science museum with granny and grampy

science museum, originally uploaded by ellajohn.

ella with ice cream

ella with ice cream, originally uploaded by ellajohn.

ruby::mirror

ruby::mirror, originally uploaded by ellajohn.

Here is someone you don't see every day. I'm somewhere between 28 and 30 weeks depending on which doctor is doing the math.

science fair

school science fair project, originally uploaded by ellajohn.

Ella showed her project to all eight grades plus the parents at the evening science fair. Of course the kindergarten projects were my favorite. How many books can you pile on top of an egg before it cracks? We are so proud of her. It was definitely an oya baka evening. She was explaining her "procedure" to strangers, shy but proud. She sprouted four kinds of seeds, but when it came down to what she valued as a conclusion, she wanted to talk about which sprouts tasted best and which ones colored the paper towels the prettiest colors when the seed coat opened.

rolling the dough

rolling, originally uploaded by ellajohn.

easter sunday

chocolate face, originally uploaded by ellajohn.

Eggs in egg cups :: ham biscuits, :: oyster stew :: easter baskets ::puppet shows :: a playroom cleanup ::goodwill boxes :: folding baby clothes :: john and ella churning butter :: ella talking a mile a minute ::

early spring

pensive jbp, originally uploaded by ellajohn.

how low can you go?

Third trimester. Coughing constantly. At one point this week I was actually wearing a pullup.

All I can do is laugh.

At one point I thought I was coughing up blood. (It was a nosebleed)
Then I thought I was spotting. ( It was sock lint)

whose immune system is this?

I never used to get sick, but this winter I've been a regular at our local family practice. Throw in my regular prenatal visits, the high risk clinic in the big city, and my children's germs, and I feel like I spend much of my life in a waiting room. Here in the third trimester I'm seeing the OB every two weeks, so I'm going even more often.

I passed the three hour gestational diabetes screening, but barely, so I'm going to the diabetes educator next week. Hopefully if I just avoid choking down one hundred grams of warmish orange dextrose, my blood sugar will be somewhat lower.

Now I have bronchitis. Where is my immune system? I'm going to brew a vat of green tea and watch The Wire.

failed

I failed my one hour gestational diabetes test, so I'm going to the hospital tomorrow at the crack of dawn to do the three hour test. I'm gonna fail it, so I went ahead and started the diet. I'll miss the rice.

I had GD when I was pregnant wilth Ella, but then with John I managed to pass the one hour test twice and give birth to an almost eleven pound baby.

oatmeal molasses bread

4 cups boiling water
3 cups rolled oats
7 cups all purpose flour
2 packages active dry yeast
2 tablespoons salt
4 tablespoons salad oil
1/2 cup molasses

Pour the boiling water over the oats in a large bowl and leave to cool. Stir in 2 cups of flour and the yeast. Allow to rise, uncovered, until doubled. Punch down and work in the salt, salad oil, molasses, and enough of the flour to make a smooth pliable firm dough--about ten minutes. Children cannot overknead this bread! Divide into three equal pieces and from into loaves to fit three buttered loaf tins. I brushed the top with water and pressed on some whole oats. Allow to rise again, uncovered, until doubled in bulk. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven 40 to 60 minutes or until the bread sounds hollow when removed from the tins and rapped on the top and bottom. Cool on racks before slicing.

Delicious. Forgiving. Toddler friendly. John baked some tiny tins of overkneaded dough with no salt, oil, or molasses and even they were good. I made this when the oven was half dead, and it still wasn't too bad. Today I'm making it in our new oven, and it should be fairly miraculous.

ella's friend snowboarding with a chicken

ella's friend snowboarding with a chcken, originally uploaded by ellajohn.

rainy friday

rainy friday, originally uploaded by ellajohn.

girly

ruby, originally uploaded by ellajohn.

This one was on Flickr too, but she just looks so girly that I thought I'd post it here too. Ella said, 'Mama, did you know that your insides were so lumpy?" She has Ella's lips.

miss ruby

miss ruby, originally uploaded by ellajohn.

She weighs two pounds and loves to wiggle. We didn't get many 4D pictures because she was a jumping bean who refused to show her profile, but we got what we went for, hand and lip pictures. It was short and sweet. Baby John munched on his crackers and Ella watched the screen. I kept getting a neck cramp, so I really couldn't see well. The wrinkly ultrasound tech smelled like she just smoked three packs of Marlboro reds. We got a CD of pictures to bring home as well as a DVD of the whole exam.

Earlier in the day I'd gone to our family practice to find out that I have....a cold. My blood pressure was 102 over 60, so I'm wondering if I've seen so many doctors that I can't even raise a normal blood pressure in a doctor's office. Better than the opposite, I suppose.

forest run

forest run, originally uploaded by ellajohn.

little kite

little kite, originally uploaded by ellajohn.

it pours

Now daddy has a sinus infection and I have sore throat , hacking, and general exhaustion. I can handle it as long as the kids are sleeping, but the days are like torture. I have let them watch about seven hours of pbskids today, and, oh, the guilt. I had to go over to the hospital this morning and do my one hour gestational diabetes test. The hospital is about seven minutes away so I drank the vile orange liquid, waited forty minutes or so, and then drove over. My doctor does make it easier than most by allowing a no carb breakfast, so it was not too bad.

My sweet sick husband let me take a nap this afternoon. He had one earlier. I got a funny compliment as well. "How do you do this all day?" It is just different for me. I'm not quite as exciting. Right now they are doing improvised yoga poses on a yoga mat in the kitchen.

Tomorrow I have my bonus 4 D ultraound. It is nice to be headed to one that is relatively stress free. We are planning on taking both of the children as well and making it a family event. Today I'm not even sure how many weeks pregnant I am, but Ruby is stretching her skinny little limbs from my ribs to my pubic bone. Long and strong.

typhoid ella

It was monday morning, the first day of spring break, and it weather report called for sunny and seventy. March finally. We headed out to the Jefferson National Forest for a hike and then to the playground to meet some school friends. Ella played for about twenty minutes and then sat next to me for a while and asked to go home. At first I thought that she was just tired, but we stopped by the grocery store, and she was pale and feverish. We had to go to after hours at the doctor's office, and they think she has pneumonia, perhaps as a result of the flu.

Yesterday the stove died.