The beginnings of a baby room

Ok folks...it is time to put your game face on!! (Seriously, this is something that Clint says all the time.  Ha!)  Many of you, if you know us, know that our family tends to be huge procrastinators. We tend to work well under pressure....most of the time.  Well, we are starting to feel the pressure around here.  Baby Thad will be here really soon and we haven't really done anything yet!!  With Raleigh's room I think we had it painted and assembled months in advance.  Maybe it is because this is the second child that we are not as worried???  I think I am going to blame it on the fact that it took us 4 ultrasounds to figure out for sure what he was.  All that to say, we have used the guest bedroom as a junk room/storage room since we moved into this house, so we had a lot of work to do.  We had to clean out the garage to make space for some of the items that were in the guest bedroom, and I had to organize all of my school stuff and get it out of that room.  After we tackled that, we have begun to paint.  First step, Kilz the nasty green walls.  Clint thought it would be a great "craft" for Raleigh to help him paint while I went through all of the goodies that we got at a recent shower.  Oh my, the fun she had!!!  So much fun that less than 30 minutes later  Clint was calling me in to help rescue him from the paint monster!!  Two baths and lots of shampoo later, I was able to get out most of the paint that was in her hair and covering her body!!  This weekend we will hopefully finish the paint job and keep most of it out of our hair this time....game faces on everybody!!!

Check out that look of determination!!!  I know her hair is crazy, but it is out of control when she wakes up from her nap most days!!

 Such a good helper wearing her purple homemade paint smock.

So busy working on her "craft."

A week in our life- Saturday

Today we slept in a little bit.  Clint got up and ran, we went through our morning routine and I fixed dinner ( a wonderful and easy crock pot pot roast).  We worked a little bit in the yard mowing and picking weeds till lunch.  Raleigh loves to wear gloves while she works in the flower beds.  She thinks the weeds are the mulch we have so, the bigger the gloves the less mulch/weeds she picks out of the flower beds!!  What a good helper we have on our hands!  After lunch Raleigh went down for a little siesta and Clint and I were supposed to start on the next phase of cleaning to clear out the baby room.  Honestly, we got a little overwhelmed so instead of cleaning we watched a movie and took a nap!!!  While he slept, I finished reading my book The Help.  I loved, loved, loved this book!!  I can not wait for the movie to come out next week.  After everyone woke up, we played outside for a while and then our sweet intern Kalee came over to hang out.  We all ate dinner, Raleigh tried to boss Kalee around until she had to take a bath and go to bed.  Thank you Kalee for being so patient with our sweet girl and watching hours of Mickey with her!  After princess went to bed, we stayed up way to late watching "shark week"  and I worked on more shower and school stuff. 

A week in our life- Friday

Fridays are Clint's day off...well, sort of.  It all just depends on what he has going on and if he needs to go into the office or not.  Most of the time we get to spend parts of Friday as a family.  He gets up early and goes to Friday morning men's Bible study and usually gets home around 8:30 or 9:00ish.  Today we are starting on the process of clearing out the baby room by cleaning the garage.  I know it seems a little bit odd to start in the garage, but we have to clean and organize the garage so that we can have a place to put the extra furniture from the guest bedroom/new baby room.  We all got dressed and got to work!!  Right now in our part of Texas it is HOT and has been hot for a while....so I know it seems a little bit crazy to clean out a garage, but we are under the gun to get this done before we add another member to our family.  We worked hard and sweated lots and lots, but we got it done!!  Raleigh spent most of the time in "Ruby" her red car.  She kept getting in and telling us where she was going and then saying, "OK...see you later homie!!"  What in the world??  So funny.  I bet you could never guess that she got that from her dad!  Ha!!  It seriously makes my heart happy now to have space to walk into the garage and see it so organized.  After sweating a TON, we came inside to shower and eat lunch.  After that everyone took a nap...we were seriously zapped by the heat.  We then got ready to go to Justin and Sarah's wedding.  Justin used to be on the Student Ministry staff and we were very excited to go to their wedding.  When we asked Raleigh if she wanted to go or get a babysitter her comment was, "I need to go see apple get married." (she nicknamed Justin apple...we still are not very sure why she named him that)  So the three of us met up with another car load of our sweet friends and headed to the wedding.  We stopped for dinner before and Raleigh requested broccoli and chicken after eating half of my salad...seriously we are so thankful that she eats so well, but what kids begs for broccoli??  At the reception, my pregnant feet in heels were starting to swell, so we decided that it was time to go, but Raleigh needed to talk to apple.  She told him that he looked very handsome and that she liked his hair!!  Ha!!  Such a sweet girl!  What a busy and fun Friday it has been!

A week in our life- Thursday

This morning Clint and I both got up and went for a run (at separate times of course).  I know people think that I am crazy to still try and run this far along in my pregnancy, especially since I hadn't really done anything since our summer sickness, but honestly, when I run lately it is one of the few times that my body doesn't hurt.  I know it sounds bizarre, but it is how I feel.  After getting ready for the day, Clint left for work and Raleigh and I were going to try to get a few things done.  We worked on the laundry (it seems like it is a never ending process), played outside and had several concerts inside :)  When she took a nap, I worked on some shower stuff/computer stuff.  That evening Clint got home a little early from work because I had to go to a meeting at 6 pm.  Raleigh was so excited to spend the evening with her favorite captive audience-her daddy!  I got home to a house where everyone was asleep!!  Raleigh was in bed, Clint was asleep on the couch, and Titus was asleep on one of the chairs!!!  How Clint can fall asleep while watching shark week without having nightmares, I will never know.  We watched a little more shark week and then quickly went to bed and called it a night.

Here is a quick video of one of Raleigh's concerts from the day.  Sorry it is sideways....I don't know what I was thinking when I shot this!

A week in our life- Wednesday

This morning I got up and finished doing research on going potty (I know, it sounds like a great start to anyone's day)...and decided on a method that we would try...and decided on waiting till Monday to start!   There were just a few things that we needed to do on our end before we started to try and help make this process be the easiest and most successful as possible.  So, this put a little bit of change in our plans.  Clint went to work and Ra and I went to run some errands.  We finished getting items for Raleigh's potty training adventure and stuff for NaNa's shower.  She is so excited about her "big girl" panties!!  Let's pray that she stays excited as we try to get her to wear them for good.  By the time we got home it was lunch time, quickly followed by nap time.  We worked on stuff for Natalie's shower when Raleigh got up.  She likes to call anything that we do that resembles being creative "a craft." HA!  So we worked on "her craft" for NaNa's shower.  We of course needed to work out our craftiness after that by playing outside for a little bit!!  She and I had dinner and a bath and daddy got home from work in time to watch a little mickey and tuck in our sweet little girl! As for the other child, as soon as I sit down in the evening is when he tends to get really excited about the day.  He is quite the kicking maniac!

Here Raleigh is with the "really, really, big pom pom" that we just HAD to make!!! The others were much smaller...watch out Martha Stewart...we have a crafty girl on our hands!

A week in our life- Tuesday

Today we had lots to get done around the house, especially since yesterday I did nothing during Ra's nap.  We all got up and took dad to work (his car is still in the shop) and Raleigh and I headed to go shopping at one of my least favorite places to go/one of her favorite places...Walmart!  It always tends to take us forever when we go, but the need to eat always overcomes my ill feelings for that place.  What we have started doing is going to Walmart knowing that when we finish we can stop at the McDonald's that is inside on the way out.  We get home and she starts having a picnic with her happy meal and watches one of her favorite TV shows Bubble guppies while I unload the groceries.  Today I definitely thought on more than one occasion, "How in the world am I going to do this with two kids?"  After lunch Raleigh helped me start on the laundry.  I am so thankful for how much of a game she thinks it is to find stains and help shove as many  clothes in our washing machine!!  She then "did a craft" as she likes to call it, while I tried to straighten up the house.  During her nap time, I cleaned the house.  There is not much to say about that except that it was pretty gross, but now is clean.  Ra got up from her nap and had a snack and then we played hide and seek for a little bit and I tried to get ready (I hadn't put on any kind of makeup or anything yet).  Clint got his car back sometime during the day, so we didn't need to go and get him, but he came home around 6.  At 6:30ish some of our sweet high school girls came over to hang out.  Raleigh was so excited that "her girls were coming to see her!"  She greeted them at the door with, "It is so nice to see you." So funny!  She then put on quite the performance for them until she and her daddy left for a date together.  With the girls over, we ordered pizza, hung out, and made a fruit pizza.  It was so fun!!  During the crazy week, I don't always get the chance to talk to all of them for a long time, but tonight we just got to catch up.  Raleigh and Clint  came home with a surprise from their date...beautiful flowers!!  They are so sweet to think about me even when we are not together.  It was a late night, but so great to spend time and catch up with my, excuse me, with Raleigh's girls.

A week in our life-Monday

Many times I often wonder, "where has our week gone?"  We always seem soooo busy!!!  I decided that periodically we would document what we do on a daily basis so that we can look back and see what in the world we did when Raleigh was 2 years and 5 months and still waiting on Thad's arrival!  Sorry for the mundane, and we won't disown you if you skip over these posts. Ha!!

OK, so here we go!!  On Monday morning Clint got up early and went for a run.  He is training for his first marathon that he will run in December.  I was so proud of him running while I continued to sleep on the couch :)  I have started to sleep on the couch a lot because for some weird reason it is the only place that I can lay down without Thad pretending to play soccer inside my stomach!  After Clint got back, we normally spend the morning getting ready, eating breakfast, having quiet times, etc..  Since Raleigh needs her beauty sleep for about 11-12 hours a night (no matter what time she goes to bed), I was going to let her sleep in a little bit.  Sleeping beauty had to get up a little bit earlier because we had to take daddy to work (his car is in the shop).  So we took daddy to work and came home to get ready for baby Thad's Dr. appointment.  We try to keep doctor appointments on Friday because that is Clint's day off and (especially with baby appointments) it gives him the chance to come to/help with doctor appointments.  We switched this appointment last minute and Raleigh girl and I were on our own.  We went to the doctor and Raleigh did fantastic!!  She had no desire to sit with me, but sat in a chair in the room.  The whole time during the check up she constantly reassured me that everything was going to be OK and that she would protect me!!  Such a funny and sweet girl!!  After our appointment, we were going to run some errands, but we got out of the office much later than expected, so we decided to go get  daddy and take him to lunch.  After lunch Raleigh and I headed home (it was close to nap time).  She took a nap, I tried to lay down but got sick (thanks baby Thad).  When Raleigh got up we played in the playroom and I tried to get a few things done while we waited for daddy to get home for dinner.  Clint gets home at a different time every night, so we just play everything by ear.  He called around six to politely remind us that his car was in the shop!  We were so busy doing our thing that the thought didn't cross our minds to go get daddy.  We quickly went and got daddy and came home and had a picnic dinner while we tried to catch up on lots of hours of So you think you can dance that is on the dvr.  After that we went on a family walk, got Raleigh ready for bed, and called it a day.
Here is a short video of her trying to explain what baby Thad's heartbeat sounded like.