Better get busy!

I know it's been a while - again - and I know I keep saying it, but I'm really trying to make an effort to schedule my blogging in.  There are SO MANY things I would love to share other than just on facebook, so many things I think could be helpful to others if only I could get them put in writing.

Many of my friends warn me that maybe I need to slow down a little bit and take a step back from some of the things I'm doing.  I know it would be crazy to bite off any more right now!  

My appointments for Baby are currently bi-weekly.  Can't believe Tuesday will put me at 20 weeks!!  19 more to go!!  It's no fun having gestational diabetes, pricking my finger 4 times a day (when I remember to do it!), taking pills 2 times per day, and closely monitoring my food (most of the time!! lol!!)  I'm having my A1C tested again on Monday.  My 2 hours post-meal blood sugars are coming back fine, but my fasting is still too high.  Doc said I may end up on insulin injections before the end of my pregnancy.  Because of the diabetes, I was also told that I will not be going to my due date, which is April 1.  If I don't go on my own before, I'm going to be induced during my 39th week.  That means March 25th or later.  Beau is really hoping for earlier.  She wants to share her birthday with her little "sister" on March 24.  (Or so she says - we're not finding out what we're having :) )  The concern of going to my due date is having too big of a baby.  Hopefully he/she isn't too big!!  And hopefully my VBAC goes without a hitch!  Monday afternoon my hubby and I are going in for my next ultrasound.  Can't wait to see the little stinker who's been kicking me :)

Homeschooling has been a little bit trying lately.  Scrappy has very interest in his spelling words, yet he loves trying to read to me.  Last weekend he read book 9 of Cat and Rat to me - such a proud Mommy moment!!  I try explaining that the more spelling words he learns, the more he's going to be able to read.  I don't spend much time focusing on sight words - I'd rather he knows how to spell them out.  We've also been working on basic addition and starting on subtraction.  He does really well with his shapes, colors, and number.  Sometimes, though, it's just hard to get him to focus because he is too busy wanting to do other things.  I try to get at least 20 minutes, if not an hour, of reading in most days.  I signed him up for the Book It! program through Pizza Hut.  We set a goal of 480 minutes per month, or 8 hours.  I've been working on a lot of hands-on learning stuff with him.  Last week we made butter from heavy cream.  It was a learning experience for both of us.

Got our heavy cream, jar, and lid.

Filling the jar about half full.

Making sure we have the right amount.

Put the lid on and shake, shake, shake!!

Our first attempt was with cold cream which, of course, resulted in - WHIPPED CREAM.  After shaking for 20 minutes, we realized we weren't getting any butter, so Google to the rescue! Missed one important step - the cream had to be brought to room temperature :)  Our next batch turned out better, although it still wasn't quite right, but was really good on bread with our goulash at supper time! 

We have a whole bunch of other fun projects we're planning on.  We're using the book Colonial Kids: An Activity Guide to Life in the New World for our current lessons. (Have I mentioned how much I LOVE the public library??)  I got about a dozen books about Thanksgiving, Pilgrims, and Colonial times, along with some other 'fun reading' books.  We try to get to the library about once a week, and this week we got the closest we ever have to the book limit.  We have 45 of a possible 50 books checked out!  To try to keep track of them, I try to return any we've read any time my husband or I will be going by the library.  I'm glad they have a drop box because they aren't open Friday or Saturday and only open a couple hours on Sunday.  I'm going to try to post more of these as we go!!

Of course, every week I still have my TOPS meetings.  And I LOVE my TOPS group :)  A few of my friends there are a little bit concerned about my lack of weight gain with this pregnancy.  Lack of weight gain?  I should say, with my weight LOSS.  At almost 20 weeks, I am down about 13 pounds right now.  My doctors aren't concerned since we have frequent ultrasounds.  I wouldn't be too sad if it keeps up either!  I'm less than 10 pounds from my lowest TOPS weight so far.  I'm going to try really hard to keep it off this time!  We have group walks scheduled 2x per week.  I try to get to them.  I hope to make it to more of them and hoping we get the stroller fixed.  One of the tires won't hold air, but I can't find the leak.  Hopefully hubby can fix it soon!

Every other week I'm busy with Girl Scouts still.  I'm a little disappointed with a few of the girls I have because it doesn't seem like they all want to be there and they don't want to put in the effort.  At the level I teach, the girls are responsible for completing their own badges.  They can do as many of as few badges as they want.

Then there's my business.  When I'm not doing one of the above (or even when I am), I'm usually working on something or another for work.  I'm really loving working for myself - REALLY for myself and not doing direct sales and only getting paid a fraction.  Plus at craft shows/vendor fairs, people want the instant gratification of getting their items immediately and I'm able to take custom orders so people get exactly what they want.  So far so good - I'm just hoping over the next couple shows I do that business takes off a little bit more.  I'm still working on building up my inventory a bit and feeling people out for what they are looking for and what is going to sell well.

Scrappy just finished these projects a few minutes ago.

I think it's time we do a bit of reading now.  Mama's gotta get some meal planning done too....