Extreme Nesting

You might remember my old living room. It is no more.

We know have parchment paper colored walls, refinished hardwood floors, a lovely slipcover on the nasty couch and a new chair.

You might also notice that there are no toys in the living room. They have all moved up to the kids new room and are out of sight when I close their door. Blissfully happy is what this room makes me feel. Just need the new rugs, valences and some art on the walls. But that will wait for a few weeks.

We also refinished the hardwood floors in the dining room, entryway, and stairway and painted the entryway and upstairs hallway the same parchment paper white. (and when I say we, I really mean the nice people that we hired to refinish the floors and paint.)

Let Birthday Week Commence

Amy's birthday marks the start of Birthday Week at our house.

(Including the birth of the little miss on the 5th there are
5 family birthdays to celebrate this week)

Jack and Addy were very excited to eat "Happy Birthday Cake".

Ryan ordered a yummy cake from one of the nurses at work.

For this week only, Ryan and Amy are the same age.
Next week Ryan goes back to being OLDER.

Good thing only one week left

or I may lose my temper.

If one more person rubs my belly or asks me if I am having twins, I may be very unkind in my response. I've been thinking of rude things to say all day. You are warned.


I have never been so cranky as during this pregnancy, so be kind to me this last week and we will all be happier. (Ryan thanks you in advance too).



Stay tuned for pictures of our extreme nesting project. It is mostly done.

Favorite Fall Tradition

We love going to Brown's Berry Patch to pick apples each fall. We were even more excited this year because we kept hearing about the unusually sweet apple crop. We were not disappointed.

Addy had to use her body weight to pull the apples from the tree.

Jack picked out his bumpy pumpkin. He plans to carve a happy face.

Can't wait to use our 30 lbs of apples.

First Day of School

Jack is just finishing his first full week of Universal Pre-Kindergarten.

Let's just say that he loves it.

He would not let me take pictures at the school. He kept saying, "No pictures, mom."

He just wanted to get to his classroom and get started.

Addy and I love it too. We're having a great time together in the afternoons.

We did it!

Darren and Amy with (L to R)Annette, Sister Grace, Sister Rita and Sister Gloria

of the House of Mercy.

We had a very SUCCESSFUL Run for Mercy 5k yesterday. The weather was perfect, people were happy to be there, people were generous with their time and money and we only had a few minor glitches that will easily be worked out and changed for next year.

Seleta, Anna, Darren and Amy

Here is the Race Committee minus Heather who worked an over night shift and still managed to walk the 5k yesterday. As you can see two of us are VERY pregnant.

The best part was that we raised an unexpected amount of money for a great cause.

Addy at the end of the race after playing in the dirt. She had a great time!

Enjoy more pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/debpulley/RunForMercy2010?feat=email#

http://picasaweb.google.com/debpulley/5k?feat=email#

http://picasaweb.google.com/anna.tuttle/5K91110?feat=email##

Where are you Sheltons?

We're still here and boy have we been busy this summer.

Let me sum up . . .

May and June meant soccer classes taught by our friend, Tessa. 2 classes of 3-5 year-olds in my backyard, twice a week. It was hilarious to watch and we went through 500 Popsicles. So you know it was fun. Tessa is a good sport as it sometimes resembled herding cats:)

We visited the air conditioned Strong Museum often. Jack's favorite part is Wegmans. He is very meticulous in his scanning of the items and even though you are only supposed to have 5 things in his cart, he always returns ALL of his items to the shelf without complaining.

We also ate at the real Wegmans roughly 500 times this summer. I would not survive this pregnancy without Wegmans. Love that place and all of it's yummy take and make food.

My sister and niece came for a week and we went to Strong Museum twice, Washington D.C. (which will get a post of its own this week), and went to the real Wegmans at least 5 times:) My sister cleaned my basement because she is wonderful like that and she even got up with my kids at 7 a.m. so that I could sleep. She also cleaned up my vomit in a hotel in rural Pennsylvania but that is a story for another day. It was a great time with Ann and Emmy.
Addy discovered dress up clothes. She loves her fancy princess clothes and shoes and purses and crown and magic wand. A friend gave us a bag of clothes and she is set for life.
Jack has also been known to put on dress or two in his life but he uses the purses to carry his cars and snacks around his neck.

We ate our fill of ribs at Ribfest. We will be going again next year.

This summer we also had a month of daily swimming lessons, traveled to the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. twice in the span of a week, celebrated the 4th of July in Style, put 4000 miles on our new van, drove 16 hours to the beach, discovered that Amy has kankles when pregnant in the summer, oh and Ryan took the Anesthesia Boards in there after studying 12 hours daily for a month. So it's been busy and if I get around to it then I will try to post more pictures. Because even though it was busy, it's been a fun summer.

We are now in a phase that I call EXTREME NESTING in preparation for the arrival of Baby Girl Shelton on October 5th. We are refinishing the hardwood floors, painting and resurfacing the driveway and rewiring the garage. I hope to have everything back in place before October. Wish us luck. We'll post pictures as soon as we surface from the mess.


As you wait for pictures of our fun family vacation, feast on this delightful picture of Jack that my friend, Deborah, took. It will make you smile, I promise.