The Past 6 Months

Wow, I have been soooo bad about my blog... the poor thing has been neglected for the past 6 months, but for good reason. So in a photographic nutshell... here is what has happened since September 2011.

JEFF CAME HOME FROM IRAQ! ... and I was in serious "whale" status, wow! Looking back through this pictures makes me cringe. lol

I gave Jeff his "suprise"...

We FINALLY got to cut down the yellow ribbon! :)

My mom and sister threw Livvi and I a huge baby shower :)

Amanda Lunt made this beautiful cake... Recognize the pattern from anywhere?!

...Three days later, my water broke and we the day was finally here :)

 Livvi Rachelle Yon was born on October 19, 2011 at 10:19 am, she is our EVERYTHING!

...and our life has been perfect and has not slowed down one bit since then :)

I will be posting my birth story and Livvi's monthly photos soon, so stay tuned! I promise it won't take me 6 more months this time to get them up ;)

Lots of LOVE, amberlee

Furniture Finds and Redesigns..

I bought this little guy for $5 at a yard sale a few weeks ago. Not too bad... though I ALWAYS forget to get a BEFORE picture from the beginning. This little side table also had some awesome 1990's gold hardware that I spray painted with Rust-oleum Hammered brushed nickel to match the other piece for our room.

 Here is the "oops, forgot a before picture.." picture.

 AFTER. I chose white to match...

 ...this guy! My dad snagged this cute dresser for free and it was already white. So I freshened up the paint and sprayed the hardware with the same color as the end table. Not too shabby :)

 Oh and I just had to blog about this AWESOME new polish that my mom and I have discovered! It is a mixture between regular fingernail polish and gel... as in false gel nails you get professionally put on. It goes on like regular paint from a bottle, then you cure it under a UV light just like gel. COOLEST stuff ever! It runs about $10-$12 a bottle but it lasts 2 weeks minimum with no chips at all and stays super shiny! We have been collecting new colors over the past few weeks and this is one of our new ones. You can't really tell, but the purple has a pretty sparkle to it! There are a few different brands (Shellac, Gellac, Gelish) we have tried and they all stay on the full 2 weeks easily. Totally cool.

She is gonna be SPOILED!

My wonderful friends, Nicole, Randi, and Cambry got together to throw Livvi and I a baby shower down in Cedar City for all my friends down there. Oh how I miss all my CC buddies! Thanks so much to all those who came! It was very relaxed and just a lot of fun to chit chat and be silly girls! And boy-oh-boy, did Livvi get spoiled! :)

How cute are these onesies Nicole made; decor and a gift!

Adorable diaper cake from Randi

 These were what we drank our pink beverage from. LOVE them!

 See... spoiled girl!

Maternity Shoot

I just LOVE my friend Nicole! She is such a wonderful person, inside and out. She just gave birth to her 2nd little boy three weeks ago and still was up for all sorts of fun stuff with me, a maternity photoshoot, and she threw me a baby shower for all of my Cedar City friends! How awesome is she?? Her photography business @ Nicole Christiansen Photography is one that I am a big supporter of! I love her work. She did our engagement pictures, my bridals, this awesome maternity shoot and is going to take Livvi's newborn photos as well. I am sure she will be our go to girl for upcoming family photos and such! Even though I waited a bit longer than I was planning do to get some maternity shots taken, (35.5 weeks) and I feel like a WHALE... I LOVE how these turned out! Nicole does a great job! Here are a few of my favorite shots she got of Liv and I :)

For Little Toesies

Lance's cute girlfriend Camrie bought Livvi the CUTEST little pair of baby booties and I knew I had to have some more... But they are pretty pricey so I went to Joanns and found a pattern that had about 9 different shoes on it. Some, uhhh were a little 1990's looking, lol. But I just took the basic shoe pattern and added a little strap and some different "bling" on each one! I seriously LOVE how they turned out! I made both the newborn size and the 3-6ish month size of each one so that she will be able to wear the cuteness a little longer. I just bought some of those precut "fat quarters" of fabric for $1.99 each and some plain white baby flannel for the lining of each shoe... worked out perfect because it gave the shoe a little more stability and made the inside really soft and  snuggley for her little toesies! What do you think?

Little Greenies... my mom says they look like little alligators.

 Cheetah-licious :)

..and the Zebra. Yes our Livvi is officially an animal print babe!

Of course, PINK

... and possibly my fav... a bit vintage chic

New Calling

Last week when the bishop called me into his office, I was just hoping he wouldn't ask me to speak in sacrament. I HATE speaking, I get so nervous and emotional and it never turns out how I plan. Well I don't have to speak, but I walked out with a new calling. I am now the 2nd Ward Relief Society Secretary. I am actually pretty excited about it, it has been a long time since I have had a position with very much responsibility.... and the best part, I learned that the one thing that the RS secretary cannot do is give a lesson in RS meeting. hahaha.. FABULOUS!

Also, here is my most recent baby bump picture :) This was at 31 weeks.... I am now 32 and a half... Needless to say, I have been slacking. But.... I have a couple new pieces of furniture that I recently nabbed at a yard sale... they will be posted soon, when they are finished :)

5 Seconds of Fame.

I got a text the other day with this photo attached... My friend Michaela from Cedar was thumbing through the Iron County Fair book and stumbled across it! She told me there is a section of the book that has a tribute to the 222nd, with photos of the day they left. I don't remember anyone catching this picture of us when Jeff left, but somehow they did. It made me smile, and a bit sad... but it is tender and I like it.

The Finished Product

Well... I DID IT! I worked my little fingers to the bone all week, but I finally got this bedding done! Thanks to the help of my mom of course! We didn't have a pattern, so my mom was awesome with all the measurements and figuring out how much fabric we needed etc. She is totally awesome and I couldn't have done it without her, but I can honestly say that I did 90+ percent of the work all on my own! I was so excited about how it turned out! I was super worried that the final product would be one of those "Oh she tried really hard, but it just doesn't look very well done" type of deals. But thankfully, we were pretty meticulous with our measurements and seams to so it turned out better than I had expected! :) I am so glad that I decided to take back the other bedding and make Livvi her own unique crib set! And...  bonus! I think I have plenty of fabric left over to make a cute quilt to go with it, even though I hadn't planned on making a crib quilt originally! Now I can't wait to get to snuggle our little angel in it! :) 11 more weeks to go! Yay!

I am so glad that I decided to stick with some animal print. If you can't tell, the pink is a cheetah print and the green/white at the bottom is zebra :)

I decided with so much pattern going on a simple, solid colored sheet would look best :)

The orange stripped ties turned out to be one of my favorite parts! 

Scary Sewing Decision

For a couple of weeks I have been toying with the idea of returning the bedding I got for Livvi and buying fabric to make my own... Ah! Such a scary idea, but I have read a lot of tutorials about it and I actually think that with my momma's help I can do it! Yesterday I took the bedding back and searched for the perfect fabric, it was quite the search but I finally found something I really like! Amazingly I saved about $50 doing it this way and got really high quality fabric... wish me luck! :)

I decided to stick with some animal print but wanted bolder colors and a more modern pattern :)

 ...and while I am at it... Here is the 27 week photo!  

Only 1 more trimester to go!

A Visit Worth Waiting For

A while ago I had the opportunity to fly out to visit Jeff. It was AMAZING! We had so much fun and did some really fun things!  Jeff was absolutely wonderful. When I got off the plane he was the ONLY soldier there to greet his wife! Somehow he figured out a way to get to the airport about an hour before all the other guys got there! I soooo appreciated that! We immediately hopped our rental car and headed for Chicago...We were in Chicago for a few days then back to Indianapolis for the last two.  We sure learned a lot about the transit system there. Geez, it is pretty confusing but way worth the few $$ in order to get where you want to go... once you get the hang of it that is. We went shopping, out to eat, to a CUBS game, to Lincoln Park Zoo, Navy Pier and to a few movies! It was great just to relax, do some fun things and just be together! The only thing that I struggled with, besides leaving :(... was the blasted humidity! As you can see by the sweaty face pictures of me, IT WAS HOT!! I just kept thinking, how in the world do people live here?! I had been anticipating this trip for a few weeks and it seemed to take FOREVER to get there, but oh man, the wait was worth it! It was so much fun and exactly what I needed. I think that Jeff and I both got emotional after leaving eachother in the airport. Saying goodbye again was rough, and I had a few grumpy and depressed days after I got home, but all is well once again.

There was the beautiful little path that walked around this Lily pond... so romantic ;)

Walking to the Zoo

Getting ready to board our first train 

Chicago was really pretty!

GO CUBS!

On the train...

I was melting so I held my hair up and fanned myself with a program for 90% of the game, lol

Chicago Art

Before the game, Jeff just had to get there early enough to watch the team warm up and the grounds crew prep the field. He was so cute, such a sports guy :)

26 weeks :)

Zoo

Looking into the mirror "blob" art thing, ha ha 

My handsome soldier at Navy Pier.