Treehouse saves the day!

This winter hasn't been too painful.....yet. So far the weather has been sunny enough that Emma and I have been able to go for walks around the neighborhood, play at the park, and do some sunny afternoon sledding. We also enjoy this time of year when we go to the Tree house museum as often as possible. Jamie and Ryan brought down their two littles and Sara's two kids as well and Emma had the best day ever playing with cousins. She loves cousins more than anything. After spending a couple hours at the museum we took the kids to Costco for lunch. It was quite the spectacle to see so many little kids running around. I don't know how that John and Kate do it!

Emma and Milly who is one year younger

Everything I've ever wanted

Today we found out we're having another little girl! I couldn't be happier. I think Ryan wanted a little girl more than I did. Emma isn't quite sure what this all means. She never knew it wasn't an option that she might not have a little sister. We're just so excited, and I'm so thankful for the money we'll save since our World is already so girly.
(above picture: Emma, Paul and DeNae in Arizona 3/08)

We already have a baby name picked out and we'll name this baby Lydia DeNae. We've both always loved the name Lydia and DeNae is after my aunt who we both just really cherish. She is the most kind hearted and genuine person. I'm so happy to have her be apart of our children's lives. If we had a boy we would name his middle name Paul after my uncle. They both mean so much to us. They have really supported us and cheered for us ever since we first started dating in 1997 when they first met Ryan. We are so thankful for this chance to expand our family and I'm so excited to have a name to this little bump in my belly.

Home sweet home

A friend of mine reminded me that I hadn't ever finished posting pictures of our home. So here are the rest of the pictures. It was last May I believe that I posted pictures of our bedrooms, the nursery, guest bath and living room, but we do in fact have another half to our house and here it is. I'm always rearranging and have corners where I'm still waiting to add something, but as of this very day this is the place we love to call home.

This is our little dining area. I love the bench, if anyone is considering buying a bench for their table. It is very handy. The chairs we bought from D.I. five years ago and Ryan took them apart and reassembled them to be stronger and then we painted them and they have done us proud all these years. Those pillars are very weird to some people, but they're just something my family is into and I love them.

Ryan made this shelf for me when we first moved into the house. The rest of it is all from Tai Pan, which I adore.

This family room and the two rooms below it were unfinished when we bought our house. Ryan did most of the work himself since he has a major problem paying someone to do a job that he can do himself, even if he doesn't have the time for it, it's a whole principle thing.

We've made Emma a little play corner behind the couch where we have her joy school. It looks quite small because of her tent, but it's perfect for just her. She plays here the best when it's bedtime. If you tell her it's bedtime she will go in her tent and play with her care bears or dolls for a good while. She talks out loud and we just love hearing how creative her little imaginary World is.

I bought this old window on ebay and have been playing around with it. I still need to put one more picture in the corner. I'm not LOVING the color of it. I think I might paint it red or black, not sure which. But for now it's a great way to display a lot of our favorite photos.

This is our very small office. The house had a horrible basement floor plan which made it difficult for us to decide what to do with it. So in the end we decided to make two bedrooms with good sized closets for storage. Our other option was to make one large room that was awkwardly shaped but had a full bath. In the end, the was the better idea for our family, especially with Ryan's office out of our home.

In the office closet is where we keep our food storage. For Christmas my parents gave us a very generous food supply. You know you're an adult when you are completely thrilled with the idea of food storage as a Christmas gift. This rack has two more shelves on top and in the next closet are MRE boxes, dry goods, water and other supplies. It's such a good feeling, thanks mom and dad!

I have some flowery chairs from my mom that are her rejects, but I gladly take them, because it's either that or nothing, or buy something I love and have to make payments on it. So our home is very eclectic between things we bought, and things we're given. Either way, we're very thankful.

This is Emma's big girl room. I haven't put up her decorations and finishing touches. I'm saving that for her 3rd birthday which is March 1st. But I have a lot of cute ideas that I can't wait to try out.

Chasing the blues away

I've been in a funky rut lately, almost like I lived back in Portland. You know, when the rainy season is going on 9 months and one more day of low grey skies will just drive you mad! Well, it's been like that, except there has been nothing to pin point my bland feelings on. So I decided a photo shoot would cheer me up, and sure enough it worked! This is my favorite picture of the bunch, or two favorites I should say.

M.I.A.

So I know I've just gone and disappeared from the blogging World, but doesn't it just get soooo old sometimes? Anyway, as I've been catching up on my scrapbooking I went back through all my blog posts from last year and I really saw the value in keeping an online digital journal. So now I'm back on board to document my life.
My parents left the day after Christmas to go live in Arizona for the winter months. So this time of year is really low key with little social obligations, which is a nice change for a few months to have a chance to be bored. We did go to a great party at my Aunt Carol's just before New Year's, so that was nice to see everyone. Also we threw a really fun New Year's party and had a great New Year's Day party with some different friends. Now as we're into January we're enjoying spending time as a little family and finishing projects that have been neglected around the house.
My aunt Lee and her family took Emma on New Year's Day for a 3 night sleep over! Although we missed her it was so nice to get things done around here and have a date night every night she was gone. I worked on putting away Christmas and dejunking and Ryan took on the 12 hour task of painting her big girl room with this argyle design. I was planning on hiring someone to do it because I know it was to be done just right, but then I reconsidered when I realized my husband would do a better job than any hired hand. However, he has said no amount of money would make him do it again, so you're on your own anyone who is wanting the same for your kids room. I'm so excited how it turned out! Especially since I just dreamed it up in my head and didn't have anything to compare it to. We'll move Emma in here once she's 3, and I am so excited to finish decorating this room.