We had a very busy Christmas this year (which isn't much different from any year). You know the routine....run, run, run. We started out on the Sunday before Christmas at Kevin's moms house. We played Italian music while we cooked Italian supper-Lasagna, Chicken Alfredo, caesar salad, and breadsticks. Of course we opened presents later in the evening. On Christmas eve, we went to my mom's house. My dad helped all the kids make Christmas sugar cookies and I helped them ice them all. After we opened gifts, mom and dad played Christmas carols on the piano while we all sang along. Christmas morning began at 6:45 a.m., Reagan was SO excited. Kev was excited that Santa brought us both fishing poles! After we finished with our gifts, we headed over to Barb's for more. One of Reagan's favorite gifts was a ZuZu pet. That afternoon we went to Kevin's Grandma's. Saturday we headed to Belleville for the day and had a suprise visit from Santa. On Sunday, we went to my Grandma's for dinner and gifts. By Sunday night, we were exhausted. But over all, it was a great Christmas.

Kaylynn Nicole

This is my new niece that was born on Dec. 16th. Her name is Kaylynn Nicole (named from me and my mom's middle names Kay and Matt's mom and sister's middle names Lynn). She was a whopping 8lbs 14 oz. and 20 and 1/2 inches long. Kevin and I got to go see her on Sunday. She's so cute and adorable! Baby and parents are doing great. Good luck guys!

Baby's first picture

Guess I slacked at putting this up here sooner but this is the ultrasound that I got when I was almost 9 weeks (I'm now 10 weeks but am showing like I'm quite a bit further). The main news we recieved is that there is in fact just 1 baby in there and everything looked well. We were able to see the little heart beating and little formations of arms and legs beginning to form. It was of course too early to tell the sex of the baby but I did the needle and the string thing the other day and it says it's a boy soooooo we shall see! Due date is right around July 13th!

Exciting news!

The moment you've all been waiting for....we're finally having another baby! We're about 8 weeks right now. Hadn't planned on saying anthing for a few more weeks but I'm definately starting to "show" sooner than my first pregnancy. This last week especially, all of a sudden my pants aren't fitting and I can't tolerate sucking in my stomach all day long to where my formed fitting clothes don't show anything.

We had Thanksgiving with my family Thursday night and had a family dinner with Kevin's family Saturday night. For both families, we had Reagan wear a shirt that said "I'm going to be a big sister" and we thought we'd see how long it would take them to notice. Kevin's family was Johnny on the spot by my family took about 5 minutes for someone to notice. Everyone was happy about the news but almost everyone suspected it either because they say I've looked very tired lately, or I look like I've been gaining wait, or as my sister pointed out, my hair has looked more oily the last few weeks!! So I guess it really was good we decided to tell everyone a little sooner. Reagan keeps saying she's having a baby brother since she knows her cousin is expecting a baby brother too. But I wonder if Reagan really grasps the idea of what is going on. I have an ultrasound scheduled this Friday to set the date for sure but right now I think it's around July 13th.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We spent the day visiting both sides of our family and of course, eating lots of food. Kevin has off 4 days in a row so we're having a great time together. I know I haven't blogged for a record of 3 weeks but I've not had much going on. Working on putting up my tree this weekend so hopefully I can post some pics of our Christmas decorations after this weekend!

Medical question for all the nurses out there

So this little blog message is for my nurse friends out there....a little healthcare discussion. I KNOW we've had this discussion (back in the good ol' days of working nights at Union hospital). And to my knowledge, I'm not sure if we came up with the textbook answer. As the picture shows, the topic is on pitting vs. non-pitting edema. Obviously we're all aware that pitting edema is graded 1-4....but what about non-pitting edema? I've always graded my non-pitting edema based on my visual assessment of the amount of swelling I'm observing (whether this is right or not). I've looked on the internet but can't find a flat out answer to this. But to me, you have to have some sort of measurement or the next shift wouldn't know if it's better or worse! So what is it girls??

Trick or Treat!

It was a good Halloween weekend. I hadn't planned on dressing up this weekend but at we had a Halloween party for the residents at the nursing home on Friday and they were encouraging staff to dress up for them. Somehow I came up with the idea to be a mime. I had planned on doing the entire face paint but decided against it since I was worried that some serious situation may arise and I had to talk to a family looking like a mime. I even looked up some mime acts on the internet to go along with the outfit. During the halloween party, I "skated" out on the floor and "pulled the rope" and finished up trying to "get out of the box." Somehow I ended up getting 2nd place in the costume contest! But I was told that I put on a good show. Reagan was a little Indian girl and a cute one at that. We went to West Union to trick or treat on Friday night and went out to eat at mom and dad's restaurant. They have a cigar store indian that Reagan posed with. Then we went by our church where they had a maze and some treats. We went trick or treating in Newton on Saturday and afterwards, Reagan helped pass out candy to the trick or treaters at her Grandma Schulte's house-one of her favorite parts of halloween.

Halloween is here

We started our Halloween festivities this week. Reagan and I made cupcakes to take to the kids at daycare yesterday. They were all chocolate with sprinkles. Tonight we carved a jack-o-lantern. Reagan helped with punching the holes through the design while I did most of the carving. She's been asking for awhile when it's going to be Halloween and we finally told her this week it's here! Friday night we're going to a weiner roast/hay-ride at our church in West Union. Then Saturday we'll do the trick or treating in Newton. Pictures to come....

Picture time

Yesterday we got some family pictures taken, hopefully for our upcoming Christmas card. If you're seeing these pics and you end up getting one later, you can act suprised! We knew we wanted to get a picture with our chickens since that's been our big thing this year. It took a little bit to get the chickens rounded up but we did it. Reagan even did really good holding hers! Then we decided that we'd better get a picture with our pups since they'll all be gone by this weekend. I loved these pictures, they turned out so good. I also do a yearly scrapbook and try to get a good family photo for it. I was really good and did one specific for Reagan for my pregnancy and for her first year but that was where I stopped with the scrapbooking. Then I decided I could surely keep up with doing one page per year. I get together my favorite photos throughout the year and write up a paragraph about things we did, places we went, where we worked, and sometimes little things like how much a gallon of milk or how much gasoline costs.

Covered Bridge Festival

Survived another trip to the covered bridge festival again this year. My mom, sister, and I made are annual outage to the festival again. It was pretty cold when we arrived bright and early at 7am but it turned out to be a pretty nice day by afternoon. I wouldn't say I got anything big and exciting in particular (last year my big item was a wooden trashcan), but I did come home with several home decorations. And as always the food was spectacular. We all had ribeye steak sandwhiches for lunch and we couldn't pass up the kettle corn and roasted almonds. It was pretty crowded at lunch but didn't seem as bad as last year. I'm not near as tired as I expected to be after being on my feet all day but I'm still looking forward to the massage I scheduled myself tomorrow evening!

Fire Drill

Yesterday was an exciting day at the nursing home. I was sitting in my office when I heard the fire alarms sound. Usually I'm told ahead of time when there is going to be a drill but I wasn't aware of any drill this time but yet I didn't think too much of it. I go down one of the halls and start checking rooms and closing the doors behind me. After the other staff and I had gone down the whole hall and hadn't found the flashlight (that's the fire you're supposed to find during a drill), we returned back to the dayroom to see if anyone on the other hall had found anything. As soon as we crossed the threshold, we smelled smoke. Then we realized that there was smoke coming from the ceiling! The decision was quickly made to evacuate all the residents. Knowing that there was a real fire was very scary and we immediately began running. The first room I went to, the resident refused to leave her room. She said staff had told her several times before that there was a fire and evacuation was needed but every time it was just a drill and she was not going to do it this time. No matter what I said, she planted her feet and said she wasn't going. Just as I was about to leave and come back to her later, I pressed on to say that the building was on fire, there was smoke, it smells, and she has GOT to get out of the building! She finally agreed. We got all the residents into the parking lot and luckily it had stopped raining by that point. The fire department arrived and after about 45 minutes, they told us that we could return into the building and that some "dust bunnies" in the duct work got too hot. We returned the residents to the building and went on with our day. At least we got our yearly evacuation drill completed! Most important, I'm just glad that the building and the residents were okay.

I finally did it

Well after 7 years of having dial up internet, I FINALLY broke down and got the high speed internet. Can't say I'm over the initial shock of what it costs to get it started, not to mention my internet bill tripling! But it is making my blogging and uploading of pictures actually possible from my home computer. Jessica says she expects to see more blogging from me so I'll do my best. The whole process of this wildblue stuff is a little ridiculous though. I didn't know they couldn't install it on our fascia and I certainly didn't want holes in my roof so the only other option was this $150 pole they wanted to put in the yard. Kevin has specifically made a point to say before that he did not want this dish in our yard. And since he was asleep when the installers came out, I was the one who got to make the decision. They kept pointing out spots in our yard that would be the best for a good signal and all of these areas were right smack in the middle of the yard or right by the front door, yeah right like I want it to be a decorative piece of my lawn! We had finally decided to place it out on the far side of the garage and they were getting started on it. I called my brother (my computer adivsor) and he told me I would never get a signal that far out. So as they were starting to drill a hole on my garage and had half dug the hole, I had to go running out to stop them. After another 15 minutes, we finally found a spot that would work. The only other thing I wish they'd told me is that I needed outlets next to where the modem would be on the inside of the house. We ran it into the bathroom closet and now I have cords strung across my bathroom to get to an outlet! All I can say is that this high speed better be worth it!

It's time for Covered Bridge!

On Oct. 12th (Columbus Day) my mom, sister, and I are making our annual trip to the Covered Bridge festival. We're so excited! But I'm guessing this year will be interesting between Mom's bad back and Jodi will be 7 months pregnant. Lucky for me, I've scheduled a massage to be done the next evening! Last year I got a hand-crafted wooded trash can for my kitchen which I absolutely love. I wish I'd had a camera for that one...we had to carry this trashcan clear from one side of the festival about a mile to our car! I also got a lot of pottery pieces for my kitchen and I plan on getting more of those again this year. There's nothing else specific I plan to get but hopefully I can find some cute things to decorate my house with and maybe get some Christmas shopping done. And of course there's all the food I'm sure we'll be sampling. We enjoy eating lunch and listening to the live music. Can't wait!!

Here's Sonny

Here's the newest addition to the Schulte family. He's a 6 week old Persian/Himalayan kitten. Last Thursday when I went into work, I was sitting in my office and I heard someone whisper "Is Krista in her office?" I continued to do my work without much thinking. Then one of the managers brought me in a card and left. I opened it and it was a "thank you for all you do" card and all of my coworkers had signed it. Already I was close to being teary eyed when I heard more whispering in the hallway. I yelled out for whoever was there to come in. They entered with this kitten as a gift from all of them. I could hardly believe it and was 100% caught off guard. Reagan LOVES the kitten. When we suprised her with it, she kept saying "Where'd that come from?, Where'd you find my kitty??" We decided to name him "Sunny."

Pond Dock

So finally after over a year that our pond dock has been in place, we finally have it finished. We had to end up building in an extra 8 foot extension so that it would be fairly level since we made it a floating dock. It was quite a challenge getting this part connected to the existing dock. Once we finally got it all anchored, we realized that we would need another float in the middle of the walkway. Kevin and I were the only ones left by then that were willing to get in the mucky water's edge to get the float underneath! Reagan thinks the dock is her "dancing stage" and she loves going out there. We're working on the pond edge right now and hopefully will be done with that landscaping after this weekend.

Here's a picture of my fall decoration display. At first was thinking it's way too early to start this fall stuff. But I was planning a Premier Designs Jewelry Party (which I had last night) and it got me motivated to start decorating. For the party, I used several of my sister's new Tastefully Simple Fall foods and drinks (Carrot Peacon Bread with Frosting, Apple Crisp Cheeseball, Nana's Apple Cake, Chai Tea, and Hot Amaretto Cocoa)!

I did this outside display in our circle drive .

I also took a few pictures of the house today, including my front door. I was just thinking of how well my flowers have done up there the whole summer and it's probably just a matter of time until they start dying off.

We just finished up the fascia and sofiting on the porch a few weeks ago. Now all we need is the guttering which we'll hopefully do this winter. Then next Spring we can finally do landscaping up around the house and in the circle drive. In the next week we're working down on the pond dock area...pictures to come in another posting soon.

Reagan has been talking about getting her ears pierced for quite awhile now. We finally decided to do it today. After we got done watching the harness races at the Cumberland County Fair, Reagan and I headed up to the Mattoon Mall to Claire's. Reagan was all smiles and talk as we headed into the store. I sat her up on the chair and she held the bear as they both happily looked over the selection of earrings. As soon as the store clerk came over to start the process, Reagan became her usual shy self and put her head down with a glum look on her face. She wouldn't speak or even make contact with the lady. I knew they were thinking that I'm one of those moms who force their child to get their ear pierced. I assured her that Reagan was just shy and that she was very excited about getting this done. There were 2 girls to stand on each side of Reagan to do her at once. She sat very still as they pierced her. It took just a second for Reagan to start to frown and I was sure she was getting ready to cry. But she stayed tough and never did. As I was standing at the counter with her, she finally sneaked in a smile and tried to hide it from everyone. We left the store and Reagan couldn't stop smiling and talking about her earrings. When we were in Wal-Mart she kept saying, "I'm am so excited I got my ears pierced!"

EGGS!!

The day we have been waiting for since March has finally come. Last week we got our first Chicken egg. We've been going out to the chicken coop every morning and finding 1 egg each day. Once they all start laying, we could have up to a dozen eggs a day!

The big weekend finally arrived, Kent and Jessica's big wedding. Friday morning all the girls went out for a pedicure in Mattoon. We then went to the Hilton Garden Inn for a lunch and Jessica passed out gifts for the bridesmaids, it was like getting Christmas early! The Rehearsal was at the St. Marie Church on Friday evening and we followed with a dinner at the Wilderness Lodge. If you ask Reagan about the evening, she'll go into a sob story about how her and Jaiden were washing their hands and between the two of them, her baby ring (which she was wearing for only the 2nd time since birth and was only on her fingers for about 3 hours) slipped off her finger and down the drain of the sink. Both girls were screaming and crying about the disaster. It was a nice relaxing evening besides that. Saturday morning my sister cam over to Barb's house to do our hair. We then went toJessica's moms house to get our makeup done with the Mary Kay lady. All the girls headed off to the church to start getting dressed and get our pictures. The wedding ceremony was beautiful. We go pictures at the church afterweards and then went to Sam Parr and out to our CRP land to get some more outdoor photos. We finally arrived at the wedding reception in our limos to start the evening. Dinner was great (chicken, green beans, potatoes, salad) and the strawberry swirl was an awesome cake. We danced the night away, and Reagan ha a blast. My favorite part was getting to spend the evenng hanging out out with my Terre Haute friends whom I miss dearly! The wedding reception wrapped up and we headed home. Sunday morning there was a brunch at Jessica's moms house and we watched them open up all their gifts and kicked back for the afternoon. It was the best weekend I've had for a long time. Great job Kent and Jessica and a big Congratulations!!

Girls Night Out

Kevin and I had a good weekend partying with our friends. Kevin had all the guys out to our house for Kent's Bachelor party while I went out with Jessica and the girls for her Bachelorette party in St. Louis! The guys had a good time hanging out but since it rained, they were unable to have a fire like they had planned. They grilled out burgers and hung out. Us girls left in the morning and went to Fairview heights first to eat at Houlihan's and then went shopping in the mall. We got some accessories for our "dress up" planned for that night. We then went to the Casino Queen hotel to check in and start dolling ourselves up. It was to be a "wear your favorite black dress" night. Jessica got to wear a sparkly "Bachelorette" princess crown and a pink sash while the rest of us wore Bridesmaids pins on our dresses, talk about drawing attention to yourself:) We took the Metro to the Landing and went to the Spaghetti factory for Supper. After that we went to The Big Bang Piano bar and hung out there for the night singing a long and watching the entertainment. One lady told us before we left that we "were the classiest bachelorette party there!" There were SEVERAL bachelorette parties there that night. The piano bar was getting very crowded and hot and we were ready to dance so we went to another place (can't remember the name) to dance for awhile. Then we took a taxi back to the hotel. We had great plans to gamble for awhile but after we sat down to eat a snack at the Casino, we all realized how tired we were and decided it was bed time. It's was a great girls night out and a much needed getaway. Can't wait for the wedding Jessica!

Vacation Bible School

We spent all week going to West Union in the evenings for the Vacation Bible School program at the West Union Christian Church where we attend. Jaiden came along for the ride and my other neice and nephew, Alayna and Nathan attended too. Reagan really enjoyed being with the other kids. She was always shy during the music program but really let it all out every time we got in the car to go home. Today at church, they had the closing program. I was just suprised Reagan got up on the stage. During the first song, she lifted her dress up over her head and the song leader had to go up and pull it down for her!! It was cute watching them. Maybe by next year, they'll be over the stage fright.

Meet me in St. Louie, Louie......

Butterfly Garden and Grant's Farm

Zoo

Last weekend we took a little mini vacation to St. Louis. On Saturday we went to Grant's Farm and the Butterfly house of the Missouri Botanical Gardens. Our favorite part of Grant's farm was bottle feeding the baby goats. We had never been there before and weren't sure what to expect and suprised to find out that you have to ride the train car to get from the entrance to the area where all the action is! We watched an elephant show there and looked at all the farm animals (the Clydesdales are the big attraction there) and ate lunch there. In the afternoon, we went to see the butterflies. After relaxing at the Drury Inn that evening, we went to the St. Louis Zoo on Sunday. Reagan's favorite was the "Giraff-es." What a beautiful weekend we had!

Good Ol' West Union Dining.

Chilton's Carry-Out Pizza

My parents are a bunch of go-getters when it comes to running a business. Luckily the town of West Union and those who pass by will never go hungry because of them. They built this Carry out pizza building which is next to their house and serve pizza and breadsticks Mon.-Sat. evenings 4-8pm. This August will be their 5 year anniversery.

Chilton's Cafe

Last winter, they decided to take on a new restaurant which was then called the Illinois 1 Cafe also in West Union. The building became Chilton's Cafe and a total makeover of the building was completed. They completely repainted everything inside, hung up decorations, new curtains, light fixtures and tablecloths, and revamped the menu. On the outside, they stained the stone, added shudders, log siding to the old addition, and tore off a little entrance that used to be on the front (a new roof is still to come). It's amazing how this place can always be so full of customers in a town of this size. My favorite menu item is the fried fish dinner. The Beef Manhattan is also very good. The just recently added a milkshake machine and just prior to that, they got a charbroiler.

Mooooooooove Over!

Kevin’s dreams of becoming a cow farmer have finally come true. He’s “cow sitting” this week for our neighbors. Every day he drives up to the farm and honks the horn so the cows know it’s feeding time. We’ll usually beat them up to barn and sit while we watch them come running and mooing. Kevin puts food in both troughs and they just go to town. There are about 8 large herfords/angus herfords and 6 baby ones. Reagan absolutely loves going to see the cows. Someday maybe we’ll have some of our own!

Happy 4th of July!

Well I'm sure everyone else can say the same thing but 4th of July was rough this year! It rained all day long and the parade in West Union was cancelled in the afternoon. We spent Saturday morning at my mom's doing a garage sale and had maybe 10 people who came. There was a lot of food at my mom's and we just sat around visiting and eating. We drove back to Newton later in the afternoon and had a cookout with some of Kevin's friends. Then we headed back to West Union again for fireworks at the park. It was sprinkling when we got there so the fireworks were delayed for about 45 minutes and we had to sit with umbrellas in the meantime and listened to the live entertainment while eating popcorn. There was a big tree kind of in our way so we decided to move up closer. We're basically sitting right underneath the fireworks when they started and we're almost looking straight up to see a lot of them. It was a great view!! Some of the ashes were falling from some low fireworks and one landed on Reagan's neck. My mom took her over to the ambulance where my uncle was on duty and sure enough when he wiped away the ashes, there were 3 burn areas on the back of her neck and a burn hole in her jacket, and she never even cried! They dressed everything up and the fireworks were over. Reagan still talked about how much she liked them and didn't seem too bothered by her "owie." Overall it was still a nice 4th, I'm just glad the fireworks hadn't been cancelled but rest ssured, we will not sit that close again!

Swimming lessions

Reagan is going to be starting her 2nd week of swimming lessions this next week. Her and her cousin Jaiden have been going to Mallory Bollander's house every day for lessions. Reagan can put her face in water and blow bubbles, float on her back, jump in the water and go under, and swim on her belly (with assistance of course).

More Chickens!

Another exciting addition to the chicken farm this weekend. We all had Friday off so we drove to Brownstown, IL to look at some chickens and rabbits from a couple who shows them in fairs. The rabbits were adorable but Kevin could not be convinced that we needed any of them. We went with intentions of coming back with 2 particular chickens but of course I can't resist and we came back with 4 more. We got all hens: Australop, Silkie mix, Buff Oprington Cochin, and a Gold-Laced Wyandotte. Here's what our beautiful chickens will some day look like....

Australop and Buff Orpington

Gold Laced Wyandotte and Silkie

Landscaping

Kevin and I worked hard over the weekend to do a little landscaping. We want to do a big project in the center drive and up around the house but we’re saving that for next Spring. My mom gave me a bunch of transplants so we planted a lot of perennials around this tree that is in our side/back yard next to the woods. We have a rose bush, purple coneflowers, peonies (which don’t look so good right now), snowball bushes, rose of sharon’s, and something that is yellow and spreads (can’t remember the name of it). Then I planted a bunch of Hostas around another set of trees.

When our pond was dug, we found this huge rock in the bottom. Works perfect for our landscape and hopefully we’ll get it engraved sometime. There’s really too many things in this garden so when we get something else started, I’m going to move some of it out.