Considering restarting the blog

So i'm considering starting again on here. Feel free to vote yea or nay.

The Ultrasound Sneak Peek

IT'S A BOY!!!! Very exciting (and Lucy's getting pretty excited, too, even though she really wanted a sister; she's confidant the third baby will be a girl).

Ultrasound--Coming Soon!

In two weeks, I'll have an ultrasound to check on the baby...and we decided that we're going to find out what we're having. It breaks our tradition (Lucy was a surprise!), but we're quite a bit poorer this time around since Chris is in school. After two weeks, I'll either be buying baby boy clothes' at yard sales, or go get baby clothes from my parents' to wash in the laundry.

But before I let myself start doing pre-baby laundry and getting ahead of myself, we'll be switching Lucy's room with the third bedroom that's been the pantry/craft workshop (in reality, it's been more of a dumping ground--it's pure chaos). But I'm so excited to find out! I had bought tons of pink fabric about a year ago to make curtains for Lucy, and I hadn't done it yet, and now I'll feel (a little) bad if we have a boy and the kids' room (I can say "KIDS" now!) is all pink.

May 12th is the big day!

I know I haven't blogged for a while, but I had to wait

What I've been going through lately, has been underwraps, and there just hasn't been really anything else to write about, but now it's time to write, proclaim to the world...that....

I'M PREGNANT!!

Yes, I've been sick. Yes, I've had constant nausea. Yes, I'm feeling better now. And yes, I'm EXCITED!!!

Baby #2 is due 15 October. I am 12 weeks along now, and I just retrieved my maternity pants from my parents' attic because my pants are starting to get pinchy.

My appointment in the beginning of May is when we'll find about the baby's sex. Lucy was a surprise, but this time, there's less cash flow and I want to make good use of yard sales this summer. That's just how it goes when you're husband is in school and the baby will be born after yard sale season.

I think I'll throw myself a party.

Ice Storm 2009--The Ugly Side of It

Here's a neighbor a few doors down.

These are the trees behind our next door neighbor.

Broken trees on the main street in our neighborhood.

My favorite tree in my neighborhood destroyed!

Besides tree destruction, there was also widespread power outages. We only had our power out for about three days (we like winter camping, and I was a little bummed to go back to normal), while some people we know like my parents are still without power (today is day 16 for them) because of damage to power poles.

Fortunately, the ice and snow cam on Tuesday and Wednesday--by the weekend we had 50 degree temperatures, and it's been relatively warm since, a couple of days hit 70 degrees. The storm was quick and brutal, but it has been a great blessing that the Lord has sent warmer weather for the area to defrost. This was good experience in emergency preparedness.

Ice Storm 2009--The Pretty Side of It

Here's the nice layer of ice that blanketed our area. This piece I scraped from the driveway.

Lucy hard at work. I was shoveling the drive to have an ice-free zone for our charcoal grill for cooking.

Here's the front of our house. Beautiful isn't it?

It's a rare treat to get to play in the snow in Kentucky. There's always plenty of ice, but only a couple of times during the winter is there enough snow accumulation to play in.

Grass icicles in my front yard.

A Beautiful View of Our Clothesline.

It iced and then snowed on January 27th and 28th. Very Pretty. But there was an ugly side.

One of My Favorite Blessings...

...is Lucy. What an amazing combination of traits that makes up her personality. I wrote on her blog about being head butted by her accidentally and her sweet compassion that came out in that event. It's incredible to see her grow and learn. She has grown since her birthday as evidenced by increasing shortness to her clothes. She talks all about growing, and getting bigger these days, and she looking forward to it. And as she grows bigger, I think about how we would love to have another baby, and then that in turn makes me so much more thankful that we have her smiley, bouncing body jumping around the house.

So many things to be grateful for. So many ways the Lord has blessed me. Lucy is just one.

A Summary

So keeping up a blog recently has been too much for me. I seemingly don't have that much to do, but then I count up everything and, well, it all adds up. Since I haven't written a post for quite a while, I'm going to summarize:

Right before Thanksgiving, Chris's brother and his family came into the area from Texas. Chris's sister-in-law is from Marion, IL, one hour north. We were quite glad for the opportunity for Lucy to play with cousins.

We needed to take family pictures for Christmas presents to Chris's parents, so we all went downtown in Paducah for some nice backgrounds.

Our successful family portrait--we went through a few photos until we picked out the one that we liked best. Thank goodness for digital.

The beginning of our trip to Utah. Lucy and I got to tag along with my parents. We left the day after Thanksgiving.

Lucy watches WALL-E with her cousin, Jaden, son of Chris's brother, Steven.

The whole reason Lucy and I got to go to Utah--my sister, Denise, had a reception to celebrate her marriage to Cody Dunne (sorry, Cody, that your picture didn't make it in here--but you're on facebook!)

We got to go to Temple Square in Salt Lake City.
We didn't get to spend much time at Temple Square, but the time we did, was great family time.

Lucy with her Grandma Bobbee.

Lucy and her cousin, Camden, son of Chris's sister, Susan. We played at Chuck E. Cheese.

When we came home from Utah, Chris surprised me with a piano. It was given to him by a mom of one of my friends. Thanks, Caroline! When I saw it, I cried--First time I have ever cried at a surprise. There's a first for everything.

Mid-December, we had our first snow for the winter season. Our driveway is a hill and Chris showed Lucy one of the many uses of a snow shovel.

Lucy helps put away her panties. She saw Cinderella carry stuff on her head and Lucy was quite proud of her tried posture.

The Christmas Party of the Ruth Johnson School of Dance.

I made cookie baskets for Christmas presents. There's something magical about a stockpot full of chocolate chip cookies.

Chris and I took a nap, and Lucy decided to eat some powdered sugar... with a cookie scoop...on my yoga mat...on the couch.

Christmas Eve was spent at my parents' house. We had quite a group, even if it was just a small portion of the Harris family.

Lucy got her first makeover from Aunt Denise on Christmas Eve.

For the first time, we put out cookies for Santa. Not because we really wanted to, but because someone asked Lucy about it right before we got home to go to sleep for Christmas Eve sleep. Sorry, we just weird about what Christmas traditions we want to do.

Makeover #2 on Christmas Day. Again, compliments of Aunt Denise.

Lucy tried out an icing bucket.

At our New Year's Day Party, Queen Lucy asked one of our guests to arrest someone and bring them before her. Donielle got arrested, and was thrilled at the prospective of being a subject to Queen Lucy.

Beginning of January, we said goodbye to our friends, Cat & Bethany, as they move to Washington. We'll miss them, but with Facebook, there are no goodbye's.

At Cat & Bethany's farwell party, Lucy went around to a few tables and made still-life setups (which she did photograph) with her Barbie and Ken dolls.

There's the summary of our holidays and in-between adventures!!

Coming Soon!

I'll write soon about Christmas and New Year's Adventures...just to show that I really will maintain this blog.

Diverted Tragedy

This is a serious entry. Not much humor to the situation, but a good lesson in being prepared and increasing knowledge of dangers. With that said, here's what happened Friday night:

I notice an off-smell in the house. It seems stronger when the furnace kicks on, but I can tell it is somewhere around the bedrooms and bathroom. It is a familiar smell, yet just slight enough that I can't place it.

Closer to Lucy's bedtime, while we get ready for teeth brushing and the last opportunity to potty, I notice the smell is stronger. I check the bathroom. I check our diaper pail. We use cloth diapers and only need them at night now, so I rinse them out in the morning and chuck them in the pail where they wait for diapers to join them before making the trip to the washing machine. No, it's not the diaper pail, but to make sure, I rinse the diapers again.

Time for bed. The smell is stronger, but not overwhelming. Just there. Such a familiar smell. Plastic?? Hmm. I figure out it is coming from Lucy's room, but everything looks normal. No weird things hiding under the bed, and a quick glance around the room reveals nothing strange in the corners. Maybe the smell will go away; it's not too strong.

Chris gets home from the dance studio. It's 10:30pm. I'm exhausted and already in a hot tub to relax from the day. Lucy hears Chris come in, and pounces on him. Now Chris smells the odd smell. It's for sure in Lucy's room. He thinks it smells electric. I think it smells like hot plastic. Chris looks around for the source. I settle back and enjoy reading from my copy of the recent General Conference. Lucy follows Chris.

Shortly, I hear Chris exclaim, "Oh! Oh!"
"What is it, Chris?" I call.
"Oh! Oh!"
"Chris?! What is it?!" There's an impatient edge in my voice.
Chris comes in the bathroom and explains what he found.

Our house is old, and was built sometime in the 1950's, and there are some features that we wish were different, but that's just how houses were built then. Like say, for example, the wiring. In Lucy's room, her bed is up against a wall which has a electric outlet. This outlet decided to have problems. It melted the face plate, and started to melt Lucy blanket which was pushed up against it. One of the wires inside the outlet was red hot. Thank goodness for flame retardant material.

So that is our reminder that God is mindful of us, and we have much to be grateful for despite difficult circumstances. I am so thankful that Chris knew what to look for because I didn't know. I'm glad (this time) that Lucy came out of her bedroom after bedtime, otherwise Chris might not have smelled the odor and investigated further than me. And I am so grateful that we caught it before it became a fire.

How horrified I was last night. A fire almost started in my child's room. My only child. I felt almost sick at what could have happened.

So, for conclusion sake, there is little damage as far as we can tell. We turned off the breaker to her room and I'll give a call to the rental office on Monday to report it. A repairman will come and fix it, yet another thing to be grateful for--the rental office and staff here are wonderful to work with and very responsive. I'll be price shopping for a fireproof box for important documents. And have a Family Home Evening in which we plan out for emergencies like this.

So, everyone, please plan for emergencies such as this could have been. If you smell hot plastic, check all of your outlets. Be familiar with other warning signs that indicate dangers. Have home or renters' insurance. Know where your important documents are and have them easily retrievable. Make a list of things you would want to rescue and have them where you can grab them along with your shoes when you're running out. Inventory your house with lists and video for insurance purposes. We have done some of these things, but the rest now on my to do list. You just never know when you'll need to already be prepared.

Here's what we found behind Lucy's bed.

Scary electric outlet.

Damage to Lucy's bedspread.

This is a bad picture, but you get the idea of the damage to the faceplate.