Noah has a habit of dropping things in the trash so I routinely check our trash cans whenever I walk by them and remove any toys, shoes, sippy cups, condiments, or whatever else I find in there. Last week Steve noticed our remote control was missing. We searched all over the house, figured it must have gone out with the trash, and went and bought a new one. A day or two later, the new one disappeared as well, and is nowhere to be found. After having the same remote for over seven years, we are now on our third one in a single week. I think I'm going to have to be more meticulous about looking in the trash cans!

Noah also likes to help me flush the contents of his diapers down the toilet. No problem there, right? I usually keep a stack of diapers on the bookshelf in the living room, just so I don't have to go back to the bedroom and get one every time I need to change a diaper. Yesterday Noah came into the kitchen and was obviously very excited about something. He tried to grab my hand and pull me with him. I followed him into the bathroom, where he proudly showed me eight diapers stuffed in the toilet. I guess I will also now be putting the diapers on the TOP of the bookshelf and out of the reach of little helpers.

I've been neglecting this blog, mostly because I don't have the time to upload pictures that often. Since I'd like to have this to read in the future, I'm going to make more of an effort to update, although the pictures may be sparse for awhile.

Our days have been going well, at least until about 5:00 or so. It seems that at that time everyone, including me, starts to melt down. Things tend to unravel pretty quickly so I'm usually calling Steve around 6:00, growling at him to come home. By the time he gets home at 7:00 or so, I have pretty much reached the end of my rope. Today was no exception. This morning was great - we ran a bunch of errands and all was well. We came home and I made some Broccoli Chowder for lunch and then we made the always-delicious Peanut Butter Banana Bread for a snack and I was patting myself on the back for being so productive. By that time it had stopped raining so we went on a nice long walk. Still, everything was great. Then we got home and Allie was suddenly uncharacteristically fussy, Noah dumped out the kitchen trash can - twice - and Emma started complaining (a LOT) that she was sick. Then, as I was looking for something in the bathroom cabinet, a light bulb fell out and shattered all over the floor. I had a screaming baby and a crying little girl so I left the glass everywhere and just quickly put the baby gate up in the hall so no one could go back there. While I was doing that, the stove timer started buzzing, signaling that dinner was ready and as I ran through the living room to turn off the timer and get everything out of the oven, Emma threw up all over the living room floor. Wonderful.

I am so glad it's the weekend!

I just can't stop taking pictures of this baby. I know she is going to be growing so fast and I want to make sure I remember what she looked like when she was so tiny. She will be three weeks old tomorrow already!Everything is going pretty well. The only real issue is getting Noah to nap. This is always been an issue with him of course, it's just a little more difficult with another baby thrown into the mix. He is nursing so much now that he hardly eats any food anymore. I'm okay with it (except for when it goes on all night long) because I think it's helping him adjust, but I sort of hope he slows down sooner rather than later.Steve wanted to work all weekend so the kids and I went to my mom's house. I was a little nervous about making the trip with all three of them for the first time but we didn't have any problems. Luckily, my kids are pretty great travelers. My grandma rode back with us and has been here helping out. Sadly, she is leaving this afternoon. It's so nice having another adult around during the days!I have a wee bit of crafting to share. I did a swap with my friend Allison and I made her this pincushion. In return, she sewed a birthday banner for me that I'm planning to hang up whenever we are celebrating birthdays in our family. Thanks, Allison!

So we've spent the last week adjusting to having another little person in our family. Allie is wonderful and perfect and she is doing her best to make the adjustment as easy as possible. Noah has been a tad clingy and has stepped up his nursing quite a bit, but overall even he is dealing with it much better than I expected. The real test, however, will come tomorrow because I will be alone with all three children all day for the first time. Eek. Wish me luck!Emma started preschool on Thursday and I think it was a success. She clung to me and cried when we left, which was hard. We did wait out in the hall long enough to hear her stop crying almost immediately, and by the time we picked her up in the afternoon, she seemed very happy and excited about her day. Although I've always wanted to homeschool and am sad to be giving that up, I know this is best for her right now. I'm certain most of my next year will be spent nursing babies, changing diapers, and trying (and probably failing miserably) to keep up with the housework and I don't feel like I can offer her the stimulation she needs while being preoccupied with those other things.

Isn't it such an amazing miracle that what looks like thisone day, can become thisthe very next day?!

Alexandra Jane was born at home at 10:07 p.m. on August 14th after four hours of labor.She is a perfect angel and we are all (except maybe Noah a little bit) enjoying having a newborn around again.

Does "blah" count as a legitimate word? If so, Noah has his first word! He says it every time I change one of his poopy diapers so he apparently knows what it means!

No baby yet. Last week was kind of rough, but today I am feeling good and full of energy so I am looking forward to a better week. My worst problem right now is that even my biggest shirt no longer fits me, and as far as problems go, that one is pretty insignificant. Here I am at 39 weeks. It's not the prettiest picture, but at least you can get the idea of my general humongousness.Emma has decided that she is too old to call me "mommy", and will now refer to me as "mom". She still forgets and called me mommy about half the time, though. I don't know where she got the idea that "mommy" isn't cool. The other day a couple of her friends were over and every time they walked through the room, she pointedly said, "Hi, mom," just to reinforce the point, I guess, that she is now sophisticated enough to call me "mom". She has also always called Steve "papa" and she still does that, but I have recently heard her refer to him as "my dad" when talking to other people. She is trying to grow up so fast!

To add to her grown up status, she will be starting preschool next week. It's only two days a week, but I can hardly believe she is going to be gone from home so much. I'll have to pack her a lunch and I've been thinking about how I can make it waste-free. I ordered a pattern for insulated lunch bags and sewed her one of those. I also bought a couple of reusable sandwich wraps, and a couple of stainless steel food jars so I think we are all set for lunches. She is very excited about bringing her lunch to school. We also purchased her school supplies last week and I think she has packed and unpacked and repacked her backpack about twelve thousand times by now. I really hope she likes it as much as she thinks she will!

Saturday was Steve's and my fifth anniversary. I woke up in the morning just as he was walking out the door. I asked him where he was going, and when he replied that he was going to work (without any mention of our anniversary) but would be back around 3:00, I snapped something at him and closed the door. I took the kids to the grocery store and spent most of the time trying not to cry, thinking that I was going to be spending my anniversary alone with the kids while my husband, who apparently had no idea that it even was our anniversary, spent the day at work. I wasn't going to call him, but I couldn't hold out very long because I called him as soon as we got home and I think it was probably only 8:30 by then. He was totally surprised that I was upset, and in fact he really did have no clue about the anniversary, but he said he would pack up and come home right away. I'm so glad I called instead of sitting around and sulking all day. When he did get home, he spent the day painting our kitchen, which was a perfect anniversary present.

Last time we painted our kitchen, we wanted something bright and cheerful so we picked out a nice green that we thought would look great. Trouble was, once it was actually on the walls, we realized that our nice, pretty green was actually more of a neon green and pretty awful looking. We decided to repaint it right away.Fast forward about three years (which is "right away" in terms of our remodeling timelines around here) and we finally have a much more reasonable color in the kitchen. It's maybe a tad brighter than I wanted, but it's a huge improvement over the fluorescent green we used to have. We always seem to spend less than a minute picking out paint colors, so maybe we should learn our lesson and spend some more time on it next time.

Not too much going on here. I am big and fat and I alternate between feeling very lazy and being in a frenzied rush to get things done. Aside from basic cleaning I still need to do (which never ever seems to actually get "done" - sigh) we are all ready for the baby's arrival. Emma is very excited to meet her little sister. Noah doesn't get what's going on, but he sure digs the birth pool.

Remember that quilt I was making for the new baby, the one with SO many mistakes? I finally finished it, thank goodness. I hadn't planned to put a binding on it, mostly out of laziness, but when I saw the "finished" version without a binding, I really really didn't like it. The border still wasn't laying right, and the back of the quilt - plain white Minky - looked pretty boring. Now that I've added the binding, I'm so glad. I really think all quilts look better with a binding, and it doesn't really add that much time. I remember that sewing the binding on Emma's quilt took me forever, but I stitched this one on in only two days.I think I'm in a bit of a quilting rut. Every quilt I've made - and I've only made four - except for one has been made up of squares. I'm vowing that my next quilt, whenever I decide to create it, will not have any squares.

As the new baby's arrival draws closer - about a month away now - I am becoming more and more nervous. How is Noah going to handle suddenly being shoved out of babydom and into middle child status? How am I going to handle having three kids, age four and under? I have heard many people say that the biggest adjustment when having kids is going from no kids to one kid. In my case, that wasn't true at all. When Emma was born, instead of reeling from the shock of having to care for a tiny helpless person before myself at all times, I was so enamored with her that I honestly don't remember there even being any adjustment period. I remember thinking, THIS is what I have been waiting for my whole life. All was great for three years and two months, until I became the mother of two. At that moment, everything that had been so easy before was suddenly much more difficult, and I feel like my quality of mothering (if that makes any sense) dropped considerably. There is always someone getting shafted, and unfortunately for Emma, it's usually her just because she's older. So now I can't help but wonder how another new baby is going to change things, and if having another kid is going to turn me into some crazy, mean, neglectful mommy. Sigh.

In other more light-hearted news, I have a little bit of exciting (for me) news about Emma. For three years she had no hair, and then for another year and a half she refused to wear ponytails, barrettes, headbands, or anything else in her hair. Now, completely out of nowhere, she wants me to put pigtails or barrettes in her hair every day, and then she actually keeps them in! Yay!

We went to another Royals game this weekend, thanks to some tickets given to me by my sweet friend Shawn. Before the season started we discussed buying a partial season ticket package, but I opted out because the past two years I've spent just as much time walking the concourse with Emma during the games while Steve gets to sit and actually watch the game. Now I wish we would have gotten the season tickets, because this year the kids have been really awesome at the games. We've been to probably eleven or twelve games so far this season and I haven't had to get up with them once. They are both perfectly happy going back and forth between Steve's and my laps and their own chairs the whole time. I want to make the most of it and start going to more games the second half of the season because by next year the (three!) kids may not be so willing to just sit and hang out during the games.

Oh, and a completely random thought...what is up with amazon's Free Super Saver Shipping? In the past when I've ordered anything from them, they give me a shipping quote that is always many days away, but the items ships and arrives much sooner. I ordered a new camera lens last week, (and I'm SO excited to get it) and it took them six stinkin' days to ship it! I am way too impatient to wait this long for shipping! It is finally supposed to get here tomorrow, more than a week after I ordered it. On a happier note, I did get some pretty great fabric in the mail yesterday.

The last two weeks we've had a few of our CSA items go bad. I made a promise to myself to step up my efforts to use all of everything we receive. This week we got quite a bit of two things no one in my family really likes that much: cucumbers and zucchini. The cucumbers were little ones that reminded me of pickles and I had no idea what to do with two entire boxes of them. I've been wanting to learn to can, and even though I've always been a little intimidated by it, I decided this was the perfect time to teach myself how to do it.
After purchasing the necessary canning supplies and reading up on canning online, I got Noah down for a nap and set to work making pickles. Be warned that if you do this, your house will smell very pickle-y for quite a few hours afterwards. Unfortunately Noah woke up after only sleeping for about 25 minutes, but I loaded him into the Beco on my back and continued working. He hung out there while I finished the entire process, gleefully smashing crackers in his hands and shoving the crumbs down the back of my shirt. After a lot of manipulating hot jars with funny utensils, in the place of all those cucumbers I had eight jars full of pickles! As a disclaimer, we haven't actually tried any of the pickles yet but they really do look like pickles and smell like pickles so I'm feeling pretty positive that they will taste like pickles too.
I wanted to make bread with all the zucchini so yesterday we made three loaves of regular zucchini bread, which is always yummy. One loaf went into the freezer, and the other two loaves were, um, scarfed down almost immediately by a certain pregnant person who had forgotten how much she actually loves zucchini bread. Today we made two loaves of Zucchini Parmesan bread. I hadn't made it before but the recipe was from Everyday Food so I figured it would probably be good. It did look good and as I took the above picture I really couldn't wait to eat it, but I didn't like the flavor much, so I took the other regular zucchini bread loaf out of the freezer and ate that instead. Yes, that's right. I have, in fact, eaten three loaves of zucchini bread in the past two days. The worst part is, I'm pretty sure that tomorrow I'm going to run to the store and buy some more zucchini.

Awhile back I saw this post about sewing a camera strap and I decided that would be the perfect fast and simple thing to take my mind off those darn quilts. I was a bit reluctant to cut into my Nikon strap, but I found out that, should I mess things up too terribly, I could purchase another one for about $4. With so little risk involved, I took my seam ripper to the strap, quickly cut up some of my fabric, did a little stitching, and ended up with this. Yay! I love it.
Noah has developed a love affair with his shoes. For awhile he would bring them to me first thing every morning and wear them all day except for naps and when he went to bed. Now he has advanced into a whole new level of obsession and he won't let me take them off. Ever. He has not taken them off for two days, and last night in the middle of the night I awoke to someone smacking me in the face with a shoe. Through my sleepy haze, I slowly realized that his shoe must have fallen off while he was still sleeping and he wanted me to put it back on for him. Once I replaced the shoe, he rolled over and immediately went back to sleep. Oh, and apparently Emma isn't the only one of my kids who doesn't care if things match.

I stole this from Jen. I feel like I should post something, but I'm too tired to string together any coherent sentences.

1. Favorite hobby?

Sewing, taking pictures, reading.

2. How do you feel about your ex?

Indifferent.

3. Do you own guns?

Nope.

4. What flavor do you usually drink at Sonic?

I never go to Sonic. I think pretty much every item on their menu is gross. They somehow even manage to have nasty ice cream.

5. Do you get nervous before doctor’s appts?

No.

6. What do you think of hot dogs?

Gross (except for at ball games).

7. Favorite Christmas song?

Mary Did You Know?

8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning?

Two cups of half-caff coffee. If I weren't pregnant I'd spend half the day drinking it. If I weren't nursing I'd drink it all day.

9. Can you do push ups?

Ha. Not lately.

10. Can you do a chin up?

Just one at a time.

12. Do you like blue cheese?

Sometimes.

13. Ever been in a car wreck?

Yep.

14. Do you have ADD?

No.

15. What’s one trait that you hate about yourself?

Hmmmm. I wish I weren't afraid of snakes.

16. Middle name?

Kathryn

17. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment.

1. Rats.

2. Noah just woke up.

3. Now how will I finish this riveting blog post?

18. Name 3 things you bought yesterday.

I took the kids swimming and paid for the pool admission. Does that count? I didn't buy anything else.

19. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink.

Coffee, water, that's about it.

20. Current worry?

Will I have the time (or the motivation) to clean the bathroom before my brother visits tonight?

21. Current hate right now?

Cleaning the bathroom.

22. How did you bring in the new year?

Watching 24 on DVD with Steve. Exciting stuff.

23. Where would you like to be right now?

In my bed, asleep.

24. Do you like bok choy?

We got some in our CSA a few weeks ago and I used it in stir fry. It was the first time I'd had it and I wasn't real impressed.

25. Do you own slippers?

No.

26. What shirt are you wearing?

A plain pink maternity v-neck tee shirt.

27. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets?

I don't know.

28. Can you whistle?

Yes.

29. Could you be a pirate?

Uh. What?

30. What songs do you sing in the shower?

Whatever I think will help keep Noah content so he'll stay in there happily until I can finish washing my hair. If I'm in the shower alone - which pretty much never happens - I don't sing. I'd much rather enjoy the silence.

31. Favorite girl’s name

Emma? Jane? I don't know.

32. Favorite boy’s name

Morgan.

33. What’s in your pockets?

They are currently empty.

34. Last thing that made you laugh?

Noah's dancing.

35. Best bedsheets as a child?

No idea.

36. Worst injury you ever had?

A broken arm, I guess.

37. Do you like where you live?

I like Kansas City a lot, but I don't like my particular neighborhood much.

38. How many TVs in the house?

One.

39. Who is your loudest friend?

Not sure.

40. Favorite book?

Again, not sure.

41. Favorite sports team?

Go Royals!

43. Favorite candy?

Probably Chewy Sweet Tarts or Chewy Sprees.

44. Does someone have a crush on you right now?

Not that I know of.

45. What is the first thing you thought of this morning?

4:49? Seriously? Dude, can't you at least let me sleep until it's light outside?

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.