PUT A RING ON IT

Since quite a few of you have been asking about my Instagram picture/Facebook post about the ring incident, I'll explain. To start off with, I started this pregnancy at my absolute healthiest. I weighed just under 115 lbs and ran/worked out regularly. As a result, this pregnancy has been my best - which is saying a lot since ALL of my pregnancies have been easy peasy. Outside of my pregnancy with Joel (as an 8 mo pregnant ASU student walking across campus), I have never really had any issues with swelling. My feet, once. Otherwise nothing.
Sunday night, after working on a few [failed] sewing projects, I went to my room to get ready for bed. I washed my face and brushed my teeth. Tried taking off my wedding ring and nope. Stuck. Tried a dab of lotion. Nope. Tried cold water. Nope. Tried lotion AND cold water. Nope. Okay... A little bit panicked, but there were several more tricks to try. Tried icing my finger. Nope. Tried Windex. Nope. Tried elevating my hand. Nope. Tried the dental floss/string trick. Nope. Really panicked. Not only did none of these tricks work, they all succeeded in making my finger swell more and more in a reasonably short period of time. My finger began to turn from red to purple and I could no longer bend it. The pain was building, even when I was not touching the ring or my finger. I had the mr. hop online and Google "when to go to the hospital if a ring is stuck". We had reached that point. So away we went (after calling my angel of a mom at 3am to stay with the sleeping kids). I was admitted right away - perk of going in at 3am. The PA came into the room, took one look at my finger, and said there would have been NO WAY that ring was coming off outside of being cut off. It had become a tourniquet. Best part? Not one of my other fingers were swollen. He grabbed a ring-cutting saw and shield and went to work. My finger was so swollen that the shield did not extend past my ring as far as it should have, so the PA only had 1/4" of clearance for his saw. Every time he pushed the saw down into my ring, the ring pushed the shield into the top of my palm. Excruciating. I was hopeful for relief once the ring had been cut. Nothing. The PA tried prying it open with a screw driver, but it was not enough. Instead, he tried using hemostats to expand the gap. Once he had pulled the opening wide by a full inch, I was able force my finger out of the ring. Barely. And little relief. The whole thing just... well... sucked. I LOVE my ring. And now it is sitting broken in my jewelry box. The plus side? I still have my finger. Which is good, you know.Within about 6 hours, the swelling had mostly gone down. My finger still hurts a tiny bit, but no big deal.
So yeah. That's my story. We got to pay $200 to have a $3000 ring cut off. And it will be another $100 (at least) to have it repaired. Sigh. My flesh is priceless, my flesh is priceless, my flesh is priceless...

BELATED BIRTHDAY

Yesterday was my birthday. It was mostly a terrible day. The mr. DID come home early from work with roses and klondike bars. So a little bit of a victory. And my doc DID inform me that at 36 wks, my unborn is measuring 7+ lbs. So a little bit of a triumph. Otherwise, meh.
In anticipation, I pulled up my 30 before Thirty. Checked to see what I have accomplished in the last year. And grew increasingly grumpy. Four things done. Two more close to completion. Twenty four items that are not even close. Dang pregnancy making several of my goals difficult. Sigh. Looks like I have my work cut out for me for the next 2 years...

HEAVY HEART

My heart is heavy right now. You see, there is a woman that I know who is truly one of the most magnificent women that I have ever met. I've admired her for over a decade. She goes above and beyond in all that she does. She is the mother of three wonderful friends of mine, whom I hold close to my heart. Words cannot describe the amount of respect that I have for her. She truly is one in a million.
Today, this amazing woman passed away. It was not unexpected, yet it was still sudden. She fought hard in her short battle with cancer, but today she was called home. My heart aches for her sweet daughters and the rest of her family. I know how much they treasured their beautiful mother. I am forever grateful for the blessing that I had of knowing her; she was such a remarkable person. You will be dearly missed, Marilyn.

I love you Jessica, Amy, & Jen.

ALL HALLOWS' EVE

We were originally going to do classic Halloween monsters for Halloween. Frankenstein. Bride of Frankenstein. Dracula. Werewolf. Mummy. But while browsing Pinterest for costume ideas for a baby Bride of Frankenstein, I somehow came across a Tinkerbell costume. AND HAD TO MAKE BABY GIRL TINKERBELL. I mean, I FINALLY have a little girl. Why wouldn't I pick an adorably feminine costume for her? I hesitantly asked J and L what they wanted to be. J: "Captain Hook!". L: "Jake and the Neverland Pirates". It was perfect. Serendipity at its finest. I decided D (who insisted on being Tinkerbell) would be Peter Pan. And I would be Mr. Smee. "Protruding belly" and all. Being the person that I am (you can read that as cheap), I made the mistake choice of sewing most of the costumes. From scratch. Using no patterns. Just trial and error (and quite a bit of frustration). I finished everything just before midnight, the night before Halloween. And almost peed my pants in excitement. Everything turned out PERFECTLY. And our Halloween was wonderful! Minus the photo-op.
 For your benefit, I have posted a few out-takes. I receive compliments on my personal photos quite often, but lets be honest... four kids plus one (or two) adults? It's insanity. torture. excruciating. difficult. The mr.'s least favorite thing in the world.

The winning photo, which was our last-ditch effort with our neighbor's help:
which is why they aren't looking right at the camera...

FALL

I fail. An entire month without a post. Oops. Reason: I have been working like mad to get a billion things done. I wish I could say that blogging just slipped my memory because I have been so relaxed. Ha. I knew once October hit, life would remain fast-paced until January. Conveniently enough, I will be having a baby in January, so even then - no break.
But amidst all of the sewing/editing/designing as of late, we have had little moments here and there where we get to enjoy simplicity. Like visiting our dear neighbor's garden for preschool. Which turned into a lovely morning doing nothing more than eating fresh pomegranate. The simple things in life really are the best.

MONKEY SEE...

I've been MIA again; I had my nose entirely stuck in a book. Working on reading 30 new books for my 30 before THIRTY. If I can't run as much as I want, I will read.

Moving on. Last week, I made it our "Fall Break" for preschool. Why a week early? Because I could. There are OCD reasons behind it, but I wont even go there. For our break, we had a zoo week. Two trips to the zoo and a LOT of activities and crafts to supplement. We focused on big cats and primates. Talked about their features, their diets, their habitats. The kids loved it. Below are pictures from our monkey-themed visit to the zoo.
I know. No primates here. Just couldn't pass this one up. Apparently Bubs is afraid of pachyderms...

GETTING DIRTY

Several months ago, I made the decision to homeschool my oldest two for preschool. Not because I am some overachiever. No, no - that is not why. I made the decision because I am cheap. And lazy. Preschool is nearing $100 a pop. And that is just for ONE kid for ONE month. That would be nearly $2000 for my two kiddos for a year. YEAH. RIGHT. I'd rather spend that money on something else. Like Christmas. And home improvements. And baby clothes... PLUS I would have to drive back and forth a billion times a week with four kids in the car and that gets exhausting. Anyway. I made the decision back in April or May and immediately began to search through curriculum materials and schedule layouts. Hated everything I found. Too basic and easy. Nothing really met the level of expectation that I had. SO I MADE MY OWN. I built a curriculum based on what I knew would offer my kids an adequate challenge. Threw in a couple of fun subjects and holiday-themed units. 17 weeks of preschool materials and activities - DONE. Fall semester is going to rock (need to work on our 17 weeks for spring semester... sigh). We are already 4 weeks into preschool and I have to say, I LOVE IT. I love the time I use to focus on the kids. I love being able to help them learn and grow. I love seeing them eat this up.
This week we focused on dinosaurs. Talked about environments, diets, and fossilization. Capped the week off with an awesome dinosaur dig activity. Used brushes and chisels to unearth some dino bones. The older two even let the babies lend a hand. It was seriously such a fun adventure.

CALIFORNIA LOVIN'

Back in January, I TOLD the mr. that we would be going to California. He laughed it off and said, "Sure. If you pay for it..." And that is exactly what I did; I paid for the trip (having inherited my mom's ridiculously awesome deal-finding, money-saving tricks AND having a family friend to stay with for free helped a bit, too). So bright and early on a Wednesday morning, we hit the road.

WEDNESDAY: DAY ONE made the drive to just SE of LA in 6 hrs - kids were amazing unloaded everything into the RV - home sweet Cali home hit up the nearest In'N'Out - so much better in Cali, I SWEAR drove out to Newport Beach and played for hours - love, love, love the beach  had a late dinner back at the RV followed by immediately passing out
THURSDAY: DAY TWO quick breakfast before heading to LA Zoo - I hate LA traffic LA Zoo - closest experience to torture - it was a short visit drove to nearest Chick-Fil-A as plan B - 19.5 miles away... spent the rest of the day at Manhattan Beach - there is a free, little aquarium on the pier headed home and had another late dinner before hitting the sack
FRIDAY: DAY THREE drove to Long Beach after scarfing down breakfast started our adventures at the Aquarium of the Pacific - BEST IDEA EVER saw sea turtles and penguins, touched jellies and sharks - the kids were in paradise had a picnic at the harbor next to the aquarium - the weather was to die for  took a spontaneous harbor cruise and glimpsed sea lions in their natural habitat drove the Pacific Coast Highway back to our Cali home - I love the beach went out to The Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner with our host family
SATURDAY: DAY FOUR ate breakfast at a local french cafe - not the smartest idea with four antsy kids headed out to Huntington Beach and spent the entire morning soaking up the beach fed the kids lunch back at the RV while packing for our trip home made the drive home in 6 hours - grabbed a pizza on the way for dinner Best trip ever. We had SO MUCH FUN. The kids were great. I can't wait to do it again next year  (because we WILL be making this an annual family vacation).