Dresser Makeover

We are getting really close to having Cora's big girl room all put together. Good thing since I'm 39 weeks today! William has been working on painting a dresser that we had to have it match Cora's room. He worked very hard one weekend, sanding and stripping it down. He was not thrilled to be doing it but he did a great job and I think it turned out so cute!

The before shot!


and Drum Roll!!!!


AFTER!!


He painted it white and we glued the same fabric we are using for the wall decoration on the drawer knobs to match. I thought it turned out pretty adorable. Can't wait to finish putting the room together!

Sunday Best

We actually had some time to kill before church today so we decided to do an impromptu photo shoot! It was meant to be since we were all wearing pink, even William! It's hard to believe that this may be our last family photo of just the 3 of us! Next time, we may have little Charlotte in the picture. So exciting!



I love Cora's face in this one!

I think we clean up pretty good!

Potty Present

Big event tonight in "The Bell" household! I mean big. I'm talking bigger than Charlotte being born! Cora earned herself a potty present by putting her "poo poo" in the potty! Sorry if this is too graphic for those readers who may have stumbled unawares on this site but I had to document this for years to come. We are just so excited that she did this. It was kind of coincidental how it all worked out but regardless she did it so hopefully she will give us a repeat pretty soon. Basically she had just finished taking her bath and was already naked in the bathroom. She got "the look" on her face and started asking me to leave the room (which I knew was code for "I gotta go!") so I asked her, which she told me "NO!" and then I told her she could not, by any means, poop in the tub. I promptly removed said child from the tub and told her to sit on the potty. Meanwhile, she is trying with all of her might to get me OUT of the bathroom for privacy (which I think is pretty funny). I leave the room once she sits on her potty, and I pull the door almost closed to give her "privacy". Well, she gets up and shuts the door all the way! So I wait a few seconds and knock and hear her making some excited noises. I go in, unsure of what to find, and lo and behold, there it is! Poop in the potty! Wow. She CAN do it. Will she do it again, is entirely another question but it was an encouraging night!




We gave her one of the presents I had bought when we tried official potty training 6 months ago!  She has enjoyed playing with it.  I hope the next time we try to train her, she will remember how proud she was to do it and it will come much easier than before!

Belly Shot - 38 weeks

Pregnancy Highlights:




How far along: 38 weeks. Where is the time going? It is going super fast now!!




Best moment: By far - getting to take Cora to the hospital to take a tour!




Weight: 154.6, from my last doctor appointment, which was today, 9/21/11.




How I'm feeling: A little unprepared. The hospital tour that we did was really great! I remember when we took a tour when we were pregnant with Cora, I left feeling so excited about having a baby and I was ready to experience it all. Well, I left this time feeling pretty overwhelmed! I guess I've been focusing so much on cleaning, and fixing up Cora's room and getting things ready for Charlotte that I feel like I haven't been really preparing Cora for what it'll be like. I know I can't really be too hard on my myself as she is only 2 and there is only so much I can do but I really want to spend some time with her, talking with her and showing her pictures of babies and talking about Charlotte.


Things I miss: Being able to make plans! There is so much fun events happening and I'm having a hard time remembering that we will have a newborn so I won't be as flexible and free coming up soon!


Do I think Charlotte will be born before her due date: I'm going to say No. Mostly because we still need to get some things done so it would be nice to complete it all this weekend and then have time to just rest and relax. So I'm hoping for that. I'm NOT, repeat NOT, wanting her to be late! Punctual will be nice! Just not too early. We still need to put her car seat in the car so once we do that, I'll feel better prepared!

2011 CPC Banquet

Wahoo! Adult night out! William and I got to attend the Pregnancy Center Banquet tonight. It was a great night away, just the two of us with about a thousand other people, listening to great testimonials of how precious life is. Of course, I'm pretty sensitive to it being pregnant. It's just amazing how these little babies grow and develop. Truly a miracle from the Lord. We really enjoyed ourselves.


Just the two of us. Thankfully Aunt Heather came to babysit!


Our speaker for the evening, Bruce Wilkinson (author of the "Prayer of Jabez books)

I believe close to $230,000 was raised to support the Pregnancy Center, which is a Praise! So glad we can be apart of it!

Big Sister Tour

To help Cora get ready to be a "big sister", we took a tour of the hospital! It was also pretty helpful for William and I too - it's amazing how much can change in 2 years. Parking is different, the entrance was different, some of the rooms were different. So it was a good refresher for us as well.


There were 3 "big sisters" in the class, with Cora being the youngest. She may have been too young to get the most out of the tour but I still wanted her to see where baby Charlotte was going to be born and also where she would come to visit mommy. Cora really enjoyed seeing the rooms and playing with the baby dolls. One of my favorite moments was seeing a newborn!  They had one baby in the nursery so we were able to show the girls a real baby.  The baby was so cute!  We think it was a boy and he opened his eyes and just looked at everyone.  The girls really liked that.  Cora was interested at the beginning but soon was distracted with running down the hall. 


Putting her name tag on!


Seeing the rooms!  She really enjoyed the big light!





She also enjoyed working the pedals for the sink!


She LOVED running around the bathrooms.


After the tour, we went to a classroom where baby dolls were set up and the girls could practice holding, swaddling, and changing the baby.  The other two girls did great!  Cora on the other hand was a little rough with the baby doll!  She kept banging it on the table and poking it's eyes and mouth.  The instructor said we may need to watch Cora with her baby sister. 



Not quite how you hold a newborn...



Looking better.. Just need to support the head.



Getting some help from mommy.



She did pretty well changing the diaper and wiping the baby.


At the end of that, the girls got "Big Sister" stickers to wear when they come to visit the hospital and also a little story book about becoming a big sister. 



Cora with her book.  She has really enjoyed reading it.


The tour ended with that - but we were pretty lucky and ran into a sweet friend, Michelle, who is a nurse and was working that afternoon.  Michelle is actually one of the nurses that helped me when I had Cora so that made it even more special!  She took us on a little behind the scenes tour - we got to play in the rooms some more.  The most interesting part to me was showing Cora the room she was born in.  Luckily the room was free as they did not have many patients that day.



Here we are!  This is the room Cora was born in!



Cora trying out the stethoscope.

The long walk back to the car.  Cora (and mommy) was ready to go home at this point!

Pampered Chef Vendor Fair

I got to spend time in my hometown today doing Pampered Chef!  My dad is pretty involved with the Ruritan Club and they were hosting a "Sale-abration" to raise money for their local group.  When he told me about it, I was pretty excited.  I haven't had a chance to work my little business/hobby there yet so it was a great opportunity for me to see a lot of families I grew up with and update them on what is going on with us! 



Here I am with my little booth!  I made "Chewy Chocolate Coconut Bars"!  They turned out to be a big hit!


My friend Amy (who sells Usbourne Children Books) came along too!  Here we are, looking like pros.



William and Cora stopped for a visit and Cora found a good deal on some toys.  They have really kept her entertained. 


Amy and I, smiling for the camera.

We had a very successful day, I was so excited!  Granted, I'm sure most of the women who stopped by my booth did so because I grew up with them and they wanted to know all about Cora and little Charlotte, but still the support was so encouraging.  What was even better was hearing lots of stories about my mom, seeing her old friends, even one of her old teachers.  Sweet memories!!

Community Bible Study 2011

Finally! After a long summer, our Community Bible Study started back up again. This is our third year being involved, we started when Cora was 4 months old and it has been a wonderful weekly activity for both of us. I met so many women that first year and have made fast friends for life. This year will be very similar to the first year as I'm in the "Lamb's Group" again, meaning, I'm with all the moms with babies who are under the age of one. This group is pretty loud and noisy, mostly because we keep our babies with us! I have it easy for the next few weeks since I don't have my baby with me yet, she is still cooking. This year, our study will be on Amos and Isaiah. I've never done a study on these books of the Bible so it should be really great!



Cora is in her own class -the 2 year old class. I'm lucky because she has a great group of kids and also wonderful teachers who are sweet friends. I'm so excited about all she is going to do and learn this year. I think she is excited as well! She remembered the church as soon as we pulled up, she immediately began saying "Bible" and "cross" and she tried walking to her old room for class. I let her say hello to her teachers but then I dropped her off at her new room and she did great with drop off. Hopefully, it'll continue to go this smooth once Charlotte comes!

September Birthday Cookout

We were off to Clayton yesterday to have a cookout at The Wilder house!  Katherine and Kevin are the newlyweds in the family and hosted all of us to celebrate mine and Kevin's birthday!  It was great getting to see everyone and the food was very yummy! Kevin borrowed a neighbors pig cooker and it was pretty impressive.  The only bad part was Cora came down with pink-eye on the way there so she looked pretty pitiful.  She still had a great time getting to see her Pa Pa and Parker.  (She talks about them the most!)




Custom made pig cooker.  It was really nice!



Katherine and Kevin!




My sweetie and I


Cora with her main cousin Parker


Katherine made 2 cakes for us and they were so tasty!  Wish I had some right now!



Singing "Happy Birthday"!


I think we may make this an annual thing!  As long as Kevin doesn't mind cooking the pig for his own party!!

Cora's New Room - Idea Board

We have about a month before Charlotte makes her arrival and we've finally started thinking about moving Cora out of her baby nursery and into her big girl room!  My hope is that we will be able to make it super fun and exciting for her so that she will have no trouble adjusting.  I think the ideas we have picked out are pretty cool but we aren't really thinking like a toddler.  I'm sure the much better idea would have been to stick "Dora" or "Elmo" all over the wall but we decided to take a different approach.  Hopefully Cora will like it!

It all started with this picture William found on Pinterest - taking embroidery hoops in different sizes and putting different styles of fabric in them.  I really liked how it looked.  We've even ordered her name in the wooden letters so that should be arriving soon!




So we went to Wal-mart and found some fabric that we liked.  We have more sizes but this is what we have cut out so far.  Thought they went pretty well together.



This is just an idea I have but I thought these tissue flowers would be cool, hanging from the ceiling, maybe above her bed?  We do not have a headboard or anything - just twin size mattress set and frame so thought this could add something to make it more bed like. Colors would match the fabric, of course.



Which brings us to bedding - I found this online at Target and I thought it kind of matched with what we were trying to do. 



What do you think?  Any ideas?  I'm not the most creative person - So I would LOVE ideas or suggestions!

Belly shot - 36 weeks

Pregnancy Highlights:




How far along: 36 weeks. 1 more week and I'll be considered "full term". This scares me a little as we have some things left to do! I kind of doubt she'll come early, as Cora was pretty late but you never know!




Best moment: Cora has started to talk about being a big sister and saying "baby Charlotte"! She even patted my tummy one day when asked where baby Charlotte was!




Weight: 153.2, from my last doctor appointment, which was 9/7/11. I'm going to the doctor every week now so that is pretty exciting!






How I'm feeling: The nesting instinct has kicked in big time! I'm really hoping we can get Cora's big girl room finished soon so we can get the nursery ready for Miss Charlotte. We aren't really doing anything different in there but it will be nice to have the changing table set up with newborn items and also have all her clothes ready. Oh and I should probably get my bag packed.




Things I miss: This pregnancy has definitely been a lot more uncomfortable so I'm going to say I miss being able to get up out of bed without assistance. I'm actually really sore in the morning and I feel like it's getting harder to walk around and move with a toddler.

My Happy Birthday Dinner

The fun just kept going all day!  My family planned a dinner at one of my favorite restaurants here in town - "The Daily Grind".  They hand make all their desserts and they are fabulous.  This was the main reason why I picked this place.  Little did I know that my sweet neighbor would be dropping off some cupcakes from a local bakery as a present.  Whew!  They looked so yummy as well!   Needless to say, I'm going to have plenty of sweets to eat over the next few days!


My family, minus William who was taking the picture!



Cora and I waiting for our yummy food.



Cora helping me open my cards - Holden picked out a pretty fun card.



Love my family!!



Aunt Diane and Uncle Berry were even able to come! They recently moved to TN but were in town taking care of somethings so it was wonderful to get to see them and get some hugs.  They give the best hugs!



My bro and bro-in law.



Heather and Holden.

We had a great dinner and time of catching up.  I really am thankful for my sweet family who loves and does so much for me.  Oh and in case you are curious - I chose the "Pumpkin Cheesecake" as my dessert and no "to go" box needed for me.  I cleaned my plate!

My Happy Birthday

As Cora would say it, today is "My Happy Day!" I turn the big 31 this year, hard to believe. Turning 30 last year was a little hard and now I'm even more 30. I'm 31, haha. Oh well! I'll just try to get better with age.. like cheese or wine.


I really had a wonderful birthday. My family and friends made it so special. It started with a sweet birthday breakfast from my dear husband. He makes THE best pancakes. I do not even try as he has that skill mastered and I really shouldn't even bother, haha. Cora was pretty excited about my gift pile that she tried stacking the packages. It was pretty thoughtful of William to take time to wrap my gifts and also pick out cards from him and Cora. So I give him lots of credit and deposits in the love bank for that. The gifts he picked out were very sweet as well, just want I wanted and needed! Thank you Hubby for a great birthday!


Below are some pictures of my Birthday Breakfast!



Pancakes with my age, a family tradition we have started with Cora.  Doesn't it look yummy?



That's me - The Birthday girl!


Opening Cora's sweet card, which she scribbled in crayon with :)




Getting the "Our Family 2011" ornament from Hallmark - I love Hallmark ornaments and usually we go the day after Christmas to get special ones on sale but these can be hard to find so he went a head and bought it for us!


Cora wanted a candle for her pancakes too!  She enjoyed blowing it out after singing "Happy Birthday!"





Great morning!  Looking forward to my dinner out tonight!!