I have been having fun taking maternity pictures, and I hope to do it weekly from here on out. I had professional pictures taken during my first two pregnancies and I have several of those hanging in the bedrooms, plus I'd like to frame a few of the ones from this pregnancy. I'm not really sure how to display them all though, without our bedrooms looking like some sort of creepy shrine to my being pregnant.For the last month or so, Noah has been getting up before 5:30 a.m. every morning, and he doesn't take very kindly to my trying to cuddle him back to sleep. I am very much NOT a morning person and this is really starting to wear on me. I don't want to get up before sunrise every day. The last two days he has slept until almost seven, so I was feeling relieved that I'd get to start sleeping longer again, but this morning he was ready to go at 5:04 a.m. Yuck. I keep wishfully remembering the days when Emma used to fall asleep nursing sometime around midnight, then I'd stay up until 2:00 or so, and then we'd both sleep until 10:00 or 11:00. My body clock is much more suited to that type of schedule.

Emma seems to be having the time of her life at my mom's house. Noah and I are driving there this afternoon and I'm very excited about seeing her again.

I am having serious quilt issues. Way back in October, I started a twin size quilt for Noah. I finally finished the top awhile back, but I didn't have the fabric I needed for the backing or the binding. I decided to buy more of one of the prints I used in the quilt for the binding, and going off the small piece I had left of that fabric, I bought all the fabric I needed to make a pieced backing to match. Well, apparently that particular fabric is nowhere to be found anymore. I tried three local quilt shops, looked everywhere online, and even posted ISO threads on a couple sewing forums. Nothing. So now I have all this backing fabric and nothing that matches it, and I keep thinking and thinking about what I can do for the binding. I don't have enough of any of the fabrics I used to make it, and I can't seem to find any more of the ones I think would look okay. Arrgh.

After mulling that over for way too much time and coming up with nothing, I decided to start on a baby quilt for the new baby. I finished the main part of the top, then went to add a couple strips of border around the edges. For the life of me, I couldn't get the borders to lay flat. I soon realized that I had cut the pieces on the bias incorrectly, making them too stretchy. Gah! I detest seam ripping, and a perfectionist I am not, so I generally do not re-do anything unless it's pretty awful to begin with. Unfortunately, this fell under that category, so I got out my seam ripper and removed the borders. After a bit of online searching, I dug up a few tricks to help me apply the borders to a too-stretchy middle, and last night I redid the borders at least somewhat successfully. I was going to add two - a white and a green - but decided to just leave the white one because adding another would probably exacerbate the problem. I should have gone to bed then but I was pleased with my progress so I decided to stay up and sew the whole thing together. I squared up my top, batting, and backing, then pinned them together and sewed all around the edge. As soon as I finished that, I realized I had put the batting in the middle, which means that when I turned it right side out, the batting is on the outside where it obviously does not belong. Ack! I was so frustrated at this point but I was determined to get it done before I went to bed so I sat there and ripped out the entire edge seam. Then, I lined them up again, pinned them, and sewed it all together again - only to find out that I did the exact same thing with the batting! AAAAAHHHHHH! Someone should probably make sure I don't do any driving or operating of heavy machinery because obviously I have lost the ability to THINK! By that point I was so tired and annoyed that I stuffed the whole quilt in the trash can and stormed off to bed. (I had just taken out the trash so I knew it was only a clean, empty trash bag in there otherwise I probably wouldn't have thrown it away. Still, the act of shoving it in the trash can was oddly satisfying. I did get it out of the trash this morning, though.) At some point I hope to actually finish this quilt, but it may be awhile because I probably need to just step away from it and take deep breaths for awhile.

Luckily, even though I may not be accomplishing much, there are others around here who are. I don't think I've mentioned on here yet that a little somebody learned to walk!

Remember a few weeks ago when Emma spent her very first night away from me? Suddenly she seems to be growing up so fast, because last night she left to spend the next five or so days at my mom's house. She is going to VBS with my mom at her church next week. My brother commutes to Kansas City from halfway across the state, so he drove her back to his house after work last night, and then my mom picked her up from there this morning and took her home. Noah and I are going to drive there on Wednesday or whenever Emma decides she misses us too much, whichever comes first. I got a little choked up as I watched her drive away with my brother last night, especially when I saw her in the backseat, bravely trying not to cry.I think she'll do okay because they have lots of fun stuff planned and she's been excited about this for a long time. She packed her suitcase about a week ago and then kept adding things all week so by the time we were ready to go she had a suitcase and about six laundry baskets packed with stuff she just had to bring. She kept coming out of her room with some random book or toy that hasn't been touched in two years and saying, "Well, of course I need to bring this!". In the end I told her she needed to narrow it down to her suitcase and one laundry basket, which she did finally manage to do after lots of discussion and indecisiveness.It's been weird having Noah here all alone, and I am feeling a little bit sorry for him because he will never have the opportunity to be the only child. Obviously we pay attention to him normally, but I can really tell the difference in how much I am able to dote on him when he is the only one here. I'm happy that Noah and I have this chance to spend some one-on-one time together, although I am sure we will both be excited to be reunited with our sweet Emma in a few days.

We've been busy lately, but a good type of busy, with lots of fun stuff to do. We spent a few days down at Table Rock Lake, which was pretty relaxing and awesome. There was lots of time for swimming,
playing games, napping,boating, and tubing. Even Emma (who is notoriously un-brave about many, many things) gave tubing a try, and needed only a small amount of coaxing to do it. Do you have any idea how hard it is to hoist oneself out of the water and onto one of those things while pregnant?Yesterday we had another fun day, filled with some of my favorite things. A trip to the Farmer's Market, some fabric shopping, some yarn shopping,meeting Steve for lunch, a little ice cream,and the Royals beating the Cardinals for the second game in a row.

My due date is two months from today. Noah made his appearance almost two weeks early, and if this baby does the same, I could be holding a new baby in my arms in around six weeks. Gulp.

Yesterday we made pitas from my wonderful bread book. It was from the Light Whole Wheat basic recipe, and they turned out absolutely perfectly. I can't believe how easy they were! We used them to make yummy tuna salad sandwiches for lunch yesterdayand equally yummy pizzas today. Mmmm! We will definitely be making those again.Noah is learning lots of new tricks, most of which involve climbing and make me very nervous. We have a little kid-size table in our living room and his new favorite thing is to climb up on top of it and look out the window. He likes to yell at the neighbors and bang on the window when anyone walks by, which is very cute, but the whole time he is up there I'm just waiting for him to fall. He has already fallen off twice without sustaining any major damage, but I will continue to be nervous about it until he is just a little more steady.

We have been buying delicious raw goat milk from a local farm for awhile now, but recently found another source that is cheaper and also has a closer pick-up spot. This new farm also offers raw cow milk and I thought it would be fun to get some of that so I could skim the cream off the top and make butter. Well, it was fun, but I think we did something wrong because the butter we got was not so great. We mixed and mixed and mixed the cream and nothing much was happening, so I switched to my hand mixer to see if that would help, and it still took forever. Finally after about 30 minutes (I think it's only supposed to take 5 or 10), our cream split into half butter and half buttermilk.We did our best to strain all the buttermilk out of the butter, at which point we were supposed to be able to knead the butter while rinsing it with cold water. For some reason our butter was still so mushy that there was no way anyone could have kneaded it - it would have been like kneading mayonnaise. So, after all our efforts, this is what we ended up with:
A very small mound of very mushy butter - not too impressive. It did taste pretty good, but after a couple of hours was turning brown, which means we did not get enough buttermilk out and it was starting to go bad. Bummer. I don't know how to get out more buttermilk than we did, though. I imagine we'll try it again to see if we can get better results, but I'm pretty disappointed with our first attempt. The buttermilk, however, did make some delicious pancakes!
Emma had a show at Deanna Rose this weekend, and afterwards we decided to stick around and do a little fishing. Steve and I were bragging about our fishing skills, and we were both sure we were going to catch more fish than the other. We got a pole and he went first. After quite awhile, he hadn't caught any fish so I told him to hand it over and watch how it was done. I couldn't catch any fish, either, even though the little kids by us were catching fish all over the place! Emma wasn't interested in fishing, but we eventually persuaded her to try it. About two seconds after she dropped her worm in the water, she had caught a fish! In the end I think I caught three, Steve caught two, and Emma caught eight! So much for our fishing expertise!

After reading a few blog raves about it, I ordered the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day book. I have only made two loaves from it (a boule and a baguette) but so far I am very, very pleased. This bread is unbelievably easy and unbelievably delicious as well. This idea is that you mix up the dough and then you can store it in the refrigerator for up to fourteen days and just tear off a chunk and bake it whenever you want a fresh loaf of bread. There is no kneading, so even making the dough at the beginning (especially since I just threw it together in my mixer) is very simple. The book says you need a baking stone and a pizza peel, and while I did go buy the baking stone, I've been using a cutting board instead of a pizza peel and it's working just fine. Now I just need to learn to can so I can make a bunch of jellies and preserves to go with this yummy bread.

Two of my friends have just begun selling their awesome handmade items. You should go check out the adorable little wooden dolls on Blessing Mama's Etsy page, and then go look at Jaime's affordable and funky slings.

Some random stuff...

~ I thought buying a regular swimming suit was pretty difficult, but it turns out that buying a maternity suit is even worse. At one point before I went shopping I thought maybe I should make the most of having a firm stomach right now and get a bikini. I tried one on and, um no, that was probably the worst idea ever. And really, someone should tell the people who make maternity tankinis that the tops and bottoms need to be available separately because not everyone is the same size on the top and bottom. After visiting four different stores and trying on a ridiculous number of suits, I finally figured out that my best option was to get a regular non-maternity suit with a size small bottom and size large top. Oh, and one more thing - if anyone reading this ever opens up a store, please make sure the doors on your dressing rooms go all the way down to the floor. I promise you, anyone who is trying on clothes while also spending the entire time trying to stop a determined baby from crawling underneath the door and escaping will really appreciate it.

~ Cherries. Oh cherries, how I love you so! I cannot get enough cherries these days, and since they aren't in season for all that long, I am making the most of it while they are. This means the kids ans I have been making a trip to the store pretty much every day, just to get cherries. Yum!

~ I sewed something! Nothing big, but still something. My friend Allison gave me a tying kitchen towel that she made awhile back, and I've been wanting to make some more for myself. I used an old bathroom towel for the bottom, and it was SO hard to sew through all those layers. It took forever and I think my thread broke about a million times so I swore I wasn't going to make any more. However, now that I've been using this one for a couple days, I love how thick it is so I may still attempt a few more.~ Emma has so many toys that I've tried my best not to bring any more toys into the house, which means that we have a houseful of "girl" toys and no "boy" toys. I hadn't thought about this before and really, I don't see anything wrong with boys playing with play kitchens and doll houses and dolls. Still, a few weeks ago when we went to my mom's house, my brother made fun of Noah for showing up with a jeweled lavender seahorse phone in his hand. Then later, my dad found a little toy Bobcat and gave it to Noah to play with. Noah enjoyed pushing it around so much that when we got home I bought him a couple little trucks, and he loves them. He spends a good part of each day pushing those trucks around, saying "RRRRRRRRR". So cute!

My midwife was here today for my 28 week visit, and she had to draw my blood. Yuck. I am a huge wimp when it comes to needles. I declined the tests for glucose and anemia and whatever else there was, but we still had to do it to test for antibodies. We were sitting on the couch and as my midwife was tying the stretchy thing around my arm at the beginning, Emma quickly pulled up a chair, sat down, actually rubbed her hands together, and said, "Ooh, this is going to be exciting!" She watched the whole process intently, then was fascinated with the vial of blood and after my midwife showed it to her, she even asked if she could keep it. At least somebody enjoyed the experience, because I sure didn't! I am just glad that it's over.

Note that this picture has absolutely nothing to do with this post, but I can't have a post without a picture.

Mary Beth tagged me! This is not actually the meme for which I was tagged, but she did this blogging one awhile ago and I'm taking it upon myself to do this one instead.

1. Why did you start your blog?
For over two years I held Emma for all her naps, which meant a LOT of time sitting at the computer. After awhile I grew bored of hanging out on forums all the time, so when Emma was nine months old I started this blog to give me something else to do while she slept. And, as I said in my very first post, "I'd love to have a diary of sorts to chronicle these wonderful days in my life."

2. How did you come up with your blog name?
See No. 1. I came up with it pretty instantly, and I wish I'd put more thought into it because I don't really like it much. I've thought about changing it to something else, but now that I've been using it for so long that seems sort of silly.

3. Do your friends and family know about your blog, and what do they think?
Everyone in my immediate family (my parents and brothers - not Steve) reads my blog and some people in my extended family as well. My brother David was the first person I told about my blog and for a long time he was my only commenter. I also have friends who read it. Sometimes I am surprised when I meet someone for the first time (usually through a friend or through my local AP group) and she tells me she reads my blog. There have also been times when I've been told by completely random people (strangers at my brothers wedding, or people at my high school reunion whom I haven't seen in years) that they read it.

4. How do you write posts?
These days, very slowly! I come in and write when I get a chance, but it often takes me several days to write a single post because of all the interruptions.

5. Have you ever had a troll or had to delete unkind comments?
There have been a couple times when someone with nothing better to do but go around and be randomly mean has left a comment that I've deleted. Something like "u r stupid and ur kid is ugly" Whatever.

6. Do you check your stats or care how many people read your blog? If you care, how do you increase traffic?
I used to check the stats all the time, but I don't much anymore. My readers have dropped quite a bit in the past few months, but that's okay with me. I'm sure it is mostly to do with my not posting as often, and I know there were people who came here looking for crafty stuff who probably gave up reading once they realized my crafting became (sadly) pretty much non-existent. At one point I was up to something like 70 hits a day, whereas now I get about 40. It's still amazing to me that 40 people every day think the stuff I write is interesting enough to come here and read it.

We joined a CSA for the first time this year and I am so excited about it! Monday was our first pick-up day and I was really pleased with the items we received - honey, rosemary, a baguette, tofu, tomatoes, salsa, eggs, and a free range organic chicken. Aside from the obvious benefits of eating fresh, local foods and supporting local farmers, I love the CSA because it gives me a starting point for meal planning each week. One task with which I really struggle is planning our menus and making our grocery lists. There are a bajillion possible meals we could eat - I don't know why it's so hard for me to come up with a few at the beginning of the week, then plan for them and still actually feel like making and eating them when the time comes. With the CSA, I can see what we get every week and then plan meals around those items - the most difficult part is eliminated!

My brother is moving to South Korea to teach English for at least the next year and his plane leaves tomorrow morning. Good luck, Andy!

Wow, it's been awhile! My available time for updating this blog seems pretty non-existent lately, but I thought I'd stop in and let you know we are still alive.Noah is not walking or talking yet, but he will take a few steps here and there so I think he'll be a real walker within the next few weeks. His face has changed somehow and he suddenly looks much older to me. He eats and eats - more than Emma on most days - so I guess his rapid growth is understandable.Emma hit a pretty big milestone on Friday - she spent the entire night away from me for the first time in her life. We all went to my brother's house for dinner, but then Steve and Noah and I left and Emma stayed for a "sleepover" with my brother and his wife and my parents. She shared a bed with my mom and dad, and apparently they didn't get much sleep because of it. They were quick to point out the next morning that she is a big time wiggler and kicker. Yeah, no kidding.

I don't have time for much of a post, but I promised a friend I'd post a belly picture so here it is. This was yesterday at 24 weeks.


I also took this one of Emma yesterday and I think it's too cute not to share.

Often in the evenings I find myself craving something refreshing to drink, but alcohol and caffeine are out and I don't like soda so I wind up drinking plain old water or juice and still wishing I had something better to drink. When I saw Ina make her California Iced Tea, I thought that sounded perfectly refreshing, and easily adapted to be caffeine-free as well. Emma and I made some yesterday and, I was right, it was just what I was looking for. Steve told me it's not anything new and it's also known as an Arnold Palmer, but for me it's new so I am still excited.Another thing about which I am excited is my new clothesline. When we moved here, there were two clothesline poles in our yard but no line on them. I've mentioned to Steve a few times that I'd like a clothesline but he thinks they are trashy (which might be about the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard) and I haven't been too eager to go in our backyard the past couple years anyway due to the crazy amount of snakes we have, so I just let it drop.This year, in part because of my newfound bravery, I decided to go ahead and put one up. I've been using every warmish, sunny day so far to dry things on the line, and I love to look out the window and see my stuff blowing in the breeze. The trouble with hanging things on the clothesline is that most things become stiff and crunchy when dried that way. I'd like to be able to say that I'm earth-friendly enough to use scratchy, crispy towels instead of the soft and fluffy ones that using the dryer gives me, but I am not quite that committed yet. For now at least, I am happy to dry my sheets and diapers out in the sunshine.

I am feeling very proud of myself. This year I decided that those snakes aren't going to get the best of me, and I'm actually going to go in my backyard. Of course, it's a lot easier to tell myself that than it is to actually walk in the yard, knowing that there could be a snake lurking around any tree or underneath any tuft of grass.
Emma planted some watermelon, sunflower, and pumpkin seeds a couple weeks ago, and they were clearly starting to outgrow their little cups. I told her we'd go plant them out in the garden, but I kept putting it off because, let's face it, I am terrified of the garden. (Wasn't it only a day or two ago that I was poking a little fun at Emma for not being very outdoorsy?) Still, I'd promised her we'd do it, and I'd also promised myself that I wasn't going to be so scared this year.We made our way down to the garden and Emma fearlessly walked inside. I stood outside the fence and told her I was nervous about going in and she said, "It's okay, I'll protect you. I'm brave with snakes, remember?" Well, I'm a little skeptical about that, but I went in anyway and actually sat on the ground and helped her dig holes for her little plants. (We couldn't find a little shovel so we had to improvise.) Quite a triumph for me - and we didn't even see any snakes!
There were a few asparagus plants coming up from my long-abandoned asparagus patch, and Emma was excited to pick them. She carried them up to the house and, even though I had told her I would cook them for dinner, she proceeded to eat every last asparagus stalk while we played outside! I told her they would be probably be better if they were cooked, and she said they were already delicious. If you say so, kiddo.

For Valentine's Day this year, even though we do not usually give each other gifts, Steve surprised me with a gift certificate to this place, good for an aromatherapy whirlpool bath, a 45 minute prenatal massage, and a European facial. All of which sounded great, but the best part was that Steve was going to watch the kids for me so I could actually go and do these things. He has some strange unfounded fear that Noah will cry for me the entire time I'm gone, so he has not been home alone with both kids even once since Noah was born. I went to get my massage, etc. on Saturday and he and the kids dropped me off, then went and played at a park for a few hours while I was there. Of course they all had a great time, and I thoroughly enjoyed my massage. It turns out they don't allow pregnant women to do the whirlpool bath, which was a tad disappointing, and I didn't absolutely love the facial, but overall the experience was pretty great and it was SO nice to get a break from being "mommy" for awhile.

Saturday night Emma had a dance show at a retirement community in which she had a small singing solo. I would like to show the whole song because it's cute, but I couldn't really get her dancing without showing the other little girls. They are accidentally in this video a bit, so to protect their privacy I will take this video down in a day or so. Everyone had to bring a pair of gloves to wear during one of the songs, and Emma wasn't very happy with the gloves I brought for her to wear. When she stepped up to the microphone in front of everyone, she spotted me in the audience and called out, directly into the microphone, "Don't worry, I got some better gloves!" I think the loudness of her own voice really startled her, but everyone in the room had a good chuckle over it.

Today is chilly and dreary, but in spite of that I think we're finally getting into more spring-like weather. This week the kids and I took advantage of a few nice days by going on two picnics and visiting the arboretum to enjoy all the spring flowers. We were all happy to get outside, and are looking forward to the weekend, which is supposed to be beautiful.
At the arboretum, we discovered that Emma is also terrified of bugs, but "only bugs that are on me," she'll tell you. The first time I saw her running maniacally towards me, letting loose a blood-curdling scream, I thought she had probably gotten stung. Nope. As she frantically shook her arm, I managed to grab ahold of it and discover the reason for all the melodrama - a very cute, and perfectly harmless, ladybug. A ladybug! Not exactly the outdoorsy type, is she?
Noah, of course, loves crawling around and eating flower petals, little pebbles, bugs, and pretty much any speck of dirt he can find. He's not very discriminating either, because he will happily swallow all these things unless I dig them out of his eager little mouth. I know he will of course start walking at some point, but I honestly wish he would hurry up and do it now so all the tasty-looking (to him) morsels on the ground aren't as accessible. Emma didn't learn to walk until she was fifteen months old, and Noah is really nowhere close to walking now, so I think I'm just doomed to have kids who are late walkers. Because of that, my kids are also probably doomed to ingest more than their share of dirt, bugs, petals, and rocks. At least they are organic, right?

Awhile ago, I read this about growing your own sprouts and knew I wanted to try it out. I ordered the special jar lid, bought some mung beans and lentils, and five days later, I had grown my own sprouts! We've now grown and eaten three or four jarfuls of sprouts, and they are very bit as interesting and delicious and I suspected.Of course they are perfect for salads and sandwiches, but Emma also loves to eat handfuls of them plain, straight from the jar. I think she likes to eat them so much because she has actually watched them sprout and grow. They are a perfect experiment for little kids because they grow so fast and are so easy to do. We're all about instant gratification.Does anyone local have a good recommendation for carpet cleaners? Our carpets desperately need to be cleaned but I'm not sure who to call. The first time we had it done I was really happy with it, but last time whoever we used did a terrible job and also ended up charging me more than I had been quoted. I can't remember which company it was either time, and now I'm wary of hiring someone crummy again.

Oh, and here is the recipe I used for the bagels. I followed the recipe exactly except I subbed whole wheat pastry flour for all the flour. Next time I will try baking them on parchment paper so I hopefully won't have as much trouble with them sticking to the pan.

Steve and I generally don't get each other Christmas (or birthday or Valentine's Day) presents. We each just buy something for ourselves that we want and call it a present. This past Christmas, however, he surprised me with a KitchenAid mixer. I had mentioned to him several times that I wished I had one, but at that time I was feeling so crummy I couldn't fathom ever cooking anything again. The box also looked so big and I didn't think we had enough space to store it, so after it sat in our living room for a few weeks, I returned it without ever opening the box. Fast forward to week ago, when I was feeling much more human again, and really starting to regret giving up the mixer. I ordered another one and it arrived yesterday! This time I am properly excited about my new toy.I wanted to do something with it that we hadn't tried before, so yesterday we made bagels. I was sort of skeptical that they would be any good, but they turned out amazingly well! A few of them were stuck to the pan pretty severely, but overall they turned out great. These are just plain whole wheat (great for making sandwiches), but I am looking forward to experimenting with more flavors in the future.

I ordered a little remote to go with my camera, mostly because I would like to take some maternity portraits that are a little more interesting than just me standing in front of a mirror and taking a picture of myself. A few days ago I decided to have a little belly photo shoot. Of course, I managed to take one picture before both kids came charging in the room and the picture taking became all about them. Which is okay of course, because since I am always the one behind the camera, I have almost no pictures of me and them together. Trouble is, these kids couldn't sit still for a picture if their lives depended on it. Oh, and there's also the part where Emma tries to get right in front of the camera and completely monopolize every shot. Still, we had fun and now Emma keeps asking me when we can set up the camera and take a bunch more pictures of ourselves. Very soon, I hope.Emma has developed a new (and completely unfounded) fear. Over the weekend we were doing some shopping at Town Center, and as we were walking back to our car Steve noticed two geese in the grassy median and pointed them out to Emma. He wanted to take her closer to look at them but she was completely frozen in fear. Then as we rounded the corner of our van, there was another goose walking around about ten feet away from us. Emma screamed in terror and started to cry at the sight of the goose. Strange, because I'm pretty sure that geese have never bothered her before. Then yesterday afternoon she was happily sitting out on the front porch waiting for Noah and me to come outside and go for a walk. Suddenly I heard her screaming and banging frantically on the door. I rushed over to let her in and immediately asked her what was wrong. In between sobs she managed to explain, "I saw a bird." Huh.
Today we did end up going to the Royals game. It wasn't raining, but it was super cold. It might have been just medium cold on the ground, but we bought tickets from a scalper and ended up sitting just one row from the very tip top where the wind chill must have been something like two degrees. Both kids did great the whole time though, and in the end we were really glad we went. I'm just glad they were selling hot chocolate! (Oh, and also that the Royals beat the Yankees - woo hoo!)