9 Missing Months

Ok, so I am completely aware that I have been a very absent blogger for the last 9 months...but there is a reason!! Not only have things been crazy busy but a month or so after my last blog we found out that we were expecting our second child and have been spending most of our "free time" preparing for that! But before that chaos hits, I wanted to try to get at least one "catch up" blog out there and then I will do my best to keep up with life a little better. So here are the important things that have happened since my last blog.

First, here is the lovely pic of our test showing us that another child was on the way:

And here is the little alien at almost 12 weeks:

A couple of weeks after we found out about our new addition, we took a trip to MI to visit my family over Christmas. (For a little background, this trip should take between 10.5 and 12 hours. We take it in 2 days most of the time ever since Julie was born, it is easier on her and less stressful for us) We left home on Friday, Dec 18th (our 5th wedding anniversary), about 1 hour before what we would find out later was the "storm of the century" started! This turned into the worst trip I have EVER made from VA and MI!! It ended up taking us 3 days (2 of those just to get 3 hours from Lynchburg). On day one we made it about 120 miles and on day 2 we might have made it another 30-40 miles. We were blessed to have a friend of my family who happened to live in WV put up our family on the second night, because without them, we would have spent the night in our minivan, in some parking lot in Beckley, WV. Also, on a side note, my husband deserves a medal for putting up with our 2 year old and his VERY emotional pregnant wife while being stuck in our van in a HORRIBLE snow storm for 3 days! Here are some pics from this blessed trip.

Here is our view outside of our hotel when we went to bed on 12/18 in Lewisburg, WV

Here was the view we woke up to on 12/19

Here is our van in 2 feet of snow the morning of 12/19; with the snow still coming down

Here is Julie in 2 feet of snow at our hotel before we left on 12/19

Here was our view when we got up at our new friends' house on 12/20/2009.


Then for Easter we took another trip to MI since, due to the issues with Julie's pregnancy we didn't want to travel in the Summer...too close to the new baby's due date. This trip was much nicer and quicker than the trip in December. Here are some pics:

Here is Julie in her Easter dress with Nemo.


Julie and her cousins


Julie hunting Easter eggs


Julie getting some good quality Great-Grandma time


Here is a shot of me and my also pregnant sister-in-law...due just over a month after me. (side note, her son and Julie are only 13 days apart in age)


My mom also spent quite a while working on a beautiful quilt for our bed and I was able to bring it home with me after our spring trip and here it is.


Then on tax day, April 15th, we had our ultrasound scheduled to check out the new baby and hopefully find out whether we would be having another beautiful little girl or a rambunctious little boy...and the pictures below tell the whole story:

In case you couldn't tell...he's a boy. In August we are planning to welcome a little boy into our family...Jackson Levi Gibbs!

In spite of how busy we have been, I did take some time to try to plan a date for my amazing husband (little historical fact: my husband is the one that has always planned everything for us from trips to dates to simple little outings and I thought he deserved a special night just for him...after all, he took me to DC for Mother's Day...he deserved an amazing Father's Day gift as well). So after much discussion with some co-workers and friends, I planned a surprise date night on the Friday of Father's Day weekend of Subway (his favorite fast food), a little pottery painting and a drive-in movie. We picked up our dinner to go and took it to All Fired Up, where we each picked out a gift for one of our kids (Stuart for Jackson, and me for Julie) to paint while we talked and ate our dinner. Stuart wasn't too sure of the idea at first, but I think he ended up having a good time. Here is a picture of the final products...I think they turned out great!


When we finished painting, we left there and I directed Stuart one turn at a time to a new drive-in movie theater in Moneta, called the Mayberry Drive-in Theater & Diner and we saw Toy Story 3. It was a fun night and, all-in-all, I think it was a great success for my first date planning attempt.

Since then, we have just been getting ready for Jackson's arrival and the changes that are coming. We are now just 1 week from my scheduled c-section on Aug 5th and are almost ready for him. I had some wonderful friends throw us a nice shower to celebrate Jackson and we got some really great stuff. Here are a couple of the really neat, personalized gifts we got.


And then there is his bed and the wonderful blanket my mom made for Jackson:


And that pretty much catches you up on all the excitement on our lives since my last blog. I have lots more to pass on to you, but I didn't want to overwhelm you with absolutely everything in one blog!

Reusable Pumpkin Art

In the fall, I really enjoy driving down the road and looking at everyone's natural fall decor (the beautifully colored leaves) and other outdoor fall/halloween decorations. However, until now, I haven't had any of my own other than a yard full of leaves from the 2 huge trees in our yard.

After reading a few of my favorite blogs (this one, this one, and this one) learning all about their fall decorations or favorite fall things, I got inspired. Last weekend, I went to Michael's and they had their fake pumpkins, both orange and white, on sale. I purchased two of them, one large white one and one medium orange one...which Julie proceeded to carry (and drop) around the entire store...pretty cute.

This week I did some simple internet research for some pictures and letters to trace or copy and then I started work on them this afternoon. Here are my supplies (the bats I printed off of one of the blogs and then cut out; the G, for our last name, was found with a Google search).

The next step was to tape the letter and pictures into place on the pumpkins...which is tricky when my kid wants to sit on my lab and "help". But we managed to get it done!

Then I simply took a pen and traced the images (I did only have 2 bat cutouts, but just traced them once and then moved the bats and traced them again).

Then I took the papers off and using a Sharpie, traced and colored in the G and the bats.

Finally, I just finished the white one up with some free-hand-drawn bugs and worms. Here are the final products.

Here they are, now decorating my tiny porch beautifully!

The whole process only took me about an hour today...easy peasy!!!

Date Night

For those who know me, you know my beautiful baby girl. Julie is a real blessing but has also been a real challenge...and sometimes we just need a break to get away.

Last night, Stuart's mom and sister came over and watched Julie, allowing Stuart and I a chance to go out to a movie and then dinner...with grown up conversation. I am so thankful to have family close by that is willing to spend their evening with my baby. It was such a blessing to take time away and just spend some time together as husband and wife.

So, thank you both so much for helping us out and giving us a night off. You amazing!!

Major Home Improvement Project #1

This post has been a long time coming...but for me it has been well worth the wait. However, I am sure that you missed me greatly over the last few weeks. (at least I hope so!)

We recently replaced our gas heat and window unit a/c with central heating and air. I had been dreading the winter with a 2 year old walking around with hot radiators in our house, but I dread no more!!! The radiators are no more. We decided to do dual zone heating and air since our house is so old that it had no duct work. The workers did the work over two weekends with one weekend off in between...needless to say our house was a bit messy for a few weeks, but again, so worth it! So below are the steps it took us to get it all installed.

Step 1: Take pictures of some of the radiators to show you a good solid before. Below see shots of our living room, dining room, and spare/play room. (Please note our radiator/window unit combo in the living room, lovely, huh??)

Step 2: A couple of weeks before the workers were scheduled to start their work, my wonderful husband had to remove all radiators (5 total), piping (both the gas pipes and the pipes from the furnace to the radiators), and the furnace from our house, as well as a small closet from the basement. This was no small or easy job. It took days of very hard manual labor on Stuart's part, as well as a couple days of help from his brother (thank you so much, Jesse!). Here are a few pictures after all of their amazing work. (We obviously have a bit of work to do on our walls thanks to radiators not being moved by our house's prior owners when painting...not to mention cracks in our plaster walls, but still a massive improvement already!!)

Step 3: Sit back while the workmen did their thing! They came one Saturday and worked most of that day and then came back Sunday for a few hours to finish the first floor heating and air. Below are pictures from Saturday night...they had all the holes cut in the floor, but didn't get the vent covers in that night. Julie was very interested in what was happening to her house. See her contemplating how she could "fall" into the hole in the kitchen without anyone noticing?? (yes, she actually fell into the one in our living room, with one leg, and it was funny...too bad I didn't have my camera at the ready)

And here are the pictures of the new vents in our floors.

After the almost 2 week break, the workmen came back for a little while Friday morning and then pretty much all day on Saturday to do the upstairs unit. Apparently, it was pretty tough with our limited attic/storage space but they did it! And got it completed right before a cold front came through...perfect timing, thank goodness!! Because the air handler for the upstairs in in our attic space, our vents are in the ceiling up there. See an example of those below.

And last but not least, here are some pictures for any of you who want to see the ugly stuff from our basement and backyard...first is the air handler for our first level and the last one is of one of the two heat pumps that now sit outside our basement door, along with my adorable baby girl and fabulously hard-working hubby.

So, that is the story of how we went from gas heat with hot radiators and window units to central heating and air. We love it and will highly recommend the guys who installed ours...if you need a name and live in the area, just let me know I will gladly share!

VistaPrints

I was recently introduced to VistaPrints and all their freebies by a friend on her blog HogWash. Thanks to her I have found yet another new addiction...because I really needed another one.

Anyways, VistaPrint offers lots of things for free all you have to pay is shipping...what a deal! So below is my first and most definitely not my last order!

Matching pen and sticky note pad, personalized for me

Personalized note pad

100 Postcards to use on gifts (front)

Postcards to use on gifts (back)

10 Personalized Thank You cards with envelopes
Personalized keychain with characatures for each member of my family

I got all this, plus 140 return address labels and 25 business card sized magnets that will be used in future gufts (hence the lack of picture, can't give it all away), all for only the cost of shipping. And the question I am sure you are asking yourself is...but how much did you actually save??? My actual savings on all of this fabulous stuff was....$79.93!!! WOW!!!

Thank you so much Nikki, for both the website and some of the ideas! For more ideas, check out her blog, Hogwash. What a great find!