Bixby Knolls

So we moved...again...for the last time (we said that last time) until we buy a house!! :)

It was a daunting move because I am, of course, pregnant and couldn't do much heavy lifting and Tim works on the weekends, which is when most of our friends can help, PLUS he has 2 hernias and can't lift much either. So we sent a desperate plea to our friends and were overwhelmed with their love and self-lessness. At one point I ran to get pizza for dinner for everyone and by the time I came home boxes were being UNpacked in every room...and these people only signed up move stuff from one place to the next! We have such amazing friends.

We absolutely love our new neighborhood. We're 2 blocks from Trader Joes, and 4 blocks through the neighborhood to an awesome park with jungle gyms (in oklahoma we call these "big toys", which I never realized was so un-clever until I was made fun of in CA) tennis courts, basketball courts, wide open space, a fenced in dog park, and a duck pond. We can't wait to put squeejay in the stroller and spend time there as a family of 4! Yes I said 4. We'll also have a cute little canine in tow in just a few days! We're also a 15 min walk to our church and live next to some beautiful homes in Bixby Knolls...so walks are fun as we compare favorites and admire beautiful places and gardens.

Here's Tim on our maiden voyage to TJ's for groceries with our granny cart! (soap box moment, I think this this new 10 cents a bag thing rules because people should have been bringing their own bags long ago, BUT I think the 10 cents should go to a non-profit for the environment or community...not back to the stores...they were profitable businesses before the ban on plastic bags and paid for those bags all by themselves...but alas, the rich corporations get richer...k, I'm done.) The last picture is from TJs parking lot and I was dying laughing.



So at my sister and mom's request, here are some photos of the new place...nothing much on the walls yet and squeejay's room is sort of the "where does this go?" room, but we're on our way.

View of the house (it's so easy to call this place a house! it's a building with 4 units, but it's so much more of a home than any of our last places...so we call it our house. :))

Living room shots

Tim's office is the desk + the closet next to the desk. The closet is (almost) entirely his for his business stuff which is a treat for him to feel organized and have his own space. (don't judge blurry pics pls)


My daddy's artwork we found up in my parents' attic last year. How did these treasures go hidden so long!?

Our Bedroom. Planning on ditching the verticle blinds for some nice curtains once the year-long+ search for a duvet I like is successful. So picky I am...

Baby's room! Our friends, Ben and Kim, blessed us so beyond belief with ALL the stuff in the pack and play, and the pack and play itself, and all the books on the shelf, AND more that we just couldn't fit in our car in one trip. We feel so fortunate to have them in our lives. They've given our kid a great start already!

Teensy bathroom!

Dining room with flowers from the lovely Prouty family.

Kitchen. We LOVE the kitchen. I'm pretty sure the previous tenants must have trashed the place because if you haven't noticed yet, with the exception of the bathroom, it's all pretty new. New carpet, new tile, new sink, new stove, new fridge, new granite counter top...so nice.


The "Bar" corner of the dining room.

The AWESOMELY huge backyard! Well, for CA this is big. And we've already hosted some fun times back here with our array of lawn games. Can't wait to host the next bday, shower, BBQ back here. It's such a great space. Our land lady's a gem too and said we can put a garden anywhere we'd like, just as long as we share. :) Hoping to get that underway sometime soon along with a good compost system.


That's it! I'll definitely update as the baby's room gets underway, but here's a sneak peak at some swatches I've been eyeing...



Love, Chelle

Belly Ethics

I have to say, people are BOLD when it comes to pregnant ladies bellies. I always heard stories of strangers rubbing bellies or asking if they can hold your baby (strangers!!!) but it comes to a whole new level of crazy when you're the one receiving the attention.
The photo is to appease my sister's request...Tim would be appalled at my horrible camera skills, plus you can't smile for real when you're doing a mirror photo like you're a 12 yr old on face book...it feels weird.

Tim and I planned to wait until 12 weeks to let the world know and finally couldn't keep our excitement in that long and started sharing pretty openly around 9 weeks. I'm glad we started telling around then because if we would have waited until now it would have been impossible to know how to react to the following:

@8weeks from a college friend: "your boobs are HUGE! are you pregnant??" (gotta love chelsea's boldness. :))

@10weeks from a co-worker: "I don't mean to insinuate anything, but it looks like you're going through a few changes..."

@12weeks from a stranger on the street when we were looking at her apartment for rent: Me: "oh it's a one bedroom, sorry we need 2", her: "yeah, plus you're pregnant, you don't want to live here this summer it gets way too hot". I don't even know you lady!!!!

@12-14weeks from various co-workers: "are you carrying something?" the oh so bold "are you pregnant", but mostly overhearing me talk about it with another person and then hearing all the "I was going to say!" or "I thought so, but I didn't want to say anything until I knew for sure" types of comments.

@13weeks from one of my therapists: "um, pardon me, but um, congratulations" :) he was so nervous to say anything!!!! :) I guess that's a scary thing to say to your boss.

and my personal favorite so far...
@14weeks from a parent I used to work with and haven't seen in almost a year: "HI! Do you have somethin' goin on down there?", while pointing to my belly.

I've had two unexpected belly touches, but at least from people I know and didn't mind so much...although one tickled my belly and started talking baby talk to it...sort of jokingly but weird nonetheless. I'm sure it only gets better from here on out! :)

Squeejay's 12.5 week photo shoot!

Are you ready to see the cutest little fetus in my whole uterus!??

^^Mermaid fins!^^

^^fist pump like a rockstar!^^

So, apparently we're having an angry alien baby. EEK! The tech explained to us that bones reflect the most sound waves and his/her skin is still translucent. SO, when squeejay looks right at you (above pic) all you see are the bones under that cute little nose and mouth...which makes our baby look like it's from another planet. But that's okay, we still love you squeej.

Big Money Decisions

Yep, I know it's taboo to talk about money, but 1) if you're reading this I probably know and love and trust you, and 2) people should be more comfortable with talking about money in my opinion. and this is my blog. so there.

SO, with big change comes the need/opportunity to make big decisions in life and for us this has involved some serious numbers crunching.

• Baby is on the way==>do we need a bigger place? when?
• Baby is on the way==>my 2 door civic is already uncomfortable for me to get in and out of. Add 25 lbs to that me and then add a baby in a car seat being fit in the back like a tetris piece every day and Tim will have a very frustrated wife who needs lots of backrubs.
• We don't want to rent forever==>buy a house? when is the right time? how much do we want to spend/do we need?
• Not 100% positive we want to be in LB long long term==>rent bigger now, buy later when we're 100% sure about things?
• We HATE our neighborhood right now (crime is skyrocketing, parking's wretched, and we currently have "baby's room" set up right where the dumpster will roll through the alley in the early dawn hours and others will rummage through for cans and finds all night long==>move to awesome 2 bedroom with a yard that Tim found in Bixby Knolls by church??

Phew! Well, we've made a few of these decisions. Yes, we're moving. We find out Monday if we got the place in Bixby Knolls. It's a 4plex, not a 16 unit building. We can have a small dog, a HUGE shared back yard, go on walks in a safe and quiet neighborhood, and PARK OUR CARS!!! and if you're a friend who we invite to visit for dinner, you can park your car too!!!! oh joy, what bliss!!! :) (we currently walk up to 1 mile+ some nights because there are just TOO MANY PEOPLE downtown. and they're angry people. and we're becoming angry people back. we gotta get out.

Tim and I have decided in our marriage to split certain responsibilities up rather than share in every task. and I'm the money manager. Mostly because I'm a control freak. Which can be bad in relationships, but it's a huge advantage when I'm figuring out our budget or calling credit card companies once a month to get a lower rate and a higher line of credit, just cuz I feel like it. Or when I notice a $5 fee that is arbitrary and I march my assertive little self down to chase bank and tell them, no thank you, you can give me my $5 back, thanks so much! with a smile on my face.
I recently found myself having a brilliant idea! (a rare occurrence) and feel compelled to share it here. We accidentally overlooked a portion of Tim's new benefits package that automatically signed him up for health benefits. This is bad because I already have him on mine and with the school district it's free (for baby too! so awesome!), not so bad because Tim's payment is only $30/paycheck. BUT we can't de-enroll til November. :( So we decided, we'd go without something we don't need for the amount of time it takes to make up the difference. Netflix rule, but we don't need it. Plus they just upped their rates by $5 a month. So, back atcha Neflix, we don't need you for 7 months. We'll read books and go on walks and crochet and watch hulu for free once House and Parks and Rec start up again (waiting very impatiently). We decided to do this for every "woops" in our lives. A traffic ticket, you name it. It felt like a really smart and good decision. Kind of punishing ourselves, but also rewarding ourselves long term by staying on budget and reaching our goals on time. :)

We also stopped by the Volskwagon dealership last night. We REALLY REALLY have our eyes set on a Jetta TDI wagon. 48 miles/gal people! lots of room, comfy interior, and 4 doors for the family we're growing into! We spent 2 hours there going back and forth on options to bring our price down, bring our payments down. They tried to get us to lease. Said 0% financing was unavailable on a TDI (which it wasn't when we looked less than a yr ago) and kept telling me we could afford the $470 or $437 payment they wanted me to sign off on. Which was very frustrating for me...they don't know our goals, my student loan bills, our other financial commitments. If I want to give $2000 to charity every month then I can and that's my business. What I can "afford" is entirely up to me, and I wasn't being listened to. I was SO proud of us when we finally said, "well it looks like you've done all you can to make this work for us, but ultimately it's obvious that this car is just beyond our means. It was our ideal car, but we don't need the perfect car, there are lots of options that are thousands of dollars less that we could get better financing on. Thanks so much and have a nice night". It felt good!
On the way home we talked about finishing the last few payments on the honda and selling it by owner to get a bit more for it and...are you ready...sharing one car for a while. Tim's work schedule is 8-5 forevermore so I can totally drop him off and pick him up. We'll save $300 a month without our honda payment + what we sell it for + about $100 on car insurance until we have enough to pay almost all cash or at least a huge down payment for a new car. If we get the apartment we want, it's also less than 10 miles for Tim to ride his bike to work on a nice day. I just want to wait until summer's over so baby and I can have air conditioning through the heat!

Welp, that's all. Just wanted to pat myself on the back for making what we feel were good, wise decisions with the money God's given to us. Now onto disability benefits for maternity leave and finding a good affordable daycare for the spring time! :)

It's Summer!!!

Ok. I know it's not officially summer according to calendars for like, 1 more week, or something. But to me, today was the first day of summer!

1. The kids were out of school. I still had to show up at my office but it was so nice to be at an elementary school and hear absolutely nothing but the soft sounds of my keyboard clicking and the clock ticking.

2. I bought lemonade from a bunch of kids on the way home! This picture isn't of those kids, they were a few years older, and my cup cost 50 cents...but it was tasty!
I'm so excited for beach time, bike rides, sun bathing, gardening, lawn games, yoga on the bluffs, popsicles, and pool parties.

Happy Summer everyone!

Tim's first Father's day

June 18th, 2011

It's Tim's first father's day tomorrow!We got to see the baby last week on an ultrasound for the first time...it's little heart was pumping and looked like a little radar blip on the screen. It was a moment for me where reality sunk in just a bit deeper. There's a tiny human inside of me! you're the one making me so sleepy and irritable! But how could I be mad at a little lima bean.

Happy Father's Day!!

Just a virus...

blogs are meant for candid, open, spilling of maybe even somewhat embarrassing secretive things...right???

I've been sick for a long time now, about 3 1/2 weeks...I'm in the coughing stage. Fits of coughs that at this point make my abs hurt (at least I'm getting some sort of a work out!) and last uncontrollably for up to 2 minutes as I pray for relief. Here's the embarrassing part. Every time I cough like this, I pee a little. EEk!! My poor pathetic body just can't take it all. Every ounce of strength and energy is spent up as my lungs trying to fight for a deep, clear breath of fresh air and apparently my bladder just doesn't care anymore. Does anyone else have this problem? Am I doomed to the bathroom for the next ? weeks until I'm fully recovered? Sadly? this is just a virus...so despite 2 trips to the doctor's and one 3hr long visit to a clinic, I'm without the magic pills that make everything all better. Just drinkin fluids and resting and researching whether the people behind fuzzy buns (baby re-usable diapers my niece uses) make an adult size.

someone comment so I don't feel ashamed! (christi....please.)