Life changes--duh!

Whee, it's been a while, hasn't it? It's been really busy around here. Trying to get a business going with our family website, www.krazycraft.com, selling stuff at the farmer's market and...drumroll please....
Buying a house!
Yes, we are taking the plunge. We found a home that is older, the decor is very Grandma Chic, and the wiring needs some serious help, but it's a great price. We'll spend about a week before moving in getting everything cleaned up, painted, and the wiring fixed. Then Jeff will be closer to school and work, which will seriously reduce his commute time. That's something he is VERY happy about.
This will mean a lot higher housing payment, but with the reduction in gas costs, we should be able to handle it. We'll have a big back yard for the girls, garden space, room for fruit trees...everything we want.
I'm going to be selling some stuff at a festival at the grade school on Monday. I'm hoping to make a decent amount to pay down my materials costs.
Lessee...the girls are getting so big! Esther is actually two now! My baby girl is now a big girl! Taemarin is crawling all over the place, getting into everything within reach. She is so cute, with her big smile! She's been teething lately. Several at once. It's made her kinda cranky. Still, she is mostly smiley and happy.
Jeff is doing well in computer classes, though he is buried in homework. Two more years, we hope, and he should be done.
As we go into fall, we've got major changes in store for us. That seems to be the way it is, sometimes. Things seem to drag for a while, then shake up in a major way. Like the techtonic plates of the earth. They slide along for a while, quietly, then something gets hung up, breaks loose, and the area around gets shaken apart. We're going into changes somewhere around an 8.5, I think. Wish us luck!

Summertime Blahs

Good grief! Has it really been that long?
All I have to do is look at Taemarin busting out of her clothes to answer that question. My sweet little newborn is now a sweet little interested-in-everything-that-Esther-does. She follows Esther's movements like a hawk. They'll either be the best of friends, or WWIII incarnate.
Esther's vocabulary continues to improve. She knows many words. Or half words, depending on your point of view. The problem is that she doesn't seem to want to use them. She'll cry for something instead of using the word for it, even though she knows the word. We'll keep working with it, she can ask for one or two things. Especially "bah", which is bath. We've got a little fish on our hands.
Taea is the same way. I sometimes take her in the tub with me, and she will sit on my lap and kick and splash, with a huge grin on her face. Hopefully, I'll be able to get both of them swimming lessons when they're old enough.
Life around here is hectic. With my brother's help, we're launching a website. www.krazycraft.com. It's not entirely ready yet, so in order to raise some capital, I'm going to sell at the Provo City farmer's Market. It's a fairly small market, so I don't expect to make a fortune, but the more vendors there the better the turnout will be. We hope.
Jeff is back in school, which means that on weekdays he is gone from 7 or 8 in the morning until after ten at night. It's depressing, but the sooner he gets through school, the better.
Well, gotta make this short. My messy kitchen needs to be dealt with. Hopefully, I'll get better at posting more often.

After Christmas Blahs

Well, Christmas has come and gone. It was a good one for us, better than I thought, thanks to our family. We were a little worried about having the money to get anything for the girls, their aunties made up for it in spades! Esther is presently having a blast with all the toys, which, combined with everything else they've spoiled her with, are overflowing her toy bin.
Little Taemarin is getting more alert by the day. It would be so fun to take her outside to see the trees and birds and sunshine...but it's freezing outside. Esther hates being cooped up all the time. We have boots and snow clothing for her, but she has a cold right now. If she's better by the next snowstorm, then she and Daddy can go out and make a snowman. Daddy got some new boots and gloves for Christmas, so he can have fun with the girls.
We had family over for Christmas and New Years. Mark's kids went sledding off the hill into the park. They had a lot of fun despite the cold.
And now, the holidays are over, we're totting up the cost, and dreading the cold darkness still to come. Depression comes all too easily these days, with the sun in hiding. I usually love snow, but right now all it means is that I'm trapped inside.
Spring will come soon enough, I hope. Until then, I guess we'll just have to make the best of it. It is giving me opportunity to finish some projects, like crocheting and sewing.
Eventually, I'll post some pictures. Till then, if you want to see what the girls are up to, email me and I'll send you some directly!
The girls are calling. Back to the trenches.

Life after Thanksgiving

Whew! The turkey has been stripped, the pies have been eaten, the stuffing is gone...
And, of course, we don't want to think about how much weight has been gained!
We had a good Thanksgiving. We gathered at Uncle Doug's house with some of Aunt Joan's family. It was a great dinner, and everyone got to see our new baby. She's doing somewhat better now, sleeping about 3-4 hours at a stretch.
Sadly, that is partly due to the fact that she's on straight formula now. My body simply refuses to produce enough milk for her, so I've stopped breastfeeding. I may have better luck next time, I don't know, but I have all the indicators for a genetic condition called "hypoplastic", which means that I don't have enough milk glands. That being the likely cause, I may never be able to nurse properly.
Well, I tried. For a week and a half, I tried so hard, and my supply just dwindled. I'll just have to leave it in the Lord's hands from here. Esther was more or less the same situation, and she's healthy.
On a brighter note, Christmas is coming. Time to pull out the tree! Esther loves lights, it's going to be fun to see her watching them glitter. We have lights that race around, some that play music, and some with bi-colored bulbs. Gift shopping will be a bit sparse this year, due to financial concerns, but we'll do our best to make sure no one is forgotten.
Esther is getting into mischief again. She's getting a bit bolder about her sister, a few days ago she bit her on the toe. I'm not sure why, she probably thought it was a game since we pretend to nibble toes and stuff. It's so hard to tell her "no" when she's just trying to play. I don't want to turn her off completely from playing with her sister, but I can't just give her free rein, either. It's all a balancing act, and I definitely have more respect for moms with lots of kids. I am not the most patient person in the world, I guess this is supposed to teach me otherwise, eh?
I think that's all for now, sleep deprivation is making my brain fuzzy.

Welcome Home Taemarin!

Gotta make this post quick, baby just woke up!
My newest bundle of joy, Taemarin Lily Calkin, was born on November 8, at 10:30 am, after a mere 2 1/2 hours of induced labor. (She has since made up for the short labor by keeping me awake most of the night!) It turns out I was already 5 cm/80% effaced when I went in, so it likely would have happened soon anyway!
She was 7 lbs 13 oz, 20 inches long, and looks a lot like her sister, except for a fine layer of dark hair. What color it will turn later, we have no idea! Could be red, like Jeff's family, or it could go blond and then dark when she's older, like my family.
Mom and baby are doing well, aside from some exhaustion. Esther is...well, mildly curious and occasionally jealous, but she's handling it well, and so far hasn't tried to hurt the baby or even touch her beyond a few light pats on the head.
I'll post more later as/if time permits.

Almost there!

I look at the calendar, I look again, and I can't believe it's November. As of tomorrow, it will be one week till my due date.

It's not like we're not ready. We're just not quite "ready". We have her clothes arranged in the drawers and hung up on the rack, we have a bassinet in our room, we still have to dig the car seat out of its box and get the base strapped into the van, but it's at least accessible. The "ready" part, however, doesn't account for emotional readiness. I already have one baby to care for, and she's quite a handful! Jeff is busy with school and work...still, we knew it was right at the time, and it's still right. This little girl is coming to our family, ready or not!
At the moment, however, we're not sure when the blessed event will arrive. Yeah, I know, nobody ever is. Except when you're induced, of course. That's the confusing part, here. My doctor gave me a list of dates. The 5th, 8th, and 15th of November. Initially I took the 5th, (hey, five days early ain't gonna hurt!), but doing it on a Monday would interfere too much with Jeff's work and school schedule. So I set it for the 15th, a Thursday, which means he would probably miss class but not miss work since I'd be in the hospital all day Friday anyway.
However, for the last week I've been noticing more and more contractions, not to mention the fact that the baby's head has been dropped into position for almost a month. She is clearly ready, it's just my body that's not doing its job.
So, I called the office again to see if there were any openings for the 8th instead. Just my luck, the doctor wasn't in today, and the nurses can't find her schedule book.
Drat.
So now I'm waiting until Monday to see if the date can be moved. If not, well, , what's an extra week?
And there's nothing that says she won't kick hard enough to break my water before then. In which case I'll be in the hospital muy pronto! We keep joking about the most embarrassing place for it to happen. At the store? Yes, that's embarrassing. But I think the worst would be right in the middle of sacrament meeting. Sitting in church, and suddenly my water breaks all over the pew.
THAT would be embarrassment!
Well, I think that's all for the moment. Short, I know, but Numb3rs will be on shortly and I don't wanna miss it.
Yes, I'll post again as soon as I know more about the date, and of course I'll post full details when Taemarin makes her debut in the world.

Hey, what happened to fall??

Okay, so who flipped the switch two months early here??? Saturday afternoon, Jeff's sitting at the computer working, Esther is napping, and I'm puttering around trying not to wake her up. I look out the window.
Guess what I see?
SNOW!
It has been fall for less than a week, and it's snowing! Shiminy, people, what happened to fall?
Okay, yes, it is much warmer today, so the snow has all melted off, but it was weird. I'm used to not seeing snow until November at the earliest, maybe Halloween. So does this mean we're going to be up to our eyeballs in snow when Taemarin is born?
Not a pleasant thought.
Still, we can definitely use the water. Our water year was way low, about 65%. Blessing in disguise, dunno. We'll take what we get.
Jeff is well into school now, working on his second project for computer class, and getting royally sick of Greek mythology in Humanities. For some reason, in his high school, they didn't study greek myths so he's having trouble with the "who's who" part of it. The Greeks generally didn't bother to explain all that much since it was their history. They knew who was who! But he'll survive. Work is going well, his company recently did computer support for a fundraiser for Mitt Romney's campaign, so they're getting some name recognition out there. His jaw has been giving him issues, probably grinding at night like I used to, but we're working on it with a rubber guard at night.
Esther is growing up so darn fast! Getting into everything, learning more words, she finally called me Mama a few days ago. Hasn't since, but she generally has the idea of who is who when we name names. She's getting better around strangers too, not quite so freaked out. We went out to eat Saturday because...well, see below for that whole story...and she was charming all the servers, grinning and chattering at them. I look through our old pics, and she is looking more and more like a little girl instead of a baby. More like "herself" instead of either Jeff or me. She's a willful, stubborn little stink at times, but hey, all little kids go through the phases of learning their boundaries, and she is no exception.
And as for the Mommy? Well, this was not a good week. I had a jaw infection that sent me to bed on pain meds for two days while poor Jeff picked up the slack and tried to do school and work as well. Man, I love that guy! Mom was out of town so she couldn't help. My brother's daughter had a seizure at school, so she was freaked about that too, and then for the cherry on top, I fell flat on my face spread-eagle on the sidewalk on Saturday when I went out to get the mail. I felt like the world's clumsiest walrus. Fortunately, I landed on my hands and knees first before continuing down to my right side, so the baby didn't take the brunt of the impact. Other than a twisted leg, there doesn't seem to be any lasting effect.
I can't wait to have this baby!
I know, all you moms out there are saying "just you wait till she's out, then you'll wish she was back in again!" Taking care of two babies at once will be quite a challenge. But hey, at least I'll have my body back to do it!
Life otherwise is...well, life. We've just about got things organized in the nursery, though Taemarin will be sleeping in our room until Esther gets used to her "big girl" bed. She's taken to peeling the decorative stickers off the wall, I have to keep getting after her about that. Someday, maybe, she'll prefer putting stickers ON the wall as opposed to ripping them OFF.
I suppose that's our news for now. I'll attempt to post a bit more often. Especially when Taea is born. Can't wait, 40 more days.....!!!