Just a little update of my life

Well I've known for about a week now but I was officially accepted into the Nurse Practitioner Program at Unviversity of Evansville! Guess I won't be starting until next January though. I may need that time to mentally prepare....and to get Reese potty trained by then! Reese finally got over her ear infection after 2 rounds of antibiotics. Now we are just dealing with Reagan and what seems to be a bit of the flu again. This makes 3 times for her this winter:(
I just got the news that I'm having another little neice or nephew (Kev says definately a boy!). Jessica and Kent are finally having a baby! Just in time too cause Jessica is also going into the nurse practitioner program next Spring. Good luck guys and Congratulations!

More animals

We ordered 25 baby chicks awhile back and were expecting them to come sometime during this coming week. To our surprise, we recieved a phone call at 9:30 p.m. Saturday night from the Effingham post office saying that they had arrived! Kevin and Reagan left to go get them while I stayed back to prepare their bedding. Reagan was so excited about getting them and wants to hold them all the time. This will be the second time we've raised baby chicks but we have never done this many. 9 of them are meat birds for us to butcher and the rest are an assortment of ones we want for pets and eggs. Kevin also went to get some more goats on Saturday. So far they are my favorite. They are very pretty and super friendly.

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's to everyone. Had to post a picture of one of my cute valentine's!

We made it through

Hope everyone made it through the storm uneventful. I didn't get stranded at work like I thought I would have and I was able to get all of the shifts covered from call ins so I'm greatful for that. Our electricity was out for about 24 hours...just came back on this evening. It was fun at first...Reagan thought we were camping and loved all the candles and sleeping in her sleeping bag on the living room floor. But by morning when the temperature had started dropping, it became a bit of a bother. I had stocked up on non-parishables and plenty of lunch meat just in case we would have become stranded or without power for several days. Luckily it looks like I can forget about that! And Reagan is happy we are getting to stay the night at Grandma's house. We had packed up to stay for the night due to no power. But when the lights had come back on at our place around 7:00, there was no getting Reagan to go back home. So here we are, sleeping over at Grandma Schulte's!

She's crawling

Reese had a big week this week. A few of her top teeth finished breaking through...puts her up to a whopping 5 teeth. She just learned how to grind her teeth too....eey! She's been bouncing on her knees for a good week or two and finally took a few paces on Wednesday. By now, she is crawling all over! It's sweet that she's met this milestone but I know it's only a matter of short time and I'll be losing her around the house. Time to put up the baby gates I guess!

Bucky

This is Bucky, the 6 month old male goat Kevin got this weekend. He's such a cute little guy....for now anyway. Apparently male goats get rather ugly when they get full grown so I'm not looking forward to that. The two girls, Lucy and Ethel have been kind of mean to him and injured him so we moved him in with the chickens temporarily. I also had my first experience with trimming hooves of an animal. I sort of winged it, not knowing what I was cutting but he survived and can still walk so I must have done okay!

Happy Christmas!

Whew, Christmas is over and I'm exhausted! We did the Schulte family Christmas on the 18th so it was nice to spread things out a bit. On Wednesday, Kevin and I went to Reagan's preschool and we helped her make a Gingerbread house...I had to keep on Kevin to quite eating the candy until the house was completed! On Christmas eve, we spent the day at my mom's house and was visited by Santa (Reagan was just fine and dandy but Reagan still has a complex about getting anywhere near Santa). Christmas morning was soooo exciting for Reagan. Every present she opened, she wanted us to open so she could start playing with it. Make note..next year Santa won't bring so much because interest is lost by the end! I took a picture of her in her new housecoat and her dressup wig. She got a moxie girl doll, barbie doll head to fix hair with, dresses, books, cowgirl boots, and dress up costumes to name a few. Reese got some of the necessities and a baby gait to keep her from crawling up the stairs (which she may be doing soon!) I took a picture of Kevin's new hat that my uncle embroidered-he has started a business doing all kinds of things like that. That afternoon we went to Beecher City for a Christmas and then went to Belleville on Sunday for the last Christmas. What a fun time. It's always sad to see it go knowing we are facing the winter with nothing but Spring to look forward to. Merry Christmas everyone!

The big 3-0 is finally here

Sorry to all my faithful followers for going 2 months and no posts. I had almost given up on blogging, you know...never enough time it seems like. Not even sure where to begin or even what has happened in the last two months. Reese is growing up so fast, has 2 teeth already and just started eating some rice cereal about a week ago. Reagan is loving preschool and is so excited about Santa coming to her (she wants EVERYTHING she sees on commercials). Yesterday was my big 3-0. Yep, it's official, I'm old. No exciting party or anything but we did have Kevin's family Christmas yesterday so that was just as good. Also to kick off me being 30, I applied to graduate school yesterday to start my Master's for Nurse Practitioner. This is something I've thought about for a few years but never thought I was in a good position to do it (still not sure I am). But I just did it quickly before I had time to think about it. My sister-in-law Jessica is doing it too so we can carry each other through it for the next few years. Wish me luck....think I'm going to need it!

Halloween

Hope everyone had a great Halloween. Ours was pretty broken up. We started last weekend at West Union getting that side of the family. By the way, congratulations to my sister for announcing that she was 10 weeks pregnant on that day!! On Friday evening, I stayed at the nursing home for the evening to help out with the trick or treating event while Kevin and the girls helped pass out candy at Grandma Schulte's house. Finally on Sunday evening, we went around Newton to a few places to finish up. We had planned on going to the Halloween parade on Saturday night but Kevin and Reagan ended up with the stomach flu in the middle of the night on Friday. Despite that part in the weekend, we still had a good holiday. Happy Halloween everyone! Now we can focus on Christmas:)

Finally!!

Well, anyone who is close to us knows that we've had goats since last April. We weren't exactly ready for them yet...no house, no fence, no hay. But Kevin convinced me that it would be okay to keep them with the chickens for a short time. Well that's just been a big mess. They poop and pee everywhere and are always jumping up on the fence around our coop which certainly was not meant to have goats leaning and pushing up on it. It had gotten so bad out in the coop that we just stopped going in there period. So for the first time in over a year, I had to start buying eggs from the store. We were just saying that we were suprised that none of the eggs have hatched out yet when last Tuesday, we found 10 baby chicks running around! To make things even better, our fence guy finally came out and installed the fence out across the pond (which Kevin has been working on endlessly for months to get ready for this). So Saturday was the move in day for the goats (one of the best days of my life). I had to get a picture of Kevin standing next to the fence that we, and Patrick, did...all by ourselves! We were quite proud of it along with the building that Kevin and Dad built over the summer. Then I got the chicken coop all cleaned out and we are back in the egg business!

First time for everything

I will have been married 8 years this year and believe it or not, I've never mowed a lawn since we've been married. I don't know why...I always mowed growing up and enjoyed doing it. When we rented our first house, all we had was a push mower. After a few laps around the yard the first time I tried a push mower, I was completely exhausted and decided push mowing definately wasn't my thing. Kevin and I have taken on the traditional household responsibilities...he does the outside work, I do the inside work. Well then of course we had kids so now I never have the opportunity to go out and mow because I watch the girls while Kevin is outside working. I was called in to work Sunday evening and decided to take Monday off. The girls went the the sitter and I spent the afternoon mowing and planting grass seed. I didn't get too crazy on making cool strips in the yard but I do have to admit, I should be mowing more often for as good as it looked!

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My girls

Here's my girls...aren't they adorable! Reagan still loves holding Reese and sitting by her in the chair. I absolutely love this picture of them together! Reese in almost 3 months old now. Where does the time go? We've had a few nights of her sleeping 7-8 hours but nothing consistent. I'm still adjusting to life at work. It's amazing how spoiled your body gets when you go 8 weeks without working and without anywhere to be. Is it too soon to be pregnant again just so I can have more time off work?

Preschool

Reagan's first day of preschool was today. She was sooo excited about it. We went last week for the open house and she got to see everything and meet her teachers. Kevin is taking her to preschool each morning and the bus is taking her to daycare afterwards. I just can't believe my little girl is old enough to start school. Hopefully the homework will hold off for awhile... I'm not ready for that yet!

Tea party

Lat Thursday I went to the annual "college roomies" get together. Well, it's not necessarily annually....more of a matter of when we decide to try to arrange 4 different work schedules to find a time we can all get together. I think each time we get together, there's a new kid in the mix. This time we went to Lisa's house in Charleston for a tea party! We all had chicken salad croissants and sweet goodies to go along. Oh and of course the tea. Crystal and Kylee both went to high school with me and were in the class graduating ahead of me. I met Lisa when I moved in with the three of them after my first semester at Eastern and we took several classes together. The two of us started painting as well. Yep, my first semester at Eastern when I lived by myself was spent learning how to paint with Bob Ross (those of you that aren't aware, he was a hippie artist who painted "happie little trees" in his landscape paintings. Unfortunately, I haven't seemed to have had the time to keep up with my painting hobby since I've been married:(

Just Dance

Reagan has been in a 6 week dance class over the summer. She's really enjoyed learning how to be a ballerina! Last night she had a dance recital at the Parish Center here in Newton. I couldn't have been more proud of her. She really is a shy girl and we've always had a hard time getting her to get up on the stage at church. A few weeks ago she had to get on the stage at church for vacation bible school and she did an awesome job. She repeated again last night. She went up there with no problems, smiled, and did all the moves! The dance class is over but we intend to start back up on the tumbling again in September.

Swimming

Reagan took swimming lessons this summer and has got a lot of enjoyment out of using the new Newton City Pool. Recently, Jessica's mom and dad bought a house just a few doors down from Kevin's parents. They have a really nice enclosed in-ground pool in the backyard. Needless to say, we've spent a lot of time there lately. Reagan's swimming abilities have really improved this summer. She can now jump in by herself while holding her nose. In the last few days, she has started to swim under water a little bit after jumping in and before she comes up! She's also gone down the slide by herself at Jessica's moms. At the beginning of the summer, we could barely get her to go under and she would sort of flip out anytime she got water in her eyes! I'm hoping to get Reese in the water soon but plan on waiting a few weeks. She is now exactly a month old already. Where does the time go?

Twilight

I've turned in to quite the book listener (book on tape is the way to go) over the last few years. It all started with my long trips to Union Hospital and trying to find ways to stay awake. I've listened to a lot of murder mystery and eventually got into some of the romance novels. It would just depend on my mood at the time. So now I only have a 15 min. drive to work but I seem to have this addiction and I almost panic if I'm going to be driving even as little as this and don't have a book to listen to. I just can't stand the boredom! So when I was at the library the other day, I realized they have the twilight series. I have never watched any of them and I've always wondered what the big deal is?? Anyway, I'm still in the early part of the book but so far, I'm really liking it. Can't wait to get it finished so I can watch the movies!

maternity pics

I had my maternity pics taken at 37 weeks with my friend Lisa (http://www.thepicturepatch.com/). I remember I was in such a hurry to get them done because I had procrastinated and was also worried I'd be going into labor at anytime. Turns out I had plenty of time since I ended up being induced after all:) Anyway, just thought I'd share a few of my pics! We did things a little different and had the pictures taken at our house. It had to have been the hottest day of the year. Not to mention I have this sweating problem that is exacerbated by the heat intolerance of being pregnant. I had to keep going inside to cool off and wipe off all the sweat about every 5 minutes! I especially liked the family pictures we had taken. Reagan was really a good sport that day...at least she was after being bribed with ice cream!

I'm hooked

I was once an avid watcher of the tv show "ER." I realize it was unrealistic but it was still addictive. Maybe it just made me feel smart because I knew what they were talking about in their medical jargon? Anyway, now that I'm on week two of my maternity leave, I've found that there is absolutely nothing on TV during the day. Not to mention, the average of 6 hours a day I spend breast-feeding has left me bored. Last week I watched a rerun of Grey's Anatomy (first time I've ever watched it) on Lifetime and liked it. So I continued to watch a few more episodes. However, it was frustrating because they were out of order and I was having a hard time keeping track of what was going on. I got the boxed set from Jessica over the weekend and have started from the beginning. I'll admit, I've become slightly obsessed with the show. I did have to cheat and watched the season finale from last May. If you haven't see it, it was a good one....very intense!!

Baby Reese Hannah

Precious little Reese Hannah was born on Wednesday, July 7th at 12:44p.m. at Olney Hospital. She was 8 lbs, 3 oz. and 20 in. long. I have to say that I feel I was extremely lucky with this delivery experience. We went in at 6:30 a.m. to be induced. By 7:30, the Pitocin was started. To my luck, the anesthesiologist showed up at 8:45 at which time I was barely having contractions and having no pain. Shortly after, the doctor was there to break my water. As time got closer, the nurse had me go ahead and start pushing to see how quick things would move. When she saw that it wouldn't take long, she called the Doctor who was on her lunch but reported she would be there soon. We continued on with the pushing and before we knew it, she was telling the nurses to call Dr. again because baby was coming fast. She actually came so fast, she had to call in the other nurses and they actually delivered Reese!! They had just cut the umblical cord (well, Kevin did) when the Dr. finally came in. The whole process of the delivery only took 20 minutes!! Reese is dark skinned with very thick, jet black hair! My dad said she looks just like I did when I was born. Anyway, we're all doing great, just came home from the hospital today. Reagan loves her new sister! She keeps kissing her and touching her. She's going to be so good to Reese!