4th of July

4th of July came and we celebrated by dressing up our dogs. Doris had a necklace and tank top and Mr. Bates had a hat and handkerchief. Don't they look excited for the festivities??

I bought Chris this shirt at Wal-Mart for $4 a few weeks ago. He said it looked ridiculous, but he wore it with pride and showed off his new homeland.

Before the party began (more like 10 minutes before), we put up the final touches to the deck.

I bought these wind socks at Dollar Tree and the paper lanterns I bought a few years ago on Ebay.

Once the guests arrived, the pool was the place to be. My grandad even got in!

Here is my sweet niece all decked out in her patriotic wear.

More guests arriving and celebrating

These two were so funny sitting around the fire with the big kids.

Our old neighbors even stopped by to say hello!

My brother and cousin cheesing it up!

And finally our old neighbor, Connie, and Chris showing off their "guns".

 

 We had a great time on 4th of July and it was nice to see everyone. We had plenty of food and conversations. We had to shoo people out at 1am so Chris could sleep before work the next morning. Our dogs were so worn out that they slept until 10am the next morning.

 We look forward to finishing the deck and another 4th of July party next year with one more person!

Canning Pickles With Grandma 2013

Last year was my first year canning pickles with my grandma. I had such a good time learning about canning and more about my grandma. My sister was a little upset because she couldn't be there so I promised her that we would make them again next year so she could learn, too. 

I said in my previous post that I bought the cucumbers at a local farmer's market. I didn't think I bought enough so I asked my dad to stop by there a few hours later to pick up more on his way home from work. I now had two bags of cucumbers to pickle.

When we got to my grandma's house we started to scrub the cucumbers and cut them.

Grandma didn't want her hair to fall into the pickles, but I think it was really because she didn't want to mess up her hair so she wore a shower cap.lol

We had to heat the cucumbers up and wait for them to change color before we could can them.

Grandma didn't let us do a whole lot of work mainly because she had her own system and didn't want us to mess it up. Eventually she let us prep the jars by putting in dill, canning salt, sugar, garlic, turmeric, and mustard seeds.

Once we got our own system down it became a bit easier and we were able to make our own jars of pickles.

Our first jars that will be ready in about 3 weeks. We made a total of 9 jars and gave a few to my grandma. I took home 5 jars, but I don't think they will last until next year.

It was fun to have this experience with my grandma and my sister. We got to kick back, listen to grandma's stories, and learn a new trade. I plan on canning pickles every year and eventually teaching my kids how to pick up on this family tradition.

Smorgasbord #4

I'm getting ready to can pickles with my Grandma and Brianna on Friday. I went to the Farmer's Market in Corsicana to pick up cucumbers that are small enough to become our kind of pickles. I also picked up some dill and a small watermelon. The Farmer's Market was a bit more expensive than the grocery store, but knowing how hard it was for us to grow our garden I didn't mind paying for the hard work that went behind the produce.

4th of July is coming up and I wanted to add a few more decorations to our home. I saw this on Pinterest and it looked easy enough to create. I just bought a cheap picture frame, spray painted it, and printed out the free image to display. The website had a ton of free printables and I may print off a few more for our party next week. I got this garland at Dollar Tree and couldn't resist to add a bit more "pop" to the decor.

Last night, we went out to eat at a local Mexican restaurant and I was chowing down on chips and salsa. As soon as we ordered our meal, I started to feel bad and a lot like how I felt at 8 weeks of pregnancy. A few minutes later and I was in the restaurant bathroom paying homage to the porcelain god. We got our food to go and headed home. I don't think Eli particularly likes spicy salsa.

My stomach finally settled and animal crackers sounded good when I got home. We were getting ready to head to bed and I was snacking on my crackers when I saw the doggies looking like Oliver Twist. You would think that we never feed them. I gave them a few crackers and then closed up the lid for the night. They love their animal crackers.

I took the dogs to the pet parlor yesterday because they were in desperate need of a good washing. I asked them to paint Doris' nails. She is a lady and we try to treat her as such. Here she is showing off her pretty pink nails. 

 When I picked them up I asked how Mr. Bates did. They said that he barked the entire time (5 hours!). I felt so bad because Mr. Bates is a very sweet dog, but he is very vocal. Maybe next time we can work it out to where we take him for a shorter period.

Just a little bit of what's going on at Gilburtshire!

Our Pool Dream Part 1

We had been talking about putting an above ground pool in for a couple of years. My aunt and uncle sold us their 20+ year old Doughboy pool almost two years ago. They kept it in pristine condition and sold it to us for a very reasonable price. But every time we thought about putting it up we looked up DIY videos on Youtube and were immediately fearful that we could do it on our own. After becoming pregnant, I nagged Chris that I wanted the pool for the summer. I wanted to be able to cool off in my own pool without the fear of people looking at my growing pregnant body. 

After buying a few much needed items off Amazon (our go-to for anything we need), we were ready to start. The sand came in Friday. You can see Mr. Bates sniffing it out.

Day 1: Saturday
Early Saturday morning, My dad came over to help us level the ground and mark off the areas. This job proved to be more time consuming than we thought.

I helped by trolley-ing the supplies from the garage to the backyard and making lunch for the guys. Through much frustration, this is about as far as we got Saturday. (You can see where Doris wanted to be.)

Day 2: Sunday
We laid out the Gorilla padding that we bought on Amazon that is supposed to keep the grass from coming through the pool. Chris tried poking it with a pocket knife and only the tip came through. We have some harsh grass in Texas and have heard multiple people say that their sharp grass has made it through their liner time and time again. The Gorilla padding was an addition to the liner, but it was much needed.

Next came the sand. While the guys moved the sand to the site, I used a rake to spread and smooth it out. The neighbors came over to help us out, too.

The hardest part was keeping the siding up so Chris could put it in the tracks underneath. With the wind blowing, it was pretty hard to keep it up without the help of several people and we had to call a few extra neighbors to hold it with us.

It was finally standing on its own and we took a lunch break. Mom made lasagna and chicken alfredo for lunch and we went in to cool off for a bit.

I left the house for a few hours in the afternoon and came back to this. My house had been invaded by Zmoliks! They had come over to help Chris put in the liner and start to filling the pool.

I told him that it looked like he was ready to squish grapes like Lucy on I Love Lucy.

We left the two hoses running almost all night to fill the pool halfway. The bohemian in me could hear money leaving the house as I thought about our first water bill!!

We still have quite a bit to do for it to be ready by next Thursday at our 4th of July party.
But that is for Part 2!

22 Weeks

I know I said I would post a 20 week picture, but I forgot to take one and now it's 22 weeks so here ya go! Like I said in the last one, the second trimester has been pretty good to me. Very little nausea and that's only because I don't eat as often as I should sometimes. Also, having more energy to do projects for the nursery and other parts of the house has been really nice. Just keeping cool with the doggies in the house and working on our pool to stay cool out of the house during this summer is my idea of a good time. 

Now that we know our lil' Gilburt is a boy, we can get Eli's room ready and prepare ourselves, as best we can, for raising a lil' boy. And now that my belly is really starting to grow, I am going to remind myself to take more pictures and post them.

Lil' Gilburt is a...BOY!!

In case you didn't know already, Chris and I will be having a boy come October. We are beyond thrilled to have our first chubby Gilburt be a boy. Now we can buy more gender-related items to stock up the nursery. I think my mother will take care of most of that, though. We have been very fortunate in buying hand-me-downs at very reasonable prices. We already have a rocker, car seat with two bases, crib, changing table(my sis is distressing it), bedding and accessories, and pack and play that comes with a bassinet level. We just need to move everything that doesn't belong in the nursery either to the attic or get rid of it, so the room can actually look like a nursery.

I had my doctor's appointment last Friday and it worked out that Chris was off because we would be heading for our family vacation the same day to San Antonio. My principal was very nice and let me out early on the last day of school to accommodate the appointment. 

We were so nervous and excited to find out what lil' Gilburt was that I could hardly stand it. We went to a different room than usual and there were multiple screens on the walls so that everyone in the room could see the baby on the sonogram. Before hand, I asked Chris what he thought the baby was and he had the same inkling as me...none. I really never felt like I knew that I was having either sex. I had dreams of having a girl and a boy and most of the old wives tales went both ways. Finding this baby's sex out was a complete surprise for us.

It wasn't 20 seconds into the sonogram that our doctor said, "Well, it's definitely a boy." There were no doubts in his mind and he quickly showed us his "manly" parts to prove it. I just chuckled because it made it official. We are going to be parents to a little boy. He will be the first, the one to lead the rest, and the one to carry on the Gilburt name. 

Chris was taking pictures of the screen and just kept glowing. I think he was just a tiny bit happier than me. He's going to have a lil' mini-me walking around and he'll get to teach him everything he wants him to learn.

For the longest time we were dead-set on Balian for a boy's name. It's an old Anglo Saxon name and it sounded like he would be born with a sword in his hand. But as soon as I became pregnant Chris didn't like it much anymore and we started looking for new names. For some reason, we really liked short first names. I text messaged Chris one day with Eli and Leo. He loved them. We decided that Eli would be the first boy and Leo maybe for the second boy. 

The middle name became the hard part. I thought Eli John (after Chris' dad) or Eli Christopher. Chris couldn't commit to those and kept going back to his grandfather's name, Cyril. I wasn't thrilled on the name and can't help but think of Saints Cyril and Methodius from our church. We couldn't decide and just dropped it for awhile knowing that we could be having a girl and this may not matter. About a week before our appointment we talked again and Chris made a point. Chris' middle name, John, is after his father. Chris said that he wanted to keep that tradition going with our new generation. So Eli Christopher was decided.

We called Chris' family after the appointment and told them the good news. They were all very excited to hear that we are having a boy. Some of them are planning on coming to see us when the baby comes so they can meet and get to know him.

With our baby declared a boy, we headed to San Antonio to reveal to my family. Since we used Scrabble to reveal that I was pregnant, I decided to keep going with it.

The board set up before the big reveal.

The family all ready to find out what lil' Gilburt is..

YEA!! They were all so happy to see the board. I love my little brother's face on the far right.

We celebrated all weekend long and went shopping to get Eli some clothes. I was going to buy them, but my mom bought them instead and is saving them for my baby shower. 

Only 19 more weeks to go before we get to meet Eli!

My Sister's Baby Shower

This past weekend was a busy one getting ready for my sister's baby shower. It turned out to be a lovely shower and a nice way to start spoiling Miss Marley.

When we started to plan the shower my mom suggested that I make a bassinet fruit basket. I decided to attempt the project and enlisted Chris for help.

We began with carving the watermelon and gutting it.

Just about finished!! Chris did the majority of this and I just prepped the fruit.

Then came the shower

My sis with her cake. Can't you see her glowing??

I loved the cake!! We had a friend make it and she did a fantastic job. It was so cute and tasted delicious.

And the finished fruit basket!!

The rest of the spread. We had a baked potato bar that turned out to be just enough food for the guests.

My sis wanted pinks, greens, and yellows for decoration, but wanted to keep it simple.

We filled mason jars with lemons and limes and put a tulle bow on the rim.

We put daisies in wine bottles wrapped in jute rope.

My sis had an idea to have diapers at the sign in table. We made a sign that said, "Let's face it--Midnight diaper changes are no fun. So leave mommy an encouraging, funny, witty, or just plain silly note to get her through the night!"

And my favorite picture of the day! My sister and I with our sonograms. It's so neat to be pregnant the same time as my sister. I always dreamed of having babies with my sister and now we are actually living it. I really hope our kids become best friends as they grow up together. Only a few more months until they can start their adventure.

15 Weeks

Still a little late on this. I am now 20 weeks and will take a pic for that soon. 15 weeks was when I really started to feel pregnant. It seemed like my stomach grew overnight. It's grown a bit since then. At this week, I started to get my energy back and not feeling so blah all the time. The second trimester has been treating me well, so far.

Polka Fest 2013

Polka Fest 2013 was this past weekend. It was a different Polka Fest for me as I watched everyone partake in drinking pivo while I sipped my water or Dr. Pepper. We did have a great time and are still recuperating from the lack of sleep and all day festivities.

Friday I got a much needed pedicure and had my toes painted with the Czech flag on them. My poor nail technician was speaking all sorts of languages when she saw my tiny toes and what I wanted. She did a great job and probably quit her job later that evening.

On Saturday, we went to a friend's house for a horseshoe tournament. A group of us have been making Polka Fest t shirts for the past couple of years and we had these made this year. Lil' Gilburt is starting to show more in my clothing.

That night we went to see my dad's band play. They had a great crowd and put on a good show. Mollie B from The Mollie B Polka Party on RFD TV was the grand marshall of Polka Fest and made an appearance by playing with several bands along with her husband. She is such a talented musician as she plays multiple instruments and just jumps on in with a band to play along.

I thought it was cute that my little brother went to go sit with my dad and watch him play from a closer view.

More JMO playing

I had this shirt made online and it came in just in time for the weekend. I was hoping that we would know what we are having before the festival, but the shirt still turned out cute. It fit so comfortably that I think I will wear it all summer long!

I took one last Polka Fest 2013 pic of Chris and I. Next year's picture will look a bit different with a lil' chubby Gilburt in our arms. I can't wait to have our kids experience Polka Fest and see one side of their heritage. Don't worry, Chris is making sure that they know full well of their English heritage, too.