Morning sickness

I've been a very lucky pregnant lady in the past. With both Kyler and Melissa I was a bit nauseous on occasion but it was never too bad, but this little one is not as nice to Mommy. I have a four hour window in the afternoon when I actually feel like I can and want to eat. The morning and evening are not so good most of the time. I haven't been too sick, just very very nauseous all the time. Ugh. I know I'm still not as bad off as several of my pregnant friends and family members and I am thankful for that!

We told the kids last night about the baby. We were planning to wait longer until I was starting to show and stuff but we decided to go ahead and tell them for two reasons - (1) I know they've been concerned about Mommy feeling sick so much and (2) people keep asking them about having a new brother or sister and I have to clarify that we haven't talked to them about it but it confuses the kids. Anyway, we told them and they were very excited that God put a baby in Mommy's tummy. When Kyler told me goodnight he leaned over and hugged my tummy and Melissa wanted to give the baby a kiss. They are so sweet. I know it's going to be a long 8 months of them asking when the baby will be born but I'm excited to see their anticipation and share all the sweet (non-sick) pregnancy moments with them!

Baby!

If you're on Facebook you may have already seen my post that I am currently (finally) expecting baby #3! Maybe I will actually blog a little more often now since I like to be able to go back and read about all of the excitement leading up to the addition of a new little one to our family.

Right now I'm feeling pretty good...a bit nauseous now and then but not too sick. I'm exhausted, though! I've never had to do the first trimester tiredness during such a busy time of year and I am just crashing. Last night I fell asleep on the couch while were were watching Friends and when I got up an hour or two later I just went and fell in bed and went right back to sleep. Thankfully, now that Christmas is over and Brian still has a week off of work, I can rest a bit!

Our sweet baby will be joining us in August or September and I just can't wait to meet him or her!

Ready for Christmas! We've been counting down the days, not only on our Advent calendar that we use every year, but also on Christmas trees that we made and decorated in my class at school. I had extras so I brought them home for the kids to make one. Every morning they are so excited to put another number sticker on the tree and every night they can't wait to put another character from the Christmas story on our advent calendar!

We've had an exciting week with both kids being sick (or very very boring, since I've been stuck at home most of the past 9 days, taking temperatures and dispensing medicine). However, Melissa did finally sleep through the entire night again, for the first time in 5 days so I'm thinking that means she's on the road to recovery! Now we'll see if she starts eating again... yesterday she ate a few Lucky Charms, half a toaster waffle and a package of fruit snacks. Healthy, eh?

I'm excited about the next couple of weeks of Christmas celebration - my calendar looks like a pen exploded all over it! Even though we'll be busy we'll be with family and friends and having so much fun!

Waylon James

Last night was one of the longest of my life. Even longer than when I had my own kids. :) I went over to my sister's house about 9 pm and came home around 5:30 am. During the time that I was there Kate proved to be an amazing, strong woman - Waylon was born at 3:30 am and they are both doing great today.

I'm still thankful my children were born at normal hours of the day.

Growing up!

How have we gone from this


to this

in such a short time? I can't believe my baby boy is in kindergarten! He had a great day and says he LOOOOOOVES kindergarten! He thought it was hilarious that his teacher read them a book called "Mrs. Bindergarten gets ready for Kindergarten." He laughed every time he told me. :)

I'm glad my little man is growing up but it makes me so sad sometimes, too! He's such a sweet, smart boy and I'm blessed to be his mommy!

Reading the Bible

I admit that reading and spending time in the Bible is not something I am good about doing regularly. It's hard because I tend to get bored reading through something I'm very familiar with (or that I can't get into - particularly the books written in poetry. I'm NOT a poetry peson) and my mind drifts and then I realize I've been "reading" and haven't taken in a single thing. I recently started a new Bible reading "system" that someone shared on Facebook - The Prof. Horner Bible-Reading System (this is how it's listed on Facebook if you want to look it up). The way this works is that he has separated the Bible into 10 lists:

-The Pentateuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy)
-OT History (Joshua through Esther)
-Psalms
-Proverbs
-Wisdom books (Job, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs)
-Major and minor prophets (Isaiah through Malachi)
-The Gospels
-Acts
-Major Epistles (Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, -Colossians, Hebrews)
-Other NT (1-2 Thessalonians, 1-2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, James, 1-2 Peter, 1-2-3 -John, Jude, Revelation)

You read one chapter from each list each day, so you're reading 10 chapters per day. Each list is a different length so you finish them up at different times - when you get to the end of the list you start back at the beginning. Acts and Proverbs you read through every month. I won't say that I'm now perfect about reading every day but it is much easier for me to get into and focus since I'm switching up books and authors every few minutes. And I also like, as someone else posted, that "the 10 different readings bring out a lot of overall Bible themes as I jump through different time periods of God’s unfolding redemptive plan." And I love that as I finish a list I start over and I'm reading it along with DIFFERENT passages. It puts things into another perspective when you read them in relation to different things. Does that make sense?

Just a note: I was reading in Joshua last night right before the battle of Jericho when the angel comes and Joshua asks him, "Are you for us or against us?" I totally couldn't read it without picturing Larry the Cucumber and Archibald Asparagus.

Random

We went to visit Auntie Chara and Unclie Brad. Chara said she's going to tell her kids that my kids are their cousins so Brad decided he would have to be Unclie Brad. Ha! Brian and I have decided that Brad was a good addition to our "family." Good job, Chara! :)

I've been working this weekend on lots of stuff for the pre-k classroom and I'm pretty excited. And I got to go to the teacher store which is always fun. Except that I always want to buy WAY more than I should! :) Been working on lesson plans, too, and I'm almost done!

Kyler started the kindergarten class at church this morning. He wasn't sure about it because he's very much like me and would rather things just stayed the same but I reassured him that all of his friends would still be in class with him and he'd have lots of fun. After church I asked him who his new teacher is and he said, "I don't know...but the class was GREAT!" He's so funny. Oh...but he wasn't a fan of coming into the service with Mommy and Daddy for the music part. Hopefully as he gets to know some of the songs he'll decide that's more fun!

Brian starts back to work tomorrow and then next Monday Kyler starts school. Crazy! I can't believe summer's already over! This Wednesday I start watching Laura and Creed 2 days a week. This should be a great distraction for my sweet girl who will be missing her big brother while he's gone all day! Hopefully it will help her learn to share Mommy, too. She's not so good at that one. :)

Speaking of that sweet little girl, she's awake so I'd better go and hang out with the family before real life starts again tomorrow!

I hate it when I get so wound up...

Last night I laid in bed and mind was just going, going, going. I usually tend to fall asleep very easily but I found out last week that I am very likely going to be taking over the 4 year old room at Mother's Day Out next year and my director wants it to be run like a real pre-k room, rather than glorified baby-sitting. You have no idea how excited I am by this. I mean, I've had a teaching degree for 6 years and this is my first chance to really USE it. And I'm telling you, I'm going to use it. If it is within my power, we are going to have an organized, structured classroom with rules, consequences and lessons. And fun, too. :) But they've had that all along. Anyway, so last night I was working on what lessons I want to do for the first semester (basic colors, shapes, A-M and 1-10. Exciting, no? :) ) and when I went to bed I just had a running list of all the things I want to change in, add to, and make for the classroom. Now I'm just praying that I'll get a teaching partner who will be on board with all my plans!

I am also excited about something else that also had plans running through my head, but that's a post for another day. Like, in a few weeks.

Super Wasp

When I got out of the shower this morning there was a wasp flying around my bathroom. I went and got the fly swatter and hit it and it fell in the sink. I washed it down the drain and let the hot water run for a few minutes. Then I went about getting ready for the day. I heard a weird noise from the direction of the sink and then Melissa said, "Another wasp, Mama!" I turned around and that wasp had come up out of the drain and was trying to fly again! I made sure it was good and dead this time before flushing it down the toilet. I don't like wasps. Or bees, hornets, yellow jackets. Anything with a stinger. Beyond the fact that I don't want to be stung, my dad is allergic to stinging insects and so I know that there's the chance that one or both of my children could be allergic.

Alrighty, right now we're going to go out and ride bikes. The kids have been begging everyday so I'm going to get it out of the way right now while it's 83 degrees instead of them begging again later when it's over 100!

Back to blogging?

I know I haven't posted in forever. Tonight I was looking for my birth story about Melissa so I made a trek back over to Xanga. I loved Xanga for a long time - I started my blog there very shortly before I got pregnant with Kyler and continued until April 2009. I really need to take the time to transfer most of those posts into a word document or something because there are great stories about my kids that I want to have to look back at. That's what I've been doing tonight and I just love reading about how much my kids have changed! I typically just post short status updates these days on Facebook but that's not the same as blogging! It's not something I can keep and read later on! So I'm going to try to get back into this blogging stuff. I may post some of my money saving tips and ideas on here. We'll see.

Tonight we went out to dinner and on the way home the kids were talking about church and Kyler said, "I can't WAIT for church!" I love that they love to go to church! Now if I could just convince him that it will be fun to come sit with Mommy and Daddy during the music part of the service next week when he moves up to Kidz Place - he's not so excited about that. (And I can't believe he's old enough!)

Okay, I'm up WAY past my bedtime with all this blog-reminiscing. My 2 hour nap this afternoon has made it possible for me to even keep my eyes open this long. :) Good night!

Insane week

This week has been crazy. It started out slow and boring on Monday and I thought this week was going to last an eternity. Tuesday morning started out with a lovely free breakfast at Denny's with friends and that's where I got the first crazy news of my week - Brian was in a car accident and his car is totalled (well, we don't know that for sure yet but we're almost positive that's the news we'll get).

Tuesday is also the day that I had decided that it was time for Melissa to give up the pacifier addiction. She had begun to use it as a way to disobey (climbing onto her dresser to get her paci between sleep times when she knew she wasn't allowed to have it then) and I had just had enough. Bedtime the first night was rough, with an hour of screaming and crying but last night was much better - only 15 minutes and one crying fit and she went to sleep. However, naptime is another story. I knew that naptime would be the hardest part but I hate it. I want her to sleep! She's always been such a great napper and she still needs her naps but I'm not sure they're going to happen very often now...I have at least convinced her to lay in bed for awhile today. Picture of Meli sleeping without her paci last night.

Tuesday we also went to visit Gran and Papa and while we were there Melissa locked herself in their bathroom. That was exciting...I couldn't find anything in their apartment that fit in the lock the right way to unlock it. Eventually went downstairs to Papa's sister's apt and she had a screwdriver that fit perfectly, thank goodness!

Yesterday was spent trying to figure some stuff out with the insurance companies. Since there were 4 cars involved in Brian's accident they all have to talk to file a claim before everything can be settled and we can get our money and start looking for a new car.

This morning we woke up to find a winter wonderland in our front yard! Brian was leaving for work and discovered that my car wouldn't start! Geez... He got a ride to work and a friend came over to check my battery. So glad we have good friends! I now have a new battery so we are not without a car. :)

The kids and I had fun playing in the snow.

Melissa really enjoyed eating it...

And Kyler LOVED throwing snowballs!

Cute snow-covered kiddos!

Now I guess I'll have to go let Melissa get up without having a nap. Ugh. She's whiny enough when she's well rested. I'm not sure how I'm going to survive this no-nap thing with both kids. Oh well. We're going to make snow ice cream. :) And I'm praying for a snow day tomorrow (or at least a delayed start!)

Do you have books you'll never read again gathering dust in your home?

If you have books taking up space that you don't intend to read again here's a great idea to get rid of those AND get new-to-you books! Join www.paperbackswap.com - when you join and list 10 books to swap you will automatically get 2 free credits to order books from other users (and if you use my e-mail address TashaDBooth@gmail.com as your referrer, I will get a credit if you list 10 books!). Each book that you send out gives you one credit and each book you order costs one credit, no matter what book it is, hardback, paperback, etc. You do have to pay shipping to send the books, but it's less than $3 media mail (much less than purchasing a book you want in the store!) and then you can order a book that will be shipped at no cost to you. They currently have almost 4.5 million books posted on the site so it's very likely that you'll find many that interest you! I read tons of books so I think this is a great idea and while I love to check books out at the library, it doesn't always have certain books I want. I shouldn't have trouble finding most of them with the 4.5 million books at my fingertips on www.paperbackswap.com!