Halloween Decor

I love fall, it has to be my favorite season of the year! I have so many fun things to look forward to - my birthday, our wedding anniversary, Halloween and Thanksgiving, the beautiful colors of fall, and this year especially, the birth of our little girl! I've been really looking forward to cooler temperatures, it's been so unseasonably warm, but hopefully it will start to cool down in the next few days. All that being said, I've started pulling out a few fall decorations and have quickly realized that I have a lot to learn about decorating for the holidays! So I am making a conscious effort to change that and make my home more reflective of the seasons.

My first goal is to redo the wall that's on the right side as you enter my house. It's a pretty big wall with nothing going on, so I started out my little wall make-over with a big shelf. After I put that up, I realized I didn't have much to put up on it, but after a little digging and a really fun craft night on Thursday, here is what I have come up with: I have one more darling little picture that will be going up in the middle of the shelf hopefully next weekend. Here's a close-up of the little count-down calendar I made:I found the little pumpkins and the garland at Walmart. I'm quite pleased with how it's coming together and am already thinking ahead to Christmas!

Now I just need to figure out what to do with the rest of the wall....

Baby denim skirt

With it being Labor Day, I didn't have to work (yipee!) which meant I actually had shred of free time! I saw this adorable tutorial by Homemade by Jill and knew that I just had to make one for the baby. I had a pair of Jarom's old jeans that I've been holding on to with the idea in mind to some day make a denim quilt, but I think this was a much more worthy cause.
The whole project took about an hour and it turned out so cute, I just can't wait for this little girl to get here so she can start wearing it! I've made some preliminary measurements to make one for Emilie too, since she's all about wearing skirts and dressing up. I'm going to have me an adorable pair of girls!

The other big sewing project I have on my to-do list for Baby is this car seat canopy. I made a trial one for my friend Sara's little boy and it turned out so cute! I am now on the hunt for some fabric to make one for me. I saw some to-die-for fabric at a quilt shop on Friday, but couldn't bring myself to pay $10 a yard, especially when I need two yards. I'm just too cheap these days, so the hunt goes on. I know I can find something just as cute for much less, I just need to be on the look-out.

Pregnancy Update

My sweet SIL Katie asked for a pregnancy update, and I suppose it has been a little while since devoting a blog post to the little sweetheart that likes to practice kick-boxing with my organs. I guess I get so busy worrying about the little ones that are outside my womb that demand all my attention that I don't think quite as much about the precious little one growing in my belly.

I believe the above picture is a 26 week picture, although it might be 25 weeks, I can't remember. I'm 28 weeks now, the same gestation I was when Isaac was born. Passing that milestone is always relieving, especially when coupled with the assurance that I am not approaching pre-term labor with the same vigor. On the contrary, things are progressing pretty uneventfully. I had an appointment last week and things are still looking good. The week before was a bit stressful and brought along with it a few days of rather bothersome and hard to control contractions, but things have eased up this week, thank goodness.

As my due date gets closer, I'm realizing how little time I have left to get ready for this little one. Some of the things I still need/want to do before she is born:

• Decide on her NAME! I have a little post-it note by my computer that I add names to all the time, but Jarom isn't horribly crazy about any of them. I'm glad we still have a little bit more time before having to make a decision, although I would like to have it at least narrowed down to maybe 2 or 3 before she is born.
• Get out Emilie's baby clothes and see what gaps need to be filled in. Since Emilie was born in May and this will be a fall/winter baby, I'm hoping that I have enough warm clothes to get her through the winter. I got a few bags full of hand-me-downs so I shouldn't have to supplement her wardrobe too much. I do need to find her an adorable bring-me-home outfit though!
• Now that Emilie and Isaac are sharing a room, I'd really like to paint their room and find some kind of theme to decorate it a little bit that will be fun for both of them.
  
• Since Baby will be born right in the midst of the winter holiday season, I want to try to get Christmas as planned out and prepared before she is born as possible. Job #1 is making new Christmas stockings! I found some adorable fabric this weekend, so hopefully I can find some time to get sewing. I have a vision in my head of how I would like it to turn out, we'll see if I can make it work.

Besides a few big bullet items, I also try my hardest to keep up on the daily rigors of being a housewife. I hate seeing messes all over the house and not having the energy and time to keep on top of things like I need. The kids seem especially adept at creating whirlwinds of chaos in their wake, and don't seem to understand how hard it is for mommy to be bending over picking up toys all the time. I think between cleaning and laundry, and working part-time, and everything else demanding my time, I'm just happy to make it to bed at the end of the day. There will be time eventually to have a beautifully kept and organized house, but as long as everyone is healthy and clothed and fed, then hopefully it will be enough for now.

First day of school

I suppose I've always known that Isaac would grow up, and the daily reminders should have clued me in, but it didn't make it any easier for me to see a handsome little big boy this morning with excitement brimming in his big blue eyes at the thought of going off to elementary school. I had doctor's appointment this morning and wasn't around to actually see him off to school, but luckily Daddy was around to follow my list of instructions and took the required pictures so that he could start his school career according to Mommy's desires.
Most of the pictures involved some sort of funny face, it must be a Hatch trait. Posing in front of the school house. I remember when we first considered moving to Harvest Hills and passing this school and thinking, someday that could be Isaac's school! Here we are two years later, backpack loaded, and ready to start learning.The kindergartners have their own entrance, I guess so they don't get plowed over by the big kids!Posing with Miss Broadhead. He already loves her and is so excited to be in her class! When I got home and Jarom showed me the pictures, the tears started coming. I'm just so proud of my big boy! I leave in about 10 minutes to pick him up and I can't wait to hear all about his first day of school and give him a super big hug.

Making Progress

The adventure of transitioning Emilie to the BGB is coming along pretty well, although it's not quite perfect yet. One of the first nights after we put her to bed, here's how we found her:

(in Isaac's bed)

Since then, we've found her in other strange and interesting sleeping positions:

And my personal favorite:

Over all, she's doing really well and she loves being a big girl! She's not very good at keeping her covers on, but considering it's still pretty warm at night, I'm not too worried. In her crib, she would ONLY sleep with her blankie, and at least now she'll let me keep her comforter on her bed next to her. Picky girl.

The other day, she asked if she could go potty, not an unusual request, but seeing how full her diaper was that I took off, I didn't expect this occasion to be any different than any other day, but much to my surprise, she actually went potty! Granted, it was only a few drops, but it's something! She's never actually done anything on the potty before, so we were all pretty excited! We clapped and let her have some candy, and she even got to wear her princess panties for a little bit! Maybe potty training isn't so far off after all!

Big Girl Bed

Before we know it, baby girl Hatch is going to be here and that means there's some changes that are going to have to start happening, mostly with Emilie. While I would LOOOOVE to have her potty trained before November, I just don't see that realistically happening, and that's ok. But another big milestone will need to be reached - the transition to the big girl bed. Baby sister is going to need the crib and I can already tell that she is not going to want to give it up easily.

My plan is to set the BGB up in her room and just let her explore it for a few days. At first when she saw what was going on though, here was her reaction:Not only was she crying hysterically, she wouldn't come near me and finally had to go downstairs because she was so upset with me even getting the bed out.
But being the camera-loving girl that she is, she did want to get her picture taken. This is her sad-but-trying-to-look-happy face.

After a while, she warmed up to the idea a little bit and actually wanted to go sit on the bed with her book, just as long as she didn't have to commit to anything.Once she had calmed down and she wasn't so freaked out by everything, we went downstairs and had lunch, and then came the real challenge - nap time! I asked her if she wanted to sleep in her baby crib or her big girl bed, and she enthusiastically said:BIG GIRL BED! She crawled right in with her blankie and baby doll and stayed in bed... for about 2 minutes. I kept putting her back in bed another 5 or 6 times until finally putting her back in her crib where she is finally taking her nap. I don't expect her to really take a nap, or sleep overnight for that matter, in the new bed for a while yet, but I want her to get comfortable with it and actually want to sleep in it. I can already tell though that once a new little baby is around using all her old stuff, she is not going to be too pleased. I just hope that she can get excited about being the big sister and enjoy all the cool things that come along with being older.

The other dilemma we're facing is where to put the baby. Initially, I thought the girls would just share a room (how cute would that be?), but Isaac is so distraught about not having someone to share a room with, and I worry about the baby keeping Emilie up at night, so we're considering having Isaac and Emilie share a room for a while. Anyone have experience with this that they would like to share?

Bountiful Baskets

As many of you know, I'm all about saving money, especially when it comes to buying food and groceries! I've recently become a HUGE fan of Bountiful Baskets! It's a food co-op run by volunteers, so you're not paying the overhead at the grocery store for delicious, fresh, locally-grown produce. The fee is $15 per basket which is half fruits and half vegetables, but you're getting around $50 worth of produce. You don't really know what will be in your basket before you get there, but it's kind of exciting to see what you get for that week. It's also a wonderful way to diversify your diet and try foods that you might not normally eat. Last time we got white asparagus and mangoes in our basket, and we all loved them!

Bountiful Baskets is available in Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, and Washington, and you can go on their website and see if there are pick-up locations near you. If you decide you want a basket, you log in Monday evening through Tuesday evening (the sooner the better, some locations sell out quickly!) and then you pick up your basket Saturday morning on your scheduled pick-up time. You can also order bread and other seasonal food in addition to your basket. I haven't branched out that far yet, but I'm sure I will in time!