It is set

Went today for my final - before due date - doctor's appointment. I talked with my midwife and the date has been set. If this baby is not out before (which I highly doubt, knowing my history), s/he will be born on Tuesday of next week -- 5 August. So now the countdown is on :-)

We meet F's teacher tomorrow (Pre-K has one on one orientation before the child can attend a day of school). I have heard great things about her. We will also go to an Open House tomorrow afternoon and will meet G's teacher then. It won't be a one-on-one, but they save that until about week 2 of school. At least we will have a face to put with the excitement of 1st grade!

Well, I think that is it for what is going on around here. I'm looking for a good book to start -- anybody have any ideas?

*WARNING-- VERY crude**

So, we are still in potty training mode here for our Bubba. He is doing very well... however, he refuses to stand up and go. He sits, doing what he sees me and his sisters do. *PS - it doesn't help that Rob has been in the field so much and works so late... he rarely sees him go*

Anyway, I've been trying to figure out how to tell him that boys stand up. So, I use *proper* words for our gender differences :-) I tell him to hold his penis and point it to pee in the toilet. I really don't know what else to tell him.

Now... flash to Grace... our live in Spanish expert (or so she thinks). She makes up words all of the time and tells her sister "this is the Spanish word for" whatever.

Flash back to today... Bubba had just gotten out of the shower and was getting dressed. He said something about his penis. Faith was walking into the room and blurted out "Vagina is the spanish word for penis."

WHAT?!? They are so confused!

New Cards

So, here are my newest baby cards. Rob's cousin, Jennifer, had her first baby on Saturday morning -- an adorable little girl named Ashlyn. They'll get the girl card and then I tried to get ahead of the game for a friend who is due at the end of August with a little boy. Who knows if I will have time to make the card when she actually has him :-) We'll see how I handle baby #4's presence -- though with both Grace in school full time and Faith there half days, I may be better than ever! I've never only had 2 at the house!! Anyway... here they are:

I used: SU! All in the Family for the baby and bear; $1 new baby stamp from Michaels; I don't have a scallop punch, so the scalloped circle isn't quite even (I used a corner rounder) but it works. The tags dangle from wire hoops that were more difficult than I expected to make. The inside is stamped from an acrylic set from All Night Media. It says: "A baby will make love stronger; days shorter, nights longer,; bankroll smaller, home happier; clothes shabbier, the past forgotten; and the future worth living for"





I used a ribbon weave technique for the focal point. The baby is still from SU! All in the Family set. The striped frame is up on dimensionals because the ribbon weave sticks off pretty far.

A-HA moment of the day

I thought that this pregnancy had been very similar to the other three until just recently. Two of my other three were also (what I consider) summer pregnancies -- meaning I spend the last trimester sweating it out. I haven't ever had any major issues with being able to stay cool... until this pregnancy. I have found myself going from a sweater on to burning up within an hour or two. Though I am not trying to 'conserve' energy, I do stick to one temperature on the thermostat and leave it there, adjusting with blanket or t-shirt, depending on which way I am compensating. Apparently, however, G didn't know that the thermostat wasn't to be fiddled with all day, depending on how she felt.

I made a comment today that I was hot... again. She looked right at me and said, "well, I was cold so I put the number on 80." What?!? After questioning further, she said that when she is hot, she likes it around 50.

A-HA!

So, we have had a discussion now on what the thermostat does and why it is important to be left in one place and not touched by the 5 year old! Maybe this pregancy isn't too different afterall :-)

KWerner Color Challenge

So, I am a lurker. I have certain blogs that I visit on a regular basis, never leaving messages but benefiting from some great information and ideas (especially with cards and kids' crafts). Well, my favorite (and daily visited) blog has to be -- hands down -- http://www.kwernerdesign.com/blog/index.html She has great tutorials and great ideas. Anyway... Kristina offers a weekly color challenge. She gives a picture and the Stampin' Up equivalent color to use. This week's challenge caught me!


I absolutely LOVE this dress!! And if I weren't a nine month pregnant whale, I may actually want to wear it :-) As it is now, my belly may fit under the skirt :-p

So, here's my attempt.

I tried to re-create the greatness of the dress (which didn't work quite like I wanted). It is kind of hard to tell, but the regal rose mat has been dry embossed with a swirl pattern from Fiskars. The 'skin' is colored with Blush Blossom, which also doesn't quite show up in the photo.

Doctor's Appointment

Why is it that as soon as a doctor tells you the symptoms of something, all of a sudden... I have ALL of those symptoms?!

Today my midwife talked to me about all of the signs of preeclampsia... swelling, headache that won't go away, pain under the right ribs -- well I have 2 of the 3 symptoms! I have quite a headache AND pain under those pesky right ribs. Granted, there is a baby's butt sticking up there. Maybe I just need to lay down :-)

I posted more than once today... make sure you read the Bubbaism

Mini cupcakes

So I found this idea at Bakerella.com and thought that it was SO up my alley that I had to try them.

Basically, you bake a cake, put it in the food processor then add a batch of cream cheese frosting. Mix them all together and make little balls of goo. *Sound like oreo balls to anyone else?!?*

You then shape them into cupcake shapes (using a mini-flower cookie cutter) and dip them into chocolate -- this makes the bottom of the cupcakes. (I used Bakerella's cupcake on a stick idea instead of just the regular cupcake version)

When they get hard, you turn them over and dip the top (to make the top of the cupcakes). I added sprinkles. I thought I would hurry up the whole process by putting them into the freezer to harden the chocolate fast. Well... don't. Let them harden at room temp. If you put them in the freezer, they become WAY too hard.

So, I took them out of the freezer and they became sticky. I thought all was lost. I was ready to throw them all away. I accidentally left them out (covered with plastic) overnight. This morning -- DELICIOUS! There is something to them when they are room temperature. Slightly crunchy on the outside (from the chocolate) and super moist and ooey-gooey in the middle.

*Note to anyone who may try this -- the shaping isn't as easy as Bakerella makes it look... nor is the dipping process. Most of my cupcakes have a border around the middle that are lacking both bottom and top chocolates. Oh well... this was a first attempt. But I will probably make them again now that I have worked out some of the kinks.

Bubba-ism... sort of

I just about peed my pants tonight. And it really didn't have anything to do with the baby doing push ups on my bladder. I was laying on the couch while the kids were playing, semi-quietly (which should have been my first clue as to something sinister going on). I heard Bubba getting a little frustrated and then the girls led him into the living room. He had a potty seat (one of the little kid ones that he refused to use) around his neck like a necklace. Now that was funny... but he couldn't get it off. He scrunched his face up and pushed the seat up (always pushing crooked... when he pushed it evenly, it easily came off). He tried SO hard. I tried SO hard to get to the camera. By the time I did get the camera on... and a memory card in it... he had figured it out. But then he wore it on top of his head... like this...

Snaggle

Grace has lost her first tooth. Tonight at dinner, she wouldn't take her straw out of her mouth -- seems that now she has a perfect little spot for it :-) The ToothFairy rides tonight...

WARNING: Tearjerker

this is a song that came out when R was deployed the first time. I just got sent the link again and thought I would share. The song is powerful in its own right, but the slideshow is pretty awesome too!

Called "If I Die Before You Wake"

Faithism

this is from a couple of weeks ago, but Rob and I started talking about it again today and I realized I hadn't written it down. These are the things that you can't make up... and don't want to forget :-)

Picture it -- the whole family at the Louisville Zoo, trying to find the ring-tailed lemurs in their enclosure.

Rob (a few yards in front of us, pointing at a rock): Look, there is one.

me: I don't see it. I see a chipmunk, though.

*a tiny little chipmunk was jumping back and forth between two rocks* of course, this is what the girls see too...

Faith: I see it, I see it. There is the mipchunk.

They will forever be mipchunks in our house :-)

Maker's Mark

Yesterday we went to Loretto, KY (jelly) to visit the Maker's Mark distillery. I really didn't want to go, to be honest. That is not the kind of thing that interests me in the slightest, but my dear husband and his brother are sort of junkies with that sort of thing. So, we went. The whole family. It took two vans...
Going into the curing house...

Historical marker





I must admit that I had a great time. I didn't participate in the tasting, as I couldn't justify doing the two shots while 8-1/2 months pregnant (though I really wanted to :-)). So, here are some pictures!
Grace in the typical 'smell the flower' pose

Faith in the 'smell the flower' pose

Do these two look alike or what?!?

A video of how completely disgusting the process looks... this is the yeast doing its job and getting air into and out of the liquid. It was really gross to look at!

Rob and Andy tasting

Music to my ears...

I love hearing all of the new music on everybody's blogs! Music is such an insight into a person's thoughts. SO fun!!

In other news... Grace officially has a loose tooth. Her bottom right front tooth is wiggly. She is SO proud :-)

Post #2 of the day...

It is official... Faith has all of the paperwork to be enrolled into Pre-K. Please, please don't let it be too late to get her into the morning program!!

She had her eye exam earlier this afternoon. Her eyes are great, with no concerns (unlike Grace's from last year who will likely have to have glasses in the future). She doesn't know all of her letters, yet so she used the picture chart instead of the letter chart. Funniest thing, though... she didn't know what a telephone was. It was a picture of an old-school rotary phone and she called it a car. TOO funny!

(it wasn't this picture... the one she had to id was not a 'real' phone, but a block drawing that did look like a car :-))

On another note... today was the last day of the library's reading program. What am I going to do for the next three weeks?!?

Post #1 of the day...

I am expecting to write more than once today... so be prepared :-)

So, after talking about and wanting to read Into the Wild before watching the movie, I finally did it. And let me tell you, I don't know if I want to watch it. I loved the book SO much that I don't want the movie to ruin it.

Has that ever happened to you? The first time that I can really recall this happening was in the 9th grade. In my english/history combo class, we read Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. It was an awesome time to read it as we were talking about legal issues around genetic research in history and I was taking Biology and learning (basic) genetics too. I really liked the book and felt that I learned a lot. (*note* I don't think this was the best or most believable book, but it was a good read at the time - one of those made me want to find out more kinds of things) Well, the movie came out the following summer and I was STOKED!! I was there on opening night -- early -- and super excited. The movie started and within about 15 minutes I was starting to feel the glow of the movie fade. The people I went with eventually told me to shut up because I kept saying "oh, oh... watch this" and then when a part from the book was skipped, I felt I needed to fill them in ("what was supposed to happen was...").

Anyway, now when I find a book that I really do like, I am almost reluctant to watch the movie. People that have seen the movie (Into the Wild) have liked it... but I don't think anybody has read it (that I have talked to). Anybody out there read and watched? Still good? I am hopeful since this book is only 200 pgs and can maybe get all of the details in while only skimming parts (instead of skipping completely).

Robism - defender of his daughter

Okay... this is even funnier than the Graceism of the other day.

I was explaining to Rob the Jupiter comment that Grace had, since he can't check non-official sites at work so can't read my blog (plus he doesn't really get on the computer at home). So, anyway... defensive daddy comes out in Rob.

Rob: If you think about it, she's right.

me: WHAT?!?

Rob: Well, everything she knows about the solar system (which isn't much at this point) has been seen on a model. Think about a model of the solar system. Jupiter is the largest planet.

me: But that is a model, and isn't the planet on earth.

Rob: But does Grace know that?!

Graceism

Grace loves pretending to be a teacher... and her little sister and brother are *usually* willing participants. Today, she is giving a lesson on the planets...

Grace: Everybody say Jupiter

F&J: JOOPITER

Grace: Correct. Jupiter is the largest planet on Earth.

HUH?!?