Waiting for Baby!

Aside from growing a baby, we have been up to other things believe it or not! This is our 3rd year of homeschooling and we are loving it. Jonathan is in 1st grade and Aaron is in preschool. It can be a challenge juggling the two different grades and we're still working the bugs out, but both boys seem to be learning and enjoying it. We try and do history, science, and Bible together while keeping math and language arts separate, although both boys seem to hover when the other is learning, excited to see what's going on.

One of Aaron's favorite activities is to use pom pom magnets. I ran across the idea on one of the blogs I follow so I bought a cookie sheet from the dollar store as well as pom poms and magnetic tape...add in some printable worksheets, and he's having a blast. Here he is using the pom poms to practice one-to-one correspondence with the numbers 1-10.

He surprised me the other day and counted all the way to 30!

 Recently in history we were learning about Egypt, pharaohs, and pyramids. One of the suggested follow up activities was to make a sugar cube pyramid. After dinner one evening the boys and I created their own pyramids. They had so much fun counting out the cubes and building each layer of the pyramid.

Counting Sugar Cubes

"Ta-DA!" Aaron's finished pyramid

JJ's pyramid

 Jonathan has been loving math so far this year. We are using Saxon 1. We spent a couple weeks using apples.. cutting them in half (I did the cutting) to learn about fractions, removing and counting seeds for addition practice, and Jonathan drew pictures of the seed amounts so that we could great our own pictograph.

Close up of J's apple seed drawings

 Ok and some baby news... I saw my Dr. on Friday. He said I was completely effaced and dilated to almost 3cm, which was very exciting news! He said everything else looked great, but that we did have an issue to deal with. He is leaving town on Friday the 3rd and with my due date on Monday the 5th he suggested we think about inducing sometime next week so that he would be sure to deliver the baby. I talked with him at great length about the details of inducement.. yes I would be given pitocin (which I've had before), but that I wouldn't necessarily have to stay on the medication the entire labor. If they give it to me and things get rolling on their own (which he thinks is very likely since my body is already starting toward labor on its own) then they could take me off the pitocin. Even while I'm on the pitocin I can still be up and moving around which is very important to me. While I'm not crazy about the idea of being induced, especially after praying so hard to keep this kiddo in, I'm really really really not crazy about having another dr. deliver my baby. I really want Dr. Brunel to deliver because he knows and understands all my quirky issues. Kris and I talked and prayed about it and if Corban doesn't come out on his own, we'll move forward with the inducement. I will see Dr. Brunel again on Tuesday and we'll have to coordinate with the Birth Center to schedule the induction. I'm hoping we can do it on Thursday which is Nov 1st just to give Corban the most time in utero, and that is actually Kris' dad's birthday too. We may have to go with Wednesday the 31st, but I'm not crazy about having a baby on Halloween, although we don't celebrate it because of all the evil and nasty spookiness associated with it. Turns out Oct 31st is also Reformation Day, the day when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the doors of the Catholic church, thereby beginning the Reformation, which is highly important to our family's faith, so maybe the 31st wouldn't be so bad after all... Either way, Corban will be here in less than 5 days!!! EEEK!!!! 

Over the last couple days I've had what's likely to be the last burst of nesting energy! I made a gallon of yogurt, shredded 33 cups of chicken, cooked 2 pounds of pinto beans, made 27 breakfast burritos (I worked off this recipe here: http://www.momontimeout.com/2011/08/breakfast-burrito-bonanza.html, and cooked a double batch of pancakes (chocolate chip and blueberry). The chicken was certainly the deal of the week. Our local grocery store, IGA, had boneless, skinless chicken breasts for $1.48/lb!! I bought nearly 8lbs, which gave me 15 chicken breasts. I baked them for an hr or so and let them cool. Then I decided to try shredding them with my mixer. I'd seen the idea on a blog somewhere, although she used her fancy Kitchen Aid. I don't have a Kitchen Aid, but thought I'd see what my little hand mixer could do. It worked pretty well! It certainly saved me quite a bit of time (usually I shred chicken by hand). I ended up with 33 cups of shredded chicken which I packaged in 2 cups portions, so enough for 15 dinners, and a 1 cup baggie that is just enough for a pizza.

Shredding with my mixer

Close up of shredded chicken

15-2 cup portion, 1-1cup portion

27 breakfast burritos filled with cheese, scrambled eggs, potatoes, and sausage

7-2cup portions of cooked pinto beans

I know I will certainly be dragging once the baby is here so having easy and quick to eat items for breakfast and lunch will definitely come in handy. The house has also been swept, vacuumed, mopped, and dusted, windows cleaned etc....Oh and I washed Corban's bedding again today so that it will be nice and fresh for him. And I packed my hospital bag too.. guess everything is ready on this end! 

Come on out Corban!!!