January and February around here

It's been a month since I posted last--whoops! I have noticed that I have not lately been on top of the things I usually like to do. I haven't read a book in three or four weeks (although I am working on one right now), I haven't been as interested in exercising (but I am doing it!), and I haven't blogged or wanted to at all. ALL I have been wanting to do is WORK ON THIS HOUSE and hang pictures on the walls and organize and update and get everything perfect before this baby comes. And watch HGTV to get more ideas about what we can and should do here (I've watched all of the Property Brothers and Buying and Selling and Love It or List It that are on Netflix... any other ideas?). I'm kind of blaming the whole nesting thing--I've never been that interested in decorating, but I think this looming and scary deadline of a newborn coming so soon (OH SO SOON!) has made me drop everything else I'm interested in for a few months to try and get this house together. However, the majority of the stuff I either can't do by myself or I just need some feedback from someone before I start banging holes in the walls, so I spend a lot of time frustrated and planning things I want to do when Tommy's home. I'm so much fun to be around these days, I know. 

The other reason we haven't made much progress is that Tommy has been gone a lot the last month and a half. He hasn't been home for a whole week since we got back from Christmas. This week he didn't have any trips, but he is at a scout campout right now--of course. I want to complain about this, but I know so many other people who have it much worse off, with their husbands gone much longer and more often, so I really can't. I dread every time he's gone, but it's always better than I expect, except for that dinner hour and bedtime hour--so hard to do by yourself after a long day. He still has a few more trips lined up, so we're not completely done yet, but I think we're over the really busy part. All I can say is, better to be doing these trips now than after April--get all of this traveling out of the way now!

Most of these trips have been for two- or three-day sessions of trainings for Tommy's new position within Capital One, in Richmond and Las Vegas. But he was also gone for five or so days to attend his brother's wedding in Denmark. This trip was so awesome for him for so many reasons: he was able to spend some excellent time with his siblings, to be there for Troy's wedding, and to revisit his mission land and see his old mission president. I wish I could have gone too, but oh man, I'm so glad I didn't have to spend two days of flying for three days of being in Denmark, and I'm so glad we didn't have to drag Dane around all of that too. It sounded like they had a fantastic time, even if they didn't do much sightseeing or exciting stuff--it was mostly wedding prep and getting to know Sarah's family. I'm really glad he was able to go, even if it wasn't at an ideal time with all of his other trips.

Tommy was still thinking about Dane and missing us in Denmark.

The big day--the groom with his brothers and dad.

The happy couple!

Three Leininger brothers and one brother-in-law.

Luckily, while Tommy was gallivanting around the world, I got some company. Camille had found some really cheap plane tickets to visit us in January, and I told her this would be a great week to come visit while Tommy was gone. And when my mom found out that Camille was coming, she decided to join in on the fun. After Tommy had been gone so much already the rest of the month, they were so welcome to help me and Dane from going crazy with boredom together all week. 

Two pregnant sisters--due only two weeks apart! Woop woop!

Dane really, really liked jumping on the trampoline with Grandma. He would spend all day out there if he could. 

I felt (still feel) a little guilty because we did absolutely zero fun stuff while they were here. They did help me a TON though with getting house stuff together! We hung up a ton of pictures on the walls, which felt so good, and we switched Dane's bedroom from one room to the other and painted a wall in his new room. It was really fun and I know it would have taken Tommy and me months to get that on our to-do list, so it felt great to do it so quickly with their help. Seriously, I am so grateful that they came to keep us company and helped so much! It made a very dreaded week so much better.

We spent a few days measuring and hammering and hanging things up... 

And Dane was watching closely and copying us. He dragged his chair and hammer over and was practicing hammering his little tool bench while I was hanging up other pictures. 

Here was a crazy day. Tommy got home from Denmark late Sunday night, and my mom and Camille flew out on Monday morning--and Tommy flew out to Richmond just an hour after them. He was literally home (or actually, in Texas) for twelve hours before having to fly out again. (He'd also just found out about having to take this trip on the way to the airport to fly to Denmark. I was so thrilled about this.) So after dropping Camille and my mom off at the airport, we spent our remaining half hour at the airport observation park before Tommy flew out again watching the planes take off and eating some doughnuts together.

It was so cold outside we ended up sitting in the car watching the planes (aka, letting Dane climb everywhere he wanted in the car and pushing all the buttons on the front). 

The thing that's weirdest about Tommy traveling is how out of sync it puts us. Even when we can talk on the phone at night, it's hard to know what the other person did that day or how everything's really going. Especially when he was in Denmark! (Again, so glad the traveling is almost done!) I feel like I need a few days to get us back to normal and being on the same page with everything every time he comes back into town. So we spent the Saturday after all this craziness just doing fun things together with the three of us and being together. We went to a nature preserve in Plano with some nice walking trails and a park and had a picnic there that morning. 

And then later in the afternoon, we brought Dane's little kite over to our neighborhood park and let him run around with it. I swear, there is nothing cuter than a two-year-old with a kite. He LOVES that thing (for at least five whole minutes before he wants to just run up and down the hills at the park). 

Such a cutie pie!

We've been working on other house-related projects lately too. (Nesting!) I made a semi-impulse thrift store purchase and bought this sleigh bed that needed a little bit of work. I've been thinking for months now that I'd love to get a real grown-up bed instead of just our frame we've used for the last few years--which works great still, but, you know. I was really regretting buying it after they delivered it, because I had no idea how much work it was going to take to refinish it and fix some of the flaws in the wood and whatnot... But Tommy has proven to be VERY handy and fixed some splintering pieces of wood and is re-attaching some wood pieces to hold up the bed slats. It's definitely not a super cheap project (once you add up the cost of the bed, the wood pieces we needed to fix it, and all the sanding and staining materials), but it's cheaper than buying it brand new and nicer than buying it at Ikea--and I'm really, really having fun doing it. I think it's going to look amazing when it's done!

Dane saw Daddy working with his drill on the bed, and ran in and got his toy drill and was "working" on the bed with him. 

Such a big helper... he was out here for a long time working with Daddy over the weekend!

And we are working to re-stain it as we speak. I put the second coat on tonight and it's looking really great! It's a bad picture from my cell phone, but I'm really looking forward to seeing how it looks when it's done. We found some tutorials (thank you pinterest!) about using a new type of gel stain that doesn't require you to completely strip all the old finish, which makes this project about a billion times easier than it would have been, and it's going to look super nice. 

I am also in the middle of a family photo wall in the hallway leading in from the front door. It's hopefully going to look great, but I definitely need Tommy's precise measuring skills to work on the actual hanging up stage of this project--he is so careful and will do a much better job than me (even though he doesn't love having to do it!). I'm planning to do two rows of pictures with a space between them; hopefully it looks great in the end.

Last house picture--we got our new couches delivered today! This was our first grown-up, non-Ikea and non-Craigslist, furniture purchase. It was agonizing to make such a huge financial decision and to feel sure that we LOVED these couches, but we managed to get a great deal over MLK weekend and I am really pleased with how they turned out. All I really want to do for this room now is get some pillows for the couches and to put something colorful on the mantle and then we will probably leave it exactly the way it is for the next four years. 

Dane claimed the recliner for his own, told me that I could use the loveseat, and labeled the sofa as "Daddy's couch." Someone's been reading too much of Goldilocks and the Three Bears or something. 

 And then, here are a couple of random pictures of us around the house lately:

Dane loves to help us work out. We've been just doing exercise videos in the mornings lately, and he'll do the workouts next to us, which is hilarious and cute. Here he is doing sit-ups next to Daddy.

Doing Dane-style push-ups.

He is so, so sweet when we go in and check on him sleeping in bed. With Tommy's fancy new iPhone, sometimes we can't resist taking a picture. He always has to sleep with his "friends" (literally what he calls them) in his bed--Sparky, monkeys, Polo the polar bear, two blankies, and his pillow. When did we become parents that allowed this sort of thing?

He likes to totally unbutton his Lightning McQueen jammies and sleep with his chest totally exposed. It's so funny to catch him sleeping like that. 

Such a big reader. He'd read 80% of the day if we didn't have to do other things, I swear.

Dane really likes to snuggle in bed with us in the mornings now. He used to climb in bed and immediately start jumping up and down all over us, but now he'll lay there for at least three or four minutes and talk to us before he gets bored. It's the cutest thing to have him laying there in between us.

Sorry, this is a giant conglomerate blog post with just a bunch of random, unorganized pictures. But once I started, I just thought I might as well include all of them! Life is really moving fast right now--I know that things usually start slowing down for women when their pregnancy is nearing the end, but I feel the opposite right now. Sure, lots of my days are slow with trying to entertain Dane and figure out what to do for the day, but between our house, my class, and the baby, I feel like the to-do list is never-ending and I'm super nervous about getting everything under control in the next seven weeks. YIKES... SEVEN WEEKS. Seems way too close... we'd better get cracking!