Friday Date Night at the Johnson's

So on Friday, Troy decided to treat me to a little date night. Which was super nice of him because we really haven't had a good date night in a while. We always are so busy doing something or too tired to go out and do something. And with me being pregnant, I a lot of the times, don't feel like going out.
But that night I was feeling adventerous! It all started off with me making a nice little dinner. We have been trying to do better and watching what we eat and me making more homemade meals so we don't spend money on fast food and spend it on paying bills or saving it. I think we have been doing a pretty good job.
So on Friday I made what's called Cool Vegetable Pizza.
It's a recipe that you find in those children's cook books to help them learn how to cook and teach them how to cook good healthy meals. Here's the recipe if anyone is interested.

1 can crescent rolls (I used 2 cans)
2 (8oz) pkgs. cream cheese, softenend (I only used one, more healthy and get the same taste)
1-1/2 Tbls. Miracle whip or mayonnaise
Small pkg. Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing
Salt and Pepper to taste

Substitute pasta sauce for cream cheese mixture.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 12" stone or pizza pan with nonstick vegetable cooking spray and sprinkle it evenly with 1 tblsp. yellow cornmeal. Spread dough on stone or cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes until lightly browned. Cool completely. Blend above ingredients and spread on cooled crust.

Top with finely chopped vegetables.
Suggestions:
Celery, Broccoli
Zucchini, Green Onions
Mushrooms, Tomatoes, seeded
Red Peppers, Cucumbers, seeded
Green Peppers, Carrots

Sprinkle over cheese mixtures. Refrigerate to chill. Serve.
The finished product. It was bigger. I decided to take a picture after we had eaten half of it.I was kind of skeptical if Troy would like it, cause it didn't have any meat, but he really enjoyed it! So I was pleased.

Afterwards, Troy suggested we go take a stroll on the Newport beach and pier. I was up for it, so we went. It was nice. Just the two of us enjoying each other's company and holding hands, laughing and talking. It was great! Reminded me of when we were dating. I love spending time with him like that.
After that, I wanted something sweet. So he was running ideas by me, and I thought we had settled on a $1 cone at McDonald's, but then he said he had a great idea, and proceeded to drive to Stater Brother's.
He got a cart and when we were inside, I asked him what great idea he was thinking of and he said, we are going to make our own Banana Splits! So lets get the ingrediants! So we got ice cream, nuts, banana's, chocolate syrup, strawberry syrup, cherries, whip cream (so much for being healthy right?), and a few other things to put in the mix. So we checked out and rushed home to make them. Troy of course took over and I just handed him things to put in. The end result?Can you say YUM! So we sat down and ate it and tried to fight off the animals for it as well. The end result after that?Yep! Ate the whole darn thing, except for that measly graham cracker. It was awesome!
We then just settled on the couch and watched a movie and snuggled. Overall, it was a great night with great food, desert and best of all, WONDERFUL company.
I am a very lucky girl.

Cute Swimsuits...

are always hard to find. Especially modest ones. I will never feel comfortable in a bikini no matter how thin I am. I just feel way exposed. I guess that's just the private person in me.

HOWEVER! I just happened to come across this site (through facebook friends) and fell in love with the suits.
K Line.
They are made by a member of the church who I and Troy grew up with. The Pitt's are an amazing family and all so nice and creative. (kind of like the Johnson's lol).
Anyway, I thought the suits were way cute and I am planning on ordering this one:after I have the baby and get down some sizes! It will be perfect for the summer activites. Cute eh?

"Baby, Baby, Baby Feverrrrrrrr!!!"

So finally, finally, finally the baby room is done! YAY! You have no idea how excited I am about that. Pictures? Yes, pictures. I will only be posting the best ones on here, you can check out the rest on my facebook.


It all looks better in person. I am so proud of it. Troy and I worked very hard on it and I am excited to get the opportunity to use it. We have been so blessed and we are grateful for everything that everyone has done for us. We couldn't have done it by ourselves. Thank you!

The little things

So I have realized more and more with the upcoming birth of our little princess that I enjoy more and more the little things of life. I also love homemade things. I think they are the best. I think they bring a little bit more love and homeliness to the home and to the family. For example. I love theseI think they are beautiful. I plan on getting one after the baby is born and we have finally decided on a name for her. I will have all three of our names on it.
{You can find more designs and info here}

Along with the baby room being done {minus the curtains, which are going up today}, I have been debating on how to display here name for the room. Troy could really care less, he says all his work is done. But I love this idea (and only for $10 dollars) it's all homemade, what a deal!And what's nice about these, are you can pick the color, and what decals you want on the letter as well. I think this would be a cute idea to hang on her door when you walk in.
{Again, you can see more designs and get more info here}

And last, but not least you have my wonderful, talented, beautiful, sister-in law Jylare {who has the cutest baby, by the way} who does homemade headbands. I mean these things are precious.She has already given me a few for our baby girl and I can't wait to have her wear them.
{You can find all of her products, prices and info HERE.}
Trust me, you want to check them out.

DeLorean

I LOVE this movie.I mean you really can't go wrong with this movie. It is that good.

And in other news. Troy and I have been talking and have decided that we aren't sure about the name Alexandra. Haha, how that can happen is beyond us. So we have been going over names again. It's amazing how you can go over a name again that you thought of in the beginning and love it all over again. So far we really like Monica and Kimberly. Troy fell in love with Kimberly, and I really like it too. But we have decided that her name is going to need to be prayed about and that we aren't going to reveal a single name anymore, until she is born. The middle name is going to stay the same no matter what. Who knows what the first name is going to be now. Good thing we didn't get too attached to Alexandra or that she is born. Then we might be in trouble.

Love ♥

this is the reason that I live.
without him I would be nothing.
soon, we will have out little girl with us.
and our love for each other will grow even stronger as we teach, watch and learn from our little darling.
how much better could life really get?

Um March....?

how is that possible that it is March already?
Good news? One more month til my baby girl is here.
That is something worth celebrating about.
So March, now that you are here....WELCOME and may your time go swiftly by.
WELCOME SPRING (almost)with all the cute things that come with it.

Finally posting....I know it's been awhile

Finally posting. After a long time. So much has been going on I don't even know where to really start.
I know! The baby room!! OH MY GOSH!! I am so excited. The painting and the all the stuff on the walls is DONE!!! (: Now, we have changed out theme about 10 times or more. It's kind of ridiculous actually. I drew out plans on paper, colored them, everything. We brain stormed, and brain stormed. Finally we picked a theme. Wanna know? ok, I tell you...but only with a picture. (: Cause I love pictures.
AMAZING??!! I know...it is. We painted the walls. Put up murals. Bought a new dresser and am going back to IKEA to buy those flower lights they have for kids rooms. You know...these...
3 are going over the closet. 2 white ones and 1 pink one. Then with a white one replacing the old, gross one on the wall. The room is pretty much done, but I won't be posting pics until I have all the furniture in the room.
We also bought this... I love it! It's going to go over the cradle, so she will be my little Tinkerbell princess.
So yeah. As soon as the room gets completly organized I won't put up pictures. So I guess everyone will just have to stay tuned to see the finished product. (:

Baby showers...

oooh how I love baby showers. They are so exciting and fun. Of course when you are being given the baby shower it is ten times more exciting and fun. Right? (:
Colors that I love for the baby shower: hot pink and orange

I mean how awesome are those colors?!!? They just really make me happy in side. (:

I went to lunch with my mother-in-law and 2 sister-in-laws at Ikea and after we ate we went and looked around the place and I absolutley fell in love with some of the things there!
I love this mobile. It goes perfectly with out theme for the baby room. We are doing an under the theme sea, so all of our stuff is sea things. I love that theme. It seems like everything is zoo of the wild animal theme. It's nice to see something different.

I also fell in love with this:
I think it is a perfect dresser to put underneath the baby changer and storing her diapers and so on. It is also a perfect height and length to place our fish tank on it. Ikea has some great things.

Just 9 weeks left til I am full term. To think that I could have a baby in 9 weeks is crazy. Although I don't think that is possible she will probably be late. Which kind of makes me sad cause I want her to be here already. But soon enough I guess, soon enough.
Baby Alexandra we are so excited to meet you! You are dearly loved!

The beginning of the month

is always the busiest and hardest for us. This is when people move out, rent is due and everyone complains about everything at the same time.

This month we have 3 move outs. Which mean the following
*lots and lots of paperwork ):
*doing walkthroughs with the tenants and letting them know what they need to do to get their deposit back
*doing the final walkthrough and letting them know what they are going to get charged for (if anything)
*calling the painters, carpet cleaners/replacement guys, cleaning guys and getting a maintenance guy to come and do rehab for the apartment, all so they aren't overlapping and it gets done within 3 days of the tenant moving out
*then filling out a closing statement that is due app 14 days after the tenant moves out determining whether they get some or all of their deposit back or have to pay the company more money for leaving their apartment a mess
*if the tenant owes money, getting angry phone calls of why they got charged with bills
this whole process, including all paperwork lasts about a month before things are back to normal with that apartment. Now that isn't including trying to rent out the apartment. Having to put up marketing posters and ads everywhere and then scheduling times for people to come and view the apartments is a whole other story. And then trying to sell people on the apartment is hard as well. I can show an apartment, but then getting them to come back with the application is a problem within itself.

Plus not to mention having rent due the first 3 days of the month. I have to copy all the checks in order of the apartments. We have 44 units. They don't all have the same rent. The tenants don't always pay with just one check, sometimes one, sometimes 3. I can only put 3 checks on a page to copy. You can only imagine the amount of checks I have to copy. Then, after coping them, I have to write on the back of each one the account number. I then have to add them up with their total and put it on the deposit slip. While doing that I have to imput them into an Excel page called "rent roll" which lets me know if the tenant paid all their rent or is short some or over. I then have to go deposit the checks on the 3rd to pay the mortagage, which sometimes means that I don't have all the checks yet because people have until 8 am of the 4th to give me checks. So I have to make multiple trips to the back and to long beach to turn in these checks. IT'S A HASSEl!! Hence, why no one hardly sees up for the first week of the month.

Now writing this out it doesn't seem like that much of work. But it gets overwhelming sometimes. I have to keep track of everything and can't lose anything either. If I do, it's my butt of the line and we could lose our apartment and our job. Pressure much!? Not to mention we only have 1 car so that makes it very difficult to go up to long beach and the bank when I need to. Busy, busy busy.

I just had to get my frustrations out. I will post a more happy post later tonight about the baby and baby showers and all that jazz. Thanks for letting me rant.

I did not know...

it was this possible to have this much rain!!


oh and then on top of that, we are having tornadoes

in Southern Cal!? I mean really, I thought I lived in California not Seattle.

Not that Seattle is a bad place to live. I personally think it's beautiful. Wouldn't mind living there someday. I mean look at this place. Astounding, I believe.


However, the ideal place for Troy, Me and our family would be this place.

Welcome to Wallace, Idaho.

Never heard of it? Have you ever seen...

(if not you should, it's a pretty good movie)
It was filled exclusivley in Wallace, Idaho. They paid the entire town off for a year in earnings they would have made and more to make their movie there. The valcano however, isn't really there. That's Mount St. Helen videoed in, but still a beautiful town with lots of space and land. It's about 60 miles from Cour D'Alene and probably another 20 or so from Canada. That's our dream place.
A place where we can build a home.

Similar to this. And have acres and acres of land with...

a little fishing pond
(ok so maybe "little" isn't the word)

a big barn to hold all of our ATV's and off roading vehicles

a paintball/beebe gun range

a place to grow my different garden's

a place to put fruit trees

a place to have our horses

just a place where we can live. Where the family can come and visit and it be a vacation for them. We want a place where people go to let their hair down and relax and have fun. That's the sort of place we want for our family. Where they learn the importance of hard work and responsibility that they can carry with them throughout the rest of their lives.

It's our dream. And we plan with everything we have to make that dream come true someday. Until then, we are happy with planning and looking forward to our dream. We are happy we have each other and we are happy to have all the blessings in our lives. We really could not ask for more.

Today is...

the first day of my 3rd trimester!

Oh my, oh my where has the time gone!

I am finally in the home stretch and I can't believe it.
I can't wait to have my little snuggle bug here.
Troy keeps telling me that when she is here he is going to come home from work.
Lay down on the couch and put her on his stomach/chest and go to sleep.
I am so excited to see how he is going to be with our little one here.

Highlights for our little girl?

*She is settling into the proper position for birth
*She is about 2.5 lbs and is almost 16 inches long.
*She is starting new skills such as coughing, sucking, taking practice
breaths and hiccuping.
(the hiccuping is the coolest part. It's like feeling a constant movement or jolt for about 30 mins or so. She had them many times yesterday and it was the coolest feeling ever!)
*Her sleep now includes the REM phase which could mean she could be
dreaming already. (I wonder what she is dreaming about?)
*Her lungs are almost fully mature but she still has a long way to go.
*Her skin is starting to go out of the wrinkly phase and smooth out so she
is becoming as soft as can be.

I was looking at pictures of pregnant bellies (the drawing ones) that you see when you look up information on the interent about your pregnancy, it's hard to believe that I am going to be getting any bigger than I am now. I feel huge and to only think that I will need to get bigger and better so she can have plenty of room. Rounding out is coming soon.

There is so much to do and so much to plan for still. It makes me wonder how I am to get everything done in a timely manner. I guess that is what being a mom is all about. Time to get those tasks done! (:

Mary Poppins...

was absolutley amazing! I loved it.
The musical follows the book and not the movie. I definitly would recommend going and seeing it, and if you do just know that it does follow the book not the movie so there are different parts and not all the songs that you know from the movie are in it. But it is still amazing. The actors were great and the singing was suberb!
All around a great time.

there really wasn't enough time to take a bunch of pictures so this is the only one I have.

As things progress for Troy and I, we are getting more and more prepared for this baby. I will be in my 3rd trimester on Thursday and technically I could have the baby as early as 37 weeks and that is only 10 weeks from now. It's scary and amazing at the same time. We are both way excited to start on this next adventure in our lives. I think I am going to wait another week or two and then go get the 3-D ultrasounds. We want to get a closer look at our angel.

She is way more active and it's awesome to feel her all the time and then to notice when she is asleep or just chilling. I love being able to be so intune to those things. I just keep thinking about how much our lives are going to change soon. It's going to be a completely different thing taking care of this little being. I am so thankful for all the blessings that we have been given. I am thankful that I am being given the opportunity to take care of this little darling and that Troy and I are being trusted to raise one of Heavenly Father's children. I am so honored and I hope that I will be able to do things according to His will for this little child.

I have also officially registerd at this great place.

I am amazed by how much stuff I need for a little baby. Luckily for me they have store like this to meet all the needs of mothers, fathers and babies.

We also have changed and added to our ideas for the babies room. Troy bought my the base paint for the room last weekend and I am so excited to get started painting and getting the ideas rolling off our backs for that room. Although, we will not be telling anyone about the room until it is done and ready to go. So keep tuned for the pics of the babies room. All I need to tell you is that it's going to be amazing and open up her mind to great things. (:

Have You Ever...

had a favorite meal that you just couldn't resist no matter how hard you tried?
Well, I have a couple but lately, (and I don't know if it is because I am pregnant or what but I can't seem to get enough lasagna! Hmm that stuff is good.

And not the crappy stuff either. It has to be the Stouffer's brand. No other brand will do. I mean really, doesn't it just look mouth watering?


I thought so.

And what is a good lasagna without some of this....?:

My points exactly.

And of course you can't have a good meal like this without some of this...

unless of course you can't stand this, then humbug to you. (:

But now that I have everyone hungry....I would like to one day make my own lasagna and see how it turns out, but I am not sure I am up to the challenge quite yet. It takes time and time is something that I don't have at the moment. Perhaps when the baby is born and I am at home all the time. Of course then I will be making everything and trying all new recipes just because I can. (: Oh won't that be fun!

Anyway, so today that dinner is going with good company from these lovely people....

with possible and probable games and good conversation during and after dinner. (:

it is always nice to have good friends, especially someone who is pregnant with you and you can sympathize with.

And tomorrow the real excitement begins. Haha at least for the evening. For Christmas Troy's parents were able to buy everyone in the family who lives down here in HB, tickets to go and see a performance. The performance you ask? Let me show you...

Yes that is correct! Excited you ask? More like extatic!! I have heard the broadway show is very different from the movie, so I am interested to see how that is.
We will probably be going to dinner before or after the show which ever is best for the family. But it is going to be a fun night, that's all I know.

Oh and my puppy got groomed. He looks like a baby polar bear. It is the cutest thing you have every seen. I never knew a dog could be so tiny, but he is. And so loveable. Oohh I just want to squeeze him. (:

This was him before:

the little furball.

and now this is him:

so cute!

Well, until tomorrow's adventures make it to the page. (:

I never knew...

that Troy could go through so many dishes in ONE day. It's sort of remarkable how he does it.

I think I might start investing in plastic/paper plates to save time. (:

I have also decided that these items:

are my new best friend.

Oh and this little beauty and it's companion....

do absoulte wonders on removing stains on carpet.

Oooh being a housewife is so fun. (: Get ready stains and dust, here I come!!

I can't believe...

How much things are changing around me.

• I'm already 26 weeks, almost 27.

Troy being able to feel the baby kick more and more and being more and more excited.

• Getting the baby room ready.
• The amount of cleaning and baby readying the house needs to go through.
• Deciding our baby colors and what to do to the baby room.

Our colors that we like are brown and pink. Girly yet, not to girly for Troy. (;

Other things that Troy wants to do? He is going to get stencils to paint planets and glaxaies on the baby's walls.

Things I'm looking forward to?
Baby booties. Oh I love them.

Nursing blankets. It's amazing how chique they are now.

Baby tights. She will look adorable in these.


Baby bows. Just that last finish touch to make her look perfect. (:

and the all important, baby carrier's. (: