Still waiting

I'm hoping these pictures of all of baby's stuff will entice him to come! Here is my best attempt at a "nursery". First up is the changing table. I showed you pics awhile back when I bought it and spray painted it and then I bought these totes. The colors match the colors in the quilt my mom has made for him. It is currently at the quilters and hopefully it will be done soon!

I even made labels for each of the totes so I don't have to pull out 5 each time I'm looking for something. I used scrapbook paper, a circle punch and my laminator. It was really easy and cheap.

I bought a changing pad and with leftover flannel from the baby quilt I made, I made a cover for the changing pad. They sell these for like $10 at the store. Why not use my leftovers?!

Here is the basket with his blankies.

My rocker/glider is in the corner of the room with my hospital bag on it. I still need to throw a few more things in, but I have a start.

Essentially baby gets the other side of our bedroom! Ha. How's that for a "nursery"?!! If we had another room, we would put him there, but we don't. So this will have to do! Although I'm pretty lazy when it comes to getting up at night and feeding a baby. I want to walk as little as possible to get him! He will be in the portacrib for a while, then we will switch Ali to a big girl (or toddler) bed and give him the real crib at some point.

Oh, and here's the swing, all ready to go. Notice it's standing in front of the dresser. I know. The girls try to get into every baby toy we have for him and we're worried they will break this one! We also have the bouncer ready to go. We'll see which one he likes better. Molly LOVED the bouncer. Ali loved the swing.

Then here's the quilt I made for baby! I used leftover squares from the quilts I made for my nieces and just pulled out the green, blue and white. It worked great! Then my mom found the two flannel borders and I used a white satin binding.

It is super soft!! And I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I quilted it with my sewing machine.

The back is also flannel. It says baby all over in white (it's a bit hard to tell).

I had to learn how to miter the corners (fold the corners) with the satin binding (the edge). I decided instead of having my mom teach me, I could use youtube! And that's exactly what I did. It worked great! I played the video while I sewed on my machine.

If you're wondering, this is what I see when I look down. Actually, I can't see my toes. But I moved in this pic so you could get a better idea.

39 weeks. Come on baby!!

I had my hair done yesterday. It's getting pretty blond! I think this is as blond as I will take it, then I'm gonna start heading darker. Isn't hair fun? I love changing it up! I know some people don't, but it's fun to me :)

I saw the doctor today and there is no new progress. I'm still at a 2 and 70% effaced. I even went to Zumba this morning!! All for nothing. Ha. Just kidding. I let him "sweep my membranes" (as he calls it) which I was really scared to do, but actually him checking my cervix was more uncomfortable. Let's hope it works! A week from today is my due date, May 22nd. I hope he decides to come before! My back is sick of holding him up!

2 for 1

Happy late Mother's Day! We also celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary yesterday. Because of Justin's graduation on Friday, we were pretty chill about the events of the day. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary, but I did get a nice 2 hour nap! So that was a great gift for me!

We have combined graduation, Mother's Day, and our anniversary all together and bought tickets to see Wicked this summer! We are so excited. I have seen it before (2 years ago) but Justin has never seen it. They are back at the Capitol Theatre in July and August this summer and we can't wait! If anyone wants to join us, we would love company!

Law School Graduation!

He did it!!! Yesterday Justin graduation from law school. Here he is having his name read.

Shaking hands with faculty. The graduation was really nice. It ended early, which is always nice, and the speakers were all very good. They had 3 student speakers, the dean spoke, and a keynote speaker (a woman who graduated from the U's law school and has done some great things in her life).

Proud daughters!! The girls were actually very good during the whole ceremony. Good thing I had about 4 granola bars in my bag!

Justin with his parents.

His grandparents also traveled down from Star Valley to attend.

With my parents.

His "hood". The purple if for law and the red and white for school colors.

This may be the one and only time you see Justin standing by a red U with a smile on his face :) ha!

The graduation took place here, inside Kingsbury Hall. It was such a beautiful day. They had a reception after outside on the lawn, across the street from the building. They had a light lunch for everyone.

We are so proud and excited for Justin! What a huge accomplishment. We are so excited for this next part in our lives and to be done with homework, finals, class and textbooks!! We are also grateful that baby boy decided to let Justin have his own day and hope he will soon make his debut!

We had a really nice dinner last night at a steakhouse downtown with our parents and Justin's grandparents. It was yummy food and we had a nice time together. Congratulations Justin!

baby update

Today I'm 38 weeks. I'll spare you a picture :) I am now in the "ticking time bomb" stage as my sister refers to it! My main goal is to make it to Friday without going into labor so I can be at Justin's graduation. After that, he can come any time he wants! Well, and hopefully not past the 22nd (my due date!).

Yesterday I saw the doctor and I'm dilated to a 2 and 70% effaced. I was actually surprised that something was actually going on, not that it's a lot! But we all know that you can sit at the same stage for weeks and have nothing happen. But at least it's something for now. He asked if I wanted him to strip my membranes, but I'm a big wimp, so I said no! I'm not a fan of more pain when I know I'm in for some big pain soon!

I walked on the treadmill today for just under an hour and tonight I'm paying for it! I feel saddle sore, like I rode a horse or something, so maybe it wasn't the best idea! I've still been going to the gym 3 times a week lately. Tomorrow is my cycle class and I'm wondering if I should just do half of the class or what after being pretty sore today.

Last Friday was my last day of "work". Some of you know I've been helping out a lady's house for the past few years. It has been a GREAT job. I would go M-F when I could in the mornings, show up when I wanted and bring both girls. I did laundry (washing, drying, folding and putting away), made beds, did dishes, and just tidied up. I just kept track of my time, usually 3-5 hours a week (never more).  It was totally worth it to me and the perfect little side job. I would turn on a show for the girls while I cleaned (I know, mother of the year!) and they would watch or play with toys they found or the kitty. There are 4 kids in the family and the mom plays tennis and works out in the mornings. Her husband is a doctor, so she could afford to have someone like me come help. I wish someone would come over and do the same at my house for me, but I am so grateful that she allowed me to earn some extra money while Justin was in school. If I thought I could make it worth it with 3 kids, I would! But I have to admit, it has been nice not going this week!

Kentucky Derby party

Justin's brother Scott, and his wife, Brooke, have been planning a Kentucky Derby party for months (they don't have any link to the race or the state, but they have just always thought it would be fun). I was asked to bring a dessert, so I brought these cupcakes. I found the toppers and cupcake recipe (it's a spinoff of a kentucky derby pie) for free online at Mirabelle Creations. Aren't they so cute?

We had quite the spread of food too! It was all very yummy! Lemonade/limeade and mint julep! (It was all very festive!!)

Here was the centerpiece with the prizes!

The delicious fruit my mil fixed up.

Here's Brooke, the hostess! She even bought a horse balloon!

Back to the food...all spread out on the counter. We wrote up labels that came from the Mirabelle Creations as well.

Our little munchins (with cousins)! Reese, Molly, Laney and Ali.

The rest of the party attendees. Everyone was asked to dress up. It was really fun!

We drew names from a hat and this is who I drew. Lucky me, my horse WON!! It was so exciting!! I will be honest and tell you that I had only heard of a couple of the horses before we actually watched the race, this horse not included! The kids even got to draw so they were cheering for their horses too.

Justin picked Bodemeister, who was one of the frontrunners. He was in first place the whole time until my horse took him in the last few seconds!! So thrilling!! Justin claims that's how his life is. I always win in the end :) ha ha, well, maybe!

Here we are in our derby gear!! Don't you love my hat?! I borrowed it from my mom's friend who collects hats! We borrowed Justin's hat from a friend (thank you Sara!) and we had the girls hats already.

I won the prize for best hat!! Woohoo! My mil took 1st place and my sil Ashley took 2nd! I borrowed Ashley's hat from a friend as well (thanks Jane!).

Here are all the winners. They had prizes for fastest horse, slowest horse, hats and a trivia game.

Me with my prizes! A trophy and a sash! It was quite the winning day for me :) ha ha! We had so much fun. A big thanks to Scott and Brooke. They say they want to make it into a yearly tradition. Sounds good to me! It was so fun having everyone dress up. Even the guys went all out. Parties are more fun if you dress up, don't you think?!

Tracy Aviary

This past Friday we went with the girls to Tracy Aviary at Liberty Park in Salt Lake. None of us had ever been before and Molly's school gave us a free family admission. It was really neat! We only had about 30 minutes before they closed, so we had to move pretty quickly, but we had a fun time!

Pictured above is a golden eagle.

They also had a bald eagle.

The girls were very fascinated!

I love these pictures of Molly. The peacocks were just walking around wherever they wanted. At first Molly asked if she could go and pet it. We said probably not, but she could get close.

She was a bit unsure once she was closer!!

And Ali was too!

They had some beautiful Chilean flamingos! Molly was really excited to see them. The picture doesn't do justice to how bright they were.

Some of the colors of these birds were so vibrant and pretty! A lot of the birds we had never heard of, or seen before for that matter!

The toucan was so bright!

Our little birdies :)

They had an area called "Owl Forest"with several different kinds of owls. It was neat to see the different sizes of owls.

I don't know if you can see it, but this owl has a dead mouse he's holding in his mouth! Molly was pretty upset when she realized that this was their food!

It's kind of a big loop around and we made it through the whole loop by the time they closed. If we had had more days to use the pass, we would have tried a different time, but this was our best chance. It was actually much neater than I had thought it would be. And there were more birds than I thought. Justin and I were pretty impressed! If you have a chance, you should check it out!