Nursery Furniture has arrived!!!!

Chris and I took advantage of his Monday off and headed for Portland Sunday evening after the annual church picnic! We stayed at Ana & Paul's and then headed out early Monday morning to start our marathon shopping adventure! It was a super early morning, because Jayden was already in bed Sunday night when we arrived, and she leaves for school at 6:45 in the morning, so we were up before 6:30 to spend some time with her! And then we were able to spend some time with Miss Lexi and Ana before we left the house around 9am. First stop... the Apple store. Chris needed to go in there for something and to his surprise, they actually had the new iPhone he wanted in stock (they've always been sold out when we've gone in, in the past). He had one on order, but it wasn't due to arrive until Oct. 2nd, which might be a busy time considering I'm due Oct. 4th! So he was pretty excited when he was able to cancel his order and walk out of the store with a new, pretty, activated iPhone 4!!

After that was all taken care of, we stopped by Paul's work and had lunch with him, and then headed to Bed Bath & Beyond for a navy duvet cover and shower curtain rod. Violet's working on curtains and pillows for our bedroom, so we need a new duvet to match. And the bathroom is next on our list to attack, primarily removing the sliding shower door and putting up a curtain. The doors are a pain to clean and space is limited as it is... I can't imagine trying to bathe a baby/toddler the way it's set up now. Then it was off to Violet's to pick up one set of our bedroom curtains and pick out fabric for the nursery bedding! We made a trip to Fabric Depot and Chris was able to sit out front with all the other men and update his new phone, while Violet and I shopped! We came up with some really cool fabric combinations, and she's going to be working on making me some curtains, a pillow for the rocking chair, 2 changing pad covers, a quilt, bumpers, crib skirt and about 3 different sheets for the mattress!! SWEET!!!! Violet is amazing, that's all I gotta say!!! :-) Here's a couple of the fabrics we picked out... there's a couple more, but I wasn't thinking and didn't take pics of the whole collection, so you'll just have to wait until the finished product arrives and I'll take pics then!!! The top and bottom fabrics are flannel and will be sheets and changing pad covers. The middle print will be the bumpers and possibly the curtains!

After Fabric Depot, we headed to Babies 'R Us and picked up our crib, dresser, changing table, mattress and changing table pad. Chris, being the master packer he is, got it all secure and protected in the back and we headed to Target!! We didn't spend much time there, although I could have walked around the clothes section for quite awhile... but we were facing rush hour traffic if we didn't hurry, so we got out of there fairly quickly with a new diaper bag (yippee!) and a few other odds and ends. Luckily traffic wasn't too bad, we stopped at Panda Express real quick for dinner and headed back to Port Angeles to pick up Gracie and start assembling furniture!!!

This was Gracie's spot for the night, maybe because it was the only open spot to lay! It will be interesting to see if she still chills there once the Baby Mason comes!!

I helped a little... not much, tho. Chris was the master builder!

We finally finished things up around 2am. Well, Chris did. I ended up bringing a dining room chair in and crashed out pretty hard while he was assembling the dresser drawers. I woke up a couple times, either to the sound of Chris building, or my own snoring! Ha! Now that all the furniture is in there, the room is magically smaller!! :-) So I'm not sure how we're going to arrange it yet, since we still have a HUGE rocker to put in there!! But it's going to match the furniture well, and has great sentimental value since my grandparents gave it to my mom and dad when I was born!!

It was a big (and long) day, thank you Oregon for being tax free! I'm sure we probably spent more in gas than we saved in tax, but that's okay... it's always fun to see family!! I just wish we had more time so I could have seen Violet's girls!! But there's always next time... and next time, we'll be introducing Baby Mason!!! :-) And we're both super pleased with how the furniture looks... now the room really does look like a nursery!!! I can't wait to get the bedding and curtains set up, and figure out what decorations I want to put up!!! This is the fun part!!!!

Weekend with the Blackburns

Ana, Paul and the girls all came up for the weekend for Ana's 20th high school reunion. Ana and Paul had festivities during the evenings, which gave Chris and I good bonding time with Jayden and Alexis. Saturday, we spent some time over at Jack & Barbara's house, replacing the water heater that decided to bust while they were gone... but luckily Paul and Chris are handy and were able to get it fixed up in time for them to come home!! And after working at the house, we headed straight to the lake!!! We had gorgeous, 80 degree weather all weekend, so it was perfect lake weather!! Sunday, Chris had to leave for middle school camp after church, so he wasn't able to join us at the lake again (bummer), but Jon and his 2 friends made it back from hiking in time to bbq with us for dinner, so that was cool! Ana's friend Susie and her family also joined us on Sunday.

Portland bound

Because we just didn't get enough time in the car for our trip to Kansas, we packed up and headed down to Portland the very next weekend! Chris's friend Eric was having his bachelor party in Portland, so we headed down and spent the weekend with Ana and the fam. Saturday, we spent the day out on the boat... which was SO nice!! We had perfect weather, and it was very relaxing! Chris headed out for the bachelor party that evening, and Ana & Paul went out, so Alexis and I had some great bonding time that evening! Jon also made the trip down that night for the bachelor party that night, so he was around on Sunday when we all got up.



















Jon, Chris and I went to Mt. Olivet's sunday service, which was excellent... and was fun to show off my big belly, since I wasn't showing the last time! :-) The 3 of us headed out to eat for lunch, then back to the boat to meet up with Ana, Paul and the girls. However, things didn't go as planned for various reasons, and our outing was cut short after Chris and I attempted to get "His and Her's" concussions! I was first, when one of the huge metal speakers on the boat came crashing down right on my head and then landed on Lexi, who was on my lap. But between my head and hers, the baby and my belly were spared. It hurt really bad, bad enough to bring tears... so Chris checked the other one, everyone calmed down and within 5 minutes, the other one fell on Chris's head. He doesn't have the big head of hair to protect him, tho and he had 2 gashes on his head. I immediately started crying again to see my baby hurt, he was angry and at that point... we were done being on the boat. Needless to say the outing was done and Chris and I, and our headaches, ended up going shopping and picked out a crib for Baby C!! We headed back to the house, in time to say bye to Jon and we got ready to head out too. It was quite the day, but we were okay... neither of us passed out, or was nauseus, so we weren't worried about us having concussions. Plus, we had a doctor's appt. the next morning, so we asked him to check us out and he wasn't worried about it... so there was no need for us to worry! God is good!!! :-)

My poor baby's gashes and huge lumps! :-(

Lexi was mad that we were leaving... and that she couldn't go home with us. It was sad, but I have to admit... it made us both feel pretty, darn loved!! :-)

Home Sweet Home!

Going through pregnancy away from my momma is difficult. I'm an emotional wreck as it is, and I want so badly to share this experience with her! SO... what did my fabulous husband do, he took me home! Usually we plan our KS trips out months in advance, but this time... it was about 6 days. We had been playing with the idea for awhile, but originally had August in mind. But when we found out that we had the dates for summer camp mixed up and it was actually the last week of July... and I already had the last week of June off for it, we decided to use that week in June for a KS trip. There was no way to get a week in July also, so I put in my resignation at work for the 20th, so I'd be free for camp, too!! God worked it all out quite beautifully!! :-) Plus August would have been a little iffy, not knowing how big I'd be or how I'd be feeling for a cross-country trip. SO... the end of June it was!! We left from Seattle, so we traveled through Montana this time, which was a nice change of scenery! And we took Gracie with us this time, so that helped us make sure we made plenty of stops for her and for me! My feet were a little swollen by the time we pulled into Hays, but they went back to normal by the next morning! I was so excited to see my folks and have my mom, especially, see my belly!! And yeah, Baby C cooperated right away and mom was able to feel him kick and move that first night!!

Mom and Dad both had to work the week that we were in town, so that gave Chris and I a chance to sleep in, relax in the morning, eat breakfast together on the back porch, spend time with Grandma and Grandpa, and take Jordan to the pool for some fun in the sun... all before the rest of the family got home from work!

Coolest baby gift EVER! The girls in mom & Krisson's office made this for me!

On Thursday, Matt, Steph and the boys made the trip to Hays for the day to visit! It was fun to see have the day to hang out! We all went to the pool to cool down from the heat, although, it still didn't feel all that hot to me. It was pretty mild for KS, being in the lower to mid 90's... but Chris AND Gracie thought it was too hot!!! Tiffany also came to town that evening, just in time for a BBQ with the fam, including Gma and Gpa!! Matt and Steph had to leave after the homeade ice cream, but Tiff was able to stay through Saturday morning!! :-)

Gracie was on clean-up duty! Ha!

I think Gpa misses having a dog around, he really enjoyed playing with Gracie!!

Saturday night we set up camp in Chris and Krisson's driveway and blew off some fireworks! This was the first year that the city allowed the BIG fireworks... usually it's too dry. But after the sound of all the sirens all night, I have the feeling they'll be outlawed again next year!! And with good reason... we lit the neighbors roof on fire! We had one land up there, but it blew out, so we assumed it was just the shell. However, about 10 minutes later, we noticed some small flames on their roof! It had re-ignited! Chaos broke out for a bit while folks were screaming for water and ladders and such... and it was pitch black, so it was pretty difficult to see things. But we eventually got the roof soaked and at that point, called it a night!!

Battle of the Bellies!

The camera flash makes it appear that there was light... but don't be fooled, it was pitch black!!

We started our long journey back to the NW, bright and early Sunday morning. And Chris granted my wish to go back through Vail, CO so we could get a new picture at our "proposal" spot... this time with the WHOLE family... Chris, me, Baby Cummings and Gracie!! It was a great spot for Gracie to play... and someday, Baby will love playing on the playground equipment as well!!

So tired that she had to lay down to drink her water! Ha!

Somewhere in Utah.. ghetto rest stop, but beautiful view point!

We ended up stopping outside of Salt Lake for dinner at Chili's and passed through SLC at dusk, so we were able to see some fireworks! My husband is a rockstar and made it all the way to Burley, ID where we stayed for the night and then headed off again early in the morning. We had to be in Seattle before 5pm to get the rental car back, and I had my doubts... but like I've said a million times, my husband is amazing!! We made it back to Seattle on time, even stopped at the mall for a bit, and made it back to Port Angeles in decent time to get a good night's rest before going to work in the morning. Going back to work was not fun... but there's light at the end of the tunnel... final date: July 20th!!!!!