9 months from now...

...I'll have a 2 month old! That's right folks, I'm pregnant! I'm 9 weeks along and very excited to be a mommy again. The baby is due October 28th, so he/she will be a Halloween baby. I just hope that he/she isn't born on Halloween. Because honestly, who wants their birthday to fall on a holiday?

Anyway, I'm doing pretty well. The last month I've had mild morning sickness. This is new to me because last time I was sick for a week and that was it. This time, it's been longer and I want to eat more. Which is always annoying to me. I've been really tired as well, but that's finally wearing off. The morning sickness is pretty much gone, but I did have it yesterday morning, after 5 days of not having it. I haven't subbed in forever because I've been so tired and not feeling well.

This pregnancy has been weird to me because I feel like all the symptoms I had last time at 4 months, I'm having this time at 2 months. I have to go pee in the middle of the night already, I'm already gaining weight and I feel like I'm starting to poke out a bit, when last time I didn't feel that way till 3-4 months. I don't know if it's all in my head or what. Like, last week I gained a 1 1/2! And I wasn't overeating at all. My appetite finally returned to normal and I wasn't eating junk. I still go to the gym 3 times a week. It was really weird. But now, I've gone down a little in weight. Soooo, I'm just hoping that I don't gain 50 lbs this pregnancy. Last time it was close to 30. Did any of you moms feel your 2nd pregnancy was like this?

I also feel kind of demotivated to get things done. In the evening after Anna goes to bed, is usually my "work on projects" time. I've still done some stuff, but my desire has really been depleted. Maybe it will come back after the 1st trimester. If not, I'll just get some more relaxing in.

In case anyone was wondering, we did plan for this pregnancy. :) It's still not quite feeling real yet, but it's getting there. There are a lot of things I'm looking forward to. Just having another little baby, that is so small and precious. Being a mom again. Seeing Anna as a big sister and wondering how she'll be with another baby around. Expanding our family and growing together.

Some things that I'm a little apprehensive about or worried about are taking care of Anna when I'm really big. Things like putting her in her crib and lifting her out of her high chair. Being a mom to two kids at the same time and being able to give enough attention to Anna while caring for a newborn. Being dead tired after the birth and not being able to sleep when the baby sleeps because Anna will be awake.

I know things will work out and I'll be able to do them, but at this point these things run through my head every once in a while and I just wonder how it will all work out. I'm very excited though. We went to the doctor yesterday and they gave me a bag of stuff and there was a sample diaper in there. It was so tiny, I forgot how small they are at the beginning and it just kind of melted my heart a little, knowing in 7 months, I'll be using that on a tiny little infant. :)

The happs...

A little while ago, I was at Joannes and they had some wall decor art on clearance. I got two things that I had seen before, but were way too expensive.

I got this for $4! It was originally $30. It's actually spelled wrong. It's Cafe', but oh well. Under it, it says cookies and sweets. I haven't put it up yet, but will soon.

This one I got for $5 and it was originally $40. It looks better in real life, for some reason, it doesn't look that great in this picture. I'm planning on painting this wall in the kitchen red, so I think it will look better after that.

I was so happy to find these on sale, since my kitchen still needs more decoration.

As for other news, last week was Dan's Spring Break. I originally wanted to go somewhere, but Dan wasn't really wanting to. So we stayed home and I don't know how, but the week went super fast and we didn't really do anything. At the end, Dan was like, what did I do all week? The one fun thing we did was go to Universal Studios. We both got in for free, because they're having a deal for teachers or school employees. Since I sub, I counted as a school employee. Woo-hoo! It was fun, they had 3 rides I really liked, but other than that, it wasn't very impressive. I'm glad we didn't have to pay, because otherwise it would have been very disappointing. We ate lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, our first time being there. It was really good, but overpriced. It was basically a slight step up from Red Robin. We got great weather and had fun.

My friend watched Anna and she got to play with her "boyfriend" Logan all day. Apparently, they had a ton of fun and made a complete mess of the house. :) I'm glad they had fun though.

So that's my news lately. I finished the coffee table, but decided to do a protective coat of polyurethane, but just haven't gotten around to it yet. So hopefully soon, it will be done.

The O'Phelan Family

This was as festive as we got this St. Patricks Day.

Dressing in green!

Here's our little Irish baby.

Daddy and Anna being silly. We tried to get a picture of just the two of them sitting, but Anna wouldn't sit on his lap, so this was our next best attempt.

Dan has a shirt that says, Kiss Me I'm Irish. I found one for Anna that says, Kiss Me I'm Irish/Cute. The Irish is crossed out. It's actually a 3T size, but it worked for the day. :)

Dan decided to do the leaning thing that Anna has been so fond of lately.

So silly...

I love this one of Anna. It makes me laugh.

Finally!

I bought this table almost a month ago and finally have finished it. I sanded it a long time ago, but it just took a long time to finally get around and finishing it. I got it off craigslist for $10. In hindsight, I paid too much. I should have paid $5. But oh well.

Here it is!

I was trying to think of another color to paint it, but I didn't want red and white would just blend in with the wall, so black it is.

Another "finally" project. I made curtains over a month ago. I used plain white material for the bottom part. Well, a week and a half ago, I found striped material that looked so much better. Plus it was only $3 a yard, so it wasn't expensive at all. So I switched the materials and it looks tons better. You can't really see the stripes in the picture, so try clicking on it to enlarge it. I actually got this project done quickly, but I kept forgetting to take pictures of it. I could only do it in the evening, because the light shining through during the day made it so the picture didn't turn out. So I finally remembered to take some pictures.

You can see the stripes better here.

The contrast between the two patterns looks so nice. I love it.

Since I had new material for the curtains, I figured I would redo the little bed pillow to match. Again, the stripes are hard to see, but they're there. :)

I love how the white on the pillow matches the lamp shades and kind of brings it all together.

I'm working on painting a coffee table I've had forever, so soon I'll be posting about that.

A missionary experience

If anyone reading this does not know, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Otherwise known as Mormons.

I wanted to write about an experience I had with the missionaries. There was a less active woman they visited a few weeks ago and she said she wanted some sisters from the ward to visit her. The missionaries were over for dinner and I told them if they ever needed us, to let us know. They told me about this woman, so I and another sister visited her 2 weeks ago with the missionaries. What we didn't know, was her husband was going to be there. She is from Mexico and probably in her 40's. Her husband is Muslim and I'm not sure where he's from originally. The first visit went moderately well. The husband had a lot of questions and basically the lesson was all over the place because of the questions. He kind of dominated the time and his wife is a little more quiet, but she had a lot of questions too. I came home feeling good about being able to do a little bit of missionary work. Ever since serving my mission in Italy, I've always wanted to share the gospel with others, but I just haven't really had the opportunity, so this was kind of fun for me.

We went back yesterday and made it through the first lesson. However, after that it went downhill. I'm writing about this, because I came home upset. The husband became more and more closed. He wasn't really wanting to know more, but rather prove us wrong. He showed us this video, made by anti-mormons, that was awful. He wanted us to tell him what was not true about it, but at the end, it seemed he believed it. It was a cartoon that kind of went through the plan of salvation, the pre-existence, etc. Some of the outright falsehoods were that those of the 2/3 of the hosts of heaven that weren't valiant are the black people on earth today, and that God himself went down and had sex with Mary. It actually showed God knocking on Mary's door! The whole time referring to God and Jesus as the Mormon God, the Mormon Jesus. What really made me mad was how distorted the truths and facts were portrayed. They had some things right, but obviously it was portrayed in a way that made it look or sound ridiculous. What makes me sad is that people will see this online and believe it. Dan told me that a while ago it was going around on Facebook and one of his fellow art teachers asked him about it. I know the adversary is behind this and we will always be attacked for our beliefs, but experiencing it firsthand was frustrating. I told him this video was obviously made by critics and those who don't like us. I gave the example, if you read a book and you have a question about it, who are you going to ask? the author who actually wrote the book or a critic, who had read the book, but didn't write it. His wife, was like, I would ask the author. The husband didn't really answer.

The other thing that upset me is he kept asking questions like how do you know a prophet saw God? It doesn't say that anywhere. Or how can you prove that Jesus was the Son of God? How do you know Jesus was conceived by the Holy Ghost? For the last two, I wanted to say it says in the Bible, but I couldn't think of any scripture references, so I didn't. Plus, in the moment, it's hard to think of what you really want to say. I came home and after some thinking and searching in the scriptures, all the answers to these questions are in the Bible. Exodus 33:11 says how Moses saw God face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. I actually knew about this and tried finding it during the lesson, but couldn't. The one about Jesus being conceived by the Holy Ghost is found in the first three books of the New Testament. Matthew 1:18 is an example. The question about Jesus being the son of God is also found all over the place, Matthew 3:17 is an example.

Even though this was a frustrating experience and kind of a downer, I realized I need to study the scriptures more. Especially the New Testament. Had I been more familiar with the actual verses of the New Testament, and not just the doctrine I know is true, but can't give a verse as backup, I would have been able to answers that man's questions and teach him using the scriptures. I do read my scriptures every day, but it's generally from the Book of Mormon. This was definitely a motivating experience for me to be better about studying and knowing where things are in the Bible.

If anyone reading this is not of my faith and have questions, please let me know or visit www.mormon.org for more information. Please do not visit other sites not endorsed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. If you have a question, go to the actual source, not a third party.

The finished plate!

I love Dan. He's such a good husband. :) He finished the second plate for the kitchen and I LOVE it!!! It looks so cool. It's kind of a olive/pickle green. The best part is that it's darker and lighter in different areas. I think it really adds character to the plate. And, being the nice husband he is, he hung it up for me, while I was out running errands. He loves me, he really loves me. :)

Now, that corner isn't empty anymore.

I scored another great deal on craigslist. I bought a high chair and a potty for $20! The high chair is really nice. It's Evenflow brand, nice quality, and in great shape. The one we had before was bad. Dan got it at a garage sale for $5, I think. It was missing the belt strap, so we had this ghetto bungee (sp?) cord that clicked together, to keep her in. Yeah, not exactly cute. :) The only thing I don't like about this chair is the tray is so high from the seat. It works for Anna, but it looks like it can be kind of annoying.

Anna LOVES her potty. As soon as I brought it in the house and told her it was for her, she sat down on it immediately! Then, I showed her that it played music and she loved it.

I think I'll still wait a while until I get her to use it. I'm glad she likes it though. She also kept saying, pee-pee! pee-pee! :)

I feel like I've been blessed to get some really good deals lately. The consignment store I got to a lot had a dollar sale last weekend. I went and got some really cute clothes. I got some shorts, skirts, a pair of pants, some hats, etc.

I got this dress for $1!!!

I think this is adorable. I think it will make the perfect party dress for when she turns two!

Bread recipe and door knobs!

As per request, here is the recipe I use for whole wheat bread. I like it, so hopefully you do too! The one thing though, is it calls for more water than is needed. I always end up adding more flour because the dough is still sticky. So just a heads up. You could probably do without the 1/8 cup. I always double the recipe, so I gave those proportions as well.

Whole Wheat Bread

1 1/8 cups water
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup honey
1 tablespoon dry milk powder
1 1/2 tablespoons shortening
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Double Batch

2 ¼ cups water
6 cups whole wheat flour
1 TBSP salt
2/3 cups honey
2 TBSP dry milk
3 Tbsp shortening
1 Tbsp yeast

I finished spraying my doorknobs a while ago. I was introduced to oil rubbed bronze spray paint at Thrify Decor Chick. This stuff is AWESOME! and it's a money saver. I paid $3 for a can. I sprayed all six of the doorknobs in our house and still have some left. We originally were going to replace all the doorknobs. They are an ugly brass color. Well, forget that and save me $60! I just painted them all and they look great!

Before.

When I painted the doors a while ago, I didn't care if I got paint on the knobs because we were going to replace them. Well, I had to get the paint off and it wasn't exactly easy.

After.

This is a different doorknob than the before, but you get the idea.

It looks so much better!

I am also going to use this on a kitchen light fixture we have that is also a brass color. But I have to cover the ceiling and spray paint it right there. Otherwise we have to take the whole fixture out, turn off the power, etc. Hopefully, we'll do that soon. If anyone is planning on doing a similar project, I bought the Krylon brand at Walmart. It is pretty runny, so I would do a light coat at first. You'll have to do a few coats, but it's worth it. Otherwise it will get runny and you'll get drips on your knob (yeah, that happened to me, luckily you can't really see them, but still...).

Time for Anna pics! She is so funny, lately when we want to take a picture of her, she leans over to the side and waits for us to take the picture. I'm not sure where she got this from, but it sure is funny.

Our cool little cat. :)

She's getting so big! She is now 20 months! Where did the time go?