text: The Shipp Family 2015: April 2014
  February and Valentine's Day Festivities
  February started out like any other normal winter month... trying to figure out fun things to do inside while it was too cold outside to play! I've started making some routine adjustments with Charlie, preparing him for baby sister to come. One adjustment is having him eat in the adult chairs and use his utensils more often. He's actually getting pretty good at eating cereal with milk... with minimal milk spilling each time ;)
  The week leading up to Valentine's Day, we had our new backsplash installed! Finally! It took me forever to decide what type of backsplash I wanted, but I'm happy with the way it turned out. Here's the before and after pictures (and I can't believe how different everything looks with the lights turned on and turned off... the wall colors, countertop colors, and cabinet colors all stayed the same, even though they look so different!):
  The day after we got our backsplash installed, and two days before Valentine's Day, Trevor lost his job. It was completely sudden and unexpected since the FTC just busted in and shut down operations instantly. It's never fun to lose your job, but Trev took it extra hard because he put so much of his time and heart and soul into his work for the last two years. It was also scary thinking about having all of our regular expenses to pay, plus losing our health insurance with a baby coming, without having much income at all. I wished I could help out in some way... get a part-time job or something... but I was feeling pretty worthless being almost 6 months pregnant. Anyway, I'll update more about all of that later... but it definitely put a damper on our activities for the following weeks.
  Valentine's Day still came, as planned! :) I helped Charlie make homemade cards for his Daddy and Grandparents, and I even went to a girl's night where we made cards for our husbands!
  Here's the front of my card to Trev, and the envelope of the card from Charlie to his Daddy:
  Here's Trev's stash of cards and goodies, my two dozen BEAUTIFUL roses from my sweet husband, and a little treat and stuffed animal for Charlie:
  I even decided to try my hand at baking sugar cookies from scratch! I found an excellent recipe online and the cookies were soft and delicious! Charlie was excellent at helping me press out the cookies. He kept saying "hahts" for hearts and counting them! :) I did cop out and buy the frosting, colored it pink, and then decorated the cookies with some help from Chandler (my brother Mike's girlfriend at the time... they were in town visiting!).
  As evidenced by the above collection of photos, Charlie's becoming my little copycat these days. Both in facial expression and with his words. Gotta start watching what I say even more carefully! ;) We also had a couple days where it was warm enough to visit the neighborhood park. Thank goodness for FREE activities that help run my kid ragged! :) We spent quite a bit of time watching the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Charlie even tried his hand at figure skating in our living room (aka spinning in a circle!). So cute, little mimic! :)
  Here's a picture of my pregnancy progress at 25 weeks. I was feeling so big and always had pains from stretching. The second picture is pretty self-explanatory... Dads make pretty good horses! Haha :)
  Despite the job loss, we decided to go forward with our plans to add a fireplace and wainscoting to our living room, since we had just sent in a check for half the cost of the fireplace about a day before his company was shut down. Plus, I had done so much planning and picking out features for the fireplace that we figured we might as well just get it done. (Thank goodness for having some savings!) At the end of February, the process got started as we had contractors route the gas line, move the electrical, and start building the fireplace!
  The weather started warming up just enough that the neighbors have been coming out of their houses and spending time outside! It has been SO nice! One of the neighbor girls even took Charlie for a ride in her battery-powered police car. Honestly, I'm the type of Mom where I get a little nervous when Charlie does something new for the first time... and I just hoped that he wouldn't try to stand up and get out while the little car was moving. Fortunately, he didn't, and he really enjoyed his ride! :) Maybe I need to learn to relax. Haha