Woohoo, one project down!

Our family room used to look like this (first two pics):

This end of the room hasn't changed too much

This end of the room is where the closet is now

These cabinets weren't the best looking, but they did provide toy storage.

But our new closet will have way more storage space!

Derek's framing looked like this:

And the finished product looks like this:

And he finished it up in a matter of weeks!

This closet is BIG.

I'm SO glad to have this project finished up,

even though we still need to build all of the shelves inside of it.

Now we just need to paint a few rooms and move the kids downstairs and we can actually set up the baby's room!

Can I start this week over?

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!! Hope you had a wonderful day

with the ones that you love. We did!

Leading up to this week everything was going smoothly.

My sweet husband brought me these beautiful flowers for Valentine's Day

as well as some yummy chocolates (love him!!!).

Ethan made an Ipod Valentine box and won a contest at school for the most creative Valentine box. It was easy to make too! We just used some wrapping paper turned backwards to wrap the box, and attached the front papers for the screen and controls. Ethan added the art on the back, and Derek threw a small radio inside so it would actually play music (everyone loved that!).

Well this week hasn't gone so well.

We started out at the dentist on Monday. Both kids have cavities. Multiple cavities.

(We are so grateful for dental insurance!!!)

I knew I should have taken them in months ago

but I kept pushing it off.

So of course I feel like the worst mom ever

and the kids will need lots of dental work done.

I was going to take the kids out for lunch after the dentist on Monday

but we came home and they started fighting.

So we decided not to reward their fighting

and we stayed home for lunch.

This of course resulted in 2 very unhappy kids.

Julia threw a huge fit screaming from her room

"WE ARE GOING TO CARLS JR!!!!!!" over and over.

Um, I don't think so!

When they finally calmed down enough to eat something

they started getting along much better.

I guess we should have had lunch earlier!

Construction on the basement closet is coming along

but we are now at the sanding stage.

That drywall dust is the worst!!!

And it's all over the whole house.

I'm not going to bother dusting yet

because the sanding isn't quite done.

So if you come over and notice

thick white dust all over everything in my house

please just ignore it.

Our dryer died yesterday.

It would still rotate,

but the heat wouldn't work.

It is really old

so we ended up getting a new one last night.

Yay that we were in time

for the Sears President's Day sale!!!

But what a pain getting the old one out

and the new one in.

Any brilliant ideas on what to do with the old one?

And to round out the week

yesterday I went to the doctor

and they told me that I do indeed have gestational diabetes.

SO not happy about this.

I have to go talk to a dietician tomorrow.

I am hoping that the rest of the week will be better.

Please?!

A quick update

I still have a few catch-up posts to do,
but I thought I'd do a quick update on what we've been up to.

Last month we celebrated Derek's birthday.
My mom watched the kids and we went out to dinner at Outback
(we haven't been there in years)
on his actual birthday.
It was so nice having a night out,
and I hope he had a great birthday
and I hope he knows how much we love and appreciate him.
He is the best!!!

(hmmm, interesting look Ethan!)

Julia was so excited when we got plenty of snow last month.
And Ethan was sad, lol.

Interesting note-- we used Mr Potato Head parts for one of these
and I think we'll be doing it again next time.

She was in the backyard for hours working on these snowmen all by herself.
I only helped her once when she needed help lifting the middle section onto the bottom section.
And the next day when her friend came over they made two more!

Last month our ward had its annual Pinewood Derby.
Ethan decided to leave his car in the original rectangle shape.
We weren't too disappointed
since it saved us tons of time.

He and Derek tried a few different things on the wheels,
and it seemed to really help.
We didn't make it to the early weigh-in
so we were on our own to weight the car down.
Derek drilled a hole in the back
and we used coins to get it as heavy as we could while still being under the limit.
We just used heavy tape over the back to hold them in.
(We wanted to be able to add or take some out if we needed to adjust the weight.)
On Ethan's last race the car hit the bumper at the end of the track
and the tape came loose sending the coins flying everywhere.
It was pretty funny, and luckily Ethan didn't have a problem with it.
We quickly taped it back up
and it was ready to race again in the second round.
He was SO excited to come in #5 this year.





Ethan's Utah program was a couple weeks ago and Derek and I were both able to go.
That's one huge benefit of Derek working from home lots more these days.
Ethan did great in the program and even had a speaking part that he neglected to tell us about.

Last week the kids had a day off of school so we decided to get out of Utah county and we headed up to Jungle Jim's.

The kids had fun, but Ethan was ready to leave way earlier than Julia was.
After we had been there for 2 hours she told us she was just getting started.

It was fun spending the day together!



Our biggest project right now is the addition of a closet

at the end of our family room downstairs.

Right now one of the bedrooms in our house is being used as a playroom,

but with the baby coming we will need the extra bedroom.

So this closet will provide a place to store all the toys.

I'm so ready to set up the baby's room!

Before that happens we need to finish this closet,

(Derek is working on it as fast as he can)

move the toys out of the playroom and into the closet,

move Ethan's stuff into the former playroom downstairs,

move the office stuff to Ethan's former bedroom upstairs,

paint the former office downstairs,

move Julia's stuff to the former office downstairs,

and then we will have an empty room upstairs ready to become the nursery.

Did you get all of that?!

I hope we make it before the baby comes!

This week I had to have the 3 hour glucose test at the Dr's office

after I failed the 1 hour test.

I'm really really hoping that I pass the 3 hour test!!!

(I should find out in a couple of days.)

I had to fast for 12 hours before the test

and have my blood drawn right when I got there.

I then had to drink the glucose mixture within 10 minutes,

and had to have my blood drawn every hour.

That sugar drink is so gross!

And wow, my arm was really sore after being poked in the same spot

so many times.

After the test was over Derek and I went out for lunch,

and that's when the glucose seemed to affect me the most.

I started having cold sweats and I was really shaky.

I felt really woozy and out of it, and really felt like I was going to pass out.

I hope that doesn't mean that I do have gestational diabetes...

I feel like I am getting enormous,

and I still have about 8 weeks left.

I hope it goes quickly!

I'm definitely started to swell up, just like I did at the end with Ethan and Julia.
I hate how quickly I put on weight when I'm pregnant. I'm getting nervous about losing the baby weight after this little one gets here, it always seems so hard!

The school just started doing 4H clubs this year, and Ethan and Julia are participating in the current session. They love it!

Ethan is in the All Star Sports class, and he gets to play all kinds of sports with other kids his age, he has the best time! They even get to go on a fieldtrip to a BYU basketball game later this month.

Julia is in the Cool Cats Craft club and she has so much fun staying after school with her best friend and getting to do all sorts of fun crafts. She absolutely loves it!

Well that's a quick summary of what we've been up to,

hope you're all doing OK!!