Just rambling

So we got our new towels on Friday, spent a whole $15 for ten new towels, yay!! They were running low by the time we got there (I told DH we needed to leave sooner) and we don't really have a color theme or anything in our bathroom, so we just grabbed ten towels of different colors. I made the mistake of throwing them all in the wash at once. We had bought 2 white towels, but now I have two off-white towels, lol. The funny part is that they have a pink tinge, but we didn't buy any red colored towels! The only thing I can figure is that it's from the couple of brown towels we got, with maybe a bit of blue mixed in? I don't know. Luckily, 1. I don't care about the color of the towels, if they dry you off, they're good! and 2. they look like they may have come in that color and not just been dyed in the wash, lol.

We also got in some money we've been waiting for, so we bought everybody new socks and underwear, which we desperately needed. And now my little girl is wearing big girl underwear! She looks so cute in them though. We also ordered Asher a new carseat. He's out-growing his current one, actually all the kids are, so it's time to move everybody up the line. We bought him the Graco Nautilus, which has a 5-pt harness that goes up 65 lbs. He's just now about 40lbs, so it should fit him a while. I'm anal when it comes to carseat safety. Asher asked the other day why his cousin (who just turned 5) has a carseat without seatbelts (ie, a low back booster) so I had to explain that that's just the kind of carseat his parents want for him, but we want Asher in the harness still b/c we feel it's safer. I'm debating about turning Genesis forward facing. Right now she's till rear-facing, and seeing as how she's not even 25lbs and the carseat goes rear up to 35lbs, she should be okay in it for a while. But when I rearrange carseats to fit the baby, that will give me two rear-facing kids in the middle row with the bigger boys in the back row and that's going to be difficult. I won't even be able to hand Genesis anything, let alone the boys. But I guess that's the way it goes with lots of littles, huh? I'm thinking we'll have to make sure the boys have a drink of water in the back with them. They'll both have cup holders on their carseats, that will make it easier, for sure. But now when we stop for fast food (usually on errand day) we'll have to actually park the car just to pass out food. That doesn't sound fun. And it's already hard to hear what they're saying, they'll have to yell just so we can hear them. I have a Suburban, so right now we're planning on keeping one of the middle row seats folded up so it's easier to get into the back row. Asher and Canaan will go in the back, most likely with Asher in the middle, but I need to see if that's okay with his new carseat since it just has a lap-belt. I'm thinking since we'll be using it with the 5-pt, that should be fine. Then Canaan will be on the side with the seat folded up, so we can reach him easier to get him buckled and unbuckled. Asher can buckle and unbuckle himself. Then in the middle row will be Genesis and the baby. I haven't decided who goes where yet. It'll probably be easier to put the baby on the outside, with Genesis in the middle. I'll have to climb in to buckle Canaan in anyways, so I can do her from the same spot. And it'd be hard to reach the middle to put the baby carrier in, I think. And then there's the whole rear-facing/forward facing dilemma with her. The boys were over 2 when I turned them around, probably closer to 2.5 and even then, I wouldn't have minded keeping them rear-facing longer. Now that I think about it, Canaan was rear-facing when we moved here, at almost 3, then we didn't have a car until he was 3.5 and he got put in forward-facing. DH turned Asher around at 2.5 I think. I really want to keep her rear-facing for the safety benefits, but it would be so much easier if she's forward facing. I could hand her things for the baby and stuff like that. And I shouldn't feel guilty if I turn her around now. After all, plenty of people do it a lot sooner and for less reasons. Decisions, decisions.

Oh, I also ordered my birthing kit today. Yay!! I can't wait for it to get here. I think that will make the upcoming birth seem more real to me. Who would have thought I could get so excited about sterile gloves, peri bottles and Chux pads? We also bought a package of newborn diapers on Friday. I got an 80 pack, which I'm thinking will get us through the first couple days until I swtich to cloth, and nighttimes until the baby grows out of the newborn and into size 1. At least that's my hope. I really need to get busy making a few more cloth diaper covers. I think have two in newborn size. I had more with Genesis, but they fell apart about the time she grew out of them. Two will NOT be enough. Really, I could get by if I even made 2 or 3 more. Must get that done!

But first I need to finish sewing panels onto my curtians so they insulate better. We get a lot of cold air through the windows. We covered them in plastic, which helped a lot, but insulating hte curtains helped a lot too. I've got about half of them done. It only takes a few minutes to do each one, I just need to get on it.

What else is there? Oh yeah! My husband makes the best coleslaw in the whole world. It tastes just like KFC coleslaw, which is the only kind I'll eat. I admit, I was skeptical when he told me he could, but his Grandma asked him to make some for Thursday, and sure enough, it tastes just like KFC's. I was so glad there was enough left over for our Tday yesterday and even some for today! We had a good Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. And other than getting the massive turkey in and out of the oven, I cooked the whole thing myself. I even made gravy from the drippings. Yay for me. I hope to find more things to add to our menu to make it a bit more diverse, but I don't know what. We don't eat a lot of the more classic tday things, like sweet potatoes and green bean cassarole . I'm wondering I can't find a mashed sweet potato recipe that is a bit more savory and not sweet, like regular mashed potatoes. That might be good. And it would add more color and nutrients to our plates. That reminds me, I made a pumpkin pie from scratch, just for DH and he hasn't even tried it. He probably forgot it. I don't like pumpkin pie, so I hope he eats it all!

I think that's about it for now. I'm done rambling.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I love Thanksgiving. It's always been one of my favorite holidays. And now that we don't celebrate Easter, Christmas or Halloween, Thanksgiving and 4th of July are about all we have holiday wise. This morning I went over to Dh's Grandma's house and helped her get things ready for the big family dinner. We finished up early, so I came home to spend some time with the family before heading over there to eat. This is actually my first Thanksgiving with DH's family. Last year there was a family conflict just prior to Tday, so we had our own dinner. All the other years we were in Missouri for Tday.

Then tomorrow we're going to cook our own Tday dinner with all the things we like and none of the things we don't. Mainly so have a bunch of leftovers, lol. We bought a 23lbs turkey so there should be LOTS of leftovers. We're also headed to Walmart early in the morning. We are in desperate need of towels, we only have 6 full sized towels and that's just not enough. Plus we'll need lots for the homebirth. Walmart is having a Black Friday sale and towels are $1.50 a peice!! Eventually I'd like to buy a whole set of bamboo towels, but this will get us through for now. And you can't beat $1.50.

So that's how we're spending our holiday. How about you?

An update

Things are going well here. I just feel like I've been really busy, though I don't know with what. I had a midwife appt and the baby is head down now. I think s/he turned shortly after my last appt, but I can't be sure. The baby is also really low, which isn't unusual for me. I've always heard 2nd and subsequent babies tend to drop later, but not mine. Both Canaan and Genesis dropped by about 37 wks, if not sooner. The midwife was quite surprised at how low the baby was. Everythign is going just great.

This pregnancy has snuck up on me though. As of today, I am 33 weeks and I have no idea how I got that far along. I am not at all ready for this baby and I'm supposed to be completely ready by 36wks. That's only 3 wks away!! How is that possibly. I feel like I have tons of time left, and I just don't. This is the least real pregnancy I've had. It's like I'm so busy, I haven't had time to just be pregnant, if that makes any sense. In less than two months I will have a new baby. And I am not ready, phyisically or emotionally. Somebody give me a swift kick in the pants to get a move on it!

Can you pray for me?

I'm having a hard time emotionally right now and could really use some prayers for peace and resolution of some issues. Thanks!

I'm getting old!

Yesterday I turned the ripe old age of 27. Where have the years gone? I know 27 really isn't that old, especially with #4 on the way, but it sure feels old. I'm officially in my late 20s. Before I know it, I'll be 30. Not that 30 is old either, but yk. Luckily, I get to make myself feel better by making fun of DH, who will be 31 tomorrow.

Anyways, Happy Birthday to me!

My first gray hair!

I found a gray hair this morning. I knew they were coming soon. My sister said she was 26 when she got her first, so I actually purposely do not look closely at my hair for fear of finding one. Here I am, 8 days shy of my 27th birthday and I just happened to see it in the mirror. One, very long, gray hair just sticking off the top of my head. It makes DH feel better. He's going bald, so now he's not getting old alone.

I decided years ago that when I started going gray, I was just going to let it go and not dye it. I want to go gray naturally and gracefully. I am still determined to do that. I struggle with vanity, so this is one way I can grow in that area. Besides, it'll be years before the gray gets really noticable, right? Especially since I wear head coverings most of the time. Surely I'll be in my 30s before I start looking gray. Right? Right?

My dad is getting married!

Almost 15 years after my parents divorce, it looks like my dad is getting married! He sent out a mass e-mail last week talking about this lady he works with. Apperantly they've been chatting at work, then a possibility of lay-offs came up and the next day she called my dad and started talking about all these plans to both leave work and travel the country, etc. After discussing it some more, they both realized that they are in love and are goign to get married! Amazing. I was sure my dad was a bacholer for life. He had one girlfriend for years and I never even met her because she wasn't important enough to bring down for a visit. This lady that he's marrying, they're already planning for her to come down with my dad to meet us after the baby is born in January. Apperantly they're just goign to go to the Justice of the Peace at some point and not tell anybody until after it happens. They're dont' have the patience for a formal wedding. Right now, both their jobs are secure and they actually like working so they plan to stay put. She has a lease on a house until July, so things might change after that, I guess. I've been e-mailing with her to discuss the January plans and she doesn't expect to have any grandchildren (she has one son who she describes as "failure to launch") so she's thrilled with the fact that my dad will soon have 17 grandkids, lol. Just thought I would share the news!

Day of Doctors

Yesterday was a day full of doctors. First we went to see our family physician. He had done some blood work with me and wanted to go over it. Everythign looks great. I have no RH sensitivity, which is what we were specifically looking for since I got the RhoGam shot late after Genesis was born. So that was all good.

Then we went to the ENT for a follow-up on my ear and that Dr gave me a clean bill of health. He said unless I have returning symptoms we're goign to say that I'm healed and I'll never have to see him again. He checked my hearing and everything and that's back to 100% (it was at one point at about 50%) and he said my eared looked perfectly normal and healthy. Yay.

Then we went to see the midwife. Another great appt. She was glad to hear both about the RH and the ear thing. I'm done with antibiotics so we can spend the next 3 months getting myself back into tip-top shape for giving birth. Since our family dr was so willing to help out with the blood work, she wants me to call him and see if we can get some tubes for collecting the baby's blood after it's born and drop it off there to blood type the baby. Then we can see if we need a RhoGam shot of not. I know he's willing to get me in with a Ob/gyn to get the rhogam if I want to go that route, so hopefully he'll be able to do this as well. We could also get the shot through the midwife, but then we have to pay for it at $166. If I go through a Dr, then it's covered by Medicaid. I'm not sure if the hassle with an ob/gyn is worth it yet, we'll decide on that later. It may be our only option depending on finances at the time. We also talked about the things I need to start getting together for the birthing kit. There's a lot of stuff you have to buy to homebirth! Luckily I"m a bit of a pack-rat and still have a lot of things that I saved from the hospital after Canaan was born, so I don't have to buy any of that. Things like a peri-bottle. And last but not least, we dicussed the position of hte baby. The baby is breech right now, not a huge deal, there is still plenty of time for flipping, but this baby has been in that same position for well over a month and seems pretty comfortable there. The others were all head down by now. So we discussed possibly doing an external version next time (I'll be 30wks) if the baby is still breech. I think we're going to try it. It's probably much easier to flip a baby at 30wks then 36wks, and like I said, this baby is pretty comfortable, so I don't know that it will flip on it's own any time soon. If it was flipping back and forth regularly, I would jsut let be, but it's not. It's just staying in that same breech position. So we're goign to try a few more natural things in the next 3wks to get the baby to flip on it's own, hands and knees exercising and things like that, plus just telling the baby to turn. I know some people think that's crazy, but I'm a firm believe that a Mommy's thoughts do influence the baby. There were some experiences with Genesis that just aren't coincidence and had a lot to do with my thoughts. But if the baby is still breech, we'll go ahead and try and flip it and hope it stays.

I think that's about it, health update wise.

Nesting much?

I am officially in my 3rd trimester, and officially nesting. How can I tell, you ask? That one is easy (as anyone who has nested knows!)

This week I went through all the boys' clothes, pulling out too small ones, packing up most of the summer ones and rearranged their drawers. I went through all of Genesis's clothes, packed up summer stuff, pulled out winter stuff, washed it all and put it in the newly vacated drawers in the boys' dressers.

Yesterday I took every book and toy off the bookshelf and scrubbed the whole thing down with a magic eraser, then took the diaper drawers (one of those plastic, rolling 3 drawer things from walmart), emptied them all, packed up what I never use, scrubbed the whole thing with my magic eraser and put it all back together.

Today I found it necessary to rearrange the dining room, which actually just means pulling the table a few feet in one direction and moving some chairs, though I'm not sure it'll stay that way. Then I mopped the kitchen floor on my hands and knees, which I actually do every week, but this time I got all the corners really really good and washed down the baseboards, then cleared off what is supposed to be the boys' craft table that has been piled with stuff for weeks now.

Tomorrow the dining room is getting a good scrub down, along with the washer and dryer area and I'm thinking I need to go down to DH's Grandma's to look for that missing box of winter coats and hats that I know is there.

On the list for next week are mine and kids' room, hopefully getting Genesis moved out of our room and cleaning out the boys' closet, which is a complete disaster. Yup, I'm nesting.

Still getting tomatoes from the garden!

Dh and I were sure we weren't going to get anymore tomatoes this year. There were plenty of green ones on the plants still, but the plants were starting to die, so we didn't think they'd turn. Boy were we wrong! I went outside yesterday and noticed a bunch of red tomatoes. We ended up picking almost 2 dozen! There's still at least a dozen green ones left, so we'll see if they turn. Now I'm slowly processing the tomatoes (running through the food chopper, then freezing) as they get completely ripe. I also have two pie pumpkins to process. Mmmm....pumpkin bread. We hope to buy a few more before the end of the month, but we'll see how that goes. Wouldn't it be great to have pumpkin bread in the middle of the summer?

That's about all that's going on here. The boys are done being grounded, but still complaining because they don't get near the outside time they used to since I can't be out there all the time.

Oh, Genesis had a well-child checkup last week and she looks great. I was able to schedule the boys and myself for an appt for this Friday. At my appt we're goign to do some bloodwork to check for RH antibodies. He's just goign to order the whole prenatal blood screen. I also found out I can go up there after the baby is born and get the rhoGam shot, so we won't have to pay for that out of pocket. The dr was really nice and didn't seem to care at all that we don't vax and I'm having a homebirth, which is wonderful! I've very happy with the provider we picked.

We also have the exterminator coming out on Thur. So that's going to be a busy day, pulling the whole house apart, cleaning up a bunch of dead cockroaches and then putting it all back together again. But that's how it goes, I guess.

Well that was fun...

We had an appt for the exterminator today to come between 8 and 10am. This was our "free" service call for problems between appts (ie, we still have horrible cockroaches so we're going to take all the spraying we can get!) with our monthly appt scheduled for end of next week. We would have preferred to have them come out last week, but couldn't get scheduled in. So this morning we all got early (well, I got up at my normal time, but immediatly got moving), got showered, dressed and spent a good bit of time pulling furniture away from walls and pulling stuff out of dressers/cabinets. Then we spent 2 hrs waiting. 10am rolls around and no exterminator. So DH calls the 800 number, they'll call us right back. Half an hour later I call them again. No explaination for why they didn't get back with us before, but this guy finds out that the exterminator never got our work order. Great. They found somebody else who can come out between 1 and 4 today. Fine, whatever. We run a few quick errands and then commence with waiting. DH goes to work, and I wait some more. Kids ask to do school, no sorry, don't want to get it all out and then have the guy show up. More waiting. 4:15 I call Terminex again. "It appears your service tech is delayed" Yeah, I noticed. So I told them this is what is going to happen. They were going to cancel my service for today, because I am done waiting. I've spent 6 hours of my day waiting already, plus time prepping for the visit and now clean-up. All for nothing. So the end of next week, they're goign to come out for our monthly visit like scheduled, but I am NOT going to pay for it. I refuse to put my house back together to make it through the night, just to pull it out again tomorrow and wait some more. I spent the next few hours trying to get my house back together, taking many frequent breaks, b/c there was lots of bending over and stretching and things like that that my belly did not like. A lot of furniture is still pulled out, b/c I need DH to push it back, but otherwise I got it all done. And next week I get to do it all over again, plus clean up dead cockroaches everywhere and wash all the dishes. Fun for me!!

I'm still here!

Stopping in real quick while the bacon for bfast is cooking. I'm still here. Been keeping the boys busy while they're grounded (half way done!!) and I've been using my online time a bit more effectively. I found out about this thing called ChaCha, people can txt in any questions they have and a real person txts back an answer. I"m one of those real people who answer's questions. You get paid by the answer, and it's not a lot, but I made almost $25 last week. And if I get good enough I can double my pay per question. This is all money that is going to be mine to spend however I want. Though I'm thinking if I"m making $200 a month some of it will probably go to bills, lol. If anybody wants more information, let me know! But yeah, so I've been busy doing that. Well, need to get back to bfast!