Playing Around

I'm playing around with the template of the blog, so pardon the work in progress for a bit!

25 Weeks, a Winter Hat, and Other Randomness

Today, I roll over into my 25th week of pregnancy. I am huge, but I hear that frequently happens with pregnancies so close together. And I can tell this has been harder on my body, which makes sense when you think about the fact that my body hasn't had a break since May of 2008. I did 9 months of pregnancy with Jack, then nursed him for a year, and several months of nursing overlapped with this pregnancy. So my body has really been proving what is made of the last few years.

But even though I can tell it has been harder, I still have no complaints. I feel good. Thanks to my memory foam mattress topper, I'm still able to sleep on my stomach part of the night (a big grateful shout out to my mother-in-law for getting us that for Christmas one year). I'd be sleeping all night long if I didn't have a pesky little toddler who likes to wake up from 1-3 times each night. But even that is a vast improvement from the 8+ times he was waking up while he was still nursing at night, so I'll take it and be grateful for it.

I'm quite convinced that our young belly dweller, Fin, is a big baby. Bigger than Jack was at this point, for sure. I would not be surprised at all if he weighed somewhere between 9.5 and 10 pounds at birth.

Big 'ol belly (pardon the crazy hair, we went to the pool today):


I've done practically nothing to prepare for Fin's arrival. I picked up some really cute receiving blankets, a gown, and a couple of outfits on crazy sale from the Carter's outlet, but that's it. You would think that with having a third boy, there wouldn't be much to do. But Spencer and Jack were both spring/summer babies, so most of the itty bitty stuff that I have are short sleeved. Fin is due mid-September-ish and it starts to get chilly here in late September or October, so I'm going to need some long sleeved bitty things this time around.

Part of getting ready for Fin means knitting some longies and soakers for him. I haven't picked up my knitting needles in probably four months, so until yesterday they still held Spencer's incomplete winter hat. I finally buckled down yesterday evening and finished it. Fortunately, I'm terrible and sizing heads (just ask poor Jake; I've knitted him 3 winter hats and they've all been way too big or too small) and it is a bit big on him now. I bet it will fit perfectly (or at least much better) by next winter.


In other news, it seems I am unemployed for the summer. The Mother's Day Out program that I work at simply did not have enough kids in my room to keep me working. One of my kiddos jumped ship and went somewhere with regular child care hours (we are only open until 2:30), and two have aged out of my room. That only left me with Jack, who I don't pay for, and another little boy. That won't even pay for me on a day to day basis.

So I offered to keep a few kids at my house this summer and so far it is working out great. I'm not making as much money, but I'm also only keeping them 2 days a week at this point, which has been really nice. It is less stressful for me b/c Spencer and Jack can sleep as late as they want and hang out in their pajamas when they get up, so I'm not running around every morning like a crazy person getting lunches packed and shoes on feet.

A very awesome side effect of this is that the house is staying pretty clean. It has been really nice!

Random pics from our first few days of summer:



And please don't think I'm shorting Spencer on the picture front. The kid is on an "I don't like" kick and right now one of the things he doesn't like is having his picture made. He either runs away at the sight of the camera or ends up looking mad. That should bode well for the professional pictures I'm having made of them on Friday. Oy.

Adventures in Baking: Boule

I haven't been doing much baking, especially since the shocker of my pregnancy. Before this, the last time I baked was when I blogged about it, and I'm pretty sure that was before we knew about this new guy.

I'm feeling a bit better about things recently (and I do mean just a bit, a bitty bit), so I broke out my big bucket for some fresh bread.

Boule is the very basic recipe in my bread book, but it is by far the most delicious and versatile one I've made.

Butter + garlic salt + boule=heaven, FYI.

Anyway, here's the bread at just mixed:

At 1 hr:

2 hrs:


The spoils of a baked loaf:


If you have the book, make this bread! So simple and so, so good.

Nose Owies and Preschool Graduation

Last week, Jack got the most glaring injury either of my kids have ever gotten. Right on his nose.

He was doing his best to run (you know, that little toddler run) when he tripped over his flip flop. Unfortunately, he was running on concrete and he was obviously not in a self-preservation mode as he didn't put his hands down to catch himself at all. I literally watched him slide across the concrete face first. Ouch.

It didn't look bad on the first day. Even though it was a pretty nasty fall, it appeared to only take the first layer of skin off; it didn't bleed or anything.

The next day, it looked like this:


Of course, we got comments about it where ever we went. I just called him Rudolph.

In other news, Spencer graduated from preschool a few weekends ago. They held a graduation ceremony during the 11:00 service at church and it was super cute. Spencer was not thrilled to participate in any way, shape, or form, but he was with Ms. Teshena and Ms. Laura, so he was ok.

Happy Birthday, Spencer!

I'm only *checks calendar* 3 days late posting this. I feel like a hamster on one of those wheels, running and running but not going anywhere!

Anyway, my sweet guy is now 5! And even better than being 5 is the fact that, in about the last month or so, he's gained 3-4 pounds. This is an especially big deal as I think he's been 32-33 pounds consistently over the last year. He hopped on the scale at the vet's office on Monday (which is a whole other post, ugh) and it said 37 pounds. I thought it was calibrated wrong. I stuck him on our scale at home and it said the same thing. Awesome! I hope the weight hangs on; he certainly needs it.

We held his party on the 15th at our local youth center. He attended a party there in January and had such a great time that he decided he wanted his party there too. They blow up those huge inflatables (a slide and a bounce house, in our case) and do 98% of the clean up, so it was really great.

We invited everyone in his class plus a few of his buddies that aren't in his class. I think we ended up with between 15 and 20 kids in attendance and it was so much fun. I don't think I sat down once for the entire two hours, but it was great.

Party table:


I bought 30 capri suns, 12 cokes (and by cokes I'm speaking southern, I mean "soda"), and 12 bottles of water. I also made a batch of lemon squares, brownies, and 2 dozen cupcakes. At the end of the day, I had a few Diet Cokes, 2 cupcakes, and 2 lemon squares left. Successful menu planning! I was scared I was going to have way too much food.


Spencer requested a Thomas the Tank Engine ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. I had no idea it was actually ALL ice cream. I'm used to ice cream cakes being half ice cream, half cake, which is why I was perplexed as to why the cake seemed to be melting all over.

I can't remember a time when he's ever liked to have the birthday song sung to him.


For kicks, I made him pose with a diaper that they sent me home with from the NICU (for his baby book, they said). This size diaper was actually a bit too big for him in the beginning.

Dilemma

I feel like I have reached a cross road of sorts in my life, and I don't know which way to turn. Each direction has pros, cons, and complicating factors.

The basic gist of the matter is that we need to have more money coming into our household. I've always read that, when money gets tight, you either need to make more or cut expenses. While there are a few things we can cut (namely eating out and cable, maybe cell phones, if we got a land line), those things just aren't going to add up to over more than a hundred or so dollars every month.

If the economy wouldn't have been so bad in 2009, we wouldn't be having this problem. Ugh.

And don't get me wrong, we get by just fine. But that's just it: we're getting by. We have enough money to have a bit of fun, but we aren't making any headway on paying off debt. You know, that debt that we ran up in our VERY early 20s thinking we had forever to pay it off, no big deal. Live and learn.

So I've decided I have to do something about this situation. Jake is salaried. Short of getting a second job, there isn't really anything he can do about it. And I'd never ask him to get a second job; he already works 50-60 hours a week as it is.

The way I see it, I've got two options.

Option 1 includes going back to work full time. In order to make more than I make now working part time, I will need to go back to teaching. This means putting 2 kids in child care or hiring a nanny. The biggest complicating factor is Finn. If I was an established teacher, needing a maternity leave in September wouldn't be that big of a deal. Hiring a new teacher that will need to take leave after working for 6 weeks isn't all that alluring, I imagine. Another complication I'm running into is that they keep listing the social studies positions with coaching attachments for the district where I live. And finally, I, apparently, live in one of the areas of the state with the fewest school districts. That means that I've found 2 openings (the aforementioned ones with coaching attachments) within an hour of me in any direction.

Option 2 means trying to recruit 2-3 children for me to care for while their parents work. The biggest benefits to this are twofold: Spencer won't have to go to kindergarten (we really prefer to home school) and Finn and Jack can stay home with me as well. Complicating factor? Finn, again. I'd need at least 6 weeks off following his birth and I imagine that parents would have a hard time finding alternate care for their kids for that amount of time.

I guess there is a 3rd option, which would be working at night. But I've been looking for a job like that for months to no avail. Once again, let me thank the big city of Mountain Home for being so awesome (heavy sarcasm, there).

I just don't know what to do and it is super frustrating.

Busy

I feel like I've been negligent. I got so good about blogging and we go through a busy snap and it gets put on the back burner. Here's what's been going on lately:

• We went to our annual March for Babies walk. We always walk in honor of Spencer. This year it was due to rain, but it was looking ok when we left Sheridan. It was sprinkling by the time we got there, still ok. After we'd been there about 20 minutes, the flood began. It got so bad that, just as we were leaving, they called the walk off. We got drenched and then went to IHOP, where the clouds miraculously parted and it became a beautiful day. Go figure.
• We found out we are having a healthy baby BOY. Not all the surprising when you look at Jake's family make-up. Although I think we were all jonesing for a bit of baby girl action, having 3 boys is going to be fun. Maybe I can get Jake to go for a 4th eventually. ;-)
• Spencer's birthday party is coming up, so I've been very busy getting that ready. We are having it at our local youth center where they will set up a big inflatable slide and bounce house. I always worry that no one will come to functions that we are having, but we've had several kids RSVP already. It is going to be a good time, even though Jake will be at drill that weekend. Fortunately, my sister and grandparents are going to be coming up for the party and that will be a huge help.
• We are having a yard sale this weekend, for which we have done nothing to prepare. I am hoping to unload some stuff that we just have sitting in the garage or in boxes and bags. Our house right now is only 1300 square feet with 2 bedrooms and not near enough storage. It is getting cramped.
• We are hoping to buy a foreclosed house. We found it totally by accident, but are really hoping it pans out. It needs a lot of work. A lot. From totally new floors, to all new paint, to plumbing and electrical work. I simply can't figure out what people do to these houses! Anyway, the layout is better, it is bigger (with a 3rd bedroom and lots of storage!), and the backyard is bigger than our whole lot right now. The dogs and boys would love it. The bank that owns the property is in Germany and they are taking all offers at once, so we won't know how our offer went over until the 17th of this month. Jake spoke with the listing agent who said that most of the offers were very low-ball, so hopefully ours comes in higher (we are offering about $14K less than they're asking).

So that is it in a nutshell. Busy. Busy. Busy.