It's Official!

Ok, now I can finally spill the beans! LOL Last week Chris got a job offer; it took them all week to work out the details and finalize everything, but it's done! Chris will turn in his two week notice at his current job on Monday morning. On Aug 16 he will start his new job, attending an orientation meeting out of town. The timing of this is very iffy, because of the baby being due. I have been thinking that the baby will probably come sometime after the 8th, and probably before the 15th. Now I know for sure the baby can NOT come on the 16th, since Chris will be out of town, LOL.

One of the great things about the company that he is going to work for is that they have several offices around the state, including a local one right here. They are going to let him work out of this office until we are able to move. So instead of 4 weeks, we have 3 or 4 months. What a relief! I am not looking forward to sorting and packing and moving and unpacking with a newborn, but at least we can take our time and do it right. We have already set up to have some work done on the roof. We have a whole list of things that will need to be done. Not sure how much we will actually do, LOL

Well, now you know my news. :-)

I Had My 36 Week Check Up This Evening

I went in for my 36 week appointment today;  the dr did an internal.  He didn't do a strep B test,  he said I've been positive so often that they just assume it now.  He could feel the head and I am already 2 cm dilated.  So I am on my way!  I have now officially started my 3 weeks of pre-labor, lol.  Next week I may even be 4 cm!  And all without any real contractions!

 

Still no word yet on the Big News, so I can't post an update on it yet.  Hopefully tomorrow.

Big Changes Coming

Chris and I made a decision last night.  The details are not finalized, so I am not going to tell specifically what we decided, but I can tell you, it means that we will most likely be moving in the next 4 to 6 months!  Chris is very happy, he will be moving back down close to where he grew up.  He has lots of friends there, and he is looking forward to being near them again.  Plus we will be near his parents, so the kids will get to see their grandparents a lot more than a few times a year.  The kids and the grandparents will love that;  I hope I survive it!  LOL

So now I am in for a frenzy of cleaning and fixing and throwing out JUNK!  But have I started?  No, here I sit at my computer, lol.  I *did* do another 2 loads of baby laundry last night, and they are folded and put away!  Of course, just when I thought I was done with laundry for a few days,  Caleb woke me up, dragging all his blankets, pillow, sheets, stuffed animals, and pajamas (he was naked, lol) out into the hall because he had peed the bed.  Ugh.  At least Micah timed it well and had a leaky diaper on the same night, so I threw his sheets and pajamas in the same load, LOL.  I am sooo glad to have my front loading washer!  It fit the pillow, clothes, sheets, and comforter all in one load.  In my old washer it probably would have ended up as 2 or 3 loads.

 

I also got the boys started back to school today.  Just a very short, do two pages from a workbook, type of thing, but I wanted to get them back into the swing of things.  Between having a baby in 3 weeks and then moving in 4 months, we are going to be missing a lot of days of school, so I want to get them in now.

Closer to Ready!

Yesterday I got a lot closer to being ready to have this baby!  I finally got the infant seat installed in the van.  Let me tell you, they do NOT design those things to be installed by 8 mos pg women, which is pretty dumb if you think about it, since who ELSE is going to be installing them?  I thought I might give birth to the baby right into the seat, LOL. 

 

It took me this long because I had actually gotten off my butt and washed the cover last week, but then I thought I'd hang it out on the line to dry rather than put it in the dryer.  Of course, the first day I hang anything out all year, it goes from sunny to pouring rain in about 20 mintues.  I never had a chance of getting it off the line before it was too late.  So I had to start over, and this is how long it took me to get it done, lol. 

 

Since I was already digging through the baby stuff to find the cover, I got the box of newborn baby clothes out too, and got ready to wash those.  Of course I couldn't actually wash them until I had a place to put them away,  which meant moving Micah's things out of the dresser, which meant #1 clearing out someone else's dresser for his stuff, and #2 putting away winter stuff to make room for summer stuff.  Yes, I had not done that yet, LOL.  Well, I DID IT!!!  I got 5 sets of winter clothes sorted and packed away,  and put the summer stuff into the empty dressers;  all are done but Noah's,  I ran out of boxes to put his winter stuff in, lol.  WHERE did I get all these clothes from????  I swear these kids never wore half of what I packed away.  Micah now has his clothes in the bedroom with his older brothers;  he took Troyer's dresser, and Troyer now has a bigger dresser that is out in the hallway.  I am thinking all the dressers should go out in the hallway, so the boys don't wake up any nappers when they go in to get dressed.  No, they don't get dressed first thing in the morning, LOL, it is usually more around 11 am.  But hey, they usually are dressed before me!  LOL

 

In addition to getting that done, I also did a huge shopping trip, alone, while Chris watched the kids for me.  How nice to load up the cart and not worry about burying a child under the groceries, lol.

 

After I got back, I actually did put the clothes into the wash, and got it dried too.  Now it is in a basket in the nursery, waiting to be folded and put away into the cleared out dresser!  One more load of blankets, sheets, and towels, and I am ready!  Oh, I guess I need to pack a hospital bag.   Hmm, no I still have lots of time for that!  LOL

 

Here is a picture of the outfit I bought to bring the baby home from the hospital.  All washed and ready to pack!  It is a boy's outfit, but I will be perfectly happy to bring a girl home in it  LOL

 

 

Garden Update

Today after church I decided it was about time to check on the peas and carrots in our garden.  Each week I've been picking just a few here and there,  but I didn't want anything to go bad from neglect so I went to check.  I decided while down there to go ahead and pull all the carrots.  Last year we had only about 8 carrots, and 2 of them split and rotted in the ground because we left them in too long.  I didn't want that to happen again, and besides, the watermelons were taking over the top half of the row, and the pumpkin was taking over the bottom half, so I thought it would be best just to get them out of there!  lol

 

 

I think I pulled about 50 carrots!  Some of them are really big and beautiful, some of them are very distorted, and some I probably could have left go another week.  But all in all,  I am happy with what we have.  I wanted to show you two carrots that I pulled up together;  I call them the Love Carrots, lol.

 

I also picked some peas,  and here is a picture of ALL the peas I have picked and shelled so far this season - we haven't eaten any of them!

Well, at least it is more than we got last year;  last year we only had one plant grow, and got maybe 12 pea pods for the whole summer.

 

Here is a picture of Caleb, who thought it would cheer the carrots up if he blew them some bubbles  LOL

 

 

 

 

Hot!

Sorry for not updating for a few days, it's been HOT here!  And not just that but humid.  My computer is upstairs, and we don't have air conditioning, so I did my best to sit here with the fan right on my back, but it kept raining, which meant I couldn't keep the windows open, and there wasn't much breeze anyway, and I just couldn't even think straight in the heat.  Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it, anyway!  LOL

 

Homeschool Hike

Today was the day our homeschool group scheduled to do a hike through a state park.   I have been to this park before, it is neat, it is a historical tour through an old town where almost 150 years ago they chopped and burned trees for huge furnaces to melt down iron ore and make steel.   Our group leader hadn't been sure if the trip was on or not, because the weather was so rainy last week;  so she didn't send out reminders to the group.  Up until 10 minutes before we should have left,  I didn't know either, lol.  I called her and she said yes, so I had to quick get everything together and hurry over there.  It is about 50 minutes away.  Of course we didn't get out until 1/2 hour later, so I thought we would be late.  I must have broken a few laws on the way there, because we were only 5 minutes late, and right behind another mom who was late, LOL. 

 

The hike was fun, and the trail we followed was not long, maybe a half mile.  It was a hot day, but we were in the woods, so not so bad.  Most of the stops on the trail are just signs with information on them, not much to see left.  The boys were more interested in all the small springs we crossed, and in the millipede, LOL.  Before we went, I wondered how smart it would be for me to attempt this trip, being 35 weeks pg and waaaaay out of shape, but I surprised myself and made it through with no trouble.  I didn't even have any real swelling!  So I guess all in all it was a good trip.  And it counts as school  ;-)  My only real disappointment is that I forgot to bring my camera, so I don't have any pictures of the boys on the trails.

 

There is a small lake up there, formed by a dam,  and the boys were really hoping we would stay and swim, but I had all 5 by myself, and only 2 of them swim decently.  I didn't really feel up to chasing the 4 yo and 2 yo all over the beach, so I said no.  When we got home I filled our wading pool up, but of course it was freezing cold water from our well, so they weren't really appeased, LOL.  They splashed a bit and then went inside to play Legos.  I went in and fell asleep, LOL.

 

After a few hours the water had warmed up, so they all went out to play in the water, and were happy again  :-)

 

Caleb, Micah, Noah, and Samuel, having fun in the water.  Troyer is out in the back burying a mole we found in the garden, lol.

 

 

Last night Chris mowed the lawn.  It was very very thick from last week's rain, and now there are huge clumps of cut grass throughout the yard.  Of course the boys tracked that straight into the pool.  I had to dump the water tonight and refill it for tomorrow.  

 

After Chris had mowed, I gave 4 out of 5 of the boys trims on their haircuts.  I bought a set of clippers last month,  I really like them!  They are not really that much faster than doing a cut with scissors, but it takes less concentration on my part, lol.  Samuel had just had his hair trimmed a few weeks ago for his birthday picture, so he didn't need to be done.  Micah thought it was fun, as long as I fed him pretzels while he sat;  Caleb was the big baby who whined about all the itchy hair falling on him, LOL.  The boys all look much cooler now.   Just have to get to Chris....

Poor Noah

Last night I went out and picked up the pictures we got developed from Troyer and Noah's trip to camp.  I had gotten each of them a disposable camera to use while they were up there.  They were very excited to see how they turned out.  As it turns out,  I had not made it clear to Noah that he needed to use the flash every time he was inside.  :-(   He only got one good picture out of the whole roll.   I guess he used it all up inside his cabin,  and never took any outside.  Troyer's turned out better,  he took quite a few outside, and remembered to use the flash when he was inside.  He even took a few of himself, LOL.  If I get my scanner back up and running,  I will post one of those. 
 
Poor Noah, he is so upset,  he says now he doesn't want to go back to camp again!  I'm sure that will change by next year, though  ;-)
 

Busy Weekend

We had a busy weekend here,  but for the most part fun.  On Saturday Chris was asked to give the sermon at church;  our pastor has 3 churches he visits, and usually an elder does the sermon on the weeks the pastor is at one of the other churches, but last monday the scheduled elder called Chris and asked him if he could stand in.  Chris said sure;  he has done it before, and didn't mind at all.  Well, he forgot that we had to go to a wedding right after church this week!  Oops.  So rather than attempt (and fail miserably) to watch all 5 boys in the pew while their father stood up front, in plain view but unreachable, I decided to take them home early and let Chris give his sermon unhassled.  He was disappointed that I wouldn't hear it, but he understood. 

 

We had Chris' sister and BIL come up to watch the kids while we went to the wedding, so it worked out well to go home early and get the boys fed before she showed up.  They were very excited to see her,  they don't see her very often as she lives a few hours away.  They had a great time, and after we got back from the wedding, we had a nice visit with her and BIL too.

 

We were able to leave right on time for the wedding,  and Chris had me navigating while he drove.  We were going to a town where he has travelled for work for projects, so he felt like he mostly knew where he was going.  I should have had an inkling that it wouldn't be that easy when his sister showed up at our house almost an hour late because she had been driving down the wrong road looking for the turn off to our street, because he had not remembered the correct name of the main road.  Of *course*  he did the same thing trying to find the church for the wedding!  We drove all over that town, and I kept saying look for so-and-so street, it has rt number whatever.  I was reading to him right off the directions included in the invitation, as well as the directions he printed off from map-quest.  Well, of course he decided on the way there that he knew a short cut and came into town from a different street, and of course, in spite of the fact that he has worked on projects in that town for years, he had NO clue what ANY of the streets were named or numbered.  We drove aimlessly for at least 20 minutes before I finally noticed where we should be,  at which time he said, "Oh, yeah, that is the other way into town, I just don't like to take it"  DUH!  It was the way the directions had told us to take.  Grrrr.  Well, we got there at just the right time, so it was no problem in the end, but very frustrating!!!!

 

The wedding was nice, but the church was hot.  Chris says it wasn't so bad, so it must be my pg that made me so hot.  My feet were swelling from sitting in pews all day.  I need to carry around a footstool or something, so my feet aren't dangling just above the floor when I sit, LOL.  The service was about 45 minutes, not too bad,  and we didn't stay for the reception.  It was going to be 2 hours after the service, and we didn't really know what to do to waste 2 hours, and we had told SIL that we would be home around dinner time, so we just went home a little earlier than planned.  We tried to talk SIL and her dh into staying for pizza, but they wanted to get home, so we just ate with the boys. 

 

This morning Chris decided to go on a cleaning spree, and made the boys do more work than the usual Sunday clean-up.  They did a good job, the house looks great.  I'm glad, too;  the exterminator is coming tomorrow, he won't be so grossed out now,  LOL.  He is coming to spray the exterior for wasps and set bait traps in the attic and basement for mice.  We are lucky, we haven't really had much trouble with pests this year.  Living out in the country means bugs, so we have to keep up on it, but this year has been mild.

 

Tonight Chris made soup for everyone, it was a cool day so a good night for soup.  Unfortunately,  while Noah was trying to cool his soup off, by standing next to the table and blowing from a foot away,  Micah decided to try to taste it and climbed up in Noah's seat.  Noah was trying to move him out again, but instead made Micah lose his balance.  He put his hand right on the side of the bowl and spilled it all.  Some of the hot noodles ran off the table right onto his leg, and burned him pretty badly.  He has a few blisters from it.  Noah felt sooo badly for him, but really it was just an accident, and already tonight Micah is feeling better.  We ran cold water over it in the kitchen sink, then put him in a cool bath in the tub for about a half hour.  When he got out I sprayed some stuff on it that is for minor burns and pain.  Most of the redness is gone, just the blisters look icky.  Micah is playing and happy again so I hope by tomorrow it will be almost all better.  It is so sad to see your kids get hurt and not be able to help  :-(

 

The Demon-Posessed Monster Pumpkin Plant

I have been waiting for the rain to end so I could finally take a picture of this plant for you. Unfortunately, there was no really good way to get a shot of it to show just how it has taken over our garden.

Let me give you a small history of it first. Last year I bought a pumpkin at WalMart for $3, for the express purpose of saving the seeds to plant this year. While I didn't do so good at saving the seeds out of it, aparently what I did was just as good; which was to let it sit out all winter and rot into nothing until all that was left was the seeds matted together. I picked them out of the dirt and gave them to Chris to plant anyway, and we figured if we were lucky it might sprout. He only planted 3 plants.

Well, that is apparently 2 plants too many. It is hard to tell from the picture, but the one closest to the back of the fence has now taken up about a third of our garden! It has grown over the back fence (there is actually a pumpkin growing on one of the escaping vines, just hanging there, not sure if it will fall off when it gets too heavy, or take the fence down with it, LOL)

My poor watermelons are desperate to get away from this monster, but that just means that they are taking over the poor carrots, which now have watermelons AND the Demon Pumpkin threatening them, LOL. Add to this my Tomatoes of Opportunity, and we have quite a garden! LOL

What are Tomatoes of Opportunity, you ask? Well, last year when we cleaned up the garden, we threw all the rotting tomatoes in the compost bin. They apparently did as well in there as the pumpkin did alongside the house, lol. When Chris tilled the garden, he spread all our compost out over it. We planted ONE row of tomatoes, mabye 6 plants. Well, we now have at least 13 plants, and they are NOT all in that one row! 2 came up in the cantelopes, one in the watermelons (another one tried but got eaten by the Demon Pumpkin), one in the carrots, and 2 in the peas. Whoever told you you have to start tomatoes indoors and coddle them was wrong! LOL They look just as good as the ones we did the "right" way.

So now I have to go out every few days and rein back the Demon Pumpkin, and give the poor watermelons and cantelopes a chance. And for sure we are going to be darn sick of eating tomatoes by October! LOL


The plant along the back side, the tall one with the huge leaves, is the pumpkin. At the very front of the pic are our oh-so-sad peas, which I am hoping by the end of the harvest to maybe have a whole bowl picked to serve, LOL

Baby Projects

One of the things I have done for each new baby is to make him a cross stitch sampler with his name, date of birth, and weight on it. My consistency with timing has not been great, but I have gotten them done, at least up until #4. I am sooo close, but not quite finished with #5 yet (oops, running a little late on that one, LOL). Then I have to get started on #6. I have to say, after a while, the selection to choose from for these samplers gets pretty slim, LOL. I am very picky, I want them each to be about the same size, and have room to include all the info. I think one of the reasons I haven't gotten to this last one yet is because it is a smaller size than I wanted. Also because I have one that is just for girls, and I was *hoping* to be able to start it, but I had to wait for an u/s to find out if I could. Darn, nope, LOL. Here are pictures of the ones I have completed so far. Karen, I would LOVE to make one of the deer for Sylvia! But, um, I'm a little behind on my own kids right now... LOL

My Appointment This Evening

Sorry to say, it was a boring appointment; Sometimes I wish they could have a drive thru for these, LOL. All looks good, which makes me happy, but it seems like a waste of time to spend more time driving there and back than I spend in the office, including the time in the waiting room! I gained 2.5 lbs, so I'm just over 20 lbs total now; the dr didn't say anything about that. It is a nice change to have a dr who isn't obsessed with weight gain. I still have 5 weeks to go, so I'm going to do my best NOT to add another 10 lbs to the total!

BP and urine were fine, and the hb was good. He said the hb was not too low, so the baby hasn't officially "dropped" yet.

I am happy to add, also, that he is *not* very worried about the whole placenta issue. He just felt it his duty to inform me of what was possible, but he isn't pushing for a C section or anything. He figures I'll be fine.

So I go back again in 2 weeks, and after that it's every week! Boy, I'd better start getting the baby things out and washing them! And maybe buy a pack of diapers? LOL

WHAT time is it???

*Sigh* I have apparently hit that stage of pg where my sleep pattern is gone. Getting ready for waking all through the night, I guess. I've been waking up at 4 am all week, and unable to sleep. I thought it was the heat, but it cooled off beautifully last night, and still I couldn't sleep. Oh well. One of my favorite sounds is the birds singing in the early morning, so I guess I'll get my fill of that, LOL

I have a dr appt this evening, I sure hope I didn't gain too much weight this week! I'm already up to 18 lbs, which doesn't sound like much, but I still have about 5 weeks to go, and 2 lbs a week would be 10 more lbs! Aack, I was hoping to keep it to 20 for the whole pg! Hmm, those cans of icing and bowls of cookie dough are probably not doing me any favors, LOL

An Introduction to My Family

Ok, I know most of you know all about me, or a lot about me anyway, but just for the sake of starting somewhere, I'll tell you a little about me.

I am a SAHM in central PA, I live in Penn State Country. Yes, I graduated from there, as did my dh. He is not so proud of that, he thinks they stole his money and gave him nothing, LOL. Well, at least he got a job out of it, and he does pretty well now. We live out in the country, though our property is not as big as the ones surrounding us. We live in an old (1880s) farmhouse, that is showing its age. It needs soooo much work, and we just hate to pour money into it, so we don't LOL. Its priorities are set by whatever crisis needs attention soonest. We have a nice yard, which is good, and would be better if I could get the boys out the door more often. We are just about out of space here, and are hoping to move out of this area sometime soon.

Here is our house, it's worst feature is that it is literally right on the road. We have NO front yard. The upside of that is that we have a nice big back yard.


Our house in the snow


Some of the back yard


I have 5 boys, here they are:

Troyer, age 9 1/2, his birthday is in September. He is very artistic, he hopes to be a cartoonist when he grows up. He tells us constantly that his brilliant ideas will make millions of dollars. We can only hope! LOL



Noah, age 7 1/2, his birthday is in August (he'll be getting a baby brother for his birthday LOL). He is good at sports, and has an aptitude for gymnastics, though he hasn't had formal lessons yet.



Samuel, age 6, just had his birthday this month. He is shy and sensitive, but such a cutie!



Caleb, age 4, had his birthday in May. He is full of spunk, and keeps right up with his older brothers; he refuses to be left out!



Micah, age 2, had his birthday in April. He is too smart for his own good, we really have to keep an eye on him! Someone forgot to tell him he is only two, and keeps trying to keep up with his brothers, too!



Here is a picture we took of them all on a trip to take the oldest two to camp this month:


Troyer, Samuel, Micah, Noah, and Caleb

Ok Ok Ok, here by popular demand, is my Blog!!!

I don't even know where to start yet, but Between the Lions is about to start, so I don't have time anyway, LOL.

Now you can quit bugging me!