Settling In

Progress is being made in the Hockenberry house! The boxes are all unpacked (save for one of mine that contains a ton of random stuff that I have no idea what to do with) and everything has a home, even if it's only temporary. We still haven't done much decorating, but that should change now that the painter has given us his estimate and we'll hopefully be getting started soon. Yes, I said painter. As in, a real, live, professional one. Hiring someone else to paint my house is really hard for me. I am actually one of those strange people who love to paint, so I'm a little bummed that I can't do at least some of the painting on my own. But disappointed as I am, I'm also a realist and thinking that I can work all day and paint the house at night while cooking dinner and taking care of Greyden isn't even close to being realistic. Plus, I barely survived the last time I painted while I was pregnant. Granted I didn't know I was pregnant at the time, but calling my mom and spending 30 minutes literally sobbing into the phone because I didn't know what color to paint the hallway probably should have been a dead giveaway. I'm surprised she didn't either a) hang up on me (though she does have to deal with my siblings on a regular basis, so her tolerance for phychosis is pretty high, or b) tell me to go pee on a stick.

 Before the painter can even begin, we have to choose the color. (I say we, but I really mean I. Kevin is of no help but to tell me that he thinks beige would look fabulous. Yes, he used the word fabulous. You can tell how much he cares, can't you?) Luckily it should only take about 6 months for me to choose one and we'll be off and running. *Sigh* I am absolutely awful at choosing colors, most likely because I have no vision and little to no creativity. If you put me in a square, white room, I see a square, white room. Apparently my mom gave all of her creative genes to my sister (I, on the other hand, got the brains (all of them - sorry Kerry) so I guess that's a pretty fair trade.) What little creativity I do have has already been completely spent on simply picking the paint chips. It wasn't until after I'd returned home with a 3-inch stack that I realized all of them were shades of beige. Hmmm, perhaps that means I'm not as creative as I'd hoped I was. Either that or it means I truly value my dear husband's opinion. 

In terms of pregnancy news, I'm fat. That's it. I'm up about 4 pounds from where I was at this point in my last pregnancy for a grand total of 12 pounds in almost 18 weeks. I know 12 pounds doesn't sound like much, then I remember that I'm only expected to gain 35 (fine, 25 to 35) pounds total. Since my ultimate goal is, yet again, 25 pounds, I'm already pushing the envelope at 48% of my goal weight gain. However, as I said above, I'm a realist and even I know that cravings involving Chinese buffets and Mancino's grinders are probably not going to allow me to stick to that goal this time around either. And speaking of being fat, I'm sure everyone remembers this little gem?:

 Apparently, it's a family trait:

  
Other than the fatness, the pregnancy is going well. I'm not sick at all, only a little tired (which I attribute to having a toddler), and only have my hangover headaches a few times a week. We also only have 1 more week until we find out what we're having. I'm dying here, even though I'm still 100% sure it's a girl, as is Kevin. When I asked him what his reasoning was, he said it's because this pregnancy has been so different from my last one. Of course stupid me asked him what's so different about it this time versus the last go round. His response was that, first of all, he didn't remember me being this difficult with the last pregnancy. No, he wasn't given the option to tell me his other reasoning.

Since we can't seem to find the motivation to stay home on the weekends to work on the house, we've been spending time up at Grandpa and Grandma's house in Cass City. Judging by this picture, I think Greyden has found his "happy place".  There is honestly nothing the kid enjoys more than riding around in the backhoe or loader with Grandpa. Grandpa even let him help destroy grade the driveway last weekend for the Super Bowl party. Grey was in hog heaven. Especially when he realized that every time he pulled the lever, the bucket went up and down and Grandpa screamed in terror.

 A few weeks ago we finally got some snow, so we took him out on the pond to show him how to ice fish and let him play on his sled. He absolutely loved it.  

  

No, his arms really aren't that long. I think his hands were up somewhere around the elbow area of his snowsuit.

Daddy showing off his bait fish to Greyden

 

No outing at mom and dad's is complete without the A B Team.


 

He obviously knows he's going to get to go play in the snow.



Minor tipping problem. No need to be alarmed.



This is what you do to kids when they're restrained by a snowsuit and can't move their arms enough to take the stupid hat off.



Even though we've barely touched our 3-mile long house projects list, we have managed to inadvertantly start a play room for Greyden upstairs in the extra bedroom. I bought this playset for Greyden's birthday last November. It's been sitting in the box ever since. Right after I bought it we decided we were moving north so we never bothered to open it. A few nights ago we figured we might as well get it out and give him something to climb on (besides our furniture, barstools, chairs, dogs, shelves, beds, crib, table, etc). Now that it's open and put together, he can't get enough of it.  


It took him a couple of minutes to catch on.

  

Now we can't get him off it.


I believe it was right after the 3rd time he went down that he consciously decided going down head first would be even more fun. We're currently working on drilling "sitch yer booty" into his head. I wish I had been able to get a picture of my little dare devil, but I was a little too busy trying to prevent him from going head first through the wall. No worries, I'm fairly certain that wasn't my last opportunity.