Volley for a Cure and Other Randoms...

This post is about a lot of different random things.
First, Baby Girl Darnell got a Raggedy Ann Doll. I got one when I was a baby so my Mom thought Little Girl needed one too! It is packaged so cute I don't know if I should take it out of the package or actually let her play with it.


Tuesday night, the Middle School Volleyball team at Jeremy's school had a Volley for the Cure night. They sold pink t-shirts, had a bake sale, had raffles and silent auctions, they played with a pink and white ball. It was fun to attend.

Here is the shirt they sold.

I entered a few raffles and won this cute little bucket of items. I will save the bucket, bubbles, and stuffed animal for our Little Girl. Although this week, the whale is not a very good topic since the whale at Sea World took the life of one of the trainers.



I bid on a few items in the silent auction and won a few items. Most of the things were pink in some way with some accents, a lot of zebra print, which I love zebra print!
One thing I won in the silent auction was this blanket.

Once I got the blanket home, I realized it was made by a 4th grader from the opposing team. Very impressive the girl made it all by herself:) I can't wait to use it for Baby Girl Darnell to play on!

The next item I won in the silent auction was a zebra print bag full of things. I am excited about the golf balls and golf towel. I will probably put some of the shoe laces in my golf shoes. I will definitely get good use out of several items in the bag. I will have to find a little skinny minnie to give the zebra and pink shorts too as they are major Daisy Dukes and size XS:)


I ordered this little hat and diaper cover off of Etsy for Baby Girl Darnell. I am super excited as I think it will be precious for newborn pics. Can't wait to put it on her and take some pictures! It came in the mail this week. (I will probably trim some of the ribbon off of the diaper cover. It is a little long for my liking)

Yesterday, I got home from work and there was a little gift sitting on the counter. It came in the mail and Jeremy opened the box but left the gift for me to open. The gift came from The Lockhart's. The Lockhart's are renting our house in Urbana while their house in St. Joe is being built. We thought it was very thoughtful of them to have a gift sent to us.

Cute Von Maur gift wrap!

They had the cutest paci clip sent to us.

I laughed yesterday....My Dad called me at my office (my Dad works on Campus as well) and asked if I was at work....well yes as a matter of fact I am! He said well I have something for you, so I met him outside in the parking lot and he dropped off these cute socks for the baby. How cute! I know that Sharon (my step-mom) bought them, but I thought it was funny my Dad brought them to me at work:)

Thursday night I attended an Infant CPR and SIDS Awareness program at a church here in town. It was very informative and definitely an eye opener. Very scary and something I do not wish upon anyone! Jeremy had to supervise 8th grade night for volleyball so we both got home late. I left Lucie out of her kennel thinking she could be trusted. Well not so much. The picture below is of Lucie in time-out. Jeremy confined her to the dog bed. She went into the Baby's room and took a couple of her new books and chewed them up. Part of it was my fault as I left them in a little basket on the floor and I should not have, but she has not bothered them yet so I thought they would be ok. She was upset that I left her or upset that I did not take her with. Regardless, I am hoping that by the time Baby Darnell gets here, this current baby can be trusted and be a good puppy!

She was looking a little bit more pitiful than this and that is what I was trying to get the picture of. Dee is thinking "I have nothing to do with this, why does she have to lay in my bed?"


Today I had lunch with my Mom and my Grandma. It was so much fun! We never get to do that. My Grandma said she had a gift for me and she brought me this most precious necklace. It is a little baby bootie with diamonds on it. I love it!!! Thanks Maw-Maw!

Jeremy has had something at the school pretty much every night this week so I have not seen much of him. So tonight I was able to get the upstairs cleaned while he has been gone. I plan to clean the downstairs tomorrow, but before I do that, I have an appointment at the Spa in town to get a mani & pedi. I can not wait! I have not had a pedi since I was 6 weeks pregnant! So needless to say, my feet are pretty ugly right now:) Next Friday is my next Furlough Day, which I have a prenatal massage scheduled as well as a hair appointment, I hope to work in an eye brow waxin too! All about the pampering right now.

Other than that, we do not have many plans and are looking forward to it. With Jeremy having something every night, he is pretty exhausted and ready to relax.

Have a great weekend!

Wordless Wednesday!

Whew I am Tired!

Today, Jeremy and I went and registered for baby stuff! It was fun, but boy was it tiring. We got to Target not too long after they opened. We then went to Toys R Us (Babies R Us) and then hit Babyland (a local store in Champaign). I have already done a registry online at Pottery Barn Kids.
I found it all very overwhelming. I am hoping we did not forget anything important or necessary. I think we did pretty good.
After doing all of our registries, we worked up an appetite and went to Chipotle and Cookie Jar! Now that we are home, I sure don't feel like doing much of anything else! I really need to clean our dusty house!
I am looking forward to tomorrow. We are going to Jim Gould's for brunch with a big group of people for my friend Amy's 40th Birthday Celebration! We love Jim Gould's brunch!
I am excited to say that Jeremy's Middle School won the Horizon Award. This is a National Award of Recognition of Excellence in Middle Schools. I talked about this award in a previous post. Well he found out this week that the school won the award and it is a really prestigous award. Way to go Jerm!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day from the Darnell's!

Getting ready to head out for lunch on V-day. Apparently Lucie thought she needed to be in the pic as well.
For Valentine's Day we met Jeremy's parents in Bloomington for lunch. We had a great lunch. We then went to Fresh Market. Fresh Market is our new favorite grocery store. We do not go there all the time as it is pretty pricey but it is Heaven on Earth! The store is so extremely nice and their produce section looks like something out of a magazine. They have a fabulous baked goods section as well as meat counter. Jeremy likes the fact that they have a Sushi Chef on hand. They also have bins of nuts, dried fruit, dried veggies, different trail mixes, etc. We just really love the grocery store! We came home and took a nice nap. That is pretty much how we spent our Valentine's Day! It was a great day.
I mentioned in the previous post that I made Jeremy a homemade cheesecake for V-day. It is his favorite thing that I make. I found the cutest plates and napkins to serve with it...I had to take a picture. I got them at Walmart! We packaged up a cute little gift bag for his parents that included 2 slices of cheesecake with strawberry topping, 2 plates and 2 napkins as well as 2 Valentine's Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.


My gift from Jeremy was he made me an appointment for a prenatal massage on my next Furlough Day which is March 5th. He put the money in my card to pay for my massage. I am very excited about it and will be really ready to have the massage come March 5th.
My gift to him other than the cheesecake was a goodie bag of random items...I got him a Nike Dri Fit shirt, a pair of sunglasses, a sugar container (kind of an inside story but he has been leaving the big ol canister of sugar out on the counter for his coffee and it drives me nuts being left out of the cabinet, so I got him the sugar container:)), some camo boxer shorts from Gap, a BBQ baster brush, some Combos (for those of you that don't know...my husband loves him some Combos) and some Valentine's Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I got him a funny card and I also got him a card from Baby Darnell with some scratch off lottery tickets in it.

Here is the infamous cheesecake with strawberry topping! I have to admit it is pretty darn good.


And I have a feeling when Baby Girl Darnell comes, this is what I am going to have to deal with. Another Daddy's girl in the Darnell household. These two pitiful girls don't know what is in store for them! They are quite spoiled rotten!

We are looking forward to going and registering this weekend for Baby Gifts. I am still unsure what all we will be registering for. I know we plan to register at Target, Babies R Us, Babyland (a local store in Champaign where we purchased our baby furniture) and I have already done a small registry at Pottery Barn Kids. It should be fun to go look at all the baby stuff out there.

So far we have Baby Showers planned for April 18th & 25th as well as May 16th.

We have been watching the Winter Olympics. It really drives me crazy watching the skiing! The way their stomach is tossed all over the place and the speed they go is nuts! Maybe because I am packing extra cargo and my stomach and the thought kind of turns my stomach:) The Olympics are always fun and addictive to watch.

Have a great week from The Darnell's!

A Great Saturday!

Today we had a great day. I started off my morning by meeting 5 high school classmates for breakfast to talk about our 15 year class reunion. We are planning something for late summer/early fall. It was a great breakfast!
My Mom and my Aunt also went to the same restaurant for breakfast and we left there and headed to the outlet mall to do some shopping for Baby Darnell. I got her soooo many things that she is gonna be one stylin little girl. Children's Place had $1.99 and $2.99 sales and I got a whole bag of items for $40. The Carter's outlet also had great sales as well and her Grandma and Great Aunt also got her a few things as well!
While I was gone, Jeremy cleaned up the house for me. When we first moved in, we did not have a water softener yet and our hard water made a lot of water spots on our shower and doors. Well he found some awesome cleaner and got the shower looking like brand new again! Jeremy is at a Whitetails banquet tonight hoping to win something! He went with a few of my family members. While he has been gone I made him a homemade New York Style Cheesecake with homemade strawberry topping for Valentine's Day. I made this for him our first Valentine's Day together and he loved it and really enjoys when I made it for him. It was not nearly as good as the meal he made for me our first V-day! That was the best meal I have ever had! Better than any restaurant. I believe it consisted of a very yummy steak, mushrooms in wine sauce, red potatoes cooked really yummy, and asparagus wrapped in prosciutto and red wine to drink. He of course said my cheesecake was better!
Tomorrow, we are meeting Jeremy's parents for lunch in Bloomington. I am sure there will also be a little bit of cheesecake eating in our future:)

Baby Bedding!

Tonight, I placed the order for our Baby Girl's bedding! I am so excited and can't wait to get it. Below is a picture of what we got, however, rather than the sage green minky fabric I replaced it with a pink minky fabric to match the pink in the striped fabric. The walls are green in our nursery so I did not want the greens to clash.
Jeremy and I both were drawn to this bedding and I am excited because I think it will match well with the green walls and black furniture. And I believe it will be easy to match accessories with it with the black and white polka dot and the damask print.

Jeremy took me to work yesterday since school got cancelled for him and the roads were still nasty. While I was at work he went to Babyland and picked up the mattress for the crib.
I hope to order a replacement cushion soon for the glider Aunt Darci gave us since I now know what the bedding will look like.
I have found a cute website that I hope to order a name canvas to go over the crib. They are custom made to order so I think I can get something cute and sassy to match the bedding and room theme.
We also found a Chicco stroller that we both agree we like at Babyland as well.
I have a few more ideas for the room so stay tuned as things start coming together!

I have treat day at work tomorrow. I made cookies out of cake mix. I found a recipe online. I also made chocolate covered strawberries.
Looking forward to the weekend. Meeting up with some classmates for breakfast on Saturday to plan our 15 year class reunion. If the weather is not nasty, my Mom and I hope to go to the Outlet Mall shopping! Jeremy and I are still undecided on our Valentine's Day plans. We will figure something out I am sure!

Winter Wonderland!

It is a winter wonderland in Central Illinois today. All the schools were closed around us, even in Champaign-Urbana, they hardly ever close. I decided to stay home today since my commute is about 45 minutes total. With me being pregnant, I am paranoid driving in the nasty weather. I felt very productive today. I was able to get our taxes done as well as my Mom's taxes. That is a huge relief. I have cleaned up the house a little bit, made brownies, done laundry. The wind is starting to blow more so the blowing and drifting will be an issue tomorrow morning. I am hoping I can make it to work as I don't necessarily like taking snow days.
Jeremy and I hope to order the bedding for our Baby Girl's room within the next week. We have found a set that we like and it will be very cute with the green walls and the black furniture. I am also searching online for other ideas for her nursery. I have a few ideas in mind. It will be so fun to get it all together!
We are also going to be registering soon. I have a baby shower scheduled for Sunday, April 25th. Also, my neighbor would like to host a little something for us, and Jeremy's parents are looking forward to hosting something in Pekin that will hopefully allow a lot of our Pekin friends to get together and we can all see each other.
Such exciting times!

Gender Reveal!

The past couple of days have been great for the Darnell's! It has been an exciting past couple of days! We are thrilled and so anxious to meet our sweet little one! We were able to capture Baby D on ultrasound! There were some tears that came down in excitement. We would not care either way if it was a boy or girl!
Below is a gift Jeremy got me for our ultrasound day! He got me a baby book for both a girl and a boy! I really like the books. We will send back the other to the company he ordered it from online!
Our ultrasound was on Friday at 1:30. We then had a Dr. appt right after. We kept the secret until today when our family came over. After the appointments we went to the mall and bought our little one a few outfits! We have been dyin to buy something! Or at least I have:) After the mall, we went to eat at the Ribeye! I had been craving The Ribeye! We had to pick up a few groceries and ended up being stuck on the interstate for an hour at a stand still. We got terrible weather on Friday and there was a horrible accident on our way home and we found out this evening from the Evening News that there was a fatality! Very sad!

Girl Baby Book!

Boy Baby Book

I got this idea from a couple of other blogs! I made this banner for the fireplace. Jeremy helped me! He took the paper to school and cut it for me:)

I made several blue and pink things to set out! I got a few balloon bouquets and flowers from the flower shop.

Jeremy's Mom brought over some beautiful Gerber Daisies!

My Aunt brought me my favorite....iced sugar cookies!

What do you think???

Boy or Girl?

IT'S A.........

We had the ultrasound tech take this picture for us! I wanted to interview the ultrasound tech before the ultrasound to be sure he had been doing it long enough for me to feel he was experienced enough! Not really, but I thought about it:) For some reason I was very nervous for the ultrasound! Baby Girl Darnell was moving all over the place!!!! She was active! I will have another ultrasound on March 8th! Looking forward to seeing her again then! Baby Girl's heartbeat was 150 this appointment. I am measuring right on track. She weights approximately 11 oz.

Below is Jeremy's Mom Jan, my Step Mom Sharon and my Mom Cathy pointing to GIRL!

We had everyone wear pink or blue depending on their guess as to what the baby's gender is? As you can see these 3 were hoping for a girl:)

For our big reveal, we got shirts for Dee & Lucie and we took them upstairs after everyone got here and put their shirts on them. We then brought them downstairs and turned them lose and they let everyone know that IT'S A GIRL!

Jeremy wore blue and I wore pink to try and throw everyone off!
Because our dogs are our only children until Baby D arrives and they are an important part of our lives, we wanted to include them in the big reveal!

Like I said, Jeremy and I went to the mall after our appointments and got Baby Girl a few items at Gymboree! So fun! We got some things for next fall/winter time. Below is what we got her!

So we did not expect gifts but everyone brought us a gift for the big reveal today! Although we did not expect anything and just did this for a fun way to tell our families, this is all the gifts we got! We got a ton of diapers!

A teacher from Jeremy's school left this gift basket in Jeremy's office today for us. They will soon be our neighbors when they build their house and it is complete this summer. They are also expecting their second child in June!

The basket is black which will match the nursery well! It was filled with a ton of great goodies!
All of this stuff came in the basket! There were clothes for 6-9 months, books, a little JJ Cole hat that I love!!! Some plates, spoons, forks and some snack cups, some burp cloths, some scrapbooking items, as well as a Vera Bradley bag with some diaper bag size baby wash and lotion! So creative and so very much appreciated!

This is one tired puppy! She played a lot today. Chloe (my Mom & Steve's Boston Terrier) was here as well as Angus (Jeremy's sister's dog that his parents are keeping)

And a tired old lady!

We had a great day today! It was a lot of fun doing a gender reveal party and planning for it! I was very nervous people could not come over since the weather got so bad but we were thankful everyone made it and made it safely and very appreciative of everyone coming over. Our menu consisted of BBQ, cheesey taters, cowboy beans, veggies & dip, and fruit & dip. And you can see from the pictures above all the sweets we had!

Jeremy's Mom got a video for me on her Flip. If I can figure out how to upload it, I will do that as well as post a few pics of our Little Girl from her photo shoot!

Have a great weekend! Enjoy Super Bowl Sunday!

Tomorrow is the Big Day!

Wish us luck on cooperation of Baby D tomorrow for the Big Reveal Appointment! We are so very excited!
I have been busy this evening getting some things ready for the party on Saturday.
I am praying we do not get nasty weather like the forecast is saying we could get. And if we do, I hope it clears off by Saturday.
Stay tuned on Saturday evening for a post to hopefully reveal Baby D's gender!