her room in the morning to get her out of her crib.  Precious little memories!  I made some french toast for breakfast while Matt and Makenzie snuggled on the couch watching some.... fishing.  LOL!  Hey at least he's home right!!  Haha! 

After we pretty much demo'd a whole loaf of bread Ruger, Makenzie and I all headed to the bathroom.  I was on bath duty and Matt surprised me by mopping the floor!  Once the whole fam was clean we headed off to the library to play.  I so WISH I had brought my camera along.  Makenzie took Matt right to the toys and puzzles and then to where she normally sits at the table that is just above the ground.  Next thing I know, Matt has pulled out a chair and HE is sitting on it at the table doing a puzzle with Makenzie.  LOL!  I almost died laughing.  The tops of his work boots were about to the top of the table.  6 foot 5 man at a table maybe a foot and a half off the ground.  Haha... good Daddy!!

That afternoon we spent outside working on landscaping.  Makenzie took about a 20 min nap then headed outside with her shades and shovel!

Break time!

Done with this chair!

I want this chair!

Hmmm... tight fit.

Let's open the door some more.

There we go.  Pull!!!

Alright, back to break time.

Ahhhh....

 LOL!  I was cracking up watching Makenzie swap chairs. 

For dinner we made a Taco Pizza.  (We love making pizza with Makenzie!)

This is what happens at my house if you are in the middle of making dinner and need to step away for a min!  When you come back there is ALWAYS food missing!

Sunday AM was church then we did a quick lunch and Matt headed off to Lake MI to get skunked fishing.  Makenzie napped for the afternoon and I worked on making Lasagna for dinner and a little project that I'll post about later!

Spring IS Coming!

Last Friday my sister and I, both bored with the kids and looking for something to do... decided to bring spring to us!  We packed the kids up and headed to Hobby Lobby where we bought some clay pots, then headed to a local garden center to buy some pansies.  This garden center has a 40 year old monkey that the kids got to enjoy too!!  Once we were over looking at the monkey, we wandered to the other side of the center and let the kids (and Lisa & I too) pick out some pansies.

We headed back to my house, did a quick lunch and then threw on the paint shirts!  The kids painted their pots and then we were going to plant the flowers in them.  What fun!  LOL, and a LOT of work.  2 2 year olds I swear the only thing Lisa and I kept saying was "don't paint over your hand print"..." No!  Hey... don't paint there."  Live and learn... next time we will have the kids put their hand prints on when they are DONE painting.  

The pots turned out so stinkin' cute!  Each pot has a little hand print on it.  The kids played while we cleaned up and chatted then we headed outside to plant the flowers!

They did a good job, eh?!?

I don't have anything springy or colorful coming up in my yard yet, so I am SOOOO happy to have these colorful pansies to look at.  And just love the little Kenzie hand prints.  :0)

My Wonderful Wednesday!!

My husband is the GREATEST!!  Really.  The first few months of this pregnancy he had to pretty much do EVERYTHING around the house... on top of working 50 hrs a week.  Of course he would complain here and there but not much!  And it's not like it was just a few days or a few weeks!  I'm talking a couple of months here that he had to do all that. 

I've been able to pick everything back up again, but now with these contractions he comes home from work and will ask me if there is anything that he can help with... or if I want him to do the grocery shopping!!  Is that love or what??

Well last week... during my Trying Week, Matt surprised me by scheduling me for a prenatal massage, which was yesterday!  He set it all up and even set up my sister to come watch Makenzie for the afternoon!!!  (Thank you Katie!!)  I was SOOOO excited.  It was my first body massage and I didn't have to be back to the house until 4:30ish!  Sweet sweet sweet.

So at 1 I got my hour long prenatal massage.  It was just wonderful!  It could have been a tinsy bit more relaxing if the baby hadn't decided it was time to do it's aerobics :-)  LOL!  Go figure!  After that (don't judge me!) I headed to McDonald's for a large fry with LOTS of ketchup.  Then headed to Captian Sundae (only the best icecream place around here) for a Cookie Dough Flurry and headed to the beach.  Once there I ate all my food and enjoyed being in the sunshine.  It's obviously still too cold in Michigan to sit at the beach so I sat in the car with the windows cracked and I baked!

I spent about an hour and a half there just relaxing, eating and reading.  Loved it!  Thank you Matthew!!!

23 Weeks!!

23 Weeks down!  WaHoo!! These past four weeks went really fast.  That's good and bad. 

Good because being pregnant isn't something I especially like.  Many woman don't have any problems and my problems I don't think are that bad.  But it's enough that it makes for a big change in everything that I do, not only for me, but what I can do for my family (which gets less and less). 

Bad because we just have a few months left with the three of us... I do want to savor that and I do want to enjoy being pregnant.  (I'm pretty sure we won't be having more kids!!!)

So here's the skinny...

Week 23
Weight Gain: 24 lbs.  I decided today that I am going to try to change what I am eating to lots of veggies.  I'm to the point in my pregnancy where my whole body hurts almost all the time.  SO, maybe if I ate REALLY good I won't gain as much weight and be as miserable?  We'll see... I really don't think I eat that bad.... besides the sweets.

Cravings: Sugar! Sweets! Chocolate!  I am losing control!!

Energy:  Same... I'm good until after Makenzie goes to bed.  Then I'm a giant couch potato thinking of how I can get my hubby to go bring me food :-)
Sleeping:  Better, I have a couple of positions that I can sleep like a baby in.  It's just the getting into a new position that's the bummer.
Feeling Baby:  I feel the baby move more during the days than during the night!  Which makes the sleeping a LOT better. 
Baby & Makenzie: Makenzie is totally off the pacifier now!  So SAD.  She just looks so stinkin' cute with it snuggled with her blanky in her crib.  Man, I think that was harder for Matt and I to get use to than her.  Next step... big girl bed!  (She did get big girl panties for Easter.... so we'll see!)

Braxton Hicks:  I was having TOO many of these contractions... so last week the Dr had me come in to make sure nothing was progressing!  Thankfully I haven't but he did warn me that if I don't SLOW IT DOWN they will progress into something.  I had been "trying" to put my blinders on and ignore all my pregnancy side effects thinking that would make me enjoy the pregnancy more and be a better wife and mama!  So, once I took the blinders off I could feel that I was getting the braxton hicks quite a bit during the day and then for a few hours each night.  Yikes!  Now once I feel myself getting the contractions I do my best to finish what I'm doing and put my feet up and rest.
      Normally I try to get everything done at the begining of the week so I can enjoy and relax at the end of the week.  But I just have to get over that and just do a little bit of housework and laundry each day.  Gotta do what ya gotta do eh!

April Fool's:
Matt helped me mop the floors last night...  His April Fool's joke was me smearing peanut butter around the cookie container.  So, when he went to open the lid he got PB all over his fingers then went to wash his hands off and I had the spray nozzle rubber banded so he (actually we) had a nice cool shower!  I looked around and the floors (which were in DESPERATE need of cleaning) were all wet... perfect!  So we grabbed the mop and scrubbed the floors.  Genious!

So that's the scoop.  I'll leave ya with a shot of Miss Makenzie!