Welcome

Welcome Chloe Jean!

We are so glad you are finally here!

More pictures will come soon! 4 sleeping babies at my house right now! Ahhhhh. Just wait until you see the good pictures! She has a full head of dark hair, a beautiful complexion, and she is just SO sweet! I love love love her! Plus, she's a good sleeper :) The picture above is shortly after she was born, just a little over an hour after we got to the hospital. Maybe I'll write an all-about-the-birth post soon. Right now I'm just gonna enjoy the peace around here.

Still Waiting on Baby

I have about 2 or 3 half finished posts that will probably never see the light of day. We are still getting used to "plex" living, especially with neighbors who have children who want to play ALL day, every day. (No knock on the door yet today, so cross your fingers for me!) But, when school starts we won't be as bombarded, and that's only a few weeks away. Plus, any day now we will have a new baby and will probably be spending a lot of time away at the camper. We spent the night up there on Saturday night, but this time we had light! We got a couple of tiki torches and an oil lantern that we filled with citronella oil to keep the bugs away, plus we have a little oil lamp for inside. It made such a big difference. It also stormed while we were there. The lightning was amazing all across the big hill on our property. We just sat on the couch and watched it for about an hour, while I had contractions that eventually went away. (boo!)

Do you all ever basically run out of groceries and then spend the next four days wondering why you have been eating out for every meal, or cursing the empty cabinets and having peanut butter crackers? We do this about once a month. Finally, I got groceries last night. The only things I didn't get were oikos yogurt (they didn't have it at the H-burg Kroger, and by the way, the greek yogurt is soso yummy and thick but too expensive), and pears (hoping to go into labor and didn't want rotten pears waiting at home for me). Plus my dad gave me a huge bag of fresh corn and 2 bags of cut up apples.

This weekend we got popsicle molds! If you have any good recipes let me know! I think I'm going to start with a blackberry yogurt pop....

Starting to Settle In

I'm back! We have moved into an apartment just about 10 minutes away from our land. On said land we have a 28ft fifth wheel parked and a shed (from our old house) full of all our appliances and mower and other things we didn't want to bring to the apt. We are very busy still getting things in order, but thank goodness we finally got the internet here this week. The kids are adjusting (some are taking the move easier than others) and there will be more to adjust to once the baby arrives. I think the hardest part for the kids is all the going we have been doing. They have been staying with relatives lots while we move and we are having a hard time establishing a good routine that doesn't get interrupted. The one thing that has seemed to help is reading books to them. We used to read occasionally, but now we read books when we wake up, books before nap, books before bed, and last night all 3 of them snuggled with a book in their bed. It was so cute to see them all asleep with their arms wrapped around a book. That is one thing I can do without having to chase them around and we can stay entertained for hours reading. It's easy on pregnant mama.

There are still lots of chores to do around here, but moving into the smaller apartment made for getting rid of lots of stuff and so dealing with less stuff is always helpful. Also, paper plates are awesome. We basically gave up paper products (except toilet paper) when gas went up to $4 and then just continued to save that money, but we bought a giant stack before the move and my mom gave another huge stack a few days ago, and that has really made my life a little easier. Obviously we won't use paper plates forever, but for now, they are my friend. Another thing that has helped make my life easier is the layout of this apt. Upstairs are bedrooms (and the only bathroom!) and down are living/kitchen/laundry. The laundry "room" is a closet in the kitchen which I love so far. I am always in the kitchen or living area, so it is so easy to keep the laundry up with it being so close at hand. Taking the clean laundry upstairs to put away, well, that doesn't get done quite as much.

Other various tidbits:

This baby needs to come out. Very Soon.

Garbage pick up day is Friday here...so weird.

We are completely using the microwave again. I gave it up for about a month, but it has made its way back into my day. I'll try again. Maybe it's like smoking...I'll beat it on the 3rd or 4th try.

Our CSA finally sent some veggies I recognize this week!

I made bread this week! Hurray!

Nathan made brownies this week!!!!!

We have enough chinese leftovers in the fridge that I won't have to cook until next week. My parents brought a whole bunch of food over last night when they came to visit. :)

I miss whole foods, but Kroger and Wal-Mart are closer to us now than ever before.

When we moved I got a new shower curtain and hooks that just slide on and off!! I had some hooks kind of like them a year or two ago but they rusted. I don't think these are going to, at least not at the rate the others did.

Nathan and I "celebrated" our 6th wedding anniversary on July 5th. I love him and I love being married to him more every day. The sixth year was very great and I hope the seventh is even better. He really is the coolest. I love how his brain works (although sometimes I wish it would take a break:) and his sense of humor. And our ability to produce the coolest kids ever. And his sweet patience with me toward the end of this pregnancy. I have been so uncomfortable, and huge, and whiny and he has been so helpful and kind and serving. Really serving. Like gets me stuff all the time and helps me up whenever I ask and bends over for me, and cooks a lot, and I love him.

Also, Toby loves fireworks, Lydia prefers to stay inside. Isaiah loves them a lot too. I think they would all love the little stuff too, but we didn't have sparklers and smoke bombs this year, just a few bottle rockets and snakes. Maybe we'll find some on clearance at Wal-Mart when we take our next giant trip. You know, the kind where we have put off and put off and dollar stored it for as long as possible only now to have to go and spend $$$$$ to re-stock our entire house. Yeah, next paycheck that trip is coming.

Such a long and random post, but there is a lot to catch up on. I'll come back soon!