In Love!

Here are a few things that I am just loving lately:

1. Of course, Rachel. She has been using her kitchen more and actually pretending to cook and such instead of just use the pieces for whatever. Here she is cooking me a red pepper. Yum! She looks so big.




2. My new Vera Bradley purse. I ordered it off E-bay for $40 total. It is nice and big for all of my coupon stuff and has many pockets. I love the pattern!




3. The new bathtub that is in place in our progressing bathroom! There is a pipe hanging into it so they could fill it with water and test the jets and stuff.


4. Rachel's new room's paint color. Katie had painted one of her daughter's rooms this color and I really like it. I have painted the walls, but need to cut in the room. It is looking great so far, but I will put a picture of it when it looks more done. The Behr Paint and Primer is going to cover well in one coat.
So into Minnie Mouse that she is completely unaware I am taking a picture of her. I even had to cross in front of her to get this angle.

5. Last but not least and without a picture: Matt. Of course I love him and he has been great with getting stuff done for me around the house and working hard with the bathrooms. He is leaving on Saturday for Kentucky to build another church and will be gone for about a week. Keep him and the other 35 or so people going in your prayers for a safe and productive week!

Matt is working HARD!

This little cutie and I went swimming with a friend on Friday. She looks so cute in her swimsuit. She has gotten much more careful around the water now. Before she would be willing to probably get in without anyone around and stick her head under. Now, she would only jump in if someone was holding her hands and pretty much stayed around the steps. It was good since I was supposed to get in the water anyways. We had fun!


Love the ponytail!

Matt has been doing a lot of work in the bathroom. He is trying to get a lot of it done before leaving on Saturday for Kentucky.



Matt and DJ got the tar paper and backerboard down.

He had to move the drain for the tub because it used to be a shower.
He is building some shelves that will be tiled as part of the shower
Dad came over yesterday to help them put in our cabinets! The countertop people can come and measure now! This is our bathroom.

So, the cabinets have now cleared out of our sitting area and are in their rightful place.

This is Rachel's bathroom and the cabinet on the left is actually the laundry chute. Matt had to cut out the bottom and side (there is access from our bathroom too through the wall) of the cabinet, but he is already using it.

Since Rachel can most likely climb out of her crib now, I have been thinking about moving her a big girl bed (my old bed). Before I do that, I am going to decorate her room. The pink room will be hers, but Katie and I are going to paint and have lots of fun decorating. She is also redoing her bathroom and so we decided to make these our projects while our husbands are gone building and playing in Kentucky. I will post some pictures of her room when we have some progress.

Make A Mess

"Make A Mess" seems to be one of Rachel's favorite phrases because that is typically true of about anything she does. And Matt has been doing just that the bathroom. Well, I posted early in Memorial Day about Matt's activities with the jackhammer. He ended up getting the entire platform out of the porch and then pouring some concrete to fill in the drain (remember the shower thing) and it looks great! Matt and DJ continued with the jackhammer upstairs on our hideous tile floor in the bathroom. It was so loud. I put Rachel in the office with some white noise I found on the computer. She slept for 3 hours through that stuff. However, the tile is gone and the bathroom has been gutted! I know he has to build some shelves that will be tiled as part of the shower and needs to frame the tub area. I got a call two nights ago that our cabinets were in at Home Depot so we got those. We have a few problems to take care of as you will see in this picture (the weird stripe thing on the bottom drawer), but at least you can see what they kind of look like. Matt and I have been wondering what to do with that extra space in our bedroom and now I know exactly what it is good for: storing all materials for home improvement projects. As for Rachel, she is a little sick right now with just a cold or allergies and some congestion. I am feeling not 100% either, but nothing related to the surgery.

Memorial Day

In addition to dropping off some friends at the dock for their cruise, Matt decided to rent a jackhammer to get rid of this small raised portion of concrete (that was going to be a shower planned by the previous owner). Thankfully, it looks like once he gets rid of the raised part, the concrete underneath should still be smooth. He wants to put some outdoor carpet down, but I am not so sure yet. He has been doing a little more work in the bathroom and I think all the tile is off the walls, but just not the floor tile. Our cabinets aren't in yet, which is good, but I think it would put the pressure on too. Oh well, he is doing a good job as he is busy with other things too.

I looked at my toenails earlier today and thought they could use a repainting, so I decided to paint Rachel's nails for the first time. I put her in the highchair for about 20 minutes total just to make sure they were dry. She squirmed a little and told me it hurt when I used the nail polish remover to get rid of smudges. It was really funny to watch her walk because she just kept looking at them and walking really carefully as if they might fall off if she ran or something.



Her new Minnie Mouse shirt from Grandma Schaefer!

Her first really big lip boo boo. If was pretty much her fault. She knows how to tip back on her roller coaster car a little and she went too far this time. When she went over, the handle of the car hit her mouth. There was a lot of blood dripping everywhere, but after eating a whole popsicle, it stopped bleeding and she was calmed down.

Updates on the Home Front

We are having some progress on a few things. First off, I am doing much better than I was at the last post. I got some good pain medicine, which I was taking religiously for the first few days, but I have stopped them. I can move pretty well and go up the stairs fine, but anything that uses my stomach muscles hurts. I am eager to get back to the gym, but that won't happen for at least a month. I go back to the doctor a week from today for them to check the incisions. I had some help for the first week with Rachel, but now I have her during the day by myself. We have figured out a way for her to climb into her pack n play by herself, so I don't have to lift her. We just bum around the house all day and watch way more TV than usual.


Matt has started work in our master bathroom. Here are some before/demolition pictures. The last picture shows a lot of stuff sitting in our bedroom waiting to be installed by Matt. I am excited!

Feeling Better in a different kind of way

Just in case you aren't up to speed on the events in my life the past few days, here you go: After my trip to the ER on Wednesday night, we thought I had an ovarian cyst. We go to see my gyn and he says that the tests results are not as conclusive. There was definitely something, but he wasn't sure what it was or where it was. He thought putting a scope in my belly button and getting out whatever was in there seemed to be the best course of action to getting me feeling better and back on my feet. I was fully aware that it might not be that simple and it wasn't. As soon as I came to from the anesthesia, it hurt a lot more than I thought it should be a little incision in my belly button. In my groggy state, he informed me that they had found a cyst on my right Fallopian tube and had to remove the tube. I slept mostly the rest of the day thanks to my yellow button that dispenses pain medicine. I did not sleep well, waking up every hour, but thankfully I can take a nap when I want to. I have gotten up a few times and it is getting easier each time. My pain button has been replaced with tylenol with codine and I have to blow into the little apparatus ten times every hour. Matt is currently spending a little time painting and will be back to visit me later. I am very grateful that we go in for surgery when we did and that this did not get any worse. God was watching out for me and I would appreciate prayers for a speedy recovery. If you are super curious, Matt has pictures of my twisted and deadish looking Fallopian tube that the surgeon took. He is almost showing those off as proudly as when we had Rachel.

The Verdict

Rachel has been doing a lot of TV watching the past few days. I have been having a lot of stomach cramping and pain since Monday night. So, with me laying on the couch all day and night long, Rachel has been brushing up on her Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episodes. Since the pain wasn't getting any better and not acting like a stomach bug, we decided to head to the ER. After a CT Scan and an ultrasound, they figured out that I have a somewhat larget cyst on my right ovary, which is causing all of the pain. Since it is causing so much pain, I am seeing my doctor about having it removed. I will give an update once I meet with the doctor this afternoon.