Still nesting, no baby yet :o(

So what do you do when you're waiting around for a baby to be born? You decide to decorate your house by making curtains for all the windows. I've been wanting to add some color to our home for some time, and have felt an urgent need to do so before the baby arrives, along with cleaning the house from top to bottom, and now drying plums. So NOW the baby can come, but not until after 10:00 am tomorrow morning, because I'm getting inspected by the department of early learning so I can be a licensed child care provider. It's been 3 months since I turned in all my paperwork, so I really don't want to reschedule. Come on baby, just another 12 hours, then you can come! We also decided to move the new glider out of the nursery so we can get more use out of it. We figured since the baby would be co-sleeping, it didn't really matter where the glider went, and if we put it in the living room we'll use it a lot more. Ahhhhhh it's so nice! Marty loves it, which I'll use to my advantage in persuading him to get up with the baby in the middle of the night :o)


This was the fabric I had wanted to do the curtains in, but it was a little too bold for the style of my living room, but it goes perfectly down in the preschool.

Harvesting

While I've been waiting for little ninja's arrival, I've been busy canning. Here's what I got done last week. Recently I did another dozen jars of applesauce, apple pie filling, more raspberry jam, and crushed tomatoes. I still have more cucumbers to pickle as well. It's exhausting work, but a lot of fun too.


The baby shower was a lot of fun. We played games, ate yummy food with many fresh ingredients from the garden, and opened a lot of presents! It was so nice to see so many friends from the olden days, as well as their moms! How grateful I am for Maranda and her family, as well as the many friends and family of ours that have been so supportive.

Almost time!

I just wanted to post a couple of pictures from the midwife appointment last week. Little ninja is doing well. He has 2 weeks till his due date which means he could come any day! Maranda and I have been spending a lot of time together lately which has been really fun. I just love this woman, and the little one inside her! This is the happiest I've been in years! I can't wait to become a mom.

Nesting?

I finally feel like a grown up, we have real nightstands, to go with the bed Marty built for us. Could this be nesting that I felt like I had to get nightstands before the baby arrives? We got a killer deal on them too. They're from Pottery Barn, not a scratch on them, off of Craigslist. A $700 pair of nightstands for $125. Can't beat that! And yes, that's a bear in our bed. He's keeping a place warm for our little boy. Oh and now that we have the nightstands I want to make an upholstered headboard to go with them. Have any of you read "If you give a mouse a cookie"? I'm totally the mouse.
Ok but seriously, can adoptive moms really get the nesting instinct? Or maybe I was just born with it? I'm a total home body, obessessed with doing projects around the house, as well as in the yard, cleaning, organizing, and of course having everything one could possibly need for a baby. None of which sounds irrational to me, though it may at times to Marty. I call it being prepared and productive. He'd probably call it obsessive and compulsive :o) I already have a drawer full of bottles, blankets, clothes, diapers, and I just acquired the Graco SweetPeace Soothing Center baby swing, and a Moby Wrap off of Craigslist for our little boy. Of course I've been testing out the moby wrap with all the babies, so far they all love it.

I'm thinking I should probably save somethings for a registry in case someone else wants to give something to this little guy besides me. I've started creating a registry at Baby's R' Us, though I'm also thinking about asking people to contribute to my dream rocking chair that I've found online. It's upholstered in microfiber, is a rocker, glider, and a recliner! Since I'm sure I'm not going to want to be cooped up in the nursery, as beautiful as it is, I want to put the chair in the big open area next to the wood stove so we can cuddle in front of the fire or admire the view out the french doors. I usually dread the winters here, but not this one!! I can't wait for this little boy to arrive. Marty and I will also get to celebrate our 4 year anniversary with the baby which will be the greatest gift ever! Another beautiful addition to our nursery was a quilt made by my mother-in-law. I just love it!!! She hand quilted it. It's really adorable. We had our baby's parent's over last weekend for dinner and they loved it too. Our baby's mom makes kites. She was really impressed with the quilt as was the dad. They both are such wonderful people. They got to meet both mine and Marty's family. We had a good time. I also put up on the wall the quilt I had made a couple years ago for "our baby." It's not nearly as fancy as my mother-in-laws.

Dinner with family and friendsStay tuned for Part 2 of Nesting... The great outdoors!

Love you all, and congratulations to the new mama's out there. Your girls are beautiful, our son is going to be one lucky guy!

Guess who's having a baby?

Ok, well it is and isn't me. I'm having a baby, but not giving birth to a baby! Can you believe that!! It really is a miracle. The baby is due to arrive Sept 10th. It's a boy and we call him little ninja right now because he loves to kick his mommy's belly.

Some of you may remember my post a month or so ago. I was really struggling, and feeling so sad and confused about why the Lord hadn't blessed me with children when all I've ever wanted was to be a mom. It had been so hard to see all my friends having babies, and not being able to experience the same joy. You all wrote incredibly sweet and encouraging things. I didn't really want to believe anything you all said, even though it was true. I just wanted to give up, and wondered if it ever would really happen. Well wouldn't you know, 2 days after I posted that blog, someone asked me if Marty and I had thought about adoption. I blurted out, yes!! He then went on to tell us that his daughter who isn't married was pregnant, and she was trying to decide whether to keep or adopt out the baby. While praying about it, she saw me and Marty's face. This isn't a woman we talk to or see on any sort of regular basis. She's a member of our church, though she lives in Seattle. Her dad has helped us out quite a bit (he helped us build our fence which is when he told us). It makes me tear up everytime I think about it, but he actually painted the nursery! I don't think it was just a coincidence. We had over 10 people helping us paint our house that day, but it was he that painted what I knew would be a nursery some day, with some help from Marty. Who would've known that his daughter would be giving us her baby for that nursery. As he told us the story about his daughter and the situation she was in and her desire to give this baby a mom and a dad, I just had this peaceful feeling, and understanding of why all the other options hadn't worked--the IVF, fostering, even a traditional adoption since we nearly maxed out the credit card with the yard. I knew that if she decided she wanted us to adopt the baby, we definatly would, and that the Lord really did have a plan all along, but was just waiting for the right time to unfold it to us.

The birth mom keeps telling us how she too has found peace for the first time in 5 months, and that when she starts to doubt the spirit reassures her that this is the best thing for this little boy. She visited us a month ago and said she knows little ninja is going to have a great time being raised by us, playing in the yard, playing with the children in the preschool, etc. It's amazing how everything has just fallen into place. We loved this woman before, always had admired her and thought she was an incredibly smart, talented, and beautiful woman, but now I don't even have words to describe the love we have for her, the profound gratitude and appreciation for what she's doing and the choice she's made to carry this baby so that we can become parents. She is making a sacrifice I couldn't even dream of making. One that I will be eternally grateful for.

A lawyer is working on the legal stuff, and a social worker is completing a home study for us required by the courts. Its amazing everything you have to fill out and have documented!
The birth mom asked if I would be her birth partner at the birth, and I said yes of course! She's giving birth at the same birthing center as I had wanted to give birth at. We're going to take a birthing class later this summer. I've never been at a birth before so this will be a new experience for me. We stay in close contact with her which is really nice. We just love her so much!
My sister is going to plan a baby shower for us after the baby's born, and we know he's ours forever. Then everyone can get to meet the little guy as well. My mom was suppose to keep the adoption a secret, but hasn't done a very good job. The birth mom said she didn't mind who we told about the adoption, so I figured it would be safe to officially spill the beans. I'm so grateful that I was able to start my preschool/daycare before the arrival of this little boy and that I have 2 great assistants, my sister, and Ashlea to run things for a while after he's born. I'll be able to make a nice transition back to work, bringing him with him on my long commute down the stairs ;o) My youngest ones will be 16 months by then, and walking which will be nice, and I've already "reserved" a spot for the baby so that I won't be over capacity.

I have all the clothes I'd EVER need for the first 6 months of this little boy's life (3 drawers full!). Gotta love craigslist! A lady I was buying cloth diapers from was getting rid of all these great little boy clothes. A huge lot for a great deal. I have most everything I need for the nursery, though I'd like to get some pictures for the walls. I love to just lay on the bed in this room, the baby blue walls and green accents make it so calming. Of course I had to add a few hints of lavender, just because I like it.

Sorry this has been such a long post. Love you all! Thank you for your encouragement, prayers, and love! Jenny

It's looking green!

Well the little baby grass is coming in. The ground is still pretty squishy though. I hope it firms up soon. I thought I'd test it out today and promptly sunk. Hopefully if it stays nice and stops raining around the clock so it can start drying out. We also got the gates in. Its so nice to have the kids contained and away from the driveway. Now its time to start staining. I got 1 gate stained this evening. It took forever, but it should look really nice when its all done. It's the same stain we used on the handrails. My mom liked the idea of our deer fence so much, that she's fencing her yard too, so we brought over the leftover posts and started on hers today. Now she's also putting in privacy fencing (the same stuff as ours) between her and the neighbors. Guess who's going to put that up? Well at least now we know what we're doing. She's going to have to find someone else to stain it though. Now I remember how much I hate staining.

We also finally cleaned out our storage room, and put in a work bench, shelves, and hooks to organize the garage. It feels like a real garage now when you drive in, and it's so much easier to find the right tool.

Not a very exciting post, especially with all the new little ones being born. Congratulations to all the new mothers and soon to be mothers!!

Finished yard!!

Thanks gals for all your comments on my last blog. They really helped! When I start getting depressed I'm going to go back and reread them all. I'm glad I decided to write what was in my heart. Thank you for your love, confidence, well wishes, and for reminding me what I know to be true even though I forget it sometimes. I love you all so much!! Thank you!!

Today I was going to build a fence (by myself). I don't know what I was thinking. Marty had been sick all night with food poisioning or the flu, so I didn't want to make him work, but I really wanted to get started on this fence. Mind you, I couldn't even lift these 6' long, 6' tall panels out of the truck, but I thought I could at least start digging the 2' deep holes for the posts, so off I went in search for a post hole digger. Luckily when I got back from picking up the post hole digger, Marty had called David Casperson (a neighbor from church) over to help unload the panels from the truck, and they both started helping me. Better yet, Marty called Ed Murphy, a contractor and friend from church to come over and help! Very smart thinking Marty!! I was going to try and build the fence from following an online tutorial (I'm not sure how it would've turned out, or if Marty and I would be speaking by the end of the fence). Strength, knowledge and experience is what we really needed, and Ed knew exactly how to do it. Then our friend Christian Beck showed up to help. He's done a lot of concrete work so he taught me how to do the concrete for the posts (which became my job), while the other guys had all those panels up in 2 hours!! It probably would've taken me that long to dig 2 holes! I tried it, it was hard!! Though I can mix some mighty fine concrete!! We still have a bit more to do, but the hard and heavy part is done. Now the whole yard will be fenced in and I can apply for my child care license (well after the grass grows, which it started doing, yay!!) I can't wait for summer-- games in the yard, BBQ's, kids running around in the grass, it's going to be a great. You're all welcome anytime, just make sure you bring your kids!! I don't want all the fun stuff going to waste.

Here's some pictures of the work that's been happening the last couple weeks on the yard. Everything is finally done, now we just wait for the grass to grow! Greentree dozing, owned by Rick and Phil Middling, did all the work, and did an absolutely amazing job!! They brought in top soil for the entire yard to cover up our stinky clay soil, as well as hauled top soil all along the back and side of the house for my gardens, built the frame for the wood chips for the play structure, and went to Tacoma to get the chips, built a couple rock retaining walls, and raked and seeded the entire yard! No small feat. They hauled away a whole dump truck full of rocks!! Glad we hired them! We haven't got the bill yet, but it was WELL worth it! To finally have the yard done, and not have to look at those huge dirt piles or the mud pit that was our yard.

BEFORE (digging a trench to drain water away from where the play structure will go.

AFTER (The beautiful new play area! Its so nice to have a mud-free and safe place for the kids to play outside.)

BEFORE (Rick, Phil, and Mitchel bring in the soil, and rake out the rocks)

AFTER (back yard seeded, my Azaela/Rhodedendron slope behind our house, and cut out in the slope at the far end to stack fire wood.)

BEFORE (Side yard/dump truck delivering load after load (for 2 days) of good soil to cover up our crummy soil)

AFTER (Drainfield/sloped yard all smooth, with our patch of grass we planted in October.) Marty also enclosed 5 fruit trees on this side of the yard with deer fence.

Main yard--open area for badmittion or other games, wood chip area in the distance for a picnic table and fire pit, can't see it but this whole yard is surrounded with 8' deer fence.

View of the house/play structure from upper part of yard. It will be really nice when the grass grows in. In front of the deck, we brought in good gardening soil for vegi's, and we have a few fruit treese planted near the play structure.

It's been a while

Its been a long time since I've been to blogger. I just haven't been strong enough. Sounds funny, huh. How strong do you have to be to sign in to Blogger? All my friend's blogs are about their beautiful babies and healthy pregnancies, and after struggling and struggling to get pregnant or stay pregnant, its just been too hard to witness. I think about my friends all the time. I want to see them. I pray for their little ones. But something about seeing their pictures, and reading their words it just gets me choked up every time. I care for kids and babies everyday, it doesn't seem like it should be so hard, but it feels different when its your friend's having babies. You feel so left out. Like the last one chosen for the softball team that all your friends are playing on, or worse yet, not being chosen at all. Its hard to explain. I go to bed in tears every time. So I stay away, and try not to think about how much fun they're having and all the wonderful, and sometimes not so wonderful experiences they are having. But then I feel guilty. I think, what kind of friend am I? I should see how so and so is doing. I just wish I knew why I can't have what I desire more than anything in this world, a baby! It doesn't help when doctors can't find anything wrong and tell you after 3 years, and 2 failed IVF cycles that you just have "bad luck," and that its not your fault and you can't do anything about it. Why can't I just have a little good luck?

So since I can't have babies, I care for them, I build big expensive play areas for them, I go through a million child care licensing hoops to provide quality, licensed care for Vashon's under and over 2 years old population. (If I watch children under 2 1/2 I have to have a license, so that's what I'm doing, because there's nothing else out there for these families.) I plant gardens and trees, I buy materials for my preschool, and all the while trying not to think about how I'm going to handle another failed IVF cycle if it happens again. My hopes of doing foster care were dashed when I found out the state wouldn't license us for Foster care if we were licensed for in home childcare. But since I can't afford not to work, and what the island needs is childcare, especially for children younger than 2 1/2, I have to get licensed. Adoption would be the next step, but with no money, and soon to be quite in debt because of all the recent work on finishing the yard, and trying to meet all the childcare licensing requirements (including a fence around out whole yard, well about 375' of it at least and of course having a yard for kids to play in, which meant bringing in load after load of soil to cover ALL of crappy clayish soil, leveling it out, then planting seed), there isn't anything left for us to be able to "buy" our children. That just doesn't seem right that those that can't have kids, after spending, some of them $50,000 (~3 IVF cycles) or more on Infertility treatment, then have to spend $20-40,000 on adoption! Who has $90,000 to just shell out for a baby? Not me. Through Fostering, at least adopting would've been free.

But I can't complain too much because at least our insurance covers 90% of our fertility treatment, at least up to $25,000 (lifetime maximum). You can see that that will only go so far though. Too bad it doesn't compensate you for the emotional distress that it causes, and I don't know what I'm going to do if it doesn't work next time. I know I'll persevere somehow, but right now I can't even think about it. Well this has been the most depressing post I've ever written. I wish this could be one of those anonymous posts, but I just felt like writing, and getting how I was feeling out there. I don't even mind if no one reads it, it was more for me I guess than anyone else. At least I've stopped crying now. I also just wanted to apologize to all my friends for not reading and commenting on their posts and to explain why. You're my friends, so I know you understand, but I just had to say sorry anyway. Well I better get to bed, I've got 2 one year olds, a two and 1/2 year old, and 2 four year olds coming tomorrow (this is my easy day :o), but still I'll need my energy.
Love you all!! Jenny

I'll try to take some pictures of the yard and everything, and post them later.

Plants, plants, plants!!

On Valentines Day, Marty and I spent the day buying and planting plants for the front of our house. It was sooo romantic. Ok, well maybe romantic isn't the word, but it was so much fun. I was just in heaven! I was so happy to have my hands in the dirt, and beautifying the exterior of our house, which up until then was just dirt EVERYWHERE! We hired some people to level out the dirt piles, and make the yard bigger and flatter by pulling down the slopes, however as they were working it started snowing! After an inch and half they finally had to quit (Feb 11th) and haven't been back since :o( The ground is just too wet to work in. We have to bring loads and loads of top soil in to cover the whole yard as the soil is so clayish. urgh! But at least we'll have nice looking gardens and a nice looking lawn (when the ground finally dries out!)

We were able to finish things up around the house though, adding another parking spot near the stairs, and plants along the house--mostly Heleboures, and Euphorbia, in all different colors and varieties. They are easy to grow, and deer resistent! They cost us an arm and a leg, but they makes me happy to see them, every time I pull up to the house, so I guess its worth it.

Last weekend we also bought 8 fruit trees (pear, cherry's, peach, apples, and a plum) and a lilac tree and planted them around the outskirts of the yard (where the machines wouldn't be working), and then I filled up my car at Home Depot on Monday with lots of Azaela's (I could buy 5 Azaelas for the price of 1 Helleboure!), Rhodedendrons, a Magnolia tree, and Daphnes. The man that helped me load them in my car, couldn't believe they'd all fit, but then he doesn't know my mad packing/organizing skills I pick up from living in a 350 sq ft cabin with my husband and chocolate lab!

Then yesterday we drove up to Marysville with 2 trucks and picked up a play structure we found on Craigslist. Wish I had taken a picture of it loaded in the trucks. We tried to keep it put together as much as possible, we kept the playhouse/fort piece all together (needless to say we had to pay an overheight charge for the ferry). As soon as the soil dries out we'll put woodchips down and set it up. I'm sure the preschool children are going to love it! Of course since we had a truck, I couldn't pass up the chance to pick up more plants, so we got yet more Azaela's and Rhodedendrons, as well as a white Camila. Can't wait to get out and plant everything!!


Well that's all I have for now. Will add more pictures when I get all my plants in the ground. Hope everyone is doing well. Love you all! --Jenny

Love and Laughter

A few weeks ago I found out that my employers were cutting back my hours and had no new work coming in, which meant they would no longer be needing me at all after a couple more months. The day she told me, all I wanted to do was cry. I knew of at least 3 other nanny's looking for work, and was a little worried I'd be out of a job for a while. I didn't know how we were going to pay our mortgage and keep our new beautiful home. In a week I had a new plan though--to open up a much needed--Drop-in Preschool on the island (something parent's have been begging for). A safe, loving place parents could take their children on an as needed basis when they have a Dr's appointment, need to run some errands, want to go to the gym, get things done around the house, or have a flexible work schedule and paying for a spot in a day-care doesn't make sense.

Parent's have been loving the idea, the children are loving the space, and I'm loving working at home. Each child that's come to visit has felt right at home. The children have ranged from 10 months-5 years. It's been so much fun! Last week was the first week I started watching children in the space, and it went great! This week I have more families signed up, and I'm sure as the word get's out, I'll have enough work that I won't have to worry about paying our mortgage. Right now I'm still taking care of my nanny family, but just watch them over at my house, that way when they no longer need me, I can make a smooth transition as my clientel builds. I'm not a big fan of change, but I think this change is going to be really good. I should be able to earn more money, while also getting to work from home, which will be fantastic when I do have a baby.

I pretty much worked non-stop on the classroom for a week--setting it up, buying toys and materials, making lables & signs, etc. Then I spent the last week building a website for the preschool. Marty got me started, but I was pretty much able to do everything myself, which was awesome. I've put in quite a few long nights, but I'm feeling really good about everything right now. If you want to see my website it's: http://www.loveandlaughterpreschool.com/

Marty has been very supportive of my new business venture, while also doing some of his own web design work on the side. He's slowly getting used to his new position at Adobe, and we're so grateful he wasn't part of the 600 who were laid off last month.

We had a great Christmas and winter break. We had the best time just hanging out with our family and friends--talking, playing games, eating yummy food, etc. We love you all so much!!

Last night we had our first snow storm. It was awesome! Then today the house was so bright with all the snow outside. It was beautiful. I took these pictures this morning. Hope everyone got to see snow and is safe and sound! Marty slid off the road turning onto our street. My sister was at the intersection and saw the whole thing and was totally impressed by his calmness and the way he avoided a telephone pole, and just got back on the road. She was ready to pull him out of a ditch if need be, but luckily that didn't happen! Tis' the season! Much love to you all!

Dec '08

House warming party a success!

Ok, so I cannot believe that we didn't get get a single picture of this great event last night! Marty and I were giving tours all night to nearly 50 people (adults and children). I didn't get to taste any of the food till nearly 9:00pm when just a few guests remained. We stayed up till 12:30 am playing speed scrabble with a few friends. It was such a fun evening. People slowly trickled in and then the whole house was bustling with people. Marty said he looked into the kitchen, and it looked like everyone had migrated into it. Others sat on the sofas watching the slideshow of our house being built, while a couple people cozied up in the family room chatting in the comfy arm chairs. The basement was a hit with the kids, especially the pool table, which we had to put the cover on, because someone's fingers were going to get smashed. I had brought all the toys down there too, so they did bowling, built a huge train track, stacked legos, played with beanie babies, and had a great time. We figured out that there were 14 children and 34 adults that passed through our home last night. People were really wowed, awe strucked and amazed. We also recieved some nice house plants--a poinsetta and a Christmas cactus, some gift certificates to local nurseries, a great plaque/sign, candle holder, and even a fig tree! We had a blast, and hope that those who attended did too. We look forward to having just a family over at a time though so we can visit more and play more games :o) Oh and you can't miss our house now-- I lined the driveway with alternating strands of blue and green lights. I really am turning into my mother. I'm still debating about whether to keep them up year round though, like she does :o)


The sign from Hailey and Claudia, put up immediately on a nail I already had up in the basement over our mini Christmas display. I just love this saying!!

Our first thanksgiving in the new house

There's nothing I love more than food and family, which is why I love Thanksgiving so much! The new kitchen is a dream to cook in, and the open floor plan made it so easy to talk to people from the kitchen. My mom, sister, brother, and our friend Mandi came over to celebrate. Of course we ate too much, but that's part of the beauty of this holiday. Then there's leftovers for a week which I love even more. I made a turkey and stuffing casserole tonight, mmm. We also played a good game of Cranium, and danced in the family room. Coco can really bust a move. I'm so grateful at this time of year to refelect on my blessings, and to express gratitude for all I've been blessed with. I love my family so much and am so grateful to have them so close.