Thankful for vans

Today was a life-giving day. I was encouraged by the MOPS meeting this morning. The speaker was sharing about being vulnerable even when it's messy. It was very relatable. Especially because I had just hurriedly cleaned up charlottes ENTIRE bed of her explosive diarrhea she had last night. Of course the speaker wasn't necessarily focusing on pee and poo but more about sharing life circumstances and our story that may not be glamorous... And actually usually isn't.

And then this afternoon we were on our way to the dr office... Walking... And the neighbor took pity on us and drove us there in her van. A 2hour savings in our day! So grateful for the kindness of others. Such a simple thing can really change the course of our day. Love it!!

Meat day!

Today we stocked our freezer FULL of good grass fed beef from a local farmer. I'm so excited about it! Today feels like Christmas. Here's how it worked. Our friend had the contact with the farmer. She knows how they care for their cows and what they feed them...all good and healthy things. We decided to share the cow 3 ways...I don't think a full cow would have even fit in our freezer! This will be plenty of meat. All three of us got together at my house this afternoon...kids and all! We divided all of the cuts based on type and then began putting them into three piles...well, large coolers. I just put our meat in the laundry room until I had time to get it out to the freezer. I'm so surprised at how much meat there was!! I'm really hoping this will last us all year. In fact I made a list of all the cuts we have and how many pounds of ground beef so that it will help me meal plan as the year goes along. Here's the run down of what I got: 38lbs of ground beef, 3 pot roasts, 2 Boneless cross rib roasts, 1 boneless rump roast, 1 Brisket, 1 tri tip, 3 sirloin tip steaks, 3 tenderized round steaks, 5 Ribeye steaks, 3 soup bones, 2 boneless stews, 5 tenderized steaks, 3 top sirloin steaks, 4 NY steaks Believe it or not, between the beef and my summer berries we are FULL in the freezer. Ahhh this makes me feel so good! I'm really getting more and more excited about eating food that is grown in my yard or by people I know. In many ways it makes me feel better about what I'm putting into my family. We've watched a lot of documentaries lately about food and the affects they can have on you and I've been reading some books about farming organically. All of these sources have certainly made me think twice, even three times about what I'm putting on our plates at home. It's a very long journey to eat fully off your own land, but I'm hoping someday we can get there. This is just a small start to that goal.

All by myself

I hear this all day long...."all by myself?" Charlotte is becoming more and more independent. And I'll admit it sure makes things both easier and harder all at the same time. Easier because it gives me more time to help out a more needier child - Olivia. Harder because it's not always a success to "do it all by myself." Charlotte enjoys getting things right on the first try. Don't we all! And sometimes she does! Well I realize I have not posted in a really LONG time...so here are a few tid bits of Forbes news...in random order and in random all togetherness... 1. My new favorite Pandora station is "Jazz Essentials"...grab a cup of coffee and turn this on...you will feel like you are at your own coffee shop 2. We bought grass fed beef! In our meager efforts to try to eat better we are making small simple changes to our daily diet...first change...grass fed beef. 3. We spent last week visiting with Carmen and Leo. They were here to take pictures of our cousin Rachel's wedding. What a great wedding it was too!! Such a fun evening. Pictures to come I'm sure. 4. I've joined MOPS....mothers of preschoolers. It's a group that gets together once a month to encourage each other in motherhood. Today was the first day and I really enjoyed it. I think I mostly enjoyed that both girls did really well in child care! I always worry about them in new situations. 5. Olivia is rolling over and scooting around. I am pretty sure she will be crawling at the end of the month. We started her on solid foods too. Although I don't know why they call them solid when I could eat them through a straw. 6. I have a big desire to get rid of all our living room furniture and start fresh with smaller furniture that actually fits in our living room. 7. We had a garage sale and got rid of 1/3 of what was in our garage. AHH!! I love to purge stuff!!! And while we were out there we decided to paint the inside of the garage and add shelves...so we did. 8. Charlotte is doing a VERY LOW KEY preschool at home with me. We are working on our letters (phonics), numbers, our names, and potty training. Here's hoping some of it soaks in! Any advice for teaching these things...mostly the letters would be greatly appreciated. Oh I'm sure I'm missing some big stuff...too tired to think...this Jazz essentials is putting me to sleep!

Surprise!!

I was clueless! For the past 2 weeks poor Olivia has been drooly mcdrooly! And yesterday at her regular dr apt her doctor casually pointed out " oh wow she already has 2 teeth!"
Ah Ha!! The reason for the late night crying! Problem solved.... Teether toys out.

Some pics

The girls are growing fast and I've been trying to document it but it seems to escape my mind often.

Charlotte enjoys dress up and really that mostly includes accessories. She will often wear glasses, hats, big shoes, scarfs around the house. It makes me laugh.

Olivia is all smiles and just so sweet. It is enjoyable waking up to her big grins. In fact when Nate leaves for work she will often sleep on his pillow. It's very cute.

Summer already feels like it is going fast! Next week will be Charlottes 2nd birthday!! And it's also 4th of July fireworks. I hope our neighbors do their annual firework show. :)

Hoping for a few camping trips and berry picking before the month is up.

Art

This is her early birthday gift... An artists chalk board and dry erase board. She is loving it!!

BBQ, Friends and potty time

Strange title huh? We are going on day 4 of potty training!! I have been wanting to do this for a while now, but with being on vacation for 2 weeks I knew it had to wait until we got home. Let me just say Char is a champ! She's really been enjoying using her potty chair. Something about getting stickers and raisins really seems to motivate her to do just about anything! I hope this same motivation strategy continues on through high school (fat chance!). On our way back from our vacation (which by the way was such a great trip...too many stories to share in just one blog post), we got a call from a camp friend. He was volunteering at camp Tilikum this week and needed a place to stay. So Jake stayed with us for the week. I enjoy having friends stay over especially since it's harder for us to get out to meet up with friends. And he's a funny one too! We got to hear how camp has been going (sounds like a GREAT staff this year) and we got to catch up with Jake and hear about the local fishing industry (he works on his dad's boat in Newport). Last night we had a BBQ with the McNeals and Jake. We heard our McNeal friends will be moving closer to their jobs for a short time and we wanted to catch up with them before they left Newberg. Rick just started a second job as a writer for www.mybinding.com It's a local Hillsboro company that sells supplies for binding books and other office supplies too. It sounds like a place my mom would love. Although I don't know that she has ever bound her own book? A new hobby maybe?? Anyway, it was great to catch up with our friends. It will be sad to see them move, but hopefully they can move back into their OWN home in Newberg someday soon. Today is looking like a nice day...so I think we'll go out and pick some strawberries. Then off to Eugene to see a good friend and meet their new baby boy.

$1 decorations

My $1 decoration!!! I'm so excited about this one. I went to the dollar tree and bought a pack of colored tissue paper and turned them into these fun poofs! Angela Kantz gave me the idea a while ago and I just now got around to trying it out. Olivia loves to look at them while she hangs out in her bouncy bug chair. Charlotte saw me taking pictures so she grabbed her camera to take some too.

pictures

Surgery

Tomorrow I go in for surgery to have those 2 cysts removed that gave me so many problems during pregnancy.

The most recent ultra sound (I've had 8 now) showed that both cysts were still about the same size.. Not bigger not smaller. That is a good thing. They are most likely durmoid cysts. These are the strange cysts that often have hair and teeth in them. I looked it up on Wikipedia ..... Very interesting!

Of course they will know more about them tomorrow. After being checked out by pathology I will know more. Durmoids are most often benign but it's routine to have them looked at.

It reminds me of the scene in the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" where she tells the story of her twin:)

Thank you for your prayers. I will kee you posted.

Dress up

Char has been enjoying dress up lately. She loves to find hats, scarfs, gloves, shoes, glasses...you name it...and put it on. And she especially loves it when you dress up with her. In fact, she often insists that you wear what she has just put on so she can see it for herself. Too funny!

Updates

I just realized its been a little while since my last post. Life is busy here. We had a tree fall on our garage during the big windstorm last month. Nate is getting very good at clearing trees. Now we have a big pile of firewood out back! Not too much damage... Just some gutter repair. We were thankful to be gone when it fell.

The girls are enjoying each other. It's fun to watch C take care of O. I am hoping they can be good friends.
I still don't ever ever leave them alone together. Char doesn't quite know her own strength yet. A "hug" could land us all in the ER. So I make sure she plays gently with her.

Next week I'm going in for surgery. I have 2 ovarian cysts that gave me a lot of problems during pregnancy. They have to go and now is the best time. It will be an overnight hospital stay. I'm trying to save enough milk for O while I'm away. She is starting to learn how to take a bottle. I hope she does well.

That's the nutshell version of our month... I'm sure I'm missing many things.

One month

Can you even believe it? Liv has been a great addition to the fam. C is getting more familiar with her new role as Big Sister. Liv has been staying awake for longer periods of time. We're still not sure who she looks like, but she reminds me a lot of Harrison Ford when she squints her eyes:) don't tell her I said that.....

I'm on week 2 of my new diet. I'm off dairy, wheat, corn, peanuts, and soy. Basically I eat fruits, veggies, meat, rice, and dark chocolate:) that is my one vice...
I've seen improvement in Livi because of it. I will slowly start to add foods back into my diet around 4 weeks. Hopefully this will give us some understanding if what she can handle. I honestly think its the dairy that bothers her but to save time I'm doing this elimination diet all at once. And I'm feeling pretty healthy too.

Here's her 1 month pic

Some pictures

Livi's first tea party, c dressing up, funny faces of Livi.

Olivia Rose

Our dear sweet Olivia Rose arrived last Friday afternoon. We have been so busy enjoying her company and getting adjusted to our new lives together.

Birth story:
As you know I was scheduled to be induced Friday as a precaution for my blood clot history. What a different kind of experience than a natural unplanned delivery. My parents and Carmen were all at home watching C. She got treated to the hilt! I don't think she missed us one bit! That of course put us at ease.
Nate and I took our time getting to the hospital. We checked into the maternity ward like we were checking into a hotel.:) the nurse took me to our room and let us get settled before bringing the dr in for our consultation.
It was decided that pitocin would be the best start for inducing. Induction began at noon. Nate and I tried to rest, watch tv, chat etc.... The impending pain was all I could think of.
Contractions were coming at a steady pace but nothing that was super painful. Finally 2 1/2 hours into it my contractions were strong enough I couldn't talk through them. I was 6cm. An hour later my water broke... That's when everything started happening fast!! My contractions were very close and really painful. I could tell we were only minutes away from meeting our daughter. The nurse who had been with us from the beginning was about to go on a shift change.... She was very familiar with my past delivery and complications. So she stayed as long as she could until the next nurse was there and updated. I really appreciated that!! The urge to push came really quickly. I called for the dr. The nurse said she had to check me first. This of course made me panic as I knew the cause of my last delivery complications was due to an absent dr there to deliver my baby. One nurse mentioned this was my last opportunity for an epidural if I wanted one. I knew this would slow down my delivery so I said YES PLEASE!!
In an instant I was given a spinal/epidural. (Insert a chorus of hallelujahs here. )
The dr came in, got ready, asked me to push... 3 pushes later we meet Olivia Rose. The whole induction took 4 hours. It was a quick one! But we were so ready to meet our little girl.
My first thought when I saw her was "oh wow! She looks just like Charlotte!" they really look so much alike from their baby pictures.
Her stats:
7lbs 3oz
19 3/4in long
Brown hair
Blue eyes
Petite... Newborn clothes are huge on her.:)

I did end up with a second degree tear but it's really not that painful. My recovery this time around is already night and day different from the last one. We are thanking the Lord for that blessing!

Nate is home this week to help out and to enjoy these first few days with the new family. It's been wonderful having this time together. We feel so blessed with these two little girls.

More updates to come. But right now it's nap time!!

Progress

Well I had my final dr. apt today to see how things are progressing. I was at a 2 last time and today I was 3-4cm! Yay!
I have my apt all scheduled and we're ready with the car seat, packed bags etc..
My babysitters are arriving tomorrow for the week. =) All exciting news. I can really tell this is going to happen soon!

I really appreciate my midwife Stacey. She is just so great! She found a dr to watch over my labor who she really respects and she gave him all the details about my complications last time. He said he would look after me. I'm really feeling good about this.

And from the sound of it, I could try to still do a natural labor because of how far along I've progressed. We'll see. I'm trying not to have expectations of a fast labor, but it could still be quick.

more details to come....

Finish line?

I can see the finish line, but I'm not sure if I'm running towards it or parked at a picnic bench starring at it.

I have one week to go. Signs are pointing that it could be sooner. Of course I'm trying all kinds of things. Suddenly doing lunges down my hallway is the new mode of walking in this house. I heard pineapple juice helps.... Check tried that. Long walks... C might be tired of walking by now.

All this to say I am ready to have this baby. Or maybe I should rephrase that... I am ready to not be pregnant!
Huge difference. I'm not sure I will ever be "ready" to welcome a new little one in the house. I am eager to meet her... Just also a little nervous about how our daily lives will change. I know it will be wonderful. I'm excited for c to have a sister and I feel blessed to be able to add another child to this family. Change also naturally makes me nervous. And boy have we had a lot of change in these past few months.

I am eagerly hugging my pillow at night as though I'm saying goodbye to a best friend for a while. I've been trying to have friends come over almost every day in anticipation of isolation. Many changes to come.... Many wonderful changes to come.

I'm ready to get this party started!!!

Getting closer

C had her dr apt last week. Turns out she has bronchitis and two ear infections. No wonder she hasn't been herself! The antibiotics really seem to be working well. Yesterday she was acting a lot more like herself.
I had cabin fever, so we did take a walk into town. She was all bundled up with her baby doll and kitty cat ( her two best friends.... They go everywhere with her). I think the outside air was good for both of us!

Well I am officially in the safe zone to have this baby. I'm waiting on an email from my midwife to know when my scheduled induction date will be. This is just a funny way to have a child- scheduled. I will be able to walk into the hospital pain free and check in at the front desk as though I was checking into a hotel. What a different experience from last time. With c, I could hardly walk or even talk to the ladies at the check in. Our conversation was interrupted by me breathing through contractions! This will be a new kind of experience.

Today I am freezing a few meals in preparation of being a busy mom.

Final stretch

As I get closer to my due date I find sleep to be harder and harder to get. Insomnia mixed with c waking up as well as the third trimester bathroom stops all break down to being up almost every hour.
Nap time with c has become a new necessity for me. And it's actually very peaceful. Ive never really been a mid day napper but I'm definitely learning to look forward to even just laying still for a while during the middle of the day. That seems to recharge me like a nap would.
I realize I have it pretty good that I can even take time to rest in my day. Some moms have several children who may nap at different times of the day or they may have home jobs that take up that quiet space during their day.
So I'm certainly grateful that I can nap.. Even as I write this at 4am.
Now to try to sleep.:)

Beautiful weekend

This weekend has been so beautiful! Perfect for playing outside and going on walks. In fact, C and I went on a long walk with some friends from church on Friday morning. We went to 2 different parks and let the kids play for a while. C wasn't really interested in the playground which is just not like her at all. We came home and I put her down for a nap. When she woke up, her entire body was on fire with a fever. I guess it's a virus going around. It lasts a few days. She doesn't seem too affected by it during the day....still runs around playing with her favorite little toy friends. But at night she just cannot sleep at all.

Last night Nate just stayed in her room and slept on the floor. I'm so grateful for him. There is no way I can sleep on the floor right now. We're praying this only lasts a short time as we're both growing very tired. We've taken turns napping. I guess in some ways this is just more prep for what's to come. =)

New medication

Today I start a new medication for the remainder of the pregnancy. It's a slower acting blood thinner that I take 2 times a day (shot). So if I happen to go into labor early the medicine won't be in my body as long.

I've been doing 1 shot a day for the past 6 months so I'm used to poking myself by now. And once the baby is born I will continue to do this for another 6 weeks.

We are getting down to the final stretch!
There are a few more things I need to do before the baby comes. For example: make some frozen meals, buy a few more necessities for baby, work on some forms for baby, file and try to get some things done ahead of time for next month. And if we can, do taxes while we still have our wits about us.:)

I'm so grateful the weather has been nice! And we just cleaned up our stroller and got the second seat ready. C loves her new "race car" seat on the back of the stroller. Good thing because that's where she will be sitting from now on.

Well off to another day!

BBQ and doughnuts

You know you're pregnant when....

You have a very real dream about food:)
Last night I had a dream that I went to a fast food BBQ wing place. Only they didn't serve anything BBQ. 2 things were on the menu... Hot cookies and fresh doughnuts.

The tag line at the place was "come on in where the food is hot and the doughnuts are fresh!"
Apparently my subconscious believes cookies to be another food group.

Countdown

We are getting closer! I have 2 more doctor appointments before meeting our new little girl.
The room is mostly ready. Nate spent the last few weekends painting and putting up decor. It's fun seeing all of the little clothes hung in the closet again.
This has become Cs favorite room. She always asks to play in there. Maybe I should finish decorating her room?:)
Speaking of C, her vocabulary has really started to take off. I was worried for the longest time that she would be behind, but she's proving us wrong.... Again.

Doing laundry

Nate and C doing laundry

What a great day

Charlotte has strep throat. We had a doctor's apt today to meet her new doctor, but I didn't want to chance walking in the cold to her appointment. Our dear friend Katy came over to pick us up and take us there. I'm so grateful for her! It was nice to catch up with her on the way. It just made my day to know we didn't have to walk to her appointment. What a lifesaver!

When we got there I didn't really know what to expect of her pediatrician. We haven't had great luck with her past doctor. I always felt like I was on the defense with her and didn't have any choices as a parent. I was sort of expecting the same thing with this new doctor too.

But I was delighted to learn that not every doctor is the same! In fact, I just LOVE C's new doctor. She was very encouraging, listened to my concerns, offered helpful advice, took her time with Charlotte, had great bedside manner (Charlotte liked her a lot too) and overall she was very okay about our strange parenting choices. =) (long story...we are on a slower vaccination schedule with C that our other dr was NOT okay with, but had to follow because she can't just poke any child without parental consent). I came away feeling like this doctor was helping us as parents instead of scolding us.

I'm super excited for Charlotte to have this doctor. We feel blessed!

learning about insurance

We've been on an insurance hunt for a few months now for Nate and boy am I learning a lot! First, I find it interesting that he cannot get his own insurance because I'm pregnant. If only he could have the baby...I would be fine with that. But apparently even if you are responsible for a pregnancy it is still considered a pre-existing condition....for Nate. All of the customer services reps seem to be puzzled by this one as well. I think we're creating some fun water cooler discussions in their office. Oh to be a fly on the wall. =)

I guess there are some areas of life that should be more "grey" than black and white. Again, if Nate could have this baby I would completely understand that rule....and I would be in favor of it. =)

Sunshine

I'm so glad it's starting to get warmer outside and it doesn't get dark until much later. Char and I went for a much needed walk today. I think she gets cabin fever if we stay in all day long. In fact yesterday she put her shoes on all by herself (they were on the wrong feet...but it was a good effort anyway) and then she handed me my shoes too. I think it was clear she wanted to go outside. =) So today we did. Fresh air sure makes a day brighter!

News on our cars. The engine died on the Honda. We're still trying to figure out if it's worth fixing or if we should pull the plug on this little car. Trying to put all emotional attachment aside and just think logically about it. We've put a lot into it and it gets excellent gas mileage (45 miles to the gallon!). That's pretty great when you drive 120miles a day.

I think Nate may be enjoying the comfort of the Toyota on his long drives and the radio works too. =) A huge plus! If only it got the same mileage as the Honda. Oh well, it's definitely a much safer car and more comfortable for the long drive. I'm grateful that we had a back up car for this situation. And it's getting me to take walks outside with Char. Something that we need to do anyway. =)
So glad for the good weather!