We have solar

The Reed Ranch upgraded to a new direct solar water heater. Now that the new HVAC is inside the house we had room for a larger solar system. Our old water heater was propane and was 26 years old. Being in Florida solar seemed to be the practical choice. It's completely solar powered with a photovoltaic panel powering the circulation pump. Here are a few pictures of the day March 19th 2010.

The old small propane water heater


Guys putting the solar panel on the roof
Don't drop it!!!!


Shew, it made it,
It's now on the back side of the house over the carport.


Set up for the sun facing south


Another view, see photovoltaic panel on top.


The bigger 80 gallon water tank with the funny sounding motors on top so we know its working.


It's new home behind all our stuff, the garage is going to get a face-lift soon, I hope.

36 Weeks and my Birthday

O.K. I'm now 36 weeks and considered full term, Yeah!
I turned 34 this day as well

36 weeks
3-18-10





Photoshop picture of the day

Baby Shower Times Three

This was a baby shower that Todd's work crew threw for us, what a surprise!

It was held at River Rocks Restaurant. There were lots of yummy fancy Hors d' Oeuvres like seared tuna and brie cheese and drinks not the kinda of food for a pregnant lady. We ended up eating out afterward. River Rocks was really nice, I do hope we can eat there someday. We played the daddy game to see who knows Todd the best. Then time for presents and cake. Here are some pictures. This happens to be the third baby shower, as you can see I've been busy with baby stuff and lots of thank you's to send out. It was also my birthday and my 36 week point but, I will post pics of that later.

Cute little buggie cake


Play mat and musical Hippo

first aid and grooming kits

cute little dress and plenty more outfits that day


itsy bitsy shoes, soooo cute

Burt's Bees love this stuff


Leo the leopard bottle feeding buddy the cutest thing I've seen so far!


Todd hugging some Huggies

St. Patty's Day

I spent my St. Patrick's evening at a 3 day consignment event. I got this mommy to be pre-event pass, it was still packed at 7 pm the line was super long and it was hard to find anything as there was someone allays in the way. I walked around a few times to find stuff that I had on my list but nothing seamed to jump out at me till the roomed started to clear out some. I spent $41.00 and this is what I got.

Honey I'm home

Here are my finds, links to some of the stuff new on line Baby Einstein Play Mat, $5.00 Cell Phone and Keys, $3.00 and baby moccasins, $3.00. Three out fits total of $8.00 one onesie with poka-dot pants for daddy's girl, one tan baby gap vest with doggies on it so cute and a pink Lands End onesie, a cute pink & brown pants & skirt outfit by Rare Editions. Several bags of toys for a few dollars each. Here are a few pics below of them now all cleaned up.


Bath toys and Cell Phone and Keys

Mic toys

Newborn soft toys, love the lamie it comes with a removable box that can be cooled for a temp or tooth pain and a few rattles too.

Keys and rings

Teething Zebra, elephant & the other toys that go with the play mat

Puppies

I forgot to post about the puppies for last weekend. We thought that we were going to a Skyhoundz event. I was told it was Saturday March 13th but they changed the date at the last minute. I felt bad because we told the pups they were going to play Frisbee. We have to stick to our word, so we took them to the Chain of Lakes park up the street from the house and played a few rounds in one of the HUGE soccer fields. Boy it was a super windy day as you can see in the pictures.

Skyler


Skyler with the Frisbee, bring it home buddy!

Rylie and Todd

Rylie, ready for the throw

Rylie & Me

Our second visit

Our Second meeting with the Midwife at Heart 2 Heart.
We met with Michelle again she is super nice.


Todd looking at our paperwork from the previous Dr.


Love the comfy leather couches

Antique table in one of the waiting rooms,
we had to take a picture of it because its in really good shape
for its age there are a lot of antiques in this building.

Doppler at 35 weeks and 5 days.
Here I thought that was just the baby pushing on me making me uncomfortable but it was a BH contraction and her moving. Todd kept making faces at me stop it your making my double chin worse.

The Birthing classroom this is our last class. I'm sitting on a birth ball, still not as comfortable as sitting on a horse. I never can get comfortable while we were taking our class. The baby always kicking and squirming so I had to change a lot from the floor to chair to ball and so on.

4-H Baby Shower

Monday is 4-H night for the kids in the club house. Instead of the usual monthly sit down and study night Laura the leader for the group threw a wonderful baby shower for me. The all decorated the club house in pink of course. We had lots of food and a yummy cake. I think the kids had a lot of fun especially with the games. Here are a few pictures from the night.

Madeline drew this adorable poster for me,
she is a lil artist, loves to draw and take pictures.


Everyone having a good time


FOOD

The yummy cake


The present table


Cowgirl outfit with bibs to match
and a lot more outfits to many to post thanks everyone.


Dr Brown bottles


Cute diaper cake with goodies attached


Diaper Genie WOW

35 Weeks

35 Weeks

3-11-2010



Here is what Todd suprised me with on Tuesday!


A diaper bag and it goes with all the dots.
Wow there are a lot of dots in this room.
I love it! its now packed and ready for the big day.



Photoshop fun with love.

Blah Blah Blah

March 4th. I ended up getting sick just in time for Todd to go out of town for a long wonderful weekend with his mom and sister. They went to the Biltmore for his moms birthday. What a awesome gift. I had Major congestion in my nose, I can't take anything so I guess I will have to tough it out. I didn't have a fever so I'm thinking this might be allergy related. The pine tree pollen has covered everything around here with this nice neon green power. I called the midwife office just to see what she recommenced for me to do. She got right on the phone. That made me feel better knowing that I did not have to wait all day for someone to call me back. She even told me to call if it did not get better in a few days or if it got worse. I was taking airborne and went out to get some saline nasal spray but that didn't do anything so three nights of no sleep and things were not getting any better.

Monday rolled around and I called again and she told me what I could and could not take. I ended up taking one Sudafed with not much relief. Buy the time Todd got home I was determined that I could not take it much more and I wanted to nuke my self with some wasbi hoping that would help it has in the past. Sorry girls no horses for 4-H night, I've got to get better because we have baby class the next night and we can't miss it. I think the wasabi helped but took a while to kick in. On the way home we got some Afrin spray just in case, still not much help even from that. I did finally get some sleep that night.

Tuesday night we made the baby class and got registered at the hospital. Wednesday I felt like my self again and made it to give Ashley and Carter their riding lesson. Then I made it home before it got dark so Bella could ride HB. Poor kid didn't get to ride all of last week. I have a new student starting with me Thursday but it stormed all day so we moved it to Friday. A good night to get some shopping done. Me and Todd ended up going to Target to get a few things for the baby, I know how much he likes to shop! I got 2 boxes for the nursery shelves in the closet and some sheets for the crib along with receiving blankets that matched and a lamp shade. We worked up an appetite so Labamba here we come for a really yummy cheep Mexican dinner.

Friday rolls around and its still raining. Looks like no riding lesson again, the best day is Sunday I hope for good weather then. I did some shopping for the baby during the weekend because that is all I could bare to do. I Got some baby goodies off the internet That arrived on Friday, one is a monitor that I have been searching for. I ended up bidding on 4 different ones on eBay over the last few months and finally got one and its was brand new!

Here it is

This is a little info on the monitor

My other great find was the adapter brackets to my stroller for the Maxi Cosi Carseat. Now this one took the longest to find. I even called the company and they said they did not make them well I know they did. I saw them on strollers listed on eBay and craigslist. Then I found one listed in on craigslist in California this wonderful person said she bought her stroller in Switzerland and it had adapters she sent me a link to one that had them listed under a different stroller manufacture called Mutsy. The were on diapers.com I had a coupon for them so I ordered them and some cute storage bins.

Got the adapters and they work,
(they are the big black things sticking up on the sides of the stroller)

Now I need to find the car seat that has been a hassle in its self. Every time I find the one I like, it goes on sale, something happens to it, its out of stock or someone buys it before I can bid like on eBay. Then I find one on Craigslist actually the Quinnny Buzz, Bassinet and Car seat set here close to home and someone buys just the car seat. So back online again still out of stock. I thought I had it the other night. I had a pink one in my basket applied a 10% coupon. Then the laptop locked up I had to restart and then went back to the website now its out of stock geeeeezzzzz. So back on ebay I go. Finally I found one! They must have just listed it and it's the blue that I have been looking for the whole time that goes with my stroller that had been causing this mess.

I watched it for a day at least till I made sure these adapter fit when they got here. Then when Todd got home I showed him the cars seat and he liked so I did the buy it now, still not what I wanted to pay for it but better than not having one at all. We should have one in a few days. I cant wait!

Here are the storage bins for her room and a few other updated pictures.


Large and small pink and brown bins from the J.J. Cole Collections


The large bins in the new Ikea shelf also with the stereo that I have had since 2002.

I never had the remote for the stereo so I hardly ever turned it on. I could not use the functions it had, but now I have a remote Thanks to Todd that found one.

The crib and the new mobile and new sheets that kinda match were not into the lite colors as baby's make messes. Now that the ribbons are not in the room it looks much better.

The Changing table area with the small bins at least I have a little storage to put things away but I will need more as the room is very cramped with a queen sized bed in there too. I need to get changing table sheets and ideas on wall shelves that are safe and some wall decorations. I'm not quite sure the monitor will work in this location. I will have to find a good place for it when she is using the crib.

Target bins for the closet.
I imagine my room once finished will look like it does in the magazines, then I take pictures its still cluttered I wish it was a larger room oh well.