New Window!

For the past couple of years I have wanted to put a window in the stairway leading down to the basement. It’s really dark and you have to use the light day or night, to be able to see your way down the stairs. So a couple of years ago we got 2 or 3 companies to come out and tell us if that was even possible, and if it was to give us a quote. The quotes we got back then ranged from $2800-$3500, and we were told that most of that was for labor.

A couple of months ago we had another window guy come out to give us a quote on getting our two broken windows replaced (they had been broken for WAY too long and we just wanted to get it done and over with), and while he was here Kyle asked if he would give us a separate quote for putting a window in the basement stairway. Well the quote this guy gave us was nearly HALF what the other companies had said a couple of years ago, and that INCLUDED getting the other two windows replaced, so we decided to go for it.

They came out yesterday to do our windows and now instead of seeing this every time I go downstairs:

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I now see this:

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Oh I love it! It lights up the stairway SO MUCH. And I am so happy that we were able to save up and have it put in!

Gingerbread House

Liesl and Ian sent the kids a gingerbread house kit to put together and decorate, so we decided to do that today while Kyle was home. Kyle made up the frosting and assembled the house, then the kids were really upset when we told them it needed time to dry before we actually decorated it.

After dinner we got the table all cleaned up and went to work decorating the gingerbread house. The kids thought it would be funny to make gummy bears look like they were sliding off the roof, so we got out a handful of gummy bears for them to decorate with in addition to the candies that came with the kit.

Kyle spread icing on the roof to make it look like it had snowed (and hey the gummy bears didn’t want to slide off the roof if there was no snow!)

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My crazy husband, saw that I was getting ready to take a picture of him getting the house ready for the munchkins to decorate, and he decided to make a face! Then I went to the other side for a different angle and he did it again! That’s what I love about this man, he is always making me laugh!

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The kids had a blast decorating the house though. And I hope that more candy was put ON the house than was consumed during the decorating. 😉

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No, we don’t usually let Chloe walk on the table. But she wanted to help too, and the other side of the house was crowded and we really didn’t want her getting pushed off a chair so we just let her sit there on the table to help.

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Kyle put icicles on the house too:

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And the finished house:

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I doubt if the candy on that house will still be there by Christmas!

PS: Thank you Liesl and Ian, and there are a bunch more pictures in the photo gallery! 😉

Snow Dragon

We got quite a bit of snow last night, so after walking Chewy, Kyle decided to spend the morning outside playing in the snow. BY HIMSELF!!! He kept telling the kids to come back in the house, and that they would see what he was doing when he was done! Ya like they were going to let him play out there by himself and just stand like good little children by the storm door to watch and see what he was creating out of the snow. When I went to see what Kyle was doing it looked as if he were just rolling ALL of the snow from our lawn into big balls and then he was putting them in a big pile. After he had spent what seemed like forever outside the kids ended up joining him anyways.

This was Chloe’s first time going out to play with fresh snow, and she is so CUTE!

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The other kids had lots of fun too and even tried to help Kyle with his creation.

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Eventually Kyle told me that his sculpture was supposed to be a dragon. Chloe didn’t stay out to play very long. Her poor hands were bright red, they were so cold. And her clothes were getting all wet! She was super mad when I brought her back in the house, but I just knew I had to get her dry and warmed back up!

Half Way!

I’ve reached the halfway point of the pregnancy, 20 weeks. Of course our last three babies were born about 2 weeks early which means that if this one follows suit I’ve already past the halfway point! CRAZY! Of course the first part of the pregnancy always seems to go by faster than the last half. I had an appointment last week, at 19 weeks. My check-ups are every 4 weeks at this point and in the four weeks between my last visit and this most recent one, I have only gained two pounds. Valerie (my midwife) says she wishes that I would eat. But I DO eat. She wants me eating 6 small meals a day, which I try very hard to remember to get them all in and it makes me feel like I’m eating nonstop. But having five little ones means that I am very active, and so I just haven’t gained very much weight, but there’s still plenty of time for that.

In taking my blood pressure (which was really low) she looked at me like how could I possibly be alive? Then she asked me if I get dizzy. Uh actually I do. It’s always been something that happens to me while I’m pregnant. When I stand up too fast I will get dizzy, and the room with start spinning and my vision will become dark and then I feel my body shaking and I just have to sit down. I remember the first time that happened to me when I was pregnant with Ethan I sat down so fast to keep from falling over that when Kyle saw me he thought I did fall. I remember being conscious enough to have seen Kyle come into the hallway right as I was rounding the corner right before my eyes went dark and I was shaking so bad that I purposely sat down on the hallway floor as fast as I could. The dizzy spells must have stopped after my pregnancy though because I remember the next time I had one it was the first indication that I was pregnant again, and sure enough I was. I have talked with my midwives over the years about my dizzy spells and I have never been given an explanation for them, until my last check-up when she just saw my blood pressure and asked if I get dizzy. So now we know why I get dizzy spells, and Valerie wanted to know if there are any stairs in our house because, obviously she is concerned about me getting dizzy and falling down them. I told her that we do have a basement, but we don’t go down there much since it’s not finished. But I do go down there to do the laundry, so her fears of me falling were heightened. So I’ll just have to be super careful about carrying laundry up and down the stairs from now on. 🙂

When people ask how far along I am and I tell them that I’m halfway they just look at my tummy and say that I don’t even look pregnant. Kyle likes to say that I start out concave and need to fill in before I can pop out! So here’s a picture of my belly at 20 weeks:

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Yes I know, really not much there! But at this point in the pregnancy the baby is supposed to only be about 10 inches long and 10 or 11 ounces, so baby is still really tiny and it’s ok for my belly to be tiny too. 🙂 Actually Valerie says that I have a really large pelvis and most of the uterus is down inside it so the belly that we see is what has grown up beyond the pelvis. 😉 I’m still wearing my regular clothes but I’ve filled out the waistline of my jeans so it won’t be long before I’m going to need to break out the maternity pants. I tend to always need the maternity pants first and LONG before I need the maternity shirts.

Chloe

Chloe is almost 18 months now. She has gone to nursery a couple of times. Last week, just because she wouldn’t sit still in our Sunday school class, and this week since we figured we would let her practice before she becomes an official nursery kid. Last week Kyle just took her and stayed with her. He said that she just stayed on his lap for most of the time. This week I took her (since Kyle is a big softy, and I was planning on LEAVING her there for the last part of class). When I took her in I just walked past all the other kids to get out of the way of traffic, and I set her down on the ground. Then I walked away from her to go get her some toys. I wasn’t going to have her cling to me the whole time and make this transition take forever! Anyways she did REALLY well. She came over to the toy bucket on her own and sat down and played. Other kids would try to take things from her, but she just grabbed everything that she was playing with and horded it. I stood a few feet away just watching her. She only looked up to find me a couple of times. So I stood there debating on if I should just leave her alone for the last half hour, or if I should just leave her for the last hour, and she was doing so well that I decided to just leave her for the last hour and go to Relief Society. I told the teachers that I was leaving and I asked them to PLEASE not bring her to me unless it was absolutely necessary. I really wanted Chloe to learn that mommy or daddy WILL come back to get her, and I don’t want her to learn “If I cry they take me to Mommy!” Well when my class got out I passed Tyra, Ethan, Jeremy and Dinah’s classes and went straight to go get Chloe because I didn’t want her freaking out that all the other mommy’s and daddy’s were picking up their kids but hers weren’t coming, but Kyle had already picked her up. I guess she had just fallen asleep in there and one of the teachers was just holding her, but other than that she did really well in there. Next week she will be an official nursery kid! Crazy.

Today Chloe has also started saying two new words! She’s been saying “Mommy”, “Daddy”, “candy”, “jacket” “shoes”, and “doggy” for awhile now (there may be a few others that I’m not thinking of at the moment), but today she picked up “eyes”, and “book”.

We also bumped Chloe to a toddler bed tonight! We knew it was going to happen soon, since we didn’t want to wait until after the baby comes this spring, and have to train her to STAY on her bed while dealing with a newborn. So we figured now was as good a time as any. The tricky part was figuring out where to put the crib in order to make space for the toddler bed in the girls room. So I moved the crib to the center of the girls room, to get the toddler bed in place, then there was no other alternative than to go move furniture around in the boys room and just put the crib in there. We didn’t want to take it apart since we know we are just going to need it for the new baby in less than a year! So after rearranging furniture and putting the boys dresser in their closet under their hanging shirts, the crib fits nicely in the boys room. So it would be really convenient for this baby to be a boy! (But we’ll see what happens.) And Chloe has a big girl bed which she is just thrilled about!