Weeks 21-27

Obviously I am getting a little behind on the updates! 
These last few weeks have been a blur of working, keeping on top of housework, church, various craft projects, a wedding, getting ready for Christmas (What! Its already November?!) and preparing for baby!

Here are a few updates from life & pregnancy thus far:

-My official position in the OR ended at the end of October, but luckily I will still get a few guaranteed hours in there until I go on maternity leave. 

-I was called to teach the 8 year old kids in Primary. I am so excited to be in Primary! I hope my class of all boys will be kind to me! (Funny story about how I found out about my calling...a few weeks ago one of the members of the Primary Presidency called me and said "Welcome to Primary! Can you teach this Sunday?" I had no idea what she was talking about, so I didn't question anything and agreed to teach. Then when a member of the bishopric told me they wanted to extend a calling to me I said "I know, I'll be teaching Primary" the look on their face was priceless!)

-The baby is always moving...and getting stronger. Literally I felt a kick so hard the other night that it woke me up at 4am.

-The baby goes especially crazy when we actually find the time to go to a movie. (At the movie theater is when I first felt the baby kick! I'm taking this as a promising sign that she will be a movie lover like the rest of the Binning family!)

-Travis loves to feel the baby kick and move! Although it is kind of freaky when we can both see my stomach twitching out from the kicking and punching...

-Getting dressed is a chore. I am trying to be that cute pregnant lady...but it is so hard when a lot of clothes just don't seem to fit how I would like them to!

-I get really sad when I drop things, or if my shoe is untied...because that means I have to bend over, which is a chore these days. 

-The baby room is about 80%ish done! I keep finding myself wandering in there and wanting this baby to be here! (only 3 more months! Yikes!) 

-Travis & I went up to Edmonton so he could write his ACP test for his EMT. The test went well, but it was the longest weekend of my life. I am so grateful for family that let us stay with them! I am also grateful that my husband can change a tire on the side of a busy highway. I am also grateful my husband and I didn't manage to murder one another between our ridiculous car troubles and our 30 hour trip from Edmonton to Medicine Hat. Yikes. Not a fun weekend.

-Still feeling really good. I do get the occasional heartburn...but that's it! Pregnancy is being really kind to me and I am so grateful for that because I know a lot of people have not so fun pregnancies.

Here are some pictures of my ever-growing bump. It seems I forgot week 24....blame it on baby brain. oops.

For some reason I look very uncomfortable here!

This picture is dedicated to Brooke. #23. (J's on my feet) 

Love maxi dresses!

Halloween 2013: Milkman & Housewife. 

Here are a few sneak peeks of inside the baby room. I promise I will show more when it is all done. For now, this will have to suffice:

That's it for now. Maybe I'll remember to give updates more than once every 6 weeks...but no promises.

Moved!

Praise the heavens! We are no longer living in our yucky curry-scented apartment building!
For the past five months we have been checking Kijiji every single day hoping to stumble across the perfect place to move.
a. It had to be within our price range
b. It had to be close to the college
c. It had to be bigger than our current place so we wouldn't have to move if kiddos come around in the next few years.
d. We really had our hearts set on staying in the same ward for church.

....This is why it took us SO long to get out of that miserable building!!

Our new duplex is about...50 feet from our old building, just right around the corner! So right there we met part b. and c. of our requirements! The ad said it was 2 bedrooms, but when we took a walk through...there was 3...plus a whole big area in the basement that wasn't even finished yet! I was a little nervous how much it would be, but actually it was in our price range! Our new landlord seems like the nicest guy and he was willing to drop the price for us if we (Travis) did some handy work while living here. All of our requirements were met and we moved! The move went great! We had tons of help and since we don't have kids, we don't have tons of stuff!

I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am not to be woken up to the smell of curry at 5am, not to be followed in the hallway by scary asian grandmothers and not have to hear foreign languages being screamed across the halls. I am also pretty happy about all of the space, carport, 2 bathrooms...the list goes on! We really got lucky!

I hesitate to tell this next story because my parents made fun of me for about a week after I told them...but I feel like we can all have a good laugh about it now!!
About 4 days before we moved, I went down my hallway in the apartment building because I needed to check the mail. When I got to the mailboxes there was 4-5 asian people standing around a box in front of the mailboxes...so I kindly made my way through the people and got my mail...when all of the sudden I hear a "cluck-cluck". I'm sure my face was priceless at this moment. So I look down at the box by feet and there are feathers poking out of the box. Yup. Live chickens. GROSS! I was pretty glad at that moment that I only had a few more days left in that miserable place. The worst thing is my landlord would have been to old and senile to even comprehend the whole situation.

Anyways...enough ranting! We are are just super thrilled to be in our new "home"! Here are some pictures! (keep in mind...they aren't the best!!)

Bedroom: Still looking for cute throw pillows (or to make them) and still needing to
hang a couple things on the wall.

Other side of the bedroom: Travis actually ran into that wall yesterday in the middle of the night and broke my J...

Bathroom: Loving the blue toilet and tub...who even!?

Office: Need curtains or blinds (I took these sunday right after church...hence the tie!)

Living room: Kinda squishy! and our fish are in the corner out of the picture...

Christmas Tree!!! Pink pink pink!! (And a christmas J)

Living room wall: My attempt to be artistic and hang an arrangement of frames.

Looking down at the front door. (Ps having a carport is great!!)

Christmas shelf

Craft room: Disaster. Need to organize.

Storage room in basement

More storage and view of unfinished room in the basement

Kitchen table (with freshly baked banana bread...YUM)

Kitchen: SO nice having a full sized fridge.

Kitchen: Disaster. At least Travis was kind enough to do the dishes!! Bonus!

So that is our new little place! A big step up from our dingy apartment!! We are so blessed!

Speaking of blessed...I got a temporary part time position in the Operating room at the hospital!! Yay! (Except waking up before 6am is a real killer!!) Hopefully I don't mess things up too bad in there!

Thanks for creeping on my living space, I'll try to keep you all updated more!

The Joys of Living in an Apartment Building.

There are many advantages/disadvantages to living in an apartment building.
Ok I lied...mostly there are disadvantages. I can't complain though because our rent is pretty darn cheap. But other than the fact that I will never be able to eat curry in my life and I think there is a 400 year old voodoo casting grandma wondering our halls, it really isn't terrible. Certainly an adventure. 
A few weeks ago we received a letter from our landlord saying that there was a possibility of bedbugs in the building and that a pest control company will be entering our suite to inspect and possibly spray. (EW)
Awesome. 
Just Awesome. 
And with the letter? A very lengthy list of precautions to take to prepare for the inspection. 

*Side note: I am VERY particular about cleanliness, especially where I live. I need to know that there are NO dusty corners, things are disinfected, garbage is taken care of regularly, dishes aren't left out for long, clothes are clean/dry etc. So don't think we are gross!

Lets just say it probably would have been less effort to move. For example:
-All furniture had to be at least 2 weeks away from the wall
-All closets & Dresser drawers had to emptied and clothes had to be place in garbage bags (And if our suite was sprayed, EVERYTHING would have to be washed in hot water)

Oh the chaos. We even had to cover our fish tank with a garbage bag!! Plus check out our new A/C! (Life saver!!)

This makes me cringe. All of our clothes. (Ok..So Travis had like 2 bags)

The list goes on, but I wouldn't want to bore you. 

Moral of the story: The whole ordeal was super crappy and super stressful. The horrifying part is that IF they had sprayed, there is only 2 washers & dryers in the whole building.

This is the best part: False alarm, they didn't even have to spray. Oh wait, I lied! The best part is the night before the big "spray" my husband's phone broke. Screen cracked in a million places. 
Our apartment was in shambles and my husband was unreachable for a week. (Which is rather difficult when we both work full time and only have 1 car!!)

I am very grateful there was no problem. I would have been out of this apartment SO fast if there was. And even though we didn't NEED to wash all of our clothes & bedding, we did! (Just to feel better) Thank heavens for laundromats (Even if I get stranded with no way to reach my husband.. that's another story.) and cousin's willing to lend laundry services. 

This post just sounded like a big whine fest. So I apologize, I just thought our slight misfortune would be entertaining!! Count your blessing people! You never know how lucky you are! 

A bunch of random bits.

I feel like I haven't blogged in a super long time!
I have a good reason, I promise!
I have been putting in at least 40 hours a week at work! It has been madness! Switching between 2 departments is nuts! (For those of you who do not know recently I was trained to work up in the OR..10 hour shifts makes for a very long day!!)
So...basically I have been busy working and trying to spend time with my dear husband when possible!!
Here is what we have been up to in the past few weeks! :

One night I decided to clean out the fridge and ended up making a perogy,
taco meat, onion, salsa, sour cream, tomato and cheese casserole. It
doesn't sound or look the greatest but man! It was delicious!

My brother is so cool! We got to watch him wrestle in a tournament! 

He owned this guy! 

This is what I ordered Travis for valentines day! 

I could never find my dang oven mitts, so I came home one
day and there they were...hanging up! What a sweet guy I
have! 

Our table is finally in Medicine Hat! Happy days! 

I got a Scentsy!! (well...I got two) I LOVE them!! 

This is a wedding card I made for some really good friends
who recently were married! Yay! 

This is a card I made for a baby shower! 

 Well...these are just a few random things scattered about to semi-catch you up on our Medicine Hat life!

Oh hey...We moved!

This is my "We are so cramped in this tiny apartment, lets get out" face. 

If you have been following my blog, you'll know that when we came to medicine hat to find an apartment, we only had one day to accomplish this. All that we were concerned about how close it was to the College and how cheap it was. (At the time I did not know how long it would be until I was working.) The apartment we were living in was alright, it was little and cheap...all we needed. The problem with the place, was that since it was only a one-bedroom apartment, if Travis needed to study I either confined myself to the bedroom or bathroom so I wouldn't distract him. Plus I have pretty much been working more than the full timers at work, so that has been great! Cannot complain about the money! I also just got hired on as a casual worker in the OR...I'm pretty excited because I worked in the OR in Lethbridge and was really sad to leave!! Hopefully I continue to work lots so I can continue to put my man through school!

Anyways...since we live in the ghetto (not really) half of our building is empty! (Probably because there are no kids allowed...) So we checked out a few places and chose a 2 bedroom place down the hall! Its only $100 more a month and literally twice the size. I have no idea how we lived in that cramped space before!! Here are some pictures!  

Check out those peach blinds. Thanks previous tenants!  

These are our fancy new Martha Stewart shelving units.

Look at all this empty space! What are we supposed to do!  I can finally get my bigger Ralph Lauren table out to Medicine Hat!!

These are our "New" couches. Travis loooves the recliner! 

Kitchen is still small...but a little bigger than the other place!

We have an office! SO much more space!! 

Tiny bedroom! 

Nice big closet and our storage room is THREE times bigger than the other place!! 

Happy camper!

Skor trifle to end off the move! :) 

Sooo our apartment isn't the fanciest...but it is still cheap and close to the College! We are so very happy with all this extra space!! 

Our new Apartment!

Our new bathroom is bigger than our old one!
And i love our super cute new shower curtain!
And i love having a bigger shower!!

Ugly counter tops and not a lot of storage!! 

Thank goodness we have a storage room in our
place!

This is what you see when you first walk into our place. 

This is our tiny little kitchen!  (notice the oven drawer will NOT
close no matter what we do!!)

Another view of our kitchen , such ugly counters... 

This is our baby oven. Normal cookie sheets
do not fit!! :(
I had to buy new baby ones!! What the heck! 

We decided our other table would be too big! So sad! Luckily
the Johnson's were willing to make a table trade. Oh, and those
hideous curtains came with the place. Lucky us! 

This is our living room/office. Have you noticed what my
favorite pattern is yet?

Our "office" corner! 

This is my craft area and our fish tank! Yes, ALL of our fish
made the journey alive! Poor fishies were probably scared
to death...

We love pictures! And letters! Send us some and
you can be added to the bunch! 

Our bedroom is way bigger than our old one! Which is really nice.
It gets SO hot at night, so we had to get a little fan. I have
been spoiled with AC my whole life! Now I'm dying!!

A view of our tv area...we still need to hang so many things up so it
doesn't feel so much like a weird place. Can you tell what I'm
watching???

So that's about it...we are just a little below ground level in our apartment, and we are on a corner, which is nice, so that means we only have one neighbor. We never hear anyone...unless our windows are open at night when people decided to go outside and have a smoke! There also isn't a huge dog barking at us every time we go in or out! I think we did pretty good...considering we only had a few hours to find a place and this was the only place that didn't smell of cat pee and weed. We are also fairly close to everything, and the college is just down the street so Travis is able to walk/ride his bike everyday. There are some things that need to get fixed...like our oven drawer, or the fact you have to open the tank of the toilet and jiggle things around or the toilet will run alllll night, or the fact that our fridge makes the sound of a gurgling stomach....
Things could have been a lot worse.

Another thing...
You know how you always see the box in apartments that is like a speaker/intercom thing that can open the front door to let people in? Anyways, I was SO excited to use it! I have always wanted to use it! But...let me tell you.
I have never heard a worse sound in my life.
People can use that as a "doorbell", and when they do, it sounds like someone stepping on a goose giving birth to an elephant. It is the WORST sound ever. Travis didn't believe me, and so when he did finally hear it...
yikes.
I hope people don't ring it often! I cringe at the thought of it going off!
The first time I heard it, Travis had run outside to take the garbage to the dumpster, so I was alone, and I seriously jumped out of my skin.
Horrified.
So I guess this will do for now...at least we aren't homeless!!