Her last day as the baby!

I can hardly believe tomorrow our new little one will arrive.  (Though I'm still hoping he'll decide to come today.)

It seems like just yesterday Queen was our new baby.  Now she's 2 and today is her last day as the baby of the family.  She doesn't know what's about to hit her, does she?  Innocent bliss.

Prince survived the transition.  He can tell her all about it. 

They may not be the babies anymore, but they sure are cute!

I check into the hospital at 7 am tomorrow morning.  Please pray for a quick and uneventful delivery.  I've asked my doctor to break my water first and try for a no pitocin induction.  We'll see how that goes.

Anyone out there think this kid will weigh less than 9 lbs?  I'm hoping, but thinking it's highly unlikely as I've never delivered this late.  It will be fun to see.  Well, maybe not fun during delivery, but you know what I mean.

Queen turns 2 with a bang!

Queen started her second birthday with a bang.  Before we left for Bible study that morning she had already dug through Measle's purse, found lip gloss, and rubbed it into the carpet in the girls' room.   Next she moved to the girls' bathroom where she proceeded to completely flood it.  There was a drawer with towels open and every single towel was completely drenched, as well as the floor and cabinets.  I got to do a little extra laundry that morning.  Yes, Queen is officially 2.

Eating her birthday breakfast of homemade applesauce.  She had 3 helpings.

 

Granny gave her a fuzzy vest and a keyboard!



Dora, of course.



Nana gave Queen her first American Girl doll.  I wish I had stock in that company.  They're minting money.  My older girls have more than one plus Bitty Babies, too.  And the accessories, oh my goodness.  I'm just grateful the girls have grandparents that buy them!




Big sibs holding Queen up to see her cake.  She is so loved by her brothers and sisters!



Enjoying her cake!



My annual book purge

Actually, it's probably more like my biannual book purge, but it certainly seems like I do this every year.  I hadn't really planned on reorganizing our library 4 days before I have a baby (see, acceptance has finally set in), but since I had to take all the books out of our bedroom bookcases anyway it seemed like the time.  It was painful, but I forced myself to part with two laundry baskets full of books and textbooks.  We have a local bookstore that gives store credit in exchange for trading in good condition used books that they're interested in.  Unfortunately they only wanted about a quarter of my books so I still need to find a loving home for the rest of them.  In typical Celee-style, I earned $21 credit, but spent $35 on books.  They're pretty sneaky, really.  They make you wait while they evaluate your books.  I was stuck waiting for 30 minutes in a bookstore.  I actually put back several titles.  Anyway, I'm very excited to read 1776 and John Adams by David McCullough.  (My justification is that the kids and I are studying American history this year.  I am their teacher, after all.)  And the main thing is I got rid of around 60 books and only bought 2.  Not bad, huh?

Here's what our bedroom bookcases look like now. 

I can't believe there are actually a few spaces, where books were double-shelved before.  I'm sure this is too much information, but in the left bookcase my shelves arranged by categories are:  parenting, homeschool, devotionals and Christian living, theology and Christian biographies, and Bible studies.  In the right bookcase are my remaining textbooks, pregnancy books, health and nutrition, adoption books, and science interest and biographies. 

I'm not going to take on our living room bookshelves right now.  I'll save that for a rainy day :) .   I am, however, expecting that Pottery Barn cubby shelf that arrived damaged last week to come any minute.  As soon as it's here I'll fill it with homeschool paraphernalia that's coming out our ears.  How could we have gone from organized and everything in its place at the beginning of the school year to complete disorganization and disarray in 7 short weeks?  I know what my husband would say.  The cure is to stop buying books!!!  He'll be so happy when he comes home tonight and sees how many books I parted with!  As long as I didn't get rid of any of his!

Well, I better go now.  I can't wait to get started on 1776!

Ahhh. That's better.

They finished the paper!  I decided to go with an imitation grass texture.  It's really vinyl beige with hints of light green throughout.  It looks and smells wonderful.  We've got our sanctuary back!

And the best part is... no more mocking monkeys!

I've begun hanging pictures, but have a few more to go.

It feels so good to have my bookshelves cleaned out and dusted.  Now I have a blank slate upon which to reorganize all my books (my husband's books are divided between the church and our two living areas).  Tomorrow the purging begins.  I mean, does anyone really need 5 biochemistry textbooks?  Well, maybe if you're a biochemist, but I'm not!  You get the idea.

Hopefully I'll get everything finished before I go into labor!  Hey, maybe this will be enough to put me into labor!  Even better!



They say stress inhibits labor. Don't think I'll be going into labor today.

My bedroom, all covered up and being prepped and papered.



My closet, filled with books.




The living room with window treatments and an entertainment center in the way.




The entryway with Calvin's co-sleeper and two bookshelves doubling as road blocks.

 On a brighter note, I'm planning eggplant parmesan for dinner with lots of basil and oregano.  Maybe that will do the trick.  That and hopefully getting my house back in order tomorrow or the next day.

No change?! Birthdays, one... more... week, and bread from heaven.

I was just sure that after missing two nights sleep this week due to contractions that I would be well on my way to labor today.  In fact, I had convinced myself that today was the day.  I've always loved the number 4, so what better day for a birthday?  (I have a 4th and a 16th, great numbers, a 6th, an ok number, and an 11th and a 23rd, terrible numbers.  I mean who wants their birthday to fall on a prime number?  I was born on the 2nd, by the way.  Is it odd that I have a thing for numbers?  I forget that most people don't think about such things.  Remember, this OCD chick popped a tendon in her finger a couple of weeks ago cleaning a stain out of her carpet.  Hey, at least I no longer have an invisible string that trails along behind me requiring I always go out the way I came in.  Either that or I just do it automatically now.  I do, however, have to wear a splint on my finger for 2 more months!)  Anyway, I learned at my appointment that my cervix has not changed.  Not one bit.  I'm still 75% and 3.5.  At least Baby Calvin has turned and is no longer posterior.  I suppose that could have been stalling things. 

I admit that I'm weak.  I've given in.  I know I said I wasn't going to be induced this time around, but here I am at that oh so desperate stage once again.  I made an appointment for next Monday morning, just... in... case.  According to my estimates, he'll weigh 9.5 Lbs by then so I'm hoping to go into labor before Monday.  Somehow having the appointment helps keep hope alive.  This pregnancy will end.  And to let you know how desperate I am to have this baby, next Monday is the 11th!  I've got to go into labor before then.  If not today, maybe the 8th.  I've always liked the number 8, since it's a multiple of 4 and all.

In other news, my bedroom is getting wallpapered this week.  I've been vacuuming up 7.5 yrs worth of dust bunnies from behind bookcases, the entertainment center, dressers, and our bed.  It is quite embarassing the amount of dust we've been living with.  It's amazing we can breathe at all in there.  But, does anyone move furniture that heavy if they don't have to?  I have 10 large stacks of books, many textbooks, in my closet right now awaiting purging and reorganization before being reshelved.  Why do I have such trouble parting with books?  I keep thinking I may need to look something up in one of them.

And just to show you I haven't completely lost my sense of humor, though I'm definitely a bit more sardonic than usual, I'll end with a cute story.  As we were driving along in the car the other day we passed a field that was planted with cotton (not something you see everyday around here).  Measle (7) turned to me and exclaimed in a most excited tone, "Mom, is that manna?"  She was disappointed to learn it was just cotton.  I don't know if I should be happy that she remembered manna was white and covered the fields each morning or concerned that she missed the little fact that the Israelites were in the desert with no grocery stores.  Oh well, she was partially listening anyway.

Another night of contractions and other strange happenings.

For some reason I thought I would go into labor and be done with it.  I didn't realize contractions could last off and on all night- even 3 minutes apart for hours.  I've lost two nights sleep this week to contractions now.  When will real labor begin?  Meanwhile, I'm brain dead and good for nothing.  The kids have art and swimming today.  Hopefully I'll go into labor.  Queen's birthday is Wednesday.  It's going to be close.

Aside from being worn out from all these contractions and walking 3 times a day, this hasn't exactly been my week.  I ordered a shelf from Pottery Barn for our schoolroom and it arrived Thursday.   Big D wasn't home, but my nesting instincts forced me to grapple with the 93.5 lb box until I managed to get the shelf out.  Guess what?  It was damaged- it had a very obvious gouge out of the front of the shelf.  Only then did I see the big, gaping hole in the side of the box.  Back in the box it went.  A replacement is on the way and we have this huge box sitting in our entryway waiting on the UPS guy to come pick it up.

Then yesterday I was at Walmart trying to hurry through some grocery shopping.  I always get my produce last and was picking apples when I turned around to find my cart gone.  I looked left and right.  It had disappeared into thin air.  Now I'm starting to get irritated since I had already finished my shopping and really didn't want to start over again!  I walked up and down the aisles looking for my cart and finally had an associate make an announcement over the loud speaker.  I went back to the scene of the crime and a lady hurried up laughing about our "switching" carts.  She had added a bunch of items to my cart and had to transfer them back to hers.  Strange. 

I guess it's just been one of those weeks.