land, whining, deodorant, and mother's day perks

Well, here I am blogging when I can't even see the surface of the desk in front of me. Do you ever think of holding the garbage can at one end of a surface and sliding every last thing on top of said surface into the can? I have had this image, nay, vision, come to me twice in the past two days, and I am seriously contemplating it....

Currently, we are working out loan stuff for buying our property!!! I won't go into the boring, tedious details, mostly because I have basically handed the reigns over to Nathan. Anything except the occasional phone call (what is it with guys and making phone calls?), I am leaving up to him. I'm not sure if he knows this yet, but he will soon :) We have made an offer, it was accepted, we have signed the offer letter on our current house from the state, so they should be getting started processing our payment. In the next 3-6 weeks we will receive payment for our house and from that day we will have 30 days to get out of our house. Did I mention that the (amazingly beautiful and perfect) land that we are purchasing does not have a house on it? Did I also mention that we might be living in this? We haven't purchased it yet, but it seems like a real temporary housing option for us. There are so many things we still have to consider (like running electricity and water to the property and building a bridge, etc...), but thankfully we don't have to worry about it on our own since we are going to be sharing our land with several other couples. We will be tackling most of the land decisions together and we will be sharing expenses which will help us all out!

I am also pregnant. Very pregnant. I am hoping to somehow dream my current midwife away and never have to go see her again, but every time I think of actually just not going back and calling another midwife for homebirth, I have to ask the question, can I have a homebirth without a home? (or in a camper? or outside?) So, instead, between visits, I badmouth her to Nathan, dreaddreaddread, and then go back with a smile on my face, because, really, this is the best option for the situation we are in. This midwife is much more medically inclined (as opposed to naturally inclined) and basically she just gets on my nerves, but she is a midwife, which means my choices get heard a little more and some of the things I really want/don't want for this birth will go my way barring some great emergency. We are still hoping to go home as quickly as possible after the birth and my other children will likely be split up among the relatives for a few days, so even in a camper we should have a lovely time with our newest.

In armpit news, I was hoping to have discovered the best possible way to apply baking soda to the pits, as currently there is much baking soda falling into the garbage can or toilet depending over which I am standing when applying my deodorant of choice. I got the arm and hammer fridge pack, which you peel the sides of the box off to reveal a thin material through which the stinky fridge odors can be sucked into the baking soda. and I was hoping to just peel one side off and kind of pat that in my armpit with the same results as rubbing it in with my hands, but I am afraid that will not work because no soda can actually get through the side of that thing. I wonder if perhaps I poked a few tiny holes in the side if it would work then, but basically it would be just as messy as before.... I'll have to see if just rubbing it without the actual soda coming out will deodorize as well as the other method before I start poking holes anywhere.

I bought some material to make a ring sling a week or two ago, but I have since decided that I want a moby style wrap. Since I have the material already, I will probably go ahead and make the ring sling, but I am super excited about the moby wrap too. I think I will probably make my own, to custom fit, rather than buying one, but it would probably be cheaper just to buy one. Still debating. It will really just depend on whether or not I can find the kind of fabric I need at a reasonable (by reasonable I mean insanely cheap) price or not. I think I may be taking a mother's day trip to JoAnn's fabrics and Starbucks. We shall see.... The first of the mother's day purchases came last night at Wal-Mart where I got 24 brand new permanent markers. (There are 36 in the photo so some of those colors aren't included in my fabulous set.) They are going to be my new medium for a while. I did a lot with paint for a really long time, and had my bouts with decoupage and scrapbooking, pencil and pen, but now we enter the marker phase. Really, I could not have been more excited to get another craft supply. If you only knew the places the craft supplies are tucked in this house you would be amazed. Who knows where it will all go in the camper! I am going to have to learn about how to work with markers to get the results I want. I played with all my new colors last night while we watched X-Men last night. I actually kind of like those movies so I don't really mind that Nathan bought the 3 dvd set last night and will be having 3 consecutive nights of x-men viewing.

Enough random blathering! I need to watch the Biggest Loser! I forgot it is Wednesday! You know, right after I clean off the desk. And eat something besides week old chocolate chip cookies for lunch.

Fabulous Fabric

Okay, I have much to say about many things, but all I can think about right now is how much I love anna maria horner's fabric and want my whole house/wardrobe/children to be covered in it.

This is a welcome distraction from all the other things in my head right now.....if only I could sew anything more than a pillow. If I could have known that I was going to be a housewife and mother to many, I would have taken more than that one home-ec class in the 8th grade. (The one where I learned how to make a pillow.)

Does anyone love this fabric as much as me?

The Driveway is Golden

We made some killer cookies this week. Isaiah loves the big soft sugar cookies with icing that can be bought at wal-mart and other big stores. We have never bought them, but Isaiah has them in Sunday school just about every other week. So I decided last week that we would make some of our own. All I can say is if you love those kind of cookies, never make them because just knowing the ingredients makes me feel guilty with every bite. There is no redeeming ingredient in these, but they are sooooo good.

Isaiah and Lydia really enjoyed licking the icing beaters and helping me add all the ingredients together. They are going to be great at cooking someday!

And Finally! Here are my Easter cuties all dressed up and upside down! Toby was sleeping but I wanted their picture before they got all dirty.

And here is another one with all my babies plus my niece. Plus the side of my face.

It has been a tiring long week already, but we are on the downward slope now, and tomorrow we get to go see Joel Salatin at Berea College! I am really excited! This will be my first time hearing him and I think it will be a lot of fun.

Some things just make my day better... Last night when I was tucking Isaiah in, we were saying our prayers and got into a discussion about where God is and how do we praise God and why we praise God. Somehow we got on the topic of heaven and I was telling Isaiah about how God made streets out of gold and about the jeweled gates, so then he decided to sing a praise song of his own making which went, "Golden, golden, golden, the driveway is golden..." :)

Our friend Daniel is in town and Nathan went with him and Josh and Terry yesterday to look at land. I think they had a pretty good time and Nathan didn't get home until midnight and then we stayed up until after 1:00 talking, so I am just zonked today. You can probably tell from my incoherent writing and jumping from one thing to another. I think I will go rest while my children jump and scream.

My Very Own George of the Jungle

Okay, in this video I appear to be a delinquent parent, as my young son is standing in a chair and falls over a bit, but I was right there and if I thought he was going to fall out I would have caught him. My bad parenting aside, I have been trying to get this on video for over a month. Toby has been doing this george of the jungle thing for a long time and I never could capture it until the other night. I couldn't be happier that I finally got this on camera. Also, I just love the little laugh and wave at the end. I wish I hadn't said anything out loud on this video, but I just couldn't contain my joy!

Everyone Knows

Finally, everyone knows that I am pregnant. I HAD to tell my great aunt today, because everyone else knows and it was starting to spread. So, I got up the courage and went over to her house and we had a great conversation and talked about everything under the sun, and then just as I was about to leave, I told her. Things went about as I expected with lots of stuff I didn't want to hear, but I took it well, if I say so myself. I basically just let the stuff she said go in one ear and out the other. She is concerned that my body needs a break and on and on (I'M concerned that my body needs a break--I really don't need anyone else's thoughts on that.) But at the end we hugged and we love each other and I can live with the conversation that we had. And she sent me home with a jar of homemade grape jelly which will be eaten with biscuits ASAP.

By the way, if you don't already know, it's a......GIRL!

Also, my mom bought me some great new shirts that FIT! And I finally figured out how to fix my hair. My hair used to be perfectly straight and all I had to do was wash it and let it air dry and it was stick straight and I loved it. After I got pregnant the first time it changed to become slightly wavy and frizzy and continued with each pregnancy to increase in waviness and frizziness. I tried all kinds of shampoos and conditioners, frizz-eases, gels, mouses, b bbbbnjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb hmmmmmmm mmmmmmmm bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb vvvhvh and a brief interlude typed by Toby. :) SO I tried it all and finally am using whole foods shampoo and conditioner and coconut oil. I put the coconut oil on after I wash it and leave it in and it works like a de-frizzer/deep conditioner and after that I bobby pin the front back so I'm not constantly tucking it behind my ears and let it air dry. That's it. Finally it's fixable in just a couple minutes and it actually looks good. I wore it this way twice and got so many comments on it at church today. I was kind of surprised, but then Nathan reminded me that I have been wearing it up for something like four years. Oh and I brush it before I get in the shower, but definitely not after.

Okay, while I was away from the computer (when Toby left his message) I got a phone call from aforementioned great aunt, who was calling to ask me not to be upset with her for the way she reacted today and to FORGIVE her for the way she responded. Okay, I cannot convey the shock and surprise of such a phone call and while I had actually already forgiven her, it is just so nice that she called to ask. The sermon at her church tonight must have been really good. ;)