All The News At Our House (Warning: Lots of Pictures!)

 So, I haven't blogged in a while, but at least this time I have been taking pictures! So this way you can see (most) all the interesting things that have been going on. :) About a month ago, one of Claire's friends Charlee came over to play in the morning. This is a picture I snapped of the three of them (Claire, Jocelyn, Charlee) when they decided to play the piano together...it was too cute to resist! :)

 This happened around the same time as the picture of the three girls. One Sunday afternoon (I think it was a Grandma's Sunday), I went in to get Claire up so we could head over to my parents' house...and found her like this! :) Claire is getting more and more mischievous these days, and so since she didn't fall asleep right at nap time, she decided to pull the clothes out of her drawer and dress herself before falling asleep on the floor.

 I will say, Austin and I had a good laugh over the hat and extra skirt she put on! :)

 This was a picture from when I was about 32 weeks along. I planned to blog it, but as you can see...it didn't make it to the blog until now. Oh well. Here it is anyways. :)

 Most days are pretty good (if hectic with 2 year old "spunkiness"). I love that Claire and Jocelyn (the little girl I babysit for) get along so well. They usually play very well together, and keep each other occupied (or keep each other in trouble, haha!) during the three days a week Jocelyn comes over. This particular day, after they had gotten up from their naps, they decided to play dollies together, and snuggle them. I had hoped to capture a picture of both girls snuggling the dolls, but when I took out the camera, Jocelyn decided to get another pillow from the couch to lay on instead. I love seeing these girls grow and do such sweet things like this each day. (After all, I'd rather remember the sweet times instead of the sassy times!) :)

 Also, my garden has EXPLODED with lettuce and swiss chard lately, and I have LOVED eating it in my very own home-made salads! :) My carrots aren't ready yet, but I took some we had in the fridge and shredded them and put them into my greens with some croutons...mmm! This particular salad was from last week, and I still have 2 bags FULL of lettuce, and more waiting to be picked as I type this. I love having a garden. :)

 This picture is from last week or so...BEFORE the hair cutting incident. Yes, Claire took hair cutting scissors to her hair, and yes, there are now some chunks missing. :( But at least it doesn't look too bad. In fact, I can gel most of the chopped-off pieces down so you can't even tell that she cut it! But this picture is from before that...on a day when I was feeling energetic and decided to do Claire's hair different than it's pigtails/ small ponytail that I usually do. Here is the result:

 Two braids back into a bun. It was pretty fun, but fell out by the end of the day. Oh well...naptime usually takes care of any hairdo's, and Claire running around (the way she always does, having so much energy to spend) takes care of whatever may be left of the hairdo after naptime.

 Here is a project I'm almost finished with. It's a blanket/quilt I made for Camille once she arrives. It was fun to make (I just did it from a Pinterest pin), but there was so much involved that I probably won't be making one again...at least in the near future. :) Here was the top before I stuffed it.

 A close up shot of the fabric.

 After I stuffed the squares, the backs of each square had to be sewn closed BY HAND. Now, I am not an experienced hand sewer, so...this was really just a labor of love. And a messy labor of love at that. But it didn't take as long as you might think, and I guess time will tell if it all falls to bits really quick or not. If it does...well, probably my hand sewing will be to blame. :)

 For documentation of how much I love this second daughter of mine to make her something like this. :)

 The (more or less) finished blanket. I still need to sew up the hole where I turned the blanket. The ruffle took the longest, though...because the fabric WOULD NOT ruffle the regular way, I had to FOLD and hand ruffle all along this blanket. :( Not fun...but at least it turned out ok. :)

 Here is the back of the blanket...I used the soft "minky" fabric. Lots of pink over here for us these days! :)

 And finally, a picture of me today at 35 weeks. Not my best look, but I am getting pretty tired. Camille has recently wedged herself into a very uncomfortable position, so I've had to resort to soak-y baths to keep semi-comfortable. Despite the discomfort of the end of pregnancy, I am VERY much looking forward to meeting my sweet little Camille! :) I'm starting to feel like everything is getting real...only 5 more weeks until my due date!

Two visits ago I was measuring 3 weeks behind (I haven't gotten nearly as big with Camille as I remember getting with Claire), and then 1 visit ago I was measuring 2 weeks behind. Fortunately Camille had a growth spurt (and boy, could I feel it...I swear it happened within a 2 day time period!)...and now at my last visit this past Friday I was measuring right at 35. Back on schedule! :) I have only gained 17 pounds up to this point. Since I gained almost 40 pounds with Claire, this seems like hardly any weight at all...but that's okay, since it meant I could still sleep until I hit my third trimester! :) I guess we'll see how big Camille is once she gets here...she seems just about as big as Claire from the way she is stretched out in my tummy these days.

Anyways, that is about all of our updates that I can think of. I start weekly OB visits in two weeks. It seems the days are flying by (each one getting warmer, and closer to the summer and Camille's due date). :) I guess we will see what this next month has in store pretty soon! :)

Easter 2014--Part 2 (Scroll down for Part 1)

 Claire on Easter morning today! When she woke up the first thing she said was, "Happy Easter!" She was so excited to see all that the Easter bunny had left her. As we got into the car to go to church this morning, we even saw a little bunny nibbling some grass...that Easter bunny must have liked our grass so much that he forgot to make a clean getaway! Claire loved seeing the little bunny, and kept saying, "I love you little bunny, I love you little bunny!" :) She also kept telling the bunny, "Happy Easter!"

 Family Picture at Grandma and Grandpa's Easter Egg Hunt!

 Claire with Grandma and Grandpa Whitley and some of her cousins: Liam and Pierce, and Ansley, Hailey, and Emberly.

 This girl LOVES to hunt Easter eggs! She had the best time carrying her Easter basket around and picking up all the eggs in her "area." She scoured the ground, making sure she got every last egg--then proceeded to open as many as she could before we told her to wait until we got back to Grandma's house. :)

 She did pretty good! This is a shot of all Claire's Easter Egg "loot."

 There were a TON of beautiful bluebonnets in the fields by the Perry Homestead this year. After we hunted Easter eggs, we headed over to the flowers to take some pictures. :)

 This is the lower third part of the bluebonnets. I loved seeing them everywhere! It reminded me of when I was a girl...we took Easter pictures in the bluebonnets here back then, too. :)

 Claire and her daddy in the bluebonnets.

 I absolutely love this picture of Austin and Claire. :) I can hardly believe that my baby girl is about to be a big sister--and I can hardly believe that she is two and half already! Time is flying by...

Me and my sweet girl. Yes, we are looking at the lonely weed in the field of bluebonnet flowers. But it was a very important weed, don't you know--because this weed had a ladybug on it. :) I held the ladybug, and after a little while Claire decided that she would like to hold the ladybug, too. :) So I let it crawl onto her hand...she thought it was pretty neat! At least, she did until it spread its wings and flew up by her face. Then she squealed until it landed on Daddy...and decided she would rather let Daddy keep holding onto it. :) Silly sweetheart. :)

This is our last Easter with just Claire...next year we will have two girls in tow...a 9 month old and a 3.5 year old. Wow! It is hard to believe life could get any better...until it does. I am so grateful to have a resurrected, living Savior who made it possible for me to have a forever family and return to Him again one day. Because He lives, life and everything in it is so much richer...spiritually and physically. I am so happy to celebrate the joyous news that He is Risen...there is no better news in all the world! Happy Easter!

Happy Easter 2014-Part 1

 Yesterday morning we dyed Easter eggs for 2014...and this was the first year that Claire really enjoyed it. :) Meaning she dyed pretty much all the Easter eggs this year. :) But that was more than ok, because Austin and I had so much joy watching her have fun. :)

 There was some neon food coloring at Aldi's (where we shop a lot), so we decided to give it a try this year. It was really neat! It did better than the regular colors we usually use (we just use hot water and vinegar with the food coloring to color eggs). Claire liked trying every color we made: neon pink, blue, green, purple, raspberry, and the regular yellow as well. There were even a couple of eggs we let her take a white crayon to, so they would show up once she dyed them.

 Austin was very patient with Claire as he showed her just what to do. :) The last couple of years I think Claire was just too young to catch on, but she sure wanted to do everything this year! :)

 What a happy life to be a child and have fun. :)

Happy Easter!

Claire Rides Her Tricycle--First Time!

This is Claire's first day to work the pedals all by herself! She was so excited, and kept saying, "Let me show you my tricks!" :) This was right after dinner tonight. I can't believe how well she did! :) She couldn't quite make it work on the carpet since it's harder to pedal there, but the hardwood/tile floors seem to be fine. I just had to post some video! :) Enjoy. :)

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."

 Here is a picture of Claire that I took today right before laying her down for a nap this afternoon. Her beloved little bunny got a "bath" in the washing machine this morning, and she was so happy that it was all nice and clean! :)

 The reason for the quote as the title...well...it has been a CRAZY week. This sweet girl of mine fell backwards off her scooter on Monday afternoon and got a huge gash on the back of her head from falling onto the fireplace hearth. :( The gash bled like crazy, and let me tell you--even when you know how to treat first aid problems like this, it is WAY different seeing your own child bleeding so much. I held her on my lap in the bathroom to calm her down, and when I saw how much blood there was, all I could think was: "WHAT do I DO??!!!" Of course I grabbed a washrag, wet it, and held it to her head, but I was scared to see my poor baby get hurt like that. :( Of course I tried to get a hold of Austin right away, and when he didn't pick up (especially since he is still at a new job and can't get away as easily), I called my mom at work... "HELP, what do I do?" Thank goodness it was about 4 pm ( the time Momma gets off work) so she was able to come right over to help me. After doing some back-and-forth with Austin on the phone, I took Claire to an Urgent Care by our house. Sure enough ( as I thought), the gash WAS bad enough to need some extra patching up--FOUR staples worth of patching up.

The worst part was the numbing shot they had to give her. :( I guess that Claire is breaking Austin and I in when it comes to the many emergencies  and first aid incidents that come with childhood. Fortunately the scariness for Claire over the incident wore off rather quickly...when asked to show the doctor her boo-boo, Claire held out her finger (that got pinched in the drawer earlier this week). I guess when you can't see a boo-boo, it's just not as bad to a 2 year old (thank goodness). Tomorrow morning I take her back in to get the staples out, so I guess all is well that ends well (just not so great for my nerves). Hopefully we won't have any more incidents like this again any time soon. :)

 On the positive side of the week (the "best of times") :) I discovered my new favorite shower cleaner. The back shower in our house, no matter what we have tried, has a VERY difficult time staying clean. We are talking some SERIOUS scrubbing has had to go into the shower back there on a regular basis to keep it semi-presentable. Austin made a mixture of after-shower spray that works the best out of everything (bleach, typical household cleaners, scrubbing bubbles after-shower spray, magic eraser, we've tried them all), but there is always mildew building up in there...poor air circulation is the hallmark of our back shower, unfortunately. However, there is a cleaning tip that I had seen multiple times of Pinterest that I decided to give a try last night. It works GREAT! This is probably the best cleaner EVER. No joke. And it is super easy to make and use. I combined a dish scrubber from the store with these two ingredients:

And that's it. I combined equal parts Dawn soap and vinegar in the dish wand. With almost NO scrubbing, just basic wiping down with the scrubber at the start of my shower last night, EVERYTHING mildew-y disappeared. No buildup (or serious scrubbing of said buildup) of soap scum, or mildew to be seen. Nothing. Hallelujah for Pinterest pins that work!!! There are a few extremely bad spots that might take a little extra scrubbing every couple of weeks or so, but I will take this method of cleaning any day! :)  And no joke, it took one minute, maybe two minutes tops to use this, and then everything looked clean and fresh! I think I'm in love (sorry, Austin, haha!). :) Thank goodness for the internet these days. :)

Anyways, I'm hoping that the rest of our week goes uneventfully. :) I'm almost 30 weeks now, and am feeling pretty good. I'll have to post a baby bump picture here this weekend. Especially now that we named our little girl! :) Camille is kicking and dancing around right now as I type this. :) Only ten more weeks to go (hopefully!). :) I'm looking forward to meeting this sweet new little girl! :)

A New Haircut, and Gardening Time!

 This morning I got my hair cut! :) I donated 8 inches to Beautiful Lengths, which is similar to Locks of Love...they make wigs for those in need. After the hair was cut off, it was like my head was FREE! :) The above picture was taken by Austin right after I walked in the door from getting my hair cut.

 This is the picture I took while Claire was napping this afternoon. I discovered short hair is so easy to wash! I think my one-month supply of hair product will now last me about 6 months instead. Great! :)

 This last week I also planted my garden, since it will hopefully be warm enough not to kill all my little seedlings. This is the first year I started "transplants" (the plants you see on the windowsill)...usually I just buy started plants for my tomato and pepper plants. This water bottle idea was something I saw on Pinterest, and since I'm all about doing things as inexpensively as possible--of course I had to try it! :) So far everything seems to be going well (the plants seem to be surviving and growing well, in other words). I will put these little transplants into the garden with the rest of the plants in another month or so, once it really is starting to warm up.

Happy Spring everyone! Even Baby Girl is feeling happy today...because she is now in the home stretch as I enter my last trimester today! :) I hope everyone else is having a wonderful weekend! :)

Claire's Cuteness (Videos)

Claire has been sick yesterday and today, but she has been doing such sweet little girl things that I just had to take a couple of videos. Lately Claire has been especially interested in diapering her little animals and dollies (especially her teddy bears). Before I took these videos, she was pretending to even put desitin on her teddy bear...since that is what I have been putting on her quite a bit yesterday and today. :) I just love seeing her growing every day and playing at being a Mommy. Claire is such a sweet girl, and I feel blessed that Heavenly Father has trusted me to be her mommy. I think the new baby will sure be lucky to have Claire for an older sister...and Claire is sure lucky to have a little sister to love on. :)