March Madness is here!

If anyone has been following the men's basketball conferences championships this week, you will know that my stress levels have been through the roof! Our favorite teams all won their tournament titles, but they did NOT come easy!

Starting with UK.....they had 2 good wins against Alabama and Tenn. and then today won a gut wrenching OT thriller against Miss. St. Cousin's put back with .1 sec. to go in regulation sent the game into OT and then John Wall took over! SEC CHAMPS!! Wall was MVP of tourny!

West Virginia won the best conference in the nation tournament...the Big East. They won on a buzzer beater against Cinncinnati on Thursday, won by one bucket against Notre Dame on Friday and last night beat out Georgetown on another buzzer shot. All 3 games were won by Desean Butler who was named MVP of the tourny!

And then you have the OSU Bucks. They won by 1 on a 35 foot shot by Evan Turner against Michigan on Friday. The shot came with 2.2 seconds left. Then yesterday they beat Illinois in 2OT....Illinois totally could and should have won the game in both regulation and the first overtime, but failed to get a shot off in time! Today OSU beat out Minnesota by 30....giving me the easiest game to watch of the week! BIG 10 champs and Evan Turner was MVP.

So the brackets just came out....UK is a 1 seed, OSU is a 2 seed and WVU is a 2 seed. Only problem is that UK and WVU are in the same regional of the bracket so it's impossible for all 3 teams to make the Final 4!

I better get working on my bracket....can't wait for the games to begin on Tuesday!

In the meantime, I am glad that I survived this week. My stress levels have been so high the past few days, that I thought perhaps Colt may make an early arrival! Anthony has been on me about controlling my emotions...but we all know how much I love March Madness, especially when all my teams are doing well. Let's just hope that the NCAA tournament doesn't have too many close games!

Oh yea...another side note...Anthony called me during tonights selection show and was standing in Coach Cal's yard.....he was assigned to his house because ESPN and all the local news channels were there doing live coverage of the teams reaction to the selection show. Anthony got to stand right beside Coach Cal and got to see all the players! He was pretty excited to say the least!

Best Birthday Ever!

So every year after we get our tax returns, we take a look at our finances and see if we are able to do a big project of some kind. Last year we purchased the John Deere mower, and the year before was the truck. This year we talked about all kinds of home-improvement ideas. Now that our home is 10 years old, there are many things that we have talked about replacing. We thought we were going to have to get a new water heater...how much fun would that have been?! But thankfully we did some matienence to it that has allowed us to prolong its life.

Ever since we moved into this house there have been a few things about the house that I always said I would like to change. Obviously the changes weren't neccessary, but simply cosmetic. So every year when our tax returns come back, the changes always get pushed to the side because something else major comes up. A few of those changes I always wanted to do, were to replace our kitchen countertops (they are plain gray formica and are getting pretty beat up) and to replace our lanolium (sp?) kitchen floors with laminate, as well as our downstairs bathroom.

Just so happens that this was my year!!! We got an awesome tax return check this year and after setting aside a certain amount for Colt's arrival and for savings, we had enough "play" money left over to do something fun in the house! I was going to go with countertops at first, but I couldn't find anything I liked that would look good with the current floors we had, and take into consideration that I may one day change the floors. So we opted to change out the kitchen floors!!

A few weeks ago we went to a flooring store and picked out a few samples we liked and narrowed it down to one choice. We had an amount in our mind that we didn't want to go over, so when the price came back just a little higher than what we wanted, I was super dissapointed. I told Anthony that we should just forget it. But the awesome thing was that Anthony told me to go ahead and go with the one I really liked and it would be my birthday gift!!!! I was so excited!

So on Tuesday and Wed. of this week, the guys came out and installed our new kitchen floors! I gotta say, it's probably one of the best birthday gifts I have ever gotten! It makes the room feel like a whole new room, and for now it has motivated me to keep the kitchen really clean! The place we had do the floors was a small little place in Versailles and we were so pleased with them, that when we replace our carpet in a few years, we will problaby do it through them. So yes, I already have more projects lined up for the next 2 years.....1. new countertops and sink and 2. new carpet....that is if nothing else major comes up...I'll start praying now! :)

Here's some before and after pictures!

The Bathroom....

The Kitchen...

Thanks Anthony for making my birthday so special! And thank you to everyone else for their gifts, notes, cards and phone calls to me today to wish me a happy birthday! I started off the day by sleeping in because Anthony got up with Levi this morning and now they are at the gym together to give me some time to do my own thing! It's a wonderful birthday already!

P.S. I added the pictures of Levi on his 4-wheeler in my blog from last night, so be sure to check those out!

Levi's New Ride!

So yesterday was another nice day outside...mid 60's or so and sunny...almost felt like 70 out! We played outside all day long. Right before we went out for dinner, Kaden was over playing with his little 4-wheeler he got for Christmas. It's a little green one and it's really cute. Levi really really liked riding it, it's an automatic one that goes up to a whopping 2 miles an hour! So anyway, when it was time to go, Levi cried and cried when they went home saying that he wanted to ride it more. So Anthony gets the genious idea to tell him, if he stops crying that maybe we would go to the store and buy him one. We are not the type to just go out and buy something for our child, so the only reason I agreed to the purchase was beacuse Levi still had a lot of money on a few Wal-Mart gift cards from Christmas.

The whole way to Frankfort, Levi sat in the back of the truck telling us he was going to get a 4-wheeler, only he wanted a blue one. We simply agreed to it just to keep him from throwing a fit! Why argue about the color and cause more drama than neccessary?!

When we pulled into the Mexican resteraunt for dinner, Levi was not happy that we weren't at Wal-Mart. So we explained to him that he first needed to eat all his dinner in order to get a 4-wheeler. I'm telling you, I've never seen the boy behave and eat so good before in his life!!!!! He ate his whole plate of enchilada's, beans AND rice. He usually isn't a big fan of rice, but I guess he understood that he needed to eat it all!

Afterwards we drove over to Wal-Mart and walked inside. We immediately went to the bike section and saw the exact same 4-wheeler that Kaden had. We pumped Levi up about it and told him it was awesome and that green was the best! He still had he heart set on blue though! After reading the box, we learned that this green 4-wheeler wasnt an automatic one however, and it just had lights and sounds on it. We didn't want to get that kind for him and have him not want to ride it. So I took it back out of the cart and proceeded to watch him get upset. We calmed him down and said we were gonna keep looking. We found a pink princess one that was absolutely perfect...it was the right size and it was automatic and everything....only problem was that it was pink and had princesses on it! It was the last one of that style, and it was even the floor model.

We felt terrible! Here we had promised Levi a 4-wheeler and it looked like it wasn't going to happen. I wasn't looking forward to the ride home! As we were walking out of the aisle, I noticed a box on the shelf that was a Mickey Mouse 4-wheeler. I thought for sure it would be too expensive or not the right type or something like that. I yelled at Anthony....."Uh, I think this one may work!" He thought I was joking so he immediatly ran over and grabbed the box up and started reading. It was just like the princess one we had seen, only it was the boy version...we had just the right amount on the gift cards for it, it was automatic and the greatest part about it.......IT WAS BLUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So after all that hassel, Levi ended up getting his blue 4-wheeler after all! He talked about it the whole way home...I've never seen him so excited. Of course, it was the hardest wait of his life waiting for Anthony to get it all out and ready to ride. I think he must have rode it in a hundred circles in our house last night. This morning when he woke up, it was the first thing he asked for!

So thank you to everyone who got him a gift card to Wal-Mart fo Christmas....we knew we wanted to wait until the warmer weather to get him something nice for outside....and it couldn't have worked out more perfectly for him to get his blue 4-wheeler last night!

Here's some pictures of Levi on his new ride!

Things needed for Colt

Many of you have been asking me what are things that we need for Colt's upcoming arrival. While we have most of the things because he is boy #2, there are still some things that we could defnitely use! Here's a list I've come up with....

1. Clothes- Levi was born in the winter and Colt will be born in the spring, so as far as clothes go, he could use some summer outfits that I'm guessing sizes 3 months-6 months (as I'm guessing that Colt will be on the bigger size like Levi?) Also, some sleepers, because many of Levi's baby ones were heavy material for the winter and a lot of them have snowmen ect. on them! Again, I would say 3-6 months for sizes.

2. I am in desperate need of a new diaper bag.

3. Small trash can for his room

4. Clothes hamper

5. paci's

6. diaper rash cream

7. We can always use diapers!!! I would say size 1's and 2's to start off with.

8. Johnson & Johnson No Tears Body Wash- the Lavendar scent with the pump

9. diaper genie 2 refills

10. Nursing pads

11. I'm hoping to find Colt one of those soft blankies for him to sleep with. Levi still carries his around with him.

Obviously a lot of these ideas are personal things that there are different styles and such for. So when all else fails, I guess I would just say gift cards so that we could pick out our own style. I hope that doesnt sound rude saying that!!!

Faith Moment

Have you ever had a moment where you feel God is directly teaching you something, whether it's a small thing or a big thing? Well, this morning around 6:30 a.m., I had one of those "faith moments" as I will call it.

I woke up to Levi crying around 6:30 and I could tell he was upset. I went over to his room and took him his puppy (what he calls his pacifier) and I handed it to him to see if that would calm him down. He took it in his hand, but I could tell he was still upset, and to which he told me, "Mommy, I'm wet!!" and he put his hands up in the air as he wanted me to pick him up. I told him it was okay and started to calm his tears, when again he said, "Mommy, help me!" as he held up his hands. I didn't think twice as to my reaction, as I got him a new diaper and pants and placed a dry blanket under him so he would fall back asleep. I planned on changing the sheet when he woke up later. I layed him back down, gently patted his belly, gave him a kiss and told him, "It's okay buddy....I love you!" and I left his room. He fell back asleep almost instantly.

As I returned back to my bed, I couldn't fall back asleep. Many times when I can't sleep..my mind wanders off and I will find myself thinking about random things that I want to do during the day or whatever.

But this morning, I found myself comparing the event that just took place to how our Heavenly Father cares for us. Just as I was able to run to my child's side when he was upset and afraid, so does our Father to us when we need him most. I couldn't help but think of Levi's outstretched arms reaching for me to help him. That's exactly what our Father wants us to do! He wants us to call out for Him and ask Him for help. And when He does, He too will respond with, "It'll be okay, I'm here for you and most of all, I love you!"

I never did fall back asleep this morning as I lay there thinking about my Father's love for me. It's easy to get caught up in the busy day and forget to take the time to thank Him for His love for us. I'm so thankful that this morning, He allowed me to experience what I did with my own child, so that I could clearly remember His love for me.

As Easter draws near, I am praying that I can take the time to think about and be thankful for what Christ did for us all when he died on the cross. It's my humble prayer that I can teach my children about Christ and just how much he loves us all.

That's all...my little "faith moment" for the day. I hope perhaps it encourages you today!

Update!

Here's some updated pictures of Colt's room. I'm not sure why the pictures turned out dark..but the green in his room is a little lighter than it shows.

Obviously, I still have some work to do with the closet!

Poor boy needs some things to put on his wall shelf! ;)

His crib looks so cozy...I wish I could fit in there!

Last week it was in the mid 50's so Levi and I played outside for a couple of hours. It was a nice break from the winter cold! Here's some pictures of him before we went outside. He LOVES Lightning McQueen, notice his sweatshirt and his hat!

He's doing the John Wall dance in this picture!

Today we played with play-do. He loves playing with it...or should I say, he loves telling mommy what to make and then he smashes it!

Our ocean creatures we created!

March is finally here! I love March because of my birthday and March Madness, so I am excited it's here! It also means that I only have about 8 weeks left of being pregnant! YAY! :)