first day of kindergarten

Today was much better than expected. I did not cry. I came close, but Emma looked up at me with a worried look, so instead I smiled and told her she was going to have so much fun, and I put her on the bus. She was so excited all morning and didn't seem nervous at all, until the bus arrived. As soon as that big yellow bus pulled up and she realized she had to get on it by herself, she got this freaked out look on her face. That was when I just smiled and told her to get on the bus. As soon as she was on the bus she was fine. She sat in a seat on the side we were standing on and waved excitedly with a huge smile on her face as the bus pulled away.

I think it helped all of us that Sean went in to work a little late and he was there to say good-bye as she got on the bus. He also called me around lunchtime to make sure I was ok and I hadn't heard anything from school. Thankfully we didn't get any phone calls today, and Emma was perfectly fine when she got home.

It was such a quiet day in our house. Megan is really too young for Nathan to fight with the way he does with Emma, so things were pretty pleasant here today. Nathan did seem a little lost without Emma this morning until Megan got up. But once she was up he was fine since he had someone to play with. It's amazing how different kids are without their siblings.

Emma was still excited when she got home, but that lasted about 10 minutes and then the fighting with Nathan, and the whining began. I know it's because she was really tired, so I tried to give her a break, but bedtime couldn't come soon enough. I know next week is going to be really hard on Emma after seeing how tired she was today, but she'll adjust and things will get better...right?
and now for the pictures:

hodge-podge

There are a bunch of things going on around here, and rather than making several super tiny posts, you get one big hodge-podge post instead.
( I wish I knew how to make bullets on blogger)

-I think nesting has hit me ridiculously early. Either that or I've completely lost my mind. There truly is no logical explanation why at 22 weeks pregnant I decided to steam clean the carpets myself (with Sean moving furniture of course), reorganize Emma's and Megan's closet (Nathan's is next), and start cleaning out our storage area in the basement.

- Because of said cleaning projects my office is now full of stuff I want to get rid of. Some of it I have listed on craigslist and some things we have just donated to goodwill. 3 trash bags full of clothes actually! So if you come buy anytime soon and see something laying around you might want, make me an offer I'm in a selling mood!

- I have also decided that I need to start sewing things for our family instead of buying them. Don't worry I haven't gone all Laura Ingall's on you and started making our own clothes. Right now I'm making baby wipes and nursing pads, both items are pretty expensive when buying disposable one's from the store. The ones I've made are not gorgeous, but they are functional, which is what really matters.

- This new found love(lol!) of sewing has mad me decide I really want a serger. Of course in keeping with the theme of saving money this is not going to happen anytime soon.

-I finally drug the hideous pink chair out of the basement and steam cleaned it while I had the machine for the carpets. Unfortunately it is still hideous and in need of some serious help. Because of trying to save money now, re-upholstery is just not an option. Instead I found a fairly cheap, but decent looking slipcover on overstock.com. The one thing I didn't think about is that my chair has no seams between the arms/sides and the back, so there is a lot of material kind of just bunched up in those areas right now, hence the afghan in the "after" picture.
Keep in mind when you look at these pictures that I was lazy and opened the package the cover came in and put it right on the chair. There was no ironing involved at all, and there probably won't be any for a while since I hate ironing.




- On top of the insomnia, the Olympic coverage is killing my sleeping time. I am an Olympic junkie! I can't get enough. I wish they had an all Olympics, all the time channel right now. I will watch pretty much any sport. The only sport I don't enjoy watching is water polo. I think it's really because I have no clue what is going on. It's probably pretty simple; they swim around and try to throw the ball into the other teams net, but I just have no desire to sit and watch it long enough to figure it out. Watching Michael Phelps has been amazing, but my favorite moment has to be when Jason Lezak beat that french guy to win the mens 4x100 relay. AMAZING!

- Emma starts school tomorrow, and I'm in shock. I knew it was coming, but this really means my baby is growing up, and fast. It is going to be so weird to be home without her all day long. I'm going to miss her because she is so helpful, and she likes to help. She has already informed me that she is going to be really good while she's at school, and then she'll be bad at home. At least she warned us, right?

- As if cleaning and organizing the house, and working on sewing projects weren't enough to keep me incredibly busy, I've also been working really hard on the partylite thing. It is difficult trying to get things going and getting people to have shows for me. I swear I'm not trying to guilt anyone reading this. I'm just talking about what's going on here lately. I'm hoping all my hard work is going to pay off, but I'm definitely afraid of failing.

- Sean and I still have not discussed any names for this baby. Well ok, that's not entirely true. We have talked a lot about names we don't like, but have not come up with a list at all of names in the running. This is the only time I think it would be nice to know the gender. Then we would only need one first and middle name instead of a girl name and a boy name. Any suggestions for names that fit with our other kids' names and aren't super popular right now?

Check back tomorrow for pictures of Emma on her first day!

22 weeks

I had another doctor appointment today. All is well. He said I'm measuring a little larger than expected, but all that means is we'll probably have a big baby again. Who's surprised by that? He also looked over my ultrasound info the hospital sent over and he said everything looked good. So nothing new to report today. Check back in 4 weeks!

Insomnia

So the pregnancy insomnia has set in. This weekend has been awful with me getting hardly any sleep Friday night, and now here I am at 3am Sunday night/Monday morning. Saturday night I got a decent amount of sleep, but I'm still tired. I have not missed this at all. Anyone have any ideas that actually work? I feel like I've tried a lot of things in the past and nothing seems to help. So here I sit, bored to death at 3am. This sucks!

busy week

We have one busy week coming up. Monday I go to the doctor again, Tuesday is open house night at Emma's school and Sean's last softball game, and Thursday is... Emma's first day of kindergarten. I can't believe Emma is starting kindergarten this year, and it's alreay time. I felt like it was so far away when we went to the lake, and now it's here. Emma could not be more excited, but I'm already freaking out. I know she'll be just fine and she's going to have so much fun, but I can't believe in 5 days my baby is going to be getting on a big yellow bus and heading off to school for 7 hours everyday. I'm totally going to cry. Ugggh!

new business

In an effort to make a little extra money I've decided to get a part time job. Lest you think I'm crazy I'll tell you I did not take a job waitressing or something incredibly taxing like that, instead I've decided to sell Partylite. I know it seems like everyone is selling something these days, but I really love Partylite stuff and it will be a great opportunity for me. So if you need any candles you know who to call!

new baby purchases

We got a new crib for the baby. Yes, we already had 2 cribs because of Emma and Nathan being so close together, but Nathan's crib was part of the major crib recall, so we got a voucher for a new crib. The voucher we were given was for the highest retail price charged for the crib, and then if we bought a more expensive one we would pay the difference. Since Megan is just now in her toddler bed, and I don't know if she'll be ready to go into a twin bed when the baby arrives we decided to use the voucher and get a new crib. It was a little more expensive than the amount we had to spend, but not by much, so we went for it. I know it's early to be buying the crib, but I wanted it done now so it's one less thing I have to think about.
Here is the crib we decided on. It pretty much matches the furniture in Megan's room now.


The other major purchase we'll have to make is an infant car seat because the one form when Emma was a baby expires in December, which makes it pretty much unusable for the new baby. We know we want a graco so it will fit into the strollers we already have, and I want something neutral. It is really hard to find a car seat that doesn't look too gender specific.
These are the ones I like so far: