Winter wonderland!

Last week we had our first winter storm of the season.  Between Wednesday night and Friday morning we got about 18 inches of snow and had a full scale blizzard for awhile!

Thursday school was cancelled for Anna, but Matt still had to work, so it was my first full day with all three kiddos by myself.  And it worked!  I was very tired by the end of the day, but we had a good time.  We made some sugar cookies, made sticker snowmen, investigated outside for a bit (while Ethan was sleeping), built a real snowman, and listened to lots of Christmas music.

Matt was able to get take the girls outside on Friday morning while he cleared off the last of the driveway and cleaned off his car, and then again in the afternoon.  The the three of them went sledding on Saturday afternoon, too, while the four of us played again outside on Sunday afternoon (again, while Ethan was sleeping).

Matt and I have noticed how much more fun the girls are in the snow this year.

Kate just loves it, while last year she still needed lots of encouragement.  Even though the snow was very deep, she just laughed and giggled whenever she fell down, which was often :)  Neither girl complains about being cold until they've been out for a good hour or so.  Hooray!  We've waited a long time to enjoy the winter weather in this way.  Hopefully Ethan will like it, too, once he's old enough :)

In addition to the snow, we were also finally able to do a few of our Christmastime traditions.  Saturday morning we took all three kiddos to Olbrich Gardens to see the holiday train set-up.

And then last night we piled everyone into the truck after dinner to go look at Christmas lights.  Kate really enjoyed this activity since she hasn't been out after dark at all this December.  Anna had gotten to see some lights already on Wednesdays on the way home from music class, but also enjoyed doing this as a family.  Ethan was wide-eyed and a little stunned for the first 15 minutes, and then he fell asleep all snuggled up with me in his blanket :)

Finally, here's a few pictures showing how much Ethan has captured the hearts of his big sisters.  They are still in love and are continually amazed by our little boy.
 

 

Christmas festivities

First of all, Ethan is doing much better with his weight ... hooray!  Last Friday he was up 6 oz. and today he was up another 6 oz.  That means this big guy is averaging 2 oz. a day.  Not bad, huh?  After our weight check today we got the all clear from the doctor and don't have to go back for another weight check until his normal 2 month check-up.  It took a lot of work on our part to make this whole feeding thing work for Ethan, but we feel much better about that aspect of life now than we did last week :)

In addition to all of the weight gain drama, this past weekend was the big kid's Christmas weekend at church.  Saturday morning the girls had their dress rehearsal for the program on Sunday.

Ethan and I finished up some Christmas shopping while Matt and the girls were at church; then Ethan and I joined the family for the gingerbread decorating event.

 Sunday was the Christmas program at the end of the church service and then my parents came over to watch the Packers game in the afternoon.

 

Grandma finally got to have some more cuddle time with Ethan, too :)

And here's a shot of our silly girls who decided to wear underwear on their heads for breakfast one morning.  Notice that they also chose to wear "matching" star shirts that day.  I think Kate even picked out capris to wear ... in December.  Crazy kids.

Not all sunshine and roses ...

We've had our fair share of challenges lately, in addition to the overall blessings.

First, Kate started coming down with a cold the day before Ethan was one week old.  Blegh!  She seemed to get over it quickly, but then either relapsed over the weekend or got something new.

Second, Anna threw up at church on Sunday right after the service and just before the first of the kids' two practices for the Christmas pageant.  She didn't eat much on Sunday or Monday morning, stayed home from school on Monday, and by Monday night was pretty much back to normal.  We found out on Tuesday that 8 of the 20 kids in her class were out sick on Monday; I guess we know where she caught this bug.  So far no one else has gotten this bug.

Matt, on the other hand, picked up Kate's cold and really came down with it on Tuesday, his first day back at work (he's only working Tuesdays and Thursdays for the next couple of weeks, but that makes them BUSY days).  Poor guy.  He's getting over it okay, but always ends up with a nasty cough at the end of colds.

Also on Tuesday, Ethan had a weight check and we learned that he's not gaining weight.  Looking back, I think there are a lot of factors playing into this issue, but we have a plan in place (more frequent feedings, pumping, herbal supplement, more active work on my part to keep this sleepy snuggler awake while he's eating, etc.) and another weight check tomorrow to see how he's doing.  At least tomorrow our regular doctor will be in so we can have a real conversation about our options if our little guy is still not gaining weight.

All of these things combined to make this particular momma very emotional on Tuesday and Wednesday, but we're all surviving and doing our best.  What a blessing it is that we're still getting meals from friends at church for awhile and that we have such a good support network around McFarland and Madison!

Ethan and his sisters

Our kids adore one another.  We love our family.

Ethan, like his sisters before him, has the Mischnick baby cheeks :)

Anna loves having special time with Ethan after Kate goes to bed.

Anna set up a tea party/birthday party for Kate one evening after dinner.  Both girls are really into dress-up and pretending to be princesses these days.

When this boy is awake and alert, he's REALLY awake and alert.  He's working so hard on smiling :)  We think we've gotten a few little ones and can't wait for the first "real" one.

St. Nicolas' visit

Last Thursday St. Nicolas visited our house.

This year he brought us all some chocolate gold coins, personalized ornaments, and, our personal favorite, an exercise trampoline :)  Ask us sometime where St. Nicolas found this particular gift.  It is definitely good timing for our family to have a nice energy expending indoor activity.

We think Anna's figured out "who" St. Nicolas really is, but we're not completely sure.  A few weeks ago she told me that she thought I was St. Nicolas.  We try hard not to directly lie to our kids, so I usually respond to those statements with "Oh?  Why do you think so?"  Anyway, we were fairly certain that she wasn't going to be fooled this year, especially since she kept telling Kate that St. Nicolas is "only a legend", but then she was sucked right back in to believing on Thursday morning.


Either way, the candy is good, the ornaments are fun, and the trampoline is awesome :)

Kate

Have we mentioned that Kate likes to sing and dance?

Life at home

Matt was initiated into his role as Mom/Dad on Wednesday morning when he was responsible for all of the normal morning routines (clothes, breakfast, packing lunch, helping with hair, etc.) on less than 4 hours of sleep.  It's been a transition, but we're all settling into our new roles pretty well.  Each day I've been feeling better and better and have been able to function as Mom more and more, but Matt is just plain wonderful.  He's been doing all of the meals, dishes, laundry, surprise cleaning, etc. for a week now.  Actually, he was helping with most of that before Ethan was born; now he's just doing it all.

Anyway, life as a family of five is good, and it's only going to get better.  Anna and Kate are completely smitten with their little brother.  I don't know that any other little boy has received as much love and kisses as Ethan has.  That's not true.  I'm sure other babies get spoiled by their big sisters, too, but it doesn't change the fact that the girls are in love.  They like to hold him, sing songs to him, tickle his toes, or just watch him.

Both Kate and Anna have started taking care of their baby dolls in a much more directed manner in the past week, too.  The babies, Claire (Anna's) and Ella (Kate's), get rocked, swaddled, carried around, "milked", played with, and taken on walks.  In fact, yesterday afternoon we took a family walk around the block since it was a balmy 60 degrees here in Wisconsin.

 

They're both showing their transition anxiety in their own way.  Kate, my snuggler, missed me while I was gone.  On Thursday afternoon and then again on Friday she just wanted to cuddle with me in bed for long periods of time.  I'm okay with that :)  She's also had a bit of potty regression and is a bit feistier at mealtimes, but I'm sure we'll work through that.

Anna told us on Friday that she didn't want to go to school.  I can understand that.  She just wanted to hang out at home with her family.  She feels most loved and special when she's with us, so it was hard for her to say good-bye for the day.  But we had a good weekend with lots of special things and today I think she was looking forward to being back at school.  Mostly, Anna has truly risen to the occasion of being the double big sister :)

We were able to make it to church yesterday morning, with a bit of adjustments to the normal routine.  The kids and I all piled in the van while Matt drove his car, so that Ethan and I could leave before Sunday School was over while the girls could still have their normal Sunday activities.  We had simply hoped to make it to church as a family and I'd completely forgotten how much babies are loved at our church!  It took Ethan and I at least 15 minutes to make it from the front door into the sanctuary.  And it's not like people at church haven't seen little babies in awhile; Ethan was the third boy born in November and the sixth baby born since the beginning of August!  Everyone jokes that there must be something in the water at our church :)

Backing up another day, Ethan had his check-up with our doctor on Saturday morning.  I brought Anna along with us so that she and I could have a special date (she'd been asking for one since I was in the hospital).  Ethan weighed 8 lbs. 13 oz. at the time - about the same as he'd weighed on Thursday when we left the hospital - all normal.  I can already tell that he's put on weight since Saturday; the little guy's thighs are filling out again :)  Overall, Ethan is perfectly normal.  We are so blessed!

Our family doctor checked my blood pressure since it had still been high on Thursday morning at the hospital and it was on it's way back down.  Still, I'm supposed to go to my ob tomorrow morning for another blood pressure check.  I can tell that it's probably close to normal again; my overall puffiness of the last few weeks is almost completely gone, I'm actually wearing long pants and long sleeves again (instead of capris and short sleeves), and I enjoy being covered up at night when I'm sleeping!

As for Ethan, so far he is a laid back baby.  When he is awake, he is very, very alert.  He loves to listen to everyone around him and watch whatever he can actually see.  His body is also often still and calm when he's awake, which I would not have guessed based on how active he was during pregnancy :)

He's also a pretty good eater and sleeper so far.  The last two nights he's only woken up twice between about 8:30 and 6:30, a big improvement over the first few nights.  Now if only I could go back to sleep as easily as he does!

Matt has taken Kate to run some errands this morning; Ethan is sleeping; and I'm hoping to get a little nap in soon.  Enjoy the pictures!  Hopefully we'll get some more up soon, too.

Welcome, Baby Ethan!

Ethan James Mischnick joined our family at 10:01 p.m. on Tuesday, November 27!

 

Tuesday morning, Kate and I ran a couple of errands and then headed over to my doctor's appointment.  My blood pressure was a bit higher, but still not over the threshold which would necessitate induction.  The doctor was going to send me home for some bed rest until the nurse came back to check it one more time and this time it was higher yet.  So, surprisingly to our family, the doctor told me I needed to go to the hospital.  Off all the possible outcomes of that doctor's appointment, this was one was that Matt and I hadn't considered!

On the way home to gather our supplies, I called Matt, my mom, and a friend who would watch Kate for the afternoon and pick up Anna from school.  We got all of the childcare stuff settled, dropped Kate off at 1:30 and got to the hospital and checked in by about 2.  Thus began our times of "hurry up and wait".  I was hooked up to all of the monitors and had my blood pressure checked every 15 minutes for an hour or so.  We settled in, found a good movie on TV, and rested for awhile.  Whenever I was lying down, my blood pressure was down, but if I was sitting up, then it went up.  Again, Matt and I were preparing ourselves to be sent home, when the doctor on call from my clinic (who happened to be Karla from our church, who also went to Valpo and had delivered Anna) said it was up enough that we would go ahead with the induction.

We hurried up to get out things together to move to a labor/delivery room, got switched over, and then had to wait again for the paperwork to catch up with us.  Then the nurses had to try four times to get an IV started (ouch!) before the pitocin drip was finally started around 6.  Not much was happening so at about 7:30 they broke my water and that really got things moving.  Baby Ethan was born at 10:01 p.m. weighing 9 lbs. 8 oz. and measuring 20.5 inches.  My normal doctor was working nights this week so she got to do the actual delivery.  Some of my favorite quotes of hers were "I figured this baby would be a good size for being 2 1/2 weeks early, but not this big!" and "I'm glad things worked out the way they did so that he didn't have a chance to get much bigger."  It's hard to believe that Ethan and Anna were about the same gestational age, but Ethan was more than 3 lbs. bigger.

After a bit of recovery time for mom, we were moved to our room around 1 a.m. at which point I told Matt to go home, that the nurses would take good care of us, since he would be needed to help get the girls up and ready in the morning.

Matt, Anna, Kate, and my mom came to visit on Wednesday morning before Matt took Anna to school and my mom took Kate to her music class.  Matt took a nap at home while I took a nice nap at the hospital and was able to rest and relax all day :)  My parents came by for a bit in the afternoon and then Matt and my mom brought the girls by after school before splitting up for dinner and taking Anna to music class.  Thursday my mom took Kate to Bible Study at church to Matt could stay with Ethan and I at the hospital for all of the final checks and discharge process.

Ethan and I got home on Thursday afternoon and we all began our life as a family of five :)

Our low-key Thanksgiving

Last week on Sunday, we realized we didn't have any set plans for Thanksgiving and neither did my parents.  So we invited them to join us, since we certainly weren't up for traveling this year or hosting anyone other than family.  They decided to come down just for the day so they met us at church for the Thanksgiving worship service, then stayed for a non-turkey meal, and my mom did ALL of the dishes afterwards :)  Thanks, Mom!

Plus, my dad brought down a great shelf/coat hook combination that he made for our family.  Since Matt's biking gear takes up a lot of the coat closet and the girls can't reach the hangers anyway, we were in need of some way for them to be a bit more responsible for their own winter gear.  So far they've been very good about the new system.  Hooray!  Less bending down to pick things up for me :)

Prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, I had a doctor's appointment on Wednesday.  So far so good, but my blood pressure is starting to creep up again.  It had been the lowest of all our pregnancies so far with this baby, but here towards the end it's just getting harder and harder for this mama's body.  My doctor ran all of the preclampsia tests and everything came back well in the normal range, but she told me I needed to "take it easy" over the weekend anyway.

So I did.  I sat around on Thursday while my family made the meal and cleaned up.  Friday late morning Matt took the girls to Bouncytown for a few hours.  He brought along their lunch to eat in stages and it sounds like they had a wonderful time, staying for several hours while I got to take a real nap.  Saturday he had agreed to help some friends move and brought the girls along to help (a little), see people besides our family, and play, play, play.  Again, I got a real nap, plus some good resting time.  Sunday we decided to take the girls to the family swim at the McFarland pool since being in the water has felt so good to me in this pregnancy and poor Kate hasn't had any swimming time since we took down our pool.  Anna had just finished up swimming lessons last week, but hadn't had a chance to just play in the water in ages.  We think this was the first time that neither Anna nor Kate complained about being cold in this pool!  In fact, I was the first one who was ready to head home.

The girls definitely got some good, quality Daddy-daughter time over the weekend.  Matt has been simply wonderful these past few weeks (not that he isn't the rest of the time, but he's really had to be on extra dad duty lately).  Sweet Kate is still a mama's girl, but definitely loves her Daddy a lot now, too :)

We've started getting out some Christmas/Advent decorations slowly.  We just don't know how each day is going to go, or when exactly this baby is going to make his arrival, or how things will go after he's born, but we want to make sure the Advent and Christmas seasons are special for Anna and Kate nonetheless.  The girls each have a little 3 ft. Christmas tree this year for their own ornaments.  They absolutely loved getting out the different ornaments they've received over the past several years.  They've also enjoyed having control over where the ornaments are placed and rearranging them whenever they want :)

Another hit this year has been my Precious Moments nativity scene.  The girls were allowed to play with it last year as well, but the scene is a favorite toy right now.  They're very good about following the rules of how to be careful with the figures and they love telling and retelling the Christmas story with them.  I think our favorite quote from Anna with this play so far has been "Jesus is born in Bethlehem!  What are you guys waiting for?!"

Another good quote from Anna came last night after Matt had put up the Christmas lights.  The girls could see them from their room when the lights turned on.  Anna came out to say "Mom, I know why people put up Christmas lights.  It's because they look like the angels telling everyone about Jesus."  I'd never thought of it that way before, but I like it :)

The first day back to routine life went well.  We think Anna was truly grateful for the break from school over the holiday weekend, but also ready to go back today.  She came home with the learning part of her brain up and running again, whereas over the weekend her brain was all about playing and moving.

Tomorrow I have another doctor's appointment.  We'll have to see how my blood pressure is doing.  We're almost hoping for it to still be a bit high so then we can talk about an induction.  This mama is ready to be done and this family is ready to meet our baby!

Beautiful fall weather!

We have had some gorgeous weather this fall.  All this week the temperatures are expected to be in the 50s, maybe even reaching 60 degrees.  (That's not typical of November in Wisconsin.)  The weather is a blessing to a certain extent, but I haven't been able to enjoy it as much as I would have normally.  I'd love to be taking the girls to parks, on hikes, and all sorts of fun outdoor things, but all that tires me out way too much to make it worth it.  Still, I'm going to try to get the girls outside a bit more this week, and Matt will probably be able to help with that this weekend, too.

One thing we were able to do as a family on Saturday is head to the local library park for some quality climbing and outdoor time.  Here's a few pictures of our silly, exploring family.

We also headed indoors so Matt could check out a few videos.  I ended up teaching Anna how to play checkers and, I must say, she caught on to the rules and even the strategy pretty quickly :)

And then here's a few photos of a very pregnant mama.  I'm carrying this baby all in front, as I think I did with the girls, but still, he just seems a bit bigger ...

 

One day at a time

We're to that point in our family where we're taking life one day at a time.  Baby boy is making life challenging for me, and thus for everyone else, so we just do what we can each day.  The middle of this week was particularly rough because I got a headache again and was feeling miserable because of that.  At least Kate is such a great homebody and can entertain herself for long stretches of time.  At the end of one of my headache days, I realized that I was pretty dehydrated and thus was starting to have contractions.  After drinking a couple of big glasses of water and resting for awhile, things finally calmed down, but not before Matt and I were reminded that we're at the point where we need to have our bags packed and all of our back-up childcare options taken care of.  So now after this "false alarm", I think we're a bit more prepared.

I try and take advantage of the days when I have some semblance of energy, but those days are few and far between.  We feel very blessed that our pregnancies have gone without major complications, but this one has been the most challenging for me thus far.  Hopefully, baby boy stays put without giving me too much grief for at least a couple more weeks!

As for our other children, Anna and Kate are doing really well despite the lack of parental energy from me :)  We had Anna's parent-teacher conference last Thursday afternoon and there were really no surprises.  She's doing very well academically, enjoys learning, is a very focused "rule follower", gets along well with the other kids in class, and is genuinely kind and caring to her classmates.  All good things :)

It was brought to our attention, however, that Anna's hair twirling was getting pretty intense at school.  (She started twirling her hair this past summer after working on stopping the thumb-sucking.)  Poor kid was working so hard to hold it all together at school and she didn't really have an outlet for herself.  Her teacher recommended some kind of bracelet fidget that Anna would be able to twirl and fidget with at school.  We found a few on Friday running errands, Anna tried one out during church and Sunday School on Sunday, and has worn her bracelet all week at school.  It seems to be working.  Her teacher said yesterday that she uses it very appropriately at school; Anna told me that she likes to fidget most when she's been having to sit for a long time; and her after school attitude has been amazingly positive (as opposed to the several days a week when it seemed like she was holding it all together until we got in the van, at which point she just needed to blow off some steam).  Again, what a blessing to have such a great school and great teachers to be accommodating on even such a small thing as this!

Kate is also doing well.  She has been so good the last few weeks about just hanging out at home.  I hadn't realized quite how much "hometime" she's had, though, until we had the opportunity to do a few other things in the mornings this week.  After a playdate on Monday morning, she asked the whole way home when we'd get to go to Joy's house again; at music class on Wednesday she literally bounced and ran for most of the time; today at Bible Study she ran and wrestled with Carson and Lukas after pretending to be a kitty with Sadie.  I'm going to have to be a bit more conscious of getting her with other kiddos in these next few weeks.

Matt (not one of the kids :) is doing well, too.  Things are picking up a bit at work, so he's not taking this Friday off, but he's been absolutely amazing the past few weeks.  He'll do whatever I ask him to do from cleaning toilets, to vacuuming, to doing the dishes, to picking up toys, to just taking the girls out of the house for awhile so I can rest.  Our family is so blessed and we can't wait to see how our little boy adds to our joy!

Learning and growing

I think I've talked before about how much fun it is to watch our kids grow and learn in all aspects of their lives, and it's just as exciting for us as they get older and learn more complex ideas and activities.  I wanted to share (and have a personal record) of some of the more fun things that the girls are doing these days.

First Kate ... all summer long she refused to color.  My theory is that she saw how well Anna would color and write (at least in comparison), didn't think she could do as well and thus didn't want to try.  Then sometime in August she decided that she wanted to scribble.  For about a week straight, she would grab a piece of paper and a handful of markers, and proceed to color the entire page.  I think she went through about 50 pieces of paper and used up a whole box of markers that week.  Once she got the strength and control of her little fingers, she's enjoyed doing all kinds of experimentation with letters and also likes to color pictures for others.  Here's a couple of examples of Kate's "work".  In the first one, she did all of the letters on her own except for the "K".  You can tell who's important in her life :)

This card she gave me yesterday.  In her words, it says "Dear Mom, I love you.  You are the very best mom in the world."  :)

Kate is also learning how to skip and is very good at jumping off the couch into a pillow pile :)

She has a very sensitive side, however, when it comes to books or stories in which a character gets left alone.  For example, there was a book Anna brought home from school a few weeks back in which the final picture of the book shows a kitten by itself.  Well, we hadn't even read the book yet, but Kate found it, paged through it, and ended up on her bed in tears because she thought the kitten didn't have any friends.  Then yesterday at story time the librarian showed a short video of a boy  who befriends a dinosaur at a museum.  The two travel around together for the day and then the dinosaur says good-bye to the boy at the end because he has to go back to the museum.  Kate was in tears at that point.  Poor kid :(

Now for Anna.  Since starting school she's really begun experimenting with spelling.  It's been fun to see the kinds of creative ways she uses to spell words.  We've also realized again how crazy the English language is!  One of my favorites is how she spelled Lukas' name ... "Lookis" :)

Anna hasn't come home with a lot of homework (and we are completely comfortable with this for kindergarten), but we've had a lot of fun with the few activities she has had.  The most recent assignment was to come up with a disguise for a turkey that didn't want to get eaten on Thanksgiving.  The first part of the assignment for our household was to really understand the word disguise.  After several examples, both girls will now confidently come up and ask "Do you like my disguise?" with an appropriate disguise.  Anyway, we went through some different ideas of how she could disguise her turkey.  Then Anna suggested dressing him up as the President because "no one would want to eat the president!"  True enough.  Matt and I hesitated slightly simply because the assignment was due the day before the election and we didn't want to give any political impressions to her teacher.  So we told Anna that it would be a great idea, but we'd probably send a note along with the turkey to make sure Mrs. Mosso understood that it was Anna's idea :)

I think that turned Anna off to dressing up her turkey as Barak Obama, so then she suggested disguising it as Aaron Rodgers.  I guided her through how it might work and helped her find pictures on the computer, but the actual idea and work was all her doing.  (Finding our appropriate role when guiding and helping with these assignments is going to be hard, especially when they are fun assignments!)  Not bad, huh?

As for our third child, he's definitely growing, and making his mama more and more tired.  I had another check-up this week and my doctor, thankfully, gave me a prescription for Ambien so that I can at least get a little bit of restful sleep at night.  Last night was the first time I took it and it worked wonders!

Finally, we were able to have a family day this past Friday since Anna didn't have school and Matt still has a few more Fridays off of work.  We headed over to Milwaukee for the day to take Matt to Discovery World.  I checked out a few exhibits, but was mostly able to sit while the girls took Matt all over the museum.  That was probably our last family field trip before Baby Boy arrives so I'm glad we were all able to enjoy it together.

Because of Matt's fall Fridays, he's been able to get virtually everything done to prepare our home and yard for winter.  The garden is completely done and tilled up, the leaves are collected, the firewood is in the house, and all of the other little things that make our home the way it is have also been done.  Hooray!

Happy Halloween!

Our kids are at a good age right now for Halloween.  They enjoy the idea of dressing up, but haven't been exposed to much of the scary stuff yet.

Plus, we've only ever trick-or-treated around our block in the neighborhood and since we go before dinner when it's still light out, half of the people aren't home ... so, they don't end up with too much candy :)

Originally, Anna wanted to be a black cat and Kate wanted to be a ladybug (which would make this the 4th? year in a row for a ladybug).  However, as soon as I started making the tail for Anna's costume, Kate changed her mind.  No big deal.  They were pretty easy to make.  Plus, the girls wore them for most of Saturday and had a wonderful time being "Midnight" and "Shadow" around the house :)

Saturday they were part of the McFarland costume parade and then we went to a "Boograss" for books concert.  Fun times.

A couple of years ago, I had seen a pregnant lady costume that was simply a pumpkin on a white shirt.  I figured that I'd never have an opportunity like this again, so baby boy was my pumpkin and I was the pumpkin smuggler :)

Speaking of baby boy, I'm doing my best to spare those outside of my immediate family the pregnancy complaints.  It's just hard to know how to answer when someone asks me "How are you feeling?"  How about "about 8 months pregnant"?  As my doctor has told me, there is nothing really remarkable about my pregnancy, which is a very good thing.  However, that doesn't change the fact that I am 8 months pregnant and feel that way most of the time.  Plus, this baby is very strong and very active.  Thankfully, his most active times are during the day, so at least I'm not kept awake too much by his movements.  I was resting the other evening after the girls were in bed and Matt was able to watch my belly literally jump and move for about 40 minutes.  Crazy stuff.

I've been having to tell the girls lately that there are some things that I just can't do anymore (bend over and pick up lots of toys, sit down easily on the floor, etc.)  Anna understands things pretty well, but Kate doesn't quite get it.  If she doesn't want to put on her shoes, she'll tell me "But I can't do it; it's hurts my body!"  :)

Books

We all enjoy reading in our family, but during pregnancy, I tend to read more than I would normally.  Maybe it's something about needing to rest my body, but not actually sleep ... Anyway, I've read two books this time around that have made a positive impact on our family's life (in my opinion) and I wanted to share a few of the ideas.

The first book, called Going Public, I read early in the summer.  Since I read it, I've recommended it to a handful of people around Madison who we know through church or other activities and most people who've taken me up on the idea of reading it end up recommending the book to someone else as well.  Anyway, the whole idea behind the book is how you as the parents can and will be the main teachers for your kids and you can use the public schools as an extended learning opportunity for your kids.  For example, a public school is a great place for kids to start trying out all of the problem solving skills we've been teaching them, especially in terms of dealing with other people.  Also, how you can keep your family's core faith values even while navigating the public school years.

Anyway, the book gave us much more confidence about choosing to send our kids to the McFarland schools.  And realistically, we're in a wonderful school district.  We certainly didn't know quite how blessed we would be 8 years ago when we bought our house, but God had a long-term plan in mind for our family even at that time :)

Another book I've enjoyed this pregnancy is called Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder.  This one is about how beneficial it is for kids to experience nature and natural settings on their own terms and on a frequent basis.  Matt and I have always enjoyed being outdoors and this author simply provides research and studies to support many of the ideas we already have, such as getting outside to play in an unstructured way whenever we can.  I think we knew how important (and fun) it is for Anna and Kate to just goof off and use their imaginations outside, but now I'm a bit more intentional about it, especially if the weather isn't "ideal".  And now that they're both a bit older and more creative on their own, it's easier for me to just send them outside to play for awhile.

Enough of that, now for a few anecdotes and pictures ...

We've had our fair share of cloudy, rainy days lately, so yesterday afternoon I gave Anna and Kate a couple of plastic containers and told them to have fun outside.  They amused themselves for a good hour before coming in to change clothes :)

 

Matt recently discovered an easy and fun way to carry the girls around the yard ... on sticks.

And then he can spin them both at the same time.

 

Matt participated in his first field trip as a chaperone today to the pumpkin patch with Anna's class.  It sounds like fun was had by all :)

Finally, I think most of the kinks of sharing a room have been worked out.  Both daughters really seem to enjoy having a buddy right away in the mornings, and after several days of turning the light on promptly at 6 a.m., they are both sleeping in a bit more now ... hooray!

Getting closer ...

I have officially less than two months to go in this pregnancy and we're trying our best to get things "ready" for our new addition.  Thankfully, we have some wonderful family and friends that can help :)

The biggest part of getting ready in the last week has been to move furniture and switch rooms around.  The girls are now sharing a room and the baby's room is all set up.  My parents came down to help with this whole procedure :)  On Monday they cleaned out Anna's room, put the bunk beds back together, moved Kate's dresser into the girls' room, cleaned out the baby's room, set up the crib, moved the changing table, and several other piddly things, all before lunch!  Before they left yesterday evening, we also put them to work cleaning up some of the perennials, washing windows, fixing the squeak in the bunk beds (more on that later), and moving firewood into the house.  We are incredibly grateful!

"Grandma, you missed one!"

The transition to having a girls' room has gone relatively smoothly.  Both Kate and Anna were excited about the idea and enjoy having a roommate so far.  Sleep patterns, on the other hand, take a bit more time to adjust.  The first night, everyone discovered that there was a pretty significant squeak in the bed whenever Anna moved.  She thought it was fun and didn't go to sleep for a long time.  My dad fixed that right away on Tuesday morning.  However, apparently Kate has been waking Anna up a little after 5 the past two mornings by calling her name, I think to just check to see if Anna's still there.  We'll be working on that next.

It wasn't all hard work for my parents.  There was certainly a lot of fun time with the girls both days :)  They also got to visit Anna's school on Monday when we picked her up, and have lunch with her on Tuesday.  It sounds like all involved really enjoyed both visits.  We were reminded again how great of a school and classroom teacher Anna has this year after hearing my parents' overwhelmingly positive reaction to their visits.

We still have a handful of outdoor things to get done before the cold weather comes, but I think we're on the right track.  The next big thing on my mental list is to get Christmas gifts ready to go, since I doubt I'll be up for doing that closer to Christmas :)