A slower weekend

This weekend was actually pretty relaxing compared to the last couple of weekends. Our weekends have been really crazy with Julianne's birthday parties, football games and other social gatherings. This weekend was much more peaceful and much needed especially after our three days of darkness and ice refrigeration. I do kind of miss the simple life of living without electricity. I liked the quietness, the candlelight, the sound of the crickets and outdoors, being more in touch with nature and the power of nature, and spending more quality time with the kids and D. The girls were not really that affected by the outage since they do not watch much television and they spend most of their time pretend playing with themselves or playing outside with the neighbors. So in that respect it was nice that I did not have kids who did not know what to do with themselves without their TV or video games.

However, D and I defiantly got back into our regular routine of putting the kids to bed and relaxing by watching TV or renting DVD's. During the day when I am with the kids I do keep the TV off so that I can concentrate on them and not get distracted and so that they do not grow up with a TV constantly on. So I do like the stillness and my patience is much lower when I am not distracted about senseless TV, but at night I am so exhausted that I like laying on the couch and watching senseless TV shows. Sometimes I feel like I should be more productive during that time but others times laying on the couch is really what I want to do. So anyway I am rambling on about my TV conflict. Don't we all have conflicts in our life?

One of my new sewing projects that I will be working on within the next month are my sister-in-law's pillow for her new baby's room. She wants me to sew her a pillow using the trim from an existing lovely blanket, sewing in on a different fabric and then sewing some ribbon on it She will take this section to a embroiderer and get Lexee's initial on it and then I will make it into a pillow cover. I will take a picture of the template and post it within the next few days. It should be a pretty simple project, so we will see.

After that project I may take the girls to the fabric store to see if they want me to make them a Halloween costume or just bag that idea and sew them a Lazy Days Skirt. The skirt is kind of a season too late but if I use heavier fabric they could wear it with tights during the winter. So the skirt looks less complicated than a potential Halloween costume so we will see. I tried to make Julianne a Google, her favorite stuffed animal, costume when she was three and it turned out to be a disaster that I never finished. I don't really need any more projects that I don't finish so I am trying to acknowledge my abilities and time constraints that I have and plan wisely. Sure it is fun to have high expectations, to dream big and to challenge ourselves but when it gets too stressful and too much of a chore then I get turned off and my sewing hobby will be stalled for several months because I am too disappointed that I did not finish it. So especially since Halloween is a deadline that may make it worse. I want my sewing hobby to be fun and enjoyable and I have had too many projects make it un-enjoyable and cumbersome. So I am not doing that anymore. Well enough of that topic.

Mallory had a headache all day today and she was really hot this evening. I gave her Tylenol and she took a nap on the couch with D this evening and we put her to bed so I never actually took her temperature so hopefully she will feel better in the morning. D is great when the kids are sick. He is the man to sleep with if they are puking all night or they need some extra comfort at night. I on the other hand am not that great of a help at night. He can sleep through anything, can go back to sleep easily and is more patient if he does not get a good nights sleep. Again I am accepting my limitations!!

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-running with D at 6:45 a.m. on a cool Saturday morning
-going to bed at 10:00 pm. and not waking up until around 6:30 a.m. (that's some good sleep!)
-seeing Mallory sleeping on D's chest

What a week!!

Well we had Julianne's family birthday party on Sunday. As we were preparing for her party the winds started to really pick up and at 3:00 p.m. our electricity went out. I was not too concerned since we were having bolognese and we had a gas stove top. So we went on with the party without the electricity. The winds continued to become stronger and stronger throughout the party and most of our family members wanted to get back to their homes so that they could see if they had any damage and to get prepared if they did not have electricity. After everyone left we walked around the neighborhood with our neighbors to check out all the damage that the winds were creating. The news reported that the winds got up to 60-75 miles per hour. We made the kids wear helmets in case more tree branches fell. We actually should not have been out in the storm but was pretty fascinating. When we actually went out on the street it was very scary. There were so many tree limbs down, trees uprooted and tree debri all over the roadway. It was nothing that I have never seen. Mallory was very scared and we were afraid that Nathan was going to fall down. We never got any rain it was just the wind. The wind remained strong until about 10:00 p.m. when it finally died down. The local electric company, AEP, reported that on Monday 625,000 customers were without power. That included us and most of everyone that we know. That was about half of their customers. The windstorm was actually the remnants of hurricane Ike which just went crazy over our area for some reason. I don't know if the winds were that strong when it moved over the Midwest but I know that a cold air front was moving this way so it might have collided with Ike and become stronger. I really have no idea since I did not get to watch the news since today. I did not even know that it was coming before it came so I was really surprised. But most people were very shocked at how strong it was. I could not imagine how strong a real hurricane would be like. This was strong enough for me.

So fast forward to today and we finally got power last night at 8:30, which was Wednesday night. So we were out of power from Sunday afternoon to Wednesday night. It was a long time. I had to throw out all of our refrigerated food and get all new food this morning. The kids were out of school until today, Thursday. And there are still a lot of people without electricity. I guess what the problem was is that AEP sent their employees to Texas to help with the aftermath of the hurricane and they were not here to help the residents in Columbus. So that is why it has taken so long to get the electricity back on. Some of the reports still say people will not get their electricity until Friday or by the latest Sunday. I guess that they have gotten the AEP crew back from Texas and have gained additional helpers from other states to help in the effort. So restoring power should start to become quicker with more crews in Columbus.

The girls did pretty well during the outage. They did not really have a hard time going to bed or adjusting to the lack of lighting. they mostly played with the neighborhood children during the day and we read books at night. So overall it was not too bad. I actually enjoyed not having the TV or computer on during the evenings. D and I actually talked about not having TV or computer on one night a week so that we can concentrate on ourselves and the kids. We were defiantly less stressed out since there were less distractions for us. However, I was a little stressed out by Wednesday because I was tired of running downstairs to get the milk and other cold food and Nathan did not really understand that crying at the fridge for milk was not getting him anything. We were lucky that the weather was nice, we knew we were not going to freeze, and that we had great neighbors to rely on.

Here are some pictures of the debris left in our yard, which was not as bad as others.


Here are some pictures from our neighborhood.



I had clothes in the dryer and washer that were not completed so I had to improvise and dry them outside.



The kids played with silly string while they were out of school.


Here is Julianne at her party. She had a great time and this year she loved the attention. She used to not like being the center of the attention but now she does. Here is her loving the attention.



Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-experiencing a storm like this with my family and knowing that no one was injured
-having electricity
-seeing the community come together to help neighbors
-spending quality time with my family
-Julianne enjoying her birthday party
-not having any house damage from the storm
-did I mention having electricity!!

Pictures

Here is a picture of Mallory and Nathan on their first day of school


This Julianne presenting to us her list of why she is special from her classmates. The teacher let her take the piece of paper home.

Here is Julianne finding her birthday present in our driveway.




This weekend has been pretty busy also. We went to a surprise birthday party for my good friend from high school. It was a lot of fun and she was surprised. Saturday night is the big OSU vs USC game. I have not watched any of it yet since D went to get together with his friends. Tomorrow night we are having Julianne's family birthday party. So it should be a good day tomorrow. I am going to make bolognese since I thought it would be less expensive than ordering food but as it turns out it is not going to be any cheaper. Oh well it is always nice to make food.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-seeing Julianne control her emotions tonight after a busy day with friends (we have been working on this)
-Mallory saying that she missed me while I worked out
-Nathan saying "hug" while I am changing his diaper

My purse

Well I have finally completed my purse!! I think it looks pretty good. I am a little disappointed by the seam line on the top dark brown fabric from having to sew in the lining. I am debating on if I should take out the seam and hand sew the lining back in so that the seam does not show in the outside. I know that you can not really see it in the picture but I can see it so that is all that matters.

I think I might make another purse and just use the paisley fabric and the darker brown. I like the darker brown and the paisley fabric together better than the lighter brown. Overall I am happy with the bag, I learned from my mistakes and I am excited to make another one. It was a fun project that was challenging but not too challenging and it could be completed in a decent amount of time.

I am trying to figure out what to work on next. I was possibly thinking of going to the store and seeing if the girls wanted me to make their Halloween costumes. So we will see if I will attempt that.



Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-seeing Nathan discover his shadow (I will write about this later)
-sleeping in a cool house
-completing a project and the sense of accomplishment I get from it

Free Time.... Not!!

Well today is the day that Nathan and Mallory started school!! I am so excited for Mallory to start school so that she has some other activities to do and some of the attention can be about her. Nathan is only going one day a week but it will be nice for him to have other things to do also. So that means on Wednesday I get three hours of free time. Well actually it is breaks down to 2.5 hours, since I drop them off and pick them up. So what did I do today? Did I sit on the couch and eat BonBons? No I dropped them off, peaked in there rooms for awhile, went to the store and bought classroom wish list items, bought Julianne her birthday bike and other miscellaneous things. I came home went running for an hour, cleaned our dirty bathroom, changed our sheets, picked up the upstairs, folded Nathan's diapers, checked my e-mail and I am now updating my blog. So it is now time to go and get the kids from school.

I think that this time will be useful because I can get so much stuff done without distraction. It would have taken me all day to do the things I have just done so that is good in that sense. I am just too busy to take that time to relax, plus it is hard for me to lay down in the middle of the morning. I have a tendency to get tired during the 2-3 o'clock time of which I do sometimes lay on the couch with Mallory but the mid morning is my most productive time. I think I will mostly use that time to clean the house, run errands and work out.

There are a lot of house chores that get neglected because it is too hard to do them while the kids are running around. If I try to do the house chores too much then I get mad at the kids because they are in my way and I do not like yelling at my kids because I am trying to clean and they are dirtying the house. I used to be anal with a clean house when Julianne was younger and I just did not like who I was because I was always worried about her making a mess or not picking up her toys properly. So I dropped that perfection and just went with the theory that the house is just a house and Julianne was my daughter. Why should I worry if my house is perfectly cleaned when she is alive and existing right now. There will be plenty of years when D and I will have our house to ourselves and it can be cleaned and orderly and then I will miss the chaos that comes with children. Life is too short to worry about a supper cleaned house. My house is generally picked up at the the end of the day. The bathrooms could use more cleanings but the toilets are generally cleaned the bathroom counter tops get wiped off weekly but more importantly my kids are not overly anxious about being clean or having a clean house. I think that is important to pass on. They clean their rooms when I ask them and as they get older they will have more chores so that will help. Anyway, enough about that silly topic.

Back to the Nathan and Mallory's school... Nathan and Mallory both did very well when I dropped them off. Mallory had a good time and she told me that she saw one of her friends from last year. Nathan was really tired when I picked him up and he had his pacy and blankie with him. The teachers said that he almost fell asleep while they were eating snack.

Julianne's actual birthday is today. It is amazing that she is seven years old. That seems so old. She is such a fantastic child. Her teacher and classmates made a book and a list about her.

It goes like this:
Julianne is special because:
-she helps change her brother's diapers
-she is a gymnast
-she feeds her two dogs, fish and frog
-she can swim in 4 feet of water
-she was in my kindergarten class
-she is my friend
-she is my neighbor
-she is very nice
-we play together at recess.

It was cute that they put this book together for all the children for their birthdays. it will be fun to go back and look at the book years from now and who is still her friend.

Julianne was born at 3:45 in the morning after about 12 hours of labor. I work up on Sunday morning with contractions but they did not hurt and were happening every 15 to 20 minutes. So in order to distract myself, I worked out, put concrete on our front walkway and worked on our ongoing 1000 piece distraction puzzle we were working on the past few weeks. The contractions keep getting closer and closer together. At 4:00 pm we went to the grocery store and that is when I really felt like this was real. They were starting to hurt and they got to a point when I had to lean over on the grocery cart while I was having them. I remember that his teenager girl saw how pregnant I was and asked when I was having the baby and I said I did not know but hopefully soon. She kind of kept following me around the store. When we got home I had to lay down on the couch. Then I moved to our bedroom because they were starting to hurt. D brought in the tape player and played relaxing music for me. At about 7:00 pm. I told D that I wanted to go to the hospital so that I could get an epidural. He took his time getting us ready, that is what they taught us in Bradley class, and we got to the hospital around 8:00. I was 6 cm when I got there and everyone was supportive and saying that I was doing great. I got hooked up to the monitors and everything was going well. I got off the monitors and got into the bathtub, which did not help much with the pain but I think that moving around and getting into different positions was a distraction which did help with the pain. At around 12:30 a.m. I started pushing. The pushing part was the hardest part. I would get a few minutes of relief and then the contractions started and I really had to push. The pushing urge was so overwhelming. The nurse even asked me when Julianne was about to come out to not push and I was like "whatever" you try to not push when you have the biggest involuntary urge to push. The doctor came in and Julianne was born about 3:45 a.m. It was the best feeling to have her out. I specifically remember the feeling of her in one second and her out the other second. The pain immediately stopped and my stomach felt a ton lighter. She did not start crying right away so that was a little worrisome. She finally did after a couple of minutes and then they put her on my lap after she was cleaned up and bundled. It was amazing to look at her and know that she had just come out. Additionally, the thought of how she grew in my uterus was just mind boggling and amazing. We stayed up until the morning and then called all our family members.

Right after I had Julianne, the doctor was then massaging my uterus from my stomach and I remember telling him that that hurt and if he could please stop it and they kept pulling on the umbilical cord for the placenta to come out. These were both unnecessary kind of painful actions that they were performing. Additionally they gave me an IV and gave me pocitin (sp?) after I delivered which I thought was totally unnecessary and they never really asked me, they just did it. But at that point I was tired and did not really care but was a little bothered by it. It was an amazing experience and I remember it so clearly but I wanted to re-remember it since it was such a special moment. D was so supportive and was by my side the entire time. He was very attentive and tried to make me more comfortable, even though I was mean to him and did not really want to talk to him. Our nurse was great. We requested a nurse that was more familiar and supportive of non-medicated birth and she was great. She had her babies without medication also so that was very helpful. The doctor was OK, not very supportive but he did his job. So overall the experience was positive but we knew that, if possible, our next children would birthed at the local birthing center where a non-medicated birth is more supported, the act of labor is considered a natural normal experience, and the staff is more knowledgeable in natural pain reduction strategies.

So happy birthday to my sweet Julianne. I love you.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-seeing my daughter celebrate her 7th birthday
-having a great preschool to send my younger two
-having 2.5 hours to myself every week
-seeing Julianne pretending to be her teacher while she reads to Mallory

Surprise!

We had a surprise party for D on Friday after he got back from work. It was a party to celebrate him receiving his doctorate in psychology. He went running after work and came home to a room full of people. He was definitely surprised by our party since we were suppose to go to a work picnic that night. He really had no idea and it was great to see him surprised. We had a lot of fun and everyone was really excited for D and his accomplishment. It was the first surprise party I have thrown and I think that I did a pretty good job. It is hard for me to keep this secret from him so it was hard to keep cool and not get overly excited.

Surprise!!! This is a great picture


Dwight's mutilated cake.

On Saturday night we hosted Julianne's friend birthday party. She wanted to have a sleepover so we invited 4 friends and three ended up being able to attend. We had two friends from school, one neighbor and Mallory. The girls arrived around 5:00 p.m. They played then we had pizza, the neighbors over for cake and ice cream and then the girls played hide and seek and red rover in our backyard. After games in the backyard, the girls came inside to work on window art craft, then movies and bed. They did not really go to bed until about 12:00 p.m. The girls were really funny together and they played really well together. They are a little tired today and grumpy and I am sure that it will be worse tomorrow.



I bought Nathan some "bling" pacifiers last week because they were on sale. We always lose his pacifiers and they were on sale so I bought them. They are not really my style; they are really big and have fake diamonds on them. So while at the party our neighbor put big diamond rings, from the girls goody bags, on the his pacy so that it would be more "blingified". It was actually pretty funny and he kind of liked the jingling and noise that it made.



Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-seeing a rainbow on my Friday morning run.
-seeing the expression on D's face when he walked in the door for his surprise party
-watching the girls play with their friends
-seeing Julianne live for almost 7 years (wow that is wired)
-getting a close parking space at the gym when I had the kids

Updates

I officially think that Julianne has given up her thumb sucking habit. Her nail has fallen off and the thumb has healed (see picture below). Her nail bed is at the bottom of the nail and skin fills the rest of where the nail was. It looks kind of wired and scary but it does not hurt her and it will grow back, I think.

Julianne also has two gaps in her teeth where her last two teeth have fallen out. She has lost 8 teeth so far which I think is a lot. There are some kids in her class which have not lost any teeth yet. I don't really know when the other teeth will fall out. So we will see. We went to the dentist a couple days ago and at her next appointment they will put sealants on her back molars. these are the ones that are permanent.

Our neighbor girl came over the other day and got into our chalk and made everyones name on our driveway. It was interesting because Julianne quickly filled in all her letters and wanted to get it done as soon as possible. Mallory on the other hand took different colors and took her time filling in her name. She almost finished her "M" by the time Julianne was done coloring in her entire name. Mallory defiantly is more detailed oriented and Julianne is more of a task manager. She wants to complete the job and Mallory wants to think about how she will do it, will come back to it and will take time to do it how she wants. It was fun to see the difference.


Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-spending most of the day with my kids
-learning that Mallory protects Nathan while I am working out (some kids took toys away from Nathan today at the gym)
-knowing that the girls are starting to understand the concept of money and what you have to do to earn it
-reading before I go to sleep