Lydia's 2nd Birthday Party!

Get ready for picture overload!!! Lydia turned two on September 16. We celebrated her birthday with family last Sunday. It was the perfect day for an outside birthday party it was warm, the kids got to run around outside, and we had lots of fun visiting with our family.

Lydia is still such a little farm girl. She loves both of her Papa's farms. She loves tractors, the animals, and Papa Matt's Backhoe. So we did a simple farm girl birthday party. We had her cute piggy cake, no bake cookies for "mud pies," rice krispies for "hay bales," and ice cream of course. I found a picture of this piggy hot tub cake on Pintrest and thought that it looked like something I could handle. I'm not a great cake decorator, and this cute cake was perfect for a beginner. I just used two cake pans and split a cake mix between the two, I used chocolate frosting to frost between the cakes and around the outside. Obviously I used Kit-Kat's for the fence. Brian helped me mold the pigs out of pink fondant. Lydia helped, by playing with her play dough while we played with the fondant.  It was a really fun cake to make, and the best part was all three of us got to participate.

Photo credit, as always, goes to my sister Kami Leishman. She takes such great pictures!! If you want to check out her photography blog the link is here.

Her best buddy Claire was right up in the action and squealed with delight with every present Lydia opened. Claire loved all the clothes, the baby doll, and purse Lydia got, but the only toy my little farm girl wanted to play with was her tractor that Great Grandma Susan and Grandpa Milan gave her.

Lydia wasn't too concerned with eating her cake after opening presents. She just wanted to play with her tractor so the only way we got her in her high chair was to let her take her tractor with her.

Wow look at that giant baby bump! A little over 36 weeks pregnant here and feeling huge!

Cute little Brielle wanted to join in the little girl fun! Check out her matching pants with Lydia's romper. Cute huh?!

                                          I love this picture of Lydia! She looks so happy!

Claire giving her bestie the best goodbye hug ever! We love that these two are such good friends!


Lydia had a wonderful 2nd birthday! It was so much fun to see her open her gifts, and so wonderful to see that she is loved so much!

                                                          Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!

Lydia LoRaine Rose 2 Years Old!

My baby is now two years old! Where did the time go? I swear we just brought her home from the hospital yesterday! The age old saying "Don't, Blink" does in fact ring true for me. I've been holding onto my baby praying she doesn't grow up too fast. I still curl up in the rocking chair at night and read her a story, and I take all the cuddles she'll give me. I've been trying to soak up all the Lydia and Mommy time I can while waiting for the arrival of our sweet boy.

These are some of Lydia's official 2 year pictures. Is she not the cutest?! I can't believe how big she is getting.

This girl talks all day long. I can usually interpret what she is saying by catching the "real" words among the gibberish. :) She loves to sing in her carseat, we usually sing her favorites which are "The Wheels on the Bus," "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," and "Let it Go."  She loves to play catch, still loves to ride the tractors and 4-wheelers, and she still runs circles around her mama all day. 

She loves sorting and counting objects. She can count to ten, and knows quite a few of her colors. She loves being read to, and now she will "read" familiar books to mommy. :) It's my favorite. She talks about the pictures and turns the page and looks up at me to make sure I'm paying attention.  

Though I'm a little sad that my baby is growing up. Being the mom of a two year old is so much fun. I love watching her learn new things, and conquer her ever growing vocabulary.  My heart just melts when I put to to bed at night and she says "Love you, Mom"  with the sweetest voice and smile you've ever seen.  You know your baby loves you by how their eyes light up when they see you, and how they reach for you before anyone else. But hearing a toddler say  I love you as clear as day, and with understanding is truly something special. 

I love you too Lydi Bug!

Projects, projects, projects...

August so far has been a month filled with projects! I've had a list of things I've wanted finished  before school starts and I have been anxiously crossing off items on this list these past few weeks. The majority of the projects I've been working on are for baby boy Rose. He is scheduled to make his big debut in 9 weeks! That's right people, we are in the home stretch! I can hardly wait!

I have wanted to refinish this dresser my Grandparents gave me and turn it into a TV console for seriously like two years! This summer I finally made it happen.

I was in such a hurry to get going on this project that I didn't take a before picture! I'm so mad now that I didn't. If you can imagine it, before I painted the dresser it was that light-brown, laminate wood color before.

First, I took off the hardware and lightly sanded the entire dresser. Then I cleaned it all with rubbing alcohol. I used a black primer first, then I painted over it with an ivory color. After the paint dried (the next day) I distressed it using sandpaper. Then I used a black wood stain and rubbed it over the entire dresser. I let it sink into the creases and wiped the excess off. When that dried, at used polyurethane to seal it. I'm super excited with how it turned out! However, now I feel like I need to redecorate our entire living room around this piece, and I don't think Brian will have the same thoughts on this issue. : )


We are still in our cute little two bedroom rental on Stoddard Lane so for right now,  baby boy will be sharing a room with Lydia when he gets here. So, Lydia's side of the room is all cute and girly, but now the poor girl will have to give up some of her wall space for her baby brother. Since she is only 2, I don't think she'll mind too much.

I was looking on pintrest for ideas on how I wanted to do his side of the room and I totally copied this lady's nursery. It was just too cute and I had the perfect old dresser to refinish into a toolbox.

I remembered to take a before picture right before I began sanding this project. This dresser is actually one I had refinished a few years ago. I liked how it turned out, but it was perfect for a toolbox dresser so I decided to repaint it again. It was a pistachio color before so I sanded all the paint off. I painted this part of the dresser candy apple red, and painted the 3 drawers black.

My grandma got me some super cute stickers to put on the dresser.  I just put on one for now. Isn't it cute! I can't wait to find some silver pulls the put on the drawers.  We looked at Home Depot and couldn't find any that would work. Now, we need to make a stop at Lowe's next time we're in Ogden.

I wanted to make a pegboard to put above his dresser, like Vanessa's blog. So, we went to Home Depot one Saturday and bought some white pegboard, and trim. I painted the trim red to match the dresser, and painted the letter's of his name navy blue. And yes, we decided to name him Casen. :)

Brian cut the pegboard, the trim, and he glued it together for me. He did a great job! Surprisingly enough when it comes to projects he is way more a perfectionist than I am. I tend to get in a hurry and have the "it looks good enough" attitude. Brian will pour over a project for hours just make sure everything is straight, and looks perfect.  He was the man for the job, cause I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have gotten the trim as straight as he did.

I can't wait to put some tools around Casen's name, and get some wire baskets to hold his diapers and wipes. I'll post pictures of the dresser and pegboard when all the final touches have been made.


For Christmas last year Brian got me a sewing machine. I'm a novice seamstress, and I don't count my Home EC. class in 8th grade as a background in sewing. I'm now, regretfully paying the price from not keeping my mouth shut during class. So, I'm currently reteaching myself everything I should already know. It has been super fun sewing beginner projects for my kiddos though!

Since Casen's due date is during Brian's elk hunt, Brian wanted me to make him a camo car seat cover. I decided to do the Mossy Oak camo on top, and hunter's orange minky underneath. I think it turned out pretty cute. Even if I was cursing at the minky while sewing. I learned the hard way that you have to use ALOT of pins when working with minky fabric. That stuff moves, and drives me crazy! I found the tutorial on pintrest, like I do everything else. Here is the tutorial is any of you guys are looking for an easy one to follow.

Here is the finished project! I found the cute wood buttons at WalMart and I think they give it a cute woodsy feel.

This is what the underneath looks like. The hunter's orange I think, makes it super fun!

My last project that I finished up this month was a blanket I wanted to crochet for Casen. I already have a pretty good collection of blue and green blankets, so I wanted to do some different colors. I went with a granite and almond color of yarn. I LOVE how it turned out! The pattern was super easy to follow. You can ready the tutorial here if you are interested.

August has been so crazy so far with finishing all of my projects, but it feels so good to have them all done. I wanted the big projects done before I felt to big to bend over, and at a little over 31 weeks, I'm starting to get to that point. 9 weeks left! Hooray we can't wait for Casen to get here!!

Brian's Summer Semester

Our summer so far has been busy, well Brian's summer has been busy! Brian has been doing school non-stop. He has four classes and two of them have been accelerated; which means he had to complete a full semester's worth of school work in 6 weeks! He finished those classes about two and a half weeks ago. At the beginning of the semester he was all sorts of positive. He was ready to get after it, and hit the books hard. He asked good questions in class, studied every...single...night, completed each assignment early, and participated in the extra credit discussions. He was the perfect student.

EXTRA CREDIT ANYONE???

As the weeks drug by, it got more intense, more difficult, and more exhausting. He was sick of coming home at 9 or 10 every night just to go to bed then get up and do it all over again the next day. It took a lot of effort  to stay positive.

Soon, finals were approaching and the panic set in! He was so overwhelmed and began wondering why oh why did I even attempt these accelerated classes! 

Finally the finals games were over. 6 horrible weeks crammed with an entire semesters worth of papers, discussions boards, quizzes, and tests. Brian actually showed me this video the day he completed his classes and said, "This is exactly how I feel right now."

So hooray!! Brian passes all of his classes and we can bid farewell to worst semester EVER! The poor guy is so burned out we are wondering if it's worth it to keep cramming so many classes in each semester?? It's ok if it takes Brian like 7 years to complete his bachelor's degree right? Tommy Boy took that long, and he ended up saving his dad's company. :) 

SUMMER!

Summer seems to have come and gone just like that! I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, Brian just finished his summer semester  a few weeks ago, consequently I feel like summer is just beginning so I want it to stick around a bit longer. On the other hand, our baby boy will be here in October! Just 13 more weeks till my due date! I can hardly believe it. Just yesterday I was catching up on Lydia's baby book, and looking over pictures and videos of her when she was under a year old. She was so sweet and tiny, and I made sure to show Brian every cute picture of her. My expressions went something like, "Oh look how little!" or "I miss her cute little pebbles ponytail" and "I can't believe that my baby is now a toddler...sob."

Brian nodded in agreement and grinned every once in a while simultaneously going to battle on the X-Box. :) He has mastered faking interest in baby things while playing video games. He still things I don't know when he is faking, but let's face it a wife always knows. :) Anyway,  After staying up way too late we finally went to bed and Brian said, "I'm excited to have a baby in our home again." I was surprised to find that he did in fact listen to my sentimental rambling! My heart melted of course as we traded baby memories back and forth. So to get back on point, Fall can't get here soon enough! But since I have a few more months until little man's arrival, we will enjoy what little of summer we have left!

Though the month of June was pretty lame while Brian was taking his accelerated classes, we did manage to squish and entire summer's worth of activities into two weeks of July! To kick of Brian's first weekend free of classes we spend the entire time camping with our family. It was perfect!

Our weekend was filled with typical camping activities which no matter how many times you do them, they never get old! We played cards, sat around the fire, ate amazing food, and enjoyed spending some time together. It was the perfect way to celebrate the 4th of July.

 Lydia got filthy of course. She also enjoyed showed off her "mean face" which she does now on command, and whenever she is bugged. :) I was glad I finally got a picture of this epic scowl.

Playing at the creek was the highlight of the weekend. It was so hot all week and the cold creek felt AMAZING! We loved wading in the cold water while watching the kids build a dam.

Lydia taking a break from the water to keep Grandma company.

Maylee, Lena, and Lydia playing with the Uno cards. 

Camping was so much fun, and we were  desperately craving some summer activities, so the following weekend we took Lydia to the drive-in to see Inside Out. We were betting that she would fall asleep during the movie but she stayed awake the entire time! I wish I would have taken some pictures of our little outing, but of course I forgot the camera. That same weekend we had a little get together with the Richins side of family. I had an aunt and uncle come to visit from Missouri, and one of their kids got baptized while they were here. After the baptism we went swimming. We thought Lydia might like to "swim" on her own so one of my family members gave her the funniest life vest you've ever seen. We got a kick out of the shark fin on the back so of course I had to snap a picture.

Though Brian was so busy earlier this summer we did have some fun. We branded calves in June, which is always a favorite summer activity of mine. This year I didn't do as much, considering I was in my second trimester at the time. Brian filled in for for me and vaccinated while the other guys cut, branded, and tagged the calves. We had some awesome ropers help us out this year so it went really fast. So fast in fact that Lydia actually fell sound asleep and slept through the entire thing! We actually had to wake her up to go home.

Here are a few pictures of our branding crew:

Brian is giving shots, apparently with an audience, so no pressure!

Grandpa Milan is branding while Brian hold the calf down with some help from Matt.

Grandpa Milan putting the branding iron back on the fire to keep it hot.

Grandpa's Mule Sally, our favorite spectator. 

Papa Matt cutting a bull calf.

A few weeks after branding me and my sister Kami decided to have a little pool party with our girls. Kami got some cute pictures of our little outing. When I have cute pictures on my blog, just automatically assume that they were taken by Kami. :) You can bet you boots I didn't take them!

The girls had tons of fun splashing and playing in the water. It was the perfect way to kick off our summer festivities!

Luckily we have a little more than a month of summer left! I feel like we've done pretty good accomplishing our summer bucket list, but I'm still anticipating some more camp fires, picnics, and swimming. We've had a blast so far, but I'm happy to say there is still more fun to come!

This last picture sums up Lydia's reaction to all this summer fun perfectly: