Our Life

So we've had a busy couple of months full of activity and fun.  The girls have grown a lot since February and so have I!  We are looking forward to meeting baby Kate when she arrives within the next couple of weeks.  

So now for a photo dump, which is always fun :)

In February I was able to design and put together our Valentine's Day card.  We totally missed the boat in December, but it worked out fine, as we were able to know the sex of our baby by then and do a fun little reveal along with our family card.  I always thought it would be fun to not tell people until we knew we were in the "clear" more so and also knew the gender, and I feel lucky that Ellie didn't blow the "secret" premature.  In fact, with how much she likes to talk, it really is amazing she never told anybody because she talked about it a lot at home.  Anywho, the scratch off stickers turned out great--you can buy them super cheap on amazon.

Abby is getting so spunky and really loves her smoothie.  I love the round cup mark on her face from trying to get every last drop.

Abby also thinks that Ellie's underwear make a great hat.  I have to be sure to snatch up Ellie's dirty undies immediately or they end up here, which is absolutely disgusting.  She raids the dresser drawer of underwear and can sometimes be found trying to wear several at once.

We had it lucky for so long.  Ellie was so "not into stuff" and listened soooo much better than Abby does at this age.  Abby is so opposite.  Always climbing and getting into stuff she knows she is not supposed to touch.  After catching her all week, I got really sick of picking this chess board up and so I took all the pieces and shelves off.  We really don't want to lose the pieces.

Funny sister moment.  Abby thought it was so hilarious.  I love it when they have laughing moments like this.  Ellie is always good at getting Abby to laugh, and then it just goes on and on...

The girls posing for a picture.

Abby wearing another fashionable underwear hat.  Sometimes she really likes the challenge of not seeing and moving around.  She does it more with her blanket now and walks around carefully.

This was some funny independent play time to witness.  All the Little People were helping the baby.  Notice her baby is missing a leg.  Well, not too much longer after this, the other leg busted off.  Wonder why?  Let's just say she treats her dolls pretty rough.  They are acrobats a lot of the time.

I love this picture.  Ellie drew our family.  I love her stick figures.  I'm the one on the right with baby Kate in my tummy.  Dad has four eyes or something, and Ellie and Abby are down on the bottom left in blue and yellow.  She was pretty proud.

Outdoor playtime in March.  At preschool that morning, they learned all about the rainbow and at the end were given cool rainbow tiara things and even rainbow wands.  She played with them all day.  We had some really wierd but great weather this winter for Laramie.  Notice Ellie doesn't even have a jacket on, but then there is snow in the shade across the street.

An Ellie stunt.

Easter

We went down to Littleton for Easter with Michael's folks.  I ordered some beautiful hand painted chocolate bunnies from my sister Annie, along with some other chocolates.  The girls thought they were great.  Abby realllly loves chocolate and threw a tantrum when we'd take her bunny away from her.  We learned to just break off portions instead of giving her the whole bunny :)  

Ellie and her cousins died easter eggs, which I haven't done in pretty much forever!  It's fun that they have entered the age of doing more stuff like this.

Cousin Coulson making an "eye" out of his egg.  So cute.

Cracking eggs on top of her head.

So many ways to crack an egg.

Ellie's first egg in the Easter egg hunt.  She wanted to open it right then and there instead of looking for more.  It was so funny.  We had our Easter lunch and while the kids played, a couple of the adults hid the eggs all around the backyard right in front of the kids.  It was a game to not get caught by any of the kids.  AND it worked!  I don't remember anyone getting caught.  Haha!

I love Ellie's outfits these days.  She puts them together herself, and I must say, I love what she picked!

Ellie devouring Jelly Beans!  And look!  I exist!

This sand box is the greatest addition to Grandpa and Grandma Huntington's house.  The kids will spend hours in it, and they did.  Here they are all giving me their best dinosaur roar!

Shortly after, they discovered a black beetle, so I showed them how you could bury it a little and it would crawl out.  Poor beetle, kept getting buried.  Oops.  Here they are waiting in suspense.  So fun.

More sandbox time.  The weather was ridiculously warm for March.

And then in April we got a foot of snow.  It was actually more than that but it was wet and melting pretty fast.  It was awesome!  This is Abby's first time in the snow playing and she was excited but timid.  She didn't love walking in it and preferred to stay on the sidewalk.  If it was only a couple inches, I'm sure she would have felt different, but it was a lot of snow for a little girl to sink into.

I adore her cheeks in her snow outfit!

Ellie catching snowflakes in her mouth!

Sledding around the yard was AWESOME!  Deep snow makes for some fun ramped turns and bumps!

Abby really enjoyed sledding.

Michael and Ellie built a snowman.  Here Ellie is making a snow angel.  I was happy to see her embrace the snow this much, because last year she didn't want to lay her head in it so much.

Hey guys!  Pickle Smile!

It was fun to learn more about photography last year and I can finally say I "get it".  It takes a while to understand manual settings and how to get what you want, etc.  I read some books on it that finally made it really clear.  I love books.  Learning Lightroom has been a fun challenge as well.  I love Lightroom :)

My good friend Ashley had a baby at the end of December and she let me gift her a fun photo shoot of her new little girl Brighton at 2 months.  She is so beautiful and I love how the photos turned out!  I also did her first baby's photos before I had Abby, and its amazing how much better I am after a year and a half, especially with manual settings!

And here is our newest nephew Jack at 6 days old (I think).  Working with newborns is tricky!

He's a handsome little guy.

So I've kept myself plenty busy on accident.  Before we knew we were expecting, I embarked on a joint adventure with one of my beehives Jadelyn for a Personal Progress Project.  Haha!  I knew it would take a lot of work, but we really wanted to help this couple in our ward that both have disabilities.  Picking up stuff is a slow process for them and on top of that they inherited a bunch of stuff from his Dad a couple years ago that was just plopped into the office.  Jadelyn wanted to learn about Interior Design so I took her through the whole design process.  There were so many challenges and issues to be addressed.  We had to consider ease of use since he was paralyzed on his left side, factor in wheelchair accessability, ease of keeping it clean (2 cats and one dog inside!), decluttering and a very small budget.  The first phase was decluttering the living and office space.  It took a couple months to accomplish.  Next we moved the existing furniture into the configuration of our new floorplan.  They were able to live with the new configuration and make sure it met their needs before we went further.  

Then the gathering began.  We had a very small budget and had to rely on finding free, if not really inexpensive items without sacrificing quality.  We weren't going to replace junk with junk.  It took months but worked out amazingly.  We were able to source free vertical blinds that fit their huge window, a free leather sofa that was practically brand new, and all the new office furniture for only $60 at a campus surplus sale which they could afford!  Talk about answers to prayers!  So ya, we pulled it off in the end.  I did have a wonderful friend who donated the new lamps and storage totes, and to her I will ever be greatful!  Lighting made a huge difference in the living room and will help as they age.

The couple inherited and already possessed so much art that we were glad to arrange the awesome gallery wall behind the sofa to show it all off.  What I love most about the space is how reflective it is of the couple.  So many items that we kept had a memory or story behind them.  When we asked during our consultation if they had a specific style, their answer was craftsman/mission and I feel we were able to deliver a very current form of that.  Jadelyn did a wonderful job too!  She learned to sew (pillow covers) and participated in most of the decisions that went into the selections we made.  She has a great eye and installation day was a blast for her!

The Living Room

BEFORE

The Living Room

AFTER

The Office

BEFORE

The Office

AFTER

(but still not quite finished :)

The couple absolutely loves the new design and for that we are sooooo happy!  We had help along the way by other people in our ward and we are very greatful for their skills and service!  Michael was amazing and sacrificed many a night with me so that we could get it done.  He also helped install and move a lot of things and it was fun to have him there to help me, as being pregnant makes one fatigue a little faster physically and mentally :)  With the big stuff behind us, we are now working on bringing back in their stuff that we had sorted and putting it in all the new locations, which is another phase in and of itself.  And yikes!  I'm about to have a baby in a week and half!  So glad this is pretty much done as you can well imagine :)

So now you know what we've been up to for the most part.  Days are filled with Michael forever writing his dissertation, teaching, and being an amazing Dad and hubby.  The girls have had fun at the storytime and library, preschool, and general getting outside and running errands.  Taking them both to doctor appts has been pretty hilarious as I think they will forever be fascinated at why I have to pee in a cup.  I'm tired of explaining it at this point.