Update

I've not felt up to posting anything new this past week...it's been a hard week. My blood pressure is going up and down, my husband is reaching panic mode (which usually happens towards the end of my pregnancies as he hates not being able to control or help the situation) and we were preparing for family to come in for Thanksgiving.

So I felt it was time for an update. We're still hanging in there! Baby Chase is staying healthy and happy in the womb and my body is slower to evict him than my other pregnancies. So no complaints there...except, I think my mother-in-law, Jane, is tiring of caring for 3 young and very active kids; she's been helping so much for the past 5 weeks that I've been on bed rest.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and visit with family. We had our first pie night (only pies for dinner the night before Thanksgiving) and it was a huge success. However, what a lot of work...after everyone left and clean-up began, it sort of felt like Thanksgiving drug out for 2 days instead of one.

I had to go in for some blood work on Wednesday afternoon and my blood pressure was really high so I ended up being sent to the hospital for evaluation....I was NOT happy about missing pie night. Once I was at the hospital, my blood pressure dropped, my blood work came back fine so I was sent home just in time to have some pie and visit with everyone :)

While at the hospital, I discovered that I'm scheduled for induction on December 3rd so as long as I can keep my blood pressure in check for 5 more days then we'll have a baby on December 3rd! Baby Chase will be 36 weeks 1 day, which will be my longest pregnancy!

My parents are in town for the weekend, but have to leave on Monday so they'll unfortunately miss the birth by 2 days and won't be able to see the baby until Christmas.

We're going to have a birthday 3 weeks before Christmas, Lillee's birthday is 2 weeks before Christmas, we'll celebrate Christmas, Connor's birthday is 2 weeks after Christmas and then Isabel's birthday is one month later. We're going to be officially broke from Thanksgiving until February, every year!

Well, that should be enough rambling for now. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and hopefully we'll have some happy baby news to share, soon!

Pajama Friday!

You know how some public schools have themes for each day of the week during homecoming? Since we've had more relaxed school days lately we have not been diligent about some details....like chores, getting dressed, staying on schedule. We had Pajama Friday, today. It was nearly noon before everyone was out of their pajamas and I'm still in mine :)

Al was feeling extraordinarily energized and free from completing the bedroom project so he decided to do a craft project with the kids and it just kept ballooning.

The idea began with making rubber band guitars from cardboard boxes. The kids decorated their boxes while Al worked on getting the strings/rubber bands just right.


Connor made a banjo from the box that came with a Wiimote.



Lillee's was the first completed and she was ready to move on to another project, but Connor and Isabel still didn't have guitars. So I quickly jumped in with a drum making idea. I grabbed the plastic wrap and different sized bowls, buckets and cups from around the house.



We tested the different sounds from each drum and of course discussed sound vibrations and how to obtain deeper sounds.

Then the kids piled on the floor and began playing their insturments


We then added a cymbal (aka the lid to my dutch oven)



The music was wild, just like the kids so Isabel added her war paint to get in the real spirit of the tribal beats resonating from our living room.

Loving my hats!

Well, I've made it through 2.5 weeks of bed rest, a major construction project in my bedroom and taking on a new hobby and making some money while sitting around all day.

I really thought I'd write more while I had all this free time on my tush, but I found I have little to write about as I cannot get up to do anything...funny, how that works. Fortunately, the bed rest is great for my blood pressure, it's definitely dropped. But I'm retaining lots of fluid...I went to the Dr today and found I'd gained 7lbs in one week. Did you know that a gallon of milk weighs about 8lbs? So that means I've packed on enough fluid to in one week to add up to almost a full gallon of milk!!! No wonder my hands and arms go numb so often.

So anyway, this was suppose to be about my hats, but before I get to that topic, I have to give my hubby good strokes again! He's been working hard on this bedroom construction project. It started out with having to rip out walls, floor and reinforce the floor as it was not structurally sound. Once that was complete, he had to replace walls, make a new wall where one did not exist and make it all look pretty without causing too much dust and clutter...oh and because all of that he had to recarpet, too.

The project wrapped up today!!! (well, minus a small finishing touch - crown moulding). He went to Home Depot 3 times to get color samples for the walls...what a wonderfully patient man he is. He found the perfect color, in an eco-friendly paint which is perfectly safe for me and baby without releasing VOCs. I have the most wonderful shade of yellow on my bedroom walls, it's bright and cheery without being canary yellow. I have perfect clean and white baseboards that do not need to be scrubbed for awhile :) I have a new wardrobe area, reading lights over the bed and SPACE!!!!

OK, I'm sure you're all sick of hearing about my construction project so I'll move onto the hats. I've started knitting hats as a fun project to help occupy my time while on bed rest. But my entrepreneurial sister-in-law suggested that I sell them on etsy.com. I was skeptical that I could sell them, but figured, "What will it hurt to try?" Thanks for the encouragement, Emily!

I've been knitting for a couple weeks and am loving it! I'm having such fun creating new hats, new patterns, new color combinations and actually filling orders! I wanted to share with you some of my newest hats:




I wish you could see the textured pattern in this one, it's not standard rib knit. It's a really pretty variegated yarn with smoky blue, cream and camel. I call it Smoky Winter Whispers.




This one I call, Peppermint Kissed



I made this one for my niece and call it Cotton Candy Clouds




This is my latest and favorite!!! I call it Chocolate Covered Pistachio





Al decided he needed a hat to match the scarf I made for him a couple years ago.

Birthday Bash

My sister-in-law, Laura, has a bithday coming up this Thursday, November 13th. She's trying to make it a special birthday, as her birthdays are usually pretty blah (she lives with 5 males and no other females, you can imagine how exciting a birthday may be in that environment LOL). So this year she's having a birthday give-away, Oprah style! Well, there are no minivans being given away so maybe it's not really Oprah style.

Friends and family have donated items for her give-away and it's simple to participate and try for a prize. Visit Laura's blog, comment under the birthday party give-away and then link back to your own blog to share the news with others...like I'm doing here. This is my official entry!

Laura, I hope you have an amazing birthday this year and even if it's only a virtual party we're having a great time right along with you!!!

My dear, sweet, thoughtful and talented husband

I have had a few posts on how wonderful my husband is and how much I love him for being so good to me, but he really topped himself today. If you've read my blog recently I've complained a bit about being bed rest and how boring and miserable it can be; I'm not completely knocking it because there is a small part of me that is enjoying not jumping up 100 times an hour to wipe bottoms, clean noses, get water, change someones clothes...you get the picture.

I do sort of feel bad for my husband, though. He's trying to complete a remodeling project in our bedroom to get ready for the baby, as well as organize a lot of our clutter. He's also helping get Connor to swim lessons, geography class and other miscellaneous appts we have. All while trying to work, take care of kids, listening to me grumble about the house being dirty, no clean clothes upstairs, Lillee needs a drink, Isabel has a stinky diaper, Connor needs some attention. He's a patient and loving husband.

Today Al had really hoped for a chance to work on the bedroom and finish the walls so we can paint soon. I insisted it was not a good day as I needed to rest a LOT due to fluid retention and numb arms and hands. I could not be responsible for the kids while he worked around the house. This did not go over well, but he accepted my request, did not get (too) angry and helped out a ton.

Around 2:00pm today I got a taste for pastry, sweet and spicy. I was thinking cinnamon bread from Great Harvest but I'm such a thrifty person I'd never spend money on it. So I asked my husband to make cinnamon rolls...thinking, "It's a long shot." To my surprise, he agreed and made 3 pans of cinnamon rolls completely by himself. They were delicious, hit the spot and I knew what it was like to eat food made with love! I've not had food made with that much love since I was in college and my mom would make me my favorite foods every time I came home for a visit.

My crafty side

I have never felt like a crafty person; while growing up I remember wanting to make things, but I never felt equipped to do so. My husband lovingly mocks me when I claim I cannot make anything. I do not make cards, do scrap booking, nor anything along the lines of sewing or quilting. My husband even purchased me a TON of scrapping software and printable papers when our 1st child was born...he was so hopeful. I shot it all down quickly, though. I explained this was not my cup of tea and put an end to the years of feeling the pressure to lovingly and beautifully preserve our lives in binders while knowing there was not a chance I would ever enjoy doing it.

HOWEVER! Five years ago I joined the church on Sept 27th and attended my first Super Saturday event one month later and vowed I'd learn a usable craft and overcome my feelings of being a craft-inept Mormon girl. If I could not scrap, sew or quilt I was going to be a useful one way or the other. You can see how skewed my views were at baptism, these crazy misconceptions do not still hold true today. I have embraced Molly Mormon and accepted that I'll never fit into her many shoes...I'll never make funeral potatoes nor store wheat under my mattress.

Well, learn a craft, I did! I was taught to crohook, which is a form of crocheting and I could make scarfs and blankets. I did not learn how to crohook in the class, though. I thought I figured it out, but then when I went home I could not recreate the steps. So I sat up late one night (3am late!) until I figured out a way to make crohooking work for me. I did not use a traditional method, but it was mine. I made beautiful, cozy scarfs for everyone in my family the following year. I made blankets for my kids and friends who were having babies. Then the newness wore off or I just had no time with 3 kids 3 years and under so I put all my yarn away in a storage container and have rarely touched it since.

HOWEVER! The yarn storage has been resurrected! A friend of mine (THANKS Sherry!) showed me a fabulous loom system called Knifty Knitter. Now, I'm sure you Michael's and AC Moore addicts are shaking your heads and thinking, "Hello, what rock has this girl been under?" But I don't get to shop often. Taking 3 screaming kids into a craft store makes for a really explosive situation. But I did it, after seeing this loom I took all 3 kids to Michael's in search of the Knifty Knitter; I only braved it because my husband was in tow. After acquiring this amazing loom I sat down one night when I couldn't sleep and decided to give it a whirl. Look what I made!!!

This is for baby Chase, our soon to arrive baby boy. I was hooked, I could not stop myself from diving into the next hat. Last year I made a scarf for Connor by crohooking and had some left over yarn. So I decided to make a matching hat.


My husband was so impressed (read: jealous) he insisted on a hat just like Connor's.


Then I got really crazy and took all 3 kids by myself to Michael's so my girls could pick out their own yarn for hats. BAD idea...this resulted in all three kids sitting on the floor in the middle of the aisle while I gave them a stern lecture on manners in public. But I'm happy with the results of the yarn they chose.
Lillee's Hat



Isabel's Hat

So for a pregnant momma put on bed rest in her 31st week of pregnancy, I found the perfect time-consuming task that I'll never have a free moment for after the baby comes. The plan is to hit the craft store for stocking up on yarn once a week when I have my many OB appts and spend the rest of the week with my butt planted on the sofa, my feet propped up high and crank away on hats and scarves.

EDITED: Now that my models are awake I was able to get pics of each hat on it's owner

Election Day Thought

I don't claim to be a witty writer to capture your attention and keep you coming back, I blog to preserve my fleeting thoughts because I can't hold onto them for more than a second or two throughout the day. Without getting too political, I think Thomas Jefferson said it all,

"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against any form of tyranny over the minds and lives of men. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must take our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labors and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they [the people] will be happy."

-- Thomas Jefferson

He's a reader!

We started home schooling this year and have definitely faced a few challenges; the biggest was reading...did you catch that was? ;)

A couple months ago Connor was definitely recognizing words, he knew the sounds that each letter makes, he understood sounding it out but every night when we would read it was a frustrating and miserable task that resulted in him being in tears and me being grumpy. Fortunately, this period did not last long!

I found a great series of books called You Read to Me, I'll Read to You by Mary Ann Hoberman. I also started using Dolch site word flashcards and this combination was MONEY! Connor was looking forward to reading as he was recognizing more of the words and because of the rhyming nature of the book he was able to use the first letter or two to determine what the next word was to be.

We stuck with You Read to Me, I'll Read to You for 1.5-2 weeks and then started back on some of his First Reader books and the frustration was completely gone...so were the tears! In September we set a reading goal of 10 minutes a day for 5 days a week...10 minutes of him reading, not me reading to him. Each day he completes his reading he marks it on a calendar and at the end of the month if he completes his reading goal then he gets a certificate from Pizza Hut through their Book it! reading program.

I was able to fill out his first certificate on Friday and Connor had a special trip with his Mamaw & Papaw to have pizza on Saturday. He's tearing through books and really looks forward to reading, now...we never have to struggle through 10 minutes, I'm usually cutting him off at 20 minutes because we have to move on to another project. I am so proud of him!!!

Making room for baby

Well, we're getting geared up for baby #4. My husband has been working on a remodeling project in our bedroom to create some extra space for the baby. I have to admit, it's REALLY nice having such a handy husband around the house. Not only do I have more room in my bedroom, but I also have specialty lighting for reading and nursing that will not cause any distress to my sleeping husband. So with the bedroom project coming along I feel like we're getting closer to baby coming.

My parents are visiting from NC for the weekend and they wondered what we needed for the baby. I only needed to acquire 2 things before we were completely ready...a car seat and a baby sling. My husband, parents and children all went shopping for the day and came home with lots of goodies, including a new car seat. Since I'm suppose to be taking it easy, I was unable to join them so I shopped from home :) I found the Maya sling I wanted and ordered it this evening. We're all set!

If we can keep the bun in the oven for another month then all will seem perfect! But 1 month of bed rest with 3 young kids is going to be hard...thank God for my mother-in-law!!! I swear, if it weren't for her we would have never had 4 kids. You don't often hear women praising their mother-in-law, but I have a very special one who has been such a blessing in my life. Thanks Jane!!!