Christmas, Batman and a Frog

So I finally clued in last night that Christmas is almost here. This is only because we had to get a gift for Kelsi's gift exchange at school today. It's the last day before Christmas break. It really does not feel like Christmas yet. First, there's the fact that we have no tree due to lack of space. There's also the fact that we haven't bought any gifts. Of course we don't have many gifts to buy, we're going to be getting a couple of things for the kiddos, but that's it. Fortunately our family understands our lack of finances prevent us from giving gifts this year =) I was hoping to make some stuff for everyone, since I have a nice supply of yarn, but alas, unpacking and a very fussy baby has prevented that. Maybe I'll just put a bow on each of the kids and drop them off with one of their Grandmas and Daniel and I can go to a movie...

On an unrelated note, Matthias is running around with a cape (a piece of fabric that I made into a cape with a safety pin...I'm crafty like that) and a roll of wrapping paper. He is Luke and the wrapping paper is his light saber. Sometimes he's Batman though. It's hard to keep up. Of course this makes me either "the guy with the blue shirt" or Robin. His knowledge of Star Wars and Batman comes from the Lego video games...hence why he doesn't know all the names and I get to be "the guy with the blue shirt" whom I believe is Hans Solo. He's also informed me that I need to make sure I don't kill Batman or Robin or else they will die and then come back to love. There's also something about a frog and someone who's head we have to take off. I think he's talked nonstop for the last 15 minutes...Lydia is facinated. This is my day.

The end.

Big Bro and Little Sis

This guy definitely loves his little sister, and she think's he's pretty great too! He's always giving her hugs and she loves talking to him and watching him. It's super cute! I took this video on my ipod, and it looked right, but when I uploaded it it flipped!

Thank You Taxpayers

We are now officially a burden to society. We went in today to apply for WIC to see if they'd help us out with Lydia's formula. You know, the $25/can stuff? Well, not only did they give us checks for 7 cans for the month, but apparently Matthias and I qualify as well. So in addition to the formula, we also got checks for milk, cheese, cereal, beans, peanut butter, bread, eggs and fresh produce. Crazy, eh? The funny thing is we qualified with Daniel's current full time income. I feel kind of bad, like we're taking advantage of the system or something, but we don't plan on being on WIC long term. Well, the food part at least...the free formula we'll take advantage of as long as they'll let us ;)

Shopping was quite an experience. We went to Walmart because the have 16 oz cans of formula whereas most other stores have only 12 oz cans. Since the checks (oddly) didn't specify a can size, we decided to go for the biggest one! The total was $181! That is going to be such a huge help for our budget. Sadly since Lydia is a little piggy, we'll probably have to buy one or two each month on our own, but I think we can handle that. Everything else was quite a pain because they are so specific on brand, type, flavor, size, you name it! But, well, it's free right?

Conversations with K-Lou: A 10 year old

Normally K-Lou doesn't give me many opportunities to make fun of her share funny stories, but we had a conversation the other night at dinner I wanted to share. It went something like this:

Daniel: K-Lou said she's going to buy us a 6 bedroom house.

Me: Well I guess we'd better get adopting some kids to fill it up.

K-Lou: We're going to adopt?!

Daniel: It's something we'd like to do someday when we can save up some money, it's kind of expensive.

K-Lou: Can we adopt someone who's between MZ and me? (referring to age)

Me: Well, there are a lot of older kids who need homes and it usually costs less.

K-Lou: Let's buy a 10 year old!

10 Things....Monday?

Yes, I know, it's supposed to be 10 things Tuesday or Thursday. Whatever. Today we have "10 things I'm looking forward to in our new tiny apartment (in no particular order)".

1. Faster internet. Our current house is old, therefore the wiring cannot handle fast speeds of internet. Or something. I'm obviously not the I.T. genius in this family.
2. Less to clean. Which would I rather clean, 2000 sq. feet or 900? Tough call.
3. No snow removal. Yay!
4. No lawn maintenance. All that mowing and watering is a pain.
5. No shoveling snow off the car. Sure we have a garage, but it's way in the back by the alley and the door looks like it might fall apart if you look at it funny. We won't have a garage in the new place, but we will have a handy little carport.
6. A master bathroom. I no longer will have to step on toys in the shower.
7. The ability to open the blinds and not look directly into the neighbor's house.
8. No neighbors who have loud parties in their backyard complete with a live band and people smoking items of questionable legality.
9. A toilet that flushes properly without having to hold down the handle for 5 minutes.
10. A swimming pool and hot tub!

Tune in next week for "10 things I miss about the old place".

The Saga Continues...

The food saga that is. We finally decided to take Lydia into the doctor this morning. She's still not eating well. She's done ok on the soy in terms of digestion, but every time she eats she screams like she's in pain. It's really not fun because it takes forever for her to eat enough to not feel hungry, but it's not enough to be full so she ends up hungry again in about an hour. Which leaves me little time for much else, and of course it gets really frustrating having a little baby who cries and not being able to do anything about it. So, I put my handy google skillz to work to try and figure out what the problem could be. The possibility I came up with is that she has acid reflux, which had never occurred to me because she doesn't ever spit up. It turns out that there is what they call "silent reflux" where the food comes back up, but not all the way. So the acid from her stomach is burning her throat and stuff, making it painful to swallow. We took her in this morning, and the doctor seems to think that's what it is, but wants to try a couple of things before putting her on a prescription medicine. He suggested we try a hypo-allergenic formula (to rule out allergies or digestion issues) and to add a bit of rice cereal to it to make it harder to come back up. The bad news is that this formula is about $25 a can. She goes through about 3 cans a week. That's $300 a month! Thankfully, he gave us some sample cans to try for the next week to see if it works. If so, then that's what we'll do. If not, then we'll have to go back in and get a prescription. So, it looks like we'll either be visiting the WIC office because we can't afford the formula, or the Medicaid office because we'll no longer have insurance to pay for the prescriptions. Or both.

Poor as Dirt

Yep, that's us. We used to just be "low income", now we're poor as dirt. For those of you who don't know, our church...you know...the one Daniel works at...recently let everyone know that due to various reasons they would have to lay off some people. Well, Daniel was one of those people. Kind of. His hours have been reduced to 20 per week, so we've lost half our income and our health insurance. Bummer, eh? Oddly, we don't see it that way. Well, except for the whole health insurance thing, but we're on our way to being a socialist country anyway so we won't have to worry about that soon. But seriously, we've been talking and praying for a while about our future, specifically, what Daniel wanted as a career. Now this has come up and provided us a way to get a decent amount of income and still give Daniel time to pursue other things. At this point it's looking like he'll be doing web design, which he's done in the past but has never had the time to make a living out of it. The nice thing is, with our whole moving thing we'll be able to cut down our expenses enough to where we'll only be short about $150/month. It will be difficult and money will be tight, but I think we can do it. And as I mentioned earlier, we'll be saving money over the next couple of months so we'll have that to cover the extra $150 each month. And really, we're not above using the food room at the church occasionally. As well, I am looking at making some stuff to sell on Etsy, might as well use up all this yarn I have! These hats are one of the things I'm thinking of:

My Grandma and I are also talking about making some camera straps. They're all the rage. I'll let you guys know when I have my store set up so you can all order tons of stuff ;) Christmas is just around the corner!

As for Kelsi's school, Daniel talked to them and they said the 30% discount we've been getting for being in full time ministry will remain for the rest of the year. Yay! They also said they will do everything they can to work with us to make sure she can come next year as well. They're awesome like that.

As for me, I'm getting pretty excited about it. My husband will be home 4 days a week! Obviously he'll be working at home so it won't be all fun and games, but he'll be home!

So, that's our life now. We're not worried about our future because we know God is sovereign and has things under His control...which is much better than having us in control!

Conversations with MZ: The Hospital

MZ crashes on the kitchen floor, hurts himself and comes crying to me for comfort.

Me: Think you're ok now?

MZ: *nods*

Me: You'll survive?

MZ: *nods*

Me: Do we need to take you to the hospital?

MZ: No, I'm not in your tummy!

We're Moving!

Not far, don't worry ;) We started looking into moving this past summer once we started paying for K-Lou's school, but we couldn't find anything for rent within our price range, and we can't afford to buy. Plus I was pregnant, which is never a fun time to move. So we decided to wait until spring. Well, we were driving down one of the main streets here in town (it runs north and south and starts with an "R"...) and saw an apartment complex with a big banner out front advertising first month free. So we started talking about it. Here are the benefits (as we see it anyway!)

Money

We will be saving about $150/month on rent. This is not a whole lot when you consider we are moving from a 2000+ sq. feet house with a yard to an apartment that is just under 900 sq. feet. But it helps. The real savings will be in electricity and gas. The house we are in right now is old, it's been totally remodeled and updated on the inside, but that doesn't help much with insulation. Last winter out bill was at least 4 times more than normal, and that's even with putting those fancy curtains up on all the windows and keeping the temp at only 67. Then there's gas. We only have one car and Daniel works a ways away. He's been taking the bus, but I still have to drive him the bus stop and pick him up, which uses a bit of gas. This place has a bus stop that is really close to the entrance. We plan on staying there for a year or two and save up some of the money we're saving to put towards a down payment on our own place some day.

Downsizing

Ok, I know most of you probably won't see this a benefit, but we do! This place is too big for us and we've acquired to many things to fill it. We want a smaller place and fewer possessions...and less for me to clean ;)

Location

As I said before, it's closer to a bus stop. Plus it's closer to other places we go often, like our families and grocery stores and so on. It's also right next to a park and close to the community center.

Other stuff

There is a pool, hot tub and playground at the apartment complex. That will definitely help keep the kiddos occupied this summer!

So, there you have it...that's why we're moving! We're moving in on Dec. 1, so we have a lot of work ahead of us!

Playtime

So far today Little Miss has been a happy little girl. Yesterday however, she was not. With as bad as she was yesterday with her new formula, we decided not to wait and see if she'd adjust, but to go ahead and try soy. So we switched her to an organic brand of soy formula. Funny thing is it costs $5 less than the Enfamil Gentle Ease. I still am not a fan of her being on soy, but Daniel and I decided we'd rather her be on an organic soy than some of the science experiments that are out there claiming to be baby formula. We do plan on trying to slowly introduce dairy formula when she gets a bit older. So, she's been on this soy stuff since last night and she's been such a happy baby so far! So she's been catching up on her playtime:

Those little wrist things are supposed to be there to help them find their hands and learn how too control them, right? She thinks they're there to chew on. She doesn't seem to use her hands much, but she certainly knows how to get them to her mouth!

She also really likes her little mirror and enjoys looking at herself. But really, she's so cute, how could she not?

Speaking of toys, do the makers of bouncy seats not test them out first? How is she supposed to play with a toy thats laying on her face?

5th Time's a Charm?

Little Miss is now officially on her 5th brand of formula. None have worked for her yet, and it's getting rather frustrating. She's now on Enfamil which also happens to be the most expensive brand of formula! Thankfully, the last kind of formula we purchased at Fred Meyer and they were nice enough to give us a buy one get one free coupon for Enfamil. We set it aside just in case...and of course it turned we needed it =) Hopefully this formula works, since our next step would be going to a soy based formula, which I'd rather not do. The nice thing about Enfamil though is there are coupons everywhere. At Fred Meyer they have a little basket by the door where people can leave coupons they don't need and take those they do, so I searched through and found a couple of Enfamil coupons. Score! I'd really rather not have to take out a loan just to feed this little girl ;) Although it might be worth it to keep this little girl from being fussy...and to no longer have smelly, grey poop.

K-Lou's Wishlist

For those of you who've asked, here is K-Lou's birthday wishlist:

• Silly Bandz
• Pillow Pets
• Jewlery
• Hats
• Amazon gift cards
• iTunes gift cards
• Games

The Silly Bandz and Pillow Pets are also at stores like Target, Fred Meyer and Walmart.

Conversations With MZ - "Nuthin"

Daniel: Ahhhhhhh!

MZ: What? Why did you yell?

Daniel: Falling stuff. What else do I yell about?

MZ: Nuthin'. Nuthin' but the blood of Jesus.

Harvest Festival

We were total slackers this year and didn't get the kids costumes until the day before! Well, all except Little Miss, we got hers months ago from the thrift store for only $.50 =) This year the kiddos decided to be pirates, and convinced Daniel and I to be pirates too. MZ thought he was pretty cool stuff.

K Lou called herself "The Navigator". I'm not sure that's going to strike much fear into the other pirates.

Little Miss got a lot of attention, not because of her flower costume, but because she was carrying all the weapons.

By the end of the night she had MZ's and Daniel's as well.

K Lou got to play fun games like throwing stuff into a potty chair.

MZ at least got to throw stuff into little glass jars.

And the highlight of the night was playing the the bouncy castles. Waiting in line for that thing made me really appreciate how well behaved my kids are. It also made me wonder why some parents even pretend that they're in charge.

Little Miss of course slept through the whole thing.

This picture just made me laugh, I think he was irritated about getting his picture taken again.

2 Month Update

Is it 2 months when she hits 8 weeks, or was it two months on Oct. 31? Either way I'm late ;) I keep trying to get a picture of this little stinker smiling, but she's not cooperating. Whenever she sees the camera, she does this:

So then I move the camera out of sight and try to pull it out in time to get snap a picture while she's smiling and I get this:

So I'm giving up.

She had her two month checkup yesterday and is doing great. She's in the 90th percentile in height, 95th for weight and her head is in the 80th percentile. So she's still huge! I had to pack up all her 0-3 month clothes yesterday and pull out the 3-6...it was kind of sad.

The recommended vaccine schedule would have had her getting a round of shots yesterday, but we've chosen to wait until she's older. They must be getting more people choosing to not vaccinate or delay vaccines these days because the nurse asked if we were going to be getting her shots today and when we told her no, she gave us a form to sign that basically said we understand the risk and will not sue them. Lovely.

It's amazing how much this little girl has changed in the last two months! She still has great muscle strength and is holding herself up really well.

She's smiling a ton (except when I have the camera!) and is doing a little bit of "talking". She loves to sit and watch her big brother play, which is great for me because it gives me a bit of time to get stuff done.

Who Made You?

We've been learning a catechism. Well, the kids have at least. As I was looking around finding stuff about classical curriculum for preschool/kindergarten and I heard about the book Big Truths for Little People. It's basically a simplified version of a catechism. So, here's a video of MZ practicing his first 5 questions.

10 Easy Steps to a Successful Family Game Night

We play a lot of games at this house. Ok, really we have a lot of games and only play a few of them. Details. We really like strategy games in particular. Ok, I like strategy games because I win those. Daniel and Kelsi like strategy games because those are the games I like to play. They're nice like that. Recently I got a nice chunk of money to spend at a store so that I could review it. Yay for free stuff! So one of the things I bought was a new game for us called Carcassonne. I had to look up how to pronounce it. Most of the time I just call it "carcass" though. I had to take pictures of us playing the game so I decided to use them to show you all how to have a successful family game night.

10 Easy Steps to a Successful Family Game Night

1. Gather all necessary supplies (i.e. candy)

2. Keep an eye out for renegade candy.



3. Recruit a scorekeeper.



4. You may have to pay him in candy, but it's honing his counting skillz so it's ok.



5. Think carefully before making your move.



6. Don't forget to wear your lucky bracelet (aka a Snapple wrapper...they're all the rage).



7. Keep any eye on your scorekeeper, he's not as innocent as he looks. He's either a). eating his sister's candy or b). playing with the score pieces.



8. Put your little guys all over the map to claim your territory.



9. Make sure the green ones get the most points so that Mom wins.



10. Refer to number 9.

The Mysteries of Life

How does a baby always know when you're sitting down to eat?

Why does a baby always poop as soon as it has a fresh diaper?

How can a baby be sound asleep then suddenly wake up as soon as you put it down?

Why do babies look so cute and then as soon as you pull out the camera to take a picture they look like this:

Rockin' Out With Tim

Last night we went to drop K-lou off at Grandma's and ended up staying to watch the new Tim Hawkins DVD. At one point, MZ decided to get up and dance to one of the songs. So of course I got it on video. If you watch very carefully, you might be able to spot when K-lou discovers I am recording MZ...

One Month Old!

It's hard to believe Miss LG is already a month old! Then again, it's hard to believe she's only been with us for a month! So, here's her update:

She's still holding her head up like a champ. Yes, I said champ. She hates to be laying down and will make sure we know it! Most of the time she's either sitting with me or in her bouncy seat so that she can look around.

She's sleeping really well at night, although every time I think she's on a good schedule she changes it on me! She's been sleeping 4 hours, eating, sleeping for another 4 hours pretty consistently for a couple of weeks, then last night she goes and sleeps for 7 hours straight! I doubt she's ready to that every night, but it sure was nice =) She's finally mastered the art of falling asleep by herself...well, herself and her pacifier...and she now sleeps in her own bed all night. Although, I have to have the bassinet on the floor next to me so that I can just reach down and put the pacifier back in her mouth every time it falls out.

She has also started smiling now! It's super cute, just in case you had any doubt, and it looks like she has little dimples! She doesn't smile often yet, since she's still trying to figure it out. It's pretty hilarious to watch because it takes so much effort. Most of the time she gives up and sticks her tongue out at me instead. Sadly I haven't managed to get a picture yet, so in the meantime I will leave you with these:

Not Me Monday

• I did not drag my husband to the store with me to buy a hair stuff because I'm sick of my hair.
• I did not then proceed to go overboard buying baby clothes for a certain little nephew who will be soon arriving.
• I am not seriously considering stuffing myself into my parent's luggage next week...or hijacking a plane.
• I did not walk into my kitchen to clean up, take one look and turn around to go back to my laptop.
• I did not then justify it by telling myself that I needed to get planning MZ's preschool stuff because we're getting a late start.
• I did not then get distracted by free Kindle books.
• I did not then justify it by telling myself my husbad would be happy to get free books on theology.
• I did not go into the kitchen to make lunch, then looked at the mess, looked at the lack of food in the fridge, turn around and go back to my laptop with a handful of Skittles.
• I am not spending too much time on my laptop today.

Lest any of you are confused, those were all lies.

One of These Things is Not Like the Other...

Just in case some of you haven't seen this yet...

Isn't that too funny? Kelsi was bummed that there wasn't a picture of her to compare. I had to explain to her that 10 (almost 11!) years ago no one had digital cameras. So now I need to dig up some baby pictures of her and scan them. And by scan I mean take a picture of it with my camera since I'm not cool enough to have a scanner ;)

The Cutest Kids in the World...

Why I Don't Sleep at Night...

Humpty Dumpty

This made me laugh =)

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Clearly the writer is telling an Israel story, and here alludes to the Temple. This echoes other lines in early 2^nd Nursery Literature, such as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard (the “storehouse” of the Temple) and the bone (resurrection life) which she sought for her dog (“Gentiles”). “But when she got there, the cupboard was bare and the poor little doggie had none.” The temple had nothing to offer the Gentiles, and they thus remained in their state of Adamic sin and decay.

So here, too, one should not be surprised to discover that the Temple and its “wall” are bankrupt. The next line, then, is not a shock, but an expectation:

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

Again, this is patently a forecast of the Temple’s destruction (and contra Crossan and Borg, an entirely possible historical forecasting). Doubtless this claim is intended to lead the reader to ponder the eschatological recreation of the Temple. Since Humpty stands for the Temple, he seems to be sharing in the divine identity, functioning as the locus of God’s presence, not outside of, but within creation.

Of course, this fall is an exile of sorts, the loss of God’s presence. The tension is palpable: how will humpty’s story not turn out dumpty? In other words, this line presupposes what I have called elsewhere the great metanarrative of humpty, not least the promise of resurrection.

But all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put humpty together again.

So the Temple will be built again, but not by human hands. Many have undertaken to suggest that this passage runs counter to a belief in resurrection. But this atomistic reading of the text lacks imagination. Of course, it is the king himself who will put humpty together again, and this great act will complete the metanarrative.

After all, Humpty is the place where the Creator God is resident with his creation. But the human inability to recreate Humpty does not negate all human effort for creation, which should be done in light of the proleptic nature of the king’s restoration of Humpty and all creation.

By N.T. Wright

Dreams

I thought crazy dreams were supposed to end once the baby is born? Apparently not. I had a dream the other night that I figured I'd share with all of you. Yes, try and contain your excitement.

In my dream I woke up to the baby crying and then noticed that Daniel had also woken up. This is not normal. Then I noticed that he was holding a baby, which confused me because I was also holding one. Upon closer investigation, we decided the one he was holding was definitely not ours because 1. it was a boy, and 2. he looked nothing like either of us. We then proceeded to check with the neighbors to see if he was theirs, but alas, he wasn't. We returned home and were pondering what to do when we heard another baby cry. Come to find out, it was Little Miss who was in her bassinet. We then looked at the baby I was holding and discovered it was a boy as well! Now we had two baby boys to try and figure out where they came from. Ultimately we decided that someone had snuck into our house and left them with us because they wanted us to raise them. The most logical conclusion.

When I told Daniel about the dream, I told him it must have been God telling us he has two little baby boys he wants us to adopt. I don't think he bought it.

This and That

• This is my first full day at home with all three kids
• I wonder how many times I've had to say one or all of the following: no climbing, jumping, grabbing, or wrestling with eachother. Don't hug and/or kiss your sister while she's sleeping. No running. No yelling or screaming.
• I cleaned the kitchen and the refrigerator today. This is the most physical activity I've done in weeks. I will probably regret it later.
• Little Miss has only woken up 1 time the last couple of nights. Yay!
• I have a desert/fundraiser to go to tonight, and I probably shouldn't wear jeans. Unfortunately, my skirts and such are a bit tighter than I'd prefer. My options are 1. Deal with it and use my Moby Wrap in hopes that it will cover any unsightly bulges. Or 2. Wear jeans with the excuse that I had a baby less than 3 weeks ago and they are lucky I'm not wearing pj's.
• Maybe I should just wear my pj's...
• K-lou has survived the first 2 weeks of her new school. There are a grand total of 5 girls in her class which consists of 4th, 5th and 6th grade.
• MZ is spending the night at Grandma's house tonight and has been spending the week planning what to bring. Oddly clothing has never crossed his mind.
• So far our bill for Little Miss is over 5.5k...and we haven't even gotten the bill from the hospital yet. Thankfully we have good insurance!
• It's about lunchtime and I have some hungry kiddos!

Supermodel

Little Miss has several cute dresses that she hasn't been able to wear because it's been so cold. So, we got her some little tights the other day to help keep her legs warm. Today I got her all dressed up and decided since she is was so cute I'd take some pictures. Now, I am by no means a photographer and I don't even know how to use all the fancy features my camera has, but I these pictures made me smile so I figured I'd share them with all of you.

Two Week Update!

Little Miss had her 2 week check-up and she's doing great! She's 21.25 inches (90th percentile), 9.5 pounds (85th percentile), and her head is 37 cm (75th percentile) so she's a pretty big baby! Which is kind of strange because she actually seems a bit scrawny for being over 9 pounds.

But she's certainly cute! For those of you who don't know, I'm no longer breastfeeding her. When we went to her first doctor visit (about 4 days after she was born) she had lost 12% of her body weight so the doctor suggested we give her a bit of formula after she was done nursing. So we did for a while, but it was getting to the point where she was nursing for an hour and still drinking an ounce or more of formula. So, we decided I was not going to be able to make enough to feed her properly. Which is the same thing that happened with both K-lou and MZ so it wasn't a big surprise. It was quite sad though.

She's a really happy baby, only crying when she's hungry. She's awake more and more (although not when she's visiting with either of her great-grandmas!) and loves looking around. I put her in her Moby Wrap (baby carrier for those who don't know) and she really didn't like it because she couldn't see anything! She kept trying to move her head around so she could see better, but she doesn't have enough control for that ;) She's doing pretty well at night still, but we're working on getting her used to sleeping by herself as well as falling asleep by herself. So that kind of messes with things a bit. I have nothing against co-sleeping, in fact I think it's very beneficial for both Mom and baby, but I just can't sleep well enough when she's with me. We get lots of cuddle time durring the day to make up for it =)

Matthias is a great big brother to her. Although I have to remind him quite a bit not to hug and kiss her while she's sleeping. He loves to help out and gets upset when I don't let him carry the bottle to her! He's been working on finding his new place in the family and has decided to be the family comedian. He's gotten so goofy and loves to make us all laugh!

Kelsi is a proud big sister. She is always asking to hold her, almost to the point of annoyance! She is definitely being a little mom and keeps trying to explain to me why she's crying or what she needs. It's great to see how much she wants to be involved and I hope to pass on to her the importance of being a mom.

Bathtime

Little Miss LG had her first bath the other day. She was not this content through it all!

Life was better once she was wrapped up in a towel being held by Mom.

Then she decided to eat my finger in revenge ;)

Little Miss & Big Bro

The First Days

1 Week!

One week from now Little Miss LG will be here! I still can't believe how quickly time is going by. It probably helps that I know the exact date she's coming rather than waiting and wondering. This morning was our final prenatal visit, so here's the update. She (and by she I mean my belly) is measuring at 38 cm (right on track!) and the doctor is predicting she'll be about 8 pounds. Then again, he said MZ would be at least 9 pounds and he ended up being 6.4. But, in his defense, I was huge! She's dropped down already and I'm dilated to a 2. Which makes me laugh a bit. With both previous pregnancies, I didn't show any signs of progress before going into labor. Needless to say was rather depressing those last couple of appointments. So this time around when I won't be going into labor, I'm dilating already. Go figure.

Yesterday I got to spend 40 minutes on the phone with the lady from the hospital. I guess that's what happens when you skip your preregistration appointment and are scheduled for a c-section. You will be happy to know that at first I was at risk for postpartum depression, but then I wasn't, but then she told me that there's no way of predicting who will get it. Thanks for that. When she asked if we had a carseat, I was highly tempted to tell her no so I could see if they'd give us a brand new one for free. But I decided that probably wasn't a good thing to do. Seriously though, I was glad that she went over the whole thing with me and let me know exactly what was going to happen. I was pretty out of it by the time I got into the OR last time around, so my memory is a tad foggy and I'm not sure what was routine and what was done due to emergency. The good news is, as long as baby and I are doing well, I get to have her in the recovery room with me. The bad news is that I'll have to wear those stupid compression boot things again. Those things are horrible! For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, they are these giant boot things that fill with air and expand (like getting your blood pressure checked) every 60 seconds or so. Those stupid things kept me up all night after MZ was born.

I also got a nice list of do's and don'ts to prepare for the c-section.

No food or drink after midnight the night before. Seriously? Do they not realize I'm pregnant and wake up at least 4 times durring the night for the sole purpose of drinking water?

No shaving at all for 5 days prior to the surgery. Well, I guess I'm going to have some really hairy armpits.

No hair or body products containing alcohol 24 hours before. Weird.

The doctor "recommends" an enema the night before. Right. Eww. The nurse did say, however, that if that's too unappealing I can use some milk of magnesia. Lesser of two evils I guess.

Special soap. I was given two packets of super-duper-germ-killing soap. I'm supposed to take a shower the night before and the morning of using this soap. The great thing is that it comes with instructions that are seriously at least 10 steps long. One of them is telling you to have clean clothes to put on after your shower. I guess there might be someone somewhere who needs that reminder.

So that's my 1 week update! Pretty exciting, no? I don't know that I'll have much else to post about in the next week, so I'll let you all know now to feel free to come visit at the hospital next Wednesday (or Tuesday if you'd rather, but I make no guarantees about my appearance or mental capacity) or even stop by our house later in the week. I'm sure I'll enjoy showing off one of the two most adorable girls in the world!

Three Weeks!!!

Can you believe it?!?! Just under 3 weeks and Little Miss LG will be here! I am shocked at how quickly this pregnancy has gone by. Of course, as soon as we hit August, time seems to have slowed. Well, kind of. In some ways it seems so far away, in other ways it seems so close. I look around my house and start to panic! There's no way we can get this place ready for the baby in three weeks! Ok, I know I'm overreacting, the baby probably doesn't care about the state of our house...or where the furniture is.
We had a doctor appointment yesterday (2 more to go!) and everything is looking good still. Although, I did get in trouble a bit...I lost 2 pounds. Which, I guess is kind of a big deal at this stage when the baby grows so rapidly. But really, with the return of morning sickness (aka "all day sickness") and being unable to eat much without feeling like my skin is going to break, I haven't had much of an appetite. Oh, and don't forget this lovely cold I've had! Fortunately, the baby is still growing well and is "37" according to the doctor. Whatever that means. I'm assuming it's probably that my stomach measures 37 cm or something. The doctor seemed a bit concerned when I told him about feeling nauseous and dizzy lately, but after he clarified 5 times that I don't have a fever and the baby is still moving a lot he relaxed. Thanks, Doc, more stuff for me to worry about!
This little girl is defiantly moving a lot! Her butt is always in my ribs. The kids have really enjoyed being able to feel her move though. A while ago I told them that she can hear them, so now MZ will come up to my and put his mouth right next to the baby and yell "HI LG!" then immediately put his hand on my belly to see if she heard him! It's so cute.
Well, that's about it. Now we just wait. At least this time around we know exactly when she'll come so that helps!

Moses and the Technicolor Tablets

As you may recall, MZ wanted a Moses cake for his birthday. So a Moses cake he got. We decided to make the 10 Commandments, so the night before his party we went to Micheal's and got some black food coloring to use to make the frosting grey. The next day all went well, the cakes were baked and cooled, I managed to trim the ends to make them rounded, then I sat down to frost them. I added just a tad bit of food coloring to the frosting and it turned a nice shade of grey. I then proceeded to frost the cake, which was much more difficult than normal considering I had trimmed off the edges of one end. Crumbs everywhere! But, I managed to finish the job and the cakes actually resembled two stone tablets. I packed them up as best as I could and left to go get Daniel from work. I had the cakes on the passenger seat next to me (so I could keep them from crashing all over the car) and I began to notice they seemed to have a slight green tinge to them. I figured it was just the sunlight. By the time we were carrying the cakes into my parent's house, they looked distinctly green. It wasn't the sun. Somehow, my nice "professional" food dye made the cakes look like this:



The sprinkles we got were actually silver and originally matched the frosting quite well. Not so much anymore! Fortunately MZ didn't seem to care.



Well, maybe. Regardless, he took his job of blowing out the candles very seriously. All two of them. That's what happens when his pregnant mom is in charge of bringing things. Whatever, he's lucky I remembered to bring the cakes ;)



On a side note, I noticed that the frosting that wasn't exposed to the air was still grey. Hmm...
Anyway, MZ opened up his gifts,



Great shot, no?



Playmobile fire truck, score!



This requires a post of it's own...



Yum! Mom, doesn't get him cool food like this ;)



A hat that was a bit to small and has since been replaced! He wears his new hat every time we leave the house and tells me that Grandma Sharyl got it for him from Fred Meyer. Yes, my child managed to decipher that from the tags. I'd brag and say it's because he knows how to read, but really it's because we go there frequently.



Some new clothes...Grandpa looks like he's up to something!



And finally, some new sunglasses!

One more picture:



This is probably one of the last pictures of just the four of them, next time they all see each other there will be two new little ones in the picture!