32 weeks

The pictures are getting more and more attractive. And this was picture I think 12. There are only so many angles to make yourself look good this far along. But I am now 32 weeks and counting down. Since my pregnancy has been so picture perfect I got another one month break between doctor appointments which is fine by me. I was supposed to go in this week but thanks to a new office move I won't go till next week. So I have no particulars for you, except I feel huge as a barge and I still have 8 weeks left. I have had a lot of swelling this past week. After church I took my boots off to discover I had cankles. I guess I won't be able to wear cute shoes anymore to church. But I can pretty much say I am due next month. Who knows, maybe I won't have to wait the full 8 weeks. Hailey might surprise us!!

The Curse Continues

Just when you thought you couldn't have anymore problems you go to take a shower and no hot water. I started panicking because I pretty much know what that means. Sure enough, our water heater was leaking water. So we have a plumber coming today along with the insurance adjuster to look at our leaky roof. I pretty much feel like everything is falling apart around me. I do have to say I am so very grateful for Danielle....she is probably the best friend I could have had this morning. I couldn't get a hold of Corey and I was just too upset to think straight. But Danielle just happened to stop by on her way to the gym and stayed for an hour helping me make calls and get things in order. She was really a lifesaver and I feel like she was inspired to come over at 8 in the morning to help me out of this. Hopefully things will settle down here soon. I don't know how much more stress I can take.....

Good End to a Bad Day

So if you have read my blog below this one, you will find that we had a rough morning. So thankfully Danielle said she would watch our kids if we wanted to go on a date. So we desperately needed a break from our house which was trying to kill us. We did an early dinner. We went to Logan's Steakhouse and I got this great steak. Every time I bite into one, I tell Corey I can't believe people don't eat meat. And since my weight gain on my pregnancy this holiday season was crappy ( I won't say anymore than that) I skipped dessert.

Then Corey took me to Barnes and Nobles, I just love this store. All those books I just get so giddy. But I did want a book about boxing routines for when I can start doing that with my new boxing bags. I found this great book and I got that. Then we headed off to Target to buy a new car seat and stroller combo for the baby. The one I wanted was of course pink and green, but they were all out of this one. But I did find a steal of a deal on an Evenflo for only 100 bucks. I was really excited about that because I saved money if anything. Then we went to Kohl's for Corey to return a tie. I do have a gift certificate, but I am saving it for when I can buy normal clothes and not anything with an elastic waist band.

We stopped by to grab the kids and took them home to bed. But we had downloaded the Dark Knight on Corey's Xbox and we watched that afterwards. I of course fell asleep on the couch. Corey makes fun of me because I can't seem to stay awake at night. I miss anything that we are watching, but I just feel so exhausted by the time the end of the day comes around. So we at least had a happy ending to our day.

Hole in the ceiling

What a horrible day this has turned out to be. You know how they say bad things comes in three's? Well ours sure did. Corey's car wouldn't start first of all. So we went out to fix that. Thankfully it was just water in the gas and we were able to get it started and cleaned out. But then I was going up in the attic to get some bins down to pack up Christmas, and I find that our roof is leaking. Great right!! So as I was coming inside to get on the phone with my mom I told Corey I still needed the bins from the attic. Well this is what I found when I got off the phone and went back out in the garage....

My lovely husband slipped in the attic and fell through the ceiling. He is alright thank goodness. He caught himself before he fell to the floor. So now we have this lovely hole in our ceiling. All I can say is I am happy that it wasn't inside the house. At least in the garage I don't have to stare at it all day and Corey was not seriously injured falling through.

Teeth Grinding

I know that everyone gets stressed. I make my life stressful for myself it seems. But I always think I am handling it just fine. Until I notice this nice little ache on the side of my jaw. This tells me at night I am grinding away at my teeth. I did this once before a couple of months ago. And it looks like the ugly monster is rearing it's head again. Although this time I know the cause of my stress. So many things actually. First of course is the upcoming baby. Are you prepared? Can we pay all these bills coming in? Then there is another BIG issue that I have been stressing about. But I can't tell yet. So I lay at night thinking about these things before I doze off. Hmmm, could this be the cause of the grinding? I have read that you are supposed to do something relaxing before bed and even a warm washcloth on your jaw will help relax it. I guess I need to relax a little and stop worrying over things that are out of my control at the moment. Why oh why can't I control everything around me? :)

Christmas Celebration

I hope that everyone had a great Christmas!! I know that we did. It was a lot of fun this year. I love that the kids are older now and you can just see the excitement that they feel. I think I love it more now as a mom than when I was younger. Of course on Christmas Eve we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's house for a little fun. We had a buffet dinner and then the kids got to open one present from Grandma, which is their Christmas PJ's. They look so cute in their new pajamas.

Logan sporting new PJ's


Lexie in her new nightgown. How cute is that!!


Gabe the goof showing off. At home he wears the top open and struts around the house with his chest showing.


These are all the kids together. Starting from the left: Gabe, James (Josh's boy), Samm (Josh's girl), Logan and Lexie.

After that we watched a church Christmas movie and Samm sang a song for us. Then we just sang some Karaoke. The kids love doing it.

We had to leave soon after because Santa had a lot of wrapping to do. Let's just say I was up late doing all the wrapping. I think I won't do that again next year. Whew. The kids actually slept in till about 7 which is good for them. Then we got up and unwrapped all the gifts. Here are pictures of what the kids got. Corey somehow missed getting a picture of Lexie with her stuff.

Logan with his presents.

Lexie got My First Dollhouse with all the rooms and then a bunch of Little Pet Shop stuff. She also got a cute princess doll with matching crown that she wears all the time. If you look on her Pj's she is wearing a Hannah Montana pin. She got it with her lip balm in her stocking and she goes around singing her songs all the time. Wait how old is she, only 3?

Here is Gabe with his presents. Notice how Corey mad him do up his bottom buttons on his PJ's. I sure hope that he doesn't want to be a Chip N Dale when he gets older.

And just as a side note. I got Corey some Xbox PJ bottoms and his big present was a new pair of NICE golf shoes. Corey usually buys the 30 dollar pair, but I got him a really nice one for Christmas. In fact, today it is supposed to be 70 degrees so Corey is going to go golfing and try them out. Corey really surprised me this year. I open this present and it is a pair of boxing gloves. I was so excited. He bought me this super nice boxing bag and speed bag stand. It is really big and so we have to make room in our garage for it. But I took some boxing lessons in Phoenix and I loved them right away. But I don't have access to a punching bag anywhere. So after I have the baby I am going to jump right on that. It was the best present to date I must say. I will take a picture of it when we get it all set up in the garage.

I hope that everyone had a great Christmas and I can't wait to see every one's post.

What have I been up to?

Since there are no pictures posted, you can guess what I have been up to....nothing. I think the days are dragging and nothing eventful is happening because I am so focused on Christmas getting here. I keep thinking it will be here soon enough, but with the kids out of school I am going crazy. How do I maintain my sanity during summer? The boys are so hyped up they wrestle all over the house and Lexie just likes to pester them to be included. So I end up breaking up matches and sending kids to their rooms. If it was so stinkin cold outside I would kick them out. But at least Corey starts his vacation tomorrow so he gets to be home all day. And for some reason it takes a lot of the pressure off of me. Just him being there I know he will intervene when the kids get out of hand. Hopefully I will take some pictures soon. Maybe tomorrow depending on what we do. Corey has some home projects that he needs to finish up. You never know when you will need to sell your house and with ours being an older home you always wonder if it is up to par to sell.



At this point I am mainly grateful for Netflix's streaming movies thru Corey's Xbox 360. I can watch any movie I want automatically plus it can save me from the kids if they need to calm down for a little bit.



I also bet you are wondering why I have this photo in the middle of my post. Well this is the hair style that I want to try and add the color as well. I love it on her. I don't know how it will look on me, and I am not doing it right now. Due to the fact that I have fat face and as a rule I have learned never to go dramatic while pregnant. But I think I will keep this as my reward when I lose my baby weight after. (Hey Sally, this is what I was talking about. What do you think?)

Book Review

I thought I would share with you what I thought of the book The Shack. My mom gave it to me to read after she read it. After reading the back I was thinking along the lines of murder mystery and you have to admit the cover also goes along with my thinking. But the farther I got into the book, the more I realized what a deep read this was. I have heard from people either they liked it a lot, or they lost interest and stopped reading. I can't say that I lost interest but the most moving parts for me were toward the end of the book. There are many things in here that I completely agree with. No matter what religion you are, you can improve yourself I think from reading this and applying some of it to yourself. I found myself feeling embarrassed, as I thought of how hard it is for me to forgive people for small things like offending me. So in all I have to say I really enjoyed this book. So thanks mom for giving it to me to read and I would recommend it for someone to read.

30 weeks and no school

If you live here in Tulsa you pretty much know what I am about to gripe about. Yesterday and yes again today they have cancelled school. How did I survive the summer? I feel like we all have the worst cabin fever imaginable. I can't even let the kids play outside because it is just too dang cold. We don't have the snow suits that you usually purchase living up north. I know I still see kids out playing, but I am very sensitive to cold and just the thought of them out there makes me cringe. So yesterday we were stuck inside all day long. How do woman do home school? Then of course they cancelled again today. But the roads are a little better today. I plan on going over to a friends to at least break up the monotony. Maybe this is just a sign that we need a bigger house.

And as a second thought I have finally reached 30 weeks along. The home stretch should I say. Sorry no picture of me at this point. I only do 4 week intervals so you will have to wait two more weeks. But I feel really great. Round, but great. I still get up every morning to walk my two miles and then do yoga at night. If I don't do it, I honestly feel even crappier. I feel huge already and knowing if I go to 40 weeks that is just another 10 weeks of growth. This month has gone fast so if I can just get through January I think I will be great. I always hear people say enjoy the pregnancy. I just keep thinking what part? I will enjoy it when it is over and I get to hold my baby and get my coordination back.

Stop Growing

This was just a thought as I am sitting here at the computer. Logan got brand new Converse shoes in August for school. It only took him 4 months to break his shoes so he had to get new ones. I have heard of wearing shoes out, but breaking them? Leave it to a boy to figure this out. So I head to my favorite store Khol's and I guess all the boys in Coweta wear Sketchers, so we search these out and I find his size in the shoe he wants. He tries them on and tells me they feel funny. What does that mean exactly? I am not sure myself. I am trying to feel his toe and the shoe is so thick I can't feel anything. To my surprise a worker who was in the shoes breaks out whatever that thing is called that measures your feet. Now that I look back I am so glad that he was there and suggested it. He had grown one whole shoe size in four months. I was shocked. Not just a half, but a whole size!!! So I got the next size up and sure enough Logan said they felt much better. I am not even going to mention the fact that his jeans are getting higher and higher up on his legs. Another couple of inches and he will be sporting high waters. You feel helpless when you have one child you can't seem to keep clothes on and your daughter who can't seem to graduate to the next size. At least the money I would have spent to buy Lexie new clothes I can swing over to compensate for Logan's mammoth spurts.

I finally get a new dryer!!

If you read my letter to Santa, you remember that I mentioned the need for a new dryer. Well Corey mentioned getting me one for Christmas as my present and I directed him to the email about being in the dog house. If our dryer were to go out at anytime, we would have to buy one anyway. I no longer accept house appliances as gifts during Christmas. So Corey found a brand new dryer online through Craigslist. This dryer has never been used, and the guy who sold it got a good deal because it got a small scratch during shipping to the store. So he buys slightly damaged appliances and sells them for half the price. This new dryer sells for around 800 in the stores, but we got it for 300. We were so excited. The store was located in Arkansas, so we paid a little extra to have it shipped straight to our house. It was well worth it. I have used it twice today and I LOVE it. Plus I still get a present on Christmas from Corey.

This is our old dryer. I think it is from the 80's. I am not sad about saying good-bye.

My new dryer which I love love love.

Where did I go wrong?

So I get a call from Logan's school yesterday saying that Logan had informed them that his Dad passed away last night. They were concerned and called to see if they could help in anyway. I was thrown for a loop. I explained that everything was fine and I apologized. Thinking this was the end to this episode, I get a call today from Logan's teacher telling me all these horrible things he has been doing in school. At home he doesn't seem that bad!! But then again I think I instill fear into my kids and that might have something to do with it. Knowing that his teacher can't be too dangerous he might hold less regard for her consequences. But he won't stop talking in class and then she said he is aggressive on the playground and in gym class. I just couldn't believe that Logan was being rough with his peers. But I guess these are parents last words right! I think half the problem with the aggression is when he plays with the older neighborhood boys they all play rough all the time. So I had to ground him from playing with the boys in our neighborhood until we can resolve these issues. Plus he has to get good marks on his talking every week or else there will be consequences. I always feel like a referee with my kids. They are always fighting, yelling and teasing. Does anyone have any ideas for discipline? I am about ready to try anything at this point. Do they still do shock therapy?

It could be nesting, I don't know!!

So yesterday I decided the boy's room needed some revamping. If you have seen it before you know that I had sports border around the room and had painted stripes under the border. Well the boys had decided to pick at the border in random spots so it was looking really bad. Plus the walls were looking grimy. I needed to do something with it. So I yesterday I stripped the border, which took all morning. Then I painted over the stripes and did one wall blue as an accent. I don't know if I like it or not. But it literally took me all day to do and I had to crawl out of the bedroom by the time it was finished. I always forget that I am huge pregnant and I tend to try to do things like I used to. My friend Danielle claims I am nesting. This may be true, but I don't think I will tackle anything else until after baby comes. I hope this isn't how you feel when you get old. I will post pictures later of the finished room when I actually do that. There is still some touch-ups and I have to find some decor for the bare walls. I was going to do my bedroom next month, but after what I felt yesterday I don't think I will.

Why the cold?

With my past pregnancies I can remember at least one cold that I held onto and couldn't shake. Well I should have known better than to think this time would be any different. I picked up a head cold from somewhere and now I can't shake it. It could be worse true, but I am always congested anyways, add a cold and my nose is basically useless. Plus I have the nice sore throat to go with it. At least Corey sympathises because he also has the head cold. I am hoping that I can shake it soon, because I sleep even less when my nose is stuffed and my throat hurts.

Cookies

I found this new recipe online for Christmas cookies. I was a little scared since there is no butter involved. How can a cookie taste good without the butter? So I decided to give it a try. Main ingredients are basically olive oil and brown sugar. Plus all the yummy mix in's. I was pleasantly surprised on how they turned out. They are really filling and it almost makes you think you are eating a meal more than a cookie. I really like them, but how can you not like cranberries and dark chocolate together?

Holiday Cranberry Chocolate Chip Cookies (from H.E.B.)

1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour (Ultra Grain) or all purpose

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 scant teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup brown sugar, packed

2 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup EACH dried cranberries, chocolate chips or chunks (good ones)

1/2 cup toasted pecan pieces

1/2 cup shredded coconut (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment.
Sift together the flour and baking powder and set aside. Stir in the salt (it doesn’t always go through the sifter).

Beat olive oil and brown sugar using an electric mixer on high speed for 3 minutes. Beat in the eggs and vanilla on medium speed (about 1 minute). Add the sifted flour 1/2 cup at a time and stir by hand until mixed. Stir in chocolate chips, cranberries and nuts.

Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto prepared cookie sheets. Bake the cookies for 15 minutes or until golden brown (at least around edges).

Makes about 2 ½ dozen cookies

Thursday Journal Jar

Write a Letter to Santa.

Dear Santa,

There are so many things that I could ask for that I don't really need. I have been really blessed in my life at this point and to ask for all the material things I would want seems really shallow. It would be so much easier if I was a little girl of 5, a barbie doll or some dress up clothes. But since I am 29, I will ask for what I would want the most in my life right now.

I would want what every mom wants, for my children and husband to be completely happy and secure in their lives. I want my kids to know that I love them absolutely. That they mean everything to me and that I will always be there for them to give them hugs and kiss away their tears. I want my husband to be happy in our marriage. I want him to accomplish all his goals for us as a family and him personally. I find when my kids are happy and laughing and when my husband smiles and says he loves me and is content that my life is complete.

So please ignore the request for a dryer that will actually start every time and will dry in one cycle.

Yours Truly,
Kory Esquibel

Random Thoughts

So I love this time of year. All the lights and cooler temperatures. I love when my house feels all Christmasy and the kids seem to get extra excited when we pull the tree out. This year Corey actually helped with the setting up and I don't know if he will return next year or not. I don't think he realized how difficult the kids can be when you mix excitement and a Christmas tree. It took so long that I actually had to finish decorating the next day. Plus I had to adjust most of the ornaments because they were located too low to the ground. But now I am officially ready for the red guy to make his appearance.

Today I went to grab my vacuum, oh how I love to vacuum. I just love how your carpet looks so nice and clean after you are done. Well I have noticed that the suction on my new vacuum has been weaning so I decided to investigate. Well 10 screws and a lot of dirt later I found the problem. The hose was totally clogged shut. And my luck, it was located right in the middle of it. So I had to get creative to get it out. I finally just kept shoving my broom handle until I got the clog close enough to start digging it out. It took me about 45 minutes to resurrect my vacuum, but now I can actually clean instead of just throwing stuff around. There were some interesting stuff caught in the hose. I guess I can't just suck up everything in my path. Some larger article need to be hand picked up. And just when I thought I had it too easy.

And as a last note of thought, I just absolutely love cottage cheese. I know most people abhor it unless it is cooked in a recipe, but I could just sit down with a container and go to town. Add some fruit and then I am really set to go. It almost is as good as ice cream, but notice I said all most.