Spring Break

For spring break this year(which is sort of meaningless to us, since we have no kids in school...) we did a mini version of the usual Chapman-family-indoor-waterpark trip. There was a new one that opened up right here in Des Moines and Josh's parents booked a night for all of us(except Ang and her kids were in Texas this year), and we went bowling before we checked in. Don't be fooled by Kyler's smile in the picture, it was only fun for about 5 minutes until he realized that it wasn't always "kyky's turn" like he wanted...

Then we went to the waterpark, Kyler was horrible at the restaurant because he could see the waterpark and giant pirate ship from the window of the restaurant - bad idea. But, the water was freezing cold so once he got to play, he didn't want to do anything that would get him very wet. So he walked laps around the boat in the shallow water, and luckily Josh had the patience to walk with him for those 30 laps or so. After getting hotel soap in his eyes in the shower and peeing on mommy, we bundled up in jammies and had Isaac and Leah come play in our room and watch movies and eat candy while we played "Cashflow" with Jake and Jenn... our new favorite board game :) So, even though Kyler seems to be going through some sort of difficult stage right now, and things rarely run smoothly with a 2-year-old anyway, it was still a fun little break from the everyday.

Then the above picture is from the St. Patty's Day parade in downtown Des Moines that Kyler and I went to with Jenn and the kids. Kyler loved seeing the "cycles" and the trucks, but it was definitely a little too freezing cold to be super enjoyable!

"Mommy Daddy.... Poop!"

So... this is what potty-training at our house looks like right now! Kyler has some major privacy issues we are trying to work through, and he has always gotten emotional when he goes poop for some reason, he just hates it. Anyway, he went poop in the toilet for the first time on Sunday, and then did again today! It did take long periods of time sitting on the toilet, with books or even a show on my laptop one time, and of course chocolate bribery too. We still have a SUPER long way to go I think, but we're trying to get there!

Yay! Thumbs-up for pooping in the toilet!

Jess's Baby Shower!

FINALLY I can post about all the baby shower stuff! My sister-in-law Jenn and I threw a baby shower for our cousin-in-law Jessica(in the middle) this past weekend, and we've been working on it for months! It was soooo much fun, we handmade so many different things and although we thought we were crazy at times, we did have fun doing it :)

The games consisted of the all-time favorite, name-the-melted-chocolate-bar-in-the-diaper game, a "what would Daddy Jeff do?" questionnaire, a belly-size guessing game with string, and gift bingo.

The "poms" we made out of tissue paper and hung from the ceiling, they were SO cute and fairly easy... needless to say I hung onto 3 of them to hang above our crib if the baby is a girl ;)

Jenn made the party favors above, the "cake slices" that were filled with hershey's kisses and handmade marble magnets. Then below is the BOOK BASKET, which was the best idea ever! The guests were invited to bring new or used books to "buy" raffle tickets with to win a kitchen-themed gift basket. It was a huge hit! The basket overflowed and then some, Jess went home with around 50 really great books!

(here is the kitchen-themed raffle gift basket... I made an apron and a baked potato pouch, and we filled it with lots of other kitchen goodies)

Here is her diaper-cake that I made, this was probably the most fun project for me, it was simple but still cute. Then below is the food table, it was a morning shower so we made homemade mini muffins and fruit and donut holes for the chocolate fountain.

And yes, we wrapped the forks in napkins and then put a mini "pom" on each one... it was Jess's idea and we couldn't resist.

(Below is the prize basket, just a bunch of random things)

And last, but definitely not least... the CAKE! Josh's aunt Colleen made the small round cake and a bunch of cute little cupcakes, I was SO glad that she was willing to do it for us, even though she had to leave on vacation the day of the shower and couldn't even actually come... she just took a decorating class at Michaels' a while ago and has been busy doing cakes for different things ever since. And I can't begin to tell you how YUMMY her cakes are... you can always tell that it was made by Colleen with one bite, they even smell great!

I don't have a picture of the wreath yet, Jenn made a wreath for the front door with pink cherry blossoms on it and a cute "G" and ribbon. Then I also made a scrapbook of Jess' pregnancy pictures and ultrasound pictures and some of her blog entries too. Okay... I think that's it!

Sewing Projects

The above are pictures of a nursing cover that I made, which I'm sure I'll get lots of use out of with baby #2! Then below I finally got up the guts to cut and alter some jeans I bought to make "maternity" type jeans. Since I'm so tall, it's virtually impossible to get tall and maternity jeans, so this was my solution.

I was SOO scared to cut them! ahh! But then below you can see, I like my jeans super low in the front, especially when I'm pregnant, and I really like a tie to hold them up, so I put in some cording that is attached to the original waistband so I can tie them tight just below the baby belly. Then, in the bottom picture, I can fold down the belly panel if I want to hide the cording. They are comfortable, and stay up just as well as any maternity pants can. Yay! It only took an hour to do TWO pairs, and I'm so glad that I did it!

(oh, and please pretend you don't see the surgery scars and stretch marks!)

Josh's Birthday

Here are some pics from Josh's birthday(feb 20th)... he's getting so OLD! Haha, he's still only 28 this year, but he'll be knocking on 30's door pretty soon :) I've gotta give him a hard time since he's a cradle-robber, it comes with the territory. We had a big birthday breakfast, and then Josh and I went out to a baptism, dinner & and a movie.

22 Weeks

Here is a baby-belly picture of me at 22 and a half weeks or so. I can't believe how much it has popped out in the past two weeks! I had an ultrasound, probably the last of my pregnancy :( at 20 weeks and it was fun - but NO we didn't peek at the gender! The ultrasound tech even said that since baby's legs were crossed(as you can see) we might not have been able to see anyway.
So, here's the pregnancy update...


Weight gain: 14lbs! ahh! this is exactly what I'd weighed when I was pregnant with Kyler at this point...
Baby size: at the 20 week ultrasound the estimated weight was 13oz.
Contractions: yes, some braxton hicks-type contractions, up to 3 or 4 a day, which is new since I never had any contractions at home with Kyler
Movement: noticing them every day now, baby is most active late morning and late evening, and Josh can actually feel the kicks too!
Sleep: interesting topic. Josh has been sick so he's been sleeping on the couch lately, which means I've been sprawling out all over the bed and actually sleeping! I miss him... but have to say I've been enjoying the rest.

Lastly, baby names! We have made some progress with girl names, but still have some decisions to make for boys. Brynlee Aline is our favorite for a girl, she could go by "Brynn" for short. And for a boy, our favorite is Hudson Robert, but the issue is that I wanted to use my Dad's name, Stephen Robert, and I feel it's more meaningful to use his first name, but Hudson Stephen Chapman doesn't sound right(all ending in "n), so we have these two other options: Jonah Stephen, and Enoch Stephen. We'll just see!

Random pictures

A few things have been going on lately, first the picture above is of the ADORABLE Rocky, a male purebred boxer. We had him come visit for a while when BOTH of our girls went into heat, and now will be expecting TWO litters of PUPPIES the first week in April, assuming they both are pregnant. How crazy and exciting!

Kyler has turned into my little baker, he really loves doing anything in the kitchen. Haha, and Kyler cracks the eggs by just squeezing them with his bare hands :) What a cutie.

Here are some sledding pictures, I wish we had gone out more this winter, but it was always so beyond cold that you couldn't be out for more than a couple minutes. This sledding trip was fun though, and of course Kyler LOVED it.

Kyler has also turned into a total GRANDPA'S BOY lately. He always talks about "papa" and just loves to play with him. Also, Josh's sister Angela had her baby in January, Ethan, and below is a picture of Kyler holding him. This had Kyler a little confused about the baby in mommy's tummy... but a few episodes of "A Baby Story" on TLC and I think he's got the idea hehe.

And that's where we're at!

A Work in Progress

We began painting Kyler's room, and on a whim decided to let Kyler help - which was like the best thing ever! He did so AWESOME, never spilled at all and listened very carefully to everything we told him. We had so much fun with him, what a great and spoiled boy!

Josh and I then spent quite a bit of time measuring, taping, and painting the green stripes. We are going to be putting white plate-rail trim above the stripes, so it will look solid blue above the trim, and striped below. And that's where we're at with it now: trimwork, window treatments, and some cute trucks and trains on the walls...