Solomon is walking!

My bitty baby boy is walking! A few days ago he took his first step and now he can make it across the living room. My earliest walker. Yesterday the big kids were running in circles and Solomon got this look like "I can do that too!" and off he went. For about 4 steps before his body got ahead of his feet and he fell. Then he just crawled with them, lol.

Things are going well around here. It seems everytime I turn around we have new animals. We started with a turtle and 2 cats, we now have one cat, one turtle, two dogs, one fish, 4 mice and 3 chickens. Where did they all come from? At least it's a start to our farm, lol.

Updates!

We're on slow dial-up now, so I haven't been getting on the internet more than about once a week since we moved. I feel like I'm wasting time waiting for pages to load, so then I try and get chores done while it's loading, and then I forget about it and no one can call for hours on end, lol. We're doing good though. Progress on the house has expectedly slowed. Between the house and his job, Austin had been working double shifts for over a month when we moved, so he's taking it easier now and mainly only working on the house on his days off. We also had some car issues, so he had to work on that for a few weeks as well. But hopefully soon we'll be able to move into the rest of the house and have more than just one bedroom, kitchen and living room to live in. We're not really too cramped right now though, which is good. I do have to make sure the kids get a lot of outside time. The biggest aggravator really is that until the other 3 rooms are finished I can't finish unpacking and I'm tired of not being able to find the things I want. But that's a small complaint to be sure.

Solomon is doing wonderfully. He's been inch-worming along for a little over a month and now he's figured out to really crawl, sit up and has started pulling up the last few days. I can't believe he'll be 7 months old soon. It goes by so quickly. The kids are already asking when I'll have another baby in my belly, lol. I have to say, I'm starting to wonder myself, though I know in reality, it probably won't be next spring/summer, just like before. I've got a long way to go if baby fever is starting to hit already!

Genesis is a wonderful little girl, who loves to help out around hte house and with the baby. On Monday she got hit in the face with a shovel by the neighbor girl (totally on accident) and had a deep gash on the bridge of her nose. I took her to the ER where they determined she needed one stitch. I was a little concerned about tetanus, since she's not vaccinated and a lot of risk factors were there, but the ER Dr said the chances of her getting it were very remote and not to worry. We removed the stitch today and it's healing wonderfully. Other than that, she's very two and has her moments.

Canaan is growing up so fast. He's a delight to have around as he's also a willing helper and I love watchign the things he comes up with.

Asher can't wait for us to start school next week. He knows that by the end of 1st grade he'll be an independant reader, and that's very exciting for him. I'm also excited to teach him this year as there's just so much to learn. Other than the reading, we'll also be doing more formal math and memorizing math facts and such along with fun science experiments and a Bible timeline. It just looks like it will be a fun year.

I'm doing great. Solomon is quite a bit more needy than I remember any of the others being (or maybe it's just b/c I have 4 now) and I'm having a hard time getting my groove back, but now that he's starting to take longer naps and plays on the floor more I can see the light at the end of hte tunnel. It's frustrating to feel like the house is always in survival mode, but I wouldn't trade all the baby snuggles I get for more housework time almost any day of the week. One day a week I would like to be able to actually get more done Which I think is also partially why I don't mind not having the rest of the house done. I'm working hard enough just keeping what we have clean!

Tomorrow's the day!

Tomorrow we move. I'm excited to get on with this next phase of our lives. We'll spend the summer finishing up the house and then in the fall we figure out what to do with all our apples and whatever else kind of fruit we find. In the winter we start figuring out next year's garden and building the chicken coop. So exciting! I am not, however, looking forward to the next several days. Tomorrow we're starting bright and early at 6:30am, supposedly. First thing, we're all going to the new house, so the men can finish my floors (sigh) and I can start cleaning (double sigh). It should prove to be a long day. And then of course we'll spend the next couple days juggling things around until we find half-way decent places for everything. Though we can't do too much unpacking b/c half the house isn't finished yet. But it will still be an exciting adventure and a great beginning to our new blessings.

Asher is sad to be leaving his friends. He regularly plays with an 8yo boy and 4yo girl that live across the street. He said he wished we could live here forever. I explained to him that we can't, and besides, the neighbors are moving in a month or so anyways, so it wouldn't do any good to live here. But that doesn't take his sadness away. This is the first time he's ever experienced regret at moving. Before he was always excited. But this is also the first he's been old enough and had friends to really get it. But moving on is a part of life unfortunately. I, too, will miss our neighbors and being able to walk up to the store, and to visit friends and family, but I'm much more excited about the life we have ahead of us.

Don't know when I'll be able to post again. Of course we have the busyness that comes with moving. The phone guy should be out on Monday to get us all set up, but then we'll only have dial-up. That may be good for my blogging, perhaps I'll get so fed up trying to do anything else I'll just blog instead to keep my busy, lol, or I may get so frustrated I just about give up on the internet all together (yeah right) or spend all my time waiting for pages to load up that I don't have time to blog. Or maybe, I'll blog while I'm waiting for other pages to load. Only time will tell.

For now, goodbye and pray for us!

Making progress, sort of

We got a bunch of boxes moved today, pretty much everything I've packed so far. For now, we're just putting most of the boxes in the (no where near completed) master bedroom, until we have time later to juggle things around. Things to do before Sunday: fix bathroom floor, install toilet and sink, cover big hole in the kids' bedroom closet, put a floor in the utility room for my washer and dryer, buy a stove, move everything, clean both houses, did I miss anything. Oh, and as of this morning, DH is the only cook at the restaurant, though he's already told his bosses he can only work Friday and Saturday evening, and MUST have the mornings and Sunday off.

YOu've got to be kidding me

On Tuesday we paid the deposit to get water turned on at the new house. We left explicit directions to call before turning on because we just put new plumbing in and didn't know if there were any leaks, etc. We were assured they would call and even if no-one was there, they would keep the water turned off at the meter, just in case. No call on Tues. Wed morning, DH got up early, all ready to put the toilet and sink in. Walked into the house to discover a flooded bathroom, no kidding. The sink, bathroom and shower were all turned on. And remember, the toilet and sink weren't installed yet, so their pipes were just spraying everywhere. After numerous calls to the water company and having fans blowing all day, they will not charge us for the 8000 ( :O) gallons of water used and things dried out fairly well, so it shouldn't be too much work to fix. I think they should pay for what does need fixing, but DH isn't too worried about it. Fun times, hey?

Here we go

We have less than one week to move out of our current house. Before we can live in our new house, we need to finish the bathroom (it's about 3/4 painted, needs the toilet and sink/mirror put in), put a floor down in the utility room so my washer and dryer can be put in and buy a stove. I would prefer we get the joists taken care of under the wall between the 3rd bedroom and the kids bedroom, but I don't think that's going to happen. So we'll probably just put a piece of plywood there for now and call it good. And of course I need to finish packing, which I am working on, but it's slow going with a baby who I think is teething. Slow and steady wins the race, right?

Busy, busy, busy

We've been busy around here. Everyday we get up, eat breakfast, I take a shower (most days), then we head to the new house. DH and I get as much done as we can with a baby who likes to be held, a 2yo who likes to help and a 4 and 6yo who go back and forth between helping and exploring, which means constant checks to be sure they haven't gone too far. By the time we get home and eat lunch, it's 3-3:30. Dh takes a nap with the 2yo, while I sit and catch my breath! At 4:30 Dh is up and getting ready for work. When he leaves it's time to do as much picking up, laundry, dishes and packing as we can in the next 3 hours before the kids start getting ready for bed. They shower, eat and go to bed and then I collapse on the couch for an hour or so until I crawl into bed.

The kids' room is all done, painted and everything, just waiting on laminate. The living room and kitchen need the ceiling and floor painted, then they will be done. Bathroom needs a little more mudding and sanding before we can paint. the shower is in and plumbing hooked up, the sink/vanity is all ready, just waiting to paint first and the toilet is almost ready to put on. We still need some plywood put down where the washer and dryer go, and a wall, and the utility room will be usable. Oh, and now we found out that we need to get the garage, which was used as a barn, cleaned out ASAP so my FIL can stay there. We have just under 2 weeks to get it all done and get moved in. Then we'll worry about the rest of the house ;)

Baby and house updates

The baby is all better. About two days after his rash appeared, it started to disappear. 3 days after that, it was all gone. Still not sure what it was and nobody else has come down with it (though it has a 2wk incubation, so we'll see)

I put together a little slideshow of the house project, though it looks worse then when we started. Today we bought all new bathroom stuff. Fun!

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/0803/kugoi/new%20house/?albumview=slideshow

Roseola? Rubella?

Last week Solomon had a low grade fever for two days, no other symptoms. Yesterday he had what looked like a heat rash on his face, then his whole body. Today, all the little bumps are bigger, as in spread out, not taller, and the fever is back. A lot of people said it looks like Roseola, but some said it looks worse than any Roseola they've seen. And Roseola is usually marked by a high-grade fever, not a low grade. So I did some more research and I'm leaning towards Rubella. Rubella is marked with a low-grade fever and starts on the face. The pics of Roseola and Rubella online look a lot alike, but based on symptoms, I'm thinking it's more likely Rubella. Well, if I've got to pick on of the MMR, I'll take Rubella any day! I wonder if the other kids will come down with it... Want some pics?

House update

Let's see, we ended up not having to get the electricity inspected. It seems the first lady we talked to didn't know what she was talking about. We did however have to pay a ridiculously high deposit. We'll get part of it back after 12 months and the rest back after 18 months (assuming all payments are made on time).

We discovered we need to tear out the entire bathroom because all the walls were full of mold. Reason for mold? The drainage pipes in the sink, bathtub and washer weren't connected and just drained onto the ground under the house. I think we're going to buy one of those one-piece bathtub/shower dealies so we can just put it in without having to worry about caulking, etc. Just much less work. We also need to buy a new toilet because the old one got broke when DH moved it. And we're goign to go ahead and buy a new bathroom sink/cabinet becuase the one that was in there is only 18in wide and there's enough room for a 30in wide one and the $150 is worth it for the counter and cabinet space.

We've accepted that in order to move in by June 1st (so we'll get a month with no rent/payments) we will most likely be moving in with just subfloors. Not a problem, as far as I'm concerned. There's more than enough space that we can shuffle rooms for a bit until it's all ready.

The last couple days I've been going up to the house with the kids and while the men work on fixing floors, pulling out bathrooms, etc, I've been doing little things. The previous owners had an open fire in the fireplace, so the walls are covered in soot. I've been washing that off, though I'm not sure how clean the walls need to be to paint. I also spent a good amount of time removing carpet tack board and padding staples from the living room and kids bedroom. I still need to remove a wallpaper boarder from the living room and we need to buy some spackle, so I can start filling in holes, etc in order to paint. For now we're just going to paint everything off-white and later we will decide on colors. I'm the kind of person that needs to live in a house for a while to see what colors I want. But we're making progress and I'm glad that I'm able to help even though I'm constantly interrupted by the kids.

Packing is going slow. I've had a hard time lately with the baby just keeping up on dishes and laundry, so that doesn't leave much time for packing too. I've only managed to get about a dozen boxes packed, but I'm working on it. We haven't had to leave anything behind yet because of my packing procrastination, and we've made plenty of moves!

I officially graduated Asher from Kindergarten last week. We didn't finish the curriculum we're using, but he knows everything in it so at this point it was just extra practice. Now I'm not stressed everyday when I don't get school done! School things are also on the list of things I can pack now.

Speaking of school, in the family room, which we'll be using as a dining room, we're going to have two walls covered in shower board. It works just like whiteboard and isn't too much more than drywall. My sewing desk will also be in that room, so I'm excited about that.

I think that's about it for now. I would post some 'during' pics, but they're pretty scary at this point, what with walls and floors tore out and a bathtub sitting in the master bedroom, etc. Maybe you can see the 'during' pics when I put up the 'after's , lol.

My battle against laziness

I've always been a lazy person. Lazy and procrastinating by nature. Since having children, this has bothered me more and more and I've been consciously fighting it. There are some times in life though where it's an easier fight. Right now is not one of those times. Everyday I have to sit down many many times throughout the day to take care of the baby, and every time is new battle to get back up. It's so easy to just hold the sleeping baby and not get anything done. It seems by the time I finally convince myself to get off my behind, he's waking up and needs to eat! Case in point: by my schedule, I should have been in the shower half an hour ago, but here I sit, with a sleeping baby on my chest, blogging. I may or may not be able to put him down right now without him waking, I wont' know until I try. The good news is that it actually bothers me now when my house is a mess and I keep loosing the battle to get up. When Asher was a baby, I didn't much care. So off I go, to fight the good fight and every time I win I become a better person.

Mystery Solved

For the last week or two, Solomon has been getting little sores and scratches on the top of his head. I had no idea where they were coming from. I thought they were appearing at night, but that's all I knew. It was driving me crazy and you can just imagine the ideas going through my head since we have issues with bugs and mice! Last night, I figured it out. When he nurses while we're both laying down, he takes his arm that is furthest from me and reaches up and around to the top of his head. He mainly plays with his hair, but he scratches and picks too. Mystery solved! Now I just have to decide what, if anything, to do about it...

Pulling up carpet

We pulled up carpet yesterday and set off some odor bombs called Room Shocker. I had read about it online and it got pretty good reviews. Plus, it has a money back guarantee, so we went for it. I think it's pretty much just a gaseous form of bleach, which I normally don't mess with, but sometime you gotta do when you gotta do. They say for strong odors to let it work for 24 hours, so well see how well it worked this afternoon. The house will probably reek of bleach, but thats better than the smell that's there! We talked to a neighbor, and he said they had chickens living IN the house. We're not talking about little chicks in a box here. They didnt have an adequate chicken coop, so the chickens were in the house. So you can imagine the smell in the house. And the desperate need to replace floor coverings!

Today DH is out at the house with a neighbor digging a french drain. The house has water damage and we heard it was from water coming off the hill, so we're trying to divert the water run-off. We think a lot of the water problem is also just from the gutter not being connected. Where the worst damage is, is where the gutters end and it all spills out there.

So that's where we are. Reconstruction has begun.

We have the keys!

The keys to the farm are ours! A little unexpected fee came up. Turns out the previous owners haven't had the electricity turned on since '05. The electric company requires an electric inspection on anything that hasn't had the electric on in over a year. Of course we have to pay for it. Doh. Weren't expecting that. The inspector guy is out ot lunch right now, so we won't know until this afternoon what it's actually going to run us. But that's okay, because we own a farm!

Pics of our new house and farm!

Here it is! The house is 1700sf, 3 bedrooms, 1 bath. This could only have happened through God's miracles, so praise the Lord with me! We hope to move in before June. Here's some highlights.

The pics are (I think I got this in order):
The front of the house, The hill right behind the house, Our fruit trees, The back of the acreage from the top of the hill, All the ways back is ours, The view walking back

Next post:
Master bedroom, Family room, Kitchen (don't hate me!) and The living room fireplace.

TWO daddies!

The other night my BIL stayed over and slept on the living room floor. When Genesis got up with the boys, she came to our bed and fell back asleep with me. I got up a short time later, but she stayed sleeping. Eventually she came out and half awake, saw her uncle laying on the floor. She was at his feet, so she couldn't see his face, and he was sleeping in a position that DH sleeps in often. Her eyes got so big, and she exclaimed with the most wonderful voice "TWO daddies!" She was completely awe-struck. Unfortunately I had to break her heart and tell her that one was Uncle Amos. She was very disappointed. Can you tell she's a Daddy's girl?

Well, darnit

We may not be closing on the house on the 15th. The bank is having issues getting all their paperwork in order. But that's okay, it gives us more time to get firm numbers on things we need to fix up the house. In the meantime, we just wait patiently, I suppose. And try and remember to take the camara next time we head out there...

Planning the farm

So we've spent the last week or two planning our farm. We eventually hope to go off the grid and maybe even self-sustaining. By off the grid we don't just mean to have alternative sources of electricity, but rather to go without. So a lot of plans are working towards that goal. First thing, of course, is getting the house livable. We can start work after the 15th. I still don't have any pictures, but promise to get some as soon as possible. I should probably start packing, since we move in less than two months, if everything goes to plan. But alas, the baby hasn't been feeling well so I'm barely keeping up with laundry and dishes. Right now we're having discussions about where to put the wood stove. There's already a place where one was, though we would have to protect the walls and such, but it's in the middle of the master bedroom and clearance would take up a lot of our room and DH is worried it'll be too hot in there to sleep. So he talked about moving it to a corner of the bedroom, but I"m thinking, if he's going to move it, he should just move it to the family room if he's that worried about the heat at night. We also have been discussing about the whole summer cooking thing when we go off grid and what we want to do about that. Here's our plan so far, though subject to change as we learn more. We have a fireplace to heat the front of the house and we'll be getting a wood stove big enough to heat the back of house. Then we'll build a cook/wash house off of the kitchen to put a cook stove in. That porch area will have fold-down walls and screens so in the summer we can open it up and not heat up the whole house while cooking, but in the winter I can close it up (so I won't freeze!) and can hang laundry up in there as well. Right now we'll just get the wood stove to heat the back of the house, but in the future will buy the cook stove. DH wants to go all out and get one that has a water tank on the back for hot water. Less work for me!

We've also been planning the garden and chicken area. My dad grew up on a farm and told me this great idea that I only found mentioned in one place so far online. What you do is fence in two garden plots, and put the chicken coop between them. The first year, you let the chickens out on one side and put your garden on the other side. Then the next year, you switch them. So the chickens are eating up all your left over garden stuff and composting it, completely weeding the area and fertilizing it. So every year you have a great garden plot to plant in. Awesome! We're going to go ahead and raise layers and meat birds. Hopefully, every 2 months or so we'll get a chicken to raise a brood of chicks to slaughter. Which means we'll need a rooster. I think we said if we start out with 18 or so chicks that should be plenty to get us through until we get some good layers to raise up some more for meat. I'm so excited. Not so much at the thought of slaughtering chickens, but I'm sure I'll get over it.

Speaking of slaughtering, DH is also planning on learning how to slaughter deer (shot on our own land!), and eventually cows that we'll raise too. We're not sure yet exactly how many cows we'll be able to pasture on our land, so that will have a big impact on how we do that, of course. We know for sure we want a dairy cow, and we'll have to freshen her every year or two so we might as well raise the calf for meat, but we don't know what we're going to do about mating her. I don't think we want a bull just for one, at most, two dairy cows, but I don't want to pay to get them inseminated either. Maybe we can find someone to trade use of their bull for something...

But I'm rambling and really need to try and put the baby down so I can switch laundry and wash two days worth of dishes. Thanks for listening to my rambling!

Some people

After church today we stopped at McD's for lunch and while in there we overheard an interesting conversation between some partons and an employee. The patrons were black and complaining quite loudly that there was something wrong with this town because there wasnt a single black person working there. The employee responded that there was a black person, he was in the back, so then the patron started to go on about how unfair it was that the poor guy was washing dishes, etc etc and how he's from North Carolina and people there don't care about color. Then he asked the employee what he thought of Obama, to which the employee responded he didn't much care for him or his politics and so the patron went on and on about how hate is wrong and there's no reason to hate Obama, etc. Hello? The employee never said he hated Obama and the patron was making the whole town out to be racist throughout the conversation when there was no reason for it. There simply aren't a lot of black people, or any other minorities for that matter, around here. You can just tell that he came here to "redneck Kentucky" expecting us all to be a bunch of KKK members or some such nonsense. If it had gone on any longer I would have stepped in to defend the poor employee, but luckily the patrons left in disgust before things got too heated. People like that drive me crazy. Who's the real racist here?

We're getting a farm!!

God has given us the wonderful opportunity to buy a small piece of land with a house on it. It's 12 acres, mostly pasture but with a good amount of woods too, maybe 2 or more acres? The house is 1700sf (twice what we have now) and the main part is 150 years old! It has this beautiful old fireplace in it and the kitchen is huge with tons of cabinets and counter space. What else? 3 bedrooms, 1 bath and 2 living spaces. The bedrooms are big enough that we shouldn't have a problem fitting all our future children :) There's also a detached oversized garage that already has electricity run to it and everything. The laundry room is big enough to fit a good size deep-freeze, or maybe we'll jsut put another fridge in, lol. There's fruit trees behind the house. We know there's apple, and maybe pear? We're not sure yet. There's a smokehouse that's been used as a root cellar, we'll probably use it as both at different times, lol. It does need some work, but that's okay, we have some money to get the things done that have to be done. Oh and it'll be summer before we move in, so we don't have time to get a good garden in. Oh well, next year! That gives us this year to get the yard cleaned up and learn how to can all that fruit. Hopefully by next spring we'll be ready to put in a big garden and get some chickens! We're so excited. It was only maybe 6 months ago when I asked DH if he thought we would ever get our farm because I didn't see it happening without a miracle. Well, God is performing that miracle and I am so blessed to be the reciever of it. Praise God with me. (pictures hopefully to be coming soon)

Another tooth!

Asher lost his second tooth 2 days ago. It's been loose for a while, but he said it hurt to wiggle it, so he was leaving it alone. It finally got loose enough he thought he could wiggle it out, and sure enough, he did! His first permanent tooth is just starting to peak out of the hole left from his first lost tooth.

He also has a slightly loose top tooth already. He's getting so big!

Life with 4

If you can't tell from the lack of posting, we've been busy! Solomon is a wonderful baby. He sleeps well at night and usually when he's awake he's in a wonderful mood. He's starting to smile lots and cooing and all those cute things. He does like to be held while sleeping though, which makes for an interesting time. Some days he'll take good naps in his porta-crib, but other days I can't put him down for more than 5 minutes. So yeah, I've been busy! I'm either trying to get chores done, playing with a happy baby, or holding a sleeping one.

We're also trying to get our schedule going, but life has thrown us a few curve balls the last couple weeks, so we're not getting much school in. And Solomon almost always wants to be held in the evenings, which is my only chore time, so that makes it interesting. But we're getting there.

Today is Sunday, so it's my big cleaning day. I'm trying to tackle the kids closet, but seeing as how I'm holding a sleeping baby who won't be put down, I don't know how far I'll get. That closet is always in disaster mode. It's the length of the kids room, so probably 8ft or more, but it only has one regular sized doorway. So even when it get all pulled out, organized and put back in, as soon as I need to put something in it again, it just gets thrown in on top. And while I'm in there, I need to get stuff organized for the big clothes switch I'll have to do in another month or so. Oh and go through all the clothes I pulled out of the boys dressers to make more room and decide if I should keep it, donate it, toss it, etc. I've also been given a ton of clothes for Asher to grow into, nice clothes all the way up to size 10, so I need to go through those and get them organized. And I have to get it all done by bedtime tonight so Genesis's bed can be put back on the floor. Think I can do it? I don't know either, but we'll give a shot.

Looks like Solomon is pretty out of it and may let me put him down, so I need to get work. Wish me luck!

Oh, I forgot!

I forgot to mention, for all those that don't know yet, Asher lost his first tooth last Sunday. While brushing his teeth in the morning I noticed it was loose. We were so excited. By mid-afternoon he had pulled it out. I can't believe I have a child old enough to loose teeth! He enjoyed spending his tooth fairy money earlier this week at Dollar Tree.

A new church

We haven't been to church since I moved here a year and a half ago. I've been craving the fellowship, but DH hasn't wanted to go. Well, he finally decided that it was time for him to get back into the Word. There's a church we've been following online for a while now. I actually found them while in MO and gave DH some of their publications, all of which we agreed with, so we knew when we started going to church again we would want to check them out. We were a little worried it would turn out to be a mega-church, no offense to mega-churches, but we prefer smaller churches. We were so happy when we got there, because it wasn't huge at all. Quite small really. They have a morning and afternoon service, so I don't know how full the afternoon is, but we liked the morning service. It had the perfect mixture of old and young, with several families with kids the same ages as our kids. We were the largest family there though. I sometimes forget that 4 is getting in the range of "a lot." I spend so much time on message boards with large families that I feel like we're small! There was even a comment about us taking up a whole row, lol. It's not my fault their rows are only 7-8 chairs wide. And Solomon didn't even have his own chair, lol. But anyways, DH and I both really enjoyed the service and the fellowship, so we think we found a home church. I'm so excited. And even more exciting, DH is excited too! And the kids! Asher is the only one who remembers church and all he remembers is having friends there. His excitement about going was so contagious, Genesis was giddy this morning, lol. And they did awesome. I was so afraid we'd be taking kids out constantly since they're not used to sitting still and quiet but they behaved wonderfully. We almost had to take Genesis out, but she straightened up real quick. Oh, that's another thing I just remembered. They all keep their kids with them. I usually feel like a freak when we visit churches because I won't put my kids in the nursery/kids church type things, but this church doesn't even have those things. They have a mother's room which I believe has speakers in it so you can still hear the sermon, which is great! That's all a church really needs, imo. Pretty much, the only problem we found so far with the church is the distance. It's an hour drive, so add that to an almost 2 hour service and most our day is gone by the time we get home, but it will be worth it.

Oh, here's an interesting note. Last night was the worst night Solomon has ever had. He cried and fussed off and on all night. He would only sleep if I was rocking him and patting his back in an upright position, etc. He spent all morning fussing too, which made it hard for me to get me and the kids ready! But as soon as I put him in his carseat, which he usually hates, he settled right down and has been a happy baby since. I think Satan was trying to get us out of going this morning. I have a feeling the next couple weeks will bring some major excuses to not go, but we are determined to go anyway.

That's my exciting news for the week!

Figuring out a new schedule

With DH's new work schedule I'm trying to wrap my mind around what's the best way to do things and how it will work. Here's what I'm thinking so far.

Monday:
6am-me up, Bible time, exercise
7-7:30am-kids up, dressed with beds made
Bfast, kids gets computer time
8am-me in shower, kids brush teeth, etc
9am-start school
School should be done by 10 or 10:30, DH should be awake by 11, then we have free time, lunch, etc until he goes to work
4:30pm- daily chores, dinner, free time
8:00pm-start getting ready for bed
8:30-45pm-kids in bed
9pm-me in bed (I'm hoping I'll be able to move this 11pm before too long, but right now I need the extra sleep

Tuesday
repeat of Mon

Wed
repeat Mon morning
DH off from work, so we run errands, go grocery shopping, relax

Thur
DH off from work

Fri
repeat Mon

Sat
6am-me up, Bible, exercise
7-7:30 kids up
8- bfast
9:30 leave for church
2-3pm get home
4:30pm-repeat Mon evening

Sun
I have two options for Sun, I haven't figured out which to do yet
repeat Mon morning, working around DH who leaves for work at 11:30am
11:30-lunch, quiet time, then weekly chores, like mopping, vacuuming around edges, cleaning out fridge, etc
8pm bedtime
OR
wait to do school until after DH leaves, then lunch, weekly chores, etc.

Most likely DH won't be up until it's time to get ready for work on Sun, so we won't really be missing time with him if we're doing our morning schedule, but I think I'll feel like I'm working all day long, which is why there's a quiet time in there. But I wonder if I things will go smoother if we do our school morning routine as usual rather than completely changing around the day

I want another!

I love babies, especially newborns. I can't believe Solomon is 4 weeks old already :( Before long he won't be a newborn anymore, just a regular baby. And I love the newborn stage. They're just so precious. So yes, I want another. I don't know that I'm up for being pregnant again already, seeing as how my house is not even put back together and I'm still on light duty, but I just love having a baby around the house. It'll probably be another 6 months before I get major baby fever, but I'm already constantly telling DH that I want another one, lol. He just laughs, says he knows and that he'll do his best :) How can you not love the newborn stage? They're just so cute and cuddly, like warm, squishy stuffed animals. Just perfect.

That should make things interesting

A quick update on our health first. The older 3 kids are no longer snotty, just have slightly stuffed noses and occasionally cough. Yay. The end is near. The baby looks like he's feeling better. We were a little worried on Friday as he wasn't eating much, and therefor wasn't peeing much either, and he just didnt seem well. He also lost his "voice" which means when he cried, all he would do is squeak. Yesterday he started nursing better and just looked better. He also had some good awake time, whereas on Friday he slept all day. Today he's doing even better. He's already had some good awake time, he's eating like he used to and his wet diapers are much more frequent. He also is starting to get his voice back some, which is wonderful because you only get the newborn cry for so long and I miss hearing it.

Now to my blog topic. Having a new baby always make your schedule more interesting. Everything takes longer, to start. Constant interuptions, learning how to do it all one-handed or with a babt-strapped to you, etc. Well, DH just made it even more interesting by starting a new job with a new schedule. He'll still be working 2nd shift, but instead of going it at 3, he won't go in until 5, taking 2 hours out my already tight schedule. Yay. I'm thinking we'll move school time to the mornings while DH is still sleeping. I've been wanting to get a stricter morning schedule, for myself, in place anyways, so maybe this will force me to. Overall, this is a good job switch though. We'll have a little more money in our budget and DH likes this kind of cooking better. Oh, and he might end up on day shift, which wouldn't be so bad either :)

1 step forward, 2 steps back

I got laundry caught up, I got dishes caught up and I got the bathroom cleaned! And then I came down with the kids nasty cold/cough. The older 3 have had for about a week now. Really icky noses, horrible sounding cough, that while infrequent, can bring them to the point of throwing up when they do start coughing. Fun stuff. I've been trying to keep them away from the baby, but that's near impossible. Night before last Solomon started coughing, just a few coughs, but I could tell they were sick coughs. Yesterday we both had icky noses and he had more coughs. I haven't coughed yet, but I know it's probably coming. I pray it goes through us quickly. I also started taking garlic today. I cut up a clove into about 8 pieces and swallowed them. Science will tell you you have to chew or mince the garlic first, but I've read many anecdotes that say swallowing whole works too. Now to find a way for the kids to take it...

Day Two!

My second day back on the job. Today I decided to clean up the kitchen. I just can't function with a messy kitchen. Especially if I need to cook. And while DH has kept us fed, it hasn't been the most nutritious, filling food, if you kwim. So I NEED to start cooking again. Lucky for me, I still have a few meals in the freezer and some easy stuff around the house, so I shouldn't have to work too hard. So now I have a functioning kitchen again. I feel like I'm really doing good. DH kept the living room functional, I got laundry and kitchen caught up, so once I get the bathroom caught up tomorrow I'll be able to just do daily maintenance for another week while I continue to heal. My body hasn't shown any signs of over-doing it, so I think I'm alright to keep up at this pace.

The only thing I need to work on is my sleep schedule. I've been staying up late to ChaCha and earn some money, but that makes mornings hard. I really miss my quiet time in the mornings and not waking up to complaints of hunger, etc. The last couple nights I've tried getting up after 8 hours of sleep, and I just can't do it, but I never could before either. I need either 9 hours of sleep (what I've been getting) or 7 hours it seems. So I'm going to try going to bed at 11 and getting up at 6. The kids have been getting up between 6 and 7am, but I'm thinking they'll be told to stay in their room until 7. They have a clock and both boys understand "when the little hand is on the 7 and the big hand is on the 12." Before Solomon was born, I had tried getting them to sleep in longer by keeping them up later at night and some how it completely backfired on me. They had been getting up closer to 7-7:30 and before I knew it they were waking up at 6! Right now they're going to bed early b/c, to be honest, by 7:30pm I am just done. I have lost all patience, etc. I'm really hoping having early morning time will help with that though.

My first day back to work

Solomon is two weeks old already. It's amazing how quickly 2 weeks goes, but at the same time, it seems like he's been here forever. But now that he's two weeks old my vacation is over. I plan to take it slowly, but that might be hard! DH has actually tried very hard and done a half way decent job keeping the house, but we all know how that goes. There's clutter everywhere, the floors are sticky, the bathroom hasn't been wiped down. My goal today is laundry. Nothing but laundry. That's plenty though. For two weeks clothes have not been put away, so you can imagine the pile(s) of folded clothes I have (I did the folding). Genesis has been putting her own clothes away with nobody going behind her and folding and putting in the right drawers, so I can't find anything of hers. And I have a mountain of dirty clothes to wash. DH tried to keep it caught up, but to give you an idea of how that went: One day he did 3 loads of laundry, failing to get any of the clothes out of the kids' room. 3 DAYS later he goes "how can there be so much laundry? I just did THREE loads!" Um...I do 2-3 loads of laundry 5 days a week in order to keep it up, and that was before we added a new baby. Of course you're going to be backed up after 3 days of not doing any. I'm trying to decide how much laundry I'm going to have to do everyday now with the baby's stuff, after I get caught up.

Speaking of the baby's laundry. He's already adding more laundry than the others did. The boy is a pee-er. I've been peed on more times in his short two weeks than I was in the past 6 years. I think he gets me or himself 2 out of every 3 diaper changes. And when he doesn't pee during the change, he seems to pee out of the side of the diaper between changes. So clothes are being changed often due to this. And not just clothes, but extra blankets, burping clothes and cloth diapers. Yeah, he's adding a good bit of extra laundry.

I'm still debating what my goal will be for tomorrow. I'll probably have to work on laundry some more. I doubt I'll get it all done today. But after that, should I work on the icky dishes, counter and table? Maybe the icky bathroom that as previously mentioned hasn't been wiped down in 2 weeks, and I have 2 boys and a 2yo girl who insists on using the big potty, so you can imagine what it looks/smells like in there. Or do I plan to mop the dining room floor that is sticky because the kids split juice all over it and nobody bothered to clean it up? Decisions, decisions...

I love the newborn stage

I just love the newborn stage. They're just little lumps who let you hold them and snuggle them. So precious. They don't stay newborns near long enough.

Midwife visited today. Everything looks good. His belly button is bleeding a little bit, but with the way it sticks out, it just keeps getting hit by his diaper and whatnot. I'd been keeping a close eye on it and it's not infected or anything and still healing good, so we're just watching it. I was relieved to have the MW agree with me though that it looks fine and is probably just being hit. Other than that, it all looks great!

In other wonderful news, I filed our taxes today and in about two week we should have a good size chunk of money. First thing on the list, paying off the midwife and ordering next year's school stuff. I love tax time.

First real day alone

I had my first real day alone with 4 kids today. I think we did great! Of course the kids watched TV a good part of the day, DH had bowls of soup already made up that the kids could microwave and they all CHOSE to go to bed early because they have a cough. So I basically did nothing but sit in bed all day, again, except to change diapers and tuck kids in. Oh, and I gave them some honey for their coughs before they went to bed. I haven't heard much coughing thankfully. So that's our update for the day, lol.

1 week

Solomon will be one week old in about 11 hours. I can't believe he's been here a week already. I can't believe a week ago I was trying to figure out if my water broke or if it was a leak that would heal itself or what. I look at this beautiful little boy and can't believe I made him, or rather that God made him inside of me. It's just unbelievable. Every child is such a miracle. This week has been great. DH took Monday off from work, we spent the day sleeping while the kids were at his mom's house, then we just enjoyed the newest member of our family. On Tues my step-mom came down so DH could go back to work. She was very helpful on Tues and Wed with the kids, the house and food. She also left a few things to reheat in the fridge. Thur we went up the health department for Solomon's PKU test, which they say we need for a birth certificate. We probably could get around it, but it's just a heel prick, so we went ahead and did it. My step-mom was still here so we left the kids with her. Then she cooked lunch and headed home. We enjoyed the rest of the day Thur and all day Fri just lounging around the house. It turned out that even going to the health department was too much for me that early, so I needed the good down time. DH decided to call in Sat because I needed more down time still and there was no one to help with the kids. Today was supposed to be my first day alone with the kids, but my SIL picked them up about 11am and MIL came over and cleaned the house. Genesis was returned to me a few hours later, but the boys spent the day over there. In fact, they're still there with DH. So it's been just me, Genesis and Solomon since about 2pm I think.

I've never conscously taken time off after a baby was born. I never said "I'm going to do nothing for 2 weeks." But I'm so glad I did this time. I can really feel a difference. Don't me wrong, I wasn't one to sweep the floor hours after giving birth, but I fairly quickly was back to my normal stuff. This time, I only get up to go potty if at all possible. DH is being great. He's not a very good housekeeper, but he tries and of course he doesn't mind that I'm not doing anything. He had agreed with me that I get 2 weeks "vacation" after baby is born, then 4 weeks of "light duty" where he'll still help me out. We decided my overall long term health is the most important. We want me to be able to keep having babies, so we need to keep my baby making parts healthy. I've been trying to figure out how to slowly add more in, what to add first, etc. This coming week I'll have to feed the kids, but it's going to be all pb&j, hotdogs in the microwave or leftovers. I also have to put them to bed, but other than that, nothing. The next week I'm thinking I'll work on a daily shower (a must for me, really) and doing some light cooking with the freezer meals I made up that DH hasn't used. Then I'll add laundry and more cooking, followed by dishes (we're using paper right now), counters, tables, sweeping floors etc. The last week of "light duty" I'll add in daily bathroom maintence. This is of course all subject to how well my body reacts to the added duties. I'm hoping by taking it slow though that I'll be able to add things in and by the end of 6wks be able to do most of the work around the house. We'll start school again in March. March seems so far away, but I know it'll be here before I know it. I also get to figure out how to add this all in while nursing a newborn.

It seems like forever since I've had a newborn. This is the longest time inbetween babies, but only by 2 weeks. I think the big difference is how much more mature Genesis is then the boys were at her age. She talks, a lot, in pretty much complete sentances, she's potty trained, dresses herself, takes directions well, and overall is just a big help. The boys were just starting to do all those things when the next baby was born.

Anyways, that's enough babbling. We're all just doing great and everybody loves the new baby.

Birth story

At about 5:15pm Sunday night, I was cooking some eggs for dinner when I felt a tiny gush and then had a very consistent dripping. I thought it was my water, but couldn't be sure. I called the midwife, who said it was most likely either a high leak or liquefied mucus plug, both of which could be nothing or could be something.

About two hours later I got my first painful contraction, which was exactly how I remembered the first couple of contractions with Genesis. At first they were very far apart and sporadic, of course but by about midnight they were between 5 and 10 min apart and I was feeling a lot of pressure, so I called the midwife and told her to head out. She had a few things to do, and I wasn't in a big hurry, so it was close to 1:30am before her and the apprentice showed up.

When she got there, contractions were one and a half to two minutes apart, and I felt a little pushy, but they weren't all that intense. The MW immediately knew what was going on and said the baby was rotating around. Hands and knees was the best way to get him to turn, so that's how I went. At this point the MW said that after he was rotated, labor may stall out and it could be a few more days. I informed her that the kids would be awake between 6 and 7 am and this baby MUST be born before then.

At some point I started to fall asleep sitting up between contractions, so we moved to the bedroom where I laid down on my left side, also good for rotating babies, and slept between contractions. At about 4am the contractions changed and "real" labor started. I quickly felt pushy, but we were worried about a cervical lip, since I had one with the last two. The MW said that he was mostly rotated and as soon as he got all the way around that lip should go away. She said I could push if I wanted to, but if it hurt more, especially with a pinching feeling in front, then not to. Basically, I was to do whatever it took to hurt the least. Yay for less pain. I took most of these contractions on my hands and knees and some just kneeling, some I could push a little, some I couldn't.

A little after 5am, the contractions changed again, to definite pushing contractions. The MW checked for the baby's position with the doppler, declared him fully rotated, and said I could and should start really pushing. Pushing is not my favorite part of labor. I had done really well handling contractions up to this point, but now I lost it and declared I was not going to push the baby out. My body had other ideas and push I did. I changed positions regularly, with whatever felt right, some on all fours, some squatting, some kneeling, but most in a semi-squat. Sometimes I got downright mad at the contractions that always came too close together and never seemed to let up soon enough. I did my best pushing during those ones. Finally I could feel the extreme stretching that meant baby was getting closer. The last 3-4 contractions I was squatting next to the bed and just wanted that baby out NOW. When he finally started crowning I was yelling "Get out!!" while pushing. I was so done.

After 50 minutes of pushing, he was finally out. That is actually my shortest pushing time. It was 5:58am. The placenta was delivered just few minutes later. We got me sitting back down with babe in arms. We were surprised he was a boy, as both DH and I had fully felt we were having a girl. Not 15 minutes after he was born we heard the kids get up and come running. DH stopped them in the living room, giving us time to cover me up. They had heard the baby cry and DH said all their little faces were just lit up with excitment. We let them peak in for a few minutes, then DH got them some breakfast while we got me moved to the bed and the baby started nursing. He was a little snotty/mucusy at first and it took a while before he got it cleared out, but other than that, there were no problems.

We decided to leave the placenta attached until the cord dried out, about 24 hours later. He still has a few inches of cord , though we could trim it up more if we wanted. The whole thing should fall off in a couple more days. He his so beautiful. I was surprised at having a boy, which took a bit to get used to, but now I'm thrilled with another son. The original boy name we had picked out wasn't working for us anymore, so it took a few hours before we decided on his name. Now I look at him and just know that he is Solomon Russell. He's perfect.

I'm very happy with how the birth went. It was so natural to do it at home and the MW was everything I expected. I didn't plan much how the birth was going to go, though I wanted a night birth so the kids wouldn't have to go anywhere. With no expectations I had no let downs. Other than pushing, I felt like I did beautifully during labor. With Genesis I felt like I completely lost it, so I'm happy with how I did. Solomon's brothers and sister are already in love and can't get enough of him. He's a nursing champ, is wonderfully wide awake after eating and just so aware. I'm in love.

It's a boy!!!

After 13 hours total of labor, boy#3 was born at 5:58 this morning at home. He weighs 8lbs 4oz and is 19inches long. He doesn't have a name yet. It was my easiest birth yet. More to come later.

ETA, we decided to name him Solomon Russell. Russell is my grandfather's name.

Visit with my dad

First I just want to mention that there is still no baby. Which is fine b/c I had great weekend visiting with my dad. By this far along I had had both Canaan and Asher, so it really could be any day now. And now that that visit is out of the way and we're getting closer to my due date (the 13th) I'm starting to feel more like this baby will be coming, but I'm not sure it'll be soon. Who knows, maybe I'll go over this time!

As for my visit, it was great! My dad's new wife is just lovely. They actually won't be married until May, I think they said, but they're both wearing wedding rings already and they're going on a honeymoon cruise at the end of the month, so they might as well be! On the first night they got here she offered to cook dinner, though DH helped, then she cleaned up everything afterwards, did the dishes and everything and wouldn't let me help. The next morning, we were invited to join them for bfast at the hotel and she completely doted on the children. She put more food in front of them then they could possibly eat, but they just picked what they wanted and left alone the rest and she was okay with that. After bfast we went swimming in the hotel's pool. The kids had a great time. We went back to their room to change into our dry clothes and I was asked if there were any museums or anything around and I said I was sure there were some in Cincinnati, but I had no idea what. So she looked it up and decided we would go to the Children's Museum and off we went. Before I knew it, we were eating lunch at the museum with tickets for the Children's museum, the natural history and science museum and the omnimax theater (all in one building). It was afternoon by the time we got started and they close at 6 (on holidays) so we didn't get to see everything, unfortunately. But I mentioned in passing to DH that we might want to consider a family membership at some point, since they were only $115 and it included the two museums we visited and the history museum (also some museum) and before we left she took it upon herself to buy us a premium membership, which includes not only our family, but also a guest!

We stopped for dinner on the way home and of course the kids were all asleep before we got home. This morning we got up, I took DH to work, and we headed back to the hotel for more bfast and swimming. Then while Asher watched cartoons, Canaan and Genesis fell asleep for much needed naps. By the time they woke up, we went to DH's work, had lunch and when dh was off we headed out. We looked at a few houses that were for sale. The first night they were here I mentioned I saw a house on realtor. com for $25,000 on 10 acres and Liz (my Dad's wife) wanted to check it out. Turns out it's under contract, but there were a few others that we checked out, one looked promising and there's another that might be even more so, but we couldn't find it. Apparently, she is interested in co-owning a house with us. I'm not sure exactly how it would work out, especially with our credit, maybe we'd do a land contract type thing with her, I'm not sure, but that would be so cool! We didn't talk any specifics, and she really didn't even come out and say she wanted to buy a house with us or anything, but it was implied and my dad said she was interested when she was out of the room. So that's exciting. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but it's hard.

After that we went back to the hotel, the kids swam a little more, then had pillow fights while the grown-ups talked. She is really planning on coming out again as soon as the baby is born, even if it's this week! My dad may come if it's a weekend, but we'll see about that. I have no worries about her coming and being a burden either. I'm sure she would be a wonderful help, especially since DH will only be able to get a few days off of work and that even depends on when the baby is born. But it was said, if I call her at 5am and say baby is here, then she'll be here by noon. So I'm actually looking forward to that bit of help.

Anyways, that's my update. We had a great weekend. I'm very happy with my Dad's wife and think she'll be wonderful for my dad and a wonderful step-grandma to my kids.

My dad is coming today!

Well, I don't know that I'll have much time to keep you all updated this weekend. My dad should be getting in sometime today with his new wife. Actually, I don't think they're married yet, but she'll be his wife soon enough I suppose. I can't wait to get to know her. From what I've read in her e-mails I think she'll be really good for my dad and will really get him involved in our lives. She doesn't have any grandchildren of her own and she's always wanted some, so marrying my dad gives her an instant, huge family (my baby is grandchild #17 for my parents). She's already talking about coming down after the baby is born to see it and she's invited our family to join them at her timeshare in Virginia for week this summer.

But thinking about my dad's new wife brings me to thinking about my parents and thier marriage. I was 12 when they got divorced. My dad wasn't really around much when I was growing up. He was in the house, but he wasn't mentally present. He was always in his workshop or reading a book. As I've gotten older and learned more about marriage and how it should be, I understand why. My mom walked all over my dad. She didn't respect him and she certainly did not submit to him. She did what she wanted. 3 of my siblings are adopted and my dad will tell you, if it had been his choice, they probably never would have adopted. He did it for her. There is one thing that speaks the most to me though. The last time my dad visited he started talking about our old house. Now I don't remember this house, we moved around my 3rd birthday. It was obvious in hearing my dad talk about it that he loved that house. But alas, my mom was not happy with it. So they ended up moving. You can hear the sadness in my dad's voice. He would have been happy in that house for his whole life. He'll tell you himself, something broke in him when they moved and their marriage was never the same again. I'm sure to my mom it was no big deal. It was just a house and she wanted something bigger/better for all the children they had. To my dad, it was obviously more than a house. I sometimes wonder if I do things like that, without even knowing. Is there some issue that is no big deal to me but big to my husband? Am I tearing down our marriage without even knowing it? Just something to think about at the beginning of this new year.

And in case you're wondering, I don't feel any closer to having this baby then I did last time I blogged. Ask me again after my dad leaves ;)