Rose Garden

 

 

 

 

My Little Cutie Pie

 

At Least She Asked

Today when I was standing at the counter mixing cookies, Cupcake came and stood right on my feet and asked, "Can I be in the way?"

35 Weeks Pregnant

 

Cupcake is 2!

I made a peanut butter cake to celebrate Cupcake's actual birthday with our small group from church.

 

The next day, my family came to visit and we had strawberries with whipped cream.

 

Cupcake received a wading pool (and a cute little swimsuit) from her great-grandmother.

 

My sweet 2-year-old:

 

Baby Update--31 Weeks

I had an appointment with my midwife tonight. The baby and I are doing very well. I am measuring 31 centimeters, which is right on for this week. My midwife estimates that the baby will be around 9 pounds at birth. Baby is head-down at the moment, which is great--hopefully he or she will stay that way! I think I know when the baby turned, too--I was laying in bed around midnight a couple weeks ago, trying to fall asleep in spite of the very active baby wiggling around in my belly, when I suddenly felt a hard WHUMP!--it felt just like the baby had done a fast somersault, and it almost took my breath away! It's so interesting to have a little person growing inside of me who is dependent upon me and yet moving around independently!

I got to check out a "sibling backpack" to explore with D.L.F. and Cupcake. It contains lots of books for children about birth and new babies, a couple of movies, and cute Waldorf-style mama and baby dolls with snaps so the baby can latch on to the mama and "nurse."

"Cooking"

This morning D.L.F. saw me cracking eggs into a frying pan and asked if he could try. I told him no because the frying pan was very hot. Then I said, "But you'll be able to do it when you're bigger. Probably someday you'll be able to cook a whole meal for us, maybe when you're about 12."

D.L.F. said, "Yeah! I can go to Papa Murphy's and get us some pizza!"

25 Weeks

 

Hoodies

 

Like Father, Like Son

D.L.F. was messing with cords behind the couch while T was sitting on the couch trying to fix someone's virus-ridden laptop. After listening to D.L.F. fumble around for a few minutes, T finally asked, "What are you doing?"

D.L.F. replied, "I think I'll make something turn on!"

Flowers from Our Yard

 

Valentine's Day 2010

 

 

 

And a 20-week belly pic (halfway to meeting Baby!):

 

New Rule

Another new house rule: "Don't color your belly button."

Miscellaneous

-Our new house didn't come with a fridge, so we bought a used one from an appliance shop. Fortunately, it came with a six-month warranty, which we took advantage of when we realized our ice cream was soup and our milk was spoiling within a few days. Some guys from the shop came to our house, replaced a fried part, and voilà, no more ice cream soup.

-I dragged some shelves in from the garage and used them to organize the kids' toys in their room. It's so nice to have floor space in there again. It's still bare on the walls, though. We need to put up some pictures and get some curtains.

-Today only, if you become a friend of Babies "R" Us on Facebook, they'll E-mail you a $5 gift card for use in-store or online. Details here.

5th Anniversary

Friday was T and my 5th anniversary. We dropped the kids off with their favorite babysitter and went to a Thai restaurant which we had heard good things about. We ate spring rolls, lobster pad thai, and cashew chicken. T gave me a silver heart necklace with a diamond in it. Then we went to hear some live bluegrass music. It was short and sweet, but it was fun to go on a real date...I don't think we'd been on a date since last summer.

I am 17 weeks pregnant now. My next appointment with my midwives is in three weeks, at which time I can schedule an ultrasound if that's what we decide to do. Most likely I will get an ultrasound and find out the gender of the baby, if our insurance covers it. It would be nice to be able to refer to the baby by name, and not just call him or her "the baby" all the time. We're 99% set on a boy's name, and probably about 75% sure of a girl's name.

Our New House

We were majorly blessed with all the help we received in moving to our new place. I never got a chance to count, but I'm pretty sure there were at least 15 people on moving day, and that's not counting some friends who helped with packing and unpacking before and after the move. Everything was out of our old apartment and into our new house in just over two hours! Praise the Lord. This move was actually less stressful for me than our last move, even though we have two kids and I'm pregnant now, and we have more stuff than we used to as well.

We have been in our new house for a week. Overall, it's a great place, and we're enjoying it a lot. We have had several problems, though...a slow drain which caused our washing machine to leak all over the garage, a wonky smoke alarm, the heater/fan/light unit in the bathroom which stopped working after a few days, and no internet access. Finally today someone from our internet provider came out to have a look and see what the deal is, and they said they have to re-bury a cable from our house down the block a ways. So I'm at the library right now using the wireless connection.

The kids have been doing well sharing a room. They've been sleeping great, except last night, when they both threw up. They seem fine today, so I guess it was a one-time thing. I hope. However, we're keeping them home tonight instead of our originally scheduled plan of dropping them off for free childcare through our church for a parents' date night. I am disappointed, but I want to make sure the kids aren't contagious. I don't want to put other parents through what we went through last night. The laundry, the crying, the...yuck. So we'll go on a date some other time.

In other news, I have been feeling the baby wiggle around since I was about 12 1/2 weeks pregnant! That's way earlier than with D.L.F. or Cupcake, and it's kind of fun.

Not having internet for the past week, I've been doing a lot more research the old-fashioned way...with books. I'm so, so excited to finally have a yard, so I've checked out over a dozen books from the library about gardening. I'm getting antsy to work in the yard, but it has been rainy, cold, and very windy lately...not exactly prime gardening weather. I'm poring over books and gardening catalogs in eager anticipation. I am extremely excited about the lilac and hydrangea bushes in our front yard and can't wait to see them in bloom.

We still have a lot of boxes to unpack, but things are starting to feel a little more like home.

All Things Work Together for Good

When we got in the car to go to church this morning, we discovered that our car was having major problems. It was still drivable, but the heater, radio, and basically everything else was disabled. So we drove to church in our frigid car and pulled into a parking spot, only to discover that the car would not turn off! Every time T tried to put the car in park, there was a horrible, loud grinding noise, and he couldn't pull the keys out, either. So the kids and I went into church, and some guys came over to help T. To make a long story short, T drove the car back home and pulled out some fuses to get the car to stop. So now we need to get the car towed and repaired.

BUT, the good thing is, it turns out that one of the men who helped T this morning is in charge of our church's moving team, which we didn't even know existed. So he said he'll put out the word and recruit some guys to help us move this Saturday!

Also, some kind friends from church are letting us borrow one of their cars until we can get ours fixed. They packed up their whole family and drove from their house, which is half an hour away, just to deliver the car to us tonight.

When I was a child, I heard stories about George Müller, the orphanage director who prayed fervently and trusted God to provide--and He did, in amazing ways. I wanted to be that close to God and have that kind of faith, but I didn't know how to go about it. In the almost-five years that T and I have been married, I've had to exercise a lot of faith in God's ability to take care of us. At first it was hard for me--very hard. I cried a lot during our first year together when T didn't have a steady job and we didn't even own a car. But every time a situation came up where I honestly didn't know how we were going to make it, God blessed us abundantly, often through our caring church family. And each time it became a little easier for me to trust God, because I felt a little closer to Him and I remembered what He had done for us in times past. I'm not saying I have faith anywhere near George Müller's, but I realized today that I'm truly not worried about this car situation or the expenses of our upcoming move, and that is a "God thing." He has changed me in the last five years. Strangely, I always feel closer to Him when life is not perfect and I'm more aware of my need for Him--not just for His provision, but for Him.

A Picture

Today when I was looking through old pictures trying to find the photos I took of our new house (we're moving in less than two weeks!), I ran across this one of Cupcake when she was seven months old. I miss the roly-poly, almost-bald Cupcake, but I'm delighted in the sweet, fun toddler she is now at a year-and-a-half.

 

Anyway, about the house, it is a small 3-bedroom house with only one bathroom, but it has front and back yards and a garage. The backyard has several raised garden beds, so I am looking forward to growing some of our own food this next spring and summer. There are also lots of flowers. I can't wait to see everything in full bloom! Now that we will have a house of our own and not be in quite such close proximity with the neighbors as we are now in our apartment, we are also considering a home birth for when our baby is born around July 4.

Keepin' It Real

Another household rule I never knew I would have to make:

"If you get pee on a tissue, don't put it back in the tissue box."

Best Buds

D.L.F. was still chattering away almost two hours after we put him in bed tonight, so finally I went in to check on him.

"I am playing my third game of Uno with Baseball Guy!" D.L.F. exclaimed proudly.

"Oh, you guys are playing Uno?" I said casually, trying to suppress a laugh.

D.L.F. pantomimed dealing out a few more cards and then said, "There! Now we're finished."