Way to Go Dave!

The latest project we have been working on has been "The Play Kitchen". I have seen so many cute play kitchens online and wanted to make one for Sam because she loves to do the dishes and be in the kitchen whenever anyone is. So I had been looking online for a while on Craigslist trying to find an old side table/dresser but finally found a lady who was selling her old play kitchen that she never got around to re-doing herself. Dave was pretty excited about it too and when he realized how much sanding, painting and cutting would go into it, he pretty much took over the entire project because he didn't want me doing any of those things (only because of being pregnant).

So yesterday he finally finished it and it looks adorable and best of all Samantha loves it! She came out of her room this morning and goes "My kitchen my kitchen! Mommy I make breakfast!"

I think it makes Dave extra happy that she loves it so much. Here are some pictures from start to finish, the transition into the play kitchen!

Stupid People

Ya know I think for at least most of this pregnancy, I have been able to avoid stupid people saying stupid things about me being pregnant. So far up until today I had gotten only a couple of comments. One, almost two months ago...."Katie, people will tell you that you're not big...but YOU ARE!" ahhhhh......thanks friend. Luckily I was able to laugh about it. (you have to know the person)
And then today..
I have one resident that really drives me crazy sometimes because he won't pay his rent on time and then he won't pay his late fees, and then he won't take his satellite dish down, etc. etc.
Well today he called because he needed a key to his deadbolt lock which I didn't have because he changed his locks a while ago and never gave a copy to the previous manager. "I need it within 48 hours..do you think you can do that?"
me: "well that should be fine. The only obstacle would be if I go into labor and am in the hospital."
stink face: "are you do soon?"
me: "yeah, like this next week."
SF: "and there's only ONE in there?" (emphasis on the one part)
me: "uh.....(pause to give him a dirty look)....yep just ONE!" (it's a good thing for him he wasn't within arms reach.)
what a doofus!
It's one thing when people I'm related to say things, but when it's someone I really don't care for?? grrrr.

I'm gonna go eat a brick of cheese....

The New Baby!

Yesterday Dave had the face of a little boy on Christmas morning because of his newest addition!
It comes in the form of an aluminum frame, carbon fiber fork, and a whopping 15 pounds!...maybe It is a Cannondale Team Saeco Racebike and seriously, Dave was as gitty as a schoolboy! He wanted to ride his bike to church today. He has been watching Craigslist trying to find a roadbike because he has been riding his mountainbike to work everyday up until now. He got a STEAL on his new red baby from a guy that lives on the coast and was in town for the weekend. He was worried about it being too lonely in the garage last night and thought maybe we should put it in our room. One of the good things about his new bike is that it will probably cut about 8 minutes or so off his commute because those bikes are fast!

Here is his pride and joy!



I'm happy he's happy just as long as he doesn't get our baby and the bike mixed up....Speaking of.
She has decided to take her sweet time which is unfair because Sam was two weeks early! I thought it would be the same this time too, but not so much.
But as of today I feel offically ready to go because I have no obligations to anyone now. It was my last Sunday in Primary for singing. "Come on kids let's get up and march and dance" (thinking this would put me into labor). I tried this tactic last week too because we are singing "Follow the Prophet" and when I got home from church last week, she had dropped! Totally thought "this is the week!" and here I am a week later....still pregnant.
But, I feel like I've gotten most things taken care of so I won't have to go running out to appointments with a newborn. I got my eyes checked and new contacts, and I FINALLY FINALLY got my new beautiful tooth! (or crown I should say). After 8, that's right I said an EIGHT month process from last July my tooth cracking from biting into bacon, and almost falling out of my head in the middle of vacation in the remote mountains of Mack's Inn, and having to wait till I got home to have surgery to extract the root from my head and get an implant (about a 4 hour surgery) and then 10 days later having another 3 hour process of pulling, extracting, numbing, pain, pain, pain! Then waiting for it to heal for about 6 months and in the meantime it cracking again (from eating bacon...I guess I should learn) but it staying enough in place, but making it hard to eat food. Then going back, more drilling, x-rays, molds (that almost made me puke). And then waiting 2 weeks for them to make the crown, and in that time the bridge cracked AGAIN! (not by bacon this time) once again making it difficult to eat ( and this is the front right tooth people!) Finally on Tuesday I got the crown shoved into place in my head and I finally feel like I can eat with confidence! It feels great and solid!
During this whole process I was pregnant and did not receive any medication except Tylenol. Not after my two separate surgeries....nothing!! Seriously.....worst.....pain.....ever!!!


Needless to say.....I don't love the dentist. Not my particular dentist he was very nice, just dentist's in general. Not a fan. And to put a cherry on top, most insurances (including mine) will not pay for implants and in some cases crowns (also in my case).....so we are not getting any of that work paid for by our insurance!...awesome.

Phew, did you follow me on all that? Basically I am now ready to have a baby! Hopefully this week! In the meantime I will continue to reorganize the closet for the 3rd time (because the baby cares about thst stuff)

Yep I'm pretty big!

Well not a whole lot has been happening lately around here and I have become increasingly lazy with my blog posts. Who really wants to hear about a sore back, ribs that feel like their cracking or already broken and always in pain, trying to keep up energy for Singing time every Sunday in Primary, and just a lot of general fatigue! That's pretty much been my life the last month I guess.
Basically playing the waiting game at this point. Feeling huge! I can't believe I'm posting a picture of me, which I swear I'd never do....oh well. I hope it makes all you skinnies feel good about yourselves!

This is me as of today! Still have 3 weeks to go but kind of hoping it doesn't take that long.

Projects

Since the beginning of the year I have been trying to do/make fun projects from mostly tutorials I find online. I am definitely not creative enough to make up something on my own, so I just use other people's ideas!
This week has been a long one because Dave has been gone all week for a training class for work in Denver. On the one hand it stinks that he's gone period, but he was in Denver, where my sister Natalie is! I was soooo bummed I didn't get to go with him. I could have hung out with her the whole week and Sam could have played with her cousins, and I could have finally seen her new house (that she refuses to put pictures of up on her blog). Instead I had to drown my sorrows with trying to keep myself busy with projects.....and cookies :)
The first one was some curtains I made for Sam's closet. I have her dresser in there and before there were sliding doors and I could never quite access the whole dresser. So we took the doors off and made glittery curtains instead. (I actually made them a couple of weeks ago, but I had to adjust them a little bit, and looks like I still have some adjusting to do). I got this idea from a magazine. Awesome


This second one I found an online tutorial that I thought was awesome. It is a tutorial on how to make a cute cover for those ugly crates that you would put milk in or something. I had one that housed all of Dave's YM and work stuff and I thought I would make a cover for it to make it a little more appealing. (hence the manly fabric). I think I would like to make more to hold fabric or something because if you look at the gal's website, hers are adorable. Her name is Laura Gunn, and you can get the tutorial here.




The third is a fun bag that I've wanted to make for myself for a while. I have needed a bag big enough to hold stuff for Primary (as I have a ton of stuff every week that I take for Singing time) and thought this would be a good size. I got the pattern from my sister in law, and it was pretty easy to make, and the fabric was on clearance too, which is always nice!

To go along with church stuff, Sam always has to have crayons for church, so I thought I would make a crayon roll to use for church that will keep her crayons organized and I won't have a big pile at the bottom of the bag every week. I found this tutorial here.




The last thing was more of an organizational thing. I have A TON of scrapbook ribbon that sits in a bin in a huge mess! Like this

I found a great idea online, and I can't remember which website it was, but know it wasn't my original idea, but anyway a good way of organizing all that ribbon was to buy a bunch of doll pins from Michael's or Joann's (using your 40% coupon of course) and then wrapping your ribbon around those, and viola! So much more organized where I can see what colors I have!

I haven't gotten as far as color coding them yet, but getting there! Maybe I'll have to put them in a decorative jar or something. I am just happy they are organized!

Next up, if there is time, maybe make a baby quilt for #2. It would have to be REALLY simple. I haven't quite gotten the quilting thing down yet. And as you can tell from my projects, I am in no way a professional, but practice makes....better? maybe? Oh well...it's still fun to do!

The Polar Plunge #2

Well for the second year in a row Dave participated in the Oregon Polar Plunge which is a huge fundraiser for the Special Olympics. This year they raised over $130,000!! That is pretty amazing. People can get crazy when given an opportunity to strip and jump in freezing cold water. And it was freezing! The weather outside of the water was 40 degrees and rainy, so I can only imagine how nice and chilly the water was. You kind of had an idea when you saw people's faces as they jumped in the water. Poor Dave (who never gets cold) was shivering for most of the day! He wasn't feeling brave enough this year to do the speedo thing (disappointing). But he did wear his beautiful mustache that he has been growing for a couple of weeks! So that at least kept his upper lip warm.
It was definitely another interesting year of crazy people dressing up. Although I will say I was a little disappointed when I didn't see any men running around in their thongs like I did last year. With everything else frozen I guess they didn't want to freeze the dimples on their bums too.
Dave did a great job of raising money this year. He ended up raising $310.00!! I was very proud of him. Thanks to all of those who donated money. It definitely went to a great cause!

















It ended up being a very busy day yesterday going from one activity to the next. Right after the plunge we had to race home and get ready to go to the temple with Dave's family. (I think it will be the last time I get to the temple before I have this baby). Just a bit uncomfortable...Then after the temple we went to dinner with his siblings and had a great time, as we always do. Then from there we had to go and get cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory and buy Legos from the Lego Store. To top off the evening, I went to a girl's night out party at my friend Sofie's house, which was great. It is so nice to have some girl time! I think all mom's need it once in a while.
After our busy day yesterday, it didn't get any less busy today. I mean it's Sunday and Sunday's for both Dave and me are always very busy. Primary Singing time always takes soooooo much energy (especially in Jr. Primary) and already being in short supply of energy, today pretty much deflated me completely! I love being the Primary Music Chorister, but I won't lie, it is a very hard calling for me, and takes A LOT of preparation. Of course Dave is always busy over in YM's too so by the time we got back from church I was so drained, I came home and took a 3 hour nap!! Ahhhh but it was nice! I am still very tired though because I did sleep so long.
It's weird to think that as of tomorrow I can say that I will be having a baby next month....weird! I just hope she is half as good a baby and kid that Sam is. We really lucked out with her. I hear stories from friends of cholicy babies, crying for hours on end, and I think "I don't remember Sam ever being like that." So we will see how this next little girl turns out.

Our Sister Missionary!

Yesterday was my little Sister Al's Farewell. There sure is a lot of work that goes into preparing for a farewell, and not just Al's talk, getting ready to go, but all the food, the cleaning, the organizing, picking up chairs for the millions of people that show up at your house, and did I help with any of that??....hardly. Sorry Mom. The night before I flew to Utah I started getting really sick with a bad cold, and by the next morning it had really attacked me. Perfect timing of course! And that is exactly how I wanted my family, cousins, friends, etc. to see me. With my big pregnant belly (feeling pretty big), red puffy eyes, nose, face, (and hair), bad cough, and hardly able to talk or breathe through my nose. I mean it's already hard enough to breathe when you're pregnant and not sick, but when you are, it's that much harder to keep a conversation up while laughing (because my family makes me laugh), and trying to breathe out of your mouth when you can't from your nose.
So basically I spent the weekend mostly lying on the couch trying to keep my eyes open because I wasn't getting any sleep! I was banned from touching any food in the kitchen, of course, but I got a little dusting and vaccumming in. Kudos to my Mom, Angie, Natalie, Hilary, Ben, Lisa, and my Dad for doing all the work. I'm hoping my Mom is getting some rest now.


And of course yesterday went very well and was super fun. Al of course did great on her talk. She had quite the crowd there. About 415 people!! (And I think most of them showed up at the house too!) Al is a great speaker, and so many people thought it was more of a homecoming talk than a farewell because she was so spiritual and awesome! That's my sis! She actually likes speaking in church! (what?) I wish I could feel that way.


Back at the house it was standing room only, until someone had the genius idea of taking the basement door off the hinges so it was easier to get downstairs. After that we were able to herd the Taylor clan down there which freed up a bit of space. (There are so many of us, and most are as tall as Amazons! My one cousin Patrick who is 18 is 6'7"!) So besides my Mom's side of the family, we had some of my Brewster fam there which was great because I haven't seen them forever either, and then of course Allison's huge group of friends were there too! So....full house to say the least.


Luckily we had enough food, and PLENTY of desserts! What a fun party to celebrate Al's decision to go on a mission! We are all so proud of her! What a great decision she has made to serve the Lord in Panama and teach those Panamanians the Gospel! They are in for a real treat to have Sister Brewster in their midst. (Just be careful Al not to get worms, and lay off the intestines!) :)
It was very hard to say goodbye early this morning but 18 months will fly by. Good luck Al, you will be awesome and I love you!