I'm still around just busy, busy, busy!

Yes.  I'm still here. It's been a busy month for me.  Wait, I'll just say that maybe it seems busy because I'm growing a baby and pretty tired much of the time.  And the times I'm not tired I'm spending organizing gift bags and blankets and shoes and closets (you know, those things that absolutely MUST be organized right that minute or else...).  Which makes me tired.  As a matter of fact, I'm pretty tired right now just thinking about being tired.

But I'm still here!

We've had a fun week so far.  Katie went to cubbies with Grandpa as usual (who I heard was getting off of work 30 minutes earlier so Katie could play at McDonalds a little longer before church), I took both kids to dinner with a friend who also brought her two kids who are about the same ages as Katie and Jake.  We tipped a bit more heavily after we realized the chaos we brought.  Our server was excellent (and patient with our multiple requests for more bread.  Who knew the kids *ahem* could eat so much of it!).  I also have a suspicion that maybe we were the reason that the table next to us stayed empty during our entire (noisy) visit even though the restuarant was totally full the entire night.  Now tonight we're going to Cole's birthday party.

Then it's the WEEKEND.  Maybe I'll find a closet to organize or something.  Or take a nap.

The kids are as super, wonderful, and a mix of sweet and sour so not much different there and my pregnancy is going really well.  The baby loves to kick and wiggle and, yes, kick.  A lot.  Usually for most of the day and part of the night.  He does calm down when I go to sleep - is this a good sign?

I had my OB visit (with the glucose screen - can I just say bleck?  That stuff tastes awful) yesterday and everything is going smoothly.  The CNP tried to listen for the heartbeat and usually she's right on with the machine in the right spot and the goop kept to one area but wouldn't you know it...

By the time she felt for the baby, turned to get the goop, put it on my stomach, got the machine ready and in place to listen (this didn't take as long to do as it did to type), the baby had moved.  I ended up with goop all over my whole stomach as a result of our extensive search to find him again (not that he could go far) and finally found him. 

In the same spot we started looking. 

I'll bet he was laughing at us. 

I wonder if he'll have Jake's "I'm so cute how could you possibly be upset with my behaviour?" grin...

Katie doesn't use the "I'm so cute" grin too much anymore.  Either we get the attitude like, "how can I be expected to know that?" as she looks down her cute nose at us OR she just looks back at us with an expression as puzzled as ours ... and very convincingly blames it on Jacob.  This doesn't always work although she is very convincing. 

It usually backfires when we know Jake couldn't be the culprit.  Like when I find the word "NO" written on our fridge, on the cupboards, on the wall... (this last time I was happy it was done with whiteboard marker).  It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to deduce who could be responsible for anything legibly written on surfaces.  I do know, on the other hand, that Jacob was probably responsible for the whiteboard marker scribbles found in his bedroom closet.

Katie is also very creative... with insults.  She was at the lake this weekend and I guess she wanted a THIRD popsicle and Grandma said no.  Katie told Grandma, "You're like a flower... in the ground with no water."  My kid.

Oh, and Jake is still dumping out glasses.  Glasses of juice, water, milk... whatever beverage someone happens to leave out.  Last time he even made me think I had a chance at getting to the glass before he could dump it out.  Waiting till I started my "NNNNnnnoooooooo!" run toward him (pregnancy+running isn't funny) before he grinned, reached over, pulled it off of the table, held it out from him (so he wouldn't get messy) and dump it out.  I almost made it but he's just. too. fast.  This hasn't happened in awhile, mostly because I'm on to him and I remember to push everything back a safe distance from the edge... but he's getting taller so that distance is changing!

The other day, I noticed that he's tall enough to comfortably see over the ledge of our front window.  I remember when Katie was just at around that height.  I love to see these "milestones" reached, but I'm a little sad too.  He's getting older...

And this week when he heard Grandpa coming home, he said, "Bappa just got home!" and I was doing something and not focusing on the COMPLETE SENTENCE he had just SPOKEN till I was like, "Did he just say what I think he said?"  Unbelievable.  He's spoken like this before but it's not often.  It's usually one or two words and usually shoe, or choo choo (for train) so I was blown away.


And something else exciting is coming up!

I put a "wanted" ad up at work for a twin bed for Jake (because we'll need the crib for the baby in... oh, 6 months or so.  Just call me a planner) and someone I work with has furniture they haven't really used from a house they've sold!  A brass twin headboard, a mattress, a box spring AND a dresser with a mirror that we'll use in Katie's room (but don't tell her, I'm keeping it a surprise!) and the bed that she was using will go into Jake's room for him since it's a little more "boy-ish".  I am very excited for Monday when we should be able to get the furniture.  Did I mention that this will be free?  And that there's a big possibility that they will deliver it to... our house?  Just a big pile of awesome to look forward to!

So good things.

Now I just hope my glucose screening went well because when I was pregnant with Jake I had to go back for the 3 hour test.  (It was a nice little vacation - reading magazines, relaxing, nothing to do but wait... to have blood drawn each hour.  Ick.)  I would rather not repeat that experience, and the worry that went along with it.

Katie's Kindergarten Registration? Already?

I got the letter from Katie's elementary school the other day telling me that we're scheduled for kindergarten registration next month.

This seems to be happening just a tiny bit too fast.

I checked off the list of things I needed and, happily, seem to have all of them ready to go.  All except one tiny thing.


The birth certificate.



The birth certificate that I never actually requested... 5 years ago.

Insert gasp here.

Now, I'll admit that it's not hard to return a form.  As a matter of fact, I thought I returned the form waaaaay back when Katie was a tiny baby. 

I realized about 3... years... later that I had not.  When I found the envelope (neatly stamped and addressed) in a planner I rarely (really rarely) use.

And when she was 3 or even 4, I didn't actually need her birth certificate so it wasn't a big deal.  I thought I could get around to it when I had a chance (probably at the same time I requested Jake's since I couldn't tell you if I sent the form in for him either).  And now?  Well NOW I need that birth certificate.  By early March.  So I can bring it to registration.

So I don't have to babble some incoherent explanation about how I didn't send it in when she was born even though I thought I had and when I found out I hadn't, I just didn't think I would need it so soon so I didn't send it in then either and now I sent the form but I have to wait for it to arrive because expediting the delivery and the process would have cost an arm and a leg... as I open a paper bag to breath into.  The kind of explanation I give, when inside my head I'm saying "Shut up already!"

So, I'm going home tonight to check the one place I've managed to successfully store the kids' social security cards and hope that maybe I'll find one certificate for Katie and one certificate for Jake in that same envelope and I'll be able to save the $45 per kid that it would cost to replace them.  You know, $26 for the birth certificate, certified of course, and $19 for the extra copy of the same certified birth certificate that I will keep as a backup. 

Because it's got to be some kind of Murphy's law that if you only order one of something important, you'll lose it...  or someone will cut it up with child scissors. 

BUT if you order two, you're golden.  No one will want anything to do with whatever you've got, as long as there is more than one.  Aaaaaaand as long as it's not candy.  Or anything colorful.  Or dangerous. 

Or any combination of the above.

The kids like to fix stuff with Grandpa

So, about 2 weeks ago we noticed our bathroom sink wasn't draining.  In fact, when we used one of the sinks it would start to fill up and then the other sink would fill up leaving us with two watery sinks.

John and Grandpa both looked at this but neither one could figure it out.  It seemed there was something blocking the pipe.  I thought it might be a cap from something, Katie thought it was a tiny shoe Jake "must have" put down the drain.  (I wasn't ready to lay the blame on Jake too quickly though.  I think that Katie thinks he's a good scapegoat because he doesn't really talk much and isn't able to defend his honor.  Soooo, I take Katie's finger pointing with a grain of salt.  A big one, the size of a salt lick.)

After mulling it over, Grandpa decided he needed to get to the pipe and hopefully the source of the problem.

Through a hole in Jake's bedroom wall.

Grandpa cut a hole in the wall (gasp!), daddy fixed the pipe (whew!), then it was time to patch things up (yay!).

 Katie helped on day 1... Jake held his toothbrushes.

Jacob got more into the process on day 2 (of course, he had just had a bath so he ended up with the mud in his hair and caked on his hands... but he had such fun using the tools and "helping"!) 

This is a "before" picture.  What you didn't get to see is the mud Grandpa put on the wall for him to work with.  I couldn't watch.  I have a big aversion to messes that I can't immediately clean up and this had the makings of a BIG mess.  But the kids had a ton of fun working with Grandpa.  (Jake was not a ton of fun once it came time to clean him up.  He did not want to let go of the tools of the trade.)

In other news, Katie went to cubbies (she's wearing pink pants with hearts to match her pink shirt with hearts... and her red dressy coat she got with her Christmas dress... two years ago.  Her cubbies vest completed the ensamble.  And her winter coat, that I didn't think would go over this, fit fine.

While she was at cubbies, we (me and Jake) went to Bakers Square with Grandma.  Jake ate fries and french toast.  Happy camper.  AND we each got a slice of free pie.  YUM.  Jake gave mommy his slice of pie.  He didn't tell me to eat it in so many words, but I know he would have wanted me to have it.  He's sweet like that.

That was last week.  I'm happy to report that the bathroom sink has stayed fixed and nothing else has broken, and I would like to say that we've been drama free ever since... but I can't. 

See, there was a tiny bottle of purple nailpolish... and a sweet almost-5-year-old girl... but that's another post.