Pregnancy Update {37 Weeks}

How far along? 

I'm 37 weeks now which is considered full-term.  Alaine was born at 37 weeks, 2 days and Owen was born at 37 weeks, 5 days.  I don't anticipate this baby being born so soon, but it is certainly possible! 

For fun, I started an online baby poll. To enter your guesses, click here. 

We're trying to keep things on our calendar to keep from living on Baby Watch.  We had friends over for dinner and games on New Year's Eve.  We're planning to have more friends over for dinner and games this weekend and I have a moms-only dessert outing with a friend coming up next week.

Brian has also started painting and re-doing the girls' bedroom.  If Baby arrives before he is done, he will simply finish when we return home.

Any aches or pains?

I have the typical back aches and achy hip joints. As much as I tried to avoid it, I have the pregnancy waddle!   I'm taking epsom salt baths a few times a week to combat the muscle soreness.  Whether it is the epsom salt or daily sitting on my exercise ball or back strengthening exercises or Baby settling into a better position,  on the weekend I started enjoying a few days of noticeably less pain.  I'm feeling better now at 37 weeks than I was at 35 and 36 weeks. 

 
Getting ready for baby...

At 36 weeks, I started eating dried deglet noor dates every day. They are packed with vitamins and minerals plus there is some evidence that they help prepare the body for labor. (Note: The serving size on the first link is for a 28 gram serving; serving size for a pregnant mother is is 60-70 grams daily.)  I like the taste so I figure they are worth snacking on even if they serve no additional purpose.

Exercise:

I'm still running and doing indoor exercise on alternating days.  Between a string of rainy days and some  nerve pain and numbness in the front of one thigh, my running mileage decreased at the end of December.  Still I managed to log almost 1050 miles in 2015.  The sun is out and my leg is better now, but I still find the need to modify my running some days.  One day Brian and I went out together and did a 2 mile run/walk routine, but then yesterday I was able to run 4 miles (albeit slowly) with no walk breaks at all. I'm hoping to keep moving and staying active until Baby arrives. 

 

Using an Unused Space

A few weeks ago I alluded to a house project that was in the works. It's kind of a long story.

When we moved into this house almost four years ago and started setting up and making it our own, we made a conscious decision to do things right the first time.  In other words, we didn't want to waste time and money on temporary solutions that we didn't love and would want to change later.

One of the first rooms we tweaked was our dining room.  We used a long-term-loan dining room hutch to store our school books and supplies and it served it's purpose well (large, sturdy, did I mention free?), but it was never precisely my style. We talked options including painting the hutch, but on a Sunday morning run last year I spotted another hutch for sale in a neighbor's yard. Brian talked them down from their asking price of $100 and brought it home for only $40!  The top section needed extensive cosmetic work, including removing glass doors so we decided to work with only the bottom half. 

Brian spent a week sanding and painting, and now this beauty resides in our dining room.  (I'm working on finding some artwork to hang on the once-hidden wall.)

{And where is the old hutch?  My sister took it home and made it her own.} 

The new piece has a major drawback. Eliminating the top cabinet left us less storage space.  An idea had been brewing for awhile and with Brian on his winter break, there was no time like the present.  There is a unused nook in our front entryway that was the ideal space for a large built-in bookshelf. 

We mentioned  our plans to my dad after dinner one Sunday and within a half hour he and Brian had removed the very large, very hazardous mirror with their bare hands (while the rest of us cringed at the sound of crackling, almost-shattering glass).

And that is why I have no official "before" photo.  I do have this one taken post-mirror.

Then came the work of tearing out the cabinet.

Ben was fascinated by the whole process, though the noise was a little bothersome, hence the ear muffs.

After the dirty work was complete, this is what was remained.

My dad volunteered to help build the new shelf. I provided lunch and advice, but otherwise, I was hands-off.

By the end of the day, the skeleton was complete. 

Then came the tedious work of paining-- the shelf and the walls, too,  which needed a freshen-up coat.

All the work was worth gaining this new much-used, much-needed space for our books, resources, and supplies.

Easy for me to say, huh?

Catching Up Mid-Week

I intended the post title to imply that I wanted to have a conversation with you, my blog readers, catching you up on what's been going on in my life and at our house.  Unfortunately, it could also describe how I've felt for the past week, spending many moments catching up on what didn't get done when our entire household was down with the flu after Thanksgiving.

I guess my time had come.  It's been 19 years since I had a true case of the flu.  That winter when I was 15, I had 3 separate cases of the flu-- one in December, one in January, and another in February.  I'm hoping I won't have a repeat of that fiasco.  One round of fever, chills, aches, coughs, headache, and fatigue is enough, especially when you multiply that by a 7-member family!

All told, we were down for a week, but it sure felt like a lot longer.  We ate what we could scrape together from the refrigerator or freezer and we took turns stumbling into the kitchen to prepare it.  It was not pretty.  We were thankful for the angels who delivered a jug of milk to our back door one afternoon and to the other angel who brought us Chick-fil-A for dinner. We were also thankful when we were well enough to cook a proper meal, fold the growing laundry pile, wash the stale sheets, and vacuum the needles from around the Christmas tree.

Now it's back to normal for us-- as "normal" as December can ever be.  I took the girls to a production of The Nutcracker on Friday.  On the drive there, Alaine gave us instructions: "When we get there, no one pick your nose."  It's not the first time she's dished out that reminder this holiday season.  Hmmm...  After we found our seats, Alaine decided she preferred to sit in my lap to watch the show.  She barely moved for the first half of the show, but at intermission she said, "I'm ready to go home now." 

The next day Brian took the boys to a  Lego event at the mall and they each received a free mini-set!  It was the highlight of their week.

On the homefront, we are working to finish our schoolwork before our long winter break.  Owen finished his history on Friday.  Before narrating the last passage of the book, he said, "Christopher Columbus died.  It was sad."  I had to stifle a smile because he meant it and I was happy to see him involved personally in his history book!  Gavin is counting down the math lessons.  I gave him a stopping point and he is pushing through to finish early.  We've  finished music a few weeks ago and we've shelved health until February. 



We are doing our Christmas baking in spurts.  We made chocolate chip cookies last week.  We ate some, froze some, and put some aside in an airtight container.  We made a successful batch of peanut butter fudge over the weekend.  My fudge never turns out so this was epic!  Yesterday we made more cookies, some to eat, some to freeze, and some to serve to guests that are coming this afternoon to make Christmas crafts with us. We plan to make our family "cookies" sometime before Christmas, too.  (If nothing else, click on that post and see how little my kids were when I first blogged that recipe!)

We're trying to make time for quiet this Christmas.  It's easy to stay busy during the month of December, but I also want my children to remember the still moments.  We've fallen into an informal habit of reading 1-2 short Christmas books before bed every evening.  The kids take turns picking one, either from our own personal collection or from the library basket.  In addition, we  chose The Best Christmas by Jane Mason as our family read aloud this year.

Gavin's birthday was this week. He invited his grandparents and aunts over for ice cream floats on the evening of his birthday.  He and his Papa spent most of the night assembling a remote control car.  Brian brought home a battery for it last night and Gavin said, "I can't until I can show Papa because we had a great time playing with my car together." 

 

Brian has a few weeks remaining at work until his 10-week winter break.  He, Gavin, and Maddie plan to celebrate one his first free days by going to the theater together to watch The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies and as a family, we have plans to attend a free Christmas concert.

We're praying everyone in our hosue stays well and calm and joyful (and a bunch of other adjectives) in the remaining fifteen days until Christmas!

Things I Love Right Now

1) Well-written Christian fiction

I find that often Christian fiction is too fluffy or too contrived and preachy for my taste.  On the other hand, with secular fiction, I have to be careful in what I select to avoid strong language or sexual situations. I love when I find high quality Christian literature.  These are two books that I have enjoyed this week (one I finished and one I'm still reading through): 

2) My WoodWick candle 

I love to hear it crackle as it sits on the counter in my kitchen and I love the autumnal pumpkin nutmeg scent.

3) Warm meals and new recipes

I cook year-round, but I've enjoyed using my oven again without overheating the rest of the house. Some of our recent favorites: buffalo mac and cheese, sausage stuffed shells, chicken piccata, and pumpkin butter muffins.

4) The Betsy series by Carolyn Haywood

I'm reading the books aloud to my girls, but since we've developed the habit of reading a chapter or two while the kids have an evening snack, the boys have been listening in, too. Written in the 1930s and 40s, the stories are quaint and simple.  We finished this one yesterday: 

5) "In-between" weather

It's November and it has been in the upper 60s so far this week.  I don't mind.  The kids have had more opportunities to play outside this fall than all through the hot, humid summer.  Our dog isn't complaining either.  He loves all the extra exercise, attention, and hugs from Alaine.

6) Dark evenings

I don't embrace change well, but I love when we return to standard time in the fall.  There is something cozy and unhurried about eating dinner when it is dark outside and then settling in for the evening.  With five kids in the house, it is rarely peaceful and quiet, but I can try to imagine it!

7)  Running with people

Aside from races, I've always run alone, but throughout the fall, I've had the chance to run with other people on the weekends.  One Saturday morning when the kids were sleeping over at their grandmother's house, Brian and I ran about six miles together.  The time flew by as we talked for the better part of an hour. I've also had the opportunity to meet up with a few people on Saturday mornings to run a three-mile route.  Again, the flow of conversation keeps my mind off of the effort.  On these runs, I don't care about the pace or the distance. I simply enjoy the companionship.

What do you love right now?  Let me know so I can love it, too!

Something Old, Something New

Today, Brian and I celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary.

2014

2001

It's amazing how many months of planning went into our wedding and yet I remember so few of the details.  I  know I followed the tradition pulled from an Old English rhyme:

Something old, 

Something new, 

Something borrowed,

Something blue.

My something old was a family Bible that I carried with my bouquet.

My wedding dress was new.  Though I bought it used on Ebay and it fit so perfectly I didn't have to have it altered, my mom remembers that it arrived with the tags still attached. I also wore new shoes and a new tiara.

I borrowed a string of pearls to wear.

Though my wedding color was periwinkle blue,  I cannot remember what I carried of that color. My bridesmaids had blue ribbons hanging from their bouquets, but I think my ribbons were all white.

*******

We've been doing some sprucing up and changing in our home this summer and unconsciously following that same Old English rhyme.

I read The Nesting Place: It Doesn't Have to Be Perfect to Be Beautiful by Myquillen Smith early in the summer and was inspired to rethink how I think about my house.  One chapter asks you to determine the purpose of a particular room and treat it accordingly. Many people gather in our dining room throughout the year whether it is for dinner, a playdate, a birthday party, or craft day, but our dining room is also our school room. That room needs to be pretty yet functional.

To serve both purposes, I set up a new area designated our Nature Corner.  I shopped around for a side table and found and old one for $5 at a thrift store.  Brian sanded off the glossy brown paint  and I re-painted it a shade of blue and replaced the drawer pull.

I put a tray on the tabletop where the kids can display leaves, rocks, or seashells and included two vases for branches, flowers, and twigs.

The bottom shelf houses our nature guides and animal books.

The table adds beauty to our dining room while contributing to its functionality. I anticipate this being a wonderful asset to the room!

And remember one of the chairs I painted blue for our living room?  I felt like it needed a little something more so I borrowed a pillow idea I saw on my friend  Joanne's blog.

I cut and stitched the little birds while binge-watching seasons of Downton Abbey, then sewed a pillow slipcover using this tutorial.

It adds a lot of color (including more blue) and a little quirk to the living room.