Resting

Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, which is why today I am resting!
We had a fantastic time with my parents and sister and her family over Thanksgiving weekend. It was crazy with cousins running around, turkey to eat, a son turning 7, and a train to catch! We all had a fabulous time. I think the only side effect of all the fun has been sleep deprivation. Unfortunately for my guests they will have to wait to catch up on their sleep for when they get home. As for this family...well, I think a 2 hour nap with the girls while Aidan "rested" counts as a good start. Ahhhhhh. I love Sundays.

I will post pictures of this weekend and of the big 7 year old later. Right now, I have more resting to do...okay, okay, I'm lying. I'm actually going to be cleaning up a little bit. But I find it restful because there's absolutely no pressure to get anything done so I'll just do however much I feel like doing and call it good.

Reminding myself

I'm writing this post to remind myself that I am very grateful for the deer Brett brought home last night. It will stock our freezer and feed our bellies, and he had a great time to boot. There, I said it, so now if I sound a little ungrateful because this deer is currently taking up my whole refrigerator while it's waiting to be packaged tonight when I have a Thanksgiving *turkey* to be thawing and other groceries to get, I can look back at this long run-on sentence filled post and say, "See, I am to grateful!".

Baby Food

Gianna spent the better part of 20 minutes yesterday morning telling us all about what she was going to teach the baby. This was accompanied by demonstrations when necessary. She came to,

"I'm going to teach the baby how to eat!"..paused...and then "but the baby doesn't have any teeth."

"Hmmm, Gigi, what do you think the baby will eat then?"

She thought for quite a long time about this and then declared, "Soup! The baby will eat soup!"

:-)

Important Lessons

My children have taught me many things throughout their lives. I learn just as much from them (maybe more?) as they learn from me. However, this morning was a new one. Did you know, for instance, that no matter the time period in which you were born, proper sword-fighting technique is extremely important? Just ask these two:

Into the Woods!

Brett and Aidan went back out to the woods this afternoon while the girls and I napped and hung out. We all would have gone, but we don't have enough orange to outfit us all and it is bow season. And it was cold.

Rough life.

Gianna was bemoaning the fact that her siblings kept telling her she was in the way. She came into the kitchen hoping to get sympathy, but I informed her that she wasn't speaking very kindly to them and she needs to be more patient.

Her response: "Ohhhh, no body is nice to me. Mommy not nice to me. Daddy not nice to me. Aidan not nice....noooooooo body is nice to me." Let me tell ya, she has it so rough. Hardly!

Relieved

Just want to let ya'll know that everything checked out a-okay at the doctor's this afternoon. The spot had not changed in shape or size and neither the radiologists nor the doctors were concerned about it in any way, shape, or form! I can not tell you how relieved we are. We are entering the third trimester and every one around here is getting very excited to have this baby to snuggle with.

Thank you so much for all your prayers and support.

Who's that in my room?

Gianna was drawing yesterday at the table while I was doing some schoolwork with the older two. She has quite a style of "people" and I noticed she was drawing a person.

"Who's that Gigi?"

"That's my goddaddy! He's sneaking into your bedroom and telling you it's wake-up time!"

This morning while we were all snuggling in bed (and I mean *all* of us) I was telling Brett the story and then Gigi added another part, "And my goddaddy loves to play hide-and-seek!".

I love how she has such an affection for her godparents. I'm not sure if she really "knows" who they are (other than through pictures), but she knows that they love and pray for her and she returns the affections.

Ultrasound update

When I told the ultrasound tech that I was there for them to check out a spot near the placenta I was secretly hoping she would say, "Hmm...I can't see a spot..I don't know what in the world they were talking about"...instead she said, "Oh, yep, there it is." Grrrr...

We got measurements of the "little" spot (which looked enormous to me, but she magnified it quite a bit to get good measurements), and another peak at our baby. Baby is doing fantastic..measuring right on track, and comfy cozy right where she should be. Praise God for that. And she's still a she which was good to confirm. I'll find out more tomorrow about our "little" spot at my doctor's office. Keep praying please.

Check out my ticker/widget thing!

According to my ticker/widget thing we have 100 more days to go until this baby get's here! My guess it will be slightly less than that, and my hope is that it won't be too much less than that!

Small update

Just wanted to let all you blog readers out there know that I have an ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow at 1:00pm (please snow, hold off until we get back), and then a doctor's appointment on Thursday at 4:00pm. So, by Thursday night we should know what's going on with our precious little bambina!

We are so grateful for all your prayers and I have great hope that we'll get the "all's clear" tomorrow and go about with our "regular" life. I'm feeling great, baby is moving around like you wouldn't believe, she seems to take after her brother and *loves* dancing around to her daddy's vibraphone playing.

We have a busy Thursday night (hopefully) but I will try to update as soon as I get a chance. I'm going to try to get the ultrasound technician to talk tomorrow, but they are usually very cryptic in anything they say. Surely they can answer one question, "Is the placenta still fully attached or not...really, that's all I want to know." Lol!

Winter

Winter crept in at the end of this week. Temperatures have dropped and a little bit of snow did to. Here's a sight that I imagine I'll be seeing for the next several months, until July!

Prayers for this baby please!

I wanted to ask ya'll to please pray for me and our baby girl. I just got off the phone with my doctor and apparently there's some concern with my placenta and a spot that shouldn't be there. He said it could be a number of things ranging from where the placenta started to come off and then healed itself to, well...he didn't know....great.

Anyway, it was about a year ago we found out we were pregnant with the baby we lost on Christmas of last year and I really, really, really want to meet this little one so please pray for us. I'm trying to stay calm until I have another ultrasound (which will be in the next week and a half) and learn more. Until then I'll be praying like crazy and not scrubbing any more walls.

Mountain Man

We lived in Texas for 7 years. We miss Texas, we miss our friends, we miss the community we had there, but...we are so happy to be where the woods are in our backyard (not literally since we live in town, but close..very close).

As I was reflecting with a friend yesterday on the phone, Brett must have been in agony while living in the Lone Star State. There was limited opportunity to be out in nature. When we were in nature we were either way too hot or constantly looking out for poisonous snakes which we just knew were lurking around the next corner...lol!

Here, however, are endless opportunities...endless...really, I mean endless. Fortunately for Brett and usually for us, my dear husband has spent most waking moments either seizing these opportunities or dreaming up his next excursion.

The most recent adventure was making his own deer hide drum...out of the hide of the deer he shot. He soaked the hide for a little over a week and then scraped the hair and whatever off of it. This job stunk soooo bad that we couldn't even be outside in the yard while he was scraping. The next step was stretching and nailing the hide up in our garage to dry.

Last weekend Brett and Aidan went out to the forest to find a piece of wood...and find they did. Brett planed the bark off the wood and on Tuesday night stood over our stove with a big pot of steaming water steaming this piece of wood and slowly, slowly, slowly (read 4+ hours) bending it into a circle to be the frame of the drum. Then came stretching the hide over the frame, making a mallet, etc... You get the idea. Here are some pictures of the end result. Warning: these pictures were taken at 6:30am this morning.

25 weeks (tomorrow)

I'm beginning to feel like the "Great Pumpkin" and hoping my family doesn't mistake me for the turkey at Thanksgiving! :-)

Truly?

Is this truly the man that Americans want running our government? A man who stands for nothing, yet claims to be the "change" that everyone needs? A man who tells me that because of "choice" I can kill this precious baby I've been praying for before she was conceived? A man who wants me to fund abortions through "healthcare" for all? A man who has more money than most Americans can imagine, yet is speaking for "the poor"? A man who thinks marriage is not sacred enough to defend, that lives are not sacred enough to defend? A man who is going to "bring those troops home" by-golly regardless of if our job has been finished and make the lives lost null and void? A man who is charming and eloquent, but says nothing?
This is what America wanted, this is what she gets. Land of the free (if you were lucky enough to be born), home of the brave!
All I can say is that I will, with a clear conscience, be able to say that I did nothing(!) to support this man, and will be praying for this country because God is the only One who can get us out of this mess now!

On a "lighter" note...lol! I was going to say that I'm moving to Canada, but they are already under a socialist government, so I might as well stay here.