What's New?

(Besides a job, I mean . . .)

1. Grace has some sort of wierd tummy thing going on. She woke up last Monday night starting at 4:00 and vomited 4 times. It was like her food from dinner had never digested one bit! Since then, she has woken up almost every night, usually somewhere between 4:00 and 6:30, and heaved up a bit of stomach acid. This is very disturbing, not only for me, LOL, but also Anna, who sleeps with her. So both girls have been very crabby this week. Grace had been just fine during the day, but today she moped around and hardly ate anything. She is one of my "5th percentile" kids, so we certainly don't want her losing any weight! My mom suggested possibly reflux of something. If she keeps on with this pattern, I'll try to get an appointment maybe on Thursday.

2. I can't take her in tomorrow because I have my second OB appointment. I took a 1-hour glucose tolerance test last Thursday, so I am assuming I'll get the results of that. We'll see if all my exercise is paying off so far. I also need to call to schedule my 20 week ultrasound. Wow! Time is flying! I'm only 14 weeks, but I definitely (as always) look bigger than that. That's why I no longer take belly shots until I'm maybe 30 weeks along, LOL. Then I finally look the right size for how far along I am! I'm feeling lots of little flutters and kicks now.

3. I had a big day on Saturday--I drove down to Richmond for my niece Christi's baby shower! Bob's sister Ann did such a nice job with the food and all the other details. There was an excellent turnout too--around 40 people! Christi got a ton of lovely and practical gifts, including lots of diapers and wipes! It was fun, and I was so glad I was able to go.

4. Our church picnic was Sunday after our morning service. The weather was absolutely perfect! We ate tons of food and visited for a long time. We got there around 1:30, and we didn't leave until 6:00! Bob actually stayed later and played some soccer and football. I had whiney dirty kids in my car, LOL. I was glad we didn't take baths and showers Saturday night, as we usually do. They all needed something when we got home! Craig McC had taken Caleb, Jonathan, and some of his boys down to the Potomac for awhile, where they had an absolute ball catching tadpoles, clams, and a dead crayfish. They wanted to take the tadpoles home for pets and dissect the crayfish! I was so tired by this time--the last thing I wanted to deal with was how to get tadpoles and a dead crayfish home, mush less actually dealing with them AT home, LOL! I already had several leaf-laden twigs for my science lesson today that had fallen around the playground in my hands--and those were much less messy. Ha! We finally made it home, sans animal life, where I collapsed. But it was so wonderful to get all that visiting in!

5. Another successful week of our Rivendell junior high co-op is in the books! The moss I collected a week and a half ago did manage to survive in the tub on our counter, and after our class today, I planted it in our front area. We'll see if it takes. I love moss! The focus of the week was plants, and so we did alot with leaf characteristics. Brought me right back to botany class! I searched around our yard and the walking path through the woods behind our neighborhood to find all sorts of samples of various leaf possibilities--simple, compound, oppposite, alternate, pinnately compound, palmately compound. I am happy to say I found representatives of all, even a horsechestnut for the palmately compound! I knew that would be the hardest! Fall is the perfect time to look for leaves, since so many are already on the ground. I switched the order we are covering several of the chapters in the book, and I was so glad I did. I think in another week or two it would have been to hard to find good leaf specimens.

As part of the memory work time today with the younger kids, we made salt maps of Israel, to help them get a good idea of the topography of some of the places we've been learning about in our mapwork. The kids all really enjoyed it. We mainly focused on the Coastal Plain, Central Mountains, Jordan River Valley, and the Valley of Jezreel. I stayed up way to late last night making 5 batches of salt dough, LOL.

So now you know what I've been up to, and why I've been too busy to blog! I have really been tired in the evenings, especially since certain parties ("Grace") keep interrupting my sleep. I am definitely one who notices when I don't get several hours of unbroken sleep each night. I am starting several canker sores in my mouth, which is always my first sign that my body is running down. So with that, I am heading off to bed! Hopefully I'll blog again before this time next week!