Winter Busy-ness

For some reason I had imagined a couple months of winter in which I sat in front of the fireplace and couldn’t find anything better to do than drink hot cocoa. Turns out I am not having that kind of winter. As soon as the yard work ended with the first snowfall our indoor projects have begun. I’ve painted all of the trim in our house. Hosted a couple holidays. Continued to work full time. Purchased backyard fencing and a complete toddler bedroom from the classifieds, and painted (so far) one bedroom ceiling. No wonder why I need to go to bed every night by 9pm! I’m tired and pregnant.

Christmas treated us well. We made it through the holiday season with a stomach bug for me and a minor cold for everyone but I’m counting my blessings after last year’s dislocated elbow incident. I baked a ton, but haven’t craved sweets with this pregnancy so Jason’s family and coworkers reaped the rewards. William was excited for presents but isn’t old enough to have expectations yet which makes our jobs a little easier.  We took him to see the lights at Temple Square and he really enjoyed it. The last time we had made it down to visit was 2 years ago when I was still pregnant with him.

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IMG_2947Pregnancy has been treating me well. I’m at 25 weeks and other than a large tummy I don’t have any complaints. Unlike William, this baby lets me eat pretty much anything I want, and I only recently started to have a touch of heartburn now and again. Being pregnant definitely puts you on a timeline though. I have a pretty concrete idea of how many weeks I have to paint the remaining bedroom ceilings, move William out of his room and out of his crib, stock the freezer, deep-clean the house, and wash and organize all the baby things. Obviously the world would not end if most of these things weren’t accomplished early, but 15 weeks to go and counting gives me some definite motivation!

As I was alluding to earlier, we’ve been working at getting Will’s new big-boy room ready for him. The plan is to transition him into the room while still in his crib, and then transition him out of his crib and into his new twin bed before his little brother arrives. He is really good at bedtimes and naps now, so we’re hoping it isn’t too hard of a struggle. I’m expecting some rough days/nights but I am optimistic. Over the past couple months I have gathered an entire bedroom (dresser, nightstand, twin bed frame/headboard/box spring/mattress) off the classifieds for around $300. I am pretty pleased with myself. I’m excited to order some cute bedding and make some fun wall art for Will’s new room. In the process of moving Will I decided to take the opportunity to get a fresh coat of paint on the ceilings, as this will be the last time for awhile that any of our main-floor bedrooms will be empty. It is another project that we have been meaning to do since we moved 15 months ago, but initially ran out of time for. Will’s big-boy room came first. Next will be the baby room. Last will be our bedroom. One ceiling down and I have a very white ceiling and a sore neck to show for it. At least my belly doesn’t get in the way when painting overhead. 🙂

William is busy these days talking, and talking, and talking, and talking. He takes pretty standard 2 hour naps when he is home with us, but sometimes refuses to nap at daycare leading to a unrecognizable monster some evenings after work. He still smiles really easily most of the time and is agreeable unless he decides he should eat Swedish fish and cookies for breakfast and you tell him no. He loves to go outside, but I have been disappointed in our lack of good snow for building snowmen. He is starting to understand that Kiki doesn’t like to be screamed at or kicked but there are still times he just can’t help himself.

A couple of weekends ago we had some pictures taken by Duston Todd (our former wedding photographer) as part of a project he put together called “These are Our Children”. They are amazing. I have included them below. Please check out his work sometime. (http://boxonfire.tumblr.com/)

You will now probably have a pretty good idea of what I’ll be up to for the next few weeks. We also have friends and family coming to town in the next month, so I’m hoping for good travel weather and nice clear air and snowy mountains while they are here. Let the ‘nesting’ continue. Take care everyone! S.~