We Have a Messy House

We have a messy house. The floors need to be swept and mopped. The carpets need to be steamed. Dusting hasn't been done in months and there is a lot of clutter. Sometimes I think about how nice it would be to have a clean, organized house. But then I think of all of the things I would need to give up.

I could clean in the evenings, but then when would I do posters for my daughter's Fall Festival? I could clean in the mornings, but I'm already up at 6:30 a.m. How could I ensure that I was resting enough for the baby in my tummy. I could clean all weekend, but then how would I take the kids camping, or help Cadence set up a lemonade stand to raise money in memory of little Rachael? Is a clean house worth missing out on Saturday mornings curled up in bed with the kids watching cartoons? Is it worth missing homemade waffles, church and afternoon family outings?

Maybe I could get a maid? But where would the money for the maid come from? Should it come from our monthly Chuck E Cheese trips? Perhaps I could cut out a few of our family long-weekend vacations?

Some day, when my children are grown, I want them to remember their mommy participating in their Fall Festival. I want them to recall how careful mommy was when she was carrying their brother or sister. I want them to have fond memories of camping, lemonade stands, Saturday morning cartoons in mommy & daddy's bed, homemade waffles before church, family outings, Chuck E. Cheese nights and family vacations. Maybe, with all that, they'll forget that their mommy was slack in the housekeeping department. :)

The current status of the bar in my kitchen.

A Shout Out to My Amazing Husband

I am 31 weeks preggers today and am bordering the uncomfortably big portion of my pregnancy - and I still have anywhere from 7-9 weeks left! Some of my maternity shirts are even getting too short in the front. Nothing makes you feel more like a fat cow than outgrowing maternity clothes!

This is how I see myself right now:

Now I need to give a quick shout out to my amazing husband Chris because every morning he wakes me up by telling me I'm beautiful. He reminds me again when he gets home from work and tells me again before I go to sleep... and probably a few times throughout the day as well. This is how he makes me feel:

Thanks babe! Even if you are lying, you are amazing. I love you VERY much!!!

Star Wars Breakfast

A few weeks ago we finally tried out one of Chris's Father's Day presents... Star Wars pancake molds from Williams Sonoma.

We made the Fluffy Canadian Pancake recipe from http://allrecipes.com/Default.aspx.

Our first attempt with the Storm Trooper.

Unfortunately, we over-poured it and when the pancake rose the batter got stuck. He turned into a pile of pancake scraps. :(

Next up was Yoda.

Although bubbly from the "fluffy" pancake recipe, he turned out much better.

We also made a few Darth Vaders.

All in all, everyone enjoyed their Star Wars breakfasts. It was a lot of work, and a lot of Death Star pancakes were made (i.e. plain old circular ones), but we'll definitely try it again sometime.

We still have the Star Wars cookie cutter set to try out. Perhaps our Christmas cookies will be Star Wars inspired this year.... :)

Gabriel's wardrobe malfunction and our (somewhat) updated slideshow

We had Christy, Emily and Mitchell over for our weekly Monday dinner get-together. On the menu tonight was baked Tilapia, fried grit cakes with garlic alfredo sauce and a spinach salad. For dessert we had brownie ice cream sundaes. It was very tasty!

After dinner we let the kids play. Gabriel had to go potty and had already wet his Pull-up. I told him to just put his jeans back on and go commando for a few minutes since it was almost time to get ready for bed. Christy and I are watching Emily and Cadence play Wii bowling when Gabriel comes into the living room with one of each of Cadence's shoes on his feet and his jeans on Kriss Kross stlye with the zipper undone. I ran into the office to grab my camera and was able to get this shot as he bent over to pick something up.

In other news, I'm pretty aggravated with my What to Expect app on my iPhone. Chris and I have been taking a picture of my growing tummy every week and all of a sudden I cannot export the pictures to my library to upload to my slide show on Photobucket. Fortunately, we saved some of the pictures to my library when we originally took them so we aren't missing all of them. Here is the updated slide show:

A little Schaus family history

The Schaus family history is pretty easy to trace thanks to some very dedicated record keepers. In fact, there is a published book that traces the history back to the 1500's, I believe. Recently, my father found some more detailed information about the members of our family that came to North America. Here is a 5 minute lesson in our family:

On June 13, 1846 the "Creole" landed in New York City. On board were Nicholas Schauss and his wife Christina as well as several of their children. Nicholas and Christina were my great, great, great grandparents. Their five-year-old son, Philipp, was my great, great grandfather. Here is the page from the passenger manifest that lists them (they are about half way down):

Christina Schaus died on September 26, 1881 at the age of 76 years. Here is her death certificate:

Nicholas Schauss died on August 4, 1886 at the age of 88 years. I thought that this was a pretty impressively long life for someone during that time. Here is his death certificate:

Philip S. Schaus married twice. His second wife, Hannah, is pictured here with him in this undated photograph:

I visited the homestead of Philip Schaus when I was 12 or so years old on a trip to Canada with my parents. Even at the age of 12 I was able to appreciate the history and had a great time.

When my dad went back a few weeks ago, this is what remained of the house:

Evidently the property has been sold and the house was being torn down and relocated to some property that is still owned by the family. Perhaps someday Chris and I can take our kids and show them the new site for this very old piece of family history.

Moving into the third trimester - baby stuff

We have just started our third trimester and Pistachio's nursery is finished! We fixed the ceiling, hung the curtains and painted it last weekend. This week we put up the tree decal. I am very happy with how it turned out.

It seems like a lot of work to do for a baby that a.) doesn't care what his/her room looks like and b.) won't be using that room for quite some time. We got a great deal on a bassinet at a consignment sale a month or so ago and have that set up in our room. Baby will probably use that for the first few months to make middle-of-the-night feedings easier. In fact, I may even move the rocking chair into our room for a while too.

Short of packing the hospital bag and buying a few more things, we pretty much have everything ready for our little one's arrival. We are planning on using cloth diapers with this baby and we still need to get a few more of those. I have heard wonderful things about Best Bottom diapers and I really want to buy 5-7 or so covers and probably 15-20 inserts to give them a try. We have 7 all-in-one's that I bought new off of Craigslist for $60.00, but I love the idea of being able to swap out the liners if the diaper isn't too messy. I am also very lucky that our daycare has agreed to allow me to bring in cloth diapers. :)

Dear Real World

Dear Real World,

I sent my little girl Cadence out to meet you today. She's the one in the skinny jeans with the brown and pink top and carrying a Wizards of Waverly Place backpack. She has a big new bow in her hair that I made her last week. She is very excited to meet you. I, on the other hand, am scared for her. You and I have known each other a pretty long time and I know how you can be a wonderful place yet sometimes very cruel. I have prepared her as best I could to face you today and I hope that it has been enough. I hope she remembers to say "please" and "thank you" and that she continues to believe that the worst words you can say are "stupid" and "sucks." Please don't teach her any dirty jokes too soon and help her steer clear of kids that might make fun of her. I don't think she understands the concept of being made fun of yet.

Please take care of her, love her, teach her and watch over her. Most of all, please send her home to me at the end of each school day. Tell her that I love her and I'll be there at two-thirty.

Thank you,
Karen