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Monday, May 27, 2013

Welcome to the Family, Bella!

Other than monthly updates, this blog is sadly and pitifully missing a ton of Bella cuteness! I'm so excited to finally be on June so I can flood it with all her pics! Seriously, you've been missing out!

Gosh, looking back, I didn't realize I didn't even post pics from her birth! Bad mommy! Sheesh!

Brand new baby!
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She was smiley from day one!


After they cleared out her lungs, we got to have our first snuggle!
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And then she got to meet the Grandmas
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And Grandpas
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It wasn't until Papa came in that Brian realized he hadn't even had the chance to hold her yet.
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Auntie Suz
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Auntie Robin


Uncle Scott
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One more of me and my sweetness!
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After meeting most of the family, she got her first bath. I didn't get to be there for that, but I hear she enjoyed the hair washing part.
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She just didn't like the body washing part.
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And she enjoyed the heat lamp part. Look at what a chunk she is!
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The next morning, cousins got to come see! I love my niece and nephew so much! They are so sweet and are so good to my kids!
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And finally the big brother and sister got to come meet their little sister! We were worried that McKenna would be jealous of Bella. She had been having a hard time adjusting to being two and the move. Turns out we were way off! McKenna was immediately smitten with her. She walked into the hospital room with arms up, saying, "Hold it?! Have it?!" Absolutely melted my heart!
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Austin, on the other hand, was instantly distracted by all the buttons and switches and levers of the hospital room and actually had to be cajoled to come meet Bella! And then he went right back to trying to maneuver my bed into odd positions!
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And one last pic of my peanut in her "Going Home" outfit. She's my little Bella Butterfly so I had to get something with butterflies and it had to be pink!
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Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Miscellaneous May McKenna Cuteness

I took several videos of McKenna last May that made me giggle when I rewatched them. I'm glad I caught these - I wanted to remember her expressions and voice at this age - both the good and the bad!

I'm oh so glad this stage of whining is over! She sounded like a dying cat!



She was such a funny 2 year old!









Sunday, May 19, 2013

May Fun - Armed Forces

Armed Forces Exhibit

We loved this exhibit the previous year and even though we didn't have a lot of time to see it this year, we still had lots of fun! Well, Austin did! McKenna had no interest in getting in any of the trucks.

Of course, we love Coasties the most!
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Now those are some guns!
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Oh the buttons and levers to push! They kept telling us, "Oh there's nothing he can hurt" and then about 5 seconds later they'd say "Don't touch that part though!" :| Had the vehicles been armed, this is the kid that would figure out how to launch them!
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Friday, May 17, 2013

The New Crib!

Brian and I never hung up any pictures in our little house on Rockefeller. When we got married in 2002, we figured we'd live there for a few years and then hopefully buy something to call our own. It didn't happen in the time period we imagined but we finally got around to moving! We bought a townhouse in San Pedro and couldn't be more excited!

While it's not huge, it is 50% bigger than where we were squeezed into before. And with a third kiddo on the way, we needed more space!

Austin was very happy to help determine just how much extra space we were getting!
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(He's been OBSESSED with tape measurers ever since that day!)

It's got a decent sized patio that the kids get to play on. It's not as big as the front yard we had in Redondo, but at least here, the kids can play without me worrying about them running into the street!
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Brian did his best to give us some grass on the sides of the patio but it just didn't make it. Too much shade. It was a good try though!

And Brian's #1 personal wish was a garage! And he got his wish!
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We are still working on setting it up for him (Just finished moving our crap out of the garage and into the house a year later!) but soon he'll have the workbench he's been waiting 10 years for!


Color!!

All of the walls were that loverly stark beige in the above pictures with Austin. Having rented, surrounded in stark white walls, for 10 years, I knew that I wanted pretty much every wall to have color! Thankfully we have the best friends in the world to help us transform our place before we moved in! And I didn't pick out just a few colors...I had 21 different paints on the list to buy! We didn't end up using them all but I think the final count (including ceiling and the baseboard paint) is 17? Regardless, it's exactly what I wanted!!
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My pet project was Austin's room. I was so happy with how it came out!
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I should have just ended with that room though. Turns out 8 month pregnant women shouldn't balance on toilets to try to paint small bathrooms!

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I don't have great "after" pictures, so these will have to do. They were taken while still in the midst of moving in, so the rooms have changed a little and they showcase some good messiness that I wish I could say was gone, but really it's just changed to a different messiness!

The girls' room of course had to be PINK!

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McKenna loved it! She kept saying "I like it! I like it!" She got a new play kitchen (pink of course!) for her birthday and that added to the moving excitement!



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This is her excited face. I swear!
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Austin's room
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Our room. I matched the walls to our bedspread. I still cannot get over how much space we have in our room! Our old room was wall, bed, dresser, wall! And now we can easily walk around our bed, with room to spare! Not to mention the great walk in closet! And our own bathroom!
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My favorite color in the house is in the kids bathroom!
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Living room. So much more room for the kids to play! And we adore our new couch! It was the first thing we knew we were buying before we moved in. Our old couch was at least 15 years old, ugly and horribly uncomfortable.
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In case you forgot how small our old place was, this is how much space our kids could dance in!


The dining room.
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The kitchen will eventually have a cute flowery valance that is mostly pink with this green in it. I have the fabric, we'll see how long it takes me to actually make the darn thing! Someday! It has little less cupboard space than our old kitchen but it's got a great big pantry and we are making do just fine!
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We also have another bathroom downstairs, but I don't think I ever got a picture of it. It had all sorts of issues getting painted. The previous owners removed the wall paper but not the glue and painted over it. And then we tried to texture over it and then paint and it just fell off! It's a bold maroon though. You'll just have to take my word on it, I suppose!

We are so enjoying our new home! We feel very blessed!!