Whew!

Talk about a whirlwind week!

We got to spend some great time with family and friends for Christmas. Chris' brother came to town for the whole week, our friends Jerel and Heather (and their 3 kids) came to stay with us for a few days, we got to visit with our good friend Josh for most of the day Monday, and I got to see my two childhood best buds, Steph and Monica, on Wednesday afternoon. We also had the honor of hosting Christmas Eve dinner for my family at our house for the first time. It was a lot of fun! As tradition has it, we spent most of Christmas day at Chris' parents house with 20+ people coming and going throughout the day. I heard it was a lot of fun -- I missed a good chunk of it because I spent most of the day sleeping! I was so exhausted from the weekend and Christmas Eve that I ended up taking 2 different 2 hour naps throughout the course of the day. I think I forget I'm 8 months pregnant sometimes.

Micah and Katie had a blast. Particularly, Micah. He hasn't quit talking about how Santa brought him a Monster Truck for Christmas. Although, I think his favorite present is the cash register. He has rung up every thing in the entire house. Katie seemed to enjoy eating more than the gifts. She ate soooo much food throughout the course of the week.

The busy week isn't over yet, either. Tonight we are preparing for Chris and Micah to go camping tomorrow. Chris and his brother are being brave enough to take Micah and Logan (Micah's cousin) camping for the first time. Let's just say, I'm glad it's them and not me! We also have 3 birthday's to celebrate this weekend - Chris' mom, his neice, and his sister.

Meanwhile, I'm now almost 37 weeks pregnant. I'm bracing for the inevitable, but I'm mostly just trying to enjoy these last few weeks as much as possible.

Oh, and for those who are interested.. I finally got that Media Center PC working. I have no idea how, but it's been running stable and working like a champ for almost a week now. For those of you who haven't made the switch to Vista yet, the best advice I can give is - wait! Hopefully things will be better with their first Service Pack release.

Some girls like diamonds...

A lot of girls like things like jewlery or flowers as a present from a man. I guess I'm not your typical girl, though. How many wives would get excited over receiving a mac'd out new PC for Christmas? Chris totally surprised me with a sweet new Media Center PC - AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core, 4 Gigs of RAM, a super nice Gigabyte motherboard, 2 TV Tuner Cards with HD and Analog, Windows Vista Ultimate, a super nice Media Center case, etc etc. Of course, neither one of us could wait to get the kids to bed to put it all together. We worked on it for a couple nights getting it built and software installed. We had a few bumps along the way, but we could deal. But, here we are almost 2 weeks later... and we're super frustrated. I can't find any central cause of all of our problems other than Vista. The PC locks up all the time, it has a hard time communicating with our WD MyBook, it won't recognize all 4 gigs of RAM (a known Vista issue), we can't get both tuner cards working.. argh! I think we're both ready to throw this thing out the window. Maybe it would be a lot easier for me to just be a typical girl.

Bleh.

That's how I've felt all week. I've got a cold and have mostly lost my voice. And there's nothing like having a cold, having two kids who are sick as well, and being 8 months pregnant. At least the kids have been able to take medicine to help them get through it. Me, I'm pretty much just stuck with warm salt water to gargle with. Chris has been quite the hero though. Tuesday and Wednesday he let me lay down for a quick nap (I asked for 20 minutes, he let me sleep for over 2 hours both times). He watched the kids and cooked dinner with no complaints. Talk about an amazing husband.

So, I don't have much to write about this week. I've been so out of it that I don't even know what has happened this week. The only slightly amusing commentary I can give is an incident that happened tonight. We went to Target to buy a humidifier (to help with the colds). It was super busy in there. While were checking out, Micah walked over to look at the candy rack. When he turned around, he didn't see us and began to panic. In a tear jerked voice, he was calling my name and frantically looking around. I grabbed him immediately as he began to cry. It definitely gave him a good scare. As I'm consoling him, Katie leans over the cart handle and says "Sowwy, Micah. Sowwy, Micah. It's okay, Micah." I wanted to laugh, but I figured Micah wouldn't have appreciated that. Katie is turning into quite the nurturing little girl.

I don't know what I'd do without you.

Before I had kids, I was fairly focused on my career. I was a manager in IT with a promising future in the corporate world. But, when I was pregnant with Katie, after much discussion with Chris, I decided to step down in order to be able to be home with the kids. My company was generous enough to offer me a part time position doing the more technical stuff that I love to do. Almost 2 years later, I am so thankful to be in this situation. I get to be home with the kids as they grow up. I get to do continue to challenge my brain a couple days a week doing work I love. And when I'm at work, we have the incredible blessing of having one of the best families in the world (in our humble opinion) keep the kids. They love it over there. What more could I ask for?

So, I was a little surprised on Friday at a train of thought I had. My boss had called a special meeting of her direct reports to share an offer that was made to her to go to another department. The question came up of who would take her position. She wasn't certain so it was purely speculation, but she threw out the possibility that maybe one of the two guys who replaced me when I stepped down might be promoted. I will readily admit, it's been tough to watch other people do my former job over the past couple years. The Lord has really been using this time to chip away at pride issues I didn't even know I had. As of recent, I thought I had mostly overcome this issue. But, as I have learned over the years, sometimes sin can sneakily hide itself tricking you into thinking it's no longer issue. And then burst forth when you least expect it. When I heard the possibility that one of them might have been promoted, my brain immediately raced to the basic idea that "Hey, that should have been my promotion!" As soon as I became concious of the thought, I quickly tried to erase it. Especially because it shouldn't have even been there in the first place. My boss had already said prior to that comment that she wasn't going to take the position. So, nothing was changing anyway.

The fact that I had this disgusting thought it in the first place consumed a lot of the rest of my day. Why in the world would I want that promotion anyway? I love being with my kids! I love doing the work I do now. There was really no other answer other than pride.

Later that evening, we were sitting in the car at a stop light and it was surprisingly quiet in the car (that doesn't happen often with two kids). Out of no where, Micah suddenly says "Mom, I don't know what I'd without you." Wow. I couldn't help but tear up. It was exactly what I needed to hear to bring me back to reality. It took hearing those precious words from my 3 year old to remind me that I'm doing exactly what God wants me to be doing right now. Those guys can have my job, my old desk, my promotion, whatever. I'll take being with my kids over that any day.

7 hours later...

...we stood in line to checkout. That's right. We spent 7 hours in one store. Not just any store, though - the new Ikea in Orlando! For those of you that know us, you know that we're Ikea fans. Needless to say, we were pretty excited when we found out that a store would be opening in our state.

It was quite the day. We started the day at 5:15am and headed out to go pick up our friend Josh. We were also supposed to meet some of our other friends there, but they arrived a little later than we did and the store was so packed that we never crossed paths. On the way down, I also got a surprise phone call from one of my best friends and former college roommates, LB. We hadn't seen each other in close to two years, so when she said she had found out we were coming to Orlando and wanted to meet us at Ikea, it was just icing on the cake!

On our way back, we topped the already wonderful day off by eating some great pizza at a place called Satchel's in Gainesville. Josh had raved about this place for sometime, so it was fun to get to try it out. I have to admit, that was probably some of the best deep dish pizza I've ever had. But, Chris would disagree with me. He didn't like it so much. We'll just have to agree to disagree on that.

So, this week we'll be spending our spare time trying to put all the stuff together that we bought at Ikea. We also need to get the Christmas tree, wrap presents, work on our Christmas cards, and finish putting the lights on the house. If anyone is bored, feel free to come help! :)

Ouch.

The end of this pregnancy has definitely been more uncomfortable and exhausting than my other two. It could have something to do with having to chase two kids while being pregnant. Just a guess. For me, weeks 15-30 are generally great. I feel great, have energy, don't feel sick, I'm not sore, etc. But, I think if I felt that way the whole time though, I'd neer want to give birth! So, in a wierd sort of way, I'm thankful I feel this crummy. It just means the time is drawing near. My denial is ending - I'm feeling more ready to accept the inevitable labor and birth process ahead. And more importantly, I'm looking forward to meeting the newest addition to our family.

I heard some great news yesterday - one of my best friends from childhood is expecting her first child! I'm thrilled to death for her and I know she will be an awesome mom. When she told me, it dawned on me that we have known each other for almost 25 years. And even though I have 3 kids already, it just doesn't seem like we're possibly old enough to be having kids of our own. From the day we met in kindergarten, I still have tons of memories of the experiences we shared together. Like standing at the end of her dock in the freezing cold to pour Magic Shell chocolate in our mouths and let it solidify, spying on the boy next door to her house, our rollerblading club, playing soccer together for 10 +/- years, and the list goes on. It just doesn't seem like it was that long ago. I guess we're growing up. :)

Why?

Micah has officially hit the "why" stage. In the 1 hour time span of he and I cooking a single dessert today, I counted 72 why's. And I'm sure I missed a few. Here are just a few examples...

• "Why are you not using the whole stick of butter?"
• "Mom, why is that called vanilla?"
• After attempting to lick his fingers after getting egg all over them as I quickly yell "NO!" "But why mommy?"
• After sticking his finger in unsweetened cocoa powder, putting it in his mouth and nearly gagging, "MOM! Why do you put that yucky stuff in there?"
• After dumping M&M's on the ground for Abbey to eat as I attempt to frantically clean them up and at the same time calmly explain that chocolate will kill a dog, "Why? Is it okay for me to eat chocolate?"

Talk about exhausting. That doesn't even scratch the surface of all the questions he asked. I can appreciate the need for a child this age to ask these questions as part of development, but when you're in the midst of it, it's hard to not lose patience. Needless to say, we finished up that one dessert, I put him down for his nap and rushed to finish the other food before he woke up so I could avoid another 150 question why game. I should have figured he'd wake up and say "Why did you cook without me, mom?" :)

At the end of the day though, I always find myself reflecting that it's actually really funny and sweet to hear him asking these questions. I find a lot of his questions end up getting so far down the "why" tree that it often times leads to conversations about God and how much He loves us. When Micah prays at night now, it's hard for me not to tear up when I hear him say "God, thank you for the trees. Thank you for the sunshine. Thank you for the ducks. Thank you for mommy. Thank you for daddy. Thank you for Katie. Thank you for Abbey. Thank you for trains. Amen."

So all that to say, I suppose I can put up with this stage. I at least need to get used to it since Katie isn't far behind. When I put him to bed tonight, I told him thanks so much for helping me cook today. It was hard to contain my laughter when he responded, "No problem, Mom. Anytime."

What a great time of year!

Thanksgiving is just two days away and I am so excited! Micah and I sat down today to decide what we are going to cook and we went on a grocery shopping date tonight to get all the stuff. He is really into cooking lately. So much so that he wants to make scrambled eggs about every 5 minutes throughout the day. :) We decided we're going to make some of my infamous Strawberry-Kiwi Angel Food Cake dessert (Chris would be upset if we didn't make that), Macaroni and Cheese, Fruit Salad, M&M Brownies, bread rolls, and of course, sweet tea. Mmm. I can't wait.

Chris' family has a tradition of the whole extended family getting together Thanksgiving day. There are usually 75-100 people there. We're having it at his cousin's house out in the country, so there's lots of land for fun stuff. A bouncy house, horse rides, golf cart rides, horse shoes, our tradition of all the women looking through the sales ads for Friday shopping, and of course - TONS of food. That family sure can cook. We then come home for quick naps for the kids and then we head out to my sister's house for Thanksgiving dinner. Again, some great food - my mom's broccoli cheddar cheese casserole is always a must have. A full day of visiting with family, having fun, and lots of great food. It doesn't get much better than that!

One small problem - I've pledged to bring homemade macaroni and cheese to both family events. But, when Micah and I went shopping tonight, we found that the macaroni pasta was completely sold out. Even the generic brands. So, we'll be on a macaroni mission tomorrow for sure.

Nesting?

One of the common signs of the end of a pregnancy for many women is the "nesting" urge. Probably much to the disappointment of Chris, I haven't really had this urge with either of my two kids. I've just had my typical responses to any upcoming event of just feeling like I need to get a lot of different things done. Chris has grown accustomed to my "project list before the baby comes" that I give him during the first 8 weeks of pregnancy. But, those are mostly things for him to do, not me. :)

I think this time might be different, though. I'm not sure what to make of it yet, but I've begun feeling a little overwhelmed with a spring cleaning urge. Last week, I found myself on my hands and knees cleaning the kitchen floor, bleaching the toilets, washing cloths that weren't even dirty, wiping down walls, sorting all of the kids clothing, cleaning out the filing cabinet and shredding papers. ..and that was just in one day. Today I have been searching the entire house for any possible thing we can throw away and was caught on camera by Chris doing touch up painting on the ceiling in our living room.

So, is this nesting? The problem is that I still have 9 weeks left! I'm going to be exhausted if I keep this up for 62 more days. Or, maybe I'm just being affected by this episode of Oprah Chris recorded last week on the topic of hoarding. I'm not an Oprah fan at all (in fact, I'm anything but a fan -- I usually hate that show), but I do have to admit.. if watching that episode doesn't make you want to clean your house and throw a bunch of stuff a way, nothing will.

The Business of Being Born.

Last night I got to attend a screening of a new documentary film produced by Ricki Lake called "The Business of Being Born". The film was about the state of maternity care in the United States with the assertion that it's basically in a state of crisis. Did you know that the current C-Section rate in the US is 33%? That the time of day most C-Sections are performed are statistically 4pm and 10pm? Or that the U.S. has the 2nd highest newborn death rate in the developed world? All of this begs the question... Why?

People forget that hospitals are generally meant to treat illness and that pregnancy and childbirth is not an illness. Don't get me wrong - there are definitely times when a labor will have complications that need to be addressed in a hospital setting. But, on a healthy, normal pregnancy, the percentages of interventions are way out of whack in our country. I've been to a lot of births and the snowball effect of augumentation drugs like pitocin is an all too often occurrance. In a lot of cases, people make decisions about the birth of their child on less information than they would have when they purchase a vehicle. I'm hopeful that this documentary will help encourage moms and dads to find out more information when it comes to the choices they will be presented with in childbirth and that it might open some eyes to a multitude of issues in maternity care in our country.

The film wasn't perfect by any means, but overall it was well done and I believe well intentioned. I've seen a lot of birth videos and I'm excited about this one because it's one of the first main stream films to be produced by someone already in Hollywood and to be shown in public theaters. It is scheduled to be release in January and will be available on Netflix shortly thereafter. Until then, check out this trailer on The Business of Being Born website - http://thebusinessofbeingborn.com/trailer.htm.

Churrascaria.

Yesterday was Chris' birthday! If you don't already know us, you'll find that one of our favorite things to do is eat. So, it was only natural that I plan a week full of good eating for him. I was super excited because I planned a babysitter for two nights this week. We don't get to go out by ourselves much anymore, so I figured two nights in one week would be a real treat (along with the new iPod he very subtley requested).

Another widely known fact about us is that we are very much creatures of habit. We generally eat at a few select places. Some of them an awful lot. But, on a whim... We decided to try something different last night. Everyone is going to think I'm a unsatisfiable patron or something. My past 2 posts have been about bad customer service experiences, and here I go again...

A couple years ago, we were on vacation in Dallas, TX and tried a Texas de Brazil Churrascaria restaurant. It was absolutely incredible. How often do you get to sit at a table while people come around and slice off pieces of perfectly cooked filet mignon, lamb, pork, etc. And they had the most incredible salad bar -- and I don't even eat salad! We recently found out about another Churrascaria restaurant in our area, so we decided to give it a go last night. $40 a plate later, we were very disappointed. It's a locally owned restaurant and it was no where near the caliber of Texas de Brazil. All the meats we received were extremely rare. Not a huge deal if you like rare cooked red meat. But, when even the bacon wrapped turkey is cold and uncooked in the middle, that's a little too rare. There were no vegetable side dishes, only rice and mashed potatoes. We had to wait forever for people to come to our table to bring us meats and it seemed they were running very short on most of the selections. In the end, it probably would have been a decent meal for $15 a plate.

Oh, well.. at least Friday night we'll go back to one of our tried and true favorites - The Melting Pot. Melted cheese, melted chocolate and cheesecake... Mmmm.

Car dealerships stink.

Okay, I'm sure not all of them stink. But, the one we bought our Honda Odyssey from does. Or, at least the Service Department does. We bought our Odyssey about 4 months ago. The day after we bought it, we noticed one of the snaps on one of the floor mats had fallen off. We figured it was no big deal; we'd just call the dealership and have them replace it. I'm proud to say that 4 months later, 5 hours worth of sitting in the waiting room with 2 kids, and at least 30 minutes on the phone, we finally have a fixed floor mat.

We reported the missing snap the week we bought the van. They said they'd order the mat. After a couple months of not hearing anything, I called in to check on the status. The guy told me that they would have received it and sent it back by now because it had been so long. I told him there must be a glitch in their process since I was never notified before they decided to send it back. Duh. So, he said he'd have the mat overnighted and ready for me the next day. I made an oil change appointment and showed up bright and early. Surprise! No floor mat. They're on back order with no ETA. I then have to wait over 3 hours for a silly oil change. The kids were okay for the first hour. By the second, my pregnant self is exhausted and the kids are ansi and tired. They finally finish after 3 1/2 hours and, oops, they forgot to wash the van. The kids were about to melt down, so I just left. The service advisor then has the nerve to call Chris and ask him if we were satisified with our experience. My charming, gentle husband proceeded to give him an earful.

Last week the guy calls Chris again and said they were finally able to get our mat in. Chris said, "Great, when can we come pick it up?" Not that easy. The guy tells Chris we'd have to make an appointment. "To get a floor mat??" You can imagine Chris' surprise. He was nice enough to promise Chris it would only take 45 minutes. Yeah, 45 minutes to get a silly floor mat installed. I show up today thinking the guy had to be off his rocker. I expected maybe all of 5 minutes. Wrong again. An hour and a half later, I have a new floor mat and they've washed the van. The kids are loosing it and the guy has the nerve to ask me, "So, have we successfully changed your mind about our service?" with a big grin on his face like he had worked a service miracle.

Needless to say, we'll be finding another dealership to go to for future service.

Gotta love technology.

It's been several days since I've posted. Not because I didn't want to, but because I couldn't. Our DSL has been on the blink since last Wednesday. Chris and I being the techies that we are were able to narrow the problem down to the line pretty quickly. But, that means nothing when you call the phone company. It's so hard for me to sit calmly while they ask me silly questions like "Have you rebooted your computer?" 2 hours on the phone later, I was able to convince them to send someone to the house. In the end, they had to replace the phone box outside of our house.

The night before they came out, Chris decided to make some new network cables to clean up all of the wiring in our entertainment center and make it a little easier on the phone guy. Micah had his first lesson in splicing cables. Gotta tech 'em young!

On another note, Halloween was a lot of fun last night. Micah was a "motorcycle man" (that's what he calls it) and Katie was a horse. They had a blast walking the neighborhood with all their friends. We live in the best neighborhood ever.

Birth Order?

I think I've been in denial about this for sometime, but I'm finally starting to come to grips with it. My kids are different. Imagine that.

From the day he was born, Micah has always been out to please. He usually only needs to be told once not to do something. When he was 15 months old, we moved him to a big boy bed and told him not to get out of his it on his own. To this day, he won't get out of his bed in the morning unless Chris or myself comes to get him. We told him a few weeks ago that he is old enough now to get out of his bed on his own in the mornings, but he is still very hesitant to do that. He is always telling Katie, "Katie, don't do that. Mommy and daddy wouldn't like that!"

Katie.. well, she's not Micah. I was finding myself getting frustrated at times because I might have to tell her 20 times not to do something. And just when I think she has accepted the "no", I turn around and she does it again. Why? They're kids from the same parents with the same discipline. Don't get me wrong, Katie is a great kid in lots of ways. She's funny, loving, super smart. She's just a little more stubborn. Hmm.. maybe a little like me, huh?

Someone at my work today recommended a book called "Birth Order". She suggested that Micah and Katie are the way they are because of the order in which they were born. She said I should hurry up and read it so I can see what kid #3 is going to be like. I'm not sure kids can be pegged into holes like that, but I will probably pick up the book to see what it says.

In the end, I think it has more to do with the fact that God blessed these two kids with different personalities. I think I just needed to be reminded of the verse that I've spent countless nights reading as I nursed them. It's painted on the wall in the baby room: "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Psalm 139:13-14

It sure is quiet around here.

So, Micah is officially sick. He lost his voice this weekend and began complaining of a soar throat yesterday. I took him to his pediatrician today and it was determined that he has croup. He tried to talk a little yesterday, but after he realized it was a lot of work, he basically just kept to himself today. When he needed something, he whispered to me. That made for a very quiet house today. At night it's even worse - it sounds like a barking seal when he coughs. I had heard other parents talk about the croup cough, but I guess I wasn't prepared for what it would actually sound like. It's a horrible noise and to hear it come from your own kid is just heart breaking.

On the bright side, though.. this means we get good food! Tonight Chris' dad made us some chicken and dumplings. Mmmm. That's some good stuff.

Do they do that on purpose..?

How do kids know when it's Saturday? The one day of the week when mommy and daddy can sleep in a little. We're not asking a lot - just to sleep until 7am. We were optomistic that Micah and Katie might let us do it today because every day this week they have slept until 7:30 or 8. So, we were hopeful that if we didn't hint around that today would be Saturday, they might do the same this morning. But, noooo. Not today. Today Katie decided to wake up at 5:45am. And since they are sleeping in the same room now, Micah woke up even though he wasn't ready.

But, once we got past that ordeal... it was a pretty good day. We did a bunch of work around the house. Micah loves helping his Daddy when he's doing projects, especially the part where he gets to bring Chris some Gatorade. Since he's not allowed to drink it regularly, he usually sneaks a gulp or two as he's taking it to him.

We also got to visit with my childhood best friend, Steph. She was in town today helping her parents set up for a big neighborhood party they're having next weekend. Micah was not surprisingly a little scared of all the Halloween decorations. Skeletons and ghosts are over the top for him. And Katie, being Micah's complete opposite in almost every way, thought they were "cute" (her words, not mine). It's funny to watch how different their personalities are. I can't imagine where our next kid will fall in the personailty spectrum.

Whirlwind day.

Today was a workday for me, but it was a super busy day so it went by in a blink. You would think having to go from staying home with kids all day to a workplace environment would take quite a bit of effort to get my brain to shift into a different gear. Nope. In a lot of ways, I think my kids are more logical and mature than some of the silliness I experience at work. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do in my job. It's the people that present the challenges. Ever watch the show "The Office"? It's pretty much like that, but 10x funnier. You've got the Dwight's - the ones you have an Outlook rule setup to just send their e-mails straight to the Deleted Items. Fortunately, I've got several Jim's in my inner circle. We can at least laugh at the stuff that goes on together. I spent most of the day with two of my Jim's - Jennifer and Bill - solving some issues and laughing at some of the silliness that transpired today in other areas.

Oh, well.. At least tomorrow promises to be a little less silly. I'll be home with my kiddos. Although, apparently they seem to think I'm the silly one around here. Micah spent most of dinner tonight telling me "Mom, you're a silly dog." I asked him where the bananas were so I could give one to Katie. He said, "I see the banana, mom." I said, "Where???". He pointed at me and chuckled.

Where do they learn this stuff?!

Intro to a Boring Mom...

So, this is my first attempt at a blog of my own... My husband has been good enough to setup a blog that gives updates on our family happenings - http://chrisandjudy.blogspot.com/. But, I wanted to setup a blog of my own where I can share the daily antics of our household. If there is one thing my kids have taught me it's that there is never a dull day when they're around!

A brief summary of who I am: I am 28 years old and have been married to my wonderful husband for 8 years. We were literally childhood sweethearts - we started dating when we were 13. We have two kids, Micah (age 3) and Katie (18 months) a third on the way (due in mid January), and a 5 year old Golden Retreiver. I guess some people call a typical American family and others call us crazy. I suppose we're somewhere in the middle.

You could probably say I have a variety of duties throughout the week... First and foremost, I am a stay at home mom for most of the week. This is by far my favorite job! I also have a 2 day a week job in IT as a computer programmer and technical lead -- a truly awesome job! And when I'm not doing all that... I am a DONA certified Doula where I have the privilege of attending to mom's during labor and childbirth.

So, here goes... Check back soon to see the world through the eyes of a stay at home mom/computer geek/childbirth junkie.