The video of the water and alcohol experiment. As soon as the alcohol touches the water, they "run away" from each other. The edges pulse for a moment. Can you see it? The boys got a kick out of this one, and so did I.

Moved in--with Internet!!!

We did it. We made the long, arduous trek down the street. And all in about a week. Unfortunately, we apparently move a bit faster than Verizon. It took them until this week to move our internet over. All these automated phone calls verifying our "appointment", assuring me it would take 4-6 hours to install the wonderously fabulous FiOS. Yeah, 10 minutes maybe? But it is wonderously fabulous. Nice and speedy. Now I can do bigger pictures-click and see. :P
I haven't taken as many as I would like of the new house, so I ran around real quick this am (with G in front of me) and snapped enough for the collage. You can see that the current state of housekeeping is not great. Which is too bad. We've been really good. Not having net probably helps. But we have been able to keep things quite neat--especially for us! Then the boys got sick. You know what happens to the house when mom gets hung on 24 hours a day by sick kids. E is the worst. For starters, he's little. But he also really, really hates anything on, in, near, or around his nose. So colds really tick him off. He's been mad for 4 days now. All day. 24 hours. I'm tired. M and G are pretty much better. C seems to have a touch of it, or at least fighting it. I've had a sore throat, but that's been pretty much it. Thank goodness!


Belly pic from 2 weeks ago. So 28 weeks? I had a midwife appt yesterday. She thinks the baby is a little small. Not dangerously so, but not on schedule to be a 9 pounder like I figured I'd have. Maybe this will be a girl after all? All in all, I'm very healthy. A bit of the standard aches and pains. C is starting to find humor in watching me move around--especially getting in and out of bed. I have nice low blood pressure and pulse which is reassuring. I'm starting to really think about the birth now that we are moved in. Just mentally getting myself prepared and thinking about what it is I want and don't want.
I am stressing a bit about what to do with the kids during the birth. I want them here so they can come and go as they want--and be present for the birth if they want. Aunt J would be perfect to have watch them, but she is so, so close to being done with school. She may just not be able to make it for the birth. GramRe plans to be here around my due date for a knitting conference and J's birthday, but we all know about due dates. It needs to be someone my kids are comfortable with, and someone I am comfortable having around for the birth. And I don't want to ask one of my friends to have to find childcare for her kids while she hangs out at our house waiting for baby to be born. Granted, I should labor pretty quick-based on my last birth, and I could labor through the night, based on my last birth. But you just never know. Hmmmm.

E loves to play in this oven as much as the last one. At least this one has a door lock that works.

"Do I have to do everything around here?" E loves the vacuum and the swiffer mop. Apparently he can't decide which is better.
I discovered a neat trick too. I hate the chemical that swiffer uses-of course. But if I put some vinegar and water in a spray bottle, it works the same. I'm working on best way to mop the laminate floor. The rag mop doesn't work well at all. The floor looks awful when I'm done.

We've even managed to get in some schooling. M is fascinated by chemistry right now. So we did a Janice van Cleve experiment. You put a thin layer of colored water down on foil. Then use a dropper to drop rubbing alcohol. It is so cool. I'll post the video next.

The collage of the house from this morning. Just to give you an idea of what it looks like with our stuff in it. And the new colors. I didn't get the boys rooms becuase M won't let me show anyone his room and E is taking a nap in the other one. Later.

We're on the move

The house is finally ready for us to start transfering our goods! It is mostly cleaned. I just need to do some basic picking up and mop the downstairs floors. The carpets were cleaned today. All the flooring is done. C still has a bit of a project in the garage though. The previous owners had a dog kennel in there, so the floor is, well, a bit nasty.
But we are now officially packing! Hooray! I think? Anyway. The boys have moved their closet over, I'm packing my sewing room and living room. Here is a picture of the boys working on some of their books. They did this whole bookshelf themselves. Well, I guess it would be more accurate to say that M did it, while telling G exactly what to do and not do. But it's done.
We did decide to go ahead and move in bits. We just don't have enough boxes to do the whole house. And that is a bit much. I think we'll be fine this way. First to go is the living room, which we can then use as a staging area for everything else. The bedrooms will have to go all at once of course. I think Wednesday is the day for the kitchen. It's all coming together so quickly!


Next I have a couple of shots that are just cute. The first is G and E's favorite hangout. They dismantle the baskets too. E really likes throwing towels!


E went upstairs on Wed with G while M was at scouts. "How cute!" I thinks to meself, "they're playing together." Nope, E found something better than silly old big brother toys. Ha. Yes, he did get up there all on his own. This is just how I found him. Actually, when I found him, he was sitting in the sink.

knitting and crazy kids

It's a wonder how I managed, but I have (almost) two things knitted for the baby. I finished a teeny little cabled hat for him/her to wear just after the birth and I'm almost done with a newborn soaker. Notice the itty-bitty cables on the sides. I had a hard time getting them even since I was making it all up as I went along-but I'm pretty sure the baby won't care all that much. :)
I just needed some sort of project for the baby. It seems I have hardly spent anytime thinking about and anticipating the baby. This is the saddest thing. I waited all this time to be pregnant and I feel I've hardly been able to enjoy it. I may seriously check out once we get moved. Or at least for the last couple of weeks before I'm due. I'll take advantage of those nesting hormones. I'll drive everyone crazy with intense baby fever!


I keep thinking that E has got to settle down some so I can survive the last 3 months of pregnancy and then new baby. No sign on the horizon. I learned today that insurance companies follow up with accident ER visits just to see if they can pass the charges on to another entity.
Here is a picture of E in his favorite location. Yes, he IS standing ON the windowsill. He thinks it the most brilliant thing ever. I can't see how this is good, but I can't see how to change it really. At least we are moving next week and the new house has low windowsills. I am telling myself he won't need to climb. Ha. I AM going to try to arrange furniture such that he can climb from it to any ledges. Bets on how long it takes him to figure out the fireplace??

This was just such a cute moment I had to take the picture. G decided to share his oatmeal with E. They each had their own bowl, but one had raspberries and the other had blueberries. I can't remember who started with what, but it seems the blueberries were the favorite.

I apologize again for lack of a belly picture. Soon! I want C to take some with his camera and set up, but it seems I am always too tired in the evenings to actually make that happen. So I will have him just snap some with my camera for now and call it good. I am looking forward to him taking a bunch of pictures near the end of my pregnancy so I have those to look back on.
If I haven't replied to a message you have sent me, I apologize as well. It seems most of my typing is able to come during nap time or when E is otherwise occupied. Since he takes short naps and is rarely otherwise occupied in any way that I would willingly turn my back on him, that means very little typing time. If he sees me (or anyone really) on the computer, he insists on climbing up and "helping". Not sure how much more help the computer will live through to be honest.