The Very Hungry Caterpillar Nursery

So my stepmom was here for almost two weeks and left on friday. One of the MAJOR things she did while she was here was completely finish the nursery. A few weeks ago, I posted a blog about how I wasn't ready for these baby girls for make their entrance. Well, now we are physically ready. She located all the parts of my breast pump, organized ALL of the clothes that we have and labeled everything, put all the pacifiers that were spread about the whole house in one spot, hung our new video monitors (courtesy of fun Aunt Tay-Tay, you're the best), cleaned bottles and made room for them in cabinets, and did TONS of laundry. Troy and I also took inventory of everything we still needed and Elaine went to Babies R Us and bought everything that we needed. We are OFFICIALLY ready for these sweet girls.

Here is the finished product.

This is the view standing in the doorway and looking into the left corner of the room. Yes, my hospital bag is the purple one on the changing table. It is packed with premie clothes...and that's it. The diaper bag is COMPLETELY clean and wiped out...but not packed. The black bag is my pump. Complete with clean parts and in working order. You can see the cameras mounted over the pictures and the wires hanging down out of reaching baby arms.

This is the crib right next to the door when you walk into the room. We decided to buy 2 new cribs a) so they would match and b) because Avery's crib was a drop side and didn't transition to a toddler bed so we had to put her into a twin bed. We used the bumpers my mother in law made on the head and footboards of each bed. Elaine sewed ribbons onto each corner so they could be tied to the posts on the ends. Elaine made crib skirts with the little caterpillars. You can't see them too well, but I assure you, they're adorable. LOVE them.

This is the changing table in between the cribs. It's Avery's changing table from her crib set. Can you see the labels Elaine put on all the drawers? She wanted to make sure I could find everything since I wasn't the one organizing the nursery. Isn't that cute?

And if you couldn't see, here's a close up:

Here is crib #2. All of the wall stickers came from a website called www.funtosee.com and this is the 3rd room that they have been used in. So definitely worth the money, as the stickiness is still intact. I highly recommend wall stickers. Elaine also made the 4 paneled quilt that is hanging on the side of the crib. I love how personalized everything is with the homemade gifts from these grandmas.

This is the wall right next to the door when you walk in. The quilt on the wall was the first thing that I bought when I found out I was pregnant with Avery and we built our nursery theme around that.

Here is the inside of her closet. Blankets stacked on top, with a hanging closet organizer. It holds socks, bibs, burp cloths, swaddle blankets, and extra crib sheets. The left side of the closet contains all their "next size up clothes" in big Rubbermaid bins. The rocking chair is blocking that side since we will only need to get in there every 3 months to change out clothing sizes.

So I *guess* these babies can come now. I'd prefer if they hang out in there for another couple weeks, but I've been having some heavy contractions and taking my max medication dosage. I have an appointment today, so we'll see what my doctor says. Keep you all updated! Thanks for your prayers! They're WORKING.

"What Does the Fox Say?"

First of all, if you haven't watched this video yet, a) you're missing out and b) this post will make NO sense to you. It's Avery's new favorite. She asks to watch it at least once a day. So watch the video.



And here is Avery and her crazy Daddy singing and dancing. Avery is just transfixed.



When you ask her "what does a fox say?" she says "ring a ding ding ding." DYING. So funny.

In different (but related news) I splurged on some treats for Kinley and Caris. At Avery's baby shower, my mom's friend Brenda bought Avery a "JellyCat" teddy bear from some boutique. Well, Avery LOVES him and sleeps with him every night. And his name is Bear-Bear. Real original, right? Meet Bear-Bear tucked into her bed:

He is a pink, corduroy teddy bear. He has been dragged around all of our moves, thrown up on, drug through the dirt, made some road trips, and been washed about 50 times. When we took her pacifier away when she was a year old, she used his nose as a pacifier. He looks pretty good, I think. The fabric is thick and durable enough that if we ever had an accidental amputation or laceration, he could easily be stitched up.

Luckily, we had left Bear-Bear's tags on and I was able to Google the company. And because Amazon is awesome, they sell ALLLLLL kinds of JellyCat corduroy animals. I was ecstatic. Bear-Bear is soft, has held up, is cute, and is a great size. We definitely wanted to buy something for the girls that was "just because" from Mom and Dad. So we sat down and scrolled through all the choices. We wanted them all to be different colors, so there was no confusion, and wanted them to all have different animals. There was an ADORABLE elephant, mouse, horse, alligator, bunny, kangaroo, etc.

We settled on a Rhino (my choice):

And a Fox (Troy's choice):

I. AM. OBSESSED. They are SO soft and cute. They came in the mail and Avery was immediately like "MINE." And we had a sit down talk about how those belong to her sisters. And she has HER Bear-Bear. Which we never make her share. She seemed to understand and handed them over.

So now, here is my poll for you. Troy and I SUCK at naming things. The only reason our dog has a bad ass name is because we didn't name him. The SPCA did. I mean, how original is "Bear-Bear"?

What should we name the Fox and the Rhino? Troy was like, "how about Rhino and Fox?" Negative. Any suggestions for the twins' snuggle friends?

So there is a full blog post about foxes. And a rhino. Suggestions on naming encouraged.

Uncle Si/Duck Dynasty

Troy's parents were SUPER active in youth group when we were growing up. He has made a point to be involved with the youth at our local churches whenever we move. Here are a couple theme night pictures from other events.

Troy as Mr. Incredible with Jim as Batman:

And yes, I volunteered as well, but haven't since Avery was born. Here is Troy and me on Cowboys and Indians night.

As further proof, here is me as a Kangaroo (cause I'm preggo) and Jon as a Gorilla on animal night:

But really, this post is about Troy and is total commitment to a theme night.

So, Troy volunteers with the youth group at our church here in Las Vegas. He goes to their weekly house group meetings for bible study. Every grade has a house in the community that is offered up to the church for the youth. Troy goes to the house for 11th grade boys.

As part of their outreach, the house groups had a theme day during the sunday youth church service. The service is at 11am and is usually 100+ high school kids. It's a full service with their own praise band that is members of the youth group and a sermon and communion and everything. Most of the house groups have about 10-20 kids that go to each house for each gender. For example, Troy works with the 11th grade boys and they usually have about 10-12 kids there. They are trying to encourage more kids to attend house group, so they had a theme day on sunday for house groups.

Each house group picked their own theme and Troy's house picked "Duck Dynasty." Troy was VERY excited and went all out. He dressed up as Uncle Si and even brought the teal cup with a container of sweet tea.

I was dying. He was looking up Uncle Si quotes so that he could spit them out at youth group.

Troy went to Buffalo Wild Wings and picked up "duck wings" for their themed table. Troy was in charge of food for the house table and the 11th grade girls leader (they meet at the same house and so the whole grade had the same theme) was in charge of decorations for the table. I think they did awesome.

Those were all taken with an iphone, so sorry about the quality. But seriously, how funny is that?

And here is a video. Because you know, Troy is the best. I mean, Uncle Si.