I've been busy!

I think my nesting is taking the form of crafting. Sure, it would be nice if it were more along the lines of cleaning and getting ready to move, but I'll take what I can get. I've been really busy making all sorts of fun stuff lately. Check out all the projects I've been working on!

Here's the progress I've made on my cloth diapers: 9 pocket diapers, 4 fleece covers, 10 wipes, and 3 more covers cut out just waiting for elastic and velcro.



As far as Halloween/fall decorating, I've been crocheting up a storm. Here's two new pumpkins, a white pumpkin in the works, and a jack-o-lantern garland.


Last of all, here's Thomas' costume that I just made today. He's going to be a Jedi, so I bought an old sweater at D.I., cut it up, and sewed it into a Jedi robe. Unfortunately, Thomas apparently hates it and tears it off immediately as soon as I try to put it on him. Tough, kid - you're wearing this robe on Halloween whether you like it or not!


Jeff and I volunteered our van for the stake trunk-or-treat this Saturday, and I've decided to decorate the trunk all in pumpkins. Hence all the pumpkin crocheting. So I'll likely be crocheting a few more pumpkin things between now and Saturday night. Since I'm the one with the big belly, I get to sit in the van and hand out candy while Jeff takes the kids car to car collecting more candy. So I'm going to be dressed like a pumpkin - I got an orange sweater at D.I. and am going to draw a jack-o-lantern on the belly. Should be fun. Then, as soon as Halloween is over, it's back to making diapers! Yeah, I think I'm having way too much fun with all of this.

Making Progress on the House

Just a some pics to show what progress we've been making on the house for the past little while. Most of the progress we've made has been Jeff's doing. I can't do so much of the heavy labor, so Jeff has really been awesome about jumping in and getting stuff done.

Jeff has been taking loads of boxes and stuff over, things that have been stuffed in the closets and the corners of the bedrooms for the whole time we've been here in this apartment. We've got lots of stuff in the family room, and the bedrooms. It's been nice to get some of the extra stuff out of the apartment!



A couple days ago, Jeff worked outside and raked up all the leaves that have been taking over the yard. Unfortunately, we forgot to bring trash bags to put the leaves in, so they're still sitting in piles in the yard. Well, we'll get around to that eventually.


Jeff has also been working hard to peel the wallpaper in the kitchen and hallway. We bought a ladder today to help with the high stuff that he hasn't been able to get thus far. Working with his water spray bottle and a scraper, Jeff made fast work of the yucky gluey paper today.



I helped out by gathering all the paper and stuffing it in trash bags, then by starting to tape the baseboards and fireplace in the living room. It's nice to be able to help with little stuff like that. I can feel useful, but not overexert myself.



We've already bought the paint for the walls. The main walls in the living room, dining room, kitchen, and hallway will be white. Just a nice, simple white that will be easy to decorate around. The accent wall in the living room will be a rich, dark green. Oh, it's gonna be so pretty!

The longest three hours, and a new diaper

This morning I got to go through the longest three hours of my life!! My midwife told me this past Wednesday that my numbers on the glucose screen were just barely over the cutoff, and that I had to do the three-hour glucose screen. Oh the joy!...

So I went in this morning to get it over with. Fasting is hard enough when you're not pregnant, but put a baby in your belly and it's much harder! After one super-concentrated, sickeningly sweet orange drink, three hours, and four needle pokes, I was feeling lightheaded, had a backache (from sitting on the waiting room chair for so long), was getting a migraine, and was super hungry!

But I survived, made it to the parking lot, and scarfed down the tuna sandwich I had brought. Tuna sandwich has never tasted so good! Anyway, here's hoping that my numbers come out okay. I'd really rather not be diagnosed with gestational diabetes right before Halloween and Thanksgiving. Boy, what a bummer that would be! Michelle, I totally admire your ability to keep with the GD diet, because just thinking that I might have to is making me grimace!

Anyway, on to funner matters - I finished making my first cloth diaper!



This is just the diaper pocket - there's an opening in the back where you stuff in a thick, absorbent soaker (I'll use prefolds, washcloths, whatever I find that works). I've got a couple other diapers that I've started, and enough fabric to make 30-40 diapers! Plus I have all that fleece for making water-repellent covers. I'm getting really excited about all this, making diapers is fun!


***Updated: As soon as I finished posting this, my midwife called. My glucose screen results are already in, and everything was fine! Hooray!!!! I don't have GD. I'm very relieved. :-)

I have a new obsession...

Here is my new obsession: Making cloth diapers!

Since we'll have our own washer/dryer, I'm finally taking the plunge and going full-time to cloth diapers. I tried cloth briefly with both Zaylee and Thomas, but ended up getting too frustrated with the coin-op laundry situation and the difficulty of using cloth diapers.

I have lots of prefolds from Michelle that will work great for when the baby is small. But I have learned that cloth diapers come in so many more shapes and sizes than just prefolds, even when they're very high quality prefolds (not the Gerber cheap-o's you get at Wal-Mart that are pretty much only suitable as burp cloths).

So I'll be making a nice big stash of cute pocket diapers - elastic around the legs for a better fit, and a pocket in which you stuff an absorbent insert. Since this particular pattern is one-size-fits-most, it will work for both the baby and for Thomas. Easy to make, easy to use, easy to clean, and waaaaay cheaper than disposables. It can cost a lot of money to buy quality cloth diapers, but since I'm making them myself I can save a ton of money. I hit up D.I. today and came home with all this:


These fabrics on the left are flannel sheets that I will use to make the diapers themselves.


These three fabrics on the right are fleece blankets that will become the diaper covers. Did you know that fleece makes good diaper covers? The fabric is water resistant, so the pee won't leak through. If you pour a bit of water onto fleece, it will just bead up instead of soaking in; that's what makes it a good fabric for covers.


The total cost of all this fabric was about $25. That's what we currently spend on two boxes of diapers for Thomas, which last only about a month, maybe a month and a half. These diapers will last for years! I will need more than what I have here, to have enough for both baby and Thomas, but this is a good start. And as an added bonus, I can use the scraps to make wipes and bibs, saving even more money. Woohoo!

I have printed, cut out, and pieced together the pattern for the diapers, but will need to wash the fabrics and buy some elastic before I can start actually making them. Super excited to start my stash of super-cute homemade cloth diapers!

I just won't go to church today.

Yup, not gonna get all dressed up, not gonna pack the Sunday bag with diapers, not gonna rush to get everyone ready. I'll just stay home today. With Thomas. Because he's sick.

I noticed a couple days ago that Thomas was feeling really warm, and when I changed his diaper and he had a huge diaper rash, he didn't scream and try to squirm away, he just whimpered and looked at me pathetically, as if he just feeling too weak to be vigorous. I checked his temperature and it was 101 degrees. Yikes! So I drugged him up (with the age- and weight-appropriate amount of medication, of course) and gave him lots of cuddles.

By Saturday he not only had a fever, but a very phlegmy cough and a sniffly, runny nose, all of which are still present this morning. So no church for the little guy. And since Jeff is teaching the lesson in Elder's Quorum today, I get to stay home with Thomas.

Poor little guy, I can really tell that he is just having no fun. Little things that normally wouldn't upset him now make him curl up on the floor and cry softly. He wants lots of cuddles, and lots of water to drink. So today it's all about him - while Daddy and Zaylee are at church I get to do everything I can to make him feel comfortable and loved.

The real bummer about all of this is that, as Mommy, I'm almost sure to catch whatever it is that he's got, and then it'll spread to everyone else. Sigh. That's the way it is in families.

Fun Little Discoveries

This morning we headed over to the house to do some measuring for painting, and to just explore our new domain. We made some fun discoveries that have us pretty excited!

- The three sheds in the backyard are huge, and all three have wonderful shelf space - deep, sturdy shelving for all our storage needs. One of them has a work table with a vice, and lots of grass fertilizer for the lawn. Another has electricity - we might put a chest freezer in there.

- The couch downstairs that came with the house isn't just any couch - it's a hide-a-bed! That was on our list of "someday we'll have" stuff, but now we don't have to go out and buy one.

- The below-stairs storage is even bigger than we realized; we thought it was just under the upper stairs, but it curves around below the lower stairs as well for additional storage.

- There's a covered sandbox in the back yard, complete with lots of sand toys... and tons of earwigs. We'll have to clean it out and put in fresh sand, and clean the toys really well. But that will be a lot fun for the kids.

- There's so much more space in the kitchen! I can work at the bar/counter while Jeff works at the stove or the sink, or at the counter next to me. And when we have to get from one spot in the kitchen to the other, we don't have to bump into each other. Awesome!

- We're right down the street from Seagull Books and a branch of the bank we use. Nice and convenient.

- We're within walking distance of a little river where Jeff will be able to fish. He's really wanting to get into fishing next season, so he's excited to have a place where he can fish without having to drive there and pay for parking or a day pass or anything.

- The keys we were given unlock the front door - but not the back door. So we either have to never be able to unlock it from the outside, or have the knob replaced. That one's not such a great discovery, but not the end of the world.

- We measured the dining room and kitchen, and realized that it will take several hundred dollars to put in laminate flooring. So we'll probably wait on that, save up for it, and take care of that in a few months or something. Eating on carpet isn't all that bad.

- The kids absolutely loved being able to run around in the family room and in the yard. I think having this house will be absolutely wonderful for them.

Yup, we're pretty excited about all our little discoveries today. After spending a couple hours at the house, we had to leave because it was lunchtime, and Jeff set off the bug bomb on the way out. So no more being in the house for me for a while - dangerous neurotoxins and pregnancy don't really mix... But anyway...

It still doesn't feel completely real. While we were there today, it felt like we were still touring it as potential buyers, instead of as the official owners. Is it really ours? It it really true? I guess it will start to sink in when we start pulling the paneling and paper off the walls, but for now I just have a hard time believing that it's finally ours!

Got the Key!

We were supposed to get the keys to the house on Tuesday, but there were delays in getting the house funded. It's been an impatient couple of days! But the funding finally went through today, and our agent just dropped by to give us the key to the house. Hooray! We have the key! Now the only problem is that Jeff is at work and he has the van. So I can't just go to the house and revel in the fact that it's all ours, not until tomorrow morning. Well, we've waited this long, we can wait a little while longer. :-)

Anyway, I'm just so excited to finally have the house key. We can finally get started on all the stuff we want to do with the house - bug bomb, measure walls, pull down paneling and wallpaper, paint, and move!!!

Closing Day

Well, today we closed on our house. Yippetty Yay Hooray!!!! We should get the keys on Tuesday and then we'll be able to start working on the house (starting with a bug bomb - the house has been vacant since January). It's still so hard to believe that this is actually happening.

Alright, let's get updatey. Yesterday was our anniversary. After putting the kids to bed, we celebrated with an absolutely fantastic meal, then watched the original Pink Panther movie, checked out from the library. We're nothing if not cheap, lol.

Earlier yesterday we stopped by Lowe's just for fun, and ended up buying a nice hefty moving dolly. That should be super helpful with our upcoming move, especially with the long hallway and all the stairs we'll be dealing with, both here at the apartment and at the new house. Jeff even rolled me around the store aisle for a few feet on the dolly, to prove how sturdy it was, before I made him put me down - it was fun but kinda scary! When we moved from Idaho, Zaylee loved to be rolled around on our rented dolly, but she tends to be a bit more adventurous than I am.

This morning, we planned on leaving at nine to take the kids to Joy and Jim's house (Jeff's sister and her husband) and then go to the title company to sign all the closing documents. Of course, we happened to sleep in! Zaylee woke me up at 8:40 when she came out of her room to go to the bathroom. We were in a mad rush for the next half hour, getting everyone dressed and fed and ready to go. But the kids were dropped off and we made it to the title company only a few minutes late.

Then we spent the next hour or so signing paper after paper - seriously, the stack of papers you have to sign to buy a house is at least an inch and a half thick! That's a lot of papers to sign! Anyway, after all that signing and everything, we headed back to Joy and Jim's. Since it was nearly lunch time, we decided to celebrate closing and pay them back for watching the kids by taking everyone to a Chinese buffet. Special bonus - since it was lunch time, and Joy had a reward card for that particular restaurant, we were able to feed four adults and three kids for only $28. And it was so delicious - I love Chinese buffet! Of course, I totally ate too much, but it was all so good, and after all, it was a special occasion. :-)

The rest of the day has been spent lazing around digesting. Tomorrow I'm going to get to work sorting through the boxes under Zaylee's bed, deciding what to keep and what needs to go to D.I. I also still need to go through the kids' clothes, pack away the stuff that's too small, and get out anything that they might have grown into. Sigh. Organizational tasks aren't my favorite things to do, but it'll be good to have them done.

Fluid Scans and NSTs

Well, my prenatal appointment didn't go quite as planned yesterday. Everything was fine until the midwife checked the baby's heart rate. She listened for a really long time, long enough to actually make me concerned that something might be wrong (which takes a lot, I'm generally pretty laid back about stuff). Finally she told me that baby's doing fine, but her heart rate is significantly slower than it has been previously. She was concerned that my long-term diarrhea that I've been dealing with might be causing low amniotic fluid levels and a low heart rate for baby.

So she sent me up to the fetal diagnostic center for a fluid scan and non-stress test, just to make sure that everything is okay. I got a quick ultrasound to check fluid levels, and we were happy to find that there is plenty of fluid in there for baby. Normal is 8-20, and my levels are right around 16. So that's good.

Then we did the NST. It took sooooo long!!! Baby continued her propensity for not cooperating. Her baseline fluctuated between 125 and 135. When it was down at 125, her movement spikes (small spikes in the heart rate when the baby moves) went high enough to be fine, but when the baseline was 135 the spikes just wouldn't get quite high enough. Since that wasn't happening, the tech decided it would be fine if we could just get the baseline to stay at 125 or so for a decent amount of time. But baby kept moving and wiggling and raising the baseline over and over again. Okay, so I don't completely understand everything that I just wrote, but basically baby would not cooperate! It was after 12 and I was getting hungry, I hadn't brought a snack or anything, and that silly baby just wouldn't give them the heart rate they needed to let me leave.

Anyway, the tech had me turn on my side and somehow that calmed baby down enough to establish the baseline they needed and I was able to leave. Long story short, baby is uncooperative but doing well. I just have to keep an eye on the diarrhea thing, make sure to drink plenty of liquids, and that's about it. It's nice to know that she's doing well and nothing is wrong, but it was a bit annoying to have to have that really long unscheduled visit to the diagnostic center to make sure of it!

Lots to Look Forward To

I'm really looking forward to this week, for several reasons.

-First off, Jeff started his "off work" week today, so he'll be home with us all day for the next week. Hooray!

-Tomorrow I have a prenatal appointment. I always love going to my prenatals - I get to hear the baby's heartbeat, talk about any concerns or fun stuff going on, see how much too much weight I've gained (okay, so that part isn't always fun...), and basically see that everything is going well with the baby.

-Then, on Thursday Jeff and I celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. With wanting to save money, we celebrate special occasions with a special homemade meal, usually eaten after the kids are in bed. This saves us from having to arrange for a sitter and spend a whole bunch of money on a restaurant dinner. We're planning some yummy stuff. I'll be doing a variation of Pork Chops with Apples and Stuffing (This is a delicious recipe I got from Michelle. I'll be doing it in the crockpot, and using homemade apple pie filling!), and a slightly chocolaty version of the Anniversary Pie I made for our anniversary last year. We did the shopping for this meal today, and now I'm excited because it's gonna be so good!

-Then of course, on Friday we'll be closing on the house. I think this is the thing I'm most looking forward to. We'll have a house! We won't be moving in right away; we have the apartment through November and have to pay a whole lotta money to get out of the lease earlier. So we'll take some time to fix stuff up in the house - we'll take down the wall paneling in the living room and the peeling wallpaper in the hallway, and we'll paint the walls a nice color. We'll pull up the carpet in the dining room and refloor the kitchen and dining room with stone-style laminate flooring. We'll probably do a bug bomb or two to get rid of any unwelcome visitors (the home has been empty for a while). And then we'll take our time moving stuff from the apartment to the house, organizing as we go. I love that there won't be one big whirlwind day or weekend of moving, ending up with a big mess of boxes all over the place. I like that I'll have time to unpack and put things away without having to live in the mess at the same time.

-Lastly, I'm looking forward to Sunday, because we have a Linger Longer after church. I love our ward Linger Longers! This week it's going to be a potato bar. We signed up to bring a topping, something to put on the baked potatoes. We're bringing some homemade chili, yummy. I can't wait to see what kinds of toppings everyone else brings. The members of our ward are always so great about bringing delicious foods to the Linger Longers. :-)


So yeah, I've got a lot to look forward to this week. It'll be a good week.

House Update

Just a quick update on the house. Our loan has been completely approved and is ready for all the closing documents and everything. The closing date was originally set to be Oct. 12, but our agent called this afternoon to let us know that won't work - that day is Columbus Day, which is apparently a get-the-day-off holiday at the title company. So the closing date has been bumped up to Friday Oct. 9. That's just one week from today! I'm so excited; we're just one week away from getting a house and starting to make it a home.

Pregnancy Pic

Time for another belly picture, I haven't done one in a while. I took this today, at 31 weeks.


I love watching my belly grow bigger and bigger. It's also super fun to watch it dance and morph and wiggle around as the baby moves, sometimes she can be quite the acrobat!