The time has come

When Dan and I were in the beginning of our garden journey this year we talked about the realities of planting a large garden and the considerable tending it would take. We also talked about how very pregnant I was going to be by the end of the growing season. We both knew full well that there would come a time where my garden tending would end. That time my friends, has come. It has been a REALLY hot summer here, couple that with my growing belly and now growing back pain and I just have no desire to be outside pulling weeds or watering. Thank goodness August seems to have brought slightly cooler temps and hallelujah.....RAIN!! That's the only reason I have anything growing in the garden at all. At this point I'm going to leave the garden mostly to nature and harvest anything that grows and maybe water if there are too many days between rains, but that's it folks.

As of right now, the corn is done, cucumbers done, squash done, beans done, cantaloupe done, carrots done, and half of my tomato plants are done, but mostly from neglect and heavy winds that knocked them over and snapped their stalks. I have swiss chard growing pretty well, roma and cherry tomatoes, eggplant, bell peppers, basil, sweet potatoes, watermelon and raspberries. I might have some onions too, but they are underground so it's hard to tell. I find it really strange that my raspberries are fruiting again! Granted I know absolutely nothing about growing berries, but they fruited with the blackberries in early summer and now they are out of control with berries again.....but my blackberries have nothing. Weird?!?

Back in June I had big plans for my fall garden but at this point I don't even know if I am going to do a fall garden. I feel like yanking everything out when it's done growing, treating the soil and then covering all of my beds over with straw for the winter. It's not going to get any easier for me to garden these next 2 months, and imagining myself with a 2 year old, a 4 year old and a brand new baby out tending to my crops seems ridiculous! But, I want to have lettuce and spinach and a few other fall crops, so I may just keep one bed up and running and see if that is more manageable. I don't really feel bad about how things turned out this growing season. It's our first real year as gardeners and I think we have been very successful! We knew our limitations going in and we're being realistic about them.....or at least I'm trying to be. I think it might be normal at the end of a gardening season to be kind of over gardening.....until mid winter when the seed catalogs start pouring in and the excitement for spring planting takes over. I'll let ya know what I decide about our fall garden!!

Raspberries bursting out.....they are so delicious!!

A ton more waiting to ripen

This is a picture of my watermelon taken 1 month ago

This is that same watermelon now!!

We have 3 of these guys growing. They are gonna be huge!!

Our cantaloupe is done, but this was one of our yummy melons!
It was so sweet and juicy.....the girls gobbled it up.

Constant supply of peppers and tomatoes

$1 bird house craft

I've been trying to keep the girls busy this summer and since it's been so stinkin' hot I've needed to come up with indoor activities. I took Maddie to the fabric store with me and she found a clearance bin with little wooden bird houses for $1. She really, really wanted to get one so I caved in.....it was $1 after all. This was a really fun and super easy craft for the girls. They spent a good hour painting their bird houses which is a great amount of time for little ones to sit still and concentrate. I've noticed that the more we paint the better they get at not getting paint all over the table and all over themselves. Charlotte still enjoys coloring on herself with marker, but I can't tell you the last time I got a picture of her with paint all on her face. Progress! They were both super excited for the paint to dry so they could hang their bird houses up, but as of right now they are sitting on our fireplace mantle......I don't want them to get ruined putting them outside in the weather. Anyone have any weather proofing ideas??

The end of a love affair

I am truly sad to say that Charlotte's love affair with her frog boots has come to an end. It was a bittersweet parting, and completely against the will of my 2 year old but alas the boots just will not fit. These frog boots were by far Charlotte's favorite shoe and worn frequently with totally non matching ensembles, but she rocked the look because there was love! We will desperately miss the frog boots but we've been told that Target may carry them......we are on the prowl for a size medium to replace our existing frog boots in flesh, but not in our hearts. No, in our hearts they will never be replaced.

Lake days

It's kind of weird writing about one of our lake trips today when it's rainy and cool outside, but I'm not gonna complain because I prefer the gloomy to lake weather at this point. We've been making trips to Jordan Lake about once a week. We wait until after nap time and pack a picnic dinner or stuff to BBQ and head out. We swim in the lake and eat dinner and enjoy ourselves until around 8:00 when the sun starts to dip low and then we take our tired selves home, wash up and hit the hay. It's a great afternoon! The girls love being at the lake, the water is super warm....almost too warm and it's really shallow so they can wade out pretty far and not feel afraid. The water is really calm and since we try and go on Friday afternoon there usually aren't many people there. Maddie has always been a little fish, but Charlotte hasn't really enjoyed the water too much unless it's in a bath tub. For whatever reason on this particular trip something changed in my youngest and she decided that the water is a fantastic place to be and I watched her go from not wanting to go in at all, to wading in with a floatie, to ditching the floatie and jumping around and floating all on her own! And now when we go to the lake she goes right in and hardly wants any assistance.....which is a tad bit scary since she is still so little, but it's nice that she is enjoying herself and her fear of the water has evaporated. I'm really proud of Maddie too because even though she has always loved the water she never wanted to get her face wet and this summer I've watched her slowly get used to the idea of going under the water and now she dunks her face in and goes under the water all on her own. I'm glad that we've never pushed our girls to do more than they felt comfortable with in the water, because lo and behold they get there eventually.....on their own time! I really enjoy our time at the lake, it may be the only thing I miss when fall eventually shows up, but we've got at least 6-8 weeks before it's too cold to visit the lake.

We're ready for the lake!

It's nice that they're at an age where they actually WANT to help

They also want to throw rocks

She's so proud of herself!

Look Ma, no floatie

Baby Schultz @ 29 weeks

I am officially in my third trimester of pregnancy! Woop-ti-do. It's exciting but at the same time I still have 11 more weeks to go and these final weeks are the most torturous. At least time seems to be passing by quickly. I remember feeling like June would never end and now it feels as though 4th of July was not that long ago and Sunday we will start August. Hopefully this trend continues and the hottest month of the year flies by! I don't necessarily feel like I'm ready to have this baby, but I am ready for fall and the two are pretty synonymous at this point. I'm ready to say adios summer!

Anyway, I had my 29 week ultrasound on Monday. Dan and the girls came with me which was nice but also hectic.....the poor ultrasound tech was about to have a heart attack if my girls didn't stop playing with things. But overall they were good and as soon as we were done seeing the baby Dan took them out to the car to watch a movie while strapped in their car seats so I could finish my apt. in peace! The short version of my ultrasound results is that my placenta is still very low. It's not covering my cervix but it's still lower than they would like although my Dr. seemed to think that it shouldn't be a big deal. I have another apt. in 4 weeks to have another ultrasound to see if there is any additional progress. I informed them that I absolutely do not want to be cut open for a c-section unless it is absolutely positively necessary and if need be I will get a second opinion......not interested in having a c-section just because it's easier and less liability for the medical profession!! My wishes are known, so now we just wait and see what happens.

It was a lot of fun seeing our little peanut. The pictures we got are no where near as clear as the fancy schmancy 4D ultrasounds that you can pay to get but this one seems more clear to me than previous ones of either Maddie or Charlotte. And let me just say that when I say little peanut it's not an accurate term because this child looks like a chunkster. The baby is measuring in the 43 percentile so he/she is not that big, but the cheeks look chubby for sure! But I wouldn't expect anything different.....we make chunky babies and I prefer it that way! :o) So here are my thoughts on what this baby looks like from these not really all that clear pictures......the face shape looks like Maddie which is my face shape, the nose also looks like Maddie which is Dan's nose but interestingly enough, Charlotte and Maddie were born with different looking noses but now their noses look very much the same. The lips are hard to tell and other than the fact that the bottom lip looks bigger than the top lip and kinda pouty which both Dan and I have I can't really tell. Overall, I don't think this baby looks anything like Maddie or Charlotte did in their third trimester ultrasounds which may mean that he/she won't look like either one of them, or it could mean that these scans aren't very accurate and this baby will look like both girls or more like one or the other in particular. That's always a fun part of having another kid.....we get to see the different ways that our genes can morph! I'm glad that our baby is growing well and I'm looking forward to seeing him/her again in 4 weeks.

The face of baby Schultz
This baby really enjoys hugging and cuddling up to my placenta so it was hard to capture the face unobstructed. And it was nearly impossible to get a profile shot. Typical! :o)

The girls like this one and point out the eyes, nose and mouth

Little (big?) baby foot

Single parent week is almost over

Our week without Daddy is quickly coming to an end.....thank goodness! I've said it before and I'll say it again, there is a reason that people are supposed to be married before they have kids. We are meant to have partners in raising children! Even if I'm home alone with the kids a majority of the time, having someone to lean on when I've reached my limit is necessary and not having Dan here all week just makes me appreciate all that he does even more! With that being said I must give props to my children.....they have been incredible all week! Maybe they instinctively know how much I can handle or maybe it was pure luck, but they have been truly amazing kids this week and I feel so very blessed that they are mine. Not what you were expecting to hear at the end of a single parent week eh?!? We've been keeping busy with free movies at the theater, playgrounds, chiropractor appointments, lunch at McDonalds, picnic dinners and swimming at the lake, painting, dressing up, the library, baking and a bit of grocery shopping. I have no idea what I'm going to do with the girls tomorrow, but at 7:00 pm we'll be at the airport to pick Daddy up and bring him home. Hooray for my week of single parenting coming to an end!

Yellow watermelon really threw the girls for a loop!
They are okay with it now, but they wouldn't eat it at first.

Painting
Surprisingly very little paint ended up ON the girls!!

This child is always wearing some type of accessory

Licking the spatula is the best part of baking

Everyday
Lights on
Lights off
Lights on
Lights off

We even fit in some cleaning!

*This photo was not taken this week.....but we did vacuum