HIP, HIP, HOORAY! - living room

HIP, as you may NOT know, will refer to House In Progress for this and some future HIP, HIP, HOORAY blogs. :) So, the house is coming along slowly but surely. Thanks to Auntie Sheryl who reminded me that I haven't posted any pictures of the HIP (house in progress), this goes out to all of you who live SO very far away and have not yet had the opportunity to visit and check out our house. :)

So, due to popular request (and the fact that progress IS slowly being made) here are some before and after pictures of stuff we have done so far in a few rooms:

Here's is the old view looking down the hallway in to the living room at the back wall of the house that runs between the living room and kitchen. Zeus had painted the wall a color called Caribbean Blue and yes, it was an electric blue color. It worked in his bachelor pad, but I love earthy colors and was trying to figure out how to merge the two. Zeus said that I could change the color if I needed, though I'm sure it broke a little of his heart. I honestly didn't mind it, but with all the furniture that I was bringing in and the colors I wanted to put on the walls in other areas, it became kind of hard to fit in.

The first change I made was to change the TV from the wall on the left to the back wall and to move the couch against the side wall where the TV was and facing the back wall. This was taken shortly after we unloaded the moving van and still had boxes EVERYWHERE!

So we kept the blue theme, but changed it to an earthy blue color. The color ended up looking really dark "prison blue" (according to Zeus) during the day because the light through the windows was so nice and bright. It really DID look so much darker on that back wall, so I decided to keep the same color for that wall and paint it a THIRD time with a blue that was a couple shades lighter. It blends REALLY well with the same darker blue color on the side wall, and during some times of the day with the way the room is lit up, you can hardly tell that they are two pretty different shades.

Here's the final product, walls finished (except for touching up over the original color along the ceiling), drapes hung, wall things hung, and furniture arranged. The flash didn't go off, so it's a little darker than it looks in actuality. I love it and having new paint and some of my furniture in it makes it really feel like home. That's all for now. Going to watch a movie with the husband and grab some grub. More pics of other rooms later. (Oh, in this pic you can see the changing table we got on the far right side. It's currently in the kitchen as we get ready to paint Mia's room.) :)

sign from the Coke machine

So I was feeling a little homesick yesterday and missing my kids. My lunch tasted off so I threw it away and went back to my room to get some change for the vending machines. Then, the vending machine wouldn't accept coins OR dollars. Sadness! So I opted to get a soda from the Coke machine and they're only 75 cents, so I got change back in the form of 25 cents and can your guess what state the quarter was from...

...UTAH!

It made my day a little brighter. Thank you vending machine and the people who be that decided each state needed it's own quarter. (Like it's not hard enough to teach kindergartners and first graders to recognize coins!) lol

YAY!!!

Zeus got his acceptance letter to the University of Texas School of Social Work to start his Master's Program in the mail yesterday!!! Woo-whoo!

Hooray Zeus!

28 weeks

Fun new purple maternity shirt.


With a baby girl growing under there!

Can't wait until she's on the OUTSIDE and in my arms!

Here are some tummy pics I tood this past week. My regular shirts aren't fitting anymore. They are pulling up and getting shorter and shorter in the front since Mia's growing so much now. I went to Ross and bought a few new maternity shirts that were short sleeved and found some smokin' hot deals! :) I'd gotten a few maternity shirts up in Utah, but they were mostly long sleeves and the hot and humid weather has started kicking in here and I was DYING. Anyhow, I found this fun purple shirt with cool lavendar and silvery metallic print on it that went over GREAT with my first graders. LOL

Better

Yesterday and today were better, kids more calm and the days went better... and now tomorrow's Friday and that's the BEST! :)

Zeus and I had a regular doctor's appointment. He's been able to go to all the doctor appointments with me since December when we got our first ultrasound and saw baby Mia for the firs time ever. This appointment was that of the infamous glucose test, where you have to drink a Dixie cup of sickeningly sweet orange syrup and then wait around an hour and get blood drawn. In the interim we met with the doctor and they listened to Mia's heart which sounded fabulous - yay! She measured my belly and I'm measuring at 30 weeks, even though we're a few days from being 29 weeks. She said that's very common, plus, I've got not only Mia in there, but a 6 inch fibroid as well, so that makes sense. Also, my amniotic fluid level is normal, which is great too! It's something they look at with cleft lip and palate babies because if the baby has trouble swallowing the amniotic fluid, it builds up excess fluid. Since the fluid level is normal, it seems that Mia isn't having any problem with swallowing, which is so good to hear and makes me hopeful that feeding issues will not be as severe as they could have been.

Bring on the third trimester!!! Only about 78 days or 11 more weeks to go until we are officially parents of a squirming, squealing bundle of joy and WE CAN HARDLY WAIT!!! We are now at the point in the pregnancy where we have to start going in to the OB every two weeks. Between the specialist and the regular OB, I already feel like I'm going to a doctor appointment every other day, so it will be interesting to see how things go with added visits! Plus, we are going to be meeting with the CLCPT (Cleft Lip Cleft Palate Team) the week after next to find out, hopefully, all we ever wanted to know and more about Mia's condition and things to expect, etc. Lots and lots to look forward to in the next few months!

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Today in school we read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. The purpose of reading the book was to discuss writer's "voice". Well, then today S U C K E D and it's not over yet... :( Little did I know that the book was going to be a foreshadowing of my whole flippin day or I would have chosen some other book to represent voice. In the book, the boy that's having the rotten day wishes he was somewhere warm like Australia. I emailed Zeus and told him I was having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day and wished I was somewhere warm like Australia... or somewhere cold like Utah. Now I'm here at work until 7 pm for the PTO meeting and I wish I was anywhere else. Nobody call me today or you'll get the very long, abbreviated list of everything I hate, and let me tell you, today it is a VERY LOOOOONG list. HOPEFULLY tomorrow will be better.

Baby Mia at 28 weeks and 2.5 pounds

We're at 28 weeks now and little Mia is weighing in at a whopping 2.5 pounds, which is right where she should be at this point. I can't believe my baby girl is getting so big! Of course I can FEEL her kicking up a storm inside me, but it's so fun to see her little face and it makes those little kicks I feel all the time inside of me feel all the more real and productive. lol Sometimes I still can't totally believe and wrap my mind around the fact that I'm pregnant and going to become a mom! No, even though my stomach is protruding more each day, it's still sometimes hard to believe. :) I LOVE that pouty little perfect bottom lip of hers - reminds me of her papa's. Can you see the resemblance?

How can you but HELP to love a face like this??? :) He sends me kissy lip pictures sometimes. This one was kisses to Mia and I. No one had better tell Zeus that this pic is on here or I'll probably have to take it off!