Noah's Room

Well I title this blogpost Noah's room because he doesn't have a nursery. Cliff and I thought ALOT about how we were going to do the room situation and after thinking of every possibility, finally came up with a solution. Our first thought was to move Aidan downstairs to our 4th bedroom. However, we decided against this because even though he will be the oldest of three kids, he is just still way to young. If there were a fire or some other emergency we didn't feel he would know what to do. We also just liked the idea of having all the kids on the same floor as us. We then thought about putting a second crib in either Aidan or Ryla's room but decided against this because we didn't want to mess with them waking each other up. So......I then decided that Noah could just stay in our room. This wasn't a huge deal considering that we have done this with the other two....but that was only for a few weeks. This is going to be an adjustment because it will probably be up to 6 months. Ryla is no where near ready to move out of a crib so we would like to wait til she is around 20 months to put her in a bigger bed. We moved Aidan at 18 months and he did great.

So now the plan is to purchase bunkbeds for Aidan's room in the next 4 months or so. When Ryla is big enough she will go in with Aidan on the bottom bunk and we will use her pretty pink nursery (poor Noah) for Noah until he is able to go in the bunkbeds with Aidan. This means that for about a year or so Ryla will be in a room with Aidan. We will keep all her stuff in her room, she will just sleep in Aidan's room. It's not exactly how I pictured it going but as I said we feel it is the best solution so we can have all our kiddos close to us.

It has been pretty nice, however, to not have to worry about doing ANOTHER nursery. I have done three now (with the move) in three years so I don't feel sad about it. It was hard, however, because I am going through my nesting stage and I didn't feel that I had too much to do which left me feeling unprepared. It is such a blessing that Aidan and Noah are born in the same season and that I thankfully had not gotten rid of Aidan's clothes yet. So he was totally set in that department. So when I was talking to some women at church about a shower I told them I didn't really think it was necessary but that we could benefit from some gift cards to get him a little bed for our room. The church gave us some of the giftcards a couple of weeks ago so that we could go ahead and purchase the bed for Noah.

The bed was another stressor several months ago. I looked into mini cribs but they were still pretty big to go in our room. Our room is already small as it is. The bedding for mini cribs is also very expensive and hard to find. We then looked into playpens. We have two playpens but I really wanted one that had a bottom that you could raise so that I wouldn't have to bend down so far so much. We had decided on that but then set up one of our playpens in our room and it still seemed pretty tight. So then I found a GRACO light pac n play. This is the same thing as we had found before but just a little bigger than a bassinet. We had used an actual bassinet for the other two but once they can roll over you can't use them anymore. With the mini pac n play it has three adjustments for newborn, infant, and then up to 20 pounds. I fell in love with it. I got it in last week and set it up and it looks like it is going to work out perfectly. I was especially happy to see how thick the pad was. I think he will be very comphy. I then cleaned out my dresser and was able to downsize to give him a couple of drawers just for him. I was able to get everything to fit with just having to put some of his church outfits in Ryla's closet. So now they can each have their own room and nap times should not be so much of an issue. (Still crazy to me that I will have three kids who will all take long naps!!!)

We also got a nice surprise on XMAS eve. A lady from our church called and said that she heard we were in need of another glider with our upcoming addition. Her kids are now older and she didn't need hers anymore. We went to pick it up and it is amazing. It is a really nice one from Babies R Us and you can't even tell it has been used. We set it up where our XMAS tree was and it fits perfectly. So we now still can keep Ryla's glider in her room and have a place to rock Noah in the middle of the night without having to go into her room. Such a blessing.

We are getting so close and it still does not seem real. I have my 36 week check up in a couple of weeks already. Ryla has just started sleeping through the night in the last month or so which has been great. Took her one month less than Aidan...LOL. She has taken several steps but don't know if I would say she is walking yet. Aidan is doing great and has been saying a lot less that he doesn't want baby Noah to come out which is good. All in all we are ready to become a family of five. Just a few more odds and ends to take care of!!


His two drawers.


The only complaint I found online about the pac n play was that people couldn't find a sheet small enough for it. I ended up buying a cover for a changing pad that worked out perfectly!
This is one of my favorite things....It fits threw the doors without having to take it down!

Christmas 2011

We had a great Christmas at home this year! On Christmas Eve we watched some Christmas movies, made cookies for Santa, and went and looked at Christmas lights! Aidan was really excited about Santa coming. It was so cute to see him put out milk and cookies and open up the fire place. He was very concerned that Santa wouldn't fit. LOL.... We let them each open up one present on Christmas Eve which made him even more excited to open presents the next day. After we put the kiddos down, our friends Clint and Jennifer came over to watch a movie with us while Cliff and I wrapped presents. Aidan was up to 10:00 because he was so excited. He stayed in his bed and was quiet but when we went to check on him we found out that he was waiting up because he wanted to see Santa and was still scared that Santa wouldn't fit. It was pretty cute!

Cliff and I woke up early Christmas day and got lunch ready and got ready for church. When the kids got up we unwrapped presents. Aidan was very excited about his gifts and Ryla was not so excited about the gifts but LOVED the wrapping paper. We then ate our donuts and headed to church service. It was nice to see friends and to celebrate with people we love.

We spent the rest of the afternoon lounging, watching TV, and enjoying our family time. Altogether it was a very relaxing and fun filled weekend!

Putting Santa's milk and cookies out!

Opening up the fireplace for Santa!!





Feeding her dolly!!! So cute!!!

This was by far his favorite!!



Best shots we could do of them together.


Pics with Miss Ryla. (Aidan was Mr. Grumpy at this time)


Family pic at church!

The "Rice" Game

Since the weather has turned and we have been stuck inside, I have had to get pretty creative with Aidan to keep him entertained. I found this idea on Pintrest and he LOVES it. He really enjoys baking so I wasn't surprised that this was something he thought was fun. I call it his Rice game. I got out a few mixing bowls and utensils and just for fun, let him put in a few drops of food coloring every now and then. If you ask him what he is making he says ice which is really cute. It really isn't too messy. I just get out my dust buster when he is done and go around the floor of the table. Then I put the rice in a plastic baggy so that he can play with it later.

Ugly Sweater XMAS Party 2011

Cliff and I headed over to our friends the Thompsons this evening for our second annual Couple's Xmas party. This year they made it a ugly sweater xmas party which was fun. This party, once again, reminded me of how blessed we are to have such a wonderful group of friends here in Spokane. It is really hard being away from family, especially around the holidays, so having such a great church family is very nice. I didn't get as many pics as I wanted but was able to grab a few.

Riding Horses

Filming

I finished filming a couple of weeks ago and had a lot of fun. They hired me for 3 days but it ended up being 4 days which was really nice to see in my paycheck. They were long days and one day I filmed until 2 in the morning but all together a very enjoyable experience. One thing I didn't anticipate was how many items I would have to be hooked up to. Since we were shooting the scenes for nursing students everything had to look exactly right as far as monitors and such. So for every scene I was hooked up to a blood pressure cuff, heart monitor, contraction monitor, IV, and that thing that hooks on to the end of your finger (can't remember what it was for). The fun part of that was that I got to listen to little guy's heart beat for 4 days straight.

There was one scene where I was "coding" and having seizures the entire scene. I think I did well but the leader of the code team was having a lot of trouble getting his lines right which meant a lot of seizing for me. By the end of shooting that scene I had a major head ache. LOL. There is a picture of me below looking not so happy in between takes. I really enjoyed the crew. They were very nice and fun to work with. A lot of the other actresses would ask me what agency I worked with. I always replied with...."ugh Craigslist." I didn't even know Spokane had talent agencies. It's kind of funny to me. The producer asked if she could call on me again to work on another project and I said "Sure but I will not be pregnant...." LOL.

Thanksgiving 2011

We had a Wonderful Thanksgiving this year!!! We had some friends from church come over and enjoyed a very relaxing day. I made my first pie ever......I never bake. It turned out pretty good I think. And we had the most amazing turkey. I realized after uploading the pics that I didn't get very many of the kiddos. They spent most of the time playing downstairs and Ryla took a wonderful 3 hour nap from noon to 3. Since we ate at 1 this was wonderful. After lunch we grabbed dessert and watched Dan in Real Life and spent the rest of the evening playing board games. Cliff and I feel very blessed to have such a great church family.