April Showers

This really doesn't have anything to do with April showers, although it did rain a bit today.  It's hard to believe that it's already the end of April.  Getting baby's room ready reminded me that we were doing the exact same thing a year ago... only in every other room but the nursery.  It was probably the end of March 2012 that we decided to make the move out to the country.  We would be moving into what used to be my grandparent's house, but since the house had been unoccupied for quite a while, there was a lot of work to do!  Thank goodness for an army of helpers that came to help us clean and paint.  We managed to get the living room, dining room, two bedrooms, and my craft room all painted before we moved in at the end of April.   

          

      Living Room before paint                       Living & Dining Room before paint

Painting the craft room

Painting the living room

                              

Painting the entryway (What, you thought we could get all of that done without wine??)

By May 1st, Hubby and I had both left our jobs for new ones, we had checked out of our rental house, and we had everything moved into our new home!

Obviously it took a while to get organized.... especially since we started another project- Fixing the bathroom!!

   

 

I love the bathroom now.  Hubby did a fantastic job!

 

 A couple of months after our big move, we got our sweet little Pepper.

Brand New Pepper

Bringing Pepper home!

And then we had a wedding..... 

Busy making the programs!

We went on an amazing honeymoon and both loved Voyager's View National Park so much we had to go back... with Pepper!

Boat training the Big Pep

Is that a bald eagle?!

In November we got a new nephew!!  We love you, Miles!

Now it's only a couple more months until we welcome our own little baby into the family!  I can hardly believe we have been living here just a few days short of a year.   

 

It's hard to think of all of the things we will accomplish by next May.  We do, however, know what we will be doing this coming weekend... finishing up painting in baby's room and (hopefully) getting some of the gear assembled!  I can hardly wait!

Just Another Saturday Morning

It's not a secret that I like to sleep in lately.  However, on Saturday mornings, I don't mind waking up early.  Especially because Hubby and Puppy don't realize that I'm awake because they are already downstairs.  Generally I wake up to a conversation that goes like this:

Hubby: "Come on Pepper, it's your favorite show!"
I assume Pepper gets really excited and takes her spot on the couch.
Hubby: "I wonder what the Littlest Hobo will do today!  Look, Pepper, it's your boyfriend London!"
I picture Pepper perking up to see London, the dog on the TV show "Littlest Hobo" that we can watch because we get CBC.
Hubby: "Pepper, why don't your ears stand up like London's?"

London, the star of Littlest Hobo, just in case you didn't know who I was talking about.

The show continues.

Hubby: "Oh no, Pepper!  Is London going to die today!?"

At this point I have to get out of bed to find out what's happening on this crazy show.  Puppy was excited to see me, but more excited for me to let her outside.  Hubby told me that the stress of wondering if London would survive was too much for our puppy, obviously that's why she had to go outside.  I'm sure it's because this show has put ideas into her head that she can save people in the wilderness, which is why she insists on running straight into the muddy woods.


Anyway, yesterday was a very productive day here!  Hubby got a new window put in baby's room and Pepper got a bath.  We've been getting packages from UPS almost daily... I'm sure the UPS guy loves the job security, even if Pepper doesn't like him at all.  Blame our Amazon Prime membership, which is one of the best things hubby ever introduced to me, and Zulily, a website that posts deals every morning.

New Window!!

On today's agenda...Hubby is going to texturize the rest of the patched area in baby's room and I'm going to pick up the PAINT!   It's finally beautiful outside, I'd say this calls for wearing a dress... or at least capris!  I'm so excited to put some of my warm weather maternity clothes to use! 

Great Weekend!

Yesterday was an amazing day!  It was a very busy day... hubby and I started off the day with some lunch from Cafe Aladdin.  The food there is amazing.  I'll admit that we order the exact same thing every time we eat there, the gyro combo, but it is delicious EVERY TIME!  I'm sure I was supposed to take a picture of my food so everyone could see it, but by the time I thought of that, most of my food was gone.  I guess I'm not good at food blogging.

Next on the agenda, we had maternity photos!  A huge thanks to my friend Heather for taking them for us, I love them!

We were able to use my project as our prop (despite my faulty sewing machine), which I am really excited about.  I'm planning to hang it in baby's room once we get it painted.

And check out hubby's handsome face!  He reminded me that he hadn't shaved since September 9th.  Seven months is way too long long enough if you ask me.  

Another favorite from the photo shoot!  Believe it or not, hubby gets full credit for picking out the dress I wore.  I had my eye on the one right next to it in the store but he insisted that I needed this one.  It's not very often that he gets to be right around here, so I have to give him credit when he actually is.  

After the photo shoot we headed across the river for my baby shower!  The food was wonderful...

Seriously, just look at the cake balls!  

And the company was even better!  I had such a wonderful time!  I'm so thankful for my wonderful friends and family.  Baby Cook was definitely spoiled!  

Today I can really feel that yesterday was a big day.  It might have been a bit too much excitement because I haven't been feeling well today.  So today has been a recovery day, which used to only be necessary after a few cocktails and a long night out on the town.  We did get in a few episodes of "Say Yes to the Dress" which is the only perk of feeling under the weather.  Hubby is only willing to put up with shows like that on very select occasions and there is nothing like extremely girly tv to make a person feel better when recovering from an awesome weekend!

Good Morning Sunshine!

Shortly after we woke up this morning, Pepper stole my phone to facetime with Auntie Steph.  

Speaking of Auntie Steph, she is full of helpful advice to get me through this pregnancy.  I have to write about her advice mostly because I never want to forget it, especially this little gem.

I had been feeling sick the whole first trimester and was on my way into the second.  Auntie didn't like that I was sick, and I suppose she was worried that me being sick was not good for the baby.  She would call every day to ask what I had eaten, if I had fed the baby fruit and juice, because that would be good for baby.  I would tell her what I had tried and if it tasted good or not.  One day she called me up and said "Maybe you should be eating baby food.  Babies need baby food!  I think you need to buy some baby food so baby can eat!"

I love my sister.  

Sewing Machine Surgery.

Today was a crafting day.  I had big plans for a prop to use in the maternity photos that we will be taking this weekend.  So thanks to a large supply of burlap table runners left over from the wedding, my project was off to a great start!  

Hubby came home and I was so excited to show him the project.  I had one piece left to finish the edge on and I hit a bit of a snag... Somehow I got a huge knot that I accidentally forced my way through.  (I can hear all of my sewing friends cringing.  I should've known better.)  After the big tangle, I couldn't get the machine to sew!  With only two edges left to finish, this is like torture.  I rethreaded the machine, checked the manual, and still couldn't figure it out.  I called up Auntie Lu to see if she had any helpful advice, no such luck.  Apparently she follows the rules and doesn't force the needle when it doesn't want to go.  (I learned my lesson, don't worry.)  

I went running to check out advice from my next expert, Mr. Google.  Thanks to a couple other people who probably didn't follow the rules either, I found out that it could be something with the timing belt.  Possibly over confident because I am my mother's daughter and she has a knack for fixing broken sewing machines, or because my hubby just loves to get right into things and see how they work, I figured that I could definitely solve this problem.  I took off one piece of the machine and was overwhelmed by what looked like enough fuzz to stuff a toy for Baby Cook!  Sometimes too much fuzz can cause problems, so I thought maybe if I cleaned it, the problem would be solved.  Not so lucky. So I called in Hubby for back up.  

Obviously anyone who knows my hubby knows that he would jump at the chance to take something apart.  I was a bit of a nervous wreck.  He had to take off every piece of my machine that could be unscrewed.  Yikes.  It was at this moment I was wondering if I should've just waited and brought it to an actual expert and not just expert Google.  I was actually so worried that he wouldn't be able to get it back together that I had to leave the room for part of the process.

Thankfully after some tinkering, he was able to fix the timing belt.  And I was able to finish the edges of my project.  I didn't even have to steal a machine from my mom, which was my next thought since she was off coaching gymnastics and probably wouldn't have noticed there was a machine missing. :D    

Sneak Peek of the Project!

I'm so excited about it.  I have until Saturday to get the finishing touches put on it.  After we use it in the photoshoot, I plan to hang it above the crib in the nursery.  It's nice to have some plans for nursery decor.  Not only do I have hopes of getting the nursery wall patched and painted, but also DECORATED!  Woo hoo!

A picture of me and the big puppy, just for fun.

UPDATE:  After reviewing my post, hubby reassures me that he knew exactly what he was doing the whole time, without any help from google.  So THANK YOU hubby, for being my in home sewing machine doctor.

The Beard.

Last night when I got home from work I told hubby about my new blog.  His response?

"Good luck getting me to shave this.  I just shampooed and conditioned it.  With thickening conditioner."

There it is, folks.  I may never understand.

In other news, hubby did get a patch on the wall of the nursery.  Next step?  PAINT!  (or new window, then paint?) Baby's nursery might just be finished in the next 10 weeks after all.  

10 weeks to go!

I've decided that it's finally time to take the plunge into blogging world!  

Here I am, week 30! 

 


I have another project that I've been working on with bump pictures, but I don't plan to share it until after Baby Cook makes his appearance.

I am getting very excited to meet him, but hubby and I need the next 10 weeks to get started on the nursery.  One of the best questions that I get asked A LOT is if we have the nursery finished.  HA!  We tend to be procrastinators around here, I always have been.  I say that I do my best work under pressure.  It could have something to do with my indecisiveness; when I don't have time to debate about things I am much better at making decisions!  On Friday, hubby was amazing and completely emptied out the room that we will be making into the nursery.  As I can imagine most people would do with an extra room, it had been quickly turning into a really huge storage closet.

We also have the great name debate to settle.  We have a few ideas that we both really like, but that doesn't mean we will stop brainstorming.  It has been fun checking out the birth announcements at my doctor's office.  Usually it goes something like this:
Me:"I like that name."  
Josh: "No.  That is a last name."  
My grandma told me that when she was pregnant she didn't bother thinking of names in advance.  She said that you never really know their name until you meet them.  I agree.

Perhaps one of the most challenging goals I have in mind (that better not take me the whole 10 weeks!) is to get hubby to shave his beard.  It is massive.  I think he's trying to get back at me because last year he shaved for my valentine's present.  Not this year.  He has said that he won't shave until it's at least 50 degrees outside.  My goal is to get him to shave so we can do some maternity pictures before my shower on Saturday.  Any advice is appreciated here, my deadline is less than a week away!  I have threatened to shave half of it in his sleep, but I'm sure we will have a much happier house if he does it himself.


On a completely different subject, It's Pepper's 1st Birthday Today!!

Happy birthday big puppy!  I made brownies for the occasion and she caught herself a bird (which I made her leave outside when I let her in).  So I would say it's a successful day for both of us so far.