Rain Rain Go Away!!!!

I must say that I am sick of the rain. I would, at this point, much rather have snow then rain. Yesterday, Chicago got a horrible rain storm and it gave Elmhurst a run for it's money. We fixed our basement foundation therefor we assumed that we would not have anymore problems with rain water. That is why assuming makes an ass out of u and me. We got so much rain water in our area that it started coming up through the basement bathtub, toilet and the laundry room floor drain. I just happened to go downstairs to get more pump supplies and I walked passed the bathroom and heard pouring water. I turned the light on and saw the toilet overflowing. I then pulled back the shower curtain and the tub was filled to the rim with brown water. I turned off the water to the toilet thinking that should stop the water from coming in. I then thought that I should plunge the toilet. This brought up lots of poopers. It was so disgusting. I was yelling to Nicolas, because Nick was out of town, to get more towels. He was throwing towels down the laundry shoot to me. I was in the basement yelling how much I hated this "place." Nicolas came down and started to freak out too. I then realized that if I lost it my son would too. I told him that crying isn't going to solve the problem. So we sucked it up and began throwing more towels on the water. I then had Nicolas get the wet vac together and I put it in the toilet to suck water out and try to get the level of water down. That backfired and poop water started spewing everywhere. The bucket got full very fast and it started coming out of the top. That was when Nicolas and I were screaming because poop water was spraying everywhere. I called my Mom and Larry, my Step Dad, to ask what I should do to stop the water. They said to call the fire dept and see what they suggest. So I call 911 and they tell me that I am the 1000th caller and they can't do anything because the entire town is under water. I asked if I get a prize for being the 1000th caller. She said no. She told me to call the local police department. So I called the local emergency number. They told me they are aware of the problem and they too can't do anything. They said until the water goes down nothing will stop flowing. Luckily one of our neighbors came over to see how we were doing. He pulled me out of the basement and told me to just leave it alone and to go to his house. He reminded me there was nothing we could do until the water reseeded. He said we could go over to their house and have some dinner and drink some wine. I said okay.
It is always something..........

Today is Isabella's two month birthday. She's going to go to the doctor to get her shots and we will find out what her latest measurements are. She is a SUPER laid back baby. She only cries to let us know she's awake in the morning. She's been sleeping through the night except when my Mom was here but I think that was due to her not feeling well. She went to sleep last night at 10:30 and woke up this morning at 6:45. Nicolas adores her. Although yesterday we went to "Build A Bear Workshop" to have Nicolas make Bella her first stuffed animal. Now mind you Nicolas has three bags of animals in the crawl space, a.k.a. attic, and still has animals in his room. He doesn't need anymore stuffed animals. He was upset that Bella was getting a stuffed animal and he wasn't. It ended up being okay though. He created a sound for the animal that says, "Isabella, Nicolas loves you."
My Mom came and visited us from February 15th to the 20th. It was so nice to have her come out and help out with the growing family. Nick had been gone the week previous to that and was going to be gone again that week so my Mom came out. It was great for her too because she hadn't met Miss Isabella Marie yet. She and Larry were in Europe when Bella was born. It was also the first time she'd seen our house. It turned out to be a great blessing that she was here because Nicolas got sick Monday night, Tuesday I got sick and Wednesday Bella started getting sick. On Monday we rode the train into Chicago, ate lunch and went ice skating. Yes, I went ice skating and didn't break anything. Nicolas loved it. Isabella and my Mom watched while Nicolas and I had a great time. Nicolas hadn't ever gone ice skating before. The last time I had gone was for a rush event for Gamma Phi Beta at least 8 years ago. Before leaving my Mom wanted to get Bella a tummy playtime mat. Nick and I had wanted to buy the Baby Einstein play mat but didn't because of the price. Grandma came and bought it for the little peanut, Bella, and she loves it. Grandma's are so good, gracious and loving. This Grandma loves her Grandkids!!
We've had lots of rain and thank goodness no water in the basement. We found that we had two HUGE cracks in the foundation. We got those fixed and poof no more water. If only we had ripped off the drywall the first time we wouldn't have had to go through the experience the second time. Oh well, I guess it adds character.

It was 51 degrees today and here in cold as hell country 51 is summer time. Everyone was out playing outside and barbecuing. Isabella even wore shorts and sat in her swing outside while Nick and I tried to get more stuff out of the garage and into the crawl space. We were all able to finally take down our Christmas lights as well.
Isabella is so strong and so laid back. She loves to just be touching someone. She LOVES to be carried in the baby Bjorn backpack. She falls asleep in it every time. I have started to substitute for the Elmhurst school district and I'm really enjoying it. It's fun to be back around kids. I went to a kindergarten class and was quickly reminded why I chose secondary education and not elementary education. It was just "baby talk" all day. I'm the type to talk up front which is why I like middle school and even high school. I taught in a fifth grade class and I didn't like that very much. We have our basement completed again and finally got the carpet put in on Friday Feb. 6th. I will hook up the main computer and then I will be able to download more pictures for you all.

Isabella celebrated her one month birthday with us on the 23rd. We made cupcakes, per the request of her brother, and he I mean she really enjoyed them. She is very strong and can hold her head up for long periods of time. She eats ALL the time and that keeps me very busy with pumping for her.

More baby girl pictures

Here are some more baby girl pictures.

Can you say Big Boobs?? Holy breast feeding.

When we moved to Sacramento we were told the amount of rain the city got in the first month we were there was abnormal and hadn't ever happened. So now we have moved to Chicago and the usual amount of snow fall is 38 inches. We have already gotten 35 inches of snow and winter isn't even close to being done. We are under a blizzard warning tonight and Nick and I are running around wondering what that means. What do we do in a blizzard warning? We are in the midst of fizzing our basement because the day after we brought Isabella home our basement was filling with water again. We had to tear out out brand new carpet and demolish our brand new desk. I'm so sad because it was just starting to feel like things were getting back to normal. What is normal anyway, right??????

Christmas morning

These are from Christmas morning. Some were in the hospital and the other are at home. The funniest is Nicolas finding out how smelly dirty diapers are. He's been a great helper though and I don't know how people have young children and a newborn. It suggest everyone should wait nine years between each child.

Isabella Marie's room

In the photo that has the changing table you can see the picture that the family made. It is the picture on the floor to the left with the hand prints on it. When Bella gets a little older we will put her hand print on it as well and then we will have all of our hands together.
I really like Bella's room and her dots. It's a girl's room without being overly girlie.

Baby makes four

Here are a few pictures for you all to feast on. Isabella Marie Mendibles was born at 12:53 pm on December 23, 2008. The delivery was very fast and Isabella's heart rate dropped and she came came out not breathing and it was a very scary 10-15 minutes of us waiting to hear her cry. While that was happening nurse accidentally gave me 80 units of insulin. For those who don't know about insulin, I am currently taking 16 units of insulin in a 24 hour period. So for me to receive 80 units in an IV is an unreal amount and VERY dangerous. I was very out of out so I don't really know what was going on. From what Nicks says is, all the nurses started to whisper and nobody was talking to him to let him know what had just happened. Poor guy, can you imagine being caught between your newborn daughter who's not breathing and worrying about her and then your spouse starts to go into a coma and nobody is telling you what is going on. Needless to say by 10:00 that night I was finally moved over to the ICU of labor and delivery and was kept until Christmas morning. Nick went and found the President of the board of directors to vent to, but I think we will speak to someone else to just find out what really went wrong. In the end we all made it out and alive and it just goes to prove that even in this day in age something can always goes wrong so just be prepared and thankful if and when everyone comes home safe and sound.

Nicolas woke up this morning so excited because he could look out his window and see snow!!! It's been very cold but no snow has stuck to the ground since we've been here except for today. We were all in AAAAHHHHH of such a cool site. Nicolas did walk to school this morning and did not complain about having to do so. He did ask that I pick him up from school though, in the car, as opposed to me walking to school to go and get him.

I went to the doctor this last week and I was told that I had lost weight. Some of you following this blog remember when I was pregnant with Nicolas and I think it's hard to forget how HUGE I was. I gained 45 pounds with Nicolas. With the last pregnancy I was bigger at five months then Vanessa was at nine months. I was pretty large then too. I don't know if stress has really kept me from gaining very much weight, 16 pounds so far, or just thinking of how hard it is going to be to lose the weight this time. Regardless I have not gained very much and apparently I'm losing weight. Who loses weight when their pregnant? Melissa lost a ton of weight after being pregnant but not while being pregnant. I have to start to go to the doctor every week now. I'm 32 weeks and so far I've been doing pretty good. A few scares here and there but nothing even remotely compared to the last two pregnancies. With Nicolas I went into labor at 32 weeks. If I can make it to 35 I will be very happy and relieved.

Some of you have been asking how the house is coming along. Here is a picture of the living room. We finally got our new furniture which was the last piece to the puzzle. We love our fireplace and we seem to use it often.

Halloween was great in "Mayberry." We learned they have trick or treat time lines, meaning kids are permitted to go out from 3:30 to 7:30 and not a minute past. The schools here had a half day which made the times easier, but it was still strange when kids were coming up in broad daylight saying trick or treat. Nicolas had a great time and the weather was fantastic here in the Midwest. It was the warmest it's been in 45 years on Halloween. One neighbor said last year she was trying to figure out how to put a ballerina costume on over a snow suit. She said it's usually very cold. Nicolas was sweating his fake fur off. Back at home, I wanted to dress up as Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter, but we soon realized we might have our house egged. There are a lot of McCain supporters in "Mayberry." Shocking I know. There is going to be a HUGE rally downtown tomorrow for Obama. They are expecting a record number of people to go to that. Nicolas has been an Obama supporter right from the start so I think he would really enjoy going to that. Too bad it's on a school night and we would have to be there pretty late to see the Obama man himself. It's great to see lots of younger voters but just people in general getting out and getting excited to be voting. Regardless of who you're voting for just get out and vote tomorrow.

Nicolas wants to play tackel football and I think he's too young. I put him into flag football instead and he thrived. He was a really good quarterback, in fact the coach told him to try to not throw it so hard. The kids weren't able to handle the heat. The other issue we found out about is flag football is close to $500.00. Which is a big difference to the $70.00 that I paid for him to play flag football. Tackel football practices three days a week for two hours plus they have games on the weekend which can be an hour away. He liked playing but I don't know he would like to be pushed, shoved and thrown to the ground all the time.

Having contractions

The last week has been very interesting. I am almost 31 weeks along and have started to have intense contractions throughout the day. Some are much more painful then others but to be having these at 30 weeks is a bit scary. I went into the hospital, with Nicolas, at 33 weeks and delivered him at 35 weeks. So I think both Nick and I are expecting me to deliver early, but it is still very scary. Nick is still traveling every week, although this last week he stayed home to make sure I stayed on my butt and did nothing. We went to the hospital last Wednesday and the doctor said no more working out and to take as many baths, to calm me down, as needed. Nicolas was very funny during this whole process. When I was having a really bad contraction last Wednesday Nicolas was downstairs and Nick was in the basement. I was calling Nick and Nicolas came running. I told him to go get Daddy. He went downstairs and came back up and said, "Daddy wouldn't listen." I told him to tell Daddy it was an emergency. He ran back down stairs and came back up and Nick came running behind him. I was upstairs, not being calm, Nicolas then said, "I'm going outside to play. Nick then informed him that we were going to the hospital and he needed to help me get in the car and get going. It was very cute. He did great when we did get to the hospital. Nicolas likes to try to make me laugh when I don't feel good so he was hamming it up. I think it was good for Nick as well for Nicolas to be at the hospital. Nicolas was a distraction for Nick who does not like hospitals at all.

Water, Water, Water

On Saturday we had a crew of people show up to help get rid of our little water problem that has been sitting in the basement for over a week now. We were on four different flood restoration lists and everyone had at least a one week wait. They came out and cut three inches of drywall, checked for mold and put four fans and a dehumidifier downstairs. They will come back on Wednesday to pick up the fans as far as everything else we get to fix it all now. We're trying to decide if we should put carpet back down there. I say yes and Nick says no. First things first is re-insulating the walls, putting up drywall, painting with mold inhibitor paint and then deciding what to put down on the floor. I'm just happy that we decided to add the correct sewer water coverage to our home owners policy. Two of our neighbors did not have this on their policy and are not getting any money. We got paid out the max and will begin the clean up now. The good part is we wanted to redo the basement we just didn't know when we would. Well guess what it's time.
The above pictures are of our sump pump, the walls that had to be cut and some of the water logged carpet that was still there after four days. Nick cut a lot of carpet and Nicolas and I did the rest since he had to then go out of town.

Getting used to being a stay at home.

I've spoken to a few of you already, but I am having a hard time dealing with what to do with myself as a stay at home mom. There's plenty to do when Nicolas is not at school, and I know I will be very busy when our little girl arrives. In the meantime I am going insane. I am SSOO bored. Of course there's always laundry to do but I'm don't want to be stuck in a laundry room all day either. I've been watching HGTV and the food network to see how I can update our wall space and get some recipes. I've been to the library a few times and I joined the YMCA so I could work out. I'm very used to getting dressed up and getting ready everyday. If anyone has ideas let me know. I need to try to keep my sanity in this new city with no "friends" to talk to in my neighborhood and my husband out of town all the time. I've also come to terms with not being able to go shopping all the time since I don't have a job. So what does relax really mean? Everyone says to just stay home and relax while I can. I just don't know what that means. I feel like I'm just being plain lazy.

Hi there,
I know I haven't written to so many of you after all of your questions and thoughts. For that I am so sorry. I feel like I now have a little time to sit and write to you all.
I arrived in Chicago on August 6th. Nick was already here and had been here since July 13th and Nicolas was making the trip across the US with Winston, the dog, and my Dad. Once in IL. we stayed at a Residence Inn until our furniture was delivered. Nick and I, being excited first time homeowners, came to our new house and painted the three bedrooms in one night. We didn't finish until 3:00 in the morning. We finished so that the wooden floors could be refinished in the morning. Although I will say that we would not be painting the rest of the house on our own. We sought out a painter to finish the living room, entry way, the kitchen the staircase, the upstairs bathroom and the hallway down to the basement. Nick had already pulled up the carpet in the bedrooms and pulled down all of the awful blinds in each bedroom before I arrived. Needless to say we were the new neighbors that had a TON of garbage out for our first garbage pickup. We've had a ton of garbage out every Wednesday since moving in. Our first weekend here it rained, but not too hard, and we had our first basement and water issue. We got it cleaned up but it was our welcome to IL. People wanted to know if our sump pump was working. This was all greek to a bunch of west coast kids. We found the sump pump and thought we had it working.
Nicolas started school on September 2nd and was very nervous although he wouldn't admit to that. He did not want us to walk with him to school. We let him know he could walk in front of us but we were going to school with him on the first day. The night before school two neighbors came over to let us know of the going's on in the area. At 8:00 am they would be taking pictures with all of the kids before school. We live on a cul-de-sac so all the kids on our cul-de-sac were taking pictures at 8 sharp. Another neighbor came by and asked if I would want to go to the back to school party. I said that would be fun and what time after school would it be, thinking it was for kids. She laughed and informed me it was an adult only back to school party. There would be alcohol and the Mom's were celebrating the kids were back in school and out of their hair. I of course said yes. So picture time came and went,
The 28th of August there was an ice cream social at the school. They had a DJ, ice cream sundae bar, popcorn, cake walk, face painting, snow cones and the PTA sign ups.
So far very typical suburb. Meanwhile Nicolas informed me he wanted to come home from school for lunch. I thought he was out of his mind. I didn't get to eat of campus for lunch until my sophomore year so why would they let third graders come home for lunch. Sure enough his school allows student to go home for the hour lunch. I was shocked!! I encouraged Nicolas that coming home for lunch wouldn't be fun. he would have a lot more fun at school and get to play with friends at lunch recess. So far so good he hasn't asked about it again.
Nicolas is loving this neighborhood. He's got boys to go outside and play with all around him. They are also teaching Nicolas that he can't get what he wants all the time and he can't maneuver the games so he wins every time. He loves getting to go outside and not relying on high school kids to give him attention or his parents/neighbors. In the mean time Nick is traveling a lot for his job. If he isn't in a hotel he's in the basement working. So what have I been up to. I've been trying to apply for jobs. What's so great is overqualified candidates are passed faster then under-qualified applicants. Yes I have a bachelors degree, yes I have a teaching credential but no I just want to work part-time at a local office as an admin assistant. It's shocking to people and had no luck in that department. Perhaps it's a blessing in disguise because I've been having a heck of a time trying to get into to see an OB/GYN. The last one I saw was July 31st in CA. I've seen two different doctors and for various reasons they've been unable to care for me. I am now having contractions throughout the day. This has been happening for over two weeks. I finally found a doctor that will take me but they are 20 minutes away. It's killer for me because we live less than a mile away from a hospital but I can't go there because they aren't capable of taking care of me or the baby. SSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOO
this weekend the Chicago area got the most rain it's seen in 137 years. 5 people died from the flooding. We were hit as well. It rained nonstop for two days straight. That run off is was started seeping through floors, windows, up into bathtubs, through drains in laundry rooms. Our neighbors, none of whom have sump pumps, had three feet of water in their basement and crawl space. We were at home depot at 9:45 am and they were already running low on
wet/dry vacs and sump pumps. One neighbor had four wet/dry vacs at their house running non stop. Everyone was trying to pump water out faster then it was pouring in. By 3:00 on Saturday we figured out why our sump pump wasn't detecting water. As soon as that was fixed our water started pumping out but by then our carpet was pretty saturated as were the walls. By Sunday the basement carpet was already turning black in areas from mold. We had tried calling Saturday and Sunday to start the claim process for insurance, but the call center was, "experiencing a high volume of calls," and was unable to speak with us. So we had to wait until Monday to file a claim and unfortunately every place I've called has a waiting list for work to be done. In the midst of it all a few neighbors came over to see if we were okay. They then invited us to a pizza and beer night at their house. It was nice to see everyone coming together and supporting one another.
So needless to say we've been very busy but we really like this suburb and the town. Elmhurst has been in magazines for number one suburb to live in. The schools are very highly rated and so far the people have been great. I appreciate everyone thinking of us and writing to see how we're doing.
Our new address is,