Home Improvements 2014: New Basement under an Old House

I know I was not great at posting pictures of the processes, but we are done with the basement and back porch.  Finally.  And by done, I mean "we can resume life as normal" done, not our "20-year-project" done.

So here's the evolution of the basement.......

This is what we started off with.  The stone cellar that was original to our 1940 house.  Stone walls, gravel floor, about 6 feet deep.  (I had to duck my head under pipes and ducts when we went down there.)  (More about how bad it was down there in this post.)

Beams were slid under the house and sat on cribbing and jacks while the old foundation walls were knocked out from under it.  (More here.)

Footings were poured for the new foundation walls.

The new walls were formed and poured.

The walls had to cure for 3-4 weeks before they could support the weight of the house.

Since the house was above it, the new walls could not be poured to the full height (there would be no room to get the concrete in there).  The final 2 feet were completed with concrete blocks.

Then the drains for plumbing were laid, and the floor was poured.

A real floor!

We opted to have two egress windows installed.  (Only one is required.)  They are in opposite corners of the basement and supply a lot of natural light.  We decided to have two because we want the boys' bedroom to have one, but thought in case home-schooling laws get more strict at some point, it would be good to have one in our school area as well.  (We also have a small window in a 3rd corner, in the laundry room.)  

The new stairway was installed under our existing stairs to the 2nd floor (eliminating a closet in our bedroom).  

That mess of wires hanging down in the above photo is them tearing out the existing "spider web" of electrical wiring and streamlining it.

I [heart] straight lines. :)

Paul framed in walls for future rooms so that we could go ahead and put in the necessary electrical outlets and switches.

Putting walls in actually made the space seem larger.  I think it was because it defined the distance.

We stained the floors on our own.  I'll try to detail the process in a later post.

The floor after being waxed and buffed.

Ooh!  It's shiny! :)

Paul finished and painted the entire laundry room (while I wrangled babies).  He did a fantastic job, despite "not being very good at painting."  (I know the truth now!)

We splurged and added a second staircase off the back porch.  I didn't like the idea of having to tote my laundry to the south side of the house (where our main stairs come up) then back to the north side of the house to hang them.  Not to mention any messes, etc, getting tracked through the main house when we need to run to the basement to grab something.  The stairs also access the freezers.  

The stairs were made by Goddard Manufacturing in Logan, Kansas.  I can't recommend them highly enough.  They were so friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful.  We met the owner, Jerry, and the men that make the stairs when we went to pick it up.  They obviously take pride in their work and our satisfaction.

The stairs take up approximately a 5'4" circumference.  But this isn't totally lost space, as we can store things under the stairs.  And it feels very open.  I love them!

This is the opposite view of the laundry room.  There's a lot going on in this picture, but where the clothes are hanging will be the wall and doorway to the downstairs bathroom.  The sink is outside the bathroom to save space, and also so I can use it for laundry.  (We were going to get more of a utility-type sink, but I found the vanity, sink, faucet, mirror cabinet, towel ring, towel bar, toilet paper holder, and light fixture on Craigslist for $125.  I thought that was too good of a deal to pass up.)

To the right of the sink will be a "sump closet".  It has the sump pump and the sewage pump in there.  Paul put up shelves.  Right now they are kind of all-purpose shelves, but I'd like to add some over the freezers for my canning stuff, and save the sump closet for cleaning supplies.

Paul has hung sheet rock on the stairway.  It's not completely finished, but it keeps kids from falling off the stairs.  On my list of priority projects, this one is pretty low.  (Remember what I said about the 20-year-project?)  Our builder is supplying nicer treads and risers.

This is the view from the schoolroom area to the laundry room.  To give you perspective, the chairs are piled at the bottom of the stairs as a blockade to keep Gideon from climbing while I was working down there.

The brown coat is hanging in the doorway of the future bathroom.

(All the boxes are a fraction of what's left to unpack of all the curriculum and books I inherited from our parents, since we now have space to store it.)

Janice (my mother-in-law) and Elizabeth (my sis-in-law) came and primed and painted the green for the schoolroom all in one long night.  I missed getting pictures of that process.

This is the schoolroom area.  (Ugh - see all the dust floaters?  I have got to get the air purifier down there!)  We have to have two tables because Nathan feels that he has to "help" Jacob constantly.

These are my curriculum shelves.  Pretty much everything I need for now through high school, and very little of it purchased new for my kids.

(And I'm already wanting to move things around.  Once you start using a space, you figure out how it will work better, and I found that out after a week.)

 This is standing in the schoolroom area looking toward the boys' future room. 

The bed looks like the slave quarters, I realized, when the man came to hook up our thermostat and Nathan was asleep down there.  I put the bed down there so that I can split the boys up so they can actually nap.  We have kids all over the house at naptime.  Zadie and Gideon wake each other up, so she sleeps in our room, while Gideon is in the crib in her room.  One of the boys will sleep upstairs in their room, and the other in the basement.  And sometimes they will all be asleep at the same time! 

The boys' room will actually have two rooms.  Here I am standing in the outside room where they can study or play, and have it still be "their area" but can be a little more "public" if they have friends over or something.  I am looking toward the doorway (note the base boards on the floor) of where their beds-and-dressers room will be.  Under the stairs will be a closet.

For now, it's Paul's tools and materials room.

So that's the tour of the basement.  We would like to have the walls completed and the bathroom functional by next year.  We have kind of our immediate, 1-year, 5-year, and 20-year goals. :)

But for now, we are living in it, and loving it!  

One more week.......?

So, we're hoping that next week is the final week.

Hoping......

This is the house as of yesterday:

All filled in all the way around!

The back porch is framed and wrapped, just needs doors and windows.  The basement has all the ductwork in, and the plumbing is finished.  It just needs electricity!  (Currently it's lit by a string of lights on a cord, supplied by our builder.)  So once the back porch has the doors and windows (and not plywood screwed over the doorway), I will feel like it is a house again. 

Oh, and we need a gas line to the house.  That's kind of a big one when it comes to the furnace.....

We do have a bunch of finish work to do, but we are doing that ourselves.  No more relying on other people's schedules.  (Just our own pocketbook, which may cause more delays!)

The below is something weird that I wanted to do.  I can't remember where I saw this, it was on a blog somewhere, but I loved it.  They wrote verses all over their framework.  It got covered up with the finish work, but it was a visual of literally building your house on God's Word.  I asked Paul, and he was on board.

This is on the header as you go down the stairs.

I didn't realize how disgusting the cobwebs were until the flash captured them.....

It says:
Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.  And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.  And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today.  Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders.  Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

-Deuteronomy 6:4-9

It needed to be written bigger, but I didn't know how much space I'd need.  (It's a chunk of verse!)  But I love the message.  Passing our beliefs on to our children is something Paul and I are committed to.  This verse may eventually be covered up by finish work, but it will be a visual witness to others until then.  We'll probably write some other verses, and maybe even put some on the floor - the foundation of our house! - to be permanently visible.

Okay, so I got distracted from this post by researching flooring options for the back porch.  I'd better call it a night and get to bed!

Home Improvements 2014: A big STEP

It's been over 8 weeks.  Time has flown.  Progress went really well, boom-boom-boom, for the first 5 weeks, and then pretty much came to a standstill for two weeks, waiting for the plumber to lay the drains so they could pour the floor.  That was really, really frustrating.

But they poured the floor last week, and today was a big STEP toward getting finished..... STAIRS! 

The workers told Paul these aren't the final stairs, but they are what they will use to access the basement to finish the HVAC, plumbing, and electrical.  They have been accessing it through a ladder in the window well (identical to the one in the background).  Everything has been coming through that window....  Lumber, beams, pipes, cinder blocks....  

Next week they will start on the back porch.  So close!  And then comes the decisions I will lose sleep on.  Not even kidding.  Putting color on the floors and walls will be the things that will completely STRESS ME OUT.  But right now I'm saying - BRING IT ON!  I would gladly take losing sleep over color swatches and flooring samples, over having my home completely torn up.  I am so ready!

2014 Home Improvements: It Has Begun

Remember the big project?

It has begun.

As I got ready to type this post, I realized I hardly ever post pictures of the exterior of our house.

So here is our lovely home.  I do love it.  Quirks, foibles, and all.  (Except that stupid propane tank.  Bane of my existence.)

Our house was built in 1940.  Somewhere along the line, the front room (brown door on left end of house) was added (my guess is in the '80s).  It had previously been the front porch, and the front entrance to the house.  (The front room is on the side that faces the road.)

Adding on the front room had switched the house from a south-facing, to an east-facing house.  And now there's a propane tank directly, smack-dab in front of the house.  Isn't it beautiful?  Aesthetically pleasing?  NOT.

A later add-on ('90s?) was the huge deck on two sides of our house.  We love this deck.  Even though we can't afford luxury furniture for out there, we moved a couple homemade picnic tables up there and use it constantly.  It's like a giant playpen for the kids.

Also along the muddled timeline of the house was the addition of the back porch (beneath the dormer).
The framing of the back porch was epic.  Like, how was that thing even standing?  I will post pictures another time.

This was our cellar basement.  It was hard to get a good "before" picture  of it, because you there was a giant stone column and an HVAC unit right smack in the middle of it.  But you get the idea.  Dark, dank, a little bit creepy.  You had to go outside of our house to get into the cellar.  (The doorway is hidden in the above picture by the iris, but it's right under the small window.)  Which is not cool when thinking about severe weather so common in Kansas.

So that was our house 10 days ago.




As of Friday, this is what our house looks like:

No deck.  No back porch.

No flowerbeds.  No grass.

And no basement.

Most of the foundation has been knocked out.  In the case of the wall directly in the center of the above picture, I'm pretty sure the weight of the house was all that was holding it up - which is kind of backwards.  The foundation is supposed to hold the house up, not the other way around.  But it looks like when they lifted the house with the jacks and the I-beams, the wall collapsed inward.

The white post at right was the previous depth of the basement.  The new depth will be two feet deeper.  (You can see the other white post in the "before" picture above.)

I am so excited to see work started, and even more excited for the end result.  It will be messy and stressful, but in the end will be totally worth it.  

More pictures to follow of what we've found as we've torn stuff apart.

2014 Home Improvements: The Plan..... And Then the Other Plan.

So I'm finally going to tell you about what I've been hinting at for weeks.
Let me tell you what the original plan was first.
So....
Our front room, where the wood stove is, has linoleum.  Because of the nature of a wood stove spitting sparks every time you open the door, the linoleum has burn marks all over it.  When we got that overly large tax return this year, we decided to use part of it to buy tile for the front room.  (Tile doesn't burn or melt!)
We bought the tile and materials from Menards in March, but decided before we put the work into it, we'd check about getting the house leveled.  There is a serious slope from the north to the south end.  We wanted to get that fixed, but had no idea what it entailed or how much it would cost.  I didn't want to tile the floor, do a bunch of painting, etc, if we would level the house in the next couple years, just to have all our new work crack.
It turns out, the reason the house is not level is because we have two walls in our cellar that have caved in 18 inches.  So the edge of our house isn't even sitting on the foundation.  Paul said he can stand in the basement, reach his hand over the wall to the air outside.  Hmm.... Maybe that's part of our draft problem?
We had three companies come look at it.  (We probably had the same amount tell us they wouldn't even come look at it, because we have a stone foundation.)  They all had basically the same idea for how to fix it, and were around the same price.
Paul just threw out the question to the last guy that came, a local company, "How much would it cost just to rip all this out and pour a new concrete basement?"
It turns out that to repair and brace the walls is 1/2 the cost of a new basement (if we kept it the same size).  But it doesn't gain us anything.  We still have a cellar under our house that we can't use.  But it was either borrow a lot of money to fix something and not gain anything, or borrow a lot of money and double the living space of our house.
Paul and I talked about it, a lot.  And prayed about it, a lot, a lot.  We got opinions from our parents and friends.  And everything pointed at going with putting a new basement under the house.
So how they do that is they will jack the house up, knock down the existing stone walls, then dig down to get an 8-foot basement (the cellar is 6 feet).  Then they will pour new walls and a concrete floor (the existing floor is gravel).  We will put an interior stairway in (which will cut through one closet in our bedroom).  They will also expand the basement to be under the whole house (kitchen and backporch), which will be about 30%  bigger than the current cellar.
At the same time, we are knocking off our crappy back porch and rebuilding it, and including a half bath out there.  We will move all of our utilities to the basement (washer/dryer, hot water heater, freezers, etc).  We will also add plumbing for a full bath in the basement, which we will finish later.
We have to remove both our decks, and will have to rebuild them (using the salvaged lumber), but we will probably change the layout, possibly adding a patio.  We're also moving the eyesore that is the propane tank from it's current spot smack dab in front of the house, to across the driveway.
I am so incredibly excited about the end result of this project.  But so not looking forward to the process - the decisions, the mess, and the discomforts.  But we feel so blessed that God has made it able for us to be able to do this!
So that is the big project - it started off as wanting to paint, and ended up with getting a new basement!  I will keep you posted as things progress.  We start in about a month!

Quote to Consider:

When we pray something "in Jesus' name," we better make sure we're praying something we want to sign His name to.
--Beth Moore, in the video teaching for Believing God

Sleep? What's that?

Even as high strung and sassy as our daughter is now, I will freely admit, she was our easiest baby.  She was sleeping through the night by a month old.
I thought our older two boys were bad sleepers.
......Until we had Gideon.
Oh my goodness.  This boy has had days and nights mixed up from the get-go.  His first night, even after the hard work of being born, he was up all night.  And nothing has changed.
Oh, he'll sleep at night.  On me (or Paul).  Or next to me in bed.  Just not in his bed, so I can get some sleep myself.
Now that Paul's back to work, it makes it seem worse because he can't help with night shift most nights.  On his days off, he does make sure I get a nap, but those blissful 2-3 hours aren't the same as hard middle-of-the-night sleep.
My life is kind of on standstill until he sleeps on his own at night.  Because I have no energy or motivation to do anything.
We're trying to keep him awake more during the day.  But even on the few days it seems like he's been awake more, he still doesn't sleep hard at night.
I keep telling myself that Gideon is only 3 weeks old.  He'll figure it out.  So for now, we do the Boppy pillow next to me on the couch (if I put him in it after he's asleep, he still thinks he's being held).  Or co-sleep.  (Despite it's vilification, it's the only thing to do when you're desperate for sleep.)  Last night, I put some rolled up towels under his bassinet mattress so it doesn't lay so flat - maybe that will help - it seemed to for the first 3 hours, after which we were back to the usual routine.  Someday, he'll come to prefer his bed.
Someday......

Maranatha!

Paul was gone from Thursday to Saturday last week at a Men's retreat.  (Same one he's been to previously.)  He was kind of heading up a group of 14 guys that left from our church.  It was a powerful weekend, with guys opening up and deciding to change their lives and homes.  So he was not only physically exhausted, from little sleep, but also emotionally spent.
As we were eating supper at a makeshift table in the living room (the house is a disaster area; the dining table completely buried), out of no where, Jacob started talking about asking Jesus to live in his heart.  That grabbed our attention.  We have talked to Jacob a lot about receiving Christ, as it comes up, and he knows all the facts:  he has sinned, Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins, we have to ask Jesus to forgive us and accept His payment in order to go to Heaven.  He knew the facts, but he didn't want to do it.  We'd ask him the questions, and he knew all the answers - "Do you want to ask Jesus to forgive your sins?"
"No."
This had us kind of worried or upset.  People tend to say, "Oh he's just 3."  But what if he died?  He knew what he needed to do, but was rejecting it.  He's old enough to sin, know he's sinning, know he need to do something about it.... And not doing it.  Nathan was also concerned.  He sometimes would lay in bed and ask, "But Jacob hasn't asked Jesus into his heart.  Why hasn't Jake?  Can Jacob go to Heaven?"
So out of the blue Saturday night, he started talking about it.  Paul started asking the same questions.  Jacob gave clear answers.  So we got to the big question:  "Do you want to ask Jesus to forgive your sins and come into your heart?"
"Yes."
Paul and I prayed with him there, in the middle of the messy living room, in the middle of our meal.  I won't say Paul was sobbing, but he was definitely emotional.  I think the boys were like, Okay, Dad.....?
Paul has said recently he's not ready for Jesus to come back yet.  He has children who have not accepted Him.  You don't know how wrenching it is to think that the child you love so much here on earth may not be with you for eternity.  We are so incredibly happy to add Jacob to our eternal family.  

All He Lost for Christmas Was His Two Front Teeth.....

We've really been trying to crack down on the boys running on the stairs.  Usually it's the speed they come down that freaks me out.  They figure since they've got both hands hanging on the banister, they're good.  (It's just what if the banister comes loose from the wall??)
Last week Nathan decided he needed to run up the stairs for something, tripped, and barked his shin pretty good, ending up with a rather impressive bruise.
Yesterday, we're only wishing it would have been his shin.....
He was running up the stairs to get a toy to show "Uncle" Seth, and tripped near the top.  Apparently his teeth took the brunt of the fall.... He left one laying on the stairs, and the other was pretty much just dangling. He also bit a pretty good chunk out of his bottom lip.  He really wanted us to pull the other tooth (it was moving around every time he opened his mouth), but I couldn't get a grip on it (baby teeth are so tiny!), so I took him to the dentist this morning (they were closed yesterday).  They removed it with no problem.
The x-ray showed no apparent injury to his permanent teeth, but we better get used to his toothless grin, because it's looking like it'll be that way for a while.

Love him!  He was so brave.  Other than the initial injury, he really didn't cry that much - even at the dentist, when they were digging around in his mouth and bumping his very swollen lip.  We treated him to ice cream and onion rings afterwards (first food he'd had since breakfast yesterday), and apparently that cures all!

Encounter the Cross

My dad, brother, and brother-in-law (sister's hubby) went to a men's retreat called Encounter back in May, (Paul was supposed to go, but the timing was bad with his work, and having just taken vacation for Zadie's birth).  In September, they returned, taking Paul, two men from church, and a neighbor.  Then Paul went back to yet another last weekend, taking his dad and his uncle.
I can't tell you a lot about it, other than the second-hand info I have heard from him, but it is obviously incredible.  It's a 48-hour retreat, that covers all aspects of a man's life.  I have absolutely no doubt the Holy Spirit is powerfully present at this event, from start to finish.  I have heard no negative feedback from anyone attending (except for the food :) ).  For those of you that know Paul, you know that he isn't a bad guy at all - he's a committed Christian, a great husband and father - yet the change in him has been amazing.  He's reading the Bible daily consistently for the first time since we've been married - he wants to, not me reminding him to.  He's stepping up and speaking out.  I am so proud of him.
I don't know the exact history, but it sounds like a church puts it on, then rather than the event for that church getting larger and larger, they train other churches how to do the event themselves.  True discipleship.  They are training men to be men, to stand together and stand for Christ.
If you men want to change your life, go to this.  If you women want your man and marriage changed, encourage him to go (although nagging him into it is not the best approach).  If you have any questions, my husband would be happy to answer them via email.

www.encounterthecross.com

And can I just say that a husband who is on fire for God is incredibly sexy as well? I think the boys are tired of seeing us kissing in the kitchen.  ;)

Sick Day Muffins

We're sick around here.  It's Paul's fault, really.
No, not really.
But Paul was the first one to have sinus stuffiness.  Then Nathan got sick Friday afternoon, and has pretty much not moved off the couch since then.  Fever of 103.  Jacob came down with it on Sunday (we stayed home from church - for once they were sick on a day convenient for me to skip!).  I'm trying to get sick, but I am hitting the Zicam pretty hard.  I can't get a cold this week!  (Our worship night is this Sunday.)
Nathan has me concerned.... The high fever, complete lack of appetite, and the just laying around all the time.  I can't get him interested in doing anything, and then he acts like he can't concentrate if I do get him to try to attempt something.  I keep going back and forth whether to take him to the doctor.  First off, it's $20 just to walk in the door.  We don't really have that right now.  And if it's just a virus (which I'm pretty sure it is since we've all got it in some form), the doctor will send us back home with a "just keep an eye on him."  So $20 wasted.  Plus, there's the chance that we'll pick up some other vile disease while we're there - which has happened before, more than once.
I was really hoping that today is the turnaround day.  So I thought I'd tempt them with something tasty to eat.  It worked, sort of.
These muffins were a variation of a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook recipe.  The first time I made them like this (last week), Paul ate 5, Nathan ate 3, and Jacob ate 2.  Then the boys both wanted another for their mid-morning snack.
So I tried them again.

3/4 cup white flour
3/4 cup wheat flour
1/4 c(ish) oatmeal
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp(ish) cinnamon
1 beaten egg
3/4 c milk
1/4 c oil

Mix dry ingredients.  Stir together egg, milk, oil and pour into dry ingredients.  (May need to add more water or milk to get it to right consistency - not as thin as cake batter, but not so thick it clumps up in the whisk.)
Divide among 12 muffin cups.
Top with streusel:

1/4 c (half stick) butter
1/3 c flour
1/3 c brown sugar
1/2 tsp(ish) cinnamon

Combine flour, brown sugar, cinnamon.  Cut butter in using a pastry knife.  Sprinkle by the tablespoon full over the unbaked muffins.

Bake at 350 for 14-15 minutes.
*(ish) means I didn't actually measure it.  Just a guesstimate.

Nathan actually asked for one.  He ate the streusel top off of it, and left the bottom half.  Jacob ate one for breakfast, then wanted another for lunch.  When they're sick, I'm like whatever.  As long as they'll actually eat - it may not have lots of nutrition, but it has calories, which is energy to fight illness..... right?  Nathan's pretty much just ate Cheetos and cookies for the last 4 days.  I'm just happy he'll eat that much.
So we'll see if today is the turnaround day.  Nathan voluntarily went to take a nap at 11.  But so far, no fever.......

One More Night....

Paul works this night, then takes vacation for a week!  (Which he only has to actually take off two days of work - one thing I do love about his wacky schedule.)  I've been having a hard time going to bed without him this weekend (hence the after-midnight post).... It's just easier to tune out in front of the tv or computer.
We didn't have anything planned for his week off.  His birthday (32!) is this week, so that's why he took the time off.  But then I went and scheduled a surgery for the day before his birthday, so there goes any plans he may have been thinking about having.
I'm finally having my hernia fixed.  I have what they call an umbilical hernia, even though it's not actually in my belly button, but rather above it.  It started when I was pregnant with Jacob, got worse and worse, and now after Zadie, something has to be done.  It sticks out further than my post-baby gut (see photo).  I'm ready for it to go away.
So I'm celebrating 30 by "having some work done."  We'll call the hernia repair a tummy tuck.  Then I'm going to get my veins fixed.  I also am going to have to get glasses, I'm almost sure.  After the episode with the eye my vision didn't fully recover.  I know I was headed for glasses, but I think the swelling and reaction sped up the inevitable.  Especially while driving at night, with reflective signs I have blurred and double-vision (very safe, I know).  So I've got to get that checked out.
Anyhow.  I'm rambling to avoid going to bed.  But it's time.

The Eye. It Gets Better. (And by better, I mean "worse.")

So I was wrong on my prognosis of my eye.  When I woke up Saturday morning, this is what I looked like.

Let me give you a closeup:

These are crappy-quality cell phone camera pictures, but you can kind of see.  The white of my eye was all swollen, swelling up around my iris.  It looked like clear jelly in the outside corner of my eye, swollen up and hanging over my eyelid.  

Gross.  Seriously.

As I sat in the chair nursing Zadie at 6 AM, I started praying.  I had no idea what was going on, so I prayed, "Lord, if I'm supposed to go see the eye doctor, let him be open today."  I didn't know if he was open on Saturdays or not.  So I called later.  Not only was he open, but he had an opening for an appointment.  I took it.

You know it's bad when you come in and the receptionist says, "Boy, you weren't kidding."  Doesn't even ask who I am.

I described my symptoms to the doctor, and I think he was baffled.  He would look at my eye, then walk away and take some notes, then walk back and just stare at it with his head tilted.  He went and washed his hands, came over and looked at it (without touching it), then went back and washed his hands again.

He said it did look like a "immuno response" (allergic reaction), but I think was confused as to why both eyes weren't affected.  He gave me some steroid eye drops, and told me he was going to check as to whether they were safe to take while nursing.  He called me later to tell me he'd checked with two pharmacists, and they all agreed they were safe.  I started using them every hour, then backed down to every two hours that evening.  It definitely made a difference.

Of course, we had all sorts of errands to do in town that morning as well.....  We hit all 3 county shopping Meccas (Orscheln, WalMart, and Country Mart) with my eye in all it's swollen, red, and leaking glory.  I got a lot of stares.

Sunday the doctor called to check in.  The drops were definitely working, so we kept on it.  But by then I was getting a stuffed nose.

By Tuesday, my good eye looked worse than my bad eye.  I had come down with a cold or allergies or something....  Stuffed nose, sore throat, the works.

All I can figure is that this is allergies or a virus, but instead of breathing it in through my nose or mouth, I rubbed it into my eye, and that's how it entered my body.

I'm feeling better today, except for a hacking cough....  Major ab workout - not the way I would choose to find my abs again after a baby, but oh well.  I'm only using the drops twice a day now (a week later)(Really?  Has it been a week?  Where did this week go???).  My eye looks and feels pretty much normal, but my vision in that eye is still blurred a little bit (like it's teared up).  I'm hoping it's not damaged.... I have been saying this is the year I'm going to get glasses, but I assumed it would be from age, not from illness.

Anyhow.  So that's what eye've been up to.

(har, har)

Saturday Morning

Occasionally, we have a normal Saturday morning around here.  And by "normal," I mean, the type of Saturdays that most families seem to have.
This morning, we're up, but all still in our pajamas.  The boys are eating dry cereal and drinking smoothies while watching cartoons.  Paul is away doing something manly, but will be home by lunch.
With Paul's every-other-weekend working schedule, this doesn't happen that often.  Even on his Saturdays off, we don't have lazy mornings that often.... Don't know why.
So I'm going to enjoy this morning.  And try to update my blog.
Zadie turned one month old this week!  Seriously?  Where did the time go?  She celebrated.... By waking up, refusing to take naps, and rejecting her pacifier.  (Seriously, those things are a crutch that all to quickly one becomes dependent upon!)
Okay, so she's not totally refusing to nap, at least not to the extent the boys did.  But going from sleeping all the time, to being awake all the time was a change that took some getting used to.  She is happy sitting in her Boppy or bouncy seat and looking around for stretches of time, so that helps that she doesn't have to be in my arms all the time - the boys had to be.
What else about the little miss?  She's starting to smile and coo.  She's very hot blooded.  We've found if she is really fussy, undressing her and letting her lay in just her diaper will settle her down.  She's slept 8 HOURS STRAIGHT the last two nights.  Of course, I don't go to bed when she does, so I have yet to get 8 in a row, but I'm getting about 6, and let me tell you, it's been amazing.
As obvious from my last post, we've had lots of whining lately.  I need to frame Philippians 2:14:  "Do all things without complaining or arguing."  Maybe tattoo it on my kids.  They do argue with me some, but I can win those usually.  But the arguing with each other, about stupid things, drives me crazy.
Jacob:  "There's a goose!"
Nathan:  "That wasn't a goose."
"Yes!"
"No!"
"Yes!"
"Nuh-uh!"
"Yeeees!"
GAAAH!
As I stated in an earlier post, we've had to crack down on defiance and back talk.  It's gotten better.  But still, it seems like they're just testing us.  "What are you gonna do about it, Mom?"  And often, as soon as I do do something, that's the end of it.  They just want to see how far they can push.  I wish that testing boundaries wasn't part of childhood....  It would make my job so much easier.
I knew I wasn't shedding baby weight very fast, but I was slightly disheartened when I stepped on the scale at my sister's house and found out I've only lost 15 lbs.  8 of that was a baby.  And that was a month ago.  I've got to get this eating under control, and find some way to get regular exercise with our family's schedule.  We go on walks a lot, but with 3 kids, it's little more than a mosey.  I know that the eating is the main problem, though.
We're still looking at getting a van.  We kind of said June is when we'd seriously look.  We found one that's pretty much exactly what we want at a dealer in Lawrence.  It's a Toyota Sienna, with the optional middle seat in the middle row of seats - so it could seat 8.  (Not that we're planning on having a family of 8, but it will be nice to have room for friends and cousins.)  We're going to have to take out a loan, whether it's this van or another, which stresses me out, but I've decided to trust God and let him lead my husband on this.  I'm such a worry-wart and stress over finances, that if it were up to me, I'd keep saying, "No."  But God has ALWAYS provided what we need when we need it.  I need to get better at trusting.
Well, the boys have been watching TV for an hour and a half.  This show is over, so I think I'm going to shut the TV off and make Nathan do school.  On a Saturday.  Because I'm mean.  (And because I want to finish his preschool before September!)  Really, the main reason is because we've only done school 3 days (maybe?) this week.
So our normal-for-everyone-else Saturday is going to end up being a normal-for-us Saturday.
I love our life.

It's a Girl!!! Zadie Marie Rhodes

In case my lack of posts complaining about not having a baby yet didn't make it obvious, our baby has arrived - and IT'S A GIRL!
Zadie Marie was born at 4:15 AM last Tuesday, April 17th.  She weighed 7 pounds, 15 ounces, and was 20 inches long.  What we noticed right off were her deliciously chubby cheeks - so perfect and kissable.  She has dark hair; not a whole lot, but more than her brothers were born with.  Her skin is just gorgeous - I can't keep myself from stroking her face just to marvel at the smoothness.

I complained in my post last Monday that things just weren't happening.  That afternoon, I helped Paul with a project outside, skipping my nap, and still it only resulted in a few twinges - but definitely not "things are getting ready to go" contractions.  And of course, as soon as I told Paul I'd had them while I was helping him, they stopped.  We had discussed whether to send the boys over to his parents' house just in case, but I was feeling nothing, so we decided to let them stay at home.... I didn't want them to feel like we were kicking them out, and have them be away from home for longer than necessary.  (I wanted the addition of a new family member to be as smooth of a transition as possible for them.)
Paul and I watched a movie on TV, staying up until 12:30.  Still nothing happening.  So we went to bed.  At 2:20, I woke up having a contraction.  I looked at the clock, just so I could make note if I had another one.  I had another one six minutes later.  Then five minutes.  Then four.
I got out of bed, because I've heard changing positions can sometimes make contractions stop.  They started coming even closer together.  So I got in the shower - again, thinking a warm, relaxing shower might change things.  Heh.  I had 3 contractions in the span of a five-minute shower.  Paul stumbled into the bathroom while I was in the shower and just looked at me.  I said, "We need to call your parents."
We made it to the hospital by about 3:30.  The nurse told me that when I came in the room, she thought I wasn't that close.  (She didn't see I had 3 contractions while trying to change into my hospital gown and pee in the cup.)  Once I got up on the bed she checked me and told the other nurse, "You need to call Dr. Sinclair NOW."  Then she looked at me and said, "Good thing you weren't planning on an epidural, because you're not going to have enough time to get one."  They started trying to get an IV in me, and by the time my doctor arrived, they still hadn't gotten it in.  They stuck me 6 times before they finally succeeded, just as I needed to push.  I actually could have started pushing before, but I couldn't concentrate with them digging around on me with a needle.  I think my doctor was about to tell them to forget it so we could get that baby out.  (I totally would have been okay with that.... I hate the IV.)
When the doctor broke my water, she told me there was meconium in the waters, which means the baby had pooped while inside.  I wouldn't be able to hold the baby as soon as she was born, they would have to take her over to the table immediately.  It also meant that as soon as her head came out, I had to stop pushing and let them suction out her nose and mouth and clean off her face so she didn't inhale any of the meconium when she took her first breath.  When the final push came, and the baby was out, Paul kissed me and said, "You've got a girl."  It was 4:15, and we'd only been at the hospital for 45 minutes.  I was in labor for less than 2 hours.
Even though Zadie was born at 4 AM on her assumed due date, the doctor told me she was probably actually about a week late, based on not only the meconium, but also the fact that the cord had deteriorated.  So - we were right!  We had always thought she should have shown up a week earlier.
I am amazed, for the third time now, at the instant overwhelming love at first sight a mother can feel when she sees her baby.  I just stare and stare at her, and can't get enough.
Recovery has been really easy, probably because there was no tearing.  Again, as with Jacob, my tailbone was what was sore.... I finally figured it out why:  all of those muscles down there anchor to your tailbone.  Anyhow.
My parents came around 8 (? I think....  It kind of ran together.), and then Paul's parents brought the boys in about 9.  The boys love their new sister.  Nathan especially was enamored with her from the get-go.  They sat on the chair and held her together, and Nathan sang to her the whole time.  He shaded her eyes from the bright light when she was on the bed.  They came back that evening, and then Jacob couldn't get enough of her, touching her and wanting to hold her.  I am so glad they love their sister.

As usual, I was too wound to sleep well during the day.  I got a few naps in.  Zadie and I spent the day getting to know each other, and Paul went home just before lunch to take a nap.  (He was regretting that past-midnight movie. :) ) He came back for supper, and we hung out in our room watching TV.  He headed home around 11.  I had the nurses watch Zadie in the nursery for about 3 hours so I could really crash without responding to every little squeak and grunt from her.
I had told Paul that if this baby was a girl, he had to go buy her a PINK outfit for her to wear home from the hospital.  I had some (quite a few, as it turns out) hand-me-downs, but I wasn't going to wash a bunch of clothes if we weren't for-sure going to need them.  The outfit I took to the hospital was yellow.  Paul came back to the hospital with a pink sleeper, a purple sleeper, and a pink onesie.  He did such a good job.
We got to go home on Wednesday morning.  As the nurse read my dismissal, she's like, "And the baby will do this, but you know that..... And you'll need to do this.... But you're doing that already....."  Apparently I came across as an "old pro."
Zadie has been such an easy baby.  She sleeps SO MUCH.  Maybe this is normal for newborns, but it was not for our boys.  They slept for the first couple days, then they refused to sleep unless I was holding them.  I wondered if she was sleeping too much, but she'd gained all of her birth weight back by one week.  I'm having a hard time getting my milk regulated, because of her sleeping so much, I think.

Jacob continues to adore his sister.  He is always petting on her.  "Me like her hands.  Me like her hair.  Me like her belly button."  Whatever he's looking at, he likes.  It is so sweet.  He's had a snotty nose since the day she was born, and I have a hard time balancing between being thrilled he's so affectionate and adoring (we were worried about jealousy, because he was definitely my snuggler), and being freaked out about him kissing her with a snotty face.
Nathan hasn't been as adoring since life is back to normal.  He's definitely helpful, but he's more matter-of-fact about it.  He'll talk to her some, and occasionally sing to her.  He told Paul he was going to teach her to walk.  I think when she's more interactive, he'll really enjoy being big ("biggest") brother.

In case you were wondering about the name, Paul came up with it clear back when we were expecting Nathan.  I really like unique names (but ones with obvious pronunciation), since I have a common name - there was always someone else with my name.  Paul came home from working one night and said, "What do you think about the name 'Zadie'?"  I liked it.  I added the middle name Marie, which is my middle name, and was also my mother's and grandmother's.  We only had to wait 5 years to use it.
 And that's the story of our precious Zadie Marie.  We are both (all four!) totally in love with her, and I'm pretty sure she has her daddy completely wrapped around her finger already.  And he's totally okay with that.

Ready.... Set..... Now Don't Go!

Everything is ready for the baby.  Everything I can think of, at least.  All clothes, blankets, diapers, burp rags, washed and folded and put away.  Hospital bag packed, except for the camera and phone charger.  Car seat cleaned and base installed.  Diaper bag stocked.
Now it would be really convenient if the baby would wait.
My grandmother (my mom's mother) passed away last week.  It wasn't totally unexpected.  She had congestive heart failure and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), and we knew she wouldn't be recovering from it.  I was never really close to this grandmother, so it's not really an emotional time for me.  My emotions are more for how it affects my mom and her sister and brother.
The funeral is this Thursday.  I have a small part in it, and Paul is a pallbearer, but nothing major if we can't be there because of Baby.  But it would be a lot less stress and emotion for my mom if Baby would wait until after the funeral.  I was saying - just wait until after Easter morning service..... Now, it's just wait until Thursday afternoon......  I'm not actually due until a week from this Tuesday (17th), but have had a feeling I'd go early (as has everyone close to me).  I don't feel like it's imminent, but you never know.

Overheard: (A Salvation Story)

"Nathan, are you happy tonight?"  Everything that came out of his mouth had been a song for the last hour.
"Yes!  I'm happy 'cause Jesus lives in my heart!"

A week ago tonight, Nathan prayed to ask Jesus into his heart.
We had gotten home late.  Jacob was already asleep (I thought), so I took him up from the car and put him in bed.  After Nathan had brushed his teeth and gotten his pjs on, Paul took him up.  He prayed with him, then as he was walking out of the room, he said Jacob sat up and said, "Me do bad things.  Mommy do bad things.  Everybody do bad things."  (We've talked with them about how "all have sinned." - Romans 3:23.)
Paul said he came back in and said something back to Jacob, who checked out of the conversation when Brutus (the cat) jumped up on his bed.  But then Nathan started talking and asking questions.
Paul said they went over all of it - how he (Nathan) had sinned - "done bad things" - and what those things were.  How you can't get into Heaven if you've done bad things.  How Jesus was perfect and died on the cross to pay for our sins so we can go to Heaven.  How we need to say we're sorry for the bad things we've done and ask Jesus to forgive us.  About how when Jesus lives inside of us, we act and want to act differently.
I wondered what was taking so long, since I couldn't hear anything and the light was off.  Then Paul came down and told me everything they'd talked about, and said the conversation ended with Nathan praying to ask Jesus to forgive him and come live in his heart.
I'm not sure my heart has ever felt such joy.  It is the most wonderful thing to realize that your child will spend eternity in heaven with you.  What makes it even better for me is the fact that I can see a difference.  He's four. He's a boy.  So there is still some "nature" that takes over sometimes, and he has a hard time controlling.  But his attitude has made some noticeable (at least to me) changes this last week.
I've always said that the measure of good parenting is not in if your child knows how to cook or do laundry when they're grown (although I do want mine to know those things, too!), but whether they believe and love  and honor Jesus as their Savior.
I'm happy to say our oldest does.  And he wants his little brother to have Jesus in his heart, too.

Update. For Real.

So.... I've had lots of single-subject entries lately, but nothing about life in general.  Get comfortable, this is going to be a long one.  (........TWSS?)

We finally got the accident report for our wreck.... A month later.  It turns out they're blaming most of it on Paul - even though we were the last vehicle involved.  He caused damage to two cars, yes, but I'm pretty sure there was damage before we even got there - why else would they be stopped in the middle of the Interstate?  I'm not sure how I feel about this, but I don't think there's anything we can really do to change it, other than pray our rates don't jump up.
Sigh.
I'm at 27 weeks preggo now....  Almost to that last trimester, and just under 3 months until the due date!  I'm feeling pretty good, but still tired more than it seems like I should be (maybe something to do with two little boys, and my waking up at night).  I've found that there is a "perfect" caffienation window....  Late enough it will still be effective to stay awake during the afternoon, but early enough it won't keep me awake when I need to go to bed at night.  So that means it has to be between about 10 and 11 in the morning.  But usually I can get something done while they nap if I have a Dr. Pepper or a Crystal Light "energy" drink.
During December, I had a bad cough, which did a number on this hernia I have above my belly button.  It's been there since I was pregnant with Jacob, but definitely has gotten bigger, and the coughing really made it start pooching - about the size of a half an apple sticking out above my belly button.  I have repeatedly asked my doctor about it, and she said as long as it still goes back in (which it does whenever I lay down), it's not an emergency.  Not that I wanted to have surgery, but it's ugly (if you think it sounds gross, you should see it!) and it hurts pretty bad by the end of the day if I don't take an hour or two of laying down and "letting it rest" every day.  I showed it to her while standing up last appointment (looks much worse), and she suggested I get a maternity support belt to help keep it in.  I got what is actually a postpartum support belt (identical to a hernia support belt, but cheaper!), which is about 9 inches wide and closes with velcro.  Sexiness.  But it really is helping.  In the week and a half since I started wearing it (all day, every day), I've only had one day where it hurt at the end of the day - the day I spent scrubbing the bathroom.
And adding to this vision of sexiness....  I've started having to wear compression pantyhose.  I've griped about my varicose veins every pregnancy - in fact, they were the first indication that I was pregnant with this baby.... Before any other symptoms showed up, before I even took a test, my veins swelled up and started aching (which is why I went and bought a test).  They've gotten worse (yet I still only have them on one leg!), and I have a new "patch" on the lower part of my shin that itches.  I griped about it to my doctor, and showed them to her (ugly!), and she sent me to a vein specialist.

Think I needed to go see a vein doctor? (And this is first thing in the morning, on a day they look "good!")

The specialist told me that the ones on my foot were bad enough they could ulcerate (is that the word?  become open sores).  That sounded just lovely.  Well, the whole experience was just lovely, from the paper shorts I had to wear in the examining room, to rolling said shorts up to my crotch and having "mug shots" taken of my legs with my name taped on my butt.
Let me tell you about these support hose. When I took them out of the box, they looked about big enough to fit Jacob.  I know they'll stretch to fit, but....  It was still intimidating.  So I tried to put them on, like you'd put on pantyhose.  FAIL.  These things are tight.  How tight?  They are the kind you have to have a prescription to even get - that's how much they "compress." When I put them on my hand and arm, they are uncomfortably snug.  Imagine trying to get these things over my size 12 hooves.  I tried for a good 10 minutes, and got half of one foot in.  So I gave up, ate lunch, took a nap, and before trying again, researched online. (Yeah, those YouTube video models are NOT wearing real support hose - or at least not appropriately sized.)  So I tried again.  You have to turn them completely inside out to the foot, put your foot only in, then the other one, then shimmy them all the way up.  Once you get your feet and calves in, it's not that much different than regular pantyhose.  But that first little bit is painful and awkward and really uncomfortable.  Once they are on, they're not that bad, and they definitely did make a difference of what my legs looked like at the end of the day - not swollen and heavy feeling.  But definitely not looking forward to wearing these for the three fattest months of being pregnant.  (Thankfully, they actually do fit over my belly, and don't feel tight.... yet.)  The good news is, the vein doctor said that I can get the veins fixed/removed/whatever they do 6 weeks after I have the baby - maybe I'll actually have good looking legs this summer!
So lets recap for your mental viewing..... 6 months pregnant.  Support hose.  Hernia belt.  From 7:30 AM to 10:30 PM.
 plus this.....on fat me.....  (Because we all know those are NOT pictures of me, and I am not taking any!)

The vision of sexiness.  My husband can't keep his hands off me.  (Not.  I'm not sure he even wants to touch me!)
In other news....
The boys are ready for spring.  I'm ready for spring!  They are fighting and nit-picking all the time, it seems, and seeing just how far they can go with defying me.  (Nathan telling me that's NOT how you do whatever I tell him to do - usually in violin - and Jacob crossing his arms and putting his head down when I tell him to do something.) I really want to just be able to kick them outside with no jacket and no shoes whenever I'm about to snap.  But taking 10 minutes to dress them just for them to spend 5 minutes outside seems so pointless.
I have a mouse in my kitchen.  If you've ever seen Ratatouille, I want to call to mind two scenes:  When the old lady at the farm house sees the rats in her kitchen and takes after them with the shot gun (which I could totally see myself doing, if I ever saw the little beasts), and then shoots the ceiling and it falls in and there's like a million rats living in her ceiling.  Whenever I know there's a mouse in our house, this is what I envision.  I can sometimes hear one in the wall when I'm trying to sleep, and I imagine a whole community living in there.  And I may not be far off, because it seems like when we catch one, we catch several.  Gross.  The other scene is when the health inspector comes into the restaurant, and the rats are all over the kitchen cooking the meals.  Not that they cook my meals here, but I sometimes hear one scurry away when I get a drink in the middle of the night, and I envision that there's like 20 of them.  Luckily, ours are mice, not rats - at least as far as I know.  (Shudder.)  But nonetheless, the little [insert bad name here] are getting quite adept at stealing bait.  We've caught 4 in the last couple weeks, but the bait has been stolen 3x that many times - and we use peanut butter, not a hunk of cheese they can grab and run off with!  I seriously would take a shot gun after them if we had one.
We've decided on what type of vehicle we want to get when we replace the car.  We wanted a crossover, but they are not made to use the backseat on an everyday basis.  We looked at SUVs, but the gas mileage about made me pass out.  (I couldn't go from getting 22+ to getting half that.)  So we decided we'd go with a minivan, as much as I hate the idea of being stereotyped as a "minivan mommy."  We're going to go with a Toyota, not because of all the safety bells and whistles they're always bragging about, but because they last forever (like it or not).  We're looking to get a mid-2000s model, and probably have to take out a small loan (which I hate the idea of), but we just have not been able to save up the money to pay cash for the whole thing.  I'm hoping we can get about half the money from selling my car (privately, not trade-in, which always screws you over), and maybe by then we'll have a small chunk saved up as well.  (Although every time we try, something breaks and we have to use that money to fix something else - like the house A/C.)  We're going to cram all 3 kids into the car for at least the first couple months.  Not ideal - definitely crowded, but it's more responsible, we feel.  And we're praying the exact right van shows up when we need it.
I'm having the mealtime showdown AGAIN with Jacob.  He wouldn't touch his breakfast this morning, which made him really moody and overly emotional about everything.  But he has got to learn that he can't just skip a meal and get rewarded with snacks all morning.  I did give him half a roll with peanut butter on it at 10, but that lasted less than an hour.  It's moments like this my backbone as a mother is sorely tested.  Nathan did this, but wanted milk for his between-meals.  Jacob just wants chips and sweets.
We're trying to get back in the swing of being social again.  We haven't really done anything social on a regular basis for a long time.  It's just easier to sit at home and not try to work out a time that works for everyone.  (Especially with Paul's work schedule.)  But it's not good to be hermits, and we want our kids to know hospitality, so....  We're trying.  Hopefully having a baby in 3 months won't throw us back into hermitage.
Sigh.  It's 11, so I'm going to go fix an early lunch for these guys and then probably send them to bed early for their naps, too.  Because if I have to tell them not to hit/kick/shove again, as they whine at me with snotty noses, I'm seriously going to blow a gasket.  (I'm such a cold, insensitive, uncaring mother.)