Wordless Wednesday - I love my family

novembrrrrr fun

Cranksgiving

#3

On Monday I cried.  I cried out of relief.  After 9 months of waiting we now finally know we have a healthy baby boy and a healthy mother.

 This baby just melts my heart.

 Even when she is having a C-section.

 Oh sorry dear, something behind you has my attention.

 Our new baby.

 Jonathan Kees DeVries  7lb 12oz 21in born Oct 22, 2012 5:44 pm

Happy to be done, we love all our kids.

Nesting

Just before the time comes for a new birth everyone goes through a stage of getting the physical and mental environment ready.

We cleaned the girls room, and the living room, and the babies room.

Baked some pumpkin bars, a pumpkin pie, apple pie, cherry pie.

Canned 2 bushels of tomato products.

Found a hotel room for the grandparents.

Networked with friends for food and help for the husband.

Put simple meals for husband to cook in the freezer.

Finished a quilt.

Bought the new car seat, changing pad and bassinet.

Took down the tomatoes and planted garlic.

Picked out a name.

Decorated the babies new room.




What we have not done is slept through the night, made it more than 2 hours without a potty break, or remembered where we set down those lists of things we need to do.

Boys may not be that bad

It has sunk in that we were truly having a boy as our third child and Nancy and I were scared.  We could name many rambunctious, active, wild, disrespectful boys.  Was this our future?  We wanted to cry.  Sullen we sat in our seats for the Sunday morning church service.  As we sat we became aware of how many well behaved boys were around us.  Infants, toddlers, kids, tweens, and even teenagers, all these boys were being well behaved.  Nancy and I both knew, God spoke to us, showing us that it was going to be OK to have this boy. 

It will be scary having our third child, I am so glad they start out so small. 

Wordless Wednesday - Life goes on and so do we

Wordless Wednesday - Biking Fail

Pregnant and a broken leg

The headline is nothing new to our friends and those that relate to us on facebook.  Nancy is pregnant with a very active boy, due October 23rd by C section.  And Ryan, a reasonably good bike rider went for a short night time ride last Saturday night.  He was testing out a new helmet headlight. He crashed, breaking his right femur with a spiral fracture.

The good news is that I (Ryan) have limited injuries and am recovering well enough but will not be 100% until next year.  Already doing my stretches on my own and able to get in and out of bed to move about to get my own food and, well, the other end.  Nancy has had a reasonably good pregnancy, only now starting to show.

The bad news, I can't lift anything and I am laying down most of the time.  Nancy's sciatic nerve is becoming pinched.  She can lift less and less and is getting tired more and more.  My wonder woman Nancy is slowing down and I can not pick up the pace.  We need help.

We need help with Laundry and general house cleaning.
We need time to relax and not worry about Anna or Lilly. (Who are a big help but need some time to be kids)
Nancy needs a couple hours downtime to relax and probably cry this weekend, without the chores piling up while she does.
Ryan needs time to talk about his interest, the Bible, organic gardening, design, etc.... but not sports.  And I need to figure out how and when to get back to work.
I need help getting some honey do things done, such as finding some extension cords in our basement and installing upstairs, changing lightbulbs, checking smoke detectors, moving our very heavy todler bed.  Moving a clock radio, and teaching the neighbors cat to roll over and moving my car from the road to the garage.  Many one time simple but helpful tasks.

Some things, such as the Laundry  and house cleaning Nancy can do, Nancy stopped doing cloth diapers to lighten the load, and I am wearing less.  And it does not take much to wipe down the sink, toilet and shower.  But because Nancy is also helping me with sponge baths, stretches, pill management, nurse, doctor, and insurance management, cooking, changing Lilly, caring for the kids, disciplining the kids and more she has no down time.  No time to just sit and read, no time to can, no time to get out to the our own garden and pick the ripe stuff, no time to quilt.

The worry about asking for help is, we are both engineers, we are particular, we like good quality.  If someone gets the extension cord but leaves out the 4 boxes above it did they really help?  We need help that won't cause us more chores.  And we need help long term, it is two months til the baby is out, and another two or three after that til both of us are healed fully.

The other thing we also don't need is respiratory infections.  It will be bad if Nancy gets something, worse if I do and a hospital visit if Lilly does.

Unfortunately we cannot afford to pay for all the help we need.  (Thank goodness for a fully funded emergency fund that means we will have no problems financially.)  But Nancy will can and quilt her way out of the guilt of being a taker instead of her natural giving nature.

Wordless Wednesday - Canning and Quilting

Wordless Wednesday - 100 pounds of peaches

What is happening in the Garden July 11th, 2012

Our little tomatoes from Genuine Faux Farm have gone from this tiny from when we got them from Tammy at Hansens on 18th street.

Now they are starting to produce like our beautiful Red Zebra tomatoes coming on strong.  

We have some Black Krim and Stupice too.  

The Wapsi Peach looks very wilty but has bouncy ball sized tomatoes on in too.  I don't know if it is too much or little water.  I could just not like us either.

My starts are behind since they are not in as nice of a garden as I put the heirlooms from Rob an Tammy.

Ryan got to braid them

Lilly was quality control showing me all the ones I forgot to cut the roots off of.

We also have harvested our garlic.  We actually got 109 heads and a few were worth saving for planting next year.


The rest are for kitchen use and some of the smaller cloves to be roasted with cherry tomatoes for snacking.

Ryan and Lilly hanging up the 4 braids of garlic we made last night.

We harvested a few onions.

Lilly working on her scare crow making sure the garden is protected.