Baby Girls Room

When finding out we were having a little girl I was excited to get to decorate for a specific gender! I started PINNING like crazy on Pinterest!! haha The one room that REALLY caught my eye was this one…

I loved the teal and pink…I loved that it wasn’t too “baby” and would be easily turned into a “big girl” room one day! So...I just had to convince Yosh how cute this was AND get the right colors (which is very difficult for 2 color deficient people!)

Now…don’t get me wrong…Owen’s room is AMAZING…but it was all done gender neutral since we didn’t know if he was a boy or girl. For Owen we went surfer/ocean theme…and planned on adding pink Roxy stuff if “it” turned out to be a female. BUT It was a boy…and everything worked out great.

This was once our AWESOME friend painted our walls…it was so cool!!! I can’t seem to find any pics of his “baby” room all finished but this room went through a few transitions…depending on Owen’s sleeping situation.  It started with all white baby furniture (crib, dresser and cube organizer thingy)…he then slept in the pack-n-play NEXT to his crib…THEN to a toddler bed NEXT to his crib…AND NOW finally he’s in a big boy captains bed with a new refurbished dresser.

NOW on to our little lady’s room….FIRST we had to ADD a room. Yes our house is a 3 bedroom BUT we wanted to keep our guest room just that…its an extremely large room and we have outta towners stay with us from time to time; so we had to add a wall in our HUGE upstairs loft to make bedroom #4.

This is only HALF the loft…we sold the couches…and then construction would start a few months later…

Demo’ing and framing the wall done by Yosh and Kris…

Then hanging the drywall pieces was done by some guy Kris knows…

And yet another guy came in to do the actual dry-walling part…adding texture and stuff (which we found out LATER did kind of a shady job of it…BUT you can’t really notice unless you are looking for it!)

FINALLY came paint…3 walls are teal and the 1 raspberry wall is actually chalkboard paint!

We had our neighbors (who paint for a living) do it for us…and they weren’t fans of my choices…neither is/was my husband BUT I loved it!!! This past weekend Kris finished up by doing the electrical in our new wall, adding a ceiling fan and now the only thing Yosh needs to do it put the door on, which I’m in no hurry since it’ll be a while before shes even in her own room.

But Here is our Girls room…and I LOVE IT!

All the furniture we used with Owen…except the glider and ottoman…that’s the only new furniture we got for this baby girl.

Some of my favorite little accessories in her room are…
            

I love the pink poka-dot lanterns…super girly fancy lamp and the frame with our maternity pictures!

So this is her pretty much finished room…I’m proud of it…and totally love it!

Next thing we know we’ll be introducing our little lady to her new room….and someday she’ll love it like her brother and I do…everyday Owen has to go in there and “check on his sisters room” and HOPEFULLY one day it’ll grow on Daddy…and he’ll love it too! haha

The Baby Waiting Game

Maternity leave has been great…for those of you that know me know that I’m kinda a planner! I had this baby around when we’d have time off…our disability insurance, mom being retired, etc. etc.  Well this week has been the most stressful week in a while…I found out that my disability insurance made a policy change, and my school district ALLOWED that change as of July 1st (a month after we had open enrollment) and without notifying its members.  So without getting into TOO much boring details…I’ll save ALL those for the attorney that my teachers union is sending me to next week (yes its THAT serious that we are possibly getting into a lawsuit!)…all my planning went out the window and we are now SCREWED!! Doesn’t that sound awesome….NOT!  BUT I know we’ll get through this, as we always do but man its upsetting!

I’m 38 weeks pregnant now…and we are 6 days away from our scheduled c-section date! Weird to think that this day week our little Lady will be 1 day old. I wonder everyday, what will she look like?!? Will she come out looking and acting like our little Owen did?

Owen and I spend most of our days together…hanging out at home or running errands. People have asked me “What have you been doing?” and I know they are assuming my lazy butt has probably stayed in pj’s most days doing nothing BUT that’s TOTALLY NOT the case. Between doctors appts, shopping, etc. we have kept ourselves pretty busy around here.  Since Owen still goes to Martha’s 2 days a week…I get 2 days to either rest (which I did ONCE) or shop with Mother! I told ya….her being retired and me on leave can be deadly! haha But its been extremely nice…and I feel blessed to have been able to get to spend the past 3 weeks with my little man. I get a little emotional thinking about how different it will be once we are a family of 4 and he’s not the center of our world…he’ll have to share that spot with his baby sister.

 

Speaking of staying busy…

My pregnant friend Heather ended up having her little man early…yes after our beach fun last weekend she ended up have Baby Carter on Monday Jan. 21st by c-section because of her HELLP syndrome and platelet levels. Both Mommy and Carter are doing great and now we ALL sit and wait around for our girl Ella to show up!

Little Carter aka Ella’s future prom date!
7lb 9oz

 

 

This is Carter giving Ella a pep talk on how to evacuate the facility…but don’t think it worked…she hasn’t made any moments to make her exit just yet!

MLK Holiday Tradition…still alive!

I love living in Sunny Southern California. It literally is sunny MOST of the year but it was odd since this year we had “record breaking low temps” last week, and man it was sh*t cold around here!! And then this weekend its in the 80’s…what the heck?!? From long sleeve thermals one week, to shorts and tanks the following its crazy! Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining since this Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday weekend we were able to soak up the sun and hit the beach! So awesome! Its become our little tradition…and now that I’m looking up pictures I’ve realized its more of an every other year tradition.

2009 I was 6 months prego with Owen, had great weather, great day…2010 was a no-go since I was still going through chemo. 2011 was a beautiful day and we enjoyed it with the Gerke Girls. And last year, 2012, it was raining so we skipped it.

So this year we got lucky and it was another BEAU-TI-FUL day! We headed down to the same spot in Newport Beach (off 56th street) and sit in the same area  by the same jetti and lifeguard tower every MLK weekend. Yeah I’m totally NOT a creature of routine or nostalgic or anything haha. 
And this year I’m OBVIOUSLY very prego!!

Yep I’m  37 weeks prego…and yes this BIG BELLY GIRL got in a bikini at the beach. I figured “eff it”…only live once.

These pictures are funny….taken in 2009 and 2013..our “baby bellies”

He really does love that I make him take embarrassing pictures…then post them on our blog! haha Poor Yosh!

Anyway…the kids had a great time…we only had to stay until the parking meters were out (less than 2 hours) and we were all done…no tears or fuss cleaning up! haha Not used to the sun beating down on us it was a tiring day! And we had some hungry kids (including the one in my belly!)

And my “big belly girlfriend” Heather…was also with me…but she wouldn’t dare take her clothes off. haha chicken!  Owen even asked after we left why “Header” didn’t take her shirt off at the beach!?!? Silly girl Heather…even with my husband begging to get a look at her prego belly (he’s an odd person that LOVES prego’s)
But we are both 37 weeks prego…and both patiently awaiting the arrival of our precious little people that are coming in less than 14 days! Oh my gosh…crazy! Our little lady will be appearing in 11 days (or sooner) and Heathers little dude will be here in 12 days (or sooner)….baffles my brain!

And of course… we took the opportunity to take some pinterest inspired pictures…heehee…

36 Weeks…”Nailed it!”

“NAILED IT!!”  hahahahahaha

I can’t stop laughing at this picture…for multiple reasons.

#1: I can’t believe Yosh actually let me write on him with permanent marker AND take a picture of him (now when he sees it on our family blog he might not be as excited about it as I am!)

#2: Owen would NOT stop crying for this picture. I wanted to change him into some jeans so he’d kinda match us…but that was NOT going to happen. Not sure when my child became so modest…he was embarrassed to be shirtless in front of our dear friend Kris?!?

#3: Oh the ways I torture the boys in my life…haha I’m gonna keep telling myself that someday in 30 years Owen will laugh at pictures like these…and hopefully won’t be laughing while attending his weekly therapist session.

#4: The way Yosh wrote “BABY” on my belly is funny too…such a dude’s writing.

#5: When I saw this picture on pinterest it was WAY cuter! haha

So Thank you pinterest for another photo idea…not sure if we “got it”…but it was still funny anyway!  

36 weeks prego…csection planned…her room is JUST about done (don’t worry I’m gonna post pictures of that as soon as its 100% complete)…all essentials have been gotten…now we just wait. I’m at that point in my pregnancy where having lazy days has to STILL include showers and shaving…you just NEVER know when I could go into labor! haha  Sad thing is I’m being serious! Owen was 3 weeks early but I have a feeling this little girl will be stickin’ it out until the 31st when she's cut out of me! And I’m ok with that. I love being pregnant and am really loving the extra time I’m getting with just my boy. Not totally loving that even my maternity shirts are starting to not be long enough…but oh well people can just deal with my “baby gut” hangin’ out! haha

2012 in Review

One of my favorite posts to write about is the one I do in January…the one that “reviews” our year through MY favorite pictures (yes MY favorites…since it is MY blog and I write it I’m allowed to do what I want! haha) Anyway I pick 1 per month (which is TOTALLY freakin’ hard to do since I take hundreds of pictures every month!) and put it here…to see the differences and changes that have taken place within a year is nuts!  Here are the years previous…2010 and 2011…and now 2012…

January…

We didn’t get to take our annual MLK Day Beach trip this year…it was rainy and cold BUT I did get to help throw my best friend a baby shower!! Erika was expecting her first baby…and living all the way in Washington…so she came down and we threw her a bad-ass baseball themed shower (Thank you pinterest!) HAHA These girls are more than just best friends…but they are truly like sisters I wasn’t blessed to have naturally. We are all so different, yet similar and have grown to love eachother over the past 20 years of friendship!

February…

Since the discovery of pinterest I think so many regular non-crafty people (like myself) have been inspired to create cool stuff…which includes pictures!  My friend Heather had a great idea to get Valentines pictures of the kids…so she made a few props, found a field and we took some pictures…This was the picture I used on Yosh’s custom Valentines day card…I love it! You can’t see it but Owen’s shirt says “Mama’s Boy”.

March…


I couldn’t choose just one for this month…but this little mini photo shoot had me cracking up! We bought this adorable suit for my friends wedding in Ireland (which he didn’t even attend due to the weather and naptime)…but I couldn’t let it go to waste. So we did a little photo day to try and get a cute picture for our Easter Cards….he was being such a goof ball…so it took a long time and LOTS of pictures…at the time I didn’t find it so adorable but looking back at the pictures now I love them all!!
These were also the last pictures we took of Owen before his traumatic fall down the stairs happened…which changed his face, teeth and smile forever ((sad face))

April…

Another pinterest inspired photo!! I saw a picture like this on pinterest…with the text added. So on Owen’s actual birthday we stopped at this red barn off Hamner/Milliken (yes it’s a busy street)…got us out of the car to take some pictures…all with adding text in mind! So many came out so adorable…but I was too lazy to figure out the adding of text part…UNTIL like a week ago! I love it. Best little photo for his baby book

 

May…

I absolutely love this picture!! This was taken on the Huntington Beach Pier…Owen and his friend Gwyneth (whom is the child of Yosh’s oldest friends Missy and Roshaun) I don’t remember if we prompted them to hold hands but they did…the WHOLE walk up the pier to Ruby’s…and would glance over at each other. It was so adorable! They are future prom dates…and they don’t even know it! heehee

 

June…

A lot went on this month…Yosh and I went on a Caribbean Cruise with some of our closest friends…we found out we were expecting Baby #2…had toe surgery…were TOTALLY enjoying our summer break from work…but look at these buns…how can you NOT love them!! He’s a total Coppertone baby…thank God he got Yosh’s skin tone and can tan brown!!!

 

JULY…

This was one of our favorite places again this summer…Lake Mojave! Owen loves our boat, staying in hotels and playing in the arcade’s. It’s a place we can come with family or friends…and truly enjoy ourselves!

 

AUGUST…

In August we went to an ultrasound place to find out the gender of our little bun in the oven! We went with friends…they made our “gender reveal” box for us and we made theirs for them…and then took pictures of each other opening the boxes. It was a very fun and emotional day! I love this picture…such an awesome feeling seeing pink balloons!

 

SEPTEMBER…

Owen participated in his first (of hopefully many) youth sports, PeeWee Soccer. It started in August and ran for like 5 weeks into September. It was once a week…for 1 hour…and man it was so awesome. I loved seeing him interact with other 3 year olds. Him listening to his coaches directions, following rules to the activities and him having ZERO interest in wanting to score a goal or actually PLAY in the soccer scrimmages! haha. It was an awesome experience and we all loved it!

 

OCTOBER…

Best Buds, Owen and Ryland were Jake (from Jake and the Neverland Pirates cartoon) and Peter Pan for Halloween. We went on a hunt to find a grassy-Neverland-like field…which was difficult since we were having a very warm October! But we trespassed and found ourselves this field…snapped a few pics and called it a day.

 

NOVEMBER…

In November my mother retired!! Was very exciting to celebrate with her and Owen loves the idea of having Nana around more often!

 

DECEMBER…

It was cute watching Owen measure his belly up to mine on X-mas morning. He was definitely starting to know that his Baby Sister was going to be coming soon…loved touching my bump as it grew bigger and bigger. This picture just makes me laugh!

2012 was such an amazing year for us….I knew at the beginning of the year it was meant to be one of our best…and it didn’t disappoint!  Started with me reaching my 2 year cancer free mark…talk about having a weight being lifted off my shoulders. I knew if I could make it to that milestone life would (hopefully) be smooth sailings (so far so good!)! Then in April I turned 30 years old…ummm…best birthday party ever! A lot of my friends bitched and complained about being 30…I enjoy it…and LOVE saying “I’m 30” whenever anyone asks! Then I finished my Masters Program…so now officially “Master Souza”…(yay to making more $$). We enjoyed an amazing Caribbean Cruise where we found out we were expecting Baby #2…overcome with joy that chemotherapy didn’t rob my ability to have more children! We enjoyed a relaxing summer vacation, awesome first half of the school year…and that leaves us to the here and now….waiting to meet the 4th member of our family (any day now!) 

I had many friends have a horrible 2012…heck 3 of my friends lost their dads this year. What are the odds of that??? Apparently high…we are getting to the age now that our parents are getting older and its pretty freaky. Unfortunately all 3 of these men were NOT old…and as they pass it leaves many people sad and confused! It’s So hard to watch the heartbreak…so I pray for all of them that 2013 brings happier times of healing and continued health to everyone!

ps. Thanks for reading and keeping up with my blog…I appreciate all the kind words I get from friends and family!