Ninny & Ria

aka. Lily & Maria

Lily leaves tomorrow and I don't know what Maria is going to do without her. They have LOVED spending this week together. One of the first people that Maria asks for in the morning is "Ninny". Not to say that they haven't done their fair share of hitting and pushing... they have, I believe there was even a bite thrown in the mix. But when all is said and done they love each other at then end of the day and give big hugs nigh-night.

One of the days this week we headed over to Sumas to meet Great Grandma Penn. While we were waiting in the car we got stickers out.



Those stickers and the flip-down mirrors entertained those two for quite some time.

Maria and I went for a quick jaunt to Canada to buy some Perogies at Costco (SO much easier than making them!!) while Nanna & Lily played with Great Grandma...



Another day Nanna decided to clean out the chicken coop... so Bapa brought the tractor over to negate the need for a wheel barrow. Maria LOVED the tractor...



Lily liked the tractor...



but when the tractor started up Lily wanted NOTHING to do with the it and Nanna had to rescue her.



We also played in the garden boxes... it's amazing how much fun those little girls can have with a spoon and some dirt.



and then they decided to go for a walk.



It was an interesting week. We didn't venture out to too many places... we weren't sure how the Nanna and the pregnant lady could handle two toddlers in public... especially if they started running in opposite directions. We sure did have fun though and are going to miss Lily TONS.

More of Lily's Visit

No, they aren't fighting over the chair (which does occasionally happen), they're giving hugs...



We turn on the music downstairs and they run circles around the pole...



Another favorite place to play is in "Annie's" (aka Auntie Justine) closet...
--where are you (insert name)?--



and lots of bouncing...

Baby X Update

Still no name.... but Marco is coming home this week!!!! so hopefully we'll make some progress on that front.

This Monday I was scheduled for a growth/ biometrics ultrasound, but the tech's family was sick so that didn't happen.
Instead, on Monday I had a NST and a quickie ultrasound by the doc just to check my fluids.
My mom was there with me and asked me how much longer I had... I said 4 weeks... the doctor said most likely not.... probably only 3 weeks. If the baby doesn't come early then they'd like to induce. So what was 4 weeks (on Monday) is now 3 weeks, but in reality only 2 more weeks to go...

Then I went back to the doc's on Thursday for the ultrasound.
Baby wasn't moving as much as they wanted him to... so I left (so I could run over to one of the schools and translate for a parent teacher conference) and came back an hour later when he was more awake for another ultrasound.
He's measuring 6 lbs. 3 oz. (give or take 14 oz.)
He is DEFINITELY a HE.
He is a little bit of a contortionist... had one foot kicking me in the ribs while the other was down by his head.

Then I had to go back in on Friday for my weekly NST.

All I can say is... I am so thankful for medical insurance... can you imagine the bills from a week like that... 2 NST's, 3 ultrasounds, & a visit with the doctor.

Spring Reading Thing



It's officially started.

Here is my list for this season:

The Help - Kathryn Stockett
Rose Daughter - Robin Mckinley
Gulliver's Travels - Johnathan Swift
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Emma - Jane Austen


We'll see how I do... with a new baby coming things are never predictable.


Lily's visit

So far the girl's favorite places to play are on Auntie Justine's Bed... they love jumping.



They also love hanging out on the blue chair... again jumping is a favorite.



or pretending that they are going nigh-night.



they also love pushing the baby in the stroller



and riding lily's tricycle



and they love balloons...



more to come...

Bread & Butter

Chad and Rachel came for a quick visit before they headed to Hawaii. Lily gets to stay with us and play all day with Maria. There is only 8 months between these two and they certainly do love each other. We'll do more posts of those two lovelies later...


(aren't the daffodil's beautiful!! rach got them for us and they totally cheer the place up!!)
While C&R were here we did some serious baking/cooking/creating.
Rachel made her AMAZING cheesecake. So delicious!!
I made some yummy bread that takes way too long to make... but is worth it.

and then we made butter... which was pretty cool
We started by putting a quart of cream in my mom's (amazing) blender, and let it go...
After a few minutes separated into butter & buttermilk.
We separated the two (and we're fully intending to use the buttermilk to make biscuits, but who knows if that will ever happen), rinsed the butter, and then salted it.

Here is a pic of Rachel kneading the butter:



And salting it:



It was pretty cool how it all came together. Today we had a taste test with the butter... homemade vs the stuff we buy at the store. I think I prefer the homemade stuff.

I saw a recipe for Homemade Butter over on the Tasty Kitchen blog about a week ago. There was an article about a bunch of homemade things... Brown Sugar, Ranch Dressing, and Sour Cream among other things. Then earlier this week my mom gave me her to-do list and on it was make butter.... weird. So she got out a book she has, some living in the country, know-it-all book that had a section on making butter. So we did. And there you have it. Our butter-making story.

t minus 28 days.

oye! this little boy in my tummy can certainly kick.

less than a month until his official arrival date...

let's hope my ribs can take it.

Spring Reading Thing

SRT is starting this month for you readers out there....

I think I'm going to join this time around.
I'm going to work on setting a manageable goal, but one that will still stretch me.

I'd love for all of you to join and let me know so I can check out your lists.

The Quilt

For those of you interested in the quilt for baby "x" you should go and check out Camille's blog... she's amazing. We were in the same program at BYU-Idaho together.
Or you could go over to her Etsy Shop... she's REALLY talented.

I try to be self sufficient. I like to be able to take care of myself... a few days ago that just wasn't happening. I wanted to do something and no matter what I did, or how hard I tried it just wasn't going to happen. I was so angry.

So I decided to learn how to crochet a hat. I started over about a dozen times, but I cranked this out for baby x:



Now, this I've been working on for quite a while, and just finished binding it last night. Its a two sided quilt for baby x (he'll have a name one of these days.... we just haven't discovered it yet.)

Here is the front...



and the back...



now, I put an "M" on the back for Munoz. I didn't want to wait any longer to get the quilt done, and I really have no idea when we will have a name for him.

I'm pretty proud of this quilt. It was my first time machine quilting and I learned a lot. I think I did a pretty good job, although it is FAR from perfect. I learned a lot about my mom's machine, different foots, tension, and the whole machine quilting process. Although I like the idea of a two sided quilt, if I decide to machine quilt in the future, I will stick to a one-sided one... it'll make the whole process easier. There were a lot of changes in number of materials that I was quilting through and I had to keep adjusting the tension to keep a smooth line.


My list of projects to do is getting smaller and smaller.
My parents dropped of the king size quilt at the quilt lady's place in Rexburg while they are visiting this week and the estimated time frame to get that back is 2 months. So when that's back I'll hurry and bind it..... wait a minute. I'll have a newborn then so I might NOT hurry and bind it..... man. well that will get done hopefully within the next year and I'll post pictures of that, which I'm so excited about.
I'm also almost done re-finishing/building the chair. Now, the chair was this HIDEOUS thing that was sitting in our garage for a while... i think my mom had aspirations to re-finish it... One day my parents were cleaning out the garage and I saw that the chair was in the trailer to go to the dump. (this was shortly after we found out that we were prego again) and I pulled it out intending to turn it into a rocking chair. Marco took it apart... it was pretty gross, and old. I think that they had used horse hair or something similar as padding. ick. it makes me cringe... Marco stripped it down to the wood frame and it sat that way for a few months. So, over the past month and a half I've been plugging away at it and hopefully it will be done in the next week or so. Again... by no means a professional job, but pretty good. I'm not one to strive for perfection... it's too stressful.


... and because it's hard for me to post a blog and not include a picture of Maria.... the other morning she came into bed with me and fell back asleep for a couple of hours... I think she just wanted some hugs.

spring

it was a beautiful day today... hopefully spring is in full swing.
which normally means lots of rain... but today it didn't rain even one iota.

not a cloud in the sky.

i washed the car
and vacuumed it
and rain-x ed the windows
and checked the oil level
and made the tires shiny
and checked the air filter...

which are all HUGE things for me since I'm not really inclined to "maintain" my car.

and i did it all while maria took a super long nap.

then we went to birch bay, where we discovered that the state park is pretty much closed- a LOT of road construction or something going on there....

so we headed down the bay further
parked at one of the beach access' and went for a bike ride.
Maria was so excited to get into the Bobike.

That was my first bike ride of the season (not counting up and down the driveway) and it will probably be my last... at least of this season. Being 35 weeks pregnant with a toddler (who just over halfway was saying "all done") didn't exactly make for a *fun* bike ride.

But it sure was the perfect day for it!!

I have an angel.

Yesterday I didn't have a great day.

I cried... but hey, I'm pregnant and I do that every-so-often.

I was sitting down by the bookshelves last night getting ready to read Maria stories before bedtime,
cheeks wet with tears.
She was playing with her blocks and then came over to me,
noticed the tears,
touched them,
then gave me a big hug.

She is super-duper precious.