October 2012, Part 1

Well, I was due to have this little baby girl two days ago on the 20th of October, but she hasn't come yet! I've gotten everything done around the house, closed my Etsy shop, my mom is in town, and now we're just waiting. I decided to get completely caught up on here so all I have to do is write about our little one when we get home, oh and I'm sure there will be lots of photo of her as well! So let's start with the first half of October. I remember writing about last October and saying it was like one big photo shoot, the same goes for this year. I love the fall here in Moscow and all the colors and overcast days make for great photos!

Harvest Fest

Last year we discovered the WSU Organic Farms and all the fun things they have going on during the fall. The first event they have to kick off the season is the "Fall Harvest Celebration" where they have their pumpkin patch, hay rides, fresh produce to purchase, and their u-pick apple orchard opens to the public. We went this year and Bailey loved walking through the pumpkins showing us all the different colors and sizes and textures. We also did the hay ride with friends, took lots of photos, and then picked apples on our way out. So far I've made three apple pies with those apples...all delicious!

Perfect example of how Bailey loves anything small, she says "Look, it's small, oh cute! It's just little! Like a baby!" Then she usually proceeds to hug it and kiss it. This time is was tomatoes.

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Leaves

I had three things on my list for photography in the fall: at least one good photo of me pregnant, Bailey in the leaves, and Bailey in her costume. It's a good thing this baby is coming later than expected cause I got them all done! This day was a Sunday rainy/overcast day, perfect for photos! So after church I made Mark take photos of me and then I took Bailey's. I knew I wanted this particular street in Moscow, I found it last year and I was waiting for it change colors and for some more leaves to fall. I love how they turned out, the colors are very natural and I didn't do much editing to them.

Me at 39 Weeks

I sometimes can't believe this is my little girl, she's so grown up! I absolutely love these photos of her and it was so hard choosing which ones to post. Here's what she's been doing lately:

Loves to play pretend and will play in her crib before and after sleeping for about an hour or more talking to her stuffed animals Dumbo, Bunny, and her Lightening McQueen toy, and snuggles and blankie, all of which she can't sleep without. She'll also pretend to be a doggie or an elephant and will stay in character and will only respond to "doggie" or "elephant", loves to fetch things as a doggie. She loves to eat apples, yogurt, mini wheats, milk, cheese, and we bribe her with one Skittle at dinner time and she eats everything on her plate. She loves to hug and kiss "baby sister" (my tummy) and loves to talk about all the things we're going to do when she comes. Loves anything small or little, always asking what I'm doing and if she can help - especially making jewelry. Likes to have tea parties and eat snacks on her new table, also likes her Dr. kit set and to give checkups to Mark and I and her animals. Favorite movies right now are Dumbo, Ice Age, and Cars - I can't count how many times we've watch those three movies in the past two months, and of course, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She talks all the time and knows her ABC's and the sounds they make, shapes, colors, and numbers, and loves to sing songs these are her favorites: Twinkle Twinkle, The ABC Song, I Love to see the Temple, I am a Child of God, and Rainbows. She'll tell me "Shhh, be quiet" if I tell her to do something she doesn't want to do, or when she's going through my purse looking for a sucker.

Thanks dad for throwing the leaves!

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Pregnancy

Here are my last two official pregnancy photos with the sign, 38 weeks and 40 weeks! I've felt pretty good throughout the last trimester and never really slow down in the day time, but then I crash at night. Bailey and I still go out just about everyday and run errands, Mark started coming with us to the store though. I take a sleeping pill every night and if I skip it, I'm UP ALL NIGHT, but I still get up and go to the bathroom about 3-4 times at night with or without the pill. Maternity pants are getting tight! I pretty much live in pajamas if I don't go out. I'm seriously ready for this baby to come, any day now!

  

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Costume Photo Shoot

 This is another tradition for us! I take Bailey to the "Pumpkin Patch" which is really just all the pumpkins for sale at WalMart! Would you guess this is WalMart?!? There are so many pumpkins that you would never know. What a good little girl too, I told her if she was good and smiled for me she could have a Skittle. The next location was the Apple Orchard again. This day was also overcast, I couldn't ask for anything better, I love how these turned out too, not much editing.

I must write about the costume too. I asked Bailey in September what she wanted to be for Halloween, she said a Bee. I was kind of surprised by her answer, but went with it when I found the costume on sale at Old Navy. Later I realized that she wanted to be a bee because that's what Pluto was in a Halloween Mickey Mouse episode! She wanted to be like Pluto!

Hopefully the next post will be all about our new little girl!

September 2012

Chestnut Beach

After Mark passed the Patent Bar Exam the last week of August, we finally had our daddy back! The summer didn't really seem like summer without Mark with us as much, we did a lot, but a lot was with the girl friends and their kids. We decided to soak up every last bit of the sun the few weekends we had left. So we started September off down at Chestnut Beach in Clarkston, WA. The funny part was when we pulled up we saw two cars there that were our friends, they were there also! The kids had fun playing together and the adults just got to sit back and watch.

 

 

 

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Ducks

On another attempt to soak up the sun in September, we took a little trip over to Hordemann Pond in Moscow to feed the ducks. Bailey loves to feed these ducks. It only takes one or two pieces of bread before all of a sudden a swarm of ducks start swimming toward you! It's great! There are even extremely large goldfish and some turtles that come up to the surface. Very exciting for a 2 year old!

 

 

 

There's a little playground near the pond that we played on for a while too. Mark rarely gets to do fun stuff like this with Bailey in the day, it was fun to watch them play together - especially in the tunnel. This day we also all wore our University of Idaho shirts! Bailey says "Twinners!" whenever we happen to be wearing them, or she says she wants her "twinners shirt", so we had to take a cheesy family photo.

 

 

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Blackberry Picking

There's a small town about 30 minutes away from Moscow called Julietta that has wild blackberries all over a paved walking path. The best part is that it's free to the public to go pick as many as you want/can! A few of us girls, Katie, Kristen, Kori and I (I should have a "K" name) decided to take a Saturday morning and go "Blackberry Picking" a Moscow must for anyone who comes here. It's an end of summer tradition for most families here and my first time. I'll be honest, it was fun, but not that fun. I loved getting all the juicy berries and chatting with my friends, but there are thorns and hidden spiders everywhere! I pretty much told myself "Alright, let's pretend it's the end of the world and my family needs these berries, just be as fast as you can." Well it paid off, I think I got the most berries and took home a big bucketful!

I made a blackberry pie when I got home, 4 jars of freezer jam, then just froze the rest for some cobbler. That pie made it all worth it.

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Blackberry Festival

Julietta also has an annual Blackberry Festival in September, the next weekend we went to see what it was all about. There were some vendors selling homemade crafts/toys, a music station, a car show, some yummy fair food, live music, and blackberry ice cream. It was a fun little festival and I know Bailey had a good time. She really loved the music station, she got to drum to the beat of songs they sang, make a banjo, and take home some other instruments. She also loved the fishing booth - they let her play 3 times and then she had a melt down when we left. It's a good thing she found "Lightning McQueen" at the car show, that made her happy again.

 

 

 

 

 

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Latah County Fair

The Latah County Fair is probably the biggest event of the year in Moscow, and one of our favorites. It's where we had our family photos done last year. I love the small town feel of the fair, the old fashioned lights, rides, food booths, and let's not forget about the delicious cinnamon/sugar elephant ear scones! This was our 3rd time going, Bailey was obviously older this time around and really liked seeing the animals which is where we started first. We saw goats, pigs, piglets, cows, chickens, roosters, chicks and ducklings, and bunnies. Bailey loves anything small or "baby" and whenever she seems them she says in a little high voice, "Oh, cute, it's little...oh cute!" We heard that a lot.

 

 

Next up were the the games and rides. We didn't ride anything, but it's fun to watch other people ride them and take photos. So far in years past we haven't had to spend money on rides or games, Bailey has been too small to care. This year we thought it would be fun for her to play a little "Prize Every Time" game. She went fishing for a duck and she loved it! She won a little pig toy and didn't put it down for days. It's so fun to see her experience new things like this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Football

Mark usually joins an intramural football team every year, soccer too, and this year he did both again. Bailey and I enjoyed going to the games and watching him play, well Bailey mostly just ate snacks and played with bubbles that I brought, but she always got excited when I told her we were going to a game. Now every time we pass a big open field she says "Look mom! Football! Daddy play football!"

Warming up with Dad

 

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Bailey's Room
Bailey's room has a been a work in progress ever since I had her 2 1/2 years ago! I've had plenty of ideas of things I wanted to do in there and I finally got all of them done. Being pregnant with a second child really pushed me to complete everything! Here's what I did:

 

I made the ruffle crib skirt, it actually has five layers but two of the layers are smashed up under the mattress, this way it can be used for another baby when the mattress is higher and still go all the way to the floor. I made the canopy by adding a fabric topper to an already made canopy from Ikea. It's just a basic canopy with the netting only. So I did the turquoise top, bow, and added the butterflies. The mobile is made from thick floral wire covered with floral bubble balls things and more butterflies, then I strung some clear faceted beads and hung it down the center - it used to be longer but Bailey pulled on it. The canopy doesn't normally look like this, it's all wrapped up and piled on top because I'm too scared that she'll pull it through the slats and get tangled in it, she did that once, SCARY! So it was just down for photos, then when she's older it will stay down. The banner on the window is made from fabric strips tied around a rope and more butterfly clips. The fabric is from her quilt that is now made, but didn't make it for the photos. Crib is from Walmart.

 

These are two of my favorite photos. I knew I wanted the "Christ with Children" picture then I searched Etsy for a semi matching illustration of the temple. Then I covered the mat boards the frames came with with coordinating fabric - using fabric gave me more options than paper.

 

Wall opposite the crib: Made the tissue paper pom poms from dollar store tissue paper, the frame I picked up at the thrift store and painted it turquoise and hung the "B" I purchased at Babies R Us. The lamp was a nasty bronze color from the thrift store, painted it hot pink and found a shade for it at Walmart. Family photo frame my friend made, and the baby shoe photo holder was a baby shower gift, each photo starting from left to right is a photo of Bailey every month until her 1st birthday party. Dresser is from Walmart, rug from Target.

 

 

 

 

Wall opposite the window has the alphabet in cute watercolor illustrations. I first saw these in the library at the school I used to work at, as soon as I saw them I thought "Those are going in my 1st daughter's room" so I hunted them down online and found them! I love them and Bailey loves looking at the illustrations and saying the letters. The wall behind the door is a matching growth chart. Under the letters are her stuffed animals, fan/heater, some books, toys, puzzles, and dress ups all organized her cube bookcase from Walmart, and the glider chair.

 

There you have it, she loves her room and so do I!

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Preschool
In September a few of my friends decided to do a little "Joy School Preschool" with our kids. We take turns teaching a lesson at our houses once a week and just rotate whoever is in charge. So far Bailey is enjoying it, I tell her we're going to school and she gets excited! Hopefully that lasts for the next 14 years. They've learned about the seasons, shapes (they played a game on the floor with the shapes where the teacher calls out a shape and the kids run to that shape, Bailey just stayed on the star the entire time) colors, and what same and different mean. We've also started doing a letter each week. It's so fun to watch these kids learn new things and see them light up and "get it".

 

We did colors at my house, I just did one of my old Kindergarten color lesson plans from teaching art. It's one of my absolute favorite lessons. I read them the story "Mouse Paint" where three mice find three jars of primary color paints and mix them to make secondary color paints. Then the kids get to mix primary color frosting with animal cookies to make secondary colors, then eat them! I love seeing their reactions when the color changes, best part of being a teacher!

 

 

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Pregnancy
 In September I was 34, 35, 36, and 37 weeks pregnant. By this time I started feeling the "pregnancy pains": contractions whenever I stood up or carried groceries up the stairs or lifted Bailey in and out of her crib, started having sleepless nights and got up every 2 hours to go to the bathroom, back aches, weird side aches, my maternity jeans got tighter and tighter, and all the other normal pregnancy woes during the last trimester - all of which are totally worth it when that baby comes! 

 

 At 36 weeks my friend Stephanie threw me a little baby shower. I told her to just have it be simple and make gifts optional. She did a great job and had a little "pamper Debbie" night with fun foods, games, and a coupon book of babysitting that people could contribute to in place of a gift. Perfect! Here's a little snapshot of the night:

Me at 36 weeks, the girls, the game "Pin the Sperm on the Egg" HILARIOUS!!!, my new comfy PJ's that when Bailey saw they had cupcakes on them she had to put on her cupcake PJ's too, and some fun gifts. I sure love all my friends up here, I always say that but truly, Moscow has the best people and we all get so close to each other!  

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Instagrams
 Lastly here are all the Instagrams and photos from my phone throughout the month:

beach, 34 weeks before and after church, matching shirts, blackberry picking, blackberry pie
marker hands, new Tom Design necklaces, visiting dad at school, dress up, nails, grizzly bears
ruffle crib skirt, bailey's room, dinner, feeling baby move, after feeling baby move (awkward)
bee costume, painted my toes, Old Navy BFF mannequins, 35 weeks, she found the suckers
36 weeks, cute shadow alert, baby shower, she's good at coloring eyes and mouths, decorating, Farmer's market colors
got out the car seat, "sleeping" in the car seat, started the puff quilt, preschool, always treats at our house, play date with mom