Pregnancy: 29 Weeks, 5 Days

I can't believe I'm already down to about 10 weeks! Seems like the last few months have flown where as the first 3 drug because I was so sick.

At this point things are okay. I found out about a week and a half ago that I'm anemic, so after adding some iron supplements into my diet I'm feeling much better. I was really dragging there for awhile and just assumed it was because I was in my 3rd trimester. 2 check-ups ago I was measuring just a little small and then at my last appointment I was measuring small again so the midwife had my blood count checked. Anemia can cause babies to be underweight and also be born pre-term, so I'm really glad it was caught when it was. I want her to be born healthy, that's the most important to me.

I'm having pain in my hips like I did with Maddox, so I've been sleeping on my soft cushy sofa to alleviate some of the pain. Some nights it helps, others it doesn't. I'm miserable when I don't sleep well, though. Every step I take throughout the day hurts. I can do it, just 10 more weeks! I'll try to remember to have Kyle take a picture tonight, it's been too long!

Our Christmas

We're not where we expected to be today. Where are we exactly? I'm sitting at my home computer writing this blog post. Where did I expect to be today? In my home town celebrating Christmas with my family.

As you may (or may not) know, we have been hit with a HUGE snow storm. We don't get snow around these parts very much and we are literally buried in it right now. There is probably close to 18 inch on the ground and 8 of them fell in the last 24 hours.

Needless to say, our plane flight was canceled today and they couldn't get us out until Friday, so we decided to wait out the weekend because Kyle is preaching on Sunday and thought we should all just fly together, just a week later. So, we're going to spend Christmas here, just the 3 of us. It's kinda hard getting used to the idea since I wasn't planning on being here and we don't have a tree, or food or anything. Here's some pictures documenting our adventures yesterday and today. We drove up to celebrate a little Christmas with Kyle's mom yesterday (she lives about 40 min. away). Due to HORRIBLE driving conditions it took us 2 hours. We stayed the night with her because she lives 10 min. from the airport and we thought that was our next destination. Instead, we came home to an already mad cat. Seriously, get over it, it was 24 hours! Just you wait...

This was last Sunday when the snow started (yes Kyle dumped him out of the sled)

This was our yard last Sunday evening, notice the grass still showing?

This was the snow coming down on our way up to Kyle's mom's yesterday


This was my view through the windshield, I'm sure glad Kyle could see better than that.


This was the freeway on our way home today. Yes, that's the freeway.


This is 2 inches of pure ice on our driveway, gotta love freezing rain.

This was our front yard when we got home today. Notice the lack of grass? The large bump in the yard is a huge branch that fell yesterday while we were at church. Didn't get a picture of it before snow covered it.


Kyle and Maddox shoveling the driveway.

And the Snow Begins Again

Did I forget to mention it snowed on Sunday? Whoops. My bad :-) I took a few pictures but it was too dark outside for them to really turn out, plus I have yet to find a USB cord. I wish it looked as pretty as the picture above. It snowed about 2 inches and we still have that much still on the ground because the high since Sunday has been 30 degrees. This is really unique weather for us. Usually we get one thing of snow that lasts for a few hours and then turns to rain and melts away. This snow reminds me of Idaho winters. It started snowing again just a few minutes ago and is supposed to snow off and on through Friday. The weather report says that today through next Wed. we're supposed to get snow every day. Weird. Maddox isn't a huge fan of the snow, heaven forbid the stuff touch him! He likes watching it, but doesn't want to be in it.

Oh, and for those of you who aren't familiar with our area, when it snows, the entire city shuts down. There hasn't been school for 3 days and won't be for the next 2. It makes me laugh.

Fancast.com

We've had satellite TV for almost 2 years, basically since Maddox was born so that we could get the DVR and be able to record our favorite shows and watch them when we wanted to, not when the networks told us we had to. Unfortunately, when we moved into our new house we have a big tree that blocks our satellite reception, so we canceled it and have just been watching network TV. We bought a stand-alone DVR to use because we really can't live without it. Unfortunately, we miss some of the shows that were on USA (Monk, Psych and Burn Notice).

But, thanks to Fancast.com, we can stream them through our computer. My tech-savvy husband even has a computer hooked up to our TV so we can and watch them on our TV. Best of all, the site is FREE! Did you get that? F.R.E.E. Pretty much the coolest thing ever. If you haven't been there, you should check it out because they have SO many great shows. Heroes, Lost, Gilmore Girls, The Office, 30 Rock. You can even watch Food Network shows like 30 Minute Meals with Rachel Ray (one of my favorites). Plus, they have limited commercial interruption, cuz seriously, how likes commercials.

Couldn't keep it to myself, hope you find as much enjoyment as we do.

Pretend

Maddox has recently started playing pretend. It started with pretend eating food off the pages of books. Recently, it has developed into him playing pretend with his very favorite bear. He feeds him, gives him drinks and even reprimands him. It's pretty cute. He'll sit and read books to his bear and everything. I'll ask him if he wants me to read him a book and instead he'll hop up into a comfy chair and "read" his bear books. Early today I found him shaking his finger at his bear, saying "no, no" and then he picked him up and gave him the hugest hug like he had forgiven him for being naughty. A little bit ago he was eating some yogurt and he hopped down from his table and went into his room, found bear, brought bear back into the dining room and started feeding him his yogurt. Thankfully, he doesn't bring the food close enough to the bears mouth to get the food on it.

Review: A Long Way Gone

I finished A Long Way Gone last night and thought I'd share my opinions on it. It was a good book in that it was a powerful true life story about what Ishmael experienced fighting as a soldier during one of the civil wars in Sierra Leon, Africa. I was kinda left wanting more about how he learned to forgive himself and stuff. The majority of the book was about how he got into the war and very little of it was his experiences getting out of it. Since English isn't his first language the book isn't excellently written, so that was tough to chew sometimes. It was good, I'm glad I read it. Doesn't he look like a happy person now?

Laundromat

Confession: I'd never used a laundromat before today.

As I've been without a washer and dryer for 2+ weeks and my new ones won't be delivered until a week from tomorrow, I had no choice but to hit the laundromat. I had so much dirty laundry it was unbelievable! I filled 4 of the big capacity washers and 2 of the regular ones and it took 7 dryers to get all of our stuff dry. 3 hours and $30 poorer (I had no idea laundromats were so expensive) all of my laundry was nice and clean and ready to be put away instead of lying all over the floor because my hampers and laundry baskets were over flowing. Good thing Starbucks was next door :-)

Stuff

We're slowly settling into our new home. We pretty much love everything about it, but we're still not unpacked. I look around and really don't feel very unpacked at all. It's A LOT of work! We finally have the shed up. It took more time then we anticipated, but it's done! Kyle picked it up Thursday and then we spent all of our daylight hours yesterday and today putting it together. EXHAUSTING! I have pictures of the process, but I need to find a USB cord somewhere in my unpacked house.

I think the unpacking process is taking so long (aside from being gone for 8 days!) because I'm pregnant and in my 3rd trimester and I get tired easily, plus chasing and playing with a toddler take a lot of time, too. Add that to our normal life of youth ministry and the moving process just takes a long time!!!

Now that the shed is up I think that things will move a little quicker since I can move in my utility room which is also my kitchen overflow. But, then again, I would need to actually be able to physically move, which is painful right now after 2 days of shed building! Oh the woes of life.

A New Years Resolution

I know it's a tad early to be setting New Years Resolutions, but Kyle mentioned what he was thinking the other day and I couldn't resist jumping on the band-wagon, too. So, we're doing it together. We both love reading, but I'm not very disciplined when it comes to setting aside time to read. So, we have resolved to each read 12 books in 2009. I know it's not a huge lofty goal, but when I can only think that I read the last Harry Potter in 2008, I really am setting up a big goal. Kyle reads more than I do because he reads for work, but he'd like to read more during his free time.

We're going to alternate every other month reading a "fun" book and then a book of a more serious nature. We're not reading the same book at the same time. We might overlap a little, but our taste in books differ.

We stopped by Barnes and Nobel before leaving Kyle's home town yesterday and each picked out a book. I picked out A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah per Kyle's recommendation and Kyle picked out the newest Rob Bell. The book I'm going to be starting soon is about the a young boy in Sierra Leon, Africa who was forced to fight during the civil wars that happened over there probably 10 years ago? Since I haven't read it yet, I can't give any more insight then that. I'll share more once I've read it. Our church supports missionaries and partners with their ministry in Sierra Leon, so we know a little about what happened there during the wars.

This probably sounds silly, but we're going to make up a chart to track our reading so that we can stay accountable to actually doing what we've set out to do. I'll share our progress.

This N' That

I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere with this pregnancy. Not that Juliette hasn't been growing and such over the past 26 weeks, it's just feels like it's really truly never-ending. I hit 26 weeks today and finally feel like I'm getting somewhere. I only have 14 weeks left and that feels like a tangible number. 98 days, that's it! After Christmas it will be more like 68ish days left. Wowza!

Maddox received an early Christmas present of a Thomas the Train wooden railroad. He's been playing with it for days. Literally, non-stop for like 6 days. He wakes up and it's the first place he goes. He also found some Star Wars action figures in Grandpa Paul's garage that belonged to his daddy and those have been great things to knock over with the Thomas train. Yes, he's all boy.

I got a cold Friday night, thankfully, it was a minor one and very fast moving. Today should be the last of the congestion. Yeah for actually being able to taste food!

Today, is our last full day in the Bay Area, so we're heading to the Jelly Belly factory for a few hours. And, probably partake in In N' Out one "last" time. We'll say that and then probably eat there again tomorrow just for good measure.

We bought Josh Groban's Christmas CD yesterday and we've been listening to it, now it's starting to feel like Christmas. Yippee! I love Christmas!

I need help. I'm kinda sorta supposed to cut sugar out of my diet for the next 14 weeks. Apparently, it's miracle grow for babies and my mid-wives don't want Juliette to be too big at delivery. It's very important to me, too, because Maddox was a big boy and his shoulders were stuck at delivery, so I really want to do my best. This is where I need your help. I need low-to-no sugar "dessert" ideas so that when I have intense sugar cravings (which hit every day), I can have something that's yummy and kinda sweet to tide me over for the next 14 weeks. I can't have artificial sugar, though, so that makes it's tricky. Don't get me wrong, Christmas is coming, and I'll definitely be partaking in Christmas goodies, but I'm really going to limit myself, that's why I need your help and ideas. Pretty pretty please!

Okay, I'm completely done rambling now.

Goodbye.