Saturday, October 4, 2008

Joyful Misery



This is not groundbreaking news to anybody who has children, but since this is our first baby, I feel compelled to share my perspective on the pregnancy process. The third trimester has been filled with some adventure and humor. The preterm contractions at 30 weeks were a little scary, but we got through it with no problems. Kelly threw herself off balance with her stomach and almost fell over last week, generating quite a laugh between us. Speaking of laughing. Every time Kelly laughs, coughs or sneezes, she holds her belly. I haven't figured out whether she is trying to keep herself from going into labor, or trying to keep her belly from throwing her off balance.



Kelly is at 37 weeks and now sleeps a lot. And when she's not sleeping, she is usually sitting on the couch with her feet up because it is the least miserable position. My job is to do what I can to make her comfortable. When she eats anything sugary, the baby moves around...A LOT. At this stage the baby is large enough that you can see impressions of legs and other unknown body parts showing through her belly. I found this a little disturbing at first, but now I think it's cute. It's almost over and Kelly is doing...Spooktacular (it is October)!

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Paul's Restoration Video



This is a video documenting a project Paul did on the South Fork of the Ogden River. Paul's coworker, Phil Douglass, did an awesome job putting the video together. Paul and Phil did the interview onsite, and also captured the underwater footage of fish.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Our Little Boy's Room

I can't believe it, the nursery is finally complete. A few weeks ago, Paul's mom (Terry) graciously came to help with painting. Little did they know, they were in for a challenging weekend. Before Terry came Paul patched up some holes with Spackle and primed the walls. We wanted to make the room colorful and since we couldn't decide on just one color we decided to use four. I have always liked the look of stripes so we decided to paint the top half of the wall a solid color: sage green, aka willow wind, and the bottom half in a striped pattern consisting of the colors light blue, aka surf spray, orange, aka sassy peach, and sage green.


Here is a picture of Paul being creative with his painting techniques.



Here is Terry putting tape on the walls to paint the stripes.


Terry and Paul are a little frustrated because when they pulled off the tape for the stripes patches of paint and primer came off as well. What a huge pain!


In the middle of the wall we decided to put a chair rail in the color of yellow, aka shoreline. In this picture Paul is frustrated, yet again, because he is trying to nail up the trim and the nails keep bending. Eventually it all worked out.


This is the finished product. This room looks so cute! A huge thank you to Paul and Terry for working all weekend to create this adorable room for our little baby boy.

Here are some pictures of Paul putting together the crib and glider. He's such a handy man!





This is what the nursery looks like finally complete with furniture and all. We haven't decided how to decorate the walls but are thinking of a cute bug theme.




Now all that's left if to add a cute baby boy and everything will be complete.

Baby Shower!

Yesterday my friends Amber and Shannon threw me a baby shower. It was fun to see my friends and visit will all of them. Thank you to all who came, showed support, and brought fun gifts for my little baby boy. Here are some pictures from the shower.


Me opening fun gifts.


Me and Jaynee


Lara and Letitia


Danielle


Look at these cute pacifier candy treats Amber made. She is so creative.


Amber, Kelly, Shannon

A special thank you to Amber and Shannon for putting such a fun shower together.

Finally For Sale!

As most of you know since my dad retired several years ago my parents have been getting their house ready to put on the market and move from Ohio to Utah. After much hard work and preparation it is finally on the market for sale! Here is the link to see their gorgeous house. Mom and Dad's house They haven't had any potential buyers yet but hopefully they will soon. Please keep them in your prayers and send them good thoughts that their house will sell soon so they can move to Utah to be close to their new grandchild.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

An Office Fit For a King and Queen!

This entry has been long overdue. Some of you may remember in one of my first few entries that I mentioned Paul was working on converting part of our laundry room into an office in our basement. It's finally done and I absolutely love it! It took awhile to get started but once Paul got the ball rolling it went surprisingly fast. The hardest part for Paul was that he had to redo all the electrical wiring and put a whole new breaker box in. What a challenge. And to find that some of our wires were not grounded was a little scary. I'm just glad Paul was able to fix it before we had a fire. A huge thank you to Rus Lawrence for helping point Paul in the right direction, letting him borrow tools, and helping him get this project started.


This is what the laundry room looked like before Paul started (sort of). Imagine a washer and dryer in the corner where all the wood is and the shelves filled with cans and boxes of food.


This is the other end of the room that is being transformed into an office. Look at the wonderful framing job Paul did. And the insulation makes a huge difference.

The framing job took a little while for Paul to get done because he had to use a nail gun and of course it made a loud noise. I only let Paul work on it when I wasn't around. If it wasn't for my fear of loud noises the framing would have been done in half the time. Sorry Paul.


This is a picture of the drywall that Paul put up in about 1 weekend, thanks to the help of a friend. Thanks Ben!


Carrying drywall down the stairs is not an easy task by yourself. Luckily Paul has strong muscles.


The drywall is done!


This is a picture of Paul while he was in the middle of sanding all the joint compound on the drywall. It smelled awful and made a huge mess.


For some reason I didn't take any pictures of Paul painting the walls. I think the smell was really bother some and I was always up stairs.


This is a picture of Paul putting in the Pergo floor. It was pretty easy to do and only took a day.


Here is the office almost done. At this point the walls were painted, the doors were hung, and the floor was finished. All that was left to do was paint and hang the trim.
Try to imagine behind the door you see in the picture our washer and dryer.

The office is finally done!

This is a picture of my side of the room. Look at this awesome scrapbook desk. It's like my own little corner of heaven! I love it!


This is Paul's side of the room. He has the computer desk and all his "gadgets" on his side.


This is a view looking toward the closet. The closet hides the stairs and other "junk" we didn't know where to store.

A special thank you to Paul for making this wonderful office for us. I can't say enough how impressed I am with all of his handy work. Having done this huge project, raising a child should be a piece of cake (I'm really wishing).

Now on to the baby's room. That story will have to wait until another day.

TAG Scattegories

TAG scattegories...{it's harder than it looks}use the first letter of your name to answer the following. they have to be real places, things, names...nothing made up! try to use different answers if the person who tagged you had the same first initial. you can't use your name for the boy/girl name question.

what is your name? Kelly

4 letter word: kick

sports team: Knicks (New York)

celebrity/band: Kate Voegele

vehicle: Kia

tv show: Kids in the Hall

city: Kansas City

boy name: Kim

girl name: Kylee

occupation: Kinesiology

something you wear: kilt

something you throw away: kelp (I hate seaweed)

food: Kidney Beans

something found in a bathroom: kaopectate

reason for being late: keys were lost

something you shout: Kill that spider!!

People I am tagging: Laura, Shannon, Sarah and Adam