We bought a crib!

I have been occasionally looking at used cribs on craigslist.org just in case I see something I like for a reasonable price. I had already told myself we were not going to spend any more than 200$ and although there were several of new cribs that I had an eye on for that price the shipping would have brought that up closer to 300$ which then does not seem so reasonable. The thing about craigslist is there are tons of light wood and white cribs but very few dark wood cribs. I saw this one posted yesterday and decided to contact the lady about it. It looked in good condition from the picture and was the drop side kind that I was hoping to try this time around. Katya and I jumped in the car about 5:30 last night and drove out to Newberg (about an hour away)and bought the crib for 80$! We got home at 7:45 (luckily Katya had taken a late nap) and after tucking my girl in for the night I put the crib together in about 20 minutes. I am very happy with it. It is cherry wood, I would have prefered expresso or black but it is fine. It is 5 years old and definitely does not look brand new but is in very nice condition. It is not as nice Katya's crib but it is sturdy and will work great, hopefully for the rest of our babies. It does convert to a toddler bed but not a full size frame like Katya's so it is not something we would keep around forever. One thing I like about it is the base for the mattress is solid, not a metal springy thing like Katya's and the boarder of it is the same dark wood as the rest of the crib so you don't really need a crib skirt.

I am getting really excited to start working on the curtians for new baby's room. I am also going to buy some canvas and using the colors and possibly the animals from the curtian material (shown in the picture) as inspiration to make some art work for the walls. When Katya is older I thought it would be really fun to do a finger painting project with her as a gift for her baby sister or brother and hang it in the nursery!

Prayer request

Doug is scheduled for his total hip replacement tomorrow. We don't know what time he going into surgery yet so prayers tonight and throughout the day tomorrow are appreciated. Thanks, Brenda

Unisom update

Well, here I am in week 12 of my pregnancy! Only 2 more weeks of the dreaded first trimester and I am hopeful that I will start feeling better. Fun facts of this week: Baby is about 2 inches long from crown to rump. He/she is developing reflexes this week and will soon be able to open and close fingers and make swallowing motions with his/her mouth. His/her eyes and ears are in their proper place making his/her face unmistakably human.

This is the fourth day that I have been taking Unisom and Vitamin B6 for my nausea and I am not sold on it. My nausea has been better but my food aversions continue and I have thrown up 2 of the past 4 mornings (which is an improvement). The Unisom has made me SUPER drowsy so even though the nausea is better the dopey feeling is not fun. My main concern right now is eating and since that is still really hard I don't think the Unisom is worth it. I have continued to take it hoping that the drowsiness will get better after my body gets use to it but no luck so far. I think I will only give it another day or two. I could call the Midwifery clinic and talk to them about getting some prescription medication but I am reluctant because some of those can cause drowsiness too. There is one medication that is sometimes prescribed to pregnant women that also aids in digestion. I wonder if this one would be more than just an antimedic (anti nausea) and help me get food down.

Craig and Katya went on an outing on Saturday morning. A friend of Craig's called to ask if he wanted to go to some sale at the Clackamas REI. I was sleeping in and so Craig and Katya went. It was fun for them to have an outing together and nice for me to have a quite house for a few hours. It was really weird to be without Katya, even for a few hours and I was happy when they returned home.

Katya and I are leaving early Wed morning for Denver. I think the trip will be good for me because when I am forced to get out an about I usually feel better. I am nervous to fly with Miss Wiggly Pants but I am sure I will manage. We will be gone almost a week, returning the following Tuesday. I am so excited to see my family but of course I am going to miss Craig. We will have to Skype him a few times from Rena's house. New pictures are posted under September. Bye for now! ~ Brenda

FYI

I finally finished my post about last weekend but since I started it earlier in the week it under that date, hence a few posts down. Warning, it is a long one so you will need a little time to get through it:0)

Unisom

I started taking Unisom last night, a over the counter sleep aid (it is an antihistamine) for my nausea. The midwife recommended trying it along with vitamin B6, if the B6 alone does not help. Yesterday afternoon I was feeling pretty good, eating a PBJ and almost done with it when out of now where my stomach lurched and I was running to the bathroom. I could not keep down my dinner either and so I decided it was time to try the Unisom. I have to take half a tablet 3x a day, with 25mg of B6. I took my first half before bed and fell asleep quickly despite the Fugesicle and chocolate bar that I was able to keep down. Needless to say I have been really sleepy today. I have not felt great but have not thrown up yet today so that is good. Hopefully it will help me and hopefully after a few days on it I will not be so sleepy.

Week 11, struggles and joys

I will write a longer message telling everyone about our lovely weekend with the Faulkners when I am feeling up to it but for now, a shorter note.

Katya is being just as cute as ever. She is so funny and cheers me up so much when I am feeling bad. She likes carrying books around the house for some reason. She also holds books out to me and whinnes, telling me she wants to read it. I usually get one to two pages in before she grabs it out of my hands or closes it. I try to finish it anyways, even if she is on to other things. Her two favorite words are hi and daddy. She says daddy when she looks at pictures, no matter who they are of.

I have had very few "good" days lately. I have thrown up at least once a day for the last week. It is weird to me how my good time of the day changes so much. For example, for a long time the mornings were really bad and my evenings good but on Sunday I had a good morning/afternoon and then started throwing up at 9:30pm. I had thought I was in the clear for the day but as I struggled to fall asleep, I got sick seemly out of no were. Craig got home at 10:30 and I asked him to bring me a popsicle. It felt pretty funny to be eating a popsicle in bed at 10:30 but it did the trick. The sugar settled my stomach, the little bit of fluid helped quench my thrist (I was not keeping water down) and I was able to fall asleep. Yesterday the afternoon was my sickest time. Fortunatly I do have good periods of the day, usually when my stomach is full and I am thankfull for that. I know that some women have it even worse than I do. I have had cramp like pains, like I did with Katya, off and on for the last two months. They are not horribly painful but are annoying, one more thing to zap my energy and well being. Of course when I look at Katya I am reminded of how worth it the new baby will be. And I love looking at our little one's picture on our fridge.

We have had several nice and cool day, in fact I had to turn the heat on this morning for the first time. It is suppose to warm up again (mid 80s) this weekend. I suppose I should bask in the sun while we still have it but I am sick of the heat and would not mind some rain (it rained pretty good on Sunday). They are calling for chance of showers tomorrow and Thurs and I am planning to make Rena's delicous Creole Red Bean soup for dinner on one of those nights. Love and prayers to all, Brenda

All about last weekend

We had such a lovely weekend with the Faulkners! On Saturday Doug, Sharon, Alexi, Allen, Eryn, Addison and we 3 met up at Widmer for a brewery tour. It was okay for me, maybe it would have been better without Katya distracting me but I am glad we did it. We had lunch at the Gausthouse (the Widmer restaurant Craig works at) afterwards which was great for me because for some reason it is easier to eat out than at home. We went home for a few hours before it was time to start getting ready for the benefit dinner.

Craig was not able to get his shift covered but his manager said he would let him leave around 6pm if it was not super busy. I had the challenge of getting Katya ready for bed and myself put together before our sitter showed up. I started 2 hours ahead and managed pretty well despite a very unexpected poop incident (it squeezed out the side of her diaper and made quite a gross mess). I bathed Katya which I was not expecting to do but still got ready on time. My neighbor Jen surprised me by showing instead of her husband; she had gotten off early from work that day. It was great because Katya warms right up to her, which means less crying and stress for the sitter. She is a pediatric nurse and definitely knows how to interact with babies.

I drove by Craig's work on my way to the function hoping he would be outside, meaning he could come, but he was not. I got to the Double Tree hotel about 20 minutes before any of the others but I filled the time by reading some info they had set up about the organization. Then they let us into the banquet room so I could sit down at our assigned table. I was only there about 5 minutes before Craig showed up! Yeah! His boss let him go about 6:15 and he got there in plenty of time. The rest of the Faulkner's (except Alexi who babysat Addison that night) showed up shortly after Craig. After some short welcoming talks they served dinner. The salad was delicious and since there were 4 empty chairs at our table Craig, Eryn and I each had an extra salad. The chicken entree, as Allen had warned, was not very good. I could only eat a couple of bits but filled up on the 2 dinner salads, 2 huge roles and a really good, rich desert.

I really enjoyed learning about ITEM, Steve Van Horn's organization. ITEM stands for International Training & Equipping Ministries and he started it about ten years ago after seeing alarming trends in the Christian preaching in Africa. What he saw is that while Christianity is growing super fast in Africa, the knowledge and leadership of the ministers is very minimal. Instead of using the bible to preach by, as we US Christians do, cultural stories, myths and beliefs predominate the themes in African Christianity. They also do a lot of "prosperity preaching" which is basically if you follow Christ you will be healthy, wealthy and everything will do right. ITEM has seminars to teach African ministers about the bible and how to preach the bible. Steve has hosted these seminars in many countries in Africa and the call is there for him to do more. One of his major goals is to train the ministers to eventually be able to do the seminars themselves. Translating the bible and other teaching material to the local languages is another huge challenge/goal that he has been tackling. They had several short films in which the preachers who attended the seminars talked about their experiences and why learning this stuff is so important.

On Sunday after Mass we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house for brunch. The only downside to the afternoon is that we only got a few hours with Doug and Sharon before they had to hit the road back to Duvall. We had a nice meal and I felt pretty good thanks to the donut after Mass and Grandma's delicious brunch. We got to take home grapes, corn and tomatoes from Grandpa's garden and have been enjoying the bounty. Katya LOVES the grapes which are small, juicy and a little sour. They are perfect for her because they are small and their skin is tender and easy for her to puncture.

Thanks to Doug and Sharon for coming down and seeing us and thanks again to Allen and Eryn for inviting us and buying our dinner at the benefit. We had a great time!

News and stuff

I finally added a new photo album with August pictures. See right.

I think that everyone who reads this blog already knows our exciting news so I won't talk a ton about it. It will be fun to post about how I am feeling and belly pictures in the months to come. As of now, I am still miserably sick and dying for the first trimester to be over. I am 11 weeks tomorrow so hopefully only a few more weeks of feeling this bad. We will be finding out the gender of our baby, sometime in mid to late November. We don't care what we have but we like finding out and getting use to the idea of a girl or a boy.

Katya is walking like a pro. She also continues to develop her vocal skills. She can say 'bye,' 'wow,' 'da-ee,(daddy)' and 'hot.' Last night we caught her saying 'hi' in her sleep, too cute!

We have Melanie's dog Lacey for the weekend while the Tillman and Godfrey's are in Sun River (central Oregon I think). We are looking forward to seeing Doug and Sharon tomorrow; they have come down to attend a fund raiser dinner for Eryn's dad's nonprofit organization. Craig has still not secured the night off from Widmer so we are keeping our fingers crossed that he will be able to attend the dinner. I will be going either way, Katya is staying home of course with our neighbor Ben. I feel a little bad for him because she is NOT use to babysitters. Fortunately Katya's bed time is shortly after we leave so hopefully it won't be too bad. On Sunday we are going to have brunch with the Faulkner clan in Vancouver. Bye for now!

Katya is walking

Katya is officially walking! Yesterday was a real turning point. She was taking lots of steps on her own but was not quite 'taking off' yet. Today she did take off. She has been walking around the house all day, falling lots but doing extremely well. She is turning pretty well too and can get up from sitting. She is quite pleased with herself and of course we are very proud. She beat both of her parents by walking at 13.5 months, not that it was real hard. I walked at 15 months and Craig at 17. We were able to Skype both her grandparents so they got to see her toddling.

I am working on uploading pictures from the last month and a half. I will note when I post these new pictures under the photo link on the right hand side of the blog. Bye for now, Brenda

Sad Day

Grandpa Smith died yesterday. This is Scott and the rest of the Smith kid's grandpa. Happily Scott was able to fly up from Fallon (were he has been working the last several weeks) and see Grandpa before he passed. Candace and Charlie flew up yesterday and I believe also got to say goodbye. Grandpa Smith was fully aware of what was happening and chose to decline medical treatment. The last few years have been very hard on him and he was ready to go. We are happy that he is with the Lord and his son Charlie. Thoughts and prayers go out to the Smith family.

I also invite everyone to take some time today to reflect on the events of September 11, 2001. Pray for everyone who was there, those who died and especially their loved ones. Also pray for the soldiers who have died in the War on Terror, those who served and those who continue to serve our incredible country.

Katya's first steps!

This morning Katya took 3 steps, twice! In the past week and a half she has taken 1 step twice and 2 steps twice so she is improving. She is quite pleased with herself put she has not been trying it a ton like she did when she first started standing on her own. She would much rather walk holding onto our hands which she asks to do all day long by putting her hands up in the air and whining. She is on her way though.

Katya's new words are "moon" and "ball." She LOVES to point out the moon in some of her books and now points to everything round and says moon. Her two favorite books right now are "Goodnight Moon" and "On the Night you Were Born" which both have a full moon on most of the pages. She also likes the yarn balls that my friend's mom made her. She has been caring one around in her mouth like a dog, pretty silly.

Love and prayers, Brenda