Some Spring Photos of the Fam

Random Mushroom Post II

So upon further inspection the Hub spotted a few more morels in the yard! So we have a total of 10 morels...woohoo! We didn't happen to notice that Super N had escaped and ended up in the neighbors yard two doors down...oops! But we are giddy over the morel findings and Super N is okay.

Stay away from my morels Susan! :)

Seedlings

This is somewhat of a pathetic show of my seedlings. I have about 5 more containers of them in the basement. Most of them are not sprouting b/c I forgot about them with the new baby and such. But there are a few that are doing fine. I hope to plant more seeds outdoors when the frost passes in mid May. Once again this is my year of trial and error.

Random Mushroom Post

I found Morels in my front yard yesterday. There were only 5 but morels nonetheless! Mushrooms are one of my favorite things and I absolutely love the flavor of wild mushrooms. I had to blog about this b/c even though there are only 5 I will enjoy them! Now how should I prepare them?

Super N & W: 20m & 3 yo

Baby J: 2 weeks old

My 3 year old II

W discovered he could open his bedroom window and screen. Fyi it's not a full sized window but a 2.5' x 1.5' window thats higher up on the wall. He has to stand on his bed to get to it. Anyways, he's discovered he can open it and so he started throwing toys out of his window into the driveway. The Hub caught him tossing something out the window when he went in to get him one morning last week. Currently one of Super N's socks is stuck on the roof. That same day we went to get into the van and sure enough there was a pile of toys on the ground in the driveway. It was really funny but boy how frustrating! Apparently our neighbor B saw the whole thing go down and was having a whole conversation with W while he was tossing his toys out the window.

Ahhh!

Momma Had a Baby

I had a baby last week.

I chose to be induced ultimately b/c of the convenience factor. The Hub and I were able to take W and Super N to Gramma and Grampa's on Tuesday night while we prepared to be induced the next morning.

I arrived for my induction at 9am and was started on a pitocin drip at 10:30. My OB, whose office is directly across the street from the hospital, stopped over on her lunch break around noon to break my water. Baby J didn't respond well to this change and so his heart rate dropped pretty fast and he took a while to adjust which worried the nurses and sent them scurrying every which way. But he eventually recovered after they put an oxygen mask on me for 20 minutes or so, had me switching positions every few minutes and they lowered the pitocin dosage.

The labor seemed to drag on and on although one perk was I got to watch HGTV and FoodTV. From 1pm until about 5pm I became increasingly ill and worn out. I hadn't slept for a few days prior and I had a head cold I was recovering from and I hadn't eaten since the night before. The contractions were not awful around 5pm but they were becoming increasingly uncomfortable. I started thinking about whether or not I wanted an epi so that I could sleep since Baby J was taking his sweet time. I then started thinking about Baby J coming out of the Va jay jay and the pain I may experience with that and I realized I wanted an epi at that point. I knew I would be beat after labor and in pain and I knew I'd still have to go home to nurse and spend time with the other kids. I chose to get the epi and try to sleep.

When I chose to get the epi I was progressing very slowly. I had arrived at 2 cm and at 5pm I was only 5cm. The anesthesiologist took 5 attempts at my epi, which btw was worse than the contractions, and then he finally got it in. I had the same problem with my other two kids. After getting the epi in it took effect and although I couldn't feel my legs I could feel the pressure of the contractions and I could feel my feet. After the epi I turned over (well they turned me over) and I fell asleep for about and hour (the Hub said I snored). They checked me, barely changed, and I watched some more tv (Rachael Ray sure has a lot of shows).

At 7:50 the nurses came in (btw one of my nurses names was Beth and my Obgyn's name is Beth so we started to refer to eachother as Nurse Beth, Dr. Beth and Patient Beth) and decided to put me into a "weird" position to see if anything would happen. They flipped me on my right side and bent my right leg up latching my foot into the guard rail. My left leg was put into a stirrup. I looked like I was skipping but I of course was laying down. They checked me again and I was at 6cm. Baby J's heart rate started to go nuts at that point so out came the oxygen mask again. He did adjust relatively quickly though and was fine. I of course felt very comfortable and they kept bringing me warm blankets so I fell asleep.

At 8:30 they came in to check me and the nurse gasped and said "You're at 10! I gotta call the Dr.!". She flipped me over on my other side and told me to breath through the pressure. She got a hold of Dr. Beth who was 20 minutes out and they all told me to "hold him in!". It actually wasn't awful but a bit uncomfortable. I was so excited to meet him that I was just waiting in anticipation!

Dr. Beth got in the room at 8:55 and got situated. She then checked me and said the head was right there, I could see it too thanks to the funhouse mirror and the fry lights that hung from the ceiling. None of us could believe it! So the next contraction they handed me my legs and I pushed. The Dr. yelled for me to stop b/c the cord was around Baby J's head. She lifted the cord and I felt another contraction so she said give me a small push so I gave her one and she delivered him through the cord after 1.5 pushes, he was born at 8:58pm! It was awesome! I was so grateful he was okay. He weighed 7lbs and 10oz and was 21" long. We all figured if they had started to put me in "weird" positions earlier he may have come out sooner.

My 3 year old

I'm not sure what's going on with W but he's been very interesting the last week or so. The hub and I feel like we are going to pull our hair out.

A few days ago he ripped the pages out of one of his books while in his room. We removed all books from his room. He knows this is not okay. He did it again on Saturday morning after the sitter left a book in his room. He keeps asking for us to read the book he ripped apart on saturday but we keep telling him we can't because he broke it.

Also, on Saturday morning he ripped off Super N's diaper and his own. Both had pooped and so there was poop all over the room. I woke up this morning and same thing. Gross! I don't know what's gotten into him. We are finding it very difficult to figure out how to discipline him right now when he does stuff like this b/c we're finding he's very stubborn and doesn't respond to much discipline. At this point the hub is about to duck tape the diapers on and we are trying to use natural consequences (ie. you can't read your favorite book since you destroyed it) to discipline him. We do spank but we found this weekend that b/c he's so stubborn we would be spanking him all day and he still wouldn't respond. I don't know. We're just trying to take it day by day right now and remove ourselves when we feel like our anger has gotten the best of us.

These are some of the times that remind me how difficult it is to raise a child. We don't want to squash him obviously but he needs disciplined. We want to love him but we find it's difficult to not punish him and withdraw from him when he does things that he's not supposed to do. I think we realized this weekend b/c of where he's at right now that we can't change him no matter how much we discipline him but we can communicate what's right and wrong and teach him to be respectful and obey his mommy and daddy all in the surrounding of love and acceptance. These are things he needs to learn in preparation for the real world.

Maybe more on this later as I learn more and have more thoughts...

Potager Gardening in April II

I'm still working on getting pictures on here but I will soon.

Yesterday we were outside all day cleaning up the yard and getting my 2 raised beds in order. Jason also dug the soil out of this old wash tub planter in the yard so it could be moved. Our neighbors helped him lug it over to where my raised beds are and then they hauled the soil over and put it back in. I mixed some of the vermiculite, compost and moss together and combined it with about 6-8 inches of the existing soil. I then planted 15 strawberry plants in the planter. I planted 5 more strawbery plants in separate smaller pots and I still have 30 more to plant! I think I'll just try to find a space next weekend (or have the Hub do it since I'm about to have a baby!) and just plant them in the ground to see how they do. If you're wondering why I purchased 50 strawberry plants it's b/c there was a 50 plants for $20 sale and I figured I'd put them somewhere! We'll see I guess... I did get my blueberry plant into a container as well thankfully.

This morning I went out to the yard with the kids and had hoped to plant some small onions and some Yukon Gold potatoes but I just couldn't muster up the energy. I woke up 3 times last night with the worst raw sore throat. The third time I woke up it had turned into a congested sore throat that was aching. Fortunately the hub made me some tea (at 4:30am) and grabbed me some plain sudafed and some tylenol. The kids have green boogies and coughs so I'm guessing I caught something, I'm struggling today physically.

But in regards to the garden, the kids are going to their grandparents tomorrow evening at 7pm to stay a few days since I have my induction on Wednesday morning. I thought I could try to get some seeds planted and get the onions and potatoes in the ground. This really isn't that difficult just digging a small trench and planting the little bulbs. The seeds I hope to plant are mesclun and bunching onions. I also thought I'd plant some leaf lettuce seeds since my seedlings in the basement died. I think the heat mat was too much for the leaf lettuce plants I read they do better with a cooler environment...trial & error aye!

I checked out my tomato & pepper seedlings and they're doing great! Parsley and a couple of butternut squash are doing great as well. Oh yes I went ahead and ordered two more raised beds online (this gardening hobby has become quite expensive!) so I can have more space to plant. But after those come in the mail and I purchase some more moss, compost, vermiculite, and a wheel barrow we're done! Hopefully my veggies and berries do well and I will be able to freeze them (and maybe can them depending on if I want to invest in that endeavor-more money) and we'll have veggies and berries all through next winter and spring.

A Few of My Favorite Blogs

The Artful Parent: The Intersection of Art and Parenting

http://artfulparent.wordpress.com/

The MotherLoad

http://www.momadvice.com/blog/

Glass of Whine

http://glassofwhine.blogspot.com/

Baby Cheapskate

http://babycheapskate.blogspot.com/

Keep It Cheap

http://keepitcheap.blogspot.com/

Cheap Healthy Good

http://cheaphealthygood.blogspot.com/

Money Saving Mom

http://www.moneysavingmom.com/

Passionate Homemaking

http://www.passionatehomemaking.com/

The Nourishing Gourmet

http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/

Tales From Labor and Delivery

http://itsababynotbrainsurgery.blogspot.com/

Please pass on to me some of your favorite Blogs!

Thanks and looking forward to reading them.

Potager Gardening in April

In Mel Bartholomews book Square Foot Gardening, his "magic" mix to get your plants off to a good start consists of 1/3 of vermiculite, 1/3 of compost & a 1/3 of spaghum moss. The hub, kids and I went and got these 3 products today. Hopefully in the fall I"ll have enough compost generated to add to my beds so I don't have to buy more. A side note: I bought a composter at Sam's Club last weekend. It was $40, which is awesome, and a hair bigger than the one I currently own. I'm excited by this since our little family seems to produce an abundance of food waste that I'm having a hard time throwing away! Overall the cost of these 3 products for 3 3x3 raised beds was $100. Quite expensive in my opinion. I had hoped to do 6 beds but I think that was a bit unrealistic with my lifestyle at this point and I'm glad too with the cost and all (that would've been roughly $200!). I hope my composters will generate enough compost soon so I won't have to continue to purchase compost. That will save me a lot of cash especially as i add more raised beds to my garden.

I received in the mail the other day 50 strawberry plants, a blueberry plant, onions, and potatoes. I need to get the berry plants in the ground or in soil asap. So after I take a nap I plan to get on that.

I will take a picture later of my seeds so you can see how they are doing. It's been difficult for me to keep up on them as well as I'd like. But overall I think I'm doing okay. As you'll see from the pics I post later a lot of the seeds have sprouted and should be ready to plant in a couple of weeks after the frost passes. I hope to plant some heartier seeds outside today and just place milk jugs ontop to prevent them from being frozen. I'll take pics when all is said and done.

Silly

I'm paying bills online and W has been sitting behind me the last 20 minutes just chattering away. He was very excited when Super N was done wearing the doggy costume.

The Woman Who Cried Baby

That's how I feel. I've been to L&D 3x over the last 4 weeks and I almost went this week after having contractions all night and being pretty sure I was in labor but nope. I asked my OB last night at my 38th week appt "what's up with my body!" and she said that 3rd pregnancies are like this. You think you are in labor b/c well it looks and feels like labor but it's not AND you don't really change much in terms of dilation and effacement.

In my frustration I asked if was one who believed in stripping membranes and she told me yes but that it was uncomfortable. I said okay, I need to think about that a little more not sure how I feel about it. But she did ask if I wanted to be induced and I was like "yep!". She said how about next wednesday? And I said, "okay!".

As I was leaving I had this uneasy feeling nagging me but I couldn't seem to tell what it was or why. I figured I haven't slept for two days I'm emotional. But I called the Hub excitedly and told him, his first reaction wasn't excitement for various work reasons, which I realized really affected me and made me feel even more weird and confused as to how I felt.

But last night over dinner, and a very talkative 3 year old, we managed to talk about it. And what I came to about how I felt is I don't know if I want to be induced. The convenience factor of it is awesome. No more thinking I'm in labor and rushing everyone around to get things together, trying to get a hold of the Hub's parents and then getting the kids to their house, etc.
But I think I'd just like my water to break or for contractions to start, ones that actually change my cervix.

Overall I think I've communicated that I want this pregnancy done and over with and that I'm ready to get the kid out no matter what. But I'm not sure that's how I feel or my wish when it comes right down to it. I don't really know how I feel or what I want. I guess I can go ahead and schedule the induction for next weds and then when Tuesday comes we can evaluate whether or not I want to push it off a few days to see if I go into labor on my own. Honestly this isn't that big of a deal but since it's my last pregnancy I just want to be sure I'm doing what I prefer and desire versus jumping into a decision b/c I want some sort of suffering alleviated. I just need some more time to think and evaluate my thoughts, I'll take the next week to do that. And in that time maybe my water will break :)!

W's 3rd Birthday Party

W's 3rd birthday was on March 20th but we had a small get together with grandparents and W's Aunt and Uncle and cousins on Saturday.
Back in December the Hub and I found a train cake mold at Williams-Sonoma for half off and W just loved it! When I scheduled W's little get together I didn't realize that it fell on Easter weekend. And I didn't realize how tired I'd be with the pregnancy. Although W just loved the cake I found myself hoping that I'd have to make a sudden turn or come to a sudden stop as I was driving it over to the grandparents house. I desperately wanted to scrap it and just buy a sheet cake! Let's just say I didn't have the energy to invest the time that I would've liked to make it a bit more something. But fortunately W was enamored with it and fortunately the eyes of kids are not the eyes of Martha Stewart.

I had bought Easter baskets last year after Easter on clearance and had hoped to present them to the kids with jelly bean filled eggs and some little dollar items from Target. And I had hoped we would've dyed eggs saturday night. But unfortunately the easter baskets never made it out of the closet, the dollar toys are still in my utility room and the jelly beans are stored away. But we did dye eggs last night and the kids loved it.

Another thing that did happen that was pretty cool was that we had our friends Amanda, Brian and their son Vincent over for Easter lunch on Sunday. Amanda filled some plastic eggs with candy and hid them in the living room for the kids. They really enjoyed that too and I was very appreciative. So it seems that Easter was fun for them after all.

huh...

At about 9:30 tonight I was standing in my kitchen when all of a sudden I felt like I had to pee and then it just poured down my legs and soaked my pants. I soaked through everything and could not control the flow. I ran to the bathroom and stripped then contemplated on calling my doctor's office. I couldn't tell if my water had broke or I'd peed on myself! I pulled out the laptop and started searching online for answers. What I found just freaked me out so I called my doctor's office. The doctor on call said it sounded like my water broke and advised me to go to Labor and Delivery. I did and they checked me and monitored me and no my water didn't break I just peed on myself. What the hell??! I'm so frustrated that I couldn't tell the difference. But apparently this kid is either big (for my sized torso) or a strong kicker.

I'm going to bed now.

A Bit Of Energy

I was up at 2:30am tuesday morning b/c I could not sleep. I started perusing the online ads for local grocery stores and came up with a list of mostly meat that was on sale. Meijer has lean ground chuck for $1.89 a lb from the meat counter this week. They also like last week have B1G1 on their frozen chicken breast but this week it's tenders as opposed to whole breasts. These are $14.98 for 4lbs once again making the chicken $1.87 a lb.

I purchased 15lbs of ground chuck (you should've seen the butchers and the hubs face) but I had a plan! If the ground chuck is $1.99 a lb or less I'm stocking up for now on if I need beef. I also got two bags of the chicken breast tenders, 8lbs for $14.98.

This morning I must have gotten a burst of energy b/c I spent a few hours in the kitchen, while the kids destroyed the house, and prepared a bunch of stuff for the freezer. The meat I bought this week combined with the meat I bought last week should keep us covered for meals for at least 2 months or more.

This is what I put together today.

3 uncooked meatloaves

about 30-40 meatballs, roasted

13 salsbury steak burgers, parroasted

4lbs of browned ground chuck, individually wrapped in 1lb pkgs for tacos, chili, etc.

2lbs of steamed, diced chicken breast, individually wrapped in 1lb pkgs. Hope to cook more but ran out of energy!

10 hamburgers seasoned with garlic, salt and pepper

I diced about 4lbs of idaho potatoes, tossed them with ranch dressing powder and roasted them in the oven until crispy. I then pkgd them equally in 4 pkgs.

I also got to Sams this week and got the Ravioli I like. This is conveniently easy! It requires boiling and I like to throw it in a dish with sauce and cheese and then bake it, yum!

My goal in all this is to have to leave the house as little as possible for groceries. We'll still have to go to the store for milk and some fruit and maybe some veggies but overall the meat is covered for a while. One thing I found out about myself when I made freezer meals for my family while pregnant with Super N is that I don't like to pull completed meals out of the freezer. I like to be able to smell the food cooking and I enjoy doing some of the prep work. What I prepped today gives me options as to what I can cook which I like very much..

Some things I still hope to make, but we'll see how I feel over the next few days or weeks.

Goat Cheese, mozzarella, and parmesan calzones (I'd like to make 4 med & 4 small)

Deep Dish Pizza dough (at least 2)

Hamburger buns and Hotdog buns (found a great whole wheat recipe, easy too!)

Make up some pancake & waffle batter and freeze

Make up some Homemade Bisquick mix (found an excellent version that uses whole wheat flour)

Make a pot of beans to freeze to use when canned beans are needed (we're trying to eat more beans)

Ahh Taxes

I took advantage of the blizzard weather last weekend and did our taxes, well I didn't do the city taxes but I sufficiently passed those off to the Hub.

We were kind of dreading tax time this year b/c we knew we would owe. Fortunately we owed half as much as we thought!

So I guess everyone will be getting rebates this year after April 15th in hopes to "stimulate the economy". Or in other words it's just an advance on next years taxes so put that in a high yield savings account if you can and collect some interest on it!

Although I'll be putting most of it in savings I think we might take a little and use it to fix up our porch (me fix it up, a lot cheaper albeit tiring and a dirty job) or get a new screen door b/c ours has gotten real ghetto looking and acting. Oh yeah I'm still waiting for a concrete lifting company to give me an estimate on raising our front steps, you'd think they'd want some cash but I haven't gotten one estimate after calling 3 companies. Let's hope they're waiting for warmer weather before trekking out here otherwise my steps will not be lifted this year.

Who knows!

Fact or Fiction? You Decide...

My Hub forwarded this to me and I thought I'd post it. I don't know if it's true or not and I haven't looked into it but for those who use any of these companies products it doesn't hurt to check it out.

I use mostly Seventh Generation and Method but haven considered a lot of these others!

Interesting...


Here you go http://www.vegetarianorganicblog.com/2008/03/ocas_study_finds_carcenogenics.html

W and Super N these days

Super N has what appeared to me to be an ear infection. She was digging in her ears one day last week so I noted to myself to keep an eye on her for green boogies or fussiness, etc. She developed some green boogies over the weekend and was incredibly fussy and sleepy yesterday. I decided to call for an appointment with Dr. Barrett so I could get her on meds asap since playgroup is at my house this week and since W's family birthday party is saturday. Also, just in case Baby J comes early I'd like Super N to not be sick. So I got an appt. and we went in yesterday. Apparently she has a viral cold that presents itself like an ear infection. It doesn't require antibiotics, since it's a virus and will run it's course, to which I'm grateful but the length of time this cold will run is around 2 to 3 weeks versus a normal cold that is 7-9 days, yikes! I don't believe she is contagious but sad for her cause she's uncomfortable.



While leaving the doctor's yesterday I let Super N walk as opposed to riding in the stroller. It was so cute to see W and Super N following me around like little ducklings. I think I really like this age and I'm looking forward to the next year of them becoming more independent and talking more.