The Phelan family update!

Wow, it's been a LONG time since I've blogged. A lot has happened. The most exciting news is we found out what we're having. A BOY!!! We're really excited. I actually teared up when she told us it was a boy. I had a feeling it was going to be a boy. It was just something that I've been feeling for a while. It was so fun and awesome to see the baby on the monitor. He was moving around a lot and it was just so fun to see everything the technician pointed out-his kidneys, heart, spine, etc. We got the cutest picture of two of his feet together. We have even already found a name that we both agree on so far. We're not decided for sure, but this is a big step for us. Since with Anna it took months and months to agree. I am now 21 weeks along. I can't believe I'm halfway done with this pregnancy. I'm still feeling good, but it's starting to get harder to bend over.

So, the last 2 weeks, we were in Utah, visiting our families. We started out by packing. We thought we could save some room in our car, by putting Anna in our bag, but she didn't quite fit. :)

Anna had SO MUCH fun in Utah. It was so fun for her to be with more people and especially the two cats and two dogs.

Here, she's playing with the ball Grandma Phelan bought her, to replace a ball that go ruined by one of the dogs. She loved it!

Here she's playing with her Uncle Ben. It was so funny because she knows everyone's names in Dan's family. We haven't really used the Aunt-Uncle titles a lot, just names. One time I called Ben, Uncle Ben, and the Uncle just stuck and soon his name became Ugan Ben, all the time. I think she just thought the whole title was his name.

While in Utah, Anna learned how to play the drums! She was a natural. :)

Anna loves going outside and Utah was no exception. She would say all the time, "I go 'side." Then try and open the door.

Our first part of our trip was spent with Dan's family. His brother was leaving for a mission in Germany. We went out for lunch at Tucanos, a Brazilian restaurant, that is REALLY good.

Anna was being less than cooperative for the picture. She wanted down to run around in the grass.

My mom was able to come down to Utah the same week we were there. We spent a few days with her and my sister Kathleen, and brother Steven. We went to the SLC zoo. Anna had fun, but I think she was still a little too young to fully appreciate it.

We didn't get a picture of it, but her favorite animal was the giraffe. She was able to get fairly close to them and I think she really understood that it was a giraffe.

She wanted to walk around at the zoo, but that only works for so long before she's going everywhere you don't want her to. So, luckily my sister had this little backpack/leash that she had brought for her little girl. It looked so cute on her!

Here is some of my family. My mom, brother and sister and her little girl, Kaia. Anna is 5 months older than Kaia.

Probably one of the funniest things she did was here. We met up with my mom's cousin and his wife at a campsite. Anna LOVES rocks and decided that Uncle Steven would be the recipient of all of her finds.

This is how many rocks she ended up bringing to him!

We made roasted corn on the cob, cooked by the fire. Anna wanted to try some. Her face here is priceless.

Here is Anna and her grandpa. Anna LOVES to get up on people's lap and eat their food. She's gotten so good at taking their spoon as well to feed herself. Luckily, she's cute enough that most people don't mind. :)

Overall, it was a fun trip. But as with most vacations, it's always nice to come home and get back in the swing of things. We also bought a new car in Utah, but I'll post more about that later!

My Turn!!!

I realized I haven't really posted much about how Anna is doing. She is almost 2! I can't believe my little baby is getting so big. She's not even a baby, she's a toddler now and she knows it!

Her biggest thing lately is My Turn! I'm guessing she learned this in nursery. She's getting into that independent stage. She knows she can do certain things and doesn't want us to do them for her. While cute, it can be very annoying and frustrating at times. I've been praying for more patience with her. :) She says my turn, when she wants to do something. She says, "my turn, Anna," for her and "my turn, mommy" when she wants me to do it. For example, a few days ago I planted some flowers in some pots. Lately, she's been helping me water the flowers. I'll hold the watering can, and she'll hold on too. Well, a few days ago, she didn't want me to hold on, she wanted to do it all by herself. She kept repeating, my turn! I wasn't cool with that and she got mad.

Lately, she gets mad a lot when we don't let her do things. Whereas a few months ago, it wouldn't have been such a big deal. If she wants to get up on the chair we're sitting on, she has to do it, we can't just lift her up. She gets mad when I put the diaper cream away, instead of letting her do it. Don't get me wrong, she's still her cute, sweet, adorable little self and I love her to pieces, but she does have her moments more lately.

On the other hand, her language skills are just blooming! She's getting so good at talking. She says two word phrases all the time and the last few days, saying more sentences. She loves to repeat what we just told her. For example, I'll say lets go water the garden. She says, wa wa garden! or I'll say, let's put the crayons away and she says, crayons, way! It's so cute. She also gets hung up on a certain phrase and just keeps repeating it. Our smoke alarm has gone off a few times while making pizza and it's loud and scares her. I turn it off, then tell her it's all done. For the next hour, she'll point to it and say, all done!

I just love how smart she is. This time of her life is so exciting for her because she's able to communicate her thoughts and understand better what's going on around her. She's becoming her own little person and developing her personality. She loves to laugh and just about anything silly makes her laugh. It doesn't take much sometimes.

What's not to love about this adorable little girl?

This picture makes me laugh. I was cleaning out a closet and found these mesh laundry bags. I put them in our room, because I wasn't sure where to put them. Dan decided it would be funny to put Anna in one. She actually kind of liked it.

We watched Anna's boyfriend, Logan, on Saturday and they had a blast together. They were making each other laugh. I was trying to get a picture of them both smiling.

I told Logan to show his teeth, hoping he would smile, but all I got was this funny face and lips.

Here is my latest felt project. I decided not to make any more finger puppets for the time being. Anna likes them, but they're too big for her fingers, so they just fall off. But this felt project, she loves! I got the idea off a cool blog: http://imperfectlybeautifulms.blogspot.com/

Here is the link to the post about it. It wasn't hard to make. I made it during Anna's nap time. She likes to say what the things are and just put them where ever. The only down side is I used a pen to draw out what I was making, so on the back of the felt, you can see pen. Anna will put the items on backwards, so you can see the pen. She could care less, but I notice.

Also, if you read the link, I had issues getting the second piece of velcro on. I used the iron on kind, and the heat went through the cotton and messed up the felt a little. It still works, but just a little heads up. If anyone wants to make this and you don't know what I'm talking about, just let me know and I'll clarify.

My First Flowers!

Last Saturday, I got to plant my first flowers! I'm a real grown up now. :) I've been wanting to do this for a while, but didn't really know what flowers to get. Home Depot had a sale with some flowers for 50 cents. So I rushed over there and got some!

Here is the flower bed before. There used to be rose bushes here, but we took them out a month ago. Right now you see some irises. Unfortunately, they're not doing so hot, but we're still hoping. If not this year, then next year.

I planted some Impatiens here. They do well in the shade. The unfortunate part of our front flower beds, is the roof hangs over so much, that it never gets any sun. So I have to find flowers that do well in the shade. That really limits what I can put in there.

I didn't buy enough, but that's okay, because I don't know if want the same kind of flower in the whole thing.

Over on the side of our house, I planted some other flowers that I can't remember the name of. I think the white ones are Alyssums or something like that. This area gets more sun, so I could plant whatever.

It's not much right now, but hopefully they'll do well and grow a little.

Anna had fun helping us out and planting the flowers.

Probably the cutest thing was this. She took the empty flower holders, lined them up, then grabbed the watering can and tried to water them. It's so adorable what kids imitate.

Earlier, Dan mowed the lawn with a little bit of help from Anna.

Here Dan is trying to read the Sunday paper. Ever since she was probably 11-12 months, Anna has LOVED laying down on the paper that Dan is trying to read. A few seconds before I took the picture, she was laying flat. As soon as she saw the camera, she started to get up.

I made mashed potatoes for dinner and in an act of enticement to get Anna to come in from out side, I let her have one of the beaters. Well, she hung on to it and used it to eat her own mashed potatoes!

Anna loves to play with our jar of pens we have by the computer. She comes up to me in the kitchen, holds up her fingers and says, lids! It was so cute. She started to blink in this picture, so it looks a little funny, but still so cute!

As for other news, as of tomorrow, I will be 17 weeks pregnant. I'm feeling pretty good. This stage of pregnancy is nice because you're not sick, and you're not very big yet, so it's just kind of this limbo stage. Sometimes I forget I'm pregnant...then I remember when I have to get up at 2 am to go to the bathroom or when two hours after eating lunch, I'm hungry again. :) We will found out what the gender is on June 15th! We have to postpone it a few weeks because we're going out of town. One more month to go!

And only a week and a half until Dan's summer break starts! I'm so excited. :)

New kitchen decor!

The work on my kitchen continues! Here is my latest project. I thought this was going to be an easy project and it was except for the darn paint color!

I made this from a sign thingy I got at a garage sale for 50 cents. It said, Home Sweet Home on it. I realized I could peel off the wording. I then had to sand it a little. I tried painting on it, and the paint wouldn't really adhere. So Dan sprayed it with white primer. I then had some green paint that I tried to paint it with. It wasn't really adhering well again. So it sat for a few days, then Dan suggested that I just do a few coats of paint. Me-duh! Why didn't I think of that? I guess it takes an art teacher to make things happen. :) So I did a few coats ands the green was way too dark and not the right tone. I even tried mixing it with white and it still wasn't right. So I went to Joanns and got a couple different paints I thought would work. I tried one, and it was still too dark. I tried the other and it was too light. So I finally ended up mixing the two and finally was satisfied enough. I was getting tired of this whole project as well, at this point. :)

This is what the final green came out to be and I do like it a lot. I cut out some vinyl for the wording and the grapes were from Joanns for 59 cents each. So this only cost a few dollars to make! I love it. I've been wanting to put up La Cucina (the kitchen) for a while and now it's finally done!

The little art decor on the left is most likely going to be moved to a different wall and my next project that I'm working on is going to go in it's place. The wall on the left is going to be painted red soon. I think it's going to look really nice. I originally wanted to paint the wall with the window, but since there are red curtains there now, it would just look funny, and I don't feel like trying to find other curtains. Ironically, when we first painted the kitchen last summer, I suggested to Dan about painting the window wall red and he scoffed at me. Then, a few months ago, I brought up the idea of painting a wall red, and he was like, yeah, we should paint the wall with the window! Men...

Here are some aprons that my mom made for me and Anna for Mother's Day. She made them tie in the with Italian theme of my kitchen. Anna loves hers! She sees them and says, apron. on. mommy's. It's really cute.

Future cook.

Such a little cutie. It will be fun when she gets a little older and she can help me bake stuff and we can wear our aprons together.

More craftiness and some cute kids!

I hope everyone had a good Mother's Day. I did! I got to sleep in, Dan made me breakfast. We had cream cheese and strawberry stuffed french toast! It was pretty good. We're not big on gifts for holidays like these. Dan got me some chocolate covered raisins from Trader Joe's. I love chocolate covered raisins, so it was a good gift for me. Then, for dinner he made me Pizza alla Diavola. Which is basically the devil's pizza. I know, I know, what kind of husband makes devil's pizza for his wife on Mother's Day? :) It's basically pizza with a spicy sauce, cheese and salami. It was pretty good, but the salami was pretty salty and we were drinking water all that evening. Anna had a little bit of pizza, but apparently the salami got to her too because she woke up at midnight crying for water. I gave her her sippy cup, which was almost full and she drank the whole thing. Poor little girl, she must have been so thirsty!

Here are some cards I made for my mom, and mother-in-law for Mother's Day. It was nice to get back into a little bit of paper crafting. I've been focusing on my house so much lately, I haven't really done much scrapbooking.

Here is my newest kitchen creation and I absolutely LOVE it!!! I know it's pretty simple and not much to it, but for some reason, it just resonates with me. It was so ridiculously cheap to make. I got the frame for 25 cents at a garage sale last summer. I painted it black. I got the decor items at Joanns and I think they were around 59 cents each. I put scrapbook paper that I had and probably paid 20 cents for the whole sheet. Put them together and what have you got? (name that song) new kitchen decor! (for only $2.25).

I love how it fills this wall here and fits perfectly.

I'm working on two other kitchen decor items to put up. I'm hoping to have them done soon!

I am also proud to announce that after a year and a half after installing our master bathroom door, we finally have a doorknob to go along with it! Yeah, we're a little slow on the uptake around here. We finally bought the doorknob over a month ago. After weeks of bugging asking Dan to put it in, he finally did!

It's funny how a doorknob can make you happy. We also finally bought trim to go around the door and hopefully will have that done by this weekend. The only downside to having a doorknob and not a hole, is that Anna can't play with it anymore. She loved to look through it while we are on the other side and then we would bend down to look at her through it. She loved it. However, her new game is Hi!/Bye. So she opens the door and excitedly says hi! Then closes the door and says bye. Only to open it again and repeat the Hi! and Bye. Tons of fun for a toddler. :)

Here is Anna's friend Mikey Creel. I watched him and his brother while their mom subbed. I thought they looked so cute sitting on the stool together, eating their grapes. Anna was busy eating, so she wouldn't smile.

Getting my craft on!

I feel like it's been waaaaaay too long since I've really done crafty stuff. Well, the last few days that has changed!

Here are some finger puppets I made for Anna. They are really simple and not too hard to make. I got the idea from a blog I follow. As soon as I saw them, I knew I wanted to make them for Anna.

Here are my finger puppets.

Here is the lady's finger puppets. The blog is www.theidearoom.blogspot.com. She is actually selling the pattern for 18 of them for only $3. I'm going to buy the pattern. I'll admit that I didn't actually really enjoy making them, but I did like the end product. The only reason why I didn't enjoy it is because I was doing it by hand and wasn't sure how big to cut the different pieces. Plus, they are small pieces that you're working with and then trying to hot glue them...but I'm glad I made them. I think they'll be good distractions during church. :) Plus, the felt is so cheap at Joanns. It's 29 cents for an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet.

This next project, I've actually had done for a while. I bought these frames at IKEA over a year ago. They actually had mirrors in the middle. I took out the mirrors and covered the frames in cloth. I took me FOREVER to find cloth for all three. I had the material on the left and then had to find material that would match it. I'm not completely satisfied with the pattern on the right, but it works for now. I couldn't decide if I wanted to put pictures or something else in the middle. There are pictures of our wedding day for now.

The wall is a little lonely. I need to find something to go above it. I have something in mind, we'll see if I can find it.

Our closet door is broken, so I can't close it. It bugs me that it's open in this picture. :)

This project includes one of my new favorite friends-oil rubbed bronze spray paint! I love this stuff. I bought this soap dispenser for 99 cents at Goodwill. It was clean on the inside, so I don't know if it had been used or not. It was gold. The paper towel holder was silver. I decided I want to try and make my kitchen look as nice as possible. I had just a plastic bottle dispenser, with the logo on it. I decided I needed to up it a notch and get something nicer. The paper towel holder didn't match the kitchen at all, so I figured black would tie in better than silver. Isn't it awesome what a little spray paint can do?

I forgot to take a before shot.

Here, Anna and daddy are playing with dominoes. She loves them! When Dan first brought them out, he would set some up, then knock them down. She thought it was an accident and kept saying uh-oh or ootsie for oopsie!

Lately, Anna has had fun putting on shoes all by herself. Her favorite combo is the boot and sandal. :)

She's got spunk and personality in her style!