Catch up time

Clearly I have been horrible about blogging lately...I can only imagine how it's going to go with 2 little ones! Geeze.

So, since the last post where Sienna was the amazing child who easily gave up her soothie (still surprised at how well that went!), here is what has happened since July (get ready for a long post and a lot of pictures--this is what I get for not doing this sooner):

AUGUST:
We found out what we were having: verdict-GIRL!! We decided to have another gender reveal party, this time with just family (and a couple friends visiting from out of town). My dear friend Heidi came over to help take pictures because I wanted someone to capture the moment and she always takes great pictures of her 3 adorable boys.

My co-worker, who had made the cake for the last gender reveal party, made cake pops this time and we let Sienna have the first bite to reveal what her sibling would be. It was so exciting. Garth and I were both secretly hoping for another girl because it would be so fun for her to have a sister. I have always wanted a sister, so I feel incredibly blessed that I will get to watch Sienna and her sister have that opportunity.

*Thank you Heidi for taking these great pictures!

SEPTEMBER:
We decided to paint our kitchen cabinets...ourselves!! As soon as we bought this house, I knew this was something I wanted to do. I never liked the oak cabinets, so I started looking around for other options, other cheap options- we knew hiring someone to come in would cost a lot of money. After some good research and many, many discussions with Monica down at Embellish and Restore in Visalia, we decided to use Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.  Although, my dream kitchen would have white cabinets, we couldn't really do that this time because we have white tile counters. Since we clearly aren't going to replace our counters right now (hopefully someday though!), we decided to be crazy and paint our kitchen cabinets green (Chateau Grey to be exact).

Annie Sloan Chalk Paint is SO easy to use and you don't need to sand or primer before hand! Yippee, that saves A LOT of time and energy. After 2 layers of chalk paint, we had to put on 2 layers of MinWax Polycrylic. That was definitely more work than the chalk paint. With the chalk paint, it only took 20 min to dry between coats. With the lacquer, it took 2 hours between coats (plus you had to sand everything between the 2 coats) and you had to make very careful, even strokes, in one direction. The polycrylic was not fun. Not difficult, just very time consuming.

All in all, it took us the full 3 days of Labor Day weekend, but I think that is pretty good...we have a lot of cabinets in this kitchen. Plus we had Sienna with us, so we'd take turns being with her, or trying to get her entertained by something else (aka the TV-we felt like horrible parents...she watched a lot of T.V. that weekend), so we could both work.

But we LOVE the final product and it has made such a difference in our kitchen. I would do it over again to get these results and I would definitely recommend it to others if they were interested in doing this. We plan on doing this to some of the bathroom cabinets as well in the future...but in a different color. 

This is what the kitchen looked like when we first bought the house.

Then we had the walls painted. It already looks much better!

Then we began our work...here are a few pictures of the process.

Your kitchen quickly becomes a DISASTER!

The final product:

We still have to paint the overhead light fixture. I think we are going to do it white, like the ceiling, so it just blends in and you don't notice it. That is on our to-do list...hopefully sooner than later! We also have to finish putting on the drawer pulls. The template we bought didn't fit, so we are waiting for one to come in the mail.

Also, right now, there is a lot of white going on. Soon, we will be replacing our appliances with stainless steel--yay, and that will really tone down all the white. Someday, I want to replace the island counter with a butcher block counter.

But for now, we LOVE the change!


ALSO in September:
Sienna Grace turned 2. She is getting so big and is just the sweetest little thing (when she isn't having a crazy toddler moment). She talks non-stop and is a pure joy to be around. Instead of doing a birthday party this year, we decided to take a trip to Disneyland! We got an incredible deal with Garth's military discount: 3 day hopper pass for $99 (although we only were able to use 2 days of it because of work)!! I was blown away by that price. So, we got a hotel close by, so we could walk to the park and go back for a nap, which was definitely necessary! 

It was a blast! It was everything I hoped it would be with her. The excitement in her eyes was worth every penny. The parade was her favorite. Garth got us awesome seats right in the front and she was in amazement the whole time. She was constantly waving and shouting, "Hi!!" to people and the characters in the parade. And of course, in Disneyland style, they all waved back and smiled so sweetly to her. When she saw Donald Duck, she was yelling, "Hi Donald! Hi, Donald!!" and then, out of no where, she blew him a kiss. Melt my heart little girl. Melt my heart.

Ready for Disneyland on Day 1

Peter Pan was the first ride we went on and I love her little face in this picture. Her eyes are huge and her tongue is sticking out just a little bit, like it does when she is thinking hard about something or worried about something. 

She was SO excited to meet Mickey. Big deal!

It was SO hot...high 90's. Not fun when you're walking around and waiting in long lines. But she was a trooper.

Starting off Day 2

Wearing her Mickey hat :)

The whole group. This girl sure is loved!

End of Day 2. Time to head home.

I have to share this one funny story from the trip. We drove down on Friday, after I got off of work. The whole drive down we heard a little voice from the back seat, "Mickey? Dinneyland? Mickey? Dinneyland? Almost??" So even though we got down there at about 9pm (a lot of traffic), we decided to head straight to Downtown Disneyland for a little bit because Sienna was not tired at all and she continued to ask about Mickey. Plus we made the mistake that day telling her she'd see Disneyland and Mickey that night (we thought we'd get there earlier than we did). After being down there for a little while, we headed to the hotel.

Sienna was super excited because we had adjoining rooms with my parents. She ran back and forth between the rooms, while we set up the pack and play. It was getting far too late, and we needed to go to bed, so Garth went into my parents room to discuss plans for Saturday. I finished getting ready and then locked up the room and headed to my parents room to get Sienna. She was still super hyper and ran away from me and went into our room, slamming the adjoining door shut. When this happened, it automatically locked that door behind her. And from my parents room, there is no handle to go back into our room. (Adjoining doors only have a handle and/or lock on one side of the door). I started freaking out. 

Me: "Oh my goodness! Sienna just locked herself in the room!!"
Garth: "It's ok, we'll just use the key. Oh no, I think the keys are in the room."
My dad: "I'll just go down to the office and get you a new key."
Me: "No, you guys don't understand. I put the latch over the lock! You can't get in the room now!!"
Garth went outside my parents room to our room and after finding a key, opened it, but it only opened an inch because I had put this lock on:

Inside, Sienna kept yelling, "Mom, I stuck!! I stuck!!" Luckily she kept calm as visions of the fire department came rushing in my mind. Garth took off the screen to try to get into the window, but the window wouldn't open. My dad had ran down to the office, where the hotel manager said he'd bring up a saw.

He came up and had to saw the lock off!! We told Sienna to go stand by the bed and she did, without hesitation. She was so good. He sawed if off and told us this has happened before, we weren't the first ones. That made me feel better! In the end, it ended up being pretty funny, but at the time, I was really worried about my little one locked inside the hotel room by herself. Now it is a funny story we will always retell her in the future!



We had such a blast, that we decided it will now be our tradition, to take our kids to Disneyland for their 2nd birthday. It was a blast and I know she will not remember it, but we sure will. It was worth every penny. I can't believe my baby is 2 now. She melts our hearts in every way and she is going to be an amazing big sister. She loves rubbing my belly and almost daily, lifts up my shirt and says, "Hi baby girl." She tells her she loves her, she tries to get her out of my belly, and she constantly talks about her and asks me, "Baby coming?" I say, "Not yet." Then she always says, "Almost?" Unfortunately, no, sweet girl. Not almost. A few more months.

Here are some recent pictures of our sweet Sienna Grace, who is now officially 2.

She is holding a tomato she picked at church. She was so proud of it and loved it...until she put it in her mouth. 

one proud mama

I am one proud mama today!! Yesterday we decided to get rid of her soothie (a pacifier) and let me tell you, I have been dreading this day. Sienna uses the soothie for sleeping only, but she LOVED it. She isn't attached to anything else...not a blanket, not a stuffed animal, nothing. We knew it needed to come to an end after her pediatrician said pacifiers are ok until 2 and then they should be taken away after that. Well, Sienna is about a month away from turning 2 and I really wanted to do it before I went back to work, so that her childcare didn't have to worry about it.

So, yesterday, I cut a tiny hole on the top of the soothie (when she wasn't looking of course) and when she went to grab it for nap, she put it in her mouth,  took it back out, and looked at it with disgust. She tried again and took it out once more and shook her head "no." She pointed at the hole and said, "wassah?" (what's that?). I pretended like I had no clue how it got there and I talked about how big she is and that only babies needed soothies. As I went to lay her down, she seemed a little sad that her soothie didn't work, so I told her she could hold it with her hand instead of put it in her mouth. It totally worked! She went right to sleep!!

Then for bedtime last night, she did the same thing...she tried to put it in her mouth, didn't like it, so she held it instead...AND she slept the entire night without a peep!! This morning I made a HUGE deal about her being so big and not needing the soothie and she said, "Yeah, bye bye soothie." 

She is currently napping and she didn't even take the soothie in there with her. Could this seriously had gone any better?? I am shocked! I know I'm only on day 2, but I thought it was going to be WAY harder. I had done some research about taking away pacifiers and many parents said cutting the hole worked perfectly. That way, the parents aren't taking away something from them...the kids just choose not to use it because it doesn't work properly. It becomes their choice to stop using it. I had never thought of that before and I love it!

Let's hope that things continue to go well from here on out!!! 

As proud as I am, it makes me so sad knowing how fast she's growing up!

Round 2

Sienna Grace is going to be a big sister!! The Gipson family will be adding a member to the family in February! We are beyond thrilled and cannot wait to meet our new baby...in about 6 months! (I'm 12 weeks along right now).

We found out 1 week after we moved into our new home :)

Surprise face!

Our serious little girl. This was the day we told our family!

Baby Gipson #2 (due Feb.3, 2013)

Sienna is very excited about having a baby, although I know she has NO clue what that truly means yet. She is obsessed with baby dolls- feeding them, walking them, giving them a bath, and trying to change diapers (which is probably my favorite- she walks over, gets out a changing pad, takes out a wipe, wipes the baby, and then tries to put a diaper on...but ends up needing help from mommy and daddy with the diaper). So, although she loves her babies right now, and she loves real babies when she sees them, I know it will be different for her own sibling that is at our home 24 hrs. a day, 7 days a week, (but I feel optimistic that she'll be a big helper and love on the baby most of the time). Sienna loves lifting my shirt (or dress--yikes!!) and looking at my belly and saying, "Shhh...baby ni-nights." Then she'll lift up her shirt and point to the baby in her belly :).

Along with the blessing of another baby, comes the morning sickness! I was sick for about 6 months with Sienna and I am really hoping that it doesn't last that long this time. I have not been throwing up nearly as much as I did with Sienna, but I am nauseous much more often. I do throw up every morning now and Sienna loves it. Yes, that's right...Sienna loves it when I throw up. She laughs and says, "Mommy, mo (more). Mo, mommy!" Awesome. She likes to imitate me throwing up while it's happening, which, definitely makes me smile while I'm hugging the toilet. I can't help but laugh.

There was a day last week, however, that she did not like it. I was starting to get her something to drink and I had to run to the bathroom. She followed me in there and said, "No mo mommy. I want yuce (juice). No mo....no mo mommy." I swear to you, she grabbed toilet paper, gave it to me, flushed the toilet, and was pulling me away...as I was continuing to throw up. It was really funny. Even though I do not like being sick (it's especially hard with a busy toddler), it is so worth it and I will gladly take it, knowing there will be a little baby at the end of this!

I will continue to update you throughout our pregnancy, so check back sometime soon!

We can't wait to see this sweet girl as a BIG SISTER! 

How is it possible that our sweet Sienna is going to be 2 in a little over a month??? 

Time has gone by WAY too fast!

Updated pics of our new home!

Here are the pictures of our home after we painted and changed some of the downstairs flooring. This blue color did not turn out how I was hoping. I wanted a blue-grey (more grey than blue). That didn't happen. But I don't mind it as much, now that we have furniture in it. We plan on painting the stair-rails white eventually (among many projects!). 

Formal dining room/sitting room

We took out the tile by the front door and added laminate all the way to the back of the house

We had the laminate make a trail go to the bathroom. We didn't want wet bodies crossing over the carpet to get to the bathroom, so this way, there is a nice path to get there. Behind the couch is a little play area with a few of Sienna's toys. This is the one room we had to re-carpet because the other carpet was in BAD condition. I look forward to one day replacing the carpet in rest of the house. This carpet is so clean and pretty!

TV nook area

The kitchen looks much nicer with beige walls! I did not like that maroon color. We also had the tile flooring removed and used the laminate in here as well. We love it. We are planning on painting the cabinets and I can't wait until we do. Because the counters are white tile, we can't paint them white (which would be my first choice). So I think we're going to be crazy and paint them a color. We're thinking a green that is similar to the cabinet against the back wall in the picture above. We'll see...we're looking into our options! I'm also on the hunt for a white round pedestal table to go in the kitchen. I'm on craigslist daily trying to find something cheap!

Now onto the upstairs:

Upstairs bathroom-we didn't paint or do anything to this room-yay!!

This was the pink/yellow room with Winnie the Pooh wall paper remnants...and the blue ceiling with clouds. Wow. What a combination. Now it is a green color that I am not a huge fan of. This green was also not the color I had planned. I wanted a light sage green and so I grabbed the can (or so I thought) that was the color of Sienna's room in our old house and I gave it to the painter. I didn't even look inside it. I saw the green on the outside, and since we didn't have any other green walls, I figured it was the correct one. WRONG. I came home to a much darker green room. I don't love it. I may need to change it in the future...(sorry Garth!). We'll see.

Guest room (previous Bratz doll room). What a difference paint makes! No more purple and pink.

Notice the left over purple fan blades? We still need to change those out! 

Sienna's room (I haven't put anything on the walls, so it is very boring). It is a beautiful light aqua color-which you can't really tell in these pics). I love the color in this room-finally!

The loft/playroom. This was white, but we painted it a nice, warm beige.  

This is the nook that we eventually want to build a desk into. Right now it stores our printer, my craft supplies, and Sienna's "coloring box." That is our last box from moving and she loves coloring all over it and in it. Cheap fun!

Master bedroom (also not the blue color I was hoping for. I wanted the same blue-grey as downstairs. I tried 5 samples of blues! I don't get why it's so hard to find! Don't ever come to me asking for help with paint colors!

There it is! We are loving our new home and can't wait for our many, many, many memories that will be created here.