What's going on at the Kellogg House

Well for one we are getting a new roof. It's terribly expensive, but the amount of work they are doing! Heck, I think it's worth the money they charge. Bless their hearts. This color is called "slate" It's pretty much dark gray but I picked it for the little flecks of red. Our old roof was dark ugly brown. We don't like the brown and wanted to get as far away from that as possible. My neighbor just got black and it does look nice, but I couldn't see getting black in Florida. Although honestly this dark gray isn't too far from black, just go with me. Healthwise I'm still throwing up A LOT. I've lost 12lbs in two weeks. I can keep fluids down now though so I guess it's not so serious. It makes me wonder though, I saw this Lifetime type movie years ago about a woman who had bulimia and got pregnant. Now I KNOW bulimia is a serious desease and not at all healthy. In the movie they made it like she was killing her baby. Now I'm not kidding you guys I throw up EVERY SINGLE BITE I eat. ALL of it. But my Dr's tell me as long as I can keep fluids down, although it's not healthy for ME it won't hurt the baby. And I have to admit each time I get sick I wonder why they gave that bulimic girl such a hard time when no one is concerned that I can't keep anything down. I just hope those huge prenatal vitamins they gave me have everything the baby needs because that's all the little seahorse of a thing is getting. It is welcome to metabolize some of my fat stores if it needs some fat. Babies need fat right?

Stephen and Ethan are doing great. They do that you know, being nearly perfect kids that they are. Darlings. Stephen has allergy stuff going on as usual, but he's a trouper. Ethan never gets sick and is generally a tank of a kid, so not a lot to report there. It's almost Spring Break for Stephen. I'm THRILLED. I really don't like him going to school. I mean I DO, it's a great school and he has fun and it's good for him, but I miss him terribly the three hours he's gone a day.

I haven't been working out these past two weeks. My throwing up is way worse at night so I'm usually dizzy and faint at night. Also Brian has been traveling and doing church stuff most nights. I'm getting back into it next week no matter how sick I am. Even if I can't do it all just to get going and do something. But I'm loosing weight so I guess it's even. Someone, either mom, Roniece, Tracey or Marcia said, "you are working out, you do it several times a day in the form of throwing up."

Well this roofe tile smells weird so I'm going to go throw it back outside and lay down more.

Shower talk.

So general update, I've been REALLY sick. I mean I thought I'd have to be hospitalized sick. Throwing up more than ten times a day, no fluids kept down, just horrible. I had a cold and my normal pregnancy queesieness. My Dr thought it would get better as the cold cleared up and she was totally right, I feel pretty ok today, still a bit shakey but ok. Kept down some stuff.

So I was writing on my other blog about how I want to have a shower this baby. And how I'm going to do this as the theme. What do you think? I love it.

Speaking of showers and buying stuff. I got this booklet about all the crap you are supposed to buy. Kindly put out by the selfless corporation Babies R US because they just want me to have what I need. *ha* Anyhow it was silly. And I remember with Stephen totally living by that thing. "I HAVE to have seven side snap shirts, I don't know what the heck for but The List says I need them." So here is my true list of the crap you need .

• 20 or more onesies.
• 20 or more sleepers. (more if it's winter)
• One or two "cute outfits" to show your baby off in
• Like 4 socks, the baby is going to just loose them anyhow.
• As many as possible of the soft stretchy blankets. These are to wrap your baby up in, they like that, also when you are at a friends and your baby needs to be put down you can use them for that.
• Those soft little pants, like 4 pair. You can pull them on with the onsies and call it an outfit.
• an ungodly amount of burp cloths. We usually just get the prefold cloth diaper ones. But Stephen was a spit up kid, we needed like 15 per DAY, not kidding. Ethan barely spit up and could have used 4 super cute ones. Hard to know, get one cute pack, but be ready to get 50 cheap ones right after birth.
• binkies. (pacafiers) I know it's controversial but I won't live without them. Ethan actually didn't take to his, he did finger sucking for a while, then just nothing. Ethan was a CRAZY easy baby though and didn't need one.
• A good carseat
• a stroler (no lie I went like 6 months without one, just carrying the carseat around. Because I'm a crazy cheap idiot) I like one that the carseat can just snap into. Cars make babies fall alseep, this way you don't have to wake them up. NEVER WAKE UP A BABY.
• A boppie is nice, esp. if you are going to nurse. You CAN use a pillow though so don't let anyone MAKE you get one.
• A swing or bouncer. Don't bring your baby home until you aquire this item. You will never shower until you get one. NEVER.

Things you do not need to buy:

• hats. I mean I don't, I live in Florida, it's just not that cold. And they don't stay on. Except the ones they use in the hospital, those are great, STEAL AS MANY AS YOU CAN. You can't buy those elsewhere.
• side button t shirts. Babies have weird fat tummies that will constantly stick out of these. I'm quite sure this is why the onsies were invented.
• shoes. I mean how cute are they! But totally silly. People who can't walk don't need shoes. Well I guess people who are in wheel chairs can certainly choose to use them, but babies don't need them
• link-a-do's . People had totally convinced me I HAD to have these. Neither of my kids cared and I hated the weird plastic rattle noise.
• toys. I mean later you will need them, but all they do when they are newborn is stare at you, cry, eat and sleep. I will admit I'm letting each of my boys pick the new baby a toy and buy it for him or her, but that's more of a brother bonding thing. Babies don't need toys at first. And you could go broke with all the cool stuff.
• educational videos. Ohmyheck the waste of money!
• That mirror you can mount up to see your baby's face when they are in the rear facing carseat. I loved this mirror. LOVED it. But got tired of everyone on earth telling me it was going to smash my baby's face in and kill him. I mean random strangers would stop me to tell me this news. It's not even glass people! It's flexable plastic. It's not like I'm keeping a pit viper in the back seat with the baby, it's a small piece of plastic. But I took it down because it pisses me off when strangers talk to me about stuff like that. (going to do a whole nother post about random things people feel they need to say to you while you are pregnant or have a new baby)

Any other essentials you can think of? Or total wastes of money?

Meet the sprout

This shrimp looking thing is our new baby. It is 7.4mm long apparently. Just a sprout of a thing. But it has a heartbeat! So that's way more than our last baby ever had. Also I want to say that they told me a due date of November 7th SEVERAL times, but this sprout-meter clearly says "11/11/10". So I really have no idea when the baby is due. My Papa's birthday is the 5th so maybe that would be good? My BFF's is Oct 30 so that would be good. I really like Halloween, so that could be fun. I'm just so excited that we made it further than last time. It didn't really feel real until I saw that tiny heartbeat.

I've been REALLY sick. Sicker than ever. And I have a cold. And did I mention the sickness? Lots of sickness. And for the love of everything you hold sacred do not bring a cooked chicken anywhere near me. If you have a friendly live chicken that likes to be petted please bring it right over. Especially if it likes to look at pictures of beansprout babies.

New love

So I read a book Hot House Flowers and the Nine Plants of Desire. It was a good read. It REALLY made me want to grow a house plant. I have this little cutting from "fluffy the cat plant" but it's just roots and one leaf. My mom has tons of it, the original died last year. Thank heavens for cuttings. But I want something more. Something more beautiful and more rewarding. So I decided I wanted an orchid. This type of orchid is super common and super easy. It's Phalaeonopsis. It's most likely the orchid in your local store, if it looks kinda like this. Also called Moth Orchid. Comes in a million colors.

Mine is white with the sweetest yellow "tongue" with some pink where the tongue connects to the other petals. I wanted white, some pinks and yellows drew me in, but I wanted white.

I especially love how she has this arch. This has to do with how you stake them. If they had used a longer stick and kept her straight she would do that. I love the graceful curve she shows too. Also my books (I got half the orchid books out of the library before getting her) encouraged me to pick one that had unopened buds, that means that I'm only at the start of this flower stalk's life, so I should have blooms for a while.

I even love her beautiful leaves. And I totally love this glass pot. It has some issues, watering is different, I have to be sure to drain out so she's not sitting in potting soup.

Well that's the latest here. Time change is HARD on Stephen and Ethan. They are exhausted, which means I'm exhausted.

In our pretty garden

Today me and the boys redid the front garden. First we pulled out all the weeds that had creeped in. We also took the sickly azealias out. I put them in the back in a much shadier spot. This spot gets a lot of sunlight

Then we got a pile of flowers. And top soil. And fresh mulch. We got some of these pink mystery flowers. Do you know what these are? We have 18 of these.

We have three yellow snapdragons. We are not sure if these will grow. I've never seen any here. They had tulips too and I am almost SURE those don't grow here? (Zone 8). So these snaps are a trial. We like the idea of the whole back row being full of them, but we shall see.

Then we have this dusty miller. We actaully got 8 of these, two large like this, and 6 tiny ones. Ethan is in LOVE with this plant. We put three tiny ones in last year and they literally disappeared overnight. We don't have rabbits or anything, they just sorta poofed and were gone. So we put a lot this year, I hope they don't disappear.

And that's what we did today.

Soccer Shots

Stephen had Soccer Orientation today. He is doing Soccer Shots for soccer this year. They are basicly focusing on young kids and introduceing them to the game through play and games. Today they played a few games like "keep the ball close to you while you dribble or the cookie monster will eat it up" and "You are spacemen and these cones are astroids you have to nock over by kicking the ball at them". Stephen had a BLAST so we are signing him up. It's right at the school once a week. Love it. This is his class lined up. I believe there is a rule at the school that if you are girl you MUST wear pink. As much as possible. The woman on the right is Miss Antoinette, who rocks.

The woman who you see from behind in the left of this picture is the awesome Miss Australia. She and Antoinette are Stephen's two teachers. Today the whole class went to soccer, but only the kids who sign up will go in the future. I hope enough sign up for them to do it, Stephen is totally excited.

I'm sick. Stinking figures. I have sore throat, aches and such. Could be flu, could be allergies and my general tired ness.

I've been working out about 4 weeks now. I have not lost any weight, but I'm tons stronger, and look skinnier. Especially in my face, I have cheek bones and only the one chin.

Meet Victor the Rat by Stephen.

I got a new rat for my birthday. I love him and he's great. He is nice. I got him a pet mart. (PetSmart). His name is Victor. This is his cage. He has his stuff.

This is his face. Mommy is holding him.

This is him standing on his cage.

This is his old water bottle. He chewed this plastic bottle up. Mommy got a new water bottle. Victor is standing up in this picture. Daddy likes it when animals stand up. I keep him in my room. We check on his food and water and stuff every day. He is soft. He makes squeeky noises. I like having him in my room. I'm not scared at night now because of him. He keeps me safe.

The end.

Note from Mommy: Stephen started Soccer today too and I plan to put up those pics later today or tomorrow. xxoo