Waiting, resting and nesting

I'm just a week away from my due date but I've learned that doesn't mean much, our babies have arrived in a range from two weeks early to two weeks late.  I'm trying to find a balance between being overly prepared and impatient, and having to frantically rush around the house unprepared in the early stages of labor. I've experienced both.  So here is a record of week 38 and how we passed the time.

The girls have kept me laughing practicing their yoga partner poses.  These are from their yoga pretzel cards  and they had me laughing even harder as they pulled out a card and suggested I attempt it with our favorite neighbor Beth who was visiting.  

  

We also visited a newborn horse at a neighboring farm.  

And gave lots of attention to this mare who is due to give birth any day now..... I felt a kinship.  

We then celebrated George's 2nd birthday.  He doesn't really look like himself with blisters still healing from the hand foot mouth virus.  He also has really puffy eyes from lack of sleep, and his lack of sleep = lack of sleep for me which put me in no mood to sew a felt birthday crown (I may let that tradition keep to itself in 2011).  Thank you Maryanna for putting the stickers and construction paper to good use!  We celebrated simply with lots of hugs and happy birthday singing.   Besides a few new trains what more could a 2 year old boy want?   

Here is a better picture taken just a week before on Peter's birthday.   This boy seems to always be in his jammies and always getting into food.  

Somewhere along the week I persuaded the boys to help me clean out the homeschool room closet.  In the process they rediscovered zometool and have been building ever since.

Maryanna's been helping me "stock" up.  We made chicken stock, beef stock, batch of falafels x4, batch of waffles x5, muffins, and ziplock baggies of rice pilaf.  And washed a lot of dishes.

Martin Luther King day was a major clean up day.  While Paul was off with the younger children at Costco the older ones helped me wash windows, scrub the tub, mop the floors and even vacuum under the beds.  Their reward was to pick out a new mural from art projects for kids, they picked Kandinsky's circles.  

I also got Paul to finally hang a pile of pictures.  I'm still waiting for the growth chart to go up and for him to also finish some shelves and put together the co-sleeper and fix the side gate..... the list could go on but there is something about the last weeks of pregnancy that really pushes projects.

 I also realized here that the younger children are unfairly represented on our wall, Henry pointed it out to me as well. 

And finally our second batch of paper whites popped.  Our first batch we planted the first week of December and I told the kids Christmas would be here when the paper whites bloomed - and it worked with perfect timing.  This second batch was planted only 3 weeks ago and I told them the baby would be here when they bloomed.  But this winter has been unusually warm and it looks like they popped before I did.  They smell yummy and it seems the girls have been keeping their room unusually tidy since they've bloomed.    

Not sure what next week holds, we've got plans but also the plan to break plans.  One thing is sure, I'm experiencing a strange aversion to the sewing machine right now so the list of sewing projects I planned to keep me busy before the baby may not happen.  Maybe it's time to pick up the knitting needles or paint brush again.........or maybe I'll just sit and do nothing.  Which might be a good idea since week 38 was pretty busy.