end of august 2012... moved into NEW house!

For some reason, I have zero pictures of the movers doing what they do best---moving our junk from one place to the next.  :)  Actually, I think I did a really good job de-junking as I packed our stuff this time around, so it's not like they really delivered "junk" anywhere!

The only casualty in the move was ONE rubbermaid storage box.  That was it!  Impressive, guys!

Luckily, once we were in the house our costume boxes got opened first.

Thank you, Robot Tillie and Cal.

Yes, I got this robot costume on clearance at Children's Place a few years back.  Don't worry, it's size 12-18 months.  Nice.  Tillie's faces are... hmm... priceless.  I don't know where she gets this from.  Her parents are normally so poised...

this next one is probably one of my favorites of them together

While the kids were hardly working, Nana and Becca were working hard (what was I doing at this point?  official camera man?).

Here they are in spare bedroom/my-craft-paloozah-room setting up some delightful Ikea cabinetry.  My mom is the QUEEN of Ikea cabinetry.  She knows so much about it and I love that I got to be the benefactor of her knowledge.  Becca was a perfect assistant, or so I'm told.  Look at how much fun they are having!!

Again, Cal was hardly workin'---laying down on the job... literally.

Actually, this is Calvin's favorite position these days.  He loves to just lay down anywhere and use his arms to prop up his head.

looks like someone stole the camera.  nice self portrait, Cal.

::: Now, I'm reluctant to post such this next picture, b/c it shows how lovely and swollen I am... but it's also such a neat thing to have two sisters and my mom in the picture with BOTH kids smiling, so for posterity's sake, I'm posting it. 

Before Becca took Lizbert and my mom to the airport, we decided to hit up our local Farmer's Market to show them how charming it is (live band, historic town, awesome-ness) and grab some delicious baked goods (at this point in my pregnancy, I probably didn't need any more "delicious baked goods"---but don't worry, I did indulge!).

It was lovely and before we knew it, they had to leave to catch their flight.  :(  It was SUCH a blessing to have their help while we moved and honestly, it would have taken us MONTHS to accomplish what they did in just days. 

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

::: Can I just say how much we LOVE Aunty Becca!?  She is so great and we love that she lives so close!  This isn't a great shot (well, it is of Aaron's leg) but I just wanted to illustrate what a great aunt (and sister) she is!!

::: Having a tv this last while has been a great blessing for me.  hA!  It's just so nice to be able to plug the kids into an educational show (always educational---ha!) and be able to get things done!  I am definitely going to have to make up for all the tube time they logged this past month.

But look at how sweet they are watching the boob-tube.  They had two sofas and a recliner at their disposal, but they opted to lay down by each other holding hands.  Hello.  Darling.

::: My cute friends here wanted to throw me a mini baby shower/birthday party.  I was super anti the idea of a baby shower, because, hello! this is my THIRD baby and SECOND boy!!  So, they appeased me and called it a "non-shower". Stinkers.  We met up at a delicious French restaurant and ate to our heart's content (it was really SO good) and chatted the night away.  It was such a fun night and SO sweet of them to do such a thing.  I can't believe I forgot to take even ONE picture of the fun that was had.  But, here are two pictures I took right before the night as I was trying to figure out something to wear that FIT my huge self (Becca told me that pajamas were out.) !  I ended up keeping the shirt unbuttoned, obviously.  

My cute friend, Amanda, hooked me up with a Sprinkles cupcake with the gift she gave me.  It was much appreciated the next day as I spent the afternoon organizing, decorating, and de-cluttering!

Organizing!  I love that I scored these paper holders for $5 each when we moved here.  Score of the century!!

Trying to decorate a little bit.  In the end, I thought there were too many yellow flowers going on and nixed the bunch on the left.  

De-cluttering.  Wow.  It's no fun to dejunk a junk drawer (or box, for that matter).  But, luckily, I think I found homes for EVERYTHING on this table!

What were the kids doing in the meantime?  Oh, you know, playing with things like flash lights---shining them in each others eyes till they'd cry (I quickly tried to put an end to THAT game).

We pulled out some beads to make some necklaces one morning.  Calvin wasn't into the idea at first (notice him playing on the ipad), but then soon warmed up to the idea.

Tillie, on the other hand, was over the moon from the get-go.  She loved it.

Here Cal is enjoying his bead time too.  Check out that concentration!  He only wanted to use the brown and black wooden beads.  Tillie kept shoving sparkly ones over for him to use, but he wouldn't have it.

For the record, I'm STILL finding some of those little beads, but they sure had a lovely time.

::: Here are a few pictures of the the tv in the armoire so you can see how it looked in our new family room.  

In my opinion it wasn't working.  Aaron, Becca, and my mom all agreed.  It competed with the fire place and was just so tall and out of place in the new family room.  We knew we wanted to eventually mount the tv and perhaps do something like this gallery wall around it (well, Aaron hasn't totally jumped on board with the gallery wall idea, I'm still warming him up to the idea).

But, we knew we wanted to find some sort of media console instead of our existing armoire.

Enter Craigslist.  My favorite place to find deals.  (p.s. the Craigslist App is SO much better than searching on your computer, b/c it shows a mini photo of the item in the search results.  You can quickly weed out several listings REALLY quickly.) 

I casually looked for something that might work, not expecting to find anything in the near future.  But then I found this:

It was originally $200, but we got it down to $160.  Since it was about 25 minutes away in the guy's storage unit, I decided to have Aaron just go get it after work one evening.  In a perfect world, I'd check it out in person first, but, honestly, I didn't have the steam.  

Luckily, it was such a great score and it's SO much prettier in person!  And, amazingly enough, when Aaron went to go get it, the guy told him that several people had contacted him that day to see if it was still available.  Thank heavens he held it for us till Aaron could get over there!  

Here are a few shots I quickly took that evening on my phone for my family to see the new purchase.

Tillie wanted to pose it up too.

oh, why YES, that is our sofa that we FINALLY decided upon.  Remember this whole debate?  We ended up doing a deep seat sofa that Aaron loved.  I liked it too, but the whole idea of having to use a pillow behind me if I wanted to sit "upright" didn't sound awesome.  But, I loved the look of it, loved that it was leather (notice the island directly behind it? notice that we have two toddlers who have the tendency to spill?).  Leather just made sense for us.

In the end, I'm SOOOO happy with our decision.  In reality, I'm not spending a lot of time on our sofa "upright" and "proper"---I like to lay on it and snuggle into it.  It's a dream to nap on because it is so deep.  Plus, now I can do cute pillows too.  Win, win, win.  One day I'll post a better picture in normal light so you can see it's full beauty.

::: The yard is probably one of our favorite things about the house.  There is just so much room to play! Luckily, the kids love it out there and run around till they are sweaty and stinky.

Apparently, this afternoon, Calvin was pretty sweaty.  Maybe that's why his pants are off?? And here Tillie is telling me the tale about some crazy bugs she found by the fence.

Aaron likes the yard a whole lot too.  Can't you tell?

::: If you know me, you know that I don't shop very often... and when I do, I don't like to spend money.  I'm a really great window shopper.  But, for some reason (the fact that I knew having a baby would keep me home bound for the next several months probably had a little bit to do with it), I kept finding things that I couldn't live without (the credenza from craigslist)---and then I stumbled upon this rug at Home Goods.

Hello.  This rug.  How could I pass up such a find??  And for $99 the price was pretty good for such a huge (5x8), beautiful, thick, gorgeous rug.
So, I texted a picture of it to my mom and sisters, then to Aaron, promptly got all their approvals, then asked the nice boy in the back to get it down for me, take it to the register, and then load it into my van.  :)
Here she blows in the front entry way.  It looks a little overwhelming in such an empty space, but one day I'll have a little table or something and plant and a thing or two on the wall that will help it seem more finished.
(Cal and Aaron are playing a game where they try to make the beach ball go all around the arch before it falls back down on them. lovely.)

ahhh!  so great.

::: We had two families over to our house that last Sunday before the baby came.  Between the two families, they had a lot of boys, so a football game emerged.  Aaron was in heaven.

here's what the littles were doing... dressing up and having fun.

It was a great time and we loved having people over.

::: For the record, I love that Aaron plays the piano.  I've noticed that he particularly likes to play when he's feeling really happy.  It's great.  (do you love all the boxes ready for recycling behind him?  me too.)

::: The kids are starting to really get the hang of the whole "pedaling" concept with their trikes.  It's nice to go out in the cul de sac and have them work out the kinks there.  When we're feeling lazy (Aaron and me) we have them pedal on our back little patio.

::: Calvin really has been into dressing up lately.  Like obsessively so.  His favorite costume is our version from last year's Halloween costume: Woody from Toy Story.  He doesn't even respond to his name when he's in character. He says, "No! Call me Woody!"  Sheesh.  He kills me.  And, if he doesn't have ALL the pieces of his costume then the waterworks will begin.  This particular day, his jeans were in the washing machine, so we finally convinced him that his plaid "Woody" shorts would work (b/c it's plaid like the shirt).  Success!
That boy... if he wasn't so cute, sweet, and such a dear-heart... he'd drive me crazy.

a little close up, if you will.

::: After we had unpacked a bunch of things in the house, it finally occurred to me that I'd better get out the baby clothes and start washing them and putting them into the dresser!  I love this little outfit that our sweet Aunt Kathy (we adopted her as our aunt) gave Calvin.  It was so fun to pull out all these tiny little clothes and imagine that a sweet baby would be in them in just a few days.  !!!

::: Since we've talked about big purchases on this post, (again, for the record, this is not what we do on a regular basis) we found a great deal on the patio sets at Costco (end of season, I'm guessing?) so we jumped on it.  We are big fans and we stay outside MUCH longer b/c our tooshies have a nice place to sit upon.  The single seats recline.  Boo yah.  You know I love a good recline.

Here Aaron is testing it out.  I think he approves.

As luck would have it, the SAME day that the patio furniture arrived, so did our chair!!  Did you remember in this post I put a picture of this chair that rocked, swiveled, and reclined?  

Well, I loved the price and the features (obviously), but I wanted to do a fun fabric.  Ta-da! 8 weeks later, we have our chair!  I love it.  Super comfortable and so easy to sleep on.  In fact, I've tested it many times, and my naps are primo on here.  And the fact that it swivels is just... well... fantastic.  I can tune into the kids in the kitchen while I'm nursing the baby, or watch them outside in the backyard with a few quick swipes of my feet.

::: In other news, Aaron still is debating the purchase of a riding lawn mower.  For now, he's mowing the 1/2 acre yard with his electric mower (yes, you need an extension cord to run it).  It's funny to watch him whip that cord along with him like he's vacuuming, but he does a great job.

While dad was mowing, Cal wanted to be Buzz Lightyear.  The wings through the back of the costume were TOTALLY his idea.  Genius.  

::: Tillie and I have discussed the idea of cutting her hair.  We both really like the idea, but every time we have an appointment made, it ends up that we can't match up with our hair cutter gal.  This was me, being sentimental and taking a pic of Tillie with her long locks.

Here's a Mary Engelbriet picture from the Queen of Hearts book we have.  We really like their haircuts.  :)  hA!  The problem is that Tillie has a little bit of curl, especially at the nape of her neck, so we don't know if it would really look like the gals in the picture.  hA!  We'll let you know if it ever happens!!

The day before her haircut was scheduled (the first time around), we decided to braid her hair like Rapunzel.  Tillie also wanted to add a billion flower clips.  It actually turned out pretty cute.  Honestly, with a mug like that, things usually turn out pretty cute.

::: I wanted to squeeze in a temple trip before the baby came.  So, Aaron and I set out to find a babysitter and make it happen.  Little did we know that Aunty Becca would be available and told us to let her take the kiddos.  Man, she is the greatest.  And, she lives minutes from the temple, so we really lucked out.  She met us there and we snapped a few shots.  If you think I look death-warmed-over, you are right.  

Thank you, darling BECCA!!

::: That same night, as I was doing laundry, guess what I found. In the dryer. As I was pulling out all the clothing.

GAAHHH!  It was horrible.  Who knew half of a purple crayon could do SO much damage to SO many clothes!?!  And my dryer?!  Purple wax everywhere!!  Apparently, I wasn't the first person on the planet to do such a thing, and luckily I have access to the world wide web.  People suggested so many random ideas.  In the end, I pre-treated all the spots on the clothing with SprayN'Wash.  Then, I filled up our big sink with hot water and a TON of Oxyclean.  I'd stir around all of the clothes with a huge paint stick.  I felt like the ladies in that scene of Little Mermaid where they are talking about Prince Eric and the girl he found in the water.  Do you know that scene?  Or the scene in Ever After when the ladies are washing clothing, and Anjelica Houston falls in the big tub of purple dye?  Remember?  All those ladies are using big sticks?  Anyone?  Anyone?  Anyway, I felt like those ladies.

hA! 

Really, this was the LAST thing I wanted to do two nights before I delivered our third child, but alas, I was determined to not let these clothes go to ruin.  And, viola!  It worked!!  After a few hours of soaking, and a hot wash in the washing machine with even more Oxy Clean, I had clean clothes once again.  OH! and for the dryer, I coated the tub with WD-40 and scrubbed with a scrub brush and then put wet rags in for a spin on hot.  After about an hour, the dryer tub was clean too!  Amazing!!  I love chemicals!!  :)

::: That next day, after church, we decided to make our sweet neighbors Mr. Bob and Mrs. June some brownies.  Did you know that they day we moved in, he came over in the morning and said, "I'm brining you guys lunch today.  Don't argue with me.  We want to do this b/c the last thing you need to think about is what to eat on a day like today.  Is BBQ okay?"  

uhhh, of course!  How nice is that!?  Mr. Bob is a sweet old man (in his late 70's, I'd guess) who would walk over to our house when he'd see our van pull up as we'd come to see progress on the house.  He is DARRRRLING with the kids and always makes such a special effort to chat it up with them.  Tillie and Cal adore him, as do we.  And, it was so nice for him to bring over a huge spread as we were busily unpacking everything.  

His wife is just as sweet, but has major back issues, so she can't hop outside as quick as Mr. Bob can.  

Anyway, in efforts to show our thankfulness, we whipped up some brownies for them (and us too!).

Cal enjoyed a little bit of the batter, as you can see below.

...And got a sweet mustache to show for it!  I chuckle every time I see this picture.

::: Again, checking off things from the list of to-do's before the baby came (man, I love that our c-sections are scheduled!), I wanted to give Calvin another hair cut.  We're getting much better at this game.  Here he is pre-cut:

 ::: The kids opted to sleep together that night (unbeknownst to us).  They are too cute and really have such a sweet little relationship.

::: It also occurred to me that I'd be gone for several days at the hospital and our kitchen and pantry needed to be stocked. hA!  I guess my family has to be fed while I'm indisposed, eh?  So, I went to the local Walmart Monday night at 9:00pm, filled my cart to the brim, and shopped till I dropped. Well, ALMOST dropped.
I was WIPED out by the time I was done.
I should have taken a picture of my feet this night.  Can we say ELEPHANTIASIS?  yes, yes we can.

Lucky for us all, my mom flew in the next day (Tuesday) around lunch time.  We got to show her the ins and outs of how Calvin likes his costumes to be put on (that was important) and talk about a few more delights before we'd head to the hospital the next morning to have a baby.

Amazing.

We were so lucky she came out AGAIN to ease my mind and take care of these two yay-hoos while I went ahead and birthed another one.  Truly, it was SO great.

Next up.  Baby #3 makes his debut!!