House pics.

I have a list. Its a mental list really. Of everything I need to get done before I can have this baby. And, guess what. . . This is the last thing on my list! I wanted to get this post done before I have the baby because I know once the baby gets here my house probably won't be this clean for a while :) Now my list is completed. . . come out come out whenever you want baby! When we first got to Buffalo we had a really busy first couple of weeks because we knew that we wanted to paint and do a couple updates to our house before we even bought it and what a better time to do it than before anything is unpacked or hung? It was an extremely stressful couple of weeks but after MUCH cleaning, painting, installing, ect ect. . . I LOVE OUR NEW HOUSE! Just last night me and Doug were talking and he said isn't it so weird how fast this house has become "our home"? We've really only been unpacked for pry 2 weeks but already this feels so much like home to us. Anyway, here are some pics of our new crib . . .


Living room.




Kitchen.


Dining room. I especially am in love with this room. We have put alot of sweat into it so far. Doug hung the bead board and then I came behind him and painted it. I'm really diggin the bead board.

Pantry door. (with my fav. wreath on it) . . .I used to have it on our front door until one day, one of Doug's friends came over and said "I think a rooster ran into your door" :) haha SIlly boy doesn't appreciate my fashion sense! I took it off the front door and hung it in the dining room. I think it looks better there anyway!

Going out our back door I wanted a bench and some coat hangers for the winter time. Doug made this bench and shelf with coat hooks on it for us. Doesn't it look good! Possibly my fav. area in the house.

For Krew's room I had to do a before and after pic because it used to be a little girls room. The pic. above is the before pic. It was so weird to put him to bed in it when we first got here! So after much painting, and bead board installing. . . .

Here it is after. . . What do you think? Is it Boyish now?


Check out those awesome bookshelves that Doug made for Krew's room!

Main floor bathroom.

This is the "everything" room. Its meant to be the salon room but until I get busy doing hair which pry won't be for a while with the baby coming and such its partly an office for doug, craft room for me, workout room, and when we have visitors it will transform into a guest room. A room of many trades.

The "salon" part of the spare room.

Up the stairs is our bedroom. I said that we did alot of painting but of course our bedroom still needs done :) The green wall has got to go. I want to paint it red. . . I'll get around to it someday. Maybe during christmas who knows.


Upstairs bathroom.


This is going to be the baby's room. Right across the hall from our bedroom.


I made this frame for the baby's room. Love the saying. My camera did something wierd to the a in this pic but its really not there!

Our back yard. We were so lucky to get these toys for Krew to play on for FREE from some of our amazing new neighbors! And of course we were telling Krew that he would have a tramp at our new house and he made sure and kept us true to our word! :) He LOVES the tramp!

Lovely sandbox which Doug constructed for Krew. (Needless to say that Krew spends LOTS of time here!)


I'm loving our new house. And, now that we have it all painted and we're totally moved in our house is open for visitors! Any takers? :) We sure miss everyone at home!

Maternity Photos

One of my new friends here in New York, Mallory, is just starting up her photography business. She is AMAZING! You can check out her work here: www.mallorynikolausphoto.blogspot.com (Not to mention her prices are really reasonable!) I wasn't going to get maternity pics this time around since I got them done when I was prego with Krew but, I feel like this pregnancy is so different and TONZ of people kept asking me if I was going to get pics because "I will want to look back at how I looked when I was Pregnant :)" So, You can call me crazy for going out on a limb and getting my pics taken 3 weeks before I'm due but after having them done I really am glad that I did. #1 Mallory is took some awesome pics and #2 I'm going to want to remember my little family like this. Krew has been my one and only little baby for so long. Lately he will go grab a sippie with milk in it, crawl into my arms and want me to feed him like a baby :) Or, he'll crawl into the new baby's car seat and say look momma a baby! Doug keeps saying that its premonition. Anyway, Mal took some great pics and I SO appreciate her and her little family being apart of our lives out here!

First day of school

Here is Doug on his first day of school. Off to learn how to be a dentist! We love you Doug!
For some reason Krew really got into taking pics this day. Lol. As soon as he caught on to what we were doing he started pulling poses out that I had never seen this kid do before in my life! He would only hold a smile long enough to say "momma watch!" and then He would strike another pose. Me and Doug were laughing so hard I didn't get any really good ones but I tried! this pose here was one of my fav's. Who taught him how to lay on the floor just like a model? ha ha ha

Me and Krew have had so much fun spending all day together. I ABSOLUTLY LOVE being a stay at home mom. I could play with this kid all day long! He's so funny. I think he likes having my full attention all day long to :) The other morning we had a funny Krew moment that I wanted to write down. So Doug left for school and so I decided to get out the jogger stroller and take Krew for a walk to park that is close by our house. Krew is used to me pushing him the in jogger and running however, I decided that since I am now extremely pregnant I didn't want to scare any neighbors so I settled for walking. This is not what Krew had in mind. He kept saying go go Go! Finally he threw his hands in the air and said "oh c'mon momma! Run!" I couldn't stop laughing. This kid cracks me up.

Beaver Island

Before school started for the 1 year dental students me and a couple other wives wanted to get together and do something fun with our husbands before we kissed them goodbye for 4 years :) We went to a place called Beaver Island. It was a great beach and the kids had lots of fun.

Krew with his new buddies "Car-der and Parker" I'm so glad that Krew has friends here! It makes him and me SO much happier!

The guys: Craig, Doug, and Josh

The Gals: Liz, Mallory and Me. Yes that is a genuine "I'm so happy to be in a swim suit when I'm 8 months prego smile. Liz is pregnant also. You just can't tell :) She's going to be having a little girl about 2 1/2 months after I have my baby. I am so happy that I have these girls here with me tho.

After we had been there a while I noticed Krew was just sitting in the sand staring at nothing and being really quiet. This is definatly uncharacterisitic of Krew. (Little did I know that he had heat stroke and would sleep for about 17 hours straight after we left the beach and then wake up and be sick- not fun!) Anyway- I got kinda worried about him because he had been playing so hard with his pals so i took him away from everyone and found some shade. He fell asleep just like a baby. I love this boy.

Sweet Boy :)

Nauvoo

On our way out to Buffalo we stopped at Nauvoo. We spent almost and entire day there. That was perfect for us. I was worried that we wouldn't have enough time to see everything we wanted but Krew simply wasn't going to allow us to go on many tours. He doesn't really like to sit still. Wierd. One of the few tours that we did take was Carthiage Jail where Joseph Smith died. Here is a pic. of us by a statue that is out front of the Jail.


During the tour they explained that Joseph Smith's brother Hyrum, was trying to hold the door shut when the mob came to kill Joseph. The mob shot Hyrum through this door and killed him. If you look closely you can see that the bullet hole is still in the door.

The inside of the window that Joseph Smith fell to his death from.

The top window is an outside shot of the window that Joseph fell out of when he was killed.

The outside of Carthiage Jail.

Then we drove a couple miles down the road to Nauvoo. This is the actual size of an average wagon that each family got to cross the plains with.

All of the names on these walls are people who died while in Nauvoo.

I found some Lyman's that were on the wall! I'm not sure if I'm related to these ones (I'll have to do a little fam. history) But I know that I did have some ancestors that made it to the salt lake valley.

At the edge of Nauvoo there is a trail you can walk down called "The Trail of Hope" This is the trail the the saints walked on to leave their city as they were driven from their homes.


Its really cool to walk down this path because ever 10 feet or so there are journal entries from the saints for you to read. The journal entries are mostly about the hardships they had to face in Nauvoo and how hard it was for them to leave. This one especially hit me. I'm so glad that I don't have to deal with struggles like the pioneers. Yes, I had to move across the country but it did it in the comforts of my car. I had air conditioning, hotels to stay at, pools to swim in, and fast food along the way. The trip only took 3 days and I didn't have to give birth or deal with sickness along the way. This was a good stop for me. What on earth do I have to complain about?

This is the view that the saints had of their temple as they walked away from Nauvoo. How sad to leave such a beautiful thing behind.

This is at the end of The Trail of Hope. Its the Mississippi river that the saints had to cross in the middle of winter to leave Nauvoo.


We took a tour of Nauvoo in this little wagon. It was really fun and good for couples with kids cause we got to see all the buildings within about 1 hour and we learned alot about them from the missionaries on the tour. It was way fun.


After our tour one of the missionaries said it would be ok if Krew wanted to pet the horse. Krew loved it! One of the horses he met was named Ned and for several days after we left Nauvoo Krew would occasionally ask "Where is Ned?"

Krew wanted to kiss the horse:)

The beautiful Nauvoo temple.