A roof, windows, doors, plumbing and more!

So many things have been happening at the house. The roof is finally on and looks great. We love the texture and color. Don't mind the arch....this was a mistake and we can't wait for it to be fixed.

The front door arrived and should be installed soon...and look at all of those pipes for plumbing. 

This is where the mud room sink will be. 

This is the kitchen, the two islands and nook. If you look closely you can see the can lights in the ceiling. 

Fireplaces are in. It looks so little in this ginormous room...I was worried when I saw this that I shouldn't have put the fireplace so low but hopefully with the stone, mantle and TV it will all look proportionate. :)

LOVE my french doors....can't wait to entertain in this room and on the deck. 

Some more plumbing in the wall and electrical. 

A look at the master bedroom sitting area. 

And a huge fireplace in the master....yikes this one seems to big and the one downstairs too small...not much we can do now so hopefully it will all work out and look great. 

Master bedroom windows. 

Master bath plumbing. 

The tub. 

Upstairs hall. 

Kids bath plumbing. 

Downstairs rec room. 

Richie had to move all 93 :) of these deck boards down the hill because the water meter was being dug, set and installed and they were in the way. He was a little tired after this hard labor. 

We met with the siding guy...the siding will be dropped tomorrow, we've been working on picking floors (of course the option is love is outrageously priced), are thinking about paint colors, picked out a garage door, are working on getting the cabinet bids in line and hopefully ordered the end of next week, are working on tile this weekend....oh the things. We are just a little busy but it all seems to be going well.

Dr. Seuss Baby Shower

My teammate Allison is pregnant (due any day now) and our team threw a shower for her at school, in our library. We chose a Dr. Seuss theme and it was so fun (and easy) to decorate and plan for. I ordered the invitation on line from etsy that also included a package of paper pieces (the signs, cupcake wraps, toppers, a banner etc.). 

At the welcome table we had a a few cards where guests could write a piece or advice or their wishes for the baby. We also purchased the book, Oh The Places You Will Go, and we all signed it. We wanted Allison to have this book with the idea that she would have all of his teachers and special people sign this book for him through the years and then would give it to him when he is older. 

We had to have green eggs and ham!

Our librarian has a whole bunch of Dr. Seuss hats that we wear on his birthday at school so we borrowed those for our table decoration. It was a perfect addition to the table. :)

Another successful shower!

Gender Reveal

{ 18 weeks }

Such exciting news!  We found out on Monday that we are having a boy and a girl. :) Yay! 

We had our anatomy scan and not only found out the gender but found out both babies are healthy and growing. It was amazing to see the brain, the 4 chambers in the heart, the babies swallowing, their fingers, toes, spines, bellies....etc. 

Both of the babies were very active and a little bit suborn...I had to turn on both sides, and sit up to try and get them in the right positions for the scan. Baby A is the girl, she is head down, on my left side and facing my back. Baby B, the boy,  is head up (breech) and on my right. 

Right now they are about 8 ounces. 

After the scan with the specialist I saw my Dr. and she said things are going great. I was supposed to gain 8 pounds from my last appointment and only gained 4 so I need to gain more weight this month. She said...."don't fill up on carrots and get rid of anything "light", buy the full calorie products". :) Maybe this is going to be harder than I thought to gain as much weight as I need to. 

When we scheduled the appointment for our scan and it was a day after Richie's birthday I knew it would be the perfect opportunity to get together with the family for dinner and do a fun reveal. 

I thought that a cake with the colors of the gender on the inside would be perfect. 

I baked the cakes on Sunday (the day before) because I knew I wouldn't have time to do it all after my appointment. So I baked 2 strawberry cakes and 4 white cakes with blue coloring. I thought I would need 4 cakes and I had to be prepared for 2 pink/2 blue or 4 blue. When I started to assemble the cake I realized that two cakes were plenty, 4 cakes made it very tall....so anyways I ended up with a lot of extra cake (better than not enough). :) 

I thought it turned out very cute. We brought the cake to dinner along with a few straws. I brought 3 pink polka dot straws with pink lips attached and 3 blue polka dot straws with mustaches attached. I had the family pick the straw according to what they thought the other baby would be. 

mom- blue

dad- pink

grandpa- blue

grandma- pink (I think)

Then I made everyone wait until after dinner and it was torture for them. :)

While we were waiting for our food to come, mom gave me a bag of goodies to open. SO many cute baby things...2 of everything. :) Eeee and the clothes are so little. Will they really be that little?!

After dinner we sang happy birthday to Richie and then cut the cake. Everyone was so happy. It was also very delicious!

16 weeks

Today is an exciting day we got out first two nursery items. Thanks to mom and dad we got our Pottery Barn cribs. I know it's a little early especially since we don't even have a nursery to put them in yet but I saw they were on sale and they are phasing out the white color so I couldn't risk waiting. :) Here is a picture:

Pottery Barn

I love the bead board on the side and the cuteness to the legs. So simple and perfect. I also love the other furniture in the Catalina collection. This is just the beginning. 

We had a doctors appointment two weeks ago and the babies were doing great. One of the babies had their legs out straight, they looked so long and cute. I'm feeling great and had gained just the right amount of weight. I was glad Richie was there to hear this because he has been nagging me that I need to eat more. :) So far so good though. We have our next appointment in two weeks. It's our big anatomy scan....60 minutes long for each baby...I wonder if I get a snack break in-between?! :) We will find out the sex of the other baby at this appointment and I CAN'T wait! I feel like we are at an in between point right now...I can't really start registering, I'm just barely showing etc. but after next week we will be able to start preparing for more. We will also start our 5 week (3 hours long) multiples class. We are looking forward to this. 

Other than that I sent out our valentine announcement, I ordered some maternity pants from Old Navy, and I have been trying to walk or go to the gym when the weathers bad to get some exercise. I did a pregnancy strength and stretch video that I ordered the other night and I only did a few push ups, squats, and lungs and my legs were so shaky I couldn't hardly walk up the stairs....so sad...it was so easy nothing compared to a normal workout I'd do....this tells me I need to keep doing this workout. :) It felt good to be active but of course not over do it. 

Valentine's Day

Yay it's February...sadly football is over (well maybe not so sad but YAY we won Superbowl....what a great season), the Olympics are on, I booked a fun romantic night at Suncadia for Valentine's day (we haven't been since our wedding) and our house is going up so fast....so many fun things happening. 

 

I put together this card on Tiny Prints....my favorite site to order cards from....they came in the mail and I sent them out on Saturday. Can't wait for our family and friends to get them...after seeing these pics on Facebook they are probably tired of seeing them but oh well. 

I also wanted to share a few fun things I have done the last few years for Valentine's day. A perfect holiday to get creative and have fun with with love and friendship. 

Scavenger hunt dinner * 2009

A friend of mine and I decided to do a scavenger hunt..we had our boyfriends at the the time, now husbands, meet at a restaurant where they would get the their first card. We had them go to a few different places around town and meet us back at Richie's house. This was all a surprise for them and fun for us...while they were hunting we were cooking dinner for them. We made bruschetta, heart shaped mini meatloafs, potatoes, and chocolate cake for dessert. 

Dinner at home * 2010
Richie and I love to make homemade pasta...Richie is one who is great at making the sheets and running it through the machine and I make the dough and cook it. I had a great idea to make pink pasta for heart raviolis....well little did I know that food coloring does not go well in pasta dough....it looked like human flesh and the texture was not edible. Soooo.....we threw it away got take out and well waited a few nights to try again with a basic dough. So this dinner didn't actually happen on Valentine's day...but it was the thought that counted. 

We had a tomato, sweet onion, Gorgonzola and balsamic dressing salad. Yum!  It's been a while since I've made this I think it's time to make it again. 

I made a homemade Alfredo sauce and the raviolis were filled with a delicious meat mixture, and you can't go wrong with Texas toast. We drank the wine from the Scavenger hunt the year before (and also reused some of the other decor from that night). 

Valentine mailboxes * 2011

I brought these mailboxes home and told Richie we were going to do a craft....we had been talking so much about wedding planning etc. that I thought this would be a fun break. Although Richie wasn't initially too excited he ended up totally getting into it. Richie painted his and I put paper on mine. We set these on the counter and randomly through the month put notes in them for each other. It was a lot of fun. 

(This is a picture from last year I couldn't find one from when we actually made them)

14 days to Valentine's day * 2013

This is by far the best most creative activity I've done for Valentines day. I told Richie this year that I was sorry I couldn't pull something like this off again for him but he got to go to the Super Bowl so I don't think he minded one bit. :) 

Each day starting on the 1st I left a note with either an activity, a small gift or maybe a not so small gift. The note had to do with the day and I always tried to make the saying rhyme. I tried to work the activities around the day that the date fell on like if it was a Saturday I knew we could go get pedicures or it could be a breakfast in bed type of treat. 

Yum! This was the 12th day. Breakfast in bed that ended up being eaten at the table. 

Sorry about this last one...on days 12, 13, and 14 I forgot to take creative photos and ended up doing them after the fact... and this card got a little wet some how. :)

Student Gifts * 2013

Last year I made this caramel like pink popcorn for my students...its turned out a little soft but I thought it looked so cute. I should know better that any baking project involving boiling something to a certain temperature just does not turn out for me....baking....not really my thing. 

And this year I'm not doing much of anything creative. My baby photo shoot was about as creative as I'm going to get. Maybe I will bring out the mailboxes...why not right? Or maybe we'll make homemade heart shaped pizzas like we did last year...

I'm really looking forward to our weekend get away though. 

Cheers...Happy Valentine's Day