the insanity never ends...

if you want to see a few recent cool pictures of what we've been up to, check out our family blog. there are some cute pictures of thad at the beach, and other stuff too.

after my last post, elisabeth got sick and ended up in the hospital with a kidney infection for 5 days. my classes got put on the back burner, and i'm still catching up on some of them (and retaking two of them, thanks to a "wonderful" prof). then we had some other stuff come up that makes life "fun". then after all of that, thad rolled off the bed and ended up breaking his arm. (he'll be fine, just immobilized the humerus for 2 weeks, one week left to go.)

this week nick finished 8th grade, and then our friend came down from tennessee with his two boys. they "guys" all went to a rays' game on wednesday night, where they got to be eyewitnesses to zobrist hitting a grand slam. on thursday we headed to ft. desoto state park beach, and except for some bad burns (sunscreen must've been a dud batch), we had a great time. we went out to eat at a local seafood restaurant tonight, after getting ice cream at a quaint little old-fashioned place this afternoon. they leave tomorrow morning and we're heading back to the beach with some families of nick's classmates for another "8th grade celebration". should be another fun day.

but for now, time for bed!

goodness, it's been a long month...

since i last posted. actually a little over a month now! sorry i've been m.i.a.

nick had to have sinus surgery again (he had it last april over spring break...which is where we are now, april and spring break...), the first one was on february 26th. he had polyps form in his nasal passageways and nearly close them off, so he also ended up with a staph and fungal infection in his sinuses. poor kid! two weeks later he went for procedure number 2 and they did a culture of his snot and found out he had pseudomonas bacterial infection in his sinuses and put him on cipro. four days into the treatment he developed weird vision changes where his eyes were seeing things in weird colors. we ended up having to take him to the optometrist to be checked for eye damage and changed his antibiotics. between all of that and school projects for both kids, it's been an interesting month to say the least!

...and now i'm behind on my class work and am desperately trying to catch up on everything. i'm almost caught up on three classes, am caught up fine on another, and have three others to work on...nothing like taking 7 college courses like an insane maniac, it's been interesting! my financial aid check finally came...and went quickly too. it was nice to be caught up on bills for a few weeks, now we're back to trying to juggle it all. i know everything will work out, so i'm not letting myself stress over it, it always works out one way or another.

so here we are on spring break (the kids are anyway) and it's chilly out, so we haven't headed to the beach like i'd hoped or done much of anything else. no biggie, there's plenty that needs done around here and there's not a lot of time for running around right now. i am hoping we can hit the beach this weekend though, it would be nice to get some great beach-y shots of the kids. thad's 7 months old now, it's high time the boy went to the beach!

valentine's...

it's 2:30 a.m., i should be in bed, i know...but i'm not.

we were able to go out on a "date" this evening because elisabeth went to the relay for life fundraiser night at school (movie night) and nick went to a party. we did have the baby, and we really only had a 2 hour window because of how the start/end times fell for the kids' activities.

we decided to head to our new mall, the shoppes at wiregrass, and attempted to try out the grillsmith, but even though the wait wasn't bad, we decided it would be cutting things too close for picking up elisabeth from the school event. so we headed to cosi cafe to try it out. i had their duo deal and ordered a "grilled chicken t.b.m." sandwich with their signature salad and a side of baby carrots, while jerry ordered the "turkey light" sandwich with the "tomato basil aurora" soup. i went up and purchased one of their oversized, 6" chocolate chip cookies for us to share for dessert...yum! all of it was really good and the atmosphere was pretty cool too. we chose to sit at a high top, but they had this really cool "big comfy couch" that was about 10-12 feet long that accommodated two tables' worth of space. if the kids were with us, i'm sure we would have opted to sit there. i definitely want to try it out again soon and try the "four cheese and fig melt" which has brie, cheddar, swiss and provolone with fig spread inside one of their flat breads.

i'm sure we'll head to grillsmith to try it out soon, but this made for a nice quick evening dinner since time was limited. we walked around the shopping area for just a bit and stepped into pottery barn to peruse the merchandise before heading out.

we enjoyed our evening, elisabeth had a blast hanging out with friends at the school afterhours, and nick went to his party then hung out at a friend's house until 1:00 a.m. (the time i picked him up because jerry and i both dozed off and didn't get there at midnight like we'd planned). if it weren't for the soccer tournament this weekend, nick would've spent the night, but he still got to hang out with the guys for awhile anyway.

"a nice time was had by all"...

whiney...

everyone seemed to be whiney this morning! now that they're all gone, i'm feeling a bit whiney myself!

i'm still tired, would love to go back to bed. my back is killing me, but i don't have time to go to the chiropractor today. i have assignments for school that i don't feel like doing, but they're due today, so i have no choice. laundry is (as usual) overwhelming...there has to be a better system, or actually "a" system, that i can follow. it's raining and getting colder as the day goes on...not a big deal, until you consider the fact that we have a first round soccer tournament game this evening out in the crud. today would be a perfect day to have chili simmering in the crockpot for dinner, hot coffee brewing all day long, and snuggling up in bed under my comfy blankies in my pj's with thad and watching all of the recorded things on the dvr that i haven't had time to catch up on...but i can't because i have laundry and assignments to do. wah. (see? i'm whiney)

so instead, i'll skip the tv, snuggling and chili, and settle for my joffrey's "jamaican me crazy" coffee brewing in the pot...it smells divine. hopefully the caffeine and taste will lift my mood, my headache, and give me a burst of energy so i can do these dreaded assignments!

homework drama...

when you have a smart kid and they don't apply themselves...it's super frustrating! the homework drama ends now!!! (well, actually as soon as all of the incomplete work is finished...) i can't handle being organized with my homework assignments and take care of someone's who is perfectly capable of doing it for themself.

i'm finding out more and more how much "fun" parenting can be. boy was i wrong when i thought the terrible twos and horrific threes were bad...just wait until you hit the pre-teen and teen years...much. more. drama. period!

thank goodness i have another baby around right now, so i have one "easy" one to be thankful for when the tough stuff comes along with the non-baby ones. lol

oh well, it's nothing a maple butter blondie and a couple of white russians can't cure...ahhhh!

big boy....

my little cuddle bug is snuggling up in his sling while i'm doing stuff on the computer this evening because he can't seem to stay asleep and he's fussy when he's awake thanks to the cold he acquired from somewhere....isn't he too cute?!?

i didn't end up getting much of my "to do" list accomplished today because i had to take thad to the pediatrician. his eyes started looking "funny" (that expression mom's use when they "know" their child isn't feeling well before they have any other symptoms!) yesterday afternoon. last night he started sneezing a lot (he does a few times a day anyway it seems, but this was a lot more). then i noticed him giving out little coughs, he did just one and i laughed because i thought it was so cute and then he had more...i figured he's probably too little to do stuff "again" because it got attention (especially coughs, smiles maybe...) so it must be "real". then, i noticed that when he was nursing he was having a hard time feeding and breathing at the same time and he seemed a bit congested. he had a bath and we went to bed. he seemed a bit congested when nursing in the middle of the night, but i was too groggy to think much of it at the time. this morning he seemed miserable, he had that little pathetic whimpery, whiney cry and i knew he must be feeling badly, so i called the pediatrician. we went in, they took a "snot swab" for rsv, and said to saline and suction his nose. poor little booger!!! (pun intended...ha)

anyway, the "little" guy now weighs 13 pounds 4 ounces!!! he started at 9:6, went to 8:7 while at the hospital, was up to 9:4 at one week, and was was 10:2 at two weeks...now he's 5 weeks and 13:4...that's 3 pounds in 3 weeks! at this rate he'll be over 50 pounds at a year old...hope he slows down!!! (i guess mama's diner is serving it up right...but i won't mention what my friend said on here....haha)

so yeah, we're just snuggling and trying to get through this cold without incident...

i love autumn...

this is my favorite season, and october and november are the best months for decorating and eating!!! so i decided to change my background too, to celebrate the season. the cutest blog on the block has some great background layouts, check them out!

tomorrow i am going to pull out my box of autumn stuff and decorate the house.

also on my "list" of stuff for tomorrow...
*arrange furniture in carpeted rooms once carpet is fully dry from cleaning
*paint kitchen island wall
*sew burp cloths
*pull out cloth diapers and try them out on thad
*get caught up on laundry
*take preventive stress mid-term
*get caught up on some other school stuff
*go to my school (for work) and do stuff for my leave

i got a lot of errands done today and have a few other things to follow-up on too, but i feel like i'm doing pretty good at getting back into the swing of things. in-laws have left, i'm feeling a lot better (most of the time), and my house is relatively clean (except for being all screwy from moving furniture to clean carpets)...now to get on top of everything i let go for the past few weeks... i do have to brag on my hubby though, if it weren't for him and his ocd-ness, there would be a lot more to do around the house, so kudos to him for helping to keep things in order the last few weeks of my pregnancy and the first few weeks of having a baby around!!!

cousins...

do these girls look like trouble to you?!? my daughter just met her cousin (actually jerry's cousin's granddaughter) this past weekend, they hit it off and are like two peas in a pod. i'm sure we're in for some interesting times as these two gorgeous girls become teenagers and start running around with each other!!! (watch out boys, daddy's going to be cleaning his gun when you come to pick ours up...guess we need to get a gun first!!!)

about time i came back to post something...

the very next day after my "so over it" post i ended up going to the hospital (after calling the OB's office) to get checked again for the lovely pain i was enduring. they gave me 2 percocet and after an hour i wasn't feeling any better so they offered to induce (with the warning that the baby's lungs might not be ready and he might end up in NICU if that was the case). i decided that since he was measuring big anyway, and i was already past 38 weeks, that it would be fine. i had driven myself to the hospital, so i called jerry to let him know i was going to stay. he was in brandon, the kids were at school, and he did very well in keeping from being in a big panic. he finished up his work, got the kids out of school early and settled at the house with money for pizza and instructions to watch movies all evening, then he headed to the hospital. by the time he got there they had broke my water and had started pitocin, i was at 3 cm, then quickly moved to 4 and on to 5. at 5 cm i asked for an epidural because i knew from experience that the pitocin is a pain after awhile and i'd be screaming for an epidural eventually anyway. i got the epidural and my blood pressure plummeted, it took them 4-5 doses of ephedrine to get it back to a stable number to be able to start the pitocin back up (during this time they had discussed a possible c-section, but tried to avoid it if at all possible). after about 30 minutes of pitocin, they came in and said the baby's heart rate wasn't great and they were going to stop the pit to see if it went back to normal (it was running too high for too long and then would drop too low before and after contractions). after 30 more minutes of monitoring, his heart rate was fine and they decided to try to start the pitocin again. the first 30 minutes were good, so they decided to up the dose a little bit, but 10 minutes into the higher dose his heart rate went up high again and would spike low. i was still on 5 cm, so there was no way to get this to go faster without putting the baby at risk, so they decided that a c-section was needed, to which we agreed because we wanted a healthy baby more than we wanted a surgery-free delivery.

at this point, i wasn't scared or nervous, but part of me was second guessing myself about agreeing to the induction...maybe i should've endured the pain longer, maybe if we'd waited a c-section wouldn' t be necessary, maybe if we waited he wouldn't have been in any distress...

they got us ready for surgery, jerry came in and they began. within 5 minutes baby was delivered. he had the cord wrapped around his neck twice, and it was pretty tight...a regular delivery wouldn't have been an option if we had waited, and he would've been bigger and maybe had more distress... thaddeus aaron was delivered at 8:51 p.m. on 9/2, weighed 9 pounds 6 ounces, was 21 3/4 inches long, and was 2 weeks early! they did a little work on him to get all of the fluid out of his lungs, but both of his apgar scores were good and he was just perfect!

i was given morphine (which made me itch like crazy) and benadryl, so i was pretty much out of it for the first night, though i didn't think i was at the time. now it's all kind of a blur. i was discharged friday evening, but thad had to go under the bili lights friday morning through saturday afternoon because his bilirubin count was too high. his weight had also dropped to 8 pounds 7 ounces, so that was a bit of a concern also. it was stressful for me to go home without him that night, but due to the c-section there was no way i could have slept in a chair all night long either.

we took him back to the hospital for a blood test on sunday, which was up a little but still okay, and then we went to our pediatrician on monday for another follow-up blood test. he weighed 9 pounds 2 ounces that day, and his bilirubin numbers were okay too. i just kept him near windows with the blinds open for the rest of the week and it seemed to work well.

at his 2 week appointment at the pediatrician, thad weighed 10 pounds 2 ounces! he's been doing great, feeding well, latching on like a pro, and pooping and sleeping the rest of the time! he sleeps for 3-4 hours at a time, and is wide awake and alert more every day. he's such a sweetie pie and such a joy to have in my life. i was so apprehensive about having another little one come into our lives because it's been so long, but from the instant i saw him...all of that went away!

until i get a chance to get some more pictures, you can check out what we've got so far on our family blog. he's a little cutie pie, and he's my little cuddle bug, loves to be held and stays curled up in a little baby ball!!! i promise to get some good pictures posted here soon!!!

insomniac...

yep, that's me! i can barely sleep through the night, and when i get woke up i can't get back to sleep. they told me to take benadryl, but i don't want to take it too far into the night and have a hard time getting up to get the kids to school!

the kids started back to school this week, and it seems weird not to be going with them. i know this leave is a good thing (for baby and college classes) but it's hard not going to work every day and wondering what i'm missing out on too! i miss hanging out with my coworkers...guess i'll be meandering down there to volunteer so i can still feel like i'm connected a little!

second day of school was canceled for tropical storm fay...and nothing happened, we barely even got a sprinkle of rain! now "she" is still hanging around and it's kind of windy out and we've gotten some rain tonight from her. my friends over in cocoa haven't gotten flooded in their house, i hope it stays that way since they just bought it and moved in this month!!!

my fall semester started this week, so i need to get on top of my assignments and not let them get out of hand at all. i have 2 extensions that i need to complete too, so we'll see if i can get them done soon! i should take my insomniac time to work on them. i've been trying to get myself tired so i can go back to sleep, but i guess i'd better roll with it and use the time from now on to work on school stuff...since i like to sleep a lot during the day!

i had some stuff i wanted to blog about a week or so ago, after reading a book for one of my summer classes, but i never got around to it. there was some pretty good stuff in there. i'm sure i'll have some interesting insightful stuff to blog this semester...i'm taking 4 psych classes and i'm sure i'll be psychoanalyzing myself! one of the classes is "preventive stress maintenance"...the guy at the book store said i'll need that one with all of my psych classes and a statistics class on top of it! greeeeeaaaaat!!! the other classes are "biblical counseling" which should be pretty good, "contemporary issues" which covers some interesting topics like divorce/remarriage, homosexuality, and a few others. then i have "social psych" too.

okay, i think i'm rambling now, but wanted to post a little update here.

still waiting for baby to decide to come...little stinker isn't cooperating with what mommy wants! (hopefully that's not a sign of things to come! haha) i just need to quit being pregnant already. the pain and dizziness and fatigue is all i can handle and i'm over it. now my ganglion cyst is back in my right hand, and i'm mentally fuzzy...i want my body back to myself!!! (well, except for the breastfeeding part...i won't have it "all" back for awhile...)

hopefully i'll have something more interesting to say next time...

church tubing trip...

we went to ichetucknee springs today with a few families from church, it was soooooo much fun! if you didn't go, you missed out! if you want to hear more about it, you'll have to ask someone who went...

blackjack 2 and the bible?!?

i thought it was really cool that jerry took his new phone today and was using it to take jeff's sermon notes. lol on top of that, he sent them to my cell phone in a text message...wow, technology never ceases to amaze me! (as long as it doesn't become independently intelligent like it did in i-robot...which i watched tonight for the first time!) i can't wait until august when i can upgrade my phone...i'm not sure what kind of cool gadget-y one i want to get, but it had better be as cool as jerry's!

only one service at church today...
dinner with the fam...
long afternoon nap...
youth group...
target...
movies...
...priceless!

i love laidback weekends, especially when things seem to be going smoothly and life is good!!!

next weekend...tubing!!!

lazy weekend...

we've just been hanging out around the house this weekend and doing pretty much nothing, it's been really nice! (especially since i'm so tired all of the time and jerry's not felt well for a few days)

we drove to dade city to see the fireworks and got there just in time to get a really good spot just before they started. we were closer sitting in the car than if we'd gone inside the fairgrounds to watch them. afterward we got fireworks and let them off at the house until midnight...i got a lot, so we can let them off tonight too. i love letting off fireworks, i have so many cool memories of it throughout my life...from blowing up cans, my step-dad having to run out into the meadow to stomp out a fire, to shooting off roman candles down the street (holding it on the ground with your foot and balls of fire literally shooting down the street!), watching my kids enjoy sparklers, Nick trying to blow up an orange last year, me about blowing us all up last night...fun times and good memories! i think that i, thanks to growing up in the country and burning our trash, have a little bit of pyromaniac in me, just enough to be silly, but not enough to really be dangerous. it has also been a bit of a good thing too, because i'm not scared to just go up to a small flame or cinders in the grass and stomp them out so no one steps on them barefoot.

on another note, for those who may be wondering...i don't have gestational diabetes. the 3 hour test on monday was brutal because i was so thirsty and having back pain while sitting there for so long, but after having blood drawn 5 times, the tests came back negative, so that's a good thing. my iron was a little low, but i guess we'll discuss that this week when i go for my ultrasound to check the location of the placenta (and hopefully get some measurements of the baby too...). little bubba is really starting to get cramped i think, he tries to stretch out and one big bump will be up under my ribcage and the other bump will be poking the opposite hip bone, and he doesn't like being pushed back in place because he'll just stay there and refuse to move to make mommy feel more comfortable. little booger! i just can't believe it's getting so close to his arrival, only a few more weeks (and sooooo much to do to get ready still)!!!

universal studios...

we had an awesome day at universal (except for some rude people, but i won't harp on that one)...

we started out the day at universal studios, ate lunch at the hard rock cafe, and finished up the day in islands of adventure. afterward we hung out in citywalk for a little while for some fireworks and people watching



elisabeth got to be first in line to have her picture taken with the simpsons, she thought this was pretty cool



seusville inspired the whole family to agree that the nursery should be decorated in a "dr. seuss" theme...oh the ideas!!!



one of our favorite places to hang out...i think jerry and i eat here pretty much every time we go! (the funniest time was when i got free tickets to "bruce almighty" at the theaters there and we had to go from hard rock to the theater in pouring ran...jerry didn't think it was so funny at the time, but we laugh now)



citywalk looks so cool at night time!



for a one day vacation for our family, it was a great day! i'm so glad we live close enough to enjoy days like this at some of our local amusement parks and then come home away from the crowds! florida rocks!

i love universal! i'm so bummed that i won't get to go for rock the universe this year! but i don't want to miss the yp summit in the spring...

father's day...

actually, more like father's weekend...

friday evening, we went on a date night to see "the happening" and it was sold out near home, so we drove to another theater and saw the midnight showing of it after hanging out for appetizers at the green iguana... it was nice to have a date night, those don't happen as often as we'd like!

saturday, jerry took nick to meet up with his friends to see "the incredible hulk"...then jerry got a ticket and saw it too, even though he was by himself. (elisabeth and i went to bruster's and had ice cream while they were out...yum!) then jerry and nick grabbed supper together and spent some time hanging out.

today...we got up early to go to church, jerry did the sound board/power point for both services, and we left after the worship set for the second service just as the sermon began. we grabbed lunch, jerry got a ray's baseball shirt, and we headed to the trop to see the ray's play the marlin's...unfortunately they didn't sweep the marlins in the series and we enjoyed the thrill of watching the rays stink it up today. it was still a fun time, and he's been wanting to see a game for weeks.

nothing fancy, but it was a good weekend, just spending time together as a family and doing some fun stuff. tomorrow i get the joy of focusing on school work, since i didn't do much over the weekend....

relaxing weekend...

it's just what i needed! it started off friday evening with elisabeth and i attending a friend's play and eating dinner with their family afterward, just some good hang-out time with friends...(jerry and nick went to see the new indiana jones movie with other friends)

saturday, i slept in a bit and then registered for baby stuff at target with elisabeth, went to a cookout at another friend's home, and just enjoyed more hang-out time with friends and new acquaintances...(jerry and nick went to the big backyard bbq or whatever it's called, to see "the almost" and some other bands, they had a great time too!) i also was able to pick up a crib, mattress, toddler bed and stroller for the baby...all free, from other friends, and am excited and blessed to have this stuff to start preparing for our new addition to the family.

it was nice, just taking some time to relax and not stress about anything...we need more days, weekends, weeks like that for sure!

today was great too. we went to church, a church we dearly love...worship time was amazing for me, the songs were just perfect...the message was amazingly right on what i needed to hear (just like last week's was also)...there was an awesome time of prayer and sense of God's presence there too... i have been convicted the past couple of weeks that i need to pray more for our church, our pastor, our families, our community, and what God is trying to do here, and the message today just reiterated that to me, convicting me more and more that God has been saying the same thing that was spoken of during the message. i feel so blessed to have been brought to this place of worship and service, and can't imagine being anywhere else to worship and serve God and hear his word...

dinner with the family, a nice long sunday afternoon nap...all a perfect ending to a perfect weekend...and i still have another day to go! i feel refreshed and rejuvenated, ready to focus on what's next...i hope your weekend was just as refreshing and relaxing too!

just want to lay down and die....

not really, but there were moments today that i was in enough pain that it sounded like a good idea...or at least take some strong medicine and go to bed. neither of which i could do...i was at work, and i'm preggers...no bed at work and no strong meds for my mommy machine! i had a major ligament cramp last night and it's been sore all day today, i think i had a definite preggers walk going on, but it felt more like an old lady walk than anything! and this is supposed to go on for another 4ish more months?!? yikes! little dude is moving around a lot, and i don't feel like there's anything "wrong", just pain thanks to the monster baby (as my o.b. referred to it) from the last pregnancy...love ya elisabeth! ;)

speaking of elisabeth, she's growing up so fast! she missed part of her reading time yesterday morning because i had to take nick's c.t. films to the doctor and i took her to school late. silly girl decided to try to read fast and cram a.r. tests in and bombed one so it made her total fall below 80% and she didn't get to go to the a.r. celebration today. her teacher said she took it like a trooper and didn't get upset at all.... well, that didn't totally last though because she was upset when she saw me after school. but she also told me that because she was trying to get her total up (it's over 80% now), she took some a.r. tests today and not only raised her score, but broke 50 points for the year! since she worked hard and rectified her score AND surpassed 50 a.r. points, told her i'd reward her by buying her some books of her choice so she can get a good start on her summer reading. she thought that sounded great and has asked that i get her the "spyderwick chronicles"...so we'll be heading to a bookstore in the next week or two and picking them up. growing up, acting mature....my baby girl isn't so much anymore!

and nick update...since that's what this is turning out to be...for those of you who have been following the "saga" the doctor called me personally yesterday (wow...usually it's a nurse) and he gave me specifics on what kind of hypertonic saline to get nick for him to flush out (ewwwww) his sinuses. he said he's pretty sure the staph infection isn't the current issue, it's mostly post-surgical swelling, worse than usual because of the prior chronic sinus infections he's endured. he did say that it will be at least 2-3 weeks before he'll be feeling better, so to continue pain meds as necessary and do the hypertonic saline wash 4-5 times a day....well, stuff is moving and it's gross...i'll stop there and spare you the details, but keep praying for him to recover. this school year's basically a wash, but i really hope he can get back to himself and have a good summer and feel up to having some fun. (it's pretty bad when he's not even feeling well enough to ride in the car to wendy's to eat supper...)

so there ya go....i'm not really suicidal, just in pain...but some good stuff too. :)

wow...i'm exhausted!

so nick is still sick, and we're going in for another ct scan next week because he still doesn't feel great after being on antibiotics for almost 2 weeks because of the staph infection. he went to school for 1 1/2 days this past week.

i've finished 3 of my classes: OT survey, math applications, and psych testing and eval.... i, so far, have gotten all a's!!! i have to finish biblical worldview and personal evangelism in the next week or so. soon it'll be 15 hours down and 34 to go... i'll be registering for 4 more classes this summer, then 4 in the fall also. that should be interesting with labor, delivery and a newborn thrown into the mix! at least i won't be working...

there are only 3 1/2 weeks left of school....yay! i can't wait to be finished with being an instructional assistant! if i go back for the 09-10 school year, i'll be a teacher, not an ia. (i say "if" because i'm hoping to build our business enough that i can just do that and not "have" to go back to working a regular job...though i may decide to just because i love working with kids...we'll see.) i'm taking next year off to be a stay-home mommy and full-time college student...and work on our business. i think that will be enough to do with my time, don't you?

last night we went to the school carnival from 6-9, and then jerry and i went to the wrhs relay for life for a couple of hours. i'm fighting a cold or allergies or something, and can't sleep lying down, so i had the pleasure of trying to stay propped up on the sofa all last night to sleep...i feel like a train wreck!

today is the mother's day tea with the ladies in our church. i almost forgot about it. i hope it's casual, because i will be! i am not dressing up for it...not that i could anyway, i'm very limited in my wardrobe choices these days!

okay, well it's time for me to lounge around some more...hopefully this headache and stopped up nose and exhaustion will go away so i can think and focus on some schoolwork later this afternoon!

so much going on...

nick's follow-up was yesterday and it went really well. they had to suck out some gunk that was stuck in his sinuses, but the doctor said it should all be good now. he did have a headache early today, but when we got home he seemed much better. i love that the dark circles are finally going away from under his eyes. i'm just praying that he'll continue to get better and that the neurologist will take him off the meds she prescribed...we'll see her on tuesday.

i'm super behind in schoolwork. i have 2 tests this weekend, and about 10 papers to do. once we get past tomorrow i'll be able to focus on it all. we have a youth fundraiser at our house...parents' night out...how things like this happen sometimes is beyond me. they just seem to appear out of thin air sometimes, and end up at my house. lol

pregnancy issues...pelvic bones are shifting too early, so i'm in a lot of pain...along with lovely round ligament pain... went to the doctor wednesday afternoon, got checked out and everything is fine. so i'm told to stay off of my feet as much as possible...i work at a school, are you kidding me? also, i'm having people at my house tonight...not staying off the feet today...gotta clean the house and then help watch at least a dozen kids! on the plus side, my ultra-sound is tuesday. i can't wait to find out what kind of little bun is in the oven! i've got so many sewing and crafting projects in mind, but need to know what's coming first! then we'll find out if we need to actually agree on a boy name (which we haven't been able to do), or if we'll get to use our chosen girl name... stay tuned!

it went too fast...

spring break is basically over, we have today and tomorrow and then it's back to school. jerry's preaching tomorrow, so today will be focused on that for him, and then of course church is tomorrow so there's the weekend.

nick's surgery went well. he seems to be recovering rather well too, but last night he was getting a headache from the inflammation. he's been running a lowgrade temp and his poor little face was looking kind of puffy and swollen, but he's a trooper and in a good mood for the most part. i just pray that this will be the "cure" for his headaches. the poor guy has missed over 40 days of school this year and has a few he has to miss coming up for his follow-up and other appointments too. it's been quite a year for him.

i've done almost nothing for my classes this week, i've done some but not as much as i'd hoped. i've also done almost nothing around the house this week either. so i decided to get motivated yesterday and was spray painting furniture that needed refurbished, moving big bins and boxes around in the garage, moving furniture, doing laundry...and i barely put a dent in what needs done and killed my back in the meantime. jerry was aggravated at me for not having him move the heavy stuff...as well he should've been, it was dumb. i'm feeling fine today though, so i'm going to continue to finish the laundry and do the regular cleaning that needs done (vacuuming, mopping, bathrooms, kids' rooms, etc.) but i'm going to put the kids to work on some of it too, at least elisabeth...maybe nick depending on how he's feeling. my nesting instincts have started in, i just haven't had a lot of motivation and energy to do anything about it.

i can feel "sparky" moving quite a bit now, it's kinda cool. i'm still in shock at having another kid, but starting to get excited about meeting this new little one too. i have an ob appointment on monday, hopefully my weight gain hasn't been too bad, but i'm not going to hold my breath. i actually haven't been eating a lot, but we'll see. (i was supposed to be on my way to my skinny, in-shape self right now...not gaining weight! ahhh!) i have an ultrasound in a couple of weeks, so hopefully we'll see the "goods" and know what we're having...

much to do, and the weekend's getting away...