What Do LDS Women Get?

I love this talk by Sheri Dew. I heard her give in at Time Out For Women in October, and have been searching for the clip to post ever since. Personally, I have never been bothered by the fact that women do not get the priesthood in our church, but I know a lot of people who question this aspect of the gospel. I like this talk because Sister Dew takes a different perspective on the issue, and points out what women get in this gospel, what women do for the church, and how God feels about us. It's spectacular. I hope everyone will watch it.

38 Weeks...Preparing for Ollie

I feel decent today. It's been a long time. I think I've finally gotten my side pain issue somewhat figured out. Looks like it might be my gallbladder. But thanks to the recommendations of a few friends, I've been able to try some things that are working. I'm staying away from dairy, acidic foods, greasy foods, and eating too much at once; which really seem to be helping. Also, eating foods high in fiber to get things moving through my system (and a little carbonation doesn't hurt either). I still get the pain in my right side, but not as often and it doesn't last as long. But when I do get it, applying heat, or getting in a hot bath, seems to calm it down enough that I can sleep.  Also, I asked my doctor about my swelling legs, feet, and hands...he said first of all, that he's not worried about them because my blood pressure is low, and because my protein levels look good. Secondly, he said that drinking more water will help take the swelling down because it will wash the salt out of my system. I guess salt is what causes you to retain water. Sooo....I've been trying to drink as much as possible. It doesn't eliminate my swelling, my right leg is always in pain by the end of the day, but it does help tone it down a bit. Except for on Sundays...for some reason sitting in church means instant painful swelling. I had to wear tennis shoes to church this week because my feet wouldn't fit in normal church shoes, and I didn't want to wear flip-flops in the snow. I'm sure I looked awesome.

At my last doctor's appointment I was dilated to a 3. I had him strip my membranes. Which I'm pretty sure is  the cause of my spending three hours Thursday night timing contractions. It did not put me into labor. (Obviously, since I am still pregnant.) But I imagine, or I least I really hope, that the contractions were significant enough, and lasted long enough, to help me progress even further in some way. I go in again this Thursday, so I guess we'll see. The good news is, regardless of any of the above, I am on the home stretch. It can't be too much longer now (compared to an entire nine months at least). My gut tells me that Oliver will be born the first week in March. I guess we'll all just have to wait and see. But in the mean time, I've put together and started working on a list of things I need/want to do to get ready for him.

-Buy nursing pads
-Buy newborn diapers
-Wash, fold, and put away newborn clothes/blankets/burp clothes
-Find my stash of nursing garments, wash/fold
-Get car seat down from garage rack, and wash seat cover/straps and wipe down car seat and base
-Pack hospital bag
-Put together monkey bouncer
-Deep clean bathrooms
-Deep clean kitchen
-Mop
-Vacuum
-Make and freeze bread
-Make freezer meals

I'm excited for this little guy to be here. It's always funny to me how before they are born you can't really imagine life with them, but the second they are here you can't imagine life without them. I know that's how it'll be this time too.

More Birthday!

I feel pretty loved...lots of people have done a great job at making me feel loved for my birthday this year. My mom and Kerry braved the snow today to come down and celebrate my birthday with me. They took our family out to Jason's Deli, one of my favorite places. The food hit the spot, AND my kids were pretty well-behaved. I have to give them credit where credit is due.

I ordered my favorite sandwich...

...the Rueben. And only ate half because that's all that would fit inside me. But never fear...I'll enjoy every bit of the other half for lunch tomorrow. :)

My kids (and their grandparents) really enjoyed the ice cream at the end of the meal.

We did presents before we left the house to go to dinner. My mom made me a recipe box that has little booklets inside, once for each category (appetizers, desserts, breads, etc.) so that recipes can be more organized and still laminated and kept safe from spilling food. It's really cute. They also gave me a card with some money in it so I can go buy things for my house. Probably my front room, I mentioned in the last post that I've been working on getting it where I'd like it to be.

And, my mom also crocheted this awesome scarf for me. I'll admit when I unwrapped it, I wasn't sure about it, but I tried it on and fell in love with it. I've been feeling large and pregnant and not very beautiful lately. It's too late in the pregnancy to buy more/different clothes...and this scarf just happened to be the perfect pretty thing I needed to lift my spirits. It goes nicely with a black maternity sweater I already owned, that needed a little spicing up. When I was wearing it tonight, I felt a little bit pretty for the first time in months. What is it about being a woman that a new scarf can make you feel like a hundred bucks? It's silly, but it's the truth.

After dinner, Mom and Kerry headed out to try and beat the snow storm home. And our little family went to Hobby Lobby to look around. Ivan decided he wanted to try getting into the back of the cart all by himself. He managed, but I don't think it went quite the way he'd planned it to go in his head. (Don't worry, no children were hurt during the snapping of this photograph.)

Oliver as a Globe

Well, it's that time of pregnancy...we do this every time, and we love it. :) It's a great outlet of Aaron's artistic abilities. We decided on doing a globe because we've already done a lot of other round things. And we thought a globe would be fun. We decided on doing a topographical map instead of a political map because, well...do you have any idea how long it would have taken to do a political map? This took us at least an hour and a half as it was.

First we started with the blue layer. Then we blow-dried it. And then Aaron did the outline of the continents, and after those were dry, he did the shading and then the words. The words were probably the hardest, he did them with a tooth pick.

I am very pleased with how it turned out. I can never tell how it's going to go while Aaron is painting, because I can't see the bottom half of my stomach, so I have to wait for the pictures too. So without further adeau, here's Oliver as a globe...complete with tropical storm and coveted vacation destination. :)

I am happy to point out that the actual globe is bigger than my stomach. :) 

The master and his masterpiece

My mother specifically requested that I put up pictures of all four pregnancy belly paintings, so here you go Mom, this is for you. But everyone feel free to vote on your favorite. 

Birthday!

Today I turned 27! It doesn't really sound old to me, but at the same time I can remember a time when I thought I'd never be 27. I guess that's how life is, eh? I had a great day. It was low-key and relaxing, and exactly what I needed. Big thanks to Aaron.

After a rough night last night (three hours worth of fairly mild, irregular contractions, but they were close enough together to keep us timing them and trying to decide if this was it), I was tired and sore and hadn't sleep well. I was supposed to be getting up and taking the kids to their Friday Fun Classes in Payson, and teaching Lincoln's first hour class. But the thought of going was stressing me out, and I had a bit of an emotional breakdown. Super Husband to the rescue! He took the kids to Friday Fun AND taught my class while he was there. They were gone for several hours, so I stayed in a quiet house and slept most of the morning.

When they all got home, the kids ran into my room bursting with excitement and little gifts for me with bows on them. Adelia gave me a new package of wooden spoons. Ivan gave me a bigger strainer. And Lincoln gave me two spatulas. All of which our kitchen has been in need of. And Aaron brought me a bouquet of bright yellow daisies. The perfect thing to set on my counter to chase away the gray winter blahs. Aaron also gave me Adobe Premier, video editing software. I'm really excited to re-learn how to use it. (I took a class in high school, but that was a long time ago, and a much older version of the program.)

During quiet time, Aaron and Lincoln went to the store for supplies, and then came home and made me my favorite German Chocolate Cake recipe from the Lion House. Linc was very helpful at licking the beaters. :)

Aaron's parents came over and watched our kids so that we could go out to dinner. We were running a little behind because of a delay with the cake, so Debbie made the frosting and put the cake together while we were gone. Aaron took me to Magelby's. He had a coupon for two four-course meals. We ordered calamari as an appetizer, I was in heaven, it was SOOOO good! Then we had yummy salads. Aaron ordered fillet minion, and I ordered a dish called Land 'N Sea, which was a small steak fillet with crab stuffed shrimp. It was fantastic. Had I had any space inside myself, I could have eaten it all night long, but seeing as I don't, and I'd already eaten 2 courses and was expecting another, I ended up taking a lot of it home. But it will be an excellent lunch tomorrow! Our fourth course was fresh, piping hot, mixed berry pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. During this pregnancy I've had to avoid dairy as much as possible because it makes my side hurt like no other...so Aaron got my ice cream, but the pie was amazing. And, of course, it was wonderful to be out on a hot date with my handsome husband to a fancy restaurant. Dreams do come true...even if you have to be 9 months pregnant in them. :)

When we got home we had cake (yes. we did.) with the kids and Aaron's parents. There was no way we couldn't have done cake, even though we'd already had pie. My kids were SO enthusiastic about my birthday cake, they'd been talking about it, asking to eat it, and bouncing off the walls in anticipation for it all. day. long. So cake we did eat. And it was delicious. Like I said, it was the Lion House recipe. You can't go wrong with the Lion House. Then I opened my present from Chuck and Debbie. It was a tree for my front room! I am so excited. I've been working really hard (slowly, but very hard nevertheless) to make my front room feel welcoming and inviting, instead of like the empty room the desk got thrown into because there was nothing else to put there (which, happened to be the truth when we moved in, but I'm trying to get away from that now). The tree has green and red leaves, which match the colors of our downstairs perfectly (deep red, mustardish yellow, and dark green). The tree will go in the corner behind one of the arm chairs I got for Christmas.

So you can see that I had a wonderful day. And it's not over yet...we are still going to paint my stomach after the kids go to bed. It's the highlight of every pregnancy. :)  

Letter Q is for Quiet!

Today I hosted preschool co-op at my house for the last time before the baby comes. Having some "lasts" to cross off seems to be helping the time go by, a little.

For preschool today we talked about letter Q. At first glance Q seems like a hard letter, but really it's quite easy. It's a great letter to work on opposites with, for example. And today I chose to mostly focus on quiet and loud. I have the book Quiet Loud by Leslie Patricelie. It's a really basic book, probably geared toward babies and young toddlers, but I've found that preschool kids LOVE it. On every page is a quiet thing and a loud thing. So for example..."Fish are quiet." (and when I read this to the preschoolers, I have them make a fish face) "Doggies are loud!" (And then I have them bark like dogs. And so on, for all the pages in the book. They eat it up.)

When I finished reading them the book, we went over to the table and did a quiet/loud sorting activity. I had taken pictures from the book, black and whited them (mostly just to save myself ink), and printed them. The kids had to cut out the pictures and glue them in either the quiet or the loud category on their chart.

Another fun Q opposite to  do with preschoolers is quick and slow. Play a version of red-light-green-light, except have them do certain actions, like hop or crawl, and hold up either a quick or a slow sign, and the kids have to do the action at the speed of the sign you're holding. They love it.

Today we did Q-tip painting as well. I found a cool website that had a couple of templates for Q-tip painting, that had the circles on the pictures (kind of like a do-a-dot sheet, only smaller) so that the kids were encouraged to dot their pictures instead of slide them. It worked well for Q day, it would also be a good activity if you ever studied the artist George Seurat (the one who painted in dots).

We also sang the Five Little Ducks song, because quack, of course, starts with Q. The song goes like this:

Five Little Ducks
Five little ducks went out one day
Over the hills and far away
Mama duck said, "Quack, quack, quack, quack,"
but only four little ducks came waddling back...

Four little ducks went out one day
Over the hills and far away
Mama duck said, "Quack, quack, quack, quack,"
but only three little ducks came waddling back...

Three little ducks went out one day
Over the hills and far away
Mama duck said, "Quack, quack, quack, quack,"
but only two little ducks came waddling back...

Two little ducks went out one day
Over the hills and far away
Mama duck said, "Quack, quack, quack, quack,"
but only one little duck came waddling back...

One little duck went out one day
Over the hills and far away
Mama duck said, "Quack, quack, quack, quack,"
but no little ducks came waddling back...

But when the Daddy duck said, "Quack, quack, quack, quack,"
and all five ducks came waddling back.

I had also planned to do a quarter toss, but the kids were really antsy today. I blame it on the weather and cabin fever. All they really wanted to do was play. So instead of quarter toss, I let them have the last half hour as free play time. They played really well, and seemed to have fun together, so I'm hoping that it was exactly what they needed.

Good Weekend

We had a pretty good weekend at this house. Aaron took the two boys Saturday morning to help a family in the ward move. So Adelia and I got some good one on one time in, which I think she needed. We painted our toenails blue...she picked. But they turned out cute and she was tickled with them. Silly girl.

My boys have been growing like weeds. Ivan finally fits into the 4T pants I bought for him at the end of summer, and Lincoln finally fits into 5T. The only problem was, we only had one pair of 5T pants, and Lincoln's been wearing the 4T. But since Ivan fits into 4T now, he's got all the pants, and Lincoln has none. (I finally caught up on my laundry long enough to realize that Lincoln really didn't have any pants.) So Saturday after quiet time we went to Old Navy to find some pants for Linc. I forgot it was President's Day weekend...and there were a bazillion people out...ugh. But, it also meant there was a sale on at Old Navy, so  we got the jeans for $10 a pair. Not too bad. While we were there, I spotted these adorable jellies in the little girl section. It took me straight back to my childhood...I probably had a hundred pair of these. And I knew that Adelia had to have some. Luckily, they were on sale for $7. That's really not bad for little girl shoes. After that we headed over to the mall. Aaron took the kids to the play place so I could go scope out nursing bras at Motherhood Maternity. Ya, it's getting to be that time, where I'm feeling unprepared and am (finally) getting motivated (somewhat) to do something about it.

Sundays are always rough, but I survived church, even though Ivan had the need to sit on my lap for the entire Sacrament meeting. The only reason I let him is because he is generally not a very snugly child, and so when he wants to be snuggled it usually means something is up and he really needs it. He actually held pretty still, but even so it didn't help my swelling feet much.

Sunday evening Aaron's mom threw a joint birthday dinner for Melissa and I. The meal was FAN-TASTIC. Salmon, and baked red potatoes, with green beans and homemade bread. I was in heaven. And then for dessert she made home made lemon meringue pie. That picture makes it look really good, but it was even better than it looked. I definitely ate enough for two (or more) people. :) And it was nice visiting with Chuck and Debbie, Aunt Karen, Ryan and Melissa, and Kelly and Esther. I don't know why, but I feel like it's been awhile since we've seen everyone. Or maybe just since I've seen anyone? Either way, it was nice to a) be out of my house. b) eat a wonderful meal that I didn't have to prepare. c) be together with family. I can't wait 'til May when the whole Swan Clan will be in town. It's gonna be an awesome party.

And then this morning I woke up to a beautiful sunny day...

And I couldn't stand it any longer. I had to be outside in the sun...even if it was only 38 degrees. I figured my driveway was clear, even if everything else was covered in snow. So we put on jackets and mittens and got out the kids' bikes, the sidewalk chalk, the wagon, the slide...and decided to pretend like it was May. And we were outside for a good hour before the kids got cold and wanted to go in. Esther and Asher even joined us part of the time, and we were glad to have them.

Adelia wouldn't look at me. She said the sun was too bright.

So, happy day of sunshine to all my Utah friends out there! I guarantee if I wasn't 37 weeks pregnant we'd be in St. George by now soaking in the warmth, but since that isn't possible at this point...we'll enjoy what we can get. Especially since it's supposed to snow later this week. Ugh! 

Look What Came!

Look what came in the mail today, more reading material for Linc! Hooray! Just in time too, because we only have I think, two Frog and Toad stories in our last book, and then we're finished. We liked Frog and Toad so well, that I looked up the author, Arnold Lobel, to see what else he'd written. And to my happiness, he's written quite a few level 2 readers. And that's what I ordered. Plus, a level 3 reader of Jack Prelutsky poems that I think Linc can probably handle with a little bit of help. So the good news is, we get to keep reading.

The bad news is, my kids are on a sugar hang-over today, and pretty cranky. And I am all worn out from three days worth of Valentine preparations. I was really wishing we could just go play at the playground or something. But since the world is still covered in snow, I decided to try and improvise.

I made a sandbox in our garage using a shallow cardboard box and some moon sand we won at a Christmas party. I was hoping for a few minutes of nice, entertained play. About 30 seconds after I snapped this picture, Adelia threw a sand shovel at Lincoln's forehead. *sigh* She had a time out, and then they did spend a good half hour playing out there before they got cold and decided to come in.

Do you know what I want? And maybe I can talk one of Ivan's grandmas into getting him this for his birthday? I want a shallow Rubbermaid container filled about 1/2 full of dried beans, plastic cups, a funnel, wooden or plastic spoons that would be good for scooping, and a tarp to spread out underneath it for when the kids play. One of the nursery teachers did this at Friday Fun last week and it was a HUGE success with all the kids. And I've been craving one ever since. Maybe someone should give it to me for MY birthday, haha! Either way, it would be cool.

The Day of Love 2013

I used to hate Valentines Day...but somehow having children made this holiday worth-while to me, go figure. But really? Who wouldn't be excited to show some lovin' to those adorable three up above? :)

I thought today might be a little bit of a let-down for them, since we had all the V-day parties yesterday...but I think it came out all right.

When we came down first thing, Aaron (who gets up before everyone else) had made a giant streamer heart for the kids to walk through. That made their whole day...especially Lincoln's. Ivan was pretty funny to watch come through too. Adelia came down with me, so there is no video of us, but she was excited.

I had this great idea to make Aaron and the kids a Valentine shirt using iron-on transfers. So I bought all the stuff and brought it home and then realized, "What the heck do you put on a man's t-shirt for V-day?" Oops. After some google searching, I came up with "I put the MAN in ROMANCE" I thought it was funny. I'm still not sure what Aaron thought when he opened his...but, like a good husband, he wore it to work today. :)

The mailboxes are from an FHE project we did a couple weeks ago. The idea was that each kid got a mail box, and every day until Valentines Day we'd write little notes to each other stating the things we loved about each other, and put them in the mail boxes, and then open them on V-day. My kids were really excited about this project for about the first two days, and then kind of forgot it. But they still got their mailboxes to open this morning. I rolled up their shirts and tucked them inside.

And of course they got their box of chocolate hearts as a reward for memorizing their poems.

And Aaron and I each wrote the kids a Valentine note, which they seemed to really like.

Aaron made us heart-shaped cinnamon rolls and orange juice for breakfast. And we got to eat them on our heart-shaped plates. We're so festive! My mom would be proud.

After that we had kind of a low-key morning. We took Aaron to work, then ran to the store for a couple things I needed for dinner. Then we came home and cleaned up the house, and I started making our annual Valentines Day dessert, Black Forest Cherry Cake.

I'd just taken the cakes out of the oven, when Aaron's mom came over to watch the kiddos so I could go to my doctor's appointment. I'm on weekly visits and pelvic exams these days...what a way to spend Valentines Day by getting my Group B Strep Test and my uterus checked. Oh boy. But actually, the appointment turned out to be the highlight of the day because I found out that I am 2 1/2 centimeters dilated! Hooray! I don't think that means the baby will be here any earlier than we thought, I tend to always dilate early and stay that way...but it does mean the end is in sight and that my body is getting ready for Oliver to come out. What a glorious day that will be. My due date isn't until March 13th, but the doctor said he's strip my membranes next time I go in, if I want him to. He also said he could induce me as early as March 6th, if I wanted to. I've never been induced. Things to think about.

I went home from my appointment, and Debbie took the two boys home with her to play for awhile. So Del and I finished up the cake.

This picture is before I got the homemade stuff. You can already see the Reddy Whip starting to slide off the top.

The recipe has you make the entire thing from scratch...but this year I decided to cheat a little. I bought cherry pie filling and Reddy Whip, instead of making my own. The pie filling worked fine, but the Reddy Whip was a bad, bad idea. It's not as thick and homemade whip cream, and so it started to slide off the cake and down the sides. It looked awful, so I ended up going to the store and buying cream and making homemade whip cream anyway. I ended up scraping off the Reddy Whip mess on the bottom of the plate, and then spreading the real stuff all around the outside..but there was no way to save the cake crumbs on the sides. The finished product looked like the Black Forest in winter...all white. :) I guess that's what I get fro trying to cheat. But it still tasted good.

While I was trying to solve the cake disaster, Adelia decided to help clean up. She pulled a chair over to the sink and said, "Mom, I do da dish."

We ate Valentines dinner at home, because I hate going out with the throngs of people we knew would be out. Aaron's parents and our kids ate with us, so our table was full of people we love. Aaron made steaks, and I threw together a salad. It turned out awesome. And we had more fun than we would have going out.

Our kids were pretty wound and sugar-crazed by the end of the night, so I'll admit I was happy to put them in bed. But over all, I'd say we had a wonderful day of love.

My Mother's Chocolate Valentine by Jack Prelutsky

I mentioned that we were working on memorizing a poem for Valentines Day. I promised my kids that anyone who could memorize it, would get a box of chocolate hearts on V-day as a reward. I'm happy to say that all the kids will get their chocolate hearts tomorrow when they wake up, because they can all recite the poem (more or less, I did take their age and skill level into consideration).

Lincoln - Articles of Faith 1, 2, & 3

I love that the Primary is focusing on the Articles of Faith this year. I also love that Lincoln's teachers are really encouraging the class to memorize them. And I especially love that Lincoln is really excited to do so.

I can't guarantee it of course, because I don't see the inside of Lincoln's head (though sometimes I'd like to), but I think he has a bit of a photographic memory. If it were me trying to memorize something, I'd have to repeat it out loud to myself over and over again, while looking at my cheat sheet and slowly removing, or covering up parts, until I could say the whole thing. Lincoln doesn't like to practice out loud with me. Or out loud at all. In fact, he mostly refuses to do so. All he wants is for me to write the Article of Faith down on a piece of paper and go over the big words with him. Then he takes it upstairs, and stares at the paper for awhile. Then, when he's ready, he comes down stairs and can say the whole thing. So I don't know...something to keep a look out for I guess.

School Lately

I mentioned a few posts ago that I wasn't very excited for Valentines Day. You'd never know it though, if you saw all the festivities being prepared for around here. We've been spending a lot of our school time doing various Valentines Day activities.

This year it was my turn to host the Valentines Day Party for the kids Lincoln's age in our home school group.   And with Lincoln's help, we planned quite the event.

Linc really wanted streamers, and lots of them. So last night Aaron helped him get those ready. The plan was for all the kids to come over, then decorate brown paper bags and exchange Valentines. When I host, I let all three of my kids be involved in the activity, because it's easier than trying to keep them out of it. That meant each of my kids needed to bring 16 Valentines with them to give out at the party. Lincoln gave out pencils with a heart stuck on each one that said, "You're just write for me!" He wrote his name on each one, hole-punched it, and stuck it through the pencils all by himself. Ivan had his preschool Valentine Party this morning as well, and since I was making treats for him to give out at that anyway, I just made enough for him to give them out at our party too. Rice Krispy Treat hearts drizzled with chocolate and a note that said, "It's a treat to be your friend." Ivan signed his name to all his notes as well. Adelia gave out little miniature heart-shaped slinkies. She scribbled on the tags, and I wrote from Adelia on them. The kids were really excited to give out their stuff. I had every intention of taking pictures during the party...but  things tend to get very chaotic with so many 4 and 5 year olds. They made their bags, exchanged their Valentines, played, and then we made candy and heart shish-kabobs for an activity. Then everyone left, and I hadn't taken a single picture. But I did get one of my kids enjoying going through their bags afterwards.

Another project we did for school were these heart maps. Basically, you take a heart, and inside of it you draw little pictures of things you love and color them. I think I was the most excited about the project, and I definitely spent about three times longer on mine than all the kids combined. :) Lincoln at least caught on to the idea though. And I thought they turned out cute. I hung them on our sliding glass door.

And we've spent quite a bit of time writing love notes to each other, and to extended family members. Hopefully those get out in the mail sooner rather than later, but in case pregnancy brain kicks in, all family members should know that they are loved, that my kids made them Valentines, and that my kids' mother has an extreme mental handicap right now called pregnancy that might get in the way of the mailing process.

We've also done a little bit of Letter O. O Octopus craft, finding the letter O in the ocean and dotting it with Do-A-Dots, and gluing the right number of Cheerios onto the octopus's legs.

And some letter P as well...my kids love pirates, so we did a lot of imagination play and reading stories for this unit, but we did get our Pirate P craft in. We also watched a Magic School Bus episode where Ms. Frizzles class learns all about coral reefs while the hunt for a treasure left by Ms. Frizzle's great-great uncle Red Beard the Pirate.

Ok, so our school has been really low-key lately. But I at least get some reading and math in every day, and I feel like my kids are doing well. Lincoln's reading has just exploded lately...he reads everything we drive past in the car, and all the things on the grocery store shelves, and tells me the street numbers and stores we're passing, and food labels, and all sorts of things. He reads Adelia books, and brings me his Frog and Toad stories and asks me if I'll listen to him read them.  And Ivan's handwriting is coming along phenomenally. He's really made a huge jump. I don't have to draw dots for him to trace anymore, and he, of his own free will, brings a paper and pencil over to me and asks me how to spell words, and then he makes the letters. He still doesn't use spaces, and there are a few letters he gets backward, and he still prefers to write in capitols...but he's made so much progress. In other words, I feel like we're right where we should be with school, so I haven't been stressing myself out or running myself ragged over the extra things we were doing before. If it's a good day, we do them, if it's not we don't. We'll get back to doing those things consistently after the baby gets here and we adjust to having  him in our schedule.

We've also been doing a fun read-aloud. I started reading Little House in the Big Woods to the kids a week or so ago, and so far they love it. In the book it explains the process of how the family makes a lot of the things they use, so it talks about Ma making butter, and how Pa makes bullets, etc. And my kids think it's fabulous. Lincoln wants to know why we don't make our own bullets. :) I bought the audio CDs as well, so that during their afternoon quiet time they can listen to the audio CD of the parts in the book we've already read together. They seem to like that too.

And actually, we've been going through audio books like crazy lately. We got a bunch of them from the library on our last trip, and the kids have been flying through them. We did a few Magic Tree House books, Wind in the Willows, and some poetry by Jack Prelutsky. I think it's a great quiet time activity, and if I can keep new material circulating (meaning they've heard it less than a hundred times, because they do like to listen to things over and over for awhile) it seems to hold their attention and keep them still and "resting" during their allotted time frame. Their love of audio books is good news for me, because lately I've been lying down and taking my own nap during quiet time. :)

Grow

I've been thinking about this idea a ton lately, and then I saw this picture that put it all into beautiful, simple words. I don't have anything deep or profound to say about it, but I need to grow, which means I need to push myself out of my little snuggly comfort zone. Why is that always so hard?

This is Why Dads are Cooler Than Moms

Because I would never have thought to shovel the snow from the driveway into a giant pile and put the slide on top. I'm not that cool...but Aaron is.

The Sun Will Come Out...Tomorrow

Someone had pity on me and let the sun shine all day yesterday! I escaped the house yesterday. And my mom came down to visit and cheer me up (and to watch my kids so I could escape the house to go to my doctor's appointment). I felt good for the first time in over a week. Yesterday was a glorious day. Yesterday was exactly what I needed to lift my spirits a little bit. We won't talk about what the weather is doing outside right now...we'll just wrap up yesterday's sunshine and hang on to it while we look for better days to come.

I've posted a hundred pictures of this corn field with the mountain in the background...and I'll post a hundred more, I'm sure. I LOVE the location of our house. I couldn't have picked a happier spot for myself then next to this corn field with this mountain behind it. Every time I pull into the driveway and look to the south east I fall in love all over again. Living by a corn field spells out 'home' for me. I hope the farmer who owns this field never sells it.

Some good things did happen during my week of doom and gloom. Most specifically, my husband took great care of us. He is amazing. One of the nights he took the kids swimming all by himself, so that they could have an opportunity to get out of the house and use some energy. Meet the Swan Family Swimmers! Haha. They are dressed in their swim suits with matching Halloween sweats over top, because if the Halloween sweats get lost or stolen at the pool, it's not too great of a loss. They came up with this teamwork technique to get the garage door open so they could go get in the car. It made me laugh.

I finally guilt tripped myself into pulling out the box of Newborn stuff and the box of 0-3 months stuff so see what I had, so I could at least have in my mind what I need. I think I'm pretty good on clothes...I knew I would be. But somewhere all my baby blankets have disappeared. I used to have what felt like a million (and needed them all!) but when pulling out baby stuff, I was only able to find five. And those were five that I had put away because of sentimental value. I have no idea where all my receiving blankets have gone off to. So the other night while Aaron was away helping his parents move boxes and furniture to their new house, I started crocheting around the edge of a new blanket for Oliver. I am not a talented crocheter...this simple pattern is the only trick I have up my sleeve in that department; but it will do, and Oliver will have at least one more blanket.

I also can't remember where I lent out my bouncer to, but I know that it was pretty much on it's last standing leg when Adelia was a baby, so I didn't try super hard to find it (I always thought it was ugly anyway). Instead I ordered Oliver this adorable monkey bouncer. :) It was delivered to my doorstep this afternoon (I love Amazon!) and I am excited about it. All our other kids spent about half their babyhood in the bouncer, and I know that Oliver will be no exception. And since he's the fourth child, I'm happy to be giving him something new of his very own...most everything he gets for his entire life will be a hand-me-down from his brothers...and not that there is anything wrong with that, but I'm glad he'll have something new at least.

Adelia at FFC. She's not doing anything particularly special, but I just happened to look at her while she was sitting there and think how she is such a little cutie and how I wish I could just trap her in a bottle sometimes and keep her little and adorable forever.

We made it to Friday Fun Classes today. We were even early. Go us! Before FFC starts there is a Zumba class in the gym, and since we got there early, my kids got to do some Zumba out in the hallway. They were quite entertaining. I should have pulled my camera out faster, because the video clip I got wasn't very long before they turned the music off, but enough to give you an idea.

I taught Littles Class this morning. We did a Valentine theme for the day. I split the kids into three different groups, and my awesome assistants had activities for the other two groups, so I only had to do one activity. We spend about 10 minutes per activity and then rotate groups. Anyways, today I decided to do Conversation Heart Towers. I gave each kid a mat with six hearts on it, on each heart was a number (2,3,5,6,7,9 were the numbers I chose to put in the hearts, but you could do whatever numbers you wanted to), I also gave them each a box of conversation hearts. The object was to use the hearts to stack a tower as high as the numbers in each heart on the paper. The kids had a pretty easy time doing towers of 2,3, and 5, but only a handful were able to get the balance just right to stack 6. I had one little boy who was bound and determined to stack 9, and he did while holding it up with his hand, but it quickly toppled when he let go.

Lincoln making conversation heart towers