Gender REVEAL

This is quite a LATE post as we found out in July.. but since I'm finally posting about our little BABY, here it is..

I knew I wanted to find out the sex of our little "alien" in my belly. I didn't want all yellow stuff.. I wanted bows and tutus for a little girl or sports onesies and ties!

You can find out the sex sooo early now-a-days!  Like at 12 weeks or something through a blood test. I am doing minimal ultrasounds through my pregnancy, so I waited until the doctor wanted to do one to check development of baby's heart, brain, and body.

On July 11th, we went in for our ultrasound. We couldn't wait! Unfortunately,  baby was being SOOOO dang stubborn! Baby's hands were covering the face; baby was face down, SOUND asleep; the umbilical cord was between the legs and both feet were tucked up to cover the goody/goodies. I rolled around, jumped up and down,  poked around, and even ATE chocolate.. still NOTHING!! My doctor was running late (as usual.. he's very popular since he's one of the few that believes in natural birth), so the ultrasound technician suggested I go get food that would upset my stomach and wake baby up before coming back and she would re-check quickly between patients.

At this point,  it hit me. I thought it was a boy. I had never had a baby girl dream. But, this was one stubborn baby.. Just like her mama. I changed what I had thought, but still had no clue!  I almost wanted to cry because I had been so excited to find out the sex and now I might know. I really didn't want another ultrasound.

We ran to Zaba's and put the SPICY-MAKE-MY-MOUTH/THROAT/STOMACH-BURN salsa and Coldstone to get thick, creamy cheesecake ice cream with brownies and caramel. My, oh MY, did that wake baby up! After seeing my doctor, we slipped in quickly for an ultrasound. The second it was put on my belly, baby had legs spread showing it all!

It's a....

GIRL!

My sister's best friend from high school/ basically a big sister is my hair dresser. We planned to put pink or blue on my ends once we knew before heading to my parents for a small gender reveal. I kept my hair behind my shoulders when I walked in. Most people thought it was going to be a boy and were dressed in blue. Or at least they were praying for me that it was going to be a boy.

We had a laid back pizza dinner, but I was so glad I could share it with my family and friends that are basically family. Also, my mom made this ADORABLE diaper motorcycle for us! Our theme is giraffes :)

Perfect timing for my 4-week picture!!

My "Pete the Cat" Pre-K Class

This year I am teaching a community based special education class. It's about half and half kids with IEPs and typical peers. There are 2 teachers, Jen and me, and 2 aides. So far, I am loving it!!

We debated on a theme: ocean, jungle, dinosaur? We could not decide and after leaving Lakeshore with jungle themed decor, we still were not excited about it. While browsing Pinterest, Jen started seeing a lot of really cute "Pete the Cat" boards made. I only found 1 website I could buy "Pete the Cat" classroom decor! I knew I would have to get crafty and make a few things.

Back in the day, my mom made all of her bulletin boards so I knew just the right person to go to!! We had borrowed her friends overhead projector (yes, those still exist!!) for our baby room, which I'll post later.

I printed off a cover of a "Pete the Cat" book and traced it on an overhead projector sheet with a black sharpie. I blew the image up on the wall to the size that I liked and traced the whole thing with pencil onto blue butcher paper.  From there, I took the colors that I needed for the eyes, guitar, shoes, etc and traced it (like my mom is doing in the picture). 

I cut out each thing I traced and glued it onto the blue butcher paper where I had originally traced the whole picture. It was quite time consuming and was hard to be excited about when it was all glued on. All you could see were floating images of yellow eyes, guitar,  and shoes. It had taken me over an hour and I just felt "ehh" about it. 

After everything was glued on, I cut around the whole picture. What a difference that made!! I could finally see the "Pete the Cat" that I had been working so hard on!! Something was still missing though.. My mom told me the trick is to trace everything in black once you are all done.

The next task was getting him laminated. I am very picky on my lamination.. If I worked this hard on it, I didn't want the thin, cheap lamination that half the time peels up (like my school uses). One of my aides (and really GOOD friends), Natalie, took it to to Lakeshore to laminate, but he was TOO WIDE!! He wouldn't fit. She took him to Office Max, still TOO WIDE!! She finally went to Kinkos and they had a wide enough machine to laminate him. We paid for it, but SO WORTH IT! 

He looks pretty stinkin' cute up in the classroom, especially next to the ADORABLE border we bought.

We needed more things up in our GIANT classroom! We didn't have our class rules up. We had found a "Pete the Cat" Whole Body Listening  on Pinterest (warning: when you click on the actual pin, it brings you to a website that isn't the picture of the pin). Jen had found a similar rules pin for a Mr Potato Head . We modified both of them into this. We made it a whole-group learning the rules activity and the kids got to stick the words to his body in the correct spot. After both our AM and PM got their turn, we put him on the wall where everyone could see it.

The last "Pete the Cat" board was made by my mom. I can't take credit for her famous stuffed heads!! I don't know how she makes them in like 10 minutes!! She cuts out the butcher paper, glues on eyes, nose, and whiskers, staples around and started stuffing tissue paper in it. We put up the matching blue butcher paper on our board, used our cute border we bought, made some legs, and stapled his head up to corner to make the board his body. Our kids never walk by this board so we don't put a lot on it, but it is super cute for all the kindergarteners to see on a daily basis.

She is seriously AMAZING at these!! She's made farm animals, monkeys, bees, mice, pretty much anything you want!! 

Birthdays

Once again, I'm WAAAAY late posting!

Ben's and my birthday are only 16 days apart.. My family believes in this AMAZING time of BIRTHDAY MONTHS..  you get the whole month as an excuse to eat whatever you want! He gets the month of August and the day following his birthday begins MY birthday month!

Ben turns... 31!!!

I put streamers outside our door and blew up 31 balloons. Our dogs were not impressed with the balloons.. Maybe they were telling me we're too old for streamers and balloons!!

I try to make his birthday as special as I can. This year he worked on his birthday,  so for 4 days before his birthday he got presents.  We had already decided on one big present for each of us this year, but I still wanted to make it special.

MONDAY: Monday morning when he got home, he had a DELICIOUS treat waiting for him.. He LOVES funfetti so I found funfetti gooey cake bars. They were good, but SUPER sweet!

TUESDAY: Not a very exciting present, but I put a cute little note inside a jar. (He got his BIG present this day too, but I'm not posting about it lol..)  Super easy to make. First, put an empty toilet paper roll in a mason jar. Fill around the toilet paper with their favorite candies (Ben loves M&Ms.. I mixed mini and mega together). I put the note (or you can put money) inside the toilet paper. Last, put the lid on and tie a cute ribbon around.  

WEDNESDAY: Since Ben loves golfing, I tried to arrange for him to go golfing and wrapped up a new box of golf balls. Sadly, he didn't end up golfing, but I guess it's the thought that counts. 

THURSDAY: Like I said earlier, Ben LOVES funfetti. He wanted to bring funfetti cupcakes to work the following day. I guess it's kind of a cheater present, but I bought a box of funfetti mix, frosting,  and sprinkles and wrapped them up like a present. He somehow got "busy" that night helping someone so I made the cupcakes. BTW.. I'm HORRIBLE at icing, didn't let them cool enough, and wasn't patient to leave the case open to finish cooling;  so when the guys went to eat them, the frosting was like melted and not pretty anymore!

My family celebrated his birthday the following week. I asked my dad to pick up his favorite bundt cake. Ben and I were stopping by for a quick dinner before I went to a class and he did his fantasy football draft with my dad.. he had no idea we were celebrating his birthday :) Isn't that one SEXY face!! But mmmm.. White Chocolate Raspberry Bundt Cake from Nothing Bundt Cakes!!

Finally, it was my birthday month! I know,  I was so nice and gave up a few days of September so we could celebrate his birthday with the family!

I turn... 27!!!

He's not very good at keeping secrets from me, especially when he's so excited. However, all I knew was we were going to dinner at Texas de Brazil and then to a show. I had no clue what show! I was excited and started getting ready. I finished my makeup and as I was blow drying my hair,  I realized it wasn't feeling right.. I FORGOT TO WASH THE CONDITIONER OUT!! I didn't want to redo my makeup so I bent my head into the shower and had Ben help hold me up (my balance has been off with the baby in my belly). I rinsed my hair off in the shower and started the hair process over again. Because of my mistake,  we didn't have time for Texas de Brazil :( We were both bummed and I felt TERRIBLE!  We went to CPK and enjoyed a quick meal still and were off to the mystery show! We pulled up to NY, NY and I figured it out.. Zumanity!  We both had never seen it. Let me tell you, I didn't realize I was such a prude lol! It was good, but very sexual and some things were just overboard! If you're looking for the "normal" Cirque du Soleil, it didn't have as much of the acrobatics, crazy WOW moments.. More comedy.. Very funny comedy!

We celebrated a few days early with my family so Ben could be there (his work schedule did not like our birthdays this year). During our weekly Sunday Family Dinner, I got to choose what  I wanted to eat. This brain of mine doesn't remember what we ate already!! But I made sure I saved room for the best part of birthdays.. CAKE!! This was such a delicious ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins.. You got to love using the excuse of "the baby wanted it". I had to get a side picture of my bump (which I thought was huge then.. boy was I wrong.. I keeps on growing). So cool that she gets to be in pictures with us and be in memories with us before she's even here!!

My actual birthday was a Tuesday, which I worked.  When I got to school that morning, the ladies I work with had made a special "Birthday Breakfast"! Jen made her FAMOUS monkey bread (seriously I have never had better monkey bread).

 The other Jen bought a delicious Chocolate with Chocolate Chip bundt cake. I am so BLESSED to be working with the people that I work with!!

The next day I had my glucose test.. I definitely limited by sugar and drank A LOT of water to wash out all the birthday yummies!! The glucose drink gave me the worst headache!! At my Bradley Methods class, I brought everyone birthday mini cupcakes and cookies. I was so sick, my instructor gave me an apple to eat instead. She also has this adorable plate that she served it on. I really want to find something like this for my kids!!

The craziest part of our birthdays this year was realizing it's the last birthday without kids.. I am so excited to celebrate with Zalyla for the next birthdays to come!!

Catching UP!

Sooo... I'm a little behind on posting!! I didn't realize it's been like 5 months!! So I finally downloaded blogger on my new phone and am going to try my best to be better about it.. Formatting may be weird until I figure this thing out!! 

P.S. I've officially had this blog for a year!! I need to start updating it more frequently so I can make one of those adorable Blog Books!

What have I made recently:
I try to stay crafty and encourage my creativeness as much as possible! I have been severely lacking and/or it has been taking me FOREVER to complete any project. 

Graduation Party Decorations    

My mom's bestie recently got her PhD and we hosted a party for her.. We LOVE the look of chalkboards, but wanted to do them on a budget.. Solution: We bought chalkboard contact paper and put it on cardboard squares.. you would have never known, the looked so cute!

Elephant Diaper Cake

 Our good friends Martin and Diana just welcomed their first baby.. Little Zac.. The baby room theme is elephants so of course I had to incorporate it into one of my diaper cakes! I think my new favorite thing is wrapping the diapers with receiving blankets.. It gives it such a FINSIHED look!! I tried to get as many things off their registry, but I couldn't resist the Eric Carle elephant on top!

4th of July Wreath 

The best holiday EVER, 4th of July, was coming up and I didn't have a wreath for it yet!! After pinning a million wreaths, I decided to make this one! Super easy, just a LOT of ribbon and a LOT of knots! I bought the ribbon off Amazon Prime and the styrofoam wreath at Hobby Lobby using a 40% off coupon. If I made one again, I would put a little less red so there was more blue on there. Either way, I still LOVE it!! I might keep it hanging for a while.. Nothing wrong with a little AMERICAN SPIRIT!!

Front Entry  

We've been fixing up/FINALLY decorating our downstairs. I found this shoe dresser on IKEA and it's the PERFECT depth for the wall! I bought the canvas forever ago, painted stripes on it and spray painted both the F and the picture frame the same color I had spray painted a mirror. I'm pretty happy with the change, but am still looking for the perfect decorations to go on top..

Going Away Present   

One of the girls I've worked with for a couple years is moving to Washington. We wanted to do something thoughtful for her, so I made this "Moving Blows" bouquet with packs of gum for the trip and a few gift cards they can use on the drive. I bought the vase and styrofoam insert at the Dollar Tree and the skewers at the grocery store. Then, I taped all the gum, gift cards, and sign onto the skewers (I know.. not very fancy!), added some ribbon.. and TA-DA!! I think it turned out pretty cute for never making one before!! 

Family Birthday Board

My friend always invites me to these "She's Crafty" parties. Basically, you pick out a craft with vinyl you like, show up, paint, and put the vinyl on.. BRILLIANT!! I kept seeing all of these birthday boards and I think they are ADORABLE. Plus, I am terrible with dates so I'll take anything that helps!! I had to make the decision of where to draw the line on who to add; it would be TOO many to put all our aunt/uncles/cousins, so I chose to start with us, put our parents, siblings, and any babies. The kit I got at the party also included a heart for our anniversary; I'm debating on adding everyone's anniversaries so I can remember them all!! I decided to do Ben's family in blue, my family in green, and any babies/nieces/nephews in white (white will be easier to make new circles if needed). I put the first name and day on the front and the year on the back. There's not very many on there yet, but I have a feeling, this board may get pretty full of white circles in the near future!!

Trips we've gone on:

Okay so as some of you know, we don't take very many trips, unless we've budgeted like crazy for it! So we haven't been on many, but we did enjoy when we did!

1. Grand Canyon,  South Rim

A girlfriend I work with and I thought it'd be fun to camp during Spring Break. Little did we know it would be in the 20s at nighttime.. BRRRRR!  We brought our 2 dogs and the dog we were watching. Our dogs have the fur to keep warm; poor Hercules,  a boxer, needed my ski jacket to keep warm! During the day was GORGEOUS though,  not hot, not cold. We had a lot of fun camping and cooking!

2. Destin, Florida 

My husband and I took a trip to Destin to visit my sister and brother-in-law.  It was so much fun finally bringing Ben there and it was the first time I had been back since we had first started dating!! I made sure to bring him to my all-time favorites, but there's still so many more fun things to do there! We had a great time hanging out and bonding with them: it was really the first time Ben and Dave spent time together besides the wedding. Can't wait until next time :)

My newest DIAPER CAKE (and tutorial)

I finally had another excuse to make a diaper cake.. Jamie's BABY is coming SOON!! I get lots of questions on how I make them.. Well I saw one YEARS ago (even before PINTEREST haha) while I was with my mom and we figured out how to make them. Thank god my mom is so crafty and creative!!

-diapers (I usually use size 2.. I've had too many friends say they didn't want to destroy the cute cake so I give them more time 😉)

-small plastic hair bands

-ribbon

-cake pan (I used to find styrofoam ones at the dollar stores.. But now I can't find them!!!) or pizza pan (also from the dollar stores)

 First, I roll the diapers with the opening side rolled in. 

I stuff them in different size pots and pans (I VERY anal about them all facing the same way). 

Then I use thin wrapping paper ribbon to wrap them as tight as possible.. It doesn't have to be pretty; it'll be covered up.. DON'T take them out of the pan until you've tied them. 

Once you have them tied you can flip the pan over. 

For this one I wrapped each layer in a blanket, but I have used thick ribbon on others. If you use blankets, I fold it almost corner to corner and fold that side in first.  You may have to play around with it for the correct thickness. 

Use straight pins to keep them wrapped, but make sure not to puncture any diapers.. That could be BAD news for baby and mommy!!

I used a matching thin(-ish) ribbon around the middle of each layer. 

I've started to roll paper and stick it in the middle of the bottom layer to stick the top layer through. 

Stack all the layers and mount/tape/pin to cake or pizza pan. 

Next is the fun.. Can be the most frustrating.. 

ADD ALL YOUR onesies,binkies, bottles, toys, hangers, etc. around the layers. 

I've taped some and pinned some.. On this one I wrapped them in the same ribbon and tied it around the middle ribbon. 

Put something ADORABLE on top. 

And voila!!

DEAD dogs

About a month or two after we got Domino, I found the two of them EATING our walls.. Here's what I found:

And

Yep.. Bigger than the size of my hand.. And I don't have small hands..

Yesterday, it rained most of the day. When I got home from work found poop.. Well more like eaten poop smudge marks. I cleaned it up while I had a massive migraine (which Makes me so much more sensitive to smell). I left the dogs out while I tried to sleep the migraine away before a hockey game. Came down to mud paw all over, but I was okay with that. They can't control the wetness outside and I'd rather them go outside to pee/poop. When I got home from hockey, I found pee. Apparently, they won't pee outside when it's raining lol. 

I felt absolutely TERRIBLE that they were in their kennel for so long so I stayed up til 1:30 pinning and finding AMAZING hair tutorials. I kept them out all night since they've been doing great at night.. I made a very BAD choice. Here's what I woke up to:

The previous hole had been revisited and enlarged and..

A brand new hole at the top of the stairs..

Dang dogs ran from me when I saw it!! Thank god they are so dang cute!! And the fact I felt bad for them being so bored yesterday. To make it up to them, I brought them to the park for almost 2 hours today. I think they're tired.. What do you think?

(They always seem to pop up when I take pictures!!)

On to another day.. Hopefully they'll behave!!

Super Bowl Weekend

Leading up to the Super Bowl was pretty intense in my house!! Ben is an UBER Broncos fan and I saw NOTHING but orange and blue for TWO weeks straight.. My eyes were beginning to BURN!!

We had a fun weekend before the bad blowout on Sunday..

Friday night we went downtown to Goldspike for a retirement party from Ben's work.. It's an old casino that the zappos guy bought and re-vamped.. It was a pretty cool place with fun games, an ice skating rink, and most excitingly NO GAMBLING!! You don't even find that here at gas stations or grocery stores!! Anyways, it was fun letting loose and hanging out with some of the spouses from Ben's work..

Saturday wasn't so much fun as I battled a hangover.. I got my second Bountiful Basket.. Stopped by late for my friend's little girl's first birthday (I can't believe it's already been a year!!).. And then went out to eat and bowling with good friends.. I don't want to brag or anything.. But check out these AMAZING scores.. I'm almost PRO!!

Sunday we went to church for the last time before the new building opens.. It is going to be gorgeous but interesting finding OUR new seats haha.. I had brunch with girls from work and took advantage of my unlimited mimosas before heading to my parents for the Super Bowl party.. I'll be honest, I only watched about 3-5 minutes total of the game. I was quite gracious to my husband as his team was getting killed.. I was almost hoping they'd win so he wouldn't so sad!!