GOLF!

Cal is obsessed with golf. Much like his father, he is constantly swinging a golf club (which, in Cal's case, is anything long and stick like).  When Eddie called me last week and asked if I thought Cal would like to go to the club to "play" a few holes with him, I jumped all over it!  Some time ALONE for momma, and a little guy that would return home exhausted??  Sign me up!

They had to rush to get out there after work, but I ran out and snapped a quick picture of my boys before they left:

They were so cute together-- both had their hats perched on their heads and were so excited to get out and go!

Eddie sent me this video while they were out there-- I think it is SO stinkin' cute.  Cal's got a pretty decent swing, don't you think?  For a kid who isn't even two yet... he's got potential! haha

We aren't ready to sign him up for the PGA tour just yet- haha- but I do love that Eddie is able to take him out there to play and have a great time.  It's wonderful when your husband's love for something can be shared with your children (for multiple reasons!).

37 weeks! (and a day or two)

It feels like I am far enough along with my pregnancy that if I don't update often, people might wonder if I have gone into labor....maybe not and I am living in lala land. Either way, for those of you wondering....I am still pregnant!

I am feeling fine still, but today I've been feeling a little...off.  Not sure if it's because my mom left today to go to the beach for the weekend with her best buds for a MUCH needed/deserved girls' trip or if it's because Eddie was in Charlotte for the day.  I think my mind was just playing tricks on me. 

Anyway, Eddie is on his way home now, and my mom will be home on Sunday.  I don't think I have anything to worry about between now and then!  I jokingly told my mom that I would shoot her a pic from the delivery room once the baby was born and she did NOT think that was funny!  She wants to be alerted ASAP so she can hop in the car and fly home-- she's a good momma!  And, truth be told, I would rather sit with my legs crossed then have her NOT there...and I REALLY don't want her to miss her girls' weekend, so this baby will just have to wait!

No pictures to post today.  I did find my good video camera so I can take video of the entire house and upload it-- that will be easier than the iPhone camera (from which ALL of my pictures are coming lately). 

Cal Boy just woke up after a wonderful, much needed nap so I am going to run.  Just wanted to let you know that baby Andy is still COOKING away!

xo,

The Boys' Bathroom

I did a little sneak peek of the boys' bathroom in a previous post with my big ol' belly in it, so here is the rest of it!

Again, the color is a little LOUD but really, if you can't be loud in a bathroom for little boys, where can you?  I wanted to have fun in there and I think it's adorable.  It's also Cal's favorite room of the house.  He runs in there screaming: TRUCK! CAR! TRUCK! So I know we hit a home run with this one!

 Boys' Bathroom: BEFORE

 Boys' Bathroom: AFTER

 

Loud green!  Gotta love it!

 Towels my mom made (told you she's better than Martha!)

 Pictures of cars and trucks

 Fun hand towels and wash clothes with "Cal" and "Andy" on the trucks-- look closely!

 And, the cutest part of this room is the night light!  It's hard to see in this picture, but it is sooooo cute!  And when you turn off the lights, the light of the night light shines right through the red of the truck-- it's really adorable!

 Another shot of the pictures hanging next to the towels:

 
And there's the bathroom!  Are you getting sick of my posts about the house yet?  It's okay if you are...it won't hurt my feelings!!!

The downstairs play space

We have a wonderful "bonus room" upstairs, but I knew I wanted to have a room downstairs for some of Cal's toys so he would have things to play with when I am in the kitchen cooking (or, let's be honest, eating), or just doing things downstairs.

The previous owners had this room as their formal living room.  I thought we were going to use this space as an office/play area, but we were able to use a room upstairs for the office, so it became the play space...and I LOVE it!  I am realllllly happy with how this room turned out.

Play space: BEFORE

 (gauzy window treatments-- again, gone immediately)

 I do love the windows in this room-- looks out to the front of the house

Play Space: AFTER!!!

 

 We are going to hang HUGE pictures of the boys in red or blue frames on the wall opposite of where I am standing.

 

The bookshelf that has bins of fun stuff: cars/trucks, balls, toys, etc, etc....it was night time when I took these pictures (with my phone), so it's hard to see the shelves.  I will take another picture in the daylight so you can see them all put together with cute things on them!

In between the two windows, we put a little table and chairs for the boys.  Cal loves to sit there now with a snack or a book and he realllllly likes to climb on top of of the table and scream TAH-DAH!  Mom is not so much a fan of that....

Another look at the bookshelf-- I think we are going to get another lamp for on top of the white table:

Standing on the opposite wall, looking out-- a bin filled with bigger toys and a mirror low down because he loves to look at himself and make faces- hehe

And the other side, a bin of puzzles and a small little bin for his shoes and boots.  You know this kid loves that bin!  He loves his shoes!

Hope you've enjoyed the downstairs play space!  I will post more when we hang more things.  I am trying to stay on top of blogging through it all.  Isn't it fun to see before and after?  They are subtle changes, but I think it's still fun to see. 

It's coming together!!!

An unexpected check up and a funny

I wrote in my last post that I was looking forward to my doctor's appointment on Wednesday of this week.  Well, to avoid total TMI, I will just say that this past weekend, I thought maybe my water had broken or that I was having a slow leak.  It was mainly on Saturday, and wasn't bad on Sunday, but was heavy again today, so I called the office and talked to the OB nurse.  She wanted me to come in right away with my hospital bag packed.  Ummm.....!

Well, I went straight there, and didn't pack a bag for the hospital.  I had a feeling it was nothing, but I really wanted just a little peace of mind.  Cal and I walked into the office and saw Stephanie and her daughter Reagan!  I was SO excited to see them there! Reagan is SUCH a good little girl and she had a whole bag of goodies to keep her entertained while in the waiting room.  Being the mess of a mom that I was this morning, I didn't have a thing for Cal.  Luckily, I called my mom on my way to the appointment and she came and got him from the office before I went back. 

My normal doctor wasn't seeing OB today, he was just doing GYN so I had to wait for the doctor who was doing OB-- who happened to be running an HOUR AND A HALF behind schedule today.  Seriously.  I was prepared for the long wait.  I saw my doctor's nurse and said hi to her and she asked what I was doing there.  I gave her the short of it and she walked away while I went back into the waiting room.  Not even 4 minutes later, she was back and calling my name!  She asked my doctor if he would see me and he was happy to!  See?  This is why I love him!

They had to do the strepB test thing anyway so he checked "my fluid" and it was not my water leaking after all (no, I didn't wet my pants either....).  While he was down there he checked to see if there was any progress:

You ready for this?  I am almost 2 cm dilated and 50% effaced!  WOAH! I have a feeling he will be here before the 18th...I'd be willing to bet on it, actually!

I'll keep y'all posted.

Also, about a week before I was going to POP with Cal, I did a post called "Things I have learned while pregnant" or something like that.  I am including that in this post because I am sure many of you can relate to these....again, these were written before I had Cal, so they are different than some of the ones I would write this time around....

Things I have learned about pregnancy:

1. Whoever said it was 9 months is stupid. 40 weeks = 10 months.

2. It is SO hard to shave your legs.

3. You will soon forget what your bikini line looks like...opps.

4. The exhaustion in first trimester returns in the end.

5. The emotions....oh. my. GOSH! out of control.

6. I want to poke out the eyes of anyone who says, "I only gained 18 pounds when I was pregnant..." Literally.

7. Your stomach gets so big in the end, that there's not room to eat a full meal.

8. Getting in and out of a car without grunting is a challenge.

9. EVERYONE wants to share their birthing stories with you. Whether you want to hear them or not.

10. Everyone has advice for a pregnant woman. Some of the advice I have heard (unsolicited):

a. Toughen up your nipples now (I swear, I have heard this from someone... to whom I am NOT related!)

b. Start freezing some food now, you will need it later

c. Don't eat chocolate; it's bad for the baby

d. Put oils on your belly to prevent stretch marks

e. Stretch out your legs now to stay flexible for delivery

(I swear, these are some of the tips I have gotten! These are only SOME of them! hahaha)

11. I will never, NEVER, ask a pregnant woman how much weight she has gained.

12. Swelling can happen at any time....even if you have never swelled in your whole life!

And, if I were to add a few to the list, after this pregnancy, I would say:

13. People will not hesitate to tell you they think you are going to have your hands full.
14. After a woman asked me if I was having number 2 was an "accident" or if I planned on having the kids so close, I will never ask that one (not that I would!)
15. And finally: NO!  I am SO SO SO NOT disappointed that this baby is not a girl!  I can't believe how many people ask me that!!!!  I am just so thankful for a healthy baby!  SERIOUSLY!

Also, I have to include a little picture too.  When I was at the doctor, Cal had lunch over at Grandma's house.  He loves some PB&J and being the little boy that he is, he was trying to tuck some of the sandwich into his pants....?  Maybe to save some for later??  Anyway, he was such a mess that my mom just put him in the sink to get clean.  I walked into the kitchen to find this:

Boys will be boys!!!

17 days...and a GREEN bathroom!

While I will continue blogging about the new house and decorating (hehe!), I can't forget to post about the pregnancy!

Today is May 1st....Andy will be here on the 18th! Soooo....17 days and counting!

Here is a picture of me (looking like some kind of a mess!) in the boys' bathroom-- yes, it is that green!  This will be a little sneak peek for the tour of the bathroom...which is becoming one of my favorite rooms of the house!  If you can't be loud and crazy with colors in a boys' bathroom, where can you?!?!

This was taken today, but it could really be any day...I am living in workout shorts and crummy tanktops/t-shirts with my hair in some kind of a messy thing on the back of my head.  Cute, huh?  Whatever, I am hard at work!

This is almost 37 weeks-- I'll be 37 weeks on Wednesday.  Andy is moving a ton, and now that I know he's breech, things make a LOT more sense to me-- the big hard thing I feel going into my rib cage is not a foot (or a bum, like I thought), but instead, his little head!  And I feel him kicking like crazy right now...down low, so it's not his head banging against me over and over again, like I thought it was....! ha!

Last night I woke up with KILLER heart burn.  I have never had heart burn in my life.  This was AWFUL.  It felt like someone poured acid down my throat, and with every inhale and exhale, they added more.  It hurt to breathe and swallow and really do anything.  Since I've never had to deal with this before, I had no idea how to make it go away.  This is really pathetic, but I remembered some commercial on TV where the guy sleeps sitting up to make the pain go away-- now, for all I know, this commercial was for constipation, I have no idea-- but in the middle of the night, I thought it was a great idea to try!  I propped pillows all around me and tried to sort of sit myself up...well, Andy didn't really like that very much-- I don't think it gave him enough room (my ribs were ramming his head, I guess), so it didn't last very long. 

And on another note-- Cal Boy has not slept through the night since we moved.  Sigh.  He has grown attached to this one paci-- he can only use pacis in the car and in the crib, and he has a favorite for both spots-- and when he loses it in the night, he freaks out and screams until he passes out, only to wake up again shortly, or until we come in and give it to him.  I've been doing the latter.  And it's wearing me out.

I am so so so soooooooo ready to drop the paci all together, but I know it's a horrible thing to do to a kid right before his world gets rocked with a sibling.  I don't want to clip it to him because I am afraid he would choke himself or, since he sleeps on his belly, the clip would irritate his skin or wake him up.  Everyone says to limit the amount of changes in a kid's life before the arrival of a sibling.  I think we have reached our "change" limit with the new house, new car, etc, etc...

Just a little vent about the paci...I will suck it up (no pun intended: ha!) and let him keep it since he will need that with all the excitement coming his way, but for the record, let me just say I am OVER it!

Looking forward to my next appointment, on Wednesday, to see if Andy has grown more!

Before and After: Andy's room

disclaimer: these pictures of the "afters" are NOT done yet....we have not hung pictures, etc....keep that in mind! please!!!

Showing you all of the changes in the house will take a LOOOONG time. I tried to take a lot of "before" pictures so that I could share the after pictures as well.

I think I am just going to break it down and do it post by post...

Let me start by saying that we have made a TON of progress.  This is like nesting...on crack.  My mom is a freaking saint and is being super helpful with everything, thank GOD!  She had a huge event last week that she was co-chair of so she was really busy during most of the week, but every free second she had, she ran over here to help me.  Again, she's a saint.

I am wishing I took even more before pictures so you could see just how awful the carpeting was and how blah the paint was.  We replaced all carpeting and painted just about every single room....ahhhh! It feels like a new house!  Our countertops are being installed next week so I will not be showing before and afters of the kitchen just yet.

Also, in order to make sure Eddie's mom feels involved all the way from Texas, I have been taking videos of the rooms and taking her on a "walking tour" of the house as we complete a room.  I'll try to include those as well, in case you are curious...

We will start in Andy's room (keep in mind that this is not 100% complete yet and we have not put up pictures, etc...)

BEFORE: Andy's Room

take note of the curtains (they came down the Monday we closed...about 10 minutes after closing) and the paint which had not been updated since the house was built 10 years ago.

AFTER: Andy's Room

New carpet, fresh paint, new window treatments

Bumpers for Andy with his monogram (courtesy of my mom):

Crib with crib skirt and bumpers (it's hard to see it all in the picture, taken from my phone!):

Amazing Roman shades (my mom made these too-- is she talented, or what?!?!)

I hope you like the first room on the tour! I will try to take more pictures of the rooms as we hang pictures, etc... it's not easy moving with a 19 month old, that is for sure!  He's being good...for the most part....!

Easter Weekend

I have some catching up to do!

After a long week of packing and getting things done at the OLD house, we headed to the beach for Easter Weekend.  We debated if we should go or not-- the movers were coming on Monday morning and we still had quite a bit left to do to get ready, BUT, this would be my last time at the beach for a while, and I realized that I have been working myself really hard lately, just trying to get things ready, and that a weekend of relaxing (with round the clock help from my mom and aunt!!!) would be wonderful.

We got up on Friday morning and headed to the beach.  We have been going around and around about getting me a new car-- my Explorer is big and I love it, but we just needed more room.  The car debate has been a recurring one in our family for the past few months.  I really wanted bucket seats for the backseat so that the boys could each have a seat and Hank could lay on the floor in between the two and then we would have the whole truck still for storage space.  This probably sounds ridiculous to most people, but Hank is in my car ALL the time-- and he needs room!

Long story short, Eddie found a car in Wilson that met ALL of our "wants"-- BOTH of our wants (Eddie wanted 2 wheel drive, I wanted bucket seats, a pretty color, and heated seats-hehe).  This car was even in our price range.  Eddie spent the week leading up to Easter on the phone with the dealership doing the "wheeling and dealing" part of it.  When we were pretty much on the same page, we decided that we would stop there on the way to the beach and I would test drive it.  If I liked it, we would go ahead and get it!

I am now the driver of a REALLLLLLLY nice Ford Expedition!  I LOVE it!!!! It has all the bells and whistles and I really wanted and it drives great-- with TONS of room in the back for the boys and all of our stuff!

So, that was Friday-- even after doing all of the negotiations ahead of time, we were still at the dealership for almost 3 hours.  We left our house in Durham at 7:45 am and we didn't get to the beach until after 4:00.  It made for a loooong day for all of us.  (but so worth it to get that bomb car!)

We had a great time at the beach.  The whole family was down, so that's 7 adults, 3 (and a half) kids, and 3 golden retrievers.  Our house is not big.  At all.  Good thing we all get along :)

Cal and Jackson playing on the back deck-- they each had a lollipop and Cal drooled all over his shirt (he isn't very good at eating suckers yet...).  That stained his shirt, btw.

 Grandpa took all the boys on a boat ride.  Rules are that little boys have to wear life jackets on the boats!

 Eddie and Cal

 Grandpa with his two boys!

(side note: my dad had a boat made when Jackson was first born and named it "The Little General", now that he has all these grandkids, he has decided to rename the boat: "CHAOS."  Fitting, no?

 Heading to an Easter Egg hunt.  Cal found a pair of Jackson's boots and, of course, had to put them on immediately.

 Running down the path to the cars.

  

Waiting for the hunt to start.  It started at 11:00 and it was 100% over by 11:02-- hilarious!

 Sweet little guy-- didn't care a thing about hunting for eggs.  He preferred throwing them...and other kids would pounce on them immediately! HA! Also, you can't really see them in this picture, but his legs are COVERED in bruises... he is such a little boy!

 And all three cousins sat next to each other to eat breakfast one morning-- my mom has high chairs for everyone-- that's a gooooood Grandma!!!

We got up early on Sunday morning, extremely anxious to get home and get things moving.  We hit the road and were home early and we were ready for the movers to come on Monday morning. 

I hope you all had wonderful Easters.  I meant to get a picture with Cal's Easter basket, but I guess I failed with all of the chaos of getting ready to go.  He got some cute clothes from "grandma bunny" and a few Lightning McQueen items from momma bunny :)  Andy also got the hook up too-- have y'all checked out Mud Pie baby clothing?  They have some ADORABLE things.  Since Eddie is such a golf lover, the boys for a few golf related outfits....too cute.  They also have a bunch of nautical themed outfits-- seersucker with little crabs, etc.  Cute stuff!

xoxo

We are IN!

It is killing me not updating the blog with all that's been going on....I certainly want to, but finding the time is darn near impossible.

I have been working like a dog getting things settled over here. Slowly, but surely, things are coming together. I have to remind myself that I am 9 months pregnant and I need to slow down from time to time....easier said than done :)

I am taking a bunch of pictures of the house as it progresses and I will post those soon. There will be a long update coming soon-- I promise!

Just wanted to let y'all know I am alive...and baby is still cooking away! 19 days left....YIKES! BUT-- his room is almost 100% put together and his bedding that my mom made is to die for cute....again, pictures coming soon!

xoxo,

CLOSED!

YAY! We closed on our new house yesterday! WOOHOOO! The previous owners left the place immaculate. We did a walk through before the closing and I took some pictures so I can do before and after shots.

Here are some of the before pics:

standing in the living room, looking into the kitchen-- garage door is open

Andy's room

Playroom

Cal's room

"formal living" room, we are turning into a play room area

dining room

first meal in new house!