Today Childhood Reigned Supreme

We decided to spend the day in our jammies. We decided to eat cookies all day. We decided we were going to turn our living room into an adventure.

There was a beautiful princess

a fire-breathing dragon

(this is him breathing fire!)

And a Mighty Castle

Later we decided to take to the high seas for a riotous pirate adventure!

All-aboard!

We searches high and low for buried treasure!

We looked fierce in our pirate hats!

Mean while, back in the kitchen, I was on day three of the sugar cookie fiasco. What I've learned: If anyone ever gives you a magnificently shaped and deliciously frosted sugar cookie: 1) they love you very much. 2) They are some kind of suer-hero in the kitchen. Sugar cookies are wildly demanding. There's the dough that has to be just the right temperature to keep from becoming a sticky disaster during all the rolling, cutting, and re-rolling. Endless cookie sheets in and out of the oven. I washed all five of mine twice. Burnt thin cookies and thick soft cookies all on the same pan because I couldn't get the rolling right. Fragile cookies that wouldn't scape off the sheet... and then the icing. All the icing. Good lord. My husband so helpfully interjected yesterday as I was cursing a particularly sorry batch, "You should call my mother. She makes awesome sugar cookies."

I'm sure she does.

Further, I took the time to boil blueberries to extract their juice to color my frosting. I wanted to avoid putting any nasty toxic food-dye in something for my kids. (I know, I deserve a shiny medal, right?) Two hours later, I find Georgia has snuck under the table and eaten an ENTIRE pink crayon.

Great, I'm glad I kept the food dye out of her cookies.

But, it was freaking delicious icing. ;-)

Still too pregnant to blog.

Seriously, this first trimester is wiping me out. Growing a baby is one thing, but growing the placenta is another. A friend of mine reminded me the other day, that it was forming a whole new organ in under 12 weeks that truly makes the first trimester exhausting work. I'm feeling it for sure. I could sleep all day long. My most productive time of the day has been repurposed for napping... you can imagine what my laundry piles look like. I have been finding the time to cook and clean the kitchen... but that's about it. Anyway, I'm 10 weeks along, so hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll be feeling my old self again. In the mean time bear with me.

However, here are some cute pictures from today:

We decided to make sugar cookies for dinner. Healthy choices, people!

After the cookie dough was in the fridge doing it's obligatory chill, the kids disappeared for some light reading.

Here is Normy perusing Steam: Its Generation and Use

And Georgia delving into Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time

"Wow that Mehmed! What a man! Spoke seven languages, conquered Constantinople, and securely established the Ottoman Empire into both Europe and Asia!"

Happy All Saints Day

Did you all enjoy a happy Halloween? Are you full of candy? Can you believe it is November? Our Halloween was spectacular, I am stuffed with chocolates, and I can't hardly believe "the holidays" are upon us. This is the first year Normy was excited to dress up. This is him trying on his costume the day before for a trial run. Can you see the enthusiasm?

Georgia was not nearly as thrilled with her hand-me-down get-up.

Which was strikingly similar to her brother's response to the costume a year earlier.

We spent Halloween with our dear friends and former neighbors, which was the real treat of the night. I think this will become our yearly tradition for as long as we live in Omaha. Our current neighborhood isn't exactly great for trick or treating. Where as our old neighborhood goes all out for the holiday. Nearly every other house is decorated. Van loads of kids from other neighborhoods drive over to see the outrageous decorations and get in on the massive candy give away that goes on. The homeowners don't even stay inside their houses. Everyone sits on their porch to pass out the candy because there is so much traffic. To go inside and expect to wait for the door bell would be futile. So, the whole event turns into a giant block party. My kids loved it.

Notice, Georgia was a train engineer as well. She simply was not having the gator costume!

More than actually trick-or-treating themselves, the kids LOVED passing out the candy.

Last Night

Normy ate two pieces of pizza.

Drank from a real cup.

Then, excused himself to go potty... all by himself!

Georgia needed a napkin because she was unhappy when her hands became "sticky."

She spend most of her time at the table dropping her fork so that she could say:

"Dang it!"

Mom was too nauseated to cook dinner; Smoochy bought the family pizza.

Mom made a miraculous recovery once the pizza was on the table.

Are you tired of looking at that last post yet?

What day is it?

Seriously, this has been the fastest most intensely busy month we've had for a long time. The blog has suffered as you all know. I can hardly believe we are half-way through October already. And as much as we've had going on, I haven't taken my camera out to capture any of it until tonight. The days are just packed.

Some of what we've been up to:

1) Potty training the Normster. I can not express to you what a massive undertaking this has been. It took my friend Stela sharing with me the technique she used with her son Lucas, who is two weeks younger than Normy and alike him in so many ways. Basically her method was NO DIAPERS. Not for naps, not on trips, just no diapers. We started the day after I talked to her, a couple of weeks ago now. And things are getting better. Typical of most kids, he's got peeing down, but we've still got a ways to go with poops. Atypically, he didn't have problems with accidents at first. He had potty phobia, so would just hold it... all day long. The first day we started he only peed 4 times, despite the massive amounts of liquid he consumed. He's now much better and will even ask to go. Though, he still wants a buddy in the bathroom. As an added bonus, he's finally learned how to take down and pull up his own pants. Excellent. Who knew three year olds could do such things! ;-)

2) a Visit to Kansas. Last week we left on Thursday and stayed through Sunday. It was a wonderful trip. We were lucky to spend time with both sides of the family. We also got to enjoy dining at Smoochy's mom's new restaurant which was beyond wonderful. My favorite dish was actually and appetizer. Kettle chips smothered with white cheese sauce, crumbled bacon, chives, and blue cheese! Heaven. Plus, Smoochy got the opportunity to fulfill a life log dream while we were there. He bartended for a private party she was catering! He was quite the drink slinger I was told and made some serious tips. ;-) The real highlight of the trip was reuniting with our dog Jack. He' been spending the summer at Smoochy's dad's house while we settled back in Omaha. But, he's home with us now. The kids are LOVING having him home, and I actually like it quite a bit too, despite the hair and the muddy paw prints on my pretty wood floors. Maybe if I took the time to wipe his paws...

3) The Nebraska Friends of Midwives has kept me busy busy busy. I just became the vice-chair of the organization (which I think is tremendously cool.) We had our yearly meeting last week, as well as a trip to the Capitol in Lincoln. It was a long day for my kids who accompanied me for all of it. But, they did wonderfully. Next up is the LLL conference in a week and a half. We will have an booth there to reach out to the community and hopefully drum up support for the three CNM bills we are trying to move out of committee next session. Further, I plan to doula for a friend's twin birth coming up soon, so I have had lots of birthy stuff on the brain.

4) Oh yea, and I'm pregnant. And just starting to feel it. My complexion has taken a turn for the worse and today I HAD TO NAP. It was not an option. I cooked a pork loin in the slow cooker all day, but never had the energy to make sides to finish the meal, so we had pizza instead and tomorrow I will turn my pork into Posole. Oh yea, pregnant. I'm pregnant. I can't think about anything but food. Tomorrow I have a prenatal appointment with hospital based midwives. I am not sure if I am going to use there services for the birth itself, but I really want an ultrasound to establish a firm date. Seeing as Normy was born only four days after his due date and Georgia was born ON her due date, my track record is pretty solid for being able to narrow down the birth to at least a week. I can't believe I am going to have THREE children. That's a lot of laundry. ;-)

OK, the end. I'm going to bed. Sorry this post is lame. After such a long hiatus you'd expect something spectacular. Maybe after the first trimester! ;-)

One minute they love each other...

The next, not so much.

Two Pink Lines

Thank you all so much for the out pouring of congratulations and well wishes. We are grateful to have such a wonderful family and group of friends supporting on us in our third adventure in parenthood. Isn't it amazing? I am just as excited for the third one as a was when I was pregnant with Normy. I am over the moon with joy. (So is Smoochy, don't let that scary face fool you. The first thing he said when I told him was "That's awesome!" The second thing was: "This isn't the last one is it?")

I have to admit, ever since I found out I was pregnant I have had a sort of blogging paralysis. I couldn't imagine what else to write about other than being pregnant. Of course, it is still ridiculously early, and we probably shouldn't be spreading the news in such a public forum... but well, otherwise I probably wouldn't have posted for the next four to six weeks. By my estimation, I am due either May 10th or May 28th. Seeing as my husband was only home two out of seven weeks around the time of conception, it really narrows down the possibilities.

I have to say, I was totally shocked to see two pink lines. I've been charting, and never had any fertility signs, if you know what I mean. But, of course Georgia nurses like a six-month old, so I shouldn't be surprised. Anyway, It is kinda' funny actually how the whole testing came about. I had just gotten home from Kate and Chuck's house in Denver, when I caught a side view of my stomach in the mirror and was pretty shocked by the view. I looked ROUND! Not just hadn't worked out on ten days of vacation round... but like second trimester (for a primipara) round. I thought I'd test just for the heck of it. Well, thirty seconds after peeing on the stick, I was cursing my self for being so silly and waisting a pregnancy test. (Smoochy says we should buy stock). I flung it down on the counter and left the bathroom irritated with my self.

Fast forward to much later that night. I came into the bathroom to wash up and what was waiting for me... the pregnancy test. I glanced down at it while brushing my teeth. TWO PINK LINES. I almost choked on my Aquafresh. Thus precipitated a massive online search regarding the validity of pregnancy test results after the initial window of testing has passed. There is seriously a website called www.peeonastick.com. Very helpful. Basically, a test result is only 100% reliable for ten minutes. After that you could be seeing saturation lines. But, the thing is I have taken a lot of pregnancy tests, and I know from previous experience that whenever I have dug a negative test out of the trash hours or days later they have all still been negative. This one was clearly positive. Of course, I didn't have an other test in the house and Smoochy was out of town. The kids were sleeping. I seriously contemplated leaving them alone and asleep and driving to the Quick Trip at the end of our street. No one even knows our house in the woods is here, right?

I managed to restrain myself till dawn, though I lay a wake half the night playing the what if game. As soon as I got the kids fed and dressed we were out the door and on the way to the gym. I stopped off at a grocery store in-route and bought another test. I couldn't hardly stand the suspense. First I had to make it to the gym and check the kids into their childcare room. (Doddle doddle doddle... COME ON NORMY!) Then I ducked into the ladies' locker room and found the first open potty stall. With trembling hands I tore open the package... two pink lines again. Holy Shit.

I still can't really believe it. Another baby. Another sweet precious baby to snuggle, and nap with, and wear around the house in a wrap, and wipe it's cute little bum, and mash bananas for, and stay up all night with, and love love love. Another sibling. A sister or a brother. Another place at the dinner table, another birth. I love this.

So, I haven't taken a single photo all week. I've been in a daze I tell you. But, I thought I had better put up some photos to help remove that last image of my husband that may have seared itself into your brain and kept you up at night with it's horrible grotesqueness.

So:

Come on May!

Post Deleted due to complaints of young children crying