I thought the window was done!

Just when I thought we might ACTULLTY be getting close to getting Christian's new room ready for him, we figured out that our window installer put the wrong trim on half of our new window!!!

Matt noticed it the other night when our painter finished up. He was looking more closely at the trim and said, "This piece is not like this piece...or this piece. Wait! Two of them are different from the other two! This is not right and needs to be fixed!"

We called our window company back up and they came back out today. The guy saw it right away and said the only thing we could do is to take all the woodwork off and redo it.  This guy also noticed that a third piece was too short and that it was just not installed very well! He was rather frustrated with the situation!

So now I have no woodwork on a brand new window. :(  AND it will take another 1-2 weeks before new woodwork will be varnished and ready to be put back up. Ugh!!

One step forward, two steps back....is that the saying??

Science Videos

We are still studying reptiles. :)

This first video is gross, but amazing!
Horned Lizard
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video;_ylt=AwrBT84H_wlWwW0AhbxXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTB0N2Noc21lBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNwaXZz?p=horned+lizard&fr=sfp&fr2=piv-web#action=view&id=3&vid=48b5517263511786961084213dccba78

A Bellowing Crocodile
https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0LEVxQ3AApWroUA4PRXNyoA;_ylc=X1MDMjc2NjY3OQRfcgMyBGZyA3NsdjEteWllOQRncHJpZANmUW9LMGRVcFJicWE3QWZSRHh6ZklBBG5fcnNsdAMwBG5fc3VnZwM0BG9yaWdpbgNzZWFyY2gueWFob28uY29tBHBvcwMwBHBxc3RyAwRwcXN0cmwDBHFzdHJsAzE5BHF1ZXJ5A2JlbGxvd2luZyBjcm9jb2RpbGUEdF9zdG1wAzE0NDM0OTY2MjE-?p=bellowing+crocodile&fr2=sb-top-search&fr=slv1-yie9

Video on the King Cobra Snake

https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video;_ylt=A2KLqIMfAQpWdWoAN6L7w8QF;_ylu=X3oDMTBsYjRkc3ZvBHNlYwNzZWFyY2gEdnRpZANCMDU4NA--;_ylc=X1MDOTY3ODEzMDcEX3IDMgRiY2sDYmxuMXA3aDd1MWRnNyUyNmIlM0Q0JTI2ZCUzRGZXUTV2bnRwWUVMTTJWcTBicmNXUDdGeHhIZ3pZdHVsdHk5MmZRLS0lMjZzJTNEcG8lMjZpJTNEUUxIdVl1ZmJrd3pDNDNGMTNUbXUEZnIDc2ZwBGdwcmlkA19pclM3OW9qVGxTQnkyTjBFSmliMEEEbXRlc3RpZANVSTAxJTNEQjA1ODQEbl9yc2x0AzU5BG5fc3VnZwMxMARvcmlnaW4DdmlkZW8uc2VhcmNoLnlhaG9vLmNvbQRwb3MDMARwcXN0cgMEcHFzdHJsAwRxc3RybAMxMgRxdWVyeQNjb2JyYSBzbmFrZSAEdF9zdG1wAzE0NDM0OTY3OTMEdnRlc3RpZANCMDU4NA--?gprid=_irS79ojTlSBy2N0EJib0A&pvid=Ihbevjk4LjG63Dk8T.C2Bw3lNzEuMwAAAAAnnja7&p=cobra+snake+&ei=UTF-8&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av%2Cm%3Asa&fr=sfp#action=view&id=6&vid=da668da07ef4641383d1faa142737340

Home Improvements!!

Things have been moving along here lately in terms of home improvement!

A couple of weeks ago, we had six new windows put in and quite a bit of new siding put on.

Now we are onto painting. :)

As of today, we have all the outside trim painted and the painters are working on the main color of the house tonight and the rest of the week. We are changing it a little bit. We are doing a brownish/ gray with off-white trim.  This will look a lot different than our light gray house we had before!

Since it was too wet to paint last Saturday, our painter spent the entire day painting Christian's "new" room, otherwise known as the playroom. It is now a gray color! Wow, what a difference a coat of paint makes!!

My next goal is to get that carpet cleaned in that room and move Christian in there.  We are going to rent a rug doctor next weekend and try to clean as much carpet around here as we can. I would love to clean the carpet in Christian's current room too and maybe even some of the downstairs.

Everything that was in the playroom is now sitting either in the hallway or in the girls' room. I told them we should just get rid of even more stuff, so I don't have to put it back in there!

Maybe I will get the baby's room ready by week 36!

Current Blood Counts

I got my results back today from my latest blood count.

My platelets are down a little to 108,000. As long as they are above 100,000, I am fine.

My hemoglobin is actually up to 11.5, I think that is the highest it has been this whole pregnancy.

My midwife will continue to check these until I deliver; she said she just wants to make sure my platelets stay stable and not go down.

Science Videos for Tomorrow :)

Videos on the spitting cobra:
https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AnzWMJQXkblw_ySptNHHDiCbvZx4?p=spitting+cobra&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=fp-yie9&fp=1

https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AnzWMJQXkblw_ySptNHHDiCbvZx4?p=spitting+cobra&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=fp-yie9&fp=1

Gila Monster:
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video;_ylt=A0LEV0pgugRW4HwAC8tXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTB0N2Noc21lBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNwaXZz?p=gila+monsters&fr=sfp&fr2=piv-web#action=view&id=5&vid=66f21bab119b4b19645773617da6b10e

Poison Dart frogs:
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video;_ylt=A0LEVw52vARWYl8AZhJXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTB0N2Noc21lBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNwaXZz?p=poison+dart+frogs&fr=sfp&fr2=piv-web#id=2&vid=87f3ed4f47ac6cc4416b1c763e68001e&action=view

34 week Checkup

We are getting closer every day to meeting this new little guy!

Today I saw my midwife for my 34 week appointment. Things are still going well! Baby is still head down and his body is on my right side.  I can tell that his little feet are on the left because that is where he is kicking me all the time!! She found his heartbeat right away, I think she said it was about 140. I measured 33, which means I am right on schedule.

I gained another three pounds, so now I have gained 25. I am not really worried about my weight! I will drop it all pretty easily! I didn't ask what my blood pressure was, but it was probably low as usual.

My midwife wanted to check my platelets again, so she took some more blood. She is just watching to make sure they stay stable.

We talked about all my lovely false contractions I have been having lately, like all evening on Friday.  I told her I just sat down and drank water and eventually they went away. She says she is so glad I can triage myself! I probably would have called though if they got worse.  I told her they were really bad with Christian, so I am not too worried about pre-term labor.  It's my fourth! She says its usually the first time moms that get uptight about false contractions and get really worried. I am not worried at all!! I will probably know when it's the real thing (hopefully!)

She then went through the stages of delivery with me. It kind of made me cringe because I know how bad it will hurt. :(  She said the most important thing during delivery is to listen to her and try not to do my own thing.  I told her I will listen to her because she knows what she is doing.  Even though I have done this three times already, she has delivered a lot more babies than I have! We are going to deliver squatting/ hands and knees this time, so we talked a little bit about that too.  She also reminded me to get my birth plan done! I think she has reminded me three times now!

We also talked about some of my problems I have had in the past, and how we are going to deal with them this time.. She said, "I am so glad you are not arguing with me about all of this!" I told her that I trust her and that she knows what is best! She delivered Courtney, which was a very scary delivery, so I totally trust her!

I see her again in two weeks and then I start going every week! Yikes! Maybe I should start getting things ready around here! Oh wait, I am waiting on the painter to paint Christian's room! Then we can move Christian to his new room and get the baby's room ready. :)

Painters are here!

Things are moving along in regards to our house.  Our painter came last night and power washed the entire house. Tonight, he is here and is caulking.  He said he will be here every night this week to work on it and should finish it up next weekend!!

I asked him today if he plans on painting the bedrooms when he is finished with the outside of the house and he said, "yes." I could jump up and down! He also said if there is a rainy day where he could not work on the outside, then he would be willing to come inside and paint the bedrooms. 

Step by step, we are getting closer to getting ready for this baby to make his arrival!

Window Shades are ordered!!!

Matt and I finally bit the bullet and ordered window shades last night from blindster.com.  I had a 20% coupon that expired at midnight, so after a very eventful day, we were up yet at 10:30 ordering shades!

Even though we had measured the new windows many, many times already, Matt went around and re-measured them again. We decided to go with an outside mount, so we added four inches to the top of every shade.  This should give us plenty of room to install them above the woodwork.  We also added an inch to each side, so they cover the windows all the way.  Hopefully everything is right!

We decided to get two inch oak shades for every window, so the entire upstairs looks uniform. We bought one inch shades for our master bathroom because the windows meet in the corner. We didn't think there would be enough room for the mounting brackets with the two inch shades. Our options were a little different than the two inch shades, so those will be slightly different, but they will still be made of oak.

With our great big windows in our bedroom, Christian's room, and the playroom, we decided to split the great big shade in half and order a valance that would go across the top to make it look like one. Hopefully this was worth the extra cost! The trick here was to get the measurements exactly in half.  After I placed my order, I realized that they were NOT exactly in half in my confirmation email, even though I had went back and fixed it. I guess I will need to call them today! Ugh!

We forgot all about the girls' bathroom window until we were about done, we can order that separately later!! I guess we will see how our others look first! (We were too tired by this point!)

And of course, it was a pretty big purchase and after I hit my "place order" button at 10:45 pm, I couldn't get to sleep! I really hope we didn't make any mistakes in our drowsiness last night and they look wonderful! (Otherwise it is $15 each shade to send them back!)

They have begun...

One thing that I remember very clearly from Christian's pregnancy was all the false contractions I had ALL THE TIME!! So far, I have had a few, but not any that I have had to stop, sit down, drink water, and time.

These started last night. :(  I started to feel them start about 4-5 in the afternoon and they were just here and there and no big deal.  I just drank more water and was aware of them.  I had to take Megan to a church event at 6 pm and when I got home, they were getting more intense! What??  Matt had rented a movie, so he grilled some supper and we sat down in front of the TV to watch the movie. Pretty soon, they were getting even more intense and I thought I should start timing them.  Sure enough, they were every 5 minutes!  I got some more water and continued to sit on the couch.  These kept going on for 20-30 minutes at this rate!

Soon it was time to go get Megan and I asked Matt if he wanted me to go or if he wanted to go.  The movie was still on, so usually I would go, but I said, "I have been sitting here having contractions, I don't think I should." I really didn't think I should move off the couch!  He went and got her and while he was gone, they seemed to slow down.  By the time I went to bed, I was still having them, but not near as often.  Thank goodness!

If this did not happen with Christian, I probably would have called my midwife and told her what was going on. She did say at my last appointment that I should call if I had more than six contractions an hour, which I did last night, but honestly, I knew what to do and I KNEW I was not going into pre-term labor, so I didn't call. I will call when it is more serious, such as if they would have gotten worse and not slowed down after awhile.

I then proceeded to have contractions all night too, but I could only tell when I got up to go to the bathroom! But honestly, I think I have contractions every night because I can't drink water all night and probably get more dehydrated overnight than during the day.

Hopefully they will not be so bad today and I can go about my normal life!

33 Weeks Pregnant tomorrow. Not long to go yet!!

Baby, be nice to your mama!

Can somebody please tell this little boy that I have inside of me that he cannot come out yet? I don't mean I am in labor, but I mean that this little boy thinks it is funny to push as hard as he can on my stomach and on my hips to make more room for himself! These pushes kind of hurt!

The other night, he was pushing outward on both of my hips at the same time! Dude, my hips don't move!! You can try all you want, but they are not going anywhere! I often feel him pushing on two places at one time, I think he is stretching his legs out.

Just this last week, this little guy has gotten a lot tougher than usual inside of there and his kicks and pushes have been a lot stronger. I find myself saying, "Ow" or "Get back to where you were!" outloud and the kids just look at me like I am crazy! I respond with, "Don't worry, it's just the baby again."

I don't know if this craziness is a sign of good or bad things to come!! He might be our wild one yet!

Windows are DONE!!

Since we have had so much trouble with our window installer lately, his boss came out this morning to finish everything up.  We still needed an outside window caulked, wood putty put in all the nail holes in the windows, and the right colored cranks put on the windows that open. He spent almost 3 hours here finishing everything up for us! I now declare the windows DONE!!

The kids love it because there are interruptions from time to time and occasionally, they get out of school work. This morning, I was already running behind and had only twenty minutes with Courtney before lunch.  Well, the "boss" needed to talk to me about something, so our twenty minutes got cut back to ten!  Every time this happens, I need to rethink the rest of the day and tomorrow.  It's frustrating sometimes, but it can't be helped either.

Next step in this process is to get the house painted. We had new siding put on two sides of the house along with new trim around the windows, and as of now, there is no paint on anything. If we don't get it painted soon, we are going to have water damage all over again.

Matt got a recommendation for a painter and he came out and gave us an estimate to paint the entire house. I think we are going to go with him. He also paints inside rooms, so he gave us an estimate for the bedrooms upstairs too.  It was super cheap, so I think he will be doing those too!

After the paint goes on, then we can put up new shades. I am pretty sure we are going to order those from blindster.com and install them ourselves. I think we are going to put curtains up in the kids' rooms.

After the is new paint and window treatments up, the next step is to rent a rug doctor and clean the carpets. The playroom carpet is filthy, but honestly, I don't think a lot of it is going to come up. It is anything from finger nail polish to glue to whatever! I just want to try to clean it as well as we can.

Finally, we can move Christian into the playroom and get the baby's room ready! It seems like we have so much to do yet and we have less than eight weeks until my due date!!!

Window Treatments!

Now that we have new windows in our house, it's time to get some new window treatments. We have had sheets up over them for the last two weeks, but those can't stay up for an extended period of time!

Last week, I saw that blinds were on sale at Menard's, so we went out there to look and get some ideas. I really wanted inside mounted wooden blinds, but after talking to the sales person at Menard's and looking at our windows, it didn't seem like those would work.  Matt and I don't want our blinds sticking out plus we probably shouldn't mount them onto our windows. We should try to keep as much on our woodwork as possible. We do not want to void the warranty with our new windows!

Today, we had a sales person from Budget Blinds come out and she discussed with us our options and colors. After we decided on a certain type and color of blinds, she gave us an estimate.  The estimate for five blinds for our new windows was $618.93. Matt and I didn't think this was outrageous because they are big windows, but we told her we would think about it and get back to her.

After she left, I remembered that the website www.blindster.com was recommended to me by a neighbor awhile ago.  You measure and put them up yourself, but they are relatively inexpensive.  I went and remeasured the windows tonight and put in our information.  My total was $220.15! That is over a $400 difference for the same blinds! Our neighbor ordered from this company, so we are going to go over there and check out her blinds tomorrow. I think this is the best option!

If the blinds from this company are good and inexpensive, I may just order blinds for the kids' bedrooms. I was thinking about putting curtains up, but the sales lady said today that it would look a lot better from the outside if all the window coverings were the same upstairs. I just don't want the kids breaking these shades, like they did the last set, but they do come with a better warranty than they did with Budget Blinds.

I guess we have some decisions to make!

Science Lesson

I am back to saving my links for my science lessons. :)

We are finishing up a study on amphibians tomorrow and will start on reptiles.

http://animals.about.com/od/reptiles/p/reptiles.htm

Very interesting creatures!

32 Week Checkup

I had my 32 week checkup with my midwife yesterday and all is well! She asked if I had any more trouble (like I had two weeks earlier) and I said no. I told her I am having plenty of Braxton hicks contractions though! She keeps telling me that if I have more than six an hour, I need to call her.  I know that if I do, they will just tell me to sit down awhile and drink some water. I have just done this myself lately!  I think they are more worried about pre-term labor, but I don't expect to go into pre-term labor any time!

She was then figuring out what position this little guy was, and she found out that he is now head down!! This is where he should be. I only hope he stays this way for the next eight weeks! She then measured me and I was still 32 cm. I told her I was 32 last time and she said that when they flip head down like this, moms usually lose some length. I do remember that now! She found his heartbeat right away and it was 140 beats per minute. Perfect! My blood pressure was 106/50, which is my usual. I gained an additional three pounds, up to 24 now!  I was talking to the girls and said that with Megan, I gained 23 pounds, 26 with Courtney, and then 36 with Christian. I should be around there with this kid too.

She reminded me for the third time that I need to bring my birth plan in. I just want to tell her that I have had three great births and honestly, I don't even think the nurses at the hospital read my birth plan! As a midwife, she will do everything that I want, so I am not really worried about it. We talked about different positions for delivery instead of the usual on your back position. We talked about a different option and I think we are going to change it up this time! I am kind of excited!

I go back again in two weeks for my 34 week appointment and then after my 36 week check, I start going every week! We are getting closer!

Some of my favorite words lately!

My poor round ligament is not loving this big child I am carrying. It keeps reminding me over and over that it is doing a lot of work and is not happy about it. It's only going to complain to me more as we go through the next two months. :(

Today we had PE coop and then we made a quick trip to Sam's. I was on my feet for most of the afternoon and by the time we got home tonight, I could barely walk, my round ligament hurt so bad.
It was even kind of making my legs go numb.

Matt pulled into the garage right when I was slowly making my way to the back of the van to get the first load of groceries and I said, "I can barely walk." His reply, "Go sit down then! The kids and I can bring the groceries in!" Ahhh, lovely words to my ears!

After I sat down a little bit, I felt better. I got back up and started sorting through things and figuring out what went where. (The rest of the family brought the groceries in, but just put them on the counter, which was fine.)  I had a pile that went downstairs and some that went upstairs in the freezer. I asked Megan if she could take some things downstairs and she said, "Sure mom, I would love to help!" This is from my 12 year old!! Did she just say she would LOVE to help? She took everything downstairs like I asked and even brought something up for dinner tonight.

I hope the willingness to help out keeps up! I am going to need it!! Now, who wants to make dinner tonight??

Getting Ready for Baby!

Do you know what I do before we have a new baby in this house? Go through everything!!

I have spent four afternoons in the last month going through items in this house.  First, I went through the kids' playroom and then the girls' bedroom. I realized how much stuff we have that they don't even use anymore!! I don't know why I am holding onto it.  (Yes, I did keep some of their stuff!)

I have been trying to sell things online and on ebay. I want to get rid of this stuff, but I would like some money for it. :) I told the girls that if I sell anything of theirs, they would get the money! They like that idea!

I figure that since this new baby is another boy, we don't need to hang onto Disney princess items or strollers or any preschool girl items anymore. (If God decides to bless us with another girl someday in the future, then I can always rebuy these items! As for now, I need the room in my house.)

I have taken at least 6-7 sacks of items to the Open Door Mission. WOW!

My goal today is to continue to list things and try to get them out of my house!!

Fire Truck sleeper

I am really anxious to get this window project done, so we can get the rest of the things moved around before the baby comes.  I want everything in order by the middle of October. I have technically 9 weeks now until my due date and 11 until he will be officially kicked out because he will be two weeks overdue.

I have received a few very cute baby outfits already and I really don't have a place to put them yet.

Last night, my mom gave me a super cute firetruck sleeper. I didn't quite get the significance of the fire trucks until I showed it to Christian. His eyes lit up and said, "Now my baby brother has fire truck pajamas like I do!!" Christian has a pair of red fire truck pajamas that he just LOVES! (Only they are getting to be too small on him!)

I am so glad Christian is excited about having matching pajamas with his baby brother. I may just need to get him a new pair for next spring (this sleeper is 6 months), so they can BOTH have a matching pair and have them fit at the same time!

Thoughts on This Week.

I have tried to post about four times about the new windows that came this week. I was even trying to add pictures, but that didn't work either!

1. Having six windows taken out of your house is really weird! At one point, the installers had taken out the old windows and I had six big holes in my house! It really made me nervous when Christian went over to look out a window that wasn't really there.

2.  Our new windows have much more woodwork on them than our old ones. I haven't quite figured it out yet, but there is definitely more woodwork and less glass.

3.  We were afraid that the big window in the master bedroom was going to have a lot of rot underneath it, but it wasn't bad at all. The window in the playroom was the worst. The framing was rotten all the way down to the subfloor! We had the joy of paying a general contractor to fix it for us.

4.  While the general contractor was here, we had him replace the siding on the side of the house up by the new bedroom windows. Matt decided to put up cement siding, and they were about 100 pounds per piece of siding. They put 13 of these pieces up yesterday in the heat! I am glad I did not have that job!

5.  The siding behind the living room windows was also bad, so the contractors also replaced that siding.

6.  I am glad Matt was planning on spending more money to fix the house ON TOP of the money we had to spend on the windows. It was quite an expensive week!