January 2013

January 2013
Our Little Family of Three

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Happy birthday, Dad!


We celebrated in a simple but fun way. 
We had Cafe Rio take out for dinner, opened presents and went to a play! My Dad has always enjoyed a good show so my parents frequent Hale Center Theater quite often. 
I think it's wonderful, to be honest.
I love, love, LOVE the theater. 
I think I get that from him. ;]

I guess I should clarify: Trav and I didn't go to the play because he's at scout camp with Braxton and I stayed home with Scarlet so Nic and Ash could go. 
But I hear the show was really fun!


HaPpY bIrThDaY dAd!!!

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Bragging Rights

I certainly have them and need to put them to practice.

I simply have to post how incredible my husband is. He is so great. I can't believe how helpful and supportive he's been with the whole "baby project". From day one he's been on board, no complaints, no frustration, no self-pity, NOTHING. He just sees what needs to be done and he does it.

I can't even begin to express my gratitude for this man. My endurance level is nearly extinct and my ability to lift, move, or even LOOK at heavy boxes is just as bad. Travis has been super with this. In fact, when I try to lift a box or grab something from a top shelf or put something on the top shelf he lovingly stops me and says, "No". While I don't intend to come off as needy or incompetent I certainly welcome his protection. I love his gentleman like ways. I love how protective he is of me and our little girl. Everything revolves around her and her safety and health. I am grateful he gets it. I'm grateful he's as loving and supportive as he is. I'm grateful he's patient with me as I deal with all these physical changes.

Our project is well under way. As we were transporting food storage into the new food storage room we came across something which has now led to ANOTHER PROJECT. We thought there was a leak in our bathroom. Why was this brought to our attention? Well, our bathroom shares a wall with the furnace room and water was leaking into the furnace room (the new food storage room)! I'm super paranoid about mold - as I should be - so we had a plummer come and take a look. Thankfully there's not a leak in the bathroom but there are some things that need to be replaced and fixed. So amidst all our boxes, food storage, garbage, and DI pile (donations pile) we are now tearing up our bathroom. Crazy, huh?!

The beginning of another project: shot of the tub, through the mirror, after it's been taken out.




 Where the tub used to be...



New tub installed.
Now to wait for the tile to be put in.

We had the plummer come today and take out our old tub, fix some things behind and below it, and replace it with a new tub. The sheet rock that looks like modern art will be torn out and replaced with some sort of metal thing to avoid mildew and mold. We will then have tile put in surrounding the tub. We're going to take advantage of having a professional tiler-guy here by having him tile the bathroom floor as well. To do this we will need to take our toilet and vanity out. I'm assuming we'll have both of them sitting in our living room while the tiling gets done..yay. More crap in our living room. But it makes sense. There's no point carrying them up the stairs only to carry them back down. That would be stupid, in my humble opinion. ;] 

Again, with this little kink in things Travis is totally supportive and flexible. He goes with the flow of things.

With this added project of the bathroom my goal has been to get our living room cleaned out so when we put our toilet and vanity in there it will be easy to work around. I'm nearly there. Trav took a large load to Deseret Industries (DI) and to a consignment shop this morning. Now all we have left are a couple of boxes of pictures to go through and organize, and a few bins we found of Nic and Ashley's. After that we should be free sailing! Hopefully the only thing left to pull out, organize and box up will be food storage. To help with this I went to target the other day and bought a ton of clear bins for organizing purposes. I looked like an idiot but it had to be done.

Shopping cart FULL of bins to organize food storage items in.
For example, a smaller bin will be used to safely and securely store pastas 
while a larger bin will be used to store hygiene items: hair care items, soaps, deodorants, toothpaste/toothbrushes, etc.



Here's to hoping we get the rest of the old food storage room cleaned out this weekend so we can move forward with re-carpeting and painting (painting may have to be delayed until our little girl comes because of fumes but if there's anyway to get it done before then we will - and by we I mean my boy, Travis. Don't worry. We won't jeopardize this little girl in anyway!). Then in comes all our baby stuff! So much to do!!!

I also have to brag about my parents. They have been more supportive than I thought imaginable. This is their home and here we are tearing it up, moving things around...sort of taking over. They have been awesome about it. My mom basically gave me permission to do what I felt needed to be done. Neither of them seem bothered or annoyed by our constant mess down stairs. They just allow us to do our thing, thrilled about the idea that in a little over two months they'll have a little princess living in their basement. :)


To top it all off, he took his nephew, Braxton, to scout camp for today to stay overnight. They had to drive up to Evanston, Wyoming for this scout camp!! So it's a bigger deal than just driving up the road to the nearest canyon. Travis does all this without so much as a small complaint. He just grabs his stuff and goes. I have to admit, it's pretty cute. Braxton is so excited about scouts! Trav isn't as excited about the camping part but he loves his "Brother" (Braxton calls Trav his brother, not his Uncle!).



Braxton and "Brother Trav" leaving for scout camp




Again, I have so many blessings.

Monday, July 23, 2012

Baby Project: Day 5

We're still working like mad to get this enormous project completed. 
We're feeling a push to have it done before my baby shower later next month.

Why?
Because Travis's sisters have HUGELY blessed our lives by giving us everything baby related.
We need to go through it before we can register for the shower - 
otherwise we won't know what we have compared to what we need.
We can't do this until we have somewhere to put all our baby stuff.
Hence, the "Baby Project".

Make sense?

So here are some pictures documenting our progress. 
Our feet and backs are aching.
We feel like we have dust in our eyes, up our noses and in our ears.
We'll be so relieved when this is over and things are situated.
Until then we are holding onto this one truth: 
this little bundle is totally worth it.

Trav finished emptying out the furnace room and gave the shelves a thorough wipe down
Thus the wet and dry shelving.  :)



Then we started hauling food storage over.
This was wonderful and awful at the same time. 
We wiped down and moved those bottled peaches and jams three times. Ugh!  




We tried to organize as we moved food in, you know, the whole kill-two-birds-with-one-stone mentality.
Notice the bottled peaches/jams are now spread out on the third shelf 




Our completed work for the night
(from the hallway looking in)
Notice the bottled peaches/jam are now pushed back on the third shelf. 
We put the metal shelving from the old food storage room into the furnace room 
(where Trav had knocked out warped wood shelving) 
and put most of the bottled goods there.



THE OLD FOOD STORAGE ROOM
FUTURE BABY ROOM
Corner 1
We didn't do a whole lot with this corner of the room



Corner 2
We moved quite a bit from this corner. 
Plenty left to do but progress is progress.




Corner 3
Touched on this corner...


Corner 4
We obviously focused most of our energy on this area of the room.




Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

28 Weeks - Travis' idea

Yes, this really was Travis' idea.
Start far away and work your way closer w/each pic. 
That way, if you some how happened to miss my "bump" you can get a closer look.
Ha!



Baby Girl Braun is 2-1/2 pounds
Heart rate 150 bpm
moving like CrAzY
and lookin' healthy!

I have gained approx 15-ish pounds thus far and am no longer able to wear pre-pregnancy clothing.
But if Baby Girl Braun is healthy and growing I'm okay with getting bigger. :)

Baby Project: Day 4

We made three trips down to Nic and Ashley's.
Thankfully Travis is a packing genius and can make our car hold much more than I imagined!
This picture doesn't do our tetris-like-car justice. It was PACKED.





All our newly packaged boxes in Nic and Ashley's living room waiting to be hauled up to the attic.
I intentionally distributed the items in the larger boxes into smaller boxes so when the guys were loading stuff up a ladder they wouldn't break their backs. 
So, the large boxes were light while the smaller boxes were heavier. 



The dreaded ladder and opening to the attic.




The attic isn't very high so Trav and Kolton had to wear knee pads while up there since they couldn't stand.
I sure love this guy. 




 Dun, dun, DUN! The attic!





I had requested that we pull all our baby stuff out of the attic before putting our other stuff in. 
Travis' sisters have really set us up and blessed our lives tremendously in all-things-baby.
We had to take Nic and Ash's truck home, leaving our car at their place, because we had so much to take back. It was shocking and very humbling to see how blessed we are because of his family's generosity.

Travis was back in the attic pulling baby items out and putting the newly packaged items in. Kolton was at the opening either throwing things down or taking things from Nic. 




When everything was where it needed to be and Travis was finally able to come out of the attic he looked awful. Truthfully, I was worried. He was so red and sweaty the blood vessels in his face were poking out.
It looked like the smallest tap would make a vessel pop.
I had him stand in front of a swamp cooler and after cooling down significantly he laid down. 
This picture doesn't come close to how bad he looked.

I wasn't able to get a pic of Kolt but he looked pretty bad too. 
He was literally dripping sweat and red from the heat. 
I know they're happy to be done with this and I am happy for them too. 




This is what our living room now looks like. 
Still odds and ends to put away but nothing like the mess it's been the last week!

My goals for the remainder of the week
1) Completely empty out and deep clean the furnace room 
2) Finish organizing and cleaning our living room

Once this is done I can focus on moving the food storage into the newly cleaned furnace room. :)

Baby Project: Day 3

After celebrating Kolton's homecoming
(see post below)
Travis and I 
- okay, mostly Travis - 
decided to tackle more cleaning, organizing, repacking, etc on our baby room project.
Travis spent a good two or three hours moving what was in the far corner of the furnace room onto the other shelves so he could tear out that portion of shelving since it was warped and needed to come out. 

When jokingly chastised about us doing work on the Sabbath Travis stated in a gently adorable way, 
"I am serving my wife on the Sabbath by helping her do things she can't do on her own. 
I think that's okay. Don't you?"

I just smiled when the person he was talking to had no response to his comment. :)






Then together we went through the remaining boxes in our living room and repackaged 'em. 


Though slow, progress is being made.

Homecoming Celebration

Our little brother Kolton was asked to speak in our church - given a weeks notice - but it wasn't specified this would be his homecoming so I hadn't thought twice about it. Thankfully Ashley had. 

I think I've lost my mind because until she called me and told me point-blank this was his homecoming I wasn't even aware and wouldn't have done a thing to make it the celebration it deserved to be. 
We quickly started planning our last minute homecoming celebration for our little brother. 

After talking things over with Kolton and getting his go-ahead Ashley sent out facebook invites Saturday morning to those we wanted to include in this special experience. Ashley and I decided we would invite everyone over for a Sunday brunch - German pancakes, fruit, yogurt and juice (we kept it simple since it was so last minute) - and then to our first hour of church to listen to and support Kolton in his sharing his experiences in the mission field and testimony. Though last minute, we're so glad we went ahead and did this. We know many weren't able to attend and they were missed. We are grateful for those who did. 
It meant a lot to Kolton and our immediate family.



Papa and Scarlet 




The wonderful brains behind the celebration, Ashley
Cute hair cut, huh?! 




The man of the hour Kolton and Grandma 




Auriel and her boyfriend Braxton 




 Grandma takin' charge!




Nic - love the expression. :) 




 Kolton, Grandpa, Grandma Judi, Mom
Doesn't all that fruit look delicious? 
Trust me, it was!




Grandma trying her first German pancake.
She loved it so much she came back for seconds! Ha! 





My cute Grandpa and beautiful Grandma Judi 


Yummmmmmmmmmy!!!!! 





Beautiful friend/sister, Angel, lovin' on our little bug Scarlet. 





Stephen, Ashley, David, Amy and Emma




Kolton gave a sincere, humble talk about the importance of faith. It was incredibly powerful and his testimony was from the heart. Anyone listening couldn't help but admire him and his faith as he has faced health problems with his chin up. 

Way to go, Kolt!!!

Belated Father's Day Gift

Ashley and I decided we wanted to do something simple yet unique to celebrate the wonderful husbands we are so blessed to have. Neither of them have had a pedicure before so we thought why not?!

Trav, Scarlet (We passed her around. I mean, who doesn't want to hold that cute little thing?!), and me
Please excuse my frumpiness...baby and I are gettin' big now! 


Nic, Scarlet and Ash 
Ash just chopped her hair off! Isn't her pixie cut adorable?! 


LOVE Scarlet's face in this pic! Hahaha! 



Overall I think it was a success. The guys weren't madly in love with the pedi experience but they didn't seem to mind it either. Scarlet was fascinated with what was going on. Her big blue eyes were glued on the employees throughout the appointment. It was super cute. 

And we all walked out with adorable, soft, relaxed tootsies. :)

An Evening @ SCERA

My vocal teacher and dear friend invited me to go with her and her daughter, Anna, to an outdoor play last week at the SCERA. It was a lot of fun! I invited my one of my sisters, Crystal, to join us and I'm glad she did. Unfortunately Travis wasn't able to go because he was teaching private art lessons down at an academy for troubled youth.

Thankfully it was a gorgeous evening so I wasn't miserable out there.
We had our own little picnic complete with grapes/plums, sandwiches, chips, pudding and drinks. 
It was such an enjoyable evening.


Anna, Serena, Crystal, Adrienne

Baby Project: Day 2




Still a mess from hell but hey!You can see more of our floor and couches!!! Yay!