Nothing witty..

Sorry, I have no witty opening line or any terribly important to say, but I know stuffs happened since I last blogged so I figured it was time. :)

Went grocery shopping today and totally forgot all my WIC checks. Boo...so I got the stuff they don't cover, but it means another trip back to the grocery store this week...not so much fun.

This past week was fun! Josh and Stephanie came up last Friday to buy a truck and they stayed with us and we had so much fun. We ended up staying up late and chatting and around 1:00am we heard our neighbors dog barking, but it wasn't the normal barking it was the "I'm getting hurt" type..we ignored it for a while, but then went out and found that two GINORMOUS Rottweilers are dragging this poor dog around its back yard. Josh and Luke bravely went over to try and help(armed with fireplace tools..haha)but the owners were able to get the dog in right when they came over....thankfully. The dog is ok, though incredibly beat up. The dogs ended up getting signed over to the pound..odds are they'll probably be put to sleep..unless some random rehabilitator takes them in..but those odds are slim. Though I'm sad it happened, it allowed us to have an "in" with our neighbors whom we've not really ever spoken with till then..

Saturday night we went to see Avatar...our friends Kelly and Tyler watched our motly crew and we enjoyed the time out and some fellowship with them before they left for the evening. My Mom came up Monday and we really enjoyed having her up here for Monday and Tuesday before she headed to Erin's on Wednesday to spend some time with them, last night we all went to Taco Mac which I'd never been to before and it was pretty cool.

Middle of Feb..Luke and his Dad are going to Belize for some speaking/ministering time, its for a whole week. This will be the first time he's ever been away that long, and without the capability to text/call from his cell phone. We may be able to Skype, but you never know if there will be internet connections where they go. So it will be a long week for me for sure. I'm so thankful he's able to go...he's being blessed by not having to pay for anything, and its been over 6 1/2 years since he's been there, and he's pretty stoked about it all.

I think Kate's trying to cut all 4 top middle teeth...she's been grinding and chewing for about a week now and they are so close it almost looks like they are through already even though they aren't. Hoping they come out quickly poor thing..she hasn't been a happy camper unless I'm holding her and even though I REALLY love holding her(I know even more so now that she's my 3rd how quickly them letting you hold them goes), it is very tiring.

Anyways..I'm off to make Matza Ball soup..I haven't had it in a long time and I want it. :)

We need more movies..

I'm beyond tired of the kid movies we have. Between the car and the times they get to watch them at home, I'm tired of them!! I'm pretty sure if I watch Toy Story one more time I may actually scream at the t.v...haha..I try and DVR movies that come on if its one we don't have and suitable for the kids, but ones they can see don't come on super often. I guess I just need to Netflix a few good kid ones.

Luke and I watched Night at the Museum this week..it was great! We loved it..so funny and clean. A whole bunch of our movies are in a stand still with Netflix cause apparently they don't get as many Blu Rays in as they do DVD's, and Luke hates having a blu ray player and not getting to actually watch movies in that format..so we wait...tons good stuff on our list right now waiting for a copy to come our way.

Anyone have guilty pleasure shows? Mine's Secret Life of an American Teenager mostly, and then a few shows on E and DHC...I tend to DVR them so poor Lukey poo doesn't have to watch them with me..haha..he's not into cheesy reality or baby birthing shows.

So Luke's drawing up a kitchen for a lady here and Luke asked her what she planned on doing with her cabinets when she remodeled and said she was going to give them away!! Soooo, we told her WE wanted them. Same white color, but much much nicer then ours. This is awesome as it allows up to fix up the kitchen with no cost...However, I think Luke and I are going to re do the counters at the same time so we don't have to tear our kitchen up twice....but we're putting in concrete countertops so it shouldn't be expensive at all and it will sure look a lot nicer then my white counters.

I'm not looking forward to taxes this year. Most of our year was non taxed and when your living off of pretty much every penny earned, its hard to put away any for taxes...however, we made under the limit for Earned income and we have 3 kids this year, we we're hoping to still hopefully get some back and not have to pay this year. We did a calculator online and even without some deductions we know we can take its saying we'll get some back, but we'll see. I'm not counting on any money back till I know for sure.

We finished painting the guest room/Kate's room yesterday...It used to be Noah's room and it was BRIGHT blue, now 3 walls are plain khaki brown and one wall is a dark chocolate brown. She has THIS bedding and its soo cute. We used to have a burgandy duvet cover on the guest bed, but now I'm just going to leave it white. I'll take pictures as soon as we get all the bedding back on and the room back in order. :)

I had a good night..

Yesterday I was feeling sort of depressed. It happens every now and then, and I rarely dwell in it as I know I have way too much to be thankful for to remotely complain about life, but I was having one of those days. So after Luke came home, I fed everyone and went out. Took my ipod and went to Panera Bread..like my favorite place to eat and sat...all by myself. It was like the first time I've ever eaten by myself out anywhere and I actually enjoyed myself. I sat and listened to some music, watched part of a movie, and took my sweet time eating. Then I went to Target to get a few things we needed...I ended up splurging on a new nursing tank for me(since they had a BLUE one!! and some new pajama pants...) and got stuff to make Luke a chocolate buttermilk sheet cake...something his Mom makes and he loves. Then Luke texted me and told me to get a movie while I was out, so I stopped and got "9"...it was such a blessed time while I was out. I pretty much NEVER go anywhere without at least one child and I personally don't count going to the grocery store by myself as relaxing..so this was so nice. No texts or calls from home, and when I got back all the kids were sleeping and in bed, so it was nice and quiet. Turns out Luke had a good time in worship and prayer while I was out so we were both happier people..I then made the cake.

Then we watched 9...it was crazy and weird and for some reason I thought it was a kid's movie..but I guess I can't just assume since its animated that it was a kids movie. But eating the cake while watching it was nice..haha...

By the way, NBC is talking about movie Jay Leno back to his original 11:30 time slot..and if they do I refuse to ever watch him again...I was SOO excited that Conan got moved up in time and I was actually able to watch him and I'll be soo upset if they move him back. There's no way they could get rid of him...but whatever. I'll be angry...just sayin'.

Olivia's birth..

In honor of Olivia's birthday this week. This was her birth story I wrote up like several years ago, so I had to edit some stuff just to make it current again, and like all birth stories I'm sure its missing somethings cause its easy to forget some of the details when your laboring. Olivia's birth experience was great...It was filled with lots of family and friends(Patti N., Heather B., My mom, Luke's Mom, Luke were all in the room with me, and both Grandfathers and Dustin M. were in the living room waiting).



I was 36 weeks and 5 days(Jan. 5th '05) when I was laughing with my mother about how I thought my water had broken that morning when in all actuality I had just leaked a little..haha...so I left my mom's house(we live right next door to them) and needed to go to the bathroom. I went and when I stood back up I felt like I peed again..and thought, oh man..I'm losing control of my bladder! But I sat back down and it just kept coming out, so I called my husband at work and he wasn't there, he was headed home fortunately since we had a Midwife appointment that day for my 36 week ultrasound. So I called my Mom and she came over and talked to me for a while and at around 3:30 I went to my appointment.

They checked me and said yep, you sure did bust your water, and that I wasn't dialated or effaced at all!(I was super scared about that cause I thought I was in it for the long haul at that point). The Ob there(Dr. Adcock for those interested) did my ultrasound(still girl!) and told me Olivia was estimated at around 8 lbs. 1 oz. and said she was sunny side up(Posterier). Ugh..! No contractions as of then...went home. Called my 2 girl friends that would be in attendance and my MIL. Both my friends came over around 8pm and we just hung out. At around 11pm I decided to start taking some Blue Cohosh to get things going..did a round at 11, and did another round at 12. I decided to try and go to sleep while I could. I woke up around 3:30am and started having timable contractions. My contractions started at 5 minutes apart and quickly went to 3(I jumped in the shower around 4:30 for a while..) I came out to the livingroom and tried laboring on my birth ball, bad idea. It didn't feel good to me at this point. Decided walking and leaning worked best for me and I dealt fairly well with the pain that way. At around 7:30am we decided to call my mom. I labored in my living room walking and having Luke and Patti press on my back during those other hours not mentioned. I got in the tub about 8:15am and decided to try and see if I felt anything in there, and sure enough I could feel head at the end of my fingers...so I started pushing...!! I pushed for a while in the tub but didn't feel productive and I hated the bright lights of the bathroom(and the crowded feel it gave me.) Moved to the toilet for a few pushes...felt nice but wasn't doing much. Walked to the bed and got on hands and knees...pushed for about 30 minutes this way and did a good bit of progress here. I finally decided to lay back against Patti and did a semi recline but still upright position, as soon as I did this I felt her head start to crown. Ah..lots of pressure and about 6 pushes later, my beautiful 8 lbs(even) baby girl came out...!!(at 9:45am on January 6th..) I only had a super super minor tear that required no stitches and wasn't even an issue...after cutting the cord, we delivered the placenta and then I had help taking a shower. Got back in bed, my MIL gave DD her first bath and we snuggled in bed and nursed. All the men got to come in later(after nursing) and see the baby and Dustin made me Potato soup which is now a staple for me after having a baby. :)







Don't think I would have changed anything about her birth experience really...outside of just being more prepared for it! haha..I didn't have ANYTHING set up for the birth, my baby shower was that coming Sat, so we didn't really have a lot of the basic baby stuff things like that..But that was fixable.