Well THAT'S outrageous...

I've already blogged a few times about how difficult it was to get things lined up to have a VBAC delivery in Pueblo -seriously, SO DIFFICULT. Obviously wanting to avoid a c-section I a little bit wanted to avoid an epidural, where labor can stall or whatever; "if it's not broken, don't fix it" mentality. Still, the hospital required me to have a preregistration consultation with the anesthesiologist because I'm "high-risk" for a cesarian, and apparantly my doctor requested an anesthesiologist present in case things turned ugly and they needed to cut me open and whip him out.

WELL.

We got a bill last week for $720, of which the insurance paid $580, leaving us with $140. Didn't a I mention I did NOT get an epidural? You are charging us $720 to NOT have an epidural?! So I called the anesthesia offices and, sure enough, that was what it cost to have someone stand in the room and do nothing.  WOW.  Even LESS impressed with you, Pueblo, and all the ways you make my life difficult with having a baby.

Thanksgiving friends

We were SUPER lucky to have my parents in town for Thanksgiving this year, and also to have my sister and her family in town (okay, that's because they LIVE here, but it was certainly nice to be together!), and then on a whim Joe suggested we invite my neice Kalena to come with my parents because she and Patrick are very good friends.  Besides, her parents weren't going anywhere anyway. We thought it was just a nice gesture, but Kalena thought it was the BEST DAY EVER

 

She was so excited, she COULD have swung here on her hair... if it hadn't been recently chopped.

She and Patrick played together, ate together, slept in the same bed together... the only time they were apart was when she napped (Patrick doesn't nap), and the only two sentences she said to me the whole 4 days she was here were "can I have some juice?" and "where is Fafa?" (that's our nickname for him).  And pretty much any time they were together (sooooo, ALL the time) they hugged. Like so.

They even hugged while they slept!  It was adorable.  It really was sad to see her go, and while I initially thought Elsha was exaggerating about how excited Kalena was to come, or that she would probably live with us if she could, I now know that she is completely serious.

How to Clean Your House (with kids)

1. Make a pan of brownies.

2. Grab a timer.

3. Give each kid a chore per room. Hopefully it's something meaningful like picking up clothes or toys, but if the room is pretty clean resort to the wet-wipe method: grab them a wipe and show them something to scrub! Doornobs, wall spots, mirrors, etc. Anything to keep 'em busy while you ACTUALLY clean.

4. Set the timer for 10 minutes per room....aaaaaaannnnnnd... GO!

5. Clean as much as you possibly can in 10 minutes and demand that the kids do the same because if you work really hard, when the timer rings, you get...   BROWNIES! (really little ones)

6. Repeat 3-5 for as many rooms will hold their attention, or as many brownies as their tummies will hold.  You could sub cookies or M&Ms, too.

This saved me tonight when I needed to clean house but often find that I clean one room, move on to the next, only to walk back in and find that room #1 has already been destroyed.  This way the kids did NOT destroy as I cleaned AND they helped!  Chocolate-y motivation never fails :)

Play-Doh

Update on play-doh: I mentioned we've gone through jars and jars of it because it dries out from being played with so much, but Kari pinned a GREAT play-doh recipe, which I re-pinned on pinterest.  We've made 3 batches and it's SUPER soft but not sticky and it doesn't dry out NEARLY as fast as store-bought stuff.  As in, we've had it for 2 weeks and it's still going strong, which none of the other stuff (even name-brand Play-Doh) could boast. So if you're in need of "doh," check my Pinterest!

Goals

Although I love going to the gym (love it!) it seems pretty silly to sit on my butt all day at home just to go to the gym and work out.  Sometimes I catch myself doing things at the gym that are ridiculously simple, like calf raises - I can do that while I brush my teeth! Move on to bigger and better things! So I've been trying to incorperate "fitness" into my everyday life by doing moderate goals each day.  For example, one day my goal was to eat 4 servings of veggies. I NEVER eat veggies.  Then one day it was to drink only water, no juice or milk or soda (it was surpringly tough to skip juice, I love my pink lemonade).  One day was 3 servings of fruit.  Thanks to these little goals I'm now more conscientious EVERY day about water/fruits/veggies! And every day I try to find some way to be active so I'm not 99% Couch Potato, 1% Gym Rat.  Luckily it's fall, and that means lots of raking leaves! LOTS of leaves.  We have 3 mature trees, and 2 of them have giant leaves (the other is a willow), and our neighbor has a MASSIVE sycamore that also drops leaves into our yard.  All summer I sat outside while my kids rode bikes and I'd read my book, sitting on my bum, but now I make it a point to DO something - typically, rake.  I don't have any cute pictures of the kids in the leaves, or of *how good* I look doing yardwork in my pajama pants and a sweatshirt, and I bet you're not particularly interested in how many mature trees we have, but I AM curious: what other fitness suggestions might you have?  Lay it on me.

ouch

Caroline got in a fight with the sidewalk at the end of the driveway.  I think the sidewalk won this round.

Nook

We have an odd space in our house, past the kitchen but not part of the kitchen, nor does it lead to any other part of the house OR outside! Totally weird.  We titled it the "breakfast nook" and painted it a sunny yellow and haven't touched it since. Wow! We were right on that project :)

With family coming in the Thanksgiving, though, we knew we'd need extra seating so we've finally gotten in gear and started outfitting the nook.  Joe stopped by ARC and found these chairs - EXACTLY the style I was imagining, for only $10! I'll work on slipcovers later....

Then we saw an awesome idea in "This Old House" magazine (the one I hoard and will never throw away) to use short upper kitchen cabinets for benches in a breakfast nook... it seemed the idea was MEANT for us since we had recently removed our short upper cabinets to accommodate our new fridge! Here's our old cabinet:

The same day Joe found those chairs he stopped by the Re-Store (like Habitat for Humanity Store) and got a second cabinet to match into the corner,

plus a corner cabinet for storage to butt the benches (upper cabinets) into. 

That's not what we ended up doing, but that was the original thought.  Anyway, here's how we ended up...

You can't see the benches, but they're there.  Trust me.

Also, the table was from Goodwill for $34.  It has 3 removable leaves, which is what led us to re-evaluate our floor plan.  We were going to secure the benches to the walls but what we want to put in the table leaf? What if we want to turn the table 90-degrees? What if we're Joe and Kirsta and can't leave a piece of furniture alone for more than 6 months?  So we left everything freestanding.  Still to come: painting the cabinet white, painting the table something interesting, upholstering the benches, slipcovering the chairs, sewing some café-style curtains, and getting some dang art on the walls! Sheesh, it looks bare (and un-matching) in there. We'll see how far we get by Thanksgiving, eh?