The Fun Parent

There's a reason why Dennis will always be "the fun parent." I received a package that used a mile long piece of butcher paper as filler and Dennis had the idea that it would be fun to color.

,

My husband is a genius.

...Oh, did you know that WD-40 takes crayon off of your walls in like two seconds? 

Pinterest makes me feel like a genius too sometimes. 

:-)

The Homemaker's Test Question

1) You are about to put your toddler down for her afternoon nap. Do you...
 
  a) take a shower
  b) clean the living room
  c) take a nap 
  d) craft


Too bad there's not enough time for an "e) all of the above" answer. I should probably go with "a" for the sake of those around me, however "c" sounds rather lovely right about now. I might fail this question... Why is making a baby so exhausting?

Organize: The Laundry Room

I did this one right after Christmas. It's funny how much more enjoyable even laundry can be when the laundry room (or laundry closet) is clean & organized.

Before: Just a lot of random stuff and unused shelf space... not even laundry stuff.

  

After: The medicines on the right (Adult meds, bandages & ice packs, & baby meds) and I bought a bunch of baskets from the dollar store. My mom will make me chalkboard labels (as seen here in her etsy shop) for each of the baskets: table cloths, guest/extra toiletries (toothbrush, paste, brushes, shampoos) and my laundry soap making supply to start...

Before:

After: I'm not sure this after looks any different... The shelf is rather narrow and doesn't hold big blankets well.  I don't have a linen closet so I use a mix of the laundry shelf, clothes closets & dresser drawers to contain the linens. Anyone have any ideas?

Before (top left & bottom) and After (top right):
This was my favorite addition to the laundry room. This was just a little, awkward, hard to access space inbetween the washer & dryer that previously was not utilized for anything but the waste basket and broom/mop. I found this little roller cart at Walmart for (I think) $11. Clara loved it too and was very sad I made her stop using it as a quadruple decker bus for her toys. Lots of the little knickknacks found a home here. There's a spot for the sprays and detergents, extra hand soap, air freshener refills, light bulbs & batteries, and it's NOT on top of the dryer like it was before.

 

Before (left) & after (right):
Okay, so not much different. i just wanted to show how much space there is between my appliances and shelf. Someday I'll have dennis build me another shelf so we can have some more linen storage space. ;-) Oh, do you see that milk jug on the right? Part of my organization goal was to make my own laundry soap. Pennies per load baby!!! It seems to work just fine. Plus no scents to aggrivate my husband's wimpy skin. ;-)

NOW everything has a place in the laundry room. Hallelujah!

The Latest Ultrasound

I may have mentioned this before, but this little girl has already had more than twice as many ultrasounds as Clara did! Let's see... There was the regular 9 week ultrasound, then at the next Dr. appt they couldn't find the heartbeat on the doppler so she got another ultrasound, then there was the ER visit a few weeks later, and the regular 20 week ultrasound where we found out she was a girl, but also couldn't see all four chambers of her heart because she was in a bad position, so this fifth and (most likely) final ultrasound was ordered for my 28 week appointment to double check on her heart, even though they weren't terribly worried because she wasn't showing any other growth problems that would come with a heart defect. 

Well, yesterday was the day! My mom came with me this time and kept me company during the big long glucose test (nasty orange drink! Ugh!) but the time goes by much faster when you get to have an ultrasound in the middle of the test. The ultrasound revealed that her heart looks perfectly normal (phew!) and that she's actually measuring 5 days bigger than her due date, which I think is funny because at 20 weeks she measured about 5 days smaller. It must be all the ice cream I've been eating. ;-) When I called Dennis on the phone to tell him that she did indeed have a heart he replied, "Oh good, she's not a banker then!" Silly banker humor...

She had both her arms up in front of her face, as well as one of her legs. The other leg was tucked in behind her like in the picture below (you can see her bottom on the top right, her knee down at the bottom, and her foot on the top left...) I guess she's practicing for hurdles. 

So not much by way of pictures. She was crammed in there pretty good, and we're only going to get more squished! "Full term" is in 9 weeks, one week past the due date in 13... So just two to three more months left. It's pretty crazy to think about.