Three's Company

As you may have guessed, we have a big announcement!  We are so excited to share that we will be adding another member to our family in April.  Emma and Ethan are very happy about their new sibling and have even put in gender requests - they both want a girl.  When I asked Emma why she wanted a girl, she said (without missing a beat), "because we already have a boy." 

Everything so far looks good, but we appreciate your prayers for a healthy and safe pregnancy.  Here is the first picture of our little peanut:

Summer of Chevron

Since Chris and I have been married, there has been one piece of furniture that we have never purchased - a coffee table.  Before kids, we thought that it cut our apartment living room in half.  After kids, we saw it as one less things for them to run into (although they still got that classic childhood experience of running full speed into a corner at some of our family's homes).  Well, we are now living in a house, and our kids are old enough and tall enough that their risk of poking an eye out has mostly passed.  I know - never say never, but, nonetheless, I started looking for a coffee table to fill in our living room a bit.  Since the price of a new coffee table is outrageous, I decided to look at garage sales for an inexpensive used one that I could refinish.  A few weeks later, we were at a friend's house for a play date and I noticed a coffee table in their garage sale pile.  She graciously gave it to me for free, and my project was born.

All of our living room furniture is black, but I wanted to do something with a little spunk.  I keep seeing all these adorable chevron patterns, so this was what we decided to do.  With the help of my amazingly talented Mom, we sanded, primed, painted, taped, and sealed our very first chevron coffee table. Here are some pictures from the beginning to the end of our project:

Before sanding

 

After sanding

 

Painting the black base (we also bought a children's table and chair to refinish)

 After taping - probably the most time consuming part!

Painting the chevron stripes

The finished product!

The finished product in our living room

I loved the way it turned out, and I'm thinking there might be some t.v. trays that need to be refinished!  What do you think?  Do you have any projects this summer that you've been working on?

Little Fishies 2012

After a busy week of VBS, we headed into two busy weeks of swimming lessons!  This year, she took lessons at the pool that I learned to swim at.  She started in Level 2 (since we took lessons in Louisville last year) and had a blast!  She did have a little bit of first day jitters (new state, new pool), but she had two wonderful teachers who were patient and kind.  By the last day, she was not only swimming the front and backstroke, she was jumping off the diving board in the deep end!  She was tested on Thursday and she passed Level 2.  

Friday was "Fun Day" and she went down the water slide with a huge smile on her face.  While Emma swam, Ethan and I watched from the baby pool.  Papa even joined us for some of the lessons and he and Ethan had a great time chasing each other in the baby pool!  Here are some photos from the last two weeks:

Best Buds!

Ethan rocking his big sister's shades

Here she comes . . .

 

 She loved the waterslide!