What to do with a Box!

Who knew a box could be so much fun?!  To be honest, I'm not even entirely sure where it came from.  It merely appeared on the living room floor this morning and after a minor scuffle, Delaney emerged the victor and proprietor of it.

She put it on the couch and proceeded to make herself a nest. 

Yep, snuggled all cozy in her box with her little pillow, her blanket and her striped cat that she insists is a tiger.

What a cutie.  She was all content with her stuff and her thumb.

Okay mom, stop bothering me now!

Family Day

Whatever Marine Coprs unit thing that Dan is officially attached to held a Family Day today.  I was a little concerned, since the park was an hour drive away and today's forecast involved rain and thunderstorms.  We decided to head out anyway.    

It was hot.  I was really hot.  Fortunately, I dressed for it in my shirt that does not show sweat marks, because let me tell you, I was sweating! Still, we had fun.  The kids played at the park and we ate hamburgers, hotdogs, chips and soda- much to the children's delight.  Then we wandered down to the balloon lady.  

She made some great balloon things, but she wasn't very fast about it.  I love Delaney's face in this picture.  She's watching her balloon dog being made.

And there she is with her purple dog!

Callie got a pink cat with a very long tail. She was thrilled. The lady even drew faces on them. (The balloons, not the kids.)

Here is Joshua with his gigantic sword.  Marian also got a big sword, and she was probably off fighting someone.  That, or she'd discovered the bounce houses were being set up.  They had a couple bounce houses- a regular one, one for little kids, and a fantastic obstacle course one that ended with a big slide.  That was their favorite.

Daddy and Delaney watched the fun.  Delaney wasn't sure she liked all the commotion.

Here's Marian, coming down the big slide.  They liked this part the best.

Hopping through part of the obstacle course, here comes Joshua!  He really had a good time with this.  All of them would finish and race back around to do it again.  I loved that they were getting all that energy out!

It took Callie a little longer, but once she decided to try it, she had a great time as well and went round and round and round with her big brother and sister.

Delaney finally got brave enough to get in the kiddie bounce house.  She then did not want to get out.  I put this picture in because its not blurry.  Delaney and this little boy were buddies and it was so cute.  One of them would jump and then bounce onto their tummy and the other would do it next.

Joshua got into trouble for trying to run back up the slide.  So, after 2 hours of having a very good time, this is how he ended- unhappy and complaining about the whole day.  Yep, that's why I love kids; nothing is ever good enough!

He got to go on the obstacle course one more time, and check out his attitude!  Isn't that awesome?!  Mr. Grumpy, refusing to have any fun at all.  It was too funny to pass up.

My 3 hot sweaty girls.  After all that racing around in the heat, we were ready to go.  You can't really tell, but they are red-cheeked and sweaty-headed.

So we got sno-cones before we went home.

Then we sat in traffic for eternity to get home.  We did stop for gas and I, being quite pregnant and having drunk 3 bottles of water, had to go to the bathroom.   I waited, and waited, and waited in line, and the gal right before me backed up the toilet and it flooded the bathroom.   So I had to go back in the car with my already unhappy bladder.  Yes, that's how the event ended for me!  Now it is pouring down rain and all 4 children are our cavorting in it.  What a great Saturday!

Last drops of fun!

Dan and the 2 older children come home in about 3 hours!  Yay!  I have spent this week trying to squeeze the last drops of fun with just the 2 little ones.  I realized I'm just too pregnant to really do much.  I know I was a lot more active with Delaney right up till I delivered, so I do not know why I am so physically unable to do anything.  I'm going to blame it on being 35.  If doctors are convinced that turning 35 makes you suddenly of "advanced maternal age"  they must be right. Ha!  Still, its the only excuse I've got, so I'm sticking to it.

I took Callie and Delaney to Mount Vernon yesterday.  Callie asked for a Mommy-Daughter Date and that's what she picked to do.  I got them out there by 9am to try to take advantage of the morning weather.  It didn't help.  I was still sweat-soaked by the time we got to the museum.  Ug.  I hate sweating, and its all I do these days.

Callie was delighted to see the sheep.  We heard that there were piglets, but I was so NOT going to take the bus to the other side of Mount Vernon so I could hoof it around the animal area and sweat even more.  I said she'd have to wait for Daddy to take her and I hustled her to the air conditioned museum area.

The girls love the hands-on museum for kids.  For some reason, Delaney was entranced by this table for tea.  She spent most of her time right here.  Callie helped her get a full setting of stuffed animals and Delaney proceeded to feed them all "tea".  It was very cute.  Delaney was so into it!  Callie flitted from one thing to the next like a butterfly.

Callie and I put his puzzle together and she was so proud of herself.  She also played with the puppets, the baby dolls, the doll house and got Delaney her own little puzzle to work on.

Daddy has set the tradition.  Whenever he takes the girls on a Daddy- Daughter Date to Mount Vernon, he always buys them ice cream at the food court.  $7 later, I had happy campers.  Disgusting prices, and at 11am it meant they weren't hungry for lunch when we got home.  But they had a good time and it got us out of the house.  I took a 2 hour nap with Delaney in the afternoon.

And now an awkward change of topic:

Here in our ward, we do Visiting Teaching Groups.  They put us all in groups of 4 and we're suppose to get together at least once a month in any way we want.  My fabulous friend and visiting teaching group companion Sherrie thought it would be fun to go swimming, since our group all has small children.  So this morning, I took the girls to the pool here for the first time.  They had a ball!  The pool has a zero depth entry and a huge kiddie area, so they were in heaven. Callie was such a hoot by the end- she'd put her head in the water and crawl up the ramp!  Delaney would start on her belly at the top, ad slide into the water.  It was so worth taking them!  Plus its always more fun to have friends to chat with, and I had fun too.

The pool had noodles you could use and I think between all the kids we brought, we ended up carting 10 of the darn things out of the water when we were done.  Callie thought it was great though.

Delaney liked to play on the ramp rail, but the lifeguards didn't like it.  It was hard to keep her off it.  Once she finished crying about it she did have a great time walking up and down the pool and waving her arms, telling me,  "I swimming!".

My cutie Callie!  We did take the kids to the 4 foot area.  Delaney definitely prefers to be able to stand up herself, but Callie liked it.  She even got brave enough to actually jump into the water.... as long as I was holding one hand.

An hour after we got home, and well before her usual nap-time, here was Delaney.  She had so much fun at the pool and completely wore herself out!  Yay!

Being Positive!

I feel like I maybe haven't been very positive lately.  Its lonely without Dan, and with no real routine, its hard to be motivated.  So I'm going to sit here and write 3 positive things from this week.  3 things that made me smile, that made me happy, that made my life better.

1.  I love that when I go walking in the morning, I have Callie with me.  She is such a delight and so cute and funny!  She loves dogs, and when we walk through the park, we usually see people out walking their dogs.  Callie will keep an eye out and as soon as she spots a dog, she gets excited.  The dog may be 100 yards away, but she's already calling"Good morning dog!  I love your curly tail!"  She calls out to them till we get close and pass each other.  She tells them what beautiful hair they have and how pretty they are.  It is so cute.  She is so enthusiastic and delightful.  Sometimes she'll say hello to everyone we pass; sometimes it's just the dogs. Always it is with that bright smile and vivacious personality! How can you not smile when you hear her joy?!

2. Friends make me happy.  We had a lesson in RS today about friendship.  I think it was suppose to be more on Joseph Smith and the loyal and committed friends he had, but we mostly discussed what friendship means to us. (No, I think you can tell I did not read the lesson.  And I forgot to bring my manual, which I do usually have!)  I think there are a lot of different levels of friendship.  I love that at some level, I am friends with a lot of my ward. Sure, most of them are more at the acquaintance level, but I think that has more to do with lack of time, than lack of interest.  I got to go to lunch with my friend Belinda this week.  She expressed an interest and out we went.  It was so nice to spend time with another adult, even with wiggly kids in tow.  It was also great because we both watched each other's kids this week.  She watched Callie and Delaney for me, and I was able to step in Saturday when she needed someone unexpectedly.  I love that I was in a position to help her out and she was able to help me out.  I love that being in the church allows me to have friends I otherwise would not have.  It makes me happy to know there are people I can call.  And, as I was leaving church today, one of the Young Men stopped me and asked if I needed anything.  He asked if the YM could help me out with anything, even if it was just dropping by to say hi.  That really made me feel special.

3.  A mowed lawn makes me happy.  When I got home 2 weeks ago, our lawn was a bit overgrown.  I called the local lawn mowing boy, but he was out of town.  I figured it wasn't too bad, it could wait.  Then the neighbors on both sides mowed their lawns and ours looked pretty bad in comparison.  And it only got worse.  The gum tree the neighbor cut down apparently thinks it needs to replace itself, so there were about 10 new trees delightedly sprouting, uninhibited.  It was all very unsightly.  Grass was starting to take over the walkway and the drive and I was starting to feel a bit embarrassed.  I kept thinking I would get around to it, but the idea of pushing that noisy mower in this wretched heat myself was enough to nearly send me into early labor. So I didn't.  And it got late enough I thought the lawn might wait till Dan got home.  Fortunately, the local boy returned home, called, and came over and took care of it.  I love him.  He mows, he bags the grass, and he edges!  All for a fairly low price.  I did give him an extra $10 because the lawn was so bad, I could hear his mower struggling in places and he had to empty the grass catcher every 10 minutes.  My lawn looks so much nicer!  I love it!  It is no longer a jungle and I'm not blushing every time I leave the house.  I am so happy that he came and mowed and I didn't have to.  Its also kind of nice that now Dan doesn't have to worry about it when he gets home.

Follow Up

I let the girls go out in the back yard this evening. Delaney discovered where I hid her swim sui, so I finally patched the hole in the kiddie pool and let them have a splashing good time.  Unfortunately, the mosquitoes had an even better time!  I saw the little buggers all over Delaney, so I pulled out my fabulous Purification essential oil and covered her with it.  When the girls finally finished playing in the pool and came in, Callie's back was more bites than not.  The poor thing was seriously covered with hundreds of bites.  Delaney, not very much.   Lesson to self- make sure to cover both girls in oil before letting them out in that 'squito-infested yard.

And I really sat down to follow up on yesterday.  I want you to know, that as soon as I posted yesterday, saying that my uterus had been quiet for a while, it started back up again.  I contracted nicely and steadily (as in every 3-5 minutes for a few hours) and finally after much stress and concern said, "Okay!  I'll go in!"  So I called a lovely sister in our ward with babysitting age daughters and one was free and she came over about 6pm.  I dutifully  headed over to the hospital, knowing that it was most likely nothing (but having to go find out anyway).

I was pleasantly surprised by my experience.   When I had a similar issue while pregnant with Callie, they didn't want me to go until I wasn't having any more contractions, and they gave me hiddeous medicine, and were a bit overanxious about it all.  Let me say now, that Callie is the only one I went in with for consistent pre-term contractions and she is the ONLY one of my 4 children who was actually born on her due date.  The rest have all come just about 10 days before the doc's prescribed due date.  So, you see why I'm sure its nothing!

So, I went in.  They hooked me up to the monitors and monitored for 30 minutes.  I had a lovely Russian doctor, and felt sad that Dan wasn't there to converse in Russian with him. Actually, that's not the only reason I was sad that Dan wasn't around!  Next we were off to the groping room where I got cultured, and my cervix was checked.  (It was not dilating.)  They also did an ultrasound to check the amniotic fluid levels.  They even took a blurry face shot for me to keep.  I have a very active baby who looks quite healthy.  I have normal amniotic fluid levels.  I have a non-changing cervix, and everything looks good.  They sent me home shortly after 9pm and called at 10:30 to tell me my cultures came back normal.    I love that they sent me home!  I love that they didn't worry about the contractions when they saw that everything looked normal and fine. It made me very happy.  My pocketbook too.  Its hard to ask a nice girl to come over and babysit for an unknown amount of time. One feels the need to compensate appropriately so she'll come again.

There were some issues though.  Apparently I have a very common name.  And apparently there is a lady with my same name who is cross connected with me in the computer, so they cannot access ME in the computer.  Not a great thing.  They spent half of my visit trying to work that out.  I don't think they ever got the glitch taken care of.   Also, 2 months ago I had a great doctor, who I loved.  She moved this summer.  I have not met my replacement doctor, so I am currently kind of doctor-less.  Since this is kid #5, I'm not sure I care very much, but it might be nice to have a familiar face around, and someone who I know has at least heard about my secret hopes for how the delivery will go.   One last thing- while it was inconvenient, it was great to learn that cell phones will not work at all in the hospital.  So, nice to learn before it really mattered. 

Having said that, it was ultimately a pretty positive experience. I felt a lot better when I went home.  And why would I not?!  I got to spend some time alone, reading "Eldest".  I found out my rowdy uterus is all talk.  I got to meet some of the labor and delivery staff and discovered that they were all very nice and pleasant people.  And I found out I have a lot of friends concerned about me and willing to help me out.  Plus, I came home to 2 little girls who had been bathed and put to bed by someone other than myself.  Not too bad an evening, all things considered!

For those of you who have read this far and might be wondering, "what does it all mean?",  It means I'm fine.  It means any more contractions I feel are probably just noise.  It means I won't go in to the hospital again unless my water breaks or the contractions actually get bad enough I have to use breathing techniques.  It means I have an excuse to do less and sit more.  The problem with that is that I exercise so that I can eat.  If I'm not exercising, how can I justify all that ice cream?!