Christmas Day

My parents got Naomi a Disney Princess play tent for Christmas, and Jacob and I set it up on Christmas Eve so that it would already be up when Naomi came downstairs on Christmas morning. She was excited when she first saw it, but she wouldn't go inside until Jacob & I both went inside. Sine then, we've barely seen her out of it! She spent most of Christmas day playing in her tent, dragging toys & blocks inside, and peeking out of the windows & the crawl hole... when Jacob put a show on TV for her, she lay down inside the tent and watched the show through the crawl hole in the side of the tent.





When we finally got Naomi out of the Princess tent, we opened presents. It was fun this year because Naomi was old enough to open her presents herself (for the most part). Naomi got her tent & a big thing of megablocks from my parents, and we got her a set of 12 hand puppets (13 bucks on Amazon!), some play dough, and a giant coloring book (play dough & coloring book from the Dollar Tree... I love the Dollar Tree!). We are also making her a puppet theater out of a cardboard presentation board, but we haven't had the time to finish it. With Aleta's arrival, things have just been a little too busy! I'm hoping we can finish it this week, and then I will post pictures. I was also able to get a double stroller for the girls, which I am way excited about! The double stroller that fits our infant car seat was $150, which we couldn't afford, but Babies R Us had it on sale before Christmas for $110, and then we got a gift card for the girls from some family, so I was able to get the stroller for only 85 bucks! For that price, I couldn't pass it up. I'm excited that I will be able to take the girls on walks & outings now!

For the rest of the day, Naomi played with her new toys, Jacob relaxed and played with Naomi and played some video games, and I spent a lot of time cooking! I made a bacon, egg, & cheese breakfast quiche for brunch, which was delicious! Then for dinner, we had a 9 lb. (it was the smallest I could find!) spiral honey glazed ham, mashed potatoes & gravy, green beans, fruit salad w/cool whip, and rolls w/butter & honey. Yum!! Oh, and cherry pie for dessert, which I did not make. I had planned on making it myself, but with the craziness of having a baby a week before Christmas, I decided to make it easier on myself and buy a pie instead. I also made peanut butter fudge for myself after dinner (I'm not a big pie fan), and in the last day, I've eaten half the pan myself. I love fudge... yum!!

My quiche! (The beautiful flowers are from my parents)

Christmas Dinner!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, too!

My Little Stocking Stuffer

Christmas Eve

I had planned on doing all kinds of fun things on Christmas Eve... decorating a Gingerbread house with Naomi, baking & decorating sugar cookies, watching a fun Christmas movie with Jacob once Naomi was in bed... but life has been a little extra crazy the past week with a new baby, so none of those things happened. Instead, we spent the day doing a little cleaning and a lot of relaxing!

I found out that I can almost fit into some of my pre-pregnancy pants (meaning that I can get them on and zipped or buttoned part of the way!) so I celebrated by putting on some real clothes (instead of sweat pants) and taking pictures with my girls!

I love this picture except for the fact that Naomi has her finger up her nose!

It's nearly impossible to get a good picture with Naomi because she is too interested in the camera. As soon as she sees it, she has to have it, which means she will not stay still long enough to take a decent photo.

We finally ended up putting a movie on to distract her, and then Jacob hid behind the computer and tried to sneakily take some pictures.

Before bedtime, Naomi and Aleta opened their Christmas pajamas! I was so excited when I bought them at Walmart... I found sleepers for both girls that almost matched. They look pretty cute, huh?

Aleta's Birth Story

For those of you who want to know, here is the story of Aleta's birth! It's very long & detailed, with most of the gory details, so don't read it unless you want to know everything!

On Wednesday night, I started feeling a tiny bit crampy, so I was really hoping that something was going to be starting! On Thursday, the very mild crampiness continued and turned into minor contractions by mid-afternoon. I continued to have minor, irregular contractions throughout the evening, and they slowly got worse and more frequent. I tried to finish any last-minute hospital packing & cleaning of the house so that it would be ready for Jacob's mom, who was coming to stay with Naomi. Around midnight, I decided I should try to get a little sleep, since I was fairly certain we'd be heading to the hospital within a few hours. The contractions weren't bad enough yet that I couldn't sleep through them, so I fell asleep until about 1:30, when the contractions got quite a bit worse. I woke up Jacob, and we called his mom about 15 minutes later so that she could start driving (they live about an hour and a half away).

Jacob went back to sleep at this point, but I couldn't sleep through the contractions anymore, so I got dressed, brushed my teeth, and went downstairs to watch TV shows on Netflix (How I Met Your Mother, to be more specific). While I watched, I timed my contractions. They were coming every 4 to 5 minutes and lasting about a minute for the entire hour that I timed them. By 3:00, they had definitely gotten stronger, so I woke up Jacob and told him we needed to be ready to go to the hospital as soon as his mom got here. I think she got to our house around 3:45, and we headed out!

Once we were at the hospital, we got settled into a labor & delivery room, and the doctor on duty checked me to see how far along I was progressing with the labor. I don't think they had expected me to be very far along, because the doctor was very surprised to see that I was already 7 centimeters dilated & 100% effaced. My doctor got to the hospital shortly after, and she thought that maybe the other doctor had been mistaken with his check, so she checked me herself, and I was at an 8! I was very eager to get my epidural in at this point as my contractions had gotten pretty bad, and I was also terrified that I'd be too far into labor that they couldn't give me my epidural and I'd have to do it naturally. (I'm definitely not one of those women who wants to try the natural birth thing... give me my meds!!). My nurse kept telling me how good my pain control was and how I could probably do it naturally, but there was no way I was going to attempt that!

The anesthesiologist came in and gave me a combined spinal-epidural (I have no idea what that means, but I know it's what I had!), so I finally had some relief from the pain of the contractions. And then it was only a very short wait before it was time to push!

Now, I had pretty much expected this labor & delivery to be easier than my labor & delivery with Naomi, since it was my second child. And the labor part definitely was--I knew more of what to expect, so I had a few signs that labor was coming on. I did most of the laboring at home, and I even made it to 8 centimeters without any pain meds! (I'm not gonna lie... I was pretty dang proud of myself for how I handled all the contractions without medication! I've always thought I was a wimp when it came to pain, so I was happy with how well I did with the labor pain). The delivery part of this birth, however, was a lot harder on me than it was when I gave birth to Naomi.

First, when I delivered Naomi, she came out fairly quickly. Total pushing time was only about 45 minutes, and that included 10 minutes or so during which the nurses had me stop pushing because Naomi was about ready to pop out and we were still waiting on my doctor to get there. With Aleta, the total pushing time was a little over an hour, and it was a lot harder than it was when I had Naomi. I felt exhausted this time around. After the first few pushes, I was already so tired and wondering how on earth I was going to be able to keep going. Then, when Aleta's head finally got close to coming out, it got really painful for me. My doctor said that my perineum was too strong and it wasn't stretching (or tearing) so that Aleta's head could fit through. So for the last 15 minutes or so of the delivery, Aleta's head was right at the opening but still unable to come out, so I had constant pain. Instead of just feeling the pain & pressure during the contractions, I had incredible pain & pressure for every moment of those 15 minutes. My doctor finally asked if I was ok with her doing an episiotomy to help Aleta's head fit through. I told her I was hurting so bad that I didn't care what she did to me as long as she got the baby out! After a few more pushes, the doctor had to cut me even more, because it still wasn't enough to help Aleta get out. Finally, at 8:00 on the dot, Aleta was born!

At this point, I was happy and relieved, thinking the worst was over. Boy, was I wrong! At first, everything was fine. They gave me Aleta right away, and I held her while they cleaned her off and did whatever else they needed to do. I got to breastfeed her, and we snuggled, and then Jacob held her while the doctor was stitching me back up (both from the episiotomy and because I tore a little as well when Aleta finally came out). Jacob was about to go to the nursery with Aleta while they measured her & bathed her & did whatever else they do down there. I was about to get transferred to my postpartum room and finally get to eat something (I was STARVING). This is when my memories start to blur together, because things got really hectic and scary. I don’t remember exactly how much time had passed when this happened, but at one point, I felt a rush of fluid, so I told the nurse that I felt something gushing out. She checked me, and sure enough, I was gushing blood. My doctor was there as well, on the other side of my bed, checking me out and talking to the nurse. The nurse hit the red call button on my bed and started shouting directions at the person on the other end. She said the names of like 3 different meds that she wanted brought in. More nurses started piling in from the hallway, but none of them had brought the meds that my nurse had asked for. As someone came in, she barked at them, “I need you to get this, this, and this NOW. Drop whatever else you’re doing and get them now!” That’s the point when I started panicking. If my nurse was sounding that urgent, I knew the situation had to be kinda serious. I really didn’t want to burst into tears in front of a room full of people, so I closed my eyes and started taking deep breaths to try to calm myself. But because I had lost so much blood, this made my doctor think I was going to pass out, so she and the other nurses kept asking me how I was doing and if I felt lightheaded.

Someone finally brought the meds, so I got a shot of one thing in my left leg, a shot of another thing in my right leg, and then I think they maybe put something into my IV. Either that, or I got another shot somewhere… at this point, there were so many people in my room doing so many things to me at once that I wasn’t aware of everything that was going on. I had an IV going in my right arm, but they needed another one, so a nurse put an IV in my left wrist.

When a third doctor came in the room and introduced himself to me, I finally lost my hold on my emotions and started crying. I felt so stupid, but I was so scared, and I had no idea what was going on, and the fact that they needed yet another doctor’s opinion on what was happening really terrified me. He and the other two doctors and all of the nurses tried to make me feel better about the situation and explain what was going on, but I was feeling so emotional that I wasn’t really hearing or comprehending everything they said. Basically what I know is that I was hemorrhaging and that I lost a LOT of blood. Someone asked me every couple minutes how I was feeling because they were so concerned that I was going to pass out. (I’m sure part of their concern was because I kept closing my eyes and trying to breathe deeply, but it was the only way I could keep myself from losing it).

I should mention how amazing all of the doctors and nurses were throughout this whole ordeal. From the moment I started crying and they realized I wasn’t as calm as I had been pretending, there was a nurse at the head of my bed stroking my cheek, or holding my hand, and telling me how great I was doing. My doctor was with me through the whole thing, and for a large portion of the time, she was the one standing by my head keeping me calm. She eventually sent for Jacob (who had gone to the nursery with Aleta and didn’t really know that this was all happening) so that he could be with me and hold my hand and help calm me down.

Because the whole situation was so hectic and my memories are all a blur, I don’t remember what order anything happened in. Sometime during the whole ordeal, they put my catheter back in so that they could keep my bladder empty while they worked on me. They ordered a blood transfusion, but they later decided to postpone it because I was doing better and my levels actually weren’t as bad as they had feared. Someone was also taking my blood pressure over & over... I have bruises all over my left arm from the blood pressure cuff (see photos below). The biggest problem was that they couldn't get it to work because I had the "labor shakes" and I was shivering too badly. (Women in labor often shiver uncontrollably, and I had it bad. My "labor shakes" didn't go away completely until Saturday).
At one point during the whole ordeal, I had 4 doctors and 7 nurses in my room at once all doing different things… it was insane. For most of this time, one of the 4 doctors was doing something to my uterus, trying to figure out what was causing the bleeding. It felt like the doctor was scraping the insides of me with his hands and scraping out blood. I asked Jacob afterward, and he said that’s actually what it looked like, too. I don’t know what they actually were doing, but I’m glad I couldn’t see! Whatever they were doing, it was INCREDIBLY painful... far worse than any other pain I've had in either of my two labors & deliveries. (My epidural had long worn off when this whole crisis began, and I had just delivered a baby, and my doctor had cut me open and then stitched me back up, so I think it was understandable that it was painful having someone shove their hands inside me and scrape around.) I kept my eyes closed and kept taking deep breaths not only to stay calm now, but also to help me manage the pain. And I did ok with it until they tried to put some balloon thing into my uterus. I don’t remember what it was called, but the doctor explained it to me as putting a balloon into my uterus and then inflating it to stop the bleeding. The plan was to get it into place and leave it in until the next day. The problem was that the balloon wouldn’t stay in place. After a few minutes of the doctor trying to get it to work, I lost my hold on the whole pain situation. From start to finish, I think they were messing around in my uterus for about an hour, and considering everything my body had been through beforehand, and then the fact that any pain relief had worn off before all of this even started, I just couldn’t take it anymore. When they realized how much pain I was in, they gave up on the balloon thing and gave me some morphine through my IV. Their new plan was to take me to the Operating Room, give me some kind of pain relief there, and try again to get something into my uterus to stop the bleeding.

Finally, the medicines they had given me to stop the bleeding kicked in, and things started to calm down a bit. The doctors decided to wait on the whole OR plan and see how things were going after a few hours. They kept me on my IVs, and they left my catheter in, and I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything in case we had to go to the OR. The room cleared out, and Jacob and I were left to get some rest. Neither of us had slept at all the night before, and it was now about midday, so we were pretty tired. My morphine had also finally kicked in, leaving me really drowsy and in less pain. I slept for about a half hour before my hunger woke me up, and that was all that I was able to sleep.

Nurses and doctors came in periodically to check my bleeding. After about 3 hours, they finally let me drink some apple juice since I was still doing ok. Finally, at 4:00, they decided I was doing well enough to move me to my postpartum room, and I was allowed to order food. While I got settled in and ate, Jacob ran home to get a few things and get himself some dinner.

And that is basically the end of our crazy day! They kept both of my IVs in place until Sunday morning, just in case they needed to do the blood transfusion. They drew my blood & checked my levels each day to see if I would need the transfusion, but thankfully, I didn't need it. They kept my catheter in until Saturday morning, and I wasn’t allowed out of bed until Saturday morning. By the time I was finally able to get up, I think I had been sitting or laying in bed for about 24 hours.

I really, really hope that we never have to go through an experience like this one again… but Aleta was definitely worth it!

(Definitely not the best photo of me, but Aleta looks adorable! I'm really pale, but I had lost a lot of blood. This was taken Saturday morning, right after I had gotten out of bed for the first time since we got to the hospital.)

Aleta and I have been home now for about a day and a half! Naomi has been LOVING her new little sister. Anytime she hears Aleta cry, she goes running over to wherever she is to check on her. She is always trying to touch Aleta or pat her head when the baby is in her reach.

I have been enjoying being home with my two girls!! It's been a little hard because I'm not allowed to lift anything heavier than Aleta, which means I can't lift Naomi. But Naomi isn't old enough to understand that I can't pick her up or have her climbing on me, so she's been having a hard time with that. When we got home from the hospital yesterday, Jacob went to Walmart to get my prescriptions for my pain meds while Naomi was napping. But Naomi woke up almost right after Jacob left, and she wanted out of her crib, but I couldn't lift her out. So Naomi stood in her crib screaming and crying louder than I've ever heard her scream, and I stood beside the crib and cried... for about 25 minutes until Jacob got home and could lift Naomi out of her crib. It was pretty sad.

I have actually been feeling pretty good, considering everything my body went through in the hospital! I was far more sore after I had Naomi than I am right now, which is surprising considering everything that happened with this labor & delivery. I expected to feel a lot worse than I do. So I have been pleasantly surprised with how I feel!

I've been working on typing up the story of Aleta's birth, but it's taking longer than I expected. So for now, I'll just post more pictures!

These two pictures show how big Aleta is at 3 days old! I am planning on taking all of her monthly pictures with this caterpillar to show how much she grows.

Aleta Deanne Romney

We finally had our beautiful baby girl!! Aleta Deanne Romney was born on December 16, 2011 at 8:00 in the morning! She weighed 7 pounds, 7 ounces and measured 20 3/4 inches long. She is beautiful, and we are already in love with her!

We had a little scare about an hour after her birth when I started hemorrhaging, but we eventually got everything under control. Thankfully, I am doing very well now and even feel pretty good! I will post more details of Aleta's birth story and all of the "excitement" later when I am not so tired. But to keep you all satisfied until then, here are some photos of our beautiful little girl!

Still Pregnant...

Well I'm a day away from my due date, and we still haven't had this baby! I was really hoping that I would have gone into labor by now, but no such luck!

I was spoiled with Naomi. She came exactly when I wanted her to. I had planned on having everything ready for my long-term substitute at work a week before my due date, just in case. So I finished everything for him on a Friday, 9 days before I was due. I went home and had a nice, relaxing weekend with Jacob. On Sunday afternoon, we went to the park and then went for a walk. I showered and got ready for work the next day (just in case), left a note on Jacob's facebook page telling him to make the baby come because I didn't want to go to work, and then I woke up at 3 am with contractions! It was perfect.

But this baby is apparently not as eager to be born as Naomi was. I've been telling her to come out for about a week now, but she is just not listening! I wouldn't be in such a hurry to have this baby except that I've had a lot of pain with the end of this pregnancy, and it hasn't been too fun. I felt fine at the end of my pregnancy with Naomi. As I mentioned earlier, Jacob and I went to the park the day before she was born. We played on the swings, went for a long walk, and then went home and did something else that couples sometimes do if they want to stimulate labor (if you catch my drift...). (Side note: We weren't trying to stimulate labor with the day's activities, but we were happy that it happened!) This time around, I hurt so much I can barely move. It feels a lot like how I felt after giving birth to Naomi. Walking, sitting up, sitting down, standing up, rolling over in bed, getting in or out of the car, putting on shoes.... everything brings pain. I sneezed today and thought I was going to die. So going for a long walk or anything else that requires movement is definitely out.

I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, and my doctor told me last week that we will schedule a date for induction at tomorrow' appointment. I really want to avoid being induced unless it's absolutely necessary, so I am hoping this baby will come on her own before then!

I will end this post with a picture of Naomi... we took her to see Santa today for the first time! Bass Pro Shops gives you a free 4x6 photo of your child with Santa, which is AWESOME. There was no way I was spending 20 bucks on a photo package at the mall just so Naomi could sit on Santa's lap! And Naomi didn't scream and cry like Jacob and I expected her to! We didn't get a smile from her because she wouldn't let us take out her pacifier, but for this year, I am just happy that she wasn't crying!

Look how awesome our bookshelf looks:

It looks pretty, right? I spent hours organizing it this past week... and I really mean hours and hours. I boxed up all of the books and dvds that we don't need out right now, moved the rest of our books and dvds upstairs to a smaller bookshelf in our room, and moved all of Naomi's children's books and Disney movies to this bookshelf. I spent about an hour setting up the third shelf alone and putting all of Naomi's books and then the chapter books in order by size (tallest to shortest) so that it would look extra pretty. I'm sure Naomi will just pull them all off the shelf in a few days and ruin it, but it looks great for now!!

Also, we put up our Christmas tree last night! I love it... I just want to lay on the couch all day, listening to Christmas music and looking at our tree.

Bring on Christmas!

Thanksgiving is finally over, which means it is officially the Christmas season!!! Yay!

Before I talk more about Christmas, however, here is a picture of my little family on Thanksgiving: (Please pay no attention to my fat pregnancy face!)
Speaking of pregnancy, I only have 2 1/2 weeks left until my due date! Yay! Then hopefully my feet will stop looking like this:
Gross, I know. And they hurt. So hopefully this baby girl decides to make her appearance sooner rather than later!

Now, on to Christmas!

Jacob and I plan on listening to fun Christmas music tonight, putting up our tree, and watching Elf once Naomi goes to bed... photos will follow! I have been in a cleaning frenzy the past week or so to get ready for the holidays and our new little baby, and I finally feel like I have our townhouse ready to finish decorating for Christmas. So hopefully in the next few days, I will get the rest of our decorations put up!

When I got my Christmas decorations out of our closet, I found 4 pages of holiday window clings. I don't usually like window clings--I think they mostly look tacky and stupid. I only had them in the first place to decorate my classroom when I was teaching. But Naomi loves playing by the sliding glass doors in our living room and looking out the windows, so I thought I would put some of the clings on the sliding glass doors for her to play with. She's not very good at putting them back on the windows yet, but she's been having a lot of fun pulling them off!

stupid people piss me off

Stupid Person #1 (actually people, in this case):

I took the car today to Jiffy Lube because we're about 5000 miles overdue for an oil change and tire rotation. So I tell the guy who comes to my window that we need an oil change and our tires rotated--he checks the tires and says yep, we definitely need them rotated. The front tires are wearing down more than the back ones. I also tell the guy that I don't want them to clean the inside of the car, because we had papers everywhere and I didn't want them to throw things out that I may need. (Our car was a mess... but don't judge! I'm 8 1/2 months pregnant and I have a 20-month old. I'm tired and I haven't had the time to clean it). So he says that's fine, and he takes the car.

Fast forward 20 minutes, and I'm paying for the services, talking to a different guy than the one who initially took the car. They didn't charge me for getting the tires rotated, so I asked, and he said they didn't need to be rotated. So I explained that we were way overdue for them to be done and that the first guy said they needed to be rotated. He double checks with yet another guy, who also said that the tires are fine. They said that the tires weren't at full air pressure (or something like that), but they fixed that so now the tires are fine and they don't need to be rotated. So I say fine, whatever, and I pay and leave. Now, I don't know anything about cars, but how would the air pressure change the fact that the front tires were worn down more than the back? I don't understand. So when I get home, I called my family and spoke to my brother and one of his friends who know something about cars. They tell me to get the tires rotated no matter what the idiots at Jiffy Lube say. They recommend Big O Tires. So that is where I went next.

Oh! And when I got into the car to leave Jiffy Lube, I noticed that they cleaned the car and threw out EVERYTHING. Does no one at Jiffy Lube even talk to each other?! Because it seems that the first guy I spoke to didn't tell the others a single thing we talked about. So now I'm just praying that there wasn't a bill or a piece of mail that I needed in the car, because thanks to the idiots at Jiffy Lube, it's gone forever.

Stupid Person #2:

Everything at Big O goes fine. They rotate and balance my tires, and nobody does anything particularly idiotic. Hooray for Big O.

As I am leaving, however, I encounter a stupid man riding a bike. For this story, I refer you to the lovely diagram that I have drawn on paint. My route is shown by the blue line, and the idiot biker is shown by the green. The guy on his bike is sitting on a side road at a stop sign, about to turn onto my road. I pass him and am in line at another stop sign, about to turn right onto a very busy main road. As I am sitting in the traffic, waiting to turn, the biker turns onto my road and comes up beside my car, completely blocking me from making my turn. He is attempting to go straight, across all of the traffic on the main road. I don't know anything about the rules of the road concerning bike traffic, but I don't see how that is correct protocol! I am at the stop sign first, and yet I have to sit there for over 5 minutes waiting for this (insert swear word here) to ride his little bike across the street. There were 5 or 6 openings during this time in which I could have turned right, except that this stupid man on his bike was sitting directly in my way. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to turn right and run him over with my car.

Stupid Person #3:

When I finally get home, I checked the mail. We had a letter from someone regarding my medical insurance. Apparently, I've somehow not been on the plan for pregnant women these past 8 1/2 months, even though I should have been, and it's a pretty big problem. So I've spent a few hours the past week or so trying to get everything cleared up. In the letter, they said that I needed to come in and speak to someone about it all. They set me up an appointment time... for THIS Friday, as in the day after Thanksgiving, at 11:00 am. We will not be here on Friday... we'll be 2 hours away in Kansas City, and there's no way I can make the 11:00 am appointment. But tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and they're closed, and by the time I got the letter, it was already 4:30. I called anyway, but of course there are no real people to talk to, because there is never anyone available to talk to--you have to leave a message and wait for them to return your call. So that's what I did, but the last 2 or 3 times I've called and left messages, they were never returned, so I'm not holding my breath waiting for a response this time, either. So now I will just have to miss my appointment on Friday, and they will be annoyed... but really?! Who sets up an appointment for the day after a major holiday and gives you one day's notice, by letter sent in the mail?! I don't know what they expect me to do.

Stupid Person #4:

As soon as I had made my phone calls and left the message that most likely won't ever be returned, I ran out to do my last errand of the day... running to Walmart for diapers and wipes. In the Walmart parking lot, I turned right to drive up one of the little parking lot lanes. In front of me, there is a white truck just sitting there in the middle of the lane, not pulling into any parking space, and not going forward. He starts to reverse and either doesn't realize I'm there or doesn't care that I'm there, because he doesn't stop. He keeps reversing until I finally have to put my car in reverse and back down the lane. (These are the one way-parking lot lanes, so there is nowhere for me to go). I end up having to reverse the whole way back out of the parking lot lane, back into the main traffic driving in front of Walmart. Somehow, I never even thought to use the horn... I know I should have, but I was just so frustrated at this point that I just didn't think about it. I was so angry! When I finally got back into the parking lot area, I drove around for a minute looking for the truck... I wanted to yell at him or throw a cart into his truck or something (not really!), but he either finally parked or left altogether. So I went inside the store and called my mom and cried. Because that's what pregnant women do. And I'm very pregnant, and I have no patience for stupid people who piss me off.

My day

• Scrubbed bathroom floor & kitchen floor on hands & knees
• Washed bathroom rugs & shower curtain
• Deep cleaned the bathroom
• Cleaned/Organized our bedroom (It was AWFUL)
• Vacuumed entire upstairs minus Naomi's room
• Rearranged our bedroom furniture to make room for new baby
• Unloaded/put away dishes
• Washed kitchen table
• Sanitized kitchen sink
• Went grocery shopping
• Did 2 more loads of laundry
• Hung up/put away 3 loads of Naomi/baby laundry
• Collapsed

Also somewhere in there, I played with Naomi, fed her & myself a few meals, and brushed my teeth. I think this was the most productive day I've had in my entire life.

Excited

I am getting SO excited for Christmas this year! Yes, yes, I know we still have Thanksgiving coming up, and I will enjoy Thanksgiving and eat lots of food... but I LOVE Christmas!!! Last year, Christmas wasn't as fun for me as it usually is, mostly because we were living with Jacob's parents and I didn't have any of my Christmas things and I couldn't decorate my own place. Decorating for Christmas is extremely important to me, as any of my old roommates know, and I'm so excited to be able to decorate our townhouse this year! I even got special permission from the husband (who has a very strict "No Christmas until the day after Thanksgiving" rule) to decorate early! My reasoning for this is that I am huge & pregnant & exhausted & uncomfortable, and I only get more huge & pregnant & exhausted & uncomfortable every hour, so if I don't decorate now while I have a tiny bit of energy, it won't get done... which would be completely unacceptable--we HAVE to have a decorated home for the holidays. So we got all of our decorations out of the closet and whenever I've had a little time & energy, I've been cleaning and then decorating various parts of the house. And it's a good thing I am getting started early, because in the past two weeks, all I've had the energy to do is hang up the stockings and wrap some lights and garland around the banister. I had to buy Naomi and the new baby some ugly, cheap stockings from Walmart because we only had ones for Jacob & me, but they will have to do for now! I even put Naomi's name on her stocking with fabric paint without ruining the stocking! I attempted to put the names on Jacob's and my stockings two years ago when I bought them, and I almost ruined them. Luckily, I got the paint off and then had the art teacher (who I shared a classroom with when I taught special ed) paint our names so that they looked pretty. I'm waiting until after the baby is born to put her name on hers, just in case we change the name last minute, or she ends up being a boy, or something like that.

I wanted to add some lights & garland right above the stockings, but I haven't figured out a way to attach the garland to the wood there without it being noticeable. Any ideas? (I used tape to put the lights & garland on the banister, but it's hidden behind or underneath the banister.)

Also, don't pay attention to the crap on our stairs... Naomi can pretty much reach everything these days, so if there is something I don't want her touching, like our laptop, I put it on the stairs.

I've also started working on Christmas presents already (we're doing homemade gifts this year), which has frustrated Jacob, but he tends to completely forget about the gift aspect of all major holidays. Besides, I don't think he realizes how little time we really have. I'm due about 2 weeks before Christmas, so this baby could arrive anytime around the beginning of December, and once she gets here, we will be too busy and tired to be decorating or trying to figure out Christmas presents. In addition to having a baby, Jacob's finals are the same week as my due date, and before then, we need to get our house completely cleaned and organized and decorated and ready for the new baby. So there is lots to do!

We are having our own little Christmas here in Columbia this year, due to the fact that we'll have a newborn baby who I would like to keep here at home, and I am really, really, really excited about it! Growing up, my parents always tried to do our Christmas day celebration at our own house, and I loved it that way. I've always wanted to do the same once I had my own little family. It will be fun to start our own Christmas traditions and to mix-and-match traditions from both the Romney & Bartholomew sides. I'm also getting ridiculously excited about the food--I LOVE food, and I've been having a blast looking up Christmas recipes and making a menu for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I've already spent hours googling different recipes and bookmarking websites. It's going to be a delicious holiday!

Halloween Fun

We had our church Trunk or Treat and Chili Potluck on Friday night. I remade my bun-in-the-oven costume that I did two years ago when I was pregnant with Naomi, and Jacob reused his chef costume (although we somehow lost the white apron and had to make do with a red one instead). I wanted Naomi's costume to go along with ours, but it was tough to find something that would work! I finally decided to make her into a loaf of Wonderbread. I made her costume and my costume, and they both took a lot more work and time than I had anticipated, but they turned out pretty well! I think my oven looked better two years ago, but I had more energy & patience when I made it the last time.

I didn't get any pictures of the 3 of us on my camera, so I had to scan the one they took of us at church--sorry the quality is so bad!


I made Naomi's costume with an extra white pillowcase that we had and some Sharpie markers. I used red ribbon to tie the top of the "bread bag" like a twisty-tie. And then I found an image of the Nutrition Facts on the Wonderbread website and used an iron-on transfer to put it on the back of her costume.





We decorated Halloween sugar cookies tonight, but they tasted pretty terrible (it was some pre-made kit thing that I bought at Walmart), so we gave them to Naomi to play with. She mostly just licked off the icing. Decorating them made me want to eat some good sugar cookies though, so tomorrow I will have to make a trip to the grocery store to get some edible ones!



Sadly, we didn't get to go to a pumpkin patch this year because I couldn't find any around here that didn't charge admission. I really just wanted to get some cute pictures of Naomi in a pumpkin patch and have our family pick out a good pumpkin, but I refused to pay 15 dollars admission and then pay for a pumpkin on top of that... so we never got a pumpkin. We were going to just get one at the grocery store last weekend so that we could make a jack-o-lantern, but Naomi & I both got sick and we just ran out of time! Oh well... we will try again next year!

Look how little & cute she was just a year ago... I can't believe she is already 19 months old! She is growing too fast!
Happy Halloween!!

Stubborn

Naomi has always been a strong-willed child, even back in the first 6-8 weeks of her life when she screamed constantly if we weren't holding her. Jacob said something a few days ago about how he thought Naomi would be one of those kids who would stick her hand in a candy jar, grab a fistful of candy, and never be able to take out her hand because she's far too stubborn to let go of the candy. It made me laugh because it's so true.

In fact, she recently did something similar. I was eating lucky charms the other morning for breakfast, and Naomi saw the box and wanted some. She had never had them before, but it's a sugary cereal, so of course she loved them. I had turned away for a few minutes to do something on the computer when I heard her start whining. So I turned around to see her sitting there with her fist stuck in her mouth. She had grabbed such a large handful of cereal that she couldn't open her fist to leave the cereal in her mouth, but she was too stubborn to take it out. So she just sat there, whining and trying to chew on the cereal while her fist was still in her mouth. I rushed over to help her, and she got quite angry with me when I yanked her hand out and made her dump her handful of slobbery cereal back into her bowl. It was so funny--I wish I had thought to grab the camera and take a quick picture before rushing to help her!

Happy Autumn!!

I love Fall! It is definitely my favorite season. I love the changing weather and the crispness to the air. I love the smell of leaves and the colors of the leaves and that after they've fallen, you can rake them and play in them! I love that you can start wearing long sleeves and jackets and sweaters, and that the temperature cools down so that you can be comfortable being outside. And I love it because it is the start of the holiday seasons--when fall arrives, I can start to look forward to Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and all of the fun activities and decorations and everything else that comes with them.

Happy 1st day of Fall!!!!!

(Also, on only a slightly related note, I love the name Autumn for a girl. Jacob of course doesn't like it. But there's a guy who plays World of Warcraft with Jacob in his guild whose character is named Autum, and I'm pretty sure he has a man-crush on Jacob. So that makes the name a little less appealing to me. Also, the guy plays a female character... weird, yes?)

(Pictures are from my sophomore year of college, when I went with my roomie Shanna to her family's cabin in Heber, UT. It was gorgeous up there in the fall!)