time for an update

oh, poor neglected blog. i haven't felt much like writing here lately, but decided that today is a good day for an update.

we are having a lovely rainy day today. jeremy had class this morning, and then we saw the midwife and ran errands together, which was really nice. his semester is winding down and as of last week, he is done with all of his major assignments and has just a few minor assignments and exams left. it is nice to have more time with him these days.

baby continues to grow and is doing well. yesterday we hit 38 weeks, so we are getting wonderfully close to meeting this little one! at my appointment this morning, i was measuring right on for 38 weeks, baby's heart rate was 148 and he is head down. our midwife said that i am a "textbook 38 weeks". good to hear. i am feeling very ready to have this baby, and at the same time, i can't believe that tomorrow is already may - the month of this baby's birthday! overall, i have really been feeling pretty good. i have times of feeling uncomfortable and of course, there's the heartburn, lack of sleep, having to pee all the time, etc...but i really feel good most of the time and don't have much to complain about. (the pic below was taken at 37 weeks...i've gotten a significantly shorter haircut since then).

we've been keeping busy around here. i have been feeling pretty energetic during the day (not so much in the evening, as i fall asleep before 10 every night!) and have been getting all kinds of projects done. actually, this morning i told jeremy that i was bored because i have cleaned everything in the whole house (including vacuuming every nook and cranny on saturday), everything is organized, and i have all of my big projects done. i've stocked the freezer with all kinds of foods and have run out of room. there's not much left to do but have the baby. then i will have plenty to do!

we've been having some good family times. we went to our local gardens and saw some butterflies. our girl was thrilled to have one perched on her finger!

on easter, we had a little egg hunt in our backyard. it was a lot of fun!

jeremy and i went out for a wonderful date on friday night. it was so nice to go out and have time with just the two of us. once the baby comes, date nights will look a little (lot!) different, so it was nice to have one last date before we have a newborn around again.

insomnia, etc...

i've been waking up at 4 or 4:30 am for the past week or so, and i can't fall back to sleep. sometimes i finally fall asleep a couple of hours later...sometimes (like today!), i don't. i am tired. i think it's some kind of pregnancy insomnia. usually when i can't sleep, i count backwards from 1,000. i usually fall asleep somewhere in the 400s or 500s, but lately i've been making it all the way down to 0. sometimes twice. i think i need a new strategy for falling back to sleep...although, i really don't think anything will help.

in other news, it's jeremy's spring break this week. on monday we ran a bunch of errands and got groceries. it was nice to get all of that done in one day so the rest of the week can be free for other things. jeremy has a lot of schoolwork due within the next few weeks, so he has been busy with that. we also have house things to work on...yardwork, washing windows, and spring cleaning. yesterday i found myself crawling around on the floor scrubbing the kitchen baseboards with an old toothbrush. i think the last time they were cleaned was probably when i was pregnant with our girl. what is it with pregnant women cleaning baseboards?

we washed all the baby clothes and today they will go in the dresser. we are a little over five weeks away from the due date, so i figure it's about time to start getting things together.

yesterday i baked bread and the little one and i made cookies. i also made a delicious curry for supper, and got some sewing done. i felt very accomplished by the time i crashed on the couch last night.

i am feeling a bit sentimental these days, knowing that soon my attention will be shared between two children. i do not worry about how i will be able to love two, since i already love them both. i just know that it will be different to have more than just my girl, and sometimes i (and she!) will miss our times together - just the two of us. the good news is that those times can still happen, they will just take a bit more planning and intentionality.

these days...

i am sitting down with a mug of hot tea for the first time in days. iced tea has been my drink of choice for the past ten days or so as it has been hot, hot, hot! we've been having record breaking temperatures around here. spring suddenly appeared and this is the one year (probably ever) where i didn't feel like i was waiting and waiting for it to come. our winter was so mild and really hardly even felt like winter - what a treat. the trees are budding and the flowering trees are blooming, daffodils have popped up, and the birds are chirping. we've been really enjoying the weather, although when it was close to 90 degrees the other day, this pregnant woman was struggling a bit! i told jeremy that if this weather keeps up, we will have to install our window air conditioner in our bedroom! i hardly have any summer maternity clothes, so i've been washing and rotating my three short sleeved maternity shirts with the one pair of jeans that i can easily roll up. it might get to the point of having to invest in some capris and a couple more short sleeved shirts, though i would rather not invest in those things since it's for less than two more months anyway.

our girl enjoying the weather and trying out her bike!

our little one is upstairs "resting". it seems that she has decided to boycott naps, but rest time in her room is still good for her. she sings and talks to herself and occasionally eventually falls asleep, or i get her up after an hour or when she starts to cry. i haven't even seen jeremy yet today because he left early for a breakfast meeting. the days when he is already gone when i wake up just don't quite seem like they start out right. i miss him. we had good playtime with friends this morning, which helped break up the day. it feels like the afternoon is slowly crawling by, but i shouldn't complain about that because usually i feel like the days fly by too quickly.

yesterday the little one and i drove out to the farm to pick up our milk. we arrived about two minutes after a calf was born in the field. it was laying on the ground by it's proud mama who was licking it off. beautiful. i love that we get to see things like that when we get our milk, instead of just picking it off the shelves at the grocery store. and i love that our girl sees the cows who make the milk that she drinks. it just seems so right.

after seeing the newborn calf, i was driving down the road marveling at the beauty of new life. then a bird flew in front of the car and i hit and killed it. it kind of ruined the moment.

this girl makes me laugh.

two!

our girl turned two on saturday! we had a fun time celebrating as a family and with a small group of friends from church.

making the birthday cake with mommy...

special birthday pancakes! she requested a teddy bear pancake...

ready for a celebration!

rainbow cake!

our girl is such a gift to us and we are so thankful for her!

sinus infections and potty training

i haven't been spending very much time here lately. i was sick for close to two weeks with a cold turned sinus infection. i have had one sinus infection before (when i was in college), but i forgot how bad they are! i was miserable. a trip to the doctor and some antibiotics later and i finally started to feel better. i'm someone who likes to trust the body to heal itself of such minor infections and therefore am resistant to taking antibiotics, but this is one time when i am very thankful that i was able to get my hands on some. i knew it was that bad when i spent an evening sitting on our couch just pressing on my face because that helped to take away some of the pain. thank goodness that's over.

our big news around here is that our girl is potty trained! it took very little effort on our part and she has been doing SO well with it. she is so proud of herself and we are so proud of her too! it's very exciting. and we are very excited to have this skill learned before another little one joins our family - how wonderful to have a bit of a break from using and washing cloth diapers before our little man arrives! of course, she still wears diapers when she sleeps, but a few weeks ago we switched to disposables for night time because the cloth diapers were leaking (they were getting to be too small), so a break from cloth diapers it is!

we also have a big birthday coming up at our house - our girl will be two on saturday! it's hard to believe it was already two years ago that i was very pregnant and so ready to meet her. we have plans for a family day with the three of us as well as a little celebration with a few of her favorite people from our church. it's going to be a great day.

today was a big day with a morning meeting, groceries, and then this afternoon the little one and i made granola, and brownies (a recipe from Feeding the Whole Family - a great cookbook with a lot of healthy recipes that i highly recommend!). i also have a loaf of bread baking in the bread maker. yum. i am finding it so much fun to cook with my little helper by my side. of course, it makes everything take longer and it makes a bigger mess, but she is such a little delight that i don't care. she loves to dump things in the bowl and mix them up. i love seeing her have fun in the kitchen and watching her learn. it certainly helps that jeremy has been doing most of the dishes lately - especially today. he spoils me.

no hole-y socks for us

yesterday we had banana berry baked oatmeal for breakfast. it was hard to wait the forty minutes until it was done, but it was worth the wait. i got all the ingredients ready the night before so i could just mix them up in the morning and pop it in the oven. i made it with frozen blueberries and simply served it with milk drizzled over it. we found it plenty sweet without anything added.

our book study met at our house last night and someone mentioned that they had holes in the socks they were wearing. someone else said, "that's okay - everyone has pairs of socks that have holes in them!" i was able to say that i know for a fact that i don't have any socks with holes in them, and neither does anyone in this house, because in my crazy nesting i have even gone through all of our socks and gotten rid of all the pairs that are worn out. that launched a conversation about my crazy nesting habits and even included jeremy giving several people a tour of our recently organized kitchen cabinets. when they asked if i got out the ruler to measure a perfect distance between each jar in the cupboard, the conversation quickly turned to teasing, which i didn't mind. hey - at least we are the ones who don't have any holes in our socks!

i am pretty much finished sorting every nook and cranny of our house (and i mean every drawer, cupboard, closet, and corner!), except for the basement which jeremy and i will go through together next week during a couple of nap times. the basement isn't too much of a mess, so it shouldn't be too big of a project. i think that after the basement is done, i will move on to deep cleaning every room and touching up the paint. this nesting...it's just crazy.

as of just this last week, i am starting to feel quite eager (even impatient at times!) to meet this little one who is growing inside of me. of course, i want to wait until he is ready to come out, but i am so excited to see his little face and be able to hold him.

our little one has had a cold for a few days now. i have been feeling under the weather today as well, so we laid low today. except for driving out to the farm to get our milk, we stayed home. we read books, built with her train tracks, she took a good nap, i rested, and then we made pancakes for dinner. she does a great job dumping ingredients into the bowl and loves to mix them up. i made her a special teddy bear pancake with a chocolate chip mouth and eyes. when i put it in front of her, she got a big smile on her face and said, "thank you mama!" it makes me so happy to do little things for her that bring simple joy.

daddy is currently giving her a bubble bath and she will soon be headed to bed. we are (supposedly) due for a big snow tonight, so after the little one is in bed, i think we will hunker down and watch some netflix while we wait for the snow to appear.

some thoughts on toy storage and other things...

i stepped in vomit shortly after getting up this morning...our daughter's, not mine. except for that little incident this morning, she seems fine.

i made buckwheat pancakes and blueberry syrup for breakfast. i really didn't like the syrup, but the rest of my family did! (i have been forever spoiled by the yummy foods my mom makes, including delicious fruit syrups. mine was no where near as good as hers - i will have to ask her for her recipe).

we have a new toy storage solution at our house that i've been meaning to write about for a while...

shortly before christmas, i became quite aware of the fact that there always seemed to be toys spread all over our main floor. i was constantly stepping over or on toys, pushing them out of the way with my feet, or tripping over them. we have been intentional about our daughter's toys and i think the amount of toys we have is on the small side compared to the average family with one child...but still...there seemed to be too many! christmas was coming and i knew that more toys would be added to the collection (including all of the little cooking utensils and pieces of food we were going to be giving her!), so something had to be done.

our play area is in part of our living room and it looks like this:

the red shelf is from a thrift store (i bought it when i was just out of college and living in my first apartment). we get lots of comments on it because it is so unique. i love that it's perfect as a toy/book shelf! the little table and chairs are from ikea, and the letter cards (i love them!) were in a box of kid's stuff given to us by some friends (thanks guys!). her toys used to be in all the baskets on the red shelf - some of the baskets were overflowing, and it was hard to find specific toys in the midst of all of them.

my solution was nothing amazing or clever...i just got some bins on sale, sorted out her toys (got rid of some of them), and put them in bins, grouping like toys together. i have plans to sew some drawstring bags to further organize her toys in the bins, but i don't know when that will actually happen. my first plan was to keep the bins in the basement and bring up a new one every so often, but i knew that i wouldn't really enjoy lugging toy bins up and down the stairs, especially as i become more pregnant. so...i found a spot for three of the bins in the corner of our dining room, and the other three fit perfectly in our main floor bathroom. i purposely chose bins that are clear so that we can see what toys are in each one.

this solution is working so well. we take one or two bins out at a time to play with, and i like that the toys are on the main floor and that our daughter can see in the bins to choose a specific bin to play with. when she is done playing with a toy bin, we put everything back in and she can choose another one. i have noticed that she is much more engaged with her toys and she doesn't seem overwhelmed with knowing what to play with like she sometimes did when she had access to all her toys. i love that there aren't so many toys strewn all over the house. her red shelf still has a few toys on it...her colorful scarves are in one basket, some of her kitchen toys are in one, and her tea set is in another...but i really think that we could put all of her toys in the bins and she would be fine with it.

anyway...it might just be all the nesting and de-cluttering i continue to do, but i am so excited to have found a system that works so well for us!

how do you deal with toy clutter?