Thinking happy baby thoughts

Why, yes, Uncle Wiggily, I am very happy . . .we are going to have some little birds . . . soon some little birds will come out, and I will sing a still happier song." - Uncle Wiggily's Story Book by Howard R. Garis

Note: As I read from this book at bedtime Agent E lays in his bed with a happy little smile. He has declared that this should be the only book we ever read from at bedtime.

A Christmas tradition

Making peppernuts is a German Mennonite tradition in our family. No year is complete without baking up a good supply with my mom. There is some serious sprinkling going on there!

Preparing for baby

We're sitting at week 37 and hoping for a post Christmas baby. Our doctor and doula are both either out of town or hosting a huge Christmas crowd and unavailable. If history has anything to say about it we'll probably be waiting for another couple of weeks. Babies seem to have their own way about things though. I keep telling myself that we'll have this baby when it's God's time and whenever that is it will be just right. Now for that to sink in. . .

The note of what to do and who to call "when the time comes" is taped up on the wall by the door.

Hospital bags are packed.

The big brother's sleep-over bags are packed.

The middle-of-the-night babysitter has been prepped.

Baby clothes and blankets are washed up.

Papa fixed the bassinet and it's moved into place.

The boys have been busy planning/making presents for the baby.

My head has been spinning on the logistics of where to have everyone sleep once the baby moves out of our room, how to arrange nap time locations, what van to get since 4 kids don't fit in the back of a small Saturn, and all the other millions of details that go along with a major family change. Again I see the need to just trust God that all these little details will work themselves out. That old song "Trust and obey, for there's no other way" is running through my mind.











New diapers for this little one! So exciting!! They are made of bamboo (a renewable/anti-bacterial material). I also ordered some new prefolds and some snappies to use instead of pins. We practiced putting a prefold with the snappie on a doll today. The General picked up the doll and said "HUG!". He is so tender towards babies! It will be such fun to see him be a big brother, he's always patting my tummy and saying "baby".












Agent E drew out a stuffed animal. I stitched over his drawing and then we sewed and stuffed it into a special "softie" puppy for baby. Agent H is hoping to have a special pillow sewn up in time.

Christmas ornament crystals

As soon as I saw this on Crafty Crow I knew we'd be doing it. Our first batch was finished after about 5 hours during the afternoon so we put in a second batch to let sit through the night. We got icy blue color results (although in the pictures they look white) with about 20 drops of blue food coloring. Rather than using individual jars, we tied them to a ruler and dipped them in a full pot. We tried to do a second batch in the same concoction and they didn't seem to grow as much but they still got some nice results.

The General

Big, breaking blog news: LE will now be referred to as The General. Referring to him as LE all this time has General Lee stuck in my head and as the youngest children in a family tend to have a way of making their wishes known very clearly over the hustle and bustle of the household, so does this fella. So I give you . . .
The General, at leisure.

Thanksgiving 2010

We took the week of Thanksgiving off to do some crafting. The results of our crafting are these great little file folder books. I found the idea at Musings of Me. I asked each of the boys to pick their favorite page for the group shot and then just posted a few other pages. We spread it out over the whole week because that much cutting, pasting, or group crafting would have put some of us over the edge. As we crafted we listened to these Plymouth Rock and Thanksgiving, A Time to Remember just like in years past.