Pool Fun

Zeke is lucky enough to have a friend and sometimes-partner-in-crime named Preston who has pretty much what amounts to a blow-up water park in his backyard. And I'm lucky enough to have a friend and sometimes partner in crime in Preston's mommy, but that is another story.

This story is of our excellent Friday, spent at least in part in said blowup water park.


Zeke all ready for a day out in the sun.Testing the water.
Checking to make sure its ok.
And we're off! (Zeke always holds his arms like that while he walks)
He even got his favorite snack, Strawberries! Not that he would leave the pool to get them, oh no, he just cried from the water until mommy handed him one.
Zeke had so much fun. In fact, once the mommies decided we had been outside long enough and moved the playdate indoors Zeke just cried at the sliding glass door to go back out!

And then on Saturday Grandma Tammy came to visit and gave Zeke his very own pool for his birthday! So pictures of Zeke playing with that coming soon. Although if you just want to see him crying at a sliding glass door I've already got you covered...we already do THAT every day at home.

Joy

Truly.

It feels so soo nice to be able to blog about normal life stuff again. To have a normal life again. Moving seemed to be everything I thought about for a while and for a day and a half now its been business as usual.

And I find surprisingly that business as usual fills me with pure joy. It's wonderful to be back on Zeke and I's schedule, as if the week or so long break from the norm has allowed me to breath deep and really appreciate my life, my son, and my pregnancy now that its back.

The little blueberry hasn't actually been that easy to appreciate, lately, to tell the truth. The extreme morning sickness of my pregnancy with Zeke seems to be repeating itself now that I'm a little further along (8 weeks by my counting). But I'm trying to remember that morning sickness is a sign of a healthy pregnancy, a sign I didn't enjoy when I miscarried, and a price that is totally worth it in the end. So I try to eat food as nutritive as possible so that what I AM able to keep down is worthwhile and do my best to stay hydrated. I hadnt planned on weighing myself during this pregnancy but I may do that as well. Since I'm not breastfeeding its not as hard as it would have been to get enough calories but I dont want to drop the 15 or 20 pounds I did with Zeke if I can help it.

and maybe its the fact that I'm actually feeling the signs of pregnancy now or maybe its the fact that Josh and I have had a few weeks to think to ourselves, "soon there will be 2 of them" but we're starting to get a little nervous these days as well. We're so used to 1 child, passing him back and forth. How will we cope with 2? And only 17 or 18 months apart? We take turns being the nervous one and the one who knows we can handle it, as is our usual way. In any sucesful mariage only 1 spouse can be freaking out at a time and Josh and I have found a balance of waiting our turn over the years. But mostly we are staying confident in some mutual beliefs: that God will only give as much as we can handle and that babies are ALWAYS a blessing.

Zeke is being much easier to appreciate. He's more of a toddler and less of a baby every day and now that he walks more then he crawls its showing more and more. Its bittersweet but its also great source of joy to me lately. Every stage has been better than the last partly just for the newness of it but also partly because I'm not much of a baby person, I dont quite know what to do with them. Ive always LOVED toddlers however and Zeke has all the curiosity, stubbornness, and copy-cat tendancies of the toddler now.

We are learning to really watch out step because Zeke will suddenly do just about anything he sees mommy or daddy do.

In fact yesterday after watching me plant some winter squash (hopefully not too late for an october harvest) he very carefully took the seeds out of the kitchen, walked them over to a planter that was on the deck, and stuffed them right in the dirt. He was too proud of himself for me to reprimand but I WAS rather careful to get all the seeds out when he was done.

Finished Unpacking

Well...the main floor is finished at least.

And as promised here is a tour of our house, which is way too long and contains way too many pictures. To be finished when the rest of the house is finished.

We will start with Zeke's room. Because that is where I started. It was the first room finished by far, in fact finished Monday night, right after we moved in.

Its a smallish room so it was a little hard to take pictures but this is directly right of the doorway, Zeke's toys.
Keep turning and you find his crib.Turn some more and the changing table.

Then there is a closet and you're back at the door. I took the pictures at dusk so you cant really tell but the room is a really pale blue...like a gray blue.

On to the kitchen, which is the next room I finished, being next in importance. Zeke needed his
room unpacked to stay calm but I needed the kitchen unpacked to stay calm.

So here is the dining area. It shoots off from the livingroom, like an L.
If you continue to the right, past the sliding glass door to the deck you find thisand on the other side that.On to the livingroom.Thats the entryway past the couch, which I guess technically isnt finished since I bought some hooks at Target to go there and Josh hasn't hung them yet. But he's been busy...so its ok.
And there is our picture window, who's morning light blinded my camera, sorry. But at least you can see our beautiful lilac bush.
And here is my little desk with my laptop, knitting, library books, radio, ect on it, and the fireplace which will not always be covered in tools. Not if I have anything to say about it...the desk may be my dupign ground but the fireplace is not Josh's. He has an entire basement for that. Im just afraid if I ask Josh to put them away they wont come back out and I sort of need them out right now. There is another wall too, the half wall that opens to the dining area and the turtle's tank is actually agaist it. But the tank, while full of water and turtles, isnt actually finished beign set up and it looks rather a mess. So I'm avoiding a picture at that angle at this time.

We're almost done. But here's Josh and I's bedroom, as you walk in.
The bed.
and across from the bed. Notice my bright red laundry basket, the same laundry basket I've used since I was a child. I'm actually in the middle of a search for a new one, have been for a while, but I cant find one I like.
There is a 4th wall to this room too, with a door and a closet and a huge empty space in between that is completely blank. The reason for this? Well that is where the little blueberry will sleep when he's born (yep, the nickname blueberry has come to me and stuck) until he either moves into Zeke's room with Zeke, moves into Zeke's room while Zeke moves upstairs, or they both move upstairs together to make room for a 3rd baby...you know, whatever happens first and makes the most sense at the time.

Last but not least...ok its least. But here is the bathroom.
I know I didnt include outside pictures of the front and back of the house, and that was on purpose. While the front needed no work and looks gorgeous, the back required a lot of weeding that I'm only 90% done with, the removal of some bushes with horrible 1 inch thorns (that was fun, the roots were about the size of my arm) which we're also 90% done with (I say we because of the root size, Josh ended up having to help with that part) not to mention my deck is actually now covered with empty boxes because I wasn't sure where else to put them. So yeah, those pics will come with the upstairs ones.

Painting

Yep, we've been busy around here painting. We got the keys Friday evening so we spent that day prepping the house to be painted, then on Saturday did the kitchen, and Sunday the living room. Now I'm just waiting in the new house for Josh and his buddies to fill the U-haul we rented with all of our stuff and bring it over so I can start unpacking. I am soo glad to be almost finished with this process. Unpacking is always the fun part, I cant wait to see where I end up putting all of our stuff, making this house truly our own. You know, MORE our own then painting it bright yellow did.

I was afraid that I would miss the south hill, moving north and all. I got so attatched to it during the 3 years Josh and I lived there. But so far I really love our new neighborhood. I've met the neighbors on either side of us and one that lives across the street already (all 3 have children in the house! although on the right its an almost teenage boy that probably wouldnt love being referred to as a child) and everyone has been so kind and welcoming.

Anyways, here are some painting pictures from the weekend. As I finish rooms I'll be sure to add pictures of the finished products as well.

Ahh edging, the 10 percent of the job that takes 90 percent of your time.

I would get nauseous from time to time and Josh would have to take over for a while.
During Zeke's nap we got to paint AT THE SAME TIME! Look how close we are to being finished!

Zeke had a roller too. I dont think he minded too much that his didnt have any paint, although if we didnt watch him he would try to dip it in.
I let Josh do the fun roller part in the livingroom after I realized he hadnt done any of it in the kitchen. Arent I nice?

Packing and more packing

The latest report is that we are getting the keys on Friday. I'm not holding my breath but I'm hoping it works out this time. Our NEW plan is to spend Saturday and Sunday painting as much as we can get done and then move on Monday whether we are finished painting or not.

We are officially packing fools.

And Zeke isnt as helpful with the whole packing process as you'd imagine...or maybe he IS as helpful as you'd imagine... I suppose it depends in your imagination doesnt it?

Mostly he enjoys taking things out of boxes.

Oh well, he'll be REALLY helpful next week.

In OTHER baby news (by the way, I need to think of something to call the new baby until its born and we choose a name...we cant have another Cashew) I've been eating pretty much nothing but hot wings and egg salad sandwiches for days. When I was pregnant with the big Z all I ate for pretty much the first 3 or 4 months was plain spaghetti noodles and string cheese, but that wasn't really because of any cravings, those were just the only things I could keep down. This time around nauseous or not, all I want to eat are really flavorful foods. Hence the hot wings and egg salad (which I always make with copious amounts of brown mustard and fresh dill)... I even had a pretty strong urge the other night to dip my hot wings in ice cream. Chocolate ice cream to be exact.

I will admit that even with Z towards the end I was dousing everything with tabasco sauce but I still say I never had any cravings. Its kind of fun.

Grah

I haven't posted in a while, mostly because I am very irritated and have nothing nice to say. Our house was supposed to close on Friday. We had ALL our paperwork together, our loan was arranged and accepted, ect. You all know how much scrambling around that was for us. The home owners- where not ready. We thought we'd be nice and told them we can close Monday, giving them the weekend to finish things up.

Well come Monday we find out that their realtor (who has been a real idiot this whole experience) sent them their paperwork to sign for the closing Monday evening!!! Paperwork he has had for at least 2 weeks. And not only did he not send it to them until Monday evening but he sent it snail mail to Germany!!! No fax, no email. He sends it thru the post office!!!! I am sooo beyond mad.

So anyways, Josh is going to call him back today, hopefully using his mean voice to tell him that our contract SAID we'd close Friday, that they are breaking contract, and that we are going to charge them a daily late fee until we have keys in hand. (That's what would happen to US if WE were late.) We dont mind closing late so much but we need to get in there so we can paint before we move in this weekend. At the VERY least we need to get in there before the end of the month when our lease at our current house ends. So we'll accept just getting the keys before the closing.

Grr. I really hope that we dont just have to walk away from this house after ALL this trouble but I am soo tired of being jerked around by an idiot realtor!

In BETTER news, Zeke has only nursed once in 5 1/2 days. I think we are weaned. And it was so soo painless. I never engorged bad enough to worry. Zeke never cried. Ahhh, something easy in my life!

And also in the BETTER news department, Josh and I picked paint colors! They arent perfectly accurate on a screen but you get the basic idea:

Cinnamon Cherry for the kitchen.
Melted Butter for the livingroom.

We are food people, I guess.

Anyways, please pray that our house finally closes or that we at least get some keys. And while you are at it you can add Zeke continuing to wean so well and me to continue to handle my nausea and exhaustion positivly. :)

And the weaning begins...

Originally when Josh and I found out that I was pregnant, we came up with a plan to wean Zeke slowly over the next few months. We hoped that with the lowered milk supply most women experience he would lose interest in breastfeeding and that by taking his feedings away one at a time it would be a *fairly* painless process, having Zeke fully weaned 3 or so months before the new baby is born and wants to be breastfed.

The problem is my supply didn't slowly lower so much as it all but disappeared and it isn't causing Zeke to lose interest in breastfeeding as much as its causing him to be really really frustrated with my breasts and bite them. Which makes ME frustrated as I'm already sore from all the hormones BEFORE he bites me with his 5 razor sharp teeth. The feelings on breastfeeding as of yesterday morning: Frustration all around.

So I decided upon waking up yesterday that I wanted to go as long as possible without nursing Zeke. I was frustrated with his behavior, I was in pain, and it seemed to me that breastfeeding wasn't even comforting him anymore, just making him angry. We actually lasted all day. He had 4 bottles (1 at waking, 1 at nap, 1 in the late afternoon, and 1 at bedtime) but never breastfed. He actually barely even asked to be nursed and whenever he did he was quite happy to have a bottle or some cuddles instead. I get the feeling that he remembered the annoyingly empty breasts of the last week or so.

So when he fell asleep for the night and Josh and I were getting in bed I had a thought. "What if we try to not nurse him tonight either?" I said. Josh looked at me like I was insane but it made a lot of sense. 1. Nursing was not making Zeke happy, he didn't understand why I had so little milk and he was frustrated. 2. Nursing wasnt making me happy. I was sore, I was being bit, I was fed up. 3. He did soo well all day with the bottle, maybe he'll take it at night too?

But then we realized we didnt want to get him into the habit of a bottle of milk in the middle of the night. I mean, I know some kids need a midnight meal but I know my son and he doesn't. His night feedings (he usually does 2) are a habit that I've just not cared enough about to break. So the new idea? We will let him have a bottle of water in bed with him instead.

And guess what? It worked!! He moved into our bed about half thru the night (like he's been doing lately) and brought his bottle with him and he would just wake up, grab it, take a small drink, and go back to sleep!!

In the morning he did get quite cranky to nurse and when I handed him the bottle of water he gave me a nasty look and threw it off the bed. But it was just a matter of dragging myself up to make him a bottle of milk. No more lazing for an hour or two in bed while he nurses and plays :(

But I feel so good about all of this. I mean, part of me feels sad. I miss breastfeeding. I feel guilty for weaning him so young, he's not even 1 for another month, after all. But hey, it wasnt working anymore. And at least he's not upset. I can't believe, in fact, how happily he is drinking out of a bottle, considering he never had to before. And I especially cant believe he is going all night with just water. We will wait a few weeks and change out the bottle of water for a sippy of water but honestly he can take a sippy of water to bed forever for all I care. I keep a glass of water on my bedstand, after all.

So here is to one of the easiest (so far) weaning processes I could have imagined. Although I WILL admit that 30+ or so hours since his last feeding I am getting really sore and a bit engorged. I didnt have much milk but it will build up over time. I hope I dont get mastitis.

WFDW- Cornish Game Hens

Cornish Game Hens are a really fun, kinda fancy feeling dinner. I'll always have a special place in my heart for getting my own little chicken to eat because a boyfriend once made this dinner for me and it was so much fun (no it wasn't Josh, Josh in fact NEVER cooked me anything before we got married...what's up with that?). Whenever I see them on sale I just cant resist.

First you have to clean your hen and then make it dance. Yes, making it dance is a necessary step in cooking any and all poultry.






Next you want to rub each hen with lemon and then butter. Place inside each cavity half a lemon and a sprig of fresh basil. Throw them in the oven set at 375 for about an hour or until the juices run clear.

You are already done! You can serve it with mashed potatoes and corn cut straight from a cob. :)

updates and pictures

First let me recap my mother's day for everyone, it was excellent, though I haven't had a chance to write about it yet. I woke up last in the family and was made cinnamon rolls, yum! And later we went and had a lovely picnic at Manito Park, the boys had a nap (see above), and we had some friends over for a kabob dinner (yipee for not cooking a single meal all day long! or not changing a single diaper!) Zeker's got me some flowers that he and daddy cut from the backyard as well as a new wind chime.

Mostly I was struck this Mother's day by all the mom's harping at their kids at the playground. Honestly, its mother's day, a day set aside to enjoy your roll as a mom and all these women could do was yell at their daughter for sitting in the sand in their dress. I really hope I'm never that mother, or at least that mother as little as possible. I want to enjoy my kids. I want to be the fun mom as much as I can and let the little things (like sandy dresses) go.

Monday was not as excellent. Poor Zeke had a rough go of it. This may be his BEST expression of the day. I dont really know what was wrong. Part of me thinks its the fact that he is teething about 4 teeth at once. Another part of me thinks its the fact that my milk supply is all but gone. And I honestly cant tell if I think its teething to help me not feel guilty OR if I think its my milk supply because I DO feel so guilty. Maybe its a little of both? Either way he was screaming much of the day and just so soo frusterated. He kept chewing on my collar bone, which is really annoying and what Zeke does whenever he is super beyond control frusterated with something.

I just feel so bad for him. And I feel soo soooo guilty for not having any milk now that I am pregnant. He turns a year in about a month now, so its not like he didnt have a decent run but I never planned on weaning him this early.

And compounding my guilt over all of this is the fact that I'm a little relieved my milk is running out. If I could do something to make it come back I'm not sure that I would because...well...it hurts nowadays. I'm so sore I honestly dont want him anywhere near there. And as much as I respect tandem nursers and really believe that its a great thing to do (especially when your kids are so close together) I just dont think I could handle it.

So here I am, failing to meet the needs of both my children already. And one of them isn't even close to being born.

Today has gone better. He's starting to take a bottle of milk now (only in a bottle and only if its warmed but, hell, I'd do anything at this point) when I "offer" to nurse and he realizes there is just not enough there. So its still going: try to nurse, get frusterated, accept bottle. But I have hope that soon enough he will skip the first two steps and just realized that a bottle is his fate. Poor kid.

We also went to Chuck E Cheese with Kim and Preston and Zeke had a blast eating pizza and follwing Preston around like a puppy.




I keep getting surprised at how big he is growing and how smart he is. Not only can he play ski ball (see above) but he learned 2 other new things this week.

First, he's really getting the hang of his fine motor skills. He's feeding himself with a fork/spoon AND he's coloring. Check out my little Picasso.

Second, now when we play hide and seek Zeke can not only find me when I hide but then he runs off to hide himself. Here he is hiding underneath a book. It took me forever to find him, lol.

So there is my news. The ups and downs of motherhood I guess.

We have a winner!

CarolSue won my latest giveaway and will be getting her new mei-tei any day now!!

Didnt win?

Well sadly I'm not going to be doing any more carrier giveaways or any giveaways at all for a little while while Josh and I focus on moving. But after we'll settled in I will probably think up something.

Zeke is having a meltdown so I gotta run but I'll update with some pictures tomorrow.

Thoughts

So my feelings on being pregnant again mostly run as follows:

Excitement. Overwhelm-ment.

I think that's all I've really gotten to quite yet. None of it is really real yet, to tell you the truth. Questions I've been asked and are happy to answer:

When are you due? January. Ever since Zeke came 2+ weeks late I've lost faith in "due dates". So this time around we will have a due month.

How far apart will your kids be? 18 or 19 months depending on if he's a little or a lot late.

You said "he", do you want a boy? I think I do. As much as it would be fun to experience the whole girl thing, I also think it would be fun to experience brothers. Also, I feel like its a boy so I'm setting myself to be happiest with what I have.

Will you find out the sex? Nope. We figure since this time around we already HAVE some clothes we will be surprised and just let her wear boy clothes for a few weeks if it turns out to be a girl after all.

Are you still planning on a crazy home-birth? We don't know. I know that's what I want. Josh isnt sure what HE wants yet, however, and I've told him that I also want him to be comfortable with this so its up to him and his feelings after we interview a couple midwives. We HAVE decided to rule out another hospital birth (that is as long as things go according to plan and the baby and I are healthy). So if its NOT at home its going to be at a local birthing center. Its not that I necessarily regret the decisions I made with Zeke's birth, I know that I did the best that I could with the information that I had at the time. But I also know that I dont want to repeat those decisions or that experience. And I also know that in order to achieve that goal I need a provider that 1. I trust and more importantly 2. Trusts me and trusts my body to be able to do this, even if my baby is "big" and/or "late". I want the freedom to labor out of the norm and the stress-free enviroment of not assuming anything is wrong until there is actually evidence that something is wrong and the hospital culture right now unfortunately doesnt allow either.

What about Zeke's breastfeeding? Are you going to wean him? Eventually. Already my milk supply is low so I'm kind of waiting to see if I lose it completely and Zeke subsequently loses interest. It would be an easy out. If I'm not so lucky and I hit 20 or so weeks with Z still regularly breastfeeding I think I WILL actively wean, however. I've considered tandem nursing (nursing both kids at once) and decided that honestly I dont think I can handle it. It makes me feel guilty but at the same time its learning my boundaries and a part of good motherhood. Of course if weaning becomes a nightmare I might rethink my abilities/boundaries but lets all just hope that when my supply drops Zeke decides he's better off with food.

Are we still buying Zeke a puppy for his birthday? No. Not at all. Actually Im not sure I told very many people I was planning on this. But either way, Josh and I decided a puppy is most definitely OUT.

SURPISE!!!

This was the smallest size I could find...but I guess he has until January to grow into it :)

WFDW- Spinach Lasagna

Lasagna is a dish-heavy meal. It dirties a LOT of dishes. But it's also worth it. So delicious and also so easy to freeze and bake later. When I can I try to double my recipe and make two batches, just for that reason.

The first thing you need to do is prepare your layers. The first of which is your sauce. Saute some garlic and onion then mix in tomato (canned or fresh), basil, and parsley. For an even faster fix use leftover or canned speghetti sauce.


Your next layer is the spinach. Spinach cooks down a bit so you want to cut more then it really looks like you will need. And if you want dinner to be a little less vegetarian then you can substitute this layer for ground beef browned.


After that is the noodles, so you will want to throw those in a pot to boil.





Last is the cheese. So mix ricotta, parmesan and mozzerella in a bowl along with a little bit of oregano and 1 egg.




When your layers are all ready well...you layer them. 1/2 of your sauce, 1/2 of you spinach, 1/2 your noodles, then 1/2 of your cheese. Repeat. Its better actually if you do 3 layers but I don't have any pans deep enough, lol.

Bake it for 20 minutes at 375 degrees and serve with yummy french bread and green beans!

New Verse "Of the Week"

My verses are more sporadic than weekly but...

Titus 2:4-5 tells older women to "encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored."

When I read this verse earlier this week it hit me in 2 different ways.

1. In my bible I wrote on the side that the "love" mentioned in the first half of this verse is phileo. I must have done it years ago, in high school. I went thru a massive translation stage duing that time of my life. But I doubt I really thought much about it. This verse really didnt mean much to me until recent years ;)

This time around however it is VERY relatable to my life and it struck me that the verse doesn't tell the young mothers to agape their kids/spouses. You see, agape is the affectionate love that is almost always used to describe a mother's love for her child or a wife's love for a husband. Phileo is more of a brotherly love, a freindship.

The more I thought about it though I realized that as mothera and as wives we very rarely reserve from agape-loving our children and husbands. It's in our nature. Of course we love them. But I also think that while our motives are filled with agape, our methods can lack phileo. I think that sometimes we can leave our children and husbands very sure that we love them but doubting that we like them or enjoy them.

2. I was also struck that this verse isn't written directly TO young wives and mother's from Paul, but rather it was a verse written to older women telling them to encourage the young women. It's so important for women to have female companionship, so important for mothers to have other more experienced mothers in their lives. To encourage them. And I am so thankful for all the experienced mom's I have encouraging me in my life.

ups and downs

So some of you know the details on Josh and I's current home loan fiasco, but most of you don't. And since it's something that I foresee no pleasure from blogging about I think I will break bloggy code and just abstain. I trusted someone I probably shouldn't have, and I got burned, story closed.

My husband, who is very willing to don the necessary cape and spandex in situations like these is still very hopeful that he can save the day and close the house deal on the 15th like planned. I'm not actually sure what kind of magic he thinks he is going to perform, since as far as I understand that would require both TIME and MONEY that don't exist and I also wonder how much he means it, since I see him backpedaling on things like ending the lease at our current place or buying paint for the new one... But, well, if Josh says he can fix it, he can fix it. Our best hope right now is that moving this problem to a "disputed" status will allow our loan to push through and we can go to court and deal with this whole mess after we move.

Josh also was kind enough to let me go out Saturday night with some girlfriends and blow off steam while also drinking more then I have since...well since my bachelorette party I'd guess. I'm not a big drinker, you see. But I also have the constitution of my chinese zodiac sign (I'm an Ox) so after I took a cab home and got some sleep I woke up thirsty but feeling really good and we had a nice Sunday which included a trip to the park.

Good weekend.

And even Friday wasn't ALL bad. There was our trip to the park, after all. And when I got home I even had some pictures in my inbox from Kim!

That's Kim's son Preston with Zeke in this last one...he doesn't look so sure about the hand holding but they're gonna be good buddies, we know it!