tonight, tonight....

WHOA OHHHHH!!

So, I think this baby might very well be born tonight. Or perhaps in the wee hours of morning.

this week

- have worked the maximum allowed 30 hours (whoo hoo!). A couple weeks ago, they cut a bunch of the temporary/contract workers (like me). The nice thing is, the work available has been more plentiful and steady. I think I was spared the axe because I typically work a lot of hours, and always managed to eke out the minimum 10 hours, even on weeks where there was barely tasks available. So I'm pretty grateful to still be employed!

- left the house! Yes, that is notable after last week. We had our first "homeschool co-op class" on Wednesday. Emily did a science experiment on solubility/solutions with the kids, and they also did mixing with colored water. It went really well. Prior to that, we picked up some Chuck E Cheese tokens (because I had a good coupon that expires Sunday) and played there for a bit. I used to think it was a "trashy" place to take kids, but it's actually not. It's quite clean and well-maintained. We never eat the overpriced nasty food, but we have fun playing the games and riding the rides. And when you can find the 100 tokens for $10, it's some good cheap fun. Yesterday we only had about 40 minutes to play and I let each kid have 6 tokens (we're planning on going back sometime soon with David) and they still had a lot of fun. There is a climbing area, also, and I felt good that the kids got to burn off some energy.

- took pictures of my friend Debra's super cute new baby boy. He turned one week yesterday. I wanted to be sure we had a chance to "shoot" him before my baby comes, as I'm sure I won't be up for much for a couple weeks after that.

- have decided that my baby is made of lead.

- have washed and folded all the gender-neutral baby clothes and pulled the diapers, covers & pail out of storage.

- made Sculpey dinosaurs with the kids for our Friday art project.

- pulled out the fridge and cleaned under & behind it. Man, that was gross!

Monday Flashback

I came across this in my work for today. ::snicker::

Micheal Jackson - Beat It
Uploaded by lostinthe80s

speaking of Darwin...

This article mentions some really cool things about the guy. I wonder how many other scientists are as misunderstood as Darwin is by so many modern, "enlightened" people. Just recently David and I were talking to someone who believe that Darwin was an atheist. We made the point that, like many other people who suffered traumatic loss (his mother died when he was very young and he was devastated by the loss of his young daughter later in life. But Darwin never renounced God. He himself even said that "agnostic" would be the appropriate term for his beliefs.

Anyways, check out the article. Just another proof that he was a pretty cool dude.

::hee hee::

My excuse is that it's a gloomy, gray Saturday. :o)

cool web site

Even if you aren't in the market for a baby name, this website has some really cool features. I especially like the Name Voyager. Even David thought that was pretty cool...

Baby Name Wizard

Oh, and perhaps you are all dying to know that I am making progress on the name issue. I went through Babynamer and came up with some lists of names I liked. Then David went through and marked the ones he liked. I feel like I have a girl name fairly solidly picked out, but the boy's name is not quite as solid. If this baby is 9 days late, though, it will be born on Darwin's 200th birthday. So that is yet another consideration... ;o) (Not for a first name, though. In theory I think Darwin is an awesome name, but the "geek factor" is a teeny bit too high.)

i love this so much!

Seriously, it never fails to make me smile.

the gospel of ROCK!

A few weeks ago I was having a rough day. I can't remember the exact crappiness of the day, but that's irrelevant. I was driving in the car (I think I was by myself) and so I put in a CD of favorite songs. This one came on:


(You can read the lyrics here if you want.)

Probably because I was having such a hard time and had been praying to feel better and figure out some solutions, this song hit me powerfully. Instead of a song conveying a message of love from one person to another, it suddenly seemed to make so much more sense as a message from Jesus to all of us. And it made much more sense looked at in that light than it ever really did to me as just another love song.

Then a couple nights ago, I was reminding myself of the importance of being hopeful, and this song popped into my head:



I started thinking of how many scripture passages there are that say essentially this same message. There's tons. All the verses about things working together for your good, the fear not little flock verses, and (personal favorites) the trust in the Lord passages. I'm not an expert scriptorian by any stretch, but I had a hard time thinking of anyplace in the scriptures where it says, "Now is definitely the time to panic. You should be profoundly worried." (Granted, there are those verses about millstones and teeth gnashing, but while I'm far from perfect, I feel fairly safe from those negative promises.)

It's so easy to forget that the gospel of Christ is the GOOD news, and the good news is that there is hope and something worth striving for. There are plenty of things in life that get us down, but if we really listen to the message that Jesus gives us through the scriptures, we'll see that it is a message of love and peace and joy. And I think that message gets spoken and sung over and over by voices all around the world. Maybe they aren't hymns in the traditional sense, but that doesn't diminish the truth of their message.

Any favorite rock hymns of your own?

no rat baby

I'm a little disappointed. I was hoping that Chinese New Year fell in February again this year, to give my little baby a chance at being born in the Year of the Rat. Sadly, no. The NY begins January 26, so this baby is pretty much guaranteed to be an Ox.

Though, if s/he hangs on three extra days, s/he could be born on Bob Marley's birthday, which would be pretty awesome. In which case, there could be a modification in our choice of names...

my thoughts, exactly

Middle East "Crisis"

And I have to say, I don't really blame Bush for not giving it another try during his last days in office. I don't remember if I posted it here, but I was disgusted to hear one of the middle east leaders say that they were hopeful that Obama could bring peace to the middle east. Look, if you don't WANT peace (which I really don't think they do), NOONE can "bring" it to you. For who knows how long, both sides have had pretty much the same argument and neither side is willing to compromise, at least not in the ways that the other side finds acceptable. So there's no new wizard or magic potion that is going to solve your problems for you. Hmph.

a rose by any other name....

So, with less than (we assume) 3 weeks to go, I've still not narrowed down the name list, or even compiled a very good name list to narrow down. I still feel like I'm searching for the perfect name. Sure, maybe it would be easier if we knew the gender, but we didn't know with either of the other two kids and pretty much had the names decided on before the big days. The main problem, I think, is that both of the other kids have names that MEAN something to us (either by their inherent meaning or by virtue of being named after someone we admire), and they aren't just names that we liked. I don't think there is anything wrong with just naming a kid something because you like it, but I do like that the kids' names both have a larger context. So then I feel like I have to find a name that I not only like, but that has an extra layer of meaning. I guess the middle name could be meaningful...

Oh, and I also don't like really trendy or popular names. I try to stay very clear of names in the top 100. And also am wary of names that are steadily climbing the ranks.

I know, I'm kind of hard to please, aren't I?

more penelope

Sadly, it looks like the fabulous one with Peyton Manning has been removed from most websites.

i need some laughs....

If you haven't seen Penelope from SNL, you are missing out. But don't worry, I'm here to enlighten/entertain (or at least embed video clips).





There are at least two others, but I can't find them right now.

So, have anything funny to share?

too true...

My sister showed me this tonight. I think everyone (including Ford, GM, and the U.S. Government) should all get a complimentary copy.

something bright for a gray, cloudy day

(I discovered this while rating video search results for work this morning. And yeah, I have to confess to kind of liking Bollywood.)

for the Twilight fans....

My friend had this linked to on her blog, and I know some of you are big fans, so I thought I'd share it here. This guy hasn't read or seen any of the Twilight stuff, but he pieced together what he could of the general plot from t-shirts/merchandise on CafePress.

well, whaddaya know?

Last year I more than doubled the number of blog posts from each of the previous two years. Sure, many posts were just a video or a funny picture/link, and perhaps it's indicative of too much time spent online....but I'm still going to feel good about it, especially since it was a productive year in a lot of ways, so I feel okay with the evidence that I wasn't just frittering my life away at the computer. :o)

Super blogging fool, that's me.

Don't worry, though. I never forget this very important truth:

District Sweet District

Not every day your home town gets featured on The Colbert Report...

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Better Know a District - Utah's 3rd - Jason Chaffetz

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

farewell, old friend...

So, in the interest of not spending $100 that we don't really have, and also because we just don't have the time/energy to keep up with it anymore, as of Monday, January 12, we will bid farewell to our old Family Homepage. I am a bit sad to see it go, simply because I feel like it's a connection to our early married life. (Yeah, I know that at only 7 years, we probably still qualify as being in our "early married life," but when you pack as much in the first 3 years as we did, it can feel like ages ago.)

Anyways, if you've never checked it out, you might want to, especially if you didn't know me/us then. Happily all the pics and stuff are safely hidden away somewhere on hard drives, but it's fun to view them in an easily viewable format. When Noodle was little, we only had the digital camera that is on our digital camcorder, so that's the reason for the pixelly shots.

nesting, maybe?

After completely overreacting to the kids' mess (which, granted, was spread all around the house), we cleaned the playroom and their bedroom (including vacuuming under the bunkbed). I've also instituted (not for the first time) a one-week ban on toys leaving the playroom. They can have one toy out of there at a time, and if I find it abandoned anywhere, it will be eaten by the gobble bag.

Now I just have to come up with some good threats that will get MY room cleaned.

seems like a good thing...

I know I can use any bit of encouragement/inspiration available to keep working on our food storage. Check this out: Fun With Food Storage

Now I just need the money to start rolling in so I can buy food storage.

one month to go

Baby #3 is due one month from today. I have to say, in the midst of my excitement and anticipation, I'm a bit panicky and apprehensive. I feel like I've gotten the hang of being a two-kid family, and I've heard from many people that the adjustment to three kids is a big one because now the parents are outnumbered. Also, after having experienced two babies, I know that the newborn-infant stage is really demanding and really draining for me. After Spud was born, I had about four months of post-partum depression, and I can't help but feel a bit nervous about that possibility again. I like to think that I'm in a better environment and have more resources and supportive people now, but it was such a dark time in my life that I feel a bit anxious. That was one reason I really didn't want to have another winter baby, but sometimes things don't go exactly as planned. I'm really grateful that we are pretty set (since we've had one of each gender) as far as clothes and such go, and since we cloth diaper we won't have that expense, nor the expense of formula since we breastfeed, but boy it would be nice to be in a better financial situation.

Since I've been so busy this pregnancy (working, photography stuff, homeschooling...) I don't feel like I've had a lot of time to absorb the reality or focus on welcoming this new baby to our home. Of course I was busy during my pregnancies with the other two (finishing grad school right up until the end with Spud), but I've just felt especially distracted and stretched thin these past several months. And that makes me more nervous about the possibility of the PPD--I don't feel like I'm emotionally prepared. Of course, I'm guessing part of the "lack of focus" just comes with the territory of having multiple children. You have so much going on that you just have to keep doing what needs to be done.

So, yeah. How's that for a fair amount of angst? In spite of all my concerns, I am very excited to meet this little person. I hope that when s/he arrives, we'll be able to quickly settle on a name! Nothing has really settled or seemed quite right just yet, which is also different from the other two. A few of the names that I rather like have gotten rather popular, and I try to avoid anything in the top 100. I think maybe I need to ask David for a blessing and also just spend some time visualizing my "new" life as a mother of three. It might be enough to help me feel a bit more stable and prepared emotionally.

a little fun - Baby Pool

This was originally posted on my facebook page, but since not all of you are facebookers, I thought I'd repost it here in case you are interested.


Hey All!

This is your chance to prove your predictive powers and win a moderately cool prize! (Most likely a handmade-by-Mindy plush monster...they're the latest craze!)

How to play:
Submit your guess (via a comment) below for Mindy & David's baby's GENDER, WEIGHT, and BIRTHDATE.

This baby is "officially" due February 3, 2009.

To give everyone the same advantage, here's the info on our other two kids:
Kid #1: Girl, 8 lb 13 oz, born 8 days early
Kid #2: Boy, 10 lb 10 oz, born 9 days late

As you can see, we have a wide guessing field.

To be considered, guesses must be submitted by January 15th 2009.