Bathroom Update!

One of the great things about being pregnant... Home improvement projects get moved up to the front burner and we have a certain amount of time we have to be done in.

 I came home from work today and Clay had been busy tiling on his day off. I got into my grubby clothes and had every intention of helping. An hour later I woke up and he was outside cleaning up. Whoops! Another great thing about being pregnant...naps whenever I want!

 Clay is moving right along (with no help from me...today). I can't wait to see the finished product. I may just have to live in the bathroom because it will be so pretty and clean. Perfect place to raise a baby right :)

 When I woke up and dragged my self off of the bed and back to the living, this is what I found. The girls had quietly made a fort. They were reading stories to each other and had all kids of glow bracelets and sticks everywhere. They wanted to sleep in it but being the mean mom I am I made them tear it down. I told them once school was out, they could sleep in their fort one day.

 We also noticed today that our swallows are back! They haven't built a nest yet but hopefully they will soon. We enjoy watching them from our couch. We like to see all the baby birds grow up and fly away. I'm so glad they made it back safe. Spring is in the air!

Baby Belly

Lots of people have been asking to see my baby belly. Here ya go! This picture was snapped today by Sydney. I'm 17 weeks now and getting bigger every day. That's a good sign, at least we know our little girl is growing! We bought a fetal heart monitor, I'm still not a pro at finding the heart beat but it does register on the monitor so all is well. I have an appointment with my Sierra Vista doctor next Friday. I also have two 3D ultrasound appointments coming up in May. I love rubbing my belly and feeling the baby move more and more. You'll be seeing lots of blog updates about the new little Dozier girl. I love that we print out our blog book every year. We'll never forget the huge miracle we were blessed with this year. Stay tuned for more baby news! Yay I'm pregnant!!!

Kitchen Light Fiasco!

How many of you remember how we got started renovating the bathroom about 3 years ago? Here's a little refresher if you have forgotten. One day a few summer's ago we decided to take the siding of the kitchen wall and put up sheet rock. Easy enough right? NO! Behind that wall we found nothing but black mold and bugs. The shower had been leaking for years. A simple project turned into a demolition and complete gutting of our 2nd bathroom. Although we haven't been as sick as often since all the mold is gone, it has been a tough few years living with one bathroom for the four of us (three of us being female).

When we took the day off to tile we also decided our kitchen light needed an update. Here is what it looked like. Ugly and old fashioned right?

Simple job. Take the old light down, put a new one up. Wrong. When we took it down this is what we found. I actually thought the brownness around the whole was burned but it turns out it wasn't painted.

Then we start taking a closer look and here is where the fun begins!

The wires were all melted together. It looked like whoever had last worked on the light (could have been the builders way back in 1960 for all we knew), had put black tar on the wires. Come to find out it was electrical tape that had melted. We were thinking we had stumbled onto something that would require us to rewire the entire house or something like that (flash back to bathroom situation) UH OH!

We didn't want to call an electrician, we were afraid he's give us some really expensive news. So we called the next best thing....our home teacher. Over he came, said it was no problem and him and Clay had it rewired and a new light put up in a jiffy!

   

I love our new kitchen light, it's so modern and pretty. Now we're thinking of tiling the kitchen and redoing the cabinet doors. The only bad thing about the new light, it gives off way to much light. I never knew my ceiling was so dirty!

Bathroom update and Mr. Amazing!

For the sake of journaling, here is yet another bathroom update. Now, I've always known my husband was cool and super talented when it came to almost anything (he's not really a mechanic but Adam is helping him with that, and one area out of thousands isn't bad). What I didn't know is that he is a master at what ever he puts his mind to.

When Clay got home from his mission back in 1996, he started working for a construction company and a man by the name of Mark Fenn. He learned more in the four years he worked for him then he would ever realize.  What a blessing it was for him to get the opportunity to work for him and learn so much. I remember going on side jobs with Clay where he would take his own tools and install base board late into the night. We didn't have any kids yet so of course I went along to help (more like watch) instead of staying home alone being bored. This is when I developed a strong love for my husband and watching him work. In fact today I called into work just so I could stay home with him and help (or watch him). He's amazing.

Clay has always had to do things perfect and the correct way or it isn't good enough for him. My visions for the bathroom were big square slabs of stone thrown up, maybe not meeting up exactly perfect, and bam we're done. Oh no, that doesn't work for Clay (good thing too, then our bathroom would have been boring and ugly). He stratagizes for a couple years, plans and does the math, and bam this is what we get! This bathroom is anything but boring and all the lines match up perfectly!

The cuts are precise every time. He measures and remeasures. Squares up tile when it's off, and takes pride in everything he does. Like I said, amazing.

He's even designed the shower so it will have a built in wall shelf and two floating shelves. I am so incredibly excited to see the final product!

So I guess with all that being said, this post is really to thank Mark Fenn for all he taught Clay. He was a man who believed things should be done right the first time and if they weren't, do it again until they are correct and perfect. I'm thankful Clay took his job (and any job he's had) seriously and that he was able to learn so much. We live in a house now that was built in 1960. It's a great house, I love it, it can use a lot of TLC. I for one am glad Clay knows everything he does so he can make our old house an amazing home.

I love you husband, you're amazing!

Cabbage and watermelon!

This year at school, all the third graders received a colossal cabbage plant. They're goal is to grow it all summer. They have to weed it, water it, debug it, and fertilize it. Alex was all in a panic and said it had to be planted today or it would die! At the end of the summer we have to take a picture of Alex with her cabbage she grew and the picture is submitted into a contest (it's a state wide contest with a prize of one $1000.00 scholarship per state, I don't think she knows how small her chances are of winning but...). So off we run to Ace, get a bucket to plant it in since we have gophers, get some potting soil and other stuff, and a watering can of course, and we head home to plant it. It transplanted well. A little wilty in the beginning but it soon snapped out of it and it's been getting bigger and bigger everyday!

Planting her Cabbage plant got us into the garden planting mood. We planted some watermelon. (Since this picture was taken many watermelon plants have begun to sprout.) We also have a little nursery inside where we have planted carrots, peas, lettuce,and squash. We plan on moving them out side once they've sprouted, then maybe they'll have half a chance of growing. Our dang neighborhood is so full of birds it's crazy. I did notice our hummingbirds are back and our swallows, although the swallows just pop in from time to time this year and visit instead of build a nest under our porch like most years.

You gotta love AZ for all it's sunshine, and Bisbee for it's tolerable summers! C'mon plants grow, momma needs some fresh groceries!!

Break out the pink!

I had my second and third sonogram today.

I went for a doctors appointment today. I took my mom and the girls along just in case we had a sonogram they could enjoy seeing the baby with me. The doctor came into the exam room and couldn't find the heart beat. I had just heard it last week at a doctors appointment. They found it rather easily. Of course I start bawling, they move us directly to the next room which is the sonogram room, turn the lights off and proceed to see what's going on. There's our little baby moving around wildly like I just had sugar for breakfast. Then he turns on the speaker and blasting through the speakers roars the littlte baby's heartbeat. More tears, this time for joy. The doctor then calls a 3D sonogram place and gets me an appointment for that day. We race across town and get my second utlrasound of the day. 3D was an amazing sight to see, the baby was moving and waving and opening and closing it's mouth. Then we look to try to decide gender. We don't see anything sticking out between the legs. The sonogram technician shows us three little lines and says in all her years as a technician this usually means it's a girl. She said that she was 85% sure it was a girl and she's never been wrong. Break out the pink and call her Peanut! The girls were so excited. At the first sonogram the doctor said he thought it was a boy by the speed of the heartbeat. We'll get another ultrsound soon to confirm. The 3D place made a DVD for Clay since he didn't know we were having one or he would have been there. We went to Target afterwards and picked up a baby girl outfit and a card to surprise Dad with what we think the baby is! My first due date was set at October 10th, then moved to Sept 29th, then moved again to October 7th. We'll just have to see when she wants to make her grand arrival!

Day after Easter Hike

This year, for the first time in years, we got the day after Easter off from school! In years past we've always had to use it as a make up day because of snow or some other weather related incident. This year we spent the day hiking with friends!

I was feeling a little worn out and tired. I'm sure it was just being pregnant. I did try to hang in there with everyone. By the end of the day I was never so ready to go home and rest! The girls enjoyed every minute of the hike. We can't wait to do it again!

Hamburg Trail leads up to a look out. I was too much of a wuss to try it. I sat at the bottom with Camilee and her two little ones while everyone else headed up the trail. It was a tougher hike than the trail we were already on but still sounded to tough for me!

All the kids survived with a few minor scrapes and bumps. We had a great time. It was a cheap and close to home day activity for us.

We saw Turkey's on our way back down. They were strutting around the place like they owned it. Humans didn't seem to bother them much. It was fun for the kids to see them up close and alive instead of naked and cooked on the Thanksgiving table! There were also tons of hummingbirds everywhere. What a sight!

Madison is a great friend for the girls. She's very adventurous and outgoing. The perfect influence for my quiet little shy girls. They need to come out of their shells sometime and run around screaming into the wilderness.

They saw lots of deer on the Hamburg Trail and shooed them down to us so we could enjoy them too. They also didn't seem to bothered by humans. We were able to get pretty close to a few and sit and enjoy watching them. I was amazed at how much wildlife we were able to see so close to home.

I was glad Clay went up Hamburg Trail with the kids. I was sad I missed it but I think eating lunch before we headed up did me in. I was not feeling the hike at all once we got going but I plugged along!

Our friends the Nelson's have an amazing family and we enjoy doing things with them. The kids love to hang out, there's always good conversation and laughs, and it gets my family out of the house! We had a great time, we can't wait till our next adventure as a family!

Coloring Easter Eggs!

Since our chickens all lay brown eggs, coloring Easter eggs with dye is kind of pointless. This year we decided to draw on our eggs to decorate. We broke out the sharpies and got to work.

 Here are our final products.

We went to church, spent time with family, went to the annual Easter egg hunt, remembered our savior and his sacrifice for us all, decorated eggs, made egg salad, and ate tons of candy.

Easter 2012 in an eggshell!

Anyone heard from the Doziers?

Yes, yes, yes. We're still alive and kicking. Sadly, I am so behind in my blogging. Hopefully in the next few weeks things will slow down and I'll be able to update the blog. We have lots of exciting news to share with everyone. Stay tuned in and we'll get you some info soon. Hang in there!