28 Week Scan

 I was scheduled for the first appointment of the day over at Perinatalogy, and wouldn't you know it, I still had to wait!  There are two doctors in the office--one was at home with a stomach bug and the other was at the hospital doing rounds.  So the nurse explained that they would still be doing my growth scan as scheduled but the doctor would call me this afternoon to "discuss the results".  Fine with me!  The tech was more than informative, telling me everything she did and saw.  So I don't really expect anything new from the doctor's call.

 Baby Drinks is looking awesome!  He was less than cooperative with the 3-D scan, barely holding still one second before turning back and forth (which does not make for good pics!).  He was great about getting all of his measurements:
HR:  136 bpm
Weight:  3 pounds!
Growth percentile:  73rd
What does all this mean?  Most of his measurements were between 29 and 30 weeks.  I am 27 weeks and 6 days today.  So he's running a little big.  I was scheduled for another growth scan and biophysical profile three weeks from now (luckily, during Carrie's visit!  So we can go together!) on Aug. 20th.

I mentioned to the tech that Tim had asked me to "get another money shot just to make sure it's really a boy".  She laughed (apparently, this is a common request) and printed the pic above for Daddy.  It says "I'm a Boy!" on the left with not one, but two arrows pointing at the dangling parts!

Long story short, I can expect to see the baby on a giant screen every 2-3 weeks to monitor his growth, the tech loves his name because it's (in her words) "classic, easy to spell, and you never hear it anymore", and biophysical profiles and nonstress tests are going to eat up all of my leave before I e

Emily: 20 Months Old

 Admittedly, this post comes a couple of weeks late, but in my defense, we were prepping for vacation when my toddler turned 20 months!  Emily has made tremendous progress away from the baby girl she used to be.  She is stringing together 2-4 words now, like "Mommy, up go!" or "Sissy see doggie woof!"  She knows all of the animal names and noises, and she is a whiz at body parts, including elbow, armpit, neck, and butt!
She thinks she's already 2, so I hear "no" and "mine" every 5 minutes.  "No" is usually in response to a request, like asking her to come change her diaper.  Or asking if she wants to go inside (she loves being outside).  "Mine" is a basic declaration of everything she sees, including stuff at Walmart, other kids' toys, and everything in our house.

 Emily loved the beach!  She wasn't afraid of sand or the ocean.  Timmy took her out in the waves, and she liked being held or getting in Garrett and Caroline's inflatable boat.  I would ask "Are you ready to go to the beach?" and she would say "Yes!" while running to get her bathing suit and throwing herself flat on her back on the floor so I could change her into a swim diaper.

 This girl has no fear!  She found a live sand flea and brought it to me.  It was still wiggling in her fingers!  She is very curious about all small wiggly animals.  She likes to stomp the ants in our driveway.  If she sees a bug in a book, she has to put it on the ground and stomp it!

Emily still has a great bedtime routine.  Since it's summer and she's home with me, she gets to stay up a little later and then sleep in.  We do bath around 7:30 PM, followed by story time, which can range from 5-10 books depending on her mood.  She loves when Sissy reads to her also.  Her current favorites include Elmo and animals.  She also likes "10 Little Ladybugs", "Sleepytime", and "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom".  It's lights out (CD player on) at 8 PM and she usually sleeps til 8 AM (though I do get the occasional sleeping baby til almost 9!)

Emily loves to play jokes on us!  She does this very serious face with her lip sticking out, and as soon as anyone laughs, she joins in!  She loves to jump off everything (including stairs), ride her bike in the driveway and court, push her stroller, be pushed in her car, and "help" with all chores, like yard work, doing the dishes (she automatically runs to the sink cabinet to get the detergent pod, which she can put in the dishwasher herself), fold laundry, and sweep.  The only thing she doesn't like is the vacuum.

Picture Perfect Arrangement

 With 103 pictures on my camera after vacation, I knew that I would have some good shots that I would like to display in our house.  Since we doubled our square footage from our last house, there is plenty of white wall space to go around.  So after I picked up my prints from CVS (and got extra copies for Peggy and some larger prints in 5x7), I arranged them so that we had a good mix of Timmy and me, the kids, and of course, Emily's naked "running free" pic.
As luck would have it, I was reading one of Peggy's "Woman's Day" magazines at the beach house and came across a cute way to mat a picture.  You use a map from where you went on vacation to frame out the photo in the middle.  I did this with Nags Head maps (free in the Sunny Day visitor's guides) for the middle two pictures.  I think it turned out great!

Nags Head 2012

 We headed down to Virginia Beach a week ago ( to spend the night and break up the drive before going down to Nags Head).  We decided to take our time getting there (in the hopes of keeping Emily from getting cranky) so we stopped at Chik Fila A for dinner.

 I researched beach houses for a couple of months before deciding on the one we got.  Requirements:  at least 5 bedrooms, beach road front, pool, hot tub, and very close to a beach access.  The house we booked was perfect, and the access was only 75 feet away!  And had a fabulous ramp for rolling up the beach cart (and for the many people in our house with knee issues).

 First day at beach.  It ranged from 85-92 degrees, so the baby pool ended up being a life saver the first two days when it was very rough out in the ocean.

 Someone stole my Outer Banks hoodie...

 You gotta go to Putt-Putt at least one during the week, right?  We hit Professor Hackers when it was still early (and relatively low heat).

 Garrett, Timmy, Joe, and Peggy headed to Roanoke Island one afternoon while I watched Emily.  They visited the lost colony and Garrett got war paint on his arm by the ranger.  Then they went to the North Carolina Aquarium.

 Unfortunately, we didn't get to go swimming in the ocean every day.  But the "good weather" days made up for it!

 And the pool at the house was always open!

 Emily had no fear about sand fleas at all.  She dug them up for Garrett and Timmy to use as bait while surf fishing.

 Can you say "naked baby"?!  Emily got her clothes wet while we were at the beach one evening, and she cannot stand to have wet clothes.  So she insisted on stripping down right there!  There was hardly anyone on the beach, so no one cared.  We let her run around for a little bit, then forced a diaper on her for the walk home.

Our final night:  go karts!  We paid a small fortune for the pleasure of watching the kids run cars around the track for five minutes.  Timmy couldn't join because he's too tall and I'm too pregnant.  So we just made for some embarrassing spectators.

Our body guard on the drive home.  Garrett had to find someway to entertain her, and his glasses did the trick....for about 10 minutes.  Luckily, she slept for over 2 of the 5 hours.  Now we just need a vacation to recover from our vacation!

Beautiful Bathroom

 Bathroom is (almost) finished!  I stayed up late for two nights to get it (almost) done, and it's finally to the point where I would not be embarrassed to let someone use it.  My goal was to fix it up for under 100 bucks, and I succeeded.  The most expensive thing was paint--I needed a full gallon of my main wall color (Hesitation) and a quart of the trim color (Off Season).

 Notice that my watercolor of the boy and girl at the beach above the potty looks great with the beachy theme.  I had the painting up there from the get-go, but it kinda got lost with all the duckies.  Getting rid of those birds took one coat of primer and two good coats of wall color.

 I chose the same mosaic tile that I used to have around my fireplace at Dahlgren Road!  Don't mess with perfection people!  They have a lot of white, tan, copper, and brown all mixed together and kind of look like shells.  The tiles were 8 mm wide, which made them the perfect size to line the top of the boards.

I already had this print from my mom when she went to the Caymen Islands.  I just never really had a place to put it.  So now it's on the entry wall of the bathroom.  It's a beach theme with palm trees and a little hut.  Only thing left to do?  Paint the tracks between the ceiling tiles--they are still wood grain finish!

Blast From the Past Bathroom

 The "important" rooms in our house were remodeled before we moved in:  kitchen, upstairs bathroom, master bathroom, etc.  For unknown reasons, the previous owners saw no problem with the completely outdated bathroom downstairs.  We don't use it for showers or anything--it's just a guest potty for when we're downstairs and a laundry room.  But it's....time warped.  And now that I've recovered from painting every square inch of this house, it might be time to take on the "blast from the past" bathroom project.

 "Wooden" tracks for the ceiling tiles have to go.  I'm just going to paint them white.  Then they will blend in with the ceiling tiles, which are new.  The vinyl floor is relatively new and in great shape with neutral colors.  It's staying too.  The tub and toilet are "harvest gold"--not my favorite, but not worth tearing out a tub that we never use and keep covered with a snazzy shower curtain.

 See the wallpaper?  Ducks, people.  That is what surrounds me while on the commode.  Ducks.  So they are getting primed and painted.  Forget that junk about not painting over wallpaper--this stuff is glued to the walls like we're in a bomb shelter, and we hardly go in here--not much chance for the walls to get messed up.  So we're painting.  The trim and paneled sections will be a medium tan.  The walls will be a lighter tan/dark cream (on a paint sample strip, imagine that the walls are the second option down and the paneling and trim are the fourth option down).

 The sink is a basic laundry sink, but it's in good condition and the vanity is brand new.  So they stay.  A new seat for the toilet that doesn't scream "geriatric" is in order too.

Switch plate covers are being switched out for basic white models.  See those boards that surround the sink like a back splash?  I am pretty sure that they are stained/sealed 1x4.  So I plan to find a 1-inch mosaic tile in white/cream/tan that I can cover the boards with.  Add a jazzy detail while covering something that looks like we nailed up a pine board to protect our precious paneling from water damage.
When?  Hopefully I can get started this week before we go on vacation to Nags Head.  I did most of my other painting after Emily went to bed, and Timmy is working nights this week, so that will keep me busy.  Since Timmy will be trying to sleep during the day, maybe Emily and I will journey to the F'Burg to look for tiles and paint.  
Why?  I didn't think that the outdated bathroom was that big a deal before, but now I see that it's a total eyesore.  And it will take only a little effort and money to get it looking great.  We already have a "beachy" theme going on in there (shower curtain, picture above toilet) so the sandy color on the walls and trim should look awesome.  I'm debating on hanging a curtain over the laundry opening--would I spend too much time just pulling it back to load in dirty clothes?  Would I actually use it to cover up the area?  Decisions, decisions!