My beautiful sister {N}...

Last weekend my family came to visit for little liv's blessing and while we were at the park i talked my sister into letting me take some pictures of her. She's so beautiful! She'll be 13 in a couple of months!!! A teenager. I can't believe it.

Well, i finally had a few minutes to look at them and so here's a preview of our shoot and there's more to come! :)

as for a little update on our little family...

L is officially "terrible" in his "terrible twos!"- he's throwing things, kicking, hitting, spitting, refusing to take a nap, comes into our room at 5 AM wanting cereal and will only eat chicken nuggets and mac & cheese for lunch and dinner!! We might have to have Super-nanny come save us...or send him to Grammy or Mimi's house until he's 3!!!

Little liv is getting the chunky cheeks that L had when he was her age (pics coming soon...i'm really being lazy and don't want to find them on my external hard drive)

She is sleeping like a champ at night...usually 6-7 hours at a stretch and she's even gone 8 hrs a few times! We wake up and rush to her room to make sure she's still breathing. Ah, sleeping even 6 hours is wonderful.

But, it would be nice if I could stop having nightmare dreams... like laying in a hospital bed feeling like I'm being choked to death and running down the dark hospital hall trying to scream HELP or find anyone to help me...Yeah, i know, pretty freaky huh?! Luckily R woke me up because i was trying to scream in my sleep. I did not want to fall back asleep after that one!

I really want (and think i need) a double jogging stroller...i think my pants are shorter because my bum is so big! ha!! really though, i can't scrunch the two kiddies in the stroller we have now without L squishing O's legs and having both of them cry/whine the whole way up the hill to the park! not fun.

Christmas is just 6 weeks away....(hint hint...R if you're reading this, which I highly doubt!)

Well, our little hungry hippo needs to be fed again. It's funny that we get everything ready so that right when we lay her down, we can just jump right into bed to get the most sleep we possibly can! (especially since the L monster is waking up at 5 AM for cereal)

foto shoot fun...

{the hubby over exposed this photo

(he has no clue how to work the camera), but i love L's smile in it!}

more to come...

(it's funny because I'm making this same face as a newborn in my scrapbook...she looks ALOT like me when I was a baby. I'll have to get my scanner working and post a side by side!)

i thought i would have some time to spare to make this announcement

after her birth...boy was i WRONG!!! :)

Now tomorrow she is already ONE month old! I can't believe it.

We're loving...

hearing her little grunts and sighs

dressing her in 3 month clothes (she's already outgrown her newborn stuff...sad!)

watching her stretch out her neck so we can see under her 3 chins!

how L gives her the sweetest, most gentle kisses on the head

hearing "HI-SISTER!!!" whenever she comes in the room where L is

when she sleeps 5 hours straight at night...yippee!

hearing "When sister big play soccer, hockey, football, volleyball!?" from L constantly

snuggling and rocking in Pop's old recliner

when L goes to Mimi's and Poppa's house to play for the afternoon!

when big brother helps...L loves to get sisters diapers, wipes and pat her on the back to burp

sister's crazy head of hair that we can already put a Barret in!

a sleeping baby when we get in the truck...she loves going for a ride!

when both L and O are down for a nap AT THE SAME TIME...it's heaven! :)

Life is sweet and wonderful and at times very hard with two little ones now. Thanks for all the love and support we have from our family and friends!

We love you!

{pics from our little 'photo shoot' coming soon!}

She's Here.....

I can't believe she's here...and she's a chunk!!!

Her name comes from two of her Great Great Grandma's on my side of the family...we've had her name picked out since we found out we were having a girl...and some of us are already calling her by her nickname "Liv".

We love her to pieces and we feel so blessed to have this little girl in our family.

She is a sweetheart!

L LOVES her and is so cute when I see him touch her very gently on the hand or give her a sweet kiss. He's thrown a few tantrums, but I know that this too shall pass...I hope!

Everything went very well {so thankful we only had to push for 10 minutes!!} and we both felt good enough to come home yesterday! Hard days ahead, but trying to enjoy them the best I can! :) Thanks for all your love and support!

loves...

{I just can't believe these two cute muffins are mine!}

{this hat I made barely fits her cute fat head!!}

{Grammy found a PINK "Lamby" for Liv....

L would like to steal her--he loves Lamby's!}

Feeling....

like crap for the past week

hopefully getting over this darn sinus congestion SOON

and to top it off a lovely yeast infection (just what you wanted to read about!)

but...

the end is in sight

i'm not going to be pregnant forever, after all!

my last weeks appointment I was almost 3cm and 70% effaced

YIPPEE!

and we are scheduled to be started on monday (2 whole days away!!)

i had to be started anyway with L even after my water broke, and was a week late so I have decided to be started early.

i'm nervous about it, wondering if it's really what I should do

but excited to get things going and finally see our baby sister!

i'll post pix as soon as i can....

Project Overload!

I love having a project to work on!

I think I got that from my Dad...except his projects include remodeling old jeeps and broncos!

It's been SOOOO much fun making things for our baby sister, but really hard not to go crazy in the fabric store. I've still got a few pieces of fabric that are so fun, but I don't quite know what to do with them yet...maybe a few more burpies or bibs?!

I finally decided to give my bedroom a little makeover. For awhile now, I wanted to find some orange fabric and make a duvet for our bed. I found the fabric online on a big sale, so I made this for way cheaper than what I could of bought one for.

I love it...every time I walk into our room it's so bright and cheerful!

I think I want to throw in a touch of green somewhere....some throw pillows or ???

I bought this Amy Butler pattern book after seeing the cute diaper bags my SIL and her sister made out of it! Let me tell you though, I hated every minute of this project! Swollen ankles from standing too long ironing on stupid interfacing and messing up on a few things in the pattern because, well, patterns confuse me and I don't like using them AT ALL! Now that it's finished, I do love it!!

I added a few extra things to it that the pattern didn't include:

a place to hook my keys...because I can never find them

an extra pocket just the right size for my cell phone...because I can never find it

and a button with a loop on the front to close it up if I want

Oooo I just love all the pockets!!

I have seen these car seat canopies all over the place and think they are the best idea! I attached mine with Velcro, and it seems to still work great. That way I can take it off and use it as a cover up during feeding time or an extra blankie in the future when we're not using it as a canopy!

I also thought matching shoulder pads would be fun....

My Mom came to visit a few months ago and we had a sewing day! It was so fun. She made baby sister these cute burpies bellow!! Thanks Mom, they are so cute!

(and only cost $1.50 each to make!!)

I think these would make great baby gifts all rolled up like this with ribbon around them...

This is the first blankie I made for baby sister! It's out of Amy Butler fabric on one side and the coziest, softest minkie on the other side! I just might have to make one big enough for me!!!

And finally, the blankie below is the official "baby sister's blankie" (as L calls it...as he gets all soft and squishy and wants to cuddle in it...the cutest thing in the world...can't wait to have both my babies snuggled up in it)....

I saw a similar quilt like this one in a fabric store in town and fell in LOVE with it! I just love the colors and pattern so much. They were all out of the fabric for it though, so I began searching the Internet for it and eventually FOUND it!!! It's from the Swanky collection by Chez Moi for Moda.

I had done binding before on a quilt, but had forgotten how to do it...so I found Heather Bailey's instructions and this video helpful. If you need some help with binding, check these out!! :)

and now, I'm twiddling my fingers wondering what to do with myself!! HA! :)

I am actually going to try to enjoy these last few weeks of being pregnant and HOT... maybe lots of relaxing in the pool, reading, and hopefully getting someone to paint my toenails!

(btw...i had another doctor visit this morning and I'm still at 2 cm/50%...dang!!)

Adventure on a Saturday night...

Around 6:30 last night R wanted to take L out behind our house and "go for a ride!" we had seen some people down by the river earlier-STUCK!

but I didn't think anything of it....

and I didn't think they'd be gone long (maybe 30 minutes),

so I said I would start dinner and have it ready by the time they got home.

About 30 minutes went by and I called R...

They were STUCK!!

We called everyone we knew that had a truck and finally some friends came to the rescue!!

but that's just the beginning....

3 of the friends that came to the rescue ALSO got stuck!

AND it began to RAIN and lightning and thunder outside!

At least L was a happy camper during the whole thing!

R said he would keep asking him "Dada...we stuck?"

{ pic taken from R's cell phone!}

I felt helpless at home where I was watching from our back patio with an umbrella and binoculars in hand (and chicken grilling to a crisp on the grill)....

I really didn't feel like it was a good idea to just waddle down there in the dark

and carry L back home!

Finally one of our rescuers wives (bless her heart!!) drove L up to me.

But he was very sad that Daddy was still down by the river!

I tried to feed L some dinner, but he wouldn't eat a thing. So we got ready for bed...

And....

R was finally home!!

AND THEN....

20 minutes after R got home we heard L crying in his room.

We went in to check on him and he had thrown up all over his bed!

{no wonder he didn't want to eat any dinner! poor thing.}

We think it must have been too much of an adventure for him!

What a night!!

Quite an adventure compared to our usual nights!

Thanks to our rescuers for all your help...you're the best!

{R made them his favorite cookies today and is out delivering them...what a guy!}

The Final Countdown...

{the last and final pregnant picture until we meet baby sister...aren't we all glad?!!}

At last weeks appointment

i was dilated to almost 2cm and half way effaced!

Baby sister's head is down REALLY LOW and it's painful to walk!!

hopefully i'm more effaced and dilated at this weeks appointment...

i'll keep you posted!

Photography workshop!!!

this is how bad i've been at keeping up with my blog!

i took a photography workshop a few months ago and these cute little pictures have been sitting on a disc, on the shelf, ever since! i finally stayed up later than usual (ok. it was 12:30 am) the other night and looked at them and played with them a little in photoshop.

i would really love to do more photography! i had a lot of fun at this workshop and learned a lot, but also learned that practice is everything! i hope i can remember what i learned and keep on practicing!! :)

one of the things that was so fun about this workshop was the LOCATIONS of these amazing little hole in the wall places...that one wouldn't think to take pictures in front of.

my favorite location is actually one that we can't go back to because the owners only allowed this workshop to be done there but didn't want anyone coming back to it! SAD!

oh, well...i keep my eyes open for interesting places to take photos and hopefully i'll find something like it someday! one of the things i didn't enjoy about this workshop was that i was pregnant and HOT and couldn't really "get down and dirty" for some cool angles....and that they really didn't think about women that have to PEE! (good thing lil' ol' towns up yonder have at least one local grocer with a potty!)

well, hope you enjoy a few that i took...

i'd love to hear any critics or comments!!

my two sweet babies...

{this just makes me smile! turned out pretty well for taking it myself :)}