F U N

Starting tomorrow evening, twice a week, for the rest of my pregnancy, I'll be going into the Women's Center for non-stress tests for Kasen. My midwife said that it could take as little as 20 minutes per appointment to about 2 hours, depending on how active/reactive he's being.

Honestly, I'm not thrilled about this, but I am appreciative that they're taking my history of pre-partum baby weight loss (meaning my boys have apparently both lost weight before birth) and my circumvalate placenta issues seriously enough to really keep an eye on any problems that might arise.

Saturday was extremely hot and we lost Kevin's new baby chicken, which we need to replace. Noah's little leghorn is very lonely, it's not good to only have one chicken of a certain age, they get neurotic and can go crazy (remind me to talk about my MILs chicken, Blanca....)

BAD day

Yesterday was a bad day. Lots of things happened, some of which I won't blog about...

I didn't sleep well and woke up around 6 (early for me) and was up for the day. Magic the chicken escaped into the alley and it took us a long (HOT!) time to trek around and catch her. The boys were cranky, it was horribly hot and then... apparently Toot (the goose) crushed and killed Dancer, one of our favorite chickens-- the one that always let Kevin run around with her. It was horrible. Keith was on the verge of tears and was stroking her when he picked her up. On top of just the general bad-day stuff, it was devastating. We really miss her. Our other easter-egger isn't laying right now, so we're now green egg-less.

Maybe it's silly to get so attached, but we know each and every one of these chickens and this one was SO full of life and personality. She was extremely graceful and lovely, which is why we named her Dancer. Toot has been getting very territorial about water bowls right now, and we think that she was killed by Toot while attempting to get some water. Magic was in bad shape after her alley excursion, but she's doing well now, so I guess we'll still have our one easter egger (not laying right now).

I think if it had been Silver (our favorite chicken) Keith would have commited Goose-icide immediately. He was close to it last night, anyway.

Good Greif (GERD)!

I have a hard time sleeping as a norm. When pregnant, I take unisom for nausea anyway, and that, supposedly, helps me sleep, but it's still not a great pattern.

But the last few nights I've had a new visitor that has made sleep impossible-- GERD! The second I am remotely horizontal acid and anything I've eaten in the last five hours comes surfing up my throat and I start gagging and burping and throwing up into my mouth. So, I'm up a lot in the night trying to deal with that. It's less of a problem when I am upright, but still present, and I am, and always have been, completely incapable of sleeping upright... and when I'm pregnant I get faint from trying, so I'm drowning in stomach acid, literally... not fun.

Kasen is still extremely active and I'm still having contractions (BH?) every six minutes or so all day and all night.

Keith has been talking about wanting Kasen to come early, but I keep remembering Kev (not early) being under-sized and not being able to figure out eating for so long and I just shudder. I don't need another tiny baby! I need a healthy, happy, good-sized baby who can latch on and nurse without months and months of work. I also don't have a back-up plan if I do go into early labor-- my boys would have to be with my MIL who would take them to the office with her and it is not the best environment. I'm stuck, though, if I'm away from home for any stretch of time, then my poor boys will suffer for it.

I'm 31 weeks today (plus a couple days if you consider my shorter cycle, like with the other boys) 9 weeks to go, and sooo much is going to happen in that time. It's intimidating! Birthdays, Kindergarten starting, preparing for the new baby... and just the daily stuff that seems to be getting harder and harder every day.

Busy B

Keith went shopping (grocery etc) with Kev Saturday morning before Noah and I were up. After he came home I discovered he had found a LOT of cheap produce-- so we got to work, all together, and canned (jarred :)) six jars of pears, three jars of apricots, three jars of blackberry-strawberry jam, and three jars of strawberry jam. It was a lot of work, but worth it!

Next on the to-do list is applesauce and hot pepper jelly and (I want) pickles. I'm tempted to try some carrots as bread and butter pickles. Something tells me that would be really yummy.

I have lists and lists of stuff I want to preserve. I need a pressure canner to do all I want to, but I can deal without for now :).

It does make me really aware of gardening and seasons. My oldest brother gave me an incredible month-by-month LOCAL garden book for Christmas and I have been making lists of what to put into the garden... why? Because the next time I should start planting is in AUGUST when my baby is due!

We had our ultrasound appointment for Kasen on thursday and he's doing very well. He weighed in at an estimates 2 lbs 14 oz and was 61st percentile on size-- really big for my babies! He's strong and healthy, and already has masses of long hair that we saw floating along in the ultrasound. He's truly beautiful and already looks like my other boys.

Kev suggested that we consider 'Kay-ven' as an alternative name... you know, Kevin with an 'A'? He also suggested that Kevin is a great name and we could reuse it.

Kev is reading really well these days. He can sound out just about anything and spends his 'coloring' time copying pages out of books. Today it was from the 'Joy of Cooking' "Protect the fingers as you hand-grate". He asked me what it meant :).

Today's dinner is chili (from scratch with dried Kids-beans (kidney-beans)) and I just whipped up some goat-milk ice cream (milk, sugar, vanilla, little salt) in my new ice-cream maker (it is SELF REFRIDGERATED!) Very yummy :). I'm supposed to go later tonight to get some more canning jars, pickling salt, and look at some herb plants, etc.

After our white chickens escaped and dug up half of our flowers I had to clip their wings. Keith was shocked at how humane it was (did he think I was going to cut the WINGS? It's just the flight feathers!) One of the pullets glared at me the whole time and another one grabbed the scissors and ran off with them with my boys shrieking in hilarity.

http://www.amazon.com/Dangers-Black-Magic-Elizabeth-Reeves/dp/B002ACU4GQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244229568&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Dangers-Black-Magic-Elizabeth-Reeves/dp/B002ACXJYK/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244229630&sr=1-6

Checked the Jars this morning...

... And they are all sealed like they are supposed to be! Yay!

I had a half-jar of strawberry jam leftover that I put in the fridge yesterday and we took it over to my MIL's house-- it was a HUGE hit! Very yummy! A little on the runny side, but, in this family, that's all for the good :)

Keith loves having me have a project that he can SEE the results of and is talking about doing pears next. I think we need to hit a U-Pick farm and really lay some stuff away.

YUMMY :)

Done!

I have four pints of canned peaches in light syrup and four pints of strawberry jam cooling on a towel in the kitchen. I won't know until tomorrow if the canning process was successful, if it wasn't, I don't know why that would be, as I followed the instructions as perfectly as I am capable of following instructions :)

And I'm TIRED! Been on my feet all day and haven't eaten enough.

I sure hope it all turns out good!

And the game of the day is called...

Canning!

Yup, you heard me right! I've been wanting to try my hand at this for years, but was, stupidly, waiting for my Mil to show me how to do it. Right now I have my first batch in the boiling-water bath. Did you know almost 4 lbs of peaches makes about 4 jars of peaches in syrup? Oh, and shock-baths for skinning peaches are touch and go if the peaches are a little under-ripe.

I've made some mistakes, but I'm learning, and very grateful and I started with the peaches and not the strawberry jam which is next on the agenda.

We'll see if any of this turns out :)

Dear Mom and Dad...

Dear Mom and Dad...

I wanted to say 'thank you' for all you've done for me, but, specifically, for my childhood.

Patience is listening to several layers of children 'practicing' instruments in the background without going crazy.

Perserverence is reading bedtime stories until your voice runs out.

Ambition is driving a car full of kids across the country EVERY SUMMER.

Dedication is having dinner at 6:00 every night as a family together, even when the dinner was for two and consisted of fried egg sandwiches :).

Tolerence is letting your children experiment in the kitchen and pretending to like the inedible creations.

And thank you for teaching me that I can do anything I want as long as I am willing to put in the work to make it happen. Thank you for the love of learning, of books, of green things... for knowledge in a broad spectrum of subjects. Thank you for supporting my interests, even when they weren't on the 'agenda' :), for a passion for good food, for an understanding of cause and effect... and for about ten million (or more) loads of laundry and dishes (DAD!) which have spoiled me for housework.

Thank you for driving an hour to get us to school, for meditating during seminary out in the parking lot come cold or heat. Thank you for music lessons and dipped cones and movies... for being open to the spur of the moment. Thank you for accepting boyfriends and girlfriends who became husbands and wives into your home (especially mine!).

Thank you for the willingness to try, the restlessness to seek improvement and change, the palate to appreciate the rare and special (in food and elsewhere). Thank you for teaching us that you help and help those around you, even if you have to pay for every good deed ten-fold.

Thank you for open tool boxes and sewing kits, for knitting lessons and geology lessons, for hikes in the summer and black berry picking. Thanks for never being content to go the same direction as everyone-- for teaching us to QUESTION EVERYTHING!

Thanks for the vitamins and advice, science fiction books 'appearing' from nowhere, hundreds of thousands of hours of concerts and performances, manuscript reading, and overall-- BELIEVING in each and every one of us.

So, yeah, THANKS, for everything that looked so easy when you did it... and that I'm learning is NOT SO EASY!

And Thank you for teaching me that mistakes can teach us the best way to do things right!

I love you! Thank you!