In my vernacular

Quickie

2010-06-01T12:22:00.000-07:00

Hola! Figured a quickie was better than putting off another post for who knows how long!

I suppose it's no surprise that Lillian likes to play with her food. But she did surprise me with this the other day... I caught her smearing peanut butter all over her face, referring to it as her "cream." I'm not exactly sure where she got this idea from - she did have a bad diaper rash around that time so there was lots of talk about cream, but the only cream I think she's seen put on her face or anyone else's is sunscreen. Maybe she's onto the next big beauty secret!

Yesterday we were in the shop looking for baby stuff to haul back into the house, and we found a Dr Seuss backpack that Lillian was immediately attached to. She wears it all around the house now. Doesn't she look ready for school? Yikes! A little early for that yet! She also decided she didn't want to come inside for lunch, she preferred to stay sitting on the steps outside alone.

Busy time of year right now... spring sports awards night, scholarship awards night, grad night tonight, football fundraisers are underway... oy! Classes are out for Ray next week, so hopefully he can breathe again! Well, I'm off to fix some lunch... toodle-oo!

Fashionista

2010-05-27T15:01:00.000-07:00

Plenty of fun times since I last checked in! Oma's birthday gift for Lillian arrived and luckily all the clothes fit really well. Ray and I had just been talking about needing to get Lillian a swimsuit of some kind so we can get her into the water this summer - she really hasn't done much of that yet. So Oma's gift was perfect! The colourful outfit fits well too and of course looks positively adorable on Lillian.

Swimsuit model

Big Grin - Thanks Oma!

I love my hoodie :)

I tried to get a little fashion show going, but this was the only head-to-toe shot I managed to get...

Lillian was less interested in a fashion show and much more interested in playing with her pals...

With Howard and Sally still on their road trip, the house is pretty quiet during the day, so Lillian and I have been listening to the Sirius radio we get on the tv - especially the 80s station. Today I found out exactly how much we've been listening to it. During lunch, while flipping through a magazine I absentmindedly sang along to Don't You Want Me by Human League (you know the one... You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar... when I met you...), then I stopped to eat a few bites. Lillian woke me from the magazine to ask if I would sing. "Sing?" I asked. "Yeah, don't you want baby..." she answered, while bobbing her head around. Oh yeah. 80s lover in training!

On the flip side, the other day we had the 80s station on and Footloose came on. Well, I just can't help myself when it comes to that song - particularly if no one else besides Lillian is around! So I turned it up reeeeeaaaaaallllllly loud and started singing and dancing like a lunatic. I hoped Lillian would join me in the dance, but instead she ran off to her bedroom. When she didn't return after a moment, I danced my way over there to find her balled up on her bed in the furthest corner of her room. Upon seeing me in the doorway she started flailing her hands and shouting "No Mama! I'm in Lillian's room!" I do believe she was trying to escape me, and/or I was embarrassing her. When did we hit the teen years? How did I miss out on that wonderful time when we can have a blast dancing together like no one is watching? And whose child is this if she does not feel some sort of connection to Footloose? Next I'll find out she doesn't like Grease.

Of course Lillian and I are not totally alienated from each other. Lately she's been pretty sweet about asking told my hand when we're just sitting around. We hold hands all the time when we're walking, but in the last week or two she has started to ask for my hand when we're sitting at the table eating (awkward but how can I say no), or playing on her bed with her pals (one of her favourite pastimes by the way), or even when I'm changing her diaper (nearly impossible but we manage). Gotta love this stage when handholding is not only acceptable but desirable.

I've started a bit of nesting around the house, moving some of Lillian's things to make room for Baby's stuff and whatnot. Tomorrow marks 32 weeks down, 7 to go! With such little time left, you'd think Ray and I would have a narrowed-down list of names, especially since we know the Baby's gender. But, nope. We've picked up working on the list again, but right now we're in a deadlock of a handful that he likes and a handful that I like, and they don't correspond at all - yet. We'll figure it out. In fact, the book is sitting next to me right now. I should log off and flip through it again. Maybe this little one's name will just jump out at me this time! Yeah, that's the spirit!

P.S.

Oh my gosh, I already clicked to post this entry but I had to edit it to add this... while prepping this blog, I've been enjoying a delicious and nutritious snack (ok, it's a can of icing, so sue me - it's not like I eat the whole thing in one sitting, and besides, that's not the point of this PS - focus, people!). As I went to do the last few clicks, I absentmindedly set the can down - on my belly! And it sits there perfectly! And the Baby is being very active (perhaps it's the sugar, ya think?), so every now and then a kick makes the can move! Love that!

Okay stop judging me and get back to whatever it is you should be doing.

Full of myself

2010-05-13T15:28:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I forgot to brag about myself on that last blog. Usually all the bragging is about Lillian, but wait til you read this - I did something SO out of the box for me, and dang it, I'm PROUD! Ok ok here it goes... I sewed. With a sewing machine. Without help. Seriously! Lillian didn't have proper curtains in her bedroom, and the earlier sunrises were waking her up earlier than Momma would like, and the afternoon sun was making naps difficult. We had bought one second hand curtain at a thrift store a while back, intending it to be used for our own room, but turns out we don't need them as much at the back of the house as Lillian does in her room at the front. Well that curtain didn't fit her window - unless it was turned sideways. SO, I got out Sally's sewing machine (remember, she's on a road trip right now so I did it all on my own) and sewed a new hem along the side of the curtain so the rod would fit through. I even found purple thread to match the curtain, and had to add purple to an empty bobbin. I did need help getting the bobbin loaded - but I found a tutorial online and it worked like a charm. Voila! A nice dark curtain in Lillian's room! Yay for me!

Since I'm on a roll... check out the cards I made for Operation Write Home recently... I love these so much, but I gotta tell ya - they are time consuming!!! When I was in the middle of making them I mentioned that to Sally, and she said to just imagine the glee the kids that end up receiving these cards will get. Good motivator!

Also yesterday I made this card for a certain DSS teacher who is retiring - I don't suppose there's any chance of him seeing this blog, so even though it's a surprise it's probably safe to post a pic, since I'm on such a bragging roll... I tied some slightly tacky ribbon in a Windsor knot - for those of you that know Mr. Tuck, you know how fitting it is :)

Okay enough of that and on to the usual star of the show... we tried pigtails this week! My girl is soooooo cute, I tell ya. So cute, that I couldn't decide which picture to post - so you get 3!

Okay one more then I'm out of time... here's Princess Lillian (in the Burger King crown she got nearly 2 months ago and still wears all the time) when I caught her reading to herself while I was making breakfast.

Oops

2010-05-09T20:31:00.000-07:00

Some belated things from Lillian's birthday...

I can't believe I forgot this! This video will take a few minutes, so make sure you have a little time to sit back, relax, and review Lillian's second year :)

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I also forgot to do another little thing on Lillian's birthday as I had intended, but better late than never. There's a door in the house where Michael, Ray, and Loren's childhood heights were measured over the years, and we started adding Lillian's height last year. I love it! Meant to do it on her second birthday, but we finally got it done on May 9.

So Lillian still has tons of cute things coming out of her mouth. It constantly amazes me how much she picks up, and how much she's learned in the last six months in particular. We were baking recently (jealous?), and she noticed the flour and sugar bags sitting side by side, and pointed out that the flour was "big" and the sugar was "small." That's one of those things that we haven't specifically taught her about, but she's picked up through books and regular daily life. While we were out on a walk, a car passed by us on the dirt road, leaving behind a cloud of dust. Lillian pointed it out and called it "smoke," then asked where the "fire" was. While she didn't understand that it was just dust, I was surprised that she knew that it looked like smoke and associated that with fire. On a bit of a funnier note, on that same walk, when a stop sign came into view, she pointed it out and said "octopus!" I love that one - she's so close, she knows a stop sign is an octagon, but mistakenly calls it an octopus - CUTE! Another cute one... since we started teaching her to say she is two years old, sometimes out of nowhere she'll announce that she's "too old" - close enough!

Out with Ernie for a walk, with the best stick in the world...

But perhaps the best new phrase she's started using is out of the blue telling someone they're the best. I have no idea where she got that one from, but I love it! Mommy, you're the best! Daddy, you're the best! Gramma, you're the best! Grampa, you're the best! Then when we try to return the compliment and tell her that she's the best, she says, "No, me Lillian!"

Hanging out in a pine tree, which she was calling a "pantry," (get it? Pine tree - Pantry - pretty close) and then started looking for food to cook for dinner.

As I type this, I am 29 weeks along and baby is scheduled to arrive in less than 10 weeks! Eek! I've been feeling lots of movement from the baby for a long time now, but just recently I'm feeling some that should certainly be felt on the outside, and a couple of times I've even been able to see the movements on the surface. I think that is so cool. A little alien-like, but very cool. I have been meaning to get some preggo pics for weeks now, and finally remembered to snap a couple... **WARNING: bare belly alert :) ***

Until next time :)

Lillian does not tire of digging. Ever.

May Day

2010-05-01T20:31:00.000-07:00

Spoiling you with another blog, because it was a beautiful May Day here and I took some photos I like a lot when Lillian and I went on a lovely walk.

Spring has sprung. The cherry tree got the memo, but the mountain in the distance is a little behind.

Lillian sure got the memo. She has always loved being outside.

No, seriously. She LOVES being outside.

Look over there!

So much dirt to dig, so little time.

Pine Tree Way.

No, really. Lillian REALLY LOVES being outside!!!

Then there is this video of Lillian that I was anxious to share :)

Happy May Day :)

Lillian Turns Two!

2010-04-28T16:45:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Lillian!

Ooooeee, have I got a blog for you guys!

Lillian had her second birthday on Tuesday, but we celebrated early on Monday since we knew Loren and Ray would both be home that evening but weren't sure about Tuesday. We had been talking about her birthday for a few days, so Lillian sort of knew what was to come, but mostly she talked about cake - that's my girl! We baked the cake together earlier in the day (she LOVES being a helper in the kitchen), then I decorated it while she slept. I'm not much of an artist, particularly with food, but I decided at two years old she wouldn't care so I tried to make an Elmo cake. There were a few hiccups (the two cake layers stuck to the pans so I had to try to patch them up, the food dye instructions were a crock and got us a pink Elmo instead of red, and the power went out while I was icing the cake so I had to do it by flashlight!) BUT dare I say, I think it turned out okay for an amateur!

I hid the cake away and once everyone was home Lillian started in on the presents. She sat with Uncle Loren (gosh she was soooo excited for his homecoming), then very slowly and systematically opened each package, let him take the paper away, gave the contents to Gramma without really looking much at them, and raced over to the pile for the next one. She wasn't exactly giggly, but she was definitely enjoying herself!

Lillian got lots of summer clothes, some big girl Elmo underwear (cross your fingers for us as we enter that phase!), a couple of alphabet and number puzzles, and a tot-sized baseball and glove - perfect since Ray started coaching softball and Lillian has gotten interested.

Then it was on to the cake!

And now on to some CUTE videos. Take a look at some of the awesome things Lillian can do...

One last photo - not birthday related, but look at that cutie!!!

Snow Day!

2010-04-28T16:34:00.000-07:00

April 28, 2010 - we woke up to snow this morning!

Just had to share, partly because of my own surprise, and also because of a conversation just last night with Oma when she called for Lillian's birthday. I told her about Lillian's clothing gifts that she can't wear yet because they're all summery and we are in a bit of a second winter. She said - "not snow?" And I said no, but we'd had some nice weather but then were hit with nonstop rain and quite a windstorm that even brought a power outage.

Well, here's that snow Oma cursed us with. Thanks, Oma.

Another blog to come soon with all the birthday goodies :)

Old and Sick

2010-04-09T13:43:00.000-07:00

Are you familiar with the book "Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch? It's one of Lillian's on-again-off-again favourites, one that she's pretty well memorized. Today out of the blue she said to me, "Momma old and sick." I resisted the initial reaction to be insulted, and instead laughed and what I thought she'd said, and asked her to repeat it. Same thing, clear as day. Then it clicked - near the end of the Munsch book, the mother is referred to as being old and sick. I'm not quite sure why Lillian is associating those conditions with me right now, but frankly it's not far off from how I feel! Kids say the darndest things. And they can be pretty insightful, too, it seems.

Lillian has been busy mothering her doll, who was recently christened with the name Emily. At first I thought she was naming her after her cousin, but then I realized she's relating the baby to yet another book - Grover Takes Care of Baby. Coincidentally, said Baby is named Emily and is Grover's cousin. Like in the book, Lillian cleans Emily up, reads to her, takes her for walks in the stroller, and even helps her ride the horsey!

Another passtime that has recently emerged is fishing. Lillian has never actually been fishing as far as I recall, but she certainly knows what it is - Grampa (formerly Papa - I'm kinda sad that one has evolved) goes fishing in the boat with Bob (formerly Bobby - but Bob is actually the right name for Howard's friend), and she sees fishing shows on tv sometimes, plus Bert and Ernie went fishing, and Ernie showed Bert how to fish without a pole - just call them, and the fish will jump into the boat! Here, fishy fishy fishy!

(PS - there are several other new Lillian videos up on YouTube too... enjoying the swing at the park, having fun at the aquarium, playing in a box with Gramma...)

The other day the sun finally came out to play after a long hiatus, so Lillian went for a walk. It was still pretty chilly, so Lillian was wearing one of those wonderful handmade sweaters, and this time she tolerated the hat too! That was a first, and I was glad to get some pictures of her in the ensemble. Pretty cute, I think :) We ended up in the cellar house for a minute, where she discovered the old high chair her Dad and uncles used, and she used for a while as a craft chair. She wanted in, then wouldn't get out! Took some convincing. And maybe some bribing.

It was such a nice day, we headed outside again in the afternoon. This time we hung out in the yard, blowing bubbles and scavenging for fir cones. Lillian took the scavenging very seriously.

The day before Easter the boys decided to help Lillian colour some eggs. It was their idea, so I left it all up to them. Including the clean up. Ha!!!

Then on Easter morning Lillian discovered that the Easter Bunny had hidden those same eggs, and some others containing treats, around the house. She needed less convincing than last year that this would be fun, and would pay off in sugary dividends. Nothing like chocolate first thing in the morning!

In other news, I'm now 25 weeks along, with only 14 weeks to go! Yikes. 14 weeks to go, and we have no ideas for names. Well, not NO ideas, but none we can agree on, of course. Me thinks this will be a lot harder the second time around! For those of you who know the gender of the baby, remember to keep it hush-hush from Oma!

Wow, time flies when you're typing! Wrapping up with one more cute picture...

Making up for it

2010-04-01T14:22:00.001-07:00

Ha! Another post in less than a week! Take that!

Tomorrow will mark 24 weeks down, 15 to go! Yowza! It's going so fast. I find myself thinking that more and more often as the years go by. For example, how did I get to be 30 already? Don't answer.

Oma, this one's for you... For Christmas 2008, when Lillian was only about 8 months old, Oma got her an adorable pajama set that included a red robe. It was awesome, and huge, since it was a size 2T! Well, Lillian has finally grown into it, and absolutely loves it... to the point where it's a fight to take it off sometimes :)

Another she's-growing-up-so-fast milestone... first ponytail! Lillian's not very cooperative with the camera, but I'm pretty sure you can still appreciate the cuteness here.

First, her cheesy camera smile - which doesn't show the ponytail at all but is awfully cute...

Then a side view I snagged while Gramma distracted her...

Oh and PS to Oma - Lillian has been wearing that sweater and the other one you gave her that same Christmas - finally grew into those too! She gets compliments all the time, people really notice and love that they're handmade. Tell your sorority sister she's a hit!

I've gotten back into the swing of things with my crafting lately. I made some Hershey's Nuggets treats for Ray's office as an Easter treat earlier this week (I'm told they're long gone already), and have some cupcakes all ready to into work with him tomorrow. You can't see it in the picture very well, but those little toothpick labels have bunnies and eggs stamped on them.

Also made a little "card purse" with a set of springy cards for my secret sister at Curves.

And a gazillion (ok, 48) Cougar Thank You cards for Ray to give to businesses who donated prizes for his football team's raffle.

I also made a couple of gift baskets for raffles - one for the football team, and one for a fundraiser at Curves for the Relay For Life that Sally and Ray are walking in in June. (No, I'm not slagging off - I'll be nearly 8 months pregnant so I took a pass on the participation - but I can still fundraise!) Next up on the crafting list is a bunch of cards for Operation Write Home. I like having another purpose for making cards, besides for my own personal use (I only use so many) or for sale (I only sell, well, practically none!).

Howard and Sally have been out of town for a few days and are heading home today. I know Lillian is looking forward to seeing them again - she asks about them all the time. Heck, she's still asking about where Uncle Loren went, and he moved back to Eugene for school about 10 days ago. It's been so quiet here!

Lillian should be waking up from her nap any time now, so I'd better skidattle!

Six weeks

2010-03-24T21:23:00.001-07:00

Six weeks since the last blog... woops again! At least this time I have plenty to say...

Ray, Lillian, and I hit the road for a Portland adventure last weekend, and boy are there some stories! We left on Friday, which turned out to be the most... umm... interesting. Let's dive right in! We left early for an ultrasound appointment in Grants Pass at 8am. It was awesome! We can never tire of seeing our little one like that, and hearing the heartbeat. So fun. The technician gave us lots of image printouts, then said for a whopping five bucks she could burn a cd with every image she captured. Awesome! Most of them were the traditional 2D variety, but the machine had 4D capability so we briefly got a peek that way and got a few pictures. Hello, baby! (At the time of the ultrasound, we had 22 weeks down, 17 to go!)

Baby profile...

Baby hand...

Baby hiding... just like Lillian did!

Here is Big Sister Lillian at 32 weeks...

After much deliberation (on my part - Ray wanted to know all along), we decided to go ahead and find out the baby's gender this time. We're not keeping it a secret necessarily, but there are some people that don't want to know, including a VIO - Very Important Oma! So, we will try our best to keep Oma out of the loop, and we hope all of you will help us out!

After the fun ultrasound, we headed north for Salem, where we had booked a motel for free using our Air Miles. Awesome again! However, before we got there, we had a minor incident. Okay, two minor incidents. Okay, one costly incident that delayed our big plans, and another that put our plans in jeopardy altogether! First, as we were cruising along I-5, we blew a tire! We knew we needed to replace all of our tires, and the one that blew was one we'd had to have serviced twice before already, so it wasn't a shocker, we were just hoping to get through the trip first. Alas, that was not to be. So, a quick tire change thanks to SuperHusband on the shoulder of the interstate and we were on our way to a tire place for a pair of replacements. Our handy dandy GPS that Howard and Sally got us for Christmas found a Les Schwab less than 7 miles away, and they had us in and out of there in about an hour. Not too shabby! We ate pizza a couple of doors down while we waited - and that's where the second incident took place. Ray left ahead of Lillian and I to check on the van while we cleaned up and had a diaper change. While Lillian was laying down on the change table, she puked. Yikes. So we cleaned up as best we could then walked back, Lillian half naked (thank goodness it was a beautiful day) and me toting not only my purse, diaper stuff, and the leftovers, but also the pukey clothes. Yay! Got Lillian into clean clothes and were ready to go again just when the van was ready too. But then the debate came - do we go on with our plans to check in at the motel and head immediately to the zoo, even if Lillian is sick? She seemed fine, fairly playful and cheerful after the fact, so maybe she'd be okay. We discussed this while en route to the motel, deciding we at least needed to get that far. Just as we pulled in to the parking lot of the motel, guess what happened? Lillian puked again! Without getting too detailed, let's just say there were larger volumes so the mess was not just on her, but on her carseat, and the van's seat as well. Oh yeah. But we decided to push forward, since her spirits seemed fine. After some more clean up, we headed to the zoo after all. We were all a little zonked (we all started off this trip with a cold, to boot) but managed to have some fun.

Lillian and Mama...

Lillian and Daddy...

Bundle up!

After a quick side trip for dinner we headed back to the motel to do some laundry (thank heavens they had facilities available!) and get some much needed rest. Fortunately, there were no further "incidents" the rest of the weekend, so although we hadn't quite shrugged off that zonked feeling (at least Lillian and I - Ray seemed ok - glad one of us was!) we motored through a bunch of touristy stuff Saturday and Sunday. We set out on Saturday for the Portland Children's Museum, which is adjacent to the zoo. But as we approached the highway exit, there were signs that the parking lots were full and directions posted to alternate parking with shuttles to the zoo and museum. Hello, spring break! It was crazy busy, and when we saw the lineup of families waiting for a shuttle, we hightailed it out of there. Fortunately we hadn't pumped up Lillian too much for this stop, so she didn't seem to mind. Instead we headed to OMSI - Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. It's much more fun than it sounds! A lot like Science World in Vancouver, with a lot of kid-friendy hands-on exhibits, plus a planetarium and an Omnimax theater. It was fairly busy, but at least we could park close! Watched an Omnimax film about creatures of the deep ocean, which all three of us liked - well, we think Lillian did, but she also fell asleep so who knows. Saw lots of other cool stuff, including an exhibit on prenatal development which was totally boring to Lillian but totally awesome to Ray and I, especially seeing a model of what a human fetus looks like at exactly the stage of pregnancy we were at on that day. Very cool. On to dinner at a great BBQ place Ray had discovered while in Portland on a conference a few weeks ago (we recommend Clay's Smokehouse Grill, if you're ever in town).

On a pre-spring walk a couple of weeks ago...

Then we hit the road again, heading for Newport on the Oregon Coast. We stayed in another motel booked for free - awesome - using points from our credit card. Lillian slept the whole way there but still went to bed easily after a little downtime in our room - yay! Initially our only plan was to see the Oregon Coast Aquarium, but we ended up packing in a lot more on Sunday. We headed to the Aquarium early, before they even opened, anticipated big spring break crowds again. There was only one other family waiting with us for the doors to open, so it seemed unnecessary - until we left an hour and a half later and saw the lineup of families waiting to get in. Good call on going early. Lillian had a huge meltdown in the gift shop, ugh, but we chalked it up to a hectic weekend with abnormal naps plus those pesky "incidents" on Friday and moved on. She still had fun seeing all the fish and other animals, and loved getting her hands wet in the tidepool where you can touch sea stars and sea anenome. I loved the Passages of the Deep, which were tunnels you walked through with tanks full of sea life all around you - above and below. It freaked Ray out a little to stand on the windows - he thought for sure he'd fall through! Tried to get some pictures, but I'm not sure they do it justice.

Ooo, fish!

Look, jellyfish!

Passages of the Deep - with Ray safely off to the side!

Ahhhhhhhhhh!

We headed to Newport's bayfront in search of lunch and maybe some more activities. Found a deal where you buy tickets to three separate attractions for one discounted rate and went for it. I think all of them are a bit of a tourist trap and not really all that exciting, but what the heck, we were on vacation. First we went through Wax Works, which was okay but paled in comparison to my memory of the wax museum in Victoria. Then we had lunch at Mo's, which claimed to have the best clam chowder around. It was okay, and we sure got a lot of food, but none of it was anything to write home about. Or write a blog about! We went to Ripley's Believe it or Not next, which once again was okay but not really up Lillian's alley. The best part was near the end, where there was a photo display of people who could do strange things with their lips, tongues, and faces in general, then a couple of mirrors challenging you to try to curl your tongue. *Spoiler Alert* If you're going to go to this place, don't read the rest of this paragraph! After we moved on from that room, we went around a bend and past some other exhibits, then found ourselves on the other side of those mirrors, which turned out to be two-way. We could watch the people behind us on the tour making the silliest faces in the mirrors, just inches away from us! Pretty funny. Ray and another fellow there were having a blast watching the strangers and trying to see if they could get their attention through the mirrors by putting their own face up close or knocking on it. Boys.

Just a cool shot of the jellyfish... I love the colour!

The third attraction was Undersea Gardens, another mediocre affair that reminded me of something similiar in Victoria, but it's been so long since I was there I wouldn't want to compare the two - though I'm pretty sure they have almost the same name. We were on what looked like a boat and went downstairs beneath the gift shop where we were actually under water in the bay, surrounded by windows full of sea life. There was a presentation where a narrator talked about all the things a diver showed us through the window. Cool idea, but a little short and very scripted. Lillian slept through the whole thing. I don't think she missed much, and besides, I kinda like it when she falls asleep in my arms :)

Off we went again, this time headed home. The trip felt long since we were all exhausted, but Lillian had a blast at a park we stopped at for a stretch, and she scored her very first Burger King crown (which Princess Lillian has worn every day since then, often upside down - pretty cute!).

Weeeeeee swing!

Princess Lillian holding court with Ernie...

So there you have it, our short but jam-packed adventure! Likely our last one of that kind as a family of three! Whee! Wonder how much puke there will be when there are two little ones. Hmmmm.

One more for the road... Lillian has discovered a BIG love for slides!

The Christening

2010-02-10T20:00:00.000-08:00

Today I ruined Sally's new stove.

Allow me to elaborate. Last Friday we discovered the thermostat on the oven died when I tried baking some meringue cookies at very low heat and they burned after just 10 minutes of the full hour they were supposed to bake. So yesterday Howard brought home a new-to-us oven with a smooth-top stove, just has Sally had hoped he would find. I used it for the first time at dinner tonight, trying out a new recipe for a sticky-sweet sauce over chicken. The sauce is mostly honey, and had to be boiled on the stove before pouring over the chicken and baking. The sauce boiled over, burning honey all over the stovetop. Argh! It was a blackened mess! And so, the new stove was christened. I felt SO bad. Fortunately, it actually cleaned up much better than I could have dreamed, so the stove isn't ruined after all. Unfortunately, that was just one part of the eventful meal. I also splashed some of that same sauce on my shirt and pants when I was trying to move it out of the way. Lillian got into repetitive mode, telling me and everyone else over and over again, "Mommy dirt on." Then when I went to serve myself some chicken from the pan, I tipped it and the juices spilled all over the counter. This sent Lillian into a meltdown, since she seems to panic when messes happen. To top it all off, the recipe was a bit of a flop! The sauce was supposed to thicken and get nice and sticky on the chicken, like messy restaurant chicken wings. Instead we got a watery but still nice tasting sauce. Ah well. The salad was yummy!

In other, much more exciting news... I felt the baby move today! I was mid-sentence talking with Sally when I stopped with my hand on my belly, and she knew - she asked if "we're moving." I hesitated, because as you Moms know, there's a fine line between the sensation of a baby moving this early in pregnancy and, well, gas. But in that moment of hesitation, it happened again! I was sure that time and right away called Ray. He hung up on me without even saying hello. Yep. That's what I'm going to remember about this momentous occasion. He returned the call pretty quickly, explaining that just as he was going to answer, someone at work started talking to him so he hung up. Oh well. At least this time I got to talk to him - when I first felt Lillian's movements, I was at work and had to leave him a voice mail because he was in Ontario with that Team Canada football team, then I called Lori so I would have someone to be excited with! This time, I had Sally and Ray close at hand. The timing was wonderful, because it had been a bit of a frustrating day with Lillian, who had just quite unwillingly gone for a nap. Hooray for the moving avacado-sized munchkin!

Lillian is showing her independence (i.e. throwing fits big and small) more often lately, but mostly she spends her time expanding her vocabulary exponentially. I was told this stage would come, but I am still frequently surprised at some new word she comes up with. She now says "Gramma" instead of "Amma" most of the time, and when she used to do this odd lip-popping noise to indicate it was yogurt time with Papa, now she clearly says "yogurt." There are so many more examples, way too many to document. Sesame Street characters, Pooh and friends, the alphabet and lots of standard words that start with them (apple, bed, and carrot, according to one book). And her latest milestone - sitting on the potty! No success using it yet, but it's been in the bathroom for months and yesterday was the first day she voluntarily sat on it with a bare bum. Yay! Baby steps, as they say.

Time to sign off so I can go watch last night's episode of Lost - man I am so confused but so addicted!

PS - sorry no pictures this time, I just haven't been picking up the camera as often lately. Maybe next time!

To nap, or not to nap?

2010-01-31T13:45:00.000-08:00

That is the question. Lillian used to be a really good sleeper; she went down without a fight say 95% of the time, whether for a nap or overnight. But these last couple of months, she's started to fight nap time big time. She cries and cries when I say it's time, and often is still crying when I leave her room. Some days she ends up sleeping up to two hours, other days she never does go to sleep. We can hear her in there, talking to her stuffed animals and moving about. Regardless of whether she actually sleeps, I'm going to keep giving her (and me!) that quiet time for as long as I can. Bedtime in the evenings isn't as much of a fight, but she has started stalling a bit, and being defiant when she's told it's time to clean up her toys so she can get ready for bed. We give her warnings that if she doesn't help clean up then there will be no story time with Daddy, but then that punishes Daddy too! I know what you Moms are thinking. You're laughing inside, because you know this is just the beginning. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Most of the time Lillian is just really entertaining. Her vocabulary is growing exponentially, and she surprises me every day with some new word or grouping of words. One of her latest hobbies is "cooking" with her foam letters. She uses some bowls and pans and spoons and mixes them up, then puts them in the "oven" - a little nook in the coffee table that Gramma showed her. She even warns us that it's hot, and blows on the letters before we get to taste. Love that :)

New outfit from Oma... ta-da!

Checking out the flower...

Ooooo - dots!

I made a batch of 50 cards to send to Operation Write Home (www.operationwritehome.org), a volunteer non-profit organization that supports U.S. armed forces by sending blank handmade greeting cards to write home on. I've never made so many cards in such a short time! It was fun, and nice to be able to put a bunch of my supplies to good use.

A question on that note for those of you that make your own cards - or anyone else who wants to weigh in. What do you think about me re-using the handmade cards I've received over the years and sending them to Operation Write Home? I keep them all because I can't bear to throw them away, partly because I know what goes into making them and partly because they're so cute and pretty! So I have a handful, and I was contemplating cutting off the card fronts and attaching them to blank white cards to reuse for OWH. On the one hand I think it's great to give the cards some new life, but on the other hand they're not my own work so I'm not sure what the makers would think of their cards being used that way. What do you think?

The other day Sally went through a cedar chest full of wonderful old things. She had been holding onto some things that belonged to a local man that passed away some time ago, because although she knew no one to pass them on to, it didn't seem right to throw them away. There was a mix of her own things, like blankets her mother had made (I LOVE those), and a few things belonging to this man. Well Sally finally got in touch with a relative of the man who said she'd be glad to have those items, so everything got unearthed and sorted through. There were some really cool items that I had never seen before, like World War II ration books - and tucked in the back of the folder holding those books was a note, something that has really stuck with me. It was a handwritten note written in 1936, with a newspaper clipping pinned to it. The clipping was a death announcement. The note was written by the mother of her now deceased son, expressing how heartbroken she was. I was close to heartbroken just holding this note in my hands, knowing that 74 years ago that woman wrote these painful words as she grieved for her son. But aside from the sadness of it, I was amazed at the piece of history that had been kept in that little folder all these years. I'm not much of a history buff, but seeing first hand such a personal piece of it was pretty amazing. I have a much better understanding of why Sally loves doing genealogy so much. Finding these personal items and stories is more interesting than I thought!

Well I've been all over the map in this blog. Better cut it off before I meander in some new and strange direction!

Ooo ooo but P.S. - 15 weeks down, 24 to go!

Howard made more furniture!

2010-01-22T14:23:00.000-08:00

Check out the amazing big girl bed Grampa made for Lillian!

Isn't it gorgeous? I love having the drawers underneath. And knowing Howard's work, this bed ought to last Lillian for years and years... maybe her own kids can use it one day! And check out that wonderful colourful quilt that Lillian's Great Grandma made (Sally's Mom). So beautiful!

Even though there is no mattress yet, it seems it's a great place for story time with Gramma (or "Amma" as it is currently pronounced).

Also seems comfortable enough to nap on, sans mattress.

Don't worry, we'll find a mattress soon! She still sleeps in the crib for now, and we have lots of time for the transition before the new baby moves in.

In other news... Lillian fell head over heels with a new lovey earlier this week. She and I were browsing a second hand store that had plenty of kids' stuff, when she spotted Ernie (of Sesame Street fame - she LOVES all things Sesame Street, which I am actually pretty tickled with). I lifted him up to check the price, then went to put him back, opting not to splurge. Well of course since I got to hold him, Lillian wanted to also. I let her shake his hand to say goodbye, but instead she snatched him into a big hug and followed that up with a big kiss. So, we bought Ernie. Now she has four lovey friends that she must have in bed with her and often plays with throughout the day: Baby (from Santa), Elmo (the one dollar find at a church bazaar), Annie (as in Raggedy, from Oma), and now Ernie. I'd love to find a plush Abby Cadabby for her someday, but I think even the big girl bed would be a little crowded!

And on a totally different note I'm going to do something I don't think I've ever done before - share a recipe! We had this for dinner the other day and it was soooo good I decided I shouldn't keep it to myself. Sally had the grand idea of trying to copy the White Spot dish called "Chicken, Broccoli & Cheese" that's baked with a bit of curry in the sauce. I found one that seemed similar online and tweeked it only a little. We served it over rice so it would soak up the sauce, and mmmmmmmmmmmmm. So, so, so good. Here you go:

Ingredients
4 single chicken breasts, cooked and chopped
2 heads broccoli, cut up, cooked and drained well
1 1/2 cups sour cream
1 1/2 cups mayonnaise
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
2 teaspoons curry powder
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Parmesan cheese

Directions
1.Preheat oven to 350F.
2.Put the chicken in a greased casserole. Top with the broccoli.
3.In a bowl, whisk together the sour cream, mayonnaise, chicken broth, and curry powder; pour over broccoli.
4.Bake 20 minutes or until hot and bubbly.
5.Sprinkle with cheeses. Broil 5 minutes or until top is crispy.
6.Serve over plain rice - remember to spoon on extra sauce!

This quantity (with rice) fed 4 Yarbrough adults plus Lillian at 20 months old, with leftovers to serve two.

Tell me if you try it!

One last sidenote - I tried an online photo processing site for the first time this week and FYI, it was great! After doing some price comparisons, I went with Winkflash (though I was looking at American prices, not sure which site would have one if I were looking at Canadian prices). I ordered 122 photos for $11.04 including shipping after using a coupon for 50 free prints, which is definitely cheaper than what I usually pay at Wal-Mart. And I received it in just under a week, which is fine by me. Quality is good too. Hooray for a new money-saving easy service!

TTFN!

Already!

2010-01-12T16:39:00.001-08:00

Wahoo! Only a week and a half between posts!

Time to brag about our girl genius (Why is it that "boy genius" is a common phrase but "girl genius" isn't? Double standard!)... We got video of Lillian saying the alphabet (okay, repeating it, but it's still damn impressive if you ask me), counting to ten (same deal), and shuffling around in Gramma shoes, as she so often does. Enjoy!

And a cute Lillian story... Last week at Costco, after checking out Sally and I hit the restrooms. I went first, while Sally stayed with Lillian and the two carts (yes, two, yikes). Apparently while I was gone, Lillian went on and on about "Mommy peepee" to every person that passed by. Then when we switched, she did the same for Gramma. So nice of her to make announcements on our behalf! Looks like potty time isn't too far off!

Just about 13 weeks along with the little one - hello, second trimester! Not much new to report. I still get nauseous when I get hungry, so I need to remember to space out my snacks and meals. Having to get up several times a night to "peepee" - oh joy. Limiting evening beverages doesn't seem to help any. Ah well. Looking forward to a baby bump so I can have something to show for all this!

Short and sweet this time... TTFN!

Happy New Year

2010-01-03T13:47:00.000-08:00

I'm just going to skip right past the part where I apologize for how long it's been since the last update and go straight to the good stuff... in no particular order...

Christmas was awesome!

At 20 months old, Lillian "got it" this time around - a leap from last Christmas and even her birthday last April. She watched other people ripping open the wrapping paper and soon caught on that the pile in front of her was actually FOR her. She was giddy with every package.

I think she got a nice mix of stuff without going overboard - perfect. She's latched on tight to a few things... her new baby doll (which replaces the dollar store one she literally wore out), her foam letters and numbers (with which she makes alphabet soup and feeds to us), and the memory game I made for her using photos of the family. I'm pretty stinkin' proud of how quickly she's learning to identify letters and family faces since she started playing with those two new toys. I'll try to post video of that soon.

New Year, New Rooms!
We changed things around just a tad at the house. Once again, Howard and Sally have been super flexible and helpful to us, this time going so far as to renovating a room for us! Lillian had been sleeping in the spa room, with a hot tub sunk into the
floor right next to her crib. Don't worry, we took all the appropriate precautions of course, but still the room wasn't exactly child-friendly, especially with the anticipation of Lillian learning to climb out of her crib any time now and with the room being pretty drafty and cold, which meant using a space heater at night. So, our former bedroom is now Lillian's, and Howard has built a floor over the hot tub and Ray and I have moved into that room. The transformation was complete on New Year's Day - how appropriate!

Halloween
I'm not all that big into Halloween myself, but last year I was pretty tickled with the super-cute ladybug costume we got for Lillian's first Halloween. The bonus was how many costumes we conjured up out of the black tights and onesie she wore underneath - remember the scrapblog?

I got such a kick out of that, I was looking forward to doing something similiar this year. Until, that is, the time actually came. My imagination failed me on the costume part, and when I did make a half-assed attempt at it, Lillian wasn't nearly as cooperative (I'd forgotten that last Halloween she wasn't yet crawling, and this year of course she was walking like a pro). I took a ton of video, hoping I could get some useful clips to edit and maybe a few stills to use in another scrapblog. But, no luck. Ah well. We'll see what happens next year! Here's a little glimpse of the 2009 effort... I dressed her in all white, so that I could edit the photos to make her look like an angel, a ghost, Mr Clean... you get the idea.

PS - Grampa planted pumpkins in the garden just for Lillian, and boy did she like that. And I liked the baked salty seeds mmmmmm.

Stomping!
One of Lillian's favourite (side note: you can take the girl out of Canada, but you can't take the Canadian spelling out of the girl) activities is stomping stomping stomping! It's sort of her version of dancing; she loves to do it, especially on her little red stool like a stage, and lately she lets her friends Elmo and Baby join in.

In early December, Lillian got some brand new shoes, and she fell absolutely in love with them. She was pretty enamoured with them for several days, and even now asks to put them on frequently throughout the day. In this video, she was showing off her new shoes for Grampa and Gramma, having a grand time stomping in them for everyone's enjoyment.

There a few other videos to check out of our little girl if you like, including some more dancing, some showing off of vocabulary (which was outdated as soon as it was filmed), some dusting, some driving, and of course some giggles. http://www.youtube.com/bosco79

Funny Face
Uncle Loren gave Lillian some ultra-cute overalls and red shirt, and she just loves that she gets to wear overalls just like Grampa - who, by the way, has become "Papa" lately. On her first day proudly wearing this outfit, Ray gave her one of Loren's had to model and of course we had to take some pictures. Unfortunately, we hit two snags - first, she wouldn't stay still so most of the shots were pretty blurry, and second, she has started to make the "fake" smile for the camera, so the only shot that somewhat turned out was this one... still pretty darned cute, if you ask the Mama.

Announcement Time!
Okay so maybe it doesn't really qualify as an announcement when so many people already know, but what the heck, it's still fun to put it out there into the world without any hush-hush: WE'RE PREGNANT! Yay! Baby is due July 23, but it's likely we'll have a planned c-section about a week before that. Ray is pretty tickled at the idea of sharing a birthday with the little one, so we're aiming for July 16. Just before Christmas, we saw the doctor and had an ultrasound at about 10 weeks along. The baby started off in the classic profile position, but while we were watching it shifted to face us, so to speak - that was pretty cool to watch. It already had little arm buds and leg buds, and when it turned the doctor noted how cute they are at this stage, looking like little Teddy Grahams! I just love that! Here's one of the shots she gave us, so you can play the Where The Heck Is The Baby In This Picture game.

style="width: 320px" src="http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c202/bosco_79/PregnancyNumberTwo/BabyNumberTwoatTenWeeksjpg.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket">

So hopefully the pregnancy will light the fire under my butt to get on here and blog more often. If you're really lucky, maybe you'll get more glimpses of my bare belly. I know you miss those shots. Remember this one? My favourite. Maybe we can try to duplicate that one again this year, and try to get Lillian in there somehow.

Well, I think that about does it for today. I'll leave you with one last photo of our beautiful girl.

Ok just one more.

Ta-ta!

P.S. - Shout out to my Mom who has had a rough few weeks. Hang in there Mom, we love you!

2009-10-07T13:23:00.000-07:00

Well howdy there! A month goes by fast! Let's jump right in to some photos, shall we?

I love that one. She looks so serene.

So, I promised photos of our travels around Oregon this summer, didn't I?

Ocean World, where the Landy kids tried their darndest to teach Lillian how to pose for a photo. They are very well trained in the art, but Lillian needs some practice.

Would you look at the size of these trees?!? So amazing. If you ever get the chance, definitely make time to drive through Stout Grove in the Redwoods National Forest.

Lillian was a little disinterested (hello, thumb), but Ray and I were glad we took Sally's advice to stop and see some of the falls on the way home from visiting Michael, Sarah, and the kids in Sisters. So pretty.

Speaking of Sisters... I was terrible at remembering to take photos of the kids while we there, but I did get this one at the quilt show in town.

Yup, that's a PT Cruiser covered in a quilt. In the stamping I do, I've come across the phrase "I'll stamp anything that will sit still long enough." Well I guess quilters have the same feeling! The quilt show is a HUGE annual event and there more quilts than I've ever seen before. Main street in Sisters is actually a main highway, and they actually shut it down for the show and the thousands of pedestrian lookie-loos. There were more quilts than I could photograph, but here are a few that I liked, including ANOTHER quilt-covered vehicle (a minivan this time)! Such detail in these beauties.

Hey, look! It's Brianne at Crater Lake!

Hey, look! It's Trent fishing with the guys!

Hey, look! It's Ray being icky!

Ewwwww.

More recently, Lillian has taken up some computing.

And she has started helping Grampa make coffee in the morning. What would he do without her? She shows him step by step... First, scoop...

... then, dump...

... then, find a snack in the cupboard!

We've started going to the local library for story time. On her first visit, Lillian got to make her first work of refrigerator art!

I tried so hard to get a photo of her proudly holding up the artwork with a great big smile - but if you can believe it, she doesn't always cooperate!

Ok, before we overload on photos I should call it quits. I'll leave you with a video of Lillian doing one of her favourite passtimes - chatting away on the "telephone."

Oh, there is so much more! Hopefully I'll find time to post them before another month flies by :)

Summer of Fun

2009-09-07T14:22:00.000-07:00

Ok, so it's been a while. Again. Which means I have LOTS of photos and videos to share to catch up, so I know you'll forgive me :) There are so many, I'm going to have to pace it out over a few posts!

Lillian continues to wow us every day with her awesomeness, cuteness, intelligence, and quirkiness. She brings us shoes and socks when she wants to go outside (especially Gramma). She mocks our coughing or sneezing or throat-clearing noises while covering her mouth, whether we've made the noise right in front of her or from behind closed doors. She makes a similiar noise for snoring, thanks to Grampa's living room naps, and uses that sound any time any one is sleeping or lying down. Occasionally she'll laugh so hard she snorts, which cracks me up. A few times I've caught her swaying back and forth for no apparent reason - I think she's working on her Bouwman Rock. She likes to play in the cupboard where we keep the potatoes, and once she decided it would be great fun to bring every one of them to Grampa in the living room - one at a time, wiping her hands clean after every trip. A few months ago, we introduced her to blowing bubbles with a wand, and shortly after that she surprised us all with this imaginative display:

Lillian loves spending time outside, and she's done plenty of it this summer. She'll play for ages in the front yard, gathering fir cones and finding sticks to stir in Johnny's water dish. And she has even warmed up to Johnny lately - not only does she not shy away from him as much as she used to, but sometimes she even approaches him on her own to pet or even kiss him.

And sometimes she gets just a tad bit dirty:

When Lillian's playing indoors, one of her recent favourite toys is this tunnel thing that Lori gave us that she just loves to play in with a buddy. I think she gets a kick out of one of us rolling and crawling around on the floor with her for a change - she pats the ground with her hand when she wants me to come on down for "tunnel time." I love this picture Sally snapped - a lovely shot of me, and Lillian is such a whirl of excited motion she can't even be captured by the camera!

Lillian has become a master horsewoman, a trick rider even. She used to like to ride on the horse that Grampa made for her only if one of us was with her and rocking it for her. Then during the Landys' visit here, Emily showed her that she could do it all by herself - and man does she ever! Just a couple of days ago she even learned how to climb on board on her own, too. One more video for you today...

Stay tuned for next time... I think I'll post all about our travels around Oregon. Look forward to adventures with Aunts, Uncles, cousins, natural wonders, and a quilt-covered PT Cruiser!!?!?!?!?!?

TTFN

Okay okay... just one more...

Home Sweet Home

2009-06-18T13:12:00.000-07:00

The other day Sally was telling me about a conversation she had with Trent during our visit to Ladner. She was asking if he liked riding bikes, and if he'd like to borrow one when he comes to visit us in Oregon. In case he did want to, Sally also gave Trent a heads up that we don't have any pavement to ride on, only dirt and gravel. She told me that he gave her a kind of look, like he was politely taking part in the conversation but didn't have a clue what she meant by "no pavement."

So it has occurred to me that those of you that have plans to visit here for the first time this summer don't really know what you're coming to. I thought I'd share some pictures of our home and property so you have a better idea.

Here is the house - it's a little cramped for space with 5 of us living here, but it has gotten much better since Loren moved out.

And here is the guest room - where you guys will be staying, unless you'd prefer to camp out under the stars.

This is the wood shed - have to have lots of room for all that wood since fire is the only way we can heat the house.

Here is our clothes dryer, where we hang everything up after we've handwashed it all.

Oh and of course here is our pet turkey, who happened to walk by while I was taking all of these pictures. We call him Tom.

Well everybody should know what this is! It was an adjustment getting used to going outside to "do my business" after enjoying indoor plumbing all those years in Canada.

This is the garage, but as you can see we can't store much in it like you guys do, since the rain and wild animals can get right in there.

There's the gravel driveway, just like Sally said.

Howard keeps a pretty big vegetable garden, which is great since the nearest grocery store takes a few hours to get to.

Well I hope you enjoyed the grand tour! We can't wait for your visits, everyone is so excited!

Do The Geocache Dance

2009-05-11T16:24:00.000-07:00

Ray, Lillian, and I have taken up Geocaching, and we are LOVING it! Never heard of it? Check out www.geocaching.com for more info, but basically you use a GPS gadget to find locations where people have hidden "caches" - sometimes just a baggie with a piece of paper to sign your name on, sometimes a larger container with doodads you can trade. It's pretty popular, with hundreds of thousands of caches hidden all over the world, and plenty in our area here. We've been out 4 or 5 times now, most recently with Sally and Howard on Mother's Day so we could show them what we were up to. Sally got pretty into it, and actually found the first one of the day. Thanks to her, we now have a celebratory Geocache Dance that I'm pretty sure we have to do for every future find :)

I'm excited for my upcoming visit to Ladner for many reasons of course, but I gotta say, one of them is so that I can do a little geocaching there. It sounds pretty cheesey I know, but it's really good clean family fun, so I'm excited to show Trent and Brianne how fun it can be. It's not a very expensive hobby either - the GPS units can be a pricey start up cost, but after that it's just a little gas money. I'm also anxious to drop off a couple of trackable items in BC - another aspect of geocaching I'm brand new to. You can pick up trackable items from one geocache and drop them off in another, then watch and see how far they travel as various people move them from place to place. I picked up two on Mother's Day, so they are all set for a trip out of the country and on to who knows where! Kinda cool I think.

I'd post pictures of some of this, but they're all on my laptop which is in the shop. Maybe next time - didn't want to use that as an excuse for not blogging!!!

Happy Belated Mother's Day Everybody!

Lillian's First Birthday!

2009-04-28T18:13:00.000-07:00

On Lillian's first birthday, she gave a pretty great gift to us... she walked! Solo! For the first time! AND we got it on camera!!!

We are SO proud it's ridiculous! It was exciting to have this milestone on her birthday, and with Mama, Dada, Grampa, and Gramma all there to encourage and watch in amazement! Since then she's done it a few more times, but she's pretty slow and shaky so if she really wants to get somewhere she sticks to the trusty hands and knees.

Now about the birthday itself... we took just a few videos and photos. Ok, I'm being fecicious.

Here are her birthday cupcakes before anyone got their hands on them...

Cover your ears, the family "sings" to the birthday girl in this one - she's pretty dumbfounded!

Here is the little birthday girl enjoying the wonderfulness that is chocolate...

Lillian got the jumbo sized cupcake, and I figured there was no way she'd finish it all. But curiously, there weren't really all that many crumbs on her tray when she was done. Where could they have gone?

And oh, the presents! We try to limit the toys so they don't take over the house, but she managed to clean up pretty nicely just the same! Lillian and I were both pretty darned impressed with the beautiful handmade cards from the Landy cousins - thanks, guys!

Auntie Kelly mailed a gift and had already sent one home with us at Christmas - spoiler!

Lots more birthday videos here and lots more birthday photos here. We might have gone a little camera happy. :)

Well, so far so good on keeping up with the blog. Too soon to be patting myself on the back, you think? Ah well.

What? I gave birth to a one year old?

2009-04-26T10:36:00.001-07:00

Not quite. But I do have a one year old baby now! I wish I made more of an effort to blog along the way. Let's see if I can recall some highlights...

Of course I can! Tons of them! If you only have a few minutes, I recommend scrolling down to the bottom of this post and taking a look at the last video montage. If you've got time on your hands, or if you are at work and should be doing something else like playing Lexulous, then sit back, relax, and enjoy the whole thing :)

Saturday April 26, 2008
*Gross Birth Details Alert*
Induction 8am. Some backaches and a little cramping throughout the day. 8:15pm water broke in bed at home. Towel I was laying on saved the bed, thank goodness. Much more water came out at the hospital, seemed impossible that all of it was inside of me all that time. Meconium in the water so baby's heart rate was closely monitored through labour. Labour wasn't pretty, involved vomit and tears as well as much more pain than I'd hoped, ended up with the epidural. Only worked on one side, strange to feel the sensations of labour on only one side of my body. Would still totally get an epidural again.

Sunday April 27, 2008
*More Birth Details Alert*
After midnight baby's heart rate dropped. Doctor decided on c-section. Everyone jumped into action very quickly. Spinal anaesthetic worked great, didn't feel a thing. Worked too great, lasted much longer than normal, my legs were dead weight for hours. Took three doctors and a lot of pulling and pushing for Lillian Dawn to arrive at 1am. Ray and I were dumbfounded and have the photos to prove it.

Lillian took to nursing easily, glad one of us knew what to do. Grandparents Howard and Sally and Uncle Loren got to meet her on day one.

Since I was recovering from the surgery, Lillian stayed in the nursery this first night so I could sleep, though they did bring her to me to nurse a time or two.

April 28-29, 2008
During the rest of our hospital stay, Lillian got to meet Uncle Ian, Auntie Lori, cousins Allie, Eric, and Emily, and good friend Robyn. The cousins brought gifts for Lillian that they had picked out themselves, and Lori said they looked pretty cute marching through the hospital, each carrying identical pink gift bags for the brand new baby girl. We took photos of everyone visiting with Lillian in the hospital... well, ok, almost everyone - sorry Uncle Ian!

Wednesday April 30, 2008
*Use of the word "nipples" Alert*
After what felt like a long stay, we were able to head home from the hospital. My milk hadn't come in yet, so Lillian was trying to feed constantly since she wasn't getting a full tummy. That made for a bit of a cranky baby and some pretty sore nipples! But I knew those things could happen so I was hanging in there so far. Finally on Wednesday evening my milk arrived and boy did Lillian glug it down. What a relief for both of us!

Friday May 2, 2008
Sally, Howard, and Loren headed home to Oregon, so it was just the three of us on our own. Yikes! Much as we loved having our family visiting, it was nice to have our little one to ourselves for a while. We found our groove pretty quickly and just tried to enjoy every minute of it, even those minutes in the wee hours of the night! We were so smitten with our girl.

Sunday May 11, 2008
First Mother's Day! What a special day. I was really upset with myself though, because I hadn't managed to send cards off to our Moms. I had had high hopes of finding time to make cards while Lillian slept, but the days just seemed to fly by with me barely finding time to shower and cook a meal or two let alone haul out the crafting supplies! Of course our Moms were very understanding :) Ray cooked one of my favourites for dinner - caesar salad with teryaki prawns and chicken. Mmmmmmmm.

Auntie Kelly arrived for a visit. She was so excited to see Lillian, and reminded us that we needed to start giving Lillian some "tummy time" playing on the floor so she could strengthen her muscles. Again, terrible with photos - can't find one of Lillian and Kelly during this visit!

Monday May 12, 2008
My first venture out of the house without Lillian! Kelly and I went shopping for some much-needed nursing bras (for me, not Kelly), and it wasn't long before Ray called to report that Lillian spat up her last meal all over him. Perfect! We sped up a bit to get home and feed the hungry girl again. Should have known that first time away from Lillian wouldn't go smoothly!

Saturday May 17, 2008
Auntie Karen, cousins Trent and Brianne, and Oma came to visit. Uncle Ian, Auntie Lori, and cousins Allie, Eric, and Emily met up with us too, and we brought a picnic dinner to Gyro Beach. Everyone clamoured for their turn holding Lillian while the other kids played the evening away in the park. It was a great night - our out-of-towners got to see some of the best and not quite so great of Kelowna: We saw a young girl voluntarily collecting garbage and moving it to the trash bins, and we saw one man let his way too old daughter pee in the sandy play area! Ew! Oma headed to Vernon with the Landy's for a couple of days while Auntie Karen, Trent, and Brianne stayed with us, continuing the clamouring for turns holding Lillian. We had a great visit with everyone.

(Tip: When you hide from the camera, any single shot will be kept and posted for all to see, like it or not!)

Saturday May 24, 2008
Oma arrived back from Vernon a few nights ago to stay with us, and Karen, Trent, and Brianne headed back home. Grandpa John joined up with us too - the last piece of the puzzle for my side of the immediate family to meet Lillian. A very busy few weeks with so many visitors, but we were on top of the world getting to show off our baby girl. Yet again it seems I was bad with photos - I snapped one with Grandpa John, and I know I got video with Oma, but I can't find a photo with Oma anywhere! Terrible!

*Flash Forward to April 2009*

Along the way there was so much more I could have blogged about. Let's see, what else to share...

We had a dilemma about the whole "Back to Sleep" thing. Lillian was not a good sleeper to start, but we soon found out she slept great if she was on her tummy - which is not the current recommendation by the experts. Eventually the need for sleep won out, and I compromised for a short time by letting Lillian sleep on her tummy next to me in our bed. Never thought I'd be a co-sleeper, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do to survive! I did not want to get hooked on that either, so after a while we decided to let her sleep on her own, on her tummy. Thankfully the experts aren't always right - of course Lillian never had any problems and ended up being a pretty decent sleeper despite us bucking the experts' advice.

Lillian's first tooth came in at around 4 months. She was fussy and fevery and generally just not herself one day - and voila! The next day, tooth number 1 had sprouted! Since then I have geeked out and recorded every date a new tooth has come in: August 29 at 4 months, September 12 at 4.5 months, November 13 and 15 at 6.5 months, February 16 at 9.5 months, March 1 at 10 months, on March 22 two teeth came in at just about 11 months, and the first molar snuck in around April 25 - just shy of Lillian's first birthday. That's nine teeth to date for those of you keeping track :)

It seems like our little girl went from baby to toddler in no time flat. Her mobility has been progressing right along, and I know she's going to take off walking on her own any time now. Lillian started off trying to crawl and rocked in the crawling position early in November at about 6 months. Shortly after that she started to pull herself up to stand against furniture and her exersaucer, then in her crib after naptime - which scared me into thinking she was going to skip crawling and go straight to walking! Yikes! Fortunately that didn't happen: she had success crawling on December 7 at 7 months.

In the New Year at 8 months Lillian took off walking holding two adult hands. Today she's still motoring along that way, and hits the brakes if we try to get her going with just one hand. No tricking that girl into anything she isn't ready for! On March 24 I finally found a great secondhand push toy (a Hungry Hungry Hippo no less) and it didn't take Lillian long to figure out how to walk with it - she caught on so fast I wonder how much earlier she would have hit that milestone had she had that toy sooner. In any case she loves that toy - if only she was strong enough to steer it! One of us has to trail around behind her to redirect her when she bumps into things. She's so tickled doing it, it's hard not to love it too!

Some of Lillian's other neat tricks are holding her arms up for touchdowns, showing off her hair and ears, and matching Gramma scream for scream in a very loud version of the shadow game.

She figured out how to climb into a regular rocking chair (not her baby one - an adult size one) on her own just a few weeks ago. She associates her receiving blankets with nursing so now has a habit of bringing one to me, wildly nodding her head, and pulling at my shirt. I found that trick pretty adorable at first - until she started doing it constantly, regardless of whether she had a full tummy right after a meal. She brought it back to being cute when she started trying the trick on other people. Sorry hun, everyone else in this household is dry :)

Well, that about catches us up! Ok, not really. It only scratches the surface. I left out the whole bit about moving to Oregon... but I guess that was more about us and less about Lillian. And then of course there was her first Christmas, which she didn't really understand, and the big visit to Ladner, which was awesome, and Easter, and, and, and!!!

Anyhoo... hopefully I will keep up this blog better now - if not, see you in a year! Until whenever next time is, enjoy one last video :) (Tip: It's better with speakers on!)

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Still pregnant!

2008-04-23T10:40:00.000-07:00

Had another non-stress test and exam with my doctor yesterday. Baby still seems to want to stay put for a while longer, and there are no signs of any problems with either of us, so that's what we're going to let it do - for now. We also put together a plan to induce that we will follow through on if nothing happens soon. First another non-stress test on Friday, then another on Saturday followed by the first of the actual induction steps. We'll be back and forth to the hospital to be checked and for more help moving things along on Saturday and Sunday, with a goal of delivering on Sunday.

(It occurred to me that Sunday is the 27th, which would be exactly five months to the day from my birthday. Perhaps Ray could remember our dates that way. It also occurred to me that the 27th is really not too far off from May 1, so if we changed our plans to induce a bit we could possibly please Karen by having a May baby. Finally two last things occurred to me: I am way too obsessed with dates (for example, license plate insurance dates - if you don't know, don't ask), and there is no way in hell I'm holding this baby in longer to please Karen. Sorry sis.)

I like having a plan. Much as I am aware that the plans could crumble if the baby so chooses, I like that we have a plan to look forward to if nothing happens in the next couple of days. And when the doctor and Ray and I were putting this plan together, I must say I very much liked that we might be able to plan it so that all of the hospital stuff happens over Ray's weekend (if all goes well I'd deliver on Sunday and we'd go home on Monday). Of course if things happened mid-week and Robyn was around, I know we'd get it sorted out and everything would be fine. But being able to have a hand in deciding the dates to avoid the need to sort that out is a nice perk.

I slept miraculously well last night. Maybe it's because we have a plan, so I was more relaxed. Or maybe it's because I'm about to go into labour any minute now and my body knew I would need full strength today. Honestly I don't care why, I'm just very pleased that it happened. I even remembered snippets of dreams, which I haven't done in a long while, so I must have been sleeping quite deeply. Only got up once to pee, too! I told you, it was miraculous.

Ray has noted that "His" ticker on this blog isn't quite right. If we're overdue, the ball should definitely be in the end zone, right? And really, since he started this whole thing off by "scoring," the ball should have started off in the opposite end zone as well. Hardy har har.

Have you tried the new Oreo Cakesters yet? Mmmmm.

Winter Wonderland?

2008-04-19T16:09:00.000-07:00

What a strange day! We had a power outage at about 5:30am for around an hour and a half and I didn't hear anything by way of an explanation. When Ray got up he opened the windows to show me what had happened over night - snow! Not just a little snow, but a fair bit that actually stuck. Crazy! Last Saturday Ray spent most of the day outside and came back sunburned, this Saturday we have snow??? What is Mother Nature up to exactly? The snow didn't let up for hours. I took a few pictures around 11:30 this morning to prove it to you. Then a little less than three hours later I couldn't believe how much it had changed outside, so I took more pictures for you. Suddenly we had partly blue skies and most of the snow had melted away. Here are a couple of the pics, if you want you can see the rest here.

While the camera was out, Ray took a couple of photos of my pregnant belly. Yep, still pregnant. I can't believe how much bigger I look with the bare belly compared to the clothed belly! (Well, ok, they are zoomed differently but you get the picture. Ha! The picture!) Hopefully the next photos you see here will be of the baby instead of the belly.

I went to the hospital for a non-stress test today. Everything still checks out fine, just looks like things are moving slowly. Nothing much more to report. Unless anything changes, next up will be another non-stress test and appointment with the doc on Tuesday morning. Our friends who were due just three days before us delivered a healthy baby girl yesterday. Our turn next!

P.S. Yes, I did go back to that store today. Stocked up on cheap chocolate for under three dollars. Oh yeah.

D-Day

2008-04-18T18:53:00.000-07:00

So. Today is April 18 - what I've been referring to as D-Day, as in Due Day. But baby's still enjoying it's time on the inside so looks like we'll have another D-Day - Delivery Day - some time soon.

Never buy a pool noodle for your kids. My two kids have gone nuts for one, and it's been driving me nuts! Allow me to start from the beginning. Our prenatal class instructor showed us how a cut-off section of a pool noodle can be a great back massager during labour because it feels great for Mom but doesn't take a lot of effort for Dad. So we bought one and cut off a section to pack with the hospital bag. The rest of it has been hanging around the house for a few days now. My eldest child, Ray, has decided it's a great toy and just loves to twist and bend it, talk into one end of it, make dirty jokes with it, use it like a telescope, etc. He's also figured out that you can hit someone pretty hard with it without it really hurting. So he's taken to hitting my other kid, Robyn, with it. Robyn has decided this is a really great game as well. The two of them have put a fair amount of time into the activity of slapping each other silly with a pool noodle, and I'm the Mom telling them to make sure they don't break anything, asking them to cool it when the noise gets to me, and of course being the first one to actually get hurt with the darn thing when Ray managed to hit me square in the glasses, pushing them into my face. Is this supposed to be parental training? If so, I'd like to opt out of the course. I've been getting ready for one infant, not two rough and tumble school aged boys in adult men's bodies.

Yesterday I found some Easter chocolate on sale for 75% off. Oh my goodness. Decent stuff too, even some Lindt brand. And some Russell Stover cream eggs (same idea and size as the common Cadbury ones, but with different fillings) for only 17 cents each! Holy smokes. Just what I needed! I spent a fair amount of time in the store aisle looking at all of the options, wanting to scoop them all into my basket but trying to give careful, logical consideration to my choices so I didn't load up too much.

I think I'll go back to that store tomorrow.

Doctor's update

2008-04-16T13:37:00.000-07:00

Just back from the doctor's office, and basically the big news is... nothing. I'm a whopping one centimetre dilated which means pretty much nothing, and the baby is still sitting pretty high and not looking like it's ready for any action. Doc says it looks like we'll be fairly overdue. Assuming nothing changes, I'll go in for the non-stress test at the hospital on Saturday, then check in again with the doctor on Tuesday. If there's still nothing happening by Friday April 25 then we'll be talking inducement. So far I haven't felt anything I would call a contraction. I've had some moments of discomfort, and after I eat I'm often uncomfortable which I imagine is just because of lack of space. Today I've been feeling pretty nauseous so that's fun. Blah.

I'm still stuck between wanting to get the show on the road already and being completely freaked out in anticipation of the pain. Will keep you posted.

PS - Happy Birthday Trent!

Home stretch

2008-04-15T10:56:00.000-07:00

Dang, these blogs are getting to be frequent. I must have a lot on my mind. Wonder why that is?

Oh yeah!

Only four sleeps until the due date. Sometimes I think I'm as ready as I'm going to be, so bring it on. Other times I think holy %&*# I can't believe I'm within days of this baby's arrival! No more countdown in months or even weeks. I'm talking in days (or sleeps) now. Soon I might be talking in days or sleeps overdue. Overdue! I can tell people I'm nine months pregnant. Decisions and tasks that I've been putting off until closer to the birth-day can't be delayed any longer. But I'm so good at procrastinating!

I've been working on what to pack in the hospital bag. I'm finding it much more difficult than I expected. Of course there's that bit of anxiety of forgetting something crucial, but then I remind myself that we live like 4 blocks from the
hospital and stores are close by, so it's not like Ray can't dash out for any forgotten items. Beyond that, I don't know how to actually get the bag ready when so much of what will go into it is still being used regularly. On the one hand I want the bag ready so we can grab it and dash out the door when the time comes, but on the other hand I'm still using the clothes and toiletries and whatnot that I would pack. I don't know what to pack for the baby, because I have a hard time picking a "coming home" outfit since I have no concept for how big the baby will be versus how big all these clothes are. How do you know if it will fit? Hey Moms, any tips?

We had a visit with the Landy's on Sunday, and that darn Lori went and gave me a box of girl guide cookies. Guess how long they lasted? Damn I just have absolutely no willpower with those things. (By the way, I was asked whether girl guide cookies are the same as girl scout cookies in the states - yes and no! Very similar organization, but in Canada they only sell two types that I know of - chocolate mint, and combo boxes of vanilla and chocolate cookies (oreo style). I hear in the States they have a zillion different kinds - I think I would be overwhelmed!)

Ray and I went out on a date last night. :) We had a gift certificate to a place we would not normally go to, and figured this was good timing - get in one last date night just the two of us. It was a steak and seafood place and boy was it tasty! Oh my goodness it was soooo tasty. I ate way too much of course and was uncomfortable for the rest of the night, but the meal was so worth it. Oh and the music was fabulous - I don't think they played a single song I didn't love, and it was pretty eclectic. I would totally go back, except that it was also soooooo expensive. It was a great treat but I can't imagine spending that again! Cost aside, it was a wonderful evening: just us, no distractions, beautiful weather for the walk afterwards. Perfection :)

Blah blah blah

2008-04-12T21:42:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was probably the most productive day since I was told to stay off my feet, which means I didn't exactly follow doctor's orders, but actually my feet weren't so bad. Finished off the nursery, finished the last steps of putting the baby swing together (Ray did the nuts and bolts but left the cushion and mobile stuff to me), did some laundry including the last of the baby laundry (Ha! The last of the baby laundry! Did I just say that? It was the last of the pre-washing anyway.), did some general clean up, and started cooking in bigger batches so we can freeze more leftovers for those first few days after we bring baby home. (Side note - I doubled up on a casserole that I make infrequently because although it is sooooo good it is also sooooooooooooo fatty. So if you're in the mood for a disgustingly oily but yummy dish, let me know and I'll pass on the easy recipe.) So, things around here are certainly coming along. The last big task that I'd like to get done before baby & guests arrive, that probably won't get completed to my (or Ray's) satisfaction, is to clean up/organize/hide my craft stuff. It's taken over the dining room and I'm baffled as to how I can keep it handy enough that I will use it (don't want it to be out of sight and out of mind), but without having it on display in the current ugly mismatched rubbermaids and cardboard boxes, but keeping it portable enough for me to take it to crop days and retreats, and finally while keeping the dining room an actual dining room. So far the only solution I have come up with is slightly less than viable: move to a home with at least 3 bedrooms and have a craft room that is mine all mine.

There were quite a few sets of brackets in that run-on paragraph. (I'd count, but I'm too lazy.)

On an entirely different note, I'd like to tell you a story about my husband. I'm sure he'd tell it differently, but here is how I see it.

Scrabulous (an online version of Scrabble) has become part of the daily lives of Ray and I. Early on Ray introduced me to a website that helps you find words within your seven letters. He admits to using it when he plays against strangers, but we agreed we would never use it when we play against each other. Recently he beat me quite badly, with his score being well over 400 points - quite impressive, and slightly suspicious, but he vehemently denies cheating in this game with quite a bit of indignance, so I believe him. Today I suggested we play a game with both of us using that website he had shown me to help us, just to see how much of a difference it would make in our strategies and scores. It was neck and neck for a good while, but then Ray pulled ahead in and in the end beat me. As the game was coming to a close, he admitted to me that he cheated - his word, not mine. He had not been using the website we had agreed to, he was using a different website to cheat, one that not only unscrambles your letters into possible words, but also tells you the ideal place to put the word on the board based on all of the previous moves. It actually keeps a running mirror of our actual game board on the site, he just plugged in the letters he had each turn it and the program dictated exactly what the optimal move was each turn. In effect, he actually didn't play the game at all, the website did. When Ray confessed this to me, he was quite pleased with himself, and did not at all understand why I was angry. Well, that would be because he CHEATED. We flat out agreed to each use the one website for help, and he flat out cheated by using a different website unbeknownst to me. By the end of that discussion, he was backtracking and saying it wasn't really cheating since the whole game was a cheat with both of us using outside help. I maintain it was cheating because we agreed to one set of terms and he went ahead and played by different terms altogether. Bingo word of the day: CHEATER. Minimum 62 points.

I told Ray I was going to blog about this to expose him for the cheater that he is. He requested that I reiterate the point that he does not use those websites in regular game play - he doesn't want this blog to alienate his regular opponents since he enjoys playing the game so much. Karen et al, I'll leave that up to you.

Ray does earn a fair amount of brownie points though. He didn't say a word about me polishing off more than my share of those Girl Guide cookies or the ice cream before that. He brought home some chips I'd mentioned I'd been craving but hadn't actually asked for. He brought me flowers for no particular reason. Right now he is baking chocolate muffins, and a few minutes ago he even brought me a sampling of the batter. All of this and more just in the past week. He's a keeper I think. Love you, hun :)

What Goes Up...

2008-04-09T17:17:00.000-07:00

We saw the doctor again today and guess what? My weight was down. This past week I lost weight, and the previous week I gained quite a bit. I have a new theory. Throughout the pregnancy I had been using the same exam room for every appointment - until last week. The office was crazy busy so I was weighed in a different room, with a different scale last week only. This week I was back to the usual room with the usual scale. So, I'm thinking that scale last week was out to lunch. In any case, I'm no longer freaked about my weight, and the doctor isn't concerned at all.

Baby has also come down some. Doc says for a first pregnancy the "dropping" can take several weeks, and it is underway but not complete yet. He figures I still have another two weeks or so to go. He also checked out a calendar and advised me that he's on call the weekend of the 19-20th so it would be really great if I could go into labour then. Ray pointed out that would be good timing for him as well, since if it happens on a weekend we don't have to worry about Robyn. Ok boys, I'll see what I can do.

The nurses had Girl Guide cookies for sale at the front desk. Boy are they smart, selling cookies in an obstetrician's office. They totally had me sold when they told me that the cookies had gone back to the old recipe. For a few years there the cookies just weren't the same so I was off them. I have verified (a few times over) that the old recipe is indeed back. Mmmmmm.

Laughing until you cry is the greatest, isn't it? Robyn provided me with a great belly laugh yesterday. In case you've never met Robyn, I'll fill you in on the two passions in his life: making people laugh, and music. He gets a real kick out of both. When it comes to music, he's got a great knack for remembering artist names and song titles, especially the oldies his Mom exposed him to. So Ray has started up a game with Robyn where he searches for song clips online and challenges Robyn to identify them as fast as he can. Often, Robyn sings along, even if he doesn't know the words. He'll passionately belt out a tune, with the right melody and timing, but with completely nonsensical lyrics. It's pretty amusing to hear. Yesterday, he topped any performance of his I've ever heard before. Are you ready for this? It was Backstreet Boys, Show Me The Meaning of Being Lonely. Oh yeah. He rocked it out. Ray and I were busting our guts, trying to be quiet about it so Robyn wouldn't stop. He got through the entire song start to finish with such passion, and had an awesome time doing it. I'm pretty sure he missed every word. It was hilarious, and he was so proud - I think of his performance, and to see how much we enjoyed it. Good times.

Whine whine whine

2008-04-02T15:15:00.000-07:00

At first, being told to lay in bed with your feet up sounds pretty awesome. But it wears thin. I saw my doctor again today, and this time he was a little more adamant about keeping my feet elevated. But I had things to do today! I guess I'll have to work on finding some balance of time on my feet to get things done and time with my feet up to keep the swelling down. All the while I will remind myself that this has been a very smooth pregnancy and if this is the worst of the associated afflictions, I should be grateful. But that does little to affect the boredom. Scrabulous can only amuse me for so long.

Anyhoo, aside from the swelling, doc still says everything is on track and looking good. No signs of anything happening early. I had a pretty hefty weight gain over the last week, which didn't concern the doctor but did concern me. After reviewing my eating over the past week and getting the reminder that being off work means I'm less active (especially since I try to keep those feet up), I guess it's not much of a mystery where those extra pounds came from. But dang, I still can't quite believe it. Overall my gain throughout the pregnancy is still within normal limits, but if I keep up the off-work-and-feet-up routine for another two or three weeks I will have tipped the scales a little too much. Darn, I was so enjoying all those compliments about my size.

Looks like I caught a short-lived flu. Spent a few hours praying to the porcelin god last night. (Imagine what my weigh-in today might have been otherwise!) Seems to have passed, but of course now I'm exhausted. Might nap after posting this. I rarely nap. But I guess it's a practice I should get accustomed to. Sleep when the baby sleeps, right?

Ack! I've become one of "those" women! I very much do not want to be the whiny type. I have to work on that.

PS - Teehee, my new ticker is a little out of whack. I thought I'd go with the cute little chicks, since baby already has quite a few of them in the nursery thanks to gender-neutral gift giving friends and family (er, the gifts are gender neutral, not the friends and family). But the poor baby is dwarfed by the giant chicks! No, please don't peck at my baby!

Home again home again jiggity jig

2008-03-26T15:51:00.000-07:00

Well, I suppose now that I'm done at work and will be at home more, the high demand for more frequent blog updates will be unignorable. (No, that's not a word. Totally made it up.) I cannot disappoint my fans. By the way, shout out to those of you who read this without me knowing: Hi Nana! Hope Papa is recovering quickly!

Yep, I caved. I couldn't cut it. I didn't reach the goal of staying at work until March 31. Seriously, I am disappointed. I'd rather have more time with the baby before I return to work than while he or she is still hiding out. Plus I know that plenty of women manage to work right up until they go into labour, so I feel a little like a weakling for only making it to 36 weeks. But what can I say, several different things came up all at once that pointed us toward the decision to leave work earlier than planned. It's probably for the best. Of course it is. Convincing, no?

I gotta say, my feet really have been a sight to behold. For those of you that have not seen them at their largest, consider yourself lucky. I felt a bit like a freak of nature. I made people's eyes bug out at the sight. Including the women in my prenatal class who surely have heard of this condition, other Mom's who surely have felt worse than I have at this stage, and even a pharmacist who surely sees all sorts of nastiness. We went to inquire about compression socks, and the pharmacist was talking to us about the ones that she uses herself for vericose veins. At one point I lifted my pant legs to show her how bad they were, and she looked a little stunned before she recovered and advised us that I would need much stronger socks than hers and would require a prescription. My feet actually have behaved themselves pretty well over the last few days. They sure plumped up on Friday, the day we drove down to the coast - not surprising since sitting is the worst position for it. But after that it wasn't so bad - hopefully it will stay that way now that I'm settled back at home, feet up as much as possible. Ray's been awesome with the foot massages. Kelly even gave me one too, despite some serious rankness. She ran off to wash her hands immediately afterwards. What a trooper.

Speaking of Kelly... girl knows how to throw a very last minute baby shower like nobody's business. Ray and I went to Ladner to surprise my Mom and Dad, just for the heck of it (and maybe as a bit of a last hurrah in the impulsive travel department) in time for Easter. We pulled it off perfectly - Mom's face was priceless and I got the tightest hug ever. She might even have misted just a little. Perfection! Little did I know that while I was tickled with the success of that surprise, another one was brewing behind my back. Kelly only found out that I was coming to town on Thursday night, and by Sunday afternoon she and her cohorts had managed to lure guests (on Easter Sunday and with hardly any notice, no less), bake a cake decorated like a baby bottle, prep shower games, find time to shop and spoil us, hide all of this from Ray, stop Dad from nearly spilling the beans, and keep me 100% oblivious until the big reveal. WOW. I had been enjoying what I thought was a quiet weekend family visit, completely clueless that whenever I left a room someone else was jumping to action or taking a phone call making arrangements. I don't know how they managed to keep it a surprise, but they did. Thank you everyone!

Smooth Sailing

2008-03-02T11:07:00.000-08:00

Well, we had another appointment with the doc on Friday. All is still going well, he had reviewed the ultrasound and everything's hunky dory there. There was a resident doctor shadowing my doctor that day, so when it came to certain things they did it twice - first the resident, then my doctor. When they were feeling around my belly to determine the baby's position, it was very weird. It was like my abdomen was play doh and they were just smooshing it around this way and that and when they were done somehow they knew that the baby's rump was way up top, head was way down low, back was along my left side and limbs to my right side. I have no idea how they did that. My weight was checked again and I don't know how it's possible that I only gained one pound with all of this Easter chocolate surrounding me. Maybe it was a little off because I was wearing sneakers instead of the usual boots I had through the weekend, but still - last weekend I was a bad girl with the mini-eggs, let me tell ya. This weekend is shaping up similarly. I figure if I limit it to the weekends that's better than every day - right?

Thought it was time for another photo shoot. Can hardly believe it's been 4 weeks since the last one. I feel ginormous, but people keep telling me I look small for how far along I am. I can still wear those same fat jeans, with the waist hanging really low below my belly, but it's getting more uncomfortable. It's not bad when I'm standing, walking, or lying down, but sitting is less than comfy. Wore the same shirt as last time for the photos, thought it might show growth better for those of you who don't get to see "us" in person.

Caught the cold I was so hoping to avoid, but really it was inevitable with Ray plus three people at work spreading their germs around. I tried the power of positive thinking thing, repeating my mantra "I am healthy, my immune system is at its peak" over and over. They say that a woman's immune system really is at its peak during pregnancy, as if the body knows it's all the more important to stave off those germs and protect both people. But alas, here I am, sniffling away, bit of a cough. It's not too bad right now, but it sure keeps me up at night, and sleep was already getting to be an issue. I even started wondering if I'll make it through March 31 at work. Sigh. But I should really shut up with the complaining if this is the worst of what ails me. I still feel like things are going smoothly - the doctor even said I was having a text book great pregnancy... woohoo!

On my mind: What happens if my water breaks while I'm in bed or on the couch or on the carpet? Surely there aren't enough cleaning agents in the world to make that ok. I think I might spend the last couple of weeks of my pregnancy on the kitchen tile. Yep. Eat drink and sleep there. It's the only way.

Mini Eggs, anyone?

2008-02-22T15:23:00.000-08:00

I don't know if I'm really having a pregnancy craving per se, but man those Easter treats have been calling to me. Frequently. Even after I've given in. Still want em. Today I saw some scattered on the ground in a parking lot and I thought about holding a moment of silence for the wasted chocolate and for whoever had the misfortune of dropping those precious morsels.

More importantly... we're at 32 weeks now, and today was ultrasound day. Fun surprise: even though this was at the clinic, requested by my doctor, and covered by msp, we got to see some 3D images! Like at a private office, where you spend a decent chunk of cash to do it. Certainly wasn't expecting that! I didn't want to ask too many questions so as not to jinx it, it was such a nice bonus. It would be pretty cool if that got to be the norm. Anyhoo I'm told the baby is 4 pounds 14 ounces now (how do they know that? crazy), the heart rate was 128 bpm, and everything looks right on track. Now for the fun part... photos! Well, one photo. We only got one 3D photo printout, so here it is:

Baby was playing shy, wanted to keep it's face hiding behind it's hand. From this angle, the hand is covering up part of an eye and part of the mouth on the right side of the photo, but you can see the other eye, the nose, and part of the mouth pretty clearly. Or, at least, the parents of this beauty can see it. Maybe it's not so clear to others!

Right after we got home from the ultrasound, I laid down on my side on the bed and starting feeling a new kind of movement. Up until today mostly I was feeling what seemed like rolling around, but not those kicks you hear so much about. This time there was several minutes of kick kick kick over and over again, nice and strong so Ray could both feel it and see it. It was so constant, almost like a tick. But it's cooler to think it was kicking, don't you think?

Going to wrap this up now so I can send it along to those of you who can read from work... I'm excited!

Now why isn't that husband of mine back from his chocolate run yet...

Weighing the Issue

2008-02-06T17:28:00.000-08:00

Well, good news and less than good news.

Good news, doc says my weight is back on track now.
Less than good news, doc said not to keep up the same weight gain pace.

Oh, sure.

For the last four weeks I changed my eating habits so as to try to gain some healthy weight. I was successful. Now I need to change my eating habits again, so as to continue a healthy weight gain BUT not as much as the last four weeks. How in the heck is that supposed to work? He's toying with me I think. Don't you think? Because that doesn't sound reasonable to me. Surely it's not considered reasonable to ask a pregnant woman to increase her food intake, then take it back and tell her to decrease it again. That is some form of cruelty. Right up there with tickling. Am I right or am I right?

I hope the preceding rant was perceived with its intended humour :)

Onward and upward: next scheduled cruel joke on this pregnant woman is Feb 22, when I get to drink approximately 42 gallons of water without releasing it until given permission. Hooray!

More Milestones

2008-02-03T17:39:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday, at 28 weeks, I had another milestone. Ray very nicely made me a virgin strawberry margarita. No, that wasn't the milestone, he does nice things for me all the time :) It was such a sweet treat, and I sooo enjoyed it. Anyway I was lying in bed when he brought it to me, and I had a bit of it then sat it down absentmindedly. Ray left the room and came back with his own, and caught me laying there with my coffee mug of margarita balanced on my tummy. That was a first! Wonder what I'll balance next... It was a bit of a cheat since I was lying down and the cup was also balancing against my chest too, but then again I never would have done that a few months ago without the belly I've got now.

The next day, I went to the mall for a haircut and a little clothes shopping. The hairdresser was the first stranger to comment on my pregnant belly – that was pretty cool. She said they're told not to comment on that with clients for fear of being wrong, but I was wearing a pretty tight fitting shirt and she said my popped out belly button was a giveaway so she felt pretty safe saying something. Then I went to do a little shopping, still trying to avoid actual maternity clothes by buying larger sizes of regular tops that happened to be designed to flow around the belly. Normally when a store staff person asks if I need help with anything I always say no just out of shyness, even if I actually do need help. But since I'm looking for pretty specific stuff now I went ahead and said yes. The girl right away pointed me to just what I was looking for, saying that about a year ago she was in the shape I'm in now and was still avoiding maternity wear too. She said she managed to get through with zero maternity tops and only one pair of maternity bottoms – she lived in yoga pants and let the waistband sit below her belly. I wish I could get away with that at work – I'm down to wearing the same pair of jeans every day (yes, I wash them frequently) but who knows how long I can milk that for.

I had my test to check for gestational diabetes two weeks ago. If it had bad results I would have been called back already for the longer version, so I'm hoping no news is good news. I'd heard terrible things about the repulsive orange drink you have to chug, but actually it wasn't so bad. The comparison I heard was it was like McDonald's orange drink, but just the syrup without being watered down. Yuck. But actually it was cold and carbonated, and sure it was fairly sweet but really it was just like Orange Crush. Not hard to chug at all for me. More annoying part was sitting in the waiting area for an hour alone so they could make sure I didn't eat or drink anything else before they took my blood. Boring! Next check up with the doctor is this Tuesday, right before the 30 week mark. Yikes, three quarters of the way there! We'll see what doc has to say about my weight this time – I've been trying to work on it, but honestly I can't tell one way or the other what the change has been since early January.

I've said that I've enjoyed my pregnancy so far, I think I've been spoiled with few low points. Ray asked whether I'm actually enjoying being pregnant or I'm just happy that we're going to have a baby. I told him – both! I really have been enjoying being pregnant, and to borrow his term the “wonderment” has been amazing. Every day I think about how amazing this process is, how much is going on inside of me without me consciously doing anything at all. And the physical sensations, all of this baby's movements, I wasn't prepared for how cool that would be, definitely my favourite part of it all. And I do think I have been spoiled with few low points – sure I had some morning sickness, but it was isolated to the first trimester and I never actually threw up at all. And I had that nasty heartburn just after Christmas, but it was only a few bouts of it, over in a week or so and nothing since. I've been having a more difficult time with certain movements that used to be easy and mindless, especially moving around in bed, but so what? It's logical that I'm not able to move quite like I used to, and though I may have a bit of pain in the moment, it doesn't linger. So far, I'm counting my lucky stars that both baby and I have been been healthy so far and all those little symptoms have been just that – little. Here's hoping the rest of the road is this smooth, and hopefully payback doesn't come during childbirth!

PS - here's a photo showing my belly's progress... more on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=862609&l=d71f8&id=577420408

PPS - woops, thought that would be public, let's try that again for you non-facebookers:

2008-01-12T17:51:00.000-08:00

You should see my belly button now. The other night, Ray actually took a video of it because it cracked us up so much. Can't describe it. Can't show you the video either, because then you'd see the icky belly hair. Combination of those damn genes from Dad and those damn hormones. Totally normal, but not exactly something I'd like to show off. Maybe if we can find a way to airbrush it out.

We had another regular appointment with the doctor the other day. Hearing that heartbeat never gets old. The only other notable thing from that appointment... wait for it... I'm UNDERweight. Seriously. I did not expect that. Not that I feel like I've gained a ton, but what pregnant women expects to be told she hasn't gained enough? Of course when I went back to work after the appointment I was very quick to tell my co-workers about this, especially the one who is ruthless with the fat jokes. So there! Needless to say, since that day I have been working very hard at correcting this problem. We'll see if I've overcompensated come the next appointment.

And speaking of appointments, now that the third trimester is fast approaching the appointments are becoming way more frequent. So far, I've been doing the regular 4 week ones plus an ultrasound. But now I have a glucose test in two weeks, a regular doctor visit two weeks after that, another ultrasound 2 1/2 weeks after that, and then another doctor visit less than a week after that, and those regular ones will get more frequent. Plus we'll have the birthing classes before you know it. Up to now everything has felt pretty routine and not too impactful (did I just make up a word?) on my day to day life (except for the constant thoughts of all things baby), but now it's starting to feel like, OK, this is it, this is where my life as I know it starts to fade. The centre of my universe is making it's shift. Bring it on!

I've been reading a book I got for Christmas (thanks sis): Chicken Soup for the Expectant Mother's Soul. I love the Chicken Soup series. Sometimes Ray reads with me. There are some real gems, I totally recommend this book for anyone really, not just moms or expectant moms. So far, the most memorable tidbit: "Sex is like riding a bicycle. It doesn't matter how long it's been, it comes back to you." Not that I can relate. Woops, did I just share too much? Never you mind, just re-read that quote, I bet every one of us can relate to some extent.

And now to get our minds off our our sex lives, new topic! Wardrobe update: still fitting into normal jeans, although they don't fit quite so normally. But I'll milk as much time out of them as I can. Tops are another issue altogether - had to go shopping last week to pick up a couple that will tide me over until the next shift in size. Got a couple on a great end-of-season sale. Tell me, why do they have end-of-season sales when it is barely the middle of the season? In Kelowna we can count on cold snowy days through February and part way through March - we've still got at least 6 weeks of heavy winter coat type weather. Speaking of winter coats - my buttons are starting to pop sometimes. It will kill me if I have to buy a larger size winter coat for only a matter of a few weeks. All of the spending on short term stuff kills me. What? Me? Cheap? Naw. You got me all wrong.

Well off to make dinner. Gotta pack those pounds on. Doctor's orders!

A Christmas Wish Fulfilled!

2007-12-23T14:44:00.000-08:00

I had this fantasy that Ray would be able to feel the baby's movements in time for Christmas. Awesome gift idea, right? But not exactly in my control. With previous failed attempts and being a bit early for it, I wasn't expecting the fantasy to be realized. BUT IT WAS! Last night while watching a movie in bed (get your mind out of the gutter, it wasn't that kind of movie) I could feel the baby was pretty active. I was tempted to get Ray to put his hand on my tummy yet again, but I had previously decided that I didn't want to keep trying it over and over only to have him feel nothing - we would just wait until it was more of a sure thing. But when the movie was over I felt a couple of pretty significant movements, so we went ahead and tried. Ray humoured me, but I'm pretty sure he was expecting to feel nothing, again. Then it happened - it was so awesome, both of us being able to feel it at the same time. And the look on Ray's face! The first time we heard the baby's heartbeat, and when Ray was surprised to actually make something out of the images on the ultrasound, and now feeling the baby's movements... his eyes light up at these milestones and I just love it.

I started out the weekend in a pretty kick ass mood. Christmas is almost here, family is almost near, and the gravy is so close I can almost taste it. Who knew the weekend could get so much better? I am so full of warm fuzzies I'm nearly making myself ill. Scrooges beware: I will squash any bah humbugs coming my way with so many shortbread cookies and chocolate truffles you won't know what hit you.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Belly Button

2007-12-17T20:51:00.000-08:00

Ray and I read this week by week article online that gives an overview of the development of the baby that week and what's up with Mom etc etc. We like it because its normal-speak without too much medical mumbo jumbo and with a decent dose of humour. For this past week 22, it mentioned that Mom might be noticing her belly button is getting flatter and may soon pop out. Well I guess I hadn't recently inspected my belly button, because when I checked it out right then and there I was shocked to see it looked different. It's not popped out yet, but normally I'm a total "innie" and I can tell it's starting to look a little more like an "outtie." I just inspected it again. I have a little freckle in there I couldn't really see well before that is now totally obvious. And my surgical scar is easier to see now - wonder how that'll look when the whole belly button has popped out. A bonus to this new change: I was able to clean out a collection of lint with a cumulative size of a cotton ball.

Ray is totally reading this over my shoulder as I'm typing it and was completely grossed out by that last comment. He actually asked me if that was what he found on his chair this morning. Disgusting. I was totally joking. What he found on his chair was probably the collection of hair I pulled out of my hairbrush and rolled up into a little ball for easy disposal. Guess it didn't make it to the garbage can. Oops.

This blog topic has led Ray and I to quite the discussion on hygiene. Have you talked to your significant other about personal grooming habits recently?

Back to baby... still feeling a lot of movement, though I gotta say sometimes I'm not 100% sure whether I'm feeling the baby or various digestive movements. I can't wait for Ray to be able to feel some movement through my tummy, but lately I'm less anxious to get his hand over here because I'm afraid if he feels something it will actually be gas. Don't tell him. Now the first time he feels something and I insist it's the baby he'll insist it's gas and give me a hard time, probably joke about one of us needing to evacuate the premises if I'm rumbling that much.

We had another checkup last week and everything was ticketyboo. One thing that I've been conscious of is my blood pressure since one of my sisters had trouble with it both during pregnancy and since then, but at my checkups I've been told it's right where it should be. Until last week - it was on the low side. Weird, but apparently nothing to worry about. We heard the baby's heartbeat again which never gets old. We'd still like one of those contraptions for home. Anyone not done their Christmas shopping for us yet?

Almost time for bed so I must be going. In case I don't manage to make it on here again before then... Merry Christmas everybody!

A month gone... how'd that happen?

2007-12-02T17:07:00.000-08:00

Woops. Looks like it's been a while. I'll try to be better! Wanna hear my great excuse? During Ray's football season I used his practice time as my online time, but since his season ended my habit has been broken. I need to make a new one and make sure I get on here more often. In the meantime I'll spoil you with a long post today - lucky you!

Well, just past 20 weeks along now, we're at the halfway point ladies and gents! We had an ultrasound a little while ago, that was interesting. I'd had one before so I knew what to expect about the general process and of course remembered the bladder issue very well. But it turned out that the baby wasn't cooperating so the technician couldn't get the snapshots needed, so I had some unexpected changes during my visit. First of all, she had me rolling on to one side to try for a better view, then on to the other side, then back on my back again, and over and over again several times. I never considered moving around might help, I just always pictured myself on my back. Wait, let me take that back... that was not good at all. Moving on... baby still wasn't cooperating so I had to go empty only part of my bladder (I was given a cup - fill it, no more, no less... sure thing) and try again. Good times. There's nothing quite like having to pee in a cup, am I right ladies? Anyhow baby still wasn't cooperating but the technician called Ray in to get the fun visual shots for us and said if she still didn't have any luck with the required ones after that we might have to reschedule. Fortunately she did end up getting what she needed, so no second appointment needed. It was very, very cool when she showed us the baby and pointed out all of its adorable yet alien-like parts. The printed snapshots make so much more sense after having seen them in action and with the pointers from the technician. At one point, the baby was "facing us" so you could see the two eye sockets and nose, and its little jaw was moving up and down like it was jabbering away at us (that's the bottom left picture). So cool. At another point one hand went flailing about as though it was waving at us. Hello little baby! We see you!

I've also been feeling some of baby's movements over the last 2 weeks. Surreal. Just like everything I've read and heard, it is unlike anything else I've experienced and I totally misted the first time. Ray was actually in the air on his way to Toronto at the time, so I called Lori right away and got excited with her. I left a voice mail for Ray and he called me that night so I got excited with him all over again. A time or two I thought that Ray might be able to feel it on my tummy, but it's hard to tell if I was actually feeling it with my hand or if I was just feeling it on the inside. He's tried a couple of times patiently waiting with his hand on my belly but no luck yet. Ah well, it's very early for that.

I recently realized that I had totally forgotten about a little goal I had always wanted to do while pregnant and now I'm wondering if I can actually do it. I used to cross stitch a bit and found all sorts of cute babyish patterns, even stitched a few. I thought I could put them together into a quilt for baby. But then I decided I didn't want to do the work ahead of time, I wanted to do it while pregnant, so that I could tell the little one that mama made this blanky just for you while growing you in my tummy (I could say in my uterus but it doesn't have the same ring to it and I think it'd be lost on the child). Now all of a sudden I'm halfway through my pregnancy, very out of practice with the stitching, and I with no sewing or quilting experience I have no idea how I could actually put these things together into a blanket. Hmmm. Well, I'll start by pulling out the old stitching supplies and we'll see how it goes.

On a non-baby note... I feel a song coming on (when don't I?)... It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! I actually have a love/hate relationship with snow. It's beautiful to look at, and sometimes a blast to play in. But it's also horrible to drive in, especially when you really should have new tires but don't. The first snowfall here was last Monday night. We went out to dinner and when we drove out the roads were bare but when we left there was at least an inch on the ground. Driving down the hills from point A to point B was extremely stressful, especially when at one corner we spotted about 4 vehicles off the road and others slip sliding around. It was among the longest drives of my life, though we were on the road for less than a half hour. Now we're limiting how much we take the truck out, or at least when nervous nelly me is around. But Ray has to drive a fair bit for work so I still worry. Ick. On the plus side, now that December has arrived it is officially acceptable to start decorating. I'm not usually that into the decorating (Mom's gene landed with Lori, me not so much), and we don't have much to put out, but this year I'm excited to. I think it's because Ray's going to be gone for a while this month plus we don't know how much of the family we're going to be able to see over the holidays with plans very much up in the air, so I could use a little cheer. I'll be hauling out the boxes in the next day or two and I'm sure I'll get it all finished up while Ray is away next weekend. Ooooh and another big plus to this time of year: I've loaded up my ipod with Anne Murray, Boney M, Barenaked Ladies, and a little Alvin and the Chipmunks and NKOTB Christmas tunes. OH YEAH!

Well... (I use that term a lot both when typing and verbally, and nearly every time I hear my Dad's voice pointing out what a deep subject that is) next up is my regular apointment on Wed Dec 12. I'll check in again after that, if not sooner. Ray leaves on a 10 day trip shortly after that, so the computer will be mine all mine and I'll have no excuses for forgetting to blog... maybe I shouldn't be saying that now just in case... no, no, I want to be doing this, no more excuses.

Boy this really was long. And a photo too. You are so spoiled.

Tick Tick Tick

2007-11-03T18:47:00.000-07:00

I love tickers. I might just change the one here every time I post. But I'll leave "His" as is - I don't think I could find a better fit.

Not much new in terms of this pregnancy in the last two weeks, hence the lack of posts. I still don't see any bump, though I can't fit into my skinny jeans very well anymore. I knew it was coming. I'll try to get another week or two out of them. But it's hard, especially when they're fresh out of the wash. Why is that? Why do jeans feel so much more snug when they have just been washed, but they get more comfortable as the day goes on? Oh yeah. I ask all the deep questions.

This afternoon I delved into the world wide web of pregnancy websites. I got lost again. Dang! Maybe I'll have to start getting my information from actual people instead of websites. My reclusive lifestyle is in jeopardy!

Mmm. Dinnertime. Later!

Music to my ears

2007-10-18T17:52:00.000-07:00

What an awesome feeling we had today. It was pretty cool to hear the sound of our baby's heartbeat. I've heard the sound before, just on tv or whatever, and I was trying to describe it to Ray last night. The look on his face this morning when we heard it was awesome. It was so fast, faster than either of us expected. I wish I had one of those gadgets at home so I could listen to that heartbeat whenever I want. I think I'd start and end my day with it, and it would be impossible to have a bad day with that routine. I'm still anxious to show. Now I can feel a firmer section of my belly (distinguishable in the middle of that squishy-cushy stuff!), and I'm excited for it to keep growing so I can show off.

Doctor says everything seems normal so far. The nausea seems to be less frequent, but I definitely notice I don't feel well if I eat too much at once. When "they" say it's best to eat 6 smaller meals a day instead of 3 big ones, they mean it. Big meals just sit in my gut like a rock for hours and hours. Ick. But hey, that's manageable, and so far I haven't come across anything that isn't. Here's hoping the ride will stay smooth the rest of the way!

Lucky 13

2007-10-14T14:06:00.000-07:00

It all feels fairly surreal. We're at 13 weeks now, which means our little one should be about 3 inches long and about one ounce - one website compared this to a jumbo shrimp. Aw, my little shrimp!

So far I have no pregnancy bump, and I haven't had any weight gain. I'm not worried about those things, since I know that every pregnancy is different and I could just be a late bloomer in those areas. But it really makes this feel surreal. I'm anxious to start showing so it can feel really real. I'm hoping at our next check up we get to hear the fetal heartbeat, that'll make me feel better.

Have you ever tried searching for information on pregnancy online? The amount of information available is overwhelming. Plenty of message boards and matters of opinion, plenty of scientific information including lots of realistic images, which I find fascinating. As I was sifting through the various sites today, I was surprised to come across one that was completely original, and even made me laugh a little. I highly recommend checking this one out (come on, play along): www.thepregnancytester.com.

In other news, the last Ugly Betty episode I saw included a montage of basketball, while Get'cha Head In The Game played. In a totally separate scene, there was a Zac Efron reference. Pop culture is so awesome.

Well, it's about time!

2007-10-07T16:28:00.000-07:00

About time I started a blog.
About time I put effort into keeping in touch with my friends and family.
About time I expose the world to the wonders of my mind.
Oh yeah, and it's about time we became pregnant!
This little one has been a long time coming, and it wasn't for lack of trying. We are so excited! Hopefully I'll use this space to keep you all up to date on Baby's progress and our excitedness. Stay tuned!