1. On Saturday morning, I wiped the sleep from my eyes, threw on a pair of jeans, grabbed the car keys, prayed I wouldn't get in an accident even though I'd not yet had a cup of coffee, found my way to an Amish home several miles away, and bought 10 quarts of freshly picked (as in, she was out in the garden picking them when I arrived) strawberries for $2 each. I've never bought anything from an Amish woman before. I've also never bought anything at 6am before (I am not one of those Black Friday shoppers).

2. I made strawberry jam. My mom says I've done this, but I don't remember a bit of it, so I think it still qualifies as a New Thing. And, besides, I made it with turbinado sugar instead of regular refined sugar, which was going out on a limb since I'd not actually found a recipe anywhere saying such an exchange was possible. (It worked just fine and is delicious, if you're wondering.)

3. I canned the strawberry jam. I've never canned anything in my life. The first batch was made at a friend's house under her careful supervision. The next two batches I canned, with trembling hands, at home on my own.

And, naturally, that night I had horrible nightmares about poisoning (and killing) my family with the jam I was certain I had messed up. After consulting several experienced professionals, it turns out it's fine (I guess tiny air bubbles in your jam won't kill you) and that I'm as paranoid as Daniel always tells me I am.

4. We rearranged bedrooms, which means Aubrey is now sharing a room (with someone other than Daniel and me). The girls have the big giant bedroom and the boys have the smaller-- but still big by most bedroom standards-- bedroom upstairs.

I'd post pictures, but the kids are in bed and I didn't take any earlier.

5. We're getting a piano! Some friends are rearranging their house and are no longer in need of their upright. I am so excited! The timing is perfect since we were already in the process of shuffling all of our "family room things" (toys and TV) to the "new room" so that the old family room can become a music room/library. Assuming it stops raining sometime in the next year and we can do an open trailer transport, it shouldn't be long before the piano is in our home.

And then I guess I'll have absolutely no excuse for not dusting off my very retired and limited piano skills.

Last night we arrived home from our 6-day trip to Pittsburgh. The drive was... rough... but the days spent there were well worth the many hours spent in the van listening to Aubrey whine.

We packed a lot into our visit: the zoo, an extended family Father's Day lunch, a day at Idlewild, guitar browsing, the first ever stop at Ikea Pittsburgh, two church services, playtime with cousins, Panera Bread, game playing, dinner with friends, and more. It was all really, really wonderful. And the weather, believe it or not, was idyllic.

Today has been spent catching up: laundry, grocery shopping, mowing the lawn, cleaning dusty bathrooms, getting good naps, etc. Tomorrow I hope to get out to the gardens, which exploded while we were gone! The perennial bed is coming alive with the buds and blooms of the bee balm, shasta daisy, delphinium, yarrow, batchelor's button, and astilbe. Our lettuce and spinach plants are suddenly in full production mode, which meant that I didn't have to buy any lettuce at the grocery store this morning and I did get to make a salad with greens that came straight from the garden only minutes before dinner. I picked up some tomato cages while I was out since we've only staked up the cherry tomatoes and desperately need to do something for the Big Boys.

The kids are glad to return to their toys but sad to be over 500 miles away from Grandma and the other friends and family we were able to spend time with. Fortunately, an hour or two spent splashing in the Ockrin kiddie pool this morning (while I shopped) seemed to help alleviate some of the sadness!

We forgot our camera (boo, me), but already a friend sent some that she took during our amazing day at Idlewild:

I'm well over 22 weeks pregnant now. I like to think of this as the halfway mark, since usually a woman finds out she's pregnant about 18 weeks earlier (sometimes later, of course, which I can personally testify to, but usually between 4 and 5 weeks) and usually she delivers her baby about 18 weeks from now.

So far, things are going well. I can't complain about a whole lot. Sure, I'm exhausted beyond anything I've ever felt (honestly, I'm beginning to wonder just how low my iron levels were/are, because I have never felt as badly-- not even postpartum-- as I have this past month or so), I've started getting up at least once a night to use the bathroom again (so, basically, I got to sleep through the night for about 6 weeks out of the past, oh... 2 years), I still get heartburn from certain foods (like orange juice), and I'm not quite out of the Awkward Clothing Stage, but these are all "normal" things, really. Every time I want to cry about how wretched the iron pills make me feel or the fact that I don't like dealing with only owning 1 pair of maternity shorts and no maternity capris, I remind myself that I'm not on bedrest and that this baby is looking really healthy, and it all gets put into perspective.

I've gained about 6-9lbs so far (our unreliable scale here at home fluctuates a bit, depending on things like where exactly it's placed on the bathroom floor, and I haven't seen the doctor in 3 weeks). This is probably a lot to some of you, but it's only half-- at least-- of what I've usually gained at this point. It's also particularly low for me since most of my pregnancy weight gain typically takes place during my second trimester (for example, I gained 29lbs when pregnant with Aubrey and only 7 of those lbs were gained during my third trimester). While I honestly don't really care because I don't think the lower weight gain itself will make much of a difference in fetal weight, I can tell that the healthier eating is making a difference in how well my body is functioning-- even in spite of my iron deficiency-- and it's a good feeling to know that the baby isn't getting the junk from refined flours and sugars.

The only problem with the lower weight gain is that it's definitely played a huge part in extending the Awkward Clothing Stage I mentioned earlier.

Oh, and I really, really, really miss chocolate.

I think I already mentioned that I'm scheduled for a fetal echocardiogram with the pediatric cardiologists (the same group of doctors that Aubrey sees) on July 20th. Because I've given birth to a baby with congenital heart disease, I'm now considered at twice the risk for having another baby with congenital heart disease (up to 5-6% from 2-3%), so this sort of ultrasound with these specialists is now considered standard protocol for me. Assuming the fetal echocardiogram looks good, I will get bumped down from High Risk to Normal (for the duration of this pregnancy). How cool is that?!

Another thing that I'm really happy about is how well Aubrey's continued to nurse right through this pregnancy. She hasn't seemed a bit deterred by any changes that have taken place-- not even by the dramatically reduced supply. Several weeks ago, as I realized there were absolutely no indications of self-weaning, I started to panic at the idea of tandem nursing since she was so demanding when it came to nursing (as in, if she wanted to nurse but I wasn't available right. that. minute, she would follow me around the house, crying and hitting my legs until I finally catered to her) and I was starting to picture myself breastfeeding a newborn while she threw a fit at my feet. After discussing it with Daniel, however, I realized the problem wasn't nursing, but her attitude (what a revelation, huh?!). I've never before had to teach a child to expect anything less than On-Demand Nursing, but it seems to me that if she's old enough to throw a temper-tantrum about breastfeeding, she's old enough to understand and comply with, "You need to wait, Aubrey." We're still working on her response to such instruction (one can't expect an overnight change), but she's really improved a lot in that area and I now feel like continuing to breastfeed her even after the new baby arrives-- should that be what she needs/desires-- will work. And, quite honestly, the idea of her still getting the natural antibodies and immune builders that breastmilk offers through this coming winter really comforts me as a mom.

So, all in all, the halfway point finds me feeling very blessed.

And surprised that we're already here. Wow!