Master Bedroom and Bath

I am finally getting around to posting the pictures of our bedroom and bathroom, my favorite room in the house.  I have never had such a large master bedroom. That was one of the draws for me in buying this house, and the jet tub, which I hardly ever use (booo).  The first picture makes every thing have a bit of a green tint to it.  But the next pictures are more true to color.

The chair in this room was once in Case's room, then in Estelle's and now in ours.  I love that chair, and it sits in one of the sunniest spots in the house.  When the sun is out... it usually shines in the window so I can soak up some vitamin D while I read.  When the sun isn't out, I use a light box, yeah for real...

I picked up a couple of windows from Reese's parents shop before we moved up here.  LOVE!!  And the canvas, it's from Walmart.  It's a faux canvas and for that one I think it's a 16x24 is was $29.99.  That's what I call a deal.

 I have never had such a large bathroom.  I better enjoy it before we move back to base housing in a couple years!  There is a walk in closet off to the left of the bathtub too.

13 years

It's was 13 years ago yesterday that we had to say goodbye to my mom.  When I look back some words that stick out in my mind are sudden, lost, and unreal.  It was all so sudden that it truly did seem unreal. I think we all felt lost.  I know I was.  I was a little less than 2 months from my wedding day, I was not even a year out of high school.  How do you do all that without your mom?  It was a loss that we all needed to deal with in our own way.  Reese was in boot camp at the time.  He couldn't leave so the next time I saw him was the last week in May at his boot camp graduation, we then got married June 2nd.   Our marriage started out with me grieving and I'm sure Reese wasn't sure what to do with that.  I think all of us got through it one way or another and for me it prepared me at a very young age for things that were to come.  

I just went through some old pictures and found these gems.  Picture are so important.  I have realized that more and more as time goes on!

 

I had no idea when my mom died that a little over 11 years later I would find out that I have the same heart condition that killed her.  Nobody knew when she died that this was a genetic thing.  As I have gone through this heart journey I have so often thought of my mom.  She was my age when she started having some major arrhythmia's that would cause her to pass out.  She had just had her 5th child.  She was busy.  They did not understand why her heart was doing this.  She was in the hospital for 2 weeks before they found a medication that "worked" for her and felt comfortable sending her home.  My condition was caught before I've had anything major happen.  I am blessed because they now know what this gene does and why I have what I have.  I still don't understand why she had to die at 45.  I don't understand any of it.  But I will say this, because she died I understand the severity of my situation, my family's situation.  It would have been easy for me to ignore, I mean I feel fine, my heart isn't doing crazy things...  But because she died, I know that if I want to live I have to take the necessary steps to live.  It is real to me.  When I found out about all this I had to kind of relive my moms death, grieve again.  Grieve for what this means for me, my siblings, my cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews, my kids.  My mom lived a healthy life despite what was going on with her and the doctors lack of knowledge about her condition.  So can I, so can all my other family members who might end up with the same thing we have, and we can continue to live with proper treatment.  27 years  after my mom was diagnosed with this, the medical knowledge has come so far.  I am so thankful for that and it gives me hope.

21 Weeks and Spring Break

That 20 week picture I was planning on turned into 21 weeks.  Such is my life.  I'm feeling good, this is the point in pregnancy that's good.  No more nausea and I haven't been quite as sore as I was.  I'll enjoy it while it lasts!  And the debate continues in our family over a name for this baby girl.  Reese has no suggestions, I have lots of suggestions, Lane doesn't care, and Estelle things we should name her Hazel or Abigail (two of her cousins names).  We usually don't know for sure about a name until near the end anyway so why even bother :)

 It's Lane's spring break this week.  We had two really nice days, sunny and in the 40's.  So yesterday we went on a little hike on the Near Island trail.  The kids had fun and it was a perfect distance for Estelle to walk.  She always come dressed for the occasion, notice the beautiful dress and pink rubber boots.

 My little man Lane, flannel shirt and travel mug of hot chocolate in hand.  He cracks me up.

Snow Days

We have finally gotten a good bit of snow in the last month or so!  And snow means snow ice cream!  Lane's job is to go collect a bowl full of fresh snow.  Then I mix in one can of sweetened condensed milk and about 1-2 teaspoons of vanilla.  Mix it up and enjoy. It keeps in the freezer pretty well too.

Estelle loves the "No Ice cream"

 She got a little more sledding in too!

Lane and the neighbor boy Sage love to make forts etc in our neighborhood.  This time they got to make a snow fort!

 Nothing like hot tubbing in the snow!  Lane can't seem to make a normal face for pictures these days...

It's A.....

GIRL!!!!  We did a silly string gender reveal on Saturday with the kids.  We had the 20 week ultrasound on Friday and waited until Saturday to find out.  My friend Kaysia came over and took pictures of the whole thing.  So I had cans of blue and pink silly string waiting in the house.  We all went outside and Kaysia stayed in and looked in the envelope from the ultrasound and took the appropriate cans of silly string to the kids (with no lids so we still couldn't see the color).  The kids sprayed us and we all found out when the pink silly string landed on us that it's a girl! 

 It was a little chilly.  While we were waiting, Lane tried to keep Estelle warm.

 This was the first shot of the silly string coming out.

 

Another girl!  That was our reaction.  A lot of excitement and a little bit of "oh my, what did we get ourselves into."  Estelle is a little over the top, dramatic, bossy, etc.  So that's been our experience with a girl... need I say more.

 Oh look, here's a great example of the drama.  Reese sprayed her with silly string.  Oh my... end of the world!

 Lane wanted another brother, but he will be a great big brother to two little sisters!

 Some family shots afterward.  Estelle's still a little unhappy about everything.  This will be fun, a little sister for Estelle to play with. And as challenging as Estelle has been, I have so loved having a little girl and watching her do all the girly things.  I am excited that she will have a sister too, because I know from experience that sisters are pretty awesome!

Hockey and Sledding

 We talked Lane into playing hockey this year.  They have a really cool, kinda laid back program here so it was a good environment for him to learn in.  He started in December and has really improved.  At first it was hard for me to watch everyone falling down all the time, but as the season has progressed it's much easier to watch.  In the picture below Lane is the one in the middle with the yellow socks and yellow jersey.

 A picture of Lane setting up to shoot a goal.  He made 3 goals that game and in yesterday's game he made 4 goals!  I am glad we talked him into playing and I think he's glad too.  He will be able to play the next couple years while we are here.

 We haven't had much snow this year but a couple weeks ago we got a good covering and it stuck around for over a week.  Estelle loves to sled down the driveway.  So we get some exercise going up and down the driveway.  We live in a very quiet cul de sac so there is almost no traffic.  Perfect for sledding into the road :)  Estelle has been quite entertaining lately.  She likes to use words like genius, ridiculous, gross, yuck, amazing.  And she is the bad word monitor around our house.  It only took a couple times of me washing her mouth out with soap for her to realize that she too could yell at everyone if they say bad words.  So if you come to our house and say, shut up, stupid, dumb (or a variety of other words...) you can expect to be reprimanded!