Finally - a post!

So, I really do have a good reason for it being so long since my last post. I've been moving! It all happened so fast that my head is still spinning. Another couple from church, friends of our and the hubbies graduated high school together, had put their house on the market. He had lost his job and they wanted to free themselves up financially by getting rid of their mortgage. Now I have always loved this house. It's enormous and old with lots of land. I mentioned to DH that I wished we could buy their house but never said anything else about it. A few months earlier the wife and I had joked that we should trade houses. Well, one day out of the blue DH asked me if I would want to swap houses with this couple. I didn't think he was serious and commented that I thought he didn't want to live in that house. He said that he didn't really but knew that I did.

A week later we went over after church and negotiated the finances. We set the moving for December 1 (this was the last Sunday in October)and started packing! We then decided to move things up a week to take advantage of having family in town for Thanksgiving to help out. Since then my spinning head has slowly stopped and we are kind of getting settled in.

So what's so great about this house you ask? It's 5,600 sq. ft with 9 bedrooms, it sits on 11 acres and has free gas. After 8 years I finally don't feel like everyone is on top of each other and the snow days we've been having are tolerable. Plus I will have lots of room to labor when it's time for this baby to be born.

In other news every day gets me a little closer to my due date. Lately I've been having lots of migraines and hip pain. During my last pregnancy my hips started shifting out of position and it started a lot earlier this time around. No one position is comfortable for very long so good sleep has been hard to come by. but as soon as the kids actually have school I will be able to go to the chiropractor and hopefully get straightened out.

We have been getting slammed with all this weather the past two weeks and the kids have actually gone to school only four days, two of them with 2-hour delays. We've had a total of 18 inches, which is incredibly treacherous around here with all the hills, and this past Tuesday morning the temperature was -5 with the windchill. Brrrrr!

But if anyone wants to come for a visit we have lots of room!

It's so annoying when.....

you buy some supplies to start a project (in this case a bunch of wallet-sized pictures from Deseret Book to make a quiet book for sacrament meeting) then finally get around to buying the remaining supplies (name badges and book rings to put the pictures in), then you can't find the first set of supplies! (take a deep breath now)

Life Right Now

* Still losing my breakfast when I brush my teeth.

* Seriously considering investing in duct tape to keep the noise level down when everyone gets home from school.

* Losing sight of my toes

* Lost 5 pounds in the last month, why can't I do that when I'm NOT pregnant?

* Our only full bathroom started getting remodeled last week which means:
- We are using a temporary shower in the garage.
- The average temperature dropped to 45 degrees this weekend.
- The entire contents of the large bathroom is now squeezed into our half-bath.
- All our towels have a permanent residence in the laundry room.
- All the bed linens are split between the girls' closet and the toy closet.
- Six people and one toilet are not a good combination in the morning.

* Trying to come up with a list of, and rate, rewards for the new discipline system as outlined in The Kazdin Method.

* DH has started flying lessons.

* I hate Tweedledum's teacher this year.

* The Bug started preschool this week and I'm now kidless three afternoons a week, for the next 6 months.

Young Mother

This past week my kids spent the night at Grandma's house. During the night the Bug got sick. This is the conversation between Grandma and the Bug the following morning.

Bug: I throwed up last night.

G-ma: You did? Are you okay?

Bug: nodding I throwed up just like Mommy. I'm pregnant.

G-ma: totally shocked at what just came out of the Bug's mouth

You are? You're going to have a baby?

Bug: Yes, I'm having a baby.

G-ma: Well, is it a boy or a girl?

Bug: It's a girl.

More proof that our kids really are listening to us ALL the time. I didn't even know that she knew the word pregnant or had heard me saying it.

And in other "Megan is Crazy" news...

A whole lot of pizza has been getting ordered for dinner in our house lately. Laundry is piled up more than usual and the only time the house is truly clean is Thursday afternoons after my cleaning crew has been here.

I'm pregnant!

A couple of years ago I wrote this post and would have sworn to you that it was the truth. But seeing as how Tom still hasn't had a vasectomy and I'm terrible about taking the pill... Oh, is that TMI for you?

I'm excited. Tom isn't hating the idea anymore and we've been tossing around baby names. Only girl ones though since I'm pretty sure that's what we're having based on the level of my sickness. And I don't have enough heads of hair to get ready on Sunday morning.

I'm also excited for the back-to-school countdown, which is now 2 weeks. Yay! Maybe by then I won't be snapping at the kids for bouncing on my bed when I'm trying to quietly consume my Queasy Drops and lemon-y mineral water.

For Mommies Everywhere

Sorry I've been making such short posts lately. I've been having major writer's block lately and the heatwave we are in the middle of is sapping all my energy and brain cells. Here's a little pick-me-up.

Motherhood: An Eternal Partnership with God

Gleeful

Anyone else in love with this show? I admit that it's become a bit of a guilty pleasure for me (I watch the episodes online when DH is working late) and the songs I have downloaded are pretty much the only thing I listen to on my iPod. The musical ability of the cast just amazes me and singing along makes my work around the house move a little quicker.

How can I......

think that my life is hard? How can I still be in my pajamas at 9:30? I have been so humbled by watching the following video this morning. I hope you are able to feel the message of hope that it is meant to bring and that it may strengthen your testimony of Jesus Christ.

Slavedriver

This past weekend we trekked out to Harper's Ferry for the baptism of Tom's niece (is she really my niece too, even though she never talks to me?)

*Some background information for those who don't know the topography of West Virginia*

You can't just drive across it. The entire state is in the Appalachian *just for the record it's pronounced app-a-LATCH-in, not app-a-LAY-chan* mountain region and although there are many two-lane passes through the mountains, it's usually faster to take the interstate. We live right in the smack-dab middle of the state and to get to the Eastern Panhandle we have to go north, then east through Maryland, then south again back into WV. So because my kids think that driving 40 mins. to the nearest mall and Toys'R'Us 'takes a long time,' the four hours it should take to get to their aunt's house is an eternity. Thus, we have the celebratory cheering when the Potomac River is crossed and we're over state lines.

This past weekend when I announced the crossing Tweedledum asked why the river divides the states which led to a mini-lesson on the Civil War. Citizens of the area that now makes up West Virginia didn't feel that they were fairly represented in Richmond AND they were in favor of abolishing slavery. Quick thinking on my part gave a child-sized definition of slavery as "making someone do work for you without paying them." Can anyone guess the next comment by Tweedledee?

"But you don't pay us for stuff we do!"

A Hundred

by Tweedledee
(fill-in the blank poem from school)

I wish I had a hundred books.
I wish I had a hundred Crayola crayons.
I wish I had a hundred wheels.
But, I wouldn't want a hundred teachers.

What's in a name?

My brother is such an ogre. And I mean that in the nicest way possible. That's him in the picture with the Tank. When I was a freshman in college he legally changed his name to Ogre. Well, it's actually Ochressandro Rettinger but he goes by Ogre. I still have a hard time calling him Ogre and not the name he was given when he was born. The name I grew up calling him, Timothy Alan Gideon. Not a bad name in my opinion. In fact, if The Bug had been a boy I would have really liked to use Timothy.

Now, my brother never wants to have any kids and neither does his wife. They say they're afraid of what would happen since both of their sisters had naturally-occurring twins. Really, they're just not kid-people. I know that in the eternal scheme of things that everyone is a kid-person, but you have to be in the eternal-frame-of-mind. They definitely are not. She grew up Catholic and has nothing to do with religion now, he grew up in the Church like me but when he was in high school he went completely inactive. He is as far as you can get from organized religion. But he hasn't had his name removed for Church records so I still hold out some hope.

Each time I was pregnant DH and I were so picky about the names we considered. It could never be something trendy and we always ended up sticking with family names. Tweedledum was named after DH's uncle who was killed at the Pentagon on 9/11 and Tweedledee was given my middle name which is also the first name of several family members. The Tank was named after DH (DH is the Third and Tank is the Fourth) and The Bug....... I was walking the halls of the hospital in labor and we were still discussing names. It was down to three and I finally said that we would just have to wait and see what she looked like. Because of the baby-naming process I would be devastated if any of our kids ever changed them.

Before I was a mom I always thought what he'd done was pretty crummy (mostly because our dad found out from ME by accident) but now I would just feel rejected. Rejection of everything that I have striven for as a parent. All the ideals and values I'm trying to instill and all the love and thought that went into choosing THAT name for THAT child.

So, what do you think? How would you feel?

Test Kitchen Baker or How it's Going to be even Harder to Lose Weight.

One of my favorite podcasts to listen to is The Mormon Momcast and last year they interviewed Josi Kilpack who is an LDS author. One of her projects is a series of culinary mysteries which includes recipes for the dishes that are discussed in the book. Her latest that is about to be release is called Devil's Food Cake.

To make a long story short, I'm now one of the cooks in her test kitchen! I can't share any of the recipes I try until the book has been released, but as compensation I will get a copy of each book I contribute to and acknowledgements. Many of the recipes are desserts, which I tend to avoid having in my house anyway. Looks like I'll be logging a lot more time on the elliptical.

Sometimes your all just ain't enough.

I give up. I believe that I gave a valiant effort but I just. can't. do. it. anymore. Last week Tom and I were going over our family goals for the year when he says, "I think we need to re-evaluate homeschooling." I agreed that I had been thinking the same thing earlier that week when I ended up having a breakdown over my cluttered house while on the phone with a friend. We had been snowed in and stuck in the house for three weeks and my house never got clean. As soon as I got one room cleared and clean, another would be destroyed.

I know what you're all thinking, "Well, she just needs to teach her kids to clean up after themselves." To you I say a big fat,"Whatever." The point is that I had an epiphany amongst our wrecked, crowded, cabin-fevered mess. If I couldn't keep things together for a few weeks while the Tank was out from pre-K and we couldn't go outside, what the heck was I going to do next year when they were all home, all the time? Not to mention how miserable Tweedledee was with the lack of daily social interaction with her peers. Once a week at the library just wasn't enough. Tweedledum was a little disappointed when we told them but he's been fine since they started. They both love their teachers and are excited to be with their friends again.

I took them down to the school last Monday, filled out the mountain of papers and then walked them to their new classrooms. They desperately wanted to be in the same class but there weren't two spots in any one class. Tweedledum was first and interestingly enough, the class he is in is the one he was originally assigned to at the beginning of the year. Tweedledee was next and when I told her teacher that I had been homeschooling her her response was, "Yes, I know." Ummmm... do the teachers have nothing better to talk about in their spare time than the fact that I had decided to homeschool my kids? How did my family become a conversation piece in a school so large that it has five classes per grade?

While I feel that we made the right decision, I still worry about what to do when they get to middle school. I've heard nothing but the bad things that happen at the middle and high schools. How do we teach our kids to be in the world but not of it? I know that they need to learn how to stand up for their values and what they believe in, but how do we keep them from unnecessary exposure to the evils of this world? I suppose I just don't have faith in my own ability to raise my children to not make the same mistakes that I made in my youth.

the most cliche blog post

Well, I guess I'll jump on the bandwagon and post my goals for this year(which I don't think technically is a new decade since there are ten years in a decade and our current one wouldn't have started until 2001, thus making this year the tenth year? am i wrong? After all, the end of the first year, AD, would have been when Christ turned one, not the day he was born. For that matter, should we really be celebrating the new year at the end of December anyway? Okay, I'm rambling.)

1. Lose at least 30 pounds. I'm determined to start a Clean Eating approach to food even though it does not coincide at all with my favorite Christmas present, a hot chocolate machine.



2. Read my scriptures daily. I know! You're shocked that I don't already do it but it's true.

3. Write in my journal once a week. I know that every day is ideal, but seriously? I know it not gonna happen so why set myself up for failure? I even signed up for ldsjournal.com where they send you reminder emails and everything is filed safely away from natural disasters.

4. Learn to play the piano. Since we actually have a piano in our house now and my kids are taking lessons I have been inspired. I never had lessons as a child(despite my mom playing both piano and organ in church callings) and tried teaching myself in my early teens but quickly tired of the juvenile songs that were used in the learning book from when my older brother took lessons. I was able to memorize the right hand of one church hymn but quickly forgot it. I was always in choir in school and have a general knowledge of music. Time signature and all that. Plus, watching Little Einsteins with my kids for years has helped me remember all those Latin terms that are so essential in music. I've looked at reviews of a few adult piano course books and think I've found the right one. Anyone familiar with Albert's?

5. Blog more often. Because really, who out there doesn't want to read more of my thoughts on life?

6. Post more picture of my kids. Because I know that there are family members who do NOT read my blog to hear about my philosophizing of life.

7. Exercise at least 3 times a week. We have a fantastic new elliptical machine and I can count on one hand how many times I've used it.

8. Get organized! I really need to get my act together if the entire Primary program in our ward is not going to fall apart while it's in my care. I need to not feel bad about delegating things to my counselors and just let the Spirit guide me in my lessons. I also really need a secretary.



So, what are you aiming for this year?