New Things

Wow, it's been such a long time that I don't even know where to begin.  Lets start with the big news.  There's going to be another bunny in this burrow at the end of August!!  This pregnancy is totally different than the last one in pretty much every way.

1.  I'm sick...actually feeling sick all day long every day.  This morning sickness is actually all day and all night sickness.  It's not debilitating, but just enough to make me want to lay on the couch all day and never get out of my pajamas.

2.  I feel different mentally.  I think that because I have Ryter to take care of and so much stuff going on with the house I forget I'm pregnant.  It's probably true for everyone that your first pregnancy is filled with book reading "what's happening now", Baby's R Us online shopping day and night trying to find the perfect everything, and worries about whether you're having the right amount of protein, vegetables, and fruit.  This time I don't need to read the books, I have everything I need except for a couple of poor choices the first time around that will get replaced, and my food consumption is fine even if I only eat macaroni and cheese for dinner.  I figure with the way I've been feeling, I'm pretty lucky I'm managing to eat anything at all.

3.  My weight gain doesn't exist yet...thank goodness!  The first time, it was like as soon as I took the pregnancy test, size 2 was no longer an option.  My hips popped out and my thighs started to grow.  Believe me, after having Ryter I am no longer a size 2 and my hips are already where they need to be so my jeans still fit and for some reason my stomach actually looks flatter than it has for the past year and a half.

All in all, I'm pregnant, we're grateful and excited despite the nausea, and someday I'll get out of my pajamas.

Ryter:
"A monster" as the doc put it.  35" tall and 31 lbs.  He just had his 18 month appointment and everything is great.  He was really scared when we went back to the room and the nurse closed the door.  He cried, didn't want to get on the scale, and would not let the nurse measure him.  It took a little while but a cup of "breezys" (raisins) and mommy's cell phone with a video of himself did calm him down and make him more comfortable. 

He's talking like crazy saying so many words and working on phrases.  Some of his words are correct and some are his own version, but either way he's communicating and I can understand him.  He's got the shape sorter down no problem, so we're working now on what the names of the shapes are.  He knows moon, heart, oval, and dione (triangle).  It's so adorable when he comes up with his own version of words.  Sometimes I wonder just exactly what he heard that makes it come out that way, but his brain is working, thinking so hard all of the time.  It's really amazing!

The House:
Oh, the house!  It's coming along slowly, but we finally got our new carpet installed in the basement and the upstairs bedrooms.  It was a long time coming from the measuring/quote process to choosing the perfect carpet for the right price to the Christmas holiday installation stall to the surprise electrical work that required a hole in the floor upstairs to finally getting the installation this week.  The carpet is beautiful, our choice, and most importantly CLEAN!  I'm having a very hard time believing the people that lived here before ever vacuumed or cleaned anything at all!  The house didn't look dirty when we looked at it the first time, but seriously, it was gross!

Besides the carpet, I don't think the place looks much different than it has over the past month or so, but we had to take care of some little noticed things before the obvious wall painting could be done.  The crown molding and trim had to be caulked and the trim needed to be painted.  Now that those two things are done, the rooms can be painted and then pictures can be hung.  That will make it feel so much better!

One thing that did happen last month is that I lost all of my pictures on my phone from when we moved in until about the first week of January.  My stupid fingers and lack of thorough reading of error messages caused the problem.  I lost lots of photos of Ryter and videos too, and I also lost all of the "before" photos of the house.  As I start to post the final photos, you'll have to trust that it's better than it was before!!

Here are my new blinds.  You can see in the first photo that they were gross mini blinds and the biggest problem besides them being dirty was that they weren't the right size for the window so they just looked really tacky.  I replaced them with cordless cellular shades from selectblinds.com and I LOVE them.  They look so nice, plus there aren't any cords, and when the blinds are up you don't even notice them because they're so tight to the window and the same color as the trim.

this brown linoleum covering the whole basement was under the gross carpet

new couch/old gray carpet

new carpet