My First Teaching Present

One of my students brought me this apple to school today! She just whipped it out of her backpack and said, "Here Mrs. Nielsen! I brought this apple just for you!"

I love my class!

It's DONE!!!

My floors and carpet are FINALLY DONE!!! YAY!! I'm pretty excited, especially since we will have our first guests to our casa this weekend! Here's some pics of the finished product!

In front of the back door

Our dining room! Don't the bamboo floors look nice?!

Finished family room!

I'm so relieved and happy to finally be done with the home renovations for now! Now I can get rid of the rest of my packed totes and start getting ready for baby Tabitha! If anybody feels like a trip to St. George, let us know because our house is OFFICIALLY DUNZO :)

Goodbye Halloween.... Hello Christmas?

So October 31st came pretty quickly this year. Plus, since we spent the day in Vegas, it didn't really feel like Halloween. But I came to grips with the fact that I only got to dress up once for my elementary school parade and decided that next year, since we'll have Tabby, there will be more to do and more dressing up and Halloween traditions.

November 1 now marks the month that I can't stand. Here is what I saw coming home from Hurricane yesterday night...November 1st. I know the picture is blurry.....

..but yes, these are Christmas lights. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?! Does anybody else in this world remember a little holiday that comes in the month of November, BEFORE Christmas?

IT'S CALLED THANKSGIVING PEOPLE!!!!!!! You know, that one holiday where you get to reflect on everything you DO have and you get to spend it with family that you love and are grateful for?

Those of you who know me understand that this is my biggest pet peeve. I understand wanting to get Christmas shopping done before December hits, but seriously, if you are one of those people who are hanging up your Christmas lights, listening to Christmas music, and buying Christmas trees and wreaths....we may have to re-evaluate our friendship.

WAIT UNTIL BLACK FRIDAY PEOPLE!!!!! I hope you all have a wonderful NOVEMBER!

Home Renovation

Well, it finally happened! On Tuesday, October 13, Ry and I signed papers and closed on our house! It was pretty exciting!

We're so happy :)

That night, we went over and changed the locks. Here's Ry hard at work.

Here's pics of some of the rooms. We decided to recarpet the whole house, so here's pics of the "BEFORE". This is the bedroom right off of the front door. We are going to use it as the baby room.

Here is the second bedroom

Here is the dining room (WHY do people carpet dining rooms?)

On Thursday, Jace, my dad, and Ry ripped up all the carpet. Here's some of those pics...

Living/Dining room without carpet

Master bedroom without carpet. Saturday morning Nate and his dad John Jensen came and laid the carpet for us!

Nate right after they finished! They got to our house and started working around 9, amidst the painter and the floor grinders. We are going to lay down bamboo flooring in our dining room, but it had to adjust to the temperature, so we couldn't lay it quite as fast as we wanted to. But, when we were laying down the wood to see what it looked like next to our new carpet, we realized that our floor wasn't level. Since bamboo acts like hardwood floor and you have to glue it to the floor, the ground HAD to be level. HENCE the floor grinding. It was ridiculous...

Here's the master all done! Luckily, my sister Anne came to the rescue and helped me decorate. Here's the pictures of ALMOST the finished product.

As you can tell, our floor isn't finished yet. Nate is going to come lay our bamboo floor on Thursday (hopefully), so I will be able to finish unpacking and have everything organized where it's supposed to be by next weekend! YAY! This has been a long, hard process, but it has definately been worth it. We love owning our own home! We even did yardwork all day! Who knew it could be so fun once it's your own?! The lawn is dead (I guess that's what you get with foreclosures) but hopefully next summer it will be back and green and alive!

Just for the heck of it, here's my 22 week picture! TABITHA CATE is doing well and kicks a lot!

NEW NEWS!

We bought a house today!!! Hopefully we will record on title tomorrow morning, and then begin ripping out carpet and painting! In addition to new carpet and paint, we are installing new flooring in our dining room (honestly, who carpets a dining room?!?!). I am so excited to finally be moving into our own house and I am SUPER excited to get my Halloween decorations out :)

Pictures will be coming soon! YAY FOR HOUSES!!!

It's A Baby Girl!!!

VOTE HERE!!!

Well, the long awaited 20 weeks is finally here!! Monday at 8:45 a.m. Ryan and I will walk into the doctors office, get an ultrasound, and (if baby's legs are spread....AND THEY BETTER BE) we will find out the sex of our baby!!!

Today at school, my third graders voted on what they think I am going to have! If you would like to join in the fun, let me know what you think HERE!!!

HAPPY VOTING! I can't wait to hear what you all think!