Life lately and a meme

Ohhhh, this drives me crazy! I had this whole post typed up, then it disappeared. Like I have all this time to post and all! Anyway, let me try to hit the high lights:

Texas was great, lots of fun - Houston Museum of Natural Science, NASA, Kemah Boardwalk, TopGolf, shopping, swimming, bowling, eating, movies, hanging out with family. We left here July 26, the day after VBS and got there just after midnight Sunday morning. We left Texas the following Saturday afternoon and got home early Sunday morning. It was a wonderful trip!

Friday night Nick and I got to have a real live date night while Robert and Faith watched the kids.

My mom had a heart cath yesterday morning to check for blockage. She's had sudden, frequent weak spells for the last few months, and they were afraid it was her heart. The great news - not her heart. The not so great news - we still don't know what's causing them. So the search continues.

No spanking anytime recently, although heaven knows I tried to make it happen Friday night! But we ran out of time, and Nick is aware, so maybe it will be on the agenda sometime soon.

I found this meme over at Bonnie's new blog (Aren't you exited she's back? You didn't know? You should go check her out!) Anyway, I love memes, so I thought I'd play along.

1. Would you have sex with the last person you text messaged? I think that was my sister-in-law, so that would be a no.
2. You talked to an ex today, correct? Incorrect, and that's sort of a presumptuous way to ask a question, don't you think?
3. Have you taken someone's virginity? Nick and I lost our virginity together on our wedding night.
4. Is trust a big issue for you? It's certainly very important.
5. Did you hang out with the person you like recently? I sleep with him every night
6. What are you excited for? Some prints of pictures I took of the kids to arrive.
7. What happened tonight? I fried up a whole lot of chicken.
8. Do you think it’s disgusting when girls get really wasted? Yes, have some respect for yourself!
9. Is confidence cute? Absolutely
10. What is the last beverage you had? Sweet tea
11. How many people of the opposite sex do you fully trust? I would say 4
12. Do you own a pair of skinny jeans? I do, but I don't know that they technically qualify as skinny on my non-skinny body.
13. What are you gonna do Saturday night? Nick has to work that day, so probably just hang out and unwind.
14. What are you going to spend money on next? probably groceries.
15. Are you going out with the last person you kissed? if by going out with you mean being married to, then yes.
16. Do you think you’ll change in the next 3 months? probably in some small ways. I'm working on getting more organized.
17. Who do you feel most comfortable talking to about anything? Nick
18. The last time you felt broken? I would say a couple of months ago
19. Have you had sex today? Nope
20. Are you starting to realize anything? There are a lot of these questions
21. Are you in a good mood? Sure, I guess so
22. Would you ever want to swim with sharks? I don't even like to swim with blue gill!
23. Are your eyes the same color as your dad’s? No, mine are blue and his are hazel
24. What do you want right this second? A large grape cream slush with Nerds candy from Sonic (Try it. You'll thank me.)
25. What would you say if the person you love/like kissed another girl/boy? Depends upon the circumstance
26. Is your current hair color your natural hair color? Well, it's what my natural color used to be before I started going gray, if that counts.
27. Would you be able to date someone who doesn’t make you laugh? Fortunately, I don't have that problem
28. What was the last thing that made you laugh? Something Nick said.
29. Do you really, truly miss someone right now? Yes
30. Does everyone deserve a second chance? Most do, but not everyone
31. Honestly, do you hate the last boy you were talking to? Boy? That would be Jack, so no.
32. Does the person you have feelings for right now, know you do? After all these years, I certainly hope so
33. Are you one of those people who never drinks soda? No, but I generally only have it if we go out to a nicer restaurant.
34. Listening to? The dishwasher running
35. Do you ever write in pencil anymore? Very seldom, although I do enjoy a freshly sharpened pencil.
36. Do you know where the last person you kissed is? He's asleep in our bed
37. Do you believe in love at first sight? Maybe not real love, but I do believe you can have an instant connection. I definitely had that with Nick, and he tells me he had it with me too.
38. Who did you last call? My mom
39. Who was the last person you danced with? Jack.
40. Why did you kiss the last person you kissed? It was a goodnight kiss.
41. When was the last time you ate a cupcake? Um, April maybe? I think it was at Morgan's birthday party.
42. Did you hug/kiss one of your parents today? Yes, both of them
43. Ever embarrass yourself in front of a crush? Sure, many times.
44. Do you tan in the nude? I don't tan. I burn and peel, so I try to stay out of the sun unless I'm well protected.
45. If you could, would you take back your last kiss? No
46. Did you talk to someone until you fell asleep last night? No
47. Who was the last person to call you? My mom.
48. Do you sing in the shower? Occasionally
49. Do you dance in the car? Sometimes with Morgan
50. Ever used a bow and arrow? Yes
51. Last time you got a portrait taken by a photographer? By a professional photographer would be the day Jack came home from the hospital.
52. Do you think musicals are cheesy? Some are, some are not
53. Is Christmas stressful? It has been in recent years, but I'm hoping it will be less so this time around.
54. Ever eat a pierogi? Yes
55. Favorite type of fruit pie? blackberry
56. Occupations you wanted to be when you were a kid? A wife and mom (winning!)
57. Do you believe in ghosts? No, but I do believes in angels and demons
58. Ever have a deja-vu feeling? Yes
59. Take a vitamin daily? No, but I should.
60. Wear slippers? No, but I wear flip flops pretty much always unless I'm in bed or in the shower.
61. Wear a bath robe? No
62. What do you wear to bed? panties and a tshirt.
63. First concert? Metallica, 1998
64. Wal-Mart, Target or Kmart? Target for fun stuff, Walmart for practical stuff
65. Nike or Adidas? Whichever is cheaper at the time.
66. Cheetos Or Fritos? Cheetos
67. Peanuts or Sunflower seeds? honey roasted peanuts
68. Favorite Taylor Swift song? I'm not a huge fan, but I do kind of like that one that was in The Hunger Games movie.
69. Ever take dance lessons? No
70. Is there a profession you picture your future spouse doing? I think I'll hang onto my mechanic husband. Although he did get offered a job teaching auto mechanics at a local high school the other day. It was too much of a pay cut for him to consider, but I have certainly enjoyed entertaining a few fantasies about my husband the stern teacher!
71. Can you curl your tongue? Yes. Jack learned to do it the other day too, and he was so proud of himself!
72. Ever won a spelling bee? Yes
73. Have you ever cried because you were so happy? Sure
74. What is your favorite book? There are so many, but I'll always love Gone With the Wind.
75. Do you study better with or without music? Probably without
76. Regularly burn incense? Not regularly, although we used to when we were first married.
77. Ever been in love? Yes
78. Who would you like to see in concert? The Avett Brothers
79. What was the last concert you saw? I can't even remember
80. Hot tea or cold tea? Iced
81. Tea or coffee? Tea
82. Favorite type of cookie? Milano Lemon
83. Can you swim well? Reasonably so
84. Can you hold your breath without holding your nose? Yes
85. Are you patient? I try to be
86. DJ or band, at a wedding? We didn't have either
87. Ever won a contest? Yes
88. Ever have plastic surgery? Nope
89. Which are better black or green olives? Black on pizza/other dishes, green to eat by themselves.
90. Opinions on sex before marriage? I'm glad we waited.
91. Best room for a fireplace? Living room.
92. Do you want to get married? Not again

Question Month

March is Question Month! Anybody have anything they want to know? Put it in the comments and I'll put up answers in a day or two. :)

Just an Update

I am so, so ridiculously tired, and I should be heading up to bed, which I plan to do in just a minute, but I wanted to take a kid free moment to post really quick.

Life is lovely, super busy always it seems. I want to apologize for being so awful about replying to comments. I truly do love getting each and every one of them, and I very much appreciate it each time one of you takes the time to leave me a word or two. My biggest issue is that I usually get them via email on my phone when I'm on the go and don't have the opportunity to reply right then, and by the time I have a chance to sit down, it's slipped my very scattered mind. But I do love you all!

Since I last posted, I managed (with Nick's help) to get all the class reunion CDs made and mailed out. Our church has a couple of CD burners that burn 10 CDs at once (well, one burns 9, because one drive doesn't work, but anyway), so I brought in my own CDs, and Nick burned them for me. My mom graciously filled out my address on all the CD envelopes while she was waiting at the hospital (baby!), and we took them to the post office Friday. And a happy surprise was that it cost me quite a bit less to mail them than I thought it would.

So about that baby...Faith did indeed go into the hospital Wednesday night. They started her on the Cervidil, which started her contractions pretty hard and fast pretty quickly. She labored hard for several hours, and finally decided to have an epidural. It had been her original intention to go without one, but she just wasn't getting any break at all from the pain, and the nurse told her there were hours and hours left to go. I left the hospital around 2:30 Thursday morning with plans to be back at 7:00 AM. 

I got back around 7:30, and had just enough time to sit down and eat my breakfast when Robert sent for me to come to the room because it was time to push! Faith did so great, and little Liam (on here anyway) popped out at 9:58 AM. He weighed 6lb 6.5oz, and was 20 inches long. He is so incredibly precious, and it was such an amazing honor and such a sweet experience to get to be there to see his arrival. I took almost 1000 pictures over the whole event, and I'm trying to wade through editing them between other responsibilities.

I got home just a little while ago, because I ended up taking Morgan to the ER tonight. She'd been complaining of abdominal pain for about a day and a half, but she was on her period, so I kind of thought it was maybe just cramps. But then it moved into her lower right abdomen, and I got concerned that maybe it was her appendix. Anyway, long story short, 5 hours at the ER and a $50 copay to be billed later, it turns out she was dealing with some internal blockage, although not anything serious. Basically she just needed to poop lol. So they did what they needed to to treat that, and now we're finally home, worn out but grateful it wasn't her appendix. Daisy actually had the exact same issue a couple of months ago and we ended up taking her to the ER as well with the same result, so I'm going to do some serious reevaluating of their fiber intake!

When I got home I had to make deviled eggs for Nick's Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow and work on the Etsy order I have to mail out, also tomorrow (or today, I guess). And now I'm all done, and I'm headed to bed! Good night all!

Busy days

Coming back from vacation I always feel like there's so much catching up to do. That's not actually the truth in this case, even if it feels that way. Almost all of our vacation laundry was done before we left Texas, and we unloaded the car as soon as we got home, so it was just a matter of putting it all away. The dishes were done and the trash taken off before we left, and even most of the laundry that didn't go with us was clean (although maybe not folded).

But here it is less than 2 weeks later and the laundry is piled up (despite the fact that I do it constantly), the sink is full (also doing the dishes all the time), and the bedrooms are in chaos (despite the fact that I've worked on ours all week).

Part of it has to do with the fact that Jack has been crazy clingy since we got back, and Daisy has been an unusual handful. I think she picked up some attitude from Maddox, because she has definitely not been her usual sweet and compliant self since we got back. The other night she pitched an honest to goodness temper tantrum, something that has only happened once before in her life, and that was when she was about 20 months old.

The last couple of weeks have been full of errands, between back to school shopping, dentist appointments, a birthday party, a wedding, an order for a skirt for a lady at church, signing Morgan up for soccer, paying bills, taking the dog for a rabies vaccine, mailing back Morgan's old ipad, and getting the new one to log onto our wifi, a process that turned out to be a ridiculous hassle.

My mom called me yesterday to tell me kind of a crazy story. All my life my parents have loved to sit on the front porch during a thunderstorm. (No lectures please). They have two porch swings and several rockers, and my mom has a big fluffy recliner out there. So when a storm blew up that afternoon they sat out on the porch to enjoy the show. Then it started to get pretty bad, so they decided to go inside.

About two minutes later my mom was looking out the window at the deluge when suddenly lightning struck one of the trees in the front yard their hammock hangs from. The hammock is secured with a thick chain, and the lightning jumped from the chain to a shrub at the corner of the porch. The whole house shook, and the blast hurt their ears even with them inside. My mom had a ceramic frog shaped planter at the base of the tree that was struck, and it was blown apart. The surge fried their whole phone system, one of their TVs, the wiring to their cable and internet, and their well pump.

Once they got their nerves settled and the storm died down, they went out to check the damage. All of the bark on the tree had been blown off in long thick strips, and the recliner where my mom was sitting just a couple of minutes before the strike was filled with bark and sharp shards of shrapnel from the broken planter. If they had still been on the porch when it happened they would have doubtless been injured, quite probably seriously so. Thank God they had gone in!

They were without water until today when they were able to get the well pump replaced, but it will be another week or so before they get their phone and internet back.

We also got some family news last night - Grant and Kelly are (quite unexpectedly) expecting again! They're happy, but also more than a little scared, because Logan is only 10 1/2 months old. When the new baby comes he'll be just a little younger than Jack is now. All day today I tried to imagine bringing a newborn home right now and trying to juggle him/her and Jack. Honestly, Kelly struggled quite a bit with postpartum depression, so we're praying that she handles it well.

We are looking a bit forward to watching the new parent smugness fall away, lol. It's just within the last week that Logan has started to even army crawl, so they've not had to do any baby proofing as of yet, and they always seemed a bit exasperated with us and with Kate when Daisy, Jack, or Maddox got into something at their house. We knew that as soon as Logan started getting into everything they would understand, but now it looks like they're going to really be baptized into it with fire.

They've also had plenty of date nights, something that comes very rarely for me and Nick, simply because they have one (immobile) grandchild to watch, where we have 3 very active ones. Nick said several weeks ago that he had the feeling that once Logan was up and into everything that the baby sitting offers would dry up pretty quickly.

Kelly called me today to talk to me about getting the same maternity coverage I had with Jack since their policy doesn't have maternity benefits. I think they should qualify, which would be great, so she can keep her same doctor. Dr. E delivered all three of mine, as well as Logan, and she will deliver Faith's baby in November, our friend Melanie's in December, and Kate used to see her when she lived here. She also was Faith's doctor during her pregnancy last year that ended in miscarriage. She's really an awesome OBGYN, and I was a little sad when I went back for my six week visit after Jack was born because I knew she'd seen me through my last pregnancy.

I've been doing a bit of crafting lately, which is always good for me. I made Daisy nine little skirts to take to Texas with us, and a 10th one a couple of days ago. Then yesterday I made the one for the lady at church. It's actually for her granddaughter who lives out  of state. Her family will be coming in for a visit this weekend, and she'll try it on her then to see if the fit needs to be adjusted, and then she wants four more. My mother-in-law's birthday was last week, and I made her a necklace, bracelet, and earring set, as well as a couple of leather brooches. I also made a taggie blanket for my friend Elizabeth's neighbor, and I had a pillow cover order last week. My friend Denise just started an Etsy shop selling handmade earrings, and her birthday is coming up, so I've made her a bunch of earring cards in zebra print (her shop theme) to mail off to her. And Elizabeth's birthday was this week, and she's requested a couple of hair accessories, so that's next.

I'm missing Nick a lot. It seems like it's been ages since we've had any alone time, and if I'm honest I'm feeling the need to feel some boundaries. I'm at that too familiar place where I think the best thing for me would be a hard spanking, but I don't really have a way to make that happen short of purposefully doing something to make him mad, and I'm not willing to do that. There are surely things he could pick to deal with me about, but he's been really busy himself, and I'm trying to stay aware of that.

Anyway, it's time for me to head to bed, so I'll say goodnight.

Yes or No Meme

This one came from Bas, Sunny, PK, and about 50 other people, so I'm jumping on. :)

Have you ever:

Shot a gun?  Yes
Watched someone die?  No
Served on a jury?  No, but I was called once. They excused me though because Morgan was a baby, and I worked nights, so I was the only one there to watch her during the day.
Flown on a plane?  Yes
Swam in the ocean?  Yes
Cried yourself to sleep?  Yes
Been camping in a trailer/RV? Yes
Rode on an elephant?   No, but I watched James ride one at the zoo when he was about 2.
Rode on a camel?  No
Been lost?  Yes
Eaten just cookies or cake for dinner?  Yes
Been on TV?  No, well unless you count congregation shots of our old church, whose services used to be aired locally.
Been on the Radio?  Yes, once when I requested a song for Nick.
Been in a car accident?  Yes, probably close to a dozen, although most were not my fault, I wasn't driving in all of them, and only one was serious.
Donated Blood?  Yes
Got a speeding ticket within the last 12 mos.?  No
Gotten a piercing (not ears)?  Yes, I had my belly button pierced many years ago before we were married, but it came out when I started showing in my pregnancy with Morgan.
Gotten a tattoo?  Yes
Flew in a hot air balloon?  No, but I've always wanted to.
Flew in a helicopter?  No, but again I always wanted to. Nick was going to have us taken up for a trip over the mountains several years ago around our anniversary, but the weather turned nasty.
Gone parasailing?  No, but it always looks like great fun.
Been on a jet ski, snowmobile or dune buggy?  Yes, a jet ski. I've never even seen a snowmobile - we never get enough snow here to warrant one. And I've never ridden in a dune buggy, but I rode in numerous go karts as a kid.
 

So it was a long day...

Today was a long day. It started out with Morgan missing the bus. This is far from the first time this has happened, but I can't blame it entirely on her. Apparently she asked me multiple times if I would drive her in, and in my fairly unconscious state I agreed. Of course I have no recollection at all of this. What I do recall is her waking me again at 7:42 asking if I was ready to take her. The bus leaves at about 7:45. I was still trying to fight my way out of sleep, and had no idea what she was talking about. And of course Jack (whom she had brought up a little while earlier) was sound asleep on my arm. Poor little guy has been feeling puny the last few days, and I had no intention of dragging him out for no good reason.

Anyway, I sent her out the door, but the bus was pulling away without her as she walked out. Honestly I didn't feel awake enough to safely drive her, and like I said, I didn't want to get Jack out, so I had her ask her best friend Lola's grandmother across the street (Lola lives with her) to take her in. That sounds really presumptuous when I write it, but she leaves about that time of morning anyway, and we help each other out frequently when one or the other of us needs help with the kids. Anyway, she was kind enough to help me out, which I made sure to call and thank her for later in the day.

Daisy spent the night with my parents last night (it was her first sleepover without her sister I think). She's still battling her virus, but I think my mom wanted to give me a break since Jack is not feeling well either. He's been dealing with digestive issues since he's recently switched over to whole milk (as opposed to formula), plus he's had a fever off and on and seems like he might have picked up what Daisy has.

Daisy has also been dealing with problems with her teeth. This is something that runs in my family. My dad told me that his dentist told him that he has calcium deposits in his teeth that make them weaker and more prone to cavities. I've had to have extensive work myself. 

When Morgan was five she had enough problems that they wanted to send her to the local children's hospital so she could be put to sleep and have all the work done at once. We were ready to do it, but the balance not covered by insurance was due up front. It was $1800, and they wouldn't take payments. Unfortunately we just didn't have it, so we had to pass on the procedures. We're paying for it now as she's had about 5 appointments for fillings so far this year.

Anyway, Daisy has multiple problem teeth (we brush, I swear!), and when we took her to the dentist she was too scared to even let him properly examine her. Even with that he could see several things that need to be addressed. The only real option is to go the children's hospital route again, so at that visit plans were made to submit the request to her insurance. They told me it would take about 30 days to hear back. At the time she wasn't having any pain, so we waited. And waited. And waited. And a couple of weeks ago she started occasionally complaining that something sweet would make her tooth hurt. Then this week it suddenly got much worse. To the point that she's having problems eating much of anything that isn't super soft and lukewarm.

I called the dentist's office yesterday. It's been a couple of months since that first visit, but it turns out that their initial request for pre-approval was inexplicably rejected. They resubmitted it (which is what took so long), and had coincidentally just gotten back an approval that day. It's the same situation this time around, only this time the balance due is $1200. Fortunately my parents are able to let us borrow the money, and the office is going to call the hospital in the morning to schedule a date. The worrisome part is that they told us the average wait time is two weeks to a month. Please be in prayer that they can get her in much sooner, because I can't imagine her having to suffer through this for very long.

My dad brought her home about 12:30 today, and she napped a lot of the afternoon. Then about 3:40 I got a call. It was Morgan (who should have been on the bus by this time). She was calling to tell me the strap on her sandal had broken and asking if I would come pick her up since she had missed the bus (because she didn't want to ride it with a broken shoe and went to call me instead of getting on the bus like she should have). Okay, this really pissed me off, because, good grief, why would she think me coming to get her would be any better than just riding the freaking bus home?! Anyway, I had to load both sick littles up and drive to school to get her. 

We've dealt with the bus issue multiple times. She hates riding the bus because she doesn't like some of the kids on there. And we've checked and double checked that it's not a situation where anyone is hurting her or threatening her. That we would definitely be on top of. It's really just random kids being obnoxious (and not just to her), and like it or not, there are jerks everywhere, and she just has to learn to deal with them. Profanity and typical junior high boys humor bothers her, but she's going to face that one way or another. Nick and I have talked about it, and we both feel that just so long as it's not directed at her or manifesting itself in bullying, it's best for her to learn to handle herself, knowing that if she faces anything that needs adult attention she can most certainly come to us for support. 

I opted not to go to church tonight with two sick babies, and instead spent the time trying to unbury my kitchen table from underneath my crafting supplies, but it was a swim upstream between Jack and Daisy. Nick goes straight to church from work on Wednesdays, and today was Faith's birthday, which meant cake and ice cream after the service. All of this put him coming home around 9:00, and man was I glad to see him!

Anyway, at then end of the day, I'm awfully glad I got to be here for my kiddos (even the one that can't seem to catch a bus!), and I'm happy to haven gotten to put a hot meal in front of my amazing, hardworking husband. And now I'm happy everyone is asleep. :)

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, everyone! It's just a few hours into this blessed day, and I'm headed up to bed in a few minutes, but I wanted to put up a quick post. I've found that this blog has been such a resource to me as a record of our lives, and I hate going too long without posting. (Not that I don't sometimes go too long, but I just hate when I do).

There was a little excitement earlier this week. Wednesday night at church my mom mentioned that she'd like to keep the kids for me for a few hours the next day so that I could have some time alone for housework or whatever else I needed, and Nick mentioned that he was planning to participate in a ride with a local bicycle shop the next day after work. So Thursday I took the kids up to my parents' house around 2:00. I expected to have them back home around 8:00, so I dropped them off and headed to the Dollar Tree to do some last minute Easter basket shopping. I was on the hunt for some of these sunglasses for Morgan.

These are apparently the sunglasses to have among the 6th grade set, and she's collected about 6 different pairs so far. They're not terribly expensive most places, but when I heard about the Dollar Tree stocking them with their spring stuff I immediately made plans to blow ten bucks on becoming the coolest mom EVER. Unfortunately several trips to different locations only yielded a single lonely pair.

Anyway, besides the point. I had finished my nearly fruitless shopping trip and was almost back home, looking forward to a few hours to spend cleaning house kid free and coming up with a tasty dinner, when my mom called. She said that Daisy was sick, running a fever and saying over and over that she was "so tired", not at all typical for my rambunctious three year old. My dad would be bringing them all home shortly, so with a sigh I headed on home myself.

When they got home she was running a fever, but it kept fluctuating between 100.4 and 102.8. She was also very lethargic. I put in a call to her pediatrician's after hours line and waited for a call back. When the nurse on call rang, I explained that she had a fever and seemed really lethargic, and asked if I needed to go ahead and treat the fever or if I needed to maybe bring her in. She'd fallen asleep by then, so with the nurse on the line I tried to wake her. She would open her eyes, but she wouldn't engage with me, and she kept going back to sleep. I could tell she was sick, but I wasn't really expecting the nurse's emphatic advice to call 911.

Honestly, it didn't seem quite that serious to me, but her reaction certainly ratcheted up my concern, so I called Morgan back home from where she was playing next door so she could watch Jack. I tried to call Nick, then remembered that he was on his bike ride and probably would be out of touch. I called my mom, who was stuck at home with only my dad's old truck, which she's not great at driving. She called my dad and Robert, who were out doing church visitation. I also tried to call my in-laws to come stay with  the kids, but my MIL thought it was Morgan calling and didn't answer because she was busy.

My dad called me in the car and told me he and Robert would meet me at the hospital. Then finally my dad reached Nick who immediately called me. By this time Daisy was awake and talking, although she still felt obviously unwell. When we got to the hospital I met my dad and brother and got her checked in at the ER. Her vitals were all great, and the ER staff seemed a little surprised that I'd brought her in. Anyway, long story a tiny bit shorter, it turned out she has some sort of virus, and they sent us home with instructions to treat it with fluids, rest, and ibuprofen for the next 5-7 days.

Meanwhile, I had told Nick to just go home to the kids (since I had been unable to reach anyone to come watch them). He arrived home to find my mom (who had managed to get the truck running and in gear) sweeping the living room and his dad and stepmom entertaining Jack. They had dropped by on their own and were terribly upset to find out that the call they hadn't answered was me calling for help. Anyway, it all ended well, although our girl is still feeling under the weather.

Today (er, yesterday I guess) Morgan and I went to an Arbonne party at our friend Melanie's house. There were free foot baths and facials, and the consultant turned out to be a girl I went to school with for 11 years but that I hadn't seen in about 18. Melanie also asked me to bring some of my Etsy inventory, and I sold $20 worth, a nice little bonus.

Jack is walking quite well now, and he just gets cuter every day! It's hard to believe he'll be 15 months old on Tuesday. I gave the kids their Easter baskets tonight, and he was so adorable exploring his. Most of what was in all of them was thrift store stuff, but they were all so grateful and thrilled with it all!

Tomorrow (well, today) we will go to church, then to Nick's grandmother's house for Easter dinner. It will be her first without Nick's grandfather, and I think it will be a little sad for all of us. It's a sweet thing to know though, that because our Savior rose that first Easter, we will see him again!

Anyway, I'm off to bed - may you all have a blessed day!

100 Random Facts

I've done a post like a couple of times before, but I had fun with it, so I thought I'd do it again, and see if I can come up with 100 all new ones. I'm not all that interesting myself, so they won't all be about me. :)

1. Jack is addicted to Yo Gabba Gabba.

2. I can't decide if I really like the show or am totally creeped out by it.

3. I think 2 of the characters look like sex toys.

4. And that DJ Lance Rock guy looks like a French tickler.

5. My Macbook came about a week and a half ago and I loooove it.
6. My mom and dad watched Jack and Daisy for me Thursday while Morgan was at school.
7. Because of this, I was able to finish cleaning Jack and Daisy's room.
8. This was a huge relief for me, because if I hadn't finished it by today I was going to get a serious spanking.
9. I love to read, but I hadn't been to the library since 2001.
10. We went and took the kids for their first time yesterday.
11. Nick found out why I hadn't been in so long when he had to pay my outstanding late fees (from 12 years ago!)
12. He was less than happy about it.
13. He's planning to spank me for it, but we've not had kid free time to deal with it as of yet.
14. In the meme I did like this last April I mentioned a house we'd love to be able to someday buy. The owner's son called Nick yesterday and told him it looks like his mom has decided to put it on the market.
15. There are a number of obstacles standing in the way of us buying it.
16. First we would have to sell our house.
17. The house we want is also worth more than ours, so our house payment would increase.
18. Despite all this, I know that if this is the house God has for us, He will make a way.
19. We would really appreciate your prayers that His will be done in this situation, and that we are faithful in praising Him even if His plan doesn't include this house for us.
20. When I got the Macbook from Kate, there were a bunch of pictures on there they didn't realize were still on there, and when I installed Picasa, it pulled them all up.
21. None of them were questionable, but they did include some scans of paperwork from when they bought their house, including the details of Will's monthly income.
22. The figures left me a little lightheaded.
23. I don't feel so bad about the amount of money they spend on us for Christmas anymore!
24. My best friend Ann, who was diagnosed with Friedreich's Ataxia 6 years ago, had to quit her job and apply for disability benefits a little over a week ago. Her doctor also ordered her a wheelchair as her cane is no longer sufficient.
25. I'm heartbroken that it's already reached this point for her, but grateful that she has a supportive husband and will be able to spend this time home with her kids.
26. I'm also, selfishly, glad that she will have time free for us to visit each other.
27. She lives about an hour away, and I've only seen her a couple of times since Jack was born, so I'm really excited that she plans on coming to visit me this week. (Before anyone thinks I'm too awful, I offered to go to her house, but she wanted to come here).
28. I'm planning on taking Jack and Daisy up to church camp with Nick and Morgan this summer and staying all week.
29. When Ann called me a couple of weeks ago to tell me she was quitting her job, I shared this plan with her.
30. She told me she was possibly planning to come and stay with me all week.
31. I might have screamed like a preteen girl at a One Direction concert at this news.
32. I get excited every time I think about it, and it's going to take some serious getting over for me if it doesn't happen.
33. Ann and I practically lived at each other's houses in our late teens, and we were each other's maid/matron of honor.
34. I've had a number of close girlfriends over the years, but none like her.
35. Daisy has pretty much mastered potty training now.
36. As she turned 3 five months ago, it seemed like we were never going to get there.
37. The one (very important) thing she still needs to conquer is using a regular toilet.
38. Right now she's convinced she'll fall in, even with a child size seat attached, so we're kind of dependent on the "small potty" right now.
39. Jack slept in his own bed all night last night!
40. Unfortunately he took a long Sunday afternoon (into evening) nap with me, so there was no putting him down at his regular bedtime tonight.
41. Daisy was super excited to go to the "lye-berry", especially when she saw that they had a giant stuffed bear in the children's section and two Llama Llama books she'd never seen.
42. Jack was more interested in exploring.

43. At 14 months, he weighs 18 pounds and is officially too tall for 6 month sleepers.
44. I just got him these shoes for Easter at Target, and the cuteness is killing me!

45. Daisy has this toy monkey she named "Mr. Bananners", and I challenge anyone to hear her say his name without smiling.
46. I have a craft show coming up in less than two weeks.
47. I'm hoping that my in-laws will take the two littles for the day again so I can work on adding to my inventory.
48. I've been making lots of wire wrapped glass pearl rings and ribbon hair bows, as well as rings, headbands, brooches, necklaces, and bracelets using leather pieces.
49. If we were to get that house, I would have an actual craft room.
50. I don't let myself think about that too much, because I don't want to get too attached to the idea in case it never happens.
51. I worry a little about how we would transport our giant chest full of paddles, straps, canes, etc. if we move. Last time we moved was 12 years ago, and our collection was considerably smaller.
52. We have a Pack N Play we used with Daisy that we put on Craigslist the other day. It's been packed away in our garage for about a year. It was clean when I put it away, so when a lady wanted to buy it, I encouraged her to open it up and inspect it.
53. I was horrified and embarrassed to find that there had apparently been something spilled on the garage floor that had soaked through the storage bag and badly stained the webbing on the sides.
54. The lady (understandably) passed on it.
55. I'm going to try to clean off whatever is on it with bleach, but that's the last time I assume anything has stayed clean while in storage!
56. A few days ago when I was cleaning Jack and Daisy's room I came across an audio book I got in the free bin at my favorite used bookstore. I nearly tossed it because I've had it for years and I'm never in the car long enough at one time to make listening to it enjoyable.
57. Nick happened to pick it up and pop the first CD in one morning on his way to work.
58. He'd never tried audio books before, but now he's on his 3rd one, and he just checked 4 more out at the library.
59. He said it's made his commute (about 45 minutes there and about an hour back) much better.
60. When my Macbook came the other day, the box also included not only Jack's car seat, but also Daisy's birthday present, which included 3 outfits, a headband, and a swimsuit (her birthday's not till October, but Kate said she already had it, so she just sent it), a toy truck for Jack, and a couple of life jackets that had been at their lake house before they sold it.
61. I'm really grateful they shipped all of that to us, because the box probably weighed 60 pounds.
62. I was super excited to find out that I can check out books from the library using my Kindle.
63. Morgan is currently grounded for her grades.
64. She's really smart, but she's pretty lazy about school.
65. She gets that from her dad. ;)
66. To be fair, she gets her tendency toward a messy room from me.
67. Her dad grew up to be one of the hardest working people I know, so I'm holding out hope for her.
68. I talked to Kate the other day, and she's going through the exact same thing with Kit, which makes me feel a little better.
69. A guy at Nick's job just quit, which means one less person to split the team's earnings with.
70. Nick hated to see the guy go, but he was happy to have what was in effect, a pay raise. We really hope they don't hire anyone to replace him.
71. Randomly enough, Nick's boss hired a masseuse to come in to work and give everyone a 15 minute massage. He had his a couple of weeks ago.
72. I follow a lot of craft bloggers.
73. Recently, a bunch of them started truncating their posts due to site scrapers (people who steal blog content to take advantage of your search engine hits). This means that you only get the first few sentences in your RSS reader, and you have to go to the actual blog to read the rest of the post.
74. I understand where they're coming from (I've been a victim myself in the past), but I really, really hate it.
75. I have several hundred blogs in my RSS reader, and I don't have the time or the desire to click through on every single post, so I've unfollowed most of the blogs that do this.
76. I may have had to add word verification back on, but I promise to continue to give you full access to each post via RSS.
77. I can NOT seem to get in bed on time.
78. Every other Friday Nick, Jack, Daisy, and I attend our church's Senior Saints meeting. This is a ministry geared toward the senior crowd, but about 20% of the people there are under 40. There's a message followed by a meal, and we always enjoy both.
79. Three years ago I could not have imagined my husband volunteering to attend a non-Sunday church service on his day off.
80. For that matter, I could not have imagined me doing it either.
81. God has grown Nick's heart in such an amazing way in the last few years, and I'm overwhelmingly blessed by him as my husband every day.
82. Nick regularly runs the sound booth at church, drives the church van, and helps with youth events. He's also the first to jump up and help clean up after a meal in the life center.
83. I try to make it a point to tell him how much I appreciate all he does, but I wanted to say it here too.
84. After my post the other day mentioning his broken closet door, Nick went to the hardware store and bought a new latch. He fixed it yesterday.
85. This morning we got to church and realized we had forgotten to bring a bottle for Jack. I ran to Target to pick him one up along with some milk and got distracted by the huge wall of hilarious greeting cards they now carry. I couldn't tarry too long, but I spotted quite a few lightly kinky ones, so I bet if you had the time you could find a few spanky ones in there.
86. Two years ago I bought Nick a spanking themed Valentine's card, but I lost my nerve and never gave it to him. It's still in a drawer upstairs. Maybe next year.
87. This is the first year we've watched The Biggest Loser, and we're really into it.
88. I've not, however, watched any of Downton Abbey, although I feel like I should have.
89. I would like for you guys to pray for something (else) for me. We tithe on a regular basis, but it seems like we rarely have anything extra to give to others. My prayer is that God will provide us both means and opportunity, as well as the wisdom and the right heart to help someone in the coming weeks. It may be something small, but it sure would do my heart good!
90. I'm going to give myself a couple of weeks, till I'm past my craft show before I start, but my tentative plan is to cut out tea/sodas on weekdays. I did that just before I got pregnant with Daisy and lost 10 pound in a couple of months without putting any real effort into it.
91. Daisy has a fabulous imagination, and I love watching her play. She has an imaginary friend named "Pretend Layla Friend". A few weeks ago she used her iPad to take a picture of a wall at church. She showed me the shot later and told me it was a picture she had taken of Pretend Layla Friend. The next shot in the gallery was Daisy standing against the same wall with her arm draped convincingly around thin air. This one was a picture of her with Pretend Layla Friend. :)
92. Morgan got her contacts last week, and she's getting better every day at putting them in and taking them out.
93. This is a good thing, because she missed the bus twice last week because it took her so long to get them in.
94. Morgan has started eating healthier and going on walks to get in better shape.
95. This leaves me as the lone couch potato, but I want to change that. As soon as it warms up just a little, I want to start going on walks again.
96. When I was 19 I used to walk 7 miles a day up and down hills.
97. I lost almost 70 pounds doing this.
98. 70 pounds was too much to lose, but at some point I lost my perspective.
99. Looking back on pictures of me then, I think I looked ill. After we got married I gained about 20 pounds and looked much better.
100. I'd like to get back to what I weighed in the first year of our marriage.

Birthdays and babies...

Well here's a novelty - 4 posts in one month! So, not a whole lot going on here this week, which is actually a nice change. :)

Daisy's 3rd birthday is next Friday, so I've been sewing and crafting for that. Money is short right now, but fortunately she's too young to not still be impressed with handmade things. :) We did buy her a baby doll, this one to be exact:

I've been busy making her accessories to go with it, including a diaper bag, changing pad, bib, burp cloth, wipes case (complete with wipes cut from an old pillow case), extra diaper (just one so far, but I want to make more), and baby ring sling. None of it's really professional grade, but I think she'll like it all.

We also have her another doll. I almost hate to tell the story behind this one, but here goes. Several weeks ago there was this random dog that had the run of the neighborhood. Nobody knows where he came from, but he was pretty much a nuisance (and I'm not a person who minds dogs running loose just so long as they're well behaved). One day I happened to go outside and there was this dog in our yard with a naked Our Generation doll in his mouth. It's hard to be sure without the clothes, but I think it was this one. Anyway, I grabbed the doll and shooed him away, thinking I was rescuing it for some poor little neighbor girl.

The thing is, I've not been able to find who it belongs to. Morgan is friends with about all the girls in our subdivision, and none of them have claimed it. So it seems to be looking for a home. It was pretty much undamaged, just a barely split seam under the right arm, and no teeth marks at all, so I think he must have not had it for long when I found him. I ran it through the washing machine, then managed to get the hair straightened out using some of the girls' detangler (although pulling her in and out of the hall closet to show everybody but Daisy what I've done with her has been hell on the hair). Then I went to work on some clothes.

I had some sweet pink paisley corduroy that I'd been hoarding saving for something special, so I made Daisy and the doll matching skirts. I added some decorative stitching in black around the hem on each. Then I found black t-shirts on clearance for $2.50 at Wal-Mart. I grabbed 3 - one for Daisy, one for the doll, and an extra (because you can never have too many plain t-shirts for a little girl). I was quite proud of myself, because I managed to follow this pattern, and make a little black shirt for the doll to match Daisy's, even managing to reuse the trim on the neckline and sleeves (I promise the sleeves are even, but one was bunched up in the picture).

Then I followed this tutorial using one of a pair of Dollar Tree knee socks and made her an adorable pair of argyle tights. Now if only I could find some matching ones for Daisy! Wal-Mart has just come out with a new line of 18" dolls, and the accessories are really inexpensive, so for $1.99 I was able to finish the outfit off with a pair of black mary janes.

                                  (Please ignore my messy craft area)
I also made them both matching headbands in two different styles. One is a big ruffled flower on an elastic band, and the other is a pink and black woven headband. A few months ago I found blank plastic headbands to fit 18" dolls for $4.49/dozen here, and I'm really tickled with how they came out.

Anyway, that's the totally redneck story of what I'm affectionately calling "The Yard Doll", but I really do think she'll love it. Morgan has about 7 of these dolls, including two real live American Girl dolls (one from her Aunt Kate and one that she saved up for), and Daisy is always wanting to play with them. She has a cheap one of her own that I got on clearance at Wal-Mart a while back, but when one falls in my lap for free I can hardly turn it down.

Potty training is going abominably. Morgan was almost three when she potty trained, but she wasn't this close! The sad part is, I think she was ready last winter, but we wanted to wait till after Jack was born and she was used to having a new baby in the house before we tried. Then we knew we were going to Georgia at the end of July, and we didn't want to put a newly trained toddler through a nine hour car trip, so we waited again. At least I can take comfort in knowing that her cousin Maddox is 4 months older than her and still not 100% on it himself.

We keep expecting to get a call from Nick's sister Kelly any time now. Her due date is next Thursday. Her birthday is actually Saturday, so we're kind of thinking it might happen then, if only because it seems to run in the family. Her dad was born the day after his mom's birthday, and Morgan was born on Nick's birthday. For that matter, Daisy was due the day after my birthday, but she came a couple of weeks early.

Anyway, that's the randomness that's happening here. Hope you guys are having a great Autumn!

Catching up

Holy crap! How did almost a month go by? Life here has been trundling along as usual. Jack is still doing great. He's somewhere around 11 pounds now, probably a bit over. I take him for his next checkup next Tuesday, so they'll weigh him then. I'm still able to squeeze him in most of his newborn clothes, but I won't be able to for much longer.

Our dishwasher finally came. I got my dad to come over and install it while Nick was at work, and it works just great. It's wonderful to not have to do them by hand anymore!

There have been a couple of spankings promised, although none delivered since the one I posted about last month.

Memorial Day Kelly and Grant hosted the whole family for a cookout and pool party. This is the first year Daisy has really been old enough to enjoy a swimming pool, and she's absolutely enthralled. I think I mentioned that Kelly is expecting a baby in October (the day before Daisy's birthday actually), and they found out it's a boy, so Jack will have a little boy cousin his age to pal around with growing up! :)

Morgan went on her Safety Patrol trip to Washington DC this past weekend and had a good time for the most part. Unfortunately the other 5th grade girls in her room were all apparently obsessed with sex, and she was really uncomfortable with a lot of their conversation, as well as some of the games the other girls played (mostly things like french kissing inanimate objects, etc, harmless stuff really, but still inappropriate). This has Nick and I both disturbed, although I do feel like it's a good thing that she feels comfortable coming to us and telling us it upset her. I've tried to keep the lines of communication open to her for any questions she has about puberty, sex, etc. I know that realistically, if she has questions, she'll get the answers somewhere, and I would rather it be from me than from classmates with questionable morals, or heaven forbid certain sites online. I just don't remember being nearly so obsessed with things like that as a fifth grader, but times have apparently changed.

My dad wants me to contact the school board, but honestly, all that will accomplish is making her a target. The school year is over, so the school board can't really address the issue anyway, especially since all of these girls have now left elementary and will be going to the middle school next year. I talked with Morgan about it, and gave her some ideas of responses she can use if she's ever in that situation again, and told her how proud of her I am for knowing what kinds of conversations/games are not appropriate for her age, and for standing her ground even though the other girls gave her a hard time about it.

This week she's at church camp, and this year Nick went along as a counselor. It really surprised me when he volunteered, because he's just not the type of guy to feel comfortable in that kind of job, but he's been having a blast. Morgan didn't get back from DC until yesterday evening, so I had to take her up to camp myself, and then I took Daisy and Jack back tonight to join them for the evening meal and service.

Money has been incredibly tight the last few weeks (sadly I'm going to miss girl's night out for the first time this Thursday), but God has been providing the things we need, even if we haven't had room for extras.

I did get to do something really neat a few weeks ago. A while back I was at my friend Denise's house and noticed a painting in her kitchen. I asked if she had done it; it turned out that she had, at one of those group painting classes where a teacher walks you through each step. I mentioned that I had always wished I could paint and would love to try a class like that some time myself. A couple of weeks later she surprised me with tickets, and we had a great girls night out, just the two of us! Usually everybody in the class paints the same thing, but she took me on a painter's choice night where you could choose from any scene offered that month. She let me pick for both of us, and I chose these adorable owls to hang in the girls' room. Not exactly sophisticated subject matter, but I know my limits, and it was perfect for its intended home. I really, really want to go back and do it with Nick. He's the artist in the family, and he'd totally kick my butt at it, but I know we'd both have a blast.

Anyway, that's what's been happening around here. How are things with you guys?

Crazy, busy, blessed life

Gosh, I can’t believe it’s been 11 days since I posted! Ah well, it’s been a busy couple of weeks. The last time I posted was right after Nick’s car accident. Let’s see…

The next day (Wednesday) we had an appointment to have an inspector come look at our roof. There was no real reason for this other than that the company called offering free inspections and there have been some pretty bad storms in the area in the last year. We really weren’t expecting any sort of bad news, but it turns out that we had an actual hole in the roof about 6 inches in diameter, along with various other damaged spots. The roofing guy made it sound like it was the worst roof he’s ever seen, which naturally worried me a bit. I called my father-in-law (who is head of construction at a large hospital in our area), and he came over to check it out after the guy left.

The hole in the roof does indeed exist, but it’s on the edge of the eave. While it does need to be fixed, it’s not as urgent as the roofer made it sound. My FIL did a temporary repair with sheet metal, and we’ll have to see if we can get the insurance to pay for a new roof. The issue there is that we had to get a new insurance company a couple of months ago. The damage on the roof seems to be clearly from prior to that time, so we’re going to have to try to get the old company to pay for the repairs/replacement. Just another thing we’ve got to leave in God’s capable hands.

Thanksgiving was that Thursday. Ours was nice. We spent it at my parents’ house, as we do most years. Afterwards Nick and my brothers went hunting while Morgan, Daisy, Kelly, Faith, and I went to a local Christmas tree festival. This is something I’ve attended a number of times over the years, and my mother-in-law’s co-worker got us free tickets, which was very nice. It did turn out to be pretty exhausting (the perils of hauling a two year old around while 7 months pregnant), but it was a good way to get into the Christmas spirit.

Thursday was also the day I was supposed to get the final payment for the wedding Nick and I shot in October. We were actually supposed to be paid the previous week, but the bride asked if we could wait till she got paid again on Thanksgiving, and I agreed. This was the money I was counting on to pay our electric bill. Because it was Thanksgiving day I texted the bride and told her I’d be happy to wait till the next day if she needed me to. She texted me back saying that she would be out of town till Friday night and asking if she could pay me the following Thursday when they got paid yet again. Unfortunately I had extended our electric bill final notice as far as possible after the bride couldn’t pay me the first time, and the coming Monday was the last day we had to pay before disconnection. I explained this to her and she said she would try to come up with the money by Saturday.

Saturday she texted me and asked me to meet her to get the money at 2PM the next day. But the next day she called me and told me that she wasn’t going to be able to pay me that weekend after all. At that point I told her that I understood and that I would just be praying about it, and I asked her to please call me if she was able to come up with the money. A few hours later she called and said she had $200 (of the $300 due) and asked me to meet her. While it wasn’t quite enough to pay the electric bill, it was certainly better than nothing, so I headed out to meet her. When I got there she had the whole $300. I don’t know how or where they came up with it, but it was certainly a relief to be able to put it in the bank and pay the electric bill the next day!

The next hurdle on the horizon was the house payment. The very last day it could be paid without being late enough to go on our credit report was this past Wednesday. You know, there have been many times in the last couple of years especially that we’ve been in a relatively desperate situation financially, and God has come through for us. Every. Single. Time.

But this time, although I knew He would provide, I was completely stymied as to how He was going to do it. There just seemed to be nothing at all on the horizon, especially considering Nick’s car wreck, the whole roof issue, and the fact that his next paycheck looked to be shaping up to be pretty short due to the holiday (and resulting lack of customers at his job).

On Tuesday the car insurance guy came out to do the adjustment on Nick’s car. He not only totaled it out (the best possible outcome for us), but he gave us about $2000 more for it than we expected. This allowed us to pay the house payment as well as supplement Nick’s paycheck as we needed to for the rest of the bills. We still have some money left to put down on another vehicle for Nick. My dad recently bought a used truck at auction for a good price, and he’s told us that he’s willing to sell it to Nick for what he has in it. We’re still praying about whether or not this is the direction God wants us to go, but He has been so amazingly good to us, and I know He will lead us the right way!
On Wednesday my friend Elizabeth had her baby – a beautiful, perfect 5 lb 12 oz girl! She’s tiny, but oh so beautiful with tons of gorgeous dark hair. Elizabeth was just 8 weeks ahead of me, and I can’t believe my own pregnancy is getting so far along!

Thursday I went in for my 30 week appointment, and I’ll go back on the 14th for another ultrasound. Friday I went in to see Elizabeth and the baby and took her hospital pictures for her. It was so awesome to get to snuggle that precious baby girl, and it just made me ache to have little Jack in my arms!

Tonight was Nick’s company Christmas party. This was the first year he didn’t win any prizes, but it was so much fun to get to dress up and have a date night with my hubby! We also got to go see a movie this past Sunday. We hadn’t been to see a movie in a theater since May of last year, so when my mom offered to watch the kids, we jumped on the chance. We still had the movie gift card Nick got for his birthday in 2010, so it was completely free except for $4.00 toward the drink we shared (seriously – $5.75 for a drink! You’d better bet we got a refill!). We saw Hugo in 3D, and it was a really neat movie.

Anyway, this has been a crazy long post, so I’ll save the ABC’s of Gratitude and the pregnancy update for the next one.

Blessed nonetheless…

It’s been a stressful few days. Sunday the baby was very, very inactive. As in I didn’t feel him moving for about 22 hours. Now this happened with Morgan too, and they had me go in for monitoring. I’m nearly 29 weeks along, and I’m at the point where I should be able to count kicks a few times a day and get 10 movements within an hour. So I called my doctor, and sure enough she sent me down to the women’s pavilion at the hospital for monitoring. As it turned out, he was just fine, and once they hooked up the monitors he woke right up, so they sent me home pretty soon. Yesterday and today he’s been quite active, and in fact is rolling around in there right now.

Yesterday I realized that the function keys on my laptop were no longer working. This wasn’t a huge big deal since there’s a work around for almost all of them, but the major problem was that I had no way to disable my touchpad. This was a real issue because my cursor had developed some crazy level of sensitivity, jumping around constantly during typing and making it a huge pain in the butt to write an email or blog. It kept jumping back to earlier on the page and causing me to type in the middle of a word or even highlighting sections and causing me to type over and delete them.

I wanted to be able to disable to touchpad while my mouse was plugged in, or at least decrease the sensitivity so that it wouldn’t read every little accidental brush as a click, but the computer repair guy had not reinstalled the controls for my touchpad when he reinstalled Windows 7. I gave him a call and he asked me to bring it back down. I took it back in this morning on my way to get Daisy’s hair cut, and they called me before the end of the day to say that it was done. I picked it up and he had reinstalled the touchpad controls and set it to disable the touchpad only when the mouse is plugged in, which is what I wanted.

He also opened up the keyboard to make sure all the cords inside were properly seated and discovered that someone (cough, Daisy) had spilled something on the keyboard. Not sure what it was, but fortunately it had missed all the critical parts and dried quite harmlessly. There was again no charge for this trip, and I really think I’m finally done with repairs.

We also had them look at Nick’s laptop the other day, and they were able to get it operational again, but we will have to wait to pick it for a few weeks because we don’t have the $149 to cover the repair fee.

Tonight Nick called home about 6:00 to tell me that he’d been in a car accident. He’s okay, thank God, but it wasn’t a pretty picture. No one at all was hurt, but his foot apparently slipped off the clutch and he slammed pretty hard into the car in front of him, causing a chain reaction of rear-end collisions including 5 cars counting his.

My parents were due to pick Morgan up for church soon when he called, so I called and asked them to come on down so I could go pick him up. Daisy was asleep, and we left Morgan in charge of her for the 10 minutes it took my parents to get there while I headed out to get him. It was a really awful rainy night, and I’m just so thankful it wasn’t worse. He was pretty shaken up, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. When I got there the wrecker service had already arrived for him, and the wrecker driver was one of his good friends from high school, which gave him a bit of a distraction.

We do have full coverage insurance, and the cop didn’t ticket him for anything, probably due to the awful road conditions. I know the accident will be written up as his fault, but his tags were also expired, and the cop didn’t seem to notice. It’s not something we were neglecting – in fact we had planned to get them renewed last week, but we ended up having to pay for my computer repairs first so that I could finish the wedding photos.

Car accidents always feel like the end of the world to me for some reason, even when they aren’t serious, but I know that God is still in control, and He certainly had His hand on Nick’s safety. And we’re fortunate to have two vehicles, so it won’t be a problem for Nick to get to work and back until his is repaired (if it can be repaired). Actually, it might even be better if they would just total it out. We own it outright, so that way we wouldn’t have to pay out the $500 deductible, but could instead just take the payment for it (less the deductible) and put it toward getting him something else. In fact, he’d been seriously considering selling it to get a pickup truck for a while. Since the Xterra was too small to fit all three kids in, we’ll be taking the Sequoia everywhere as a family anyway once the baby’s here, so it makes going with a much needed pickup for him to drive daily a feasible prospect.
I guess this post is just to remind me that even in the middle of all these little and big crises, God is still right here taking care of us. In fact, since I’ve been such an awful slacker about it, it would be a good time to list a few more things I’m thankful for:
O, P, & Q:

• Orgasms – enough said on that one!
• Orange Italian Ice – yes, I know I listed this one under “I” too, but I really love it!
• Old friends – like the one who drove the wrecker tonight, and the one we had a visit from last week. That one was one of Nick’s best men when we got married (he had 2), and we hadn’t seen him in ages, so it was great to get to catch up. I also got to visit with one of my old friends from high school about a week and a half ago, and it was such a fun day of girl talk and crafting!
• Ordinary days – where nothing much happens, but nothing much goes wrong either
• Pasta – I know, I know carbs, carbs, carbs. But I do love it, and it generally makes dinner a snap.
• Pinterest – Holy Inspiration, Batman! I’m ridiculously obsessed.
• Precious two-year olds – Daisy has reached the stage where we have a hard time even wrapping our heads around how cute she is. Example: watching her do the sign language motions along with the host on her night time toddler program. They also run a montage of all the characters on the network sleeping every night, and she tells every single one good night as they play across the screen. I mentioned before that when she wants something, she says “Hin me (hand me)_____.” The other day she said “Hin me fiss bum.” I didn’t understand her, so she rolled her eyes and said with great patience “Hin me five.” Turns out she wanted a fist bump and then a high five, lol.

       

• Photography – I’m so blessed to have a good camera and to even be able to make some money with it sometimes!
• Quiet – sweet, sweet silence when I can get it lol.
• Quilts – I love blankets of all kinds, but I especially appreciate a nice, heavyweight quilt.
• Qi – Wikipedia tells me this means life force or life energy, but I just like it because it’s almost always a high score on Words with Friends, the game Nick and I play with each other via phone all day every day!

Other blessings:

• Morgan brought home an A/B Honor roll report card today, as well as a certificate showing she was promoted to the next reading group level.
• Morgan also cleaned out the freezer for me the other day (something I had been dreading), and she helped me clean out the fridge.
• A guy Nick works with gave us a huge trailer full of free firewood a few days ago.
• My mom found a good deal on diapers and bought us a box out of the blue yesterday.
• Last week my mom also bought me this awesome double jogging stroller for an amazing price. I found it at the Goodwill. It was priced at $50, a great deal since it was in perfect shape and retails for about $225, but to make it even better it was half-off day, so we got it for $25! I actually just called my mom to see if she knew anyone who needed it since it was such a fabulous deal and I knew we didn’t have the extra money for it, and she had me just get it for us and gave me the money for it.

• Nick has had a few side jobs lately that have helped with bills, and I should get the rest of the wedding photography money on Thursday. That will pay the electric bill, although we’re still waiting on God to send the house payment.
• My brother James who has been in L.A. on assignment for a few months just bought a house about 3 minutes from us. He’s still in California till January or so, but my parents are closing on it by proxy tomorrow. As part of the deal, the current owners agreed to put on a new roof with my brother only responsible for half of their insurance copay.

And a baby update:

Week 29 of Pregnancy

Your baby's packing on the pounds, which look so cute on her. If only you could say the same for your varicose veins….

Your Baby in Week 29 of Pregnancy
How big is your baby this week? She weighs nearly three pounds now and measures about 17 inches. Though she's getting pretty close to her birth length, she still has to chub out a bit. In fact, over the next 11 weeks, she'll more than double — or even come close to tripling — her weight. And as she grows and the room in your womb gets tighter, you'll be less likely to feel those big kicks and more likely to get poked by an elbow or jabbed by a knee.
Learn more about your baby in week 29 and baby fat.

Week 29 Pregnancy Tip: Counting Baby's Kicks

Have you counted your baby's kicks today? Once you've passed week 28, you should be counting them every day. To make sure that you do — and to make sure that everything's A-OK in your belly — make a habit of counting your baby's kicks twice a day, once in the morning and once at night. Best to do your counting lying down (since babies are more likely to kick up when Mom's lying down — a pattern they tend to continue after they're born). If you can't lie down, sit. Count any and all movements (even swishes and rolls) until you hit ten. If you haven't reached ten within an hour (your little Rockette may just be on her break right now), have a light snack and try again — that blood-sugar rush is likely to get baby on the move again. Just remember that fewer than ten movements within two hours warrants a call to your practitioner. Chances are everything's fine, but it's always better to be safe than sorry.

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November already!

Gosh, I can’t believe it’s already November! This whole year has honestly just flown by! So, a few gratitude items:
ABCs of Gratitude:
L,M, & N since I missed a few weeks…
Love – it almost seems to trite and obvious, but how could I leave it out?
Lemons – I love just about anything lemon flavored (Nick made me a lemon cake with cream cheese icing for my birthday), and I love how fresh and clean they make things smell!
Lips – Nick has the most amazing lips, and I love everything they do!
Laptops – Right now we’re having some problems with both of ours. Mine has something wrong with it that no virus scan seems to be able to find, and Nick’s is currently in pieces waiting on us to be able to order a part it needs. But even if I can only use mine in safe mode right now, I’m so glad I have it!
Making things – this year is going to be by and far a handmade Christmas, but I’m pretty confident that the projects I have in the works are suitable and gift-worthy, and I’m grateful to have the skill to make them!
Marriage – I’m so very blessed in the marriage God has given me. Like any couple, we have our disagreements, but I truly believe that ours is a great love story.
Nick – Of course this is the guy that makes that last one so great.
Naps – I don’t get to take them all that often just because life is so busy these days, but I sure do enjoy the luxury when I get the opportunity! In fact, I came home today from a super stressful trip to Wal-Mart and Target with both kids, just ready to pull my hair out, and Nick sent me upstairs to take one and just decompress. It was wonderful!
Nikon – I love my camera, and I’m so glad I went with the one I chose!

Recent blessings- The wedding Nick and I shot the day after my last post went very well. It was Nick’s first time shooting, and he was really nervous, but he did great, and we had a lot of fun working together! Also, when Nick’s sister came to pick her camera back up, she refused to take the $50 payment for letting us use it!
I passed my glucose test! I was VERY excited about this. Diabetes runs heavily in my family, and every time you have gestational diabetes it increases your likelihood of developing the disease later on down the road. Since I had it with Daisy despite keeping my weight gain strictly under control, I was pretty resigned to finding out I had it with this baby too. And beyond dreading all the extra precautions and sugar testing and special diet, I was really dreading having to shell out an extra $40 a month or so for blood sugar test strips, so it was a big relief to find out I passed!
Nick was on vacation last week, and I loved having him home! We did the wedding on Monday, then just kind of had a relaxing week together. He got to go spend one day playing golf with one of his friends and one of my brothers, and on Thursday he was able to go haul off some more scrap metal, which gave us some much needed extra money to make a couple of payments (including the house payment!)
The kids had a good time last night trick or treating. Morgan had just kind of a random costume going on with heavy zombie looking eyes and fake blood all over her face. Daisy had the CUTEST lady bug costume, but she HATED it! I ended up just sticking her in her warm fuzzy footsie pajamas and wheeling her around the neighborhood in her stroller with Morgan. She was amazed at the whole thing though - she couldn't believe all the candy she got (and neither could I!).
I’ve gotten a few Christmas gifts knocked out already. I’m making some zipper pouches for some of the women in the family. I have one of those done, as well as a couple of bird feeders made from thrifted tea cups and saucers and copper pipe. They’re really pretty! I’m also giving out 7 sets of these nativity sets, and I’ve got all of them done, along with a set for us.

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I’ve also made a set of coasters for James, and I’ve got the painting done on 4 of the 6 recipe card holders I’m making. I also made a heat bag/neck warmer for my parents. And I got a free bottle of nail polish with a coupon at Target today – stocking stuffer! But I still have a ton to do, so I’ve got to get going on it! Less than 8 weeks till Christmas!

Baby Update:
Week 26 of Pregnancy: Baby's Eyes Open

Your baby's eyes — which have been closed for the past few months — are now beginning to open. Your baby's brain-wave activity is also kicking in at this stage in fetal development, which means your little one can not only hear noises but can now also respond to them.

Look who's looking. Your baby's eyes — which have been closed for the past few months (so that the retina, the part of the eye that allows images to come into focus, could develop) — are beginning to open at 26 weeks pregnant. What this means is that your baby is able to see what's going on now (unfortunately the view in your uterus isn't all that exciting). But do try this at home for kicks (baby's that is): Shine a flashlight at your stomach. Your baby might kick in response (as in: "Get that light out of my eyes!").
The iris, the colored part of the eye, still doesn't have much pigmentation (that'll fill in over the next month or two), so it's too early to start guessing your baby's eye color. Even the color your baby will be born with might not be the permanent shade; so you may be kept guessing until your baby is close to six months old.
Look what else is going on this week: Your baby's brain-wave activity is kicking in at this stage in fetal development, which means your little one can not only hear noises but can now also respond to them. Not in so many words, of course, but with an increase in pulse rate or activity.
And talking about activity, at your baby's current height and weight (about nine inches tall and two pounds), and at the rate he or she is growing, your baby will soon be feeling a little cramped in your uterus. Not to worry, there's still plenty of room for your baby to grow. It just means your gymnast will have less room for those somersaults, cartwheels, and other Olympic feats.

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