It is a gray drizzly day here. We haven’t had rain for a few weeks and the grass is showing it, so I’m glad to have the rain, but it is making consider taking a long afternoon nap. Maybe I’ll curl up with my new book I got from PaperBack Swap and just relax - we’ll see.

I had another ultrasound on Monday and our little one is still a girl. My Dr. has been extra cautious about the size of this baby since my last one was 9lb 10oz. (hence the extra ultrasound) From the ultrasound estimate she was 4 lb. 12 oz. at 33 weeks and is in the 43 percentile - so she is perfect and not a giant as predicted (so far!) Of course those are just guesstimates, but I’m glad to hear she is on track at this point. She was unfortunately still feet down but her head had moved from the top to the side, so hopefully she is navigating her way towards head down. I think she still moves around quite a bit. Definitely not in “launch position” quite yet!

We are gradually getting back into the school routine and Dane seem to be enjoying his first year of pre-school as well. Apparently some kid in his class came to school with lice - on the FIRST day of school! So they had to send home notes and clean clean clean but it doesn’t sound like anyone else picked it up thank goodness - that’s all I need at this point! Thankfully he has short blonde hair so it is pretty easy to check, but yuck! My head started itching as soon as I heard about it. LOL

Well, speaking of Dane he is informing me he wants some lunch. I’m not feeling creative, so I might have to pull out my Kid Approved Meals book and see what I can come up with!

Take Care!
Christine

I can’t believe school starts in 3 days! (Although, I think I’m ready…) Well, I’m not ready for early mornings and homework, but I am ready for the house being a bit quieter during the day. Maybe it is because I have an extra boy running around the house at the moment so it is plenty loud. : ) I am starting to get to that stage of wanting to get the house organized before baby gets here and it is kind of hard with the boys “helping”.

The baby is growing - I was measuring 36 weeks at my 31 week appointment - EEK! Of course we knew she would probably be big since the last three weren’t exactly tiny. I go in on the 25th for an ultrasound to try to determine just how big she is getting. Her kicks are definitely starting to feel hefty.

We tried making homemade pesto yesterday - have you ever tried? I had some fresh basil from our CSA farm veggie program and wanted to try using it up one way or another. I really haven’t done much with fresh herbs besides throwing them in my cooking periodicallly (and that only uses a tiny bit), so I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do with all that basil! Pesto it was! It was pretty easy - Just threw the basil leaves, olive oil, and some garlic in our Vita Mix for a few seconds and viola - pesto! I made up some pasta, mixed it in and topped it with parmesan. No one was too impressed…. but it fed us! I generally like pesto from the grocery store, but I think this was a bit too strong or something. I actually liked the leftovers better, so maybe if I let it sit for a day before putting it on pasta - who knows!

Well, I better go investigate what those boys are doing… Or maybe I’ll drag my husband out of bed and make him take a shift. I just started a new book last night “Drowning Ruth” and it is calling my name! Have you read it? It is keeping me pretty captivated so far - unlike the one I FINALLY finished a couple nights ago after reading it all summer - “A Million Little Pieces” I didn’t enjoy that one much at all, but of course once I started reading it, I’m one of those who can’t just give it up, I have to finish it and find out the ending (which was just as disappointing) Obviously written by a man. LOL Have a great week!

C-

I started writing this post 3 days ago, but got distracted. I think that was the night I barely sat down to type and Matt asked me to come help wash the 100 pounds of potatoes he needed washed for a church event. We got that done. Then last night we were baking with peaches. A family from church gave us about 30 pounds of peaches and we needed to use them up so we made peach crisp, and peach compote. YUM! I personally like them fresh the very best (although the peach crisp was hard to beat!) They have been so yummy!

I did pass my 3 hour gestational diabetes test. Thank you to all of you who sent kind words. Everything went well (although my arms were black and blue and sore for about 4 days). The good news is that I passed all 4 blood draws and am free from gestational diabetes. I am so thankful to be done with that. We are down to 10 more weeks until this little one is due. My doctor may consider inducing a bit early depending on her size. My last baby was 9lb. 10 oz. so we are both a bit concerned how big this one may get. In the meantime I have been washing up her clothes, painting the nursery and overseeing as my hubby assembles her furniture. Fun times!

My 7 year old is ecstatic that football season starts tomorrow. We went and picked up his gear today. However, tomorrow is the first day of practice (5:30-7:30) and we are under a heat advisory for humid temperatures near 100 and a heat index above 100. I’m not sure how this preggo mamma will handle that. We’ll see… I might have to make Matt go instead. We will have practice every night until school starts at that time, so it kind of throws off our dinner schedule - we usually eat around 6:00 or 6:30… so I’m not sure how that will work out. I guess we’ll either be eating really late or really early… (or bringing something with?) Who knows. Maybe as we get into the season I will just be able to drop him off. I guess we’ll see!

Not too much else is going on around here. We had a couple kind of quiet weeks after swim team ended and my in-laws left. School starts on the 19th, so that is actually just around the corner! The boys are ready, I think they are starting to get kind of antsy around here. I am sort of ready although I’m not ready for that early morning rush to get out the door.

I hope you’re having a great week!
C-

Wow, four more weeks of summer vacation! I’m not sure if that seems like an enternity or a short time… If you are looking for some more ways to keep the kids entertained for the rest of the summer, I did upload an e-book tonight called “Mom, What Are We Going To Do For Summer Break?” You can find a free copy here: http://www.dinewithoutwhine.com/ebook.htm

With school around the corner we have been busy with back to school shopping, Dr. Appointments, Dentist Appointments Etc. Swim Team is just about over, but it won’t be long before football starts! I finally gave in and let Ryan sign-up this year. I am still shocked that they play full contact starting in Kindergarten, but I’m just praying he stays safe! He’s wanted to play for 2 years now.

I had my baby check-up on Wednesday and found out I have to take the 3 hour gestational diabetes test - blech! I passed the 1 hour, but was only 2 points from the cut-off and since Dane was 9lb 10 oz. she wants me to do the 3 hour just to be on the safe side. I am really not looking forward to that! I never had to do that with the 3 boys. This little girl is giving me a hard time already!

At the moment Matt is assembling the crib in the dining room… It probably won’t fit through the bedroom door when assembled (we found that out with the last crib) but I won’t let him put it in there until I paint… and he just didn’t want to wait apparently. So he’ll assemble it now and probably have to take it half-way apart to get it in the room. Oh well… his choice, I’m just glad he’s around to perform such tasks - I’m awful at trying to read instructions and put things together.

I hope you’re having a great week!
Christine

Last Wednesday at our ultrasound we found out we are having a sweet baby girl! After three boys, you can imagine my excitement! Now the fun baby girl shopping begins. I’ve been auctioning off all the boys clothes I was saving this week. If you’re interested, my e-bay ID is little*blessings*boutique It is mostly boys size 3 Months - 3T. Next comes all my scrapbooking stuff that I haven’t used for a few years… We’ll see how motivated I get! The clothes seem like a giant project in itself.

At the moment the tree service is out in the yard chopping down our lightning struck tree. The boys are quite fascinated with the whole project. It is quite a big tree!

My inlaws are also visiting, so that has been keeping us busy. They have been here for a week and have one more to go.

Today we are off for swimming, swimming and more swimming. We have swim lessons for an hour, then swim team for an hour, then an out of town swim meet that is about 2 1/2 - 3 hours. I better go slather on the sunscreen!

Have a great week!

Hello! How are you? We have a bit of a less busy week this week, which is nice. We are getting ready for my in-laws to come stay for a couple weeks, so lots of little projects here and there. I suppose I should get their room ready soon as well - they will be here in two days! Then once they leave that room will start getting converted to the baby’s room. We FINALLY get to find out on July 2nd the sex of the baby! I have been waiting impatiently, and finally convinced my doctor to let us have the ultrasound at the beginning of July instead of the end of July.

I haven’t been out to the garden too much. Enough to discover there are more weeds growing then I care to admit (My Organic Vegetable Preen didn’t work quite as good as I had hoped). Since my stomach seems to be growing by the day it seems to get harder and harder to pull those weeds, but I do a little here and there. We also have had a few days of rain so I haven’t had to go out and water for a few days. Speaking of rain… we had an exciting storm yesterday morning.

We woke up at about 3:30 a.m. to a big thunderstorm, but it didn’t feel like anything too out of the normal - just a typical midwest storm. However, then shortly before 4:00 there was a HUGE crash of thunder - the kind that shakes your house and your body. Matt at first thought perhaps our house got hit by lightning, but eventually we discovered it was the tree right outside our window that got hit. It sent wood flying quite a ways and left us with a tree with no bark. Here is a picture (but you really have to see it in person to get the full effect).

Well, I have to help my husband with a couple projects so I better run - he is waiting patiently. Take Care!

Anyone else know that Veggies Tales song? LOL “Busy, Busy, Dreadfully Busy, You Have No Idea, What I Have To Do” THat’s how it has felt around here.. We were in Oklahoma City, last week for a pastor’s conference and at the same time we arrived home (literally) our team of college students that runs our Vacation Bible School arrived, and this week is VBS. Guess who is in charge of VBS? Yeah.. that would be me. So add on top of that our laundry from the trip, a baby appointment and swim team practice every day and we feel pretty busy - but happy! We’re having a good summer.

Next week we are slightly less busy, and then my inlaws arrive for 2 1/2 weeks, so no things don’t really ever slow down in the summer, but that’s okay - it makes for fun memorable summers for the kids, and at this rate before we know it our new little one will be here as well!

Our garden is GRADUALLY growing. I was able to harvest quite a few more strawberries than last year, but they of course get gobbled up before they even make it to the fridge. No one can believe how much better they are than the store bought ones. I’m looking forward to the raspberries later in the summer - it looks like we will have a larger batch of those this year too! Good thing, such they are so expensive in the store and we all love them so much!

At the moment I am watching a friend’s little boy and my older two boys are helping my husband and VBS Team clean up two trees that were dead and they chopped down. I see a huge bonfire in the very near future! I’m off to an OB appointment in just a couple hours and then we have a swim meet tonight from 5:30 - 8:30. Oh and somewhere between 4 & 7 I am supposed to pick up our CSA Veggies as well. So, I better run! I hope you are having an awesome summer as well!

Christine

I am in a big search… At a little fruit stand when we were in vacataion in Indiana last year… I bought this mix. It is from Herbs For Healthful Living, and is called “Ice Box Dill Pickles” Essentially it is a mix to make dill pickles. This is the BEST mix I have ever tasted for homemade dill pickles and now I can’t find anymore… I have looked everywhere online. Does anyone frequent a shop that might sell this? If so I would be very grateful if you would let me know and I will send you money to purchase some for me (along with shipping). Please? Pretty Please? You can e-mail me at christine at dinewithoutwhine dot com. Thanks!

Christine

Hi, how’s it gong? I’m having on of those “I’m starving, but there’s nothing to eat” moments. You know… when you know your house is full of food but nothing sounds good. I finally settled on Doritos (I know real healthy) and yogurt (to balance it out LOL).

We’re on the countdown for the end of school - they get out next Friday. But really next week is kind of a wash… Monday is no school, Thur. is a half day, and Friday they only go for like an hour. Which reminds me…I guess I better figure out some kind of end of the year gift. I always seem to forget about that until the last second.

So have you heard of a CSA? If not, don’t feel bad.. I hadn’t until this week either. It stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Basically you buy a “share” of the farm in the fall/winter, and then in the spring/summer each week you pick-up (or in some cases have delivered) a box of fresh veggies (and sometimes fruits). In a lot of the groups you have the added advantage that the produce is organic. So what is the point? Well first off the produce is FRESH generally picked within a day of receiving it. (Opposed to the grocery store where sometimes things have been in transit and/or on the shelf for up to two weeks before you purchase them!) Next, like I said, a lot of it is organic and at a much lower price than organics at the grocery store. Finally, you are supporting a community farm. There is a website: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/ where you can check to see if you have a CSA farm in your area. I thought it was a long shot for me since I live in such a small communty, but I found one within 20 mnutes, so you just never know until you look! A lot of them will be sold-out at this time of year, but you just never know. Mine said it was sold-out on the website, but I sent in an e-mail just in case and they have agreed to “sneak” me in! I am so excited to get started next week - we’ll see how it goes! I am a bit nervous about ending up with a bunch of vegetables I have never heard of, but they do provide storage tips and recipes each week, so hopefully that will help me out. Should be an adventure with lots of good organic produce! Let me know if you are already a member of one or if you join one in your area!

Christine

My boys had a new experience yesterday - frozen dinners - you know, TV dinners. I think they might have had a Kid’s Cuisine a couple years ago, but they aren’t a regular thing around here. Well… Banquet meals were on a huge sale and I caved in and bought a few. Last night hubby was gone, so I pulled them out and made them for the boys for dinner. They were so excited. LOL I’m tellling you, if they wouldn’t have watched me make them and I had taken all the food out of the plastic tray and put it on a regular plate, they wouldn’t have eaten more than a couple bites. But because of the novelty of it…. Yup they all pretty much ate the entire thing. LOL

Nothing too major is happening around here. School is getting close to an end - about 2 1/2 more weeks. Morning Sickness has passed and life is MUCH better. We have about 1/2 our garden planted. The weather has just been kind of strange - hopefully it will be a bit more regular soon. It is hot one day and cold the next mixed in with lots of rain and wind. Dane has a friend over for the day, so he is happy and entertained.

I hope you are having a great week!
C-