Here is an updated picture of me at 37 weeks and 2 days. 

I love trick photography.  The approximately 15 square feet of floor that is shown in this picture gives the illusion that my whole house is clean.  Don't let it fool you.  There is a mess of stuff going on around me.  I just kicked it out of the way.  And I think my house smells like pee.

Tonight we had a little get together at a burritto shop in town.  About 10 of us from church gathered for an informal "baby shower" for two people, me being one of them.  Another friend of mine had her baby 5 weeks ago.  It was supposed to be just a time to sit, eat, and chat, but some people brought presents.  So she was the skinny one opening presents and I was the fat one opening presents.  I have to admit that I felt a little ridiculous opening presents for a 7th child, but it was fun, and it was more like just getting early baby gifts that some good friends likely would've given me after I had the baby.  I'm glad to have been able to open them while I am still alive and able to express my gratitude in person.

Hmmm.  I think that is about all for today.  I'm home, sugared and caffeined up on Barq's rootbeer and trying to decide what to do.  I'm sure there is something good on TV to watch.  I'm just not going to watch ANY medical shows about having babies. 

Wednesday

I marked yesterday as a very boring day, but I totally forgot to mention that it was the 20th anniversary of my first period. How could I forget that? Yes, on April 26th, 1990, at age 13, I got my first period. I was wearing white shorts. Thankfully it was a half day at school. When I got home I told my mom and she gave me a maxi pad. I don't think it took me long to figure out how to use a tampon. The day before on April 25th, I got a full set of braces. You could say that week possibly marked the peak of adolescence for me. I'm glad those days are over. Junior high was brutal.


Today I was watching TV and came across A Baby Story on TLC. NOT a good show to watch when you are 37 weeks pregnant. It sent me into a panic. The lady featured had an abnormal heart condition with high blood pressure. I didn't finish watching it to see if she survived or not. It's likely she did, but I will surely be the unlucky one to die in childbirth. Just tell me you all will miss me when I'm dead. To my local friends, make sure my children are dressed properly at church and that the girls' hair looks good. Thanks. And I'm cool with it if my husband remarries. I think it would be good for my kids to have a female influence while they are young. As long as he doesn't marry her for eternity and she's not hotter than me, I'm totally cool. And I would prefer that she is also a widow and an A cup. I probably think about this stuff too much.

Update

Ok. Ok. Ok.  I'll blog.  I'm just a grumpy 'ol pregnant women unmotivated to do anything.  I'm trying to take it easy this week because I don't want to have this baby in April.  I want to be sure he is born in May.  So far each child and parent has a different birthday month.  I want to keep it that way.  The jumping jacks will begin on Saturday.

My AC is fixed.  Yahoo!  It's supposed to be hot this weekend.

My OBGYN got shiny new toilets in the office.  I was just thinking last week how ugly the toilets seats looked.  They must have read my mind. 

My blood pressure was high at my appointment today.  138/something.  It kind of freaked me out and I almost had an anxiety attack while waiting for the doctor to come in.  I asked him about it and he said he wasn't worried.  I have this fear of dying in childbirth.  I'm just a little weird like that.  I'm working on it.

My doctor told me that he estimated that their is a 99% chance that I will still be pregnant at my next appointment next Tuesday.  I didn't tell him about my jumping jack plan.  Maybe I can prove him wrong.  He also estimated that Bradley would be about 6 lbs something when he was born.  Bradley weighed 7 lb. 14 oz.

Did I mention that I am in the grumpy phase of pregnancy right now?

Maybe I will have something more exciting to talk about tomorrow.  My apologies. :)

Thursday

The most exciting thing I did today was order new toner for my printer.  I went for the cheap "Brother compatible" toner cartridge.  Let's hope it works.

Happy 10 Years!

Five years ago I had this great plan to save up some money to take a 10th Anniversary trip to Hawaii.  Little did I know that I would be 36 weeks pregnant.  It's a good thing we didn't go.  I would've surely been mistaken for a beached manatee.  Instead we went to a Japanese steakhouse and I ate lots of food.  It was delicious.  I never saved up the money anyway.  So it's a good thing.

For our anniversary I gave my husband a card.  He doesn't like cards because he considers them a waste of money, so I just dug into my stash of greeting cards and gave him a "Congratulations" one.  Inside I put my new Social Security card.  I finally changed my name after 10 years.  There was no good reason why I never changed it.  Just laziness.  So, it's official.  We're married.  My husband gave me dinner for our anniversary. 

Reading, Writing, Talents, and Divine Inspiration

Sarah is my delayed learner.  She likes to learn things on her own time.  She is six years old and still in the early stages of reading.  I'm ok with it.  She likes Barbies and any kind of pretend play.  She is my child who will make a family out of five colored pencils and create a big elaborate story.  I am a believer in letting children play to their heart's delight.  I believe playing is learning.  She's is practicing the early stages of story writing while playing Barbies and Pencils.  I don't care so much that she's not writing the plot down on paper.  It will all come in its own good due time.  What she lacks in language skills, she makes up for in math.  She's good with numbers.

Today she got her composition book out.  She told me that she was going to learn to write words today.  I was excited that she took the initiative to decide that.  Then she proceeded to ask me, "Mommy, how do you spell 'multitude'?" 

Ok, so I was thinking more like "cat", "bat", "rat", "sat", or maybe even some four letter words.  But if she wants to start with "multitude" that's fine.  She told me that if she is going to be able to read her scriptures really good she needs to learn how to spell the words.  Then I asked her to write, "It came to pass..."

***********************

We had a talent show tonight for Family Home Evening.  These were the talents:
Emily - She showed us a picture she drew.
Bradley - He played a song with his right and left hand on the piano.
Sarah - She did a handstand and a headstand.
Wendy - She was disappointed that Jason threw her picture away, so she attempted a cartwheel.
We aren't quite sure what Jason and Rachel's talents are yet.  I think the mess around the house and drawings on the walls are their talents.
Mommy - Emily suggested that I show my big belly because I am good at making babies.
Daddy - He tickled the kids because he's good at tickling.

For dessert we ate Twinkies.  Saturday while grocery shopping my husband was disappointed that the kids didn't even know what a Twinkie was. So we bought a box.  My husband and I were ashamed that our kids didn't know Hostess Cakes.  They enjoyed them.  Emily told us that in Primary yesterday her teacher was trying to explain about birthrights because their lesson was on Jacob in Esau.  The teacher used the example of the oldest child getting a Twinkie.  Emily said there was a child in the class that said, "What's a Twinkie?"  Emily made sure to tell the teacher that her parents bought Twinkies the day before and that they were going to eat them Monday night.  So I'm convinced my husband was divinely inspired to buy those Twinkies to help reinforce the Sunday School lesson.  So, next time you're at the grocery store, don't resist the urge to buy a treat.  It may be divine inspiration.  Tonight all six kids received the Twinkie birthright:

Baby Pictures

Today after lunch we sat on the porch and ate Jelly Bellies.  The kids had a good time asking, "What's this flavor?" for every single Jelly Bean that they ate.  I had to reach into the depths of my adolescence and try to remember which color was which flavor. The ones I remember most are buttered popcorn, toasted marshmallow, watermelon, rootbeer, cotton candy, tutti frutti, and banana.  Buttered Popcorn is my favorite. 

While we were outside I decided to take some baby pictures of some of our vegetable plants.  I knew I would regret it if I didn't.

This is Sarah's pumpkin.

This is my green onion.

This is broccoli.  I bought 9 plants at Lowes.  I've never grown broccoli before, so we'll see how it goes.

This is cucumber and a sunflower (in back).  I am going to have A LOT of cucumbers.  I think I have like 25 plants that will be growing along the fence.  I think I will learn how to pickle this year.  I think I have like 20 sunflowers.  I'm into excess this year.

 

I think this is Cotton Candy.  I wish we could plant Jelly Bellies.

My Day in a LIst

I was totally going to post about something today, but my pregnant brain forgot.  My pregnant brain is becoming a lot more forgetful these days.  I almost hate to think about all the things I might have forgotten.

We had pancakes and strawberries for dinner.  It was yummy.

The gnats are eating me alive in all this gardening.  They are out 24 hours a day.  They even attack when wearing bug spray, pants and long sleeves.  This garden better be worth it.  There's still a lot of work to do. 

I'm tired.

I'm into listing things these days.

I successfully replaced a headlight in my husband's car yesterday.

I have a bug bite on the top of my index finger that I just finished scratching.

I think I planted my zucchini too close.  I find it excruciatingly painful to thin plants.  It feels like murder.

My Nightly Neatening chore tonight is to clean my desk.  I'm not sure I will get to it.

The light over my kitchen sink is out, which makes it very uninspiring to do dishes.  I'm too short and pregnant to change it, but am too tired to go upstairs to ask my husband.  It's too bad he's not online for Google Talk or doesn't check his Facebook.  Maybe I will email him.

I just ate two leftover pancakes and made them into strawberry tacos with whip cream.  It was yummy, but doesn't count for dessert.

Seriously, why am I listing stuff?  Does anybody really even care?

I worked on writing the ABC's with Wendy and Jason today.  Jason was a lot better than I would've expected at 3 1/2.  He is right handed.  He's been pretty ambidextrous up until this point, but it looks like he favors the right hand for writing.  He will occasionally eat with his left hand.

We totally forgot to celebrate Jason's half birthday on Saturday.  That was disappointing.  But he does know he is 3 1/2 now.

Thursday is ham sandwiches and potato chips for lunch day.

Taxes Filed

Ok.  I took two days off.  I was busy with taxes.  They're done.  1040. Schedule A. Four Schedule C's. Schedule SE. Form 5329.  Form 8812. From 8889.  Schedule M.  Additional Dependents Worksheet.  + State Taxes. Sigh.  Thank goodness for software!  Unfortunately I didn't realize until after I paid for the software, that we qualified for the free version because our adjusted gross income was below the threshold (thanks to unemployment). Oh well.  For some reason my eFile gets rejected every year.  I must be doing something wrong.  To make it easy, I just print and mail it via Certified Mail.  I actually enjoy doing taxes.  It's not so bad when you get a refund.

My bush beans are sprouted and growing.  I don't even know why I am growing them because the deer are just going to devour them anyway. 

My green onion is sprouting.

I'm addicted to crunching on ice.

Our car broke again, but it's fixed $360 later.  Hopefully it's fixed for good this time.  He replaced the battery and alternator.  Apparently it wasn't a strong enough battery for the car and it was causing the alternator to give out twice in two years.  Let's hope he's right.

Rachel is talking more.  She says, "Trash, Daddy, shoes, bye bye, Bra-yee (Bradley), ga gone, mine, mew (milk), pew (pillow), I see, and no."

We've had the windows open lately.  The other day I put Rachel down for a nap upstairs in the kids room.  The kids could hear her talking from the window downstairs, so they were communicating, "Bye!" to each other.  They got a kick out of it:

The Garden

Yesterday while out in the front yard tending the garden I heard my husband say, "Get back in the yard!"  Sometimes our kids wander to the other side of the fence which makes it hard to keep an eye on them.  I looked up and saw a little girl about 4 or 5 years old riding a bike and what looked to be her grandfather to come and get her.  I asked my husband, "Did you just yell at the little girl?"  He nodded in embarassment.  Sometimes face recognition fails when doing a headcount of your own kids.  That little girl is probably banned from ever riding her bike in front the "mean people's" house.

Speaking of the garden, I totally cheated on my tomato plants this year.  I went ahead and bought some hybrid tomato plants.  My heirloom seedlings just didn't seem strong enough and I was afraid risking them not working and not having any tomatoes this year.  So instead, I planted a few of the strongest heirloom tomato plants in a pot in another part of the yard and hopefully I will get at least one or two tomatoes to collect seeds while we feast on hybrids.  I did the same thing with the bell peppers.  Gardening is a huge learning process.

My husband is also a little obsessive with collecting seeds.  He planted A LOT of grapefruit seeds last year in little pots.  He just repotted them in 5 gallon containers.  We have, like, twenty something potted grapefruit trees in our yard.  It's a little bit embarrassing.  When we got home from church today, my husband was out surveying the plants.  The neighbor across the street said, "Those are awfully nice clothes to be farming in."  So, yes, our tiny little yard is slowly becoming a farm.  But if all goes well, we should have some good produce this year.  I hope.  I really hope.  I'll have to post some pictures soon.  The zucchini, cucumbers, sunflowers, watermelon, and some zinnia have sprouted.  Still waiting on the cantalope.  I hate this part.  It can be so stressful...

Jealousy

Yesterday while eating lunch with the kids we read The Friend, our monthly church kids magazine.  We read a page about missionaries. Sarah said she wanted to be a missionary when she grows up. Emily said she wants to get married and stay home to take care of her kids. Then Sarah changed her mind  and said she doesn’t want to go on a mission because she doesn’t want anybody to take who she is supposed to marry while she’s gone.  At six years old she is already fearing the "Dear John" letter.

Today

Not a whole lot happened today, except laundry, and I didn't wash the dishes tonight, and I'm sure I will be really mad at myself tomorrow for it, and this is a really long run-on sentence because I just don't care much about grammar tonight, and I'm going to go to bed with a belly full of Oreo Sonic Blast, which will hopefully help me to wake up bright and early and be motivated to wash the dishes in the morning, but probably not.

[Gasp for breath]

Good night.

It's Clean

Wednesday's Nightly Neatening chore is cleaning out the refrigerator.  And cleaning it out I did!!  I actually did it this afternoon while I still had some energy in me and I thought it would be a good activity to hang out in the refrigerator during the hottest part of the day while my AC continues not to work.  My refrigerator has never been so clean.  I made sure not to block any air vents while putting the stuff back inside to cause sodas to explode again.  I think I might put a sign on my fridge like they do in factories that says:

This refrigerator has operated

____________ Days

Without an accident.

 

____________ Days

remain to acheive our goal.

Also dealt with more car trouble today.  I'm trying to figure out if I am being scammed or not.  Apparently we need a new alternator, but we just replaced it 21 months ago.  More research to do tomorrow on that.

Good News

The cervix is still closed.

Emily Turns 9!

Emily received her requested cake.  She made the cake herself and Mommy frosted it.  Instead of chocolate sprinkles, I used pastel nonpareils because the chocolate sprinkles didn't contrast enough with the Special Dark frosting.  She had a great birthday.

Our house's downstairs AC is not working.  It is going to cost $600 to fix.  It's almost 13 years old and we are debating whether to put in a new system since we can get a 30% tax credit on one this year.  However, it is very costly.  Meanwhile, I'm sweating bullets while waiting for an estimate or for the guy to come fix it.  The good news is that my indoor zinnia seedlings are sprouting because it's so warm and humid in my house.  We are going to have LOTS of zinnia in the garden this year.  I hope it is as beautiful as I imagine.

I trained Emily how to mop my kitchen floors tonight. It was a successful training session.

I think that's all.  I'm tired.  I'm hot.  Hot, as in sweaty hot.  Not hot, as in beautiful hot.  The other day when we went to the funeral I got to meet some of David's family for the first time.  I expressed to my husband that I didn't like that their first impression of me was me looking like a cow.  He told me I looked more like a manatee.  He's so sweet. 

I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow.  I'm hoping that my cervix is closed tight so that I don't have to stress about having this baby in April. 

I've been really bad about taking pictures lately.  Shame.  Shame.  Shame.

Happy Easter!

Saturday

Yesterday we attended David's paternal grandfather's funeral.  He passed away on Monday at the ripe age of 90. It was a nice funeral. It was more celebratory than sad.  It's nice to know a good man died after living a good life.  David's dad said "He went out in style."  After the service we took some family pictures.  This is the best one we got of our family.  It was a good day.  My husband gets a bereavement day for deaths, so he enjoyed having the day off.  We need some more people to die now.  Just kidding.  Only if you're old an ready.

Other news:

We've been working on our garden.  Gardening is not a good activity when you're almost 34 weeks pregnant.  I'm totally going to put myself into labor and have this baby in April and not get my May baby.  My husband has prescribed me to bedrest until May 1.  He has a reward system for the 3 oldest kids for helping me out around the house while I sit on the couch and eat my Bon Bons.  If they pass, they get to go to Chuck E. Cheese at the beginning of May.

Remember how I said the other day that I was all awesomely into organization?  Well, I'm still working on it.  And of course there is opposition in all things.  I've create a schedule for myself that I call, "Nightly Neatening."  Every night of the week, except for Friday because it's date night, I have a small area of the house that I try to clean, declutter, or organize.  If I don't set a schedule, then I have a tendency to put it off and off because my mind has a tendency to say, "The kitchen floor is just going to get dirty again, so why bother cleaning it?"  And of course, my mind is right because every morning after I mop the floor, some kid usually drops their bowl of cereal, or glass of milk, or something nasty and sticky.  But there is something to be said for a littel regular maintenance.

So here is my schedule:

Monday - Mop kitchen floor and Comet kitchen sink.  (Having a white porcelein sink can be a pain in the neck.)

Tuesday - Clear clutter from Family Room cabinets and wipe down.

Wednesday - Throw away old food in refrigerator and wipe down shelves. (Because Thur. is trash day.)

Thursday - Clear clutter from desk, dust desk, wipe monitor, and file.

Friday - OFF

Saturday - Make sure kitchen is clean.

Sunday - Day of Rest

So last Wednesday I worked on my refrigerator.  I had the entire top half of the shelves beautifully cleaned and sparkling.  Old salsas, cream cheeses, and other junk was thrown away and I stocked it with some soda.  I only allow myself about one hour to work on the Nightly Neatening.  Whatever doesn't get finished will have to wait until the next week.  Well this morning my refrigerator looked horrible.  Two of the Diet Pepsis that were on the top shelf froze and exploded.  I think in my stocking the fridge, I blocked a vent/ air flow that caused items to freeze.  Whoops. My pretty fridge is not pretty anymore.  Ug.   :(  I'll try again next week.

I think I might be posting more failures than successes.  Learn from my mistakes.  I would like to think they are put to good use.

A Big Pile of Poop

Ok, so it's not entirely poop, but it is mushroom compost mixed with horse manure, top soil, and soil conditioner.  Anyway, a lot of it.

To make a long story short, we got a couple more cubic yards of top soil and one cubic yard of mushroom compost for the garden today.  My husband thought we had too large of ratio of the soil conditioner in the first 7 cubic yards (4 parts soil conditioner: 3 parts compost) so the guy at the dirt shop brought us some soil to make us feel better and more confident about our garden.  He delivered it at no charge and hopefully if all goes well with the gardening, I will be able to drop him off some good produce later this summer.

So that is a lot of wheelbarrows of loading and unloading.  I think we might possibly have the most lush yard in the neighborhood this summer.  Perhaps, we might even be awarded "Yard of the Month."   I doubt it, but I can continue to hope.  I'm pretty sure plastic cereal bowls, rubber boots, hoses, Easter baskets hanging from tree branches, and broken outdoor kid toys contantly strewn in the yard disqualifies you for that award.  But maybe the kids can have a vegetable stand and make some money.

So that's our dirt.  We are going to have a very busy Thursday and weekend.  But I'm very excited.  I began to harden off my tomato plants today.  (Seriously, why does the gardening world have to use that term?  It just sounds so inappropriate and makes me blush.)  I hope they are good tomatoes!  This weekend I'm going to plant my cucumber seeds.  I think this year I might actually learn how to pickle.