Rome Italy Temple

A rare thing has occurred. Anna is down for a nap and Dan is gone for a while, and I haven't had a baby yet, so I have time to myself on a Saturday afternoon! So why not catch up on my blog!

I wanted to blog about the temple in Rome. I served my mission there from the fall of 2003 to the spring of 2005. I love Italy, I absolutely LOVE it! I feel so privileged that I was able to serve my mission there. I learned a lot about myself, the gospel and the Italians. They are such a loving and open people. While I was there, there was talk of a temple and how we were close, but it didn't seem like it would happen for a while.

In the October 2008 general conference, President Monson announced that there would be a temple built in Rome! As soon as I heard that, tears came to my eyes. What a blessing for the Italian people! They currently have to travel to Switzerland to attend the temple. And of all the countries that go to the Switzerland temple, the Italians are the most frequent visitors. For some of these members who live in Southern Italy, it's like a 2 day trip. Members who live on the island of Sardegna, have to take a ferry to the mainland, which is a 16 hour trip. They they travel a day or two to get to Switzerland. There's a lot of sacrifice involved for them to go to the temple. Now to think that they will have one in their own country is so awesome and wonderful! There are so many faithful saints in Italy.

The church has actually had the land for a temple for a long time. When I arrived in Italy, we were taken to the site, which is an old farm land, complete with an olive grove. We were able to walk around and imagine the day when Italy would have a temple! And now it's here.

The groundbreaking for the temple was today. President Monson flew to Italy to preside over it. Here is a video of what the temple will look like. There will also be a stake center, a visitor's center and an arrival center (a place to stay, for those coming long distances). It just makes me so happy that I was able to play a small part in helping to get a temple in Italy. Italy, of all places! I watched this video this morning and just started crying. :)

2 more weeks

I'm still alive! I can't believe how little I blog now. I should be better about it, but I guess I do have an excuse, being pregnant and all. :)

Well, I'm in the final countdown. 2 weeks from today is my due date. It's pretty crazy how fast this pregnancy has gone. Seems just like yesterday, I was just starting to show. My first pregnancy was definitely easier than this one, but so many factors have changed as well. With the first, I was working and basically sitting all day. We lived in an apartment, so there was less to clean and take care of. Now, I have a 2 year old to take care of. I'm home all day, so I feel like I'm constantly trying to keep the house clean. It's hard with Anna because she likes to take her toys everywhere-our room, the bathroom, the kitchen, the family room. I have to try and be sneaky when I put them away during the day, because the second she sees me with her toy, she wants it.

Ever since Dan went back to work, I have to water our garden every morning. While, it's now just a few tomato plants, we put some grass in our backyard, so I have to water that as well. It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for our hose. We bought a nicer/thicker hose, the kind that maybe workers would use. While it's more durable and better quality, it's not as malleable as the green ones and it's a pain in the neck to try and move around and put away.

And of course, I have just little discomforts that I never had with Anna. But it's all worth it, right? :)

I'm going to miss my one-on-one time with Anna. As many of you know, it's obviously easier with just one. And nice to have that time with just one child. I hope she adjusts well to having a baby. The last few months she's become more attached to me. She'll only want me to do something, not Dan. And lately, during the day, I'll go to a different room than her and hear her say, "Mommy? Where are you?" "Mommy?" She's not frantic or anything, she just wants to know where I am and be with me. It's cute and makes me smile.

I am looking forward to having a little baby again, though! I'm excited to see Anna as a big sister and to expand our family. I can't wait to hold my little baby and take care of him.

It's still kind of surreal to me that potentially anytime I could go into labor and have a baby. I think I definitely nested this time. Last time, I never felt like I did. But the last week or so, I've been cleaning, getting things organized and just wanting things to be in order. It could also be the fact that I've been putting stuff off, so now it's starting to bug me and I just want to get it done.

The next time I blog will most likely be about our little guy. :)

A trip to the fire station...

Last week, Anna and I went to visit the fire station with some of her friends and their moms. Anna had a lot of fun. We first toured the fire station and obviously that wasn't very interesting to Anna. She kept wanting to go outside. So we finally did go outside to see the firetrucks! All the kids liked this part. They took turns sitting in the fire truck, trying on the firemen's boots, etc. It was a short little visit, but fun for Anna. She got a fireman badge sticker and for a day or two kept telling me, "fireman gave it you!" She hasn't gotten the concept of me, so she always says you, because that's what I say to her.

Here are some pictures of our little trip.

Here, they were touching the BIG tire.

Group shot!

I love this one, it's such a classic kid picture. Anna is picking her nose, Logan is making sure his sticker is staying on, and Brittany and Michael aren't looking at the camera.

Anna got to try on the fireman's hat. It was really big and heavy.

Anna got to try on the fireman's boots! She loves wearing other people's shoes, so this was extra fun for her.

I love this one, even though her eyes are closed.

I think Anna's favorite part was sitting in the firetruck.

Anna and Logan. Best buds. :)

Overall, it was a lot of fun for the kids. At the end, they were given 2 coloring books. The second we got home, Anna wanted to color and did so for a half hour. I couldn't even get her to stop to eat lunch! Every day, she colors in them and just loves it.

*and it's a good thing the other moms brought cameras, because I didn't. Luckily, they were kind enough to send me the pictures. :)

Some decorating inspiration

So there are a lot of decorative blogs I follow and I like to save pictures of projects/ideas that I would like to do someday.

This is a filing cabinet. It was originally just a plain, metal, ugly one. You know the ones I'm talking about. Well, this lady spray painted it and then used mod podge to adhere material on the front of it. How cute is that??? It's so stylish and you could make it fit any kind of decor style. It's a very cheap way to make a cute cabinet. A year ago, I was looking for a filing cabinet and kept seeing this kind on craigslist, but thought they were too ugly to go in the family room. Luckily, I got one for free, but it's a cheapo, fake wood one. Sooo, I definitely want to do this project sometime in the near future. Unfortunately, I don't have a link for the source. I found this lady's blog, through another blog and just copied the picture.

This picture is from Thrifty Decor Chick. She added some faux paneling to her staircase. All she did was get some MDF (fake wood), cut some pieces to make the panels and paint it and the wall white. Doesn't it look so nice? I've seen this type of thing in other blogs as well.

Just A Girl did this in her dining room and I LOVE it! Same concept as the staircase. If we ever get around to remodeling our bathrooms, I want to do something like this.

This last one is from thrifty decor chick as well. I thought it was a cute idea for a baby's room. Of course, I didn't save the post it came from and now I can't remember exactly how she made it. I think it was canvases and she just cut holes in them and covered them either with paper or cloth and then glued the letters on. I think it's a very cute idea.

The one downside to being pregnant is not being able to do as much as I normally do. I can't spray paint, it's hard to bend/lean over, and just not having the motivation. I like being busy and productive and creating things. The last few months have been hard in the project category. And I'm sure it will be a few more months until I'm really able to get back to my old self. I really want to redo the family room colors in brown and turquoise, but I just can't think about that right now. :)

A new bed for a little girl.

The time has come for Anna to move out of her crib and into a toddler bed! I would have preferred for her to stay in her crib because she was fine in it. She's never tried to climb out, but we need the crib for our little baby boy. Our little boy will sleep in a bassinet in our room for the first few months. However, I did NOT want to move Anna into a bed after the baby was born. We decided to do it before the baby was born, so she would be used to it and not have to adjust to a new bed and a new baby at the same time. Plus, I couldn't handle two kids waking up in the middle of the night.

We technically got this bed for free. We had a Visa gift card and it was $25 at Goodwill. I'd been looking at beds on craigslist for a while and every once in a while I would see one for $30, but even on craigslist they're $50-$100. So once I saw it at Goodwill, I got it. And I didn't have to pay for it, so it was even better! I bought it back in April or May. We had to take it apart to get it home. It was originally dark blue with with bars being white.

This bed was a pain for me to paint! Dan primed it white, but either the way he primed it or the quality of primer was weird, because when I went to paint it, the paint wouldn't stick very well to the primer. Which is the opposite of what's supposed to happen. So, I had to do 2-3 coats. Trying to paint a bed when you're 7 months pregnant is not very comfortable or fun. Especially painting something that has lots of little areas and crevices to be painted. I really dreaded doing it, but it had to be done! It took about a week to finally get it all done. I would paint one side, then have to wait for it to dry and do another coat the next day, etc. I'm just glad it's done!

We put it in Anna's room last Sunday. We told her it was her new bed and she got right in and laid down. She didn't get out of it for over a half hour! It was so cute. She kept saying, "I sleeping. Or Mommy put blanket on. or New bed!" Then she wanted us to hang out in the room with her, while she was in her bed.

"Sleeping" in her new bed.

We gave her a book to read and she just stayed in her bed, looking at her book.

The first night went flawless. It probably helped that it was Sunday and she didn't get a nap because of church, so she was really tired. She slept the whole night through. Nap time the next day went well. THEN the second night came. She woke up at 2 am and it seriously took me over 2 hours to get her to go back to sleep. I tried laying her down and telling her she had to stay in her bed. We did that a few times. Then I tried to sing to her and just sit on the floor next to her. After an hour of that, I tried rocking her to sleep in the rocking chair. That little girl would not fall asleep. I couldn't just leave her because she could get out of bed and come into our room. I finally got her to sleep, tried to fall asleep myself, but then this little baby in me was moving so much, had the hiccups and then I got hungry and had to go eat something. Then Anna woke up. At that point, I was done trying and just put her in bed with us and kind of slept.

So, thanks to some facebook suggestions, I bought a baby gate and put that up. We put her to bed and she gets up and cries, but we just have to let her cry for a while, then go in and lay her down, etc. The first night was awful. I felt so bad. She was really upset. Dan was gone, so it was just me and I was still tired from the night before. Last night, (the 2nd) night went better. The second time I went in and told her she had to stay in bed, etc. She started to cry, but didn't get out of bed and fell asleep! So I'm hoping this will continue and she'll keep adjusting and doing well.

I need to get her a pillow. Does anyone know if they sell toddler pillows? I want to make some cute decorative pillows for her bed to match her blanket. I might have to wait till after the baby is born to do that though.

Life update

Dan asked me the other day if I was going to update my blog. I guess it's been a while. Ever since being pregnant and not feeling up (being able to) to a lot of projects, I haven't felt compelled to blog as much, even though I do like to blog. So here goes.

Anna has spent a lot of time lately with her "boyfriend" Logan. They have a ton of fun together and for some reason, she absolutely LOVES his backpack and flip-flops. To the point that she talks about wearing them when he's not around. The second she sees him, she takes her shoes off and wants to put his on. At church, she'll see his backpack a row or two back and wants to wear it. Luckily, he's very kind and generous and let's her wear them.

The happy couple.

Jammin' on the piano.

We invited Logan's parents over for dinner last weekend and let the kids play, while we played Settlers of Catan. And play they did! I think they got out every toy we own, and them some. It doesn't look that bad in this picture, but it was. I think that's the messiest our family room has ever been.

Anna of course just loves to wear stuff in general. We got these fake flowers from a ward luau recently and she's been wearing them almost everyday. I even let her wear them to Wal-mart. Then she decided to put the bucket around her neck. She just cracks me up.

I love this look on her face.

And lastly, she saw her ladybug costume from last year in the closet and wanted to wear it, so I let her. She kept saying, ladybug outfit, cute! It also made me realize how much she's grown, since last October!

Here she is about 10 months ago.

She just looks so little!

Her language skills are rapidly improving. Every day she says better sentences and her pronunciation becomes clearer. A funny story, a week or so ago, Dan was sitting at the computer with Anna. She wanted to watch a show from Sesame Street, but Dan was tired of them, so he put a different music video on. After a minute, she says, "I don't like this show." Which, I think was her best grammatical sentence yet. And very funny and cute as well.

As for me, I am 32 weeks along. I'm getting bigger and more uncomfortable. It really just depends on what I'm doing. Some days I'm fine, and other days I get tired and just wish I was done being pregnant. I still go to the gym about 3 times a week and I actually feel good while I work out, which is nice. I feel like I'm gaining more weight with this baby, than I did with Anna, which is annoying, but not much you can do about it. I don't eat fast food, I don't eat junk food, and I rarely eat sweets and I don't pig out. It's just like my body knows it needs to gain more weight. I'm starting to believe the myth that you gain more weight with boys. :) But I'm excited to have a little boy and to have a little baby again. 8 more weeks to go!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar (x13)

So, as you all know, we have a garden. As such, a garden invites wanted and unwanted insects, bugs, etc. When our lettuce was doing well, we found a couple of caterpillars. Anna's grandma gave her the book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar a few months back and Anna really loved the book and had parts of it memorized. So, when this little guy showed up, Dan wanted to show it to her.

See how cute and innocent looking he is?

Anna had fun looking at him.

Caterpillars can be so much fun.

Until you find one this size on your tomato plants!!!!!!!!

I watered the garden today and found this guy and it really freaked me out. I first thought it was like a pea pod or something and was really confused. I went to touch it and found out it was a huge, disgusting caterpillar! For some reason, any cuteness associated with caterpillars suddenly vanished. This thing was like 3 inches long and so big. He was a VERY hungry caterpillar. Well, I found another one close by. I didn't want to touch them, so I got some gloves on and tried to get him off, but they were stuck on there pretty good. So I went and got some scissors and just cut the branch off. I know, I turned into a complete wuss, but seriously did not want to handle them anymore than I had to. It just creeped me out.

Well, I decided I should keep checking, just in case there were more. Oh boy were there more. I found 13 total!!! We have 7 tomato plants, so there was plenty of leaves for these little suckers. The only consolation was I found one that was already dead.

They really ate a lot of leaves on this plant.

Above is the top of the plant, and here is the rest of the plant. See the difference?

Leaves and then no leaves.

So word to the wise, if you have a garden, watch out for The Very Hungry Caterpillar.