.:Meet the Ritchies:.

I realize this is a few days late, but I had to share it anyway because it’s just too hysterical not to.   So last Wednesday, Mark and the girls went to our friend Ed’s house for a day-before-Thanksgiving dinner.  We offered to bring something and Ed suggested an appetizer of sorts.  So Mark found this online and turned the girls loose with the ingredients to make this masterpiece.  Apparently it was a big hit with the kiddos at the party and there was nothing left but the melon body by the end of the evening!

If you’d like the recipe, go here.

Enjoy!

First you make some grape/cheese kabobs...like so..

...then you stab the melon body, with gusto, as illustrated by Veda's face...

...it requires quiet concentration...

...with a little bit of silliness...and some toothpicks...

..put them all together and you have a Fruit Gobbler!

xoxo

Our sister-in-law Yolanda sent some recent photos of JD, the most handsome little nephew ever!  He turned two in September and he is so tall!  He just looks big in all of his pictures, and he’s so stinking cute with that blonde hair.  I see a lot of his Daddy in him in these recent shots.  But he defnitely has his Mom’s beautiful eyelashes!

We miss you and love you JD & Yolanda!!

She said she made him this corndog because she tries to feed him foods his Daddy liked to eat...

..and judging by this face, I'd say he likes it!

So handsome! I hope our baby boy is at least half as cute!

xoxo

We hope you had as wonderful of a Thanksgiving holiday as we did this year.  We are so blessed to be surrounded by such an abundance of loving and supportive family, and also friends.  And we were fortunate enough this year to spend a little time with so many of them!

We had a lovely meal with the Ritchie family yesterday, hosted by my fabulous in-laws Bill & Betty.  I really hit the jackpot when it comes to finding a man to spend the rest of my days with, and on top of that becoming part of such a gracious and loving family to boot!  That probably sounds extremely cliche, but it’s all true.  Jay and Rachel came from Georgia and it was so good to see them again.  Jay has the best sense of humor and it’s fun to see him tease everyone, he reminds me very much of my Grandpa Brooks who I lost in 1999.  He also had a great sense of humor and a heart of gold.  The food was fantastic, and I made my Aunt Sherrie’s crab/shrimp salad for the first time.  I ate way too much of it, it was just too good not to.   It’s a really simple recipe, I’ll share it on here if you’d like, just leave me a comment!

Enjoy these  family pictures, I didn’t really capture any candids, but it was great to get a group shot of all the families.

Mom-in-law Betty took a lot more pictures than I did, so I made sure to get one of her! You know how it is when you always end up on the other side of the camera.

Veda, Claire and Kayla - I think what they are doing is comparing cell phones... oh, how times have changed...

Mark's cousin Jodi and her beautiful daughter Hailey (she's wearing a headband a made for her last Christmas, she's so sweet!)

Mark's cousin Julie and her adorable girls, Kayla and Grace (the women are tall in the Ritchie family, Grace is only seven!)

Happy Birthday Gracie!!

All the girls with their mother, Mark's Aunt Judy

Mark's cousin Jeff, his beautiful wife Teresa (I wish I had her red hair, it's just gorgeous!) and daughter Becca

My timing was good on this one and I captured Uncle Jay's teasing side!

Seriously now, here is Uncle Jay & Aunt Rachel with son Jeff and family

I was so happy my Mom joined us as well!

Amy, us, Betty & Bill - with Jay watching from above, xoxoxo

And it wouldn't be complete without a group shot!

Have a wonderful weekend!  We plan to finish the painting in the nursery and do some projects in the craft room.  I have a craft fair coming up in a few weeks at work that I need to get some things made for.  I have a few patterns to make some fabric baby shoes, and I am also crocheting some booties as well.  We’ll see how productive I get… so far I haven’t done any more than this blog post!

xoxo

Shirt: Old Navy, Boots: Columbia Sportswear, Leggings: BE Maternity

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Today we had an ultrasound and got to see the little kicking machine up close and personal.  We decided to let the girls come to this appointment since Veda is out of school for Thanksgiving and we just made Claire go in late to school.  She said it was worth it.  We got to see him all folded up, with his hands AND his feet all up by his face.  And now I have a better idea of what part of him is pushing on me when he starts getting rambunctious.  In fact, he proved that he was a wiggle worm by spending the entire hour he was on screen moving all around.  The technician kept remarking that we had a beautiful baby and that he was a mover!  The purpose of this ultrasound was to check on a condition called placenta previa that they had initially diagnosed me with at the first ultrasound at 18 weeks.  Fortunately, even though my placenta is not ideally where it should be, it’s still a bit low, the doctor that looked at our images today stated that there is no reason why I cannot have a natural childbirth.  this is great news!  We had previously been given the news that we were potentially looking at another c-section.  I had really set my heart on doing the actual “I’m going into labor” routine this time around, you know when my water breaks and I say “honey, I think this is it!” and Mark scrambles around trying to get everything in order so we can head for the hospital, while I practice breathing techniques and handle the contractions like a pro.  Haha.. that’s what I envision anyway… we’ll see how it actually goes!

Here are some 3-D pictures of our little football player… we even caught him yawning!

top picture, yawning... bottom picture, just being adorable...

He is a big baby weighing in at 2 pounds, 14 ounces already… which is a bit bigger than they’d like him to be but I have a feeling it might have something to do with my very sugary eating habits.  I tested high on my glucose test on Friday so I have to go back in on Wednesday morning and test again to see if I have gestational diabetes.  That will be a serious bummer, but if it turns out that I have it then perhaps it will be a blessing in disguise.  I do eat a lot of sugary foods, I suffer from a very severe case of chronic sweet tooth and I could use this time to train myself to eat better and not want desserts so badly.  I’ll make lemon out of lemonades, as long as it’s sugar-free!

I hope you have had a great Monday and are buttoning down the hatches for some cold weather.  They keep saying snow is on the way, but I will believe it when I see it.  I still remember last year how often they threatened snow and we’d wake up the next morning to absolutely nothing.

xoxo

This weekend we went over the river and through the woods, well kind of… It’s actually more like through the gorge and over hills but regardless we headed east to Papa Ron & Marta’s (my Dad and stepmom) house this weekend for an early Thanksgiving feast.  It was a beautiful day on Saturday, blue skies and although the temperatures were cold it was still fun to get outside and enjoy what the ranch has to offer us city folks.  We drove over to visit Great Grandma Brooks and meet her little dog Bebay, I wish I would’ve taken pictures while I was there but I didn’t think about it.  I’m losing my touch I think.  While we were there, we looked through her wedding album that she has that contains all the weddings of her children (my Mom and her siblings) and it was fun to see the dresses and hear what memories my mother could recall of each event.  My parents looked like babies when they got married, even though they were 19 they looked more like 14.

As family arrived at Dad’s house on Saturday afternoon the house filled with screaching and laughing children.  And the wine made the ladies all giggly.  Everyone had questions about how my pregnancy was going so far.  And my Aunt Nancy shared her gorgeous wares, Bear Paw Partners while we all ooh’d and aww’d over the purses and bowls!  It was really awesome to have everyone in the same house for a few hours.  My brother and his family, my sister and her crew, my lovely gang and my Grandma Wilson.  Also my Aunt Nancy and Uncle Gerry and my darling parental units!  The feast was super yummy, with my favorites being the broccoli cheese casserole (instead of green bean casserole this year, which I say “yes!” we should do that from now on) and the turkey this year was especially tasty and moist.  It was just the most perfect Wilson Thanksgiving dinner yet!

Claire set the table...

...and Ethan helped her out.

I love you Grandma Wilson!

Looks like trouble! Dad and Uncle Gerry...

Dad and Marta doing some last minute food prep...

Claire cheeses out!

My big sis...

Grandma Trudie with her littles... Wyatt, Claire & Hunter

My beautiful mother!

Claire is seriously outnumbered by boy cousins.. but she loves keeping them entertained!

Group shot! Claire, Veda, Wyatt, Trudie, Nancy, Gerry, Dad, Grandma, Marta, Mandy, Hunter, Paul, Mark, Me, Andi, Tony, Ethan and Ebin

I like to have someone take a picture of me with my brother and sister when we are in the same house for a holiday…

This is very typical of my brother...

....there, that's much better! And wait... is that a... a smile?? oh my, I think it might be...

On Sunday we played outside with Coco the pony, and then Papa Ron took the kids on a Polaris ride down the road…

Andi, Tony, Ebin & Ethan

Claire with Bailey

The doggies get to share some butterscotch horse treats...yes, butterscotch...

Happy Charlie!

Mark and Veda, she rode Coco around quite a bit and even learned how to jump on and off by herself! (well she still needed a little boost from Papa to get on him, but it won't be long before she does it herself!)

Ethan took his first horse ride ever, and to quote him "this is AWESOME!"...

I LOVE this man!!

This is Bob!

And then it was time for a ride on Papa's Polaris! Brrrr!

And of course Claire was also taking pictures, so here are a few from her camera that are too stinking cute!

kids in a tree! They set up the self timer for these... I love that they are all smiling or acting silly - this captures each of their personalities so well.

Goofballs!!

We hope you have a wonderful holiday week!  We have several yummy dinners planned this week, including spending Thursday with Mark’s parents.  We are excited to see Uncle Jay and Aunt Rachel who are in town visiting from Georgia!

Travel safe if you are going out of town for the holidays and remember to give thanks to those you love – I know I am sincerely blessed in my life with wonderful family and friends and for this, I am very VERY very thankful.

xoxo

This weekend was a very productive one, all things considered.  Although our sports teams couldn’t quite pull it together (hello Beavers, where were you on Saturday?  the Cougs? Really? ..and don’t even get me started on the Blazers, ugh!), we totally made some progress on the nursery.  If you remember, I had previously painted this room a sunshine yellow color with a deep purple design drawn on one wall.  Like so…

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And so first things first, we needed to put a coat of primer paint over that design so that our “Rand Moon” color (light grey basically) would go on with no problems.

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Then we were ready to paint the walls!  Mark did all the big work with the roller, while I used a brush to get all the edging.  He wasn’t happy when I tried to climb up on the stool, so he did all the high work as well.  He was a rockstar, and by that evening it was finished and looked beautiful!

Sunday morning I went to Miller Paint and picked up a gallon of the second color, called “Hudson” which is a sort of really dark navy blue color.  It looks almost black until you put something black against it and then you see the blue.  At first I was worried because it went on looking like a regular navy blue, but it dried to the exact color I envisioned and the crib and dresser are finished!  My body is so sore today from all the squatting and bending to paint the furniture.  I had originally planned on having them spray painted, but since your color choices are very limited with spray paint, I decided the brush was the only way to get the look I wanted.  More work, but worth it I think.

first coat done...

things finished so far...

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The dresser came from Mark’s parents and I asked him if he knew the story behind it.  I love old furniture that has a story.  He said that it was passed along in the family, and his parents used it for him or his siblings, not sure who.  His Dad had painted it to match the changing table they had at the time.  It was a light turquoise and cream color.  I adore the round knobs!  I had originally planned to have this dresser be in the closet, to limit the amount of furniture lining the walls, but now that I’ve seen it I think it should stay out in the room.  It’s too cute to hide in the closet!  Now all I have left to paint is the changing table and all the trim in the room (door jam, window frames, molding).  That will have to wait until the weekend after Thanksgiving I think, there’s a lot on the agenda in the next week and a half.

Other than those things, Mark played some soccer and Claire had her first volleyball practice for club ball.  Her team is the “top level” of the 12 & under group and there are 10 kids.  She will get lots of playing time and tons of experience from the season as they have two tournaments a month and practice twice a week.  Last night they worked on serving overhand and she got them over the net like it was something she does everyday.  But it’s not, actually, she struggled with getting them even close to the net while playing for her school, so she was quite pleased last night.  Especially when the other kids were saying “geez, you’re really good at serving overhand!”  It’s going to be a fun season!

Hope you had a great weekend!  Baby Update pics coming tomorrow, we are 26 weeks along and fast approaching that third trimester!

xoxo

One of the sites I try to visit daily is a blog called DesignMom.  She is amazing and a huge inspiration to me and what I would like to do for my at-home job someday.  Today she has a post about a non-profit organization who was started by a man who went over to Haiti after the earthquake and found a group of orphaned children living in a field.  He has since set up buildings (the children had been living in tents since the earthquake, eating one meal a day and had almost no adult support), started a school curriculum, bonded with them like family and is giving them a new lease on life!  Very inspiring, I hope you will check it out.

Hearts of Haiti - Ke de Haiti

Happy Friday!

xoxo

Weehaw, we have had a very busy and productive weekend!  How about you?

I am 25 weeks along now, which means the baby is around two pounds and the size of an eggplant.  Wasn’t that the vegetable I referenced last week as well?  I feel like it was, but my iphone app says it again this week, so whatever.

25 weeks

He has been a busy boy as usual, especially when there are loud noises going on around me, such as Claire’s volleyball tryouts (for club) earlier today, or the movie Megamind that we watched on Friday night in the theater.  And he also really enjoyed the yummy desserts that our friends Dan & Leah brought over when they joined us for dinner last night.  The girls and I had a great time picking out fabric for his crib bedding on Saturday at Fabric Depot.

I will be making the crib bumper pads out of these two, plus curtians out of the one on the left.

Everything was on sale, so even though it was quite an investment (just because you make it yourself, that does not mean you save money necessarily!), it could’ve been worse had it not been 35% off.  The girls were having a hard time keeping their focus on what we were actually there to get, so they each picked out some fabric of their own to make themselves a pillow.

the girls hard at work (sorry it's blurry)

While Claire and I were at her volleyball tryouts this morning, Mark and Veda built the furniture in the baby room.  It’s actually starting to look like a nursery.  We picked out the paint color for the walls, it’s a beautiful crisp grey called “Rand Moon”.  I believe Mark and I will be painting this coming weekend, since the girls won’t be home.  Now we just need to pick out the paint for the furniture and we’ll be ready to get started!

Crib and changing table, Veda used the electric drill today to tighten the screws while Mark held things. She was pretty proud of herself!

Mark played some music for the baby on Friday night, and we discovered that he’s a big fan of They Might Be Giants, their children’s songs anyway.  And more specifically the song called “Roy G. Biv” about the rainbow.  It’s been stuck in my head ever since.  We have created a baby registry on a website called MyRegistry.com, it’s pretty sweet because no matter what site you are visiting online, if you see something you like you just hit a button on your toolbar above and it automatically adds it to your registry.  They even have a phone app that lets you scan barcodes while you are out and about shopping, to add things.  We haven’t tried that yet though.  Isn’t technology amazing?

Claire kept saying that it felt like we had a five day weekend, and I believe it was because of all the things we accomplished.  Now it’s time to get back to the grind, starting early myself – have work to do at home tonight to get a jump start on the busy week ahead.

xoxo