Waiting for Ruby...

Thanksgiving is over now. There is nothing else left to do except wait for Ruby. And it's not easy. Or I'm not patient, or both.

Aaron is home this weekend on Thanksgiving Break (so now would be a great time for you to come, Ruby, hint hint.), and he's been so good to keep the kids busy with fun things that I am too tired to do. And he's been great at helping me keep my mind busy. At night after all the kids are in bed, he comes up with little projects or activities for us to do. We've been reading The Giver together, we've wrapped Christmas presents, we've designed our dream house, and so on. I love that husband of mine.

I threatened this year to just cut a tree out of paper and let the kids paint it and then hang it on the wall. Doing the whole decorate for Christmas thing, kind of sounds exhausting to me right now. Like way more than I can physically take on. Aaron would have none of it though, and he planned an outing for our family to go pick out a real tree. Then he brought the kids home and helped them decorate it, while I sat in a comfy chair and took pictures.

The weather has been beautiful for it being almost December. We've taken lots of walks to try and induce labor. So far, no luck. But the kids have been loving being able to bike ride, and play outside.

We also went to the park and played Frisbee, well, Aaron and the kids did. I watched and walked laps. :)

I had contractions for about an hour today while everyone was at church. I thought we might be heading to the hospital when everyone got home from church...but then they stopped.

So, now it's Sunday evening, and still no baby. I'm kind of at the end of my ropes mentally. I really don't want to go back to all our activities tomorrow and still be pregnant. I have a doctor's appointment in the afternoon, and I think if I make it to the appointment I will schedule to be induced. I don't really want to be induced...but I REALLY don't want to be pregnant anymore either. I just hate the unknown...where am I going to be when I go into labor? Will I get the kids where they need to be? Who will be watching them? Will Aaron get home in time? Will we be able to get to the hospital before things get crazy? AHHHHHH!! I just want to be done, and know how it's all going to play out.

I just want my baby to be here. And I want my body back.

Thanksgiving 2014

Thanksgiving went as perfectly as it could have this year, with being 9 months pregnant and unable to go anywhere. I was a little bit worried that the kids would be disappointed that it was just going to be our little (or not so little) family, but Aaron and I made an effort to make it a fun an memorable day, and I think we succeeded. Thanksgiving this year was peaceful, low stress, and wonderful. Everything I had hoped it would be. 

I started preparing 3 days before. I knew that Aaron and I were making an entire dinner by ourselves, and I was up to the challenge, but I also knew we couldn't do it all on Thursday. So, on Tuesday while Adelia was at preschool, the boys and I did the grocery shopping. They were well behaved and actually helpful! Another awesome/funny thing that happened...as I was walking through the store gathering things on my list, random people kept handing me Turkey Vouchers (little coupons the store gives out for so much money off of your turkey) that they said they weren't using. The vouchers come in $0.50 to $1.00 increments. I had a few of my own, and a few that Aaron's mom had given me, probably a couple dollars worth. But by the time I finished grocery shopping I had enough for $10 off my turkey! So our turkey ended up only costing us $11. People probably assumed that the 9 month preggo lady who was crazy enough to grocery shop with 3 boys in tow could use all the help she could get, haha! Either way, I'll take it and be grateful for it! 

Then we picked up Adelia and came home and made the cranberry sauce. This is the best cranberry sauce ever, just saying. It puts that pathetic-excuse-for-cranberry-sauce that you buy in the can to shame. Oh, and it's incredibly easy to make, so there really is no reason not to have homemade cranberry sauce on your Thanksgiving table. :) 

Thanksgiving Cranberry Sauce

Ingredients

4 cups (1 12-oz package) fresh cranberries

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup apply cider

1/2 cup water

1/8 tsp ginger

1/8 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/8 cloves

1/8 orange peel

1-3 TBSP maple syrup

Directions

1. Place cranberries in a colander and rinse them. Pick out and discard any damaged or bruised cranberries. 

2. Put the water, apple cider, and sugar in a medium saucepan on high heat and bring to boil. Stir to dissolve sugar. 

3. Add the cranberries to the pot and return to boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes or until most of the cranberries have burst.

4. Once the cranberries have burst, add ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, and orange peel to taste. Add 1-3 TBSP maple syrup to taste. Stir to mix well.

5. Remove pot from heat. Let cool completely at room temperature, then transfer to a bowl to chill in the refrigerator. Note that cranberry sauce will thicken as it cools. 

On Wednesday Adelia and I made the Pecan Pumpkin Cream Cheese Pie, and the Sweet Potato Souffle. Both dishes are two of my very most favorite Thanksgiving Day recipes. 

Pecan Pumpkin Cream Cheese Pie

Ingredients

8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp lemon juice
15 oz can of pumpkin
1 cup sugar
1 TBSP pumpkin pie spice
2 eggs
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup miniature chocolate chips
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 TBSP pure maple syrup
Dough for 1 pie crust

Directions

1. Mix the cream cheese and 1/2 cup sugar using a mixer. Add  1 egg and lemon juice, continue mixing til creamy.
2. Place in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.
3. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
4. Beat pumpkin, 1 cup sugar, and spice with a mixer.
5. Add 2 eggs and beat until combined.
6. Add milk and beat until combined.
7. Press pie crust dough into the bottom of a 9 in. pie plate.
8. Spread cream cheese mixture onto the dough.
9. Layer the pumpkin mixture on top of the cream cheese mixture and try not to disturb cream cheese mixture underneath.
10. Cover the edges of the pie crust with foil to keep them from getting too brown and place pie in the oven.
11. Bake for about 20 minutes.
12 While baking, in a small bowl mix pecans, mini chocolate chips, brown sugar, and maple syrup. Stir to combine.
13. After the pie has baked the first 20 minutes, remove foil and layer on the topping.
14. Make for another 25-30 minutes. Remove and cool.
15. Cover and chill in the refrigerator for a couple of hours before serving.

*Note that sometimes the topping bubbles over, so you may want to place a cookie sheet on the rack underneath the pie to keep from getting it all over the bottom of the oven.


Sweet Potato Souffle

Ingredients

3 cups mashed sweet potatoes
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup melted butter
1/2 cup canned milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon

topping:
1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup melted butter
1 cup chopped nuts
1 cup coconut

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. In a mixing bowl mix together sweet potatoes, sugar, eggs, salt, butter, canned milk, vanilla, and cinnamon.
3. Pour into a greased 9X13 pan.
4. Mix the topping ingredients together and crumble on top of the potatoes.
5. Bake for 35 minutes. Serve warm.

*Note, I make mine a day ahead of time, and then just reheat them on Thanksgiving. Still good. They are also good cold.

On Thursday, I put Aaron in charge of the turkey. He put the seasonings on it, got it in the roaster oven at the right time, and carved it up to put on the table for dinner. And, he looked good doing it. It was excellent. I think I'll put him in charge every year. ;)

I'm not a fan of mashed potatoes. You could probably say it's my least favorite food. So I'm usually just fine to skip those over on Thanksgiving. But Aaron and Lincoln like them, and since no one else was making any for them, I decided I would...just this once. ;) I tried a cool looking recipe I found online, for making mashed potatoes in the crock pot. And I was impressed. (With the ease of the cooking process, not the taste. I didn't taste them.) Aaron thought they were good, but a little over-seasoned. So, if I ever make them again, I'll just half the seasoning. But I thought it was cool to make them in the crock pot. Between the crock pot for the potatoes, and the turkey roaster for the turkey, I had my oven and stove top free for other delicious concoctions. Score!

Slow Cooker Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients

2 pounds red potatoes, cut into 2 inch pieces (you can peel them but I never do)
½ cup sour cream (or plain greek yogurt)
¼ cup milk
2 teaspoons minced garlic
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

1. Spray the inside of a slow cooker with cooking spray. Add chopped potatoes. Cover and cook 2-3 hours on high or 5-6 hours on low.

2. Add sour cream, milk, garlic, salt, and pepper to potatoes. Use a hand mixer to blend together all ingredients. Give them a taste and add more salt if desired. Serve plain, or with any favorite toppings such as gravy, or cheese and bacon.

I also made my mom's roll recipe, which is the best roll recipe on the planet. :) I think I've posted it on here before though, so I'm not going to type it out again today. That recipe calls for all white flour, but lately I've been using about 2/3rds whole wheat flour and 1/3rd white. It's good. And for Thanksgiving I tried a new way to shape them, so they are bigger and puffier looking. I brushed the tops with butter and sprinkled a tiny bit of salt on as well, before I stuck them in the over. They still taste fabulous, no matter how you shape them.

Stuffing isn't really my thing either, so Aaron made that. And he also made a really tasty Green Bean Casserole. Neither of which I took an individual picture of, sorry. And lastly, I made a cherry pie. But I didn't take a picture of it either.

All in all, I think we did pretty good for ourselves. The food was fantastic, the people I love most were at the table with me, and there will be leftovers for dayssssssssss. I couldn't ask for more than that.

After dinner and before pie we played a new game called Spot It! So fun. The kids loved it, and it was great for all age ranges because it didn't require you to be able to read. :)

After pie, we put Ollie to bed and watched Night at the Museum with the older kids. It was a good night, and fun family time. I love my family, and I am so grateful for them.

Snow Globe Belly Painting

After everyone left Aaron's birthday fiesta party, Aaron and I continued the fun activities by painting my belly. :) We do this every pregnancy, we think it's fun.

It's kind of hard to think of a fifth cylindrical object that would be easy to paint on a belly. At first we thought we might do a cornucopia, but decided against it because it was going to take a lot of different colors of paint that we didn't already have. After a Google Image Search for Belly Painting to get ideas (and if you've never searched this before you totally should, some very cool, and very weird, things have been painted on pregnant bellies. I had no idea.) we decided to try a snow globe.

I think it turned out cute! And of course, for comparison's sake:

Aaron's 31st Birthday

Aaron turned 31 today. It's Sunday, which makes it kind of hard to celebrate, but we did our very best. Aaron wanted a fiesta dinner. While he took Lincoln, Del, and Ollie to church, Ivan and I decorated with streamers and a big birthday sign. (Ivan had strep throat this weekend, so we stayed home from church.)

Aaron's parents and Aaron's brother Kelly, his wife Esther, and their two boys, Asher and Eli came over to party with us, as a joint birthday party for Aaron and Kelly, who are twins, but born on different days. I made fajitas, Aaron's mom brought Spanish rice, and Esther made a beautiful chocolate cake.

I Hate Ketchup

I am very behind on blogging. So I'm just going to try and catch up real quick, and move through events faster than I would normally. 

Science Fair

Our homeschool group did an awesome Science Fair. Each kid, or family, got to bring Science experiments that they'd been working on and present them to our group. Lincoln did a Naked Egg experiment, where he soaked an egg in a glass of vinegar for a few days. The vinegar is acidic and eats away the calcium in the shell of the egg, leaving only the membrane of the egg. You can shine a flashlight through the egg and see the yolk. 

Ivan learned about potential and kinetic energy by doing a ball experiment. He tied a ball onto a broom handle, Then held the ball up next to his face, and let it go. The ball swung, but didn't hit his face when it came back because it can't get more energy than what it started with.

Both boys did a great job. And so did all the other kids. There were some really great experiments. We enjoyed learning about them.


Family Together Time

The other Sunday night, we decided to make gingerbread cookies together as a family. There were six of us in the kitchen. It was kind of overwhelming, actually. I had to try really hard to be patient, and to remember that the point of the activity was to have some positive family bonding time and to make fun memories. I think I did a pretty good job, but I was very glad when it was time to put everyone to bed. It's not that I don't love family activities, but six people in the kitchen is a lot. And so is the mess six people make in the kitchen. Whew. But I survived. And the cookies were good. :)

Bunk Bed

We finally got Adelia and Oliver's bunk bed all painted and put up in Del's room. We still need a mattress for Ollie, so he's not sleeping in there yet. But he's not one bit intimidated by it. He climbs right up, and then gets down all by himself by jumping over the side and dropping to the floor. What a kid.

Library Cards

Our library only lets you check out 50 books at a time. I was finding that I was reaching my max just about every single time we went to check out. So, we decided it would be a good time to get the boys their own library cards. They were thrilled. I think we packed home the whole library! But I'm ok with it, because they also spent the afternoon reading. :)

Lincoln's Art Show

Lincoln has been taking and drawing/painting class at the Scera Center for the Arts this year. We recently got to go and see his first art show. He did two pieces. His drawing is called "Falling From the Sky" and his painting is called "Circles".

Shelves in Adelia's Closet

A little while ago, we bought Lincoln and Ivan a new dresser, and moved their old dresser into Adelia's room for her and Ollie to share. We tried putting both their clothes in it, but there just wasn't enough space. And there wasn't enough space in the bedroom to put another dresser. Solution: Aaron built shelves in Adelia's closet for Adelia to put her clothes on, and Ollie gets the dresser. It's working nicely. I don't have pictures of the shelves yet, but I did get a picture of this cute little helper. He likes to hand Daddy the tools. I can't believe that he's not going to be my baby anymore. I mean, he'll always be my baby, but not my youngest baby. How does that even happen?

Snow Day

First snow today. We've had such a lovely fall, I'm sad for it to get cold. The kids were dying to get out in the snow, but I couldn't climb up to the garage rack to get the winter box down. They had to be satisfied with coats and hats, and walking the boys to piano lessons this afternoon. That was cold enough for me, I was ready to be done by the time we got back.

Adelia (and really all the kids, but her specifically) thought the snow was magical. It didn't bother her that she didn't have gloves or proper shoes. She made tracks, and scooped up handfuls like it was made out of fluffy cotton instead of freezing ice. And I couldn't help but think how it would be to see the world again as a child sees it. Snow as a perfect miracle, instead of a pain in the neck. Maybe when the kids are old enough to put on their own boots, zip their own coats, and shovel the driveway for me, I'll appreciate snow again. ;) I do like to watch my kids in the snow though. Especially Ollie today, he was glued to the sliding glass door, just pointing and saying, "Oooo!"

Speaking of that little stinker, he thinks it's hilarious to use Ruby's crib as his own personal jungle-gym. Today he kept climbing into it, and getting stuck and yelling for someone to come get him out. I finally got tired of it, so I sat on the bedroom floor and watched him while he decided how to get himself out. It took him awhile, but then he started getting braver and braver. Right after I took this picture, he decided to stand up on the railing. He looked at me and said, "Catch!" and then jumped for it. Luckily, I caught him. But he has wayyyy too much faith in my ability to get my pregnant self up off the floor and in catching position in time.

Ollie also decided that today would be a good day to dump a third of a bottle of vegetable oil out on my kitchen floor. That's a first for me. I've done baby powder, Desitin, nail polish loads of times, vaseline, poop, paint...but never vegetable oil. Not the hardest thing to get cleaned up, but still not fun, and I ended up mopping half the kitchen floor on my  hands and knees.

I was a little slow on the uptake, but today I finally got around to getting our Thankful Tree up. Usually I do a Grateful Gobbler, but I wasn't feeling it this year, and I had some sheets from a roll of brown butcher paper that I've been trying to find a use for so they don't have to take up space in the bottom of my school closet anymore. And long story short, our Thankful Tree was born. I like it. The kids helped me cut out the leaves, and we'll add more as we write more things we're thankful for on them and hang them up.

We also did a writing summary page today. I read them There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie, and then we summarized it on turkey shaped paper and colored a turkey to go on as the cover. :)

Ivan's summary

And now the kids are all in bed, and Aaron is at Elder's Quorum meeting. For whatever weird reason, I can't focus on reading this pregnancy, which is how I would normally choose to pass a quiet evening. So instead, I've taken to crocheting around baby blankets and watching Dressing Your Truth videos online. At least that way, I still feel like I'm being productive. My hands are moving, and my brain is concentrating on whatever topic the video is teaching about.

The Daffodils

This picture of Adelia asleep in the car seat pretty much sums up how we are all feeling today...tired and frazzled.

We are trying our darndest to figure out what exactly it is that has made Oliver wake up just about every single night since July. I'm not having any luck, but last night was particularly bad. Both Aaron and I were up with him several (hundred) times. Ugh. And I can feel it today. My body hurts all over, my brain is beyond fuzzy, and I'm moving like a slug.

It's a good things he's cute, or I might have thrown him out to live with the chickens a long time ago. Sleep, child!

But on a good note, I talked these two into planting my daffodil bulbs in the front bed. So maybe come Spring time we'll have some beautiful flowers to enjoy. I love daffodils.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils. 

                 -William Wordsworth

Project in the Works....

I mentioned awhile ago that we got a set of bunk beds off of KSL for really cheap. We plan on putting them in Adelia's room, and having she and Ollie share them until Ruby is big enough to room with Del.

The beds are wood, and a little beat up. So we decided we would sand them down a bit, build a railing on the side, and paint them. Originally, I was thinking we'd paint them white. But, white's not very fun, and since it's going to be Adelia's bed, I thought she'd be really excited to have her bed painted a happy bright color. I decided on yellow. (Because if I left it up to Del she would have picked pink. Bleh.) And actually, I did give her the choice between yellow and turquoise, both colors I would have been fine with, so she did have some say. And she picked yellow. Aaron also gave me permission to paint Ruby's crib yellow. :) Every time I walk into the nursery it will make me happy.

Not before Ruby comes, but at some point after that, we will also paint the walls (either in Adelia's room or Ruby's room, depending on which one we decide will be the girls' room in the future) a light teal color, and decorate with watermelon colored accents. Here is a picture of my inspiration:

I've never gotten to decorate a nursery, or really even a room before, so I'm really excited about this. The whole thing coming together is still a long ways out, but just the fact that I get to paint our crib yellow (and the bunk beds) is making me giddy.

My mom is making a quilt for Ruby, and asked me to pick out the material. This is what I picked: The flowered pattern will be the top of the quilt, the navy and teal the binding, and the yellow on the back. Cute!

We worked on getting the beds painted for most of Saturday. We got them all sanded and the railing built, and two coats of paint on. But they still need one, maybe even two more coats. We'll see when we get around to getting them all finished up. I hope soon! I need to get Ollie and Del used to sharing a room, and I'm running out of time to do it.