Kensley Dawn Graff

Kensley Dawn was born at 10 pm today Jan 29, 2012. 7lbs 9oz's, 19inches long, blondish hair. Here are a couple pics until Shanna can post the whole story.

Pinterest and Projects

So yes, I have been sucked into pinterest and sometimes spend too much time there but I love having a place to keep all my ideas and projects together online.  I say "my" ideas but lets be honest, I get most of my ideas from other people's projects, pictures and creativity.  I especially love getting ideas for recipes, preschool things to do at home, and home decor projects.
During the Christmas break we didn't travel at all and I was in nesting mode.  It was perfect since Matthew could be home to help with projects.  It ended up being a fabulous and very productive holiday break.  We got so much done in preparation for little baby girl to come.  I really kept Matthew busy with moving furniture, redoing all our bedroom furniture hardware, moving and putting up pictures and things on walls and helping me find and dig out all our newborn stuff.  So I just wanted to post a few of the projects we were able to get done.

Table and Chairs
I have been wanted to get Austin his own table and chair set for a long time.  He finally got a set for Christmas from Matthew's parents.  It's perfect except it didn't really match our house so we stained the wood and covered the chairs with fabric.  I love how it turned out!

before

After

Growth Chart

I "pinned" this project awhile ago and loved the idea.  It's looks like a giant ruler on a piece of wood that you can use at a growth chart but then as we are still moving around and not settled, we can take it with us.  I got the idea here. This is their picture:

Recipes
These are all the recipes I have recently pinned, made and loved!
-Cheesy Veggie Chowder
-Healthy Breakfast Smoothie
-Shrimp with Avocado-Mango Salsa
-Poppy Seed Chicken  
- Pizza Balls
-Creamy Parmesan Orzo
-BLT Pasta Salad

Outside Porch
We have a back porch that up until now has mostly been used for storage, garbage and collecting dust. But with this great weather we have been having I really wanted the space to be useful.  Matthew cleaned up and dusted the whole porch, turned a spare piece of wood into a table, and got a play rug for the ground and now we have a whole new play area for Austin. He loves being outside and loves to drive his cars on something other than the ground so this was so perfect!

Matthew also sanded these blocks we got from Austin's great grandpa.  We have a ton of them and Austin loves building with them. In the picture he is making houses for his cars.

Little Girl Things
And of course I have been working on some things for our little girl coming soon! I pinned and followed this tutorial to make some felt flowers for headbands. I also made some girly burp cloths for those not so girly spit up messes.

Two And a Half

Austin is now almost closer to three than two! Whoa!  He is in such a fun phase right now. However, I feel like I say that through all the different phases he has gone through. But at this point he is really growing up into this little boy that we just love so much. Here are some updates for him:
-He communicates and talks so much now.  I can understand pretty much anything he says and his little sentence combinations are just so cute.
-He favorite thing right now are cars, trucks and trains. He loves to drive them on tracks, the couch or on the bed.  He also loves to play with matching sets or pairs of cars. (His mama is a little into matching sets so maybe that's where he gets it from!)
-He is just over 3 feet tall (60th percentile) and weighs 33 pounds (80th percentile)
-One of the biggest changes is that he is now in a toddler bed and has been for about 2 weeks. The transition have been great!  He loves his bed and will stay in bed when he goes down for naps and bedtime.  The only down side is that my wake-up call is now quite early.  But it was time and it's been a very smooth transition.  I know this picture is extremely dark but we snuck in the first night he slept in it to get a picture.

-I have been surprised at how much he can do by himself now.  Things that I would always do for him and now I forget that he really can do them himself. Like drinking out of a cup with no lid (only water and only at the table though!), opening the fridge to get his own milk cup, using a glue stick for art projects, obeying little instructions like cleaning up toys or going to get something out of his room and peeling and eating a whole clementine.  I know those are just little things but developmentally they are a big deal! 

-He has absolutely no interest in potty training.  Anytime I bring up the idea of going to sit on the potty he says "No! No!"  So I have not pushed the issue because I don't want it to be a negative thing. However he is getting older and should be showing interest so I'm kind of unsure of what to do and if I should push the issue.  Lots of his friends are potty trained but that doesn't seem to motivate him to want to jump on the bandwagon. I am thinking that this is going to be a hard transition. 

- We have definitely entered the terrible twos and have had meltdowns and tantrums over the smallest of events but I guess that is to be expected. 

-He loves to spend time with Matthew and tries to imitate things he does like shave, put on deodorant or fix things.  It's pretty cute to watch.  He also loves wrestling with Matthew and gets so intense! 

- Austin loves to help in the kitchen.  It seems like he has always loved this and I have so many pictures of him helping me stir, mix and pour things.  In this picture I think he was helping me mix up a salad.  His face is distraught because the camera is out and he hates the camera.  However he is wearing his cute little apron that my sister Jenna made him for Christmas! 

- Austin is very creative and whenever he eats things like toast or sandwiches.  They always become things like trucks or airplanes or even sometimes animals based on what it looks like as he takes bites.  And when he tells me what they are I can totally see exactly what he means.  This also leads to very long lunches as he plays with his food. 

These are just some of the things I want to remember about Austin at this age!

36 weeks

 I have just under 4 weeks left to go!  We have definitely been getting ready for baby girl to come.  We have the bassinet set up, newborn clothes are washed and folded in her newly cleaned out drawer, car seat cover is washed, but no, she still doesn't have a name yet. We are working on that!
I am definitely in the very uncomfortable stage and don't sleep very well.  It gets really hard to play trains with Austin on the floor and that is all he seems to want to do these days.  However besides that I have been feeling great and feeling very excited for her arrival. Austin loves to touch my belly and to give baby girl hugs.  I keep hoping that this will be a smooth transition for him.  Obviously there will be an adjustment period and I know there will be some issues with giving attention so we will see how this goes.
Matthew has been so great during this last phase in pregnancy including doing things for me that are getting hard like giving Austin baths, doing house chores and telling me I look pretty. That's like the best thing to hear when you feel huge and anything but pretty.  So time is winding down and we are getting ready!