Remodeling

Sorry I don't have much time to report. Grace seems to be hungry and demanding my attention.

We are remodeling our house. It started out as just the bathroom but has extended to the office and living room. So now probably wouldn't be the best time to visit Minnesota! I will have pictures at a later date. Since our computer is in the office and is not able to be used, I probably won't update as often over the next few weeks. Right now I am using Trico's computer.

Hope to see alot of you at Christmas!!

Time Marches On

Grace in her first church outfit. Her Mom and Grandma both wore it to their first church service.
Three Generations

It has been a little while since I've posted, so I'll try and recap the past weeks.

Two weekends ago my Dad brought my Mom up so she could stay for a week and help out. She definitely was a great help to me and Grace. Mom just had knee replacement so her mobility is yet limited. However, she was always willing to hold Grace and take care of her needs. I've decided that when you have a baby, the housework comes second. (Of course this was true before Grace, I just didn't have an excuse.) While Mom was here we spent a lot of time relaxing. Grace had a 2 week check-up so while we were there, I showed Mom the room I had in the hospital. She was impressed with how everything is advancing, and how I labored/delivered/recovered in the same room. We saw some of our nurses, so that was neat for them to see how much Grace had grown and filled out in 2 weeks. Another day we went shopping in Alex for necessary items (diapers, etc.) Grace did great at Walmart, but by the time we went to Target, she was hungry. I fed her in the car, but she was kind of fussy. I had my first panicky moment of, what if she starts screaming in the store. She ended up being fine, but I realized that more than likely she will be one of those screaming kids in the store some day. I've always been annoyed by those instances, but I assume my day is coming. We also went to Rustin's parent's house and visited with them some.

Grace went to church for the first time on Thanksgiving. Rustin kept her and she slept all morning. Phew! We went to Rustin's folks after church. My Dad and siblings arrived in the afternoon so we ate a Turkey dinner and played games. It was neat to see Uncle Bob, Aunt Susan, and Uncle Matt interact with Grace. She definitely wasn't used to all the attention. On Friday Dad helped Rustin put in the shower downstairs. The rest of us cleaned the upstairs and relaxed. On Saturday noon the kids left for Tremont and Dad and Rustin finished downstairs.

On Sunday Jonathan Joos and Mindy Wulf were married. I didn't catch a whole lot of the sermon because I was in the Baby Room all afternoon. My parents left for home right after church and we went to the reception.

This week we are focusing on our upstairs bathroom. We have bought almost all of the stuff needed, so now we are tearing it down piece by piece. By this weekend we will either have a big mess, or the bathroom will be on its way to being rebuilt. Sometimes it seems like life flies by in a blur. Before we know it, Christmas will be here!

Grace Anna Schmidgall

Born Nov. 7, 2007 7#2oz. 19.5in. 12:39pm
Grace smiling at her Dad
Grace and me (you can tell I'm a little drugged)
Grace holding hands with her first boyfriend, Emerson Reuter.

(I think the Dads lended a helping hand.)

It has been an interesting 5 days. On Tues. I woke with labor pains and had them 10 min. apart all day. We went to the hospital at 9:30 that night and had an "enjoyable" night. The Doc came in at 7 Wed. morning and broke my water. From then till 12:39 pm I won't go into detail, but 'labor' is definitely an accurate term. The placenta separated from the U-cord so Doc had to knock me out and remove it. I ended up staying an extra day at the hospital because of this. We went home on Sat. afternoon. Grace is a good baby. She eats and sleeps, alot! It's hard to imagine life before her. There is never a dull moment with a baby around.

39 down, 1 to go

My husband informed me that it has been almost 2 weeks since I last updated. I don't know where the time went, but I apologize for being negligent. I visit the doctor weekly and he says everything looks the same. The head is down and ready, so now we just wait. Since there is no possible way that we can personally inform all of you when the baby arrives, we will publish the news and pictures on the blog. I'm not sure if the hospital puts pictures on a website, but I'm sure that, since we are smaller than the Peoria hospitals and they don't update regularly, it will be faster to come to this site to see baby Schmidgall.

Rustin is still very busy with anhydrous. There is a shortage of it this fall, so he thinks by the end of the week he will be close to finished with applying. I am excited. I'm not used to these late hours. Thankfully it only lasts a few weeks out of the spring and a few weeks out of the fall. I generally ride with him at some point every day. I've found out that the plowed corn fields are the bumpiest, so I try to go when he is on a bean field or a ripped corn field. His tractor has a GPS system on it, so all he has to do is press a button and the tractor goes straight. This feature allows him to concentrate more on the applicator behind him and his books on tape.

This past weekend we had 5 people give their testimonies and were baptized. There were 2 couples who are Rustin's cousins and one of his (our) single friends. It was encouraging to hear of the sincerity of changed lives. It's always a blessing to hear of how God works in sinners lives. Gary Hertzel from Sabetha and Wayne Grimm from West Bend were visiting elders. For those of you who don't remember, Wayne preached at our wedding service, so it is always special when he comes to Morris and we can visit. It reminds me of the good times I experienced while interning for his son and daughter-in-law in West Bend.

Well, the weathermen say it is supposed to snow today, and while I was at the doctor's they said it was flurrying. Judging by how windy it is out, it is a good thing it's not already on the ground or we'd be having a nice blizzard.

This week is pretty open. I am going to watch my niece and nephews some, but doc says to take it easy, so I think I'll just take his advice!!

37 Weeks

I can't believe how fast time can go sometimes. Three weeks left till a new journey. Somewhat scary, very exciting. I don't always look at my past blog entries, so please forgive me if I repeat myself. We can just blame it on being pregnant. Last Thursday Rustin and I went to St. Cloud and purchased a computer. Neither of us know a whole lot about computers so we talked to our dads and got some good advice. When we got it home and tried booting it up, we had all sorts of problems with it not starting, starting and then freezing up, and numerous pop-ups of how some stuff was installed wrong. Thankfully the Geek Squad had installed everything so we knew it wasn't our fault. We took some pictures of some of the pop-ups and headed back to St. Cloud on Saturday. (There is some benefit to a week of rain in the fall.) The hour and a half trip there was a little tense, not knowing what type of service we would encounter. The Geek looked at our computer and said it didn't look like anything was wrong at the moment, but since we had pictures of proof of nasty pop-ups and since we had just purchased it a few days ago, we could swap computers. Without any hesitation I said "YES." I didn't think we needed a 'lemon' sitting around the house, and Rustin hated calling the HP hotline and talking with hard-to-understand help, so we waited while they installed the new computer with anti-virus/spyware software and we headed home. Thankfully when we arrived home and hooked everything up, it worked. This brightened our weekend. I know computers tend to have minds of their own so I'm sure things won't always be peachy, but I am going to enjoy it until that point. Everyone has their opinion of Best Buy and the Geek Squad, but Rustin and I decided that they were very helpful to us, and we were glad to talk to actual humans face-to-face.

This week, thus far, has been sunny, so today marks the beginning of my temporary widowhood. Rustin is now applying anhydrous to area fields, so I will see little of him for a couple of months. Hopefully when I go into labor, I'll be able to reach him. At this time last year, we were engaged and I spent many nights up till 11 or 12 talking to him while he was finishing up a field. I think it will be different this year with me actually living up here. Ask me in a few weeks if I'm cut out to be an Ag wife.

One of my dear cousins reqested a picture of how I look pregnant. So after reading this section, you might want to exit out before you are forever scarred. Rustin delighted in taking many pictures, much to my dismay, so most of them have been deleted. Here are a couple.

It's still raining

Sometimes we just have to face the fact that we don't always get our way with the weather. It is still rainy and gloomy. This makes it difficult for Rustin to get into the fields and apply anhydrous. Last Saturday was a nice day though, so we finally finished the rock part of our landscape. We needed about half a bucket full, so thankfully some of our friends had an over-abundance left from their project so we could use that. We don't have the mulch down on the one side of the house yet, but we are going to wait for spring to do this. Last week I went in for my 36 week check-up. Everything looks okay, so now we just wait for the baby to come. I'm ready for it sooner rather than later, but I guess I'll just have to be patient. I have weekly appointments now so the arrival seems more real. At this point I would say that I would take the first 7 months over the last 2. I think this is because I felt better then, and didn't feel so clumsy and nauseous and big. I'll stop complaining though, because a lady at church told me that she vomited every night from month 3 till the end. I just don't know how she did it. Last Friday we helped at the first annual Fireman's chili/hamburger fundraiser. (It replaced the Fireman's Auction, which I thought would've been neat to go to.) People kept showing up, so I think they did pretty well for the first year. I am finally beginning to recognize people from Hancock besides church people which is exciting to me. Rustin was giving fire truck rides around town to whoever wanted one. There were four of us in his truck at one point and his pager went off signifying a fire call. Luckily we were only a block away from the fire hall, so he whipped the truck around and dropped us off. One anxious fireman was in such a hurry that he practically drug me out of the truck. Obviously he has never been pregnant. Since all of the firemen except one were gone, some of us wives stepped up and helped a little more. It ended up that the fire was in a different county, so they all came back in about 10 minutes. I'm always comforted when I hear of these dispatch mishaps. If my house was burning I don't think I'd be impressed if it took two or three tries to get the right people there. I guess so far nothing drastic has happened so that lives were lost, but if you get a chance ask Rustin to tell you some of the rather humorous Hancock Fire Dept. mishaps. It will make you glad you live elsewhere! Because it was raining yesterday, Rustin was able to take off a little early and we went to Alex shopping. We purchased a curtain rod and a toilet for our bathroom project. Thankfully we cleaned out the office so there is room for all this stuff. We also did a little Christmas and baby shopping. It's good to get out and enjoy different scenery!

The Philistine Army

Last week was kind of a slow one. It rained most of the week, so this was a good chance for me to do some house cleaning and rearranging. We bought a computer desk that has two wings for storage underneath. The armoire and one of our desks left the office and are now on the front porch. The office is less messy and things are more accessible. The store-all table is now used as my drafting table. This fall I have a couple of drawings and proposals to do. One of them I need to get done this week because they will be done with harvest by next weekend and the men can start on the landscaping. I enjoy the design aspect of landscaping and am hoping to acquire more business in this department. I am looking to invest in a computer program for design which will make my job much more efficient.
The title of my entry is what stuck out in the sermon yesterday. I don't remember where we were reading, but the theme of the morning was - allowing God to remove the Philistine Army(s) from our lives. It is easy to get bogged down with weights or fears or whatever else Satan can bog us down with. But, if we put our trust in God and give Him our whole heart, He will help us to destroy "the Philistines."
Other Sunday highlights were that my old roomate, Mindy Wulf, was engaged to Jonathan Joos. He was an usher at our wedding. We feel they will be good for each other and are excited to have another young couple in Morris. In the evening we went to Rustin's parents with some other families for a fish fry. It was some good fish! Hopefully this week will be a little sunnier so the fall weather can be better enjoyed.