Oh, the stress of it all!

You'd think that with all that is going on in our lives (adoption, pregnancy, job search, move, home buying) that we would be totally and completely stressed out. But truly, I think we are taking it all in stride. God knows, even if we don't & really? That's good enough for me. Really, I just have to laugh through it. Yes, I don't know where we will be when this baby is born. I don't know where Don will be working when we move. We've got a house & land sitting there waiting for us & I have no idea when we'll get there. But, that's fine! I'm excited for the ride.

But picking a "provider" for this birth? Totally stressing me out. Midwife or OB? Home birth or hospital? How do I find her (must be female...just a quirk of mine)? The thought of interviewing people leaves my stomach turning (or is that morning sickness???). Interviewing realtors when we sold our house was bad enough...and that was just our house! This is my baby! Oh, and then add into the mix that if I pick a home birth, our insurance will not cover it. It won't be too expensive, but still, it is hard for me to spend money like that, especially if we could get by with paying nothing if I go with an OB. There is 1 semi-nearby Certified Nurse Midwife that insurance would cover with a hospital birth, but she's in a high-risk practice...I don't know what that means for her birthing practices or philosophy.

Of course, I know that the answer is to turn this over to God, just like every other aspect of life. Why am I taking the burden of this? I pray that He opens the door I am to walk through & closes the others.

A Laundry list of Birthday wishes

Caleb has a birthday coming up & it's been the topic of much discussion around here. First, his meal requests. He asked for chicken pot pie! What a kid. I find that very amusing. So, I will be making chicken pot pie for lunch. Then, we will have pizza and ice cream (Chocolate Fudge Brownie, LOADED) for dinner. We're also having his good friend and his family over for dinner and presents. He requested ihop for breakfast, but I told him I had already picked up the ingredients to make breakfast sandwiches special for that morning, along with fruit smoothies...that satisfied him.

He will have a fun-filled day too, not just a stomach-filling day. Don is taking the day off & will be taking him to do the flight simulators at the base. I know Caleb will have a blast. He did it once before when he was around 4 & was convinced for years that he had actually flown a plane. After lunch, they will go back to the base & watch some of the planes practice for the upcoming airshow this weekend.

He has also been eying his presents for nearly a month & trying to come up with an acceptable present-opening order. I think he has decided to open Meagan's first. I am requiring that he open his biggest present last. I can't wait to see what he thinks of the present we got him. Let's just say, it's a manly-man present!

Meagan will not have such a fun day on Caleb's birthday. She gets to go to the doctor's for her sports physical. She is terrified that they may tell her she needs a shot. And then she has to go to PE, which is definitely fun, but probably not as much fun as flying a plane!! And, she is convinced that she does not like chicken pot pie. Poor girl.

In other news, both kids started baseball season this Tuesday. They both had a great time. I was sure that Meagan would act like her normal ultra-shy, slow to warm self, but she did great. She had to race the rest of the team (all boys, except 1 girl) and she beat about half of them! She was feeling very confident after that. I think this season will be really good for her. And she's excited about it. Caleb enjoyed it too. He's played 3 seasons of basketball now, so baseball is a nice change of pace. I think he'll end up being pretty good at it. Basketball was a challenge for him. But, he seems to have a better throwing arm than shooting arm. Hopefully, I'll get some good pictures of this season!

Our house

(If you are here for my "announcement", keep going down, cause this ain't it!)

We closed on the house next to our farm today. It is such a relief to have that done. I was really trying to not worry about it. I mean, after all, if something happened & the sale fell through, then it obviously wasn't God's plan for us. But, now that it is over & done with and the money has changed hands, I'm surprised by the relief I feel.

So, our house is a little 1925 farmhouse. It's got 3 bedrooms, 2 of which are on either side of the stairway upstairs & have dormers. One will be the boys room & one the girls. We figure we can fit 2 bunk beds in each room, so we are prepared for quite a while yet, come what may. The master bedroom is downstairs in what was once a dining room or parlor area. It has double doors and is directly across from the living room. The kitchen is too small to fit our table, so our table will go in what the last owners used as a living room. It will also be our library. We will put our couch and TV in the basement. And the basement will also be where the majority of toys will go. It'll be cozy, but I'm looking forward to it. When we lived in TX in our 1939 house, I loved it. I'm tired of the cookie-cutter neighborhoods of suburbia.

Also on these 4.5 acres that we just closed on, there is a 2000 square foot barn, a chicken coop that has seen better days (it is currently a gathering spot for the numerous cats!), and an outhouse that is currently not operational (it is sitting on a concrete pad). I can't wait to get there & get my garden started! Don and I are still debating where it should go, which is hard to do going from pictures, our memory, and guessing what the sun & water runoff will do.

It is hard to sit here with our land and now our house sitting there waiting for us.

As promised...

Here is Meagan in her Big Sister shirt. When we found out we were pregnant with Meagan, we were just about to travel to visit Don's parents. We decided that needed a special way to tell them. So, I took a green shirt and some iron-on letters and spelled out Big Brother on it. The next morning, we dressed Caleb (who was not quite 2 years old) in his shirt & sent him down to see Oma & Opa. He got to be the one to spread the news. It took them a minute to realize what the shirt meant & then there were lots of squeals of excitement.

Caleb wore that shirt until he was 6. It had been quite big on his 2-year-old body, but it had gotten really small by that time. I finally had to take it away (though I'm definitely keeping it!) because it was so small. However, he got such great pleasure out of wearing it & saying in a sing-songy voice, "Meagan, what does my shirt say???" And she would dutifully answer, "Big Brother!" They loved it.

And so, now, Meagan has her own shirt. She will be able to show this baby and declare herself the Big Sister for years to come. Well, at least until I have to take it away when she can barely squeeze herself into it.

A few odds & ends

First, the deal of a lifetime. This is the stuff dreams are made of. Literally. I actually have dreams about this stuff. Anyway, I went to a little neighborhood kids/maternity retail shop yesterday just to see what they had. I found a long black Mimi Maternity (if you are wondering why I'm shopping for maternity, get thyself down to the next post, my friend!) dress. Just a simple black dress. One of those you could easily dress up to be an evening gown, but you could also get away with wearing it to church. It still had the original price tag on it. $98. Guess how much I paid. You'll never guess. Come on, try! Ok, I'll tell you. 25 cents. Yes, 25 cents. I'm still in shock. I bought a hundred dollar dress for a quarter. And, it's nice! Wow, I'm still on an adrenaline high from it. I got 3 other maternity items, including a black velvet Mimi maternity dress, an Old Navy v-neck shirt & a Motherhood red sweater. All for 25 cents each.

Second, Caleb had 3 baby teeth pulled today. Poor kid. His canines were in the way and not letting his permanent teeth come in. His mouth is really crowded & his big front gap doesn't help things. Also, he had a hung-up molar that had not been able to move all the way in...it had been sitting in the same, just-erupted position for probably a year, so they yanked the baby molar out that was blocking it. I think the tooth fairy doubles her rate for these sorts of situations!

Third, morning (all day) sickness hasn't been too bad yet. It's off & on. At one time of the day, I'll be feeling like my stomach is sitting about and inch under my throat & ready to spill it's contents any moment. Later, I'm just fine. It's weird. Since often a sign of a impending miscarriage can be lack of morning (all day) sickness, Don has taken to saying "Good!" when I tell him I'm not feeling well. I mean, I understand and all, but that doesn't seem very empathetic, does it?

And lastly, I have absolutely no idea what to plan for dinner tonight. I'm usually much better about having a plan, but I wasn't feeling great at lunch & ate the leftover meatballs & spaghetti sauce over noodles that I had reserved for tonight. I seem to crave Italian when my stomach is turning. Weird. So, now I don't know. Caleb thinks we should treat him to a post-tooth-extraction dinner out. We'll see about that.

I'm working on getting that photo of Meagan in her Big Sister shirt. Really, I am. Soon.

When 1 and 1 equal 5

When does 1 and 1 equal 5? You know, as a homeschooler, I'm sure that you are currently quaking in your boots to know that I am the sole provider of the education of these kids here. Really, you can relax. Sometimes, 1 and 1 DO equal 5!! When, you ask? When the two 1's are actually lines on a pregnancy test, of course! And, thus is the equation in our lives now. Those 2 little lines will mean that our family will be growing!

In case you were wondering, NO, we didn't have enough goin' on!!

We are thrilled beyond belief. We waited, oh, about 15 minutes to tell the kids. We just couldn't hold our excitement in any longer. They are very excited too. For the first day or two, Meagan probably approached me 6 or 20 or maybe 442 times and just giggled & grinned & said something about the baby. Caleb wanted to know how the pregnancy test worked & if he could see it!! I have a feeling, we are going to be answering a lot of questions about the birds & the bees for the next few months. They did a great job keeping it all under wraps until we just couldn't stand it any longer & had to tell everyone.

By the way, do you know how hard it is to write on your blog about other things & ignore the biggest, most fantastic, thing ever??? Hard. Let me tell you.

We don't know how all this will affect our situation with the move or the adoption. We don't plan on really letting it affect either, but God's timing is perfect & we're letting Him direct our paths. And, oh, He is so good.

So, around November 11th, 2007, we'll be turning this foursome into a quintet. Oh, sweet music to my ears.

Oh, and here's the proof...

I'll post a picture of Meagan in her new "Big Sister" shirt in a few days.

Sweet Potato Dollars

I've gotta share this recipe. My whole family really wasn't digging any of the sweet potato recipes that I had tried. We'd all eat it, but not happily. A sure sign that Meagan doesn't like something is that she takes forever to eat. She'll eat it, but it may take 2 hours. But, sweet potatoes are supposed to be so good for you, so I wanted to find some way to cook them that didn't make us feel like we'd have to force it down, right?, cause if that is the case, I'm just not going to make them.

So, I found this recipe in Nourishing Traditions & it's so delicious. And, I've read that sweet potatoes are best absorbed when eaten with a fat, so the butter & olive oil do the trick. Everyone, even the kids, love, love, love this recipe. And, the obvious indication of that is that Meagan scarfs them down.

Here it is:
Sweet Potato Dollars

3-4 sweet potatoes
3 tbsp melted butter
3 tbsp olive oil
sea salt

Peel potatoes & slice crosswise at 1/4-inch intervals into "dollars."
Brush 2 cookie sheets (I usually only need my 1 PC stoneware bar pan with 3 potatoes) with mixture of butter and olive oil. Arrange dollars in one layer and brush with remaining butter & oil. Season lightly with salt. Bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Serves 4

Enjoy!!

Another dress finished

I've finished Meagan's prairie dress. I still need to do the pinafore that goes over it, but I thought I'd post this separately.

A really easy knot!

Heather Bailey at HELLOmynameisHeather has in her sidebar a link to a tutorial on "My Favorite Knot." I tried it out and I absolutely love it. It is so easy & makes such a nice, clean knot. Check it out! While you are there, check out the rest of her blog. She is a very talented lady!

Here's a stumper...

It's trash day. I didn't put the trash out because we were leaving to take the car in for an oil change & I had forgotten until we were pulling out, and besides, I knew there was only 1 bag in there. We got home from taking the car in & what's this? A big OVERFLOWING trash can in front of our house! Who stuck their can in front of our house & why? It's not like the other side of the street had been done & they were late. This is contracted trash service & there are 3 different companies who service our area. This is a company can, so whoever has it, must have trash service. I have half a mind (no jokes please!) to wheel it on down the sidewalk so that it sits where nobody lives. I'm waiting for the trash guys to come so I can see who comes to get this can. I feel a bit like Gladys Kravitz, looking out my window. Life in the suburbs is a thrill a minute, I tell ya! A thrill a minute.

Beware the homeschoolers

We thought that this video was so funny. Enjoy!

Perhaps it should come with a warning label

Apparently, I am unable to perform even the simplest of tasks at the sewing machine in the early morning hours.

Saturday morning, I sewed the sleeve into the dress I'm making for Meagan. It's a darling prairie-style dress, but as I'm making it, I can tell I bought the wrong size pattern. It was the first pattern I bought & I didn't know that sizes don't really transfer well from the racks to the pattern drawers. Anyway, that's not the mistake I'm telling you about. That was just a bonus!! Lucky you. So, Saturday morning, at 6am, I'm sewing in this sleeve. I gather & pin & adjust & baste & then stitch it once. I was supposed to stitch it twice, but I just decided to turn it right side out to see how it looked so far. Well, it looked fabulous, except that the sleeve was wrong-side-out. By 6:30, I had ripped all the stitching back out & was ready to do it right. I did manage to get the sleeve in right when I redid it, but I cannot tell you how many times I checked & double checked it!

This morning, even before 6am, I decided to work on the hem. I pull the dress over to the ironing board to press it into position. Get it all done, and, ugh! It's folded the wrong direction. (That is, unless I want to hem it on the OUTSIDE of the dress!!) I put the dress down, turned the iron off, and backed away from it slowly. Early morning sewing is not meant to be. I think there oughtta be a sign on the machine..."Not to be used before 7am." I mean, after all, when all I get accomplished are things that I have to then undo & redo, I'm not really getting a jump on the day, am I? No, I think not. I've learned my lesson. Better to do less challenging things, like genetic sequencing or something.

Bonnets for everyone!!!

These are two bonnets I made for my nieces for their birthdays. One of them has a birthday on St. Patrick's day, so her bonnet is shamrock material. The other I used a multi-colored fabric, but used hot pink ribbon for the bow on the back & the tie around the chin. Both are the same McCall's pattern #9424 that I used before for Meagan's. I also made one exactly like Meagan's for my cousin's daughter.