Monday night’s snow didn’t stick.  I listened attentively to the radio in the morning, snuggling with my covers and pillow, waiting for the late start announcement that never came.  Not a single adjustment to schedules.  What a disappointment! 

Tonight we may get a bit more…we can cross our fingers for tomorrow!

Here’s a quick pic update – it’s snowing! Hopefully it’ll continue and we can have school off tomorrow…and we can use (shhh) *peyton’s christmas present from Gramma and Papa Z * if we get enough accumulation…

Here are a few from decorating the tree. That’s a really giant ornament that we hid in my shirt.

Here are a few from tonight.  When we first realized it was snowing, we quickly threw some warm clothes on Peyton and went outside for a few minutes.

Okay, I couldn’t pass this up – only a comment on a website and I could win

For clarification’s sake, the children are not part of the giveaway, although sometimes a mom may feel like it…

Oh, and don’t forget about the retro-cars!

First, Thanksgiving was wonderful - we spent time together in the morning with a special cinnamon roll & orange juice breakfast, then we worked on cleaning up the house   Peyton went down for an early nap (but never fell asleep) so we could make it to Uncle Gordon’s by 2:30.  We had a lot of fun at Uncle Gordon’s - they also had the Eaden family over, so Peyton was running and wrestling and “fighting” for almost the entire afternoon!  He took a few rides with Steven on the 4-wheeler, and he even played a few games of Uno (and won one of them!) with us before we had dessert.   

Today I’ve had a few pleasant surprises – this morning I stopped by the thrift store and found a decent dresser for our little girl AND a bookshelf-style headboard for Peyton.  I’ve been watching and contacting Craig’s list people for a while and it seems like no one wants to get back to me!  We also looked at a few nearby furniture stores, but the cost was going to be high.  I’m SO happy we found what we did – both items will need to be refinished (and I’m not sure I’m allowed to do that while pregnant), but they can wait until next year if necessary.  It just feels SO good to know that I can start putting her clothes away where they belong AND we saved tons of money.  Oh, and FedEx came a day early with an order of little girl shoes that I bought in an 85% off sale from DarlingShoes.com.  If you need little girl shoes, visit the website and type City85 into the code box in your shopping cart and the discount will apply.

After we brought the dresser home this morning, ate some leftovers from Uncle Gordon’s Thanksgiving feast yesterday (we couldn’t fit all the food on the table!), and put Peyton down for his nap, I put up the border in Lauren’s room.  It looks SO cute – here’s a new pic of the bedding next to the finished product   The wall looks a bit greener in this picture - it’s the same green as the leaves on her bedding.

We’re about to start on the Christmas decorations – Peyton’s very excited to get the tree up.  He continues to watch for snow in the mornings, as it’s been very cold here the last few days.  When there are clouds in the sky, the heat stays in, but when the sun shines and there are no clouds in the sky, it can get cold!  The last few nights have been about 10 degrees below freezing, so the world is frosted over when we get up in the morning.  During the day the sun is beautiful and keeps the house warm, but don’t be fooled – wear a beanie and gloves to keep yourself warmer than the 35* air temperature!

Peyton and I put the first coat of french lilac on the top half of the baby’s room last night, then we did a second coat this morning before painting two coats of pale sea mist green on the bottom half of room.  At first the green looked a lot yellower than we’d expected, but it dried to a darker, more acceptable color.  When the second coat is dry, I think it’ll be fine.  Here’s a picture of the room at this point – it definitely shows the yellow undertones, but the room looks a lot greener than yellow in person.  I guess you’ll all have to come visit to see…

After letting the paint dry well, I’ll be able to work on the border.  I’ve never done a border before – I was reading up on how to put up wallpaper borders and I have to say I’m a little bit nervous about it.  I want to make sure we get it right!

Peyton came along with me to the ultrasound today; I let him be the first to tell Daddy that our baby is a boy!  But then Peyton immediately spilled the beans that we were tricking Daddy before our joke could get out of hand   (In other words, she’s still a she

Besides the long wait, everything was looking fine.  The first thing we saw was her face right as she was giving a gigantic yawn.  Doctor checked her heart (last time she was lying sideways so he couldn’t measure) and it looks good, then he double-checked the gender issue and she’s still definitely a girl, so we’re free to paint in purple and green this weekend.  Then we looked to her face again to see if we could get a good picture, and this time we saw her profile as she brought her hand to her mouth to suck her thumb   We got a decent pic of her profile (above) - she looks like she’s got chubby little cheeks already!  Other than that she looks a lot like her big brother at this point.  At the same time, however, she’s very different from Peyton – he never sucked his thumb, nor did he ever take a pacifier!

Nothing like a little [spring] cleaning to welcome the holidays -

On the brink of Thanksgiving break, James and I (along with the somewhat-helpful Peyton and the more-of-an-obstruction Lauren) have been getting our house in order.  While I was teaching an SAT prep class last Saturday, James and Peyton cleaned the kitchen and living room for me.  On Sunday afternoon Peyton and I organized and cleaned the front room and his bedroom, then we celebrated veteran’s day by relocating all the junk that had been in baby’s room.  Peyton and I washed the walls to prep for a fresh coat of french lilac and/or pale sea mist or dark linen [both greens] paint (for samples, check out the benjamin moore website’s personal color viewer – just pick a bedroom, then type the color names in the search box).

Today we stopped by the paint store to pick up another roll of painters’ tape and to get some color samples.  The people at Terry’s Paints are awesome at finding just the right colors to complement a fabric swatch, so I brought in baby’s bedding and told them I was thinking about purple and/or green.  We brought home some samples and I think I’m going to paint the bottom half of the room green, the top half purple, and put the border around the middle.  When we got home I taped the wood trim to make sure it remains unpainted.  All I have to do is measure and tape around the middle so I know where to put the border and I’m ready to paint!

Tomorrow Peyton will accompany me to my doctor visit and ultrasound – hopefully Lauren will have turned the right way so Dr. Cook can measure her heart.  Oh, and it would also be nice if we can confirm that she is still a she.

Then we can buy paint on Friday.

This weekend will be spent painting.  After we paint we can shop for a dresser for her room, then I can go through Peyton’s old baby clothes to see what can be used and what can be put away.  We’ll also assemble her crib and some of the new baby equipment to make sure all the pieces are there before the 90-day return policies end.  I’ll need to replace the broken miniblinds with a blackout shade, sheers and the valance that came with the bedding.  I also have some cut-to-sew blankets that might be in need of lace or crochet, and some Bear-Beatitudes fabric that I started making wall-hangings of during the short time that Peyton was a girl are also in need of lace trim.

Thanksgiving, Christmas decorating, Christmas, Christmas de-decorating, Peyton’s birthday…the holidays are going to slip by so quickly!  (and the four weeks after that will probably feel eternal)

James and I were uncertain on whether or not to order school pictures for Peyton. Would he smile nicely? Would he act like a goofball? We wouldn’t be able to preview the pictures before paying, so we thought maybe we’d be better off getting them done in a department store. We continued to waffle on the idea until we noticed a “satisfaction guaranteed” stamp on the picture paperwork, so I filled it out and wrote the check only minutes before we left for school that day.

And how cute they came out! When they said satisfaction guaranteed, I didn’t know they meant it!

In other news, we’re spending our 3 day weekend cleaning out the baby’s room. Next weekend we’ll paint (we have another ultrasound on Thursday – we’re expecting confirmation on a girl, even though we’re mostly likely sticking with a neutral green color), then over Thanksgiving break we can get her a dresser and put together the swing and the other baby gear. I’ll also have the space to go through Peyton’s old clothes and see what we can reuse.

Peyton has been asking when his baby will come out (and when I’ll be home from work), so I thought we should find a tangible way to explain time to him.

Tonight he and I colored some scrap paper and cut out 14 links to make a chain.  We wrote weeks on the links, and we colored pictures, then we taped them together to mark the passage of time.  We even made an extra link to mark the week that Grandma and Uncle Tyler are going to come visit us after baby comes.

Peyton is really growing up.  I drew lines on his paper and thought I’d let him try to cut the links out.  He did a perfect job!  He was so careful and really took his time. 

He’s also been coloring letters lately.  I’m not sure when he learned, but he knows how to write a letter P.  He has an idea of how to write the other letters of his name – I think the E often has extra prong or two, the Y and the T look remarkably similar, the O is perfect, and the N…I think he needs to work on the N. 

And it’s bedtime.  I know I haven’t updated in a while, but it’s bedtime.  I’m so tired!  We’re into the third trimester this week, and I feel it.  I’m exhausted despite getting plenty of sleep, I have heartburn (well, I guess I probably shouldn’t have had the pizza…or the tacos…in the first place), and did I mention I’m ready for bed?

3 months to go…