I keep counting the sleeps that are left until Grams (my mom) comes home on my fingers with Joy. She has fun as she’s learning to count and loves my mom.
Sunday morning during Breakfast Joy started counting down on her fingers (random numbers as she can’t count down yet), then she got to 1 and held up her one finger and said “One sleep and Grams home. Yup”. Orlund and I had a good little giggle over her seriousness. I told her she was right we were getting closer, and that NEXT Sunday was when Grams would be home. Orlund’s eyes went as big as an owls and said “REALLY? already?”. I asked him about it to find out that my mom coming makes it so much more real that baby is coming soon too. That’s right, baby is coming.
I’ve noticed that my body is getting ready for baby’s arrival with the ‘increase’ in aches and pains that are only experienced at the end of a pregnancy. Fun. but exciting all the same.

I decided that I needed more room in the baby’s room so sorted through all the girls outgrown boxes and was able to get rid of just over half of the amount of boxes. Yes there are still many boxes but a whole lot less than there was. I also started to sort through all the stuff that has just been shoved into his room to be organized. It looked like an explosion had gone off. When Orlund first saw in the room he said “I sure hope the girls didn’t do that”. Nope, just me. After he found out that baby is indeed coming soon he asked me to hurry and get the room set up. I told him it would take me 30minutes to do. Today I put myself to the test and sorted through the remainder of stuff, set up the change table and just finished the room off. It took me 30minutes + a quick vacuum. I think that’s pretty impressive. so now all I need to do is fold some receiving blankets that I just finished washing and put them away (spot all ready), and change the bedding on the crib, I didn’t change it as the girls were playing in the crib and I figured might as well leave it so it’ll stay fresh.

Today once Olivia goes for her nap I’m going to tackle Orlund and my room. I figure it should only take me 30minutes as well to get all my piles off the floor (laundry and some stuff to run downstairs, as well as clearing off my dresser/vanity and night stand). Once that is done I will either take a little nap too or finish packing my hospital bag (baby stuff is in there, just nothing for me).

For those of you without Facebook I am doing a ‘poll’ to guess when baby arrives. He is due Feb 28/29, he’s already head down but not ‘engaged’. Joy was born 10days late at 8lbs 6oz and Olivia was born 7days late at 8lbs. If you’d like a chance to win a little gift give a guess at his birth date and birth weight (actually I’ll allow you to make 2 guesses).  You can make your guesses up until my due date or I go into labour.

Another ‘thing’. My Daycare boy’s dad asked me when dropping him off last time if Sol hits a lot while here. I said no. he went on to tell me about a trip the family had just taken. I guess whenever Sol was with other kids he was hitting them and hitting his parents/brother. They had to get a room in the back corner of the hotel because he was so noisy, and they even had people complain because of his noise. I guess he was also jumping off the beds, getting into everything (coffee etc) and unrolling all the toilet paper. And both the boys wake up so early (5am) that their mom took them and drove around trying to find somewhere to buy a cup of coffee. That’s just crazy to me. His dad said he wished he could see what he’s like when he’s here.  Got me to thinking. They must not have strict rules at home, or at least don’t enforce them. I have set rules, they don’t change. No jumping on/off furniture. It’s our rule at home, at friends and pretty much anywhere. I know the boys are allowed to do that at home, so why wouldn’t they when out? makes me realize just how important having the same rules when at home and when out are to have. Our kids always know what’s expected of them, it never changes (of course it adapts to different situations). They try to stretch the limits, test us and are just kids, but they know when not to push and when to stop it. When we go to a hotel, go out of town, we want to relax. I can’t imagine that Sol’s dad or mom got much relaxing in (especially not together).  Sol knows my rules and honestly behaves just like one of my kids would. Sure sometimes he doesn’t like the rule so will ask for his mom/dad or to go home, but all daycare kids do that once in a while. He plays with them without hitting or hurting the girls (of course the occasional scrap arises but that’s to be expected). I honestly think his dad would be beyond shocked to see how calm, rule abiding he is when he’s here. And honestly it’s not like I did anything special, I was just always consistent. If I told him/reminded him of the rules and he chose to break them again (within a reasonable time frame) I’d put him in time out or if he hurt someone I might give his hand a smack. But really it was usually just a matter of reminding him of the rules and making sure I stuck to the same ones I always have. And the rules are the same for all the kids.

Well that’s my update for now. Oh and also Orlund told me to stop making/freezing meals because we don’t have enough room in the freezer anymore Never thought that day would come. LOL. Well I’d better get Livi down for her nap.

After those first few nights of endless trips up and down the stairs I’m happy to say the girls have started sleeping through the night! Which isn’t just a first for their new room, it’s a first EVER! For both of them on the same night anyway.. Olivia has woken up a couple times for another bottle around 11pm, which is normal for her and we are usually just settling in for the night anyway.

I love waking up to hearing the girls greeting one another “Good morning baby-eyah” Joy shouts “Hi” Olivia answers. With that their door creaks open and they make their way upstairs, I’m usually still in bed and pretend to be asleep. Soon I feel a cold little hand touch my arm, I open my eyes to see Olivia with her crazy morning hair smiling at me “Hi” she whispers “Good morning Love, did you have a good sleep?” I ask “yup….. poop” she responds pointing to her bum (which doesn’t necessarily mean she’s pooped, just that her diaper is full). Joy waits by the door, “Good morning Joy” I say glancing over at her “Good morning Mommy!” she excitedly answers then starts rambling on and on about whatever. It truly is a great way to wake up

I’m finally getting the itch to get all the baby stuff together and organized. Actually it’s past my bedtime at the moment however I need to wait until the dryer is done before going to bed. I like to sleep with the dishwasher going (soothing) but not the dryer. Once the buzzer goes I will have washed/dried 2 loads of new born baby clothing. Actually it’s all the newborn, 0-3month and 3 month clothing we have. I’ve been very blessed in receiving many items of clothing for a boy (mostly in those 3 sizes). I’m part of a mom group (privately) on facebook with mom’s that are all due in March (or like me and just before March). There have been 5 babies born already! (2 sets of twins). Makes me realize I really don’t have much time left to get organized!! I’m considered ‘full term’ on Tuesday! But this baby has to hold on until mom comes home, she arrives home on Feb 19th (pm)…. that’s just 15sleeps away

Well I think that’s it for this post…. Have a wonderful night!

Update on our lives~
~ I’m still pregnant. Yup. Imagine that… 4ish more weeks to go, I like the sound of baby arriving Feb 20th
~ Had our furnace checked out today. We will probably be getting a new one in the next month or so, depending on the quote they give us.
~ I discovered how messy our house is. I’ve been doing lots of cleaning, so it’s mainly just toys and stuff we are still moving around. I probably wouldn’t have noticed except I needed to ‘clear a path’ for the furnace guy before he got here and realized just how much work there is left to get done.
~ My best friend’s mom lent me a book. It’s a cookbook. “The big cook”. I’m in LOVE. The recipes are made for you to get together with some girlfriends and make lots, you cut up the meat, make the sauce put it all into a ziplock bag and freeze it. So no cooking involved for now. The book also gives suggestions for side dishes (I always need help with those). You pull the food out to thaw overnight then cook it up the next day for dinner ~ many of the recipes are cookable in the oven, slow cooker or BBQ. I have made 8 meals so far, we ate one so I have 7 frozen meals. I also have all the ingredients and most of them prepared (cut up etc) for another 2 meals, however I miscalculated how much meat I’d need so need to buy a bit more. Darn Kg to Lbs! I know the math but apparently can’t do it!
~ Orlund and I have both been making many different meals from various cookbooks we’ve bought or were given. We are finding out what’s yummy and easy. I’ve got to start making a list of the recipes so we can remember later! LOL
~ We are FINALLY going to move the girls downstairs TONIGHT! *gasp* got lots still to do, but I’m going to work on it today after Olivia is down for her nap (well I have stuff to take out of their room first..). I’m excited it’s finally happening because that means I can start getting ready for our new addition.
~ Joy went to Sunday school last Sunday! This was a big step, she didn’t like to go as the kids were too loud and all over the place. however on Saturday we went to a birthday party with some of these kids and she decided since they were nice there she’d go to Sunday school with them again. She loved it! (now the rowdy kids I noticed weren’t there, and the new teacher is more strict ~ which is good for some kids like Joy, but not all kids). She say’s she’s going to go again this Sunday. Poor Olivia, she really wants to go! 1 more year
~ Olivia is completely a Daddy’s girl. If I discipline her she runs to daddy for hugs. If Orlund disciplines her she runs a full circle, towards me then back to him for hugs. During the day if she gets really frustrated and I don’t know why, she points out the front window and cry’s “Daaaaaaaaaaaaddddddddddddddddddddyyyyyyyyyyyyy”. I remind her Daddy is at work, but she just cry’s and cry’s for him. The only other thing that will sooth her is her Blankie.
~ Both the girls are so smart it blows us away sometimes the things they come up with! They sure are listening.
~ Joy loves to say something to you (not understandable) and then when you ask her what it is she said she replies “oh, never mind” while waving her hand. She is also using the word “pardon” now instead of always saying “what”. It makes her seem so much more grown up.
~ Joy is excited at the thought of having a baby brother to play with… I’m worried she’ll be upset when she realizes he wont be much of a ‘play’ buddy for a while. At least all the baby toys will keep them busy
~ Orlund is LOVING his new job. Much less stress and it’s doing stuff that he loves.
~ I accidentally killed Nemo (our Gold fish). Yup somehow the temperature in our fish tank got so high he died and our other ‘fish’ (more like a snake/eel) was jumping out of the water because it was too hot! We cleaned the tank and cooled it off for them (slowly as to not shock them). Joy and Daddy went on a special trip to buy more fish, they bought 2 Pleco’s (the fish that clean the algae) and 4 little neon tetra’s. We are hoping to get on track with cleaning on a regular basis (it doesn’t take long, but remembering is the issue), then we would like to get guppies again. I love guppies. Just before we’d moved into this house I’d gotten into the routine of cleaning the tank, and our guppies were having babies. Unfortunately guppies are very sensitive fish and didn’t survive the move.
~ My pregnancy is going good. I have very low blood pressure still, the Dr suggested I use pressure stockings to help, I just gotta go buy them! My back has been killing me the last few days, but I think I know why. I dusted all our ceilings and walls on Monday (or was it Tuesday? lol), I think I just over did it and must have strained something.
~ well it’s time to get lunch going and some stuff cleared out the girls current room before Olivia goes down..

Hope all is well with your family. God bless you.

My last post was a downer, but even now rereading it the post didn’t even capture the essence of what I was feeling. Thank you to those that read and commented. It really did help to know that I’m not alone in my frustrations.

I finally was able to talk to Orlund and we were both able to discuss our frustrations and clear the air some. Since then he’s been awesome. He tells me to ask him when I need help (I’m bad at that), especially when I’m doing something I shouldn’t be doing in my pregnant state. And I feel like we are moving forward and that makes me much happier. We are even wanting to go to bed early just to lay there and talk for hours, something we haven’t done in a long time. This year is starting to look up.

I honestly can’t remember what all I’ve blogged about or not. Sorry if I’m repeating myself (I’m to lazy to look back). Orlund finished building a part wall that has a built in desk on the other side (MY desk). We cleared out the old ‘tv room’ and it’s been transformed into our new office. We spent the last week after Christmas before Orlund started his new job busting our butts to try and get the office ready to move all our crap stuff in. Orlund bought some shelving units and put them together, as well as dismantling his desk, moving it then reassembling it. We only have a few remaining odds and ends in the old office (as well as the closet that is full of my material and sewing stuff). I hope to move all the remainder of my stuff over tomorrow (although I may need more boxes). After Orlund finishes moving the last few things of his over then the old office is ready for it’s make over. It’s going to be the girls new bedroom. They are very excited about it. Especially since they will both be getting ‘new’ beds! I’m very excited to set up their new room and finally move them downstairs (although it’d be nice if they slept through the night on a regular basis!).

My mom gave me a hand and we were able to get the toy room finally organized and cleaned up. It felt so good to get it decluttered and organized. I don’t know if you’ll understand this, but to me, whenever an area that hasn’t been cleaned in a while is finally cleaned and cleared out it’s so quiet. Like the clutter and mess were noise to my eyes.

Well I think that’s all I have to share at the moment
Hope you all have a wonderful week! Oh and if any of you have any recipes that are good for freezing I would greatly appreciate them… trying to stock up, unfortunately I don’t have many ideas…Thanks in advance

Today I tackled the house. As in I cleaned it. I’ve been doing very good at keeping the house clean. However before you leave on a big trip there is always that ‘little’ extra you want to get done. We leave on Saturday. I have had my clothes and the girls clothes packed since Tuesday. Wednesday was running around doing errands (got to hear baby’s heart beat!) so it was pretty much a write off for doing chores. I got everything accomplished, other than Vacuuming (which isn’t exactly a hard job to do). Tonight while sitting on the couch watching TV with Orlund I started to write out a list of all the things I need to do tomorrow…….. WHAT?!?!?!?! How can I have SO much left to do?? Most of it is preparing snacks (like cutting up cheese) and just gathering things together and organizing them into a transportable state, but non the less I think tomorrow will feel like just to short of a day! *Sigh* I was hoping it would be a relaxing day. I think though there is no such thing before a big trip. Today at 5pm I petered out. And after dinner for a few hours I really didn’t feel well, I think I over did it. That’s the last thing I want to do tomorrow, over do things, but like always there is much left to do…..wow deja vu! I’m pretty sure I’ve written that last sentence a few times before….LOL…. And here, like most times I think I’m ahead of the game until the day before/of. Oh well!

So if my blog is quiet for a while, don’t worry I haven’t disappeared completely. I’ll be around

Well after my last post I should write that today was a much MUCH better day Thank you Jesus!
Last night I found I couldn’t sleep. I was wide awake. WIDE awake. I haven’t felt that wide awake since before I got pregnant with Joy!! It felt great…. the only problem was it was after bedtime. I couldn’t make any noise. I couldn’t use this wide awakeness for progress. (yes awakeness is a word in Jenn Land). We went to bed at 11pm. I stayed up wide awake until 1:30am. I made a prayer list (specifically of babies, mommies and pregnancies ~ the devil sure has been attacking). I prayed over the list as a whole and individually. I spent some time with the Lord. Then surprisingly enough I was still wide awake (you know what I mean if you’ve ever tried to pray before falling asleep, you usually fall asleep before you say Amen). So I turned my computer on in hopes mom would be online. Nope. So I emailed her. puttered around online. The girls were up a bunch of times, so they also kept me going. Finally I decided I should try going back to sleep. And I did rather quickly, and slept GREAT!
This morning the girls and I went in the back yard, hoping to play in the pool ~ ice! So we came inside. I thought I had the boys at 10am, but nope, it was 11am. So I baked bread. Today was my day to take a meal to some new parents in our Church (Baby born on Tuesday! He’s so cute!). Once the boys arrived I made lunch while baking a desert (turns out using whole grain flour doesn’t work so good in squares). I gave Sol a bunch of time outs but over all it was a good day with them.
My Dad popped over just as the boys were being picked up. So I scooped his car to drop off the meal, then returned to enjoy dinner with him and the girls. (Orlund went on a hike with buddies until 10pm). Then we enjoyed a coffee and he headed home just as I put the girls down. They went down surprisingly well. Bonus! Then I went to have a bath, and decided the tub REALLY needed a scrub, so I scrubbed it. It was draining slow, so I dug out gunk from the drain. While I was doing that my mom called on the phone! It’s always an extra special treat when she calls. We visited then decided we should Skype as it’s free. So we did that, while I enjoyed a bubble bath (I know weird to do, but whatever. I needed the bath). So after a rather short soak, and a good visit with mom I decided to watch a movie. I didn’t like any of the choices I had, but decided on “how to train your dragon”. It’s a ‘kid’ show. My kids wont watch it until they are like 13, but none the less my brother gave it to me. And I like it! It’s cute! Orlund came home, he’s looking at his hiking pics, and all in all it’s been one of those days that at the end of, you wouldn’t mind repeating tomorrow…..Tomorrow will be even better!

Random, but cute. Our little helpers.

~~ I learned a few new things this week, 1- before promising a meal to someone, make sure you have the car to deliver it. 2- not everyone can be so last minute as me (which is completely okay!). 3- it’s more work than I thought to plan the meals, but I think next time I’ll be better prepared……Wish me luck! I do truly LOVE being able to bless others in this way, it’s just been a BIG learning curve for me these past few days.

As I sit here typing I am taking my second listen to a beautiful song that is on my friends blog…I don’t know how to do that fancy tagging but her blog is ~ dankasworld.wordpress.com Check it out

So Today I dropped Olivia off with Grandma Norstrom. It was her first time being left alone without at least one of us (as in Joy, Daddy or myself). She did great. I dropped her off as I had to take Joy to her hearing test. Babies have their hearing tested when they are first born before leaving the hospital. Joy’s test came back fine, however my Dad is deaf in one ear, so they like to retest later on. (9months and 3years ~ although that’s since changed and now it’s just at 3years old). I was so surprised at how grown up my ‘little’ girl is!! She did awesome during the check up. she knew what all the pictures were (they said the name she just pointed them out ~ didn’t know she knew what some of those things were!). Her hearing is awesome and she doesn’t need to go for another check up (Yippee!). Although I am going to take her in to meet with a speech therapist just to make sure she’s on track.

Then we went out for ice cream… which at 9:30am is harder than it sounds! DQ was closed. McDonald’s was cleaning their machines…. Joy wasn’t very happy at that, luckily Shell had some. We even had time to hit up the dollar store. Then Joy had a regular doctors apt (just to check on a funny toe nail she has). Then we went up to Grandma’s house. I still wanted to get some shopping done, so Grandma watched both the girls so I could run out and do the grocery shopping. Thanks Grandma!

Orlund is in Vancouver tonight. hence why I’m still up at 11pm! *Gasp* I find I have a hard time going to bed when he’s not home. I decided to tackle our office/craft room while he’s away (hope he doesn’t read this before coming home, although he rarely reads my blog). I put up a painting I got from my mom’s mom (she was the most talented woman I’ve ever met!). And a crafting shelf thingy (on the wall). I’m pretty proud of myself for doing that. Over the past few weeks I’ve slowly (very slowly) gone through my book shelf and boxed up the books I just really don’t need out. Tonight I took everything that doesn’t belong in that room out and organized in piles (garbage, to go into crawl space etc). I have about an hour of work left before the craft room will be done (on my side, I’m not touching Orlund’s stuff). I think Orlund will be happy to see the progress I’ve made. And of course I want the house all clean for when he gets home… but my time is going to be cut short tomorrow ~ hockey night! And I plan to go to my Dad’s house and watch the game with him and my brother.

I have also taken on a new task. I’m excited about it. Orlund thinks I’m crazy as it’s just something else to add to my to-do list. However it is only once in a while job. At our Church whenever someone has a new baby the mom’s get together and bring them meals for an entire week. It’s a HUGE blessing when you are on the receiving end. The two ladies that have been doing it aren’t wanting to anymore and they have been looking for someone to take it over for a while. I didn’t want to, however then I decided that it’s not that hard of a job, and I like the organizing possibilities. I now have a binder with papers all ready to be filled out~ Who’s baby, allergies, time for meal drop off, etc etc. I love lists and this just falls beautifully into my ‘addiction’ to having to write things out. (I find that if in the evening I don’t write anything down on paper, I feel like I’m missing something. I think it soothes me… weird I know). There are 4 babies I already know of coming to our Church in this year (okay one is at the start of January). I’m excited to give this a go!

Well my kitchen is messy, my laundry is still hanging in the living room, I’m surrounded by all my ‘organizational’ stuff, and I’m headed to bed! lol.Good night!