2010 In one word

Many bloggers are choosing one word to describe this past year. Its been an odd one for me (what year isn't?) with so many ups and downs. But I think one of the best words for my year would be "Pregnancy".

We started trying to conceive in February, to avoid adding an August/September baby to the family. (Good thing since my sister ended up adding to the September babes.) We had a chemical pregnancy in March, that would have resulted in a November baby. Then my SIL got pregnant with a December baby.

It would take 6 months of practice before we finally fell pregnant. So in July morning sickness started, and it still plagues me just a little, every once in a while. Although its more about heartburn now.

I'd like to write a post about my plans and goals for this upcoming year, maybe I will get around to that this weekend, in the new year. I can not wait, 2011 is going to be a good one, I can feel it! (Come on, the best part of the new year is coming late March and kicking me, so I really can feel it.)

Our house is in total disarray at the moment. Christmas is still up, in fact I am sitting by the tree at this moment. Its cloudy and cold outside, so the warm feeling coming from the glowing tree is nice. I figure it can stay up until Rhayn goes back to school on Monday.

Yesterday my mom took the girls and I, as well as Madder to see Tangled. It was really cute. I, of course, bawled at the end. Can't help it, I am a female, not just that I am a pregnant female. Its my hormonal right to cry about dumb stuff. After the movie, the girls loaded into my mom's car and went home with her. They love getting to go to her house, but also they will get to spend time with Great-Grandma, and their cousins. I know they will have a good time.

Its so quiet at my house when the girls aren't here. But I am taking this as a time to clean. Like deep clean. I worked on Rhayn's room this morning and into the afternoon. It took about 5 hours but it really looks nice. We had actually cleaned Gwennie's room yesterday before the movie. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as Rhayn's because I had gone in there a little over a month ago.

Next up is our toy room. I doubt I will get to it today, maybe some superficial cleaning because a lot of the things I took out of both of the girls' rooms just made it into that room. (Our toy room is also my craft room and we may call it the bonus or game room, too.)

The cold I had still lingers, draining energy from me. This is not helpful when you have a lot of things you want to accomplish in a short amount of time. I suppose the only way to get it done, is to just get to it. Although a nap would also be nice...

Gratitude Monday

This very last week of 2010 I am grateful for

~being 28 weeks. Hello 3rd and final trimester. Also this starts the every other week midwife visits, before long there will be a new little one to love and I will no longer get to see my midwife. I hate that part. She is an amazing person and makes me laugh every single time I see her.

~knowing that this baby is in fact breech. I can't say I am grateful for that, but I am thankful that I knew it and was right. There is a sweet little head to pat pushing up into my right ribs. (What a stinker, just like Gwennie.)

~hilarious pregnancy dreams. Last night I took the baby out to show everyone that it is in fact a boy (no, we didn't find out) and was trying to tell everyone around the name I had chosen. It was silly.

~food. Seriously I am starting to get cravings. Today it was a blue cheese crumble salad (from Paradise Cafe, but I made one at home) and hot wings (also made at home using chicken strips.) I am sure I will regret eating the Frank's Red Hot later, but right now? It. Is. So. Good.

~getting together with my entire family on Christmas Day. We haven't seen my brother, Ender, in a while. It was great to see him and his wife. It was the first time that he has ever seen me pregnant. (1st time he was on his mission, 2nd time he was deployed I think.)

~cooler weather. Sure it was in the 70s on Christmas Day, but this week we are looking at mid to low 60s and maybe even the 50s.

I am not grateful for this cold, but I am getting a kick out of the ill pets. Mean Kitty can barely meow. Lily looks so pathetic, too. My head is still stuffed up, my sinus on the left side seems to be blocked (although the spicy hot wing sauce has helped a little!) But the worst part is the lack of energy that seems to be the hallmark of this virus. I feel drained after just a little exertion. Driving to my midwife's house and a quick trip into the grocery store was all that I have energy for right now. I am in desperate need of a nap.

Est. 1976

My family top row- Me, G'Rat, Ender, JVA
bottom row- Dad, Mom, Dacheese
(In age order, I am oldest followed by G'Rat, Ender, JVA and Dacheese is da baby.)

I'm not even going to try to name all these folks for you. But this is the entire clan, as of December 2010.

Merry Christmas Eve!

I wanted to write a poem, a fun one, about Christmas eve at our house. But I can barely string words together. Once again I am sick. The past few nights have been awful, my throat hurts so much.But my being sick doesn't stop Christmas from coming. I feel a bit like the Grinch, wishing it wasn't Christmas. I don't feel stressed about tonight, because I am still trying to let go. I know that I can not be perfect, there will be things I forget. I thought I had made a list of things I try to do every year, but I never found my list. The one thing we haven't done this year is going to the Mesa LDS Temple to see the lights. It makes me sad, but I doubt it'll happen tonight either. We haven't even driven around to look at lights. I may send Daddy out with the girls tonight, unless I am feeling better, then maybe I'll go along. There are a few things left to finish up, gifts left to wrap, possible treasure hunts to make. Honestly I really want to lay on the couch, and watch craptacular television and sleep away this nasty headache and sore throat. Instead I have cleaned my room, and made another batch of caramels this morning. I used the wrong kind of paper to wrap them and they stuck to it, so I had to throw out the first batch. This batch tastes just as good, and hopefully will not stick to the plastic wrap.

Doom Kitty

This is Mean Kitty. She is old and... well... mean. She was Will's cat long before he met me. She was feral, and he found her in a very sad state. I believe the story is that she and her family were living in the vents above his apartment's bathroom (or something like that). He rescued her, covered in feces and malnourished and was stuck with her forever more. She tolerates those who feed her. She looks so soft and pretty. She perches on the back of the couch and will hiss at you if you look at her funny. I warn those who come over about her. I don't want them to get hurt. (She is almost all "hiss" and very little "bite" though.)

When she lived with us Hairball nicknamed her "The Kitty of Doom" or "Doom Kitty". I am pretty sure Hairball and Mondryn even made a card for the game Munchkin that featured "The Kitty of Doom."

Growing up we lost a lot of cats to the road and animals (coyotes) around our home. But we always had indoor-outdoor cats. Will and I chose to keep out cats indoor-only. Mean Kitty even had her claws removed because she scratched Rhayn when she was just over 6 months old. (Rhayn still bears a scar on her cheek.)

At some point while letting dogs in and out of the house, Mean Kitty became an indoor-outdoor cat. She, much like a chinchilla, loves dust/sand baths. We have a sand box that she often rolls in. (She also leaves Lily little treats in it, but that is just gross, and I shouldn't tell you all about it!)

The thing is, Mean Kitty has actually become almost a nice kitty. She loves to come snuggle after being outside. She isn't as much of a pain. Well she was ridiculously annoying when she figured out the bells we used to have for the dogs to ring to go out. Lily never figured them out, but Penny did. The sound made me think of her anytime Mean Kitty would ring them, so I took them away from her. (She has a litter box inside so she doesn't have to go out.)

There is nothing like a cold cat curled in your lap, purring. Especially when you have spent ten years in fear of that cat.

The right weather for baking (is not here today.)

Notice the knife and the chunk of caramel that is missing? Mmm it was good.

I am thankful for the clouds today. They are helping a little to make it feel just a tad bit more like the Christmas season. Honestly its been hot lately, hot for Arizona in December, meaning in the 70s. First of all its making me grumpy. Second, I don't want to bake at all so that has been a struggle. Sure I could just not make caramels and cookies. But I want those things. I bought the ingredients to make those things.

Its in no way cold outside. I laugh bitterly whenever I hear "Baby its cold outside". I really want some snow. Or at least weather that isn't in the 70s. I have the house opened up, windows open to let in the lovely air. But that doesn't feel right.

I forced myself to make sea salt caramels today. I also made soft pretzels. Next up is sugar cookies and then I am going to try licorice caramels. My mom made licorice caramels one year for Christmas and I have thought of them every single Christmas since. Notice that I haven't whined about them to her. Few people in my family even like black licorice, but my mom does, I do and so does Will. I think Gwennie does as well. (Not sure if I am missing someone who likes it.)

I had a bread machine failure this morning and that didn't help my Christmas-y mood. I moped about it for a bit but then realized it was silly to be mad about it. These things happen. It looks like the caramels worked like they should and I am having the hardest time not cutting chunks off of the cooling caramels.

I think I shall take a short break and lay on the couch, I feel a nap coming on and its hard to deny naps when you are nearly seven months pregnant. Yawn.

Gratitude Monday

This week I am thankful for

• being 27 weeks along! 3 months to go and entering the 3rd trimester. It is awesome.
• being 99.9% done Christmas shopping and wrapping.
  
• hanging out with my cousin and an old friend from high school. We sat and talked while my kids ran like maniacs.
• cloudy days. I don't know why they make me happy but they do! I only wish it were cooler. Its in the low 70s and its hard to feel Christmas-y when its warm and I have all of the windows open on the house.
• The Cold exiting out house! Its about time.
• finishing yet another doll. Nope, this one isn't staying at our house either. Although Gwennie wanted to keep her because their hair matches.
  

Silent Sunday- Newest Nephew

My brother and his two sons

Concerts, thumping music and fog

In most places, fog is a normal part of the weather. Here, it is newsworthy. This morning we awoke to a fairly foggy world. I know it can be thicker. This picture was taken around 9am, the fog is lifting. It was really thick earlier and you could barely see that house just across the dirt lot. Last night was Rhayn's winter concert. Her class sang "Oh Tannenbaum" and some Russian folk song called "Minka". Then they got out their violins and played two songs. I thought they did a great job on the violin.
After the concert, we went out to eat with my parents (to IHOP) which has sort of become a tradition after her winter concert. Its always nice to spend some time with my parents.

When we got home it was nearly 9pm. The rodeo across the main street from our house was bumping. The rodeo has been here longer than we have, and its always been courteous, shutting down at the latest 10pm on the weekends. Last week, while Will's dad was here, (and I am pretty sure it was a Thursday night, too) there was some sort of a drunken mariachi band playing at 4am until around 5 or so, and then again at 6 and 7. It was loud and laying in my bed upstairs I could feel the drums. I was pissed, to say the least. I was also already grumpy and that added to my misery. Last night I fell asleep fine, but at 12:45 woke up to pee (as every pregnant woman does multiple times a night) and could feel the bumping, thumping bass coming from the rodeo.

At 1:20 I came downstairs where I thought it might not be as loud. Ha. It was just a tad bit quieter but still enough to keep me awake. Will wasn't happy about it either. He has a nasty cold and is having a hard enough time sleeping because of the coughing. The music did stop at 1:30am, but it was a frickin' Thursday night. Our kids are out of school, but it shouldn't matter. I have some perverse hope that the rodeo is having some last hurrahs before it shuts down for good. I really haven't minded it, except when I have a migraine, but this just makes me angry. And I am already a pretty grumpy preggo.
This last picture is a zoom of the lights in the rodeo's parking lot. Those lights are bright and shine right in my bedroom window. Another thing I would not miss at all if the rodeo were to close down.

Toes

My sister, Dacheese (Brie) was taking my sil SLA to get a pedicure before she was induced last night. She invited me along, then she and my mom offered to pay for it as a late birthday present. Who would turn that down? The place we went had the largest collection of designs you could get on your fingers or toes that I had ever seen. So many cool designs.
I chose a nice Christmas-y argyle design. Love it. SLA chose a swirly one that was rather like a peppermint candy. I love this sparkly green. (Also, its really hard to get a clear picture of my toes.) Also I don't care for feet that are over 2 years old. ( I do love baby feet!)

Gratitude Monday

This week I am thankful for

• being 26 weeks along now. (Is that right? Wow... time is flying! and also sorry that picture is rather silly looking.) According to my countdown I am at 99 days to my due date... double digits to baby I know baby could be up to 2 weeks late, which would be rather cool, and I have to admit I sort of hope it happens since then baby will be born in April, and even possibly on April 5th, which is my grandma's 90th birthday. How awesomely cool would that be? Is there a way to make the baby stay in that long? I doubt it and I also know that right around then I will be siiiiiicccckkk of being pregnant and ready for the birth.
  
• an outpouring of love and support and basically some smacks upside the head because of my failure post the other day.
  
• having our house back to ourselves again.
  
• candy cane joe-joes. Mmmmm.
• not feeling sick, although there is a cold in our house... again. Rhayn seems to be under the weather and what I thought was her coughing from the last cold seems to be a whole new one. She sounds miserable.
  
• 3 1/2 more days of school before the winter break, plus we have a full week off before Christmas to bake and have fun together. (Hopefully my stress level drops off a little since I did get a little shopping done today. It was very little.)
• the ability to eat curry again. Although a food that is still grossing me out, that I normally love is bean burritos. Seriously, we usually eat those pretty often, but the thought of them... gag.
  

Silent Sunday

10 Ways in which I am a failure

Last night I had a total meltdown. I mean a laying on the bathroom floor bawling for twenty minutes, feeling like a huge failure-type meltdown.
It. Was. Not. Fun.

I finally calmed down enough to write in my journal and try to make some sense of why I felt like a failure.
1. My house is a total mess, there is not a single clean room in it. Its not awful, I mean its nothing like these houses, but its enough to make me feel anxious.
2. My Christmas to-do list is long and the only things checked off are "put up tree" and "mail Christmas cards."
3. Rhayn is in need of help at school. I don't have enough patience to homeschool her, we think she would benefit from more one on one. I feel like I have totally failed at making sure she is doing well. I somehow have missed how far behind she really is. She also feels sad at school, and doesn't feel like she has any friends. (How is this my fault? I don't know, but my brain thinks it is somehow.) Will is working with her, and he is doing a much better job at it than I ever do. It makes me wish I could somehow make the money to support our home so he could take time off to homeschool her. I know he would be good at it.
4. Gwennie doesn't like me anymore. She tells me pretty regularly that she wants to live with her cousin, Madder. She thinks they can combine their toys and it will be awesome. She has also been a pain to get to bed at night. It involves a lot of yelling and even if I put her to bed at 7 she falls asleep at 9. Most of the time in the morning she is a MESS and doesn't want to get out of bed. This causes me to start yelling at her very early, which just makes the whole day suck.
5. Will is stressed, not that this is anything new, it just means that he isn't handling my freak outs at all. Which means we're not really getting along, because I am such a mess all. of. the. time.
6. Evenings are hard. Instead of enjoying some family time at night (and by night I mean 5pm-ish) I want to be alone in my room with a book. Or maybe asleep. Every night I feel like this. I think that the difficulty I am having getting Gwennie to bed at night is adding to the hard evenings. I had my "morning sickness" in the evenings and was going to bed very early and I still feel done at night.
7. I still think about Penny all of the time. I wish we could have been her forever home and it makes me wonder how getting rid of her really affected the girls. (Maybe part of Gwennie's issues?) But its done and I will never know exactly what happened to her. I worry that because of my feelings about Penny I am spoiling Lily (ok, I KNOW I am) and I wonder if that might be a bad thing.
8. I don't know what to get the girls for Christmas. I SHOULD be done shopping by now... but I really don't even have a frickin' frackin' clue what to get them. I also don't think Will and I are exchanging gifts, which is fine. But it also makes me a little sad. I want to give him something awesome, but we don't need anything.
9. My father-in-law is visiting. I feel like a b-word because I don't want him to be here. The girls are loving his visit, and I feel resentful and mean.
10. This baby will be here before we know it.... and I am so not ready. What was I thinking adding another person to our family?! I mean seriously I am an awful mother to the children I already have, what made me think I deserved another person to love?

I could go on and on, I am trying really hard to see some bright side, something positive, but at this moment, its not happening.

Baby#3

Yesterday I had an ultrasound scheduled. I asked Rhayn if she wanted to come along, as well as Will (Gwennie didn't get a choice). We were also picking up Will's dad from his sister's house so we were going to make a day of it.

At the radiologist, I filled out the paper work and sat waiting. My bladder filled with the required 32 ounces of liquid, ok I cheated. I am thin and have always gotten away with doing 20-24 ounces instead. After filling out paperwork, I sat back down trying to get comfortable. Then they called me over to tell me that because the ordering physician was a midwife and not a doctor there was a very good chance Tricare (our insurance provider) wouldn't cover the ultrasound.

I had them call my midwife, but they told me that they would still do the ultrasound, it was just a possibility that we would end up paying for it out of pocket. Ugh. But I asked about the price and was quoted something reasonable.

Back in the room, I craned my neck to get a peek at the baby. I want to be strong and not find out the sex of the baby, but at the same time I hoped to see that area. The US tech did a great job avoiding that area (at least while I was looking) yet still measuring every part of the baby. We saw the heart, the spine, he measured the bones. He spent quite some time looking at the palate, and even showed us a close up of the lips so it looked like baby was kissing the screen. So cute and so perfect.

Baby is laying transverse, head on the right butt on the left. What I thought might be kicking on my right is actually hands. This baby rubs his/her head a lot. You can see the nubs of fingers on the top of the head in the picture. The hand was actually covering the face for part of the time. We also got a video of baby opening and closing "her" mouth.

My midwife called and said she got the report and everything looks perfect. One measurement was just a little small, but she wasn't sure what the abbreviation meant. (Still waiting for her to call me back if its something bad.)

Its so weird to me (even though I've been through this before) that someone is growing inside of me right now. I mean, in a few months a whole person will come out of me. Eventually this little person will be just that, a person of their own. It is such an amazing process. I love going through it. I love sitting in bed at night, while baby kicks/punches me and thinking about who this little little will be. I love not knowing if its a girl or boy because it adds another level of wonder to it all.

And I am getting so excited to meet this person, and see how they fit into our family.

Gratitude Monday

This week (today) I am grateful for

• being 25 weeks along. A huge sigh of relief because even if I were to have the baby now (and lets hope this does NOT happen) he/she would most likely live.
  
• an ultrasound scheduled for Wednesday, and I can't wait to see how much babykins has grown! (Also, just to get to see the baby will be awesome. I am going to have to remain strong about not finding out the sex of the little one.)
  
• a friend who was able to hang out with me yesterday when I was in need of child-free time. We sat and sipped hot tea in front of Barnes and Noble, then wandered around the store just looking. It was a really nice afternoon/evening out.
• cups of hot tea. I brought home a few ounces of Glitter and Gold tea. I brewed it and it is a perfectly wonderful treat for a morning when I feel like I am dragging. The tea itself is so pretty, the description says "a vanilla spice black tea with gold candy pieces that truly sparkle with delight."
• being mostly done sending out Christmas cards. I need a few more addresses because people have moved, so please send me your current address and I will get a card mailed out to you as soon as possible.
  

Silent Sunday

Winter Faire Edition

Its amazing how something so simple as laughter can brighten your day.
Its amazing how seeing a picture of a child loving on something you made for him can reaffirm your love of crafting/sewing and also cause you to tear up.
Its amazing how a hug can be the one thing you need most in life, and sometimes its the hardest thing to find.

Happy December- Doll

I have been meaning to take pictures of a doll I made for the school store. I finally finished his sweater today. You may recognize his sweater, it was made from left overs from the sweater purse I made. His white t-shirt is from the sleeves of one of Will's old undershirts. While his jeans were once a pair of Rhayn's that ripped and became shorts.I am really pleased with how he turned out and I would love to keep him. But I know I can easily make another and he will sell for about $80.