It's a....

BOY!

He looks healthy and was vigorous during this morning's ultrasound.

Due date is May 31st.

The Barn is Finished!

Barn Updates

So the barn isn't QUITE done right now, though we hope it will be fully complete by the end of the day.

Day 3 picture:

Roof on...

Day 4 picture

3 sides on.

Right now they are putting the front paneling on the left side.  The little door has already been installed and the frames for the big door are in place.

Kevin chatted with the foreman.  He is an Amish gentleman, probably in his late 40's?  He has THIRTEEN children, with the youngest being a few months older than our Sarah.  2 of the young men on his crew are his children, and 2 nephews are also working with him.

I have no desire to live an Amish lifestyle without cars, electricity, or modern conveniences, but I do love the family orientation.  I can't think of anything better for father/son bonding than to work on big projects like this together.  It has been a pleasure for us to see this crew working rapidly and skillfully on our barn.


It has been a busy week for Kevin, as more than one thing has "come up" on the barn project.  He's been making phone calls and dashing around a bit.  Yesterday, the van driver (who is not, of course, Amish) realized at about 4 p.m that the battery for his van was dead.  Kevin came home and helped them get it started so everyone could go home.

Barn: Day 2

Yesterday the work crew toiled away all day on the barn, in spite of intermittent rain showers.

  Looks great, doesn't it?

We think one more full day will do it, and that will probably be tomorrow.  We had rain all day with much wind, but tomorrow is supposed to be calm and sunny.

Experiment with Ammonia

I recently subscribed to a  website called the Happy Scientist.  The Happy Scientist, Robert Krampf, has conducted dozens of experiments and put them on video. 

One that he recommended was the following:  buy or pick some flowers.  Ok, we bought some flowers since we're in the middle of winter. 

And here are some of the flowers.  Beautiful, aren't they?

Next, pour some ammonia into the bottom of a glass jar.  Suspend the flowers over the ammonia.  Cover with a plate.

Ammonia is a strong base (the opposite of an acid.)  Bases accept hydrogen ions.  Another way of saying that is that bases donate electron pairs in a chemical reaction.  The flowers we used, like many plants, are sensitive to the presence of acids and bases.  The ammonia fumes cause the petals to change color and the petals are therefore acid/base indicators.

So, did it work?

Well, yes, after 20 to 30 minutes exposure (I wasn't keeping close track), the flowers looked like this.

The orange petals didn't change much, but the others altered substantially.

So the experiment was a success. 

But the biggest thing I learned (though I vaguely knew it) is that I HATE the smell of ammonia. I don't think we'll be doing this particular experiment again any time soon!

Barn!

We've been saving towards a barn for several years now, and the time has come.

Yes, now, in the middle of January.  Winter is the slow season for most construction companies, and our barn is a simple structure so can be constructed in winter.

First day of construction was on Thursday.  That was also the last day (so far) because Friday the weather was terrible.

Before picture:

And after one day's construction...

So, the walls are up.  We hope that Monday the weather will cooperate and they can work on it some more.

We are excited!

Pondering Illness

Winter is our "sick" season.  When we first had Naomi, my memory is that we had a couple of good years where we weren't sick much. But since then, every winter we get sick and, it seems, stay sick.

Now, that may be perception more than truth.  I think a big part of our struggle is that we have a large family and it takes a LONG time for everyone to get an illness.  This winter hasn't been bad.  We've not had anything really nasty (unlike November 2009, when we all succumbed to swine flu.)  Right now, we have a cold.  It's just a cold, not even a big cold. We've been mostly functional.

The kids who got it seem to be over it.  Kevin and I had it for a few days. Kevin took off Monday. I was really exhausted Sunday and Monday, but not as sick as Kevin so he rested and I tried to keep the kids occupied and quiet.  That is our unspoken rule, that the sicker parent gets to rest.  Back when I got swine flue, Kevin was nobly shouldering tremendous responsibility for 2 long weeks as I couldn't get out of bed.

I think the hardest thing about the long term minor illnesses is that we feel tied down.  I try not to expose other people to our illnesses and young ones are particularly bad about coughing on other people or otherwise sharing germs. 

We've not been to church in 3 weeks.  I was hopeful about Sunday.  As I said, the children seem well.  But...Saturday  I woke up with a minor sore throat, then Sunday I woke up feeling quite sick.  Kevin wasn't feeling well either.  If it was JUST me, all by my lonesome, I could tackle church. I can be trusted not to spread germs copiously.  But to take all 7 kids is a fair amount of work.  I'm prone to asthma during respiratory illness, and I've felt just a bit asthmatic off and on the last couple of days.  I'm 19 weeks pregnant.  Is pushing myself a good idea?  No, it is not.  Sigh.  So we stayed home.

When I was young and single, I pushed myself physically often.  During graduate school, there were seasons when I worked 16 hour days.  3 times I went out to the West Coast to work on a synchrotron and we had a beamline 24 hours a day. Now, several grad students shared that time, but I would be working in the wee hours frequently. 

I had a feeling that I could just use mind over matter and my body would cooperate. If I was determined, I could do whatever I thought I should. That turned out to not be true.  I had preterm labor with our 2nd, and I think it was partially caused by trying to do too much.

So now I think a lot about margin -- physical, mental, emotional.  In general, I try not to push myself to my limits.  Sometimes life interferes and I have to run at 110% for a short time. But I make a point of looking for ways to get the rest I need, to steward my limited resources so I can do what God calls me to do.

One of the reasons we live quiet lives is that I know that I am weak.  I don't have the emotional or physical energy to take the children to a myriad of activities, AND homeschool, AND nurture a baby in the womb, AND keep the house clean, etc. etc.

And that's Ok.  God is infinitely powerful. I am not. He knows that. I can trust that I can do what HE wants me to do.