Old Year, New Year, and Other Randomness

Well, once again it has been several weeks since I've blogged and in that time I feel like I've run a marathon. Let's see if we can play catch up.

1. As of today, I am officially 36 weeks and 5 days pregnant pregnant. Which means I can legally (by the state of Arkansas) give birth at home with a midwife. Yay! Which is doubly good as I've had plenty of contractions the last week; although, its hard to tell if they are simply stress induced or actually going somewhere.


Other than the marked uptake in contractions, I've been doing pretty well except for the carpal tunnel that has been bothering me in both my wrists. And yes, the irony that I'm typing right now is not lost on me, but at three am, one has to do something when one can't sleep. And I just can't sleep tonight. I had a little bit of carpal tunnel last pregnancy, but the last few weeks have not been pleasant at all in that regards. Makes sleeping even trickier because you're not supposed to sleep on your back and yet if I sleep on my sides, it greatly exacerbates the pain in whichever arm is underneath. I'm finding wrapping my right wrist at night, which is the one that particularly is bothersome, is helpful in keeping the pain down, but as I said earlier, tonight sleep is just not with me at all.

I feel like I'm still struggling to be fully prepared for Baby Q to come along. All the pieces are slowly coming together, and really I do have the essentials. Almost. Still need to get a new infant car seat and holders for both the car and the van. But in general I don't feel like I've created a space for him yet, physically. That's my job currently; get that final layout in place. The mental prep is coming along, and in the last few days, I've found myself more and more ready to hold my little boy.

To think positively for myself though, I do have baby clothes that are washed (if sitting in a laundry basket waiting to be put away), diapers that are ready, my labor stuff is all ready, bills are all caught up, and I have frozen banana bread! So really, we're not doing that bad. And I have a list of meals to make and freeze (thank the Lord I had not actually managed to do any pre-freezing of meals before Christmas or they probably all would have been lost...more on that in #2).

2. We've had multiple random Christmases this year.

Several parties involving the cottage girls and Blueberry. Blue has really picked up on what "presents" are, which has been both good and bad because obviously if everyone is getting a present, she wants one! And she's still got some learning concerning some presents are for others and not her.

Then we had our little cottage gift exchange. We wanted to do this before Christmas (even though the girls technically don't get the bulk of their presents until January 7 because of donations still coming in) because as of December 28 we are officially down to 7 kids total (counting Blueberry). Our Panda Bear has gone home, we hope for good (not that we don't want her, but she actually has a decent home to go to, it is simply up to her to keep her behavior together so that she can stay there!). The girls all had presents for each other and we had presents for them, so we went ahead and squeezed in a mini Christmas exchange before Panda left. I spent several hours (OK, a lot of hours!) putting together a photo book of pictures from this year, individualized for each girl. It was a lot of fun, and from the general absorption that fell over the cottage when we let them open their gifts, I think the girls appreciated their books.

The next Christmas celebration was with my brother and sister-in-law.  That was a fun time. They arrived Friday the 28th, by which time all the girls except Butterfly had gone elsewhere for Christmas as they were shutting our cottage down for the holiday. We kept Butterfly until Monday for stability sake. Saturday we drove to Little Rock and enjoyed the zoo, delicious Indian food, and a general tour of our favorite places in Little Rock including the GF bakery.

Because whatever Blueberry does, Doggie must do to...

Blueberry and Butterfly were their usual hysterical selves, and that just added a fun element to the day. I swear I don't know what I'm going to do if/when Butterfly gets sent somewhere else. She and Blueberry have become so close, it's going to be a rough day for our little Blue to lose her friend/sister.

Sunday we enjoyed a Christmas service and then had our modest Christmas celebration that night.

Monday morning they left early and mid-afternoon my sister and her husband arrived! Just to keep the celebrating going, you know! Tuesday--Christmas day officially--we did our gift exchange with them. The day, however, was punctuated by steady rainfall in the morning, dropping temperatures, ice accumulation by evening, and finally snow. Around 8:30pm, just as we were settling in for a movie, the power went out. Completely. For the whole night. And the next day. For the whole campus.

 All bundled up for breakfast by candlelight.

 The front of our cottage. 

The following pictures come from around campus. Did I mention we live on a really beautiful piece of property? Cause we do. Just cold when we have no heat!

 These trees that line the main entrance-way are probably the worst part of the storm's aftermath. They've all been severely de-limbed, which is sad because they're normally a beautiful indicator of the passing of the seasons. 

 
Joy and Adam left early the next morning, and we were left to fend for ourselves. Fortunately, we were still a closed cottage at that point, so we didn't have to worry about anyone other than us. So we kind of piddled around all day. Went and played outside at one point. Finally got the power back on at 7:30pm. Light! Heat! Beautiful!

 Blueberry's inspecting the snow.

Snowman

I went to sleep around 11:30pm, and woke up an hour later on Wednesday 12:30am when the power went back out again. Only this time it stayed off for the next three days. We went back on duty on Wednesday. For some reason, some of the cottages and a few of the buildings on campus had power (different grid line or something?), so we wound up bunking in at the high school girls cottage for three days. It wasn't so bad, but having four adults (plus the HPs over there had their adult daughter staying with them) and 14 kids ages 2 to 17 in one house was quite interesting.

We played quite a few games (the girls all really got into Pit), discovered that Blueberry and Butterfly are terrible roommates as they create double havoc at night time when they want to (they slept on the floor in the same room we were sleeping in, just on opposite sides of the bed). Got some gift cards to go to Chic Fil-et one day as that was actually open and we just needed to get the girls out, hit a basketball game, watched some movies, and generally tried to encourage good attitudes, avoiding trouble, and calm.

The most depressing moment was coming over to our cottage on Saturday with the girls and cleaning out the fridges of the last items that were going bad and we just had run out of ways to keep. We did manage to salvage quite a bit, but still, there was an awful lot of dumping that occurred. Having all the help from the girls was great though. We literally lined them all up with garbage bags and filled up the bags which they took outside or elsewhere as needed. Made the whole job go a lot faster. And they apparently thought the whole thing rather fun.

Saturday afternoon, as were were facing the news that the rest of Hot Springs was not scheduled to be reconnected with power until Tuesday, one of the directors finally got on the phone with the mayor (who happens to go to church with him), and we suddenly had power across the whole campus again Saturday evening! Thank the Lord for being the children's home :) 

The girls were hysterical upon coming home. Very happy to be here. In the meantime, we were going off duty that night, so we spent several crazy hours packing up our stuff, settling the girls back into their rooms, scrubbing and restocking the fridges with what we had salvaged, trying to get our paperwork together, and get seven children to bed before our Relief Houseparents came over at 9:30pm.

Oh, and just to make matters worse, it was our last passdown with these particular RHPs before they are scheduled to take over new duties as the HPs in the high school boys cottage! Very sad as it means upheaval for the girls (particularly Butterfly) just as we will be off a lot ourselves whenever Baby Q decides to make his appearance.

We're trying to be scheduled with one set of RHPs as much as possible so as to minimize the change for the girls, but the set who are coming in primarily are actually only temporary RHPs until we get some more RHPs hired. It's just going to be a few months with a lot of change I'm afraid. Plus, on an entirely selfish note, we absolutely loved our old RHPs and are very sad to lose them (even though the situation will be a great one for them!). At least they're still on campus and not gone-gone, but still...

Any ways, back to my original topic in this point. Multiple Christmases. Our final Christmas is tomorrow (Monday) and then the girls are back to school on Tuesday. Blueberry got some of her presents at Christmas, and we have some other presents for her to open with the girls on Monday (it didn't seem right for her to be the only kid sitting there not opening presents. It's going to be a tricky balance as she gets older, but we'll figure it out).

3. Christmas break has been a lot of fun--once we got our power. Just very busy. Lots of appointments, and I've been playing catch up on getting ready for the baby. But we've played games and watched movies and made Peanut Butter Balls (very important!) and gone out shopping, which has all been good. Had some other plans that the storm kind of took out, but I think we've done all right.

New Years Eve we were off duty, and admittedly, we crashed hard for those three days (although I did manage to get the bills paid!). The days prior to that were all the ones of dealing with no power, and that was truly exhausting. Not to mention that my contractions at that point were coming hard enough and frequently enough to make me question whether Baby Q was trying to make his entrance in truly dramatic fashion in the middle of a power outage! Fortunately he apparently does not have a flair for the dramatic and settled back down again--mostly. Our New Years celebration consisted of putting Blueberry to bed, watching a few movies, paying those silly bills, and going outside at midnight to give the girls hugs and wish them a happy new year. I know--we're boring.

4. New Years Resolutions. Well, I have some. Kind of. More my list of items to develop and focus on this year, rather than a bunch of specific resolutions. I think the first quarter of the year is best to be simply titled--Adjust to Changes with Grace for Myself, My Family, and My "Other" Family! If we get through that, we'll be doing good!

5. Blueberry news. She is doing well; although, she still has a cough that just won't clear up. Mind you, I think that's the news for half of us right now. She has officially transferred to a "big girl bed." Mainly, we took the railing off her crib and converted it to the toddler version.That's been an adventure as she definitely likes the freedom of getting out of bed!

The primary issue is that with her potty training, she will get out of bed (before falling asleep) to go potty. Which is fine, except on nights when she just doesn't want to go to sleep and suddenly she has the bladder of, well, a Blueberry! Potty training itself is going really well. She's got the whole process down herself, other than she gets stuck turning the water off sometimes and has been known to climb on the bathroom counter to get to my lotion to put some lotion on her nose because "it hurts." Which it probably does she's been blowing it so much, but she's not to be using my lotion! She's actually napping without diapers at all now, only the occasional accident. Night time she's still in diapers, but really, I think she's doing well!

May you have a blessed Epiphany!

Thanksgiving, Zoos, and Other Randomness

Two of our girls were home all day today and yesterday with sickness: one with the flu and the other with pneumonia of all things. I swear we've gone through more boxes of tissues and bottles of cough medicine in the last few weeks than I would have thought possible. Amazingly enough (say a prayer, knock on wood), other than a slight stuffiness and a few tired days, I've been the one person in the house to not wind up with a cough, major cold, strep, or anything else nasty that's been making its way through the cottage the last few weeks.

In that vein, Thanksgiving week wound up being a bit unexpected for us. We were planning to have three or four of our girls here with us (the rest were with family and/or visits with host families), but they wound up closing our cottage down for a few days and putting our girls in another cottage (less holiday pay the company has to worry about...). As it was, we wound up with Butterfly staying with us in the evenings (for stability purposes for her) but no girls otherwise! We did have two of the girls who were left over to play games on Thanksgiving day itself, but otherwise it was just the 3.5 of us.

It was nice as it actually gave us some extra days off to recover (and decorate for Christmas!). Our Thanksgiving meal we actually shared with a bunch of other people on campus who were here (other houseparents, residents, some relatives, etc), which gave us a sort of family feel. With the new director and some new staff on campus, I'm finding more and more the feeling of family being established here on campus--something I'm very grateful for.

Saturday we took Mama Bear with us to Little Rock and went to the zoo. That was a blast. We hadn't been in quite awhile, and Blueberry has grown up so much since the last time we went. She had a grand time with all the animals and has talked about it daily since then (the scary, loud monkeys; the tiger go "rawr"; "I saw cheetah/lizard/snake/turtle/fishie"; and of course "Giraffe poopies.").

 Scary Crazy Monkey

 My Russian Princess

 The notorious Giraffe

Her first "train" ride. Also went on a carousel for the first time!

She also enjoyed decorating for Christmas that night (busy day for her!) and took great pleasure in showing Butterfly all the decorations (and showing her how too look with her eyes and not with her hands...those two crack me up).

In other Blueberry news, she informed me last night that she wanted to sleep on the futon that is in her room and until now has been working as a temporary training bed for her. While she slept in "beds" on the floor in England and quite enjoyed it, when we got back here, she was clear about wanting to mostly still sleep in her crib. Since we have the futon (and have stuck a swimming noodle down the open side of it to prevent her from rolling out--great idea, thank you Pinterest!), we would offer her the choice of crib or bed, but she generally stuck with her crib as her choice. Last night was the first time she wanted the futon at night. She slept all night on it and then at nap time today she asked for it again. I think my baby just transitioned herself to a "big girl bed!"

We are now debating the merits of selling the futon and buying a toddler bed for the room. At some point we're going to need the crib again as a crib (it can actually be converted into a toddler bed), but the question is do we go ahead and do it now and keep the crib as a crib or do we wait a few months and deal with it as time requires. Ah the questions that come with having a baby!

 Baby Q continues to do well and is very lively. Freaked some of the girls out the other night as we were watching a movie and all of the sudden one of them realized she could actually see my stomach moving on its own. Highly entertaining.

Slowly all the pieces come together in preparation for his arrival. The biggest question for awhile was where were we even going to have him! I've been planning for a home birth from the beginning with him, but as we live on company property, we figured we needed to run it by the director for his okay. Well, he's okay with it conceptually, but the lawyer is not okay with it in terms of insurance companies and other craziness. So the long and short of it was that I suddenly found myself planning for a home birth but not being able to give birth at home!  In an overly dramatic, pregnant, hormonal moment I told Chris that I'd just go across the street to the gas station and give birth there....

Well my midwife actually came to the rescue... She works with two other midwives (there's always at least two of them at each birth) and the longest-practicing of the three happens to be the owner of two fully-furnished houses (she got married just a few years ago to a man who owned his own house--they're both in their early 60s, and I guess they just kind of switch between houses every week). So she is going to let us "borrow" one of her houses to give birth in...and it only happens to be about a 5-10 minute drive down the road. And being a midwife she's really excited about the prospect as she's never actually had a baby born in her own house before! Phew.

Quick Takes (vol. 26)

#1 - The last month has been crazy. Non stop sick, non stop shifting of people, and non stop irritants. This past week is the first week in awhile where I have felt positive about a lot of things in life. Not to say that life is all gloom and doom, but when your head hurts, you can barely swallow, you've got frustrating situations and people cropping up every day, it becomes really easy to be pessimistic.

While most of the pessimism-causing factors cannot be discussed here, I can share one particular aspect of it all. Monkey and Parrot are no longer with us but have been moved to a different situation. 34 days to pour into a child's life--I pray it was enough. Watching them leave was hard. Yes, life is simpler without three kids under the age of 5 running around in addition to 4 kids over the age of 5, but when you spend 24 hours a day loving, disciplining, nurturing, and caring for a child--you tend to get attached pretty quickly.

For the last few weeks we have, therefore, been back down to 5 girls (counting Blueberry). However, yesterday, we added a sixth child to our little family. Our newest addition is older--in fact only a few months younger than Mama Bear who is the oldest of all the girls. Haven't come up with a nickname for her yet--still feeling that one out. She will definitely provide a unique challenge--that much is for sure!

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#2 - Trips are coming together. We are formulating specific plans for a trip to England in the fall (yay!) where we will meet up with my parents as well as spend time with my British half. We have a potential trip in April to hang out with some friends in Eureka Springs (if we can pull that one together). And we are trying to figure out a good time for a trip down to Texas in the very near future. People we want to see, need to see, and simply must find a way to make it happen.

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#3 - In Blueberry news. Oh where to begin?! Well, for starters, I have to proudly announce that my clever little girl went potty in her little toilet today. Who knew I would care so much about that! But I do. We bought her a training potty last week as she has begun to show some signs that got us thinking she might be at a good point for starting potty training. For the last few days she's just sat on it, diaper on (generally when I've been going to the bathroom because she will not be stopped from coming with me). She showed her true genes by her immediately bringing a book in with her to read. And then today, I stuck her on it (sans diaper), and she went! And I was so pleased. So we'll see how it goes in the long run. But either way, that was happy.

And then a few hours later she introduced her baby doll to going potty. Of course baby doll wouldn't sit on the seat very well, so her legs wound up sticking through the hole in the seat, but Blueberry was determined to see her through the process.

She also continues on with her love of cleaning. There is an empty spray bottle in one of kitchen cupboards, and she will frequently get it out along with one of my kitchen towels and clean off the front of the fridge and the stove (one of the chores the older girls does in the cottage). Blue also loves to dust and will walk to the laundry room door, look up to where the duster is hung, and demand "dust! dust!" persistently until you hand her the duster and let her walk around dusting everything. Sometimes I think she does just as good a job as the girl whose actual chore it is.

In truth, she wants to do whatever we or the big girls are doing. When it is homework time, she will stand up on a chair at our huge dining room table and color away for quite awhile while they work on their homework. When it is time for chores, unless I've taken her away to get ready for bed, she is generally underfoot, wanting to help everyone. She mommy's her dolls, and as the cottage was recently given a toy kitchen, has been enjoying "cooking" food daily.

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#4 - Other Blueberry news--her word explosion continues. She is beginning to piece together sentence (albeit, sometimes half-spoken, half-signed sentences they are!). "Baby walk" (when pushing her baby doll in a stroller). "Lala 'nack", followed by frantic signing for "please". Her attempts at her name have come out as Lala and 'nack (snack) is one of her favorite words currently. Although "oof" (food) is also being used more frequently. Apparently she is slightly dyslexic with this whole backward food thing "oof" for food and "oosh" for shoes. She also loves "walk" (as she very much wants to go on frequent walks), "Bible" and "Book" are rather interchangeable. And in general she is just mimicking sounds of words constantly--unless it's a word that she apparently doesn't care to learn or be bothered with because then she just says garbled syllables of her own devise and expects you to be satisfied with that.

She will have whole conversations (or read entire books) of which we have no idea what she is actually saying, but she is quite a conversationalist when she wants to be. Of course when she sees anyone she doesn't know well, she'll freeze us, stare at them, not say word, and its hard to even coax a smile out of her. One of the women who works in the administrative office is currently attempting to bribe her favor with suckers. It appears to be working--slowly.

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#5 - I was pleased to get our taxes done yesterday (not pleased about the whole "taxes must be paid" thing; however, that's a totally different conversation) and get a refund check on its way to us. I was even more pleased to look at our budget and with a charming 20% discount being offered by the hospital, we realized that we can take care of yet another of our large bills this month. That's the second one we'll have paid off in the last six months. And then by the next six months we should get the third "smaller" one done. $15,000 in one year! If we continue to save and budget (which we plan on doing--after all, we're used to living under a tight budget and even with a little more wiggle room built in, we're trying to continue that careful living method), we foresee getting all my student loans and all Chris' student loans squared away in the few years which would leave us with the house to pay off--which could actually happen in a decent amount of time! All in all, a very encouraging status to be looking at. Both Chris and I have a dream--to be out of debt completely. And we want to do so as fast as we can. God willing, it's going to happen soon(ish).

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#6 - A few weeks ago we took a trip to Little Rock for the first time since we've moved here. Went to the local Whole Foods (yay for living near to one!) and even more exciting--went to the local Gluten Free (and soy free and a lot of dairy free) bakery! Yummy. Their bread is some of the best gluten free bread I have ever had. Totally indulged in a number of tasty treats--worth every delicious morsel. Fortunately they are an hour away, so it's not something we'll be indulging in that often. But I do foresee regular trips to the Dempsey Bakery when we are in Little Rock. Oh, and they serve lunch--so that's an added excuse :)

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#7 - And just because--two of my favorite pictures from Valentine's Day.

7 Quick Takes (vol. 23)

#1 - Well the Christmas season is getting into full swing on campus here. The inside of our cottage is decorated, the first Christmas party for the kids is tonight (I had my own first Christmas party yesterday--the ladies on campus all got together). Still need to decorate the outside of our cottage, but the Christmas spirit is in the air. Started on our Jesse tree last night. I think I'm going to enjoy this advent concept. Well based in Scripture but with the fun of putting Christmas decorations on the tree--what's not to love?

I will admit, I was saddened last night as we started talking about Christmas and the advent season. I began by asking them what Christmas is about. They all made the connection to Christ--but they all made it with Christ's resurrections or even Revelations! It took them awhile to come up with the answer of the birth of Christ. The basics--that is what we teach.

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#2 - On other cottage news, we're getting a new girl in a few weeks! We've been comfortable with our four girlies so far, but we're excited to have the challenge of taking on some new blood.

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#3 - Bad week for sleep. Lots of restlessness. Not entirely sure why, but it seems to be contagious throughout the cottage. We had a good prayer time before bed last night with the girls, and that seems to have settled Blueberry down at least and the other girls. I'm still not sleeping well though. Sigh. I have a sneaking suspicious it's dairy.....sad.

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#4 - It's December 2 and I already feel like I'm behind. No Christmas presents planned yet and need to get a Christmas card out. Sigh. Is it possible to ever catch up? Just curious.

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#5 - Progress continues on the house. Bit by sometimes painful bit, it comes together. With a sigh of relief and comfort with each portion that does get completed. It's amazing how much a few decorations and pictures can make living quarters, home.

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#6 - Have you seen this video? It makes me happy.

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#7 - Just because....Blueberry and her ever present Doggy.

Dabyook - November 15

Outside my window...it is lightening, thundering, and bucketing rain.

I am thinking...of plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Not entirely sure on what those plans will be. But they are being considered!

I am thankful for...our new home and job. Every job and place has bad points, but when I consider the good in comparison to the bad here, I am blessed.

From the learning rooms...[or in our case--the learning brain]...comes so much. Every day she learns new words and concepts and skills. Lately she's been climbing on top of everything she can manage to get a leg up onto (and with lots of attempts to climb even if she can't quite reach). The plaintive cry comes shortly after she accomplishes her climbing goal: "Mama. Mama" Until she gets my attention. And then it changes to "Dow" "Dow." (down).

From the kitchen...comes birthday pancakes and birthday cakes. Two of our girls have birthdays this week, so that's taken up a lot of time. I saw this pin on Pinterest awhile ago for birthday pancakes and decided to give it a try.

Source: howsweeteats.com via Hanna on Pinterest

My cake that I made for our two birthday girls this week. They wanted a vanilla and chocolate, cookies and cream ice-cream football cake. If you are familiar with my non-skills in cake-decorating, you will understand my pride in this cake. I think I did a pretty darn, good job!




I am wearing...jeans, socks, long sleeve shirt. Messy hair. Need pj's.

I am creating...scrapbook pages again! Posts to come.

I am going...to bed soon.

In my mailbox today.. .three pay checks. Two from here and one from editing (yay!)

I am reading.. . Jasper Ford's The Big Over Easy. I do so enjoy these books.

I am hoping...to decide between wanting a Kindle Fire or if I really want to save up and get an IPad2. At this point, I actually think the Kindle Fire might give me want I'm looking for (at a much cheaper price). Input welcome!

I am hearing...blissful silence. And rain.

Around the house...things are still coming together. We ordered some new bookshelves and they should be here tomorrow. Very excited about this as I should be able to get a lot of this last pile of stuff properly put away once they are situated. Sometimes I wonder if I have to many books. And I'll weed some out. And then realize that the rest I want.

One of my favorite things...story time with my big girls. Most evenings (well, we attempt most evenings) we have devotions and then a chapter or two out of a book before the girls go to bed. Definitely one of my (and I think their) favorite times of day.

A few plans for the rest of the week: chapel, work meeting, parent/teacher conference--all tomorrow. Plus a birthday day. Thursday a second birthday day and preparation to go off of work on Friday morning. Three beautiful days to myself. Almost. Me and Blueberry any ways.

Here is picture (or more) for thought I am sharing...

Chris with one of "our" girls.


Want to join in? Go check out The Simple Woman's Daybook.

Daybook - March 4

Outside my window...it was brilliant sunshine. I have the windows and doors open to let in the warm(er) air. However, it is now getting darker and darker and a chill is beginning to make itself known (unwelcome visitor that it is), and so the predicted rainstorms/potential snow storms might be on their way.

I am thinking...that I need to take a basic math class. I had planned out our meals for this week. But somehow I managed to double-calculate in the same package of chicken breasts and then miscalculated how many eggs I would need for the week, with the end result that Blueberry and I had to go shopping (again) today because I couldn't make dinner or do other baking until I got a few more ingredients.

I am thankful for...getting our taxes done and the pretty, pretty moneys that the government is oh so kindly returning to my bank account soon. I'm hoping that Turbo Tax is accurate in the sums they presented as my current lack of math ability might not allow me to catch any errors.

From the learning rooms...[or in our case--the learning brain]...Blueberry has been clapping her feet together (little monkey that she is) and seems to be slowly grasping the concept of waving bye-bye. Which is absolutely adorable. And, no, I'm not a doting, proud mother. I don't know what you're talking about. Completely unbiased perspective here!

From the kitchen...comes somtam, kowneow, and satay (green papaya salad, sticky rice, and grilled chicken with coconut milk) for dinner tonight. And for tomorrow, a devil's food cake. The problem with growing older is that if you want a birthday cake, you tend to have to make it yourself. Oh well, it looks yummy. Given that I apparently can no longer do math and added substantially more butter than was actually needed, we'll hope that it comes out yummy (thanks for the fractions help, Hillery!). Any suggestions on what to do with a 1/2 cup blend of butter, white sugar, and brown sugar?

I am wearing...jeans and a gray nursing sweatshirt. And shoes and socks for some odd reason. Why do I still have my shoes on?

I am creating...my birthday cake! With peanut-butter frosting. Because that just sounded luscious.

I am going...to update Blueberry's baby book this weekend. I will. I will. I will! I'm finding that even at only 6 months the moments are slipping together so quickly, and I don't want to lose them before I've written down much of what I want to remember.

I am reading.. . through L'Engle's major fiction books still (with a number of dives into some of her journals as well).

Yes, dear, I will start Atlas Shrugged as soon as I finish these.

I am hoping...that my soreness from working out diminishes soon. We're trying out the P90x workouts. Oh my. That program deserves the reputation it has. Kicked my tail very thoroughly. And, for the sake of honesty, there are certain types of push-ups of which I can do a grand total of one. I feel pathetic.

I am hearing...the train in the distance. Other than that, just the clacking of keyboards. Oh! And that was my cake timer. Be back in a little while...

Around the house...Things have been going really smoothly. I've been proud of myself this week. Working with the FlyLady system (sort of) and I feel like my days have become more productive and less stressful simultaneously. Still don't have enough hours in the week, but that's ok. The major stuff is getting done, and that's what is most important.

One of my favorite things...downy, blond, baby hair. With a slight suggestion of curls coming(oh please, oh please, oh please get my ringlets!).

A few plans for the rest of the week: have a "I'm still 29 celebration", go to church, have some friends over for dinner tonight and a game of Agricola, church, and next week--packing!

Here is picture (or more) for thought I am sharing...

This is one of my favorite pictures of Blueberry so far. That look just cracks me up--little charmer that she is. For the rest in the series, go check out her other adorable Valentine's Day pictures at My Life in Scraps. I'm so pleased with how they came out!


Want to join in? Go check out The Simple Woman's Daybook.

Daybook 2/14/11

Outside my window...it is dark and getting cold again. However, it was nice enough earlier today that Blueberry and I went for a walk. So nice.

I am thinking...that while I agree that Valentine's Day has become a rather over-commercialized holiday (although one might ask what holiday's haven't), I'm a little tired of people claiming it as a "greeting card holiday" only.

I am thankful for...sister in laws who make fantastic lemon-meringue pie. Am currently eating the pie out of the pie pan (it's a mini-pan). Feels very decedent.

From the learning rooms...[or in our case--the learning brain]...Blueberry has almost mastered sitting up. Tooth number 3 has not yet materialized; although, it's obviously thinking about it. Wish it would hurry up. These random teething days are annoying. Blueberry has also begun paying much closer attention to the dogs lately. Mara Jade just kind of keeps her distance; however, Calista will be friends with anybody who will pet her (or poke her in the eye, apparently!).

From the kitchen...comes a pathetic lack of not much today. I had great plans for a nice romantic meal for Valentine's Day. Not so much. Did make Thai fried rice for lunch. Does that count?

I am wearing...new jeans (yay! my old ones were all dying at the bottom) and a red, tunic/nursing top (also newish). I normally refuse to wear red or pink on Valentine's Day (it's the principle of the thing), but I broke that rule today both for me and for Blueberry. After all, we were experiencing a rather pathetic lack of Valentininess, so at least we could look the part!

I am creating...a new price list. As I've been not keeping up with sale shopping/CVSing for the last year-ish, my price lists have become woefully inaccurate (thanks to all the cost increases). So we're having to do some hard-core reworking of the price list. Time consuming but high money-saving value in the end.

I am going...to do our taxes at some point this week.

I am reading.. . my newest Blogging for Books book. I've also been reading through the Wrinkle in Time series. I am, as always, awed by Madeline L'Engle's imagination and writing. She both inspires me and causes me to look at my own writing and shake my head woefully.

I am hoping...for a few good chunks of sleep tonight. Very tired.

I am hearing...the sound of the heater, my dear (and not feeling so good) husband playing on the Xbox and blissful silence. Thank goodness. Blueberry has finally mastered night time sleeping--as much as anyone and especially a 6 month old can master it--but naps have now gone out the window, much to my sorrow. I love her so much. But there at times when I desperately need her to just take a nap. It's a vicious cycle. Sleeping Blueberry = tired/highly needy; Refusal to nap = even more tired/needy = tired mommy.

Around the house...we have a mailbox again. That's good. I've missed my mail the last few days!

One of my favorite things...is the way Blueberry reaches for my hand while she is nursing. Sometimes just to hold it; sometimes to play with my fingers. Always that desire for physical, skin-to-skin contact. There's nothing so soothing as holding a drowsy baby's hand.

A few plans for the rest of the week: go to several stores--we need groceries very badly; taxes; teach; hopefully see some girl friends; get some writing/editing work done; keep up with everything else like laundry and food!

Here is picture for thought I am sharing:



Want to join in? Go check out The Simple Woman's Daybook.

Christmassing

It is December 30 and I'm sitting here with the window wide open enjoying the lovely breeze. Does anyone else find this picture bizarre?

Warm weather has been the weather of our Christmas this year. Granted, we flew to where it should be warm, so it was a little less unexpected, but still!

Last Wednesday we flew out to Arizona to spend Christmas with my parents. They are temporarily living in Arizona teaching at a local bible school there. Why not enjoy a warm Christmas while we can?!

Packing was a challenge. First (as I mentioned in an earlier post) our dryer broke. So I spent one day running back and forth (well, driving) between my brother's house and mine doing laundry. But by Wednesday morning we were all packed, dressed, and ready to go.

Blueberry was an absolute angel on the plane--both there and back. The worst crying we had out of her was a few minutes of her (very quiet) "uh uh uh"s while she explained to me how she didn't want to go to sleep and how she resented her eyelids getting heavy. She was so quiet on the way there that the people across the aisle from us were shocked when they realized there was a baby right next to them! And, no. We did not drug her.

At the airport:




While in Arizona we enjoyed the gorgeous weather that allowed for craziness like roses and fruit on trees in December.












The cactus wearing Santa caps were rather amusing too.


On Friday we drove to Sedona where we enjoyed the red rocks of Coconino National Forest. While I don't think I would want to live in Phoenix, if I could live somewhere in that area, I totally would.




(My new carrier--Piccolo. Similar to a mai tai but with clips instead of tying on. I still prefer my wrap for now, but when she gets bigger, especially when she's able to go on my back, this will be far easier. And it fits both Chris and I with little adjustment!)

Other activities: I visited my first Trader Joes. While I was impressed by the prices, I actually was not that impressed by the store. I've heard so much about it, and I can see it being great for novelty stuff, but really, I like our Mama Jeans!

My Mum got introduced to playing the Wii. That was absolutely hysterical. If you are a Facebook friend of mine, I'm going to link to the video we took of her.

Chris and I were also happy to spend an afternoon and evening with some good friends of our who we hadn't seen in about 8 years. Nothing like catching up with friends.

Blueberry primarily worked at entertaining her grandparents. She was very good most of the trip; although, she did get her patience tried a little too much on Friday as she spent so much time in the car seat that she proceeded to protest riding in the car seat after much shorter intervals than normal. She also found a new noise to make. I personally think it sounds like the groaning of a train coming to a halt. Chris thinks she's trying to imitate his cough. Either way, it's a most peculiar noise. Oh, and she finally is mastering the art of grasping. Which means everything is being grabbed (and then gummed). Plus she has discovered a love of drinking from glasses. Trying to get her to master her sippy cup. So far, she prefers trying to suck out of the straw opening on mommy's water bottle. It was a busy week in her world!

Saturday morning--Christmas Day!--was the Blueberry present hour. Let's just say her Nana and Papa spoiled her. But that's ok. After all, we have few Christmases together for spoilage.

Nana and Blueberry reading hour.


Blueberry in a Bag


Which she primarily tried to eat--because she's eating everything currently.




Including her new Raggedy Ann


I hope they will be good friends. I was delighted that she was given both the classic Raggedy Ann stories and the classic Raggedy Andy stories. Love those books!


Yes, we are a family of bookworms. Lots of books for Christmas.


Blueberry and a stylin' outfit from France--a gift from her Auntie Joy




I hope everyone's Christmas was as delightful.