What is this?

First off ... a couple cute pictures of Emily playing outside tonight.

And now's your chance to click away because some gross pictures are coming up next. So click away .. click away now.

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Still with me?

Okay, with permission, I'm posting these pictures of Mike's arms and legs.

He's gotten into something and looks like an awful mess.

So what is it?

It's a bad case of poison ivy!

He has just had an awful time with it. He's been to the doctor and got a shot. He's used all different kinds of prescription and non-prescription creams and salves. He's tried oatmeal baths (they work pretty well.) And he's still suffering.

He thinks he got into the poison ivy when we were down at my parents house a week and a half ago - probably somewhere down around the pond. And since then, he's just been spreading it around all over the place!

It's awful to look at and I'm sure it's more awful to experience the itching and pain.

Hope you get to feeling better soon!

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Baby Day

I know the title is "Baby Day", but I forgot to mention one thing about Father's Day.

The other week, Emily and I picked out a Father's Day card for her Daddy. It was sooo cute. It had a caterpillar on it and an alphabetical list of all the wonderful attributes that her dad brings to our lives. And on Sunday morning, Mike was reading the card out loud to us ... all these wonderful things ... and "Happy Birthday, Dad!"

D'Oh! What was that? What did that card say? Oh yeah, it totally said HAPPY BIRTHDAY. Good job, Mom. Total fail on the card. But Mike was very sweet about it. He said it's the thought that counts.

And moving on ...

So the reason this post is called "Baby Day" is because Noah's birthday has been tentatively set. My cesarean section is tentatively scheduled for Friday, August 6, 2010. Sounds like a good day to me! It's only about 6 weeks away, which makes me a little nervous but I think it will be good.

When Mike got home tonight, I told him that August 6th was Noah's tentative birth date. He thought that sounded like one of his relative's birth dates so after supper he went to his family tree stuff and looked it up. He found out that it was not the person he thought, BUT there was someone who was born on August 6th. On August 6, 1910, Mike's grandpa's brother was born. And his name was Noah Smith! Isn't that wild?? 100 years later, there may be another Noah Smith born in the family line. Very cool, if you ask me.

Like I said, this date is tentative. I have been having slight blood pressure issues with this pregnancy just like I had when I was pregnant with Emily. When I went to the doctor last week, my blood pressure was elevated and I had to lay on my left side for a while and then have my blood pressure rechecked. When the nurse checked it again, my blood pressure was fine.

Minor grossness ahead so skip this paragraph if you're so inclined ... the doctor had me do a 24-hour urine capture to check for protein in the urine that might indicate the beginnings of preeclampsia. This is more of a baseline reading so that we can measure changes against this one if we have to do this again in the last few weeks of my pregnancy.

My doctor always stays on top of things with my pregnancies so I feel very comfortable with her watching me these final weeks. I know she will not hesitate to do what she needs to do to keep me and baby safe.

Another funny thing that happened ... this morning before work, I had to take my "sample" to the doctor's office and get some blood drawn to go along to the lab with it. So the lab tech at my doctor's office is always the one to draw the blood samples. She knows me by name and the difficulties with my veins (and always sorta cringes when I walk in). Sometimes she gets blood on the first stick. Other times it takes her SEVERAL tries. This morning, in fact, it took her three tries (including one in my hand) to get a tube of blood.

So this morning, the lab tech lady was telling me that she was going to be out of office on medical leave for a couple weeks starting this Friday. And she was concerned about the girl who was going to be taking her place because "sometimes she can be rough". And she doesn't like to turn over her "difficult patients" (Who? me?) to this person because she doesn't always have the patience to do a good job.

And I was thinking that this person just took THREE sticks to get a tiny tube of blood and she's worried about someone else being "rough"? I'm pretty sure I would much rather have someone who's a little rough who can get it on one stick than someone who's gentle and takes three or more stabs! I don't know, I just thought it was funny that she said that to me this morning.

So anyway, mark your calendars and put a big question mark beside it. At least we know that Noah will be here on that date or before. Six more week or less until we meet our sweet boy. Wow, I'm overwhelmed!

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Father's Day 2010

Today we celebrated Father's Day. We let Mike open one of his presents last night and the other four this morning.

The present last night was a two-person camping chair. The four presents this morning were three dress shirts and a new belt. I think he liked all his gifts.

After church this morning, I tried to get a picture of Emily and her Dad, but she was not cooperative. All of them looked like the one below with her hands in front of her face.



But before church ... she wanted me to take a picture of her and her doll, Stephanie, because they had on matching dresses. And she smiled just fine for those pictures.



She wore the navy sailor dress because her daddy was in the Navy. She looked too cute in it for sure.

For lunch, we went over to Mike's parents house to celebrate Father's Day with his dad. His mom and our sister-in-law cooked steaks, Hawaiian chicken, and all the fixins. It was a delicious meal, but we were all so stuffed.

This week is vacation bible school at church. They are doing a cowboy theme this year. I know Emily will enjoy that.

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Quiet

It's too quiet at my house.

Emily is spending the week with Grandmother and Granddaddy on the farm. Her cousins Tyler and Carter are there too and I am sure they are having a wonderful time.

But it's still too quiet at my house.

Mike and I have just been hanging out. We have a lot of things that we want to accomplish this week and we have gotten started. But this is a perfect time to relax and try to enjoy the quiet.

We don't get opportunities like this very often so we want to make the most of it. Except that doing nothing makes me kinda sleepy. And it makes me kinda want to go to bed early.

Maybe later this week we'll go out and do something fun one night.

In the meantime, I hope Emily is having an awesome time during Cousins Week 2010!

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More Busy Days

On Sunday, we celebrated Emily's 5th birthday at a local Mexican restaurant. She picked the restaurant.


And we invited all her faves ... like Aunt Heather and Uncle Stephen.

And Grandmother and Aunt Heather.

And lots of people!!!

And the proud parents.

Emily had fun opening her presents. She got a gumball machine!!!!! And she loves it. But we had to put it up out of reach because the day before she ate a BUNCH of gumballs all day long.

She received lots of wonderful gifts and was so excited to open each one to see what was inside. I don't think there was anything she didn't like.

And then ... we got to eat the cake that she picked out. The design featured Mario and Luigi. I think it turned out really cute. And, of course, it was so so yummy.

After lunch, we headed back out to the house to put on the first coat of paint in Noah's room. His room is sort of a bright sea blue color. I'll have to take some pictures in there sometime soon.

Mike and his Dad and his brother worked out in the yard Sunday afternoon cutting down some bushes, trimming some trees, weedeating and cleaning out around the shed and well house. Stephen trimmed some trees around the driveway.

The girls worked in the house finding other things to sort and organize and box up all around my house. I think no room was untouched! I tried to keep my master bedroom and closet closed off so that nobody would see the scariness there, but even that was not kept hidden.

They did a lot of work in Emily's room, too. We took a lot of stuff out of there and put it in the shed and her room looks great now. Stephen installed a "pet net" in Emily's room to store all her stuffed animals. At first, Emily was SO upset at the thought of her pets being up and out of reach, but Grandmother finally convinced her that it was best for them and for her.

Our sister-in-law Cherry brought us pizza for supper and we were sooooo grateful. It was the perfect thing and helped us out a lot. Thank you, Cherry!

The paint in the nursery had to dry four hours between coats so we were able to apply a second coat on Sunday night before we went to bed.

Then we decided that it might rain and we needed to move some things that were outside to the shed for the night. It was mostly stuff that my mom was going to take back to her house. So everyone loaded up the stuff and hauled it to the shed. And good thing they did because it rained almost 3 inches on Sunday night. The yard was a bit flooded the next morning. What a mess! A few of the cars got stuck in our yard. But Gary brought his truck out and the guys eventually got them all unstuck.

Monday

Monday morning, bright and early, Mike's mom brought us out some breakfast. Then we all got to work. We pulled off the tape in the nursery and Mike's mom did the touch up painting. Then everyone pitched in to move the furniture back into place in Noah's room. We moved a twin bed into his room and got the crib put back up. I think everything looks wonderful in there. I'm very pleased with how it looks so far.

All our out of town guests needed to be on the road by around 2pm so we were trying to get a lot of last minute things done. We had a few more boxes that needed to be moved to the shed. A few things were left to be done in Emily's room, and I still had lots more things to sort and separate.

We are so grateful for everyone who came out to help us on this long weekend. We could not have done it without all of you. We love you all very much.

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A Long, Productive Weekend

We have had a very busy several days. We are so blessed to have a wonderful family who helps us. We are so thankful for everyone who pitched in this weekend.

Friday

On Friday, the shed company came out to build our shed. It took them about 5 hours, but it looked great when they were done. One of the guys told me that he normally works in the factory, but someone called in sick and so they asked him to go with the building crew. I'm just glad they were able to come out when I needed them.

Mike's dad came out while the builders were there and worked outside in our yard most of the day. He did a lot of weedeating and cleaning up out in the yard. Emily wanted him to play with her instead of working. She even fixed some blankets on the floor by her bed so that Pops could take a nap with her if he got tired.

Friday night, we went to the home improvement store to get shelves for Noah's closet and some shelves for the new shed.

Saturday

On Saturday afternoon, my Mom, Heather and Stephen came into town to help us move things into the shed and fix up the baby room. Mike's mom and dad came out to help too. We put together the shelves for the shed and quickly realized that we were going to need many more shelves than what we purchased. Mike's parents went to two different home improvement stores to get all the shelving that we needed.

While they were gone, we started packing and organizing boxes that we could move out to the new shed. As soon as they got back, we put up all the shelves. I think we had a total of 9 sets of shelves. That was a lot of work!

Later that night, Stephen and Mike installed some shelves and wire baskets in Noah's closet. It was complicated to figure out how the shelves went together, but I think they turned out great. Perfect for a little boy's room.

After the shelves were up, we put all the things we had purchased for Noah into his closet. We also moved a lot of the baby things from Emily's room to Noah's closet. Then we cleared the rest of the boxes out of the baby nursery and moved the furniture to get the room ready to paint.

Sunday

Sunday and Monday were more busy days. But those details will have to wait until another day. Now it's time for bed.

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