September Ends

Can it be possible that we've made it to the end of September already? I think that feat calls for some Tillamook rocky road ice cream! (really I just want a snack after work right now...mmmmm) School has been in session for three weeks and aside from being tired I think all is plugging along. I've been working on reorganizing/purging the kitchen and I think that project is now done. It is lovely to have everything in order and know exactly where it all is! My next project is the baby/guest room...then the laundry, then the living room.

Last weekend we went to a u-pick orchard and had a blast! We picked 20 lbs of apples and 7 1/2 lbs of grapes. I got to climb up in the apple trees (on low branches of course) and we spent the afternoon outdoors. We've been processing everything since. I've made one grape pie so far and think I'll make one more pie and one batch of pie filling to freeze, then some grape jam. The apples are all going straight to applesauce. We made some last year but ran out in the middle of winter and were sad- this year we want to have enough to have some fresh applesauce every month!

Apples and grapes getting ready to cook.

TJ went to a job fair last week along with many hundreds of other people! The line was quite amazing. He got an interview from a company at that fair and is now waiting to hear if he gets the job. The job is 2nd shift which has pro's and con's and we're just trusting God will walk with us through whatever comes.

For a special treat we got some polish sausage at a local hungarian food store...mmmm!

I am now 7 months along and will be 29 weeks on Friday. We went to our first childbirth education class along with our friends Ben & Katie. It is certainly an interesting class and looks to be helpful in getting some pain management techniques. I'm feeling good, just sore. Thankful for an active healthy baby and a problem free pregnancy!

28 1/2 weeks

Weekly Roundup

Well, I am now in the third trimester and baby is busy! I think every week the baby is getting stronger and the movement is becoming more interesting. Other than soreness I'm doing well though I find at night after a busy day I am beat and go straight to bed!

This was a busy week for me and I'm sitting here on Sunday morning crashing! It was a good fun week though...here's the roundup!

Wednesday: After work I went over to Bryan & Lisa's to watch Issac so they could go out for their anniversary. Issac and I had a nice time together and I got to feed, bathe, change and put him to bed. I'm realizing more and more how thankful I am to have had friends that I've lived with or near these past 10 years who have taught me a lot about how to take care of babies! Issac is around 6 months old now and making the cutest noises!

Issac

Thursday: Came home and made supper then we headed to our new Bible study. This study is with several friends from our first study. We'll be following the pulpit (which means on days like today when I'm still in my jammies at noon we'll need to listen to the service online!) and we're looking forward to spending our Thursday evenings in the Word with friends. We also have discovered Hulu and so we'll be watching Bones later without needing to purchase a DVR! :D

Friday: It was TJ's old roomate Ben's birthday...Ben's wife Katie is due 6 days after me! We spent the evening at their house with friends eating Katie's yummy strawberry rhubarb crisp and visiting. As it often goes the boys hung out in one room and the girls in another. :) Before we left I wanted to take pictures of three of us who are pregnant and two of our silly husbands decided to jump in and show of their bellies too...

Silly boys!

Friends- the three of us in the middle are all expecting; Janet in purple is due in three weeks, Katie in white is due December 24th and I'm due December 18th.

Saturday: We went to the evening service of Craig & Donna's church to watch their baby Natalie get dedicated. It was very sweet and we enjoyed the service too! Afterwards we went out with his parents and Craig & Donna and Bryan & Lisa to Outback Steakhouse to celebrate.

Natalie's dedication

An unexpected visitor in our photo!

Next week seems to be a bit less busy. I'm working on reorganizing the house room by room. We're getting rid of a lot of stuff, hoping to sell a lot on Craigslist or have a garage sale (though it's getting a bit late for those). I'm reorganizing the kitchen right now and am getting close to finishing that; I think the laundry/craft room will be next. We're toddler proofing the house now so we don't have to do it later, and making sure there is room for baby stuff in each room so that as we get it we don't have to find a place for it! I'm enjoying the organization/nesting!

26 weeks and the end of Trimester 2

This week marks the end of my second trimester. There are now about three months left and counting. TJ is quite excited and raring to go; I'm a bit shell shocked that there are only three months left! Baby is still active- now that Baby S is growing I can actually see my belly move...it reminds me of those alien movies where something is moving inside someone and then some horrible creature pops out! Hollywood infiltrates everything. :P I have my glucose test next week and my 7 month check up, both of which I expect to go fine. I'm getting more sore now but try to rest. TJ pampers me a lot too which helps- being home he also does the lions share of the chores, and that helps too! :)


School started up this week to mixed feelings on my part. We're ahead from where we were last year but still behind as to where I'd like to be with everything. One of my bosses compared my job to "herding cats." Sheep, cows and most other animals actually go mostly where you want without much hassle...cats on the other hand do what they want and hiss at you when you try to get them to do something different. Cats in this case would be parents!

TJ is still diligently searching for work and was encouraged this week by the news that our good friend Kris got a job! I'm not sure now how long he'd been out of work- maybe 8 to 12 months? Although we're bummed that Kris & family don't live here anymore we are jumping with joy with them for Kris to have a job!

Canning and Babies

We've had a busy week here! I'll just separate into categories.

Lisa's mom sent us a box of peaches. It took us a week to finally get to processing them but we did it! TJ & I have been wanting to learn to can food but just had not done it yet. We got the skin off the peaches, cut them in half, got the seed out and scraped out the seed bumps. Then we made a sugar syrup, filled our jars and canned them! It was very exciting! We still had half a huge mixing bowl full of peaches, so a few days later we made peach jelly and peach pie filling, then just threw the rest into a bag in the freezer. Making the jelly (or was it jam...?) I didn't know the contents of my saucepan would expand when the sugar and peaches started boiling together! TJ came running to my rescue just as the mixture started boiling over- he got a bigger pot and I dumped it all into the bigger pot, burning him a bit in the process. As he was trying to clean up the spilled sugary mixture I kept stirring but my spoon was too short and I got burned a little too! It would have made for some great prime time entertainment I'm sure!

We got 8 pints of canned peaches...hoping they are ok, there is quite a bit of air at the top of the jar and the peaches are bobbing a bit in "air."

7 half pints of peach jam/jelly/preserves. I think it turned out! The last time I made jelly it turned into syrup, but this seems to be more solid.

Babies of course are the theme of the year it seems. Every time I turn around it seems I've found someone else having one! We watched our friend Donna's baby on Sunday so she and her husband could go to the air show. Baby Natalie is quite cute and was very easy to watch because she slept almost the whole time and never cried!

She was sound asleep and stretched up her arms - much too cute to not get a photo of!

Our friends Mark & Christie just adopted the cutest baby! They had an open house Sunday and it was so nice to get to meet the new addition to the family.

Isn't she precious!!

Baby Thumper is growing well! I had an ultrasound yesterday and the lady said baby is now about 1 lb 11 oz. Somehow she could tell this from one of the leg bones!? Since she could tell me such a magical number I asked how long the baby was and she said, "oh, I'm sure one of your pregnancy books could tell you." I guess science can't do everything. Baby is growing at the correct rate and is very active! I think the baby had been facing down and must have rolled over this weekend b/c now I'm (finally!) getting kicked at belly button line and above.

Profile Shot...I even got to see the mouth open and close!

And my favorite picture of all...the leg pushing against the wall. This must be a favorite position because that leg stays busy much of the day!

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!

Vacation!

Well, I have returned to Oregon (and my lonely hubby) from vacation.

Spent the first few days in Ohio and got to see the sights and sounds of home again along with visiting several family members.

Jeff & Marsha x 3 treated me to a lovely hibachi lunch...it was quite super to visit with them!

The Amy's brought their families over on Sunday and Skye made sure there was a group photo.

My grandma & grandpa, just celebrating their 60th anniversary!

I got to visit with TJ's parents and nephew for an afternoon.

Went to Georgia and met up with three high school friends (Dinah who lives there and Amy & Amy who flew from Ohio). We went canoing, they threw me a surprise baby shower at a pool, we ate with Amy's uncle at a fancy Italian restaurant and Dinah had her friends over so we could meet them. Dinah drove us to North Carolina for the weekend and we stayed with Amy's sister-in-law. We spent a whole day on the beach and I got to swim in the ocean (and not freeze!). Got a funny sunburn too!

Amy & I comparing baby bumps.

Dinah, Amy, Me, Amy before a neat laser show at this huge rock mountain with southern generals carved on the front.

Canoing! We were the steer-ers...though I wasn't very good!!

On the beach! Ahhh, it was lovely.

I enjoyed my time away but am finding I'm just not the traveler I used to be and was glad to get home. Returned to work today and am already busy getting the files transitioned to the new school year quickly approaching.

Today I also had a fun milestone regarding baby- I felt the first official really kicky kick! It surprised me to say the least. Nice to know little one is still wiggling around in there.

The rest of the photos from my trip are in our picasa online photo album (link to the left).

Wedding, Baby Shower & Baby Photos

Saturday we attended the wedding of a friend from our old Bible study. It was a beautiful service and we helped a bit with the reception- I lit some candles and TJ (and some other sturdy fellows) scooped very frozen ice cream. We went out for happy hour with several friends from our old study afterwards.

TJ & Sunin serving ice cream.

Us!

Sunday was Donna's baby shower! Little Natalie is expected to join the world in about a month. We had a very nice time!

Donna with her yummy ice cream cake.

Monday I had an ultrasound just to see the baby and I was utterly amazed- there is a fully formed human being in there...no more baby blob! Donna has named the baby "Happy Jumping Little Baby" because the baby was moving all around...arms, legs and everything. Donna took a bit of contraband video which I'm trying to download here but may not be able to b/c our connection isn't quite fast enough.

Baby arm and fist, with little pointer finger slightly sticking up...original photo is a bit clearer.

Upside down curled up baby...head and body and some ribs (?) in photo.

I'm leaving Saturday to go to Ohio & Georgia. If you want to stop and visit with me while I'm in Ohio stop by my parents from 2:30 - 7:30...they live right next door to Barry & Nicki.

Three Years!

Can you believe it! TJ & I have now been married 3 years! My work last week was super busy and his work as always is busy so no major celebrations planned. We did go to our traditional annual strawberry festival though! Got a tomato plant and some yummy strawberry shortcake (which was also the main food for our wedding!). After leaving the festival we stopped at an estate sale and got a free toddler-esqe bed and a quilt rack! The bed was free and the rack was only $5! They were quite the exciting finds. They had a beautiful old school desk too for $25 but since we only had $7 it had to stay. :( One day I'll find another cheap one!

The grange hall we ate our strawberry shortcake in. It's lined with quilts!

My school ended two weeks ago and then was immediately followed by our organization putting on a long conference. I knew that pregnancy would make me more tired but wow, I had no idea! By the last day (Saturday) I was quite done in. Rested Sunday and Monday, worked half days Tuesday and Wednesday, took a sick day today (blah!) and am pondering if it is even worth going in tomorrow! I have one week more of work then will be travelling to Ohio (I'll be home the 5th - 8th) and then on to Georgia for a girls week out! I am super excited to go on this trip and am thankful for my parents who made it possible.

TJ is doing well at his job, learning new things every week. He came home a few weeks ago and showed me some of his wounds (apparently mechanics have a tendency to cut themselves!). These particular woulds were slices from a very sharp blade that went through two layers of shirt in addition to slicing open two pieces of his hand. The fascinating thing though was that he closed the wounds with super glue! Apparently this is a toolbox must and "doesn't burn as much as that other stuff." :) His hand is pretty healed up now and I am now a fan of super glue as an alternative to stitches!

This weekend we'll be attending a fun wedding and a baby shower (different friends). I'm thinking of getting some fresh strawberries and making some Suter's freezer jam!

Baby is doing well. I am now 15 weeks. The midwife was listening to the heartbeat via the handheld doppler this week and in the midst of that lovely heartbeat were these funny static noises the doctor said was the baby moving around! On a sad note we have friends who just lost their baby at 9 weeks. Please pray for their family as they mourn for their little one.

I don't think I'll be able to post again until after I return from Georgia (mid-July), but hope to see many of you at home while I'm there!

First Half of June

Can it really be June already? Time just slips away... The weather is getting a bit warmer now. Our garden is starting to grow (and we still need to finish planting!) and I think our lettuce is ready now. Maybe some strawberries too!

We hosted our last Bible study gathering here. It was nice to all get together. The kids had fun talking to the cat from inside the window and the guys had a good frisbee game.

Playing frisbee

Chatting with the cat.

Exploring

We had a picnic.

There was a thunderstorm here! Ok, compared to Ohio standards it wouldn't be much to speak of, but it was a big deal here. They pre-empted shows for news coverage and everything! At our house we heard some thunder and saw a little lighting. There was a lot of wind too. :)

The threatening skies over wheat field in front of our house.

Kris & Andrea are moving to Texas so we co-hosted a going away party for them. It was nice that everyone could come out and spend some time together before they left.

little Rubye
big Rubye (Kris' mom) with Grady

I am now 13 weeks! I think this means I'm in the second trimester now, and entering the fourth month of pregnancy. I've been feeling ok though felt quite sick yesterday and left work a bit early. Hoping that I'll start feeling great and the cyst will go away soon.
At 12 weeks...the bump is growing!

I am hoping to come to Ohio July 5th - 8th before heading to Georgia with Amy B, Amy P to visit Dinah. Will probably have a gathering on the 5th to try and see everyone.