Too early for spring cleaning?

My sister Heather has been on an organizing kick and recently took all her dvds and condensed them into one zip-up CD case, rather than dealing with all the space the dvd cases took up. I told her that I could never do that because I love to look at the dvd cases whenever we watch a movie, but once she showed me the space she saved by doing it I was sold. We had eleven ikea boxes, each measuring about 11" wide, 15" long and about 9" high, filled to the brim with dvds. I think our final count, not counting box sets, which we'll keep in their original cases, we had about 280 movies.
I had a great time going through all the boxes, alphabetizing and purging movies we'll never watch again. We ended up taking about fifteen movies to the Hastings down the road from us (for my Utah readers, pray that you get a Hastings one day. It is a most excellent place to kill time) and trading them in for $35 store credit. I'm stoked! At first I was sad to lose the dvd cases, but the amount of space that we opened up in our dvd closet is incredible! I couldn't just stop after the dvds and ended up going through everything in that closet, finding great pictures and other trinkets that we had forgotten about, as well as throwing out lots and lots of crap that surprisingly made it through our last move. Sometimes I look at old crap in my house and think, "How could this survive a move? At no point was I motivated to throw it out? I actually boxed it up and moved it with us??"

The final product. 3 neat, tidy cases filled with our many movies. Thanks for the inspiration, Heather!

Louie helped oversee the organizing.

Louie and Levi relaxing after their big day of cleaning.

Also this week, I found out Kid to Kid was having a massive 75% off sale. It was mostly winter stuff, they are making room for all their spring clothes, and I found some amazing deals. Heather and my mom helped me wade through the piles of clothes and I found all these great items for only $15 total!! Talk about a great deal!


I am getting so excited to come down to Utah next weekend. We're leaving late Thursday so we can have all day Friday and Saturday before we come home Sunday afternoon. Can't wait!
Finally, I had to post this cute picture of my niece Eliza. She recently got bangs and I think she looks great. Such a grown-up girl! I love when she comes over to our house and hangs out. She always has great stories and is such a blast.

Happy Birthday...Everyone :)

This part of the year is filled with lots of birthdays in my family, so I'm going to do a mass birthday shout-out.

Happy Birthday, Whitney! My darling niece Whitney turned eleven years old on January 6th. I cannot believe she's this grown up already! I love you and miss you so much!


Happy Birthday, Carlie Paige! My niece C.P. turns *gasp* thirteen years old today! Welcome to the teenage years Carlie...I'm sure they'll be good to you!


Happy Birthday, Scott! My amazing big brother Scott's birthday is tomorrow and I wish we could be in Utah to celebrate it with him! Love you, Scott!!


Happy Birthday, Laurie! My gorgeous sister Laurie's birthday is on January 28th. I hope it's an awesome day for you, Laurie, and I hope Justin spoils you rotten! You deserve it!


Happy Birthday, Ryan! My stud nephew Ryan turns 15 years old on February 4th (or as he used to say when he was little, "Feathermerry 4th") Ryan, only one more year until you can date and drive...where did the time go??


I look at all these pictures and I can't believe how lucky I am to have such an amazing family. I love you all so much and wish you the best of birthdays! Now go eat some BT Cake!

My enemy, the door stopper.

Lately I haven't been getting the best sleep in the world. It's a combination of things: frequently having to pee, heartburn like I've never felt before, stress and worry about the upcoming months, not being able to sleep on my stomach any more, etc. I'm actually grateful to be getting less sleep because then it won't be such a shock when the baby comes and I'm awakened several times throughout the night. I'll be a seasoned pro!
Anyway, when sleep does finally come, I'm often startled out of my sleep by the new bane of my existence:

The door stopper!
Louie the cat has found that batting at this with his paw makes a loud, pleasurable "BOIIIINNNNGGG" sound, but he's not interested in making that sound at say, three o'clock in the afternoon. No, he finds it to be a great sound at three o'clock...in the morning. And it's not just that he bats at it softly and it makes a quiet "Boing" sound. He pulls it ALL the way back and then releases it like a slingshot. It is so loud! There is nothing quite like finally drifting off to sleep at 2:30am, only to wake up with a heart attack at 3:30 at the springy sound of the door stopper. Louie can't figure out why he keeps getting pillows thrown at him. I'm going to be proactive tonight and cover the thing up, which will hopefully break Louie's habit of it, because if he does that when the baby is sleeping in her cradle I'm going to throw him out on the streets.

Anywho...
I had a moment of clarity today that broke through my otherwise cloudy pregnancy brain. Right now, Levi's clothes are stacked in cubes in the baby's future closet. We've been trying to find an inexpensive dresser to put in our bedroom so the baby will have the closet to herself. We've been unable to find anything and finally decided to fork out $150 while in Utah in February to get an Ikea dresser. Then it hit me: I already have my dresser inside my closet in our bedroom. I can pull that out, put it where we were going to put the NEW dresser and stack Levi's cubes in our closet. DUH!!! How had nobody thought of this before!? We seriously almost spent a bunch of money on something that was totally unnecessary. We just needed to think outside the (dresser) box. Unbelievable. It will be nice to have all (or at least some) of my intelligence back.

Levi is spending another Saturday helping his dad Brad and stepmom Julie with their new rental property. Brad has been delving into the property world and has been quite successful so far. The newest place needed quite a bit of work and Levi has been more than happy helping him with all the projects on the weekends. I like it because Levi is learning some great home improvement things, I just feel bad when he comes home all tired and he has to actually fix things that are broken at our house. Recent and future projects at our house include a leaky kitchen sink, a rain gutter that blew off the house in a windstorm last summer, a garage roof that needs to be re-tarred (ha ha...sounds like retard), a broken garage door, some loose hardwood boards and a few other things. It's never ending, but it's also really fun to take pride in your own home.

Well, I better get back to organizing our bedroom. Reorganizing is fun, except when you get distracted going through all the stuff. I've hung on to so many photos and letters and it's fun to reread all of them. Focus Carly! Focus!
(Also, it's kind of nice not being able to do any of the heavy lifting, so I get to do all the sorting and planning and then Levi does all the moving. I feel like a queen!)

She's Jammin'

Levi recently got a new iPod Touch (which is AWESOME) and now that he has something that can play music out loud he has been putting it on random and playing music for the baby when we're in bed. He sets the iPod on top of my belly and it's been fun to see which music she responds to.
So far we've learned that she loves old school ska/reggae. Whenever we play Toots and the Maytals she moves around like crazy. This is her favorite.

Ya mon! Hopefully she'll be nice and mellow!

Growing up.

Having a child obviously means some growing up on the parents' part has to be done. This has been most clear this week as we prepare the baby's nursery. We've picked out the paint color, have a general theme in mind, and have spent many hours discussing what the baby might need vs. what the magazines of the world lead you to believe you need. Amidst all of these decisions, we've had to say goodbye to some of our past.

Goodbye pinup girl art and Social Distortion poster. You have served us well. I had the Social D. poster when Levi and I first met, so it's a somewhat sentimental item for me. (The green on the wall is the color we're going with. It's called 'Marsh Fern'.)

Goodbye Johnny-Cash-Flipping-The-Bird-Poster (which has moved with me to nearly every place I've ever lived.) Goodbye Red Sox Dunkin' Donuts Posters. We'll miss you.

Goodbye Nekromantix poster and creepy grim reaper light switch cover. (When my seven year old niece Sydney learned we were having a baby, she looked into the future nursery and said, "Do you think some of this stuff will scare the baby?" The answer is yes, and that's why it's being put away in the shed. LOL!) I bought Levi the Nekromantix poster after we had been together a few months. They're one of our favorite bands and I was so excited to give it to him. Funny how decor taste changes, isn't it?


Speaking of paint colors, we've decided to get rid of the awful teal color in our bedroom (I hated it the minute we put it on the wall, but it's taken a year and a half to get the motivation to change it.) The decision has come down to the top color called 'Twig Basket' and the bottom color called 'Mocha Accent.'
Yes, they are different colors and I'm going with 'Mocha Accent', which sounds delicious.


And for good measure (as well as motivation to start a diet the DAY this child is born) here is a 26 week picture of moi. It's fun having a belly, but the cats are discovering their lap space is slowly diminishing.

Name dilemma.

Levi and I FINALLY came up with a name we both love, a name that is cute for a little girl and mature enough for a grown woman, etc. etc.
Alice.
I LOVE the name. That is until my mom reminded me that it's a Twilight name. UGGHHH!!
I need some advice. Do all of you out there truly and honestly think of Twilight when you hear that name. I won't be upset if you say yes, I just need to know how much of a Twilight name it is. I know it's not Bella or Edward, but is it still in that vein or is it classic enough that I won't have to worry about people asking me if I love those books?
Also, how popular is that name in Utah County?
Please, please, please. Any input is greatly appreciated!!

Nursery opinion needed.

I love the idea of vinyl stickers....they're cheap, easy to put on, can be removed easy, etc.
So, I think I've narrowed it down to two stickers for the baby's room. Which one do you like?

A. (I would be choosing different colors for the cage and the bird, since our wall color will not look like this)


or

B. (There are two different ways to display it, I'll show both.)

Twenty Eleven

I find that, when talking about the new year, I tend to say, "Two Thousand Eleven" and not, "Twenty Eleven." Saying it the second way sounds all futuristic, and since I still don't have a flying car, I don't think we've reached "the future" just yet :)
Levi and I had a great New Year's Eve. We went over to Chris and Avery's house and played games with them and Sevy and watched the countdown to the new year.
How time flies!!
I was looking up my blog posting from January 1st of last year and I can't believe how fast the time has flown. I get 2010 and 2009 mixed up all the time (like how I keep thinking that we went to Seattle this past summer to see the Sox play, but that was actually 2009 and 2008) and yet so much has actually happened in the past year that should separate it from it's predecessors.
The biggest thing, of course, was finding out we'd be having a little baby in 2011. The other big event was having my mom move in with us, which ended up being so seamless, it wasn't a big event at all!

I was reading my new year's resolutions from last year and I thought I'd see how I did:
1st up: Lose 20 lbs. I actually DID do this, losing 25 lbs over the summer, but, alas, it has all come back with this little baby inside of me! I'm excited to get back on the regimen and take control of my weight once the baby is born. At least I know it's possible!
2nd: Read more "classics". Ummmmm, yeah. This didn't really happen. There's a new film version of Jane Eyre coming out soon, so my goal is to knock that one out before we go see the movie. We shall see. I have a comfort level with my fiction and it's hard to branch out of it, even working in a bookstore hasn't cured me of this.
3rd: Keep a clean home. This became easy around, say, September when my mom moved in :) She is a clean freak and our house has never sparkled like it does now. Thanks Mom!!
4th: Appreciate what I have. I definitely did this throughout 2010. I've never been more grateful and more aware of blessings we have than this past year. To see the love and support we got when going though all our fertility treatments was overwhelming and I'll never forget just how lucky we are to be in the place we are. I don't take anything for granted and I hope I can teach that lesson to my daughter someday. We are so lucky and our lives are so good right now. I can't wait to see what 2011 brings!

So here are a couple of my 2011 resolutions:
1. Enjoy my time with Levi before the baby comes.
We've been going on more dates and I hope to get a lot of time in with him before April. He is my best friend and I love every second I get to be with him. This year I'll also focus on making sure he understands how much I appreciate him, rather than bogging him down with a honey-do list everytime I see him.
2. Healthier eating.
Now that I'll be responsible for another life, nutrition is going to be even more important than ever. No more sabotaging myself with chocolate and soda! It is now all about water and oranges!
3. Take time to enjoy the little things.
If I continue to go at the rate I'm used to going, it will be 2050 before I know it and I'll realize that I was working with my head down the entire time. I need to slow down, take deep breaths, and enjoy all the beauty around me.

Well, I hope you all had a magnificent New Year's Eve/Day and here's to a happy, healthy and wealthy New Year!
Cheers!