Sleeping Joanna

I admit it. I'm obsessed. I can't tell you how I look forward to checking on my little sleeping daughter before I go to bed. For whatever bizarre reason, I've started taking pictures the last few days. It started one night when I actually found her on her pillow. Often, I would find her head at the foot or crosswise or just below the pillow. Another night:
Another night, not on the pillow:
Yet another night. I had to move her little giraffe off her face. I know she was fine, but I didn't want her breathing through it all night!
And last night -- she looks so comfy!

Showers and Parties

These two events are in backwards order chronologically, but once I'd done it, it was just too much trouble to undo. Sunday afternoon we went to a friend's birthday party. Jack turned 4 back in August, but was sick so his party got rescheduled for this weekend. He had a superhero pool party! Joanna LOVED playing in the kiddie pool. She slid down the slide a bunch:But mostly just wanted to "float" around in the water.
Eventually she got out for a little while to play some ball.
One ball was not enough, however.
Two balls are much better than one.
The day before, we threw a baby shower for Jack's mom, Amanda. Here I am before heading out: A preggo pose -- 22 weeks.
We had the shower at Mudpie -- a "paint your own pottery" place. I will be honest with you; I had my reservations. I don't handle change well, and the idea of a shower not in someone's house was unsettling. Boy was I wrong! It was fabulous! I believe there ended up being about 22 or so ladies there. It was after dinner, so we just had fancy bottled drinks (sodas, juices, and water), fruit, and desserts.
The top of the cake!
We hostesses got together and gave Amanda a tile framed mirror for the nursery. Mudpie supplied the framed mirror and blank tiles. We invited all the guests to decorate a tile. Mudpie will fire the tiles and install them in the frame. Amanda picked out some core colors that appear in the nursery -- I love how it looks! It will darken after it's fired, but I can already tell it will be fabulous!
Amanda (middle) and the hostesses. Three of the 6 of us are currently pregnant!

We had such a nice time! I'm so excited with out the shower turned out. Everybody sat around eating, drinking, painting, and talking -- what a perfect girly evening!

Catching up on Pictures

First up, a few pool pics from my camera:

Cool get-up, right? Happy in the water with Daddy
"Kicking"
Playing with bath toys in the BIG bath
Every night I go in and check on Joanna before I go to bed. It's like a little treat for me -- I always look forward to it. When I put her down, I leave a little lamp on for her; then I turn it off when I go check on her. This is what I found a couple of nights ago:
I've never found her on her pillow before. She usually has her head at the other end, and she's usually on her belly. I just love how she's covered up a little with her blanket. She is so cute!
I'm making Joanna's Halloween/Ren Fest costume this fall, and I've started collecting bits together. I ordered these wings online; today I let Joanna try them on. She's a fan, for sure.

My sweet girl is going down for her nap -- so will I.

Painting Pics so far

Here is a photo journey of the mural process thus far. It's actually been several days since I did anything to it; I need to get moving!

These are the boxes drawn to scale on grid paper. I went through my paints and discovered what was junk and what I could use. I actually took this to Michaels with me to get my additional paint. I know, I'm really cool.
First step: A LOT of tape. I taped my grid, then taped one inch inside each rectangle. We discovered that one of Joanna's walls isn't level. This made it a little harder. Unfortunately none of this is something I can do while Joanna is sleeping. Fortunately, she has been really helpful! I've done most of my painting while she's having bath with Daddy. The paint dries in about 30 minutes, so it's easy to keep her out of the room for that long. I just can't keep her out while I'm in there and Matt's not home -- it's just cruel!

Anyway, so we used measuring tape, a laser level, and a pencil to create this lovely design.
After one coat of brown paint
After two coats. One coat just didn't seem smooth enough, I guess.
Peeling tape is much more fun than putting it up.
Before touch-ups
After touch-ups. I think you have to have Superman vision to see the difference in those two pictures.
That's where I still am today. My mom is going to help me 3-dimensionalize the frames. Continental keeps making her work, though! And she's going on vacation next week. I'm on my own for a while. I can start painting the insides before we finish the frames, though, so my goal is to get one or two pictures done this next week. Hopefully I will exceed my goal!

Cooling off!

It is now down to 77 degrees in here. Yea!! Our A/C guy (who we like a lot) came out this afternoon, and fixed our little problem. Something about the float valve thingamabob, which needs to be replaced. He will have to come back out to replace it (maybe tomorrow), but it should work fine until then. It made it up to a whopping 85 (Yikes!) at about 5pm. Thank goodness for our ceiling fans. I am really looking forward to fall/winter. We haven't had nearly as much trouble with our furnace.

Cool and refreshing... and not so much.

I woke up this morning to two surprises, one pleasant, the other very unpleasant. Our A/C (really just the fan) had run ALL night, and it was 77 degrees inside. Turns out the outside unit (compressor?) was not running at all, so no cold air was blowing. This has happened a couple of times recently, but it's come back on within a few hours. Not so this time. It was 79 when Joanna and I left the house at 9am. I was shocked to open the front door and find that it was COOLER outside -- quite refreshing even. I guess I owe my house not being at 83 already to that little cool snap. Fortunately we had some business to take care of this morning, so we've been out of the house. We're back home now for a nap; it's actually not too bad under the ceiling fans. I think Miss Joanna has just fallen asleep (phew!) -- I'll get to why that's so great in a moment.

So this morning we had "meet and greet" the teachers at Mother's Day Out. Joanna is in a new class this year -- the toddlers. She's actually not the youngest this time, I found out. Last year I was a nervous wreck leaving her for one measley day; this year I'm excited for her to go TWO days! She LOVES "school." Whenever I drop her off for nursery, it's like she's saying, "Bye, mom -- shooo, I'm good." Usually someone has to bring her to me when I pick up -- she's not ready to stop what she's doing. Now, she's ALWAYS happy to see me, and I know she loves me best, but I am so glad that she really seems to enjoy being in the classroom. Her class is bigger this year, but I can't remember how many kiddos exactly. They'll all be sleeping on mats on the floor instead of cribs -- I can't wait to see it! I wanted to get Joanna an official "Nap Mat," but I'd been having trouble finding ones that weren't like a zillion dollars. I mean, c'mon, it's not a bed. I just wanted something padded with a cover I could take off and wash. I'd seen a couple of "All in One" deals with the mat, pillow, and blanket all connected and all washable. Okay, good in theory, but all the ones I'd seen were ugly (okay, I can deal with ugly), polyester (can't deal with polyester), and not very soft (hello, they're sleeping on the floor.) So, even though they were affordable, I didn't bite. Instead I hunted and found something I really like! I'd seen those red/blue vinyl nap mats at stores and also online, but I wanted something to cover up the vinyl. I can't imagine it's very comfy to sleep on. I know how Joanna moves when she's settling down to sleep, so I knew just throwing a blanket over it wouldn't work. I considered sewing a slipcover for it, but then I remembered that I can't sew and I don't have a sewing machine. :) So I found a website that sells fancy zillion dollar nap mats, but discovered they also sell inexpensive, cotton covers for the "kinder mats." Yea! Our mat came yesterday, and Joanna is already in love with it. She tried to take it with us today. I wonder if she knew we were going to school? Wow, I just looked back at this paragraph -- thank you for staying with me; I am quite a rambler recently.

After our meet and greet (which went fabulously; Joanna is clearly the best student in the class), we went to Babies R Us for some necessities and unmentionables. Then we decided to stop at McDonalds for some lunch in the A/C. Our McDonalds is so nice -- it almost looks like a restaurant inside! Joanna ate really well. That is, after she woke up! Somewhere between Babies R Us and McDs, she fell asleep, and I didn't notice until it was too late to wake her up with, "Hey Joanna, do you want Mommy's phone?" I got her out of the car, visited the ladies room (if you're a mom, you know how I did this), and ordered lunch while she SLEPT ON MY SHOULDER. This is unprecidented. I was thinking, "Who is this kid?" until I layed her down on a booth bench and she woke up. Classic Joanna. So that's why I'm so excited she's down for a real nap.

Well, I'm starting to glisten a little; I think I'll go lay under the fan, and maybe study the inside of my eyelids.

Pool Party Cook Out

For Labor Day, we headed over to Aunt Mindy's house for swimming and FOOD! I took a few pictures with my camera, but I would have to go into the other room to upload them, and I am too lazy. However, Mindy also took a bunch, and I took some with her camera, and they are right here on a CD so you're in luck. Okay, so we're swimming, and Mindy comes out and takes a couple of pictures with this cute little camera. Then she DROPS IT IN THE WATER. I freaked out. Turns out it was water proof and she did it on purpose.

Cute girl in the floatie. She hung out in there okay, but she kept trying to climb out; she really wants to swim on her own. She kicks her legs and kinda puts her face under.


One of her favorite things to play with in the water was a plastic shovel. I don't get it, but whatever.

Awwww....
I took tons of pictures underwater because it was just so fun, but it was really hard. When I went under, all I could see on the viewscreen was my reflection. If I held really still and looked really closely, I could kind of see Joanna, but she moves, and I was moving, and I just can't hold my breath that long.
Cute swimmy feet!

Pruney toes!
I think that child would've stayed in the pool all day if we'd let her, but I was done having fun. Plus she was starting to shiver.

Look at all that hair!
After the swim we went in, got dried off and changed, then Joanna actually took a really good nap. I wasn't sure how she would do in the pack-n-play now that she knows the freedom of the toddler bed, but she didn't seem to mind at all.

Then for dinner we had a FEAST: chicken, sausage, potato salad, and all sorts of yummy dips and stuff. Joanna polished off a chicken leg all by herself. No wonder she's jumped up the growth chart!

In other news, I am feeling the baby like crazy these days. It feels like she's just jumping and stretching all over the place. Joanna knows where to point when I say, "Where's the baby?" or "Where's Baby Sister?" but I think she kind of has the baby confused with the belly button. It does kind of protrude these days. She likes to give the belly kisses. It is soooooo cute. I need to get someone to take a video or pictures.

I am definitely in "nesting" mode. I was pretty sure I wanted to do some kind of mural on the wall in Joanna's room. I'm neurotic about hanging things above her bed -- in that I won't. I'm nervous whatever it is will fall down on her in the night and either bonk her on the head or smother her. Seeing as how nothing I've ever hung up has fallen down, this is not a logical fear. However, I'm still not hanging anything above the bed or the crib. Since the toddler bed is so low to the ground, it really makes that section of the room seem empty with nothing on the wall. I'm not much of an artist, and I was really having trouble coming up with something to do. I finally decided on a series of "frames," each with a different picture inside. That way, the pictures didn't have to relate to each other. I'm wanting to do things that Joanna loves to look at. Some of the frames will be low enough for her to touch. I want to fill them with animals and pretty flowers and things. She loves making animal noises and pointing to animals and flowers. So far, I have the frames painted. I still have some touch-ups to do, and my mom (read: artist) is going to help me add depth/finish to them so they look more like picture frames and less like brown squares/rectangles. It's funny; I'd been wanting to do this, but not exactly jumping to it. What got me motivated were sales at the craft stores. I was looking at ads and discovered that last week brushes were on sale at Hobby Lobby and this week paints were on sale at Michaels. Good sales, too. I already had a decent selection of colors and brushes, but I was missing a few key things. Like brown. I had no brown. I had to go to Michaels before I could even start on my frames. I got like six different browns. They're so pretty! I had never bought brushes before; all mine are inherited from my mom and Grandma. It is really hard to buy brushes. Matt and Joanna came with me. Poor them; it took me forever! I've taken pictures of the whole frame process so far; I'll upload them eventually and let you look at it all. I know you're excited. I think I've rambled long enough; I'll let you get back to your lives now.