Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful holiday with our families. It all started with Christmas Eve at the in-law's where we snacked on yummy food and opened some gifts. Later that night we gathered with more family at a local restaurant. After dinner, the kids headed back to the kitchen to make home-made pretzels. Lea had a blast!



Lea with her cousins, Ross, Lilly and Kristin.



Making pretzels.

 

That night, the three of us didn't sleep well. Kevin and I ended up wide awake around 6:30am. We decided to get Lea up a little past 7am. I told her "Santa came last night!" so she ran to look in the living room. After looking around  bit, she said "Where's Santa?!" lol  We took our time opening gifts and playing with toys. Then my parents came by for breakfast. Kevin's parents stopped by shortly after and then it was nap time!

Christmas afternoon we headed down to my folks house for dinner... and more gifts! My grandmother (Lea's great-gramma) was here so it was fun watching her interact with Lea. One of the gifts we all received...from Santa...was a set of Mini Marshmallow Air Guns. We filled them up and headed outside right away. Once Lea realized what it was, she started yelling "Hit Me!!" as she smacked her belly b/c she wanted us to shoot her so she could eat the marshmallows! lol

Helping Daddy open his gift.





Kevin getting ready to aim with his marshmallow gun.

 

Lea gathering & eating the marshmallows!

 Christmas didn't disappoint this year. We all had a very nice time and we all seem to be very pleased with our gifts.

Merry Christmas! See you next year!

Cookies!

Lea had fun baking cookies with her Gaga and Gramma today...

Belly Pics

For those of you wondering how my belly looks these days... or wondering where is the baby (b/c people keep saying I'm not showing at all)... here's a nice little comparison for ya:


10 weeks




20 weeks



20 Weeks

It's hard to believe that I am half way through my second pregnancy! Today I am 20 weeks pregnant with our second baby girl. YAY!

I feel her move all the time. She is much lower in my abdomen than Lea was so it's a pretty different feeling this time. Actually, this entire pregnancy has been totally different than it was with Lea.

According to BabyCenter.com, this baby weighs well over 10 ounces and is about 10 inches long from head to foot. She is beginning to hear things, mainly me, and may have started sucking her thumb.



Santa!

Today Lea got to visit Santa. I say "got to" because she is obsessed with all things Santa these days. She only wants to listen to "Santa music" (which is any Christmas music) and she only wants to watch Santa on tv (which is any children's holiday movie).

Anyhow, we headed to the mall to visit Santa. Lea practically shoved past everyone in line to get a good look. Then, when it was her turn, she dashed right over to Santa without any hesitation and climbed onto his lap all on her own. She looked like she was on cloud nine!

After meeting Santa we had dinner with my folks and then decided to head over to Build-a-Bear. Lea wanted a penguin like the one from Happy Feet 2 and they had the perfect one. She had fun stuffing, bathing and dressing her new friend, Rocky. Yup... she named him Rocky! ;)

(sorry the white balance is so off on those last few pics.)

My Little Bunny

Today we went to the local Christmas parade downtown. Lea wore her new bunny hat and gloves. I think it's ADORABLE and she really loves it, too. She actually hops around saying "I a bunny!" whenever we put this hat on her. :)

We had a fun week making salt dough ornaments, playing with her Melissa & Doug Nativity Set and finger painting...

I'm So Crafty...

(I saw this on Facebook today and just had to share it!)

Where's Elvis?

After breakfast this morning, Lea realized that Elvis was "missing"! She came running to me yelling "Mommy! Where's Elvis?!" I assured her Elvis was still here, she had just moved. So, Lea calmed down and started looking. We found her on top of the buffet hutch...









DIY Advent Calendar

I finally finished my DIY mini muffin tin advent calendar! I am thrilled with how it turned out, too. I hope it lasts for a few years, at least.

I took a few pics of my progress as I was working, but for some reason they didn't turn up on my phone. :( Here are some pics of the final results, though...

The hardest part of this entire thing was painting the muffin tin! I wanted it RED... but the tin I bought was non-stick. So, I bought red spray paint with primer in it. That didn't work. The paint bubbled up immediately and chipped right off. Then, I decided to use an old muffin tin that I hadn't used in years. It painted beautifully! However, it was aluminum... fiy: aluminum isn't magnetic. Ugh! That's when I brought Kevin in to help. He took over the painting job and after cleaning the bubbly paint off the original tin, several coats of heavy duty primer, several coats of red paint AND a couple coats of lacquer we got what we wanted. :)

The solid color circles are just craft foam (I wanted something sturdier than card stock) and the patterned circles are just craft/scrapbook paper. After cutting them out, I super glued them together. Then, I added the numbers, which are self stick "chip board". I chose black, glitter letters and numbers. Finally, everything is attached to the tin with little magnets. All in all, this project actually cost me around $25 to $30 so it wasn't super cheap. Here's the break down of the costs:

Mini muffin tin from Walmart - $5

Craft foam - $1.50

Scrapbook paper - $5

Chip Board letters/numbers - $8 (I had to get two packs so I would have enough number "1"s!)

Scrapbook Santa and stockings - $2

Spray paint and primer - $8

Could I have just bought a cute advent calendar for $30? Well, yes... but I am crafty, I enjoy crafts and I like the aspect of hand-made. So there!



Christmas is Coming!

We got our Christmas tree today and I am willing to bet that it is the prettiest tree we have ever had! I just LOVE sitting in the dark, looking at all the pretty lights late at night.

Lea had a blast helping us pick it out... but mostly just loved running around all the tall trees!

After we got the tree home, we found out that half of our lights didn't work (happens every year!) so we made a quick Walmart run.... and when we got home, Lea found a little visitor that must have hitched a ride on our tree!

Want to guess what Lea decided to name our new elf friend? You'll never get it! Our elf shall be called "Elvis"! That's right, Lea named her Elvis. Kevin and I joke that it's actually Elfis. lol

So, every day until Christmas, I get to say "Lea, Elvis is watching you!" LOL

Oh, and here's my failed attempted at getting a cute pic of Lea in front of our tree...

Holiday Traditions

Now that December is literally right around the corner, I have been busy planning new holiday traditions for our family. Lea is old enough to understand a lot these days so I decided new traditions were in order.

The first one... we got an Elf on the Shelf! I am so excited about this one and can't wait to see Lea's reaction to it. A little movie was on CBS the other night about it and Lea loved it. Kevin and I decided that our Elf will come on our Christmas tree each year... which we also decided we would get the first weekend of December each year. So, this weekend we'll go pick out our tree and with it will come a surprise for Lea!

These little elf/book kits are not cheap... and if you want your elf to be a girl? Well, a little skirt is an extra $8! I got creative (what's new?) and made a crochet skirt for our elf. I love how it turned out and even like the look of it better than the store bought ones. :)

Another tradition I am starting this year is an advent calendar. I found an awesome idea online for one made out of a mini muffin tin. I got the muffin tin and red spray paint (because I am painting my tin red) so now I just need to figure out how to make covers for each hole. Sounded easy until I realized that I don't have the supplies to cut a perfect circle and I can't find the perfect sized circles at a craft store. Hmmmm... time to put on my creative hat, again!

I can't wait to fill the cups with little surprises like M&Ms, stickers, Hershey's Kisses, etc. Lea is going to love it!

Finally, my mom and I took Lea to her first movie today. We went to see Happy Feet 2 and Lea sat through the entire thing! Well, actually about an hour and 15 minutes into it, she yelled "OK, Turn it Off, Please!!!" lol It was so funny. Good thing there were only two other people in the theatre (we went to an early showing). I took her out for a quick potty break and she was ready to go back to watch the end. I was so surprised at how much she was actually paying attention to... which I know because she talked through the entire thing, "Oh no! Where did he go?" and "Yay, they did it!", for example. I wish Kevin could have been there but he was at work. He wants to take her to another movie now!

Toddler Beds, Turkeys and Baby Girls

A few nights ago we converted Lea's crib to a toddler bed. We had her help us in the hopes that it would transition her better. Well, she's done great! She goes right to sleep at night (we're still working on nap time) and doesn't get up at all.


Bye bye crib!

 Now, I thought we would just use one of those door knob covers in her room and in the morning she would read books or play until we came to get her... but, she had different plans. The first couple mornings, she stood at the door, pulling on the door knob and screaming for someone to let her out. The third morning, she actually ripped the cover off the door knob and brought it downstairs to show us, "Door knob broken, mommy!" Finally, the fourth night, we just left her door open. In the morning, she quietly came down stairs and crawled in bed with us. So... I'm not sure what to do. Part of me wants to keep her "confined" in her room until I'm ready to get her, but the other part of me feels like it's ok for her to come out when she's ready (as long as that's not before 7am!).

Anyhow. We've had a really fun week with lots of Thanksgiving turkey crafts. She made a turkey out of a paper plate at the library one day, one with stickers another day and today we made our annual "candy turkeys". She LOVED that!



Yum!

And, finally, we had our "big" ultrasound yesterday. Kevin and Lea came along in hopes that we would be able to find out the gender of baby #2. After a very long scan and seeing all the perfect parts of our new baby, we found out it was a girl! I am over the moon excited! :) Kevin is too, however the first thing he said was, "TWO weddings???" lol I am so looking forward to getting all of Lea's newborn things out of the attic and going through them to see what we can use for this baby. It's going to be fun!

The Secret is Out!

In case you live under a rock... we are expecting baby #2 in late April!

That's right, I am pregnant. Fifteen weeks to be exact. Almost four months.

It's been hard for me to even believe I am pregnant this time. Not only was it difficult to get pregnant in the first place (again) but having a toddler running around also keeps my mind pretty occupied. But, now that I am in the second trimester and can actually feel the baby moving all the time these days, it feels very real!

We are super excited! I know Lea is going to be a fabulous big sister. She loves babies. Yes, I am sure there will be some jealousy in the beginning, but I have no doubt Lea will warm up quickly.

My due date is April 30, 2012. Our plan is to transition Lea into her new toddler room, in a twin bed, before then. So, within the next couple of weeks, my baby girl will be sleeping in a toddler bed. I'm having a little anxiety about it. Wish us luck!

Here's an ultrasound picture from around 10 weeks. You can't see much, but that's our baby!

Gobble, Gobble!

I saw this adorable Thanksgiving shirt in Pinterest.com:

So, naturally I had to try and make one for Lea. One problem... I don't  have a working sewing machine (and haven't for several years). But, I wasn't going to let that stop me!

I gathered some ribbon, found a scrap of fabric for the body of the turkey and got a long sleeve t-shirt at Walmart for $3.00. Oh, and I had to get some "Heat-n-Bond" at Walmart in order to attach the turkey to the shirt.

Once I had the body cut out and hemmed around the edges, I chose my ribbons and placed them around the body:

Next step was to actually sew all those ribbons onto the back of the body. That was the hard part for me because I wanted them to all be even. I did it and it turned out pretty good. Then, I ironed the heck out of it.

And finally, I bonded it to the shirt. I don't think it's a super-duper bond, even though I got the extra strength stuff, but it should last through the Thanksgiving season. At the last minute, I decided it needed a face, so I used a Sharpee. When I finished, I decided the face looked silly, but there's no turning back now!