Random On a Monday

It's a beautiful spring Monday here at Chez Crumb and that means laundry and cleaning! It feels wonderful to have all the windows open with the heavy scent of on grass and Wisteria drifting in.

We started the morning off with rushing around to get ready for an early doctor's appointment, getting everyone buckled and then mama getting in the driver's seat only to find that the car was dead as a door nail. We all went back inside, the appointment was canceled, and I have happily spent the morning cleaning and baking muffins. (I didn't want to go.)

We had a wonderful storm over the weekend which poured on us all day yesterday. It was just perfect.

Here is one of the crafts I've been working on. I tried recovering a three ring binder with scrapbook paper to use as a recipe binder. I wanted something more lively than my plain ol' black vinyl officey-looking binder. I think it turned out pretty good. I'm not in love with the paper, but I didn't want to use something really nice if I screwed it up. It was the test run, and now I know how to do them a bit better (and prettier).

I'm also trying to hash out an apron design based on one that I saw, but I'm kind of stuck. Sewing construction is not my forte. Hopefully I can get over the hump soon and I'll have a new apron! Add to that the skirt patterns I've found and want to make and I'll probably be spending a good amount of time with my sewing machine soon.

I found a new menu/recipe helper called Pepperplate.com. One can input recipes and then put them into the planner/menu and generate a shopping list from it. I like that it's free, unlike some other similar sites I've seen. They have an app so I can take the shopping list with me on my iPod. I think I'll try it for our shopping trip this weekend. If I have time to input recipes...

 I've been slowly putting a few rows here and there on my shawl design. I've gotten to the part where I want beads, and it's been fun to see the contrast of the beads and yarn and watching it come together. I ran into a few layout snags, but I think I've got it now.

 I have blossoms on my cherry tree! I'm so, so excited. It's just this one little bunch right now, but it means spring is really here, and I will hopefully be able to stuff myself silly on cherries this year. While going out to take the picture, I noticed the berry blossoms are opening too. Let the onslaught begin.

Now that it's warm I've started Duder on his way to being a "big boy" with potty training. (I wait til it's warm so he can run around in just a shirt and underwear.) My favorite part is every time he flushes the toilet he lets out a loud Roar of Manly Triumph and jumps around. It's hilarious.

We went to Lowe's yesterday to get lamps and as we were going through check out this book just up and jumped right into our cart and found it's way home with us.

Just about every single recipe looks wonderful and delicious and I want to make them all. The kids have already put in their orders. Looks like I'll be busy for awhile.

I have found that the littlest one sleeps really well if he gets a bath before bed. Thank goodness I found the trick. I found it out on accident when he slept for two hours after I gave him a bath. So I tried again the next night and he did the same thing. The night we skipped a bath? Up all night. Last night, with a bath? Mama got sleep. As Daddy said, looks like he's going to be a really clean baby.

The little guy was almost 8 pounds at his checkup last week. He has a triple chin. It's adorable and I keep kissing it up and he doesn't like it. He gives me dirty looks but there's nothing he can do about it because he's too small to run away! Muahaha!!

Happy Monday! Go bake some cookies!
Meg

Back To Normal

Ah, Monday. How I enjoy your domestic normal-ness.

Last week was our first week of being back to our normal schedule and it was very nice. After a week of Ben working nights, we were all very happy to have the house back to the regular way of doing things (and eating).

Our babies turned 5 on Tuesday. I can't believe it's already been 5 years since our world was turned upside down and backwards. 5 years since the most terrifying event of our life pulled Ben and I closer together and gave us two precious little guys. Now they are running around destroying and shooting things and we have added two more little guys since then. Goodness, could someone slow down the clock please? I'll be a grandmama before I know it.

We had a massive storm over the weekend and it was wonderful. It poured off and on, complete with slanty rain, a bit of hail and - you won't believe it - a minute of SNOW. We walked outside to move some stuff and it was snowing! It was slushy and melted as soon as it hit the ground, but it was honest to goodness snow. The boys were so excited and kept talking about how they were going to build snowmen. Sadly, we had to tell them there wasn't going to be enough for that.

We also got our new couches on Saturday. Now we are grown ups! This is our first set of furniture that isn't handed down or borrowed. It only took us 6 years, hehe. We have an end table and a coffee table coming too, but they are back-ordered until the end of the month. They are so squishy and nice and (Ben's favorite part) each end is a recliner. I also like that they are a nice dirt-hiding, boy-friendly chocolate color. ;)

The little man is getting chubby and it makes me giggle. Ben is on a mission for the baby to look like a sumo wrestler, and almost encourages me to eat sweets and goodies, just so the baby will get it. It's hilarious. After having too-skinny babies, we very much like fat babies.

I forget how many check ups we have to do in the first few weeks. I will be glad when I don't have to be in a doctor's office every week anymore.

He is still eating well (thus the chubby) and sleeps... fairly well. Not as much as mama would like, being up about every two hours, but we make it work. It's funny how little sleep you can function on. He has come down with whatever cold we've all had, so we had a few nights of super grumpy, but he is better now.

My "Eat from the Freezer March" plan is going well! I have kept a list of freezer inventory on the fridge and cross off things every time we use them. There are quite a few items crossed off now. I have been planning meals from what we have and our last grocery trip had us buying just the few fresh staples. I think I will try to stretch the next grocery trip an extra week to use up even more. Unless we have an emergency trip, the total grocery spending for the month is around $330, which was mostly for a few (non-meat) stock ups that were on sale.

I am so happy to have my energy back. I feel wonderful being able to take care of my house again. It still takes a bit longer, since we break for eating every few hours (the baby, not me haha), but it is getting done and I feel like I have returned from a long trip. Last Monday I was able to clean and vacuum the whole house, which it needed badly. I have even had a chance to do some crafty things that I will show you some time in the future.

How have y'all been?
Meg

Spring Is Here!

Volunteer Borage. I won't have to plant any from seed

Ok, not officially for another week but it sure does look like it around here.

The grape is leafing out

Boysenberries ready to bloom. Judging by the number of buds, we're going to be drowning in berries this year.

The Wisteria is going hog wild. As much as I hate the plant, it sure is gorgeous.

I am trying to resist the urge to plant.

It's not going very well.

There might be some sunflowers going in the ground this weekend...

And some veggies.

And maybe some herbs.

I can at least start seedlings.

I have to keep telling myself it's still March.
 

How's it lookin' in your neck of the woods?
Meg

Life With Baby

Good Sleeps

I have spent all week thinking I would take pictures and post them... But I've been too busy snuggling the baby. He's such a sweet little snuggler, he just burrows right into your arm or your shoulder.

He also eats a lot, so that helps with the snuggling.

I snapped a few shots with my iPod though, just so I had something to share. 

We've pretty much adjusted to Life With New Baby. I bounced back a heck of a lot faster than I thought I would. By Tuesday I was pretty much back to doing things, albeit slowly still (it took me two days to wash laundry and it's still not folded). A bit sore still and I'm not exactly running, but I have been making meals and slowly doing chores. I am glad I got some ready to cook/eat things frozen - it helped a lot the first few days.

Ben went back to work Friday and changed his schedule a bit for this week to facilitate being home more during the day, which has been a tremendous help and relief. He takes such good care of us. We are both ready for the normal schedule again though, which we'll go back to on Monday.

Yar, I'm a pirate

The boys have pretty much adjusted to the little guy too. After a few days of "Is this the new baby?!?", "I have a new brother??" and "Is your tummy small now?" (yes, and hopefully it gets smaller) they have realized that the baby is staying with us, and no he doesn't have to go back to the doctor.

Duder is adjusting better than I thought he would. While he's been a bit more snuggly and slightly crankier than usual, he isn't as upset as I was expecting him to be which I am thankful for. He likes to tell me "That's the baby" and that "those wipies/diapers/clothes/etc. are for the baby". They all like to tell me that the baby is "so cute" and they want to pet him and give him kisses. It's very sweet and I'm so glad it's not "Kill the intruder!".

I feel like I have so much energy and there are so many things I want to do, but I am telling myself to take it slow and let myself return to completely normal and recovered before I try to go crazy. I tried doing too much too fast with Duder and I think it took longer to recover than it should have. So I will just enjoy the time to sit and "relax" with this little guy. I really want to exercise though, but it's only been a week.

I have been reading a lot (not much else to do while nursing :) ), and knitting a bit. I am working on a shawl design that I started before Corbin came, and I am so very excited about it. I am hoping to find a tech editor for this pattern though, so it will probably be awhile before I release it. Especially since it's slow going. I also put a few rows on the blue blanket when I get a chance. It's just funny how knitting is so not a huge desire right now when I have a baby to sniff (gosh, he smells so good). I have a ton of ideas for new designs though, so hopefully you'll be seeing some new stuff over the next few months.

Is anyone else excited for Easter? I have been waiting for Easter since January. I don't know why I'm looking forward to it so much this year, but I am. Also, I want to plant seeds something awful, but something tells me I should hold off just a bit longer. Maybe I'll start some seedlings on the windowsill though...

Happy Friday!
Meg

Introducing

Corbin Matthew

February 28th, 2012 at 5:27 am

6 lbs, 6 oz

19.5 inches long

First few hours

 Whew! Our newest little guy has blessed us with his presence a week early. Boy did it go fast this time! I am so glad to have him home and we are all settled and happy to have our newest member with us. I know most of you have heard of his arrival from Gama Kim, so here are some pictures, and the story for those who want to hear it.

The Details

Over the past week I had been nesting really bad. I kept cooking things and baking bread and cleaning and organizing parts of the house I've barely even looked at since we moved in 3 years ago. When we went grocery shopping on Sunday I had grabbed extra diapers for Duder even though he still had plenty. On Monday morning I started laundry earlier than I normally do. I figured the little guy would be coming soon, but I thought it would be closer to his actual due date. Through Sunday night I was woken up by contractions a few times, but didn't think much of it as they weren't terrible.

By noon on Monday I was starting to have some pretty noticeable contractions. They were a little sporadic though, so I thought maybe it was another false alarm like we had with Duder. By 1, they were 3-5 minutes and pretty strong. Still not believing, I put the kids down for their nap and went to lay down myself thinking I was just doing too much and they would stop.

By 2 o'clock they were still 3-5 minutes and getting more painful so I called Ben and gave him the heads up, saying I don't know if it's real but I'll call him again if it gets worse and/or my water breaks. I said I would try a hot shower, because I was still in denial. I called Gama to let her know what was going on and we agreed a shower was a good idea. She did say I needed to tell Ben to come home though.

By the time I got out of the shower I was 1-2 minutes and starting to hurt pretty bad. I couldn't believe how fast it was coming. I called Ben at 3 and told him he needed to come home right then. I got the kids up and told them to put on their shoes and when Ben got home we decided to wait a bit and see if my water would break. Well, 30 minutes later still no water but I was starting to feel pressure every time a contraction came. I told him I wanted to go right then.

We took the kids to Gamas, and got to the hospital a bit later. After we got checked in a settled in a room I was already at 5 centimeters so I am glad we decided to go and not wait to see if it was a false alarm.

Over the next 9 hours I slowly progressed from 5 to 8 centimeters but my water still had not broken. I opted for an epidural somewhere in the middle after I started throwing up after each contraction. I did the same thing with Duder, so apparently that is just how my body reacts to labor. Once the epidural kicked in I was able to settle down a bit and let my body work without stressing the little guy out too much. Each time they flipped me to my right side his heart rate dropped and it took him awhile to recover. They would flip me to the left and while he did better, it still wasn't great. My contractions were still about a minute apart, so they had to give me drugs to actually slow down the contractions because the little guy didn't have any time in between to really "breathe" and relax. Once they gave me the drugs and I got about 2 minutes in between, he did a lot better.

Around 2ish the doctor came in to finally break my water, even though baby was up pretty high still. But once he did that, the contractions came stronger and more painfully again and I started feeling pressure around 5 am. Once that happened it pretty much went from there with a bit of pushing, Jerk Doctor barking orders for forceps (supposedly to relieve the pressure on my previous scar) which made Ben and I pretty antsy, and baby coming out with the cord wrapped around his neck twice.

Our kids like to scare the crap out of us. But once he got untangled he started breathing and fussing and then crying a bit so I knew he would be OK. They got him all cleaned up, took all his vitals, and kept him under the warmer to pink him up.

They kept us another 24 hours, which I hated. Sometime during the night I started having a bit of a melt down because I had only slept 2 hours since I got up Monday morning and every time I started nodding off either someone came in or the little guy wanted to nurse.

But we made it through and came home around 1 yesterday after picking up the boys. I missed them so much and I am so glad to have all our babies in our house again.

I am so sore, but it's so worth it and I love this baby so much it hurts.

And now I must go because the little prince calls. Pray for milk - it hasn't come in yet and he's hungry, so he doesn't sleep very long on an empty tummy. Other than that he is wonderful though.

Love,
Meg