Any Guesses?

I just wanted to do a quick post for fun to see when people think our Baby Girl Yarger #2 will arrive.  Yes, she remains nameless.  Jesse and I cannot seem to agree on a name at all.  He even posted a reward on his facebook status for $20 if you can come up with a name that we both like and decide to use.  Its been a dilemma for the past 9 months and now we're running out of time!

Anyway, post comments with your guesses for an Estimated Time of Arrival, Birth Weight, and Length.

P.S.  Avril was born 2 days early, weighing 8 lbs 3 oz and 21 inches long, just in case you'd like to use this info to help you with your guess.
Baby Girl Yarger #2 due date:  December 9th

Thanks for playing!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

This Turkey Day was spent up at our Grandma and Grandpa Parkinson's (Spencer and Joyce) house and it could not have been tastier.  Mmmm!  We were planning on having it at my parents' house but my dad (the other Spencer) came down with some kind of flu bug and was very sick :(
My dad's sister, Nancy Muncy and her whole clan drove up from California.  This was a special treat, especially for Avril because she took an immediate liking to Lizzie, the youngest girl (age 11).  All week long, while the Muncy's have been here, Avril has been constantly asking to play with Lizzie.  A very pregnant Mommy was also very appreciative of Avril's new playmate so she could get some things done and rest a little.

Avril and Lizzie playing with the dollies at Grandma's house downstairs.  It was pure heaven for Avril!

I forgot to take pictures of the food, but my mom did take a picture of her delicious marshmallow yam dish.  This is a favorite of mine.  We also got to have Jesse's dad come and eat with us.  Good times!  Bottom right:  Nancy, Gayle, and Grandma P. working in the kitchen.

People here are just relaxing after the delicious meal.  Bottom right:  the Muncy family, minus Stephanie who is currently serving a mission.  It was so great to be around family and fill up on yumminess on Thanksgiving Day.  We are so blessed to have such wonderful families.

 Made me smile :)

Maternity Pics

Well, I had maternity pics taken with Avril so its only fair that I show Baby Girl Yarger #2 what mommy looked like with her in my tummy as well.  These pics were taken with just 15 days left until her due date.  In other words, Mommy is about ready to pop!  Can't wait to meet our new little angel any day now...

Avril gave Mommy's tummy a kiss.  So sweet :)

Family Pics

Here are some of the faves:

 

Happy Holidays!  Love, the Yarger Family :)

Avril at 21 Months

Today was picture day!  We went to the photo studio to have some pics taken of Avril.  She is now exactly 21 months old... just 3 months shy of being 2, which is a good age to be a big sis we think!  I will post some pics from the photo session when we get our order back, but until then, I still have plenty of cute Avril pics to post!
We also took some family pics of our little family, before it expands to become a not so little family :)  We wanted to make them Fall photos but Mother Nature had different plans for us, so we took snow pics instead.  Our talented photographer was Grandma Gayle.  Thanks Mom!  Love you...

 These are some shots of Avril playing at the playland, all dolled up before her photo session.  So cute!

Looking adorable once again at Nana and Papa's house before Nana took our family pics

This is the puppet we used to try to get Avril to smile for the camera.  She giggles and introduces herself to puppet girl, gives her a hug, and then proceeds to give her a great big kiss right in the mouth!  Not sure how successful our smile for the camera technique was...

Uncle JJ stops by for a visit

And doesn't it look fantastic?

Avril wanted to blow dry her hair...

Sis and Bro pose for a photo.

Avril thought she'd accompany us with her piano

Hmm... should I play Twinkle Twinkle or Old MacDonald?

She found a horsey to play with.  Avril loves horseys!

Playing with toys in Mommy's old bedroom at Nana and Papa's house

And after a long day of photo taking and playing, Avril sits down to watch some Elmo's World, while holding her very own Elmo.  She is kinda obsessed. You can see she watches very intently.  We love you Avril!  Happy 21 months!  What a joy Avril is  :)

First Snow!

How exciting!  The first snow of the season arrived this past Sunday.  Avril probably does not remember last season's snow so to her this was all brand new.  It was such a precious moment to see the joy on Avril's face and her little gleeful giggle when she looked out the window to see snow!  She remembered seeing a snowman in one of her books so she kept on saying, "snowman!  snowman!"

We decided to bundle Avril up and let her play for awhile.  I even convinced Jesse and his friend Steve to make a snowman!  What fun :)

Avril watching her dada rolling a big ball of snow.  I took this pic from our upstairs bedroom window.

Ask football players to make a snowman and they take it very seriously.  Only BIG snowballs will do!

Dada and daughter enjoying the snow!

I'm not sure if her thumbs are really pointing in those directions.  She was also wearing a hat... I think its somewhere buried in the snow.

So cute!  I think that may be frozen drool on her chin...

Avril takes a seat on Dada's mega snowball

Jesse and Steve with their masterpiece snowman and their corn-cob pipes, made out of snow!

Gratitude

... something to remind me to be grateful for being pregnant... as this baby keeps kicking me in the ribs, causing my back to ache, insomnia, joint pain, etc. etc. etc.  The end is getting so difficult, but sooooo exciting and so worth it!

23 days to go!  The doc thinks probably less.  As of last Friday I am 1 cm dilated and 60% effaced.  I really am so grateful for this miraculous blessing.  I feel incredibly blessed to have such an amazing little family that will very soon grow to include a new tiny little angel.

P.S.  Thank you to my brother Jared (Uncle JJ) for helping me with all my computer needs.  I finally was able to redo the blog design with his help.  We love you JJ!!

Birthday Magic

November 10th marks a very special day.  That is the day my hubby was brought in to this world.  That's right, Happy Birthday Jesse!!  You may not know this about Jesse, but he is a magician in training.  He absolutely LOVES learning magic tricks, and is a huge Criss Angel loyal.  I have always wanted to take him to see Criss Angel live at the Luxor in Las Vegas.  Since this might be our last chance to get away before a new little one arrives, I booked the tickets and we made the trip to Vegas baby!
The show was absolutely amazing.  There were levitation tricks, disappearing acts, all kinds of things that make your mind freak!
If you are not familiar with Criss Angel, here is a video of one of his most famous tricks, walking on water.  We did not get to see this one (kinda hard to get a pool on stage I guess) but we saw many other seemingly impossible tricks.

Here is the brochure from our Criss Angel Cirque du Soleil show










 
Since we'd driven ALL the way to Vegas and stayed at the Luxor Hotel, we decided to check out the Bodies exhibit the next morning.  This was very fascinating.  There were all kinds of interesting facts there.  Did you know that cells from a baby can stay in the mommy for like 5 years after the baby is born?  That means there are still little Avril cells in me!!  Just one of the many facts that intrigued me.  I highly recommend this exhibit if you have a chance to see it.

I didn't get a chance to take many pics of our trip since it was a quickie and I was too busy trying to enjoy our time away, but here are a couple:

This was the longest Avril and mommy have ever been away from each other.  Mommy was very worried about how Avril would do for two whole days away.  Grandma and Grandpa Parkinson watched her and said she did amazing.  We missed our precious angel girl though.  Jesse couldn't wait to get a big birthday hug and kiss from his little cutie pie when we returned :)

Spider Ride

You can see why Avril loves her friend Jordan so much. He takes her for cool spider rides!

Home Decor Galore!

I won!  I won!  I couldn't wait to get my hands on that $25 gift certificate to Sugar 'N' Spice.  Guess it paid off, getting in to the Halloween spirit and becoming a glamorous witch.  Avril and I had no problem spending that $25.  I circled around the store, trying to decide what to spend my prize money on and there were just too many cute things to decide.  In the end, I decided to go with Halloween decorations for next year, because the 75% off was just too good to pass up.  Plus, how can you say no to these guys?

I was afraid that if I didn't buy them, they would hunt me down and haunt me till I joined them.  Avril felt bad for the skeletons because of their owies.  She kept pointing to the blood and saying, "huwt."  Poor guys.  So... they will rest in peace in my Halloween box until I can pull them out next year to decorate.  I can't wait!  I'm looking forward to it already!

I also bought Avril an adorable pink hat, simply because she would not take it off the entire time we were in the store.  She would find all the mirrors and smile at the image of herself, looking so cute in the hat.  I thought it'd be cute to take some pictures in, so you can expect some cute hat pics to be coming soon to our blog...

I feel that this pregnancy has whizzed by so fast that I am frantically trying to get things done before the baby comes.  I can't believe there are only 5 weeks left now!  This is the complete opposite experience from what happened with my Avril pregnancy.  I thought it was the longest, most miserable 9 months of my life... don't get me wrong, I was very happy at the thought of bringing her in to the world, I was just unbelievably sick the ENTIRE 9 months!  This time, I can actually eat food, exercise somewhat, and complete some projects around the house.  While I'm on the subject... a quick baby update... the Doc says everything looks just perfect.  Baby is measuring exactly as she should, heartbeat looks great, all mom's lab results look good- no anemia, yay!  So I'm crossing my fingers that the delivery will follow this same course and be nice and by-the-book.

Like I said... lately I've been in a frenzy trying to finish projects and cross things off my to-do list.  I think its driving poor Jesse crazy.  He likes to call me Monica from Friends because of my neurotic, clean-freak behavior. I have been working on Jesse's bathroom for what seems like months now.  I wish I'd taken a before picture so you could see the vast improvement... but I never think to do that in advance.  The bathroom was plain white with no decorations.  I painted the bathroom yellow, added shelves, towels, items on the shelves, artwork, and last but not least, a monster of a mirror.  This was the most expensive item and a beast to put up.  I made Jesse help me with it last night.  He was a good sport about it because it was not easy to hang.  Finally, the bathroom decorations are finished and I must say I am quite proud of my work.  I just LOVE the feeling you get when you make something out of nothing and can make a space beautiful... especially in your home.  Anyway, here are some pics I just took of the finished bathroom:

Unfortunately I couldn't avoid the flash of the camera showing up in the mirror...

Voila!  I couldn't decide if I should put flowers in Jesse's bathroom but I gave in and decided that they're just the right touch, even for a man :)

The artwork is the part I am probably most proud of.  I could not find any black and white framed pictures that I particularly liked so I decided to design my own.  I spent hours scanning and editing some artwork that my mom had done years ago, turning it in to a nice wall hanging for myself :)

I've been slowly gathering little items that I liked to put on the shelves.  This part was the most fun, it was like a treasure hunt, trying to find things that were just right.

I printed the picture and the saying and put them in these cute frames.  The words in the frame on the right read:  "Bare bottoms welcomed here!"  And then I put a picture of Avril after bath time, showing off her cute bum bum!!