Christmas post!

We headed up to Yakima, WA to my hometown to spend the holidays with my family. So great. Lots of noise, lots of kids, and lots of things to entertain Carter. In fact, I barely saw him. But it's always so fun to be around family.
Before we left town, we opened the majority of the Christmas presents we got each other in our little family.
We got Carter a canvas teepee tent... I just thought it was cute and something to take up more of his empty room ;) He asked to take a nap in it yesterday, and he actually laid down for a while..

Carter got a tool set from his Grandpa Dave. He was pretty stoked about that.

 Carter, of course, had a blast with all my little siblings. My dad assembled the train around the tree, and while they LOVED it, they just kept knocking it off the track & touching it, so it didn't last more than a day

 Some shots of us getting ready to go sledding!

 Between Aaron and auntie Val, Carter had a blast going sledding with them. But he mostly just likes to eat all the snow.

Christmas Eve, we get together with extended family at my uncle's barn to do a nativity & eat (obviously). Not only did Utah get pounded with snow, but so did Washington... I think every single one of these boys biffed it at least once trying to "help" others get outta the snow. It was quite comical actually =)

 Christmas morning chaos!!

 On some unrelated notes:

The TJ Maxx in Yakima, WA is AMAZING. It's a jackpot. And I love treasure hunting when I'm in town. I had no intention of having bright blue anywhere in my house, but these chairs made it home with me. Currently in my living room, waiting to be arranged and decorated =)

I got some cool news this week from one of my favorite baptisms from my mission. Joelma was from my first area and she was golden for years, and we finally saw her baptized on my mission. Now her son Rafael has the Priesthood, and was able to baptize his sister, Carol, who just turned 8. Sooo exciting! One of those missionary memories that resurface and remind you what an awesome experience it was.

After the weekend, I couldn't help but love a little more on this cute little boy. He's not in school yet but I can imagine that today was a hard one for a lot of parents sending their sweet kids off to school.

There's been plenty for me lately to complain about, trying to potty train Carter, plus being 8 months pregnant, but right now, but I'm just glad to be a mom.

Dec 12th????

I've been so excited for Christmas to get here and now I'm in disbelief that Christmas is less than 2 weeks away! We leave for Yakima, WA in 9 days and I can't wait to go and be with my family.

Here's some updates on things:

Aaron went to Texas for a selling trip for 10 days. I don't mind when he's gone, as long as it's not longer than that! Me and Carter get to hang out. But I decided to tackle potty training again, and just when I thought we were making excellent progress, Aaron got home, and Carter is a mess (yes, literally). I don't even know what to think anymore.

Anyhow, Carter got a ride on a carousel- a gorilla, not a horse, per his request.

 We made a gingerbread train, which he loved. He ate half the candy before we even decorated it.

 It snowed! Carter loves being outside, he loves snow, and he loves kids. The other day, we got home and some neighbor boys were shoveling our walkways! Don't even know who they are. Carter had a lot of fun going out and "helping."

Speaking of helping, Carter has been assigned to chores these days. It's his job everyday to put away the silverware, but he ends up sword fighting with them, and whatnot, and I have to go back and fix it all again. Whatever.

 And I meant to go take a pile of random pillows I had sitting in my room up to a linen closet upstairs, but instead Carter found a better use for them- making "pillow cupcakes" with them outside our tub.

????

 Carter and his GF Capri went on a little outing yesterday- to the aquarium. I love this picture- how she is so girly, and he is just all BOY.

 Our region at Vivint had its Christmas party last night- and these are the boys trying to ice skate. Yes it's blurry, but indeed you can see that Carter will not be the next Scott Hamilton.

Around the house:

The tree is trimmed and wonderful, but I've hardly made a dent in the Christmas shopping. I'm overwhelmed a bit, which is unlike me. I LOVE buying presents! I blame it on the baby/pregnancy. 

I did manage to wrap some of the few I had so Carter's pretty excited about which ones are his =)

We've been looking around at what kind of dining table we want, and I'd decided I wanted a round one- with a pedestal base, because I HATE fancy tables where you have to work the chair legs around stupid table legs. We found this beauty at ballard designs, and it was affordable (or I thought so at least), and she's supposed to be delivered this week! It's about freaking time too, I've been really frustrated lately with ordering things online. Boo

 Since the table is kind of cottage/country- not my favorite style, I wanted to get some kind of industrial chairs or something modern because I hate matchy-matchy.  But the hubs insists on comfort, and we both agree that it needs to work well with kids, soooooo that is limiting.
Although these chairs are formal- looking and traditional, I kind of love them. They're actually covered in microfiber which makes them easy to clean, and then I want to change out the fabric on the back of the chairs with something kind of fun, that coordinates with the rest of the space. We shall see what happens after the table gets here...

I love these options as well.... any opinions????

I actually saw an episode of Gossip Girl a few weeks ago, and there was a table with all these yellow cafe chairs and I was smitten. That could be very fun =)

 Pricey =( but cute

Still need bar stools, chairs for our family room, and then once I have the big pieces, I can finally plan colors and the fun stuff!

Meanwhile, in our office... 

It's a 

huge

mess.

I am 8 months pregnant, currently sitting on the ground, with our computer on top of an ikea storage box. We need a desk PRONTO, and I just kind of fell in love with this one online....

It's classy and it's timeless and it's black oak. Aaron was sold too and I'm stoked! He gave me a budget, and this happened to be RIGHT there, on sale from Restoration Hardware and we went in and ordered it last night. I actually never thought I'd ever buy anything from that store because I think it's overpriced and typically boring. Sadly it won't be delivered til after Christmas but that's okay. The floor is working wonderfully for me right now!

black friday?

My current dilemma is this: How do I score on Black Friday deals, buying furniture and such for my house that I don't live in yet? I have oodles of design ideas and furniture pieces that I know I love but I don't know dimensions of certain rooms, or even what style I want to have. It's driving me bonkers!!!

Needless to say, I've talked Aaron into a few key pieces, just because I knew I loved them, and they were a deal =)

If you've been around the design blog world for a while, you know that Serena & Lily offers this bookcase at $1295 + $200 shipping. Now, Home Decorators offers a similar look (below) for $499. Home Decorators is doing a 12 days of Deals thing, and I scored two of these for 40% off! I have wanted them forever. They will make my new living room very happy!

 I've been on the hunt for a nice sofa, since as long as I can remember. Now, I have a thing against brown leather. Which makes my most recent purchase seem silly. But this one's different! Chesterfield's are classic, and I think they can be masculine or made to be very classy and elegant. The tan/cognac color kills me, I totally love it, and think it can work with any color scheme. And since this is for our family room, which will get a lot of traffic, we decided on leather hands down. Two little boys- there's no way I wanna be scrubbing fingerprints and stains off of fabric! (Bought it at Evans Gatehouse in Orem, FYI).

I have a ridiculous amount of love for rugsusa.com, this is no secret. Well Black Friday deals are going on for 75% off!! No lie! I literally put 13 different rugs in my cart, trying to choose something "neutral" that could work in any room. Well, this is what I ended up with... a totally glammed up gold zebra cowhide. What can I say? No idea yet where it's gonna go, but I'm kinda stoked about it.

And this next week, til we move in is going to be the longest week of my life.

Resuming the blog!

I've decided that instead of slacking on both of my blogs, I'm eventually going to condense the two and actually update it more than once every other month. And I've decided this because my life is actually getting more interesting!

So here's some updates!!

First off, we are obviously back in Utah, to stay. Our "housing situation" has been less than ideal, since it's taken us a YEAR to actually buy a house. We sold our condo in Orem, hoping to close on a house in Lehi, and then found ourselves homeless because the sellers backed out (long story). Every possible thing in the book has gone wrong, and none of it was because of us.

So here's where we've been living the past month... Grandpa's house! Carter really loves his great Grandpa Packard. He's been so great to let us crash with him for this indefinite amount of time.

Since we had time to kill, while waiting for the house situation, we went to Disneyland!!

And me and Aaron have finally gone on some much needed dates

And I happen to still be pregnant. Not my favorite stage in life by any means. I feel huge this 2nd time around but I'm grateful I've been able to at least still work out, and baby boy is healthy and I feel great. So I need not complain! Baby's due the 3rd or 4th week of January.. (not sure because it will most likely be another c-section).

Soooooo. The house. How we love it. We were devastated when it fell through the first time, but things got back on track, and then the closing didn't happen yesterday like it was supposed to (again, not our fault). The latest and most accurate news is that we are closing next Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, and moving in the following Monday/Tuesday, after the weekend. I've debated even showing pictures because we seem to get screwed every time we're this close to getting a house, but everything seems legit this time around FINALLY. 

So here's a sneak peek =)  (with the current owners' stuff)

Lovely white kitchen + dark counters. My fav

 Lovely fireplace + built-ins. <3

That's all for now =)

baby

Got some exciting news this week...

Another boy is on the way, and it really wasn't that much of a surprise.. after all, boys run big time on my husband's side. Having one already and knowing how fun it is, I am ecstatic! I'll be planning out a nursery in the near future and digging out my son's {old} cute clothes that I've missed.. good times ahead, my friends!

credits: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine

confessions

I have a slight obsession with Demi Lovato. It's been going on for some time... like all summer.

Give your heart a break.. Yeah that's an entire station on my pandora and I am STILL not sick of it.

Plus I have respect for celebs, especially young ones who can talk about their depression or eating disorders (and her cutting) and their attempts to get better, while there's other young celebs out there who just run amok, getting DUI's and stealing.. 

Rhymes with Bindsey Bohan.

But Demi here is freaking talented, I heart her

So, how stoked am I for X-factor this fall?? I confess I've never watched it, which is weird considering I love Simon.. I think I just got sick of all these talent shows, but I will repent.

This is gonna be good.

Did you hear the news?? Jillian is back on Biggest Loser! Should be interesting, now she's got 2 kids of her own, and they're also incorporating obese kids into the show this season. This needed to happen. I'm excited.

Oh Gossip Girl, I have missed you. Can October please come quicker?

Patch NYC at Target!

Ever since I got an Elle Decor mag in the mail a few weeks ago, I've been obsessing over the Target ad, announcing its fall collection coming on MONDAY. 

Patch NYC, out September 10!

It's masculine and woodsy and quirky and I want everything.