New Project

I have pretty much finished the nursery for the baby and have been looking for some new creative outlets. I decided I would try my hand at crocheting. I have done a little before, but never a blanket and I wanted to make something for the baby. So I will let you all know how it turns out!! I am excited!

Random Animals

The other day when Aaron and I got home from the store, this puppy ran from under our car and starting jumping on us and licking Ella. We had no idea where it came from. It didn't have a collar or anything. It was clean and obviously loved people. It scared the daylights out of Ella though. She has only been around older dogs that don't jump, so this little puppy jumping on her was not making her happy.
We decided to put the puppy in our backyard and get some poster to put up for a lost dog because we knew this dog had to belong to someone. I couldn't just ignore a puppy sitting on my doorstep. However, we have a hole in our fence and the dog discovered it. But it didn't leave. It just hung out on our front porch barking at us to let it in. I had to leave for a little while and when I cam back, the puppy was gone. I was worried about whether the puppy was safe, but there wasn't a whole lot I could do at that point.
A few days later, we got a knock on the door from one of our neighbors. He was looking for a white puppy, just like the one we found. Apparently, they also have a hole in their fence and the puppy kept escaping. I was relieved to find out that the dog had simply gone home after it left our house and we now know where to return it to.


Then yesterday, Ella and I went to get the mail and this little kitten came bounding across the street to greet us. It was very friendly and clean and liked us. It came from the same yard the puppy belonged to, so I knew it had owners. We played out side with it for a long time. Ella liked the kitty because it didn't jump on her and she could play with it and chase it. She was having a blast. When Aaron came home, the kitten was still outside our front door meowing to come in. As soon as he opened the door the kitten came inside and promptly made itself at home.
Now typically I would not allow a strange cat to come into my house while pregnant, but I knew this cat was domesticated and clean and I would not be cleaning up its litter box. It was only inside for about 10 minutes. Aaron and Ella walked the kitten back to its house and the owners had no idea their cat was missing, but they also couldn't find their puppy again. They have small children and they tend to let the dog out the front door quite frequently.
Now when we go outside Ella looks constantly for the kitty and has been asking for it all day. She loves animals, especially when they aren't jumping on her. Here is the kitten all snuggled up on the couch. So cute!

Christmas

We had a great Christmas this year. It was a lot more quiet that I am use to be we still enjoyed it. Ella had a lot of fun. She really got into opening the presents.

I have more videos but I am unable to post them. The computer won't let me. I will put them up as soon as I can.

And we're having.....

A BOY!!! We are really excited to be having a boy. Everything is looking healthy with the baby and he is measuring just like he should. The ultrasound tech saw that it was a boy as soon as she look at the baby on the screen, but Aaron made sure to get more than enough proof that it is indeed a boy.

Here are some of the ultrasound pictures:

You can see his little wee-wee from a side profile in this one

This one shows his feet, another look at his wee-wee from underneath, and then a profile shot.

My Dr.'s office just got a new ultrasound machines hours before we arrived so the utlrasound experimented with some new probs that she had. We were able to get a couple of 4-D pictures of our baby. It as really cool.

LIfe at the Boyces

Here are some pictures of our precious Ella. She is so much fun and a really good toddler. She is talking so much now and she learns a new word almost everyday it feels like.Ella is definitely mommy's little helper. I think that she is going to be a great big sister. Here are some of her new words:
Airplane
Papa (grandpa)
Baby - she has to give a little coo before she says it though, she won't ever just say the word baby by itself.
Please- without using sign language
Moo
Meow
Woof Woof

Also, whenever I ask her where mommy's baby is, she comes and kisses my belly. She reminds Aaron and me to say prayers before everything. We say prayers every time we eat, even snacks, when I get her up in the morning, before her nap, and of course before bed. She is so sweet.

I am starting to feel a little better with my pregnancy. I still get sick to my stomach, but it's not as bad as it was. I am now 16 weeks along and starting to feel the baby move more and more. I am glad that I get to feel my babies move early. It really helps me get excited about the baby, instead of being in the dumps about feel so sick all the time.
We have just 4 more weeks till we find out what we are having and I am really excited. Aaron's work is going really well and he loves it. We are so grateful for all the blessings we have seen in our lives.

Ella had just woken up from a nap and her hair was crazy.

Insantity

Aaron and I are officially insane. A few weeks ago we discovered that we had mold growing in our kitchen cabinets. We tried to figure out the least expensive and least destructive way to get rid of the mold. We finally came to the conclusion on Halloween that our kitchen cabinets had to go. Here is a picture of our kitchen before the remodel.
This is where the insanity part comes in. We decided to rip out our all our kitchen cabinets. We shopped around and decided it was the best option, with me being pregnant and all, we couldn't afford to have mold in our house.

After we ripped everything out we discovered the mold was a little worse than we originally thought. It was in most of the cabinets and on some drywall behind the stove and behind the sink. So we are glad we decided to take everything out, but now we had to put everything back in.
Because we are on a budget we decided to go with Ikea and assemble everything ourselves. Now, normally I don't really mind these kinds of projects. I like putting things together and seeing the end result. But this is a whole kitchen we are talking about. And let me remind you again that I am pregnant, still a little sick, and have a very active and curious 1 year old.
Aaron and I could only work during Ella's sleeping hours and when Aaron was home from work. Luckily, Aaron's mom, Merralee, flew down to help us put things back together.

We started our project on November 1 and the kitchen is put back together as of today. I think 8 days is pretty good timing. We still have a few cosmetic details to take care of, but we now have a functional kitchen. Here is evidence of our hard work and progress.

This is a picture of some of the mold we found behind our cabinets.Almost all our cabinets hd warped, moldy wood at the bottom like this.

Since we bought everything at Ikea, everything came disassemble in boxes.

This is our almost finished project. Like I said before, we still have some cosmetic things to finish like the backsplash and filler pieces. .But for the most part, this is our new kitchen.

Baby!!!

Here is the fist picture of our newest addition. I am approximately 9 weeks and 3 days along. They changed my due date to April 25th. We are really excited about this even though it's scary to think that we will have two kids now.

I am feeling sick like I did with Ella but we are trying different things and different medicines to see if we can get in under control. I will be sure to keep everyone up today with what's going on with us and our new baby!!