Blogging hiatus

Just wanted to let you all know I'm going on a short blogging hiatus. There's just too much going on right now in my life and with some extended family situations. I'll be back as soon as I can handle "extra" things again. Either that or my posts will be fewer and farther between (like this last time).

Our newest pets

On top of regular homeschooling and our weekly homeschool co-op, I also am part of a neighborhood preschool co-op of sorts. A few other moms and I switch off houses each week to send our 3 and 4 year olds to. This week happened to be at my house. So last night I stayed up way too late cutting out fish (Brent wondered why I didn't just let the children cut out their own fish......um, 3 year old dexterity....not so great). The subject of the day was PETS. I HAD to send the kids home with SOME sort of pet, right? I thought about pet rocks, but it's too dang cold outside to go digging around in the frozen earth looking for rocks. So fish it was.

It's always amazing to me to see what kids respond to. Tink wanted all her fish to have faces.....and wanted her "water" to be colorful (maybe a reason we don't have real fish?). Another kid didn't want to draw any plants in his water (the fish might get caught). And another just wanted to get the dang craft time over with so he could go play downstairs again (his fish didn't go home with faces).

At the end of the morning everyone left with a new pet (a maintenance-free one!). We now have 3 aquariums full of fish (AJ and Roo had to make one too, of course), and I think they're a lovely addition to our family. Don't you think the model is darling too?

Now be honest.....how many of you thought we got Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches again?!!!!

Need a laugh today?

My sister sent me this clip from the Ellen Degeneres show. I've been laughing my heiney off all morning. Gladys Hardy reminds me so much of my Grandma June. She's so funny that she became a "regular" on the show. There are a bunch more clips of her talking to Ellen if you decide you need to see more. (I did.)

And since I haven't figured out how to post a youtube video on the blog yet,

here's the clip.

Enjoy!

Pics from the weekend

Saturday morning we got up bright and early to run some errands. Lady made quite the mess with some jam at breakfast, so Brent HAD to get pics, of course. And then the other children insisted that we take pics of them too. (Is that the way it is at your house too?)

(ps......Don't you love Roo's toothless smile? I love listening to him talk now....he has to concentrate on how to say everything since the sound "s" is somewhat evasive these days.)

I walked in on this sweet moment before church yesterday morning. Sometimes these kids just make my heart melt! Maybe having 4 sisters in the house will be a beautiful thing after all.

Oh, and thank you to everyone who expressed concern over my fall a couple of weeks ago. I'm finally starting to feel better. My shoulder seems to be loosening up and I'm trying to keep it stretched out so that it stays that way. The headaches aren't hitting me as often the last couple of days either. I'm sure that Priesthood blessing I had Brent give me the other night had something to do with it too. ;) Thank heavens for such a great husband!

Hint: Don't fall down the stairs while pregnant and holding a baby

Yes, Tuesday night I fell down the stairs while holding Lady. Luckily it was only about 4 stairs, not the whole staircase. But in trying to protect the baby in my arms and the unborn one in my womb, I fell a little weird. I landed on my left hip and back, my ribs on that side hit the stair above that and knocked the wind out of me for a few seconds, and then I kept sliding. I'm sure it was a lovely sight. I kind of wish somebody had been videotaping so that I could see how funny I probably looked.

Only it hasn't been so funny ever since. My hip/back hurt like crazy for a few days after, but then something bizarre started to happen. I could feel the pain start to drift up my back. It's gotten higher and higher until now it's in my shoulder. How does this happen? My shoulder was safe in the fall and now I feel like I've got a knot the size of a boulder sitting right on that curve between my shoulder and neck. Oh, and it keeps sending little shock waves up the left side of my head....and they find their exit out my ear. I know, it sounds crazy. But that's exactly what it feels like.

Thankfully Brent has been rubbing it for me, which has helped a lot. (It gives me a couple hours of less-intense pain before the knot decides to knot itself back up.) I slept with a heating pad on it last night. That didn't do much except keep me awake.

So here's a little "vent" post to whine about my troubles. I hope your day is going better than mine! :)

(Oh, and my midwife came over the next day and we listened to the baby's heartbeat....she's fine. Probably had a good ride swimming around in all that amniotic fluid!)

What did you eat for dinner last night?

At our house, we like to eat burritos. Want to see what we cooked up last night?

Not exactly vegetarian, I know. But they were OH-SO-YUMMY!!!!

Roo wanted to be completely covered. He was just a little too tall. :)


And we found out having them wrapped up like that made for some really easy tickling!


Was your dinner as delicious as mine?

Wanna know what Baby #5 is going to be?

I must be the most impatient person in the world. I can't stand waiting. I'm 17 weeks along....only 3 more to go before we get the regular 20-week ultrasound. But can I wait 3 more weeks? Absolutely not! Not after my sister, who's only 2 weeks ahead of me, has already known she's having another boy for 3 or 4 weeks. And also, not after I went through all the baby clothes in the basement. Brent thought that now would be a good time to clean out some of the boxes in the storage room, so Saturday I went through a bunch of boxes and threw stuff away, combined stuff, and condensed the number of boxes in the storage room. I first went through the baby girl clothes.....they're cute and I love them, but I've seen/used them all 3 times now. Then I went through the baby boy clothes. I cried. I've only seen/used them once. And that was 6 years ago!

So I went upstairs and informed Brent that we would be finding out whether this baby was a boy or a girl on our date that evening.

I NEEDED TO KNOW!!!

I made an appt at one of those Fetal Photo places in the mall and we went there directly after a spicy dinner at Pei Wei. (I was hoping the spices would get this baby moving!)

The ultrasound tech asked us whether we wanted a boy or a girl and I quickly informed him a boy was on my wishlist. He said he'd see what he could do.

We first saw the little tummy, full of fluid. Next the heart, beating away....155bpm. 2 arms, 2 legs, a perfect little spine. The head measures right on, the head-to-rump measures right on.

Ok, let's take a look between the legs.......



And here's a profile view, which the tech said actually gives a better picture of the proof (or lack thereof). See how she's rounded from her tummy around to her rump? There would be a couple of bumpity-bumps if she were really a he.Brent was just fine right away. He's excited to add another girl to the family.

I must admit, it took me a minute to recover. I was SOOO sure this was going to be a boy. All we've talked about are boy names, and how we're going to organize the bedrooms if this is a boy. But then......

The tech moved the wand over my belly and held it still for a minute. We saw her squirming and stretching and kicking. She gave us a little wave.....

And then she put her hand to her nose as if to say, "Neiner, neiner, neiner, Mom. I'm not a boy!"
How could I NOT fall in love immediately?

We've made 3 girls that look and act nothing alike so far, so I guess we'll have to see if we can do it a fourth time! :) And from the looks of it, we're going to have our hands full with a spunky little girl! I can hardly wait! :)

As the saying goes:

"Thank Heaven for Little Girls"

One more piece of evidence to prove that I'm not crazy.....at least in this aspect of my life

Thank you to my sister for passing on this article. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!

This country needs to be more supportive of midwives and realize that normal birth does NOT belong in a hospital, and that OBGYNs should NOT be overseeing normal, healthy pregnant women. There's just no reason. Put maternity care back into the hands of midwives and our newborn and maternal death rate (along with cesarians and other interventions) will plummet. It's not only safer, it's BETTER! Anyone I've ever talked to (along with my own experience) who has ever switched from a DR to a midwife has wondered why they didn't do it sooner.

Yay for midwives! Yay for birthing centers and home-births! And Yay for women being in charge of their bodies and their births!