Accomplish ALL The Things {Simple Woman’s Daybook 23}

Outside my Window …
It is gray, cloudy, and the sun isn’t up. We have had rain for 3 days now! YAY

I am thinking…
About all the things I need to start fitting into my day: more floor time with Ila, more violin practice with Lexie, more ironing of J.Tom’s clothes (one day I will be able to afford the cleaners!), more walking, more pregnancy exercises … oh. And more menu planning (really not doing good menu planning), and more blog planning.

How’s that for thinking 😉

I am thankful…
That my husband woke up before me to make coffee and feed the baby cows. =) We have started weaning them from their milk (a little late), and boy are they pushy! We don’t let them boss us, but the taller brown one sure tries.

In the kitchen…
There is bone broth that needs to be jarred up and put in the freezer.

And coffee!

I am wearing…
A maternity dress- it is one of the really old ones from my pregnancy with Lexie. It doesn’t really fit well, but they make great house dresses now, and are comfy to sleep in. Old Navy, $10 6 years ago.

I am creating…
probably a mess of everything. I have so much to do; today is cleaning day, but I also have to work in the basement (ugh) and get ironing done. I have dresses to finish sewing before baby comes, I want to put together a small unit study for the kids on Little house in the Big Woods, because we are about to finish that, and then we are going to grow crystals. That’s creating stuff, right? =/

I am going…
I need to go to Costco this afternoon; if the Mister takes a good nap we will go get groceries and then meet the daddy for dinner out.

Did I mention I have done a really bad job about menu planning lately?

I am wondering…
If it will continue to rain and fill the pond up. We thought we had a leak … thankfully the hubby had access to a few tons of kitty litter so we spread that out where we thought the leak may be. However, it may in fact just be that we didn’t have a wet winter and our runoff is blocked a bit, and there is a huge pond next door that has to fill before ours will.

Hoping the hard heavy rain we got last night started the process. We have had slow, steady rain for 2-3 days now. It has been wonderful!
I am reading…
Oh gosh! Okay, so I have a few books on my shelf, but have only really started one. The first two are homemaking books from the library, though I think I would like to own both. and the rest are books about raising boys. Cause … my little Mister is the only Mister and I am a girl. Therefore I really know very little about raising boys.

I am hoping…
really more like praying God helps me find me the patience and energy today to accomplish all the things!

I am looking forward to…
Not having a mile long to do list! It seems to come in phases, sometimes I feel like I have it all done and everything is great (obviously, it probably really isn’t). And then sometimes I am SO. Far. Behind. Like now. =)

I am learning…
That my Mister needs freedoms, and boundaries, and more reinforcement of consequences when he breaks those boundaries.

Also, that I have let a LOT of time get by me before this baby gets here! I am 27.5 weeks already, and we have a TON of rather big things to do.

Around the house…
dusting. vacuuming. switching season clothes, packing kids clothes that are too small to save for baby, and I am always decluttering. Which right now I think we are in a pretty good place with that. Minus all these girl clothes I have to hold on to! I know I should throw them away, but I just can’t do it. We’re throwing enough away though, leaving us with a lot of space now. If anyone else needs to declutter their home, it might be worth contacting a company like 1300 Rubbish to make sure they can take the rubbish away from your home. That always makes the job easier.

A favorite quote for today…

Accomplish All the Things

One of my favorite things…
that Ila has FINALLY this week, started saying more words: red car, Lexie, mister, bear, more animal sounds, hair bow, and she pretends to read the words in books by speaking her own little baby Japanese. It is really cute.

I also LOVE that Lexie begs to take Ila outside while I am prepping meals, switching out laundry, etc. I do let her take her on the porch or to the back concrete and Lexie just loves it. So does mister- he drives Ila around in the back of his little pick up truck. She is so loved.

A few plans for the rest of the week:
I think ALL the lists above should cover this one. =)

A peek into my day…
This was the other day

Out My Widow ... Life on a Farm

Simple Woman {Daybook}

Hanging Laundry Out on the Clothesline: Farm Life

I have line-dried our cloth baby diapers for nearly 5 years (as soon as one was potty trained we had another). But I have never had a large enough line for all our clothes.

When we bought the farm, the previous owners had hung a wire clothes line from the power pole to a tree. It works just fine, although we need to tighten it up a bit.

I am a laundry perfectionist- I loathe dingy clothes that don’t smell fresh. I LOVE fresh laundry, so I was worried about moving to another house with a water descaler. But, I did a little googling and realized, after 2.5 years of having a softener, I’ve been doing it all wrong! You can use less detergent and get cleaner clothes with a water softener! Whew, was I excited to read that. By the way, if you’ve not got a water softener of your own, then you may want to take a look at some WSE water softener reviews, as one of these could completely change the way you look at doing your laundry. That is the place to look for water softeners for in the home, but obviously hotels and laundrettes and similar businesses can also suffer at the hands of hard water. They don’t have to though, as you can find industrial water softeners here. These are aimed at water treatment on a more industrial scale.

Anyway, I thought I would give the clothesline a try today after washing my first load of clothes at the farm.


I am now on my third load today, and can probably get in a fourth!

HOLY COW!!! Have you smelled freshly line dried clothes before? They are crisp, clean, and BRIGHT!

For the soft water, I used half a lid of gain detergent on an Xlarge load, with two rinses. They smell so delicious I want to roll around in the laundry basket (ok, take that mental image out of your head). But in all seriousness- this is forever how I will dry our laundry in warm, dry weather! Hubby and I have talked about it and will probably put in two lines on the side of the house where there is no shade or tiny people running around. 🙂

Do you use a clothes line?

Also, do you use a water softener? I think if I’m honest, part of this lovely washing has to be down to me using the water softener properly for the first time, haha. If you don’t have one, I’d recommend you read reviews on sites similar to https://allgreatappliances.com/best-water-softener-system/ to find the one that would suit you best!

Let me know what you think guys!

Pregnancy #3 Update: Beginning of Second Trimester

Well, with my first two pregnancies I updated pretty regularly. This time, we didn’t announce the pregnancy until almost 12 weeks, so I haven’t really been writing updates thus far.

We are almost 16 weeks along now; I had a doctor appointment last week and everything was great. The heartbeat was 157 (I think…) and the doctor okayed me to stop the progesterone supplements. My next appointment is in April and we will have the anatomy scan. Here, they only do one ultrasound (what’s up with that?!) at 20 weeks. We had an ultrasound at 6 weeks, to date and confirm the pregnancy.

6 week 2 day ultrasound- Quiet in the chaos

We will not, however, be finding out the gender. We have a girl and a boy, all babies are September babies and the nursery can be gender neutral. I am good with that. (ok, so if you know me well, you are probably as surprised as I am that I am okay with not “planning” for a girl or boy…) The urge I have to perform a home baby gender test is a little too strong at the moment!

The surprise of finding out in the delivery room with only my husband far surpasses my innate need to plan, design, and decorate. I can’t wait to spend that moment with him. We are also not talking names. To anyone. Or to each other, for that matter. =)

J.Tom and I haven’t even discussed names, because we can’t seem to agree on anything. So, I figure if we wait until we have him or her in our arms, we can whip out the handy dandy name list and we can go from there. I just don’t feel like arguing over names, or listening to other people’s opinions of names when we don’t even have a name semi narrowed down yet. *and I’m not saying that all snotty* If we happen to come up with names before the baby arrives, I will be happy to discuss. But we said this time we want to wait until we have our baby in our arms, and that’s what I am sticking with.

It will be fun.

Lexie is very excited about “baby #3.” We don’t call the baby “the new baby” because that just seems mean to the siblings. So it is baby #3. Max is pretty clueless, of course. He is too obsessed with eating, throwing things, and chasing the dog.

Oh yes, we got a new dog. She’s furry, and sweet, and smart, and precious.

We will room Lexie and Max together. For now we are planning on J.Tom building bunk beds- the top bunk will be above the crib, and then when Max is ready to move to a big bed we will build a bed frame for a bottom bunk. I really like snuggling in the bed with Lexie, so maybe I will just put the crib in her room and take out a dresser…. It is up in the air for now.

It is hard watching my babies all grow up on me! It is exciting, of course. This pregnancy wasn’t originally planned. After experiencing a loss in early December, we decided at the very last minute (literally) to try for baby #3. The timing worked out to being another September baby, which I had hoped would happen, but hadn’t actually thought would happen. Just before our loss and all we decided to wait another year. Funny how God works.

No nausea since about week 12-13. I have 3-4 days of TONS of energy, and then a day or two where I am exhausted and can’t keep my eyes open. I workout a few times a week with T25, or we go for walks on warmer days. No weight gain so far (well, technically I gained back the weight I lost in the fall, but that happened before this pregnancy, so I don’t count it) but I am pretty sure my hips are bigger! How does that happen? … And I haven’t lost the weight from Max, so it doesn’t seem likely that I need to gain much. The doctor is good with that.

Still praying for a healthy 5 more months. I hope to go full term, as usual. Big healthy babies seem more durable when you have a Max Payne running around the house. Poor Mister, he has no idea what is coming! Then again, neither do I.

Pray for me, friends! =)

 

One month, One week

Well, here we are. The final stretch of this pregnancy. We had one month from yesterday, and I’m not sure what to make of it.

The crib was delivered a few days ago, it’s beautiful! The color is perfect; J is getting the paint matched in the morning at Peter’s Paint. Then he is going to paint the dresser and chest of drawers while I am gone to the baby shower my girlfriends are having for us. And hopefully we can get the crib together tomorrow night. Then I can play in the nursery all week! :). I haven’t been able to do any nesting; none of the child’s clothes or linens have been wash and out away. Heck, I don’t even know what we have in the way of clothes! I know I have some footie pajamas I bought in Branson, but other than that I don’t think I have any newborn or 0-3 clothes for him. I know I don’t have any blankets, all of lexie’s, and I mean ALL, we’re pink. I think I have a few swaddle blankets that were gender neutral, I know I had one blue one for like 3-6 months.

So, needless to say I am playing catch up for the next 2-3 weeks, so I just hope Max likes it in there. We don’t have time for an early baby!
———-

I wrote the first half of this at the beginning of August. Today is August 25, tomorrow will be one week to our due date. Everything is D O N E! Lexie’s party was a success- she had a blast, the food was wonderful, and the cake was beautiful! I have finished the bedding, JTom painted the furniture, put together the swing set (which Lexie loves), and finished installing the counters. I’ve made the baby a blanket, some burp cloths (but still have more to complete) and washed all his clothes. My girlfriends gave us a wonderful little shower where we got some much needed boy things- diaper bag, washcloths, bibs, blankets, and more! The pack n play is set up w the bassinet attachment ready for baby, and we made room in the storage shed for the double jogger. It’s surprising how much stuff a baby can own!

Now we are waiting on Mister! And boy, am I ready- I am enjoying the last days alone with Lexie; and my last few nights of almost complete sleep… But I am anxious to see him, hold him, and let Lady meet him. I asked her yesterday when Baby Max is coming and she replied, “soon.” I was sure hoping for something a little more specific … maybe Saturday at 10:35PM, would have been nice?

Anyway, after telling me at 36 weeks he would let me go over by 1 week, the doctor is saying he won’t “make” me get an induction, but he doesn’t want the baby getting too big. At my last appointment, he mentioned inducing THIS week, if I am dilated and effaced enough.

Going into a full blow panic attack, I told him we would N O T be inducing this week. So, I’ve been walking, taking my evening primrose oil, bouncing on my ball, etc. No real contractions …. no nothing. Since Monday (after my appointment) I’ve had a non stop messed up tummy, and I thought for SURE that was the beginning of labor. I was wrong.

So here we are, waiting. This afternoon when Lady wakes up we are going for a walk, and then I am coming in to bounce some more.

On a different note, sort of, the chickens are laying more eggs! We are getting 5 eggs a day now- 2 of the red girls started laying 3 weeks early! Pretty soon we will have more eggs than we can eat in a week, so I am going to try and sell them by the dozen. =)

Ok, pray for a safe labor and delivery of baby Max (and preferably one that happens soon!).

Prissy Pot Tots Shop- Upcoming Giveaway!

Hi everyone!  I’m not sure if I have mentioned it or not, but I’ve been rather busy in my sewing corner- and now introducing my embroidery/applique/monogramming corner!  I finally ordered the embroidery machine I have been wanting for so long.


I now have an Etsy shop set up and a Facebook page.  I offer handmade dresses, tops, and now super cute, personalized toddler backpacks!  Everything I make and sell can be personalized with applique, initial monogramming, or name embroidery; I also offer monogramming on items you already have.  For instance, if you would like a TShirt, bag, jacket, etc personalized I can do that for you!


I am making a cute drawstring backpack for my mom now, for her to use in her classroom on fieldtrips.  I will post pics when it is complete.  We are piecing together baby Max’s bedding now, and I plan on monogramming his name in the center of the bumper pad, and the accessories (like his lovey, pillows, etc).


I am so excited, not just to have the machine, but to offer services to friends and others who would like professionalization of different things.  Anyway, here is the link to the shop on Etsy:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/PrissyPotTots?ref=si_shop


and here is the link to my facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/PrissyPotTots


After I reach 200 “likes” on Facebook, I am giving away a drawstring toddler backpack of the winner’s choice!  It will be either a girly print, or boy print and can include an appliqued name up to 6 letters, (or 3 letter monogram) and an applique image.  
After the giveaway is complete and the winner is announced, I will send you the options available for your personalized bag!  =)


(open to US residents only in 48 contiguous states)

Baby’s Closet Organization

I wanted these closet organizers for Lady’s hanging clothes.  They look something like this
(not very cute).  Also, they are not sold in the store (online only), and are $10.00 for one pack.

So my mom, being the crafty minded lady that she is, made these:

Aren’t they SO much cuter than the ten dollar ones (plus shipping) at babiesrus?!  She is just very talented.  =)

She simply took foam door hangers and cut a slit in the hoop so they could be hung on a clothes rack. Then used her Cricut to cut out the letters and glued them on.  (Or you could just write the sizes on there!)

I am very excited to get them hung in baby’s closet.  We must have organization!  😉

Thanks, Mom!

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