4th of July

The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays. I love fireworks. The only time we really get to see them is Independence Day and New Year's Eve. There really should be more reasons to shoot beautifully sparkling explosives into the sky...

I worked for part of the day and unfortunately Dustin had to work the entire evening so Alivia and I were on our own. I planned on walking her down to the local recreation center where they put on a pretty good show. I had no intentions however of staying there until the fireworks started. It would have put her up way past her bedtime and that's not something we ever mess with. The plan was to go walk around, see all the people, play in the grass and have a few treats.

Before setting out I snapped a few photos in the same spot we did last year.

Look at my squishy baby! My goodness what a difference a year makes!!!

 

We had a lot of fun once we finally got to the park. There were so many people for Alivia to watch. Tons of babies and dogs which she loves so much. She wants them all to give her puppy kisses on her hand.

One of the best things about the 4th is the great food vendors. Luckily something sounded good to me because lately nothing does. Here we tried a Philly Cheese steak but made with turkey. She sure liked it! 

I also thought I'd throw in a few more photos from last year.

 

I may have also sprung for a funnel cake...since Alivia doesn't usually get treats like this, and I planned on eating some anyway, I knew there was no way getting around her trying some. :-) She mostly just wanted to pinch off the powdered sugar and eat it lol.

We had a good time together and it was so exciting to watch Alivia watch everyone else. There was a family right in front of us that had a big brother dancing around with his little sisters. It was so adorable and Alivia got up and tried dancing like they were. Then she wanted me to get up and dance with her too. When I figure out how to post a video I'll show you!

 As the night got further along she was actually doing really well and I felt bad leaving before the big finale. Since she was in such good spirits I thought she could make it through the evening. She did start to get a little upset right before the parachute jumpers came down but once they were out of the plane the look on her face was priceless. There were 4 or 5 of them and in the dark sky with their bright sparklers trailing behind them Alivia was in awe. I wish I could have captured that in a photo but I'm glad I got to see it.

 

The firework show was great as always. The music was incredibly loud but that didn't seem to bother Alivia. Actually she fell asleep half way through. But while she was awake she just stared up at the sky with the biggest eyes ever :-) 

Thinking about it now I'm really happy that we stayed and watched them together. Next year we certainly won't be staying up with her to watch them as we'll have another little one at only 6 months old and I don't think we'll be staying out all night.

I wish of course that Dustin could have been there. That would have made the night perfect!

 

First camping trip!

Last week we headed out to Lake Dowdy with my best friend and her family. This was Alivia's first camping trip and she did so great! We were worried about the whole sleeping in a tent arrangement but knew that sooner or later we were going to have to try it. Dustin and I both love camping and we hope that Alivia will enjoy it as much us as in the years to come.

Everything went pretty smoothly. Aside from a little hiccup in the beginning...we got all the way to the camp site and realized we forgot a shoe for Alivia. And she's in a cast right now so we really only needed to remember one shoe...

So we stayed back while daddy drove the 2 hour round trip to the nearest store to find a shoe. Alivia didn't even care. She plopped right down and started digging in the dirt!

Once Dustin got back we started cooking up some dinner. Cheese burger for Alivia and hobo pie pizza for me. Dustin and Steve actually went out on the boat to see if they could catch some fish in the late day. In the mean time Jenny, Coltrane, Alivia and I played in the dirt, kept warm by the fire and took little walks around the site.

 These two had a ton of fun together. I can't wait to go camping with them again.

 I had been talking this trip up for 3 weeks with Alivia. Telling her we were going to sleep in a tent, cook by a fire, play in the dirt, see a lake, I even showed her pictures online of camping so that she was familiar with what was going on and she learned some new words in the process too! She LOVED being in the tent. The photo above was her first time in it once Dustin got it all set up.

 The night actually went pretty well. We don't have the best sleeper on our hands here as it is so we were really concerned about how that would go. At home she sleeps in a very dark bedroom with a fan and a sound machine on to block out noise. We did bring her sound machine...although it was acting very possessed and kept changing to a freaky heartbeat repeatedly throughout the night. She did have a hard time going to sleep at first and then woke up about 30 mins later screaming so I had to call it an early night and just went back in and slept with her. I was awake a majority of the night because I was uncomfortable. Other than a few wake ups she did really great! And was very happy to wake up and see that she was still in the tent lol. (photo above)

 The next day we had some breakfast and then set out to take a nice walk around the lake. Well...by the lake. There was no way two pregnant mama's and two toddlers were going to make it all the way around in that heat!

 It's so much easier to go over things than around them right??

Looking for bugs!

 There were a TON of these little ground squirrels all over the place. Here we happened upon a mama and her babies. They were so cute. We also saw hummingbirds and lots of crows. Alivia loves birds. Actually she's a huge fan of nature. She is always pointing out new and different things, wanting to smell flowers, touch the grass, follow bugs around...I love it!

 Alivia's first s'more! She doesn't get sweets as it is so this was a really big treat for her. Yeah she loved it! Even better though was after she ate half of mine she didn't want any more.

My little helper!

 Quick family photo before we had to leave. We couldn't get one of course where all of us were looking and smiling at the camera but whats new? Before we were even 5 mins gone Alivia was out cold. Little girl was worn out and it was past nap time.

 This was such a great trip and I really do look forward to doing more this summer. Hopefully I'll still be comfortable and not super huge with this next baby. By the way, Dustin and Steve caught 6 fish each that first night and a few more each the next day! Not too shabby! Of course Jenny and I couldn't stand the smell of them...yuck.

Baby Alivia

Well this is coming about 5 weeks past the fact but little baby Alivia is here! It's been an amazing 5 weeks...long, short, tired, fun, every second brings something new. We've been really busy and that's why we haven't had a chance to get on here and update any thing. This will probably be a fairly short post as it is. This is one of the few times she is actually sleeping in her bassinet and it doesn't usually last long.

As we have time we'll add more details. Right now I'll tell you she was born on Friday, December 14th at 9:50am. She came very quickly as we had not arrived at the hospital until 5:30am that same morning. She was in a hurry and she hasn't stopped since! She was 7lbs 2oz and 20 inches long. She was born with dark hair and those baby blue eyes that only last a little while. We will give more details on her arrival as we can but like I said it was fast! We were able to go home on Sunday after two nights in the hospital. We had a few guests while we were there. Grandma and Grandpa Green and Collins, her aunt Ashley and Jenny and Steve. It was nice having them come visit and we'll share some pictures of them soon!

We've already been out of the house quite a bit with little Alivia. We went on our first mall trip last week, first trip to the park to walk around the lake, took her out to dinner with us when our friend Matt visited from Portland and we take her to Boulder every Friday for a breast feeding group. Well, that's more just for mom and baby :-) but it's a fun time to spend with other mothers and their babies and it's nice to get out of the house. She liked car rides at first but the last few she hasn't been to thrilled about. Hopefully it was just bad timing on our part and she will go back to liking them. We plan on taking a trip here soon and hope that she'll do ok in the car seat if we're able to take it on the plane with us.

She is very close to smiling. She smiles a lot in her sleep but the last couple days she has been starting to smile while awake, just the hint of a smile. Today I'm almost positive she smiled at me. It was the sweetest thing and brought tears to my eyes...which was short lived because shortly after she was crying. And no...this wasn't a "gas smile". She follows us with her eyes now too. That started last week as well. She had been making really good eye contact and then we started noticing that she was following us when we moved. It's amazing how quickly they learn and develop these skills.

Since about a week old she has been able to stick her tongue out at us and make her mouth round if we do it to her. It's crazy that infants will mimic those motions!

Dustin is at work today (working a double shift) and he has a lot of the pictures of her since my phone filled up! When he is able to put them on the computer I'll post more pictures. Until then here are two. One is from the hospital and the other was from this past week. Looking at these two pictures I realize I was right, this morning I was looking at her hair and thought it was thinner than when she was born, looks like that is the case. :-)

 

DIY Mobile

Posted by: Lena

There have been a lot of DIY nursery projects that I've seen and have wanted to try making on my own. Some other projects I've decided to create on my own simply because I like the item but I am not willing (or in some cases able) to fork over a big chunk of money for it.
Some things on the list have been;
Making a Mobile
Sewing Crib Sheets (Completed and can be read about here)
Refinishing a Dresser
Painting the Nursery (Not really something especially creative but DIY)
Art
Ect,...So when I started looking around for a mobile, I couldn't believe how expensive some of them could be and I wasn't really fining anything that I was in love with. That's when I started looking on line for a DIY Mobile and I came across this site. I figured I could make it much cheaper than I could buy one so I set out to find the materials they list.
I thought I saved the receipts for this but I can't find them at the moment. I haven't been very good lately with keep those things. I know when I'm buying it that I'll want to add the cost to a post but then I get busy, clean the house and mindlessly throw out what I wanted to keep...oh well. After I made this mobile I looked on Etsy to see if anyone on there makes them (of course they do) and I found some upwards of $125.00! Yeah...I'm glad I did it on my own. Not to mention I like to make these things because there is a certain level of gratification to choosing something to create, planning it out and then actually putting it together.
Love it!

And like most projects I decide I want to do I never anticipate it to take to long as it does, or to bother my back as much as it does (from leaning over said project) or to end up needing as much materials as it does. I always end up going back to the store for more supplies. Which really isn't a huge deal because even though each time I do a project I expect to finish it that.day. I never do and it takes at least 2 more days.

And the mobile was no exception. I went to JoAnne much to late in the day. I had already worked a 9 hour day and hadn't really decided what colors I wanted to do which meant I was in the store an extra HOUR that I didn't need to be. And at this point in my pregnancy being on my feet for any extended period of time is bad. My feet just kill me now.
But, I did it anyway. I hemmed and hawed for a long time, going from the ribbon section to the stamps to the paper....and finally chose what I wanted. I'm indecisive.

Because I work so many hours and pretty long days, it took me about a week and a half to finish this but I'm sure you could get it done in one day. Part of my problem was I didn't buy enough ribbon (I think I cut mine a little bit longer than the example) and while I was able to find the pink when I went back a second time, I wasn't able to find the gray. Which meant I needed to drive to another JoAnne Fabric and they were out as well...or so I thought. I just forgot which gray I needed and thought they were out. I also bought a stamp that was too small. The tutorial I was following said to use a 2" cut out and I for some reason thought what I got was big enough. I ended up stamping out a TON of little butterflies and then took that one back and bought a bigger one. The smaller one would have taken SO much longer and just wasn't worth it. In the end though it turned out great because I improvised a little anyway and just added small and big stamps.
I also added crystals to some of the lines of butterflies so that it will catch the light.

Materials and colors I chose. Again, for how big I cut the ribbon I ended up needing 1 more of each color.

That is the smaller stamp. I didn't take a picture of the bigger one.

I used fishing wire instead of the metal wire that was suggested in the tutorial I used. It wasn't a big deal.

I thought these butterflies were the prettiest little things lol And that is the larger stamp.

I haven't hung it up yet since we are working on another project that would make this be in the way. I tied more fishing wire to it and have it hanging in the closet right now. It's a convoluted system too...I have a blanket as a counter weight on the fishing wire so that it will hang. Setting this thing on the ground is a HUGE mistake. Tangles you wouldn't believe.

It might be hard to tell from these pictures but there are small and large butterflies and those crystals are randomly placed. Once I can hang it I'll take some better pictures. I also hot glued every line of butterflies to the fishing wire that makes the cross. (where they are all hanging from) AND I hot glued the cross of fishing wire as well. All of the ribbon is double tied which is why I had to buy more. I don't want anything falling off into baby's crib!

How about you? Have you made your own baby mobile? Or spend more than twice as long on a project than you thought, or it that only me?

What's in a name?

So a lot has happened since the last time we posted on here. Lena has now worked for 3, yes 3, different places. The Denver Art Museum for their King Tut exhibition, Hyatt Place Denver Airport Hotel and now is selling homes for KB. We have moved out of Dustin's parents home, (still very thankful for that) and are renting a town home from a friend of ours. Oh yeah...and Lena is pregnant. If you couldn't tell from the picture at the top of this blog ;-)

We're pretty confidant that you aren't finding this out for the first time on here as we've told pretty much everyone we know and as you can see she is pretty far along. It's not like we're keeping it a secret...anymore. We'll get to how we revealed the pregnancy to our families later, that's a fun story, or at least we think so.

So just like we did when we moved to Florida we are going to start this blog back up to keep friends and family that don't live near us up to date with this little one we are expecting in December. (12/19 if you're curious, or 12/28 if you go by the new estimation of how long a human gestation period is...) And of course those of you that are close by are welcome here as well. :)

Which brings me to the post title; "What's in a name?". Do we leave the blog with the same name? Change it? How long are you a "newlywed"? It's only been 3 years since we got married. Some husbands call their wife "my bride" forever so we could stay newlyweds right?

Well there will be more to come so stay tuned!