A Saturday "Sew" needed!

The New Year's weekend was much more relaxing than Christmas. It was so long overdue!

We went to Jerry & Shelly's on New Years Eve. We had a big dinner out at Bob Evans (are we getting old or is this how it gets being married with children???). Then we just hung out at their place so the girls could play and we ended up playing 90's Trivial Persuit and poker. We all actually made it to midnight, including Hannah and Maci, and we left just shortly after that.

New Year's Day was equally as simple. I got a few things from the store and we mostly hung around our house all day. Around 5, our neigbors came over to watch the Rose Bowl (YAY OSU!!!) and we made a bunch of appetizer snacks and had our last junk-food meal. They all stayed over until like 10:30 and then we watched a movie and went to bed.

Saturday was a day I've needed for a while. I got up with Hannah, got her breakfast and then headed to my craft room and sewed all day long!!! I had a few projects that I wanted to get done. My church Bible Study has decided to make bags of quiet toys/books for the kids to use during church service and I had volunteered to make the bags. Since this project was on a timeline, I did these first. I had purchased the fabric a few weeks ago and found a really easy pattern to make a tote bag online. I made 10 bags, 2 of each type of fabric I got. I love them!!! They were really pretty easy to make and they are so cute - and very practical. They will be perfect for the church bags and I like them so much, I'll be getting some more fabric to make a few for our use as well.

I don't really remember what we did Sunday, but I don't think it was very eventful. I remember going grocery shopping and making dinner, but that's about it.

It was back to work Monday. I had to go to Columbus Tuesday for work. Thank goodness the weather wasn't that bad on Tuesday. My drive down and back was pretty much fine except for my windshield kept freezing up. I had to drive with my defrost on high heat, high fan and my window cracked the whole time! It was fine - a little noisy, but it worked. Bible study was cancelled on Tuesday night, buy Hannah and I went over to Laura's anyway so the girls could play. Wednesday and Thursday were normal work days and I took a vacation day today!

Tony started his diet this week and I'm not eating everything in sight either. I figure the baby is gaining enough weight for the two of us for the next 6 weeks, so my goal is to only gain a few more pounds before I deliver. Today marks my 34 week point, so 6 more weeks to go! The baby is getting so much bigger and I get kneed (or a foot) jabbed into my side quite often.....it doesn't feel good!!! I have to push back on it and it goes back inside easily, but boy, it's not fun! Sleeping is getting difficult and we laugh at the way I stand at the kitchen sink (like 2 feet away because I can't reach it with my belly in the way)!! I think most of my pregnancy weight has been belly, (and my legs). I definitely haven't gained as big of a butt or hips and sides as I did with Hannah. So far, I've avoided the "kankles" - all the swelling like I had with Hannah. I'm getting really anxious to be done being pregnant and have this baby - and find out who this person is! Although, I've decided, I don't want it to come early at all....I'm too busy in January!!!!

I've finally got Hannah's birthday party partially planned. We're having an all things Cinderella party for her. I'm only having 5 of her friends over and we'll have them dress up in Cinderella dresses, do a few activities - make crowns, Cinderella Bingo, Pin the slipper on Cinderella and then watch the movie. I've got all Cinderella party supplies (got really cheap online!) and make rigatoni & salad and order a pizza and have a Cinderella cake and open presents. I'm thinking I'll make the tote bags for the girls for their party favors to take home and then they can reuse their bags. I'm hoping to find Cinderella fabric, or just girly fabric at least. I sort of can't beleive I'm doing a party at our house since I'll be 9 months pregnant, but it should be fairly easy and low key so I should be able to handle it.

As I mentioned before, I'm off today. I'm shopping for new insurance - what fun! I want to try to go out later to Joann's and the party store. We'll see if the weather and my ambition allows for that or not!!! I also took Monday off, so I can do it later this weekend or Monday too. I still want to make Hannah's curtain for her room (that fabric has been sitting in my room for several months now!) Tonight, I'm so excited to take Hannah to see Disney on Ice! She doesn't know where we're going yet, but she knows she has a surprise tonight. I can't wait to see her face seeing the princesses out there on the ice! I think she'll have a blast. This is her first show like this to go to, so I'm really excited for her!

Here's a picture of her from this morning. I can't believe how big she is now! I can't believe she's going to be 4 in a couple more weeks. She's such a good kid and I just think we're the luckiest parents in the whole world to have her as a daughter!

It came....and it went

The month of December that is!

While we had a really nice Christmas this year, I'm pretty much glad it's over. I'm so exhausted and it's been such a busy month, it's sort of nice that the holidays are just about finished so we can get back to normal (whatever that may be!)

So I just realized how lacking the blog has been - yikes it's been 20 days since the last post. I seriously had something going on just about every one of those days. I came down with a terrible chest cold the day after my last post. Well, it started as a really bad sore throat - like intolerable. That lasted for 3 days and then finally on the night of day 3, I started feeling the cold symptoms. Then the bug went directly to my chest - full blown coughing fits and chest congestion....not good. I had an appt with my midwife who took one look at me and perscribed me a z-pack and told me I could take sudafed & robitussin....thank goodness for the robitussin. Went through 2 bottles of it in less than a week. It was the only thing that kept me from dying of coughing fits. By the end of my z-pack, I was sort of feeling better, but then I'd have a day of regressing and then a day of feeling a little better. 2-1/2 weeks later, I've still got this annoying cough hanging on and occassional nasal congestion, but overall, finally getting better.

I took a couple of vacation days in the past few weeks, mostly to get ready for Christmas. I spent the one day baking - something I sort of swore I wasn't going to do this (pregnant) year. But I did the usual - over the top, way too many cookies deal. And from the number on the scale today at the doctor, it appears that I had just a few too many cookies!!!! Especially when 2 weeks ago, I had actually lost weight from my previous visit. Now granted, baby grew a lot these past two weeks (I measured 3 inches more this week than 2 weeks ago), but I have to say, I did overindulge over the holidays and now am paying for it! Too bad I can't diet for new years, just more work I'll have after baby comes. I'm still doing better than my first pregnancy, but I've got 7-1/2 weeks to go and with the baby growing like it is now, I'd better start watching what I put down the hatch!

Tony and I went out on a date a couple weeks ago. We went to a nice dinner to a place we hadn't been before and then to go see Trans-Siberian Orchestra. We haven't gone in the past two years, so it was nice to go again. Unfortunatly, the show wasn't as good as it has been for us in the past. We got cheap seats, which may be the reason, or it could have been the disgusting nose-ear-scalp picker/eater we sat next to (that's a long story - and gross). It was nice to go out together though.

I was off on Christmas Eve, but busy doing last minute stuff and then we went to church at 4:00. After church, we went to my sister-in-laws house. Santa (my BIL) came for Hannah, and I'd love to share the picture of her priceless face, but I managed to delete all the pictures on my memory card late Christmas Eve night - I'm a bit more than irritated about that!!!! Luckily, my SIL copied my pics before we left, so the only pictures I really am missing is Hannah writing her letter to Santa with his cookies & milk. Still, not happy about that!!!!!

Hannah slept until 8:30 Christmas moring, but was so excited to come down to see what Santa had brought. We had a great time watching her open her gifts. Her favorite things were her music box, Hungry Hungry Hippos and her nightgown. She likes sitting in her bean bag chair too.

Later that evening, we went to my mom's for dinner. We ate and open gifts there and then hung out for a while. Hannah burned her fingers on the glass of their fireplace. Good news is, we iced and iced all night so she's fine. Bad news is - it HURT!!! But I guess that's one way for her to really know and understand why she shouldn't touch something hot, espeically after we tell her not to. She had a great time over there though.

Saturday morning, we packed back up and headed to my dad's. We opened gifts there and had dinner. It was a good day, but long and after day 3 of Christmas, we were all getting pretty tired! My dad made Tony a cornhole game - KISS (of course). It's really cool and Tony loves it, although he's having a hard time digesting the fact we will actually USE it!!!! Can't wait to play this summer!

We got home around 7:30 that night and all pretty much crashed. Hannah was in bed by around 8 and slept until 9 the next morning! We all took it easy pretty much on Sunday. You know I was tired since I didn't really even clean the house this weekend. It finally was killing me by 8:00 Sunday night, so I had to run the vaccuum!!! Then it was back to work Monday. As I mentioned before, I had another prenatal checkup today - all is well, baby is growing and is back head down again (it was sideways last time).

And that's about it! We have simple plans for New Years - I plan on doing some sewing over the weekend and relaxing. Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and have a safe, happy New Year!!!

Now I've got to plan Hannah's 4th birthday party and continue to anxiously await the baby's arrival!!!

Just busy again

I'm not really surprised that I haven't posted in over 2-1/2 weeks since they have been jam-packed busy!

I was supposed to have my first appt with my new midwife on 11/24, but after getting there and starting my visit, she had to leave to deliver a baby before she came in to see me. It was sort of disappointing on one hand, but reassuring to know she drops what she's doing to deliver babies. I had to get my glucose test done anyway, so it was no big deal and we rescheduled for the following week.

Then it was Thanksgiving Thursday. We went down to my Dad & Julia's for dinner. It was just us and them, so it was very low-key and simple....just right! After that, we went to Tony's sister's house for a little while.

Friday, Black Friday, we awoke to our first snowfall of the season. I wasn't too happy, but Hannah was thrilled. The good thing is that most of it was gone by mid-day.

Then I went shopping. It's sort of a tradition to meet my friend Erin and her mom & sister out, so that's what I did. I hadn't really intended on doing much shopping but after about 5 hours, I had enough! My feet hurt so bad and I swore I never wanted to walk again!!!

The next day, I cleaned the house top to bottom. We had a poker tournament at our house, so it was a long day. Tony finished 4th (I think) which was good. At least he's doing OK this season...I can't catch a break at all! I wonder what I'm doing wrong or different, but I can't seem to make the right moves to win these tournaments!

Sunday I was busy with errands and realized I had over done it a bit because I was having contractions - like a handful an hour and that went on for a couple of days. Monday night 11/30, I had a meeting after work.

Tuesday morning, we had our 1st appt with the midwife (again). It went really well. Other than we had to wait to get in for what was supposed to be her first appt of the day. But anyway, we really liked her and she even asked me how I was feeling and talked about the baby!!! What a concept! She was able to feel the baby and said it was positioned head down already and everything seems great. She's guestimating that the baby will probably be about the same size, maybe a few ounces bigger than Hannah was. Anyway I was so glad to have switched providers and am looking forward to the rest of the pregnancy with Mary Jo. I had Bible Study Tuesday night after work. It was a late night - we got home around 10 and crashed!

Wednesday last week was the only night I didnt' have anything planned and I ended up working a little bit late doing our monthly forecast and then had to get back on the computer after dinner to finish. So much for a "do nothing" night.

Thursday night was my NAWIC holiday social. I left work around 1:30 to run a few errands for the social and then went over to the hotel we had it at to set up. It was a good night. I ran the canned food drive and we collected a ton of food! It was a good dinner and a decent night out, but another late one.

Last Friday, we put up our Christmas tree after work. Hannah loved it and was so super eager to do it all this year. She enjoyed putting all the decorations on the tree. It was a bit bottom heavy, so I had to do a little adjusting of her work, but it looks nice!

Saturday morning, we all got up and dressed to go get pictures taken. I had to get Hannah's Christmas pictures taken so I also roped Tony into doing family pics again too. He just loves it!! I also combined this trip with pregnancy photos as well. They all turned out pretty good.

After pictures, Hannah had a birthday party to go to at the mall. They had lunch at the food court and then went to Build-A-Bear.

I hung out at the mall and did a little shopping, but mostly hung out with all the old men who sleep on the couches around the mall!!! It was funny, I hadn't really noticed it that much before, but every resting area I stopped at to sit had an old sleeping guy there! Too funny! Tony did his shopping and Hannah's party was done around 4:00 and then we went home to rest a while. Then we headed out to dinner and then back home.

Sunday, we got up and took Hannah to see Santa. She was excited again this year. She was a bit crabby in the morning and I told her that she'd better be good since Santa is watching. On the way there, she asked me to play "Happy Girl" in the car so she could stop being cranky. After she saw Santa, she said, "Mommy, Santa didn't know I was being cranky this morning" I told her thank goodness we listened to Happy Girl to help her be happy before we got there!!!!

This past Monday was gymnastics and then when we got home, I realized Hannah had a fever. She looked like she was really tired when I picked her up from daycare, but then I saw that it was her eyes that said she didn't feel well. She had a 101 fever so I gave her some motrin and put her to bed. I had a vacation day planned for Tuesday to try to get some things done, so I decided to keep her home with me. She woke up with a 99.5 temp and I took her out shopping with me since there was a ton of stuff I wanted to get done and she didn't seem to be really sick. I did a bunch of running around and we got back home around 12:30. Hannah took a nap and I had a conference call for work. Then I started on a project. I had decided to make "gift jars" for my administrators at work this year for Christmas gifts. I have 9 direct reports now, so Christmas gets either super generic or really expensive fast for all of them. I had to find a handmade option that didn't cost a ton of money. I decided on these jars. It was a good idea, I think. I hope they like them! They are all of the dry ingredients layered to a cookie recipie and then you add a tag with the rest of the recipie for them to make the cookies. I hung the new blind I ordered for the baby's room, but there's something wrong with it. The slats don't turn and the blind doesn't stay all the way down. It's a cordless blind so it has tension that holds it up and down and there's something wrong. I'm sort of annoyed since it's a $100 blind so I guess I'll be taking it back this weekend for them to order me a new one. I had my Christmas dinner Tuesday night for Bible Study group.

I finished these up decorating the jars last night after work. I like them and I hope the girls do too! I'll have to think of these homemade things for next year too - it's so much more affordable! I made 9 of these for probably around $35-40.

Hannah seems to just have another cold. The mornings seem to be the roughest part of the day, but other than that, it seems to be just another annoying cold.

Today was our Christmas party at work. I am so glad tomorrow is Friday! I'll be 30 weeks tomorrow so I'm down to my last 10!! I'm feeling very pregnant these days. The contractions have stopped since I have slowed things down a bit. I can definitely feel the 25 pounds I've put on. Sleeping is getting harder and I'm winded after doing pretty much anything. This baby is still pretty active and moves alot still, much stronger too lately.

So there you have it....my reason for not blogging for a while! the next couple of weeks aren't quite as busy, but still pretty full. Before I know it, Christmas will be here and then New Years and then I'll have like 6 weeks to go until the baby comes!!! We're getting anxious!

Another First Today

There aren't too many "firsts" left with Hannah, but today was Hannah's first trip to the dentist! I've been talking up the trip for a few weeks now and she was very excited about going. I was excited too since it's been well over a year since I've been to the dentist. My last appointment was scheduled in January and I had to cancel since that was the week I had jury duty. I've also been meaning to find a new dentist closer to home and I've just not looked all that hard and then the year flew by. So anyway, during my open enrollment for benefits for next year, I was forced to look for a new dentist, which was good since I was so over due and Hannah needed to get there as well.

So I picked her up around noon today and we got to the dentist office and filled out all of our paperwork. They called us back and asked who wanted to go first. I wasn't sure which way would be better, but Hannah wanted me to go first so I did. This dentist office is pretty nice -very up to date. They have computers at all of the stations in which they record all of the stuff about your teeth and the visit and the best part is there is a TV in the station as well that you can watch or that can entertain your child as they wait!!! What a concept! Until now, I've enjoyed staring at a picture on the ceiling the entire time my teeth were being cleaned. So the first impression was really good. I had my cleaning first and it went pretty fast. No X-Ray's of course since I'm pregnant, but the hygenist remarked about how wonderful my teeth were and said the visit was easy due to my teeth and gums being in such great shape. Hannah watched and didn't act afraid at all. The dentist came to check things out after my cleaning and he was pretty cool too. I think I like this new place!

Hannah wanted me to be done so she could have her turn. She really wanted to sit in the cool chair. So I got up and she sat down. She was still excited about it. We took some pictures before getting started and then she did SO GREAT! Like seriously, so great - better than I think I've done at times before! She helped count her teeth (there are 10 on top and 10 on the bottom) and they have great spacing. I asked if she could try to scrape off some of the tarter build up that's been on her bottom teeth forever. I wasn't sure how she'd do, but she totally let her scrape it all off and didn't wince or cry at all. She kept her mouth opened and let the hygentist do her whole cleaning with no problem at all. She wasn't sure she wanted the sucky thing, but when she did try it, Hannah thought it was cool. I was so very proud of her! I was also so glad it went so well because now she isn't afraid of going to the dentist, which sometimes can be half the battle. Oh, crap, as I'm writing this, I just remembered they didn't give us new toothbrushes!!!! DARN! I guess I'll have to pick some up at the store next time - I'll let Hannah pick hers out. I'm surprised she didn't mention it since she was really looking forward to that part. Perhaps getting a balloon (her favorite treat) and some cheap generic prizes from the basket distracted her from remembering to ask.

So anyway, here are some pictures of the brave, pearly-white tooth big girl at her first trip to the dentist!!!

Getting ready to start!

Hearing how the tools work.

After the scraping was over, whew!

And it was all well-worth it - a treasured balloon topped the trip!

In other news, what's worse than having to spend $500 to buy new tires? Well, let me tell you since I got to enjoy this task this weekend. Not only did I get to spend $500 of our hard earned money on rubber for my car (sorta necessary, I know, but it's nothing fun to spend money on), but I got to DOUBLE the expense after being told my rear breaks were completely shot. I had been hearing this awful squealing noise the past few days - and that's what it was. So I also got to put on brand new rotors and brakes as well as get an alignment. Gee, that's a real fun thing to do right before Christmas shopping season starts!!!!!!!! ARGH!

And one other note-worthy item is that I finally caught what I believe is our last mouse! The last time I posted about our mouse situation, we had caught 6 in our "have-a-heart" traps. Tony had every so kindly released all of these critters back out to the yard to hopefully not just come back in. Since then, we've caught nothing. I put out a second trap - still nothing. I knew I still had something because there was one or two poops by the bar of soap every day or two. After several weeks of not catching anything, I bought two De-Con traps....the nice guy game was over and there was no more saving the rodent's life. However, this little mouse was smarter than me because it would just climb over my de-con trap and continue to feast on the soap. I was so annoyed!!!! I let another couple weeks go and then the nice guy game was REALLY over. I brought out my big guns otherwise known as glue traps. I really didn't want to have to resort to these, but enough is enough already! I put them out on Saturday and Sunday morning, I woke up to find that it still managed to have a nice bite of soap AROUND my trap.....OK, Mr(s). Mouse, I will be smarter than you.....I will booby trap your beloved soap in between two glue traps. It worked!!!! Although, it was really not a nice sight at all and I felt really bad. I was glad that I found the aftermath and not Tony, but it was not a nice way to catch it, but I did win this battle which was what I was after. I disposed of my dear little friend and I think I may have ended the battle of the mice. I have my booby trap still set, but so far, no evidence of anything new. I really did think I was down to one mouse, but I guess another few days should tell the truth.

The PERFECT Chair!!

I think I had shared my dilemma a while back about the chair for Hannah's desk - for her new bedroom furniture, right? Well in case I didn't, I'll briefly give the low-down.

Since one side of her loft bed is a desk, there was a chair that went with the bedroom set. A $140 chair. I opted not to buy the $140 chair thinking I was SO smart and could find a wooden chair anywhere. The problem, I couldn't find a single thing that would work, except to pay $100+. I had pretty much given up hope and was going to go back and buy the actual chair that went with the bedroom furniture figuring if I was going to spend over $100, I might as well make sure it was going to match perfectly.

So anyway, a few weeks ago, I started chair searching again online for some reason. I stumbled on Ikea's website - why, I'm still not sure. There isn't an Ikea around here and I've never been to one, although I hear nothing but good about it. Anyway, I found a chair on their website that seemed to be a good match - for $39!!! One problem solved (found a viable option for a chair), but I created a new problem.....had to purchase in store only and it really wasn't really worth it to drive 2 hours to Pittsburgh which is the nearest store.

However, I had a great plan. There is also a store in West Chester, OH, which is in the Cincinnati area. My Cincinnati District office also happens to be in West Chester, so I sent my counterpart there an email asking her if she wouldn't mind going there for me to get the chair, knowing I was going to see her today for a meeting. She happily agreed to be my personal shopper so I sent her the money and the chair I had picked out. She ran to the store yesterday and then brought it with her to day to Columbus for our meeting.

I put it together tonight when I got home and I can't believe how absolutely perfect it is!!!!! And it was only $39!!!! It matches perfectly, fits the desk perfectly and is really a pretty solid chair that should last the life of the bedroom furniture!!

So I just have to say, I've once again found a perfect deal with some patient waiting and looking around! I'm getting better at this so I'll have to keep it up and not impulse buy stuff anymore! I sort of like the personal shopper thing too, but I won't push my luck!