27 Week Belly, Etc.

Here I am at 27 Weeks-the beginning of the 3rd trimester! Josh and I have been working on things around the house for the baby. We got her room painted yesterday to match her bedding. We are going to put up a pink gingham border, but we have to wait 7 days after painting. I also bought a homemade porch swing at a little shop in Danville which Josh stained to match our antique bench for the front porch. Hopefully we can use it a little this year after she's born and lots next year! The last picture is of her tree which Josh planted. We will have to take her picture with it when she comes home from the hospital!

Hannibal Baby Shower

This past weekend, Josh and I went to Hannibal for a get together/baby shower with Jenn and Kristina. We had a lot of fun. When we got there, Grace was disappointed because we didn't have any kids with us, but she quickly adopted Josh as her friend. I think he had as much fun with her and she did with him. On Saturday, we went down to the levy to see how high the Mississippi was. Later, the boys went golfing while the girls had a shower. Jenn and Kris got me lots of their favorite "mom" items--a booster seat, snack cups, wipe-off bibs, silverware, etc., etc. We had a good time catching up. I was really glad we got to go!

Second Trimester Reflections

Well, I am about done with the second trimester. I have been feeling really good the last few months. Plus, lots of fun things happened this trimester. I started to feel the baby kick, we found out that she is a girl, and we started picking out bedding, clothes, and other fun things for her. I love to feel her move. It doesn’t matter what’s going on, it always makes me smile and also is confirmation that she is doing ok. Josh has felt her a few times and likes to tell her that he loves her. You all know how decisive I am and picking out her bedding was no exception. I would be scared to know how many hours I spent on the internet deciding what to get her, but I finally ordered it the other night. Of course, it was the set that I liked in the beginning, but you know me-I just had to be sure. I hope it is cute when it comes in! I wanted to paint the walls pale pink and yellow, which is also a good compromise with Josh because he will only have to repaint part of the room in case we have a boy next time. I am posting pics of the bedding and the baby gear that I have picked after hours of searching. As you can see, I went gender neutral on all of the baby gear but not on the bedding!

Random Funny Story

We just got a new air conditioning system at work. I sit right below one of the new vents and it is FREEZING! In fact, everyone in the room is cold. We’re all wearing sweaters and it’s 90 degrees outside! The man who is in charge of the system told us several weeks ago that he was going to give us a tool to adjust our vents to our liking. Well, that hasn’t happened. No one wanted to ask him (he’s kind of odd), so I just decided to bite the bullet and send an e-mail just asking if he had the tool. He said yes and he is keeping it in his office because it will only adjust the volume of air, not the temperature. I thought, “Duh… I know that…. I still want the tool,” but I did not say anything back A few minutes later, he came to my desk, and said, “Is this your first child?” “Yes…,” I said. He looked at me very seriously and said “You know, your body is going through certain hormonal changes which will be unpredictable from day to day. We can’t change the temperature in here everyday. Maybe you need to bring a sweater”… and he went on and on and on. What a weirdo?!?! Everyone is cold and I’m the only one who had the guts to talk to him and I get a lecture on my hormones?!?! Just thought that was weird…had to share.

When it Rains, it Pours....Literally

Over the last several weeks, we have had SO MUCH RAIN and it is affecting everything!!! Farmers have lost crops because they are drowning, people at work have been fighting water in their basements all week, phone lines have been down, and events have been cancelled due to flooding. Somehow, it has even managed to postpone our anniversary which was Thursday night. Josh and I had already decided that we would celebrate at home on Thursday since it was a work night and we would go out to dinner on Friday night. However, Thursday night ended up being the only night last week that it wasn’t pouring! Our grass had been growing like crazy due to all of the rain, so Josh decided that he needed to mow on our anniversary as that was his only chance. We weren’t celebrating that night anyway, right? Ok, so that ticked me off at first, but he was probably right; if he waited, he would not be able to get a mower through it. So, he mowed and we celebrated a little afterwards… I made some fun Mexican food and pina coladas to remind us of our honeymoon. We were still planning on going to a nice dinner the next night, but when we got home from work, there were tornado warnings on our path to the restaurant and by the time it cleared up, I decided we should just wait until the following weekend so we wouldn’t be so rushed and tired… We also had big plans for Saturday, including city wide rummage sale day and a wedding to go to! However, I woke up at 6 am to torrential downpours. Hoping it would clear up, I started cleaning the house and going about my business. As I mentioned earlier, lots of people had started fighting water in their basements and were surprised that ours was still dry. Our basement seems to handle water very well, and we have never had a problem… until Saturday. At 7:45, I decided to just go down and take a look. There was a puddle of water under the pool table. Great… I went and woke Josh up and told him I was going to my parents to get the shop vac. Driving the 2 miles to my parents house took about 15 minutes due to the fact that there were rummage sale shoppers out in the POURING DOWN RAIN!!! There were cars everywhere-seriously people, do you really want to find a deal so bad that you are willing to get DRENCHED for it!?! One street I saw was literally closed because the water was as high as a car’s bumper. I have never seen so much water. As excited as I was about rummage sale day, there was no chance that I was venturing out in that, but whatever… Anyway, by the time I got back home, the water had spread all around the basement floor and was rising. It was coming up through our drain and through some old screw holes in the wall–they were spouting water like faucets! Josh and I were desperately trying to plug the holes but did not have much luck. They were too close to the floor to be able to put something under them to catch the water and there was no way the shop vac would make a dent in this mess. It was filled after 1 minute and would have to be taken upstairs to be emptied. I called my dad and he and mom came over. He said that it appeared that our sump pump was not working. Since we have a “dry” basement, who knows how many years it has been since it has had to do anything! He told Josh to go buy a portable sump pump and some plumber’s putty for the holes. I went to my parents’ house while Josh went shopping because there was not much else I could do at that point. When I got to my parents, I made a mad dash for the garage through the rain in my flip flops. As soon as I hit the concrete, I slipped, flew up in the air, and fell flat on my back. Well, I would have been flat on my back had my left arm not somehow twisted and went behind me. So there I was, pregnant and laying in the mud and rain, knowing that my basement was flooding. I was starting to hate this day! Luckily, I was not seriously injured, just a little sore! Josh picked me back up on his way home. When we got there, the entire basement was about 4 inches deep in water! He got the sump pump going while I started plugging holes. The water pressure was so strong that they kept busting back open, but we finally got them to stop. We lifted the washer and dryer onto wood blocks to hopefully avoid damage. We started getting other things off of the floor that had been in areas that we thought were fine… Josh picked up a plastic tub which contained his prized PEZ dispensers from the 80s that are still in their original cardboard packaging only to discover that there was a crack in the bottom of the tub and water had gotten in. We frantically took them upstairs to lay them out to dry. I know he was really upset and I felt awful for him. I went back down and found a box of baseball cards totally drenched. I started digging out my Christmas decorations. Most were in tubs, but I had one regular cardboard box. I put this on the dining room table. After I walked away, the box broke open because it was so wet, and my Santa Claus cookie jar fell to the floor, broke in half, and was floating in the water. This was when I about burst into tears-not because of the cookie jar-just because of everything. I was overwhelmed! The water must have still been coming up through the drain because after 12 hours of siphoning a steady stream of water up a hose into our bathtub, there were still 4 inches of water in the basement! During this time, I went to the wedding without Josh so he could keep an eye on things. He cleaned out our gutters to make sure water was flowing as much away from the house as possible. We went to bed with the same amount of water in the basement as there had been that morning. However, we pleasantly woke up to a “dry” basement. By dry, I mean there was no standing water. Of course we needed to start cleaning but had to teach at church, so that had to wait a few hours. After church, we got right to work. We used the shop vac to get as much of the water out of the carpet as possible (which was probably about 70 gallons!). Then, we moved everything off of the carpet, rolled it up, and took it to the backyard to dry. That may sound easier than it was. We have a pool table which weighs nearly 2000 lbs, plus the ping pong table, pinball machine, sectional, dining room table and chairs, Christmas decorations (including our Christmas tree), luggage, tubs of storage, etc., etc., etc. Not to mention that carpet is HEAVY! Josh and I barely moved it in ourselves when it was new and dry. When it is water logged, it is much heavier. Luckily one of our friends came over and helped with that part. Right now, everything is still drying. Hopefully we don’t lose too much… I think the carpet is salvageable… at least the carpet that Josh and I bought. There was one room of old carpet that we are throwing out, but it was already kind of gross. We had to relight the pilot light on our water heater since it was covered in water. I just hope all of our appliances work and we can get it all put back together. I was so tired and sore last night that I wanted to cry…ok, I did cry… but I think it will all be ok. Through it all, I just kept thinking about how it could have been worse. So here are my “thankful” reflections from the crazy weekend: 1) I am thankful that Josh and I worked as a team to get this taken care of. These are the kind of situations where it is easy to snap on each other because of stress, but we actually kind of had fun together in between our sheer exhaustion. 2) I am thankful that it cleared up by the time of the wedding. As upset as I was about everything that was going on, I just kept thinking of the girl who was getting married and how bummed I would be if it was storming that bad on my wedding day. Luckily, the sun came out by 4:30, in time for her wedding. 3) I am thankful that Josh and I were not out of town for our anniversary! We usually go out of town but had decided to go later this summer. I am so glad we didn’t come home from a trip to find that mess! 4) I am thankful that I even thought to go to the basement and check as early as I did. Sometimes it will be days before we go down there for something. 5) I am thankful that we were only fighting inches of water. Lots of people were fighting FEET of water! 6) I am thankful I didn’t break my arm when I fell. I wouldn’t have been much help that way! I’m also thankful I fell on my back and not my stomach. I’m sure the baby would have been fine, but I would have worried like crazy! 7) I am thankful that city wide rummage sales have been postponed until next week so I can still go! 8) I am thankful that Josh looked in his tub and found his PEZ dispensers before they sat too long under water. 9) I am thankful that we don’t seem to have any major expenses as a result of this. 10) As cheesy as it may sound, I am thankful that we have a house to live in. As crazy as this weekend seemed, I had to think of how traumatic a housefire must feel… and am just thankful that in the scheme of things, this was a very minor catastrophe!