Learning Tower & Such…

It was quite a week – so be warned, this blog post is LONG! 🙂

We bought a learning tower for Ellie this week on Craig’s List!! She ALWAYS wants to “seeee” what’s going on in the kitchen and it’s getting too hard to try to hold her up and cook at the same time. I didn’t want to spend the money on a brand new one and Zach found one within 5 minutes of me saying I wanted a learning tower for Ellie!! It’s been a GREAT investment already!!

Every day she comes down stairs and yells “TOWER!” It makes her so happy… most of the pictures I took this week were of her standing on the learning tower! So cute! 🙂

Coloring…

Eating snacks…

Ellie’s vocabulary has totally expanded in the last week. She repeats almost everything we say. She will point at things and totally surprise us with words that can come out of her mouth! She also does some funny babbling that just gets us so tickled! We love this little girl! She is so funny and just a joy to be around! Of course she’s still a little stinker at least once a day, but it doesn’t feel as horrible-terrible-twos-like as it did a few weeks ago!

Ellie did awesome at Bible Study on Wednesday – she didn’t cry too much when I dropped her off with the sitters and I didn’t have to go get her during the study. Then at church on Sunday she also did great. She didn’t cry when we dropped her off and when we picked her up she was on the floor playing and having fun! Our little baby is growing up!

Ellie got her first big-girl hair cut this weekend! I always go to Floyd’s and the girl who cuts my hair (Nicole) has two little sisters Ellie’s age. She told me she’d love to try to cut Ellie’s hair. I sat down to get my hair cut first while Ellie and Zach watched me. Ellie wasn’t too sure about what was going on. Then it was Ellie’s turn and she sat on my lap. She did pretty good!! Nicole did a great job moving while Ellie moved because of course she couldn’t keep her head straight and not look around! ha! It was just a trim of her bangs and a little layering of the back and I think it looks adorable! 🙂

Check out the photos from this week in the September – October 2012 Photo Album.

We celebrated my birthday this week – both sets of our folks came over for some pizza and cake. We ordered a Chantilly Berry cake from Whole Foods – which was awesome! 31 candles on my cake… I don’t remember when the last time was that I had candles on my birthday cake!

Ellie helped me blow out the candles. She was so excited for the “Happy Birthday” song and cake – she’s excited for her upcoming birthday!!

I also completed my “susie homemaker” tasks this week that I’ve been trying to check off my to-do list for a while now! My sewing machine (that came from my grandma) was having issues and I had three big sewing tasks to get done – so we paid to have it serviced. Once I got my sewing machine back, I got to work!

The first task was fixing Ellie’s cloth diapers. The elastic in ALL of Ellie’s cloth diapers all of the sudden stretched way out a few months ago. I had to cut out three strips of elastic from each diaper, restring elastic and sew them back together. It took me two months of working in the evenings and during nap time to get them all done. Boy was I glad when I got them all done! 🙂

I purchased an extra set of curtains from Ikea before we moved into our house to make a valance for the kitchen window and then use the excess to make a bench cushion for the entryway bench for our mud room. The curtains only took a hour to complete and they look great hanging in the kitchen now. It finally ties all the back windows together! After that, I made the cushion cover – no pattern or anything. We cut the cushion and I used the cushion to figure out the sizes of fabric to cut and sew together, etc. I also bought a long zipper so that the cover would be easy to put on and take off to wash, etc. It took me about three hours to complete the cushion and then I was done with all my sewing projects! Yeah!!! I don’t really like to sew – I can sew and I can fix things when needed, but it’s definitely not a hobby for me, so I’m glad to have my projects completed fairly quickly too!

I had my 34-week appointment today. Baby boy’s heart beat was loud and strong! His head is way down, which is probably why I feel so much pressure all the time which makes me have to run to the bathroom at least once an hour!

We have baby boy’s room almost all put together! We have his furniture assembled, in place and anchored to the wall. The crib is put back together and just waiting on the bed skirt that Zach’s mom is making. Next week Zach’s aunt, Susie, will be here to paint the final touches in his room! THEN everything will be done in his room!!! Hooray!!

I’ve also been nesting A LOT! I pulled all the baby toys out and put them in a tub in the toy shelf. I pulled out the baby carrier, swing, bouncy seat, bathtub sling, etc. from under the stairs to have them upstairs in a more handy location. I pulled out all my post-pregnancy clothes, nursing items, pump and bottles so that they are all in place. I’ve been buying random baby stuff that we used with Ellie so that it will be available when we need it for this baby. The less shopping that has to happen after the baby comes the better! 🙂 My goal is to have as much done by Ellie’s birthday so that my final month of pregnancy can be pretty laid back!

I had a baby shower ‘sprinkle’ this weekend at Mrs. B’s Tea Parlor in downtown Littleton. My friend Carey planned the shower and it was wonderful! She got all of our friends from our old work program together for it – which was just wonderful to be able to visit with everyone. They showered us with some great baby boy gear and clothes! Look at all the neat things we got – what a blessing!!

Here’s a picture we took of me before the shower – 33-weeks pregnant! 🙂

See these pictures in the Baby #2 photo album.