Annie

Our beautiful girl came on Saturday September 20th 11:39 am. 6lb 4.8 oz and 19inches long. Her name is Ann Marie and she will be called Annie. Today was our first day home with her, we arrived home from the hospital late last night in a desperate attempt to spend the night at our house. We didn't get discharged from the Hospital until late sunday night because she refused to poop until she was 33 hour old!! We couldn't take her home until she had proved her bowels functional :o) So with today being filled with soooo much "newness" I have not had a chance to blog (go figure) I plan on filling you all in on my whole experiance including pictures tomorrow. I will leave you with the only picture that I can currently get my fingers on because I am laying in bed on the laptop and all the pictures are on the desktop. You can visit here http://www.our365.com/NewbornPortraits/BabyDetail.aspx?birthid=038afa4f-b713-4937-aa9e-6ad5f31a1642 to see her hospital picture.

The official count down begins.....

Oh this could be a very long 3 weeks!! I put off my OB appointment last week mostly because I was busy every day and didn't have time to go to the Dr. but also I didn't want my weekly visits to start yet, they make me anxious!! So now starting this week I am doing weekly MD appointments and I think it is the only right thing to do to let everyone know my progress :o) I did have the MD check me and I am 2cm and 70%!! Of course as soon as I walked out of the exam room I was thinking to myself how subjective cervical exams are and how she is a very tiny woman and I am probably only a fingertip and 50% (notice a doubting attitude?:o)

I have been staying very active, I would love to go into labor any time now. I was helping lug big branches to the burn pile at my parents house on monday for a while, I was pretty proud of myself until I had picked up all of the medium size branches that didn't require much bending. Then I got the rake out and was raking up the small sticks into a pile so that Kelly could put them into the truck. Kel was a stinkin work horse, I have never seen her work so hard! She loaded about 6 truckloads of branches and took them to the burn pile, she even went over to the neighbors and loaded thier branches and brought them to the burn pile as well.
Elly Beth helped out with comic relief for those of us who were working. Once she sat down about 200 feet away (that was her limit) from the giant burn pile and said "i think i will rest here by the fireplace for a while" Then she laid down on her back and told dad "I am going to lay out in the sunshine" Dad: "I have one problem with that, theres no sun" (it was overcast and 6:00 in the evening) Elly: " I thought this would be better". Then when Kelly was dumping her first truckload onto the already huge burning woodpile Elly looks at me and says "were all going to die" !!! None of us had a problem with that statement, however kelly prooved herself responsible and no one died :o)

As a final note we still have no power!! We are staying with Joes mom. I went home yesterday and cleaned out the fridge and freezer. I fried up 3lb of bacon for dinner last night that had defrosted. My husband was VERY happy with that meal. I also boiled about 7lb of chicken and froze it in the broth to make chicken noodle soup with. Everything else was lost, it is going to be very sad to have to restock all of those staple items that normally have a long fridge life :o(

All Grown Up

I love this picture and I thought that I would share it with you all. Joe went to school at Cedarville University and played soccer all 4 years. I loved that he went to school there and I loved going to visit him for the weekend. I would always stay with some of the girls on campus which made me realize how grateful I was that I didn't have to live in a dorm!! I visited more in his senior year because he and most of his friends rented houses and so I didn't have to sleep in a dorm! As the years went on and he and his soccer friends grew closer, I in turn got closer to thier girlfriends as well. Between 2004 & 2007 as we all got married, there were many trips for weddings to, Georgia, Florida, Arizona, Ohio, Indiana & Kentucky. We don't see eachother as much anymore however I love getting the chance when we can. It makes me feel like such a grown up :o) This trip was particularly fun because we are all starting into the family stage, there were toddlers, new babies and pregnant girls and as much fun as college was I know it is just the beginning of our story...
Tiffany Belleman, Kelly Green w/ Emma, Jamie Vance w/ Owen, Me, Annie Beall, Sarah Waldo, Missing Kristin (who was on her way) & Rachael who has a brand new baby at home!

It has begun... the first one is on his way!!

Well here it is blog friends, Kara is at the hospital in labor!!! I talked to Dad at 7:00 this morning and she is 6cm and 100%! I gave the guess of delivery time at about 12:00. No one asked me for my opinion on weight but I think he will be about 8'12 :o) We will see, pray for our big sis. She was asleep when I called, its probably the first time she has been pain free in years! She called me last night around 11 asking me if she took another Vicoden if it would have any effect on her being able to get her epidural. I said take 2 and call me in the morning :o) God bless Anesthesia!!

Playin with Picnik

Here are a few pictures that I played around with on the editing site Picnik. What better to do than watch a Rock Hudson film and edit photos when you are up at 3:00 am!! Oh what has become of me, I am turning into my mother!

Homeschooling

Melissa's blog got me thinking. When I was younger and I would tell people about Homeschooling everyone would think you were cool because you could do your school with a party hat on in your underpants, or on a Saturday just so that you could do something really cool on Monday. Plus I loved to tell them that if you got all of your subjects done by noon you were done for the day! But when I talk about it now, my friends (coworkers) look at me like I am crazy and question my upbringing. Coming across as cool just doesn't happen anymore and it is really frustrating. Especially because Joe and I have talked about NOT homeschooling for various reasons and that is always their next question "so will you home school your kids?" which leads to more explaining! Oh to be a kid again and tease the checkout lady at Wal-mart when they would ask why we weren't in school in the middle of the afternoon we would sweetly answer "field trip" with a nice hick accent thrown in for good measure!
I hate to generalize but when you home school EVERYONE questions your social abilities. When I was homeschooling people would say it straight to my face "how do you socialize with other kids?" or "what about sports?" I wanted to say to the lady on the Ski Lift at Perfect North "You are the only person here that I don't know!!" There are about 250 other home schooled kids here and you don't see us wandering around stuck to our mothers who, by the way, are not all wearing jean jumpers.
I must add that no matter what I say to someone to try to convince them that Homeschooling is not a form of child abuse, they always end the conversation with "wow I never would have guessed that you were home schooled, you are so normal". HELLO!!!

I would like to ask that my sentence structure in this post not reflect my homeschooling. I did go to 2 years of formal High School and 4 years of college and I still never managed to write a proper sentence. :o)

Nursery - After

It took me over a week to actually organize and then another week to blog about, however here it is, the much anticipated "after pictures" I spent ALL DAY Wednesday in this room sorting, moving & unpacking. It took 8 loads of laundry consisting of 2 colors Pinks and whites :o) I realized this about myself I have an unusual obsession with baby washcloths and I will never own enough of them. They are so soft and cute and tiny!

This is her bed. Assembled by her father, bedding provided by her Gram (Joe's mom) and lovingly dressed by her mother.

A close up of the Bumper Pad. Yes I am ignoring all warnings not to use these in a baby's bed. Here is my question, why if your not supposed to use them does every bedding set come with them?
After I was all finished I realized that her walls are seriously lacking decoration. So that is my personal mission, decorate her walls.