Full Term

There you have it. This baby girl has now reached full term and I'm ready for her to come out. OK, next week would be soon enough, but that's it, no longer. (As if I have a say in it.) B was born at 38weeks and K at 38+4. For Baby E, 38+4 would be Friday of next week, Oct 31st, which is a day I'd prefer to avoid having a birth day on. So, let's say, the 29th. That sound good. Hear that Baby girl? ;)

And here's a picture of me in all my great largeness at 37 weeks pregnant.

growing up

As we have prepared B to start preschool and K to become a big sister, I've found myself holding on tight to the precious little people that they are right now. Now wanting to look forward as to what will happen in the future. But just enjoying their sweet personalities, quirks and their absolute adorable-ness.

Today, K fell asleep nursing. It's been months since she's done that. If it weren't uncomfortable with a big belly between us, I would have been tempted to snuggle in and take a nap as well. As it was, I took a mental picture of that precious sight, drinking in every moment because who knows when it will be the last.

B started preschool last week and has been thoroughly enjoying herself.

She comes home telling K that "this is only for 4 year olds, 2 year olds can't do it." Then moments later the two of them are playing preschool together, packing backpacks and finding things to fill their 'lunch boxes.'

Most likely we'll have new little one in our home 8 weeks from now. Another sweet little person to get to know and enjoy watching and snuggling. Both the girls are thrilled at the prospect of baby E coming. We'll see how it is once she's here. ;) They both love to give her hugs and kisses, though, and B constantly talks about missing her. I hope that they love her as much after she's born.

The loves of my life:

I'm home alone

My girls are spending the night with Grandma & Grandpa. Hubby is working until 3am or so. I have the house to myself. It's my birthday. What do I choose to do?

Clean the kitchen, do two loads of laundry, clean off the buffet that's always cluttered, clean off the computer desk, oh, and take some belly pics. It's a bit hard with my big ol' camera in my little bathroom. But here it is:

23w5d













And one of 3 of my sisters and myself tonight after dinner. We had to set the camera on top of the car, so, uh, it's a bit crooked. ;)



I'm on the left. The sister right next to me is my un-twin. ;) We share a birthday, just 5 years apart.

We ate at Applebee's and had a fabulous time, then we headed over to the theater and watched Mamma Mia. We thoroughly enjoyed it. I laughed and cried and had a great time. The music was great, though it was a big weird to see Pierce Brosnan singing... Overall, a fabulous birthday.

Weird to think I'm 30. Just weird.

I'm SO sick of puke!

I can't tell you the number of times that K has puked in the last 2 weeks. It's so sad. I think that we've deduced that she has a heat sensitivity. A couple days that we've been in the car a lot, she puked later on that night. We don't have a/c in the car, and we've known for quite a while that she sweats really easily. As soon as we get into the car, pretty much, she's got sweat beaded up on her upper lip and nose, poor girl.

Other than that, she's puked when she's coughing. She's recovering from a cold and just getting to that productive cough part of it. So she can really get going trying to get all that junk up. And it makes her puke.

Or, if she swallows a bunch of water in the swimming pool, she pukes.

Sometimes if she burps, she pukes.

It's so sad.I've been debating taking her in, but I'm not sure what they can do for her. She's doing fine otherwise. She's eating, sleeping, peeing and pooping fine. So, the overall picture is one of a healthy kid.

OH, and she's getting in some 2 year molars. I'm wondering if the cold combined with teething is just giving her an overactive gag reflex.

I hope.

This is no fun.

He even takes care of the little things

God is so good.

Leaving my brother's house this afternoon, kids buckled into the hot car without air conditioning. We were all sweating. Put the key in the ignition. Wouldn't even turn. Steering wheel is locked up, too.

I call hubby. (Always my first course of action.) ;) No answer.

Try some more. Then unbuckle kids and have them play in the shade in the yard while I work on it more.

Call my sister-in-law inside the house (because she's not answering the door.) No answer.

Try some more.

Eventually my sister-in-law comes out and we chat about frustrating car issues. Then she tells me that her old Toyota used to lock up like this and all she had to do was turn the steering wheel just right and it would unlock the ignition. AHA!!

It worked! Load everyone up again and we're off.

"Thank you, Lord, for taking care of us," B says on the way home. Amen!

And the news is.....

We're having a baby girl! Here she is....

planning for baby

Some days I feel like this little one is sucking every last drop of energy right out of me. Others, I feel like I'm already into the nesting stage. Crazy to think that we're halfway there. Halfway.

Over the weekend I got out my sewing machine and put it to work. I made a couple dipes for K and then an itty bitty (matching) one for our baby. Complete with umbilical cord snap-down. I tell you, it's pretty tiny. I called my fellow cloth diapering sister and marveled over the cuteness of such a small dipe. Then I promptly found a cabbage patch doll to try it on. It fit! :) It's so adorable!








K is quite enthralled with the idea of having a matching diaper as the baby. I've been letting the girls play with it until we get closer to the time of needing it. Just seeing the baby diaper makes K ask to wear her matching one. So, I've already washed it, what....three times....in 4 days.

Something out of the ordinary

When I decided to make a new bag/purse for myself recently, I wasn't quite sure what I was looking for--other than something "cute." Walking through the discount fabric store with hubby and both girls, I was continually drawn to fabric that I would never have chosen before. The had....flowers?....on them.... I'm mean, really, flowers? SO not me. But, time and again, I was caught looking at this cute fabric.

With hubby's encouragement, I just bit the bullet and bought it. Fabric with flowers on it. Seriously. Odd.

After a wash that changed the colors of the flowers a bit, (because I washed the outer and the liner together...oops) I hacked out a pattern with some newspaper. Then bravely began cutting.

While it didn't turn out perfectly, I'm quite thrilled with the way that this bag turned out. It was the first time that I had attempted anything like it, without a pattern, no less.

So, please, tell me how beautiful it is, k? ;)
















Here it is loaded up with all my gear:

more about me challenge

I'm not sure that I'm getting this whole blogging thing. I'm having a hard time showing very much about who I am and what I enjoy doing or what I'm interested in. It's so very easy to do snippets of life with children/about children. But that's not who I am. That's what this is supposed to be, about pickle Annie, as my dad calls me. No, it's not really that I love pickles, although we did have to purchase some the other day when walking down that aisle in the grocery store. Pregnancy does crazy things to a girl.

Anyway, back to me. Just like most moms, I have a hard time doing things just for me. I tend to make it for my kids, or my family, or including them at least. Well, with baby #3 on the way, I fear that if I don't start taking some things for myself I might not have time for quite a long while.

So, how do you blogger ladies blog about yourselves? How do you put things out there knowing that people will then KNOW that about you? How do you go about finding out what you want to say and where you want to be going with your blog?

That's what I'm going to by trying to do in the future here at pickleannie. I'm so much more than my beautiful children. To start off, I'm going to make a list of things that interest me and I'll be doing some blogging about this list. Maybe that will get me going on the right track. My interests, just like yours, are a fluid thing with interest in different things changing as our lives change. So, here they are in no particular order:

cloth diapering
sewing
all sorts of craft-y-ish-ness
photography
babywearing
gardening
easy-does-it
being a help meet to my husband
making a change in myself from frumpy to foxy
being more frugal
decluttering
pregnancy
natural labor/delivery

I'm sure there are more, but that's what I'll start with.

So, that's my plan, folks, to share more about myself and hopefully get to know you a bit more!