Making Room for Baby

Yesterday we gave Allie's room a little make-over, to get ready for baby sister!

This is the baby corner. I took the old mirror that was attached to the top of the dresser and added a changing pad instead. To replace the mirror, I scoured Hobby Lobby and found the perfect one in the perfect shade of red to hang on the wall.

On either side of the mirror are Sarah Jane illustrations!

Near the changing pad is this little rocking horse Dustin made Allie a couple Christmas' ago..

Nesting

Nesting instinct refers to an instinct or urge in pregnant animals to prepare a home for the upcoming newborn(s). It is found in a variety of animals (both mammals and birds) including humans.^[1][2]

  Its seems to me that my nesting instinct has hit and is in full swing. I'm 24 weeks along and feeling good. I'm not too big to be miserable and I'm not sick. Heck I haven't even been exhausted for a while! I'm in the perfect mood to clean the closets, bathrooms, pantry... oh wait.. no! I'm in the perfect mood to decorate and rearrange things! I'm dying for the kitchen remodel to take off. We've schedule a day for tile to be laid but cabinets take a while to build.. and I just want to buy appliances and cute stuff and get going on the fun part.

To take my mind off of the kitchen.. I've been playing around on Pinterest (surprise, surprise) and have been pinning all kinds of things for Baby Sister and Allie's room.

A friend just introduced me to Sarah Jane and I've fallen in love with her Wee Wanders line. The quilt picture above is made with her fabric designs as well as the horse and deer prints. Sarah Jane studios is having a 20% sale this weekend and I'm dying to "buy all the things"! I would love to see Allie and Baby Sister's room become something like the board I've put together. Fun quotes, color, whimsy, lovely, bright and horses or course.

For now, I will go clean a bathroom and dust something!

Scrap Page Catch Up

My New Year's Resolution last year went really well! I only had a couple pages to catch up on at the beginning of this year before I was able to make our 2013 book. So of course this year I made the same resolution, but am totally slacking! I just can't get in the groove. I sit down to scrap and end up on Pinterest! Oh well.. here are some pages I'm trying to catch up on from January til now.

Back in January we celebrated Luke's birthday! He was so excited to open his presents. Crazy how he is just turning into a little man!

Also back in January, Johnny turned 18 months. He starting going to nursery, at church, and hated it! Now he loves it.. most days. But he does love playing outside and helping daddy work on stuff.

 

One morning in March, Mark came up to me while getting ready for school and said, "mom there is a steer head on my nose!" He scrunches his little nose up and sure enough the outline of a steer head shows up! I decided to scrap this memory and call it "Born a Cowboy" .. cows are in his DNA!

 

And in April we went to the fair! We love the fair! The food, the rides, the rodeo, the food.. oh wait I already said that! We had a blast!

 

These next two scrap pages are the more recent memories. ^^Mother's Day! Me and the kiddos :)^^

 

and Allie's Spring Violin recital. The recital was only two days ago, so 10 points for me for not procrastinating! Allie did great. She is loving violin and we plan to add the piano this Summer to switch things up.

Whew! Now I need to scrap Mark's birthday, May Day and lots of camping and canoeing trips!!

Allie's Baptism

Our sweet daughter, Allie was baptized by her dad, Dustin, on January 4, 2014. Allie is an amazing girl and we are so proud of her choice to get baptized. She knows the gospel and is so eager to learn more and share it with others! She made a goal to memorize all the 13 Articles of Faith before she was baptized and she did it! After her baptism we finally had her birthday party (since we all had the stomach flu on her actual birthday). It was a great day celebrating Allie and her baptism.

Design Kit: My Special Day by GG Digital Designs

Template: Be Inspired - Ulrika by WM [squared] Designs

2013 Scrapbook!!

I know I've been completely AWOL on the blog for the past few months... er year, but that is because I've been scrapbooking!!
I made it my 2013 New Year's Resolution to scrap more and blog less. I've done really well keeping up with our pictures and now I have our family's 2013 scrapbook ready to print!

I'm printing with Adoramapix again, for the fifth time. I absolutely loooooove their books (and prints). Their photo-books lay completely flat and are printed on actual photo paper. The quality is amazing and the price isn't too bad either. Right now they are having a 40% off sale til the end of March. I'm getting my 68 page, 10x10 inch book for $90!

Feel free to click through the book (be sure to click "view larger"). But here are some of the pages from the end of last year, that I haven't shared yet! Enjoy!!

School

Learning to Can

 Design kit: Farmhouse Kitchen and Saturday Market by As You Wish Designs

Template: Silkstone Common 3 by Little Green Frog Designs

 Journalling:
Our garden is doing really well this year and we have lots of tomatoes, along with other vegetables. The tomatoes are usually ready to pick and can in early June. Allie is old enough to help me do the canning this year! It was so fun to work side by side in the kitchen with her and teach her about canning. She said it was lots of fun but lots of work and she is so right! We love canning our produce but we especially love eating it!

Spring Violin Recital

Design Kit: Springtime Blooms by GG Digital

Template: Week 45 FREEBIE by Megan Turnidge

Jounralling reads:

For Allie’s spring violin recital she worked really hard to memorize and play Allegretto. She was accompanied by Grandma Gaye Nelson.

Allie has been taking violin lessons from Aunt Jill for two years now. Jill is a wonderful teacher and Allie has learned so much!

Johnny's first tooth!

 

Oh, and if you couldn't tell, he likes to feed himself.

~~~~~

To keep up with my scrapbooking goal, I decided to make a page really quick!

Design Kit: Toothless by GG Digital Designs

Template: Sarah E. Template Set 1

Text reads:

Allie lost a tooth the same week Johnny got his first! So we're all smiles around here!

Back to School

Christmas break ended today.. back to school and routine we go! 

I miss Christmastime. I even miss our tree.. all dry and dropping needles everywhere. 

At some point I'll go through the Christmas and New Years pictures.. there are just so many!

Anyway with school back on, I decided I'd finally scrap Allie's first day of first grade!

Allie loves school so much. She was so excited to go back. 

Her class was going to sing her "Happy Birthday" and she even gets to wear a crown! 

 How could you not be excited about that? 

I miss my little partner! Is it 3:30 yet??

Allie is SEVEN!

I'm making a goal for 2013. 

Instead of editing and uploading a bunch of photos and posting them on our blog, I'm going to edit the photos and create a layout and then post the scrapbook page to the blog.

Since I don't want to do a blog book and a scrapbook.. My thinking is by the end of the year I'll be ready to publish our family album, instead of posting here and then having nothing to show for it. 

With that being said... I'm trying to start now!!

So, I scrapped one of my first pages for 2012 {I'm soooooo behind} of Allie's birthday.

My baby girl turned seven yesterday!

She requested a "My Little Pony" party and cake. I did my best, but I was a little burned out with Christmas. It was nothing fancy, but she loved it!
Dustin made her a beautiful wood rocking horse, I made her a My Little Pony felt play mat and she received lots of crafts, toys and even some money for other family members!

Sitting at the Inside Scoop yesterday for her lunch date, I loved watching her. Dunking her chicken strips and fries in ranch and visiting like a little lady. She's growing up so fast and I'm loving it. I love her sweet little attitude and her willingness to help and serve others. I'm proud of how hard she tries on her school work and how she just wants to make her dad and me happy.

Love you Allie girl!!

First Day of First Grade!

Today was Allie's first day of first grade! She was so excited! She woke up a little after 6 and was more than ready by 7 and we didn't even have to catch the bus til 8:30! She kept asking, "Is it time to go yet?"

 As per tradition, I took her picture on the front porch.  I think Allie was most excited to wear her new light up shoes. She learned how to tie them a week ago and unties them and ties them over and over again!

  Sporting her Jessie backpack

I love my Allie girl! I'm going to miss her so much -- Just me and the boys home all day now!


Finally it was time to head to the bus. The bus wasn't scary at all this year. When she saw it coming she ran to go catch it and I had to call her back to give me a kiss!


Allie's cousin Hans Whipple is in her class again this year!


And Aunt Carol is her teacher this year. Allie couldn't be happier! We love Carol!  
Allie is growing up so fast and is turning into quite the little lady. We're so proud of you Allie and we're excited for the new school year!

Hello Summer!

Tuesday night, Allie said that Wednesday (water day) was going to be
"THE BEST DAY EVER!"
She was so excited for a water filled day with her friends.
That morning she woke up yelling "WATER DAY!!!!"Allie and some of her classmates

The girls drying off

Allie and cousin BFF Elise
(Thanks for the pictures Raegan!)
~~~

Then today was the last day of school. I thought it was only appropriate to document the last day as well as the first!


Oh how my little girl has grown up!

Allie said that her teacher cried and was going to miss her, so she gave her extra hugs! Allie cried a little too and said she was going to miss Kindergarten but that she was excited to be able to have art and lunch in first grade.

We made it through the year!!
Hello SUMMER!

Kindergarten, havin a blast.. Kindergarten happened so fast!

Today was Allie's end of the year Kindergarten performance!
They sang us some fun songs and then we watched a slideshow of the year.
I may have cried a little.. I'll blame it on being pregnant, but Allie is just so darn big!


One of the super cute songs they sang!


Allie and her wonderful teacher Mrs. Hammons


Hello Summer and then on to first grade!

Recent things...

Estefan got a new 410 shot gun,

Allie lost her first tooth,

Mark caught a baby bird,

and the kids all went camping in the back yard!

Allie and Baby Room {Sneak Peek}

If you remember this post, you know that I've been working on making Allie's room gender neutral to share with our new baby boy.

While I'm still working on little details and wall decor, the bedding is done and that is a huge, huge, huge part! Here is another sneak peek at the boy/girl John Deere room.

Whaddya think??

I've also been nesting.. a lot.
Cleaning my butt off and sewing as much as possible. Always with a Pepsi close by! ;)

My mom helped me bind this quilt.
Kick me if I ever mention working with satin again.. but I loooove the soft minky.
Thank you mom!! This would seriously be in the garbage without your help!

We're pretty excited to get the little dude here -- and we're almost ready for him now!!