Oh Lisa...

So my favorite thing lately has been noticing the many faces of Lisa. Here are just a few (with thoughts below):

Seriously honey...

Oh my goodness (this is catching her rolling her eyes at me)

Ok...I do remember why I married you

.

We are ready

Baby #4 is going to be making an appearance any time now! She still has no name but she has a cute room to come home to. I discussed my little dillema a while ago on how to decorate a room for a 3-year-old boy and a new baby girl. I found you can actually make blue and green pretty girly. I'm a little tired of pink anyways since this is our third girl.

This quilt was one of the projects I got down at our St. George Girl's Weekend. All our kids now have their own minkee quilts, but I think this one might be my favorite. I hope the new baby doesn't mind sharing with her mommy!

I never really know what to put above a crib. I worry about putting anything heavy above sleeping areas. I made this litte craft by taking 1" foam core, cutting it into 10" squares and stapling batting and fabric around them. Easy peasy. They are stuck to the wall with velcro and if they fall off they will not hurt the baby because they hardly weigh anything.

I had the same issue above Tanner's bed since I don't want anything heavy falling on him while he sleeps either. I was so excited to find this tree wall sticker that matched his bedding perfectly. I do most of my shopping online, but occasionally I go into a real store. I found it at Babies R Us.

I've really enjoyed NOT moving during this pregnancy. It's given me more time to do some of the fun things to get ready for this baby. It's been fun to do some little sewing crafts while I don't have the energy to do much else.

It seems like every time I have a baby some new baby care invention has been created. Like these car seat cover blanket things! I can't believe how much people pay for these and they're so easy to make.

And my last little creation is this new "diaper" bag. It's not technically a diaper bag but it has pockets that fit a baby bottle or sippy perfectly and a large pocket inside to fit diapers and wipes.

Okay so there are a few more little things to take care of before the big day, which is scheduled to be May 13th. But for the most part the nest is ready!

Decisions, decisions

I don't know if this is just a pregnancy thing or nesting thing or what. Lately, I've found that there are a lot of things that bug me in my living space. But I can't seem to make a decision about how to change any of them. I think one of the problems is that I know once I change something I'm going to have to live with it for a very long time so I have to get it right the first time.

My first thing is this landscape edging. I want something because I'm tired of having to get the shovel out to re-edge the whole thing. I bought one box of this faux brick stuff so see how I liked it before I buy a whole bunch more of it to put in the front yard. From a distance I like the way it looks, but up close it definitely looks faux and not real. So I keep going back and forth between liking it and not liking it. Josh has made it clear he doesn't love it. There are more expensive options as far as landscape edging goes, but then what if I don't like those either?

Now around to the back of the house we have this lovely deck which the previous owners so obviously did themselves or hired someone who didn't know what they were doing. It's not very well supported and never had any railing so after the kids kept jumping and falling off we built the flower boxes along the sides as a band-aid solution. And it's just a weird size - too small to put any patio furniture on. So do we make it bigger? Can't really go much bigger since there are window wells in the way off to the left. And we can't just do steps down from the door because we have to have at least a 3 ft. landing to be up to code.

I like our kitchen, dining, and family room area because it's so nice and open but then we have this awkward little space in the corner. What do I do with this? The kids love having a desk to color on and someday we would like to have a family computer there. So far I haven't found the perfect solution unless I want to have something built custom. It's not like we're made of money. Obviously I can't tackle all these projects at once so I also can't decide which one is the highest priority.
One more thing we can't seem to make a decision on is what to name this baby girl who is going to make an appearance in the near future. We've changed our minds multiple times so if you've ever asked us what the name is going to be and we told you a name, it's probably something different now. Hopefully we'll meet her and just know what her name is supposed to be. For some reason it's stressful this time around. We don't anything too popular, but we do want something practical. We want it to sound good for a baby as well as mature enough for an adult. Wish she could just tell us what she wants to be named!

Easter

Happy Easter! We had fun doing all the traditional Easter things. I let the kids dye eggs this year. We skipped that last year for some reason. The kids did well with only minor spills and just one egg casualty (which was actually dropped by me).

Easter fell on conference weekend this year which was nice since we didn't have to rush and get ready for church and I also love conference weekend. But on the other hand I like going to church on Easter so I can show off my kids cute matching outfits. Yes, I am that vain. Getting their Easter clothes is one of my favorite things. So, I dressed them up to go out to my parents' house that evening.

One of these years I am going to get myself a new dress too. The girls love getting their new dresses, but Tanner gets every bit as excited about his new digs. He loves when I get him dressed up nice on Sundays and tell him how handsome he looks. I hope he doesn't outgrow that.

Due to the coldness outside we had an indoor Easter egg hunt. This was the kids 3rd egg hunt this week so they knew the drill. Usually I follow the twins around encouraging them to pick up more eggs. But, they'd already had so much candy that day that the less eggs they found the better.

Spring break? Really?

Mother Nature is so funny. Let's dump a bunch of snow on the first day of spring break which also happens to be April Fool's Day! Ha ha ha ha!

Girls' weekend

Typically we call it "Girl's Week" but it was only a Thursday through Sunday so I'm calling it "Girl's Weekend." It would have been awesome if it could have lasted a whole week. About once a year all the girls on the Muir side of my family get together for some girly fun. I haven't really been able to go to one of these in a several years. It was a super nice break and I'm so glad Josh could take off work to watch the kids while I was gone. We stayed down in St. George and there were about 13 of us girls in all, but unfortunately we never got a group picture while we were there.

Here's a picture of us Ruben girls.

We had the luxury of staying at my cousin Jeremy and Sharla's house. When I say luxury I mean it. It's basically like staying at a 5 star hotel only better because you don't have to share it with a bunch of strangers. I didn't get a good picture of the front of the house because it was hard to fit it all into the view on my camera. Here are some pictures of the backyard though. My kids would have been in heaven with this treehouse.

Here is our lovely hostess, Sharla. Thanks so much for having us Sharla! You're the best!

It was a very relaxing weekend. We had 2 showers. One for my sister, Kim who is due to have a baby boy in July.

How cute is that diaper cake? The ladies in my family know how to throw a party fit for a magazine cover.

Here is my sister Kimmy. I'm so excited we are due so close together! Except that she is moving right after having the baby. That's a bummer.

We also had a shower for my soon-to-be cousin-in-law Lauren. It was so fun getting to know her on this trip and we're all excited to have her in the family.

The rest of the time we just did whatever we wanted. We had a lot of crafts to choose from. Sharla owns the cutest little quilt shop called Quilted Works so we went there to find something crafty to do.

Andrea, Rachel and I started on the cutest bags while we were down there and I also made an infant car seat cover that I'm way excited about. I'll post about those later once I finish them and take pictures. I love Sharla's craft room. I could basically live in there.

My cousin Tracy taught us how to make these adorable baby onesies. I'm planning on making many more of these with all my fabric scraps. They make cute baby gifts. And on the left of this picture are silk flowers my mom taught us how to make. You can make them into a pin or a hair clip. My Aunt Linda also showed us how to make some really cute magnets but I didn't get a picture of mine.

We spent a fair amount of time hanging out in the hot tub which was not too hot so as to accommodate us pregnant girls. And we had fun playing games and watching movies too.

Can you see the hot tub? It's that circle in the back behind the big pool.

Here we are playing spoons. I was so pleased that even with my huge belly I got a spoon every round. I guess Sharla had a bigger disadvantage though. As you can see she's holding her 2-year-old daughter.

They also had a well-stocked snack bar next to the home theater, which was bad news for me. I definitely consumed too much candy on this trip. Too bad those extra pounds don't go to the baby.

This was a much needed break for me and I'm so glad I could squeeze it in before our baby girl comes in May. Thanks girls!

Bubbly

She may be taking this bubble "gun" thing too seriously. Look at that face! This girl has got some kind of vengeance on her mind.

I love that every once in a while it's warm enough to send the kids out these days. We're going a little stir crazy. We're all big fans of bubbles around here. It's rare that we actually have bubbles, though, because every time we get a bottle out somebody manages to spill the whole thing. Tanner and Natalie had a fun afternoon a couple weeks ago with their bubbles toys. Sydney was at school or playing at a friend's house or something so it was just the 2 of them.

I don't know what Tanner's looking at here. Probably bubbles! Isn't he a cutie?

They've been playing really well together lately. But, sometimes they have these fights that I think are pretty funny. The other day it went something like this.
Tanner (talking to me): Nanny's a eepah.
Natalie (clearly offended): A eepah? No I not a eepah!
Tanner (no emotion): Eepah.
Natalie: No eepah!
Tanner: Yes.
Natalie (outraged): NO!!
Whatever an eepah is, Natalie does not want to be one. Tanner speaks his own special language most of the time. But he has made an effort to learn the phrases that are most important to him. Most of them involve requesting food.