Ready or not

That is how I have been feeling lately...

whether I am ready or not he is coming. I am "due" one month from today. I have no idea when he will actually come, but I have decided I would rather be ready than not. It is nesting time I guess.

Do you like my vintage jacket? I am in love with it. I can't wait to see what it looks like without a balloon under my dress.

My midwife appointment is at our home today. I am making room on a shelf in my closet to have everything we will need for the birth. I have loved collecting and preparing things for the birth. It has really made me feel more in control and in charge, instead of packing a suitcase. Have I mentioned how much I love having a midwife? Cause I do. Have I mentioned how excited Russ and I are to have our baby to be born at home? Cause we are.

Remember the list I posted in my last post? Lets look at it again shall we?

(green means it's done, red means still need to do)

• we bought Russ a car to drive to and from work!
• Russ finished the trim in the kitchen!
• I decided to just repair rather than recover my Grandmas chair, then I bought another vintage rocking chair that I need to recover. Yikes!
• I hate the craft room, I don't even want to talk about it.
• I still have to make stuff and get ready for the vintage yard sale
• got cabinets up in the laundry room
• food storage will have to wait, we are not ready for that yet.
• the new bathtub has been ordered and will be installed in the next couple of weeks, hopefully before the baby comes.
• we painted the dresser (I need to post a picture cause it is cute), but not the toy fridge (but that doesn't really matter)
• Russ painted the master bedroom (I love it!) and it is halfway decorated. Russ installed a new ceiling fan last night and I slept much better than usual. He still needs to hang the curtain rod though.
• The porch swing is hung and we love it and I know we will be on it all the time as the weather cools down. I still want to make a cover and pillows for it.
• I am adding baby bedding to the list, but for a little bassinet in the corner of my room, nothing big.The biggest and most important things are done. I think there is so much power in writing stuff down. With all that has gotten done I just want to say how much I love thrift stores.

And lastly when this picture was taken my heart was happy because I was holding all three of my children close to me.

The other night I had to tell Russ that I really am happy, because by the time he gets home at night it is the worst part of the day for me. My whole body hurts, I am loosing patients with the children and myself for not getting everything done that I want to, and I just want to spend time with him. I feel bad that he always sees me at my worst. But yesterday we both got up really early together and got stuff done. We didn't make it again today, but I hope we can tomorrow, because it was awesome! Hopefully I will post some pictures soon of the projects we have been knocking off the list.

While he is gone

Gracie plays with her friend Elliot

And they play so well together.

She watches whatever movie she wants without William's input.

She also reads, sings, and dances with her Cinderella doll that we saved from DI

She has dance parties with uncle Mark and puts Ashley's bracelets on.

She spends a lot of time putting on makeup she got for her birthday.

She lines up her toys and puts them all over the house.

I have really been loving this time I have had with her before the baby comes. Some lovely one on one time that I got with William, now I get to have it with her. It is fun having her home.

A little late

Last week was my sister, Connie's birthday. It was a great day. The day after the book Mockingjay came out. We have been waiting for that book to come out for a year. Connie's plan was to eat at the three sister restaurants that give you a free meal on your birthday. I decided to do that with her since I love those restaurants. Joe's Farm grill for breakfast where I brought her these pillows and my sister in law Ashley and I made for her.

The pillows were a lot of fun to make. Then Ashley was kind enough to take Gracie while I went with Connie to her place and we read...until lunch. Then we went to Liberty Market, yum! A couple of friends met us there that had already finished the book. I am sure that was hard for them. Then Connie and I went to my house because it was time for William to come home. We put videos on for the kids so we could keep reading. Gracie assumed this awesome position.

Gracie loves her aunt Connie so much, and I am so glad that she has this relationship with her.

I know that her life will be better because of Connie in her life, just like mine.

Dinner time came all too fast and we met up with some of the family and Joe's Real BBQ. It was a very fun day that went by amazingly fast. Not a typical kind of day but one worthy of celebrating someone special.

Happy Birthday Connie!

cut it or brush it

I love Williams long hair, I really do. But the truth is, it is really hot and not fun to brush. Cause he wakes up looking like this

So one morning his options were to cut it, or brush it. He chose to cut it.

(doesn't it look like I have a pillow shoved under my shirt)

I didn't do an after shot but on the way to Gracie's first dance class we stopped by Williams school to drop of the snack. William was in the outdoor environment watering plants.

He showed us how it was done.

And let Gracie help. She thought it was so cool and did not want to leave.

Here they are giving hugs and William telling Gracie to have fun at dance. He was very excited for her. That was the first thing he asked about when he got in the car after school.

If you don't dance then your no friend of mine

The title of this post is obviously not true since I married a non-dancer, but I wish it was true.

I signed Gracie up for dance and I don't know who is more excited for it, her or me.

I mean look how cute she is in her leotard!!!!

Her first week went well. It is just out of the teachers homes and is very low key. I had to leave (go down stairs) quickly because she was obviously not going to listen with me there. She was just laying on the ground rolling around and being silly. I could hear the music and the teacher and it sounded fun. I wish I was in the dance class.

For her second class I let her wear her tu-tu. A lot of the other girls had skirts and I knew she would think it was fun. Holy moly she looked adorable. We stopped by Trader Joe's on the way there and everyone was commenting on how cute she was.

I was just laughing when I turned around to find her doing this

No wonder she wanted me to put it in her cart.

Here she is relaxing with a banana and a cowboy hat after class.

Doesn't she look so much older now that her hair is getting so long?

Meet the teacher

The Friday before school started there was a meet the teacher night. Of coarse I didn't get a picture of the teacher, but I am sure I will sometime this year. The kids would not slow down, running from one thing to the next. The classroom was amazing, so much to do and see. (playing with things from the sea)

He is going to a Montessori school. I feel really lucky to have found a Montessori charter school so I don't have to pay for it. I actually don't know that much about Montessori, at least less than I thought. But I am really excited to learn more as the year goes on.

(scooping, pouring, and pinching)

William seemed really excited to see all the fun things he would get to do at school each day. He liked the outdoor learning areas. I think William will do really well with this style of learning and class room setting.

(He really likes puzzles and shapes)

What I really like about this school so far:

• 
  
  They sent a letter home saying that they will be teaching the kids about healthy eating and asked that parents not send sugary treats, candy, and drinks to school and if you do they would send them back home. This was a worry of mine sending William to school, because I try and have my kids eat healthy and I didn't want him coming home telling me all the other kids have fruit snacks in their lunch everyday and whining at me to do it, cause I'm not going to.


• 
  
  The only things they asked to have them bring to school was an extra set of cloths, a bag of some sort, and a lunch every day. I love that the keep it simple.

William has not had any complaints, he loves it and all the friends he has made.

I was worried about Gracie and how she would do with him being gone all the time. She has mentioned it a few times, but I think she also likes it. Her personality has really been magnified since she has been the only one home. I am really glad for this time I have with just her before baby 3 comes into the picture. For example we are sitting on the couch together watching Robin Hood and laughing at out favorite parts. Later we will run errands and that is sooo much easier with just Gracie and I. She does wear a back pack around the house every now and then, but that is just cute.

So school really is cool.

Ready to be done

and I don't mean with this pregnancy. I am ready to be done with my kidney/urinary/bladder problems. (about 30 weeks)

A day after this picture was taken I had a midwife appointment and my urine showed up with blood in it. We sent it in and found out that there was no infection (good news) but that meant it was probably a kidney stone again (bad news) Wednesday I started having pain in my bladder, but that was only when the babies head would push on the bladder. I tried to take the midwifes advice again and drink lemon juice, but it was hard to do when I didn't have a lot of pain or symptoms. I would just forget about it a lot. Over the weekend my legs started cramping up a lot and I couldn't stand in one spot for too long. I figured it was probably coming soon. Sunday night I started getting pretty intense pain in my bladder and then in my lower back started hurting a lot. We got ourselves home and I got in a hot bath and it started to help. I was getting uncomfortable so I got out, but that was a mistake because then everything just hurt worse. There was no position I could get in that would relieve the pain. The only think that helped was if Russ would rub it. I was up pretty much up all night. I started throwing up because the pain was so bad. Every hour or so I would feel like I really needed to pee so I would try and hardly anything would come out, because I was throwing it all up. In the morning I realized there was no way I was going to be able to pee this thing out if I couldn't keep any fluids down. So I went to the ER. I won't go into too much detail but they gave me an IV after a while I went pee a lot and that felt so good. And there it was, a huge kidney stone. I think it was blocking anything from getting through and I could not keep down enough fluids to build up enough pressure to get it out.

Russ went into work late so he could help get the kids taken care of and me to the hospital. Our neighbor let William come over early and get picked up for the car pool at her house. Grandpa Christensen came and got Gracie so she could stay with them all day. Russ came to the hospital for lunch and was able to talk to the doctor with me. Connie found out I there and came to visit me on her lunch break. I also called her when I was released and she came and took me home. I got home right before William came home from school and when I called my in laws about coming to get Gracie they told me they would come get William and they could stay until Russ could get them after work (7:00pm). It was nice to get some rest, because my body was really tired. I think I was clenching most my muscles all they time that I was in pain. Well, not the whole time but enough that I was very tired. I feel so blessed to have so many around me that are willing to help and it feels good because I know that those that helped were not my only options.

So hopefully that will be the end of these kinds of problems because there are just a few things I would like to get done before this baby comes sometime in mid October.

• buy a car for Russ to drive to work
• Finish the trim in the kitchen
• recover my Grandmas rocking chair
• better organize the office/craft room
• make a budget and stick to it
• make stuff for and get ready for vintage yard sale
• get old cabinets and refinish them for laundry room
• organize laundry room and food storage
• get food storage
• put a new bathtub in the bathroom
• paint dresser and toy fridge in kids room
• paint and decorate master bedroom
• hang porch swing

I think that is all. Doesn't sound like too much, does it? That doesn't even count the maintinance of our huge pool, huge yard, and house.

Man, I wish there was two of me and that one of us was not pregnant.

I do realize that it will not all get done, but I plan on sitting down with Russ today and putting them in order of most importance and making a goal to get them done. Now, no more kidney stones or any other problems to slow me down. Full speed ahead.

p.s. going to the hospital only made Russ and I more excited about the fact that we are planning on having this baby at home.