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.

Shaving the Couch

So, in case you didn't hear, I'm on strict bed rest. I basically wake up, take a shower, get dressed, and head to couch for the rest of the day. Only to get up to get water and food and go to the bathroom. It pretty much sucks because the state of my house is out of my control, which drives me nutso.

We bought a sectional a few months ago and I'm not sure what the material is, but Optimus's feet are making it pill up like a bad Christmas sweater. It used to get on my nerves, but now that I am spending 12+ hours a day lounging, eating, and sleeping on the couch, I cannot STAND it.

Do you see that? The little balls of fabric all over the place? It's our own fault for allowing our dog on the couch, but he's a member of our family and Avery (and Troy) like to use him as a pillow, so he stays on the couch for snuggles. But, oh LORD his rough paws are trashing the fabric.

I got on Amazon and bought a sweater shaver. I figured, I'm sitting here all day, reading and watching TV. SURELY I can make time to "shave the couch." It arrived in 2 days. THANK YOU AMAZON PRIME! And now my cushions look like this!

Here is a picture of the couch with the far cushion cleaned up and the close cushion ready to be shaved.

This is after about 20 dumps of the little container of pilled fabric. Gross huh? But the couch looks gorgeous again. I'd say that was worth the $8.50! Thanks Amazon! It took about 3 hours, but eh, I wasn't doing anything else.

Upgrading Builder Grade Items

When Avery came home, my stepdad flew with her. That brave soul. Thank goodness for direct flights, eh?

We were giving him a tour of the house when he got here and I started mentioning things that I wanted to do/change/upgrade and he pretty much decided to take lead on that while he was here visiting for a week.

First, we got some hardware for the kitchen cabinets. I cannot say how much I have been bugging Troy to do this. I probably said something about it once a week for 6 months. I think that could fall in the nagging category...

Here is what they looked like before:

They're pretty and all, but just looked super unfinished. And my baking cabinet always had flour/oil/greasiness on the door from grabbing the edge of door rather some hardware.

Troy and I headed to Lowe's to pick some out and settled on some brushed silver handles. We picked out another set initially, but when they told us they'd have to special order them because we needed 45 of them, we were like "um, well what do you have in stock?" The special order would take 9-10 days and my stepdad was not going to stay that long to give us a good kick in the rear and get it done. So we picked something that we could take home that day.

SO MUCH BETTER! The kitchen feels SO much more finished and after having them in for 2 weeks, I don't know how we lived without them for almost a year. Seriously, it changed my life. So much less cleaning and wiping down of cabinets. Those dark cabinets would leave wicked handprints on them. With the brushed metal, you don't see any fingerprints. YES.

They made an easy, breezy template for installation and to do all 45 handles, and it only took about an hour.

The other big upgrade made was the light fixture in our downstairs full bathroom. It was seriously gross because I always wanted to dust the bulbs. You could see every speck of dust on them. I have hated it since we moved in. I don't like the exposed lightbulbs and hope to upgrade the other 2 bathrooms very soon. It makes the room feel so much more homey and nice.

I didn't take a picture of the actual fixture, but here's the picture of the twin in Avery's bathroom upstairs. It makes me cringe. Seriously.

I LOVE the new one. It was designed where you pick out the globes that you want for the fixture. We already had extra globes in our garage from another project (the chandelier in the dining room) so we saved money there :)

Adding a Bedroom (and Property Value) to Our House!

If you remember back about a year, I shared this post about buying our house. We bought a new house and are the first home owners/occupants. However, we bought standing stock because we weren't willing to wait 3-4 months for the house to be built. The downside to that choice was we didn't really get to pick any of the fixtures/options/paint etc.

The people who "built" our house backed out of the house at closing and that's how we came to see the house. That couple had picked all of the options for the home. One of the upgrade options on the blueprints (you can see below) was turning "bedroom 2" right off the Master's suite into a "Master retreat." They chose to do that. Troy and I knew buying the house that that was wasted square footage for us. We are not people who hang out in our room. Ever. We don't have a TV in there. We don't want a home gym (gross) and neither of us work out from home. We have a loft upstairs for another hang out area/TV area, so this master suite was literally a room that we never went in. Optimus used it the most because he slept in a chair we had in the corner.



We began talking soon after moving in about what situation our family would be in to wall that room in again. Having more kids was one of those options. Our guest room is downstairs and living in Vegas, we knew we would have lots of visitors (and we have). It was important to us to keep our kids/noise away from guests and we didn't want them to share a bathroom with kids toys, diapers, and toddler pottys in them. So we knew that if we were going to have 3+ kids, we definitely wanted to wall in the room.

Some people would LOVE this space as a master retreat. We just don't need it. We are definitely living room couch loungers. As far as resale/rental potential down the road, most people that we know have 2+ kids and we know a few families (HI BRIE) who might be moving here and want to rent a house with lots of bedrooms. So we're hoping that having 5 bedrooms makes that a selling point for the house as a resale or rental.

Which brings me to the next point. We are having twin girls. Yes, they are sharing a room. At least for a while. The other bedroom in the blueprint (bedroom 3 in the corner) we are reserving for a future Aupair/guest room. We have a credit at a furniture store and in the next few weeks, we are going and getting unstackable bunk beds for the twins in the future, but for now, those can be used for a nanny or as a guest room. Aunt Kathy...we are doing this while you are here. YAY furniture shopping!

We wanted the twins near us and far from Avery (she has the room over the garage) for noise purposes. So the girls are getting the new room right next to us.

Here is the before view of the room, from our bedroom into the "retreat":

Here is after the wall went up:

And this is as the room is now:

If you stand on the other side of the wall, in the new space, this is what you see. You are looking at the new closet:

Standing where the closet is and looking back towards our room, here is the before:

And this is with the wall up. We are starting to get stuff moved in there and out of Avery's closet. It's a bit of a mess. But you get the general idea. We are sticking with the Eric Carle theme of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" like Avery's nursery. We really loved it and it's gender neutral. The wall stickers have made it through 3 different rooms now and are still plenty sticky. Definitely worth the money :)

Here is the before angle looking from the window to where the new doorway went in:

And after with the new door:

And here is the before picture from out in the hallway where the door went in:

And here is the after:

We are really happy that we decided to put the wall up and the doorway in. If we had the option to build our house instead of buying standing stock, this is what we would have picked anyway, so I'm glad we went ahead and changed it. And it's nice to start nest a little bit for the girls :)

We still have a little furniture rearranging to do. We ended up getting rid of Avery's crib because it was a drop arm (and she's a climber) and it didn't convert to a toddler bed either. We wanted something for the 2 girls that was would be 1) safer and 2) have a longer lifespan of use for them. When we get the cribs we will be doing a little furniture jenga in there to figure out the best arrangement for a dresser, 2 cribs, a glider, and a bookshelf. When everything lands in it's final spot, I'll get you guys an update.

We are Having Triplets

You read that right. We are still processing this information, but if I think about it too much, I feel like I'm going to stroke out, so I try not to think about it. Too much. All the time.

But we have had time to process and evaluate and we are OVERJOYED! Overwhelmed about all of the planning and medical things we will face in the next 9 months, but excited about eventually coming home with our babies.



When last I left you, I had just been released from the hospital after a paracentesis. They were predicting that I would need to be drained again because Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome takes a long time to resolve (through the first trimester) and requires scheduled draining to maintain.

We found out during my followup from the paracentesis with my fertility doctor that we were expecting twins!! YES! Perfect. We didn't know if we wanted 2 or 3 children and the decision was made for us by God and we didn't have to go through fertility hell again. YAY!

I went back to Nellis for my follow up appointment with Women's Health and my next scheduled appointment with intervention radiology for another paracentesis. I was basically back to normal (only up 6 lbs from my original weight) and were able to determine that I did NOT need another paracentesis, much to their shock and surprise. They wanted to do an abdominal ultrasound to see if there were any hidden pockets of ascites (more fluid hiding) in my abdomen. The OB started the ultrasound and found a few very small pockets of fluid, but determined it was nothing to worry about.

Then she says: So, how far along are you?

Me: About six weeks, I think.

Doc: Oooooh fun! Ok, lets see if we can see anything in there!

At this point, a new airman entered the room to observe the ultrasound. She asked if it was ok to sit in, as she was new and trying to learn more about her job. Of course, I was cool with that.

Doc (still doing the abdominal ultrasound): Ooooh look! There's a sac! Ooooh and there's another one! Twins!

Me: Yeah, we found out a week ago. We're excited!

Doc: (pauses) Oh, wait a second. Do you mind if we switch to a vaginal ultrasound and get a better look?

Me (thinking nothing of it): Sure!! Maybe we can see heartbeats!

They leave the room for a few minutes while I "get ready."

They come back in and the airman is looking rather excited. I eye her suspiciously.

Doc: Ok, here are heartbeats on the 2 right here! AND LOOK! There's another baby right up there hiding at the top of your uterus!

Airman: OH. EM. GEE. You're my first set of triplets!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!

AAAAAAND you could hear a pin drop.

There was NO SOUND IN THE WORLD for about 27 seconds. That poor airman was NOT met with excitement, but absolute TERROR.

And then Troy opened his fat mouth.

Troy: So what you're SAYING is, we have to think of ANOTHER name? That's like, THE WORST part.

My mind started going to million miles a minute.

DAMN YOU AND YOUR 30 MILLION SPERM COUNT, TROY!!! DAMN YOU! Oh God. We just outgrew our house. And our car. Why is Troy in the military? We are SO far away from any family and are going to have no help. Maybe I can convince my mom to quit her job. She loves me right? Oh thank God Troy's in the military. We have health insurance. Do we need more cribs? How long is a gestational period for triplets? Am I going on bed rest soon? Poor Avery. She'll never understand. Oh God. I need to do some research in my journals about developmental delays and the NICU. I knew I should've taken that continuing education class about NICU stuff. I can't breastfeed 3 babies. How are we going to diaper that many kids? I'm gonna have to keep using cloth. SO MUCH POOP. My mom was right. Avery needs to be potty trained ASAP. And transitioned to her big girl room. ASAP. Thank God we paid off our cars and have NO debt. I need to work my butt off while I'm feeling good. I'm not going to be able to work for about 6 months between bed rest and the NICU and getting adjusted with triplets. TRIPLETS. Is this real life?

I blacked out during the rest of the ultrasound. No joke.

The next thing I remember is the doctor putting her hand on my knee and saying "hey, are you guys going to be okay?" Like TOTALLY dead serious. She could tell I was about to lose it. Absolutely lose it.

My mom was out in the waiting room with Avery when Troy and I came out with the ultrasound pictures. I handed them to her and said, "well, I'm glad we're going to the buffet for lunch because I'm eating for four." Like total deadpanned facial expression.

My mom grabbed the ultrasound and started jumping up and down, clapping like a seal at Sea World.

I was in complete shock. Complete and utter shock.

SO.

We have known for about 3 weeks now that it's triplets. And we have processed. And feeling SO much better. Avery is currently with my parents in South Carolina having a great time gardening, going to the park, playing in the humidity sprinklers, and eating like a queen. We sent her home with my parents last week after my sisters wedding. She will be staying with them for 2 months.

We decided that this was best for us right now because I can work my tail off while I'm feeling good, save on childcare expenses, and do some things around the house that would be harder/take longer with Avery here. Things like:

- Car shop
- Add another bedroom to our house
- Switch all her stuff OUT of the nursery to a big girl room
- have a yard sale
- Save money

My parents are THRILLED to have her and are doing some things that are making Troy and I VERY happy:

- transitioning her to a "big girl bed"
- potty training
- eating meals NOT in a high chair
- getting in and out of her car seat without help

I am currently 8.5 weeks pregnant. Is it early to be telling? YES!!! With Avery, we didn't announce until we knew that she was girl, we waited so long. But now? We would rather have your prayers, thoughts, advice, and support than worry about anything bad that COULD happen.

So here is where I leave you for now. I will be keeping you all updated very frequently as I will start having frequent appointments with the high risk doctor in a few weeks. I have another ultrasound next week! One of Troy's co-workers wife had triplets last month and he gave me her contact info. We spent almost 2 hours on the phone and I'm sure she will be a WONDERFUL source of support and advice.

While I know the overall tone of this email is somber, we are very excited about our family growing. We are feeling very blessed and our families have been SO supportive. We just have a lot to consider and plan for the unexpected while we can :)


Any advice or resources are VERY welcome. We love you all and will be talking to you soon.

The name of this blog just got real. Like really real :) It's gonna be awesome. Pull up a chair and come along for the ride!

Celery Art

In my quest to do/try more things I have pinned in pinterest, I made a quick piece of wall art last week.

This was actually one of the first things I had EVER pinned, so I was pretty psyched to try it after I made a fruit and veggie trip to Costco. After I had cut up and prepped all of the food for eating, I realized, that I had left over veggies for an art project!!

Here is the original "pinspiration":

Using cut celery as a stamp!! Genius, right?

Well, I learned some things along the way. I started with some thick watercolor paper. I didn't want to use regular printer paper, so I just grabbed this so the colors wouldn't bleed. I had 4 cut celery stalks and I picked some paint.

I dipped the celery end into some paint and made sure it was squished around really good and picked up the paint.

Lesson 1: Don't cut the celery stalk down too low or the "flower" is all mushed together and then the paint just looks like a blob. Make your lowest cut up farther on the stalk so there is room for the stalks to "spread out." You can see what I mean in the picture below (look at the middle of the stalk...it's a big blob).

Lesson 2: Don't push too hard on the celery stamp when you use it or the paint just bleeds together and there is no stalk separation (lesson 1).

Lesson 3: If you don't push hard enough, it looks like an accident. And this is definitely art that you want to look intentional. Do you see the top left light blue stalk? That was one that didn't get pushed hard enough.

It was a fun, quick project, but probably not something I'd frame or hang. Now if Avery had done it, I'd be the proudest Mommy in town. It was fun, but might be cuter in red or pink on ivory cards for Valentine's Day or something.

I did this project in less than 10 minutes, including set up and clean up. Easy peasy. I think it would be fun for kids too, with hand guidance so that you didn't end up with celery flowers on your wall :) I'm glad I practiced and I might be trying this with Avery the next time I buy celery. Happy stamping!!

Anyone else try something they saw on pinterest lately? Did it go according to plan?

Making Freezer Crock Pot Meals

I think this is a common emotion that many people feel when it comes to the execution of projects, recipes, or home decor on pinterest:

I have really really been trying to have more execution of pins. On days that Troy and I both work all day, we have this conversation around 430 or 5 when we both get home.

Natalie: What do you want to do for dinner?

Troy: I dunno. Whatever you want.

Natalie: You're cooking if you don't tell me what you want me to make.

Troy: Uh, chicken something.

Natalie: We had chicken last night.

Troy: Okay well don't ask me what I want for dinner and then shoot me down when I tell you.

Natalie: Frozen pizza?

Troy: Okay.

And then we high five the lazy.

To stop the frozen pizza cycle, I started searching for some crock pot recipes on pinterest. Then I found this one. 8 meals. MAJOR win.

I made a list of things that we needed and the meat was definitely the most expensive part. I needed 8 chicken breasts, 3 lbs of beef stew, and 2 lbs of ground beef. I got everything from Costco and probably spent about 25 dollars just on meat. Most of the other stuff was stuff we had on had already (potatoes, onions, and carrots). If you click on the link, it has the recipes I used and also a whole list of grocery items.

It took me about 1.5 hours (during Avery's nap and Troy's homework time) to do all the prep and cooking required for these meals. There are 8 bags and 4 different recipes with 2 bags of each recipe.

Here is the beef stew and the teriyaki chicken up close. I wrote ON the bag if there are any additional instructions (add water, serve over rice/egg noodles, cooking time, etc) for each recipe.

This is the BBQ chicken and beef goulash.

Troy stacked up 4 in the freezer outside and we stacked the other 4 inside. There are only 3 bags in the picture because we decided to have the bbq chicken recipe for an early dinner the next day and wanted it thawed, so that one is in the fridge.

And here is the BBQ chicken cooked and served up hot. It was delicious. Highly recommend so far. Happy cooking.

We had the beef goulash yesterday for brunch with egg noodles. DELICIOUS! I liked it better than the BBQ chicken. YUM.

PS. The author of the original pin (the website with the recipes above) suggested some changes to the recipes that were a little bland. I did the additional ingredients she suggested to give them a little oomph. So far so good. I'm all about easy.

DIY Play Kitchen Part 4: The Reveal

Here is the planning of the kitchen.

Here are some decor decisions for the kitchen.

Here is the cutting and painting of the kitchen.

And here we finally are...at the big reveal!! And Troy and I could not be more proud!!!

We hung the art from part 2 to cover the hole in the back of the cabinet. There is a $1.99 towel bar from Ikea with S-rings for hanging utensils, pots and pans, and hot mitts on. We got 2 tap light from Lowes (one for over her head and the other for inside the oven). And there is a basket under the sink to contain the crazy from Target. With all of the food components, it was starting to get a little crazy.

Here is a little close up shot of the stove top and sink.

This is a close up of the bottom of the cabinets, the plexiglass installed (gorilla glue on the back), and the knobs...AHHHHH!

Here is a little bit different angle. Can you tell we're proud? It was definitely a group effort by Mom and Dad...ahem, Santa and his elves ;)

I would like to thank:

1. Laura, for picking up most of the kitchen food from Ikea
2. My dad for helping Troy with the manual labor portion
3. Wendy for getting the pots and pans that were sold out when Laura went to Ikea
4. And Troy for letting me purse some bigger projects lately :)

Without you all, this may not have happened and you all had a hand in this great gift for Avery and she loves it!!! I am writing this post on Christmas Day while she naps :) I just couldn't wait to share!!!

love you all and Merry Merry Christmas!!!

I'll be back tomorrow with Avery's Christmas and a round up of gifts for Troy and myself! I have videos....

DIY Play Kitchen Part 3: Drilling, Cutting, Painting

You can read about the planning here.

You can read about the decor here.

Since then, my Dad has come for another visit and the hole for the sink was cut. The hinge for the oven was switched from the side to the bottom. The hole for the plexiglass piece for the oven was also cut and sanded. The wooden trim was added to the top to cover the weird mounting brackets.

Progress here:

All of the holes have been caulked. All of the holes that are needed (for dials and handles) are drilled. And ready for paint.

I picked a can of white semi-gloss paint and primer in one that cost $7. Laziness people. I'm not painting twice. I picked semi gloss even though I did a coat of clear on the top. The semi gloss is nice and shiny and very easy to clean. It's the kind of paint used for trim in houses (you know where fingerprints are). I picked a tester can for the color for the "countertops" and then to paint the trim at the top for $2.95. I already had brushes and the clear finish from other projects.

It's a little yellow-y because the garage light is kind of orange.

Here is an up close of the oven door (that got the most work) with the caulked holes painted over, the pre-drilled holes for hardware and oven dials, and the window cut for plexiglass.

And here she is from a different angle. We are planning to put together all of the details seeing as Christmas is tomorrow.

Christmas Cards a la Pinterest

So this year I decided our family needed to send out Christmas cards. I have always been anti Christmas cards. Why? I have no idea. I think the internet has made it easier to reason NOT sending them. I'm like, "why? If people want to see pictures of us, they can facebook me." Welllllll, the problem with that is, some of Troy's and my immediate family don't even have computers, internet, or smart phones.

And now we have a child and we moved. And truth be told, I LOVE LOVE LOVE getting Christmas cards. LOVE. So what is my problem? Well, I finally admitted it to myself. I'm lazy. All that addressing cards and UGH stamps are expensive. But if I didn't send them out early, we might not get any from people who normally send them to us who don't know our new address. And I want cards too! It makes my heart smile. Or sing carols. And I want our grandparents to hear from us.

I wanted to do something cute and inexpensive (not pay a photographer). I started in the easiest place...Pinterest. Here are a few of the ideas that I found.

Option 1:

I just adore everything about this picture. Avery and Optimus would be ADORABLE. But we have extended family who got some of these cards who have never met Avery in person and if Troy and I weren't in the picture, they might open the card and be like, "huh? Who are these people?" And also I would have to buy all of the cute costume things for Avery and Optimus to wear. Troy is also SUPER anti dressing up dogs in any kind of clothing. So that option (as much as I love it) was out.

Option 2:

I think this is precious. But I was like, there is NO way that Avery and Optimus will sit still long enough for this to happen. Troy and I will both have super forced smiles and it will just be bad...

Option 3/THE WINNER: I used this picture as our inspiration or (PIN-spiration) for our Christmas card this year.

Here is our card that we sent out. Sorry for the poor picture quality, I snapped a pic of the card with my phone....I should have downloaded the "sample photo" from Shutterfly when I ordered it....oops. It says "We wish we could be with your for the holidays, but we're a little tied up." Witty, I know. Troy thought of that. So while we had some pinspiration, Troy thought of the content. He's punny.

We took the photo over Thanksgiving while my cousin Laura and her hubby Dan were here with their ADORABLE son. Dan danced around with Jameson trying to get Avery to smile and look at the camera while Laura took pictures and tried to keep Optimus from chasing Dan around. It was crazy. She took about 15 pictures and we decided this one was the best.

I'm SO glad we sent them out this year. When I called to confirm a few addresses with my Grandma, she was like, "what is this for?" I said, "I know it's hard to believe, but we are actually going to send out cards for the holidays." My grandma goes, "well it's about damn time! You've been married for more than 5 years now." Thanks grandma...

Anyway, Merry Christmas everyone! I hope that you all have been good this year and Santa is very kind to you. Sing happy birthday to Jesus and remember of the reason for the season.