The Best Easter Present Ever

Our little man, Andrew James, was born Friday April 22. He weighed 7 lbs, 15 oz. When I have 2 hands to type, I may get around to telling more of the story. As you can see from the picture, Marin is thrilled and Kate is not quite sure what to think of him. His hair looks lighter than it really is in this picture, it's actually pretty dark. Oh how we love him already!

Happy Birthday Marvin!

No, "Marvin" is not a typo. More about that later. I am posting like crazy this week. But it's our birthday bash week and I don't want to miss posting about it (since someday I really will have this blog printed into a book, really, I will...) Yesterday was Marin's first friend party. She wanted a Tangled party, which was convenient because of course there are a million Tangled things out there and I could get most of it at good ol' Walmart. It was actually a lot of fun. We kept it simple and only invited a few girls from our immediate neighborhood. Marin was in heaven the whole time.

Here is our little Reepunzel (not a typo either, that is how Marin pronounces it). We braided ribbons into her hair and she wore that dress all day long.



We decorated paper lanterns.


Then played a little "Pin the Frying Pan on Flynn"


Next we blew out candles and ate some cake. The situation with the cake was the highlight of my day. All of my Facebook friends already know this, but when we got to the bakery to pick up the cake it said, "Happy Birthday Marvin." They hurried and changed it, but I was laughing hysterically in the grocery store and pretty much the rest of the day every time I thought about it.


Then we opened presents (Marin's favorite part, she later told me).


And finally, we went on a little treasure hunt to get our party favors.


What a fun time!

This picture also illustrates how tall our little Marin is! Oh, and Sara, if you're wondering where Allie is in all of these pictures, she spent most of the party in Marin's room playing with her princess dolls. Next up, family party. I can't believe how fast my little bald baby grew up into this darling 5 year old that I love to pieces!

Happy DAD birthday!

Mitch had the birthday most any 32 year old can only dream of, ha ha. He worked from 5 a.m. to 6:45, which is not fun but necessary when your birthday falls during tax season, but we did have fun when he got home. We had pizza, ate cheesecake, opened presents, and then watched Tangled. This is the kind of rockin' party you have when you're a true DAD. I let our girls go to the Dollar store and pick out any 3 things they wanted to get Mitch. Kate didn't get it, so Marin picked them out. I tried to let her have total freedom. This is what she chose:

1. A hula hoop. (When I asked her if she thought daddy would really want a hula hoop she replied, "Yes, it's yellow. It's a boy color so he'll like it." And she really was excited to give it to him.)
2. Squirt guns.
3. A robot shield.

Here is a picture of "him" opening his presents.


I know Mitch is closing his eyes and looks funny, but Marin's face was so cute I had to post this. This is Mitch's raspberry cheesecake.


And here they are eating popcorn and watching Tangled (which by the way is a really cute show Mitch and I thought!)


So happy DAD birthday Mitch!

Nursery Room Tour

I absolutely love nursery room tours, or kids room tours, or living room tours, or any room tours....you get the point. I like to see what other people's houses look like. I'm nosy. I've debated on whether to put this on my blog because it's not even that cool. It's not vintage or some amazing thrift store find that I transformed or anything else special. It's definitely not what I would do if my budget were unlimited. It probably cost less than $100 for everything I did. With that said, I still love my little guy's nursery. I've had it done for several weeks now and I like to sit in the rocking chair after my girls are asleep and just get excited for the fact that I'm having a little boy. No pink in this room. So here goes:


Here is a close up of my fabric thingies (I don't know what to call them) The pictures don't do the fabric justice. It's so cute and boyish.

Here is the cute bedding that my sister Avree gave me. It used to be her little boy's. In all honesty, I definitely would have splurged and bought my own crib bedding or had some made or something if I didn't always LOVE this bedding. It's so hard to find boy crib bedding I think!


Here is a close-up of the Etsy prints I got. They match the bedding perfectly and again, the pictures don't do them justice. They're so cute!


And here are my shelves of death... not because they are not properly hung and will fall on our heads while we rock, but because it took me 2 hours to hang them just right. They had to be level, even lengths from the corner, etc. It took all of my spacial brain capacity to do it. And seriously, it took 2 hours while Marin was at preschool and Kate played with the hammer (just kidding, but she threw several tantrums because she wanted to).

The end.

Some Advice

A few things you should not do/attempt when you are 8 months pregnant:

1. Take the stairs up to the 3rd floor of the hospital
2. Try to paint your toenails
3. Check yourself out in the full size mirrors on every wall when you pick your daughter up for dance
4. Try to wear any non-maternity article of clothing
5. Take your 2-year-old into the fishing (specifically fly rod and flies) part of a Sporting Goods store
6. Take your 2-year-old to any store (if she's Kate and won't sit in the cart and tries to run away any chance she gets)
7. Ride your daughter's Razor scooter
8. Jump as high as you can to get a bowl out of a high cupboard
9. Lift the really stocky kid in nursery
10. And lastly, most importantly, don't weigh yourself

Not that I've attempted any of these-- just some friendly words of advice...

Kate the Great turns 2!

This is crazy for me that my little baby is 2! I know that sounds so cliche to say, but I'll say it anyway because that's how I feel. She's our little sunshine, even though she's feisty and a stinker a lot of the time. It's a good thing she's so cute! She's been obsessed with "Buzz" lately, (which means all things Toy Story) so we had a Toy Story party. When I say Toy Story party, I mean we had a Toy Story cake, napkins, plates, and cups. That's the extent of it. But it was a good time. Here are a few pictures:


(She looks sad in this one, but she's actually super excited to open her Jessie doll from Grandma)

I'll do this at the end so you can skip it. It's for my journaling purposes because it's amazing how much I forget about my kids! Here are a few things about Kate right now:

- She loves the Woody and Jessie dolls at nursery so much that she hoards them the whole time and can hardly play with them for fear another child might take one (I'm one of her leaders in there so that's how I know)
- She talks and talks. Her little voice is so adorable and I often tell her things to repeat just so I can hear her say them in her cute little munchkin voice.
- She says "wucky" instead of "yucky" and likes to suck on the toothpaste tube, while saying "it's wucky mom, it's wucky mom" since that's what I've told her.
- She went through a major hair pulling phase that is, thankfully, over (knock on wood). Poor Marin took the brunt of it.
- She loves strawberries, pizza, and "qwot-qwut" which is "chocolate." That one took me awhile to figure out.
- She just recently grew out of all of her 18-24 month pants, they are all now floods. She'll have to be nerdy, I'm holding out buying her any new pants in hopes that summer will arrive SOON!
- She's super tall and skinny. When she gets out of the bathtub she asks (okay, demands) to "wun and wun" which is "run and run" and she tears around the house naked until I can wrestle her into a diaper and jammies.
- She loves dogs. Every animal that is not a horse is a doggie. She sleeps with a stuffed bear from Yellowstone, that she thinks is a dog.
- She loves her Aunt Avree and calls her "Bavee."
- She is a major daddy's girl and only lets him wake up with her in the night or rock her to sleep (darn!)
- She is obsessed with the potty, and asks to sit on it a bazillion times a day. However, I will not be potty training her for awhile yet because I am too lazy.
- She loves Marin and copies everything she does. My girls are actually starting to play together often and Marin is very kind to Kate most of the time (this has not always been the case).
- She has really curly hair that usually looks like a rat's nest! She refuses to wear bows in it, of course :)
- She is the cutest little 2 year old ever and we're lucky to have her feisty little self in our family!

Social Skills 101

I know I haven't updated my blog for awhile, and I don't really have anything profound to post. Things are going great here, nothing new. My kids are still cute, I'm getting huge but feel great, Mitch is BUSY at work. However, there have been a few thoughts that keep going through my mind that I feel like blogging about. My hope is that word will get out and hopefully the 5 of you who read my blog :) will pass it on to 5 people, who pass it on to 5 more people, etc. Not that any of you have ever done any of these things, I'm sure (ha ha, I've been guilty of some of these myself, so I shouldn't really talk... but I will anyway). So here is Cara's list of some basic social skills:

1. It's not polite to ask someone when they plan on having another child unless you are that person's a) immediate family, or b) bestest friend in the whole wide world. This is an intensely personal issue that I can't believe random neighbors or mere acquaintances feel is their business.

2. It's not polite to hint and make funny comments about why someone doesn't have more kids than they do. There are so many people who struggle with infertility that it simply is not a joking matter.

3. Do not ask if someone is pregnant. Ever. No matter what. No matter if you think it is obvious. Ha ha, once I asked someone if they were pregnant and they weren't. Trust me, it's better not to even ask. I will never make that mistake again.

4. On that note, don't comment about the size of a woman you know is pregnant. My sister had a woman in her ward who would always say, "Gosh, I can't believe you're not having twins!" Speaking from someone who gets pretty darn huge every time I get pregnant, pregnant women are very aware that they're "growing," "blossoming," or "blooming," so there's really no need for you to tell them.

5. Don't ask someone what their salary is. You would think this was common social sense, but oh no. I have had several people ask me straight up how much money I make or how much Mitch makes. It's so awkward! I don't even know how much money my parents make or my siblings. In fact, Mitch's salary is the only one I know about besides my own.

I think I will be done for now. Reading over these, I sound harsh and scolding. Picture me saying this with a smile on my face, in a somewhat joking manner. I don't get offended, like EVER, like even when a lady told me I led the music in church with my hand like a dead fish. You could tell me I was huge as a barge right now and I would just laugh. I've just had friends and family go through several experiences lately that have appalled me at the insensitivity of some people and I feel like getting my thoughts on this in writing. So let's get the word out.