Fun April Fools Ideas plus a Baby Update

So here I am at 40 weeks, looking very yucky and swollen. Don't think my tummy can get much bigger.

I have past the 40 week mark. I had an appointment yesterday and was almost at 3 cm. I have had no contractions or labor signs. The doctor scheduled me to be induced, which was supposed to take place this morning. But I ended up cancelling the induction this morning. I just didn't feel right about it.

As you read before, I haven't been feeling too good. My doctor checked my throat and lymph nodes. The lymph nodes were very swollen and my throat was red. He took a strep test, which came out negative. But he gave my some antibiotics anyway to hopefully clear up whatever was going on. The antibiotics were supposed to kick in quickly and help with the nasal congestion. They however did not.

I woke up this morning, still unable to breath very well. And I was extremely exhausted from an uneasy sleep last night. I really didn't feel up to putting my body through labor. I didn't feel like I could handle it. So I called and cancelled the induction.

Unfortunately this week is a busy baby week and there were no more induction appointments available. So I am on my own, and I am okay with that. I have another doctor appointment for Friday afternoon, if I haven't had the baby yet, and then we'll go from there.

Today a friend took my kids off my hands, Rindee, thank you so very much!!!! I was able to get some well needed rest and the antibiotics seem to be kicking in a little. I am still suffering from stuffiness in my nose but the pressure isn't as extreme. I hope this is a sign that things are clearing up. I just pray that I will be rested enough and can breath through my nose by the time I do go into labor.

So tomorrow is April Fools and here is a little history I read this about it:

Most historians agree that April Fools' Day began when the Christian world adopted the new Gregorian calendar. According to the old calendar, the New Year was celebrated in the spring for eight days (the final day of celebration being April First), but because the new calendar was so different, the date of the New Year was changed to January First.Many of the people who lived in the countryside didn't know of the change for years, and continued celebrating the New Year during the spring. Those "in the know" thought this was hilarious and started to call the April celebrators "fools." From then on, these people began to go of their way during this particular season to make friends believe something that was false. And April Fools' Day was born!

April Fools recipe Ideas

I have had some of these recipes on hand to try someday. This year isn't the year, but maybe somebody out there might want to trick their family at dinner tomorrow night. They all look pretty fun and my family should be warned, that next year might be their year for a fun dinner surprise.

(If you click on the pictures, you should be taken to the recipe link)

First is this yummy cake. Could you serve cake for dinner??? You could if it was really meatloaf. And if you don't want to do a whole cake, try these yummy looking spring cupcakes. (Also meatloaf)

I love the looks of these tacos which are actually a tasty ice cream treat.

Then there is this fun Berry Soda which may be hard to sip out of a straw.

Here is another trick meal that looks like a kid pleaser. Can you guess what it is really made of?

And finally some french fries and ketchup or should I say bread sticks and seedless strawberry jam. Yummy!

There are so many other fun April Fools Day recipes online. Hope you have a wonderfully fun April 1st!

Finished Projects

Still no baby. I will be officially 40 weeks tomorrow. I am extremely tired and cranky. I have had an awful cold for the past two weeks and it doesn't seem to be getting better. Just a lot of sinus pressure and congestion. It was so bad the other day my teeth were bothering me and I went to the dentist to verify it was from the sinus pressure and not a cavity or something else. Thankfully, my teeth are still good. But the pressure in my head is driving me crazy. I am having the hardest time breathing. My nose seems to be finally clearing up, a little. But I am extremely tired and worn out. I took the morning off from Church today and slept till 11:30. I have been feeling a little nausea and have had little desire to eat. I have had to force myself to eat something here and there because I know I need the energy but when I do eat the nausea seems to return. I am so ready to have this baby and have had thoughts of getting induced real soon but at the same time, I want to kick this cold and sickness before the baby comes. I am afraid I won't be able to breathe during labor or I will just be so extremely exhausted, I won't be able to handle taking care of a new born. Plus I would hate to pass this cold onto the baby during his first few days. Any ideas for kicking such an awful cold?

Anyway, onto a happier subject. The baby's room is finally complete! Jared finished it this weekend as well as a surprise project we hadn't even planned on. They both look great. Here is the new nursery:

For those of you who don't know or remember, this room didn't exist when we moved into this house. Jared knocked into an attic wall last winter and built this room from the floor up. He did an amazing job, it is the nicest room in the house. I love it.

RJ and Savannah wanted their pictures taken too. They are really becoming good friends, I love it. Oh and look at the carpet, best carpet in the house!
Here is the photo with the crib and stuff in the room:

And Jared built in a closet organizer. He made sure this room had a lot more or extra closet space then Savannah's so called closet does. I still have to fill it up with cute little boy clothes.

So the second project of the weekend.

Jared thought about making a closet out of the dead empty space at the end of the upstairs hall way. It looks great and fits perfectly. I really finishes off the hall way. Not to mention the much need closet space this house needs.

Once again, don't you just love the new carpet!! Thank you Kelvin for coming over and doing it for us. We really appreciate it!!

And finally, after taking all the baby stuff out of Savannah's room, we needed to do something for her. She has been sleeping in RJ's room the past few month and I was really unsure if she would even be excited about returning to her own room. We had this second bed frame in the basement for her and was a little nervous it would be to big for the room. But we tried it out anyway and it works better then I thought. And as a bonus to a new bed, we got her a new bedding set. She loves it and has slept in her room with little problem the last few nights. RJ however, hasn't liked it. He has grown accustom to having someone else in the room with him. Although he does likes having the play space back for all his toys.

We are now ready for this baby to come into the world. Hopefully really soon!

Random Photos

So Tuesday we picked up RJ from preschool and went to McDonald's for lunch to get some wiggles out before doing some grocery shopping. I needed to make a trip to Sam's Club as well as Albertsons. Savannah was unusually good. She never once through a fit and she was so quite. She never complained about sitting in the shopping cart or begged for something in the store. Even at McDonald's she didn't run around much and actually stayed at the table with me most of the time rather then playing on the play set. So I started wondering if she was sick or something. She had no fever and really didn't look all that sick. I decided to just be thankful for her good mood and not worry about it. Once we hit Main street in Iona, back home, she was completely out in her car seat. We try to avoid afternoon naps because she usually won't sleep at night with them. So once we were home, I tired to wake her up and thought I succeeded. I stood her up inside the door way and she started to complain a little, so I told her to go lay down on the couch. I then went to unload the car. This is what I found when I walked back in:

She slept like that the whole time I was unloading the car. It was too funny. I finally moved her to the couch. She was obviously extremely tired.

RJ and Daddy playing

RJ and I were playing what else? Star Wars using his other toys. We had a good time.

(Note: Jared was testing out his new Black Berry. He was trying to figure out how to make a post from his phone so he could post easily from the hospital when the baby does finally come.)

Update

So here is a little update on all of us. I have no pictures to share, sorry.

RJ: We registered him for kindergarten a few weeks ago. I still can't believe we will be starting public schooling officially this fall. He is so excited to start and keeps asking when summer will come and go. He took the first screening test, which many parents had a fit over because of so many trick questions. But with all the trick questions, RJ only missed one and it wasn't the hardest one either. He is such a smarty! Even his preschool teacher has nothing but good comments to say about him. We are considering looking into the near by charter school because we wonder if the Kindergarten here might be too slow for him. But it seems that there are plus and minus for both schools. We of course want the best for RJ that we can get, like any other parent. But sometimes I wonder if it really matters that much what school he attends for kindergarten.

Savannah: Not much new going on with her. She is getting more and more independent as the days go on. We have tried potty training but she is not interested. I think it is going to be one of those control issues with her. There is no way I can force her or make her use the potty. One of these days it is just going to happen, on her time schedule. I just hope it will be sooner then later.

Jared: Is keeping busy with his job. He is going to start traveling again real soon. Well he should be traveling a lot right now. He just came back from Argentina a weeks ago and is supposed to be in Austria this week, but I told him he couldn't go. But there are a lot of other places he needs to be and will be squeezing as many trips in as he can this summer. Even though I am not looking forward to being alone half the summer with three kids, I am very thankful he has a good job and is doing well in these trying times. As a bonus he earns all kinds of frequent flier miles which means free airline ticket for us!

Belgium: Looks like that move is not happening. The company sees no reason for it at this point. Which is good and bad for us. We were hoping to get Jared's Master program done and out of the way quickly and Belgium was the perfect way to do it. Now, who knows. We still have the house up for sale and keep going back and forth with leaving it up for sale or not. We would like to get into a more updated home with a little less land to take care of, but then again the hassle of moving with a baby doesn't good very fun. We really want around $130,000 for the house and not sure if we can get it in today's market. But then again there really isn't anything for Sale less then $140,000 in Iona, so we could luck out. But we are still teetering.

Myself: I am 39 weeks pregnant today. I had my doctors visit and am only dilated 2.5cm, same as last week. I have been experiencing a few Brackstin Hicks contractions and false labor pains. I am tired and big and have a cold which makes it all worse. I need to hold out for one more week so my mom can be here to watch the kids. I don't have any plans of going sooner unless my water breaks unexpectedly, which I really wouldn't mind either. I have finally gone through all the baby clothes and have half of it washed. There are a few things I still have to drag out of the basement and wash up. The baby's room is all done except the carpet. We had to cancel that project last week, but should have it done Thursday. I finally found my black maternity skirt that I could never find in my pile of maternity clothes. I thought I accidentally gave it to DI and couldn't even find a replacement for it. No stores in the area sold long black maternity skirts, crazy! Now that I am 39 weeks, I found it in another box hidden in the basement. So frustrating!!! I have been wearing the same dress to church the past 4 months because I had nothing else to wear. Should have cleaned out the basement earlier, oh well.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

First let me start off by announcing that it is my birthday week. Jared enjoys spoiling the birthday person during the entire week of their birthday instead of just on their birthday. So he came home with this gorgeous bouquet of flowers yesterday. I love the colors, it is so springy and purple! Love it! Thank you so much, Love you! 

It rained yesterday and melted all the little mounds of snow we had left. So there is no snow in our yard anymore. The grass is even showing signs of green, which is very exciting. Our yard is of course covered in dead leaves from the fall and I am wishing I had the energy and capacity to get out side and do some yard work. It has been pretty windy, so even if I could mange, it would probably be a waste. 

This past weekend Jeremy (Jared's brother), Lisa, & Makale came for a visit. Jeremy was so helpful with helping Jared get the fourth bedroom painted. Thank you so much, Jeremy. Jared is almost done with it. He has a friend coming over Thursday to get the carpet put in and then I think it will be complete. I am so excited and it is looking very good. Jared has done an awesome job on that room. Thanks again, your amazing! 

While Jeremy and Lisa were here we had the traditionally Corn Beef and Cabbage Meal as well as cupcake with green sprinkles as an early St. Patrick's Day celebration. The kids of course loved the cupcakes. 

(My camera was switched to the no flash mood, so all my pictures turned out fuzzy.) 

Today the Leprechauns came for a visit. The first thing the kids found in the morning was all their green toys piled high in the playroom. Leprechauns can't do a prank without leaving a treat, so they left these cute green hats on top of the pile for the kids. 

As you can see in this photo, Savannah is a little distort by the pile. She seemed really upset that her doll stroller was full of green toys. 

The kids of course loved the hats. 

Next, we went to get some cereal out of the cupboard and discovered that it was missing. In its place was rice and potatoes. RJ didn't think those sounded very good for breakfast so we went in search of the cereal. 

He found all the cereal in another cupboard as well as a new cereal treat the leprechauns left for us. They were so excited to have Lucky Charms for breakfast. 

The next surprise came when we opened the fridge to get the milk and found that it was green. RJ was a little worried that it would taste funny. But after I tested it for him he decided it was OK. 

Finally, RJ had to search the house for more pranks. He soon discovered all the shoes were hanging up on the coat racks. Silly Leprechauns. 

After an exciting morning, we sent RJ off to Preschool where he had some for Leprechaun fun. After Preschool we had a fun green lunch, (all except their sandwiches). RJ really thought this was the funnest day ever. He searched the house for Leprechauns most of the afternoon. I think next year we might have to make some Leprechaun traps. 

I love this photo. Savannah likes to look at you out of the coroner of her eyes and we have never been able to get it on camera until today, yea!

These are the leprechauns ears RJ made in Preschool. 

Hope your St. Patrick's Day was fun and exciting as well. 

Another Blog

So yes, I have started another blog. I wonder if there is some kind of award for the person with the most blogs. Anyway, this is one that I have had on my mind for a while. I have been trying to figure out how to go about it and what exactly I wanted to do. After debating about it for quite sometime and talking to others, I decided just to jump in and create something.

My Digital Scrapbook blog was first intended to lead some where else some day, but I decided that it is too personal; where I am sharing my families day to day life through scrap book pages. So I decided I needed to create another one for my other design purposes.

I have wanted to do something with my digital scrapbooking and have made a few photo announcements for others, which I very much enjoyed, but I could not ask for payment because the items I used were copyrighted. I tried creating kits myself, but just didn't enjoy it. I thought about hiring myself out to scrap other peoples photos, but I'd have to charge $15-$20 per page, and I am not so sure people would pay for that. (I'm a cheap scap, I wouldn't. So I would have a hard time asking for it). I have thought about offering classes but not sure how to go about doing it. Jared has mentioned before that I should create some templates and some other friends have encouraged me to do something with my talent, can I say talent? I'm not sure it is really much of a talent.

So, after much debating I finally decided just to do it, create somthing, and see where it goes. I created a template from a previous layout I made as well as some embellishments. I started a new blog called Jen's Digital Creations where I will post any template, embellsihemnt, or word art I create. For now everything is Free to download for personal use.

So if you know anybody who is into Digital Scrapbooking please pass my new blog along. Everybody could use Freebies.

5 year and 8 month photos

As I mentioned earlier, I had my friend, Christine, take some pictures for us. I wanted RJ's picture taken since he had a birthday and I wanted some of the kids with my 8 month belly. Both kids were not to cooperative, but we got a few. RJ posed better once he was in his Indiana Jones get up. We were only able to get a few shots with Savannah. However I got plenty of my big 8 month pregnant belly. Here are just a glimpse of a few of my favorite shots.

3 more weeks and we should actually have a baby to take pictures of!

Winning Lay Outs

Wow! My morning was just made, twice! I sat down to check my email and to read the Scrap Girls Newsletter and to my surprise one of my pages was chosen for their weekly contest. I get a prize to spend free money at Scrap Girls, Wohoo! It was my Green Eyed Beauty lay out that was chosen. I have to thank my friend, Christine, for the beautiful photo she took of Savannah so I could create this gorgeous page. Thanks Christine!
So after experiencing my moment of joy I continued scrolling through the newsletter and there was another one my pages. I created this page for the February Monthly contest. The criteria was to create a lay out using the word "Love" in a creative way. So I created this lay out and submitted it into the contest. There was so many wonderful pages created, I was surprised they chose mine. I am overjoyed! More free prize money to spend :) And thanks Christine, again. She also took this wonderful family photos.
Christine recently took some photos of my 8 month pergo belly and some of the kids. I am excited to share them soon and maybe do a few scrap pages with them as well.