16 Months

Zeeky Baby - you are 16 months old as of Sunday the 27th!!

I told you I wanted to get better at writing down your milestones and new words, etc. like I used to be good at when you were an infant.  A few days late...not terrible, right?! :)

You are growing by leaps and bounds each month.  It's incredible to see.

Munchin on sweet potato fries!

16 Months

• You started full on running this month.  When we're at a park or somewhere, I'll say "run run run!" and you look up at me, giggle and start going!
• You no longer like peas.  That was short lived.
• You are absolutely obsessed with sweet potatoes (yams).  Mashed, fries and chips.  You don't care how.  You just want 'em.
• I forgot to say last time, but for a few months now you have been saying, "baby", "uh oh" and "bye bye".  
• New words this month:
• "Wawoah?" - "Hello?"  You always pick up mine or daddy's phones, put them to your ear and ask "wawoah?"  So adorable.
• "Wader" - Water
• "Ba" - Bath
• "Dandaou" - Shoe...but I think you got stuck on me saying "sandal" and that's just want you call all shoes now.
•  "Chi" - Chip
• "Mama" - you used to kind of say mama a LONG time ago, like maybe around 10 months.  And then you just stopped.  It was all about dada.  Now you say mama a LOT!

• New animal noises:
• "Ah ah!" - Monkey
•  You put together your first little phrase, all on your own!  When we're leaving our house or anywhere really, or getting your shoes on, you say "bye bye Zeeky!" Except Zeeky sounds more like "Zeechy"... not a "cha" sound but more of a "he" sound.  I was so proud of you when you first started that!  Now when we're getting ready to leave, we say, "bye bye Zeeky" to you and you run over to us and sit down to get your shoes on.
• Otherwise, you are just chatting up a storm ALL THE TIME.  You are nonstop.  Reminds me of your grandpa Ron, who always got in trouble in grade school for constantly talking. 
•  You really enjoy baths in the sink.  We do this about every night, and I unload the dishwasher and clean up while you splash around.  You ALWAYS have to have a rubber spatula in the sink with you.  It's your toy of choice.
• You learned how to knock on the front door and call for me, when you want to come in from playing outside with dad!
• You've been really becoming daddy's little best friend lately.  Especially with my pregnancy and headcold, you have been spending LOTS of time with daddy and you LOVE it.  You are having so much fun just hanging around with dada.  It's so cute to watch you just be a boy outside playing with dad. :)

Little man, you are growing up so fast.  More and more people have been telling me, "he's such a little boy now!".  You are almost out of baby-dom.  Maybe you'll finally get to complete boy-hood when you get some teeth!!!  Gah.  I just hope you get a few before your brother or sister is born! ;)

I love you, Zeek!  I can't imagine living any of my days without you and the total joy that you are.

Love,
Mom

Grandkid's Birthday Board

What?! A craft post?! Finally?! 

Yeah, don't get too excited.

This post is three weeks overdue.

I'm still battling a cold over here.

But I'm not going to talk about that today. (Don't worry, I won't talk about it tomorrow either.)

This is the story of how we shared with our parents that we are waiting on #2!

With Ezekiel, we found out we were expecting a couple weeks before Father's day. 

I thought the best way to share with our parents was to make little scrapbooks for each of our dad's.

We took pictures from when we were younger and would include a picture and blurb about what we remember and are thankful for our father's for, on each page.

At the end of the book, we told them that we loved them.

And then, we told them that the baby loved them, and included a due date and pregnancy test picture.

My mom still has her book out in her living room. :)

It was fun to do a little scrapbooking (since I rarely do anymore) and it was a fun way to share with the family our exciting news.

With this baby, we found out just a week before Mother's Day.

Naturally, I wanted to do something for our mother's to announce the news!  Only seemed fair. ;)

My MIL had mentioned a while ago about seeing letters spelled out to say "Grandkids" and liked the idea of putting something like that in the spare (grandbaby) bedroom, where she has a wall of pictures of Ezekiel and his cousin Lincoln.

Before I knew I was pregnant, I planned to make a sign for her with a board, some vinyl and my Silhouette machine.  Once I found out I was pregnant, I decided to add a little additional to it - as our way of announcing, and also decided my mother needed one too!

I bought boards (about 6"x30") from Lowe's and 4 little plaques for each board from Michael's.  I found the hardware I needed from Ace Hardware (S hooks, eye hooks, saw tooth hangers).  

I spray painted the boards and plaques black and bought a white vinyl to put against the black.

After each board was dry, I sanded the edges to clean it up a little bit and give it more of a polished look.  In hindsight (and with a little more time than a week to whip these up!), I would've sanded each board first (before painting) as well.  I found a font that I liked and cut out "Grandkids" and each grandchild's name and birthday on my Silhouette.

I added the eye hooks to the boards and plaques, the saw tooth hangers to the back of the boards, and they were done!

Drilling holes for the eye hooks.

Eye hooks connected by S hook.

 Saw tooth hooks on the back!

Of course, I didn't hang these in my house, so they are just laying on my floor how they would hang. :)  Also, these were taken with my iPhone because I couldn't find the charger for my dead Nikon!  

I really like how they turned out!  I want to make one for ourselves now, except "Family" (obviously we don't have grandkids!) :)

I added three hooks on the main board to represent me, my brother and my sister.  This is how it would look if all three of us siblings had kids.  Since both my brother and Skyler's brother do not yet have kids, the middle hook on both boards are empty for now.

My kids and my sister's kids. :)  Empty hook for my bro.

Skyler's kids and his sister's kids - again empty hook for his brother's future kids!

 I added the due date to the plaque of our future baby - because this is just vinyl, I can always easily scrape off the date and put the actual birth date and name on, later down the road. :)  (Same with Skyler's sister's son Sawyer - not yet born!)

Anyway, I'm really bummed that I couldn't find my camera charger because these iPhone pics just aren't doin' it for me!  I'll try to take pictures after these are hanging up in the grandparents' homes. :)

After I make one for myself and can take "proper" pictures, I'm going to add these to the shop!

 And that's it for crafts with Kayla for now! ;)

This girl is pooped and going to bed.

 Goodnight!

(But good morning to YOU!)

Love,

K

Sharing at the Trendy Treehouse, Creations By Kara, and Sugar and Dots today!

iLove Instagrams (23) and Slight Changes...

You probably noticed I updated a few things around here, most noticeably, my header.

I decided that 10 months was long enough of the same header - especially since Ezekiel isn't 6 month's anymore - he's 16 months!  Slightly more grown up than the picture in the last header. :)
Plus, now it sort of coordinates with the shop!
See, there are multiple reasons why it was time. ;)

The photo in the header was one of the ones my friend took for us during our family photo shoot.

Aside from the header, not too much else changed.  If you remember the last time I changed my header, I'm slow to accept and want change. ;)

It's also been ... oh, almost 3 months, since I joined in the weekly Insta-Friday linky party with Jeanette, so I thought I'd better catch up my blog with some of my favorite Instagram photo's since the last post.

If you follow me on Instagram, you've probably seen several of these.

Here goes:

 Marble bin in a toy store in Corvallis.

Couldn't get this kid away from it for at least 15 minutes!

Zeek's first snow trip!

I looove fresh flowers in my house!

Does everybody know what time it is?!

TOOL TIME! 

When Zeek naps... :)

Coffee and Esther. 

Trip to Lowes = play on the "tractors".

"ok, darling, if you insist..."

"Don't worry dad, I'll change the lightbulb!"

Text pictures sent to Skyler, announcing a baby in my tummy. :)

 This boy has been obsessed with daddy lately! 

Bye-bye snuggles.

Skyler's growing mushrooms on top of our fridge...

See?

 Just me.

Big boy pushing the shopping cart all over the store!

Just his routine morning streak.

 Cutest jammies ever. :)

Mama/Zeek date to the mall to watch ice skaters!

Swingin' with Grandma!

This is not how you drive a car, son!

Tired of using a spoon?

Just drink your dinner! 

My fave ever naked bunnies.

 

 Snails and frog legs? No thanks.

Spring rolls and some Thai ... dish... thing?

My lifesaver lately!

What my world has looked like for the last three days...

I'm starting to kick this head-cold finally.

Feeling mostly better, thanks to an amazing husband who has been taking Zeek out and about for hours at a time, so I can rest.

Hopefully I'll be back to my sorta normal blogging next week. :)

P.S. If you don't yet, you can follow me on Instagram here.

Love,

K

I'm Still Here.

Sorta.

Kinda.

I mean, physically, I'm still here.

I got a bad head cold on Friday evening.

On top of being pregnant and nauseous.

I always get annoyed when people want to get pregnant so bad and then as soon as they're pregnant and they don't feel good, they complain constantly.

So, I'm not here to complain.

I'm thankful for my nausea and my extreme tiredness.

Really.

The added on head cold and sinus stuff I could do without, however.

I think God had grace on me on Sunday because after a miserable day on Saturday, where I called my mom at 1 pm and practically cried to her on the phone and begged her to come up to my house and keep Zeek occupied as I prepared everything for our paintball tournament on Sunday, and after only 4 hours of sleep Saturday night before waking up at 4 am to leave for our event - I actually felt really pretty good on Sunday.  Had a couple cough drops, but otherwise felt good as new.

The event went really well and we had our biggest event yet with 38 teams competing and 163 players!

It was crazy to sit back and think about when we started it 3 and 1/2 years ago and there were 9 teams, and to see where it's at now.  Makes a girl proud of her husband for all his hard work and great new ideas. :)

Anyway, after a loooong (but fun) day on Sunday, I had to drive down to Albany (45 min. south of our house) to pick up Ezekiel from Grandma's house.  I got there at 10:45 and just stayed the night instead of driving back up.  Monday...I crashed, hard.  I laid around in my pajama's all day and Ezekiel watched movie after move after movie.  And I didn't care.

Today, I don't feel much better.

The boys are out and about for a few hours running some errands and just letting mama have a quiet house.

So, I'd better take advantage and take a nap to try to kick this head cold.

But I wanted to say "hi" and "I'm still alive". 

Hope you guys had a great weekend. :)

Love,

K

Pregnant.

Yuuuuup.

If you missed it, I made the announcement here.

We are now just over 7 weeks pregnant with number 2!

We really couldn't be more excited!  We've been ready for this since September.

Just a few weeks ago, I was telling the ladies in my Bible Study group how hard it has been to wait on God's timing when it felt right for our timing.

And then, two weeks later, in the morning just before Bible Study again, I took a test and learned about number 2!

I've already been asked so many times how I'm feeling, even since we just announced it on Friday.

I love how caring and attentive people are of pregnant women.  It always shocks me. :)

So...how have I been feeling?

Mostly pretty good.

Tired.  REALLY tired.  A little nauseous here and there.  Had a hard time grocery shopping the other night.  Tired.  I want naps.  My chest hurts.  HUNGRY.  I'm always starving.  And I go to bed now at 10 pm instead of 2:30 am.  I wake up now around 6 every morning, instead of 9:30 or 10 and have to use the bathroom IMMEDIATELY.  I always get back in bed, hopeful of falling back asleep for a few hours... But within about 15 minutes, I realize that there's no way I will be able to fall back asleep because of how deeply my stomach is now growling.  I'm tired often.  And when I'm not sleeping, I'm starving.

That's how I feel. :)

But I am so thankful to have these feelings again.

So thankful to have another little Blessing growing inside of me!

Just tonight, I was driving home from a friend's house and thinking about Ezekiel.

I thought about his little dark beady eyes in the first day or two of his life.

I thought about how quiet and calm he was.

I thought about his bright blue, sparkling eyes now.

I thought about how energetic, hilarious, FUN little guy with a huge personality he is now.

And I thought about how on day one of his life, I would never in a million years have guessed how incredibly awesome and FUNNY he would be at 15 months.

And I thought about how we'll have one more little person to love on and watch bloom into another amazing human being.  What a fun ride. :)

The night before we found out that we were pregnant, I sat at the kitchen table eating a bowl of some leftover Thai food.  Skyler came over and dipped his fork in and I told him that I planned on eating all of it, so back off! :)  He said, "no way, that's a huge bowl, you can't eat all that!  You oinker!" 

Don't ever call a woman an oinker.

Even if she IS.

Boy howdy, that made me mad!

 I told him to NEVER call me an oinker and HOW rude of him!

He immediately retaliated with, "you MUST be pregnant!  You would never get offended at me calling you an oinker!  Go take a test!".

I told him I would in the morning. :)

I guess my husband knows me better than I know myself.

At that time, I didn't feel pregnant at all.

Now?  Definitely.

Definitely feel pregnant.

I'm praying that this is an easy first trimester, like it was with Zeek.

With Zeek I had only 3 weeks of nausea that really wasn't too bad.

I never once threw up.  (Until labor, that is).

This is definitely different the second time around because I cannot nap and lounge as I please.

I was just having a discussion with my friend Rachel about how Skyler is so gracious with me and NEVER complains about our laundry pile and never gets on my case about it.

Until this week....

He complained about not having underwear and socks.

Legitimate.

I haven't done laundry in a week.

I barely made food for anyone this week.

I've sat on "my spot" on the couch more than usual.

My house is a wreck.

For the first time, I don't care.

That much.

I care, but not enough to get off my sick butt.

I've been busy with making stuff for Wood & Thimble, which I launched just a 7 days ago.

We have another paintball event this weekend to prepare for.

I'm praying Ezekiel is a good boy this week and lets me get stuff done, with the little energy I do have.

Cuz, mama's got lots to do!

Sorry this post is all over the map.

That's how I feel in my brain right now.

So. Much. To. Do.

And I don't usually feel that way, even though we are constantly busy people.

But this week...I feel it.

Say a prayer for me to get everything done!

And that our event goes smoothly this weekend!

Hope you all had a fantastic Monday. :)

Love,

K

One of My Favorite Days so Far.

Happy Monday!

I hope you all had a great weekend and that you mom's had an awesome Mother's Day!

We had a BLAST yesterday.

I know I said I wanted a poop-duty free day.

A day with clean clothes, craft time, and a nap.

None of that happened, but it was amazing despite that.

We started off with a delicious breakfast at home, cooked by Skyler.

By noon, we had the car packed and bike's on the rack and headed South on I-5.

Skyler really was adamant about wanting to take Ezekiel to Enchanted Forest, even if for a couple hours.  I argued that it was naptime and he should really just nap for the car-ride to Corvallis, but ultimately Skyler won me over and I agreed to Enchanted Forest.  

For no nap until 3:30, Zeek did awesome!

(For you non-Oregonian's, Enchanted Forest is right here in Salem and is the "amusement park" of Oregon.  Open for 6 months of the year. :))

We had so much fun reliving our childhood and letting Ezekiel experience the park for the first time in his childhood!  

Hansel & Gretel

Skyler coming out of Alice in Wonderland's tunnel.  We couldn't get Zeek to go through!  Too dark! :)

Goin' through the maze.

Enchanted Forest's iconic witch slide.

Going through the crooked house!

Zeek saw the statue of the wolf from Red Riding Hood and BUSTED up laughing.  And woofing.  (Or "wolfing". HA!)

Silly "dog" had a hat on his head!
  And apparently that was hilarious.

We couldn't get him to leave. :)

  The Old Lady Who Lived In the Shoe slide!

...Which Zeek hated.

But he made everyone else laugh. 

Thought maybe he'd do better going with mama.

Nope, worse.  He shrieked like a little girl. 

 Western Town.

Peeking on people from the Indian Caves.

After spending 3 and half hours at the park, we finally headed on to Corvallis, home of Oregon State University (my old hometown and one of my favorite cities!).

 We took Zeek to the Riverfront and let him run around in his swimsuit in the fountains.

He wasn't sure what to think of it exactly - but watching the bigger kids sure made him laugh!

 

He loved climbing on the rocks!

This boy LOVES cups!  Some kids were playing with some and their mom was kind enough to offer one to Zeek to play with...after he stole one from their pile.  :)

It started cooling off a little more, so we dried Zeek off and loaded up the bikes for a ride through town!

Corvallis has the BEST bike trails.  I love going there to ride bikes.

We took a pit stop in Cole's Crossing - a neighborhood that the old company I worked for built.

This is the Kayla house.

The plans were named after me while I worked there, but I quit working there before it actually got built, so this was the first time I got to check it out in person! 

It's dorky...but my dorky-self thinks it's pretty cool to have a building named after you! ;)

Covered bridge!  I LOVE the covered bridges in Oregon!

I want to plan a little road trip to stop and see them all sometime. :)

This one goes right through the OSU farms.

We tried to stop at my favorite Corvallis restaurant - Nearly Normal's - for dinner, but they were closed on Sunday. :(  We settled for the next best - McMenamin's!  They have great food but are known for their terrible service.  This time was no different - we were seated and then never checked on or even brought water to for at least 15-20 minutes, before I finally got up and asked someone if there was a waiter assigned to our table!  

It wasn't a disappointment, because everytime we go there, we go knowing service will be crappy.  :)

FOOD was great.  Turkey sandwich with sweet potato fries and some ginger ale (my new favorite!).

By the time dinner was over, it was almost 9, so we rode back to the Riverfront to our car and packed up and went home.

It was THE most fun day I've had in a long time.

Maybe tied with Cannon Beach.

But maybe in the lead by a little. :)

And now, this mama is tired from a long day in the sun.

I've got a full day tomorrow too - gotta get 4 map art's from Wood & Thimble out in the mail!

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend and Mother's Day!

Love,

K