Long time since the last time...

Hi there all who might read this...

I wanted to update you all on the progress of our BIG project. We started on the basement and so far have finished the framing of the bedroom, hallway, and most of the bathroom(we are waiting on the shower or bath to get the rest of the framing finished). We installed all the electrical outlets, switches, and light fixtures in the hallway and bedroom. We are now waiting on some money so we can go buy the insulation and drywall/mud/tape.

We just refinanced our house to 4.875% so that we have an additional $180/month to put toward paying for things and paying things down. Plus, this gives us more "emergency" money for each month--ie. more wiggle room. Which is a fabulous thing. We also subtracted 2 whole years from our payoff time frame and are under 10 years for complete payoff of everything including the house. I am really proud of how we are taking care of everything. We are putting much more than the minimum payment each month toward everything. Yay!

Because we refinanced we get November "off" from paying mortgage. So, we have about $900 to put toward the basement finishing. This means that we can finish the hallway, bedroom, and start framing, electrical, and insulating in the theater room. The bathroom is going to be our "drawn out" project. We think it will probably be able to be done by summertime however. I am really excited to have the basement finally becoming finished usable (useful) space! The bedroom down there will serve as Deric's office (and a guest bedroom) until we plan on either doing carpet and paint in my craft/guest room, or we move River down there. Which could be about 2 years.

Molly is having a tough time the last little while with getting to bed. She has always been kind of hard to get down...staying up until around 11 each night. But, I think she may not be able to handle me eating chocolate. Which is really sad, because it is Halloween month...and I love my reeces and butterfingers! :-( So, I am off chocolate as of today to see if it helps. We are going to put away the bassinet (which she has never liked sleeping in--just our bed or the floor!) and get out the crib tonight too. Which means we will be moving her into River's room with her soon. I also think I will put away the swing, since she is not a fan...

She is smiling like mad now! It is the cutest thing! She just melts your heart whenever she gets excited that you are around...even if you are sooo tired and frustrated from the fussiness it makes it all go away. :-)

River is starting to really show an interest in potty training...I just don't know what to do...it is a daunting thing to start. Plus, then we have to make bathroom runs wherever we may be!

I got all my new stuff up on Etsy. I am really excited about my Tie Tree Skirts and hair clips. :-)
www.FromEveryday2NewLove.etsy.com

I did a bunch of canning: Plum Jam--7 jars, Applesauce--10 1/2 quarts, Pear slices and halves--27 pints, Peach jam--6 jars, dried apples--3 large & 4 small containers, Dried banana chips--1 sandwich bag full

Finishing the basement!

YAY!!! I am sooo excited about our new project! We are going to start on finishing the basement today!

We have Craig Anderson (one of our stake presidency, and a long time friend/teacher of Deric's) coming to help us. He loves doing these kinds of projects to keep him entertained, so he is doing it for FREE! He is coming over tonight to help us "draw up" plans of the layout and what supplies we will be needing to get. I also get to pick a color for the bedroom at least...and probably the hallway. I dunno if we will get all the bathroom finished with our $500 budget...but we will see. I'm just excited to get everything moving down there after 4 1/2 years in this house! Having a clean space down there will be wonderful. :-) (Plus, when we get the other bedroom done we can move everything over from the "guest bedroom" now and tear up that carpet and paint and all that in there!

Today, I am going to do some scrapbooking. I am hoping to be caught up to 2009 soon in the next couple months. Even though I have Halloween and Christmas projects to start on too. With Molly staying up until 11 every night, I might just have to use 8-11 for doing my crafts. :-) Slowly I will figure out life. And have a great balance of everything.

Days gone by...

I just want to say that August flew by in a blink of the eye. I feel like it didn't actually happen...life is crazy like that.

We are trying to catch up on everyday things. I have a yard to attend to, a trailer to deep clean and winterize, a batch of tomatoes to turn into sauce, and I really want to get the scrapbooking done that I have pictures in piles for downstairs. At least I got the 9 loads of laundry done from our trip.

I offered to help Heidi with her kitchen and living room when she paints it. I don't know why but I have been craving that. It is nice to have a project to "entertain" me with someone to talk to and kids for River to play with, and something 'creative", and not in my house...haha! Plus, it's service (her birthday was last weeks so this is my gift to her). She is really excited about it, having a motivator now.

I went to playgroup yesterday and kind of broke down and vented to Diana and Heidi. River had thrown a very large and hard toy at Diana's youngest girl's face. Go River. So, I started crying...I am so tired of her acting up! I can't control her with a baby in my arms. I did decide afterward that I need to work on my tactic with her. I need to be more loving throughout the day and then find ways to discipline her without "beating" her. I feel like such a failure when I hit her back after she hits me or Molly...that can't possibly work. Ah, but the motivation to really start doing better is wavering...someday, somehow, I will do it. Time out may start to be important. I think I will make a time out rug and sit and watch her and make sure that if she gets up I put her back...over, and over, and over again until she stays. Diana said that it worked with her oldest. We shall see what I can find at Zion's market.

I AM SOOOO STOKED FOR ZION'S MARKET!! I cannot wait! It is better than Christmas for me! Of course, this is where my Christmas shopping starts...I get crafts and things to make my gifts and it just works out fabulously! I have a shorter list this time...but it will still be fun to see what all I can find. Maybe some things to finish our bathroom downstairs with...who knows! Only one week!

Ah, back to screaming babies...while whitening my teeth...yes.

Home Alone...well, sort of ;-)

Well, we have come to the end of the 3 weeks of visitors. We loved having my Mom out for a week and my sister, Ginny, here for 2 1/2 weeks. Some of the highlights included:

-Going to Ravali's restaurant with my Mom, sister, and my girls...good eats!
-Getting a 2 hour long pedicure with just my Mom. :-) It was super fun and my toes are a fabulous blue-green color! We got to talk and relax without the distraction of kids. Our ladies were fun to get to know. :-)
-We went to the Hogle Zoo with the girls and my Mom and Sister. River loved all the animals! She especially loved the giraffe baby, elephant, and the monkeys. She has been talking about them ever since. :-)
-Going to the mall with my girls and my sister...though River got ornery I was able to get a super cute purple shirt from Aeropastale and a fabulous bright green button down shirt from American Eagle. We ate soft pretzels and Orange Julius too...mmm.
-Camping in the Uintas from Thursday night-Sunday morning this Labor day weekend with Ginny. It was really fun. We went on a walk around the lake and took some great pictures. We went fishing a few times. I almost caught 3 fish...but lost them all. :-/ Deric caught 2 fish and someone gave us one, so we were able to have enough for all of us to have one. Mark and Joan were there with us too. They were sick, so we didn't do a ton with them. We had dutch oven one night that they cooked and another we cooked. We played "Dollar, dollar, dollar" with them with pennies. We watched movies, read, wrote in our journals, and just relaxed. It was nice, but it was also nice to get home. :-) On the way home we blew a tire on our trailer and were on the side of the freeway for an hour while the cop, Deric, and Ryan worked on getting the spare on and the other one unwrapped from around the other tire. It was scary with the trucks and cars rocking the trailer as the passed at 80 miles per hour. We were very happy to get going again!
-Gena and Cal's baby shower we had Ginny watch the girls and went and enjoyed some treats and company.
-Ginny watched the girls a bunch and let me run around...Mom was great this way too! Thank you both so much!! It made it so much easier with not having Deric around for that week!

I'll miss everyone, but I am happy to be able to start my schedule with the girls. :-)

Molly Sage Abel...

She is so flippin' cute! I love little babies! I just want to cuddle her up and love her forever. I know it goes fast, so I am trying really hard to enjoy all the little moments. It is kind of difficult to divide my attention between River and Molly. But, like Deric said, at this point my main priority is to take care of the needs of the newborn. He has made sure to play with River whenever he can. I also make sure I read to her at nap time and bedtimes. She is jealous of Molly, so it's a bit tough when I have to hold and feed her during the day.

Molly Sage Abel was born August 7th at 2:34am, she was 7lbs and 19.5inches long. She came out wide eyed and looking around. She cried only a little bit when they started rubbing her to get her to cough. She had inhaled a little bit of amniotic fluid when she was coming out. So, they had to put her on some oxygen for a couple minutes.

I wasn't able to have her naturally because they had to induce me. It was a terrible ordeal...I was battling depression and the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. I screamed so loud during every contraction that I couldn't scream loud enough to satisfy the need. I am not a screamer, so this was pretty terrible. Deric was nearing mental breakdown. He really tried, but it was too much for both of us. I went from 4pm to 1am without the epidural. When I got it I took a nap. (The epidural was the worst part of the whole experience due to a cocky anesthesiologist and being manhandled during intense contractions and shaking.) When I woke up about an hour later my stomach was flat, like she was gone! I was worried that I had given birth without realizing it and they had either taken her or she was there. I couldn't feel anything at all, not even an urge to push. But, Deric ran and got the nurse and she checked me quickly since Molly was about an inch and a half away from being born. I breathed her down. Then at the last minute the monitor died and they got worried so Julia yanked her out. Ouch. The placenta wanted to stick around, so she pulled it off...also ouch. Then because I wasn't contracting down she had to knead my stomach. HUGE ouch. The experience was a lot better in a lot of ways though, being able to watch, no tearing, very little pain down there afterward, caring nurses, and a perfectly healthy baby that I got to bond with in the first few moments of her life. Next time it will be even better.

I hope that I can get to the point of going to bed at a decent time so I get more than 4 hours of sleep each night. I am dying.

still waiting...

yep. We are, come on contractions! I am ready, and willing, lets go!

"False Alarm"

Well, we went into the hospital last night because I was having regular contractions from 9:50-about 1am. I was having 4 minute apart contractions for the last hour and a half. Deric got really excited so he made us go. Plus, he was getting mad he was losing sleep since he had to work today if she didn't come. Unfortunately, as soon as we went to go to the hospital they slowed down to 9 minutes apart. I kinda had a feeling that would happen. I had to have them check me anyway, which is so very unpleasant...and nothing had changed since Thursday at my doctor's appointment. Figures. At least they didn't take my blood before they knew for sure I was going to stay. :-P They called my doctor and she decided that the 4 minute appart rule wasn't appropriate for me so I am now to come in once I have had 2 minute apart contractions for a few hours. So, There we go...more waiting. I hope that it happens this week...

I'm hoping to have this baby soon...We tried walking last night to get things going, but it didn't do anything. I'm hoping by Wednesday I go into labor. I just don't want to go to the doctor again.

Camping

So, we went camping up at Monte Cristo (where we normally go snowmobiling) with the Snowflakes Club. The ride up was terrible, River got car sick and threw up, and I was nearly blacking out from the bouncing and turning. Everyone was constantly asking "when are you due?" I would reply, "Like today". In hypnobirthing you aren't supposed to focus on your due date since it will happen when you are both ready to go through the birthing process. Everyone kept saying "We have an EMT and two nurses here so we could have this baby on one of the picnic tables or something." I was thinking to myself...uh, I have a trailer I would rather be in, with a decent bathroom, and a bed...Silly people. Anywho, we had a potluck dinner and then sat around the fire chatting with everyone. Alaris, Gena (a girl our age we met through the club), and I played the s'more game for a little bit too. We then spent the night...unbelievably. I was having contractions 9 minutes apart while trying to go to bed. I was up until about 1:30 timing them...but they just got further apart, so I finally fell asleep. We got up and Deric went 4-wheeling with the Sharps on their new toys. Then we went shooting, and sat around and relaxed (well, that's what I did the whole time). It was rather enjoyable, and in the end it was nice that we went. I could have cut out the sleeping part and the ride up though.

Today is my birthday....and I am 24. Weird. I don't know if we are planning on doing anything interesting. We'll see...

Getting there...

Well, I went to the doctor today and she checked me so I would know whether or not to go camping. I am a strong 1+ and 75% effaced. Her head is also so far down that Julia had to maneuver around it to get to the cervix...which was unpleasant. So, anytime now I could go into real labor.

We are going up to the Snowmobile club camp out tomorrow. It is about an hour drive to the hospital. So, that would be an interesting scenario. :-P I don't think I want to spend the night, but we will see how I feel when I get there.