This Is Vivi's World And We're Just Livin' In It!

I finally have two hands to type! My plan is to update this blog'o'mine a little more than I have in the past now that Vivi's in the picture. What a whirlwind these last three and a half weeks have been. Frank and I have been in this weird twilight zone where we have no idea what day it is or what time it is. Last night I fell asleep on the couch and woke up to Saturday Night Live on TV. I had no idea it was even Saturday!

Things are getting better each day. It's either getting easier or we're getting used to surviving on no sleep. My body is feeling normal again too. Can I just say how amazing the human body is?! It's hard to imagine that just a few weeks ago I was HUGE and uncomfortable. Now, I can sleep on my stomach and back again AND without that huge pregnancy pillow that took up half our bed! Besides the whole breastfeeding thing and what that's doing to my body, I feel pretty normal again. It's a great feeling. I'm still about 10 pounds over where I started and I got a little overzealous the other day and tried on a pair of pre-pregnancy jean....HA! What a joke. Not quite ready for the pre-pregnancy jeans. :)

Well, gotta go...I hear Vivi waking up. Like I said, this is Vivi's world and we're just living in it.

More to come later!

Meet Vivienne Grace Arnold!!!

Little miss Vivi made her appearance on Wednesday, November 24th at 4:27 p.m.!! She weighed 7 pounds 1 ounce and was 20 1/2 inches long! More to come later when I actually have two hands available to type! :)

The Finished Nursery!!!

So, it's pretty much done! There are just three little things left to do....put a rug pad under the rug, hang up the mobile, and hang the picture that my mom is currently painting. I went to Babies R Us today and got pretty much everything I needed to bring the baby home. Before today, the nursery was still cute, but we didn't have one bottle in our house. There are certain things that the baby will actually need....having a cute nursery is not a need, but it sure is nice! I just love it in here...I'm currently writing this post from that cute chair in the picture above. Frank thinks it's a little bit ridiculous all the time and money we've spent on this nursery, but I've enjoyed every second of it....well, except the wall paper fiasco, but everything else I've loved! The clothes and blankets are washed, the closet and drawers are organized, we have diapers, etc...think we're ready for little miss Arnold to make her debut. She should be here in the next month! I can't believe how quickly this pregnancy has gone by. I feel like I just took that pregnancy test yesterday.

Work, work, work and no play, play, play...

Frank's been such a good sport. Every weekend for the past two months he's been working on another project we have around the house. In fact, it's 9:32 on a Friday night, and he's in the office caulking the nail marks. We've spent the last two Friday nights at Lowes. My, how things have changed. We're just a bunch of old farts now, I guess. At least our house will look great! :) The nursery is just about finished and so is the office. We're hoping to do our touch-up painting in the office tomorrow and start moving all of the furniture out of the dining room and into the office where it belongs. I can't tell you how good that will make me feel to see my dining room table again. We do usually eat on the couch in front of the tv (a habit that will change when our baby's old enough to know better, I promise), however, there are some meals that you just really need a table to sit at to eat. Like tacos...I had a hard time with my tacos on my balancing plate on my lap this week.

I can now see a light at the end of the tunnel with our various projects. This is a very good thing since we only have about 9 weekends left (or less!) to get them all finished. More nursery pictures coming soon!

Three years later, it finally bloomed!

This is too monumental not to share. Three summers ago I bought a plant at the farmer's market. The old man I bought it from threw in another plant for free. So, gladly, I took it and planted it in my yard having no idea what it was. For three years this ugly plant has grown straight up with a bunch of leaves that look strangely like marijuana leaves. We've been calling it the 'marijuana plant' for years and it's the ugliest thing in our garden. I cut it down every year and miraculously it always returns. So, not too long ago, I look out of my kitchen window and this is what I see...a big, beautiful red flower!!! So far I've seen three of these flowers and I've taken pictures of all three because I just can't believe it! I guess good things do come to those who wait. ;)

The New Office/Music Room in Progress

So, the other project in our lives right now is Frank's new music room/office. It's almost finished....almost. And it looks better and better every weekend. We're going for a more contemporary/modern vibe in here. We ordered a desk from Crate and Barrel that is currently still in the box, two months later, waiting for his room to be finished. Hope we like it because now we missed the 30 day limit to return items. We're going to put Frank's framed albums around the top of the room on the red, which I think will look pretty cool. We'll hang some of Frank's guitars on the wall and his miscellaneous framed music art. I can't wait! I like to pretend that I am an interior designer....maybe someday I will be.

The Hard Part is Finished

It's been awhile...I know. Empty promises....I know. I promised I would write on the blog more often, then my whole house turned upside down. We currently have two projects going on at the same time, which means that currently our dining room is filled will all the furniture from those two rooms plus the dining room furniture. Those who know me know that I like to have things in their place and nice and orderly. Well for the past two months I have had to let that all go. Our desktop computer, that was in the old office-now nursery, is dismantled in the dining room. That means that I can only get online and use the computer when Frank gets home from work and I can use his laptop.

I do, however, see an end in sight. Frank's new office, the old sun porch, is now painted, fan is up, and the new wood floors are supposed to go in this weekend. I'll believe that when I see it, though. (That last comment was a test to see if Frank reads my blog...think I know the answer to that question!) Once the office is done, then we can move all of that office furniture out of the dining room....YAY!!!

The nursery project was a thorn in my side and I thank God everyday that the hard part is over. The pictures above document the tearing off of the wallpaper. Mark my words...I will NEVER AGAIN strip wallpaper from an old house. Never!!! It had to be done, unfortunately, as you can see from the before picture. The painted over wallpaper was disconnecting from the wall. After we pulled the wallpaper off, we put a texture on the wall and it looks AWESOME!! One coat of primer, two coats of paint later it was almost finished. Then I pulled off the tape from the molding and lo and behold, the tape took off all of the molding paint. I cried for about 15 minutes about that, no lie, right when Frank came home from work. (I hate you hormones!) Another weekend later and Frank put up the curtain rods and the chandelier (a 4 hour project due to the nice 1939 house we live in).

So......the hard part is over. Now we're just waiting for the crib and dresser, the glider chair, and the bedding to come in, then it'll be almost finished. I can't wait. I think it's going to be the cutest nursery ever!!! More pictures coming soon!!!