As anyone who has ever been to my house knows, my dogs are extremely friendly - friendly to the point of being annoying whenever anyone new comes over. They really like to meet people up close and sit on laps and they pretty much have no concept of personal space. I am always embarassed when people come over, especially our Parents as Teachers lady, because she sits on the floor and the dogs just cannot hold themselves back. Last month when the PAT mailing came out, there was a paragraph specifically devoted to asking people to restrain their pets for the visits, as they can be distracting to the children, parents, and educators. Now I'm really embarassed, because I'm sure they were talking about us. We have a PAT appointment this afternoon at 3:00, and I decided to be smart and take the dogs to the groomer today so they'll conveniently miss PAT. They don't really need haircuts yet, but there's nothing else I can do with them because they'll freak out if they're locked up anywhere. Unfortunately, my clever plan was foiled when the groomer told me she was closing today at 3:00. Now I have to go get them, and they're still going to be here for PAT. I hope we don't get fired as PAT customers.

And if you promise not to look at the trash can overflowing onto the floor, here is a picture of me at 13 weeks.

I've been working on knitting this sweater, and I almost had the back piece finished. It was annoying me, because I didn't really like the way the yarn was knitting up, and I was getting tired of working on it. Two days ago I decided to rip it out and knit something else. The something else turned out to be this itty bitty soaker. Newborn soakers are super fast to knit! The colorway is a little girly, but if we have a boy, I'm sure he won't mind. Since most of my yarn stash consists of girly stuff, the poor guy will probably be wearing plenty of not-so-manly knitted items. What I really need to be working on is Christmas knitting, but I'm still waiting on the needles for that stuff. I ordered them over a week ago and they are still not here. I've been seriously stalking my mail carrier to no avail.

In case anyone cares, Emma did not use her potty today. What is up with that kid?

We had a little excitement at our house tonight. Keep in mind that Emma has only peed in the potty one fluke time, about eight long months ago. Tonight she had watched Bambi twice, and was wearing her underwear the whole time. This actually isn't all that long, because I fast forward through the part where his poor mom gets killed, and skip the entire last 45 minutes because a lot of that is scary anyway. I was getting a little nervous about Emma having an accident on the couch, so I asked her a couple of times if she needed to sit on the potty. "Nope!" she said. When Bambi was over the second time, it was time to go to bed, and she cried because she wanted to watch it again. She was really overreacting and wouldn't let it go, so I (against my better judgement, which does not approve of bribes) told her if she peed in the potty then we could watch Bambi again. I was positive she wouldn't do it, but she walked over to the potty, sat down, and in less than two seconds, I heard a much-anticipated little tinkling noise! After a minute, she stood up, pulled up her little underwear, and matter-of-factly said, "All done! Let's watch Bambi!" Can you believe that? It was like she had been doing it all her life. So now I hope she'll do it again tomorrow, without my having to promise to let her watch Bambi. Hopefully we did enough cheering and clapping and high-fiving to make her want to.

Today and yesterday have been pretty darn great. It's weird that Monday and Tuesday I was in a bit of a funk, for no particular reason, and then yesterday and today I have been feeling so cheerful, for no particular reason. Crazy pregnant women.

So yesterday I had my first visit to the chiro, and I can't help but feel like I'm getting scammed. I walked in feeling fine, she popped a few joints, I forked over some money, and I walked out feeling fine. I just have to keep telling myself that it's supposed to be beneficial in the long term. It's nothing against my chiropractor; she's great. She has actually told me twice now how wonderful it is that I'm nursing a two-year-old, and how could you not like someone like that?

Tonight a UPS guy came to the door and dropped off a fabulously fragrant package for me. It was filled with a bunch of stuff from Zum, a local company that makes amazing goat's milk soap and a bunch of other great natural products. Included in the package was soap, of course, a soy candle, some spray mist, and two containers of shea butter body lotion. Wow! It was sent by Steve's dad and his girlfriend, with a little glad-you're-feeling-better-we've-been-thinking -about-you note. How cool was that of them?

And, lastly, here is the very best thing about today. Emma had no nap today so she was sound asleep by 7:00 tonight. Now that I am no longer an exhausted zombie, I can actually stay up longer than her (Last night I was up until after midnight for no other reason than I just didn't want to go to bed - it is so wonderful to be back to myself again! Plus, I've only thrown up twice in the last three days!!!). This means that I have fourish hours to myself to burn my new candle, drink yummy tea, knit, and watch movies. I am ecstatic!!!

Oh, and Steve has been in Florida all week but he comes home tomorrow!

Oh, and one more thing - my midwife is coming tomorrow and I will get to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time!

I am craving some order in my life. Every day there is no telling what time Emma and I will wake up, what time we'll eat, what time she'll nap, etc. I feel like we're just bumbling through each day, and at the end, we've usually done some fun stuff, but haven't really accomplished anything. Often during the days, I find myself with this, "Well, now what do we do?" feeling. I know a wonderful homeschooling family with five kids, and the mom was recently telling me that every morning she gets them up at 7:00, they go to Mass at 8:00, and get back home to start school at 9:00. I don't have anything even close to that kind of organization, and I only have one kid instead of five!

So, I'm going to try this loose schedule for awhile, and see how it goes.

8:30 Wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast, throw in a load of laundry, pick up the house.
10:30 Go on a walk or to the park.
12:00 Lunch.
12:30 Naptime.
3:00 Cook something together, do a craft, or go somewhere fun.
5:00 Pick up the house.

Here are some pictures from the pumpkin patch yesterday.

I got zero cleaning done today. So far my one-room-a-day plan is a flop. I purposely kept Emma from taking a nap in hopes that she would go to bed early and I could have my evening free to clean. Now it's 7:00 and she's asleep. Unfortunately, I am so exhausted and have such a terrible headache that I am going to bed as well.

Oh, we did have a fun trip to the pumpkin patch, so I will try to post some pics of that tomorrow.

Our house is always so messy, and I'm sick of it! This week I am deep cleaning one room every day, so by the end of the week we should have a clean house. I've done this before, with plans to keep up with just one room every day, but somehow it never works out. Like a week and a half into it, the house is always trashed again. I think I've had all the mess and clutter I can stand, so maybe this is the time I will stick with it. Today I started with cleaning out my car - not technically a room, but needed a good cleaning nevertheless. I actually cleaned out my trunk, and its contents filled up two entire trash bags. There were still books and papers from college in there, and an unopened box of Pop Tarts (blech!) that expired in 2002!

Last night Steve was working late and I desperately wanted to take a relaxing bath by myself. I'd gotten some fun bath salts from Wild Oats and I was looking forward to using them. Emma and I have been going to bed at the same time for the past few months, but I'm not feeling as exhausted now so I decided to try to get her to sleep first so I could enjoy my bath. We sat here at the computer for so long, and she wasn't even close to falling asleep. I was getting exasperated with her, and at one point, after I told her pretty firmly to lay still, she scrunched up her adorable little face and said sternly, "You knock it off, fuzzball!" I have no idea where she got that, but I giggled at it, and now I am officially Fuzzball Mommy and Steve is Fuzzball Papa. And, in case you're wondering, I got too hungry and too tired to wait for her to go to sleep so we both got up, had a snack, and then went to bed together. Steve is working again tonight, so perhaps Emma and I will just enjoy my bath salt together. Someday I really will be able to take a bath by myself. At least I hope.

I am a little bummed. Today was supposed to be our second midwife appointment, and Steve was going to come home early for it, then take the rest of the day off. Unfortunately, my midwife called this morning and said she couldn't make it today. So now Steve's not coming home early, and my appoinment is moved to next week and Steve won't be able to make it to that one. Poo.

In happier news, my brother recently auditioned for a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (a wonderful play and, in my opinion, Andrew Lloyd Weber's best work), and he actually got the lead part, which is (obviously) Joseph. I think he has surprised us all by actually being able to sing! Before he tried out, my mom said if he did get the part of Joseph, then they might need me to sew him a coat. I've been worried about that ever since, and wondering how in the world I'd ever be able to come up with something like this. The good news is that yesterday I found out that I will not, in fact, have to sew the coat. Whew!

Emma amazed me today by putting this difficult puzzle together all by herself. She was very proud and asked that I take her picture.

I have come up with a plan for what to make my family for Christmas this year. It should be fun, and hopefully much less tedious those eight pair of pants I sewed for everyone last year. Sadly, I can't reveal what I'm making because just about everyone in my family reads this blog, but just know that I will be knitting busily on these items from now until Christmas.

Today is dreary and I am having a sick, pukey day. Emma and I are both still wearing our pajamas. I imagine we will hurry up and get dressed when I know Steve is on his way home, so we can at least give the outward appearance of not having been lazy and useless all day. We are, however, having a nice time watching movies and reading lots of books.

The other night for dinner, I warmed up some brisket that I had previously cooked and frozen. For some reason it turned into a stringy mess, much more like spaghetti than beef. (I always seem to be saying "for some reason" when I'm talking about things I've cooked. Does anyone else experience as many cooking mysteries as me?) Steve and Emma had fun playing with the stringy stuff. Here they are sporting a couple of brisket mustaches.

Emma and I had a great time at my mom's house. We stayed an extra day because I didn't want to drive back in the rain on Sunday. She cried and cried when we left, then thankfully fell asleep in the car. She woke up a couple hours later, and we stopped to walk around and buy a snack. Back in the car, she munched contentedly on pretzels for a bit, then remembered she wanted to be back at grandma's house. The rest of the trip was filled with her crying and sadly whimpering, "Go back to grandma's house, peeeeeeeeeeeease." Poor Emma. That pic is of her and my dad riding one of their horses. She is so brave!

Good news! Two of my friends from my local AP group offered to loan us some of their bigger diapers. Now we don't have to use yucky disposables anymore! Thanks, Allison and Jaime!

On my to-do list for today: cleaning, laundry, baking pumpkin bread, trip to the grocery store, trip to the library, some scrapbooking, and hopefully some knitting. As I type that out, it seems I might be a little over-optimistic. Maybe I'll nix the cleaning!

Emma's diapers have been leaving red marks on her legs, and she has been complaining about them hurting her. Sadly, she has outgrown them. Yesterday I packed away all her beautiful cloth diapers, feeling glad that I will be able to break out my cloth diaper stash again in six months or so. After I packed them away, I went in her room and remembered that yesterday we put diapers on all her dolls and stuffed animals. I'm going to leave those on until Emma takes them off so I can still feel a little bit of the cloth love whenever I see them. The worst part about this is, I am not going to buy or sew a whole new set in the next size up, since (hopefully) she'll be potty learning soon. I hate using disposable diapers, and I feel guilty every time I throw one away, but that's really our only option now. Now I have a real reason to hope she gets busy using that potty!

Emma and I are leaving today to go to my mom's in St. Louis for the weekend. Steve was supposed to go with us, but at the last minute decided he is too buried in work to take the weekend off. I am sad about this, mostly because I was looking forward to six hours of knitting time on the drive. Instead, now I just have six hours of driving, which is not nearly as fun. Quite the opposite, in fact.

I have a decision to make. I really want to (and my midwife wants me to) see a chiropractor for the rest of my pregnancy to cut down on back problems, etc., but mostly to help my chances of having a successful VBAC. I've found a wonderful one and have seen her twice this week for an evaluation, and then to hear the plan she's laid out for my care. The problem is that our insurance, which is usually pretty stellar, is ending up being pretty useless in this case, and it's still going to cost us $600. I've never seen a chiro before, but I've heard so many wonderful things from other people. And I really, really want a VBAC and this will apparently help my chances. So what to do? I'm supposed to let her know by tomorrow, and I'm leaning towards going ahead with it. Still, $600 would buy a lot of yarn, or fabric, or slings, or anything else I like to buy.

My dogs are so weird. They will eat anything and everything they can get into their little chops. Yesterday Emma and I dyed pasta with food coloring, then glued it on construction paper. We went out to dinner last night and left our artwork on the table. When we got home, we discovered that the dogs apparently couldn't resist eating the colored, glue-caked, dry pasta. This picture used to be a (somewhat creepy) face, but thanks to those little scavengers, is no more.













Oh, man. I was just sitting here feeling hungry and icky, but not wanting to eat anything that I know we have in the kitchen. I went to get the mail and discovered a package from my mom, dad, and little brother. It's filled with pictures and candy and, best of all, homemade chocolate chip cookies. My family is the coolest-and they have impeccable timing!

I am absolutely elated today. This is the best I've felt, with no Zofran or anything. I actually have energy! It's wonderful! Also, the weather today is perfectly chilly and fabulous. Emma and I went for a walk and spent a long time at the park. I am SO ready for fall that it almost annoys me when the temperature still gets into the 80's most days. Anyhow, today the temperature today is perfect!

To celebrate my feeling better, I got out my knitting stuff. Sadly, I haven't knit a single stitch in over a month due to just generally feeling gross. For some reason, I don't have much motivation to work on the blankets I was knitting, so now I have the fun task of deciding on something new to knit. Hmmm...something for Emma, something for the new baby, or something for ME...how to choose? Maybe something for each of us!

And, Katie, here is a belly pic for you. My belly is just starting to pooch out enough that it makes me looks chubby in my regular clothes, but I tried on some maternity clothes yesterday and I looked ridiculous. What am I going to wear for the next few weeks? I guess you're looking at it - sweats.

We've had Emma's potty sitting out for several months now, and we got her some big girl panties that she is free to wear whenever she wants. I don't make a big deal out of it, because I don't want to stress myself, and her, out over this issue. Plus everyone says, "Wait until they're ready. One day it just clicks and then it'll only take a day or two." So, what I'm wondering is, when is that blasted day going to arrive? Other than one chance accident almost a year ago, she has never peed in the potty. She loves to sit on it immediately after she pees in her diaper, which is obviously futile. Almost every morning she wakes up with a completely dry diaper, but when I ask her if she wants to sit on the potty, she says no. When I ask her during the day, "Do you need to pee in the potty?", she'll say, "Not yet!" Today, after returning from running errands, I asked her if she wanted to go. She said "I go in four minutes." So, fourish minutes later I asked again. Her response? "I go on Saturday." Hmmm...I guess we'll see.

Yesterday we went to the children's farmstead because Steve was doing some volunteer stuff there through his work. Emma and I had lots of fun while Steve was busy working.

Emma and I hit the garage sales this morning to look for maternity clothes. Trouble is, where there are maternity clothes, there are baby/toddler clothes, and I have a severe weakness for cute, cheap clothes for Emma. While I did find a few things for myself, Emma is the one who really scored.

After the garage saling, we stopped at Mimi's Cafe to eat. I was hoping I could order Egg's Benedict, my favorite breakfast in the whole world, and actually enjoy eating something for a change. I was about half way through it, when I bit down on the teeniest piece of eggshell, and lost everything. We were about as far away from the bathroom as possible, so my only other option (other than throwing up right there on the floor) was to sprint outside and puke on the landscaping in front of the building. Lovely. I was so embarassed. And then of course I couldn't bear to eat the rest of my breakfast. Sigh.

Steve has been in Houston all this week, but he returned last night. I am absolutely overjoyed to have him back home. Now maybe someone can clean up the kitchen. (And by that I mean him.)

I think the Zofran was wearing off. Yesterday the general all day ickiness was back, as well as the puking. Today I decided to skip the Zofran, and so far, so good.

Yesterday evening Emma and I unpacked all the fall clothes that I bought for her at garage sales this summer. It is admittedly a ridiculous amount of clothes for a two year old, but at least she really, really, really seems to like them. For every item that I lifted out of the boxes, her eyes would light up and she'd exclaim, "I put on THAT cute outfit!" So, since she really did try on every single thing, the whole process took us several hours. We had a lot of fun. Today, though, she was having so much trouble deciding what to wear from all her "new" stuff, that after twenty minutes of pulling things out and then deciding against them, she eventually gave up and is hanging out in her diaper. Too much pressure, I guess.

And, because certain people are harrassing me about the lack of pictures of Emma lately, here are a couple I took today.

Emma and I were planning to go to my parents' house for a few days, but I decided against it at the last minute. Some things came up and it turns out they weren't even going to be home that much, plus I really wasn't looking forward to the drive. The worst thing about not going is poor Emma was so disappointed. She already had her suitcase packed. :(

I am so excited about autumn - my favorite time of year! I love the crisp, cool weather and all the fun, pumpkin-patchy stuff to do. Drinking hot tea, wearing sweaters, carving pumpkins...I can't wait! I almost included raking leaves in that list, but given my irrational and intense fear of snakes and the number of snakes who reside in our yard, there will be no leaf raking done by me.

Actually, yesterday I was supposed to mow the grass because I had made a deal with Steve and promised that I'd do it. My first time around, of course there was a snake. I sat there, frozen, on the mower until Steve walked over and asked why I stopped. I tried to back out of the deal, but he was like, "Sarah, you are sitting ON THE MOWER. I promise you, there is NO WAY those snakes can get to you." So on I went. Two more loops around, and there was another, bigger, snake. I put the mower in reverse, backed up to the house, and ran inside. No more mowing for me. Maybe I should go get hypnosis or something to rid me of this snake phobia so that I can start actually hanging out in my own backyard. Hmmm...I wonder if that really works?

I am feeling MUCH better. That Zofran is amazing. Yesterday I actually had an appetite, and I didn't throw up once! When Steve got home from work we went out for Mexican, then took Emma to the mall to play in the play area. It's so nice to feel like a real person again! Today I'm even planning on going to Whole Foods, and buying food so we can actually have real meals here again. Hooray!

Emma is so cute! Lately we've been working on matching letters with words, like E-Emma, M-Mommy, etc. She'll find some random letter, come to me and yell, for example, "U-umbrella!". Afterwards she'll look so proud of herself and exclaim, "I'm a GENUS!" No self-confidence issues there, I guess!

The little genius is going with Steve today to one of his dad's car shows. I've been to those in the past, so thankfully I know enough to opt out of this one. Standing around discussing the curve of a certain tail light is not my idea of a fun way to spend a Saturday. Emma, however, has no idea how lame they are so she is excited to go. And I am excited to have several hours to do with as I please. Woo-hoo!

Things are not going well. I had two decent days when my mom was here and I thought that maybe things were getting better, but apparently not. Yesterday I spent most of the day on the bathroom floor, moving only to pull myself up to the toilet and retch. I lost count after the 15th time. It was just awful, awful, awful. I have lost 10 pounds in the last two and a half weeks. This morning started out the same, so I called my midwife. I apparently have hyperemesis, and she said that we have to do something about this fast. I talked her out of receiving IV fluids because I don't feel like I'm dehydrated. I can keep water down as long as there is no food mixed in with it. She called in a prescription for Zofran. I'm concerned because this drug is for chemo and surgery patients, not pregnant women, and there are no studies done on it's usage by pregnant women. The fact that Emma will be getting this through my milk makes me nervous too. However, I really can't do this anymore, so I'm going to take it. This blog page and it's comments were helpful in my decision. My midwife said that if it hasn't helped by Tuesday, then she wants to me to get some kind of pump that will just shoot it into me 24-7, until I don't need it anymore. Let's hope we don't need to do anything that drastic.

My mom has been staying with us for a few days, and it has been wonderful. She's beeing playing with Emma, doing all our laundry, and taking care of all the cleaning I've been neglecting. Emma adores her so much that she even helped her clean the bathtub, which is my most hated task. I want her to stay forever!

My dogs are driving me bonkers. Specifically Jose. We have a little table in our living room where Emma and I eat most of our meals during the day, as well as all our snacks. The second we get up from the table and leave the room, Jose is up on the chairs scarfing down our food. If I am in the room, he will stay down, but if I so much as get up to walk to the kitchen, our food is as good as gone. Emma can be screaming "JOE! GET DOWN!!!!" for all she's worth, and that won't stop him. It doesn't seem like that big of a deal, because I could just stay there the whole time we're eating, right? Well, I could, except that it often takes Emma about two hours to finish a single sandwich. Except, of course, she never actually gets to finish it because Jose always nabs it before she gets a chance. If Paco could figure out how to get up to the table, he'd be just as bad. Last night I left a big bowl of grapes sitting on the couch while I went back to the office to talk to Steve. A minute later, I walked back out and Paco was hunkered over on the couch, hurrying to polish off the last of the grapes! Stems and all! What a weirdo. Anyway, I don't know what to do about this. I don't want Emma to hear me yelling at them, and I won't hit them. What else is left? How can I get those dogs to stop eating our food? Gah!

My sweet friend Catherine offered to take Emma along today on a fun field trip - a train ride and lunch out. Emma gets really excited about trains and often talks about the one she remembers from the zoo, so I knew she'd love to go. They just left, and will be gone for probably five hours. I was worried that she'd get scared at the last minute about going without me, but she was such a big brave girl. I think it's ME who is more worried about how I will do without HER! The house seems so empty right now and I already miss her like crazy. Waaahhhhhhh!

The past few days have been awful. Throwing up and dry heaves seriously all day long. Last night I lost it and sobbed on the kitchen floor for a long time, interrupted, of course, by getting up to heave into the trash can several times. I told Steve there was no way I could do this for five more weeks, and there was no way I was having any more kids after this one! The good news is, today I didn't throw up even once! I was a little nauseous and gagged a few times, but I can handle that, no sweat. I even managed to do some laundry and run the dishwasher. It was so wonderful!!! I'm wondering what tomorrow holds. Just in case, today I ordered a Morning Sickness Kit that will hopefully give me a little anti-nausea boost.

Today after spending a few suspiciously silent minutes down the hall by herself, Emma emerged and proudly exclaimed, "Yipstick!"

Sorry this blog has been so lame lately. I have nothing else to write about other than to complain about the never-ending torturous misery that is my life right now, so here is a video of Emma the day she was born. Don't you love those little newborn sounds?


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Can I whine a little? Or maybe a lot.

I am so miserable. I've thrown up every single thing I've eaten for the past two days. Last time I was pregnant, Slimfast was the only thing I could actually consume and keep down, but now I can't find the only flavor I liked! The other flavors are gross and they just make me throw up more. Sadly, it even appears that my love affair with Quizno's is over because yesterday I even threw up my Smoked Turkey sandwich. :( Emma has been telling me she doesn't feel well, then going over and spitting into her potty. Even her cuteness doesn't make me feel better. Blah.

I think I'm going to take up residence in a Quizno's, just so I can eat nothing but their Smoked Turkey Club for the next few months. I have had five of them in the last four days. Mmmmmmm.

So much for scarce posting, right?

Emma loves to count, and today she lined up all these oyster crackers and asked me to take a picture of her counting them. She always skips "five".


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Emma has been too big for me to comfortably wear her in my ring sling or my Mei Tai for awhile now. I just ordered a Hotsling for the new baby, and while I think it's too big for the new little guy, it's perfect for Emma. She loves it, and keeps bringing it to me, saying, "Carry me in this, please. Emma be a baby." Today I wore her at the grocery store and she was so thrilled the entire time. I wish I'd bought a pouch a long time ago so we wouldn't have missed out on all this baby-wearing time.

The updates might be a little scarce for awhile because I don't seem to have the energy for anything else but running to the toilet to throw up.

So this post isn't a total flop, here are a couple pictures of Emma.

This a an ugly scarf that I was given as a gift a couple years ago. It's a long tube, and you can stretch it out. Emma loves to wear it as a dress.



















And here she is just looking goofy.

Last night I went to bed earlier than Steve. He said Emma woke up in her own bed just as he was coming to bed, so he brought her in with us. Tonight after she fell asleep, I forgot and just layed her in our bed. Old habits die hard, I guess.

Neither Steve or I had gotten a ticket in a couple years, until last weekend when he got a speeding ticket. And now today I got a ticket! Bah. I realize a law is a law, but really, shouldn't that cop have more important things to worry about than little old me driving around without a front license plate?

I sewed another bag/purse. I made the straps longer on this one, and added pockets on the inside to help me organize my cell phone, keys, etc. There is no time for knitting these days because I can usually only knit after Emma is in bed, and lately I am too tired to stay up much after that. :(

Right now Emma is sleeping in her own bed. It will be the first night in Emma's life, around 900 nights, that she hasn't been in bed with us. I know it will feel weird without her, and I also know she will wake up in a few hours and probably flip out. I'm interested to see how long she actually stays in there. As I walked by her room a few minutes ago, she looked so tiny sleeping in that room all by herself. Hmmm...maybe it will be ME waking up in a panic and running in to get her!

I cannot stop eating. Today I ate and ate and was still hungry. Tonight I went to Olive Garden for Mom's Night Out, and even though I had two breadsticks and a bowl of soup, I ate my entire huge plate of pasta. Everyone else was asking for to-go boxes, but not me - I couldn't shovel in my food fast enough! When I was pregnant with Emma I was so sick during my first trimester that I ended up losing fourteen pounds; this time I am standing to gain the same fourteen.

Here is a picture of Emma, just because she's cute!













And here is a picture of my brother Peter, just because he's freakishly weird. This kid is never not sweating. Seriously, is there anyone else in the world who sweats this profusely? Enlarge the picture to see the true extent of the sweatiness.

We got back late last night from a super busy visit at my mom's house. Some things, like the funeral, were sad, but everything else, such as The City Museum and The Magic House, were great fun. I was exhausted from nonstop running around, but now that I'm home it's apparent that that wasn't what was causing the exhaustion.

Come April, a new little person is going to be joining our family! We've known for about a week and a half now, and are pretty darn excited. However, today I am feeling pretty nasty and was unable to keep my breakfast down. Let the misery commence. Also, while I'd love to write a more detailed post, I'll regret it if I don't use Emma's naptime for a little nap of my own. Night.

My grandpa died last night. He had Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, aka Lou Gehrig's Disease. I can't write any more now without crying, so I will just post a copy of the letter I wrote to him for Father's Day this year. I will miss you, Grandpa.

Dear Grandpa,

Happy Father’s Day! I’m sorry I won’t get to see you, but you will be in my thoughts. I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately, and the ways you’ve touched my life.

When I was little, we did lots of fun things together. You could always be counted on to read a story or play a game. I loved all our camping trips, and have wonderful memories from them. Jumping off rocks at Johnson’s Shut-ins, playing cards after dark by the light of the lantern, and our trek back to Missouri after the Yellowstone visit were some of my favorites. I also have fond memories of fishing at your lake in St. Paul, and of catching a snapping turtle there one day. Thank you for thinking up all those fun things to do, and for inviting me to do them with you.

There were several years when I played sports – softball, track, and cross country. Even though I was pretty near talentless at all three of those, I knew you would come and watch me, and afterwards, you’d tell me I’d done a good job. Running was possibly my favorite part of high school, and you were my biggest inspiration. Your passion for running was contagious, but bringing us along to all those One Mile Fun Runs when we were little didn’t hurt either. Thank you for that inspiration, for all that exercise, and for all that fun.

When I was older still, I needed to borrow money for some pretty important things. My degree, of course, and the car that’s been taking me everywhere for the past five years are two things I have because of your generosity. Thank you for letting me ask you for that money, and for not getting mad at me when I forgot a couple payments.

When my brothers and cousins were still babies, I saw you playing with them, but didn’t stop to really notice it. After Emma was born, you played with her too – that little game where you say “bzzzzzzzz” and swoop your hand in to tickle her tummy. I love that game, and I’m so happy that my daughter got a chance to play. Now she sometimes talks about that day when we played in your yard and we all took turns jumping off that concrete thing, or according to her, “jumping a great-grandma a great-grandpa’s house”. Thank you for playing with Emma, and for being a good sport about jumping around in the yard.

Grandpa, in all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never heard you speak a harsh word to, or about, anyone. Even when your house was filled with loud and excited (and probably somewhat annoying) little kids, you never reprimanded anyone or acted like we were getting on your nerves. The gentle manner with which you address everyone – Grandma, your daughters, us, your friends, complete strangers – is something for which we should all strive. Thank you for your kindness, and thank you for being a person I have always been able to look up to.

I love you.

Love, Sarah

Emma and I got a wonderful package in the mail today from my friend at Vegan Knitting. Emma received a beautiful knitted hat, as well as some other toys and goodies that she loves. She wanted to take a bath to use her new bath crayons right away, and they kept her busy for a good thirty minutes! I also got some fun little things, apparently so I didn't feel left out. It was a great surprise!

Yesterday Emma was chasing Pax around and hitting him with a fly swatter. I made her stop, then asked her if she would like it if someone hit her with a fly swatter. She nodded vigorously and said, "YES!" Well, she was not kidding. Ever since I said that, she's been handing me the fly swatter every five minutes and saying, "Chase me and hit me with the fly swatter, mommy!" I am getting pretty tired of that game. Plus it was hard to explain to her that, while she may enjoy getting hit (gently) with a fly swatter, Pax does not.

I'm still knitting those four blankets. They all seem to be going pretty slowly, mostly because with four going, I can't spend too much time on any one. I was hoping to get these done to give to my parents and my three brothers by Christmas, but that hope is long gone. Next Christmas, perhaps.

Here is the log cabin. I like it a lot, but those "logs" are starting to get pretty long. Last night I figured that the white log I just started will take 2400 stitches. By itself. Slow going, as you can see.













The other three I'm doing are going to be composed of blocks. I'm thinking each one will be 60 blocks, so you can see I have a LONG way to go. These first ones are slightly different sizes because I made a couple of them when I was still working on not twisting my stiches and my gauge was off. I'm going to have to rip those out.













These are mitered squares from Mason-Dixon Knitting. I love these!













I like these, but I don't think they'll make a good blanket all by themselves. I'll have to come up with another block style to add in.

Tomorrow Steve is going back to work. It's going to seem weird after having him home for ten days. I will have to think of something really fun for Emma and I to do because I know she will be missing her papa.

I am pretty much the worst exerciser there ever was. For a long time, Emma and I went on daily walks, but we stopped that awhile ago and I can't seem to get back into the habit. Starting tomorrow, we are walking! It will have to be early or late, because the heat during most of the day is pretty much unbearable.

I have been cooking huge batches of beans every day. I bought a bunch of different kinds, and I'm freezing them in two-cup portions in order to avoid using canned beans anymore. Today was black beans, tomorrow, garbanzos. Our house smells very beany.

We are back. Our camping/float trip was pretty great. As soon as we got there, Steve went in to pay. He came out and told us he signed us up for the 8.5 mile float. I was thinking "EIGHT and a HALF miles?! There is no way the kid and the dogs are going to be content in a canoe for that long." Apparently I underestimated them because we ended up floating 13 miles (We got to our take-out point and thought that couldn't have really been 8.5 miles, so we kept going. Oops!) and we all had a great time. We tied a little chair up in the canoe, and Emma actually slept in there for an hour or two. We saw tons of cool birds, a beaver, and literally hundreds of turtles. Also, luckily, no snakes. We're hoping to go again in August. Before then, however, we need to buy a new tent. We found out at 6:00 a.m. Friday morning that our tent is not waterproof. It's an old hand-me-down from Steve's mom, and the large number of cigarette burn holes in it probably didn't help. When we woke up to (in) the rain, we dashed to the car to go out to breakfast. When we returned, the rain had stopped, but there were about three inches of standing water in our tent. I don't know if our pillows will ever dry out.

We are about to embark on a camping trip during which we will take one two-year-old and two dogs on a seven mile canoe trip. I hope we don't regret it.

So today I put Emma in her new bed once she had fallen asleep for her nap. Everything was going great for about an hour, when suddenly I heard a huge THUD! The poor girl had rolled over and tumbled out onto the hardwood floor. She was pretty shaken, but got over it before too long. I hope we have more success with the new bed in the future.

Too late to type anymore, so good night!

Steve was not a fan of the trundle bed idea. He said when it gets too crowded, that means it's time for someone to move out. He doesn't think we need to do that until we have another baby, though. However, I think moving out will be a LONG process, so we made the first big step today. We moved almost everything out of Emma's mini-room to make room for her new big girl bed. Apparently the crib wasn't a complete and total waste of money after all. I'll probably start putting her in there for naps for now, just so she can get accustomed to waking up in there.













As for the basement, here is Emma's new playroom













and here is my new playroom. Ugly, but functional.

Steve is taking off work this week and we are doing fun projects around the house. We have moved basically everything out of Emma's closet-sized room in the interest of making space for a toddler bed. Everything went into the basement, which I spent hours clearing out and organizing today. There is a really big room in our basement, which has now been converted - one half into a playroom, and the other half into a (!!!) craft room. It's pretty ugly down there, with old fake wood paneling for the walls and super ugly old linoleum, but it will do for now. I'm pretty stoked about the "new" rooms we added. Steve is also planning to paint the bathroom and the kitchen this week. We painted our kitchen green awhile ago, and it's not our favorite. We meant to choose something that would look cheerful, but what we got was a little more intense than we had planned. You might call it "neon". So we're covering that up with a soft yellow, and are glad we won't have to wear sunglasses in the kitchen anymore.

While we were on vacation at the lake, my dad harrassed me about buying fluorescent light bulbs. We bought some today, and I really wish I had known about these long ago. They are a little more expensive than regular bulbs (six 60-watt for $10, or four 100-watt for $10), but are guaranteed to last at least seven years. Additionally, they are way more energy efficient. Apparently each light bulb you replace will save you like $36 a year or something. According to my dad, you can't afford not to switch! I was worried about the light they would give off, but it's okay. In the room with the light, there is no noticeable difference. When looking at that room from down the hall, I noticed a little fluorescenty glow, but it was really not bad at all.

I have exciting news! Well, it's exciting for me at least. I'm taking a quilting class! It is going to be on Wednesday nights for five weeks throughout August. At the end of those five weeks, I should be a quilting guru. I'm pretty sure I could learn own my own, but the idea of five nights out by myself is too good to pass up! And if I have to spend those nights with a bunch of old ladies to accomplish that, so be it.

I know I said I wasn't going to sew anymore for awhile, but I desperately needed a little bag to carry my knitting stuff around. I made this one tonight and it should work perfectly. I also need to make a purse, because I hate my current one so much that it's almost painful for me to take it anywhere. It's served me well for about a year and a half but suddenly I'm sick to death of it. So anyway, I need to whip up some sort of bag to use instead.

Today Steve took Emma to the shoe store with him so I could take a much needed nap. I was so happy, and surprised, because he is not usually into running errands with Emma. "Do you know how much longer it takes to do everything when Emma is along?" he says. No, no I don't. Really. I have NO idea. It's not like I take her with me everywhere I go. Oh, wait...yes I do.

What is the deal? I went to bed two hours ago, and after laying there for over an hour, I was still wide awake so I just went ahead and got up again. I'm going to be suffering tomorrow.

We need a bigger bed. A king size would be nice, but something even bigger would be ideal. I know another family who has a king and queen mattress on the floor all together. The mom sewed a bedspread to cover it all and their family sleeps on the whole thing together. Now THAT'S what we need. Unfortunately, our bedroom is so tiny that we probably don't even have room for a king. Poo. Our bed is so crowded now that I don't know what we're going to do when we ever have another baby. Every night I try to move around and get comfortable, only to find out that I'm completely sandwiched in on all sides by random legs, arms, bellies, and tails. I'm sure at this point most normal people would be thinking, "Duh. Get the dogs and the kid out of your bed." But I don't want to do that at all. Our dogs would be so lonely on the floor, and I like being close to Emma all night. I think having our whole family in one bed is really good for us. So back to square one...how can we just have more space? Like, so we're close together but not on top of one another. Hey - what about a trundle bed? I wonder if one would fit under our bed. Then we could have it up at night, but hidden away under the bed during the day. After a quick search, I can't find just the bottom part anywhere, but we could get something like this and just use the bottom now and save the regular top part for later. At some point we'll probably need another bed, anyway. I can't wait to tell Steve! Oh, I hope this works!

Steve is about to complete his fifth year with his firm, so as a little reward he got to select a prize from list of about thirty random things. Most of the stuff was like watches and fancy vases for which we have absolutely no use, but they did have this cookware set. We decided to get that, so now I'm happy that I can finally throw out my Teflon pots and pans.

About three years ago, before we ever lived in this house, Steve told his mom and step-dad that they could store a bunch of stuff in our garage. They brought it over and what it really was was a ton of trash. Seriously no one else would have thought twice about throwing all this stuff in the garbage. A big old rotted desk with only three legs, two big rusty file cabinets missing most of their drawers, some massive old plastic hose thing with a bunch of gaping holes in it, you get the idea. So we drug all that crap to this house when we moved and it's been taking up a lot of space in our basement ever since. Every time I see it, which is multiple times every day, it annoys me. After much nagging from me, today Steve finally asked his mom when they were coming to get their stuff. Her answer was basically never. She said they'd get it as soon as they build a garage, which means never. She said a lot of other things in the conversation that just drove me absolutely crazy, but I won't go into all that.

Now that it's almost 3:00, I'm going to stop this random rambling and try to get some sleep.

A storm came through last night and dropped the temperature from a stifling 100 degrees to a much more manageable 80 degrees. To celebrate, I was planning on taking Emma to Deanna Rose or blueberry picking. However, Steve decided to take off work today so I think we are just going to lay around the house and enjoy each other's company. He bought Emma a Play-Doh set last night and it's a huge hit. I'm glad it's keeping her happily busy for so long, and especially glad that so far we have managed to avoid any Play-Doh getting smashed into the carpet.

Yesterday I bought a big bag of dog food, but left it in my backseat overnight. This morning when I got in the car, I saw that something had actually gotten inside my car (the windows were open), ripped open the bag, and spread dog food everywhere. Lovely. My car reeks of dog food now.

Emma gets really upset lately if we give anything away, or leave something of ours somewhere. The morning we left Steve's car at the mechanics was pretty tragic for her. Yesterday I didn't get the mail out in time, so I brought it to the post office. When I dropped it in the big mailbox there, she started to cry and whimper "see mail again". She has such a problem letting things go, so I knew there was going to be trouble when we dropped off the dogs for haircuts this morning. She was heartbroken as we walked out to the car afterwards. We stopped at the store and the only thing that would make her feel better was a big red pepper. I let her start eating it in the store, and she eagerly finished it when we got home. Several people stopped to comment on her eating it, but they were probably really thinking "What a weirdo that kid is!".








She is doing this cute thing lately where she'll say, "Tell you a joke, mommy." When I ask her what joke, she'll say, "Pigs say meow!" or some such other incorrect animal noise, and giggle uncontrollably at her wittiness. What a goofy kid.

Oh, and here is the pattern I used for the skirt.

We had the best dinner tonight. I made whole wheat pizza crust and put pesto, garlic, spinach, tomatoes, chicken, and cheese on it. It was quite possibly the best pizza I have ever eaten. My mouth is watering now just thinking about it - too bad we ate it all or I'd be scrounging around in the fridge right now for another piece. Ooh - I just thought of something. We also made yummy pumpkin scones today so I will go have one of those!

I sewed another skirt. A couple weeks ago I decided I wanted to start wearing more skirts because they are so nice and breezy and just summery. I've sewn three (two are probably fit to wear in public, the other not fit to wear even at home) and now I'm tired of sewing skirts. Plus, whenever I'm sewing, I always feel like it's cutting into my knitting time. So no more sewing for me for awhile, at least not until I start on my quilt.

The library problem is solved. Today we went in there and they removed the $167 in charges, which they said were the result of a computer glitch. Whew!

Emma is into a licking stage. My shoulders are always covered in slobber due to her licking them when I'm carrying her. Our living room windows are always covered in food chunks due to her licking them while she's eating. Gross. I'm hoping this phase is short-lived.

Today Emma and I went to the thrift store for a little shopping. There are long racks of clothes that make up aisles from one side of the store to the other. While I browsed, Emma played under the racks, hiding in the clothes. At one point I noticed that she had gone all the way to the other side of the rack. I walked over to the next aisle to get her, but she was nowhere to be found. I called her name as I walked by all the aisles, searching for her. No Emma. Getting a little more nervous, I crouched down and looked under all the clothes in each aisle. Nothing. I went over to look in the toy section, then the purses, then the furniture. Still no Emma. I was feeling a little panicked at this point, and people were starting to stare at me as I was running around calling for her. It had probably been four minutes since I'd seen her, but it felt like forever. I convinced myself that someone had snatched her up and carried her out of the store. I found an employee, and decsribed Emma for her. Some of the customers stopped to witness my frantic blathering, and they asked me more questions about her appearance, dress, etc. Someone announced over the speaker that a little two year old girl was lost and asked that everyone please look for her. A minute later, a man came over and tapped me on the shoulder. He led me to a corner of the store and pointed behind a big shelf full of toys. There was Emma, happily playing, and completely unaware that her mother was about to have a heart attack. As soon as I saw her I started crying and I think I scared her because she started crying when I ran over to her. Now that I think back on it, it probably wasn't that big of a deal because, really, how far could she have gone? At the time, though, I was too scared to think rationally. I'm never letting her out of my sight again.

As of now, our calendar for this whole week is empty. I'm looking forward to days with nothing to do but play around the house. However, it is insanely hot so the playing will probably take place inside the house. We bought Candy Land at the thrift store today and I can see several hundred games of that in my near future.

So this morning I got on the library's website to see if the books I'd requested had come in. Since I'd checked yesterday, my account suddenly had accumulated $14 worth of fines for 14 books that were apparently due back May 21, but that we'd actually returned months ago. I called to investigate, and the woman with whom I spoke informed me that there was a block on my card now, but she'd check the shelf to see if the books were there. Three of the books were found on the shelf, but that means I still have $11 worth of fines, and therefore still a block on my card. Pretty lame, considering I have three books there waiting for me that I will not be able to check out, and I'll have to wait and request them again when this mix-up is unmixed. And what happens if they don't find the books? I'm not going to pay for books that I don't have. Hopefully I will not be relegated to a lifetime of library delinquency because of these eleven missing children's books.

I don't wear any jewelry, ever, except for my wedding ring, but Emma managed to find an old box of rings, earrings, etc. that I used to wear. She has been wearing them nonstop, and I'm dreading the day she realizes that ears actually need to have holes in them for earrings to be worn. I had to wait until I was twelve to get my ears pierced; I'm not sure if I'll make her do the same. At least she is happy with this for now.













I have stayed up way too late sewing a skirt. The worst part about that is, I totally overestimated the amount of fabric to use, and now all I have is a poofy, mushroomy-type thing that does not even deserve a picture on this blog. Tomorrow, maybe, if I can salvage it.

We are planning on going camping/floating in a couple weeks and I can't decide where to go. I think a slow river would be best, and also a raft would safer and more conducive to floating with a toddler. However, I remember taking a raft one time on a floating trip when I was a kid. My brother, my two cousins, and I were in it and it was soooooooooooooooooo slow. The rest of our families (in canoes) reached the end point hours before us, and by the time we arrived we were practically ready to drown each other and ourselves out of sheer frustration over a way-too-long day on the river. So, to avoid that this time, maybe we should choose a faster river? I don't know.

Working on the log cabin quilt has inspired me to knit more blankets. I got a great book, 200 Knitted Blocks, from the library and it's definitely going on my must-buy list. Right now I have four blankets on the needles. If only there were more hours in a day, I might ever actually finish one of them.

For the past few months, Emma has been nursing SO much. I can't figure it out. For a long time she never asked to nurse out in public, but now we can't go anywhere without nursing. When we're at home, it's non-stop nursing. There is no distracting her, ever. Steve pointed out that the marathon nursing began right around when we night weaned (which we still struggle with sometimes), so I guess she's still adjusting. I hope she gets through it soon because, honestly, I'm pretty tired of all this nursing.

Too sleepy to write any more...

We are back from our great vacation. It was way fun, but as always, it's nice to be back home. After being gone for five days, I've come back to many blog updates to read, lots of email, and almost 500 new posts on my AP board. I like to read all that stuff, but there is no way I can do it so I'm resigning myself to the fact that I'll just have to skip most of it. Boo hoo.

I'm off to knit and enjoy the thunderstorm raging outside, but first a couple pictures from the trip:

Here is the little swimmer looking cute, as always.



















Dude, wakeboarding is SO hard. After many, many attempts, I finally managed to get up on the board and this was the best picture anyone could take?!?!

I started sewing the bedroom curtains, but didn't finish because I think the fabric blends too much with the wall. I love the fabric, though, so I have to think of something else to do with it. Sewing curtains doesn't sound like much fun to me right now, anyway, so it looks like our bedroom will be curtainless for awhile longer. I am, however, in skirt-sewing mode. I sewed this one yesterday and today while Emma napped. The fabric is from curtains I found at Goodwill because I didn't want to try it out on good fabric without knowing for sure I could sew in a zipper. Apparently I can, so I'll probably be churning out some more skirts in the near future.

I'm also working on this log cabin blanket, which I'm enjoying. For some reason I get a blister on my pinkie when I knit it for too long, so that slows down the process a bit. I'm not sure how big it's going to be eventually - I guess we'll see how soon I get tired of knitting it.













Tomorrow Ems and I are heading to Table Rock Lake with my family. We'll be back Tuesday. Toodles!

Last year Steve's car started acting weird. He often had trouble starting it, and it would just randomly die on the highway sometimes. Not good. So we took it in to get it fixed, paid $1000, and it still did the exact thing when we got it back. Argh. Luckily, a few weeks later it seemed to stop on it's own. Well, it started doing it again so we took it to another place last Friday. They've been trying to figure out what's wrong this whole time. It's been a big nuisance, because with Steve off work for five days, we've been driving around a lot. I usually love driving around in his car because I can knit, but for the past week we've been taking my car. He won't drive when we're in my car, hence, lots of lost knitting time. Yesterday morning we all had to get up at the crack of dawn to drive him to work and neither Emma nor I ever recovered from it and were extremely cranky for the rest of the day. This morning I told him to just take my car and go, which means Emma and I are stranded here. The good news is that the car is supposed to be finished today, and also that it's only going to cost $272. We were worried about shelling out another $1000, but $272 is much more manageable. I don't know how families do it with only one car - it's a pain in the butt!

Tonight FIL and his girlfriend took Emma, Steve, and I to the Royals game. Great, right? We love baseball games, the Royals won, the fireworks afterwards were great, and all was good. Until the ride home. We were all riding in the girlfriend's car, driven by Steve's dad. On the highway, suddenly I heard someone honking a super long mad-sounding honk, and Steve's dad starts ranting about changing lanes or something. Some guy in another SUV passes us on the right and glares at us as he goes by. FIL says "two can play at this game, buddy" and he gets in the other lane and starts following the guy SO, SO, SO closely. We were barreling down the highway with mere inches between us and another car. Just as I yelled at him to stop it, the other guy slammed on his brakes. FIL of course had to slam on our brakes hard to avoid crashing into him, and we all flew forward in the car. Emma's carseat pitched forward as well. I was so furious that I started crying. How dare he risk my baby's life because of some stupid, petty, immature road rage?

Gah! I just had this whole long post typed out, then suddenly one of those lovely boxes popped up and told me that, "Firefox has encountered a problem and needs to close," and I lost the whole thing. Stupid computer. I'm way too tired to type it all again.

Some pictures from the zoo yesterday...

We've been having a wonderful couple of days. Steve was off work yesterday, and he really wanted to go see Superman Returns. I didn't want to see it at all, but we made a deal that if we could go to the quilt store and the yarn store in the morning - and he would watch Ems while I browsed - then we'd go see the movie. Emma, of course, was tired of the movie after about 25 minutes so she and I spent the rest of the time playing in the car. Not the most fun ever, but better than watching Superman.

Today we were planning on taking Emma to the zoo, but we didn't leave soon enough and ended up going to Loose Park instead. It was a beautiful day and we had a blast. Afterwards we went to Barnes and Noble, where I got Denyse Schmidt Quilts, because I've been wanting it SO badly and the library is taking much too long to get it to me.

Tomorrow, the zoo!