I thought I would leave you with some fun 25 weeks pregnant belly shots in my absence. As you are reading this I am actually in my 26th week of pregnancy, these photos are from last week. The 27th week of pregnancy will be the last in the 2nd trimester according to my What to Expect When You’re Expecting book. Wow!

Anyway, here is the front view of my belly taken March 12th 2009, sorry about the dirty mirror. I didn’t think to clean it before snapping the photos.

Now the front view really doesn’t do the belly justice so I also shot it from the side so you can better see how much it sticks out there these days. This one was also taken March 12th 2009.

N shot this one the morning of St Patrick’s Day while I was having some juice and just waking up for the day. Tater was moving all around like she normally does when I wake up in the mornings. I was watching my belly bop all around. You can even see the hand print on my belly from sleeping with my hand on it. Ha, too funny.

This next one was shot as a suggestion made in one of N’s Daddy to be books called The Expectant Father: Facts, Tips and Advice for Dads-to-Be, Second Edition. Now, don’t be put off, this one is kind of weird and funny (and check out how my hair makes it look like I have horns, lol!).

It is a view of my belly from on the floor, looking up between my legs. Nice huh? It does give some perspective to just how much the belly sticks out there. His book says that by the end of the pregnancy my face wont even be visible over the bump. That means my belly will double in size between now and then. Oh dear!

We still can’t quite believe how fast the pregnancy has gone. Shoot I’ll be in the third trimester in no time! It is super exciting that we’ll meet our little girl soon, I am not nervous about labor at all or about when Tater is here. I feel like all that is just going to come naturally and be instinct, plus I have The Farm Midwives to guide me.

I am a bit freaked out when I think of how much we still have to take care of before she comes. I mean theoretically she could come at any point between now and June/ July, not that we are hoping for a premature delivery or anything. The point is we should be prepared because it does happen right?

Well, we still haven’t finished putting the homebirth supply kit together that we’ll be taking with us to The Farm and we still need much of the new baby basics… Like some newborn clothes for Tater to wear once she arrives, the car seat, the bassinet/ crib, the cloth diapers and so on.

Basically I am feeling we aren’t totally prepared and I like to be ready for stuff way in advance, not waiting till the last moment. Problem is finances are NOT set for massive spending right now. I mean we have to get the hefty down payment made on the new place come April 1st plus we owe rent on the old place too- so that is double rent we are paying in April.

In May and June all our extra cash is going to pay for our delivery at The Farm. We’ve saved a few grand already but we still need 2 more before that is all paid for and done. Once the house down payment is done and the delivery is saved for we’ll have some money here and there to get what we need for Tater but that is way to last minute for me.

Not much we can do to change that though, so I am just working to focus on the exciting/ yay stuff so I don’t get all anxious and crazy about the rest. LOL. Hope you all are having a great weekend! It is the first weekend of spring, have a picnic and enjoy the outdoors or something.

The post Only 2 weeks until the third trimester, man time flies! appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

I’ve got a prenatal appointment with the OBGYN next week and I am sure she’ll make a comment about the lack of weight gain this month but N and I aren’t worried. According to all our reading Tater is just starting another growth spurt so I’ll probably pack on several more pounds shortly.

It seems my weight gain is not really a gradual thing, I pack on a good amount one month which puts me over what is deemed normal then the next month I stall out and don’t gain much… It is hit or miss really. Good news is I am still eating like a mad woman and I’ve put on 20 pounds since becoming pregnant, I think gaining another 20-30 pounds in 3 months is not going to be a problem.

This morning I was happy to see it was again a warmer day and we were able to open up all the windows and enjoy the fresh breeze. We are fresh air and sunlight people. We love our windows to be open so winter is sometimes a downer for us, especially when we don’t get enough pretty snow.

The morning email checking was nice with the cool breeze blowing through the house. Andrew one of our cats climbed in to my lap and took a nap as soon as I got up. These days all the pets have been less interested in hanging out with me, probably because they sense Tater is coming. So it was nice that Andrew came to see me today.

N snapped a photo of the love fest on my lap so everyone could see how the belly is looking…

It is kind of funny how Tater responds to the cats purring. She can totally hear them and she will kick when ever they are purring near my belly.

I told N she is either going to be super soothed by the purring when she’s born or she’ll go crazy wanting to play with them when they purr. What do you think?

The post Purring Cats on Pregnant Bellies… 24 week pregnancy thoughts appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Like I’ve said in previous posts people in this town are snow wimps, snow doesn’t happen that often here and is not managed well by the city so I guess it is only natural for them to freak out whenever a winter storm is headed our way.

Anyway we did get some snow and ice, not the 3 inches they said we would though. School is canceled for many and the roads are not looking good. Many people are also getting themselves in to trouble thanks to the weather. Here are some photos I took of the conditions. Just click on them to view a larger image.

We are still doing fine here in Evansville. The roads are not in good condition and it turns out the city only has like 12 snowploughs so we don’t expect our residential streets to get ploughed at all unlike in Flagstaff, AZ.

Oh and the storm is supposed to last several days so that means we wont get sunshine until Thursday to thaw our residential street. Awesome!

N does have to work today so he’ll be braving the poor road conditions and dealing with all the crazy people speeding around on iced roads. Everyone needs to just slow down and refrain from erratic driving! If you don’t and you hit my hubby while he is driving you are going to have one pissed pregnant lady on your case! Just saying…

Oh and my site host sucks a big one as some of you have noticed. They had some database issues overnight and my sites database was inaccessible as a result. If you stopped by earlier and saw the database server error it is all thinks to them. Get it together Siteocity!

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My brother, mother and niece came to spend the weekend with us, to help and add to the excitement. My niece, Hazel was teething so she was tired and semi-cranky. Here is a photo to illustrate her mood:

We were not so motivated the first day because we didn’t sleep much the night before. My family was supposed to arrive at our place around 11:30pmish but were delayed in getting on the road and actually didn;t arrive till about 1:45am. We were waiting up for them and we watched the movie Cloverfield while we waited, it was an interesting movie! It sure kept us awake.

After the family arrived I didn’t get to bed till after 3:15am and we awoke Saturday morning for the first day of the yard sale at 5am! We were a bit lazy on the merchandising and displaying of stuff in our sleep deprived state.

Dixie’s previous owner, Maiden53, came out to our yard sale to check things out and visit with Dixie. It was a good visit and Dixie got lots of good play time in with her old buddies.

Also, we had lots of compliments on our signs and had some great traffic! We made $225 on the first day and ended up closing up at about 1pm since it began to pour rain. We were thankful for our E-Z UP tent when the rain came.

Unfortunately for us our E-Z UP tent was defective or something, as we were taking it apart we noticed that the un-reinforced supports were warping or bending. It was like the screws were tightened too tight when it was assembled in the plant or something because the aluminum supports were bending and caving in.

This was a bummer because we paid like $400 for the tent for my craft business and this is only the second time we have used it. After closing the thing (following the manufactures instructions) it looked like this:

After pulling our hair out about the E-Z UP tent we tried to relax and move on to happier things. We got to observe and enjoy the elk in the meadow a few blocks from our home. My family was amazed and fascinated by them. Here is a photo I shot of the elk:

That evening we swung by the motor home we are going to pay for this weekend so my mom could see it and get an idea of what we still needed for the trek.

The next day we started the yard sale later and were more focused on making the products we were selling look nice. Here is what Sunday’s display looked like:

We made a total of $378 for the weekend and are rid of most of our little knick-knack stuff but none of the furniture or bigger items sold… Sunday’s crowd was considerably smaller and we made less but $378 is better than nothing.

After many yard sale visitors comments about how they would take certain things for free if they didn’t sell we decided that we wouldn’t be freecycling the bigger stuff if we could help it. It’s kind of rude of people to expect to get it for free anyway.

If we are selling it we need the money for it right? Assuming we’ll just give it away for free at the end was just sort of insulting for us… We really could use the extra cash for the move and we need to sell as much as we can as opposed to just giving it away so if you can’t pay the piddly $10.00 we are asking for a dresser you could have bargained for a lower price- we want to get something for it but no we will not give it to you for free when it doesn’t sell. Ugh! I am not going to go on about that much longer, it will just make me mad.

So all in all we made good progress in our moving preparations! Oh and if you are in Flagstaff, AZ and are looking for a good carpet cleaner give SOS Carpet Cleaning a call and tell them I sent you! We just had Kevin (the owner) out for a price quote and are really happy to be doing business with him, he is so friendly and is a great guy!

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Anyway, wanted to take to opportunity to share a beautiful orchid photo I took. I love trying to capture beauty with my camera. You can buy a copy of the orchid shot by clicking on the image (wink, wink). Many of my other photographs are for sale @ http://talinan.dpcprints.com

I actually forgot I was still selling some of my photos till today and I thought some color would be nice on this gloomy, cold February day. Hopefully you all are staying warm!

Oh, if you are interested in growing orchids here is what I learned about the growing conditions of mine:

Phalaenopsis Orchid Growing Info-

Needs daytime temperatures between 70 & 90 degrees and nighttime temperatures between 60 & 70 degrees. Will need watter every 5-7 days to stay evenly moist. Keep the foliage dry and water in the morning. This orchid can only tolerate moderate indirect light and it does best when fertilized 1-2 times per month.

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