Black Cats

So the pregnancy insomnia has begun!  I have been waking up between 5 and 6 every morning and can't fall back asleep.  I usually don't get up until 7 so this is rather frustrating.  Therefore, I have been taking advantage of the extra hour to get paperwork done.  I also get a lot of inspiration from my blog during the early morning hours.

I have reached a point in my pregnancy where I'm feeling a little bit more comfortable that everything will be ok.  Random people on the street are asking me when I'm due which means I'm finally starting to show.  I do feel bigger earlier on during this pregnancy.  I have also started to feel the baby move around which is very reassuring.  It was probably a month later into the pregnancy before I finally felt Lorena move, which is typical for a first pregnancy.  I'm currently 18 weeks pregnant with Baby girl.

18 weeks

I'm a rather superstitious person.  If I see a penny heads up, I have to pick it up.  If I go in one door of a house, I like exiting out of the same door.  I don't like having umbrellas open in the house and I always throw salt over my shoulder if I happen to spill it.  I've broken a lot of mirrors in my 29 years and don't want to break anymore.  Apparently my Grandma Seely was like this.  Mom told me that if Grandma (she died when I was 1 so I never had the chance to meet her) put her panty hose or undergarments on inside out, she would wear them like that all day because it was bad luck to turn them right side in.  Sometimes I feel like if something has happened in the past, it will happen again if I follow the same sequence of activities leading up to the event.  Dan thinks I'm nuts.  I have done a few things in this pregnancy that I thought I would have a hard time during this time around.  First, I went into Motherhood Maternity a few weeks ago and second I bought a maternity dress this week.  I went into Motherhood Maternity when I was 26 weeks pregnant with Lorena and bought the cutest maternity dresses.  Everyone knows what happened just a week after that.  I had to take the dresses back to the store after I had her because obviously I wouldn't need them anymore.  I'm not saying that just because I went into a certain store and bought a dress, I will go into labor.  But the thought did cross my mind.

 As Christians I know we are supposed to give our worries up to God in the form of prayer.  Worry does nothing but bring us down.  I also know that in reality superstitions aren't real.  Why is this so hard for me?  Does anybody else struggle with this?  Perhaps this is why God put me with Dan.  He doesn't have a bone in his body that would ever worry about anything.  Dan does reassure me that everything will be ok, no matter what happens in the future.  He also is good about reminding me to be positive.  He also does think I'm crazy, but I'm using hormones as the current excuse for my behavior.

I have also seen a lot of black cats recently, and a few have even crossed in front of my car as I'm driving (this is a huge red flag for us superstitious people!).  Everything is still fine though so I'm hoping this is just God's way of telling me that all of these superstitions are nuts and that I just need to finally trust him.

Our Snow Day Tradition

Saturday night we had our first real snow of the year.  It continued through Sunday afternoon but tapered off by nightfall.  I would estimate we had 3 or 4 inches. 

This was the good kind of snow.  It didn't mess up our daily lives too much.  Daily chores moved a little bit slower due to the snow but no one really seemed to mind.  In North Central Kansas, we take all the moisture we can get!  Other than Harvestore (the big silo where we keep some of our cattle feed) malfunctions, tractors needing extra TLC to start, and pond water needing broken to get cows water, things worked like clockwork.

Watching Daddy clean off the porch after church

I know on snowy days like this I won't see Dan all day.  He reserves these days for "shop days" to work on his many projects.  He is currently taking a part his new to him 4-wheeler.  He always has to modify every peice of equipment to "make it work better."  He gets this from his dad Ernie...there is always room for improvement in their eyes.

I'm on the road a lot for work during the week, so on weekends I don't like going anywhere if I don't have to.  Since I knew Dan would be MIA all day, Lorena and I had a lazy day inside cooking and watching movies.

She doesn't look as happy as I do

We don't have a ton of traditions like some couples but we do have one special tradition we started the first winter we were married.  The winter of 2009-2010 was such a snowy winter.  In the middle of November 2009 we had a horrible ice and snow storm that literally snapped most of the power lines in the county.  We were without power for almost a week.  Luckily we had a wood stove to stay warm and a generator to run our appliances.  That winter I made Dan homemade chocolate cookies every time it snowed.  This contributed to my weight gain our first year of marriage (like I said it snowed a lot that winter!).  So now Dan has decided that every time we have a measurable snow, he must have homemade chocolate chip cookies.  I always use the recipe on the back of the Nestle Tollhouse Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chip bag...it can't be beat!

Lorena helping me in the kitchen

The finished product.

Exciting News about Hiesterbaby

It's been way too long since I blogged last.  We finally finished harvest on November 16.  It was a pretty average year overall.  Soybeans and corn were about average and grain sorghum was above average.  Our biggest problem this year was getting the crop out of the field, especially the grain sorghum.  The crops stayed wet due to the fall moisture which we are very thankful for.  I've been in Kansas for 5 years and this is the first year in my memory that we have used the dryer on the grain bin.  We usually take our crops to the elevator in town but this year due to the high moisture we decided to dry the crop with our dryer and put it in our bin.  Also the corn and grain sorghum price is in the tank right now so we decided to store some on the farm until the price increases (which probably won't happen). 

 

Like I mentioned earlier, I have been a Kansas resident for almost 5 years.  I moved here in December 2008 the day after I got my Masters Degree from Purdue University.  I can't say that all the days have been easy.  I do miss my Illinois family and friends.  I do like it in Kansas though.  I'm glad Dan is from Washington County and made me move here!  Everyone has been so nice and welcoming over the past few years...it's meant a lot to me.

 

Lorena has been getting into everything recently.  We had Halloween and she was a bee. 

 

 

 

She also helped with harvest.  She loved riding in the grain truck.  She is a true farmgirl.

Had to get a picture of my hubby driving the grain truck.  I know I'm weird, but I think he is hot!

Lorena has done a few new things the past month.  She had her first hospital stay a few weeks ago.  She has had several ear infections and came down with bronchitis.  She was hospitalized for about 24 hours to be under a mist tent and get breathing treatments every 3 hours.  We came home with the mist tent and are still running vaporizers in her room, but she is back to her normal self.  She also started walking on her own in Mid-November.  She started with just a few steps, but now she can almost walk down the hallway by herself.  She also switched away from a bottle and uses a modified sippy cup now.  I hate to admit but I had been really worred about her not walking and using a bottle for a few months now.  I guess I just needed to let her do things on her own!  Preemies do things when they want and on their own schedule.  She loves to climb on chairs and on the shelves of the refrigerator.  We also had a fun visit with Auntie Maria over Thanksgiving.

 

 

We had an ultrasound today. I'm approximately 16 1/2 weeks and so far so good.  Hiesterbaby is a girl!  Dan was preparing for another girl (he had predicted Lorena was a girl too) so he wasn't too surprised when they said it's a girl.  He just said, "I knew it."  We just pray for a healthy full term baby.  Dan is going to be way outnumbered. :-)