Sunshine and getting closer to Answers..

Today is so nice- outside the sun has been shining all day and the birds are out singing. It finally feels like spring here. I just hope it continues throughout the rest of the week. Today Amber finally got her evaluation testing done to narrow down exactly what she is having difficulties with and why. I meet with the team of Occ. therapists, neurophyscologist, and speech pathologist to discuss what she has (SPD, ADD, Austism,etc????). It will be so nice to finally get her the help she needs and hopefully with the best diagnosis. I have been trying to get this done since last fall-so I am excited. She starts speech therapy with the same center on Wednesday and I can only imagine that her progression will only speed up. The Neurophyscologist said this about Amber when her 4 hour long testing was done, "She is funny, that one definitely dances to the beat of her own drum." Which is so true-she is always keeping us laughing at the things she does. I would not be suprised if she becomes the "class clown" at school because of her personality. It's one of the things I love about my Big Red.

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.

Questions answered..

Saturday morning I wasn't feeling too well-a bit dizzy and faint and told Joe about it. I have to admit I felt something was wrong and went to lay down. Well later that day I found out why:
I recieved a letter stating that my glucose test went fine this week-no gest. diabetes here. On the other hand-my iron levels are low. So the dr. wants me to start taking an iron supplement. I will do it, but I am not looking forward to it as whenever I take iron-my nausea gets worse. On the otherhand-I don't want to become anemic before baby is born-so it's one of those sacrifices I again get to make. I am crossing my fingers that my levels go back up to normal and that I don't get too sick again. At least I only have two more months. I am starting to get really excited that the end is nearing and soon well see our little surprise!!

Baby Talk-what are your thoughts?

Okay so this has bothered me alot lately and I am really hoping that I don't become like this now that I am nearing having my last and final child. There is a huge trend in babying your "baby" or your youngest. I mean I don't think we let whitney get away with as much as the younger ones and it seems to get easier to slip into this with each kid. I understand we do this because time goes by so fast and soon our babies are in kindergarten and growing so super fast. It's our natural reaction to try to slow it all down. But as mothers does any of us wonder what we do to our kids by doing this?? The long-term affects it may have on them as they get older and face life's dissapointments.

My biggest pet peeve is "baby talk."

As a mother of a child with a speech delay-it made myself look at how I was talking to my children and if that was in any way affecting how they decided to respond. Now I admit that I didn't baby talk to my kids all that much-I'm not saying i didn't ever do it once. But it somehow felt immature of me to do so -for some reason it made me feel stupid, so I just didn't do it. I am not against it in the 1st year of a childs life. But am I wrong in thinking-it's just not something you should do after your children reach a certain age-I mean c'mon a 3 year old is not a baby..even if they are still your "baby."

I guess it just bothers me when I hear a mom speak to her 4-5 year old this way-it's just plain unnerving to me. I know I am venting -but can someone explain to me why they feel it necessary to continue it when their children are totally capable of understanding and speaking "adult" language?? Aren't they a little curious as to how this affects them in developing language skills or if it mentally makes them believe they are younger than they are?? Or if other kids make fun of how "they talk." Who would willingly put their child through this?? I know what it's like to watch kids make fun of my child because she cannot keep up with them conversationally and it's hurtful for both of us. SO please when you child turns 2...please please speak to them on their level.

Now there are so many other things that you can do to baby your older children and I was wondering what are the big ones that bother you??

And just to step off my soap box for a bit-I do admit to helping Amber get her "tough" shoes on when she's having a hard time of it. So really I am not trying to be judgemental- this is one of the pet peeves that I have yet to get over -sorry.

Day of Basketball and very warm PJ's

Saturday was Whitney's first Basketball game. She did okay considering this was the first time she ever played. She did better defensively than offensively. So we definitely know what we need to work on. Then Later that night we went to our local college girls basketball game-we were able to get in for free. The girls had alot of fun and Whitney got to watch how the "Big Girls" play ball. Amber danced during the breaks and was actually caught on camera and got to display her moves on the big screen-she was so excited about that. I have to admit we were a little nervous about how this outing would go-but the girls really did well and between the game, the band, dancers and cheerleaders-it provided enough distraction that we only had to buy 1 bucket of popcorn to help us through the event.

Brooke saw a guy cheering like this-so she decided to mimic him.

Joe, Brooke and Whitney watching the game.

I wish I had gotten a picture of Amber getting her groove on but this picture tells another story completely. A few nights ago-I went in to check the girls as they were sleeping and found Amber all bundled up like this...then noticed Whitney dressed similarly. When I asked the girls about it the next morning Whitney said they were scared that someone was going to break into the house so they got ready to leave if it happened. Too funny. The wind was pretty fierce that night so I don't blame them too much for feeling a little spooked. It sure made me chuckle. Don't you just love kids!!

Strange Coincidence?? Belly Picture!!

Okay so just oddly enough while blog hopping to a friend's blog I found another blogging mommy and guess what??? Not only does she share the same last name as me, the same faith, the same passion for dance-she teaches too (crazy i know)-lives in the same area, but here is the big hair raising moment-we are both pregnant and due on the same day. Well she was brave enough last week to post her belly picture so I thought I would finally let the blogging world see my protruding stomach as well..are you all prepared?? With 12 weeks and 2 days to go here I am in all my glory:

How do you clean?

So while I was doing some of my regular house cleaning-I started to wonder if I am a bit old fashioned in how I clean my home. This train of thought came to me as I was cleaning my bathroom-I usually use comet or ajax to clean about everything but the mirror (which I use ammonia on-I usually do all mirrors and windows a different day than the day I clean the bathrooms because of the bleach in comet/ajax). And I was wondering if anyone else does the same or is everyone using the "new" cleaners out there-like lysol disinfecting wipes or those toilet bowl brushes that are one time use-then you flush it down the toilet. I have to admit I was thinking similar thoughts when mopping my tile in my kitchen/dining rooms the other day as well-I use Mr. Clean and a regular mop-but I was also pondering if those swiffer wet mops work well on tile -or are they too costly to continue buying all the refills-etc. So now that you know some of the ways I clean my house-what are the ways you clean your house and what have you found cleans best or is easiest or less time consuming??? Please share-with a new baby coming-I really would be interested in other options.

The Naming Game

As I am entering my third tri-mester, time seems to be flying and I am starting to think of baby names. Right now Joe and I are finding it difficult to agree on names-as usual. Obviously with the girls' names-I like traditional names that aren't outdated but also that have normal spellings. So I am open for suggestions for both boy and girl names. I am also curious what you think I will have Girl or Boy? So I have added a poll on the left of my blog-so if you want to guess, have fun! Ofcourse I may be adding more polls later like hair color, eye color etc-it will be exciting for sure to finally see what this little one is and what he/she will look like. 14 more weeks!!