Layin low

This baby has some disco fever tonight. Holy cow! But I love it. I love feeling our newest little one moving around in there. In fact, after I had both Cate and Clare, I missed feeling them inside of me. They are so safe and close inside and you feel so out of control when they are outside. We're pretty sure this is our last one so I'm trying to savor every moment. I was having a little trouble doing that a couple weeks ago. I've had sciatica pain my entire pregnancy. For those who don't know what that is, trust me, it sucks. It's a searing back pain that hits you every time your rise from a bent over position. Which, if you're a mom of toddlers, is about every 2 seconds. Well, as I said I've had this pain until a couple of weeks ago. What changed? I stopped taking my nightly walk. I've been trying to walk to keep my weight down on this pregnancy. For the past couple of weeks it's been raining and we've had things going on so I wasn't able to walk. Lo and behold, my back got better. Not completely but significantly. So I've decided to take the next couple of weeks off to hopefully completely heal it. I'm hoping that I can start walking again after that. Although, I may get addicted to every TV program on every night at this rate. I feel like such a slug. But hopefully it's helping.

Scott and I planted a nice Black Hills Spruce this weekend to complete our evergreen screen on the side of our back yard. It looks really great and the best part is how cheaply we got it. I had a 75% off coupon at a local nursery so we got a 7' tree, normally priced at $342 for only $81! It's awesome! Next weekend (or at least one of these weekends) Scott's going to construct some steps down the steep part of our back yard. Should look great when he's all done. Other than that, I think our outside projects will be done for a while. Then I'll sick him on some inside stuff.

Well, I know this is a little short, but I've got a show to watch. See. It's happening already.

Summer's Over

Hi again,
Well, summer is pretty much over. The darkness is coming on earlier and earlier which means there are fewer things that you can do outside after 8:00. Thus, I am ready to get back to blogging. I've actually thought about my little blog many times this summer but just couldn't get myself to come inside before dark to sit down at my computer and post something. There was always plants to water, neighbors to chat with, walks to take and once I did get inside, I'd watch the news and go to bed.

I love fall. I do enjoy the hunkering down feeling that sets in. It makes me want to knit or crochet or something. Which, I've actually taken up (sort of). I got two books from the library on learning to crochet and I've actually accomplished a couple of rows of it. I'm hoping to be able to be good enough to actually make a baby blanket or something since I'll be ginormous in December.

The pregnancy is going really well. I'm currently at 22 weeks. We had our ultrasound a couple of weeks ago and while we didn't find out the sex of the baby, we both came out of it convinced we are having a girl. Because of my age I had a Level II scan which is just more detailed. And they spend more time looking around. So, even though technically I didn't want to know, I thought that if I happened to find out by accident, so be it. Given this was my 3rd child I felt that I knew my way around the ultrasound pictures and this was my best bet at catching a glimpse. I paid extra close attention when they were looking at the bladder area and I didn't see any extra appendages in the area. For Scott's part, he swears he heard the technician say, "Her little toes" at one point. I'm not going off of that too much though because those techs do this all the time and are very unlikely to slip up. But maybe she did. Anyway, I've also had two very distinct girl dreams now so I'm preparing for another female Schwake and trying to come up with a good name. I suppose I should at least ponder a few boy names but I just don't think it's a boy.

We had a great time going up to Hackensack a few times this summer to enjoy Webb Lake with Scott's parents. They have a great gig going up there and we all love hanging out for a weekend of boating, bonfires and playing. The girls love it up there and are always asking to go back. We did send them up there for a long weekend while we stayed at home to get some projects done. I was able to get our master bath painted and also got Clare's room repainted and got all of Cate's stuff moved in there (with TONS of help from Scott).

The girls are now sharing a room and doing pretty well. At first we had them going to bed together at the same time and that was very hard on me. Although they did very well, only chatting for about a half hour or so before going to sleep. But around this time, Cate also decided to stop napping altogether. So we've had her going to bed in our bed and then transferring her when we go up. I just feel like she really needs good nighttime sleep now. We'll switch back to putting her to bed in her own bed in a couple of weeks after she's adjusted to the no nap gig.

Now that it's fall, the girls are in school...preschool for Cate and ECFE for Clare. As a result, I've switched my work days to Tuesday/Thursday/Friday. I don't really mind it during the week but really notice by Monday how much I didn't get done now that I only have 3 days instead of 4, with one of those days taken up with school and gymnastics. We've just completed the 2nd week of it so I'm sure I'll get the hang of it. I actually get a lot done on Wednesdays because I only have one child for 2 hours in the morning (while CAte's at school) and one for 3 hours in the afternoon (while Clare naps). Can't complain.


We were able to make progress on our projects this summer. Scott has finally finished all the structural work for the porch and deck. It is completely functional. Now he only has to put up some trim and it will be finito! We also were able to get the bed of bushes in our back yard to separate the lawn from the wildflower/grass hill. It turned out pretty nice. We just went out today and bought a really nice black hills spruce for our side yard screen at 75% off! Gotta love that. However, it's a huge tree and Scott will need to do some begging of the neighbor guys to help him with it. He calculated that the entire tree and rootball weighed about half a ton! Crimeny!


Well, this post is getting long enough. I guess I'll call it quits tonight. I have lots of long dark nights ahead of me to post anything I missed. But first, I'll leave you with a few very cute sayings/pronunciations from Clare who turned 2 on August 26th. See if you can decipher what she's actually trying to say.

shmarmenos (hint - you roast them)
jagwater (hint - friend of Diego)
glum (hint - chewy)

Adios