Brain Dump

I’m out of the habit of blogging. I have loads of pictures from the last few months to process and record memories from.  I have so many thoughts and ideas to share.  Ideas of posts are written out in lists to start checking off.  But today, a brain dump about all areas of life, some to be expanded upon later:

Nathan is slowly and steadily picking up new words.  Today he said, “Em-my”.  His sister has a name!

Nathan starts everyday pointing out pictures of the temple and wanting to go.  Right now.  He is super disappointed when we tell him we are going in a few weeks.

Emily went to her first day of preschool today.  Our neighborhood co-op decided we would only each teach one day a week (instead of two  like last year), and I’m way more excited about the prospect.  Nathan and I took advantaged of the two hours to read books (just one over and over) and sort through baby clothes, followed by a goodwill run so I could discard without answering any questions.

This kids haven’t been sleeping well at night this week, mostly due to rashes, sickness, or injury.  All legitimate reasons for mom and dad to offer night time support instead of sleeping.  Andrew and I are both remembering how much we like sleeping through the night the last few months and how much harder the days are on lots of interrupted sleep.  Cue being grateful that the baby is still 10ish weeks away.

I need to find a way to wake kids up from naps.  They have both been waking up around 7, taking 2-3 hour naps despite my efforts to wake up Emily, and then staying up until 9-10pm.  They are constantly tired and I’m not loving the late nights/early mornings!

I have been deplorable at keeping track of this pregnancy. I felt like I was stuck between 26-28 weeks forever.  First I was counting to far ahead, then I was counting behind.  Yesterday I was certain I was 28 weeks but I decided I would download a pregnancy app just so I wouldn’t have to think about it at all.  Apparently I’m 29 weeks along, but I’m not sure I trust it.

Yesterday I started having so. many. contractions.  I finally told Andrew after dinner that I had to stop moving to see if they would let up – it was feeling like the night I went into labor with Nathan.  They did stop as long as I laid down, but they picked back up today.  Pretty sure they are just enthusiastic braxton hicks contractions, but we are praying that the baby stays put a few more months anyways.

I have a huge reading list and two huge stacks of books next to my bed.  I’m trying not to stress about all the things I want to have in my brain right now!

My podcast plans are moving forward once again now that we’ve been home for a few weeks and I’m surviving morning sickness.  I’ve been gathering all the pieces and starting to get the technical details worked out.  Soon I’ll start interviewing which is both really exciting and super duper scary.

August I focused on two things: organizing/cleaning/decluttering our downstairs and sewing.  I finished my last sewing project that I had been avoiding on September 2 and organizing the downstairs on the 3rd!  I can’t tell you how amazing it feels to have a cleaner space to live in (my goal was to make this place look like a home instead of a workshop) and to be disciplined to do something that wasn’t super fun.  Plus I learned how to sew a buttonhole on my sewing machine and sew a zipper on a lined bag.

September’s focus is getting our digital life organized, tackling the kid’s closets and hall closet, designing and sewing the diaper bag/camera bag of my dreams, and making some wood toys for the kid’s birthdays.  Progress is happening but I can’t believe it is already September 6!!!

Emily: Nathan is soaking wet!

Me: Why?

Emily: I sprayed him with the hose.

Me: Did he like that?

Emily: No, he didn’t…but of course I love spraying people!

I’m really intrigued by the traveler’s notebook idea.  I’m thinking I’m going to take the planner that I made in a dot journal and put it into a bullet journal with smaller books to help organize projects and ideas so everything can be in once place.  I have to figure out pattern of the backpack I’m making first though so I can see how much leather I need for that project as well as for making the cover of the travelers notebook.

Andrew spent some time sharpening our knives with sandpaper (as opposed to wet stones, which is the goal) and now they are soooooo sharp that it is FUN to cook and see what they can do!  He also sharpened the carving knife he made me and now carving is going so much faster.

I tried to fit our three carseats into the back of our Honda Civic last week and I couldn’t even shut the door with them haphazardly fit in unbuckled.  I called a friend who has the fancy Diono Radian carseats that I read might fit and she came over later that week so we could try to fit them in with an infant carseat.  Success!  They happened to be on super sale on amazon for $170 each (instead of close to $300) so we bought two and decided we’d hold off on buying a van.  This Jackson family of five is going to squish.  The nice UPS man even carried them into the house today for me with a, “You have your hands full.” comment.  There were five kids in the house…

This weekend we watched our neighbor’s three kids on Saturday and then had an old friend surprise us by spending the night (well from midnight on) at our home with her two kids because she was driving through.  Andrew impressed me by occupying five (pretty tired and a bit grumpy) kids on Saturday with his read-aloud and by demoing our favorite kid’s game, Busytown, to four kids 2-5.  Watching him greatly increased my confidence about adding another baby to our family.

We have the most wonderful group of friends here.  Lately the  moms have been using playground time to peel and core apples for applesauce (kids eating loads of peels of course), work on wood projects, bounce ideas of about their business’s, and talk about very interesting ideas and lifestyles.  I love love love this uplifting group of women and the fun the kids have with their friends!

And now is the moment I need to be disciplined and wake the kids up.