Craft Time

I've been working on getting the final touches done in the nursery and thought I'd share my latest project.  I found the same wooden letters that are in Riley's room at Hobby Lobby and decided to do a similar thing for Harper.  This time around, I decided to use my mod podge and white paint to change up the look.  Here's what I ended up with:

Now I just need to find the perfect shelf to put them on.  My once polka dot theme has now turned into a flower theme and I'm loving it!

Practice Makes Perfect

Riley started her tumbling class again last week.  She loves it!  We are at a different YMCA this year so there are different kids, teachers, and activities.  She absolutely loves jumping, doing somersaults, and playing with the huge parachute.  Like last time, she is scared of the older teacher.  It took the whole class for her to loosen up and participate in the stretching and singing that takes place at the beginning and end of the class.  We've noticed that she is very timid around other adults and in a class situation.  She is the oldest in her class and I'm hoping that it will help her build her confidence.  She's been practicing her somersaults at home and has finally nailed it down!

Baby Blue Eyes

An Interview With The Big Sister To Be

Since Riley has been saying a bunch of funny things lately I thought it'd be fun to do a little interview with her.  Here's what I got:

What is the baby's name going to be?
Popper Murphy

What color eyes will she have?

Pink

What color hair will she have?

Maybe mine

Will she be a big baby or little baby?

Big...(1 minute later) teeny, teeny baby.

Will she cry a lot?

No. Give her a pacifier.

What will you help Mommy with?

Maybe bottles.

What toy will she like to play with?

Maybe take a bath with me.

What will Harper eat?

mmm....soup!

Last night we also looked online for her gift to her little sister.  I thought it would be perfect to get her a blabla animal (like Bunny and Piggy) since Riley loves hers so much.  We looked and looked and I tried to steer her toward the cute little bear and she finally insisted "I want a bunny for my little sister!"  After telling her that she had a bunny and she needed to get Harper a different one she settled on Suzette The Fox. 

We pulled out all of the baby stuff that we're going to need over the weekend and cleaned it all up.  Riley had to sit in the bouncer all afternoon, which now serves as a toy for her dolls.  We tested the old car seat to see if it would fit in my little car with Riley's seat and, although it's snug, it does fit.  Looks like we may not be getting a new car after all. Here's a few pictures:

 31 Weeks (tomorrow): Notice the red, swollen hands.  Let the swelling begin!

Riley Nicole at 2 Years, 7 Months

Riley is another month older.  Here's a look at her today:

• She's officially potty trained.  She's been out of diapers/pull-ups for over a week now.  She still wears them for naps and bedtime.  She usually wakes up dry 50% of the time. 
• She loves to be naked and will try to run out of the bathroom without her pants after going potty.  she's usually proclaiming "I'm naked, I'm naked!"
• She is very independent and likes to tell us "I'm a big girl."
• If you ask her what her baby's name is she'll always say "Mia" (this was option #2 for Harper).  If you ask her what the baby in mommy's tummy name is she'll say "Popper Murphy."
• She's officially in a size 6 shoe. 
• She hates bedtime.  She insists on reading books (we limit it to 2-3), being told at least one story about her favorite cartoon Max and Ruby, and to be tickled on her tummy with her bunny.  Once those are over she immediately begins crying and saying that she needs to go poopy, wants her mommy/daddy, wants milk, and doesn't want to go to bed.  Fast forward 30-60 minutes and she's asleep.
• She likes to play with trains but is terrified every time she hears the sound of the trains whistling at bedtime.  We have nightly trains that pass by our house between 7-10.  She'll wake up from finally falling asleep, cover her eyes, and cry until we come in.
• She loves Snow White, but we have to fast forward through the witch parts.  She insists on watching it, but is terrified of half of the movie.  After watching several old Disney Movies it is crazy how scary they actually are.  I don't remember them being that scary, but all of the old fairy tales has at least one scary character that threatens/tries to kills another character.
• Favorite Toys: Balls, dolls, paint, swing, bike, bubbles, silly putty.
• Favorite Snacks: "popasols" popsicles, go-gurt, peanuts, popcorn, "white ice cream"
• Favorite Foods: no change.
• She always finishes her food way before we are done and tries to wipe her face, take her bib off, and jump down from the table. 
• She loves to help in the kitchen.  Mostly she likes to "scramble, scramble, scramble" everything.  She'll crack every egg in the carton if I don't pay attention.
• She adds "maybe" to 75% of her sentences.
• We caught her playing with her magnadoodle and saying "U,R,P,H."  She must be working on spelling her name at Hedy's house. 

Here's a few pictures of her fun personality:

Nursery Update

We made some progress on the nursery this weekend.  It's finally coming together.  All of the painting is done, furniture is set up, and clothes and blankets are washed and put away.  Now we just need to put up some blinds and curtains, find a bookshelf, a crib skirt, a cute lamp, and put up some fun wall decals that I plan to buy. 

Riley loves the room and we constantly find her sneaking up the stairs to "the baby's room."  She was a huge help this weekend and had fun sorting through her old preemie and newborn clothes.  Every outfit that she picked up she tried to put on, and said "this is maybe from when I was a baby?"  She even put several toys in the crib for baby Harper.

The Name Game

After lots of debating we have finally agreed on a middle name for our little girl.  With the first name that we picked Brett felt that the middle name needed to be a single syllable name.  It's harder than you think to find a single syllable name! I was voting toward another family name, but Brett didn't like any of the vintage names that I was throwing out there. I looked on almost every name site to try to find the perfect middle name.  Finally, last night we came to the conclusion that our second born, and Riley's little sister, will be named
 Harper Grace Murphy!

Although, she'll probably still be Popper Grace Mercy for another couple years before Riley can pronounce it correctly.

Batter Up!

So, why not play baseball in undies?  When you're potty trained you get to do fun stuff like that! It's true, Riley is an undies-wearing girl!  She was home with a fever Thursday and Friday so we took advantage of her time home and worked on potty training.  Low and behold it finally worked and she is doing great.  She's only had one accident at home since Wednesday.  We're still working on daycare.  She had two accidents yesterday, but it was her first day to wear her undies there.  Hopefully today will be better!  Because she did so well she finally made it to Monkey Joe's.  She had so much fun and has been asking to go back since we left!

Nursery Update

This weekend we also began to tackle the nursery.  Since I'll be 29 weeks tomorrow and Riley came at 35 weeks I'm really feeling the pressure to get everything done.  Some may call this "nesting." :)

Before:

After:

We still need to paint the chair rail, but I think Brett did a good job hanging it.  Riley's new furniture should be arriving today so by the end of the week we'll have a crib and dresser in the room as well.  Next on the list: blinds, curtains, new fan, and decorations!

Basement Update

Here are the latest pictures...

This weekend Brett put the drywall up coming down the stairs.  Now all we have left is to finish the mudding, sand, texture, paint, trim, lay flooring, and hang the lighting.  Sounds like a lot, but we feel like we are on the downhill slide!

Quick Update

I've been a terrible mom and haven't taken a single picture since the beginning of February.  I have taken a bunch of videos of Riley, but like we know, I can't seem to figure out how to get them uploaded to blogger.  I'm going to try to upload them to U Tube next because we've got some great videos of Riley over the past couple weeks.  Here's a quick update on what we did the last few weeks of February.

• We lost Brett's Uncle Ned to cancer last week.  Although it's been a sad time, we are happy that he's no longer suffering.  After the past 5 months we've come to realize that cancer really is a horrible disease.
• I entered my third trimester of this pregnancy.  I feel tired all day and nauseous at night.  I'm tired of the progesterone shots, but have another 5-6 weeks.  The 5 inch long welt that I have on my butt is really annoying and itchy!
• We've been working really hard on the basement.  We are now in the "mudding" phase.  We've got one layer up and are really happy with the results.  Brett is picking up the last of the supplies (other than carpet and paint) tonight so that we can work on getting it done this month.  We're both excited.  I'll take some more pictures and post them later in the week.
• We've decided how we want to do the nursery and are going to paint the room and hang a chair rail this weekend.  The room is currently brown.  We plan to leave the brown on the wall under the chair rail and paint the upper wall Oxford Pink.  I hope it turns out as well as we invision it will.  I've also completely changed my mind on nursery furniture.  After turning Riley's crib into a headboard and removing her changing pad from her dresser we realized that it would look much nicer to just buy her an actual dresser and headboard.  So, that's been ordered and should arrive in a couple weeks.  Which means Baby "Popper" will be using Riley's old crib and dresser/changing table.
• We have been working on potty training again.  I would say that Riley is about 65% there.  We are using a trip to Monkey Joes as motivation.  Last weekend she had one accident about 10 minutes before we were going to leave to go to Monkey Joes.  I thought for sure she was going to throw a fit since we'd been talking about it all weekend, but it didn't phase her when we said that we couldn't go.  I think I was more upset than she was.  I just don't know what motivates her, but I know that she understands.  She even surprised us with staying dry when out to dinner Sunday night and waking up completely dry Monday morning.  She seems to struggle during the week at daycare.  I'm hoping that after a couple more weekends at home she will officially be a undies-wearing girl.
• We've learned that Riley has inherited her dad's baseball swing.  This girl can hit the ball!  We bought a plastic bat and ball at the dollar store Sunday were surprised to see her hit the ball.  We're talking homeruns and line drives.  I got it on video so it is the first video that I plan to post on You Tube!  At some point I think you can hear me say "what are we doing letting her hit a baseball in the house??...But, she's so good!"  I swear it's not just a proud mommy moment...she is unreal.  Oh, and she swings lefty! 
•  We have finally furnished every room in our house.  Only took us 2 1/2 years.  We've been on the look-out for the perfect chairs for our front room and found them at Big Lots, of all places.  We bought one around Christmas time and waited for another shipment to come in.  We waited forever and the shipment never came.  Brett called every week for about 5 weeks and no luck.  We thought we had struck out again, until Big Lots called to tell Brett that they had one that had been returned.  Brett used his bargaining skills and we now have our two chairs.  Here's a few pictures of the room and one of the munchkin: