It's that time of year when people are going home for the Hollidays. Well, for me this year, home for the Hollidays means something entirely different.  To me, it means an actuall home for the hollidays.

For almost a year now, Jarred and I have been looking for a home, and our real estate agent was dragging his feet trying to find us something we could actually afford.  He'd dropped the ball several times in cases that would have yeilded an affordable home, and in one case, a perfect one.  But that's all in the past. No, he did not find us a house. we did! More specificly, Jarred did.  He was trying to keep the auction a secret from me, but I found out, and he was able to win the house in the auction.  We'll be moving in within a month's time, so Home for the Hollidays, actually means Home for the Hollidays to me.  Thank you to those of you that prayed for me.  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I don't suppose I'll be on much till we get cable in the house, so untill next time!

First of all, I'm alive! The baby is alive! Husband is alive! Big Bro is alive!  We're all happy enough, considering mommy can get pretty stressed out when the baby isn't sleeping.  He's become and insatiable poo machine lately. But what I wanted to talk about today is jeans.

Now, after three weeks I've put on my second pair of denims without fuss or discomfort. I intend on trying on a pair a day until I know what fits.  I will not discuss my weight at the moment.  I've been loosing nicely, though I'm not back to my pre-pregnancy weight which was too heavy anyway, but I'm getting closer, and after less than a month I can honestly say that I'm happy with that.

I don't intend on going on any diets, though a little exercise when I get everything in the house in order wouldn't be a bad thing, but I don't want to do anything that might jeapordize my milk supply.  Funny thing though, breast feeding actually burns a good amount of calories, including the fat that a pregnant woman stores up during her pregnancy.  I didn't know that till I started reading the multitudes of information I got on the subject.  One thing they don't say and yet do is that the milk is easier to digest, (they say that part) but that it means that the baby is hungrier more often.

Well, all in all there's only one other goal that goes through my head nightly, and that's keep this place from looking as if a tornado has gone through it.  Granted, it's important that I rest, but I'm starting to get more stressed when there isn't even a glass to drink out of. I'm working on re-establishing a cleaning schedule that works with taking care of my children and making sure that the oldest gets enough personal mommy time.

Well, I hear the youngest grunting, so I'm off!

Horay! I finally gave birth to my bouncing baby boy! Gabriel Newell Abram Brown came into the world after four hours of confirmed labor on November 16th 2008 at 1:15 am.  He was 8 lbs. 2.2 oz. 21 1/2 inches long, with 3 1/4 inch long feet and a full head of strait dark hair.  Eyes are a dark blue, but I anticipate them changing.

Now for any of you feeling left out cause I hadn't gotten around to posting a belly pic, I am happy to say that Saterday afternoon, Brandon took a picture of my belly that wasn't blurry and will be posted on my sight for all friends to see in the new Gabriel file (pictures of Gabe will be posted at a later time) So, not only will you see how huge I got, but you'll see EXACTLY how huge the day I went into labor! Hehehe.

Everyone is happy to be home, even Gabriel seems content with the environment.  Big brother is proud and constantly wanting to kiss, hug, hold and just dote on his baby brother!  Daddy is also quite proud, and constantly checking to see if he's warm enough, in the right sleeping position, and generally looking for signs that he continues to breath. I'm recovering well, remembering allot that I'd nearly forgotten (it has been 6 years since I went through all this) I'm learning how to deal with his sleeping schedule.  I got my body back and it is gradually retuning to the body I remember before becoming pregnant.

That's about all for now.  I'll post more intimate details for friends only in a later post, but for now I have to continue with taking care of my family!

All my love goes out to each and every one of you, and thank you for any support that you gave!

First of all, for all of you wondering, Gabe is safely entrenched in my womb...still.  I think just about everyone is getting impatient, including Jarred and I.  Today he asked me several times if I felt even the slightest bit different, the answer of course was no. Brandon's teacher has been on the lookout for when I'm not here to pick him up or drop him off, and my friends keep calling to see if he's come or not.  Even my neighbors are keeping a lookout for the new baby.  My mother-in-law even told Brandon to constantly whisper to my stomach "Gabe, come on out. Come out Gabe!"  I'm getting to the point where I feel as if I'm going to be pregnant forever! I know he'll come out eventually, but I'm ready now.

Lately I've been having dreams of people I haven't seen for years.  One of them, I was with another pregnant friend, and ran into someone who I hadn't seen since before I started dating my husband, and I thought to myself, that it would be interesting to see what her reaction would be when I told her that not only was I pregnant with his second son, but married to him as well.  Thankfully that and the other dream weren't unpleasant like some dreams in which I see people I'd rather not see ever again.

Life can be stressful, and no kidding, the thought of having another baby terrifies me sometimes, but all in all, I'm happy.  I have a husband who loves me and works hard to take care of our family.  He cares so much, even though he hides it behind his crunchy bastard exterior.  We have the best son, who's smart, extremely loving, and so happy it's infectious.  I have no doubt that the next will be no less loving, especially with how lovable his brother is to him prebirth.  So what if we don't have a house, we'll get one eventually.  Money will get tight later, but for now we are comfortable.  We can't really go out and splurge or anything like that, but we aren't living from one paycheck to another.  Yes, I'd say I'm happy, if a little tired.

The first step to happiness is accepting what you've got in life, and enjoying the good things, instead of focusing on what you don't have.  Watch Madame Blueberry, a veggie tales video.  If you think that stuff will make you happy, just watch what happens to her when she tries to make herself happpy with things.  Also, don't focus on the bad in your past.  What can you do to change it? Learn from the past, and don't be bitter, because if you have bitterness in your heart, there is no room for true happiness.  I've forgiven in my heart those that have wronged me.  God says to turn the other cheek not once, not twice, but twenty seven times seven, so I'm doing what I can to forgive.  However, that doesn't mean I'm going to give them my trust.  I hold no grudges, but the Bible doesn't say be stupid.  It doesn't say give the con-artist more of your money once you catch him, just forgive him and move on.

Well, there's my rant for now.  Again, I'll definetly tell you all when Gabe comes, I know allot of my family and friends are probably keeping an ear out for news.  I love you all, and I pray that you all find your own happiness!

Okay, first and foremost, I am still pregnant.  I still have a huge belly, and swollen everything.  I saw my doctor yesterday and Jarred came with.  He likes how professional, friendly, and quick my doctor is.  After being examined, the doctor told us that I was dialated 3 centemeters.  Which means, he believes that I will give birth to Gabe within the week.  My Father-in-law believes that tonight is the night, a friend of mine thinks Friday is the day.  I'll put this out here, if anyone else would like to guess when I'll pop I'd love to hear your guesses...once it hits 12am today will be out, but there's still 5 more days other than today to guess at!

We went and voted today.  It was my first time voting.  We had a weird question about changing the wording on one of the amendments of the constitution, section five.  The origional wording that they want to change says to ban "idiots and insaine persons" from voting.  I couldn't help but smile. Now, I didn't follow much other than the presidential candidates and one or two of the canidates for other offices here in Iowa, so when I went over the court candidates, I had no clue who those people were!  Oh well!  I got a nifty sticker and that special happiness you get after exercising your right to pick who you want to run the country!

Now, about quitting smoking! For those of you that WANT to quit, and want to know how I did it, I'll first tell you to get this book Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking.  Don't quit before reading the book, and don't quit while reading the book, it will make the quitting harder, but I can almost garantee you that if you really want to quit, that by the time you finish this book, you won't want another cigarette! I have no desire for them, and haven't had for over a year now! Although I do have nightmares where I have a craving for one. I did a number of other things that all helped my plight, but for now the main one that I would suggest you try is reading the book, but it will only work if you TRUELY want to quit.  So ladies, if you buy this book and foist it onto you husband thinking it's some magic cure, don't count your chicks before they hatch! Unless he desires to quit, really really wants to, it won't do anything but gather dust!

I have other things that I'd like to write about, but unfortunately this chair makes me stiff when I get up...well everything makes me stiff when I get up, but the chair isn't exactly good for my achey everything, so I've got to cut this blog short.

Hope you all enjoyed the update, and thank you to all of you that voted!

Thirty minutes till All Hallows Eve is over, and I still have the bun in the oven.  Guess we won't be putting any Jack-O-Lantern onesies on him hehehehe. I spent most of the morning and afternoon cuddling my recovering sick child, and the evening was spent listening to a pair of dogs bark incessantly because they had to be locked up to save the trick-or-treaters from true fright.  I mean the biggest of the two is 25 lbs. of mini dog muscle but they are fiercely protective of their family...I just hope that they don't see Gabriel as a threat.

My son was Spiderman again, but this time he had a Venom on his back...or at least for most of the time, the rest he was on his grandfather's back as "the other Grandson" lol. Today had to have been the warmest Halloween I've ever encountered...ever! I mean, I remember many many cold Halloweens in Wichita, and I assumed they'd be just as bad or worse here in Iowa, but today was in the 60's, we even left the front door open for greeting Trick-or-treaters! I was shocked, and warm under two skirts, a dress, and a cloak!

I dressed up as a witch, sorta. I put black on one of my teeth and used what I could of Jarred's stage makeup to make my face look hideous! I think I succeeded! Anyway now I'm all cleaned up, my son made out like a bandit cause people honestly thought that Venom was a real person! LOL but I'm resisting the temptation of the yummy candy that lay in the bag just at my elbow.

Again, I'll tell you all that Gabriel is still safely enclosed in my womb, and as of tomorow, will have remained so for 37 weeks! Now, you smokers out there can say that smoking really doesn't effect anything in a pregnancy, or that it's more stressful to quit durring a pregnancy, but this is my first where I was not a smoker, and whether he comes now or later he will be to term and I made not one trip to the hospital because of pre-term labor.  Anyone who knows me will know that this is something.  I was worried that it didn't matter what I did, that I might have my son early, and we've had some scary moments, but because of my history, I was able to take care of myself properly and rest when I needed to.

We're ready by the way, well ready enough. We have the most needed esentials like crib and car seat. That I have to say was a releif and I will forever thank Deana for her help in that department! Well, now we just have to play the waiting game and see when he'll come! Wish us luck!

Okay, I've been playing hookie from my computer for a while now.  Obviously no writing has been going on, but I got some ideas that I hope to use.  I did play around on my computer a couple days ago after I found out a way I can save pictures onto my computer!

It's a quirk this gateway has had since somthing hit it last year when my husband was the user. I am forever unable to put up a background picture and I can't directly save picture files to it.  Now that I've found a way around the saving problem though, I decided to build on my Laurell folder.  I'm excited to see the next book is being made into a comic as well already, but to be honest, what I like to find are the Fan-Made art that people put up. Oh my goodness I can't wait till the movie and tv series comes out! I've been keeping my eyes out, but so far Laurell's announcement is the only news.

This Saterday is my 35th week.  It's making me nervous cause that is D-day.  If by some mirricle he doesn't come that early, he'll come shortly after, I'm sure.  I've been doing my darnest to eat well and not overdo it, but yesterday I came close to doing just that.  I didn't have any contractions or anything, but my nesting instincts hit me and made me go more nuts than ususal. I told Rachel about it last night and she laughed.

Basicly I got tired of the smell from the carpet around our toilet. (AGAIN I ask you, what genius designed an appartment with wall to fricken wall carpet? The full bathroom carpet was a bad idea I'll tell you.) So, whenever I get it into my head to clean something in the bathroom, I try to hit the sink, which tends to get cluttered.  From there, I wipe off the mirror, the walls, the ceiling in the shower area, vaccume the carpet, even getting in the corners and cracks, and then I finally get to scrubbing the carpet behind the toilet (EW!) Once I do that, I employ the vaccume on the hall (again making sure I bend over allot to get into those damned cracks) and then vaccume the area where my son sends most of his crumbs.  after wipeing things down in the bathroom with the multi-surface wipes, I then move out to the kitchen where I wipe the trash can lid, then the wall around it, then the area around the light switch  and on down the hall.  I swear, if I'm not careful, I won't be able to resist attacking the car next...everytime I step into it I think "I should vaccume this thing...wipe down that, scrub the carpets...wipe down the windows...AR! I'm doing it again!

Well, I anticipate a day of trying to rest while still giving in a little to my nesting instincts.  They aren't bad, by any means, but if I do everything that I want to do, I may just push my body beyond what it can handle, and I want to give my little one every chance to be fully developed, that and I'd like to have a little more time to get ready, cause we aren't, we just aren't.

Well, I'm off to check on other things and maybe lay on the couch and hang with my hubby!

Well, it didnt' go through.  The Seller of the house greedily decided to go with cash even though at the end of the day our offer would have gotten him 3k more. Men and their instant gratification! That and the unethical practices of the realestate agent!  I know that if they were doing what they were supposed to, that Jarred and I would have a house...that house even!

I'll get off that subject, cause just thinking about it has the potential of making me too upset, and we're trying to avoid anything that might bring Gabe early.

I have recently been reading the Twilight saga.  I'm about half way through the third.  It is an entertaining seires, although in the begining, the main character, Bella, comes off as too much of a whiney teenager (she happens to be 17 starting out) and though intriguing, the character of Edward, didn't really speak to me.  However, the second book redeemed the girl while the third brought out the heart-throbiness of the vampire.

***If you don't want me to spoil anything of the books then don't read this paragraph***

There are some similarities I found between the Anita Blake Books and these.  In it the main character is a human girl, with a somewhat different perspective into the lives of the supernatural.  She's stuck between her "true love" Vampire, and her perfectly best friend who is a werewolf. Although the werewolf claims that he hasn't "imprinted" yet, I suspect that he did and did so on Bella, but because he knows that she's madly in love with a vampire (of which he is mortal enemies with) he lied to her.  That's just my theory though, and not to be taken with a grain of salt.  So, there's a werewolf-human-vampire love triangle.  If you'd read the Ania Blake books, then you'd know just how unsurprising that is.  However, she's not exactly torn between two romantic loves, so I have to give her that, but if I were honest with myself, I'd rather see her end up with the werewolf than the vampire. Not that I have anything against Vampires, but cold and hard doesn't usually inspire romantic feelings, rapid heartbeat or no.  Maybe its being equated with feeling like a granite wall, I just never had a love affair with a rock wall *hehehe* sorry! I suppose the big similarity is there are a vampire and a werewolf both in love with her.

I will be interested in seeing the Twilight movie, but not nearly as much as I am most  definitely going to see and eventually own the first Anita movie.  You can bet money on me seeing that one!

Well, it's off to clean and rearrange the boy's room to make room for baby! Keep praying about a house for us though, maybe something will happen and an even better house will show up. We'll see.

Seriously, I was going to post something Monday, but as most of you know, Mondays are my busy day.  This one was made all the more busy busy by the fact that I had another OB appointment this week.  I told him my concerns and so now a professional knows that I am showing signs of giving birth early.  Strangely though, I have since not had so tough a time of it, but that might also be because I'm doing everything I can not to overdo it at all.  He's still healthy, kicking and hiccuping, and shifting around, so I'm not worried that something might be wrong with him.  I feel so big though! I need to get pictures soon, otherwise it'll be too late and then I won't be able to tell Gabe, years from now that that was me when he was in my tummy!

Well, actually, there are some pictures, and they're profile pictures where you can see my belly, though the subject is Brandon.  I just need to get my in-laws to send me those pictures of his Baptism.  But there are some pictures that still need to be taken of me and that quarter I found.  Yes, I still have it cause a news reporter in Oklahoma wants to do a story on it, and there are pictures she wants sent along with the quarter itself for video purposes.  Hmmm, maybe I could hook up my camera and make something that is moderately  good quality just in case...I don't know...

On th house front, we found something that we love.  It is everything we've been looking for.  Please God let this be the one!  I don't request prayer often, but please, if you believe like I do, please pray for us.  I know I can get overly emotional now that I'm pregnant, but this is something that has been a deepest wish for a long time. It's hard when my first experiences with finding that first home has been fraut with so much greed, and unethical behavior.  One pitfall after another is what we seem to be coming across.  Thank you, if you do pray, it means allot to me.

As far as writing, well you've been seeing the extent of my writing so far.  I have to get to it again this week, but as usual, the moment I think about it is when I'm about to fall asleep on the couch.  Plus, there hasn't been allot of oportunity to sit and write in the Greenhouse.

Speaking of, this week has been a week of coming in and working in the mornings till bout 10:30-Noon. All except for Monday, ofcorse, when everyone knows that I'm already busier than heck.  I do like feeling loved, and needed.  I never knew that I really enjoyed feeling needed till now actually.  Jarred kinda opened my eyes to that fact recently.  I can tell that they're trying not to call on me too much because I have been having some problems, and even though working at a Greenhouse dosen't sound like it would be too stressful, it takes it's toll on me when I'm there.  That cooler door for instance  >:I Evil thing!  I still enjoy working there.

I missed doing the flowers, and it surprises me that they never called on me earlier when things were "busy". I mean, that was the point of me right?  They should have known that should they really need me that they could call on me!  Circumstances have changed where I am really needed now, things I won't go into, and I'm more than happy to help.  We're family right?  I may not be blood related but I still considder them all my family!  I really wish that I could help out more.

So what else has bee going on?  Not much.  I have a Maple Tree started in one of my planters and I intend on nurturing that sucker for the next few years until it's old enough to plant in the ground.  It'll be Brandon's tree.  I'm thinking of trying to get these cherry pits to sprout too, and I have a couple of apple seeds from a apple tree on a farm, lovingly provided by Eli, one of Brandon's long-time friends.  I intend on doing everything I can to get these things to grow.  But man, you should see that Maple sapling! I think it has a good chance of surviving and growing up into a big tree!  I just might let my tomatoes and pepper plants die out after this season so that I can use the planters for tree growning experiments.  The last couple of years, Jarred and I were under the impression that I had a Brown Thumb,  but it would seem that I can nurture and grow plants.  I even put out big glass jars and an empty lopsided vase onto our balcony to catch rainwater for my plants.  My potatoe pieces did grow into vines, small ones, and the last ones just died out, so  I gotta go digging for the potatoes I hear.  We'll see how big they are.  There was one, it was about the size of a pea ^^ the others were too big to be pulled out by the vine, or at least that's the hope!  I deffinetly have to get the ones out of the tree planter so that they don't accidentally kill the tree.  Did I mention that I love that tree?

Well, I suppose that I've said enought for tonight.  I have some things I have to get done around the house, as ususall.  A mother's job never ends, but would I be happy if it did?  I know I would be misserable if I suddenly weren't a mother.

Okay, I find myself on the computer doing everything but the tasks that I've put to myself as of Thursday.  Today, what distracted me from even doing a blog? Writer's tips.  I browsed through different essays, general letters and such to collect what I may save on my hardrive as tidbits of wisdom.  But in the process of finding these things, I keep myself from actually typing and writing, which is one of the main things that they say you must do.  Well, that just goes without saying, right? I mean if you don't write anything, you...don't write anything!  So I had to pull myself away from being distracted by the tantalizing tidbits of advice that I can find to make myself a better writer and actually write.

Yes, the blog isn't quite the same as writing a book or short story or anything like that, but it's like doing warm-ups before your big excercise.  You get yourself mentally and physically ready for the task of putting to paper what you have in your head.

Why do I continue to read other writers' advice to budding writers?  Because there is still a part of me that doesn't believe that I can do it, even though I'd love nothing more than to finish a story and see it printed behind a moderately colorful cover, with the Copyright stamp of some publishing company on it.  The first task is getting myself to finish a story, it's always been a problem.  I have finished one good story since I hit highschool, it was supposed to be a short story, but it ended up being a short novel of a bout 20 pages, which  actually could turn into a professional short story, but hits just shy of the mark I think.  Developing the story might be a task to put to myself before I work on others, but I'm afraid that I'll start to fill with ideas for the other stories while I do editing on the other story, and my head will be so jumbled that I'll have a difficult time sifting through it all to pull together a book.

What to do, what to do...

Well, now it's 11pm, and I don't know how much actuall writing I might get done.  Probably none, but I could make myself a little CD to listen to tomorow out of the songs I have playing in my ear right now.  At first I thought that I had to put together songs that set a certain mood, but I'm finding that even the fun little beat of "Sexy Back" is helping me type.  Maybe it's the fast beat that makes my fingers want to fly across the keyboard *shrug* I don't know.  I do like the song though.

Hehehe laugh at me all you want, I like at least one of Justin Timberlake's songs.  I always said that I had a diverse music taste, thought modern rap still eludes me mostly.

Anyway, I may want to take the time in the next hour or so to go through the songs and pic the ones I'm going to make into a CD, cause I can't have all of them in one *pout* unfortunately.  Maybe one day we'll get a CD player that will read MP3 CDs.  I don't know, maybe I'll split it up like boys against girls and make two CDs.  It's an idea, if they'll fit.

Well, I hope I've entertained all you people that take the time to read what I've been typing!  I have to admit it's an interesting thing knowing that someone is reading this stuff like a public diary.  ^^ Snoopy little people you are!  Well at least most of you are friends, or at least I think you are, cause what interest would a total stranger have in reading my blogs filled with a pregnant womans complaints?  Don't answer that, God only knows I might regret having asked!

Anyway, if I'm going to get my "inspirational" music on CD in any sort of order, I must stop now and do it.  It's all about Stopping and Doing isn't it? Writing, burning CDs, doing house work, getting up in the morning? LOL We do what we must! Untill tomorrow...maybe!

And I leave you with this one fun little thought "Who's my minion? Who's my minion? You are! Num numnum numnum!"