a good week

i think i'm pre-nesting.

i have this overwhelming desire to get my life in order and everything ready for baby. 

like if i had the budget, i would be done christmas shopping.

i've already got detailed lists of what we're getting everyone (including grandparents!), christmas pics scheduled, holiday meal lists done, and christian's birthday present decided (his birthday is just 4 weeks after baby girl is due, so it will probably be just 2 weeks after she is born, and i want to be ready!)

last week, 21 weeks!

sooo, last monday we had abby come over to play for the day. sarah and i decided to give eachother a kid-free day to get things done, so we had an extra playmate on monday. we painted, played, and watched movies. we did not take pictures. :( abby showed up in pink shorts and a grey shirt, and addie was still in her unders. addie went upstairs (to get something) and came down wearing pink shorts and her matching grey shirt. it was totally cute, but still, no pictures. they played so nicely together, all napped, and were totally easy! 

totally doing that again!

that night alexis, our varsity cheerleader, had her first home game. i am sad to say that i've now been to 2 games, (of the '11 season) and taken pictures at 0. darn-it-all! there was lots of raider stomping, cheering, and touchdowns (for the other team at least!) going on, and it was so fun!

next time there will be pictures!!!

on tuesday mindy and i got together for our day of cooking. we have long planned a day of cooking where we would go shopping and cook and have a freezer full of meals to show for it. we planned our meals and wrote our ingredient lists on the day of the hurricane, (we didn't have anything else to do!) so we were a little unorganized because we didn't quite remember what we had recipes for and what we didn't. we (sort of) figured it all out and off we went to the commissary by 10:30. we shopped, shopped, shopped, picked up lunch, and made it home to start our cooking extravaganza by 12:30.

just getting started. it looked like a mini mart on my island!

 we made chili, white chicken chili, potato and corn chowder, beef stew, lasagna, spaghetti sauce, chicken enchiladas, chicken pot pie, shepherds pie, and for dinner that night, a fresh and delish 12-layer-salad.

about half the needed carrots and celery. i just kept thinking how genius we were. i mean, if your cutting 2 cups of carrots, why not just cut 6? your knife and cutting board are already dirty, right?

 half way point. we had our crockpots, big roasters, huge pans, and everything else going.

 we finished at 7. so that was 8 1/2 hours, 13 meals (we had some extras of a couple recipes), $80 each, and 2 tired, but very happy mama's.

 so far we've tried the beef stew, corn and potato chowder, and lasagna and they've all been delish! totally doing that again!

on wednesday it was my turn for a day without kiddos. i dropped the girls off just after 9 and set out to clean my upstairs. that's the part of the house that is easiest to let go. i do most of my cleaning while the girls are sleeping (either night time, early morning, or during naps) and i will not risk waking them by cleaning! i revved up my candle warmer with a nice autumn scent, cranked some tanya tucker, and got working! i h.a.t.e cleaning my bathroom, so that was first on my list. i usually clean one bathroom item at a time (on account of hating it so much), but this day i decided to get it all done at once.

 the finished bathroom.

 then i moved on to the little girls rooms. for months now i have been putting frankie's outgrown clothes into brown paper bags in the closet. and she still has a few 9 month outfits in her closet and drawers. so i took everything out and organized it nicely into boxes. 

aaaand addie's finished room.

 

 after addie's room i threw in the girls bathroom, then frankie's room, and then for the piéce de résistance, our bedroom! that's the spot in the house that gets things dumped in it, all of the time. if i don't know where something should go, my room! of course, as the day went on and my time was short, i stopped taking pictures. but it looked gooood, you can trust me on that one. after 2 days of hard work, my poor preggy body was tired, but so, so, so happy!

here's what the girls were doing while mama cleaned.
frankie loves sarah! she will climb down from my lap and go over and sit on sarah's lap.
just look how happy she is there!

these 2 love to read!

that night christian had his first baseball game for fall ball. he told me a few weeks ago that he wanted to play AND that he also wanted to do spring ball AND that if he decided in the spring that he doesn't want to, i need to make him because he was bored sitting out this last spring. YAY! i can do that!

 addie fell asleep on our way to his game, (after throwing a fit that she didn't want to leave abby's house!) so we played in the car while she slept and christian's team, the grey penguins (tough, huh?!) warmed up.

love this big girl!

 my big baby boy in the outfield.

the girls had fun running around. then frankie picked up what i thought was a stick.
it wasn't.
so we washed and antibacterialed up her hands. then she picked up a big, big cicada.by the time i saw it, it was dead. not sure if it was dead before or after she picked it up, but back to the bathroom we went and after a thorough washing we antibacterialed again.
gross!

 "mommy, take a picture of me!"

 onto 3rd base. moving on up!

 he's getting to be such a little man!

 action!
 
they lost, but they couldn't have lost by much, cause they were doing really well. he's played with some of these boys before, so that's nice. :)

by thursday i was pooped. but i had my third (and last for this year!) week to teach preschool. we talked all about health and washed our hands (frankie!) and put together plates of healthy food. they are catching on to things quickly and are so much fun! addie had a hard time listening. hopefully this week, with a new teacher, she'll do better!

after preschool, lunch, and getting the girls down for naps,  i did absolutely nothing. well, i heated up the beef stew we had made extra of and threw some ingredients into the bread maker and then we had a delicious dinner, but not much else got done.

thursday, 22 weeks.


 that tuesday had been a good mail day too! we got our patio furniture, curtains, and some of christian's school shirts. so that night matt and christian put together our rocking bench, chaise, and side table for our deck. the rest will come in within the next 2 weeks. and after 5 1/2 years of marriage, we finally have patio furniture! yay!
boys working. girls supervising.

friday was matt's day off. his fridays off don't usually turn out very well. we always have the best of intentions, but things don't usually work out and we often end up arguing. it's strange and i can't explain it, but that's usually the way it goes. but this day off was wonderful! i let matt sleep in, made french toast, and then matt took the girls to gymnastics. yup, i got alone time twice that week! holla! i was able to do all the floors on the main level. i cleaned and polished the kitchen and then sharked my little heart out.

that night, christian went to football practice with some friends. see, i've been telling him for years that he should try every sport, that you never know what you might excel at or love, and that he would probably be good at football. but he never wanted to try it.
until his buddies decided to play, of course.
he's gone to 2 practices and i know he wishes he were on the team.
when will he learn to listen to his mummy???
alexis had an away game and addie had been invited to a birthday party. so i missed lexi's game. :( we left matt at home to work on putting up our curtains! and even though it took all evening, they all got put up! and within a week of getting them! that never happens! it was awesome and i love them!
and i present my birthday curtains!

 

 on saturday i went to pick up allie from the airport, all by myself. i got more mommy alone time! and then we stopped by a few stores on our way home, all without kids! matt made rellenos for dinner, we watched a movie and ate junkfood and played games and had a lovely time! then after all that, we went outside to enjoy our deck, furniture and smores. a 3'fer. and it was awesome!

behold, our deck!

(and yes, addie is in a long sleeve shirt, underwear, and sunday shoes)

 matt's really funny.
really.

 spot for steps. maybe. we haven't decided.

dancing queens.

cute.
and i swear i do fix addie's hair.

 another view of our deck.

 yumm-o!

 addie took this one. :)

 and one very bald, very sleepy girl.

 on sunday we went to church. matt got a new calling, back to the cub scouts he goes! :) good thing he likes cub scouts! church was good. after church was good. and the adult meeting later that night was good. allie and i stayed up late talking and had another lovely time.

today was another lazy day. i didn't leave the house until 3:30 to take allie back to the airport. she's looking for jobs in nyc and we're keeping our fingers and toes crossed that she finds one! it would be really nice to have some family within a days drive! on my way home, i somehow got going the wrong way, except i didn't realize it was wrong until i ended up all the way over by the temple. i had already spent about half hour in stop and go traffic, and then add to that the fact that i went way out of my way, and my 2 hour drive home became a 3 hour drive home. i swear, i have the worst sense of direction! still don't know what i did!

now that allie's gone home i've got to get back to our busy almost-fall schedule.
tomorrow's agenda includes chocolate chip pumpkin bread.
and this weeks agenda includes more good-ness. :)