August Comes to a Close

Time is flying by! I think I say that every time I log in here. But it really does go by faster than I expect!

I am now 23 weeks along, 3 weeks past the halfway mark! I have another ultrasound scheduled for the first week of September and am looking forward to seeing how baby is grown. It's hard to imagine a 10 or 11 inch baby inside! We have nicknamed the baby "Thumper" because s/he is so active! The midwife was explaining kick counts I could do as the baby grows. In general, you count the kicks until you reach 10 and then stop. You should reach 10 kicks between 2 minutes and 2 hours. I told her there are times we could reach 10 kicks within 30 seconds! Hence "Thumper."

Since I last wrote we visited the fair in the 100 degree heat! We liked the barns and the pavilion judging areas (where people bring in their own homemade items like quilts and canned food) the best. One day we would love to be able to show something at the fair.

This is a blooming artichoke! Never seen such a thing before.

At the end of July, and two weeks early, our friends Craig & Donna had their baby girl! While I would very much prefer not to have her experience they now have a lovely baby girl Natalie Kate. I'm glad I'll be one of the last people to have a baby of the ones pregnant right now- it's great to learn from everyone's experiences, likes and dislikes!

Natalie Kate

TJ is still looking for work. We know God provides, our main prayer is that he can secure a new and long term likeable job before the baby comes. While we are thankful for unemployment TJ would much rather be working and will be so glad when he can go to work again each day. My job seems pretty secure for the next year though around here who can tell. School starts again in about three weeks and we are racing to get everything ready!

The biggest excitement lately was that I got my clutch fixed! The difference is amazing...we'd been saving for a good 6 months for this and didn't realize quite how bad the clutch was. The repair was supposed to only take a day and a half but ended up stretching out to four days because they had to reorder a part that came broken. Then the new part got shipped to Portland then on to Washington...not so helpful when we need the part here! So the sales manager of the part company had to drive up to Washington to rescue the part. In the end we got the car back and the clutch is amazing- it's sooooo smooth! I got in the car and pressed in and almost fell over because it just doesn't need the lead foot to press in anymore. So now we're relearning how to drive the car, and enjoying every minute of it! :D

This flower is blooming today in our front yard.

The Rest of July

I am now at 20 weeks, or 4 1/2 months. This is the halfway mark of pregnancy. The photo above was at 19 weeks. I put an interesting diagram below that shows a baby at 19 weeks. We were at the fair today and the right to life table was there. They had models of babies at different stages of development. The 18 week baby could fit in my hand (from fingertip to bottom of palm)...and it's the hardest thing to imagine the baby being so big already! I am feeling good and thankful that my cyst is gone. The baby is sitting very low which accounts now for much of the discomfort I'm feeling...hopefully baby will want to explore higher regions soon. The baby is active and very wiggly. We had our mid-term ultrasound and the baby moved the entire time! We have chosen to wait until the baby is born to find out the sex.



It has been very very hot here...in the 100's!! Normally our temperatures are in the 80's during the summer. 90 is hot and 100 is newsworthy. We have an air conditioner in our bedroom so we are sleeping at night and that is quite wonderful. I took the cat into the bedroom with me the other evening to work on my grocery list and I was thinking the cat would appreciate the cooler room. She really didn't care though and ran out the door when TJ came in. She's been all stretched out though and I thought this was a funny view!

I'm trying to learn to do more baking and made these biscuits! They turned out pretty good and we used the leftovers for strawberry shortcake. Every week I'm trying to bake some sort of bread-like concoction.

We spent a Saturday morning visiting with my friend Birdie who was up visiting her family. She lives in Mexico with her husband and two children. She is a few months ahead of me in pregnancy. It was so nice to visit!

TJ installed clothes lines under our back porch...I love them! I have been quite excited to do laundry these days so I can go hang up the laundry outside. Since we put the lines under an overhang we'll be able to hang laundry outside longer into the fall/ sooner in the spring when the rains are here.

When I returned from Georgia we went blueberry picking! There are now 7 quarts in our freezer...these were a few of the berries drying. The baking powder box is my favorite kitchen "decor" and very handy to store all those spatula's and spoons.

August is now here and we went to the hospital this morning for the maternity orientation class. It was an hour long and told us where we will go when the baby comes and a bit about the hospital. We'll be taking a childbirth preparation class with our friends Ben & Katie starting at the end of September. You have to take two pillows, a blanket and wear comfortable clothing...I'm very fascinated to find out what we'll be doing!! School will be starting again soon and the summer is winding down. I miss the days when summer seemed like it took forever- this year I'm wondering where it went!