The Big Tummy

Well, here it is folks: The big tummy! I am six weeks until my due date and I feel like I felt full term with the other two.

Cravings:
sparkling white grape juice
purple grape juice
steak
fish

There seems to be a protein trend in that list. I AM taking vitamins. This is a first for me. Luckily I found PreNatal Gummy Vitamins at Target otherwise I think I'd be awov (away with out vitamins). I saw a doctor yesterday at Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital, and today God arranged for me to meet a lady at the mall playground who had worked in the maternity ward there! I'm feeling positive about staying there even though it's about ten times larger than either of the hospitals I've delivered at before.

Okay.
Six Weeks.
We can do this!

Rural Community by James

First is a lunch sack I made from a pattern I saw online somewhere (I think I started at Meet Me at Mikes and went from there - who knows?).

Then there's James working on his model of a rural community.

I helped him make buildings. Then he laid them out and traced them, painted the box. Here you can see him rolling out black clay to make roads. It was so great. When he was done the clay looked just like the patchy tarmac you see in small towns.





































You can see the road layout, and then - TaDA! buildings and bushes and trees and crops!













This is my favorite view: the Feed Store nestled next to the Wal-Mart


The next day Peter wanted to make a model of his own.
More on that next time.

What the..?

Every time I have moved, there has been a moment of Why? Not why am I moving (well that happens too but in this case - not). Let's just get to it.

Moving out of Cuero: Helper - Corrie (and by helper, I mean the person who made it happen) unearths my collection of styrofoam egg cartons hiding atop the refrigerator. I don't know why I kept them, they always seemed on the verge of being helpful. We didn't have internet at home back then or maybe they really could have been.

Moving out of Hillsboro: Among lots of Helpers - Holly asks "Why do you have four jars of peanut butter? And they've all been opened?" (The problem there was that I had a ridiculously skinny pantry that was really deep. I could barely touch the back with one arm stuck in and my head pressing against the jamb. They simply got lost in there.)

Moving in to Houston: (less embarassing this time, or maybe everyone was too nice to mention it) I find no less that three boxes of swiffer wet-jet pads. And yes they've all been opened. I don't know how I ended up with three! One of the boxes got smashed and hidden under the stroller in my trunk. The other two...just wanderers I guess.

Does anyone else have this problem? I don't know why this happens - but I think I'm getting a little better every time.

All things new

Well, all things are not new, but here are all the things that are. New. Is that clear?

Exhibit A

The adorable red and white children fabric (it's actually more of an unbleached white than a bright white) came from the new quilt and smock store I found (with the help of my Aunt Denny) just north of here about 15 minutes. I'm pumped about this store. They sell really sweet quilt fabrics that you just don't see at JoAnn's AND they sell garments for children that are all ready to smock. They even had some little boy onesies. Now they cost an arm and a leg but at least if I want to give up an arm and a leg I know where to go.

So as I was looking for fabric for covering our new dining room chairs (Ingolf IKEA) I was concentrating on not getting sucked in to my usual lots of bright color vortex. I kept repeating "serene, neutral, serene, neutral" to myself. Serene and neutral are not my usual style.

I am trying something new because, you guessed it, I want to add more serenity (at least visually) to my life right now. Also neutrals make all the other brightly colored things I have look more like a plan and less like a catastrophe.

My living room right now is plain vanilla - but it has lots of light. I've decided to keep the vanilla and add strawberries, raspberries and cherries (translate: a discriminate but unpicky use of the color red). I already collect red glass, and have some fake red flowers here and about so that drove the purchase of a red and white fabric. I justified this fabric with my boy-laden family because of the five different children on it, four are boys.

Exhibit B

Then the polka dots were just too sweet without actually having flowers. I totally forgot to buy enough for the back of the cushion but when I got home I had some red corduroy in my edited stash so now my cushions are reversible. You can see the red in one of the pictures.

Smart moment:

I traced the template from the chair seat right BEFORE Mark assembled the chair!
I scalloped the edges because, well, it's awesome, I love scallops and it absolutely HAD to be that way.

I am so happy to be back online, I can tell that my personal editing function has fallen asleep. I have no way of holding back. It seems I'm going to bore everyone with all the details for a while because I CAN!

Exhibit C:

Other new things we have been totally blessed to be able to afford (in a large part because my parents paid for our moving costs):

A new recliner for Mark (slightly smaller, a non-broken lever, and no crumbs from previous owners way down in the crack)

new dining room chairs from IKEA (Ingolf - they don't pinch you in the shoulder blade when you lean back, and they actually slide under the table)

and

a new camera! With money from the piano I grew up playing I got the Olympus Stylus TOUGH. I got really close to getting a DSLR but then I thought wait, I have sons. This camera can go under water and is dust and snow resistant (so we can take it to the beach), it also withstands falls of about 5 ft, and 200 lbs of pressure!

It may sound like I'm bragging but what I really mean to do is say I'm so incredibly blessed to have these things. They are just things, but it is so nice to have them. They don't make life all that much easier they are just an extra blessing. I thank the Lord for these gifts, I thank my husband who works hard at his job everyday by God's grace, and I thank my parents who are full of generosity and thoughtfulness.

God bless you all and Happy Sunday

Lissa

Send me a kiss by Wireless

I'm back! I'm back! I'm back!
It took about 5 minutes for Mark to get on the computer (btw my "C" key doesn't seem to want to work so look out for that), and then get customer service on the phone and get us our internet. It was supposed to be my job to do this all week, but calling computer help always intimidates me. Not as bad as talking to car mechanics though.
Talking to mechanics is the worst. I don't think it should be so hard for them to tell me the problem succinctly and then I can memorize what they said and repeat it back to my husband (a lot like the wife-bot in Serendipity). But no! First it's "do you know what a belt is?" and "you've got a timing problem..." All I have to say is just wait until they need someone to compose a two-part invention or a fugue - then the shoe will be on the other foot!
Speaking of wife-bots, Mark and I watched "Killers" last night. At one point Katherine Heigl plays the little-used and greatly under-appreciated I'm-just-a-dating-robot-trying-to-learn-your-ways ploy to cover a social embarassment.
I love this movie. Mark really enjoyed it too. And we each enjoyed it for completely different reasons. I loved how much the opening reminded me of "To catch a Thief" (Cary Grant and Grace Kelly), and then it morphs into a sort of James Bond + "Please don't eat the Daisies."
There was some language, and some innappropriate references to pornography (you didn't see any thing but they mention it), and of course as you may have guessed from the title, killing.
The killing was not gory though and I appreciate that. You see the car at the bottom of the cliff, you see the woman get shot, but no blood spurts or rearranged limbs.
What I MOST appreciate though was the marriage between these two people. Their love didn't evaporate when they were literally under fire. There was still humor, and logic, and reason. My absolute favorite moment (spoiler alert) is when the wife says:
Are we even married? I mean legally married, not like (extreme sarcasm) a 'marriage of the heart'.
I love this moment and now I'm going to over analyze it.
Hollywood tries and tries to say marriage doesn't really matter, commitment doesn't need a piece of paper etc. But over and over again, what they say is that this doesn't really ring true, and we all know that the true romantic comedy ends with a wedding or at least a diamond ring. It just doesn't ring true without it. Even in "He's Just Not That In To You" (which I enjoyed for how close it got to the truth albeit in a purely secular way) Anniston finally gives in and just wants her boyfriend Affleck back because he's better than all her sisters' husbands - then everyone breathes a sigh of relief because Anniston gets an engagement ring after all.
The message between the lines? Marriage really does matter.
And not just a "marriage of the heart."

IN other news, my favorite blogger has released her Christmas ornament kit. She does a new one every year and they are beautiful. I can't really afford it, but many can because they sell out every year. I think it's been out a week and I don't expect it to last long because it's really really cute. You can see it at her blog here.

Now I have to go figure out my new digital camera which will be one of the subjects of my next post, along with my new home-made seat cushions!
Ciao
Lissa