Random Stuff

Okay - so we have been very busy around here. I have some pictures to share. First, a new school year has started so I am busy, tired, and happy to be back with little kids again. As tired as they make me I still really love my job! So here's me on the first day of school!


Also, I got a new car! WHOO HOO! Oh wait, its a MOM car! In typical Amy fashion, however, I couldn't get anything less than something super cute and sporty so this is my version of a mom car. It has four doors and a big trunk. It also has leather, Monsoon stereo system, remote start, sunroof, power everything, and a pretty fast engine. Its the most mom I could do for now.



And finally - when we bought our crib set it came with a bumper which isn't considered safe to use with babies anymore. I didn't want to waste the great fabric so I decided to use some of it to make a valance. I cut out all of the stuffing, hemmed the edges, and sewed ribbon to the top. I think it turned out pretty great! What do you think?

Our Nursery - More Progress

I made a new website that has pictures of the nursery and my shower from my mother in law. I plan to use this site after the baby is born so you might want to bookmark it.

Click HERE for our picture website from shutterfly.

Enjoy!

The Nursery Progress

I just realized that I haven't really shown much progress on the nursery stuff for a while. Many of you have seen many of these pictures but I wanted to make a post of some pics that are the most recent with even more stuff in the room. I am going to IKEA tomorrow and I am sure I will find some stuff to use there. I really like IKEA, its so big and stuff is so cheap and fun! So, without further ado . . .

New Stuff

So, sometimes I feel like we are getting stuff too early for this baby but then I think, hmmmm, we only have like 10 1/2 weeks left and frankly once school starts I am not going to have lots of time to shop around for stuff. So, though it seems early, things are starting to come together. Today in the Target add they had the travel system (carseat/carrier + stroller combo) on sale and we just returned something for my mom so we decided to get the system from my mom for my shower in a couple of weeks. Works for us because we can get it locally and take it right home and get it set up, works for mom because we take care of all of the details! Also, we picked up the travel swing she ordered for us as well. So, we set up the swing and the travel system today. We also have lots of clothes (hmmm, from mom again, she may be getting excited too!) to show off, including an outfit for his baptism (no little weird suits with bowties here). I will post a couple of pictures here but there are lots more here.

Our New Furniture!!!

We got a call on Tuesday night that the furniture we ordered was in so we bothered my cousin, Den, to help us bring it to our house (since we have little cars). We spent a bit of time upstairs in Mouser's room putting his furniture together. We even had a picnic dinner upstairs while we worked on the crib. The dresser was all put together and we thought we were all done when we realized that we didn't screw the feet into it. After lots of moving around we figured out where we want the furniture in the room (for now, until we change our minds 300 more times). So here are the pictures, we don't have the matress yet and the bedding should be in soon. Also, we are planning to get a glider for me to sit in and a bookshelf for Mouser's books. I can't wait to get it all put together. For now, though, we have a VERY good start.

"You're lucky your house didn't blow up!"

That is a DIRECT QUOTE from the poison control guy I called today. Thanks for the reassurance buddy, really comforting. I hope I get to talk to you when my kid swallows windex in a few years!

Okay, so apparently one of us turned a burner last night on our oven without knowing it. That means that gas flooded into our house all night last night. We didn't know until morning because we were in our room with the door shut and the sliding door open all night. When I went into the kitchen this morning the smell hit me like a ton of bricks. We had the whole house open in a matter of minutes and it cleared out pretty quickly. We opened the windows all day while we left and now the house seems fine. When I got home I wanted a snack but then I was worried about if the food was contaminated so I called poison control (I didn't know who else to call!) As you can see the operator was nice but less than comforting.

I am sure you are all wondering, what about the baby! Well, at the urging of my mom I called the OB today about the gas leak and I figured they would say, okay, let us know if you have any change in symptoms. NOPE! I was in East Lansing at a conference when they FINALLY found my chart, took me off hold and asked how soon I could come in. SHOOT! I didn't have my car and I was in the middle of this conference. So, my friend Casey threw me the keys to her van and off I went. It was an easy route to the doctor's office, I wasn't far away. Of course I had to wait awhile when I got there but good ole' Mouser was doing very well. The first think the ultrasound tech said was, "wow, he sure is moving!" Seems like a pattern when people see our baby! He is quite active! I am glad he is doing well and I didn't poison him with the gas!

So, that was my exciting day. A bit of an adventure but we all got through it. Praise be to God!

Homework and baby furniture

I would like to post something fun and exciting but mostly what I did today consisted of homework! At least I am getting a class done now so I only have to take two this summer! My class is pretty interesting and it isn't hard, its just time consuming and with working full time, keeping up with the house and gardens, preparing for the baby (i.e. sleeping), and getting the end of the school year wrapped up, time is the one thing that I am short on. Oh well, maybe it will make me a better teacher!
We started looking at nursery furniture today. Any suggestions on where we should go? We found a couple of sets that we like at Babies R' Us. I posted one of them below. We are just starting to look but luckily Chad and I have similiar tastes. We will have to see what we decide on eventually. We have plenty of time. We just were trying to figure out how much to budget for. Anyway, I hope everyone has a great week! The big ultrasound is on Friday!

Lots of Gardening! - veggies

Well, its Memorial Day weekend which used to mean three days of sleeping in and goofing around. Now that we're homeowners holiday weekends become great excuses to work on the house! Ugh! Being pregnant makes some tasks a bit more difficult and I get tired very easily but the good news is that it all got done and we still got to do something fun each day, like go to the Tiger's game and go to a couple of bar-b-ques.

So, on Friday we bought our veggie seeds and then went to dinner. We bought watermelon, cucumber, corn, cauliflower seeds. We also bought a green pepper plant. I looked long and hard for potato seeds but then I thought, uhhh, potatoes don't have seeds! I called Dad and he filled me in on what to do. I was lucky (or lazy) enough to find some very well started potatoes in my cupboard. Apparently I had big plans to make a lot of roasted potatoes and I forgot they were in there!

So, last week we prepared the beds so we were good and ready to plant on Saturday. We planted a few rows of corn along with the little green pepper plant.


Then we planted watermelon in little hills and our cauliflower



Lastly, we planted our potatoes (with some significant 'eyes' which were more like fingers) and cucumbers. I think this bed is going to get hopelessly overgrown but Chad seems to think it will be just fine! :)


I am looking forward to keeping everyone posted on our veggie plant growth and development. I always think it is such a fun science experiment. Especially when the whole thing costs so little to start up!

Still pregnant now school too!

Well, my next round of classes start up today. I am taking an online master's class from May 12-June 30th. It is about literacy assessment and I am very excited about the prospect of updating and changing the way I assess the kids in my classroom! I am also taking a professional development course that really picks up after school gets out. Then I am taking 2 more classes Starting July 1st. One of them meets two afternoons a week and the other meets once a week and then has an online component. SO at least I will keep busy this summer! The problem is that being pregnant, working full time as a Kindergarten teacher (they are NUTS right now), taking a class, and doing all the house adds up to a VERY tired Amy. Oh boy, it didn't take long to get me tired before but add a fetus, laundry and making dinner and I am all but spent. Oh well, I am sure I will make it through, I always do! I hope you are having a restful day!

Our New Table . . .

is gigantic! I mean, really. I was worried that it was going to be big and it REALLY is. But I generally overreact. We used to have a fairly small table in there before so I am used to that room having a lot of space. I think that it is growing on me but at first I was ready to send it back! :) Except I could never send it back because I love it SO MUCH!
It is a mix between mission style and shaker style. Mission style furniture (with its clean lines squared edges) is my favorite. Most mission style tables, however, have a pedistal, which I don't like. But we special ordered our table so we could have whatever we wanted. So we got a mission style top and chairs with shaker style legs. They are a bit tappered and still mimick the mission style. The odd thing is that our table actually has 5 legs. That is because the top is solid oak and over time it would bow due to the weight. So there is a leg in the middle for extra strength. You don't really see it unless you are looking for it because the chairs block the way. It has a redish tint to the stain and it is BEAUTIFUL!
We got two chairs with arms on them for the short ends of the table and four side chairs. The chairs have an indent for comfort on bottoms and the backs ae also contoured for comfort. The top of the chairs comes to a really cool peak and it really gives it some style. We will leave it set up with six chairs all of the time I think. We have a leaf too, but it makes the table almost too big for the room so we will only use it a few times. It only cost about $40.00 though so it was totally worth getting it when the table was purchased.
Here are some pictures of the details:

It is SO F-ing COLD!!

And of course by F-ing I mean FREEZING!!! It was so cold this morning on our walk into church that my lungs ached when we got inside. The sidewalk was a sheet of ice from all of the blowing snow and even though it wasn't snowing the wind made the snow on the ground blow all over! It was so miserable. OH MAN! The thing that makes it worse is that I know that my mom, my sister, two of my aunts and uncles, my grandma, and my cousin are all happily in Florida, enjoying the sunshine. Then they have the audacity to say that 70* is cold. If I could go down there and strangle them I would, but frankly it is too cold to leave the house!!!
Our table is coming tomorrow! We took apart Aunt Pat's old table and put it in the basement today so now the room looks pretty empty. I can't wait to get the new table tomorrow. I am always worried, however, about being home alone with the delivery guy/guys. It seems like it goes against everything I know to invite strange men into my house. I talked to the delivery guy a few times though and he is really nice. I will be just fine, I just get a little overly-paranoid. Too much CSI:Miami and Law and Order *dun-dun*
I hope everyone is warm where they are. At least warmer that we are here. Just think, it will be Spring before we know it. I mean, it will be Easter soon, it should be warm by mid-March, right, HAHAHAHAHA! I can just see all the little girls in their Easter dresses and white sandals all bundled up in snowsuits! Nothing like an Easter Egg hunt in the snow! Gotta love Michigan!
Enjoy your Monday! Just four days with kids this week and then a four day week after that, thanks Presidents for having a day! I will post pictures of our new table soon!

My new curtains!

BEFORE:

AFTER:


Well, we got a call on Saturday that our new table is in and will be delivered on Thursday! How exciting! Well, I told myself that the verticals would be down before the table came but I was thinking I had a few more weeks. In light of recent spending events I decided to try to find some less expensive curtains that did cost an additional $15 to ship! So, we went to Marshall's and I found some really great curtains. They are a teal/seafoam color similar to the curtains in the living room. They have a brown velvet ribbon detail along the sides and bottom. The linear nature of it compliments our style well. These curtains are 90 inches long. This means that with our 8 foot ceilings they are only 6 inches from the ceiling and it also means they are 6 inches above the top of the sliding glass door. I know it seems weird but that is the new style. Apparently if you mount your curtains higher on the wall it elongates your ceilings and makes the room appear larger. I have to get used to it I think! We used a large brown rod with heavy brown leather fineals on the ends. I think it makes it look a bit more formal. Here are some pics! Enjoy!

What'da think?

So I NEED to put up some curtains on our sliding glass door in the dining area. We are getting a new dining table very soon and it is pretty formal and very dramatic. Right now we have *cringe* vertical blinds (please don't judge me). They came with the house and we can only do one room at a time. The first floor of our house has a aqua blue with brown theme. It isn't over done but the rooms all flow together so it would be hard to get a completely different color in the dining room that link the kitchen and living room. The color scheme is nowhere near over done (yet) just the curtains in the living room and the small valance in the kitchen along with the pillows in the living room and some mugs/kitchen towels in the kitchen. The new table is a dark brown and it will be pretty big. I want to keep the curtains light in color otherwise that area will look too dark.

This is what the area currently looks like:

We currently have some more interesting pictures with dark brown frames along the blank wall which will go with but not overly match the new table.

This is the living room that opens up to it:


So, do you think these curtains would work? I don't really love tab-top curtains but I don't necessarily hate them. Any thoughts?