The last day of 2007 here in Yankton is cold and gray. Wait, I'm seeing some sun and blue sky peaking through the clouds now. Ella's napping. She was upstairs by herself for a while playing with the Little Pet Shop toys in Accalia's huge, wooden dollhouse. Then I heard her calling for me, and I found her in our bed covered up and waiting for me. She nursed to sleep and has been out for at least an hour. What a peaceful way to transition from one thing to another.

Cory is working just a few hours tonight as a favor to another driver who had tried to take the night off because of family visiting and wasn't able to get it off. Cory has thrilled the kids with the promise of a cheese pizza once he returns home. That, my friends, will be the excitement of our night. I'm not entirely convinced I'll be able to stay awake until midnight. I think I made it until 8:30 the year I was pregnant with Accalia. We shall see. I start to feel worse and worse the more tired I get, so it's usually a relief to crawl into bed at night and sleep through the nausea.

Hope everyone has a happy and safe New Year's Eve and a wonderful start to 2008!

It's been a really quiet weekend around here, mostly because Cory has been gone much of the time delivering pizzas. The good news with that is that for Friday and Saturday combined, he made $100 in tips. Not too shabby. My days have mostly been spent obsessing over how to try to feel the least nauseated, and that would be seriously boring to detail. I think some of us may be getting sick. I've had a bit of a runny nose today, and Cole has had a runny nose and a bit of a cough. He's definitely a little sickie. Ella's been quite cranky today, but I can't tell if she's getting sick or is just having an off day. Cory thinks he has a sinus infection.

We just found out yesterday that a friend of ours from when we first lived in Yankton (they now live in Wisconsin) has been diagnosed with cancer and that the prognosis is not good at all. She worked with Cory as a counselor and her husband worked with me at the paper. It takes us back to Mary's diagnosis and the doctor telling us there was nothing more he could do. I just hope she doesn't accept that. She's just in her forties with two kids still at home.

That helps put things in perspective, doesn't it? I think I can manage a few more weeks of nausea and fatigue.

It is just amazing how quickly morning sickness goes from those occasional twinges of nausea to worshipping the porcelain god. I'm just glad this didn't start until after we made it home. I guess the good news about having three other children at home is that I don't really have the opportunity to sit and feel sick, so I can just run around all day keeping that feeling just below the surface (most of the time, at least).

It's beautiful outside with the fluffy white snow covering every surface. Now that the sun is out, more and more of it is falling off of the tree branches. Cory's working in Yankton today, so I'm glad he didn't have to worry about bad roads on the way to Springfield. We've just been hanging out at home so far. I've vacuumed and am working on laundry, although it usually seems to make little difference after the kids are awake and going full force.

I have a pretty good selection of pregnancy-related books, and Accalia has been having a lot of fun going through them. Her favorites so far are an old issue of All Round Magazineat is all about birth. Unfortunately, the magazine is no longer being published, but you can still buy back issues. A book that Accalia keeps asking me to read to her is a coffee table size book called Pregnancy Goddesses (or something close to it). Each page has a different very pregnant woman dressed up and posing in a way that has an important meaning for her. Then there's a short piece that she's written about the pregnancy, what the picture means, etc. It's already brought up discussions about pregnancy-related issues from miscarriage to adoption.

I think what the kids are most excited about is when the baby actually starts resembling a human baby around 8 weeks or so. I showed the kids an image of what the baby looks like now - kind of in a c-shape with a tale. Accalia keeps talking about "when the baby is in human form."

Cory works tonight delivering pizzas, so we don't have any big plans. We don't really have any plans for the entire weekend. I guess we'll just work on getting back into the groove of being at home again.

Thanks for the congratulations! Anne, if I can come up with the money for a plane ticket for you, you'll so be my doula. Navigating the day with morning sickness always takes a little readjustment as I experiment with what foods taste good and what foods make me feel sick. Sometimes upping the amount of B6 I get does make a difference, but other times it doesn't. Sometimes ginger tea will help. Other times it just makes me feel even more sick. The key for me is usually eating often (at least every couple hours) and not eating much. That usually helps keep the nausea manageable.

This morning we made a run to the store to pick up odds and ends. Accalia and Cole also wanted to spend some of their Christmas money, so they did that, too. Ella was a happy girl for most of the trip, but as we headed toward the registers she suddenly switched from happy babbling toddler to extremely irate toddler. I have no idea what caused the change, but it made for a not so fun trip out of the store.

Ella's been napping for a while now. I think she's trying to catch up on sleep that she missed out on over the past week. Accalia and Cole have kept plenty busy with all of their new things, and Accalia made a very yummy cake with her Easy Bake Oven. Ah, the power of a 100 watt lightbulb!

I'd better get back to doing laundry. There are lots of things I want to post about, but I just don't have the desire to sit at the computer any longer right now. Maybe later...

A white Christmas is an absolutely lovely thing to experience when you can stay curled up inside your home or only have to drive around town to celebrate with family or friends. When you are traveling, though, it absolutely sucks. The slick roads and snow from Sunday were a bit of a pain for that night when we had the children's service at church and my brothers came to my parents' house for the kids to open gifts. The roads were fine from when we left Christmas morning for Lake Wilson and Myron's house, but about 20-30 minutes from L.W., it started snowing. We ended up with about six inches there and about four inches here in Yankton. Honestly, we were all hoping to just have a few hours visit with Myron and then head home, but that wasn't possible with the snow.

We left for home after Myron took us (and Bev) to lunch at McDonald's. The fog was horrible on and off throughout the trip, and by the time we were south of Sioux Falls and less than an hour from home, we were stuck in the middle of the interstate with the rest of the traffic and stayed sitting there for close to a half hour. There had been a bunch of accidents throughout the day due to the fog and people overdriving the still slick roads, and accidents involving a camper and a tractor trailer caused the traffic problems. We made it home later in the afternoon, though, and had to shovel the sidewalks and unload the van before doing anything else. The rest of the day has pretty much been spent unpacking and helping the kids with some of their new toys.

I think the kids really enjoyed their Christmas. They were all excited about the gifts they received. Accalia was thrilled to finally get an Easy Bake Oven (I always wanted one when I was little), and Cole was overjoyed to add to his super hero collection. Ella loves her Little People toys, too. Being in Mankato for nearly a week was a lot of fun for them, but I could definitely tell in the last couple days that everyone was just ready to get home.

I thought I would wait a while longer, but since word is already getting out, I'll share with all of you. Baby #4 is on the way! It's so early - six weeks - so I'm not due until around August 19. I'm already enjoying all day morning sickness, though, and that's how I knew I was pregnant before even taking a test. The morning sickness really seems to hit around six weeks, and I'm just going to assume it'll get even worse (as it always seems to) before hopefully ending around 12 weeks. Accalia is so excited about the pregnancy and having a baby in the house again. I'll have to share all of the fun conversations we've had since we told them. Cole is really excited, too, although he's not as curious about the pregnancy as Accalia is right now. Ella, of course, really doesn't know what's going on. If Accalia says "Mama's having a baby!", she'll run to me and pat my belly and say "Baby! Baby!", but she does that more because it makes Accalia so happy than anything else.

This is most likely the last baby, so it's a strange feeling going into this pregnancy knowing that this may be the last time I experience all of these things. Cory's pretty settled on this being the last baby (I probably don't feel as sure), but I think in the end we'll feel quite complete as a family of six.

Well, I should get ready for bed. I hope everyone has had a wonderful week!

Cory is working late tonight. Ella just went to sleep, and Accalia and Cole are watching "Frosty Returns" on tv. I've been scrambling around all day packing and doing all sorts of last minute things since we leave for Minnesota tomorrow and won't be back for nearly a week. It's wonderful being with family for the holidays, but it's a bit more hectic when you're not at home and have to pack your celebration to come with you. Thankfully we don't have to fly or else we'd never fit everything we take along! I guess we'd end up shipping a bunch of stuff ahead of time, huh?

Any who, I'm going to shut myself up in a room and stuff the kids' stockings (or stock the stuffings as I apparently said to Cory last night). We're opening stockings tomorrow before we leave. That's what we always do no matter when we leave for the holidays. It's the one gift opening event that happens at our house. Hopefully the trip will go smoothly. We're stopping in Sioux Falls to try to get a couple presents we need at Toys R Us.

I hope everyone has a beautiful and fun and lovely time wherever you are this next week!

After Cory finished with work on Sunday, we drove around Yankton looking at Christmas lights for about an hour. There were some neat displays, including one house that synchronized their lights to music. Cole fell asleep before we saw that, though, so I might take the kids up to that house after Accalia's dance class is over tonight.

Much of yesterday afternoon was spent wrapping gifts. We still have a few gifts to purchase, but right now we're all caught up with wrapping. Now it's just a matter of fitting all of those gifts into the van on Thursday.

Ella's napping right now - a rare afternoon nap. She hit such a cranky spot earlier and couldn't shake it. A bath didn't help. Even chocolate didn't help. Hopefully sleep helps, or else it will be a very long night.

Quick update, I guess, since Cole wants me to sumo wrestle with him in the living room...

Cory is working a 12-8 shift today, so we've been on our own and have been keeping it pretty tame. We could have gone out to find something to do, but I'm about 15 miles from empty with the van's gas tank and just don't feel like parting with $50 yet. This morning into this afternoon we baked pumpkin muffins. Not really the right holiday season, I suppose, but we were running short of ingredients for the other things we had planned to make.

This afternoon Accalia designed a summer outfit that she now wants to sew. She found scraps of fabric and had me grab the sewing kit, but when she wanted me to go freestyle from there and help her sew up a shirt and a dress, I had to stop. I told her I have absolutely no experience sewing clothes and that if she wants me to be an actual help rather than forever confuse her, we might have to search for a simple pattern to make something. So that's what we'll do. It's really quite sad how inept I am with anything involving sewing/knitting/crocheting and the like. Accalia bought a crochet kit at the dollar store - simple hoop that ends up producing a small bag. She got stuck, and I was absolutely no help. It was like the directions were in a foreign language. So that means I'm bringing this little kit to Mankato next week and I'm hunting down Rachel. Please don't laugh too hard at me, okay, cuz?

So now I have beverages to fetch and wrestling to commence. Wish me luck.

Christmas cards were finished and mailed off late this afternoon. Holla! I can now truly sit and enjoy all cards that come our way, knowing I've finished at least this one small part of our holiday duties (not that it's a duty to send out love to our loved ones, but you know...)

This afternoon our elderly neighbor Julius came over with a Christmas card and plate of goodies as he does each year. We've been back in Yankton in this house for five years, and before that we were here for two years before moving to Mitchell. We kept in touch with Julius and his wife Ruby during those two years we were gone, so it's been nearly a decade that we've known them. Wow! It's hard to see his slow decline after seeing how active he was even just a year or two ago. His arthritis in his back is so bad now that it takes him a long time to get going in the mornings, and he can only walk about a half block before getting winded. He's waiting to get an electric scooter, and his eyes lit up as he talked about that.

The big news that he had to share with me was about an article written about him in this weekly newspaper. Unfortunately, the article isn't online, but it's about the part he played in helping construct the Bishop Marty Chapel on the campus of Mount Marty College in the late 1940s. There were hundreds who worked on the construction, but only Julius and another man were with the construction from the bottom all the way - 187 1/2 feet high - to the top of the steeple. He helped put the 600 pound cross in place that sits on the top of the steeple.

It was neat to talk with him about this today because I've just finished reading Ken Follett's "Pillars of the Earth", which revolves around the building of a cathedral in 12th century England. Amazing book. When I finished yesterday I felt like crying because I had just left these people and their lives that had been with me for nearly 1000 pages. Awesome.

Accalia is bored, so I must now see what would interest her. Why isn't it ever sleep?

For the past few days, there's been A Mood in the house. No one seems to be happy for long, Ella especially. She's had rough nights, too. She has a couple teeth coming in, so maybe that's contributing. I think the bigger thing for her, though, is just continuing to make big developmental leaps and trying to find autonomy throughout all of this. I've noticed that lately it's a lot more difficult to transition her from one thing to the next, particularly if we're leaving the house. That's always challenging with each child to find out how to do that smoothly, but we'll all work together to figure it out. Ella slept 14 hours last night and napped for an hour or so later this afternoon, so perhaps there's a little need for extra sleep mixed in there somewhere. It was a little easier today.

Cory's delivering pizzas tonight. The kids are watching Christmas specials or videos and playing with toys. I have to finish getting Christmas cards ready to send out - almost there. Then I have to concentrate on the baking I need to do for several things as well as wrapping presents. We have a few more presents to get, and then we'll be finished with that.

It looks as if Cory will get off the time he was asking for around Christmas, so we'll be leaving for Mankato next Thursday and staying there through Christmas morning. Then we'll drive to Lake Wilson and spend a day there before returning back to Yankton on the 26th. That will be a nice break from everything for a while. Until then, though, it'll be rather hectic.

It's been snowing since a little before 2 p.m. today, and at nearly 8 p.m. it's coming down even harder. We could get up to 8 inches of snow by tomorrow, which is very exciting for Accalia and Cole. Cory, however, is out in that snow right now delivering pizzas and is not having a very good time. Of course it's very busy since no one wants to go out to get food, so hopefully those who are calling to have pizza delivered will at least tip well!

Last night Cory wasn't supposed to be the closing driver, but he got to work and found out the manager had not scheduled a closing driver. Since Cory was supposed to be the second to the last driver to close, he ended up closing and made it home around 11:30 p.m. rather than 10:15 p.m. We ended up staying up until nearly 2 a.m. talking, which probably wasn't the smartest thing to do since I had La Leche League this morning. It was really nice to catch up on things, though.

So, this morning's meeting ended up with no one coming. Most of the people that usually come drive from out of town, so i wasn't too surprised since everyone has been preparing for this storm. I actually brought all three kids to the library with me because Cory was still asleep. He ended up coming to the library right before the meeting was supposed to begin and taking the older two back home.

This afternoon, just as the snow was beginning to fall, I took Accalia and Cole to a Santa's Workshop thing at the art studio. This was a free event that Lita had planned so kids could come and work on different crafts - making holiday cards, painting wooden ornaments, etc. Cole had a blast, and Accalia was excited because three friends were also there. Ella stayed at home with Cory and was looking just a wee bit distrustful as we walked out the door, but she was perfectly content staying home with Cory.

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A while ago I had gotten this book and stuck it on a shelf knowing that one day it would probably interest Accalia. Accalia picked it up the other day, started looking through it and then asked if we could sit down and read it. We've been reading it on and off over the past couple days and she can't seem to get enough of it. Now, I really do hope that Accalia is at two or three years from hitting puberty full force, but the reality is that girls as young as 8 1/2 or 9 are starting to develop. I was at least a couple years older than Accalia when my mom sat me down to talk about body changes and all of that, and it was a talk I had been dreading her initiating. I didn't really feel comfortable talking about any of that with her, and now that I think of it, I don't think that either of my parents ever even talked about sex with me. Anyway, it's so exciting for me as a parent because Accalia is so eager to talk about all of this with me and is not at all embarrassed. She's so excited for all of these changes to happen and tells me she'll tell me when everything does happen. By the time that does, she may be a little more self conscious and not be quite as open about everything, but I'd like to think that the openness we have in our relationship now will just continue to pave the way as she grows older.

The book really is neat. The author talks a lot about the wide range of normal as far as development and how this is a time to be excited about what is happening and to celebrate it. There's also a good deal of talk about how to handle being at different stages of development with the other girls in school, about being teased, about what to do if you have your period while you're at school, etc. Obviously those aren't concerns of Accalia's - yay! - and it did remind me of how nerve wracking it was for me when I was that age and in school.

So, the book is one I'd definitely recommend. There's also one for boys. When Accalia's older and is menstruating, another book I'm definitely getting for her is this one. Weschler's "Taking Charge of Your Fertility" is a book that I think every woman should read, and her book for teens sounds just as good.

But, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. I'll just continue to enjoy the little girl that I have, the one who is so excited about going outside tomorrow and making snow angels.

I'm so sad about the mall shootings in Omaha. That's an area that's just way too familiar - too similar to where we live, even if there's quite a difference in size of our town versus the city. It's never easy to lose a loved one either, but the horrific nature and time of the year just seem to magnify it. No one we know was killed, but I haven't heard back from everyone yet to find out if they were there and/or injured. So sad.

The weather today is awful for traveling, and I hate to think of Cory slowly making his way home tonight. We went out this morning for Accalia's haircut, and at that time the main roads were more wet than icy.

The bright spot in the day - Cory will be home at 6 or 7 and we'll have him for the entire evening! Yay!

So I've had coffee this morning, which truly can be a wonder drug for me. These past few days Ella has been going to sleep early thanks to no naps and has been waking up early the next day. So it's been just the two of us for an hour or so in the mornings. Last night I found an old pair of Blue's Clues shoes that were probably hand me downs from our niece Mariah (now driving!), and Ella fell in love with them right away and has been stomping all over the place.

Here's a video that I took the other morning while Accalia was still asleep. If you'd like to hear Ella giggle and see Cole roll around in a blanket, this is the video for you:


And, since I rarely have pictures of myself to post, here's one that Cole took of me and Ella:


One of Ella's favorite activities of late is to watch videos of The Wiggles or Dan Zanes on YouTube. Just so you don't miss out on what I hear throughout the day (and because it's a cute song promoting a great cause), here's a holiday tune for you:


While I'm typing, I wanted to add (before I forget again) that this time of year means one of my favorite fruits - pomegranate - is readily available. It is so yummy to eat oatmeal sprinkled with the arils of pomegranate!

I have felt so unsettled these last couple days, and I'm just not sure why. I don't really have anything extra to worry about, and there's nothing coming up that I have to do that I'm really dreading. I just don't know what it is, but it's really annoying. I think part of it may be that I haven' felt like I'm really accomplishing anything lately. Again, that's odd because I'm not really doing less than I usually do. I think that somewhere in the near past I read or heard a reference about someone who seems to be doing it all and doing more than "all" who makes the rest of us look like lazy slobs. Yeah, that must be it.

Over the weekend Accalia had a hard late night where she worried and worried about dance class and whether she should just stop because the warm up exercises were hurting. This is the first time she's ever mentioned that, so I talked with her dance instructor and sat in on the first part of class to see what was going on. They're doing a lot of exercises to stretch the hamstrings, and that really can be a difficult and painful exercise. There are some girls in her class who are super flexible and can easily do the splits. Accalia is not one of those and, as her dance instructor told me, she never was either. So Accalia and I talked about how it would help to do these stretches more than just once a week at class and that she could do them while sitting and watching tv and that I could do them too. Then we talked about how yoga helps with your flexibility, too, and that excited Accalia and sent her into planning to do her yoga tape while Ella was sleeping. At the library today she found a book of yoga poses and has been doing those, too. It's a neat book because it explains exactly what parts of the body she's working and other benefits (concentration, etc.)

Accalia is much more excited about her recital dance in tap and came home from class a couple weeks ago announcing that they were dancing to a song from High School Musical 2. Now, Accalia has never watched any of the High School Musical movies (not that there's anything wrong with that) or had any interest, but I could tell that she was excited (maybe a little in awe?) because the other girls must have been really excited, too. She's shown me the first part of the dance and it's really cute.

Cory's delivering pizzas tonight, Ella's already asleep after not napping, and Accalia and Cold are watching Rudulph the Red Nosed Reindeer on tv. After that's done, they want me to pretend to have story time with them.

It feels like the rest of the week will go quickly. Accalia has art tomorrow, and on Thursday she's getting a hair cut - just a trim. Cole's the one who really needs his hair cut, but he refuses to let me or anyone touch his hair at all. Friday will be tap class, and I have my LLL meeting on Saturday. So that's about it!

Yesterday we woke up to see our first snowfall of the season. It was only an inch or two of snow (the rest was sleet and rain), but Cole was the happiest boy in the world. He and Ella were outside with me the entire time I shoveled, and today he and Accalia have been out a couple times despite the wind and the cold. Unfortunately, all of that rain and sleet made for very icy conditions last night when Cory was delivering pizzas.

So the kids and I haven't left the house or yard this entire weekend. It's been really nice. Tomorrow, though, we'll have to go out to buy groceries. Accalia has ballet, too. Ella fell asleep between 5 and 6, so I'm assuming she'll be waking up before long for a late night. Better sit down to read and relax while I have the chance.