Friday, September 29, 2006

Dangerous link ahead

Man oh man. I found this link on another blog http://members.iinet.net.au/~pontipak/redsquare.html Bad news, very addicting! My best score is in the 11 second range. What's yours???

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Non P.C. post

Alright, I'll admit it. I want to have a girl. There, I said the one thing any pregnant mother isn't supposed to say! Yes, I love my boys dearly and would love to have a house full of them, but I've had girl dreams, been allowing myself to linger in the pink department of the baby stuff at Walmart and even have a girl's name picked out! I have 4 days left in my entire life to think pink, so I'm going to do it! :) Pbbbbb. :p

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

5 days!

5 days until the big ultrasound!

In other news, I think I dare say that Aidan is potty trained. After three weeks of poop and pee filled underwear, he's been mostly dry all day for several days and zippo for #2 in the unders for several days as well. And to boot, he's woken up dry for the past three mornings! He's so proud of himself. Me too!

Friday, September 22, 2006

The countdown

10 days until I get a little peek at this teeny beanie! :) When Jim woke me up this morning, I felt a little, "morning Mommy" bump. So nice.

I've volunteered my womb to science this pregnancy. I'm going to be followed by a nursing student from Winona State. She'll meet me at my ultrasound and appointment on the second, come to each appointment and be there for the birth. I hope she has a strong stomach since I'm having a c-section!

In other news, Aidan had his third birthday on Monday. He was so excited to be three! Evan's birthday is tomorrow. He's also so excited! I can't remember what age it is that grown ups stop being excited for birthdays. Remember counting down the days? Now maybe you count down the days to your next birthday with a little dread.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

My little city boy

We were coming out of Hy vee this morning as they were unloading a van full of hay bales for their pumpkin display. I told Aidan and Toby to look at the men unloading the hay. Aidan asked, "where are the pigs for the hay?" LOL!!

Baby Update

I've been feeling some little bumps and thumps! I'm now at 15 weeks. I have my big ultrasound on October 2 around noonish, so hopefully later in the afternoon I'll let you all know if we're heading for four of a kind or a mixed set! :)

Monday, September 11, 2006

9/11/01

With Finding Nemo entertaining Aidan and Toby in the background, I'll attempt a quick memory of what I was doing the morning of September 11, 2001. Nevermind, Aidan's not entertained by Nemo, he's climbing on my lap. Hang on a sec while I distract him...

Okay now that big brother's legos are employed in entertaining Aidan, here we go!

As for the rest of America, 9/11 started out as any morning. I was curled up in my sweats having my coffee with Katie and Matt, Al and Ann while Evan (then 12 days short of 1 year old) was toddling around playing and waiting to start the day. He'd probably had his breakfast and was just playing around, though the events of the early morning aren't as clear to me as the events of the mid morning. Anyway, I was watching the Today Show when suddenly one of the reporters interrupted whatever segment he was doing to announce that an airplane had just flown into the World Trade Center. I remember thinking, "what sort of dummy pilot would fly into a building?" As I watched the smoke pouring out of the first tower, was getting a little annoyed that they were spending so much time on this idiot pilot and weren't getting back to the story! It was at that time that I watched in disbelief as the second plane hit the second tower. Something in me knew that this couldn't be an accident and Katie and Matt confirmed that suspicion as information came in that this was indeed a terrorist attack. Thankfully Evan was in a stage when he would sometimes take a morning nap, so I snuggled him into his crib and went back to watch more history in the making. I called a friend to warn her to not let the kids watch TV that morning because it was pretty scary. While I was on the phone with her the reports came through that the Pentagon had been hit, then the plane in Philadelphia hit down in an empty field. She suggested that because it was a terrorist attack stemming from the Middle East that gas prices were about to skyrocket and that I should go fill up now before they hit $3/gallon! So, knowing that I could easily become obsessed with the news and the reports rolling over and over and over again, I pulled myself away and turned off the TV. I went to take my shower, got Evan up and dressed for the day and left the house.

As I left the house, I did take a quick look up in the sky. It was a warm fall day, but I was a tad nervous to be out in public. As I was driving to the gas station (I took Kelly's advice!) I noticed that people were driving differently. We were extra cautious, but also friendly. I was stopped at a red light and the person stopped next to me gave a wistful smile. We made a connection, "something scary has happened here, hasn't it."

Like many people, we cancelled our planned activities for the evening and met together with other brothers and sisters at church to pray. We prayed for the rescuers, for the families and for the children whos parents would not be coming home. We prayed for our leaders and we prayed for our enemies.

The days and weeks following 9/11 I flew our flag day after day. As it flapped against our front door, it constantly caught Evan's eye. One of his first words in those days before his first birthday was "flag". I talked to him about the flag, about the colors and about how he is an American boy. I have a picture of him several months later marching around the house waving his little flag and singing, "God Bless America"! (Yes, he was a really early talker!)

Yesterday our pastor reminded us that we are Americans, yes, but that if we are believers in Jesus Christ, we are first and foremost citizens of Heaven. While we pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, we need to remember that this is not our ultimate home. Our hope lies in Christ and the work that was accomplished for us on the cross. While we enjoy freedoms here that bililons in the world only dream about (with the exception of carrying lip gloss with us on an airplane) our true home is in Heaven.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Mixed day

Well, today is a day of mixed emotions for me. We've hit a cold snap here in MN and I was in the attic throwing some pants down for the kids. Toby will be wearing stuff this winter that Aidan wore last winter! Maybe by next winter they'll be in the same size and sharing a dresser will be that much easier! They already share some socks...

And for me, I pulled out my winter maternity clothes. And started packing away some of my summer maternity things (swimming Shamu suit, tank tops, some shorts etc). I packed them away for what I think will be the last time. We're expecting this to be our last baby, so the odds of me needing them again is minimal. While I am glad to be pregnant and am thankful each day that I am, this pregnancy has been harder than the others physically and "tirednessly". So, it is with some sadness that I pack away the Shamu suit and extra humongeous tank tops.

I will hopefully be sharing my 9/11 memories sometime this weekend. Stay tuned.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Keeping up

Well, it seems that my blog is a reflection of the rest of life, hard to keep up with! I'm working on keeping up with housework, taking care of the lil'uns while Evan is off to school. Grocery shopping, getting the kitchen cleaned up after lunch, laundry, laundry, laundry...all of these things seem to take a back seat to wanting to SLEEP! I've been so tired these days. I'll be glad when allergy season is over. Even though my zyrtec isn't supposed to cause drowsiness I can't imagine that it doesn't because I'm beat! Evan's been doing well at school. He rode the school bus home for the first time this year today. He does have to transfer school busses which is a little stressful for Mom, but he got home so I guess they must be looking out for him! That combined with a constant repeating of which busses he takes (ring, carrot) and a few rules (sit with other Schaeffer kids, if there aren't any, sit behind the driver) I think he'll be fine! Since private schools take the public school busses they have to start and let out earlier than the public elementary schools. Then bussing is available. So, he gets on at Schaeffer, rides across town to a public high school and transfers to another bus that services our neighborhood. It seems to be a smooth system and works well since they've been doing it that way for years!

Aidan and Toby are getting used to having Evan gone all day. Toby sometimes will call for Evan or ask me where he is like I've forgotten him when we go somewhere!

That's about it from our end. TK Oh yeah, don't waste your money on berries and cream Dr Pepper. It tastes like cough syrup!