{happy love day!}

moar humorous pics

I just love Valentine's Day...all of the cute decorations and of course the candy. :) I can't wait until I have my two boys to spoil with Valentine's kisses! This year I made Dan a mini-album that I got from Ali Edward's blog...made it so easy to have a template. I used patterned paper for the cover and some of Elsie's self-adhesive fabric...love that stuff! Here are pics of the album before I wrote in it...sorry they aren't the best quality.








I've already started to grow tired of the maternity clothes I have...it stinks wearing the same three outfits to work. I'm so cheap that I hate to buy too many things that I won't be able to wear again. But yesterday I *splurged* and bought this adorable cape from ebay express...it is BCBG and retailed for $180...got it for $50, and it isn't maternity so I'll wear this thing for years to come. :)



It doesn't look like I'm going to be pregnant for any warm weather, which stinks because there are so many cute spring maternity clothes out right now. Oh well, once warm weather comes around I'll hopefully be getting back into my regular clothes.

Hope everyone has a *love*ly day!! :)

{finished?!}

The kitchen is actually finished! (well, minus a few minor details) It doesn't seem real to me and I've yet to get really excited because it has been such a stressful process. But, it turned out exactly how I had envisioned it and our contractor didn't leave any small detail unfinished. What he lost in time management, he made up for in perfectionism. :) I love how the parquet floor turned out...it is almost the exact color of the rest of our wood floors so that worked out well. The sink is a dream...so big! Washing large items is sooo much easier now, especially with the tall faucet.

Here are a few pics...I haven't put out all of my decorative items yet, but you get the idea.

{owl crazy}

Another nursery montage for ya...I tried to make it more masculine with the dark furniture and I'm loving owl stuff right now. Found the print and adorable decal on etsy! (The greens look very bright on here for some reason...they are more subdued than that.)

{new front-runner}

After drooling over the nature-inspired dwell knock-off baby bedding for months, I've found a new favorite. Of course I love anything green and this is sooo soothing. It would also work out better in case one of the babies ends up being a girl (stranger things have happened!) I really love that there is a chocolate brown dot on the sheets. Green and brown is my favorite combo...it was our wedding color scheme after all!



And I'm usually not a fan of mobiles but this one is really cool and modern :)



I would still go with a chocolate brown rug and the adorable owl lamp from my last post, with the walls painted a warm tan and white trim.

On the kitchen front, it is still slowly coming along. The contractor was working on the last bits of floor today, then the baseboards and paint. I can't wait to have finished pics to share!!

{new banner}

I figured it was time for a new banner, 1. because my old one all of a sudden got cut off and 2. I had to add my babies! :) It is pretty simple, but so are my photoshop skills.

I put together this collage of ideas for the nursery today-->



I looooove the owl lamp! My parents have offered to pay for both of the cribs which is a HUGE gift...they are so wonderful. :) The one in the picture is the Graco Lauren and is very affordable.

I'll be posting more kitchen pics this weekend...the floor is about 80% done and is looking soooo good. We cooked our first dinner last night in over 2 months...and ate off of real plate with silverware! :) Even doing the dishes was a joy in that huge sink.

What are everyone's plans for the weekend? I'm looking forward to some much needed girl time with my Mom tomorrow...lunch and probably a little shopping. Sunday we'll probably just relax and watch the game. The weather here has been pretty nasty so I'm always up for time at home on the sofa!

Have a great weekend everyone!

{Oh Boy!}

So we had our big ultrasound yesterday and the verdict is in!

TWO BOYS!

We were both kind of expecting a girl and a boy, but we are so excited and thankful that they are healthy and everything looks like it is coming along the way it should be. They were so active during the ultrasound that the doctor had a hard time getting their measurements.

Now I'm so excited to start putting the nursery together. This is the bedding from Walmart that I really love. Its modern and fun and I love the nature theme-->



Being huge sports fans, Dan just a tad more than me (that was sarcasm :), we of course have to get them Cincinnati Reds outfits. Look at this cute baby hat!

And cute little outfits to match :)


And of course they are going to be born right at the beginning of baseball season...what could be more perfect? :)

On to exciting kitchen news...I have a few more progress pictures! the hardware and crown molding are installed on the cabinets, the tile behind the sink is done, and today he was starting to put the floor in! I can't wait until the walls are painted...that will really pull it all together. :)



We are supposed to get a nasty winter storm with up to 8 inches of snow starting tonight. I'm secretly praying for a snow day so I can stay home from work. :)

Hope everyone is having a good day!

{a million directions}

Today has been one crazy day and lately I feel like my mind has been pulled in a million different directions all at the same time. I woke up feeling really lightheaded and dizzy, so I had to have Dan go out and get me a big breakfast. By 10:00 I was feeling much better. I also had to call around and find someone to install a new water heater in the house...of course that goes right when we're paying for the kitchen too. Go figure.

Today we go for our 21 week ultrasound which I'm so anxious, excited, scared and nervous about. I just want to see them and know that they are doing OK in there. I'm also really hoping we can find out the sex today. We are both really anxious to know so we can pick out their names and start decorating the nursery. You can be sure I will post an update if we find out!

The kitchen is finally coming along. Yesterday I had a plumber come in to hook up the sink, dishwasher and disposal, and our contractor hung the rest of the cabinets. We are just so happy to finally have running water again! You don't realize how much you take something so simple for granted until you don't have it for 2 months! I am in love with our sink and faucet...they really make the room. When I left this morning our contractor was working on the tile behind the sink, so I'm looking forward to seeing how that turns out. Here are a few new pictures...we even put away most of our dishes last night-->



I *heart* my faucet :)


These are the tiles for behind the sink...kind of like Subway tiles. They'll be staggered for a "brick" effect.


Gotta love an organized cabinet!!


I discovered a few musical artists yesterday that I'm enjoying...

Nicole Atkins and A Fine Frenzy

I'm really into soothing music right now...not suprising. :)

{one step forward}

After so many weeks of no progress in the kitchen, I was finally greeted today on my lunch break with a sight for sore eyes. A counter and a sink where they are supposed to be!! I am disappointed that the backsplash doesn't continue behind the sink, but I don't think my contractor understood what I wanted. We can always fill that space in with some black tile to continue the line of the backsplash. Getting the walls painted will make a huge difference too...it is so stark right now with so much white. The walls will be a medium taupe. Our hardward has also arrived so that will really dress up the cabinets.





I'm so glad it is Friday. Dan and I are planning a trip to Muncie tomorrow so we can eat at Johnny Carinno's. It is one of our favorite places and since we don't have one in our town we know we won't make it there after the babies are born for awhile. We also want to do some shopping and stop at Panera for some baked goods. Mmmmmm. :)

Hope everyone has a fun, relaxing weekend planned!

{140 days!}

Or 20 weeks, however you want to say it, that's how long I've been pregnant. Hard to believe I'm probably over halfway there since hardly any twins make it to 40 weeks. Here is the latest pic of my bump. Hubby is getting pretty good at these shots! :)



Not much else going on in our world. Still doing a lot of eating out because our kitchen still isn't done. I'm not going to give an update for fear of jinxing it, so I'll just say that hopefully I'll have good news to report and some more pictures soon. Any prayers you want to say for our poor, pitiful kitchen would be much appreciated!

{my advice for the day}

Never tell a pregnant lady to "toughen up", especially one who is pregnant with twins.

We really don't take kindly to such advice.

That is all.

{retail therapy}

There's nothing like a good solo shopping trip to raise the spirits. I started my day looking for some more comfy work shoes and found some really cute black suede maryjane flats...on sale of course. I also got a maternity sweater and a new bra...the second being MUCH needed, especially since the girls have expanded some in the past few months. LOL :)

I took a much needed tour of Hobby Lobby...that place is like my second home. Didn't buy anything though. Crazy, huh? Once we know what the sex of the babies are I will go crazy in there with decor stuff for the nursery, especially if they are both girls. They have some really adorable shabby chic stuff.

I picked up the new issue of Better Homes and Gardens and also made a trip to Big Lots for some boring necessities. While there I found a Graco baby monitor though...and it has two receivers which will be great for times when the babies are in separate rooms.

A quick update on the kitchen...and for a change it is a good one! The countertop from Lowe's isn't going to work at all, so our contractor found a guy who makes them and he's going to custom make it for us this week. He said it will only take a few days, which would be amazing. With any luck, we'll have our counter, sink and dishwasher back by the middle of the week. Boy have we ever learned one massive lesson through this remodel!!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend! I'm looking forward to having Monday off...3 day weekends are the best!

{the biggest nightmare}

Sure, everyone tells you that home renovations are stressful. I didn't expect ours to be stress-free by any means. However, I also didn't expect it to be the nightmare that it has turned into. Almost 2 months without a functioning kitchen. Dealing with a Lowe's store that obviously hasn't trained their employees to know anything about kitchen renovations. Cabinets too big, counter too big. We're told it will be a week to get them back...that was on December 14th. We get a small piece of the counter and it isn't the style we ordered. So do we keep with that style or wait another month to get the one we wanted? Not worth it.

Now we have the replacement cabinets and counter and guess what? The counter doesn't work with our farmhouse sink. We might have to scrap it and buy a generic sink which breaks my heart. We've had that sink for 2 years just waiting to see it in that kitchen. It was going to be the centerpiece of the room. Granted, we are partly to blame for the counter not being compatible, but the moron on Lowe's didn't ask us any questions about the sink other than the size. We aren't experts...they are supposed to be. Now that moron isn't even working in the cabinets because of how royally he screwed up our kitchen.

Talk about squeezing the last ounce of excitement out of this project. Dan and I are so drained that we don't even care anymore. We just want a usable kitchen. My emotions are teetering on the verge of a mental breakdown...I've actually cried on the phone with the contractor now twice. He knows I'm pregnant but I still feel like a total idiot.

All I'm praying for is for something to go right at this point. Something. Anything. I don't know how much more I can take.

{the kitchen renovator's prayer}

Our contractor,
who art not in our kitchen,
I do not want to place the blame.

Our cabinets have come,
The counter is done.
At Lowe's, as it awaits your pick-up.

Give us I pray,
a place to be fed.
And relieve our regrets
As we forgive your tardiness.

And lead us not into more delayed plans,
but deliver us from fast food.

For our kitchen is the key to
Our sanity and our full stomachs,
Forever. Amen.

I'm really trying to have some humor about this kitchen renovation, can you tell? It is slowly dying...he better be back tomorrow!

{all sorts of random fun}

So my friend Janny posted this on her blog and I thought it was fun, so here's my list-->

On My Bedside Table:
prenatal vitamins
kleenex
B&BW tranquil mint foot cream
alarm clock of course
dust

Movies I want to See:
Juno
Atonement
27 Dresses
The new James Bond flick - comes out in May!

Latest Interests:
anything baby related of course
organizing our house

On My Mind:
our kitchen- hoping I'll have a counter installed when I get home today
my babies and everything related to them

Learning:
to be patient with life and take each day as it comes
to be thankful for the small things in life that make it so wonderful

Making:
scrapbook pages - glad to have my mojo back

Looking Forward To:
cooking a meal in my finished kitchen
finding out the sex of the babies
decorating their nursery

Enjoying:
my new comfy maternity pants
my hair-I love good hair days!
the return of my sweet tooth

Amused By:
Family Guy
my husband
my cats

And for other fun things...here is how my belly looks as of Saturday...getting big!! Tomorrow I'll be 19 weeks!


We were finally able to get out of town on Saturday and do some clothes shopping for me. Sadly my dress pants weren't fitting anymore, so I desperately needed new work clothes. I really hit the jackpot...found a bunch of cute stuff and it was all on sale. Score! :)

Yesterday I went through all of my clothes, took out a ton of stuff for Goodwill, and put away (sniff sniff) the stuff I won't be wearing for awhile. Although I'm very happy and excited to be pregnant, there is something very disheartening about looking at clothing that you're not sure you will ever fit into again. But, it does feel really good to have everything organized, and not have to look at the stuff I can't wear every time I go to get dressed.

I have also been doing quite a bit of scrapbooking the past few weeks. Christmas pictures, a 2007 review (got the idea from the latest Scrapbooks Etc.) and our 4 year wedding anniversary. Thanks for taking a peek!

{Friday, oh how I love you}

This has been a loooong week and I'm soooo glad its finally Friday!

Got some good news this morning. The replacement cabinets and counter are finally in for the kitchen! I'm hoping our contractor can get them installed today. He works super fast and is ready to get started so hopefully by the end of today we'll have a working sink again! *fingers crossed* You can be sure I'll be posting pics right away!

In baby news, we're hoping to go out of town to do some shopping this weekend. My work clothes are all getting too snug, so I desperately need some dressy pants and tops. I've tried ordering online, but being a taller girl has made that difficult. I definitely wish I had a job that let me wear jeans...that would make life so much easier.

I found this crib on Target.com and love it...especially if we have two girls.

I love the vintage/cottage style, and it is a convertible crib. Oh, and it is only $200! I'm counting the days until the 30th and hoping we find out the sex. I'm so anxious to get started on the nursery!

I got some much needed scrapbooking time in this past week and have some fun pages to share. But, I've been too lazy so far to scan them. That will be another goal of mine this weekend. :)

{overwhelmed}

Now that I'm about 4 1/2 months along, I'm really starting to get overwhelmed by the amount of things are are going to need for these two babies. One baby alone requires a lot of gear, but two?! Oy vey...I think that's how you say it. Two cribs, two car seats, double stroller, double the diapers, bottles, clothing. And the thought of breast feeding two babies...double oy vey. I'm finding myself in slight panic mode here. Plus, until I know the sex of the babies I don't really want to buy much...I don't want everything to be unisex if we have two girls or two boys.

And then there is getting our house ready. The nursery is currently my scrapbook room. I don't know where I'm going to move all of that stuff since we don't have another room for it. Right now the dining room is the front-runner, with the dining room table doing double duty when I want to scrapbook. That or any other scenario is going to require some major purging of supplies. We don't have a guest bed and Dan is worried that I'll have to go on bedrest, or just be too big and tired to sleep upstairs, so now we're looking at daybeds for our office downstairs. We still don't have a kitchen which just adds to the crazyness of it all. It is enough to drive a pregnant woman out of her mind! (not that I really need any help, the hormones are enough!)

So this has been a total downer vent session, but I really needed it. I know in the end, we will be just fine, the babies will have everything they need, and we'll learn what we're doing moment by moment, day by day. At least that's how I'm praying it will happen. :)

{happy '08!}

I'm so excited about what this year has to bring. Dan and I are going to become parents and that is just about the best gift that anyone could receive. We are so excited and can't wait to find out if we are having boys, girls or one of each. We go on the 30th for an ultrasound, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we will find out the sex then.

I'm seriously itching to start buying stuff, but it is so hard to find unisex clothing! I finally broke down today and bought a few girl and boy items...I'll just return some of them if I need to. I couldn't pass up these cute clothes! (they are from crazy8.com if you want to check it out)





I also came across the cutest nursery on HGTV's Rate My Space the other day...looooove the green, black and white! I'm thinking it would look really cute with brown tones instead of the black. Of course this was done by an interior designer, but darnit I can do it too! LOL :)



I also have a ton of scrapbooking that I want to do. I'm so tired in the evenings after work that I don't have the energy, so hopefully this weekend I'll get to it. I printed out a collage of pictures from 2007 that I'm really excited about scrapping...looking at all of the things we went through in the past year really makes me emotional and thankful. I also have pregnancy pictures of course, and I still haven't done a page from our 4 year wedding anniversary (that was back in October).

Dan put together my new IKEA bookshelf for my albums and supplies...its the expedit and I loooove it! It fits my albums perfectly and looks so cute!


In kitchen reno news, we are trying to patiently wait until next Friday, when the replacement cabinets and counter are "supposed" to be in at Lowes. Let me tell you, I will never work with our Lowes again on any project...worst customer service ever! We have become pros at eating out and finding inventive ways to eat without getting dishes dirty...ice cream in a plastic cup, anyone? I just keep trying to remind myself how great it will be when it is done.

TGIF everyone!!! :)

{a Merry Christmas to all}

It is hard to belive that Christmas is already over, and ours was full of so many emotions this year. We had such a great time with our family. First, mine on Christmas Eve, and Dan's on Christmas Day. The entire time I was reminding myself that this is our last Christmas as the two of us, and next year will be blessed with two children. It will be quite a different holiday! I was also feeling very sad this year now that both of my Dad's parents are gone. I thought about them so much this past week and still am, wishing they could be here to see their great-grandchildren when they are born.

Christmas Day with Dan's family was more chaotic than expected. It is always fun with tons of people and gifts, but this year was quite a bit more stressful. Dan's Grandma is in the late stages of alzheimer's, and lives in an assisted living facility. She fell yesterday afternoon and did quite a bit of damage to her head and face that required a trip to the emergency room and stitches. Dan's mom and her siblings spent about 6 hours of the afternoon at the hospital with her. We were all waiting at the house, hoping for good news and sad that Dan's grandma was going through such a rough time on Christmas. Luckily she is back at the nursing home and hopefully she is doing OK. I know this has been a rough time for Dan's mom and her siblings, as this is marking the end of holidays spent with their mother.

On a positive note, it was the first Christmas for our cousin's little boy, and it was so fun watching him open his presents (with a little help from Mom and Dad). He is such a happy baby. Here are a few pics from the past few days. We were blessed with so many fun gifts, including a couple adorable outfits and pacifiers for the babies. :)