Valentines Day and House Progress

As tradition in my house growing up we had giant Valentine cookies.  I didn't want to make giant cookies, so I made smaller bite sized cookies.  Connor had a great time helping.

We raided my Valentines from school to find candies to add to the cookies.  I had bought the cinnamon pieces ahead of time, but thought we had sprinkles at home as well...we didn't.

Peter made his cookies look like they had the chicken pox.  Connor thought that was a good idea, so he decorated his cookies quite similar.

He also had a great time sampling the frosting.

This weekend we worked on the house as usual.  We made several trips to Home Depot and a trip to Lowes to pick up our bathroom vanity that finally came in.  Then today we worked on painting the downstairs.  I painted as far as I could reach in the living room while Peter and Connor made a trip to Home Depot for more supplies.  When they came home, I was nearly done with the room.  Peter used a super extended pole to reach all the high areas.  When nap time rolled around someone refused to stay in bed.  He crashed on the floor around 4...it's hard work fixing up our house.

This gray room will be Connor's room.  We finished removing the baseboards and tack strips today.  The wall has a few holes that need to be patched up and then Frank will re-texture it so we can paint it.  It will have a jungle/safari theme to it.

This is the closet area.  The previous owners removed two of the closets in the upstairs rooms.  We will put them back in.  The floor will also be carpeted.

This will be the nursery-minus the toilet of course.  It will generally look like it did in the condo.

Here's the closet space.  We'll repaint and add more shelves and baskets to hold stuff.

Here's the pergo that we started ripping up.  The upstairs will be all carpet.

Here's how the bathroom is coming along.  Frank is going to come by sometime this week and texture the walls.  Then we will have until Friday night to get primer and two coats of color on the walls.  Since the vanity is here, it will be installed on Saturday as well as the flooring I think.  Once it is installed we have to call our granite people and have them install the counter top.  Then the back splash can be installed and the bathroom will nearly be done.....aaahh I see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Here's more of the pergo being removed.

These next three pictures are the living room.  They were taken at the same time of the day, yet all three look quite different.  The color is Toasted Cashew from Behr.

Here's Peter painting the downstairs hallway.  My mom painted the closet Cottage White over the weekend.  The walls are Toasted Cashew, which when done will really make the closet stand out.

We thought about having a painting party, then realized we only have two rollers.  So we did it ourselves today as we had the day off work and were very surprised at how fast we got the first coat done.

Our little gummy bear

We interrupt our weekly updates on the house to bring exciting news...

We are expecting a gummy bear!

Our little critter is affectionately being called a gummy bear as it resembles one...it has a head, a body and four nubs.  This picture was taken at 11 1/2 weeks.  As of yesterday I am 13 weeks pregnant.  Our little critter is due on August 19th.

Other exciting news:  I don't have gestational diabetes yet!  I failed the 1 hour test, but I passed the three hour test...woohoo!  Unfortunately, I get to look forward to taking the test each month until I fail.  But until then I'm thoroughly enjoying treats, just limiting the amount so as to not over do it.  Though I have stocked up on the all natural peanut butter, sugar free jam, sugar free pudding/jell-o and splenda.  For after all it's not a matter of if I'll get it, it's a matter of when I'll get it.

So how am I feeling?  Tired, hungry, tired, did I mention tired?  Yes I like naps.  They're a bit of a luxury during the week.  Often times I take a 20 minute power nap while Peter cleans up the dinner dishes.  Or if he's reading Connor a bedtime story, I often cuddle up under the blankets of the bed and am soon out.

Any differences from the first pregnancy?  I'm not nearly as sick.  With Connor I threw up nearly every night.  So far with this one I have thrown up twice.

Kind of on the weird side....I told Peter that I could feel it wiggling at 6 weeks.  He told me it was all psychological...yeah he basically called me crazy.  I told him I was not crazy and I knew what I was feeling.  He brushed it off saying it wasn't possible.  I went to my appointment and the nurse practitioner totally believed me.  Since I'm skinny she says it is very realistic that I am feeling it move.  HA take that Peter!  Well our little gummy bear is particularly active in the evening after I lay down so I had Peter feel my stomach the other day and he felt it move too! 

You can go wild

Those are the words Peter said to me while I was at Andersen's yesterday.  I called and asked if I should pick up a blueberry bush or some ollalieberries.  His reply, "you can go wild."  I even warned him that I had his car and his trunk could hold a lot more than my trunk.  So yes I had fun at Andersen's yesterday.

I ventured out looking for a dwarf apricot tree.  I didn't find one there, but I found one that could be pruned so it only got 10 feet tall at maturity and it only needed 100 hours of temperature under 45 degrees.  It sounded perfect so I bought it.  It was also the last one with such a small chill hour requirement.  While looking through the rest of the trees the only dwarf trees I found were plum, nectarine and peach varieties that all had a chill requirement of about 400 hours.  Our area gets about 300 hours, so these varieties wouldn't work well for us.  On another side of the nursery I ran into the bare root berries.  Last time we were here we bought thornless boysenberry plants.   I looked again and they were all sold out...bummer.  You can't buy boysenberries in the stores here, so I hope the three plants I bought last time produce enough to satisfy our want for boysenberries this year.  Instead I picked up two ollalieberries and a blueberry plant.  Pleased with what I had I headed for the check out.  To my surprise I had hedge points on my account, so I saved $22 on my trip.  I was well pleased!

Back at home I showed Peter the loot.  He has no idea where we'll put a big apricot tree, technically I don't really know either, but I'll enjoy the harvest.  I suggested it go on the side of the house, so we'll see.
Here are some garden pictures:

Connor has been busy plucking all of the ripe strawberries

 Helping water the blueberry bush

 Look at all of our peas!

Our beans haven't done terribly well this season.  

Not sure what the problem is, though we have plucked a few.

Saturday Peter spent much of the day running errands and fixing the front walkway.  I played in the dirt and removed most of the grass and roots in the front yard.  I am eager to get the front yard looking nice.  Frank and his son Randy came over and worked on the bathroom.  They installed some of the drywall, the tub and a few other things.  Frank also helped Peter with the front walkway.

Peter's masterpiece