Handmade Gifts for Charlotte

Charlotte is a very lucky little girl already. She has received some precious handmade gifts just for her. Even though she is numero quattro in our family she is as precious and as special as numero uno and these gifts are a reminder of that fact. Thanks to my dear friends and family who are making Charlotte's grand entrance a special moment.

Items pictured clockwise from top left: Set of 3 personalized embroidered burp cloths from Amanda; Pink crochet hat from Aunt Heather; Pillowcase dress from Susie; Bib and burp cloth set from Staci

The next time you hear from me on this blog will probably be when I post photos of Charlotte Gray! We are arriving at our luxurious suite at the hospital on Thursday morning at 6:00 a.m. to get labor and delivery underway. I am so excited to get to hold her in my arms for the first time.

And just in case you were wondering, Charlotte does not have a nursery yet so no fun nursery photos to post. She will be rooming in with BJ and me until Griffin is old enough to move out of his nursery and share a room with Schaeffer. That might be in 3-6 months or more. We will have to play that one by ear. But maybe meantime I can snap some photos of Charlotte's little set-up in our master bedroom. She is all set.

Thrift Store Fashion

One of my favorite memories from college was going thrift shopping with BJ at local thrift stores such as Goodwill, Salvation Army, and AmVets. Sometimes we found nothing on these adventures, and sometimes we racked up. Back in my college days I worked about 20-30 hours per week waiting tables to earn enough money to pay for college tuition, books, car payment ($175/mo), and gas. I lived at home with my parents which saved me from having to pay room/board and meals. I went the entire 4.5 years to school without acquiring student loans. Yay for me! But after all those expenses on a server's income, I had very little left over for clothing, shoes, and accessories. And since I was a young college girl, afterall, clothing, shoes and accessories were still a necessity. On top of it, I hadn't completely snagged my husband yet. BJ and I were just dating so I still had to be on my best behavior and look cute.

The only way I could afford to go clothing shopping was to buy things on the clearance rack at Walmart (not so fun) or find unique stuff at thrift stores (much more fun and creative). On our thrift store outings, I remember finding cute, comfy, broken-in Levi jeans (I was in college from 1994-1998). I also found some funky jackets and coats in plaid tweed. One of my best finds was a like-new Kelty backpack which I used all through college to haul my 500-pound textbooks. Occasionally, I would find cute tops, skirts, dresses, shorts, purses, etc. It always brought me joy to load up a grocery bag or two with fun finds for only $10. Just a few years ago BJ finally tossed out a pair of pants he purchased while thrifting. The pants were definitely worn out by then, but it was one of his favorite pairs to wear around the house. Honestly he would probably still have those pants if he hadn't have lost 50 pounds and could still wear them.

I miss my thrifting days. It's difficult to do thrift shopping with little ones because it requires patience as you dig through racks and racks of clothes and stuff. And you have to keep an open mind about what you hope to find. You probably cannot go with a shopping list. I akin thrift shopping to oil painting - you know what end result you are trying to acheive, but you may not get there without being open-minded and creative. And then in the end what you acheive may be quite different than what you imagined but you feel good about it when it all comes together. And, you can be assured it will be a one-of-a-kind. For instance, you may head out trying to find a floral skirt or dress, but instead you find a cute jacket that inspires you to go searching for some vintage jewelry and accessories to make it work with a shirt and pair of pants you already own. The end result is fabulous but totally different than your original plan.

Recently I've heard a lot about re-styling, re-purposing, re-using, re-ducing, and re-cycling to be a better steward of our environment. I'm not against being a good steward, but back in the days when I did thrifting, there wasn't a lot of media chatter about "going green." Now thrifting seems to be a political statement. For me thrifting is about getting stuff for cheap and knowing that I am helping some charities in the meantime. One day I hope to do more thrift shopping. I like the creativity it unlocks in my head.

Two Things I Am Looking Forward To

I am looking forward to Spring and to being out of maternity clothes. I've spotted a few clothing pieces and accessories that gets me excited about Spring and wearing normal clothes:

Lands End Canvas: Hooded Cardigan

Lands End Canvas: Heritage Chino

Lands End Canvas: Heritage Ballet Flat

Dooney & Bourke: Large Nina

The Mother of Invention...

...is necessity. In the past few weeks I've invented a couple of new routines around here. It has come out of necessity.

Do we want to eat dinner? Yes. Can it get made after 4:30 p.m.? No. For some reason the hours between naptime ending and bedtime beginning - around 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. - can be complete disasters. It has taken me a full year to figure this out. The disaster hours are fairly consistent. I dread those hours. Kids are hyper, hungry, temperamental, getting tired, bored, etc. And then the thought of trying to make dinner, sit down together as a family, and actually enjoy it is frustrating...for a lack of a better word. So my new plan has been instigated: start making dinner soon after breakfast. I know that sounds weird to begin making dinner at 9 a.m. but it is working for us. My mom gave me this really cool cookbook about 3 years ago and I'm just now using it. Stupid me for waiting so long! Mothers really do know best - so listen to your mom! The cookbook is the Busy Woman's Slow Cooker Cookbook. Most of the recipes call for only 5-6 ingredients that you throw into the slow cooker, set to low or medium heat, cook for 8-10 hours, and then enjoy by dinnertime. So far I've experimented with vegetable beef soup, sweet and sour pork, and a few others that I cannot recall at this exact moment. What's really cool about this cookbook are the number of options. There are at least 5 recipes just for meatloaf. So if you like southwestern flavors, there's a meatloaf recipe for that; and, if you like traditional, there are 2-3 versions for that. There are several versions of chicken and rice soup, chicken noodle soup, vegetable soup, etc. I like the versatility because most of the time I can come up with something from my pantry that will closely resemble a recipe (or combination of recipes) in this cookbook.

Another struggle in our home...Do we like cleanliness and tidiness? Yes. Can we achieve it? Not without everyone pulling their own weight. So to help resolve the problem with clutter, I have purchased each child a green bag (you know, those sturdy reusable grocery bags). I purchased these green bags at Toys R Us for $1.29 because each one has a fun design on the outside: a monster truck for Schaeffer, a dinosaur for Lily, and a lion for Griffin. At the end of each day before beginning bedtime each child takes a bag and collects up toys, clothes, dirty socks, etc. and takes the bag to his/her room to be emptied into their proper places. We've just started this new routine so I'm curious to see how well it works in the long run. Tonight everyone was very excited about going on a "hunt" for their toys and clothes and stuffing their bags full. It was a complete miracle to see our living room, hallway, and kitchen clutter free with minimal effort on my part. It was a beautiful thing. I sure hope this routine sticks.

I came across this really awesome blog, Smockity Frocks. It is geared toward sharing practical ideas for large families. I've already found some great ideas there that I want to try in our home.

Also, I would love to hear from you, my dearest readers, about anything that you've invented out of necessity. It can be related to your routine at home, or something you've made to save money or because you couldn't find in stores, or something you recycled or used in a different way to better meet your needs. Please share your inventions in the comments section.

"Why do we have 4 children?"

I have been thinking about this clip from the Cosby Show for a while now. It really cracks me up! And now it is especially funny since I can totally relate. My favorite part, toward the end of this clip, is when Claire asks Cliff (Cosby), "Cliff, why do we have 4 children?" I love Cosby's response! If you get sucked into this episode and want to watch the rest you can search YouTube for Bill Cosby Show The Pilot part 2 and part 3. The rest of this episode includes Cosby's "economics lesson" given to Theo (hilarious), and when Cosby tries to teach his girls how to knock on their bedroom door before entering (another hilarious part). Enjoy!

A Full Schedule

2011 has just begun, but our family calendar is quickly filling up. I guess when you have three kids and one on the way, your calendar takes shape around their needs. We've juggled a bunch of doctor appointments recently. Lily has had several appointments with the orthopaedic surgeon for her broken arm. She got her cast off yesterday! Whoo-hoo! She will return in three weeks for one last follow-up appointment and x-rays to ensure all is healing well. I've had an OB appointment every 2 weeks, now every week, to check on little Charlotte. Griffin cracked a front tooth so I've scheduled him a dentist appointment for next week to make sure it doesn't need to be capped or filled. Lily will go to a follow-up appointment later this month with her opthamologist to check on the progress of her eyes. She has been complaining of not seeing well and she is back to sitting a foot away from the TV in order to see it. Schaeffer had been complaining of pain in his ear, but I took a proactive approach at home and used some antibiotic drops in his ears that were prescribed by his ENT. He hasn't complained of the pain since. I'm hoping we've escaped another doctor visit on that one. And now Lily is exhibiting some learning issues with reading and writing. She is doing great with school. I am so proud of her and the progress she has made. But her teacher has commented about some issues she is struggling with that is beyond what the other children are struggling with right now. And, of course, I see the same issues at home on her homeschool days. Her school work is very fast-paced and each week she is learning new things that builds upon learned skills from previous weeks. We don't want her to fall behind, especially at such a critical time when she is learning to read. She is making up some serious ground with her vision correction so we don't want another issue to get in her way. I was able to discuss some of her issues with her past speech therapist, Dee, and Dee will be talking to an occupational therapist to see if she needs to be evaluated. Meantime I will discuss it with our pediatrician and we will see what is recommended, if anything, at this point. It might just be a wait-and-see type of thing. Oh, and did I mention that Griffin still has speech therapy every 2 weeks? He has made major progess in the past 5 months and I expect he'll be discharged from speech therapy in a few weeks once he gets re-evaluated to check on his progress so far. Whew!

We are facing a pretty full schedule in January and February and I don't expect things to slow down for the rest of the year...I need to put on some comfy shoes and be ready to keep up.

Charlotte Gray Getting Closer Every Day

I had a 36 week OB appointment today (I'm technically 35 weeks 5 days)! We are getting closer to Charlotte's arrival. I'm so EXCITED! I am now 1 cm dilated (and I think still 50% effaced, but I forgot to ask). Dr. B set a date to induce when I'm 39 weeks on Feb. 3 if she is not here before then. He didn't really give me an option on that, perhaps because my diabetes is getting tougher to control and because my blood pressure has begun to rise. I tend to do this at the end of my pregnancies. My bp today was 160/100 at a second reading which was higher than the first one. Yikes!! Luckily it went back to normal (128/72) after "relaxing" on my left side on one of the lovely examining tables for about 10 minutes.

The ultrasound revealed that Charlotte has lots of hair. Because we got a good look at the back of her noggin, we could see it floating around her head in the amniotic fluid. She may have thick hair like me and Lily. Unfortunately we got no face shots since she had her back turned to us the whole time today. Her measurements were perfect. She's in the 69th percentile at 6 lbs 9 oz which means she isn't growing too big too fast despite my diabetes. Although, it could mean she will be my biggest baby yet. Griff had been my largest at 6 lbs 14 oz. Dr. B said Charlotte may end up being around 7 1/2 lbs if she holds tight until Feb. 3. I think that will be just fine...and it could explain why my pelvic bones feel like they are splitting in two.

I will now begin seeing Dr. B every week until she is born. Meantime we will just wait until labor begins and pray for an easy delivery and a healthy little girl. Yay!!