Sneak Peak

If you’re on facebook you probably already saw my post about our ultrasound today….and just how much this babe looks like Micah man.  Here you go….you can see for yourself!  The first picture is from today (32 weeks) – the second was from our 4d ultrasound with Micah (about 28 weeks). 

Thankful for….ear infection.

Yes, today I’m thankful for ear infection….and thankful for new meds that will hopefully take care of the ear infection and the oh.so.crabby almost 2 year old suffering from it!  Poor Micah man started in on a nasty cold almost 2 weeks ago –10 days ago we got antibiotic for ear infection, and in the last 2 weeks his behavior has gone from bad to worse, including 40 minute long screaming fits each of the last several days, clinging to mom for dear life and having huge meltdowns when mom leaves the room, even if its just to go to the bathroom!  It was about enough to make me think I was going to lose my mind.  Today I decided I couldn’t take it anymore – so we went back to the doctor hoping to find that there was something wrong (other than the terrible 2’s)! 
After we survived a super crabby nurse who set off the super crabby boy and led to a HUGE meltdown over whether or not he had to take off his coat to be weighed (seriously, we were just there 10 days ago, can you just humor the kid and weigh him with his coat on??), we discovered that his ears are STILL infected.  Not that I would wish an ear infection on my little guy, but I was so glad to (hopefully) have an explanation for the terrible behavior!!  Now we’re just hoping the new meds do the trick –on the ear infection and the behavior!

2 very important updates!

(1) The 2011 Nelsen family photobook is officially DONE and ready to be printed!  I posted it (and all the other photobooks I’ve done) over here, so go check it out if you want.  You’ll notice that the photo books have gotten significantly cooler over time – my first one (2007-2008) leaves a little lot be desired.  I discovered AFTER I had that whole book put together than “simple path” is NOT the way to make a photo book….make sure you use “custom path” because you have tons more options….but I’m not ambitious enough to remake that one.  (p.s. Have I mentioned that I love shutterfly….I’m definitely NOT a scrapbooker, never have been, not creative enough….but these are easy!)

(2) I posted a poll on the side of the blog, so hop over and vote!  We’re just over 2 months from my due date and having a big debate on just what this baby should be named!

5 x 5 challenge…the final week

I’m with Stef, I’m not sure this should stop…it really needs to become a “lifestyle change” for me, so that I actually keep up on things around the house!  Last week was my week to FINISH all the projects I started…and I waited to long to post so I have no idea what day I did these, but here is the list of to do’s that got checked off:

* Tuesday the kids and I made a trip to Kearney –a Target run for diapers turned into 4 stops and a whole lot of money spent….but I picked up all the things we’ve been needing to finish projects around here.  Makenzie found butterflies to hang above her bed (much cheaper than the $50 picture she’s had her eye on, BUT she picked a pink one and a blue one much to her mother’s dismay…I thought 2 pink or a pink and orange to match the rest of the room…. she informed me that blue is her favorite color and she needed a blue one). And I’m slowly learning to pick my battles with that girl!  We also got picture frames to hang in the nursery, a wall hanging for the master bedroom (no more empty walls!), lamp shade for the guest bedroom (goodbye light green shade that came from Makenzie’s nursery and matched NOTHING in the guest bedroom), a lamp for the nursery, new picture frames for the living room and a heater for the basement (so more freezing to death at night!)  The kids were amazingly good shoppers too – extra bonus! 

* Clean out the flour cupboard…I started this project in Week 1 with ordering new canisters. This week I got them out of the box, washed them and put them in the cupboard…and cleaned out the old ones, washed those and they’re in the goodwill pile! Cleaning out that cupboard might need to become a more regular project….it was seriously disgusting! I honestly don’t know how I spill so much in the cupboard!

* Ordered pictures to fill the new frames in the living room and our bedroom.

* Ordered vinyl lettering (like uppercase living) for our bedroom –as soon as this gets here and gets put up our room can officially be considered DONE! 

* 2011 Shutterfly photobook…..this was WAY more than a 15 minute task (like 8 hours more), but I am SO glad to have it nearly done!  Tom had National Guard drill this weekend which meant I was home with kiddos all weekend, so as soon as they were down for naps or in bed for the night, I was plugging away on Shutterfly.  The finished project-  a 99 page 12x12 photobook of everything we did in 2011.  I started doing these when Makenzie was born and I LOVE THEM!  I have a few things to finish up before I can print this one, but after staying up till midnight Friday and Saturday night, working through the Super Bowl and finishing the last 7 pages last night, its nearly done!

I have a few projects I still want to finish – the biggest one: deciding what to do with all the pictures I didn’t put in the photobook.  I’m leaning towards continuing to print all these and put them in albums –but that requires editing and labeling them all (shutterfly will print captions on the back if you take the time to type them in…and my camera automatically dates everything so the date shows up on the back of the picture automatically….how nice is that!)  And in case you’re wondering – yes I’m addicted to shutterfly!

Wedding fun.

The beautiful bride!

The oh-so adorable flower girls and ring bearer (and my new brother in law)

Could these two be any cuter??

Seriously, how great do my parents look!

And just in case you got through all the other pictures thinking, wow the bridesmaid dress fit and she looks great for being 6 months pregnant…my hubby (bless his heart) took this picture during the ceremony….HOLY huge belly! I seriously considered either (1) killing him for taking the picture or (2) deleting the picture and thus any proof of just how huge I was…..but really, ignore the giant pregnant lady in the hot pink dress and notice how pretty the whole wedding was…absolutely beautiful (and outdoors….in January!)  You can see all the pictures from our Texas trip (and the wedding) here.

5 x 5 organizing challenge….Week 3/4

We spent all of last week in Texas and got home Monday night –so I did NOTHING last week (and it was glorious!) but I set out to get a number of things done even though I knew it was going to be a short and crazy week!  Here’s the run down:

Monday night – Unload all the bags.  I actually had to finish this Tuesday, but I got most everything unloaded Monday night…clean clothes put away, dirty clothes in the laundry basket. 

Tuesday – This was my one day home this week and my kids were so excited to just have some “play” time, that I actually got a lot done!  The kids helped me clean out the refrigerator in the morning (correction, Makenzie helped, Micah slammed the door into my back about 17 times God bless 2 year old boys!)  The fridge was nearly empty anyway – and with the shelves empty I was shocked to see just how disgusting they were, so we cleaned out the nasty leftovers (that had been in there at least 10 days because we had been gone that long) and the expired condiments and wiped down all the shelves before we went to the grocery store to restock.   During nap time, I used all my Shutterfly coupons and made some super cute valentines cards (with the adorable pictures I took at my sister’s wedding….look for a whole wedding post coming soon!!)  Tuesday night after kiddos were in bed I cleaned out all my 2011 files, compiled it into 2 big files that can go in a box for safekeeping, and made new files for 2012.  I’m a little bit neurotic (okay maybe a lot neurotic) about my record keeping and files, so it was good to get this done!  I also cleaned out our insurance notebook and updated it with all the current insurance information.  Last task for Tuesday – write Christmas thank yous!  Don’t judge!    Yes I realize we’re nearly a month past Christmas, but at least they are done!!  Oh yeah, and I put Tom on the task of writing down all of Micah’s teeth in his baby book….he’s the master at keeping track of this, but he puts in on the calendar….so tonight he transferred it all to the baby book for me. 

Wednesday – Addressed all the Christmas thank yous and mailed them….exactly one month after Christmas.  Timely.

I’m not sure I got anything done Thursday or Friday, but we had a super productive weekend!  I finally got both kids’ names hung on their walls – which means as soon as we find a picture to hang above Makenzie’s bed their room is DONE! (We’ve looked several times, but can’t find anything she’s thrilled about).  Hooray for finished projects!  We also took down the crib and moved it to the “new” nursery in the basement with the rest of our bedrooms.  The crib has been reassembled and the vinyl wall lettering I got for Christmas is FINALLY up on the wall above the crib.  Setting up the crib made me kick into nesting mode (after all, we only have 12 weeks to go!), so I dug out baby blankets (some blue and some pink because I’m fairly certain my hubby would not let his son leave the hospital in a pink blanket) and got them washed up and put away.  Final task of the day - the last of the junk FINALLY made the trip to goodwill (thanks to my hubby and dad) so we can go back to parking 2 cars in our 2 car garage.  

Sunday— I finally finished the questionnaire that I’ve been supposed to fill out since early December  for our new financial planner/advisor, and ran to my office to copy all the documentation I had to send with it.  This has been sitting on my counter for nearly 2 whole months….SO good to have it done!  I decided last night that I wasn’t going to “do” anything other than hang out with my kiddos today, so anything that was going to get done had to get done during naptime! 

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

1st day back from vacation + 1st day at a new daycare + 57 email messages in my inbox + 3” of pink message slips with phone calls from clients + a 28 week pregnant mama + not enough sleep = a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.  Literally I was in tears 4 times before noon.  Sometimes for legitimate reasons like leaving my babies at daycare.  Sometimes for maybe not quite so legitimate reasons like one of my partners telling me about taking his daughter to the airport last week for her semester at sea.  Thankfully that partner has 3 daughters of his own, so he’s not alarmed by tears!    My other partner (who raised 2 boys….no girls) would have been scared half to death by me sobbing in his office.

The good news – by the end of the day it really wasn’t such a terrible day!  I got through all the emails AND the phone messages.  The kids both had a good day (although I don’t think Makenzie napped, so she was a little extra dramatic and teary tonight….wonder where she got that??)  When I asked them both what the best part of the day was, Micah told me “play” and Makenzie said, “you’re not going to believe this mom….they have a gym to play in and we got popcorn and popsicles for snacks.”