Exciting Few Weeks

    The past couple of weeks have been a little crazy at our house.  Jason and I went shopping for a rug and didn't find one we liked so we ended up deciding to remodel our bathroom....how does that happen one might ask.  Jason and I always do things on the random especially when it comes to house remodeling.  The remodel started off great.  We took down the bead board in the bathroom, trim, lights, toilet, took up the gross green linoleum, took out the make shift sink, and than we began getting ready!
     I am not good at remodeling I expect things to go perfectly and when they do not go according to my plan I meltdown.  It could be the pregnancy(we tend to only do these things when I am pregnant, fancy that huh?)but in the end this job was awful.  The first night Jason installed some sticky flooring and the toilet when we woke up the next morning the bathroom was sloshy....the toilet leaked ALL night long onto the floor.  Jason decided he hated the sticky flooring we had put in so it was off to the store.  We figured out that Jason squished the wax ring down on the toilet to much and shut off the water.  No toilet for the pregnant woman in the house is not the way to go in case you wondered, luckily we have two restaurants behind our house and they were kind enough to let me use the bathrooms there.  Any way Jason installed some tiles and than placed grout onto them.  They look fantastic!  I just love how they turned out and can't wait to place them in the rest of the house.  Any way next was re-installing the toilet Jason got the toilet on and that is when the problem started....the valve that connects the water to the toilet was leaking like crazy!  Jason eventually got the leaking under control and we once again had a working toilet.  Victories.  Lastly we needed to install the sink and vanity which turned out to be a lot more difficult than we thought it was going to be...of course.  The vanity was too tall for the water valves to fit through with the legs put on.  Solution? Chop the legs!  We got the legs cut and the vanity fit beautifully.  Next was installing the faucet, another fun journey.  The faucet fitting Jason purchased was actually meant for a pedestal sink and so we had to make it work.  Luckily it came with three separate fittings and my father in law and Jason got everything working.  Yes there were lots of leaking from the valves and replacing of nasty old pieces of pvc but eventually the job was done.  I still need to take pictures but we still have small things we need to do like putting up a mirror in there and a few other things but overall the bathroom is fully functioning and I love it.  The bathroom looks beautiful hurray for my amazing husband!

February, Where did you go?

It has been a really great month.  I decided to buck up and stop being a weirdo and than we found out we were having another BOY!  So excited to add another little man to our family, I am very out numbered by the amount of men I have around me.  February is going by so fast and I am loving it!  March is going to be exciting and I can't wait for summer to finally be here.  I am looking forward to all the sunshine, warmth, and time outside with Elliot.  


We have been busy doing updates on our house and learning by trial and error on the way. We have been wanting to do a lot of things on the house and when we got our tax return after paying off some stuff we finally had the opportunity to upgrade the bathroom!  I can't wait for the final turn out.  So far it is looking amazing. 

Awful green flooring and beadboard

Toilet that used like 10 gallons a flush and some handmade sink they left here

Painting over the robin egg blue
 and took all the beadboard down

New medicine cabinet and light fixture

Pregnancy is going great.  Ultrasounds looked great and my emotions are as insane as ever.  I am no longer suffering from the lovely morning sickness I had and so far there is no swelling.  All good news.  However, my emotions are a completely different story.  The other day we went into Home Depot to return some thing we had purchased on their store card and I asked them to put it onto a giftcard instead for the store.  Can they do that? NOPE!  Even though I had the receipts it wasn't possible to do it any other way and I lost it.  I started telling them how stupid their policy was and made a huge awkward scene in the store.  Good times....not, I was so completely embarrassed by my behavior that afterwards when Jason said "Wow way to make that awkward Natalie" I just burst into tears.  I have worked costumer service pretty much every job I have ever had and I remember those insane people and would laugh about them all the time.  I AM THAT PERSON NOW! AHHHH.  Well luckily we went to Lowes and found everything we needed and I did not embarrass myself there.  End of story I should not be doing returns

February

It is February!  I decided to be happy and stop being a grump all the time which thus allows Elliot to be the real grump in the house.  He has officially hit his "terrible 2s" stage oh boy it is so much fun!  Nothing like fighting your 19 month old for the laptop or telling him no a million times and he bites you instead.  At least when he bites he says something cute like "one bite" that makes up for the actual pain of it all.
This month should be a good time all around.  Thursday we find out the gender of this little mutant inside of me that really loves to kick my bladder.  According to the Chinese Prediction this one would be a girl which would be so exciting!  It would be the first Simmons girl in two generations, Jason's mom had a girl but Kayla was a stillborn.  The family would be so excited for a little girl but a boy would be just as much fun.  I do love the cars and trucks, plus Elliot really needs someone he can battle with.  I am also doing a photo a day challenge which has been a lot of fun.  I have found myself with my camera around my neck more allowing lots of fun pictures of Elliot to be taken more often. Like this one!

Sunday was the Superbowl and my mother-in-laws birthday so we had a party at her house.  It was fun watching the commercials and Elliot really loved the half time show!  He danced it up oh my goodness I have to figure out how to load the video onto the computer because it cracked me up.  Elliot is the life of any party he is a part of.  We decided we would take my in-laws out for dinner sometime and leave Elliot with a babysitter so we could have an adult meal for once together.  I really love my in-laws and all that they do for me and my family.  Truly amazing people.  New post on Thursday to talk about GENDER!! Yay :)

Fear and Tears

    This pregnancy has been scary for me.  I have no idea why I have this fear deep inside of me that is constantly making me fearful of my new babies life but it is there.  Every night before I fall asleep I listen to Jason breathing and I hold my belly and pray over and over again to bless this baby.  I am pleading with Heavenly Father because I am scared.  I have been to the doctor's and everything is normal and there is really no need for concern.  We have heard the heartbeat twice and it always sounds strong and good, we have seen an ultrasound of the baby at 9 weeks and there really is one in there, but at night alone with my thoughts I get so scared.
    Last night I came across a blog about a woman who had a stillborn daughter and it broke my heart as a mother I couldn't imagine the heart ache and loss someone would feel saying goodbye to their child.  The amount of fear I felt was overwhelming so I was laying in bed when Jason came in and asked, "Are you okay?" and I lost it.  "No I am not okay. I am so scared Jason" and I just cried on him for a while.  I don't know where this fear is coming from or why I can't make it just go away but it is constantly on my mind, nagging my thoughts.
    When I was pregnant with Elliot I had a lot of scares.  At 7 weeks I had light bleeding and went to the ER and was told that I had a 75% chance of miscarriage and I quote to "not get attached".  The doctor did this as a guess might I add, there was no blood work done and there was no pelvic exam either so how he came to this conclusion I have ZERO idea.  Any way I went home and slept for two days I was attached I loved this baby already I didn't know him but I knew who I wanted him to be and it wasn't gone.  The entire pregnancy there was a lot of anger and fighting within my family about my life and what was going on.  I won't go into details but either way I was incredibly stressed out the entire time.  By my third trimester I was going to the doctor's twice a week because Elliot's heartbeat was irregular and we cut caffeine out of my diet and continued going.  Finally I was induced, swelled up to the size that by the time everything was over the nurses said to me, "Oh good the swelling is going down!  We were so worried it wouldn't" uhhhh thanks.  Elliot came into the world via c-section and was beautiful and healthy.

    I don't know where my fear in this pregnancy is stemming from.  I just want it to go away because honestly the fear wakes me up at night.  Of course I often have a great time with the pregnancy and don't allow the fear to creep in.  Just at night when everyone is asleep I can't think of anything else.  So here is to hoping I am just being emotional and crazy. Plus luckily I have this beautiful face to see every day to remind that everything will be okay.