And baby makes 3!

As you all know by now, we are expecting a baby.   We are so excited to be starting our family and feel blessed with this amazing gift.     My due date is January 9, and we look forward to meeting our little one.  We had our first sonogram 6 weeks ago, here is the picture.    So amazing to see the little heartbeat and realize there is a child growing inside of me.   We go this weekend to get a 3d ultrasound to find out what it is.   I have felt like it is a girl, but the vast majority think it is a little boy.   Either way, we will be so excited to know and be able to start planning.

Being the over achiever that I am, we already have 1000+ diapers stocked up.   I have to say, I love looking for deals on all the baby stuff.  It has become a game to see how cheap we can get diapers and what we can get discounts on.   So far we got a new baby carrier for less than half price (thanks for the tip Annie) and a gently used stroller. We are blessed to have such an amazing family and be receiving so many hand-me-downs that will save us $100's.   Baby Phipps is spoiled already!

Pacifica Pier

Since we were new to town and didn't know anyone yet, we decided to drive around town on Superbowl Sunday and ended up at the Pacifica Pier.   It was a cold but pretty day on the coast.   We also tried a great little Mexican restaurant while we were driving around town.   It is so nice to live near authentic Mexican food again.

 Some nice lady stopped and offered to take our picture.

 Looking out at the pier from the boardwalk.

 I thought this one was cool because you can see a hint of the rainbow that the waves caused.

 Looking back at Pacifica.

We feel lucky to live less than 10 minutes from here.    

Family Pics 2012

The Montgomery side of the family had family pictures done over Christmas and here are a few of my favorites.

 All the females of my generation.

Sisters!

 A good picture of our relationship.

 James couldn't resist the tractor.  You should have seen him playing with the shifters.   He is 30 going on 5 ;)

 This is my favorite picture.   Love this man!

James Surprise 30th Birthday party

James big 30th birthday party is coming up on May 20.  I decided the big 3-0 needed to be celebrated, so with the help of my sister Lisa, I threw him a surprise party yesterday.   I got him to Lisa's by telling him we were babysitting Emma, and he had no idea what was in store for him.   This was when we walked in the door.

Lisa made this awesome cake for him!

These guys are the closest thing to family (besides our actual family)  that James could ever hope for.   Note that both guys are wearing there Phipps Engineering shirts that James had given them.

Dixie (more to come on her later) made an appearance at the party.   It was so much fun to have a day to just celebrate how awesome James is.   We played games in the yard, hung out and enjoyed some great food...Thanks to Matt for bbqing!   I hope James realizes how special he is and how much we all love him!

Need your opinions

We are planning basement projects for this winter. The "big 3"things we need to do are paint, buy a sofa and flooring. We have three paint samples that we are deciding between, all neutral tan shades. For the sofa, we have decided on one from Ashley Furniture that is similar to the one we have already but with chocolate brown cushions that look almost like corduroy. This isn't exactly it, but gives you an idea. The one we picked is definitely more chocolate and doesn't have the fancy polka dot pillows.

So here is where you can have some input, we decided on laminate wood for down there, and these are the 2 favorites:

http://www.lumberliquidators.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=7060

http://www.lumberliquidators.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=6962

They are so different but both really pretty.

This is an example of what it would look like with the darker floor, except that we have natural wood trim. These sofas are the fabric and color of the sectional we picked.

Lake Phipps

So it stormed like crazy yesterday and this is what happened to our yard. It reminds me of the Monty river we used to get back home.

And this picture per James' request.

Home Improvements

So we are doing lots of work around the Phipps house. We laid floor in the first room in the basement last week and are painting the kitchen this weekend. The floor was just concrete, so flooring makes it look much more finished. The kitchen is this horrible mustardy color which we hate. We are painting it a light blue and the dining room will have a chair rail and tan on the bottom. We also plan to put in this sweet glass tile backsplash in the kitchen. It is fun to make this house we bought into our own home.

For those of you that don't know, I started a new job May 9 as a contract engineer at Zimmer. It took some faith to step into a contract position, but I look forward to what God has in store.

Sorry I'm so bad about blogging. I will try to post pictures of the projects soon!