a bit of news~

Anyone on facebook has experienced the obsession with coming up with clever status updates. (Unless you haven't. Then I will feel stupid. Please tell me I'm not the only one.)

I will confess I spent a bit of time wondering what I would say on facebook when (if) we found out we were pregnant again.

I don't know...*is* eight enough? (Remember the old tv show?)

Announcing that developmental plans are in the works for Hutchison model #8, set to debut in September 2011.

So, wondering if the pattern will hold...

That was definitely two pink lines.

Honestly I was in a state of shock so the only one I could come up with at the time was the pattern. I didn't even announce it the same day but that was still all I could come up with. People caught on right away though. So funny. I don't know any other family that has a pattern going on like we do, so we'll see. Actually, we kind of "need" to fulfill two patterns. With conflicting genders. While our immediate family pattern is girl, boy, boy, girl, boy, boy, girl... Glen's extended family has girls born in groups of three. We have Grace, my sweet sister in law Elizabeth is having her first girl after five boys, so we really need another girl to keep that pattern going. ;) I actually have a solution for that that doesn't involve twins.

In related news....

I mentioned I was in a bit of shock when I found out I was pregnant again. Silly? Probably so. I had thought if I were going to be pregnant that I would be able to find out at Christmas. The kids have been saying they really want to have another baby so I thought I'd do a test on Christmas so we could tell them then if I was. In theory, I should have been able to have a positive test then, but I didn't. It was negative. So I just put the thought out of my mind. Even though I felt the Lord had told me I would be pregnant in December. But more on that later. It didn't occur to me until last week that I was pretty late. So I got a test out of my Dollar Tree stash (doesn't everyone have a pregnancy test stash?) and when it turned positive I proceeded to use the other three tests as well as having Glen pick up another two pack of tests on the way home. (Please tell me I'm not the only one who requires at least four tests in order to believe it's real...)

I'm kind of making light about this, but the reason I was in a bit of shock is actually quite important. To just lay it out there, Glen and I had just begun the process of adopting a little girl in Eastern Europe that has down syndrome. I hope to do a whole post on it soon (famous last words) but there is so much there that I don't really want to bog this post down with it. Suffice it to say that it was a somewhat sudden decision (we had adoption in the back of our minds and had almost moved on it a few years ago right before we found out we were pregnant with Haven) but it wasn't currently on the horizon. Or so we thought. Until we learned of an organization called Reece's Rainbow. I'll write more on them separately as well, but we had sponsored a little girl in their Christmas Angel Tree program and right at Christmas Glen and I both very strongly felt like the Lord was leading us to move forward in adopting her. The way it came about is really amazing to us and I cannot describe to you how my heart immediately opened to her like one of my own children. I know there are a lot of problems with the "rescue mentality" in adoption and while I understand that, when it comes to the Reece's Rainbow kids and others like them, there is most definitely an element of "rescue" to it. I'm not educated enough to talk about it much, but I will provide some details in a follow up post.

So needless to say, finding out I was pregnant was a bit of a shock. We had taken a pretty big first financial step but now we are finding out that the pregnancy is going to quite possibly put those plans on hold. I'm going to be really honest when I say this has been extraordinarily difficult for me. I never really understood what it was to wrestle with God. And while I know many people are in much more difficult "wrestlings" that doesn't negate my feeling like I've been ripped apart emotionally. I have worked through quite a bit of it, but every time I get some new information that takes us closer to having to wait and further away from this precious little one I feel like a wound is being ripped open. I have walked in sweet relationship with the Father long enough to know I can absolutely, one hundred percent trust Him and His plan and that His ways are higher than mine and He sees the big picture while I do not. But that doesn't make it feel much better.

So while I very much rejoice at the new little life He is giving us, a part of my heart is grieving for a little girl worlds away that is going to possibly have to wait a while longer for her family. And part of that grief is the knowledge that it may not actually be in the Lord's big picture for us to be her family. And while I most definitely want His will for her life to be accomplished, a part of me is sad to think that might look different than what I desire. I know He doesn't make mistakes, and I know He has a plan for both of these little ones' lives, I just wish I could see the whole thing. Right now would be good.

Sorry this sounds like such a downer update. My emotions are still really just kind of raw feeling and all over the place. But we are very much excited at the idea of a new baby. And a 2 1/2 year gap between kids? Whatever are we going to do? ;)

preparing for babypart 6nesting~

(for the first five posts in the series click the banner)

We'll just overlook the fact that it's taken me almost seven months to write all these posts. I could have practically had another baby by now. Ahem.

Cleaning. It sounds better when you call it nesting. Well, maybe not better, but not quite so boring. I've learned something about myself over the last thirteen years. While I love organizing, I hate cleaning. Okay, strongly dislike. I definitely enjoy the end result, but give me the choice of a sparkling clean house and a good book and the book wins hands down every. single. time. I'm not sure how much I should fight that and just suck it up and be responsible or just give in.

Anyway.

I most definitely like to have things in order before the arrival of a new baby, so once the pantry and the freezer are stocked I like to (pretty) methodically clean my house. Honestly, it's been so long (almost two years!) since I've done a pre-baby clean that I've kind of forgotten my methods. Either that or I can officially claim pregnant brain. (Did I just say that out loud?) Regardless, I don't really have much mental energy to put into laying it all out. Plus, everyone has different methods and levels of cleanliness that they like so there probably isn't a one-size-fits-all method.

So, here is what I do. I think.

Clean all the baseboards.

(For some reason this is the one thing my brain desperately needs to be done for me to feel I'm ready. I seriously used to crawl around on my hands and knees wiping them down and scraping up all the dust between the baseboard and the carpet but since I got a fabulous vaccum that has a super easy to use attachment this job has been upgraded from whenever I have a baby to whenever I vaccum. But I'm not confessing to how much more frequent that may actually be. :)

On a side note, I have read an interesting theory that God built the nesting instinct into expectant mothers to motivate them to stretch and maneuver their bodies into positions that help the baby settle into an optimal position for birth. I'm not sure how my last two posterior babies fit into that theory (except that we hired a friend to do quite a bit of the cleaning for me when I was pregnant with Grace and Haven was SO LATE that I had done all that cleaning a good six weeks earlier.) However, I do find it an intriguing theory that I tend to believe.

(Focus, Shyla, focus.)

Okay.

Clean the baseboards.

Clean all the windows and sills.

Clean the porch. Which now includes scrubbing chicken poop. I am still undecided if having chickens is worth the whole poop-on-the-porch problem or not.

After that I tend to break it down by room.

Kitchen:

~Wipe down the cabinets and appliances.

~Clean out the microwave

~Clean the oven (if you feel like it, which I usually don't)

~Re-organize the cabinets.

~Make labels for where things go if you (like me) seem to be the only person around who knows where things belong.

~Scrub around the edges of the cabinets and the refrigerator

~Clean the floor

Family Rooms:

~Re-organize anything that needs to be organized.

~Clean floor.

~Show people where re-organized things go and hope they remember. Possibly make aforementioned labels if appropriate.

~Dust.

~Clean out closets.

Office/Desk Area:

~Organize desk.

~Go through files, etc. and toss what you don't need.

~Stack up anything you don't necessarily need to deal with so it at least looks nice. Yes, this is a genuine method. Hush.

Bedrooms:

~Go through closets and organize, trash, give away.

~Weed through kids' junk toys and stuff when they aren't home. If you're worried they might miss it, toss it in a box temporarily and if they've not noticed after a while make a little trip to the Goodwill.

~Go through bed side tables and put away books and anything else that needs to be taken care of.

~Dust. ::sigh::

~Make sure you have baby stuff ready. Obviously.

Basement/Garage:

~Close your eyes. Tell yourself it's your husband's territory. Don't worry about it. Other than maybe cleaning out the extra refrigerator so you don't get grossed out. Consider paying one of your older kids to do this. Actually, consider paying your older kids to do anything in any of these categories. Bribery works too. Not that I have experience in that or anything. I've just heard.

That's it. That's all I've got. Feel free to let me know if I missed anything glaringly obvious. If I think of anything significant that I forgot I'll come back and add it in. Especially since at the rate my brain seems to be moving these days I may just need the posts to remind myself of what to do later on this year.

I'd also love to hear what *you* do!

Post with details coming soon...pinky promise.