it's settled

After careful consideration, I've decided that, were I given the choice, I'd choose to be Elastigirl.

Flying or laser eyes or invisibility would be pretty cool, but as a mom, there couldn't possibly be anything more useful than being suuuuuuper stretchy. Watching your kids play in the front yard? Uh oh, they're fighting? Just reach out and pull one of them back. Clean up a room from the comfort of a sofa. Change a diaper far enough away so you don't have to smell it. And stretch marks from pregnancy would be a non issue! It would even be a help when it comes to breastfeeding. (Go go gadget... well, you get the idea.)

Oh yeah, that's what I need. I guess until then I should keep working on yoga. At least then I can bend.

P.S. Mary, my "navel-gazing" posts are those where I talk excessively about myself. Maybe I should label them Omphaloskeptic Thoughts. (See the navel-gazing link for the definition of that one, if needed.)

Announcing...

Yeah, all of you already know, but here is the OFFICIAL announcement.



Click for larger image.

Music Monday

Most of you are probably more up on music than me, but I love this song and only heard it first fairly recently.

Human

so much to say...

so little time.

I've been wanting to blog about how much I've missed having my mom here this week, and how wonderful it was while she wase here. She kept up on dishes, laundry, did my mending (which was mostly all the knees on Noodle's pants...I guess that's what happens when you buy clothes for a six year old secondhand from Savers...), brought me glasses of water to keep me sufficiently hydrated, baked LOTS of cookies, held Sprout so I could shower/eat/homeschool/whatever, listened to me ramble about whatever, made me feel loved, and other fabulous things. My mom had a hip replaced last October (or maybe the very end of September) and so my dad was worried about her coming here. She still has to be careful about bending and lifting things. She brought her "grabber," which Spud thought was fabulous. He enthusiastically picked up toys with it on several occasions.

I've also wanted to blog that David's not very great job ended. They kept upping the requirements to make sales, and he wasn't able to meet the requirements (and neither were a lot of other folks) so that gig is over. He's working on a few other things and looking for other opportunities.

I've worked 30 hours each of the past two weeks. I'm grateful to have a job that I can do while nursing a baby. A lot of the time, one hand is sufficient. It would have been nice to take a break, but we can definitely use the money and I think keeping busy (while still being able to sit and "rest") is helpful to me to not get too down.

This week has been hard. Physically, I'm feeling pretty good, but have had some back and neck issues. Trying to balance everything is tough. Spud has had a bit of a rough adjustment to no longer being the baby of the family and we've had to deal with quite a lot of attitude, though I think he's done better this week than he did the previous few. Noodle has been a great help, though she is struggling with a challenge of her own right now (which I may or may not blog about in more detail later.) Anyways, we are in the process of getting some help with that.

We had our homeschool Valentine exchange/party on Monday, which was fun. The kids painted their boxes and wrote out their Valentines that morning. Next year I have aspirations of making homemade ones, but I think I had those aspirations for this year until Sprout arrived. :o)

Yesterday we went to the Harley-Davidson shop for a homeschool field trip. It was pretty awesome. The guy who gave us the tour was really cool and accommodating of our group of youngsters. (The bulk of our group is in the 4-8 range, which can be a bit daunting for tour givers.) I thought the kids were pretty attentive and well-behaved overall, so that was nice, too.

Oh, Noodle lost her bottom front incisors last weekend. They started wiggling back in December, I think, but she wasn't an avid wiggler so they hung on until recently. She was happy to be able to use my cute Tooth Pillow (made by my mom years ago for me) to put under her pillow. She made out like a bandit with $1/tooth! Whoo hoo! (It might not have been so much, except that she lost one Friday and the next one Saturday. I don't think the tooth fairy was aware the second was quite that loose!)

Well, I guess that's condensed version of Mindy's life lately. Just add water. Or milk, if you prefer a thicker consistency.

a little bit of additional fun...

So, another friend is doing a FIVE person gift giveaway, so I figure I can add this ADDITIONAL post with two more gifts and call it good. But if you reply to this one, you have to offer five gifts. Or two. I'm not really that much of a stickler for details, but you do have to offer SOMETHING. :o)

Here's the official BLURB:

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you.This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
2- What I create will be just for you.
3- It'll be done this year.
4- You have no clue what it's going to be.

The catch is that you must repost this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog. The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me! Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!


(Remember, only the first two people for this one!)

Fun!

I got this off one of my friend's blogs and thought it sounded like fun. So here's how it works:The first 3 people to leave a comment on this post will receive a gift from me during this year. When and what will be a surprise. There's a small catch though...Post this same thing on your own blog and then come back and leave a comment telling me you're in. Fun, huh? Remember, only the first 3 comments receive the gift!

i dream of...

someday having a "style". Call it fashion sense or whatever, but I would love to have it someday. And I would love it to correspond with enough money to indulge it occasionally.

I see the people on this blog and think they look so put-together.

Till then, I'll maintain my jeans, tee shirt and sandals style. At least it's easy. And comfortable.

big yawn!

Whenever he yawns, he scrunches up his eyes really tight. It's pretty funny, and, of course, very cute. :o)

Happy 200th Birthday!!

big guy, little guy

how to lose 24 lbs in a week!

Step 1: Give birth to a nearly 11 lb baby.




What? Not interested?

need some energy?

these folks have plenty to spare.

"every mother crow...

...thinks her chick is the blackest."

Actually, I think I'm objective enough to know that my little guy isn't the absolute cutest baby in the world. But he is still pretty darn cute, and I sure do love him.

Welcome to the World!! (now with pictures & a name)

Baby boy arrived this morning at 6:25 a.m. He's 10 lb 13 oz, 23 inches long. Name & pictures forthcoming. Now I'm going to get some sleep.

(P.S. This is my 600th blog post. That's kind of cool!)

UPDATE!! He has a name now! His first name is Leif (after Leif Erikson) and we are still batting around some middle names.

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.)