A little family update

Greg took his first of four CPA exams yesterday. He has another one next week, so he studies all day and during breaks he'll play with Evan. Evan misses him so. All day yesterday after he left I heard, "daddy?! DADDDDYYY?!?" Complete with a pout. Greg doesn't find out his score of the first exam until August 5th...and I thought 24 hours to find out about my nursing license exam was brutal. 

Evan. My dear sweet boy. 

I am amazed every single day how much this child learns and knows. We were at the hospital to get my labs drawn and I heard him say "Triangle!" I walked over he there he was pointing to a triangle in the floor. I didn't think he ever really paid any attention to me when I would show him shapes I cut out of computer paper and laminated and make him repeat them, but indeed he is. Remember how I said we were going to start working on letter sounds? Yeah, well, that took a whole 2 days, so I am starting to very slowly teach him how to read now. He's been out of diapers during the day since April 13th, but he is out of  diapers at night now too. He wakes up occasionally in the wee hours of the morning to tell me he has to potty. He's doing great, but I have no doubt we will have accidents here and there. When he gets busy playing he'll have accidents and then come to me with his legs all spread apart and tell me about it. He hates being wet. It's amazing to me that 2 years and 3 months ago I gave birth to a tiny little infant who is now potty trained and at the beginning stages of reading. It's incredible what they learn in 2 years of life. I have a baby doll that was mine when I was little that he loves to hold when he watches movies...I hope he likes his baby sister just as much. He came with me to my doc appt a few days ago and he said, "A BABY SISTER!" really loud to the receptionist and she asked what he was talking about and I told her he just knows he's having a baby sister. He's pretty cute about it. I can't wait until he can hold her.

As for me. I'm large in the belly. I'm loving it. I have been having episodes of nearly passing out because my blood pressure is so low this time. I've been instructed to eat more protein more frequently and drink more than the 8 8oz glasses of water a day I already do. I can't stand for too long or I start to get all dizzy. It's all crazy to me because when I was pregnant for Evan I was on my feet for 14 hours a day and I never had this problem. Every pregnancy is different...

My grandma, My mom, and myself are all working on baby girl's blessing dress. It's going to be so beautiful! How cool is it that her mom, Grandma and Great Grandma are all going to have had a hand at her dress?

This little yellow dress is 73 years old and was worn by my grandmother. Now, my daughter is going to wear her great grandmother's baby dress....how awesome is that? I'm stoked...little white tights under that dress? Oh, Darling!

Have a party in your mouth

So I made this dessert and I had a huge party in my mouth. You guys, it is so delicious and fluffy and summery and not incredibly fattening, but definitely fattening haha.

Chocolate Lasagna

holy. delicious.

• 1 package regular Oreo cookies (Not Double Stuff) – about 36 cookies
• 6 Tablespoon butter, melted
• 1- 8 ounce package cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 Tablespoons cold milk
• 1- 12 ounce tub Cool Whip, divided
• 2 – 3.9 ounce packages Chocolate Instant Pudding.
• 3 1/4 cups cold milk
• 1 and 1/2 cups mini chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS

1. Begin by crushing 36 Oreo cookies. I used my food processor for this, but you could also place them in a large ziplock bag and crush them with a rolling pin. When the Oreos have turned into fine crumbs, you are done.
2. Transfer the Oreo crumbs to a large bowl. Stir in 6 tablespoons melted butter and use a fork to incorporate the butter into the cookie crumbs. When the butter is distributed, transfer the mixture to a 9 x 13 inch baking dish. Press the crumbs into the bottom of the pan. Place the pan in the refrigerator while you work on the additional layers.
3. Mix the cream cheese with a mixer until light and fluffy. Add in 2 Tablespoons of milk, and sugar, and mix well. Stir in 1 and 1/4 cups Cool Whip. Spread this mixture over the crust.
4. In a bowl, combine chocolate instant pudding with 3 and 1/4 cups cold milk. Whisk for several minutes until the pudding starts to thicken. Use a spatula to spread the mixture over the previous cream cheese layer. Allow the dessert to rest for about 5 minutes so that the pudding can firm up further.
5. Spread the remaining Cool Whip over the top. Sprinkle mini chocolate chips evenly over the top. Place in the freezer for 1 hour, or the refrigerator for 4 hours before serving.

Thank you centercutcook.com :o)

A Redo or 3

 I have been wanting to redo our headboard, footboard, and dresser for like a year now, but I knew we were moving and I didn't want anything to happen to it. We made it to Ohio and I figured now would be a good time to do it even though we are moving again next month, it's not a cross country move, so hopefully things will stay as they are. For the last few weeks this has been my project.

I am so bad about taking before and after photos so here is an almost before of the dresser. The bed has the same wood look..

isn't it so pretty!? I love it! I have big plans for  our bedroom when I get it completely put together I will have to show a picture of the whole room...probably won't be for a while :o)

This is a dresser we bought from craigslist for Evan and this little night stand  (below) came with it. It looked exactly like this and we wanted to have a nightstand in our room, so I revamped it as well.

cute, eh?

I used chalk paint. You use 2 TBSP water and 4 TBSP of plaster of paris and mix it up until smooth then add 2 cups of paint. I think for all of this I used 6-8 cups of paint and I have no idea what I'm going to paint with my last cup I mixed up, but I can't waste it...I just can't because I hate wasting things. I had to do 2-3 coats of paint on each piece. Wait at least 2 hours in between coats. I plan on making some runners out of some kind of patterned yellow fabric for the tops of the dresser and nightstand. I only want a vase  with yellow flowers on top of the dresser with the runner. I have plans for another canvas project to go over the bed. I haven't painted a canvas in 6 years, but I loved the one I painted that hangs in my living room, so I'm excited for another.

We found a place in Columbus that has 3 year old soccer teams. We hope to get him involved in the spring, he would love it. He kicked his puppy out and now sleeps with his soccer ball- that's how much he loves to play.

I made some things- dress, car seat blanket, and a baby

If you put band aids on owies they will be remembered forever! Seriously, he still points to his knees and says, "owie!" haha

the baby making is old news, but I'm 24 weeks! I love being pregnant. I love the way my body changes. I love that I'm growing a tiny human!

Evan knows his letters and how to count to 20, so we are starting to count higher now and we are learning out letter sounds!

Fresh picked strawberries from the garden. My family has always put sugar over strawberries and let them sit a while and they make their own sauce, but since I have a really hard time adding processed sugar to something perfectly healthy I made my own shortcake sauce: puree strawberries and add some honey...delightful!

Evan eats a strawberry straight from the vine daily.

I made a car seat blanket. I debated about making it because I thought well this one stays in the car seat and I'm going to want one when I take her out so what's the point in making this when I will have to carry one with me anyway, but my huns convinced me I should for all the times she won't come out of the car seat (grocery store) and because, "she'll be nice and cozy riding in the car."- love my husband.

so I added a receiving blanket to another blanket to make it a little heavier and then cut slits where all the belts go.

Greg didn't like the idea of a hood because he worries it will go on her face, so I just put the little cushion deal back in over the blanket. The blanket is still thin enough that it doesn't alter the position of the baby at all

this is the invisible baby all wrapped up.

I made our girl a dress. I want to make her blessing dress, so this was a trial to see if I could really do it. I did this without a patter, so I think if I have a pattern I could totally do it. I just lined it up with another dress to get the right size and then did my own thing with it. I'm pretty sure she won't be able to wear this dress unless I fix it and add some things. my sleeves are too far off the shoulders and one looks different than the other and I was to add some ruffles on the chest part.

a plethora of sorts

Remember that time Greg graduated from BYU?

See that pregnant girl in the red shirt? I miss her face so so much.  It's just not the same without my Rachel living a couple doors away.

We took Evan to this place called Young's Jersey Dairy here in Ohio

Of course we had to let him sip on a smoothie. We thought we were getting a new kind of ice cream, but apparently it was a smoothie. You can't go to Young's without getting ice cream, it's basically a rule.

I've had a really hard time staying up on my prego pics. Greg said, "I'm sure she's going to care that you didn't take pictures like you did with Evan." Ok, Ok I'll do it :o) It's just not as easy as it was when I didn't have a little busy boy.

16 weeks Pregnant

20ish

I'm currently 22ish weeks and growing out, not to the side which is always a good thing.

Potty Training

April 12th I quit my job and April 13th I started potty training. 

I had researched this a lot and I disagreed with a lot and agreed with some and then basically took the things I liked and my own thing and went to it. 

We bought him a little potty when he was about 15 months old to get him used to it so when this day happened it wouldn't be scary. He has always loved going to the bathroom with us and sitting on his potty. 

We didn't go anywhere for 5 days (except to sacrament on Sunday). Evan ran around the house naked waist down from Saturday-Monday. I made a little sticker chart that had poo-poo's and pee pee's. We had a plethora of treats and lots of singing and dancing and hooting and hollering every time magic happened. We even made up our own potty dance :o) We gave him tons and tons of juice and took him to the bathroom every 20 minutes. When he started barely peeing we stretched it out to 40 minutes.

I went and bought training pants on Monday night (they are like underwear but a little thicker to catch the pee) We started those on Tuesday, but he had more and more accidents so we went back to naked time. The poo part wasn't as difficult for him as we had thought it would be. He has always liked going into his room to poo. He would close the door and then come out and say, "poo poo!" So I put his potty chair in there when he had to go and he sat on it and there ya have it! From the on he was more comfortable doing it in the bathroom. On Thursday, he started taking himself to the bathroom to poo and pee! Greg and I were in the kitchen getting dinner ready and I asked him where Evan was and we went hunting and we found him on the toilet! We were so amazed and so so excited! 

But then my mom came to help us move the next week and he completely regressed (except for pooing, he has continued to do well). He was too excited to even think about peeing on the potty. He started having tons of accidents, but we never put him back in diapers (except for naps and night time...which we still do). I was so nervous about our flight to Ohio because of seat belt signs (what if they went off and he had to pee?) and tiny airplane bathrooms. Thankfully, it worked out and we didn't have a single accident during our journey home...I may have restricted his fluids a lot that day haha. 

When we got here he was still having a little trouble so we went back to taking him every 20 minutes 2 weeks later he's back to asking to go to the bathroom. I had a hard time knowing when would be a good time to stop taking him adn just seeing if he would do it on his own, but apparently, one day they will just get up and run to the bathroom and then you know you can stop taking them. Once he started taking himself we went back to the training pants. His real underwear are somewhere in a box, so he's going to be these for a bit.

My advice? 

Do a method that you think would work with your child. There are so many different ways. Don't get frustrated because it doesn't help them learn (although it's very frustrating sometimes...especially when they regress because you know they know what to do). Try not to react at all when they have accidents. I would take Evan to the bathroom without acknowledging his pee but then when he was on the potty I would say, "Sweetheart, we potty in the potty, not in our pants." Now Evan still says, "potty in uh potty not in uh pants."

Expect accidents when they have little toddler friends over because they are not going to stop playing to pee. Don't ask them if they have to pee. Evan still says no even though he means yes and sometimes he will say potty back to me which is a yes but if he is busy he will just wait until he can't hold it anymore and then book it to the bathroom. Have them pull their pants down and pull them back up every time they go, so they get used to doing it themselves so when they want to go without asking they can get their drawers off. Just remember they are still just little guys learning all new things. Evan barely turn 2 when we potty trained him. Anyway, happy potty training! 

we moved

We moved back to Ohio this past Saturday!

We are excited to be back near family, but I have to say we became family with very good friends of ours and we already miss them. We are already making plans to reunite in the next year with our dear friends.

I would upload pictures of Greg's graduation, but I haven't a clue where my camera cord is...

My husband is done with school forever! He got his masters in Accounting from Brigham Young University! He's awesome!

I think if people understood what BYU puts their Accounting students through (the BYU Accounting program is ranked #2 in the nation. Sometimes #1 depending on the year. Big Four accounting firms basically beg for BYU students) everyone would be so much more impressed with him. It was brutal for him for 3 of the 4 years we were there. Some things were hard for him, but because he's basically a genius (and I'm totally not even exaggerating) most of it wasn't too terrible, but he was just so busy. So, so, so busy. He did it! He survived! And I have a husband again! At least until October and then I will sometimes have a husband and sometimes not because his job will be pretty busy. He is getting ready to start studying for the CPA exam to get it out of the way before his job starts, but he's taking this week off because you know what...he deserves a break!

We got preapproved in columbus Ohio to buy a house and we started house hunting this past Tuesday and found a house we loved, but unfortunately, there was a mold problem that we weren't willing to take on. The Lord will guide us and we will find our fit. We just need to be patient. I have become less picky because Greg keeps reminding me we won't be there probably more than 5 years. We are hoping to find something at least a couple months before baby girl comes because hello stress...having a baby and trying to find a house too..no thanks, one at a time is good enough.

Anywho...if I ever find the cord we'll get some pictures up :o)