I somehow ended up with a number of over-ripe bananas on my counter last week, so the children and I made 4 loaves of banana pineapple bread, which I then sliced and packaged for the freezer. I try to have at least one sort of homemade baked goods (muffins, banana bread, healthy cookies, etc.) for Joshua's lunchbox each day, and having things in the freezer is so convenient!

I let Eliyahu mash the bananas with a potato masher (I did have to help at first) and then he continued mashing as I added the rest of the wet ingredients to his bowl.

I got out another bowl for Yehoshua, and he used a whisk as I added dry ingredients to his bowl. Then they both mixed in their bowls while I greased the loaf pans.

I combined the two mixtures, let Yehoshua do the final stirring, and divided the batter into the pans. Baking with two little helpers is never very relaxing, but they both had fun. :)

Then it was clean-up time! Eliyahu absolutely loves helping with the dishes. He will stop doing anything else in order to come help, and he can hear the water running no matter where he is or what he's doing! He cries almost every time when the dishes are all done and I tell him he has to get down.

Yehoshua used to feel the same way about helping with dishes, but then Eliyahu "took" his job from him (Yehoshua tells me this very sadly!). I remind Yehoshua that while Eliyahu is helping with the dishes, it's the perfect time for him to build block towers or set up an animal zoo, since Eliyahu won't come around to disturb him. :) So, he usually plays quietly by himself. Being 9 months pregnant and trying to do dishes with two helpers is just not very easy... I can hardly reach the dish drainer! :)

Someone at our house turned two this week! :) Here's a picture of Eliyahu with his birthday cake. He looked confused when we sang to him, but he enjoyed seeing the candles and blowing them out. :) Now Yehoshua keeps asking when it will be his birthday (not until April!). :) We keep birthdays pretty simple around here -- just a cake and sometimes dinner guests to share the meal. :)

Here's a close-up of the cake we made for Eliyahu -- Pineapple Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting. It's one of our favorites, but I'd been so busy making pumpkin sheet cakes that I hadn't made a carrot cake recently. :)

Joshua made the cream cheese frosting for on top of the cake, and Eliyahu helped me mix up the cake and then -- his favorite part -- did dishes with me afterwards. That little guy just never tires of washing dishes. :)

I am definitely enjoying the best part of this pregnancy right now! :) For the past month or so, I have had plenty of energy and been able to tackle a number of projects which really needed to be done before the baby's born -- like fixing some issues on this website and filing away lots of bills and paperwork that had been piling up. :)

As you can see from the picture, I'm still growing! ;) I'm measuring small, as usual, and everything is going well. At my last midwife appointment the baby was posterior, but there's still plenty of room in there for position changes. ;)

(Read the rest of my update...)

This third trimester has been really good so far! I've been enjoying my pregnancy tea, and I'm not sure if that is what I could be "doing" differently, but I have felt well and had more energy than I did throughout the past 6 months. It's been such a blessing!

I do feel big. I guess most pregnant women feel that way, though! And from looking at pictures of my last pregnancy, I still have plenty of room to grow! Which is fine with me, since I still have plenty of things on my mental to-do list. ;)

(Read the rest of this post)

Have I grown? :) My clothes tell me that yes, I have... but I know I'm going to get a whole lot bigger before I'm finished! :)

Joshua took this picture of me this evening, so I thought I'd write a pregnancy update to go along with it. :)

Yehoshua asks a lot of questions about the upcoming birth, and I recently let him watch this little video of a baby being born.* He loved it, and wanted to watch several times. :) He is fascinated by the fact that the baby is living in water, has a cord attached to its belly button, and eats through that cord. I don't know if Yehoshua will actually be present at the delivery (last time, he was in another room and came right in as soon as Eliyahu was born) but I know he will be so fascinated and excited about the new baby. And what a great learning experience. Homeschooling on the subject of "childbirth" at its finest, right? ;)

And Eliyahu is so sweet... often times when we're praying before a meal, he points to my tummy and says "baby" to thank Yahweh for our new baby. :)

I'm doing pretty well. I recently started taking a different multi-vitamin, and I really like it! I had been using Shaklee Vita Lea multivitamins, which I still like, but, I was able to get a good price (through a co-op order) on another vitamin that is even better -- the NOW Special Two with green superfoods. Thanks to Crystal's review of her SuperMom vitamins, I found out that I could get the same vitamin/ingredients for less money from NOW. The vitamins are huge! I dissolved one in water, just to see how well it dissolved compared to the Shaklee vitamins, and though it took a little bit longer, it still broke down really quickly, and the vitamin was really GREEN all the way through! :) I drank the water afterwards but it wasn't very tasty. :P :)

(Read more pregnancy ramblings... this is getting long!) :)

Today, we did the last of our pumpkins! I canned 5 quarts plus 8 pints, and had about 10 cups left to use for cooking this week. Joshua's been wanting to make another pumpkin pie. ;)

Yehoshua saw me scooping pumpkin out of the skins, and asked if he could help. I'm not sure why I hadn't thought of having him help with that part before (other than the fact that it can be very hot at first!), because he did great!! I let Yehoshua get as much off of each piece as he could, and then I would finish it.

The two of us scooped about half of the pumpkin out, and then I put Eliyahu down for a nap, and we finished scooping and filling jars. I put the canner on to cook, and we had just enough time to take down the laundry, take out the trash, and clean up a little, before Eliyahu woke back up.

Then, we made cookies. Eliyahu played with some water in the kitchen sink while Yehoshua helped me mix up cookies. Then, Eliyahu helped "stir" the cookie dough while I dropped the cookies onto sheets, and Yehoshua played with his trucks on the floor.

Since I was spending most of my day in the kitchen again, I told Yehoshua to pull his racetrack rug out into the kitchen, along with his cars and trucks, so he could play near us. Both Yehoshua and Eliyahu weren't playing together very well today, so I tried to keep one of them occupied with helping me while the other one played.

Yehoshua is at an age where he loves to set his toys up in various ways, and he is very concerned if Eliyahu messes it up. I understand him needing his space, but when he uses every toy for his "set up", that doesn't leave anything for Eliyahu! And I keep reminding Yehoshua that when he builds things in the middle of the walkway/doorway, they are much more likely to get trampled... ;)

We have two memory cards for our camera, which is (of course) mostly used for pictures of food. During the day, I use one of the memory cards in the camera (in the kitchen). When I'm ready to blog (usually after the children are asleep for the night!), I take the memory card with me to the office upstairs. The camera stays in a kitchen cupboard! ;)

After blogging (and using pictures from the memory card) I head to bed for the night. I don't give the memory card another thought until breakfast or lunch time the next day... when there's food to photograph.

So, it sometimes happens that when I tell Joshua that it's time to eat, I also ask him to bring the memory card from the office for me, or, I run to the office quickly to get it myself.

Sometimes I have Yehoshua tell Joshua that dinner is ready. One time, I told Yehoshua to "tell Dad that the food is ready, and ask him to bring the memory card with him."

I heard him talking to Joshua. "Daddy, Mom says the food is ready, and can you bring the mem--me--mem--mem-- the camera card with you?" :) After that, I helped him with the word "memory" and he can say it just fine now. ;)

Yesterday, I told Yehoshua to call Joshua for dinner. I heard him saying, "Dad, it's time to eat! We need the memory card, too!" I laughed and said that I already had the memory card in the kitchen. :) I guess Yehoshua must hear us talk about the memory card quite a bit, since he added that part onto his message! ;)

Joshua took new pregnancy pictures of me today! :) And the exciting hot pink second-hand winter coat I got back in June? It's finally in use. I actually like going outside in the cold weather (which just started this past week for us)! :) Read more for pictures and pregnancy updates...

I did some baking this evening, but by the time I finished, it was too dark outside to take (good) pictures! :) So I guess that's a post for tomorrow. :)

I was going to write a pregnancy update, but I need a new picture for that, too -- and Joshua's alseep. :)

So I guess I'll just write about boring stuff. Come back later for more. :)

•We had a big lunch today, and a light dinner. I like that. It's nice to get the majority of the meal "work" out of the way, and have the largest part of the clean-up done in the afternoon. Plus, I seem to feel most energetic in the mornings. :)

•We received some wonderful hand-me-downs this week, for the children. Yehoshua now has shoes with velcro... meaning that he can put them on and off by himself... which makes one fewer times that this mama has to bend over every time we head outside. :) Because it's not getting any easier to bend over. ;)

•Besides shoes and clothes, another thing that was given to the children was a tricycle, a bicycle, and a little pretend lawn mower. Now they've been begging constantly for me to do more laundry, since they know that means they get to play outside. ;)

•I made pita pockets again last night. I started the dough in my bread machine at about 7:45pm, but got too busy with other things and ended up letting the dough rise extra long. I didn't start baking them until about midnight! I know that sounds a little crazy. :P

•This fall, I've been playing violin in the local college-community orchestra. I played in this orchestra about 10 years ago, and ever since we moved back to Ohio 3.5 years ago, I've wanted to participate again. Somehow, there was always something preventing it (pregnancy, babies, that sort of thing. ;D). I finally decided that I would just join, even if only for a few months (before our next child is born). :) I've had a lot of fun!

•Also this fall, I "lost" all of my piano and violin students. (I taught just 5 lessons each week.) My two younger sisters moved on to more advanced instructors, and I'm so excited about all of the opportunities that have opened up for them! My sisters are also playing violin in the orchestra with me, so we carpool and my mom watches Yehoshua and Eliyahu during the weekly 2-hour rehearsal. :)

•Yehoshua seems to be coming down with a cold; this evening he started sounding a little stuffy, and by now (almost midnight) he sounds really stuffy! I am imagining a night with lots of ups and downs... so I should probably head off to bed! :)

Having children makes it more difficult to sneak into junk food. It is impossible to get out a carton of ice cream and even finish dishing it up before there is a little guy begging to have a bite. The commotion always alerts the other child as well, and we end up giving a bite to each child in-between each of our own bites.

Yesterday, I was getting some ice cream for myself. We hadn't had ice cream recently, and I was trying to be quiet and sneaky about it. I didn't even have the lid off the carton before Eliyahu came into the kitchen and knew exactly what was going on.

I put a couple extra scoops in my bowl (these boys really do eat huge bites!!) and told Yehoshua to go call Joshua down from upstairs. Since I was already feeding both children from my bowl, I figured at least one of us might as well take advantage of the opportunity to eat in peace. ;)