harvest 2015

Good-bye celery harvest 2015!!!  (Almost.)  Harvest should finish up midday today.  Feels like the end of a marathon.  Well, I've never ran a marathon, but Mike said he feels like he did when he finished a 25k a few years back.  Close enough.  It has been a GREAT season for the farm, and it all went really well with the new packing shed, but it's just been so intense and Mike has put in so many hours for so many months now, we're ready to have him at home some!  :)

A couple Saturday's ago we were supposed to have our annual skeet shoot, but the weather ended up being really yucky.  Still had fun hanging out with Joe, Harold & Kara and kids, but it was a bummer to not be able to do their shooting.  There were able to get just a few minutes in before the rain got too bad - enough that the boys were out in the field collecting shot gun shells the other day and brought them in the house to play with.  Who needs toys??  That same day, before everyone came over, we quick ran over to school for a fall party they were having.  Would have been nice to have more time there (except for the crappy weather) - Mike and the boys spent some time in the "fun tunnel" (for a while I wondered if Mike was going to make it out), and they got to check out some little goats, and go for a ride in a really old car.  Then it was time for us to scoot out of there.

That same day Mike's co-worker and his wife gave birth to their twin boys.  She was actually due four weeks after me, and we'd been praying that those babies would stay in as long as possible and keep growing, but due to complications, the doctor's needed to deliver them.  They are teeny-tiny, but doing well!  They've got a long road ahead of them as they continue to grow while in NICU before they can come home.  We visited them a couple days after they were born - pretty incredible to see God's handiwork in micro-sized versions (one was about 1.5 lbs, the other about 3.5).

I spend a couple days last week finally buckling down and figuring out what we needed to get for Baby.  One of the days Caleb and Logan were at school and Levi got to have a special day with Grandma VanBeek, so I was able to go out and do a bunch of shopping.  The other day I did my shopping online (thank you, Amazon!).  So, I'm definitely feeling more prepared now.  :)

Last Saturday we went to a birthday party for the grandson of one of Mike's workers.  (So glad the weather was better!)  Sounds a little distant, I know, but it's part of the family that we have known and worked with for years - I've known them for 15 years, and Mike knew them for several years before that.  This was a much more enjoyable party than the one we went to last winter for one of his worker's sons...  People I know, mostly English spoken...that helps a lot!  The boys got oodles of candy, just what they need.  :)  Not only did they each get a good sized favor bucket full, the pinata was chock full of good candy and they got a pretty good haul.

Sunday was a pretty busy day with church, and I went to an extra meeting that was part of our missions conference.  My tail bone was complaining for sure from all the sitting - it's just been starting to bother me more, a sure sign I'm carrying a lot of extra weight around...  This week I've had a number of appointments to go to (doctor, vet, preadmission at the hospital, non stress test), and Levi has come along to every one handling it like a champ.  My little errand buddy!  Wednesday was the fullest - after getting Caleb and Logan to school we had to get Roxy to the vet for a check-up (with a stop at the farm to drop off Mike's uniforms because he forgot).  Then after her appt we headed over to the hospital for my preadmission appt, which is fairly lengthy.  We really needed some groceries, so we went out to do that after we were done at the hospital, and it ran into lunchtime so I figured we'd stop somewhere between our stops at Aldi and Meijer.  I explained that to Levi that I wanted to take him to a restaurant because he'd been doing so good, but he chose a Lunchable from the grocery store over eating out!  Oh well, I still ate out and just brought his Lunchable in.  Silly guy.  (I found out later after his day with Grandma that she offered to take him out for lunch and he said he'd rather have a peanut butter sandwich, so that's what they did!)

Yesterday was a non stress test for the baby, and he/she did great.  At the beginning of this week I went off of my daily blood thinner injections, so now we'll do weekly NST's just to make sure the baby's handling it okay.  Less than three weeks to go!  I can definitely feel that I'm big and heavy, but overall I really can't complain too much.  I'm not sleeping great, but it could be worse.  Heartburn is under control with meds, so that's really nice.  Baby moves a lot, and that's my absolute fav, wish I would never forget what that feels like!  Big brothers are super excited, that's so much fun to see.  Hope they're still excited when they see that baby is taking lots of Mom's attention for a while...  :)