Projects

 As I've mentioned in previous posts, we have several projects we're trying to get done before this little girl gets here.  This isn't the most interesting post because it's pretty much a bunch of "before" pictures and it's pretty random but I've been really sick of not having anything new on our blog so hopefully it'll help make the "after" post smaller! :)

For the past few months, my baby shower was the big project. Thanks to my mom, my sister, Heidi, Sister Hall and Heather, it all came together just perfectly!  I only took one picture but it gives a decent idea of what it looked like.

Now that the shower is over, what were once the baby shower projects have become the nursery projects. Below is an example of the wall hangings I'm working on. Hopefully it gets done before she gets here!!

Technically the baby projects are actually the little projects and the BIG projects have left little time for the littler projects!  Here is half our bathroom wall ripped out.  This tiling/making the tub a shower project is almost done!  I CAN'T WAIT to be able to shower and bathe Grant in our own house again!  (We've been having to shower at my parents' house for the past month or so.)

The other BIG project is the wall in our living room.  The wall below used to be a full wall of glass. Literally, it was two HUGE (single paned) sliding glass doors. So even with the new wood stove we put in last year, the house still got pretty drafty.  Then after one of the doors broke and left a sharp, gaping hole in our living room, it was obvious that it was time for a big project!

One of the nice things about living in Eagar is that we've had lots of help around!  My dad and Mike's dad have been here a lot helping on the house and without my mom, I don't think I'd really have anything even started for the baby!  My parents are also funding all the big projects with the help of our rent money (they own the house we're living in) and we're REALLY happy this little house is starting to show its potential!  Mike, of course, is the motivation that keeps things running.  I don't know where he gets his energy and drive!  The past few weeks, he's come straight home from work and started the manual labor, sometimes staying up until 3 AM to get things done.  Pregnancy has prevented me from being able to be of any help and although I can't really say that's a bothersome thing, I do feel guilty and even more grateful for all the help we've gotten and all the people who care enough about us to come put so much of their time into helping us get this place ready for a baby!  Even though he's small, Grant's also been an eager helper! (I love how you can see him in every picture, trying to get involved!)

Another project Mike was really worried about getting done before the baby arrives was building up our wood pile.  This was another project that we're so grateful family and friends devoted their time to! Thanks to my dad, Ryan, Tanner and Kaleb (and Mike), we now have enough wood to make it through the winter! And we've even been able to have a little marshmallow roast at the fire pit Mike set up next to the woodpile. Our good friend Jordan and his friend Lina were in town one weekend and we're so happy we got to see them and spend some time at the fire pit with them.  

Grant became instant buddies with them!  We've never seen him get so easily attached to people who before were strangers.  He was SO sad to see them go, it was pretty cute!  The other day, he saw a picture of one of his uncles and thought it was "Dordin".

Another fun project we've been able to work on together is getting this little dude ready for Halloween! We're so excited about his costume this year!  I LOVE that Mike gets into this kind of stuff!  It's been really fun working on it with him, it's made Halloween so much more fun for me and it makes me excited for future Halloweens and being able to get into it with our kids.  This is an awful cell phone pic but here's a little teaser for ya.  Can you guess what Grant's going to be?

 

And the biggest project of the year below.  I kept meaning to have Mike take a pic but quite honestly, I was proud of myself for "getting dressed" the other day (meaning I put on a clean pair of pajamas).  Since I get somewhat dressed for work, I've been taking pictures there for myself so I can sort of document my growth. This is 37/38 weeks...not quite sure exactly when but it's getting close!  I've been having A LOT of contractions but when I saw the doc today, I hadn't made much progress from my last appointment so we'll see what she has in store for us!  Hopefully she'll give us a few more days to get everything finished up, but Heaven knows I wouldn't mind one bit if she decided to just come tonight!!