Lily and Jameson's NEW room!

It's been a few months since the kids have moved in the same room together, but thought I'd post pictures of their new room! Since our house is a 3 bedroom house, we thought it'd be best for Lily and Jameson to share so the baby can have his own room. Then when the baby is old enough, we'll put the 2 boys together and Lily can have her own room again. Lots of rearranging going on! Anyway, we (with help from my amazing sister-in-law!!!!) painted Lily's very girlish, pink room to a nice, soft yellow. It was hard finding bedding and paint that would accommodate a girl AND boy. Plus, I didn't want to spend a lot knowing this would be a temporary room for them.

 In case you forgot, this was Lily's room before it was made over.

 And here's the new room complete with bunk beds! Thankfully, I found some decently priced bedding at Ikea that had a matching boy and girl comforter! And that's what I based the colors of the room off of. I didn't want it to be too girly or boyish.

 This is the view as you walk into the room.

 This is the opposite wall at the end of the bunk beds.

 Love this wall! The giant letters are from Joann's. They were a basic cardboard color and all I did was mod podge tissue paper on them. Easy peasy! And my sis-in-law made that imagination sign! Isn't it awesome?! Lily colors like crazy these days, so that's a perfect place for her to put her pictures on-mainly because my fridge is full of them already and running out of room!

 And their new to them bunk beds and bedding.

They love their new room! The first night of Jameson being in a big boy bed was quite hilarious to watch on the video monitor. He just wasn't used to that freedom of getting out of bed whenever he wanted! He got out, turned their light on and off, climbed up the ladder, etc. After some disciplining and being talked to he finally fell asleep. And it's been smooth sailing ever since!! I'm SO thankful! I do think he sometimes wakes Lily up in the mornings before she's ready to get out of bed, but for the most part it's been great. She's a hard sleeper and does really well even if he's noisy. These past few weeks have been a bit of a challenge with both of them taking forever to fall asleep. Not sure if it's because it's too light outside or what. I did shorten Jameson's nap a bit and that's helped a little. Hopefully once school starts for Lily we'll be on a good enough schedule for both of them. And then at that point I'll have a newborn and be up all night! :) Oh well!

Here's me and my giant belly at 32 1/2 weeks! Had my OB appt yesterday and surprise surprise I'm measuring a week and half ahead. Can you say big baby?! In another 3 weeks I'll have my last ultrasound and then it's smooth sailing from there! This boy is still a mover!!! I will say this pregnancy is more difficult with aches and pains-especially in my hips when I'm sleeping. Ouch! But, it's soo worth it! Counting down the weeks until we meet him!! God is GOOD!



Mission Trip!

After our week of fun in Eagle Crest, our little family headed straight out to Monument, OR for a week with a group from our church to be a part of a mission trip! Our old pastor moved to Monument 5 (?) years ago and started a church over there. So that's our connection to Monument! It was fun to see him and his wife too! While we were there we put on a vacation Bible school for the kids (VBS), did some community work like painting, rebuilding a deck, etc. We had SUCH a good time making memories, building relationships with the families that went, as well as the kids in the community who came to VBS!

 My dad offered his sweet van for us to take! Saved us money on gas! :) And we barely fit with all our stuff!

 My poor, pregnant cankles! I did this a lot that week we were there!

 The kids all cozy-and doing fairly well for JUST having the flu!

Our first full day there was Sunday, and Pastor Ron (the pastor who used to be at our church) wanted AJ to lead worship that Sunday. I, along with some other gals, sang as backups. It was a sweet time of worship! Unfortunately, that morning AJ woke up feeling icky....as in the flu icky. By God's grace, he made it through Sunday morning and even a potluck that the church put on for us after church! After that he went downhill fast :( He spent the rest of Sunday and into the evening throwing up. Did I mention yet that we were all (my family) sleeping in the same room in the local high school in Monument?! When we went to bed that night, we walked in our room to AJ over the garbage, and Lily started crying, "I don't want to hear him doing that!!!" I said, "Me either!" Thankfully, the bug was only 12 hours so by morning he was doing better. I, on the other hand, fell to the flu as well. Thankfully, I only threw up once-praise God! It's no fun doing that while 7 months pregnant! I laid in bed the rest of the day, bored out of my mind with no tv or movies! But, it was nice to nap whenever I wanted. My hips were sure hurting by the end since I was laying on foam pads as my bed. And after that day I felt great! Unfortunately, our family passed this bug around to everyone else! Out of 9 families, only 1 family escaped without getting sick. There was at least 1 person in each family who got it. We felt terrible but they were all SO sweet and not blaming us-even though it was totally our fault! But, through this trial we were able to see God work in our group! We came together and filled in for one another if someone was sick. AJ was the teacher for Bible time, so on Monday instead of him leading (because he was still feeling tired from being sick the day before) someone else taught for him. It was like this with the other people as well. And even though I had thoughts of "why is this happening?!", I was able to see God do amazing things and make me rely on Him more! So, even though it was bad people were sick, God worked out all those details-as He always does!

 Me and some sweet girls from our church!

 The ladies of the church in Monument setting up all the delicious food for us! The gal on the right hand side in the front is Kara. Her husband is the science/math teacher at the high school. Anyway, she heard I was sick and came over and brought me chicken broth and toast. How sweet is that?!! That a total stranger would do that. Gotta love that small town feel and the fact she loves the Lord. :)

Playing games while we waited to eat.

 Love this picture. A bunch of kids from our church plus some kids from the community. The great thing about kids is they can just play with whoever and whenever-even if they know them or not! Can you spy Lily in this picture?!

 This was Tuesday, when AJ was finally well enough to teach! Each day he dressed up as a new character. This day he was Mr. Athlete. Check out his amazing mustache! Which he applied with a hot glue gun!!! I'm not joking!

 And my grumpy son hanging out with his silly dad. Oh Jameson. He had a hard time on this trip. For some reason, he decided to enter this new, clingy phase! He cried if he was away from AJ or I for even 2 minutes. I was a bit tired of him acting this way, but we made it through the week!

 Me and my not so handsome husband :)

 One day after VBS, we invited the kids in the community to the school (where our group was staying) for a giant slip-n-slide!! So fun!

 Lily and her new friend that she made at VBS.

And there's Lily!

 This is the local high school and our "home" for the week! We slept here, ate in the cafeteria, showered in the gym, etc. It was great-minus walking down 2 flights of stairs in the night to get to the bathroom. Oh well! Fun fact, for grades K-12, there are only 47 students. Next year there will only be 1 senior. Crazy! The highschool had 4 classrooms in it. But it's a nice building!

 Jameson's crabby face. We saw this a lot too! 

 The kids singing fun VBS songs!

 The songs were Jameson's favorite part! I was a co-leader of one of the groups of kids and he just stuck with me. He was a bit hard during the Bible teaching time, but did well for the most part for the rest of it!

 And Mr. Athlete again singing songs!

 How cute is this church?! This was the church our old pastor started. It's grown quite a bit since they've been over there!

 The last day of VBS, we invited the families of the VBS kids to the park that night for a BBQ. AJ lead some songs for people to sing after we ate.

 Jameson listening-he loves his helmet!

The kids singing songs for their parents! Jameson and Lily are both in there, but they're kinda hard to see. 

 Egg toss!

My Lily with her new friend Lilly.

Those are just a few pictures of our week! Besides the getting sick part, it was an amazing week and we hope to go back sometime!! We learned a lot, grew as a family, and were able to see God work in all of us!



Eagle Crest '12

We just got back from a 2 week vacation/mission trip and I'm finally home to tell about it! This will just be about Eagle Crest, and the next post I'll write about our awesome mission trip!

Every summer we go with AJ's whole family (parents, sister and her family) to Eagle Crest for a week. It's tons of fun where I hardly ever cook, the kids are entertained, and we get to lay by the pool! Well, I didn't do so much laying out this year, kinda hard to do with a giant, pregnant belly!

Our good friends happened to be vacationing at Eagle Crest the same time we were there, so we got to play with their little guy lots! The kids, especially Jameson, love him!

 Isn't he the cutest?! Love my sweet nephew Colton!

 The view from our deck. So peaceful and beautiful!

 Yay for funny face pancakes with Auntie Andrea!

 Nothing like eating breakfast on the deck.

 Pool time!

 Um, say no to crack?!

 Whoa, that's the view I always have looking down :) And I was "trying" to get color on my legs so I kinda forgot (OK, on purpose!) to wear sunscreen on them. Um, worst mistake EVER!!!! I was burned to a crisp. And it was so, so painful. Never again will I make that mistake!

Playing on scooters (Jameson calls his a "tooter!") and with cousin Colton!

 Watching some musical youtube videos before bed.

 We love Grandma's smoothies!

 How cute are my in-laws?!

 And unfortunately, the trip ended with both kids throwing up. Yuck. First it was Jameson one day, then Lily had it the next. I'm so thankful we were all in the same room so we could easily take care of them. Had we'd been home, I can't imagine cleaning up bunk beds filled with vomit! A bummer way to end the vacation, but we made it! Here the kids are relaxing with a movie. Poor sick babies!

Thanks Dan and Barb for a super fun week!!!

And while we were there, I hit 28 weeks! (this was almost 2 weeks ago now) Feeling huge. People keep telling me, "You look like you're ready to pop!" Yup. I know. We make big babies. I honestly don't know how much bigger I can get for another 2 months! Yikes! Oh well, it's totally worth it! :)