Fourth of July Weekmid

Hey Everyone, hopefully you all had a fun and relaxing 4th of July. It was a little bit of a bummer being smack in the middle of the work week, but hey I'll take a day off wherever and however I can get it. 

Our celebration started Tuesday, the 3rd with tacos and a seriously stressful show. I have to give Chase a major shout out, because not only did he grocery shop for our weekmid, he made homemade, from scratch tortillas! They were thin, soft, flexible (it's important for taco wrappage) and delicious! He also made me a ginger ale mocktail with lots of lime since I am currently bun-in-oven status. It's not the same as a nice cold ginger ale and captain or margarita, but it's damn refreshing and it's the thought. We vegged on tacos followed them up with these delightful little treats that he found and then we proceeded to start season 2 of Handmaid's Tale. I swore I would not watch this while I was pregnant, because let's face it, this show is terrifying, dark and anxiety-producing. It is also sooooo very good that once you start it, you literally can't stop until you're done and completely wrung out emotionally. We are 4 episodes in, and things have already gotten very dark and crazy, but I am sitting here even now wondering if we will be able to sneak in an episode tonight.
Fourth of July was really low key for us this year. We jokingly named it "Thorntonpendence Day; Freedom from Oppressive Family Members" RELAX MOM IT'S ONLY A JOKE. In all seriousness though, it was a Wednesday and we wanted to just stay low key and spend time just the three of us. I think I said the same thing in our "Norah's First Movie Experience" post, but I find myself really wanting to have as much one on one time with Norah as I can get before we are a family of four. It's weird to think that she will never remember a time before Nolan, but I will and I want to give her my full attention while I can.

To start our Thorntonpendence Day we got up, had breakfast together, and headed off to a little park near our house, where we spent 0.3 seconds because it was REALLY hot! This is one of her favorite things to do, so we loaded up on water and watched her climb and slide, and climb and slide and swing until her heart was content, or until my ankles looked like balloon animals. Then it was off to the puppy store, another one of her favorite things to do. We played with a crazy little shiba inu, a snuggly little cavapoo, a sweet little basset hound and a few more until she was puppied out. We left just in time, because it started pouring shortly after, which Chase can attest to since he got soaked buying some fireworks for us. Once we got home we did some sparklers, snakes and some neon colored smoke bombs, ate some hot dogs, french fries and apple pie while watching some Master Chef. Norah hadn't had a nap so she was getting pretty sleepy and her bedtime was getting pretty close, so for her it was bath and off to bed after some Halloween books (they are her favorite, I don't know what to say). Chase and I cleaned up a little and then hunkered down, watched some more Handmaid's Tale and crashed. All in all some would call this boring, I call it perfect. I would say Norah enjoyed the day as well seeing as how when I woke her up this morning, she proceeded to tell me her dreams, which was a creative recap of our previous day, with night night bear getting all the credit. I am pretty sure he even made the tortillas Tuesday night to Chase's ultimate dismay :)  

Is there anything sexier than a man who knows how to use a rolling pin?

How about a man who can sprinkle flour like an 87 year old Italian Nonna 😋


Perfecto!

Pre-Thorntonpendence Day Festivities

Lookin red, white and cute at the park thanks to Aunt Lolo 😄

Oh this lab was just pulling at my heart strings....until I saw the price 😱

Norah loved her too


First sparkler, and she was fearless



Chase's take on festive plating, I made him take the picture 😁

Here's hoping your fourth was fantastic, and bright side to the weekmid, it's already almost Friday!

A.

Evergreen Bough, Urban Garden and Germinating Green; Nolan's Room Update

Who knew green could be could be so tricky! I envisioned a deep olive green, what I got was the darkest hunter green known to man, and then a slightly more olive toned darkest green ever, and then finally after painting what looked like Gak on the walls, we found our perfect color! The weekend before last we were able to get the room painted and Norah's clothes re-vacuum sealed, and some art on the walls, but we've got a lot of little projects to finish up. Here's just a quick look at the painting fiasco ;)

Seriously, I have never seen an evergreen bough this dark, truthfully I've never seen an evergreen bough, but who's gonna call me out on that....

Hard to see but the majority of the wall is evergreen bough, the next lightest is urban garden, and the baby puke colored one is the winner, germinating green (all by Sherwin Williams)

This color reminded me of a mood ring, I hated it going on, but decided to chill and let it dry to see what would happen. What happened was magic, it dried into the perfect rich olive green color!

You can kind of tell that it's getting darker here

Cave paintings

More cave paintings

Yea, you would think like normal people we would empty the room before painting, but no, we prefer to test our balance and patience by leaving it as cluttered as possible 😔

More to come soon.......

Norah's First Movie Theater Experience

First of all, has anyone seen the new Incredibles 2 movie? What on earth was up with the weird little movie short in the beginning? I looked at Norah when she ate the ungrateful little dumpling and she looked as confused as I felt! If you have no idea what I am talking about, go see the movie and you still will have no idea what's going on. 

So Saturday was a busy day. We started the day off meeting some good friends for brunch at The Pub, which is always a good time with great food. I have never ordered chicken and waffles before, just not my typical jam, but I got them, and it was everything my pregnant self needed, sweet, salty, crunchy and fluffy! We ate and then walked around the mall for a bit. Somehow we ended up in the Disney store and Chase being a big softy bought Norah a "Sully" stuffed animal. As you will see in the pics, he came along for our little adventure. Our friends left for the Luke Bryan concert, and we headed to the movies. 

Once we got to our seats, the previews started. Norah was just sort of staring at the screen wide eyed, as the previews for "How to Train Your Dragon 3," "The Grinch," "Bumblebee" and "Wreck it Ralph" played. I don't think she knew what to make of it. But soon our movie started and she already loves the first Incredibles so we assumed she would like this one as well, and she did. There was only a short time in the middle of the movie when she started to get squirmy and Chase and I looked at each other with the "here we go" face, but she settled back in and watched the movie all the way through. After the movie, she was pretty amped, but not about The Incredibles, she was asking about the "big robot" AKA Bumblebee the transformer. For whatever reason that stuck with her, so much so that now next to her basket full of monkeys and her horse, Spirit, there is a bright yellow Autobot. Not so secretly Chase is thrilled that our two and a half year old loves a transformer, and I'm not mad about it either. All in all it was a hot, busy and awesome day that I wouldn't trade for the world. These Thornton trio adventures are coming to an end soon with Nolan about to make his entrance, and while I am absolutely thrilled to be the Thorquad soon, I find myself really trying to soak up all of the time I have with just the three of us. 

I hope you all had a restful, fun weekend, it's Tuesday now, so we are only three days out from another one. Hallelujah!

A.

Two weirdo peas in a pod

Love this little gremlin

Thornton Trio

Excuse the dazed look and crazy hair, I caught her off guard with the flash, like only an embarrassing mom can do, and it was HOT

Not quite sure about this whole movie thing just yet

Where's Norah?

Norah and her bestie "Silly" and don't try to correct her ;)

Hyppo Pops to end a great day!

Nolan's Nursery: The Before

Well, here it is. The honest state of Norah's old nursery, soon to be Nolan's little man cave. I don't know if you're anything like us, but I am not sure whats gonna happen when we finish his room. We have always had a catch all type room that wasn't being used, and now that our house will have reached capacity, I fear we may lose the guest bathroom. 

As you can see it looks like an episode of hoarders; little girls clothes edition. That's because, I just went through the 8, yes 8 vacuum bags I had full of clothes that Norah has outgrown to find any and all of the gender neutral stuff we can use for Nolan. I was pretty excited that we ended up having one large load of laundry worth! Also managed to stuff a large garbage bag full of clothes to donate, so I did purge a little bit believe it or not. As of now, we don't know if we are going to stop after Nolan or possibly try for a third. DON'T EVEN SAY IT! I know, man to man is the way to go, zone defense is for the birds, but you never know and if we did have another, and if it were a girl, we would be set! Just have to organize and re-vacuum her clothes again, throw them in the attic and then it's on to the fun stuff, like painting (said no one ever) 

My current ideas and inspiration for his nursery are sort of like the paint in a Pollock. ALL. OVER. THE. PLACE. I think if I was forced to name a theme it would be animals. It's the one constant that keeps popping up, not one specific animal, or genre of animals, like jungle, woodland etc Just animals. Then you have baseball, I really love vintage baseball decorations, and also I just like industrial looking pieces like this shelf. Then there's the dinosaur thing, like this changing pad cover that I am a little obsessed with. So yea, the whole picture isn't exactly clear to me like it was with Norah's big girl room, but I'm letting the room work itself out. We are thinking a dark olive green for the top half of the walls, and maybe once we nail that down, the creative juices will flow and it'll come together quickly. I am also toying with the idea of painting his crib a dark rich blue with this paint I found online, that's pretty much made for that. I swore after Norah's room I was done with paint for the next several decades but what can I say, I am glutton for punishment who loves a good furniture project. Also, Norah ate part of her crib so it would take care of that, and possibly stop the twitch in my eye every time I see the little teeth marks. 

The picture hanging above the crib will definitely be staying over the crib as it has been over a Thornton baby's crib for several generations. Chase's Grandma Joan in Alabama sent us that when Norah was born, and it's incredibly special to us.  

 The book shelves will most likely stay where they are strictly because they were a royal pain in the ass to install. The little shelf with the pictures won't be staying. The giraffe picture is a sneak peak of some of the new decor. Rug will also be staying.

 Pinterest definitely got me with this one, the little cart from Ikea will be a diaper and essentials station that we can move around the house. I love the color, maybe it'll be incorporated into the room as well. 

 Aaaah the closet, I cannot wait to fill this with little mini man clothes! I am not sure if the little elephant toy box will go in Norah's closet or stay in here, either way I am still in love with it Lindsey 💚 

 You can't really see it very well, but the little cuckoo clock on the wall will stay in here as Norah now has a girl version Felix clock in her new room, thanks to her T.T. who worked for a clock shop. 

 The dresser we got second hand for this room, to be a changing table/ dresser, and I love it. So much storage! I have already begun organizing the inside, and let me tell you, it did my nesting heart good to roll those little burp clothes (thank you Aunt Doris) and sleepers. What is it about the whole nesting thing? It makes me feel so content and maternal, and yet at times it turns me into a raving lunatic (just ask Chase)

There you have it. I am hoping to get some painting done this weekend as well as getting Norah's clothes dealt with. Anyone have a great system to keep the outgrown clothes under control? Another important question, when the rooms in your house are all occupied, where do you put all the other random junk? 😂

Don't Call it a Comeback...

     So we meet again..me and this blog I mean. I am not sure if this will ever be a steady reliable thing, but I have come to accept this fact. I've also come to realize that I'm not sure where my head was at before, but this time around my purpose is clear. I want this blog to be a place I can come and look back on big and seemingly small things that happen in our lives. Call it a public journal or call it me desperately attempting to memorialize this short and fleeting time in our lives, just whatever you do, don't call it a comeback ;) 

    Lot's of big things going on in the soon to be "Thor-quad" these days, hence the need to put it on virtual paper. The newest Thornton, Nolan will be here sometime in September, Norah just moved into her big girl room and potty training is in full swing, to name a few things. This mom is full of excitement, hormones and reflux ;)

    Norah moved into her "big girl" room the Sunday before last, and that has definitely got me feelin trippy! The thought of my baby not being in a crib anymore put me over the edge. Add in the pregnancy hormones and there was a flood that night! I was so excited for her to make this big move and have her own little space that she can go and play in and have some independence, and yet at the same time I wanted to swaddle her 25 lb self and throw her back in the crib. It doesn't help that she took to her new bed like a complete champ, she has yet to get out of it until it's time to get up in the morning. She might as well be telling Chase and I that she's been accepted to the University of Alaska and she's leaving in a week. Gone are the days of rocking her (sometimes until she passed out in my arms) and a little piece of me shriveled up and died during this process. This is the exact reason why I need to write and let this be my outlet, otherwise there is a solid chance I will lock her up in the basement we don't have and never let her leave the "nest." Totes normal right? :)

Her first night in the big bed (insert obnoxious crying)

   I would call this the next big change, but to be honest we are at a complete standstill, so that doesn't seem like the right description. Potty Training..........we've been "in training" for approximately a year, and man once she does get it, she will be the best "pottier" this coast has ever seen! Are we ever going to cross the threshold and make it past training? Jury is definitely still out! I have a sneaking suspicion that being with three different people during the week is contributing to the stall in progress. Me, my mom and my MIL all have different approaches and despite trying to get on the same page, it's hard and I doubt it helps in this instance. We have about three months to get this down, because I refuse to have two in diapers. Last week a virus set us back a little, but this week, potty training is back on and we are gonna get this done! Any moms who might accidentally stumble across this and have some advice, I am all ears! (or eyes since this is a blog) :) 

    The next post will probably be some before pics of Nolan's nursery and some current pics of Norah's big girl room, and who knows what else. Maybe a "Yes!! WE CONQUERED THE POTTY" post, but lets not get too crazy :) Here's to a quick and painless work week and lots of poos and pees on the potty :)

A.