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A Sad Moment

I sorted and processed the GIANT tub full of 0-12 month sized girl clothes today. The resulting piles...2 big piles to go to 2 women having girls very soon (1 in our ward, 1 in our extended-extended family). I tried to mix them evenly to include different sizes and types of clothing (our collection of church dresses alone was staggering). Also, a small pile of "gender neutral" or flat out boy clothes that I had from my girls. Yes, I had no qualms about putting my daughters in blue clothing, and boys jeans. Those will go with X's growing wardrobe. Another pile with most of the Gymboree, because I figured I may get around to Ebay-ing it to generate extra cash for boy clothes. A trash bag full of everything that had some degree of staining (because Goodwill will take it for the cloth or to send overseas according to my mom). And finally, a tiny bag with 1-2 special things from each of the peas, like their hospital clothes, and the first thing I bought them.

(2 piles of give-away stuff) ................................. (boy/Gymbo/stained)

I did not expect it to be SO HARD to get rid of these things. What is really the point of keeping them though? If I hold onto them until I feel ready to part with them, they will be totally out of style, and won't be of any use to anyone. That's just wasteful. So, I took a photo to put here for memory's sake, and now I'm letting them go. I know they are just clothes, but each thing felt like letting go of my baby girls.

I don't recall giving this pea permission to grow up

Are my kids weird?

Do your preschool age kids use amusingly complex vocabulary words? J has been full of them this week. She cracks me up. She just shouted, "B you are making this too challenging for me" while they were playing Super Smash Bros on the Wii. Yesterday I heard her say, "I would really appreciate it if there was a light in this pantry." A couple of nights ago, she and B were talking during dinner and she said, "Don't bring up that situation again!" In the car this week I heard her tell B, "not necessarily B, NOT NECESSARILY!" What amuses me most about the words she uses, is the ways she always seems to use them in the appropriate context. It's fascinating how language develops in children. I won't even get started on the phrases B uses. She's got a million. I would say that I have no idea where they get this from, but Daniel accused me of OVER-using the word nefarious last week. Well, excuse me...sometimes it is a very useful word, even if it is a bit dramatic.

Hair Update

I know my hair concerns make for riveting reading material. Pictures of my hair are generally like pictures of a train wreck. Just in case anyone is actually interested, here is my newest attempt at borderline acceptable hair. Of course I took these photos after spending two hours laying on my hair during nap time, so it is not in optimal condition...but you get the idea.

I won't bother asking for opinions. Let's just face it people...asking how your hair looks is akin to asking if your baby is ugly. No one will tell you the truth. I do think it looks better than it did yesterday. My hair is too thin to be long. It's better to face facts.

10 Days...

I just glanced at the baby counter and realized it says 10 days now. I think I'm going to vomit. I'm off to get my hair chopped off. Time is running out.

No one ever believes me.

I told my Dr. that there would be no dilating in this lifetime, and that I would show up on April 8 for my surgery still at a "0". I sensed that he didn't entirely believe me being that this is my 4th baby, and one would generally expect there to be some "action" by 38 weeks. Nope. So, at today's appointment he finally admitted that this baby seems all together comfortable and happy in there, and shows no sign of wanting to come out any time soon. He thinks that it is possible that my water may break before April 8, but likely no labor will accompany it. My babies do not drop, ever, at all. Therefore...no dilation. So, if it does happen to break, I'll just go in and have my surgery. That's the news. It will probably be slow around here for the next couple of weeks as we are busy getting ready for our new addition. Hope you are all well.

B's Bug Play

Tonight was B's 1st grade Bug Play. She was a butterfly. She had a dancing part and a speaking part. She did very well. Grammy and Grampy attended, as did both her sisters and parents. L was very good through the whole thing until the last 5 minutes when she started squirming. The lighting and my lack of a good zoom lens hindered my picture taking. I was able to crop and fix them some with Photoshop. I really need a good zoom lens. I wish they weren't so expensive. I'll have to request one for my birthday or something.

Approaching the microphone for her speaking part

Leaving the stage from her speaking part

During the butterfly dance number

Happy Easter *Photos

L learned how to blow bubbles today.

Typing J's Primary talk.

Easter Egg Coloring

We colored Easter Eggs this morning. The kit I got had an unusual method involving dripping color on the eggs in plastic bags. It was certainly less messy than the usual way. Here are some photos.

A blank canvas.

L and me (37 weeks pregnant I feel like an elephant)

B&J working on their eggs.

Some of their handiwork.

What part of "smile for a picture" is difficult to grasp?

Finished

Zoo Photos

I have a nasty habit of taking a ton of pictures of the human animals at the zoo, and not so much the animals on display. This is my journal though, and I make no apologies for being excessively absorbed with the animals that sprang forth from my...well...abdominal incision would be most accurate.

We only spent a few hours at the zoo. Daniel was having some kind of major allergy attack and could not stop sneezing to save his life. Also, being Good Friday it started to get crowded after a few hours. That's the beauty of annual passes...no pressure.

Daniel's expression is typical. The man could not put on a "happy face" if he won a million dollars. His face doesn't do happy, unless by completely unrepeatable accident. He would be a good "man of mystery".

"Yes I am a 5 year old in a stroller. What are you gonna do about it?"

Look! Actual animals, just to prove we were at the zoo.

B's famous flamingo impression, which she must do EVERY time we go to the zoo.

*Up later...our annual Egg Dying experience from this morning. We are off to have a mother/B&J date to see Horton Hears a Who, and run to Target to get some casual new baby boy clothes. You know, rompers and stuff for spring/summer. I'm sure they'll enjoy helping pick those out. And I know X will enjoy not wearing pink.

Digging Dirt

Soon after we moved in, we had to rip out everything in this bed. It was all half dead, and no one had ever cared for it at all. I planted what was supposedly a Mexican Lime TREE front and center there. It does indeed produce little limes. However, it also grows like a bush not a "tree". Highly irritating. So, I was unable to achieve the look that I was going for. I finally dug it up today and switched it with the little gardenia that was behind it. That way, it can go on being bush-like without screwing up the visual, and blocking the gardenia behind it.
Here you can see they've switched places, gotten some nice fresh Miracle Gro dirt, and now I just need to figure out how to perk up the gardenia which has never really thrived since I planted it last year. It flowers, but doesn't grow many leaves. Suggestions? The hibiscus and gardenia are covered in buds and should be blooming soon. B and I planted some new Verbena in the front there, so those should be looking good shortly, and the lime is covered in flowers right now and smells really good. The pink jasmine in the back don't appear to have any intention of blooming, and I'm hoping the Mandeville (I think that's what it's called) which is on the trellis to the left, will start perking up soon. I don't think it gets enough sun on that wall. The pink jasmine have the opposite problem from the gardenia, plenty of leaves, no flowers.
Here is B, being her super helpful self, as usual. She let me sit on my rear the whole time and brought all the fresh dirt over with the little hand shovel. She also put all the flowers in the holes that I dug, and then watered everything when we were done. She is always happy to dig dirt, touch bugs, etc. J...not so much. She likes the idea of helping, but not the actual dirt and bugs.
This lizard came out to say..."Hey! What the He** are you people doing digging on my land!"
Here is the Sago palm that Daniel dug out of the backyard for me and replanted in the front. There was just a cheap, ugly, little bush there before. It's still a little misshapen from being squished way too close to the back fence (whoever planted our yard was landscape challenged), but it seems to be surviving the journey well so far.
Here is the same bed again, after B helped me plant some more flowers around the trees. I also trimmed some of the low branches off. The tree on the right is still way stunted compared to the left. We need to give it some more attention and hope it starts to perk up.

Rainbows Etc.

I took this picture a few days ago. This was the brightest rainbow I've ever seen and it was ending in the trees right behind our house. The picture does not do it justice.

I do not have anything exciting to blog about as usual. We've been spending large amounts of time outside, so I haven't been thinking much about blog topics.

The tomato plants, strawberries, and a green pepper plant are in the ground. I tried to move that pea plant out of the tomato area, which it did not tolerate well, so it's dying now. I'm about to go plant some flowers out front. If I don't do it while L is napping, I'll spend half of my time chasing her away from the street.

We are planning to go to the zoo early tomorrow morning. Daniel has the day off, so I won't have to go alone with all the peas. That's a relief. Hopefully, I'll get some decent pictures so that I have something to post about tomorrow.

Baby Name Decision

We have agreed on a name for our baby boy. If you are in our family, you can read about his name on the family website. If you are our friend, and want to know...email us. He will henceforth be known on this blog as "X". Oh yeah baby! I got my husband to agree to me using my favorite boy name, which does indeed start with an X, how cool is that? Unfortunately, in order to get to use my favorite name (which is really an abbreviation of a longer name, my grandfather's name, so he will have a family name for his first and middle name) I had to agree to let him use the abbreviation of his choice also. I'm not that fond of his choice of nickname, but I'll deal in order to get to use mine. Just to clarify, his legal name will be the long traditional form of his nicknames, and we will call him the name/nickname that he prefers once he is able to express a preference. Since I am totally convinced that my nickname is AWESOME, I think it will stick. In my opinion, it's got "cool guy" written all over it.

Severe Weather

It is Spring Break here, and the peas are unhappy to be cooped up in the house today. We are having a severe weather day though, and I didn't want to risk going out during possible tornado activity. I desperately need to grocery shop, but I just had my mom bring me a gallon of milk so that I could wait until tomorrow to go. So, we are winging it, which involved having grilled cheese sandwiches and spaghettios for lunch. We normally always have lunch meat for sandwiches, but not today. Luckily I also have plenty of things to cook for dinner. I think I'm just going to go with sloppy Joe's, fries, and fruit or baked beans. Nothing too strenuous, or impressive for that matter. I burned up too much energy yesterday, so I'm mostly hanging out with the kids today. Now, if I could just think of a fun project or something to do with them, we'd be in good shape. Hopefully the electricity will hold out. Otherwise my choices will be PB&J, or grilling in a storm. I had them charge up their Nintendo DS's, in case of power outage/extreme boredom.

Murphy's Law

Murphy's law..."Anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment"...applies to my life every single time I mop the floor. It is like a cruel joke. I have never once mopped the floor and not had someone (often myself) make some sort of gigantic splattering spill within hours. Today it was J. The floors needed to be cleaned badly. So, I spent a very long, very miserably pregnant few hours vacuuming and carefully mopping all of the floors. I then proceeded to make lunch for all of the peas. No sooner had everyone finished eating when J managed to knock her still full cup of lemonade off the table and splatter it across the entire kitchen floor. I just wanted to cry. Now I've lost all my cleaning mojo.

So far today I've...
vacuumed the whole downstairs
mopped all the tile floors
re-cleaned the kitchen on my hands and knees (thanks J)
done dishes
done 3 loads of laundry
wrestled clean sheets onto our bed
put dinner in the crockpot (pot roast)
vacuumed the ashes out of the fireplace (call me Cinderella)

What I still want to accomplish before tonight IF I can get my mojo back...
Plan Family Home Evening, I think I'm going to try to make THIS)- X going to have to wing it
Make mashed potatoes and salad (with the pizazz of the garden's sugar snap peas)- CHECK
Take B to soccer practice (5:00pm...PLEASE be canceled...come on rain)- CHECK
Do 2 more loads of laundry- CHECK
Clean bathrooms (I REALLY HATE cleaning bathrooms)-CHECK

Fights

This is an old picture from last summer, but works well for this topic.

Daniel and I heard some commotion coming from the kitchen last night. B&J were eating their evening snack and got into a full blown hysterical screamfest. They were each eating half of one of those giant sized Costco chocolate muffins. B went to use the restroom. When she got back she determined that there was less muffin on her plate than before she left the room. She accused J of switching their plates. Then the struggle (which resulted in muffin being splattered all over the table and floor) started. Since B had absolutely no proof of the supposed crime, and had already driven poor J into a mental breakdown, we did not take action against J, and told them both to finish their snacks. This upset B so much that she broke down into hysterics, crying..."Why are you doing this to ME!!!" I told her that if she is SO concerned that someone is going to touch her snack then she needed to use the restroom before or after she is eating. Unless of course she wants to bring her plate into the bathroom for supervision. Problem solved.

Piratical

Bought myself a present

We have been spending several hours per day in our backyard lately. By we...I mean the peas and I. Daniel is not so much a backyard person, but we may convert him yet. Anyway, I have been missing my swing since we left it at our old house when we moved. It was getting in bad shape after 3 years in the GA sun anyway. So, I decided to buy myself a cheap swing. I didn't buy a super nice $4-500 swing because I sense that TX summers will be no more gentle than a GA summer, and I don't want to be sad when it needs to be replaced. So, I found this one at Lowe's. It's not cute, but it's not awful either. It was priced well at $99, and I used a $10 coupon from this week's Lowe's ad. I was able to buy online and pick up at my local store, so no shipping charge either.

I look forward to spending many hours rocking the new pea outdoors and watching my garden grow while his sisters terrorize the backyard.

Hot Spot

Our couch has a hot spot. Everyone (except me) wants to sit in the same spot all of the time. If one pea gets up, another runs over and takes the spot immediately. Weirdos. What is so great about this particular spot? I have no idea.

Delivery Day

We went to the Dr again today. He did an ultrasound. The new pea is still decidedly a boy, no gender shifting. Everything looked good. Birth is scheduled for 8:45am April 8.

Entourage

Here are some photos of my entourage. The only way for me to work on the yard at 35 weeks pregnant is to be sitting down.
The bees were enjoying all of the flowering weeds and were not happy with my interference. My favorite rose bush looks much better after its pruning. I continue to progress through the backyard one tiny section at a time. Even sitting, I can't breathe very well while I'm bending into the plants.