New Year's Day

Evyn got a Littlest Pet Shop VIP toy for Christmas. It comes with a "secret code" in the pet's collar that allows you to explore their virtual world online and do things like decorate your house, plant a garden that grows a little every day, and play lots of computer games.

Evyn is hooked already! Here she is, playing what must have been her 20th game of skateboarding, New Year's morning:



In the afternoon we went to Guy & Linda's house (aka Grandma & Grandpa B.) for our lucky pork & sauerkraut - yum! Photos courtesy of Evyn - I kept forgetting to take some. They had quite a crowd (21, I think?) - too bad we didn't get a group photo.

update from patient #0136139

I just realized that is how my OB & hospital identify me. For some strange reason it struck me as funny. Like a prisoner number or something!

We'll be 30 weeks pregnant on Monday 1/4/09
(which reminds me - HAPPY NEW YEAR!).
I decided I need to start adding more pregnancy updates to our blog - if just for posterity. When I was pregnant with Evyn I kept an online pregnancy journal (I'll have to link to it later - the site that is hosting it is down right now). Each week I would print out my entries and paste them into a book - it's been a joy to thumb back through that old book now! For a bunch of reasons, I never got around to starting a journal for this baby. So I'll be adding more details here - feel free to skip past them if they are boring!

Tuesday I had my 1-hour glucose tolerance test to rule out gestational diabetes. I passed! I didn't think I would - I failed when I was pregnant with Evyn, and had to follow up with a 3-hour test, which was awful, although I did pass. So glad I don't have to repeat that this time!

My iron levels are still coming back very low, though. I have always been quite anemic, but especially so in pregnancy. Since I will be breastfeeding this baby like I did with Evyn, it's pretty important to get my levels up to par. Easier said than done; after Evyn was born, I had to give her iron drops every day because my body just wasn't absorbing the supplements - and let me tell you, those iron drops are terrible! She cried and gagged every time I tried to give them to her, poor thing.

Another thing they have been monitoring is my blood pressure, which generally runs pretty low. Thankfully we've been doing great with this pregnancy, staying well within the normal range (in fact, not low at all!). At this latest checkup I was at 117/60.

I'm hanging out at +9 pounds, and baby is measuring on target, heartbeat is 139 BMP. Reflux is much worse than it was when I was carrying Evyn - it's even happening in my sleep, yuck!
S/he is still doing acrobatics, - changing position nearly every day. Today s/he is down but diagonal - head near my right hip, feet in my left ribs. Every morning when I wake up I like to take a few minutes to play with the baby (s/he usually wakes up shortly after I do). I wait for a kick or an elbow jab, then I gently poke back to get him/her to reveal their position to me. I think it's a hoot - Scott, on the other hand, tells me to "stop bothering" the baby - ha!

Officially we have 10 more weeks to go, but I am determined to be ready for him/her by 38 weeks (God willing!). Right now the baby's room is still full of office furniture and in desperate need of some fresh paint. All the baby things are still packed away waaaaay back in a corner of the basement.
We have no car seat, no stroller, and our cosleeper bed is still at my cousin's house. No diapers, no onesies, no hospital bag packed! I'm really feeling the time crunch and hoping to tick a few of these things off my to-do list this week.

Prenatal checkups are every 2 weeks now - I go back Jan. 14th.

Next update should be a little shorter :)

if you'll be visiting at the hospital - visitor parking is in the green 1 area
Take the elevator (yellow X) to the 3rd floor for the Family Maternity unit

time to get started!

Sunday brought warm (if gloomy) weather, and we took advantage of it by cleaning out the garage & garage attic, in preparation for upcoming construction. The attic will be transformed over the next two months, into a 4th bedroom - which we plan to use as our office/kids playroom.

The bikes, wood, buckets, spare tools, patio furniture, and many other things that had been tucked away into the attic joined the Chevelle over at Tri-Town Storage. Evyn got a ride or two in, while we were working, before packing her bike away until spring.




Hard to believe that this will be a nice, new room in a few weeks! First picture is facing south - the rear portion (where Scott is crouched) will be the outside wall of the new room, with a bit of attic storage space remaining behind it. Next two photos are facing north, where the room will be, with a new door cut through the wall, to tie it to the other rooms upstairs.





After sorting & cleaning, Evyn & her Daddy were "building things" out in the garage. Not sure what the funny faces were about, other than growling and being silly!

Scott's 40th birthday party

I had decided several months ago that I wanted to surprise Scott with a party for his big 4-0. Little did I know how difficult it would be to pull off! My first plan was to hold something at a restaurant (read: no clean-up for me!) but after Scott's grandfather passed away I thought I should scale back a little, and keep the guest list short.

Finding a party date for a person whose birthday falls two days before Christmas is not an easy feat! I settled on the 27th - only to have Scott tell me he had taken a job for that day (sigh). Oh well, I knew we would have a good time, even if things weren't going to work quite like I had planned.

As it turned out, I succeeded in surprising Scott, who only knew that his parents and sister were coming for dinner. Many thanks to The Moms for helping get supplies, etc! Evyn got a kick out of having so many other kids at her house, she enjoyed showing them around and playing little hostess.

Unfortunately I didn't get many pictures, and those I did take didn't turn out well. But you get the idea.

checking out the old pictures of Scott, from baby to present




a few of the girls, doing crafts

Christmas 2008

We got home late (and full from much tasty Italian food!) Christmas Eve from Lori & Larry's. It was midnight by the time Evyn got her snack arranged for Santa 's arrival: cookies and chocolate milk, plus carrots and an apple for the reindeer.


Christmas morning we all slept in, then lounged around in our pj's opening Evyn's gifts.



Santa remembered to bring glitter glue! Evyn was overjoyed.



Don't worry, she'll grow into it! We got her the Yamaha CGS102 half size classical acoustic guitar. I think Scott and Evyn will be learning together.



She wasn't interested in using the pick, she preferred to use her fingers - like she saw her cousin Elisabeth do the night before. One of the reasons we chose the Yamaha was for the finger-friendly nylon strings.


Balloon rockets! Probably her least-expensive gift... and the one she's enjoyed the most so far.




After lunchtime we made our way to Scott's parents house for more gifts, and dinner.


I should have taken pictures of Evyn & Scott playing
the Hyper Dash game - lots of fun!


Evyn sneaked up on us with the camera and caught this shot: