Team Lucy Loo

The March for Babies walk was great! The weather felt wonderful, we had friends and family walk with us, we met our personal goal ( though it was small), we exceeded our team goal, we had PRETTY t-shirts,  the kids had a blast, and we all got a little sun!

 

We like to play around with the new computer. These actually pop up on our heads while we're taking the pictures. She loves it.

 

 

Last year was hard, being 9 weeks pregnant, and not knowing what to expect out of the pregnancy. We were praying for a safe delivery and a healthy baby.

I still am glad I can wear sunglasses as I walk past the incubator they have sitting out by the Vandy ambulance. I can't look at that thing without tearing up. I chose not to walk into the ambulance they had sitting out last year, as did Luke.  Maybe some people are stronger. Some things I'd just not like to relive, and some things I don't want to imagine.

I will have more pictures later on. I had my camera ready. I had the battery ready. But we left the battery in the car, and I didn't want to go back and get it. My Iphone won't take any more pictures. I really need to save them all to the computer and print them, but I just haven't made time to do that yet. So I used my sister's camera. One of my former students ( whom is a freshman now) walked with us, took some phone pics, and facebook messaged them to me ;)

 

The toddler size shirts didn't come in the same color as ours, so they had baby pink. And of course, you can't read it on here ;) And I promise her little skirt looked better in person. I had planned on making a pettiskirt--a SUPER full one. Then I got scared. Then I planned on ordering one. Then I ran out of time. So I just ruffled/gathered some glitter tulle ( OH MY GOODNESS. GLITTER EVERYWHERE), then sewed it onto an old skirt she had. I folded each row over to make it fuller. You just can't really tell here.

Princesses at the walk! Yes, I also tried to give her some neon pink tights to throw in the neon pink to her outfit. Then I had to make her a bow with the baby pink, neon pink, and purple. And her new neon shoes went with it all.  Ha

Can you tell it was a long day? She stayed up until after midnight waiting on her aunt the night before ,and woke up at 7 AM on Sunday morning. This was after 4 pm on the way home from the park.

Thanks again for all of the donations towards the walk. This is something so very important to me. It feels good to know there are people who understand that and are supportive! I wish I could be one of the top walking teams raising thousands of dollars and recruiting 20+ walkers to wear our team Lucy Loo shirts. We are so thankful for this baby. We are so happy to have her with us. Maybe one year.....

 

These were the team t-shirts. The front said "And though she be but little, she is fierce", and the back had the team name and Lucy's footprints. I used some of her actual footprints from the NICU ( they are blown up of course), and loved it! The shirts matched my new sunglasses, which I will need to take with me tomorrow. To the beach. With no kids.

I'll go cry now because I'll miss my sweet little baby Ella. First time to be away from her for more than about 2 hours. oh my...

 

Our weekend

Technically, we don't have weekends in this house. Lucas has days off in the middle, beginning, or end of the week. This week , he was off on Wednesday and Friday. This worked out perfectly because I wanted to get started on our terrible, awful looking yard. It poured on Thursday, so we got a good break. The flower beds were overgrown with untrimmed bushes, trees, & weeds. The pots needed new flowers in them, and the deck needed cleaning off. We also needed ANOTHER pool guy to come check ours out. We had someone that was cleaning it out, and then during the process of filling it with water, it collapsed. So now we have to work on tearing it down =( Our AC also is finally needing to be replaced in some parts, so we had our AC guy come out one day as well. Our front flower bed has always been not so pretty or even, but with 3 bushes that had basically grown together, and a MASSIVE lantana that had turned into a massive bush itself, it seriously looks 100 times better after the work we did. If this looks 100 times better, you can imagine what it looked like!

I love new mulch! This Scott's mulch has a color guard too. I can't handle fading, ugly, old mulch either. This bush on the right was overtaken by the flower, so that is why it is quite scrawny. We also threw some gladiolus bulbs all in-between the bushes and plan to put another bush on the right to even it all out. Ignore all the paint & stain cans on the porch, oh and the rotting railing =)

The back deck! We got a new plant for one of our pots. It is a mandavino, similar to our favorite mandavilla. It grows a little wider, and not as tall. We put some yellow and white wave petunias around the base of it along with a purple and white climbing flower. Hopefully those will waterfall over the pot. We also had 3 other pots ( which I now want to paint because I'm not sure where they came from, and don't care for the bland color) that got some more gladiolus or lillies in them. They also have a wave petunias around the edges to spill over the sides. We got the toucan pillows last year along with the zebra seat cushions, so we just added two more palm and flamingo pillows

I'm not sure if they are my favorite now, but they will do! And of course the kids' bird feeders from Kids' workshop are on the deck!

We had to replace an azalea in another back bed by the house. It is an Encore and blooms 3 different ( maybe 4) seasons. We also got 2 smaller azaleas and a rhododendron for one side of the house. It is pretty bare over there.

Landon is calling for me because he wants me to nap with him.......in my bed. I might take him up on that offer since both the girls have fallen asleep!

We have a few more ideas for the spring and summer, and I'll keep updating on here as we fix it back up--including the pool!

We can't wait to grill out and swim every day that Luke is off this summer!

 

 

 

Chalk

A few people have asked on my Facebook about my chalkboard that I use. This is the original item I bought for about $11 , I think.

We took it apart, thoroughly cleaned it, and used chalkboard spray paint for the mirror. You can use actual paint, and it will be much thicker. I do not think there is as much up-keep with regular paint, as I've had to re-spray it a few times. It doesn't bother me. It's about time to do it again if you've seen my latest pictures.

I bought white and the Rust-oleum Aqua color . I wasn't sure what I wanted. But we ended up using the aqua , and let a little white show through in spots.

It's finished being painted! 

Put back together and hanging on the wall. Ready for the big reveal!

I painted the chalkboard section again the next day. This was just a spur of the moment--I'm like 17 weeks pregnant & need to start telling people & don't want my baby to someday feel unwanted & I need to make this pregnancy positive --  last minute craft! =) I searched online for chalkboard tutorials & found this tutorial!

Its first debut!

And now, a quick little shot of the pregnancy (and belly) all at once ;)