Stice Family

We've had a fun week of mild weather and lots of playing outside every day. I've caught Ashton coming inside with muddy shoes on, and crossing the new carpet. It about gave me a heart attack until I saw that you couldn't see any evidence of it. Hooray! We chose the perfect color for carpet! Not that it's allowed, by any means, but my heart can settle down.

I have spent most of this week sitting in my computer chair bored as can be because it is the most comfortable chair in my house and sitting/laying down is all I'm good for! My energy sort of plummeted and I'm swollen enough to not be up for doing anything really active. But I've not always necessarily been using the computer.

I've sat here planning a family vacation for this summer- a road trip through Washington State. Lots of time on the phone making reservations and changing them all up. I've tried to organize the time there and find places to stay that will allow our family to stay shorter visits (not all week) in each location during the peak tourism part of the summer. I'm really excited about it though. It'll be over the 4th of July and the week following. It's all set and reserved, and apparently in the nick of time as most of the places I called mentioned I was taking one of their last rooms left during those dates. We'll be visiting Seattle, Victoria, The Olympic coast/National Rain Forest, Great Wolf Lodge (water park resort), and Mt. Rainier National Park. I made sure what we'd be doing at each place was more kid friendly than Sarah friendly and Brielle is super excited to go. I shouldn't have told her about it so early in the game because now we'll be hearing about WHEN will we go for months to come!

I've also played with photos on my digital photo software program. I haven't done that since I got my new computer because the program install disk was far off in who knew where in the garage. But I unearthed it and remember why I love it. It's so much fun!

In pre-school, Brielle was assigned to make a paper doll sort of version of herself to hang in the class and fill out information about what makes up her personality. She and I really had fun creating it with orange yarn hair and a cute little outfit cut from pretty scrapbook paper. I forgot to take a picture of it before we turned it in to her teacher, but when she gets it back I will take and post one. I got a little carried away trying to draw a face on it for Brielle that made the features look somewhat realistic. I guess I'm one of THOSE moms. I can't just make it simple and have to draw the face FOR Brielle. But Brielle loved it, and had tons of fun drawing the pictures to go with it of her family and her favorite things.

I finally got out and did some shopping Tuesday for having a family over for dinner that evening. It took a lot of energy to be on my feet all day shopping, cleaning the house, and cooking, but it was worth it. We had a ton of fun. The Gibb family that came is still somewhat new in our ward and we've really enjoyed them. Their kids are all the same ages as our soon to be 3. So they all had a great time too. I LOVE company. Especially when I'm really not able to do any of the other things we used to do to have fun- sit through movies at the theater or do any sort of recreation. We had had the most boring weekend of our lives the weekend prior because we were stuck in the house with nothing to do, no where to go, and bad weather out. So we really appreciated the chance to mix it up a bit having friends over.

Tuesday was also the Presidential State Of The Union Address and my step father in law had a nice surprise. He was in Washington D.C. for a national Beet Growers conference- he's a farmer. And the state of Idaho found out, I'm not sure what individual made the arrangements, but that person had an extra guest ticket that upon hearing Galen (my step father in law) was in D.C. gave to him to attend. So Galen was present at the address and was on our local news for it as well as Todd's mom who the news came and interviewed that day here in Fruitland. Kind of fun for them to be celebrities for a day.

I worked on the trim of my quilt for the baby until my machine stopped working. It hadn't ever had a tune up, so I took it in and that was all that was wrong. The timing was off a little and it really needed lubed up as dry as it had gotten. So I can pick it up today and get cracking on it again! I'm probably less than 30 minutes from being done with the quilt, so stopping the project that close to the end when the machine stopped working was SOOOO frustrating. Sewing machines are so fickle! Before taking it in to be repaired, I had even gone to my friend, Marcee's house to borrow her machine and it wouldn't work for her or I either! Which was OK because we wanted time to go over some songs together and that left us plenty of time to sing.

One nice thing, though, is that the repair lady raved over how nice my machine was. I picked it out on my own, on a good sale, because my mom wanted to get me one for my birthday 4 years ago and wasn't close by to help me pick one out or familiar with new models. She sent the money with my dad who was able to come for my birthday and I did all the research I could to pick a nice machine out. So I guess I can't think too harshly about it for not working. It went 4 years with little use which, I guess makes them dry up faster. And she said it was super dry.

It's about a month before Brielle's birthday, so I've starting brainstorming for her b-day party. I LOVE LOVE LOVE doing birthday parties. But I was a little stumped on this one and I'll explain why. Last year, after her pirates and princesses party, Brielle randomly announced that next year she wanted to have a Rainbow party. I'm not sure where the idea came from, but initially I thought of a treasure hunt for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and thought that sounded like a great theme for a little girl! I even ordered a plastic black witch's brew kettle online at Halloween time to be the pot of gold. I thought they'd be harder to find in April.

Well, then I went online this past week trying to find party activity ideas and favors or party decor. Silly me, I forgot what rainbows are so famous for these days! Talk about gay pride! I'm wondering if parents will raise an eye brow at our theme! But everything online for the first few sites that came up on the search engine was adult gay party props/paraphernalia/decor. Marcee is in the primary presidency in church and they are doing a rainbow themed party (in light of the rainbow baptism primary song) for the 8 year-olds in a couple weeks. She was telling me some of their ideas, a rainbow arch made of helium balloons, rainbow candies for hand outs, etc. So those tips may have preserved the plan. But it was a rocky day of party planning last week!

I'm a day shy of 3 weeks until I CAN be induced. I haven't set an induction date yet but it will probably be set for after the following weekend of the day I CAN be because Todd will have his monthly class the evening of the soonest day I can be. Not too ideal to have your baby without your husband! So it's actually going to be more like 3 and a half weeks unless she comes early. Ah, wishful thinking!