New Poll

My sisters Arica, April and IMy sister Ashley
My 3 girls

Okay here is probably the one that I am most excited to find out about!! What color will baby's hair be?? If you don't know my family very well-so far I have 1 brunette, 1 redhead, and 1 blondie. And ofcourse it's rather fun for me because I have three sisters each with the same color of hair as my kids (though not the same shade) but it reminds me of them alot. So will there be a tie breaker or will we yet again see a new color this time around?? Black maybe??

New addition...

Yippee..we again have two vehicles!! Last year around this time we sold our sienna (toyota mini-van). Since expecting number 4 and Joe having hours cut back once again I wondered how it would all work-being able to find a reliable vehicle that fit our expanding family. After deciding on what we wanted to spend and test driving quite a few vehicles, we decided to buy a Chevy Venture. Our new van seats 8 so it can accomodate my family plus two more if needed-and the seats in the second row individually come out-which is really nice. I am really pleased with it-it's not brand new-always prefer used as we seem to get the best for our buck. But it has alot of the same features our Sienna had including the power sliding door and automatic lights-both were things that I really like to have. Plus it has a button to lock the rear lights-so the kids can't turn them on and off in the back unless I let them. It's great to not have the girls packed tight next to each other anymore. And it'll be so nice not to have to coordinate schedules for one car any longer. Joe teases me that our neighbors probably assume we like white vehicles since this is the third white vehicle we've owned. Maybe it's our family's lucky color? So far I feel lucky-or rather Really Blessed at the moment for how things just work out when you need them to. Again-I experience the Lord's tender mercies in my life. (The picture above isn't our exact van-but that's what it looks like)

Household Hint: Cutting Board Care

Okay so here are a few helpful hints that I learned about caring for cutting boards:
This is how to make your wooden cutting boards last you for years:

1. Sanitize cutting boards with a solution of peroxide and water-you can use a solution of bleach and water-but you need to make sure you make it up fresh because bleach solution will lose 50% of it's strength after about 2 hours. (I didn't know that one). After you sanitize-rinse and let dry completety
2. Never soak or put cutting boards in dishwasher.
3. Use both sides of your cutting board-using just one side only can cause it to warp.
4. Oiling a cutting board is essential because detergents and soaps used for cleaning tend to dry out the wood, causing splits and an overall shorter useful lifespan. Mineral oil, beeswax, cocount or almond oil all can be used. Apply with clean cloth over the dry board and set up to dry a few hours-you can apply more if needed. Do about once a month. You can use olive oil too-but it can get a kind of rancid smell to it-so whatever you choose.
5. To remove stains and odors from a cutting board-cut a lemon in half and scrub the cutting board with it.

Just a little hint: Use your plastic cutting boards for vegitables/fruits only-As the cut marks on plastic cutting boards are harder to manually clean-and you may not be able to completely clean all bacteria out of these nicks- on a wooden cutting board-even if you don't get the cut grooves completely clean-after the wood dries-bacteria evidently doesn't multiply and will gradually die. So if you plan on using your plastic cutting boards for everything-make sure you wash them in a dishwasher or even nuking them in the microwave will help kill off any remaining baceteria.

Before or After Baby Shower

Okay so here is yet another subject I want to question you all about. My very dear friend is throwing me a baby shower and I asked her to wait until after the baby is born to hold it. My reasons are ofcourse that if it is a boy i will be in need of clothing for him and also if it's a girl-I will definitely turn it into a diaper/needs shower. I know that I could do a neutral shower beforehand-but I am thinking if it is a girl-I wouldn't want people to waste money to buy me clothes-when I have tons already and would much prefer them to get me things that will be more useful to me and new baby. With that said-I have to admit that even knowing what all three of my girls were before they were born, my baby showers for each of them were after they were born. I am not one to closet myself away with baby for a good month before going out in public-so it was nice to bring baby with me so everyone could hold her while I enjoyed the fun company and opened gifts. I am curious what you all prefer-would you rather have baby shower before or after the baby was born and what are your reasons??

Another Poll

Okay so my last poll brought a 60/40 split with majority voting I'd have another girl. I haven't posted for a while-so I thought I'd put up a new poll. Here is the next guessing game. I know I have told you all that my Dr. doesn't want me to go all the way to my due date for fear that this baby will be bigger than my last-which is the pattern with me. So he will most likely try to start me early-probably around April 5th (10 days before my due date) -not totally induce me-just try to strip my membranes and see if this baby will come on it's own. Last time I did this, I had no success. Whitney was overdue-Amber was a week early and Brooke came 1 day shy of her due date. So my next poll will be when you think the baby will be born-obviously it won't be overdue-as the doc will induce me before that happens. So vote on the poll at the left and we'll see what you predict. Won't it be fun to go through and compare the polls with the actual results? Oh and just to make things interesting-we asked doc to induce us with Amber the day before she actually came-and he said she was too high and my body wasn't ready yet-so he wouldn't. (my water broke that night and she dropped in position) Anyway I was wondering if any of you had wanted to be induced with your babies-but dr. said he couldn't because of baby's positioning or your body not ready. I am trying to figure out what dr will do if again faced with this challenge...hmm.