Big sister baby shower!

Below you will find a few visual images of the festivities today!

Highlights (of which there were many) included, but were not limited to:

All sorts of guessing games in which we tried to guess what Tadpole's favorite food and color will be, how long she will be and how much she will weigh, what her name will be, what day of the week she will be born on, etc...

Attempts to figure out what baby items were hidden in 7 brown paper bags - the quacking duck gave himself away!

Pin the diaper on the clothesline followed by a difficult competition - kids against adults attempting to drink 2 ounces of water out of a bottle. I think most of us were using muscles that hadn't been used for awhile!! I gave up after downing a generous ounce.

A "baby sock hunt" in which 42 socks were hidden around the house.

And of course birthday cake, complete with candles and wishes for the birth-day to be and the baby.

Kali received a number of wonderful big sister presents and coupons for special events with friends to look forward to in the weeks after Tadpole's arrival. And I'll savor the words of a song sung to us that came from a book that was read together at the end of the party.

"We love you Janelle yes we do
We love your darling daughters too
Mr. Jason congratulations
We sure enjoyed the celebrations
All together shout hurray
Happy birthday Tadpole yay!"

Special day, special times! And the special times haven't ended for Kali yet. There was no time for "after party blues" as her special friend P remained after the party for a sleepover. Soft pretzels have been made and enjoyed and now a long game of doctor is taking place, in which temperatures are being taken in the "knee pit" rather than the arm. :)

Full term...

Today marks entering our 38th week of pregnancy - we are now officially "full-term" (which is when labor was induced with Nora). So it is a new time, an exciting time, a time of much anticipation and also us telling Tadpole to stay comfy inside just awhile longer!!

As I type, Jason is working on the trim in our bedroom. We are close! And the "move in date" is scheduled for next Wednesday. So hopefully by the end of next week we'll be back in our bedroom and I can let the full force of my nesting instinct kick in.

In the meantime, we are doing plenty of fun things (and more mundane tasks) to get ready for this little one's arrival. Here's a run down of just a few that come to mind:

- Kali and I are going for walks whenever possible. I need/want to keep moving! And it seems it does both Kali and I a world of good to soak in the fresh air. I find myself taking in the beauty around me and storing up images that I hope will come back to me as I labor to birth our third daughter.

- Today was a day of a lot of baking and a good portion of that baking is going in the freezer - time to stock up for days where I won't have two free hands for hours on end. It was a yogurt and butter-making day, and we also made fresh "green" rolls to go with venison burgers for dinner, pumpkin muffins for an afternoon snack and the upcoming church potluck and a chocolate "birthday-to-be" cake for tomorrow's festivities.

- I've been surrounded by wonderful women for two "blessingways" in the past several weeks. The words, songs, pampering and other gestures of support have been a source of strength and encouragement as I anticipate the upcoming transition - and I have a tangible reminder of each by way of colored strings tied around each of my ankles - which the women in each gathering also placed on their wrist or ankle and will leave there until Tadpole's birth.

- Today I redeemed a coupon given at the most recent blessingway. A friend joined Kali and I this morning to do "henna tattoos." So Tadpole has two flowers on her and my feet are adorned with a butterfly and a tadpole (Kali and I have matching tadpoles which I am especially happy about!). It was a fun ritual, though Tadpole made doing her flowers slightly more challenging as she was a moving canvas.

- We are down to weekly midwife appointments now. Our last Centering group will be this coming Tuesday. Kali got to join us for our most recent appointment. We continue to feel so grateful for how well Tadpole seems to be doing - in growth, activity level, etc... I'm measuring "right on" and she is clearly gaining strength as some of her movements have moved from pleasant and enjoyable to slightly uncomfortable (though it's a discomfort I'm pretty okay experiencing for a few more weeks and one I'll miss greatly a couple of months from now...)

- We are slowly reclaiming borrowed baby items, picking up some additional things (especially outfits with frogs on them if/when they are to be found) at thrift stores, and we have made, as of today, an appointment at the fire department to get our new car seat installed properly next week. We still have a list of things to do before the baby arrives, but the list of "absolute musts" is shortening! And it is good to remind ourselves now and then that we already have what is most needed - lots of arms ready to hold her and hearts that are eager to embrace her entrance into our family!

- I'm attempting to be ready to be on maternity leave. I'm ready for the being at home part of it, but there is still much to do on the work front to prepare for being absent for several months. I'm grateful to have someone filling in for me and look forward to time to focus on family life, and especially integrating Tadpole fully into our family.

- Kali seems to be completely ready! But we also know this will be a big transition for her. So today has been a day full of preparing for a "big sister baby shower" that we will be having tomorrow with some of Kali's friends. I'm grateful for a friend's generous offer to co-host it with me, as I think my current energy level would not have withstood doing it alone! A report on the party will have to come later, but I can say that the anticipation and excitement is building in our household this evening (and Kali keeps coming up with more ideas of games we could play).

There are of course the daily tasks to keep up with. And I'm realizing that it is about time to tackle the pile of sun-dried laundry on our bed, including fresh sheets that need to be on the bed before I can crawl in.

Until next time!

Rare moments!

We were on our way home together from town today (after a day of being at school or at work or running errands or some combination of those things) when inspiration struck. The weather was amazing, Jason and I were feeling in need of some exercise, and Kali was eager to take advantage of hunting season having ended, allowing us to hike to the lake any day of the week (not just Sundays). We knew the bedroom and kitchen projects would be waiting for us upon our return, but we also had a feeling that this was just what our family needed! So we unloaded the car, packed up sandwiches for a picnic supper and headed out.




















It's now 10pm and while we are still working on the finishing up the first coat of paint on our bedroom, we agreed that it was well worth taking those hours together for a hike and picnic. Who knows how many more of them we'll enjoy before Tadpole arrives, but we savored the moments walking hand in hand with Kali, watching the sunset, and hearing her say, "we are almost at our driveway, home sweet home." That it is!!










And we are getting more and more eager for our newest family member to join us, but are also grateful for the steady progress on home preparations for her arrival. She seems to have been putting a lot of energy into muscle development this week as her kicks and squirms have gone up several notches in strength.

Not all ham is prepared equally...

So I just tucked away into the pantry the first canning project of 2011. When our friend M offered to bring half a ham to contribute towards our evening meal together, we graciously accepted (and I suggested to Jason that we might also roast a chicken we had in the freezer). You see, I don't like ham. I can't really think of a time in my life that I ever enjoyed a bite of ham that I consumed. That is until last evening. This was a home butchered, salt cured ham that simmered in our big canner for most of the afternoon while some went for a walk with me and some hung kitchen cabinets with Jason. When it was pulled from the water, we realized we had a canning project on our hands and by the end of the night two canner loads of rich ham broth - ready to be the base of a hearty bean soup - were cooling on the counter. When we sat down for dinner, I took a small piece of ham. I wasn't sure it was me who a few moments later, asked Jason to pass the ham. And I'll admit that a third helping happened in there somewhere. And this evening we enjoyed ham, egg and lamb's quarter roll sandwiches. Yum!! So, I guess I like some ham!

In other news (pregnancy-related), I officially overdid on Friday when I decided to tackle the build up of construction dust and grime in our house. Since scrubbing floors is also one of the best ways to get a baby into the right position for birthing, it seemed like a good excuse to, at least temporarily, get our floors clean again. I felt pretty good in the process and had Kali at my side a good part of the time (since she was earning a quarter towards her "duck fund" for each floor she helped with). But by evening my back was complaining at me, and after laying on the futon for awhile I found that I could hardly get up. And when I did, it felt like somehow my spine was no longer supporting the rest of my body, and my legs were not functioning well. So, I'm attempting to figure out what my limits are and also a bit surprised to learn the unpleasant results when I surpass them... Tadpole seems quite happy though, normally having very active evening times and normally a case or two of hiccups daily (and in the picture above, Kali was trying to encourage Tadpole to throw her first snowball).

In other news (construction projects-related), Jason is busy putting a second coat of oil on the kitchen drawers for my folks place. This weekend was "cabinet installation" weekend and, with the extra hands of a few friends yesterday, went very well. We have taken a break from our bedroom project (floor is now leveled and framing done) to get back to the kitchen. We are managing quite well in the guest room and are still hopefully both projects, if we stick at it and utilize evening time to keep us on track for the foreseeable future, that we may move back to our bedroom about 2 weeks or so before Tadpole's possible arrival date. A little closer than we'd like, but we keep telling her she can stay cozy and comfy where she is until the end of March!

In other news (Kali-related), she is amazing us with her aptitude for picking up tunes on the piano. Here Aunt E was here for a few days and shared a song she recently wrote. By the time she left this morning, Kali was working at figuring it out on the piano. Then later today, I came into the front room to hear her figuring out "chim, chimney" from Mary Poppins. I also had a hard time stumping her today when she asked for a math lesson - we went from subtraction, to multiplication, to division, to algebra (simple addition problems) and I realized that I am a bit behind on where she is at in those areas.... She is enjoying direct applications of these math skills with the bank account she recently opened and is also quite focused on the goal of acquiring some Rouen ducks and building her "duck fund" through generous contributions of willing donors, or through paid labor when that is available. She is currently deep into her new copy of "Storey's Guide to Raising Ducks" sent to her by her Grandpa M (who made the first contribution and is basically to be credited with the start of the previous named "duck fund").

I think it is about time I get back to a promised game of Mastermind. There aren't many games that she can't beat me at these days, including getting a score of 599 in ONE Yahtzee game the other day (with 4 Yahtzee's in one game). I didn't have a chance!!

We dove in!!

Diving in...

For any of our "faithful blog readers" out there, we may be needing a little external motivation to keep writing/posting in the coming weeks! Seeing this blog as my way of not feeling guilty for my negligence at scrapbooking, as my mother so faithfully and wonderfully did, has been helpful in some ways. But I'm afraid January - March 2011 may include large gaps in posts when looking back. We are BUSY!! And life is full and good in so many ways.

2011 is here: Tadpole's birth year! And we have crossed the 30 week mark!! We have traveled through some emotional weeks as we journey with this little girl and reminders of these weeks of pregnancy with Nora. I would have been just adjusting to bedrest at this time... And the emotions were only fueled further by some frustrating phone calls with various insurance persons attempting to get to the bottom of why we not only received one new medical insurance card for Nora, but two (the second arriving after spending considerable time on the phone trying to get to the right person who could fix their records to show that in fact our daughter had died over 2 years ago and did not need to be on our health insurance policy any longer). Sigh...

The real reason for tonight's post is to highlight yet another project we are embarking on. As I type, Jason is up in the "shop" (soon to be my folk's garage) working on their kitchen cabinets. But, in case he gets stalled on that project as other things happen fall into place in their living quarters, we officially moved out of our bedroom yesterday. Our new quarters in the guest room are shown here. We'll be cozy and comfy and right now it feels like an adventure and it felt wonderful to pull the last things out of the last room with blue carpet over concrete floors!

Jason and I had a "schedule meeting" for our last date night (I know, very exciting!) and with a bit of trepidation decided to dive in - to attempt to replace the blue carpet and redo the closet in our bedroom prior to Tadpole's arrival. We hope she agrees with our decision! The stress leading up to that time made me question if we should just attempt to drop the whole idea indefinitely. But the "schedule meeting" was really helpful for me (and I think Jason) in inspiring in me a real "team spirit" once again. While we aren't seeing a whole lot of each other these days, the times together over meals and in other snippets during the day are good and it feels like we are working together well and in our areas of strength. I'm noting this here, as I imagine the thrill of the adventure of living in the guest bedroom and once again having a construction zone in our home, may wear off at some point between now and March. So I made need some reminders of that "team spirit."

Because I need to be reminded...

There are times in this wild ride of parenting that I wonder if a certain stage is really a stage, if we will be "stuck" at a certain place forever. So I need to remember today! I need to be reminded that just like I change, children change too - in their own way and in their own time, but it happens! And sometimes, or most of the time, when we aren't expecting it and definitely when we aren't actively trying to make it happen.

So the context for this wonderful realization was as follows: some months (if not years) back we designated a large drawer in our old kitchen desk as Kali's drawer for various crafty keepsakes. I sarcastically labeled it "Kali's crap drawer" (which I attempted to not say around her, as it was not appreciated - these were TREASURES).

Several times when the drawer has been jammed fulled and I had to stuff things down to fit in the newest addition, we would venture into the scary territory of going through the drawer and trying to get rid of some things. Normally we would end up with a tiny pile of things for the paper recycling bin, Kali almost in tears and me about the pull my hair out. Sometimes Kali would have an outburst of emotion and would say something like, "it's your fault because we just don't have enough storage space." And then I would stoop so low as to offer some kind of sermon about how much we have in comparison to many. It was just ugly and not enjoyable for either of us...

So I've been nervous about any "organizing" or "sorting" project. But recently, Kali was starting to have trouble finding various things and her desk drawers were in a complete state of disarray and she couldn't work at her desk because it was covered with about a half foot of stuff. So one day we embarked on finding her desk and the various "lost" treasures. By the end of our efforts, we had found all the missing items, had gotten rid of a variety of things and had reorganized her drawers - with very little tension in comparison to previous times. And Kali was pretty happy to have her desk back as a work space , to have her dinosaur slippers to wear again, her silly putty to play with and a few other items. A glimmer of hope...

But I was still nervous about the aforementioned "crap drawer." But what is a whole week at home together for other than to at least tackle a few daunting projects. So today, after a good breakfast, a game or two together and cuddling to read a chapter of Shoo Fly Girl, we set to work.

Here are a few of the sentences coming out of our 7 year old's mouth:

"I don't need that."
"That's just crazy, I can't even tell what it is."
"Why did I want to keep that?"
"Get rid of it, I can always make another one sometime if I want to."
"Those are just scribbles."

We especially enjoyed burning some of the popsicle-stick creations in the woodstove...she wished she had made a few more of them!

I'm still in a state of shock that we went from a collection of "treasures" that jam packed a drawer and partially filled a box to a stack that now fits loosely in about half of the drawer. And while I still have my own opinions of the value of some of the items still in the "keep" pile, I swallowed hard and felt a secret satisfaction in knowing that the next time we "tackle the drawer" likely some of the sentences above will be heard once again...