I guess I do really ask a lot of questions...

...because on our way home from Houghton today I was talking to John and he said "Wow, you ask a lot of questions. I mostly just make up answers because how am I supposed to know all of this random stuff that you ask me about?"
huh.
I think I was asking him what a Dryhouse was (we passed the Dryhouse Ruin sign going up Quincy) and he didn't know. I had kind of assumed he would because hello he's lived up here his whole life and passed that sign a million times and I figured he would have asked someone. Or else maybe he would have learned tons about mining (I'm assuming that a dry house has something to do with mining) since it was such a huge part of the yoop. I told him this but I guess he didn't take the Local History class in high school. This was his excuse anyway. About the time he told me I asked a lot of questions was a couple minutes of chatting later when we were driving through Calumet. I asked him why the houses had two house numbers, a 3 digit one and a 5 digit one. He knew the answer to this one, when they got the 911 line/dispatch thing up here the house numbers were too confusing (I agree on that one) so they reassigned each house a 5 digit number but I guess some people were too lazy to take down the other sign. As I was thinking he was all smart because he knew this he told me the "I mostly just make up answers because how am I supposed to know all of this random stuff that you ask me about?" part of the above statement. Huh. So now I don't know if that's the real answer or not but I guess it doesn't matter to me, I just wanted to know what he though the reason was.

a busy day= very sore feet

One of the side effects of pregnancy I could do without: sore feet! My feet get sore really fast even when I'm not pregnant but when I am I feel like I hobble everywhere! Just walking around the house is enough to have me limping. Everyone always tells me to just wear tennis shoes all the time, but guess what? I HATE tennies! I <3 footwear like converse and flip flops and this awesome thing called bare feet. Maybe its a claustrophobic thing? Because the only time I can wear tennis shoes is when I'm running, or else my feet dying for some wiggle room about 2 minutes in. Then I was introduced to this wonderful invention: those one Keen shoes that everyone has (whatever they are called, idk) They are like a shoes/sandal and totally trick my feet into thinking they are not in shoes! I've always said they were way to gorp-ish for me but during this pregnancy my feet were just begging for some relief and I had heard a lot of good things about those shoes so I bought some. Okay I sound like I just went out and bought Keens but really I went to Shopko --which is the only place near here that sells Tahnee appropriate shoes because they have a mini Payless inside-- and tried on a pair of off-brand shoes (I NEVER can bring myself to buy name brands, unless they are on like triple clearance) and walked around in them for like 2 hours. And I had to call my mom and John in order to have them convince me I should buy them. I don't know why I do this, I just do. Anyway, I finally just decided to get them because I think the sales lady and Heather were getting impatient with me, and I know Ryder was since he vocalized his boredom very loudly. And I figured I could just wear them around the house for a couple more hours to see if I really did like them. And yes, I do this hemming and hawing thing with almost everything I buy. John hates it. Well, I don't really remember where I was going with this but I bought the shoes and I love them and I wear them all the time. I seriously don't know what I'm going to do when it snows. Maybe I will have my baby before then (ha yeah right). Oh this is where I was going with this rambling story: Those shoes, awesome though they may be, did not save my feet today. They KILL.
First off Ryder woke up at 3:30am last night from bad dreams so I rocked and paced and rocked and paced and rocked...you get the idea. He is horrible with nightmares since he doesn't understand yet what a dream is. Last night it was something about cows, which he usually loves but not last night. Anyway, I was up for about an hour with him so I was absolutely exhausted when he woke up this morning at 7:30. You would think I would be used to this since I pretty much have an almost 2 year old who doesn't sleep through the night. He has nightmares or wakes up from dreams so often that it's actually rare for him to sleep through the night. But I'm not used to it.
Next we had to scoot out the door by 9:30 to make it to Mallory's volleyball game at 10. She plays for Finlandia and she is awesome. You would think that 2 hours would be plenty of time to get myself and one toddler out the door but I don't think I am awake enough to think straight until at least 9. So we slowly ate breakfast, slowly cleaned up, slowly got dressed and then hurried up quick and flew out the door at 9:45. So we were a little late to the game but we still made it :) After we played outside at Mal's apartment until she had to go back to get ready for her next game -- it was a tournament. And it was SO BEAUTIFUL outside! Cool enough that sitting in the shade was chilly, but the sun was so bright and warm that it was comfortable in the sun. I am loving these fall days right now. So we spent about an hour throwing rocks and sword-fighting with sticks and chasing leaves and rolling down hills. I did not roll down the hill but Mal and Ryder did and I really don't know who had more fun ;)
Next we picked up Marisa and headed to McDonald's for lunch. This was my bribe to get Ryder to cooperate with me at the volleyball game :) But first he kept saying "No doctors! No doctors!" until I figured out that somehow to him McDonald's sounds like Doctors. So now it's called the french fry place to avoid any undue confusion. If this keeps up I will no longer be able to say that I speak the English language and will have to confess to sliding entirely into Ryder-speak. After, we ran to WalMart to grab peanut butter. We ran out halfway through this morning's toast and it was almost a disaster. Because obviously the only thing an almost-two-year-old can eat for breakfast is toast with PB. What I ended up doing was just cutting off the part of the toast that had no pb on it and giving Ryder the other part. Somehow that made it all better.

Fall is here!

Fall is officially in the air! It's a chilly 45 degrees out today and absolutely beautiful! Even some of the leaves are starting to change! And though I looooove the fall season I know it means winter is coming (yikes!) and I'm not quite ready to face that fact yet. The nights have been pretty cold lately which I am actually enjoying...I'm usually always freezing (even in the summer) but being 7 and 1/2 months pregnant sure leaves we sweltering at night! I'm half way done knitting my baby blanket now, I just finished the middle stripe today. Now the hard part: staying motivated long enough to finish it! I am absolutely loving this pattern so hopefully that helps some ;) Heather stopped by today with two of her nanny kids, both boys. One is a year older and one less than a year younger than Ryder. It was fun to watch them play even though it took almost the whole visit for them to warm up to each other! It's funny how Ryder is so much more willing to play with adults than with kids his age. He asked Heather to play way before he would even look at the boys! It was nice to actually sit and visit with Heather instead of playing with an almost 2 year old all day, most of our conversations revolve around bodily functions (we are starting to potty train), cars crashes and races, fishing or baseball. Sigh. I must be the mother of a boy :) Speaking of potty training, our endeavor that started out so promising has now come to a complete halt. I originally broke out the potty chair because Ryder had started telling me when he needed his diaper changed. Right in the beginning he sat on it all the time but never went and now he won't even sit on it! The only time he ever sits on it is when he is trying to trick me into giving him a bath (he loves baths and our rule is that he has to sit on the potty before he gets in the tub). But boy do we talk about it! "Yes Grandma goes pee on the potty. Yep, Uncle Ty does too. Yes mom goes poop on the potty and so does Jacey and Auntie Lanette. Yes, Ryder, I imagine the neighbor wears undies like a big boy." This is why convos with adults are so needed! Talking about the potty all day tends to make one a little crazy. So all this talking but we are going nowhere.... oh well I guess we'll just keep plugging along. Sorry for the boring post today, I am way to tired to write about anything I need to think about. Ryder has been waking up at least 2-3 times a night lately with nightmares so I'm pretty beat. That's all for today! :]

gah

ooohhh these last couple days...First off Ryder gets a cold so we were up all night for 2 nights (he never does well with colds) then that turned into a full- fledged gasping-for-air type of situation where we end up in the ER for 4 hours and completely traumatized the poor kid with the worst blood-drawing experience ever and strapping him in that horrible looking contraption for a chest x-ray (which I totally get is necessary but that didn't make it any easier to watch) along with everything else that goes with an ER visit, and THEN we end up getting admitted to the hospital for the night where we got about 1/2hr of sleep (think breathing treatments every couple hours along with vital checks and meds in between and a kid who screams every time a nurse walks in) and ended up staying there til 6:30pm the next day (now think of a crabby toddler trapped in a hospital room all day with a very tired mom...complete chaos)...finally we get home and get him to sleep only to have to wake him up every couple hours for more breathing treatments...and did I mention I'm 7 months pregnant and exhausted? sigh

visitors!!

The only way I even have time to write this post is because Jacey is here! Her, Grant and Sarah are up for the weekend :) I LOVE family visitors! And hopefully I will be getting them more often seeing as Grant moved and is now only 2 hours away (hint hint). It's so fun seeing R play with his auntie...he loves having someone else to play with besides boring old mom ;)
I started knitting my first baby blanket!! It's a really fun pattern even though it's a bit time-consuming (but lets be honest, knitting is just time-consuming in general haha). I've never worked on a project that changes colors this often and I kind of like it, I can really see the blanket coming together! So far I have 3 of 17 stripes done and I just got the yarn a couple days ago. I've pretty much been knitting whenever I can! Which is only when Ryder is sleeping so it's not all that much actually :) As for my tunic that I started knitting last winter, it died. Or actually I killed it. I had about six inches done on the back piece when I realized that I had screwed up the pattern so everything was opposite about 2 inches back. GRRRR! So I started to carefully undo it, stitch by stitch, and then I dropped like a million stitches in a row and got so crabby I ripped it all out. Ugh. I HATE when I do that! I get so frustrated that I figure it'll be easier to just start over. But here's a lesson I need to learn. IT'S NEVER EASIER! It took me WEEKS to knit that much (it's a pretty complicated cable pattern) and all of two seconds to rip it out. And now am I really going to start all over again? I hope so, because the tunic is actually pretty cute and I was hoping to have it for this winter. Which is no longer going to happen since I killed it. Gah.
My other project that I'm working on (okay, that I'm going to start working on...soon...) is making burp cloths! I bought pack of cheap plain cloth diapers at WalMart and some cute flannel fabric last week so hopefully I can start on those sometime soon! I will probably start out just super simple, sewing the flannel on one side of the cloth diaper, and hopefully can progress to make some more creative ones. But we'll see. I'm a pretty inexperience sewer (I've made 2 super-simple quilts and that's it) so I want to just try new stuff with this project. I mean who can screw up burpies? (Not me, I hope).
That's all for now, Jacey and Ryder sound like they are having fun coloring pictures in the kitchen and I think I'll go join them :D

let's just pretend it hasn't been eons since I last wrote...

...everyone with me? Okay good :) I have seriously been neglecting both my blogs what with summer..and ..stuff. Haha okay no more mentioning this gigantic break, I have no excuses!
So now: I have about 2 more months until I'm due to have my second kid!! I (finally) had a big organizing kick yesterday and started on all the boring stuff I have to do before I can do any of the fun organizing stuff (ie: baby stuff!!!). Unfortunately organizing means my house is a complete wreck until I finish it all. Because who wants to clean AND organize? Not me. I'm hoping to have most of the stuff for the baby ready sometime soon so I can enjoy these last 2 months with Ryder...life is going to be so different when it's not just me and him at home! He is so beyond spoiled because he gets all my attention at home (plus he's just cute and I would way rather play with him than, say, do the dishes or something) and I know that's going to change when his little sib comes along! Sigh. That's something I'd rather not think about right now... hopefully he adjusts well (and quickly)!
Just a short post today, I just got home from coffee with Mal and Selina and Ryder has been waking up at 7 (which is not legit since he goes to bed at like 10) sooo I will be like the walking dead all morning tomorrow. Oh well, it's always worth it for a night with the girls!!

whats new with me...

Not too much! Actually so much has been going on but in the end nothing has changed. Make any sense to you? Yeah, me neither. So here is the story of my life (okay its just a little tiny part of it). Let me start at the beginning. At the end of June/beginning of July they told me I had what is called a molar pregnancy. I had a D&C in July and then started going in every week to get my blood tested for the pregnancy hormone. Supposedly, it would drop down to zero (the normal number when you are not pregnant) in a couple weeks. Every week I went in and every week it dropped a little. It was taking longer than they thought so the doctor had me come in every other week instead. One week in October (I think, it seems so long ago) the nurse called to tell me that my hormone level had gone up, not a good thing. I hadn't been the best about taking the birth control pills so there was a chance that I could be pregnant but that was quickly deemed not the case when I went in for yet another blood test. After that they took my blood (again, I think I almost ran dry) and sent it to Marshfield. The docs there were looking for something (insert medical jargon here) in my blood that would make my hormone level appear high and they thought they found something. So next my blood was sent to the Mayo Clinic (yay roadtrip!) and they said there wasn't anything there. Huh. So all this time I am putsing around my house and waiting and waiting because my doc said it I would get the result in ten days. Riiiight. A month later they finally got back to me with the results (they hadn't told me it got sent off to Mayo too so I didn't know what was taking so long)only to tell me that they were inconclusive. ... NOT what I wanted to hear. But I put on my polite Tahnee voice and uh-huh'd and okay thanks!'d my way off the phone. And then called my mom to complain :) Luckily she was just as frustrated about the whole thing as I was, so thanks again for listening mom! :) Next I made an appointment with my doc (Dr. Ming Huang who is absolutely amazing even if he is a bit hard to understand) and went in to (finally) talk about what was going on. Turns out that we won't really know what's going on until I get more tests done. Sigh. But it's all good because at least I know what the plan of attack is now! Tomorrow I go in for an ultrasound (I don't really know what they are looking for, probably doctor-y stuff I guess) and then on the 28th I go in for another D&C. After that I wait for the results of the sample from the D&C. They are looking for cancer (yikes the big C word!!!!), which would explain why my pregnancy hormone went back up, the mole would be growing back. If they do find cancer then I'll meet back with the doc to see what's next and if they don't find cancer then they will probably just have to keep doing more tests to figure out why my level is going up (though I am just guessing here). SO. That is what has been going on in my life lately.
Oh, and Ryder got his top two teeth in (he looks adorable!!) and has four more on the way. He is getting so big!! He can point to his ears, nose, mouth etc. when I ask him to (mostly anyway) and his vocabulary is growing every day! His newest additions are "clock" "doggie" "tree" and "buck" among others. About the last word listed...yes, I do know that I am raising a lil Yooper :] Lately he has been obsessed with kicking his soccer ball around the house and climbing on the chairs. He also LOVES the Christmas tree and is always taking ornaments off of it or putting his toys on it :] Seriously he is just growing so fast! He babbles all day long, to me, the dog, himself, or his toys and it sounds like he's actually saying something but just in a different language. He loves to "talk" on my phone too. He picks it up and puts it in the vicinity of his ear and says "Hi, dad!" haha it is just too cute :) So, with all the stress of the last couple months, Ryder has really been helping me through it all! And you have too mom, I don't know what I would ever do without you! Anyway, that's all for now...further updates as events warrant! :]