Playroom and Nursery!

It occurred to me today that I shared the downstairs of our home and the master bedroom on the blog a few months ago but since the post was getting long I decided to share the other rooms another time - but I never did! So I snapped a few pictures for you today. I know you've seen bits and pieces of these rooms already but now you can have the whole picture and layout!

I'll do the craft room when I figure out better fabric storage than the bookshelf I'm currently using, but for now, here is the playroom and the nursery!

Aaron loves his playroom. He spends so much time in there! He plays with his cars and makes me food on his kitchen and plays dress up with the hats my grandpa (GP) sent me back when I was in college!

The letters on the wall are cut from fabric and mod-podged onto the wall and the toy bins are all bins from the dollar store with the wood frame from Amanda. I was super impressed with myself in finding the perfect sized bins! Aaron also loves his "bulls-eye" horse that he rides on :) 

I had a lot of fun with Aaron and Audrey's room!

I painted a large tree in the corner and lots of birds around the room. They each have their name above their beds. I also put a large vinyl tiger in the corner that used to have a tummy and feet ... but then Aaron found a piece sticking off. He pulled it and it got stuck to his hand so off came the rest of the tiger as he freed himself.

I plan to have a picture of each of them at their blessing and when I was pregnant with them but I haven't printed them yet. I also want to fill in the tree with more branches... and re-hang the other half of the "bookshelf" under the window that Aaron tried to use as a step. No room is ever done, eh?

Aaron Does His Hair

For your enjoyment:

He was quite proud of his work :)

Onion Salt...

Today we encountered the first food Audrey definitely does NOT like...

mashed black and pinto beans. The first bite came all back out. After that, she ate them but looked at me like this:

Clearly not her favorite. So I got out the onion and garlic spices to mix into the beans. She ate them better after that but still glared at me with each bite. I think we are going to retire the beans...

While I was feeding her, Aaron reached over and grabbed the onion salt.

He decided to try and spice up his baked potato (which is usually one of his favorites)

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww...

I promise he didn't eat it. Though he tried to play in it like snow, haha!

Audrey was very pleased when we were done eating the beans, 

but confused when she couldn't get them off her hands and face. Quite entertaining!

My Little Man

I absolutely love this little guy!

He's so funny ... last night as we were snuggling before bed he was telling me what he wanted to do tomorrow. He said he wanted to snuggle again with Mama and Daddy ... and then he said, "Mama and Daddy snuggle with me - Mama and Daddy snuggle with ....... PEE!!!" "What Aaron?" "Mama and Daddy snuggle with PEE!!! bahahahahahahaha" What a hysterical little guy. I made the mistake of laughing so I'm certain that I will hear more of this ;)

Playing with Mama's eyeliner...

 A firetruck was waiting for us when we came out of the grocery store last week. He was so excited!

Aaron loves to be like his daddy!

One of Aaron's current favorite movies is The Croods

In the movie, they reach their hands up to catch the sun. The movie transforms the characters from people who live in the fear and in the dark to people who follow the light and live without fear.

Aaron loves to raise his hand and reach for the light.

I hope this is something he continues to do - follow the light (Christ) and live without fear!

A Scary Mommy Moment

Today, when I put Audrey down for a nap I found the keys in the door of her room. I grabbed them and set them on her dresser. I remember thinking, "what if I lock these in here?" But it seemed such a strange thought because I figured I'd take them with me when I left the room. I use the keys to lock the door usually so I wasn't too worried.

I rocked Audrey to sleep and she crashed in my arms. It was such a sweet moment and I stayed longer trying to savor it. Aaron wanted my attention though so I laid Audrey down and rushed out the door to keep him from waking her. I locked the door using the knob to make it faster (we lock the door to keep Aaron out while she's sleeping) and went to go spend time with him.

It wasn't until Audrey woke a few hours later that I remembered I left the keys on the dresser. I desperately searched for a way inside - but the hinges were on the other side of the door ... the screws for the door know were on the other side of the door ... and the window is always locked.

In a panic, I called Eric and begged him to tell me what to do. He walked me through the options I had already thought of and then said he would come home. I raced to the neighbor to see if they had a smaller flat head screw driver than we had so I could use it and a hammer to try and jimmy the lock (I have done this with lock boxes before). My neighbor could tell that I was more than a little flustered and came over with me to try and help me. The screwdriver didn't work and so we got her ladder to make sure the window was truly locked. Eric made me promise to *not* try and force the window until he and his friend, Tyler, arrived in case I fell from the ladder. The window was definitely locked. Eric assured me he would kick in the door if needed so I calmed down a bit - but only a bit. Why do I have to make such expensive mistakes?!?

Aaron kept grabbing screw drivers and saying, "I can help mama!" He would try to put the screwdriver in the door knob and then try to open it and say, "I can't ... it's locked! You can do it mama!" This was super cute but also broke my heart because I should have been able to open the door!!!

I fluctuated in my panic level. If Audrey started screaming I was ready to break down the door ... If Audrey was calm  then I was able to relax a bit. She would have spurts of both. When Eric and Tyler arrived Audrey wasn't screaming so I was fairly calm. Tyler whipped out his lock picking kit (who has those?!?) and the two of them attempted to pick the lock. They almost had it at one point but one of the pieces slipped and they decided to try a different idea. The next plan was to kick in the door but Tyler's roommate is in construction and told him one of his tools could be used to break the doorknob and pull the knob out of the door. Tyler used the tool to try and break the knob but what ended up happening was the handle wrenched off and the lock mechanism fell out. Eric then used needle nose pliers and undid the lock.

I raced in and grabbed Audrey who was happily chewing on her toes. This experience was clearly more traumatic for me than her, thank goodness.

I took a few pictures because it is what I do to calm myself in situations (hence pictures of Aaron's crazy messes).

Here is my sweet neighbor, Marion, who helped keep Aaron calm.

This is our knob... Now we don't have to lock the door because Aaron can't open the door!

Audrey 7 Months

I can barely believe this little munchkin is 7 months old! The time has FLOWN!

Audrey loves playing with babywipe containers, mirrors, and anything that resembles technology.

She does a super fast army crawl that is developing into a normal crawl. I'll have to do an evolution of crawling post with videos because it's funny how much her crawl changes :)

 Audrey has loved everything we have fed her so far. I make her food so it's been fun to give her a variety.

She enjoys: applesauce, broccoli, butternut squash, carrots, yellow carrots, mango, pineapple, bananas and green smoothies (her absolute favorite is green smoothies!)

 Audrey loves to snuggle, walk (she moves her feet if you hold her hands), explore, stand against the ottoman and play with toys (she can't pull herself up yet but if we set her there she plays)and playing with Aaron's toys - and as long as he picks which cars she gets, he likes letting her play with them.

We even still paint her toes. :) She's such a good sport!

Here are 2 cute videos of her playing with some of her favorite toys!

Valentine's Weekend

This was our first weekend after the snow and I think that's why we filled it so full of people! We had so many plans last weekend that got canceled that we felt we had to fit tons in!

On Thursday night, Eric and I went to see the Lego movie with some friends from work. Seriously, an awesome movie! I know my brother, Thomas, will love it and I can't wait for him to see it!

Friday night, Valentine's Day, we had our traditional Parmesan Chicken meal with the family. It's been fun each year since having kids to share part of Valentine's Day with them. Aaron enjoyed the meal and enjoyed "clinking" our cups! He would say, "To being normal," (Megamind) or, "Now we do the clinks," (Despicable Me).

We had lots of fun together as a family. We turned on a movie for us all to watch and ate popcorn. Aaron had a blast reading the scriptures to Audrey before bed.

I gave Eric a new wireless mouse (though, let's be honest ... he got it the moment it came in the mail) that he knew about. I got it on Amazon and he saw the shipping confirmation before I got into his email to delete it. He was so excited when he saw it though. He was helping someone at work who happened to have the same mouse and said, "that's a nice looking mouse. My wife just bought me one ... she doesn't know I know." haha

My Dad surprised us with a dozen chocolate covered strawberries that came in the mail. They were delicious!!!

 Selfies with kids are always an adventure ;)

Saturday morning, we attended a breakfast celebrating Tyler's birthday with Eric's family. It was a surprise for him and it was great to see everyone! We went to a little bistro in Portland! How fun! We rarely do anything in Portland (too much planning too many one way streets) so it was fun to have a reason to go and not have to do any research before!

We then headed to pick up our pavers to create our front porch. I found a bunch of them for free!

We loaded the car and took them home. We unloaded them and prepared the kids to go to our friends, David and Emily's home for the evening. 

We went and got more pavers (still more loads to come!) and some treated wood for the backyard before dropping the kids off. Our plans for our "Valentine's Date" were to go for a walk along the bay in Portland and then have dinner at the Cheesecake factory, but it was raining and it's incredible how much fun you can have just by spending time together no matter what you are doing. It was raining so we couldn't go on our walk.So we opted to make the most of our time. First we headed to Costco to get a new car battery. Then we went and unloaded our Pavers. We then went to the Cheesecake factory which had a 2 hour wait ... we walked around the mall for a while, got a snack, but since neither of us really were the type of kid to hang out at the mall when we were younger, we didn't know how to occupy our time. We decided to head out and go to a game store but on the way we saw the hardware store and knew we needed some hose reels... so we went there instead! Afterwards we went to the Cheesecake factory and Eric surprised me with a beautiful bracelet! 

I'm telling you, it was a true blue home-owner's date! But it was fun! I wouldn't trade it for anything.

This morning we had Jon come over. He brought one of his epic new games. I think this might become a Sunday morning tradition! He and Eric had so much fun playing and I love cooking big breakfasts!

 I love this man so much! I love our life together

I love how deeply our love has evolved since we met, how our lives have grown together and changed together. I love the family we have created and the moments we get to share! I can't wait for another year!

Happy Valentine's Day!