Take Pants out the ballgame, take him out to the crowd...

We didn't buy him peanuts or cracker jacks...but we will definitely remember our super fantastic afternoon at the Indians game! Pants' first ballgame was not so much ballgame as it was atmosphere and people watching, but it was the perfect afternoon. Our ideal family outing!

In other news, we have a doc appt. on Wednesday so we can get new official measurements (not that I don't trust the Wii, but...)

Coop has moved into his own room officially, tonight will be night #2...hopefully it will go well. He is equipped with new nightlight and Mozart.

Right now he is in hour of sleep 3.5 under Aunt Michele's groovy baseball quilt-- he seems to really like the combo of the quilt and Boppy...thank you Mooshi!!!!

I would come up with something more clever to write now, but it's getting late and I'm tired- we're up for a bottle here any minute then off to sleep (well, at least that's the plan!) Enjoy the pictures.If you're up on Facebook, we've posted an oodle of them there since it's easier to share them on that site (and I've become mildly addicted).

Good night!

3 weeks and about 210 diapers later...

Mr. Pants is already changing and growing so much - we'll do our official at-home weigh-in today (via the ever accurate Wii Fit!) :) Last time it said I was holding something "8.2 pounds that was wiggling."
Things are going well, he's chugging his bottles a little more frequently ever since we upped his ounces, word in the books says that this week is a common growth spurt week, so we may see lots of changes over the next little while. I am feeling great, thanks to my daily outings and walks with friends...I think I would go a little coo-coo for cocoa puffs if I had a baby in the winter. Getting out and about with Pants has been key, I think.

Yesterday, while sitting on a nice shady bench at the Monon, 3 people asked me if Cooper was a preemie. Seriously. This 8+ pound noodle of ours a preemie? My friend LaQuita (whose own little guy, Jackson is just 2 days younger than Coop) thinks it's because folks aren't used to seeing such young babies out and about. We've both gotten comments from believers in old wives tales, etc. and until she said that, I didn't think about it that much. Well, here we are world, a group of mommies who take our doctor at her word when she says - get out there, and enjoy the weather!

We tried to enjoy an evening of watching Brad mow the yard last night, but the bugs were pretty bad and seeing that Pants has inherited (so far) my very pasty complexion, I'm guessing he's just as tasty to the mosquitoes as I am. It was entertaining for the little bit we were out there - Brad just inherited his grandpa's riding mower from Brian after Brian's move into town this past weekend. It's an AWESOME piece of machinery that easily dates back probably 40+ years. Take that, neighbors with your shiny, new John Deers. Our mower can eat yours for lunch! hehee! Here's a shot of a very similar one...except ours has the deluxe addition of red indoor-outdoor carpet on the seats...I think that makes it an LX model! :) I literally about peed my pants when Brad was driving towards the back gate and I asked "is that as fast as it goes" and he moved some handle, then almost got left behind while he and the mower just about took out the edge of the gate.

The thing may be old, but it can haul. Brad's almost mastered doing the the back porch area in a progressive donut pattern at high speed!

In other news, I've become officially Facebooked. I know, those of you who have had the conversation with me a few months ago about how I just didn't get what the big deal was are probably laughing at me fiercely...but I'm hooked and am fascinated at the ability to connect with folks I went to elementary school with!!! The even more disturbing part is that I find myself on it when I feel like I have less time now than I did before Pants came along...but I guess his mid-day naps do allow for more surfing time. It is, admittedly, a great way to get or stay in touch with folks, especially with Pants on board now.

Speaking of, I better get going and get ready for today's walk - we're meeting up with Betsy (who took the fabulous pics of Cooper--the really good shots like the one of him smiling above) - she rocks with that camera of hers! Have a good one, everybody!

The Bug, Boog, Mr. Pants (aka Cooper)

He already has a million nicknames, but we can't help it! Here are a few shots from today. Thanks, Jennifer for a super snazzy summer outfit....the video has a nice sneeze in the middle for your viewing pleasure, too.

Some pics and a quick hello!

Hi everyone! So much to tell - I promise to type up Coop's birth story soon- it was a good day. Since then we've learned so much - mostly that we have a lot to learn. With that said, though, Brad and I are finding that being parents is so amazing pretty much because we have an amazing little guy. We're in day 5 right now (actually technically in 10 more minutes as I type this). Without further ado, here are some more pics we wanted to share...Thanks to Bob & Helene Cross for providing Cooper's first "big boy" outfit today (Brad picked it out as his first outfit besides a gown!) He was quite preppy and of course cute. Brad convinced him not to work a pop collar...instead going for a more "golf appropriate" look! :)

Also, there is (hopefully) a video posted here as a shout out to all of our United Way friends who chipped in for our shower gift--- Cooper LOVES...and we mean Looooooooves the soothing swinger and we can't get enough of how incredibly cute he looks in it with the teddy bear head rest. We're getting so much use from it and thank you all every time he sleeps for 2+ hours in it!

Welcome to the world Coop!

Well it's official, Cooper Dean Girton has arrived! He was born at 10:13 PM on June 29th, 2009, weighed exactly 8 pounds and was 21" long. He's amazing and is simply perfect! Pitocin started around 9:00 AM or so, the doctor broke her water around 1:00 PM and we started pushing at 8:00 PM. We didn't get settled into our room until after 1:00 AM this morning, so it was a very long day, but very well worth it!

Here are a few pictures for you to enjoy!

This is right before we headed to the hospital on Sunday night.


This is our little pride and joy!


Look for some more pictures soon!

A post from the hospital...

Well, we're officially at the hospital!!!! We arrived here about 5:30ish and headed up to our room. As we got settled into our room, the nurse that came in was the instructor from our birth class, which is pretty ironic for her to see people from her class, we thought it would be the other way around and she'd see lots of people from her class, guess that's not the case.

They went ahead and got Heather all set up on the monitors and we went ahead and ordered some dinner, which was surprisingly good, not hospital like at all! So here we are, sitting around and thank god, there happens to be a Law and Order on, so that helps pass the time for us. We're going to try and stay awake till 11-11:30 or so, so that we can get her something to eat before midnight...after midnight is all ice chips (where are very impressive...for ice chips and all!).

Heather says hey! She's doing good so far, they have gave her some medicine tonight and they'll start the pitosin tomorrow morning around 7 AM or so. We're looking forward to it and am extremely excited to see Coop!

I'm not sure when the next post will be, so we'll talk to everyone later!

New pics of Cooper: Have fun figuring them out!

Soo...was that a contraction or just a lot of pasta?

Last night we tried the new Domino's Pasta Bowls...TASTY! Really good and pretty cheap, considering the massive amount of cheesy carbs they give you. Even more exciting than finding a new cheesy pasta dish was the prospect that we thought I may have been starting contractions last night.

Hmmm....maybe exciting wasn't the right word, especially since we both seemed a little in denial and just kept saying "maybe we should pack a bag", but never actually did it. Here's what happened- from about the last 15 minutes at work I started feeling quite a lot of pressure. We ate, then I kicked back on the couch - so one of two things started to happen- either Cooper decided to have Dance Party USA and was taking some agression out on my internal organs OR he was making movements in response to being squeezed by what have become some intense Braxton-Hicks contractions. Either way, it was the first time of having the sensation that the B-H contractions could be more than "falsies". After about 45 minutes, things subsided and by 8:00 I was worn out and we went to bed.

As of 7:30 this morning - still feeling the pressure on and off, but no pains. So help me, if end up going into labor in the middle of our all-staff meeting today, we'd never hear the end of it!

Oh! A bit of exciting news- we met with a potential pediatrician for Cooper - and LOVED her! She was a lot of fun to chat with, completely made us feel at ease and we both agreed that her style is a perfect fit for us. Plus, she's in the same building as the hospital, which means she's a whopping 2 minutes from the house (and that's if you go the speed limit!) So, that was a nice thing to have checked off the list. I knew I liked her when she totally empathized with people asking if I was having twins - she has 6 month old and said that she got the same thing...although she came up with some doozy comebacks that I don't think I can pull off with the teachers at the schools --unless I want my programs to fail miserably!

I did have my first perfect stranger ask to touch my belly at Kohl's this weekend -- of course she asked if it was okay after her hand was already touching me...then she asked if I was married. I slowly said "yes..." while debating on what to do next since my hands were firmly grasping a slipcover package she pulls out a "High 5 for the married girls, haaaaayaa!" So I give her a high 5 and she moves on. WEIRD, but funny.

The next time you guys see us in person, remind us to tell you of Brad's latest sleep talking (now with props and live action!) episode. Evidently sleepy-time Brad doesn't like it when you look at him with "The Crazy Eye".

Speaking of Brad, he's doing a great job this week as the Chair of our internal campaign. Check him out as "Captain Logistics" (it's a superhero theme this year)...he's been working really hard to make sure it's a success- I'm very proud of my caped crusader!

We missed a whole month, but it's worth the wait...

We haven't purposefully been avoiding a new blog post, but have been suffering with a poor lack of good photo ops to share. Until today, that is! The United Way gang was so kind today and threw us a pretty kickin' baby shower! This, on the heels of a rockin' shower the other week with family and friends, and Mr. Cooper Pants can consider himself quite loved already by everyone around us.

You'll have to checkout the slideshow on the page to get the full experience... and for those of you who have been on a belly watch, bask in the glow of my round, largeness!

Jody, thank you SO much for organzing the shower today- it was fun, beautiful and a total A+! You always put so much of yourself into your events and we consider ourselves quite lucky to have you as a friend who takes the time to make us feel so very special! To all of you who came to the shower today, thanks for spending your lunch hour with us and for all of the wonderful presents!! No doubt Cooper will be sporting a LIVE UNITED onsie and making the rounds in the office a few times this summer to pass along his thanks!

Brad and I have been truly, truly grateful for everyone who has offered up their bits of baby-ness for us to have. Shannon & Scott have totally outfitted our nursery furniture - no joke, every piece of furniture they graciously brought to us - a crib, changing table, 2 shelves and possibly the world's most comfortable chair & ottoman. On top of that, they provided us with a Diaper Genie, exersaucer, stroller, carseat, bedding and blankets!We can't thank you guys enough!!! Betsy & Ryan got things kicked off for us with some great tips and equipment, including a super jazzy universal stroller, bouncy seat (which is said to be made of gold!), car seat, bottles and more. Seriously...we have GREAT people in our lives!

Then, there's the always amazing Christy O'Grady, Jennifer Noffze, Michele Borst and Toni Hung - you may remember them from such productions as "The Girls" from the Wedding! Christy and Jennifer produced a mighty fun shower chock full of ice cream goodness (of which I'm just now finishing up, time to stock back up..baby needs it!) :) Thank you both for all of your hard work that day - it was a blast, and who knew such a learning experience. Thanks to all of our attendees- you had such good advice and were so incredibly generous! (I still giggle at Uncle Brian's clothes sizing..sorry Brian, but you did provide us some serious comedy that day and you weren't even there!)

Michele and Toni -- you are the best long-distance aunts a kid (and future mom) could ask for. Who else can say they've gotten some of the most sage advice from Italy? Who else has a friend that keeps a steady supply of boxes coming full of all sorts of goodies in the mail. You guys know how very much I love and miss you. I can't wait to see you again and introduce Cooper to his older buds and take that much awaited photo with all of us and our munchkins!

Mar, Jim, Mom & Dad - you guys have all given us so much support and love over the past few months, it's hardly measurable...but if I had to guess, it's the equivalent of 1,000,000 skeins of yarn! (wink, wink) What a lucky kiddo to have such excited grandparents - just think of all the things you can do, and then have the luxury to hand him back over when you're done! :)

Of course, since I'm writing this time, I get to say to you all how very much I love my husband and completely value the man he is. Go ahead and roll your eyes and brush us off as newelyweds still, but Brad has made this pregnancy as enjoyable and at times bearable, as possible. I love him for being the exact opposite of what people expect and being exactly what I always need. He takes such amazing care of our family. I'm beyond proud to be his partner and wife and consider myself the luckiest girl in the world that he is my husband. Besides, I'm pretty sure he's the only one I know who doesn't flinch when I say I want Cheetos and Pop Tarts for dinner.

If I've left you out, it's not on purpose, my pregnancy brain is filled to the brim with tons of things to say, but I know I'll forget - just know that if you're reading this, it's likely that we owe you a big hug and a thank you for all you've done for our new, growing family.

We'll do our best to get back in the habit of blogging- it really is fun to look back and have a chronicle of this adventure - and I have no doubts that our picture drought will be over here in a few more weeks!

For those of you counting- I'm in the middle of week 34...which according to the last measurements of Cooper means size wise about week 37ish. We'll see what tomorrow's doctor's visit shows!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

New Biggest Loser Show!

So I'm thinking about putting together a new biggest loser show! All they have to do is come by the house each weekend...and PUSH MOW OUR YARD! So yes, I mowed our yard on Friday...and if nothing else...I'll be losing weight in no time! 3 hours and the gas bar tied down to the mower later, the yard looks nice and...mowed? Minus the dandelions and the damn moles, it looks pretty good. I went ahead and fertilized 1 side lot and the back yard hoping that the back will start growing in the dead spots. Tomorrow night, the front and the other side lot get fertilized and dandelion killed! p.s. Thanks Jim for the mower, it worked well.

BAD! Look at that thing! And a quote from Meet The Robinsons...I have big arms and small eyes! UGLY!









From looking at the hideous picture above, we're having some mole issues. Although it makes us feel like real home owners (having to fight with moles), it's getting irritating! Stomp on the holes...next morning, welcome back moles. So we go to our new 2nd home, Lowe's, and start looking at things to kill them and of course, we pick the only one thing probably that's not legal to use in Indiana (or California). There was one lady who used to buy Mole Smoke bombs, I liked that idea...smoke em out! We think we have a fix, but now we just have to buy them, fake worms with lots of killing stuff in them. EAT EM UP MOLES!!!! EAT EM UP!

So enough about those ugly things and onto beautiful things like my wife and baby. Heather is doing pretty good, swelling up pretty easy these days, but doing good. She's been doing a great job at putting her feet up and taking it easy when she needs to, so that's a plus. Of course, I'm still getting on her every once in awhile to get her feet up, but she's doing good. We've had a couple...Holy S$&^ moments on realizing how little time we have till the baby's getting here, but we're SO excited and we can't wait either. Keep on marinating in there baby, it's not time yet!

We want to send a thank you to everyone who's either given us baby stuff or is planning on giving us stuff, that's a huge help! Our registries are complete at Target and Babies R Us...Hint Hint :) And after you look...you'll understand...Yes the baby needs that 46" TV...trust me, I know what's best for our son :).

That's about it for now...lunch is over and back to work. More to come later!

MEGA baby

So, there I am, in all my belly-liciousness...sorry for the incredibly exciting background--but that's what happens when you use a self-timer camera at work (actually this was done prior to the start of my official work day, for those who may be wondering exactly how me doing belly shots is related to kindergarten readiness.)

If you look closely at my Daily Tasks board behind me, you'll see that Monday was a sick day. Nothing serious, just feeling the effects of our MEGA baby. Why so MEGA? Well, I don't know and I won't claim responsibility for his love of ice cream and McDonald's lately, but I do know this- we're growing, and we're doing it fast!

According to my last check-in with the doctor, my recent dizzy spells could be due to 2 things...1. Work stress. That, I think I can manage better. 2. someone, not to point any fingers, grew 3 centimeters in one week. Let's discuss the latter point, because it is without a doubt the more fascinating of the two.

"Average" growth at this stage would be maybe 1 (one, uno, singular) centimeter. Our Stuffy? Why stop there...keep on growing, he says...3 centimeters in one week evidently sounded a lot more fun. As does finding various veins, etc. to plop down on to make Mom dizzy. So, according to the doc, my anemia is making a lot more sense and my feeling pretty cruddy throughout the day because I'm not getting anything but "scraps" from what Mr. Mega Pants in there is leaving me. I think that just means I need to eat more cheeseburgers...those are chock full of nutrients, right? ...hey- no comments on wondering why or how he could possibly be getting this big...I've only gained 12 pounds since October, thank you very much!

Granted, my pants no longer fit, but that's a different story. I'm not kidding, but I spent the entire afternoon at work yesterday with my pants completely unbuttoned and unzipped --they didn't even budge off my hips (and yes, I was wearing two long shirts to cover my secret). Right now, my favorite maternity pants are tight sitting under all that belly, so that when I stand up, I have a little bit of "trucker belly" until I make the necessary adjustments. I'm still mad I can't find any proper panel pants yet...but then again, I'm unwilling to pay full price for them, so that could be an issue, yes?

Enough about me and my beach ball....let's talk about the house! The house!! The house has hot water, a fully encased hallway ceiling and lots of love. Aside from the occasional tease of the garage door (which has a mind of its own) we are settling in quite well. We hosted our first real get-together on Easter with some friends, yard games and ice cream sundaes. We have lots of yard to use, so it was great to see it in action. This weekend, however, we are taking advantage of probably one of the last weekends we have to do.....NOTHING! It's been declared a Girton film fest weekend, which means sleeping in, watching movies (or Law & Order marathons on tv) and pajama pants as long as we want. Hooray!

We figured that the rest of our weekends from here out will likely be spent on more projects and getting the nursery ready, so why not veg for a while-- it's been a few hectic weekends lately and we're ready for some quiet time.

Sorry we haven't blogged in so long, but hey--houses don't get unpacked by themselves, you know! Forgive the lack of belly shots, I didn't even realize it had been that long! wow!

Happy Thursday, everyone!

Ode to Hot Water

Oh, hot water, how we miss you.
Did we take you for granted? Yes, it's true.
With pits so stinky from work and from play
all we want now is a shower at the end of our day.
But No! We can not, the water heater is kaput.
We just sit here waiting to hear the UPS man afoot.
Hot water, hot water, we do miss you so.
According to our sources, only one more day to go!


It's that bad that I'm writing poetry about missing hot water. Seriously. Word via UPS Tracking says tomorrow delivery of the golden gas valve...here's hoping. We're officially at one week today without the steamy goodness of the left side of the faucets.

On a whole different topic, and likely worthy of another poem, but I won't because it'll just embarrass him... The last post by Brad included his shout out to me. Don't let the boy fool you - HE'S been the wonderful one! How lucky am I that I have a husband that takes such wonderful care of me? He always has, but he's gone into hyperdrive since finding out we're expecting. Honestly, I can count on one hand the number of times I've done the dishes or laundry since November. He's actually more in-tune with my stress and activity levels than I am...always making sure I'm not over doing it, giving me water to drink and reminding me to let things go. Every expecting mom should have a man so wonderful by her side during this roller coaster!! The best part of it all? He does all that great care-giving while making me smile and laugh. I love him and am so proud of him...I'm proud to be his wife and am so excited to see him be the amazing dad I know he'll be.

Stuffy is growing--by looking at my belly, I'd guess that I was growing a literal butter ball in there! We need to pick up the picture taking again soon, we've fallen off the wagon with the house and all the "pride of home ownership moments". We'll do our best to show off the boy in the belly as soon as possible- Doc says he's looking and sounding great as of Monday. I'm feeling MUCH better than last week and am quickly outgrowing pants these days...eek!

Go have a great day and don't take your hot water for granted! :)

The woe's of home ownership!

Alright...yes we've been slackin yet again on the blogs...but you'll have to give us some credit as we've had A LOT going on lately. It involves one of us being at home every day this week. Yes that is really awesome when we're trying to keep as much time as we can for babydom - NOT.

But first, it's time to give my lovely wife a whole lot of praise! She has been very patient and keeping a great attitude as we travel through another journey in our life. This has not been very easy for us both as it's been A LOT to handle, but she has been incredible. Only having one day as a slightly rough day since Saturday is pretty good for anyone, let alone a pregnant one. She has been very good at taking it easy and knowing her new limits, although very tough for her, she has been amazing! So I'd like to give a little shout out to her because she is beautiful, caring, loveable and of course...clever! So a huge THANK YOU to my lovely wife!

Now...Moving day went very well, thanks to all who helped, it was much appreciated! Had everything loaded into the Uhaul in about an hour, which was pretty sweet. All while that was going on, Heather and her parents are at the house watching our Comcast guy fall half way through our ceiling! Yes I said it...he fell through our ceiling in our hallway, just as you walk through the door. But that did not stop us, after walking in and seeing the 7-8 foot hole in our ceiling, we went ahead and moved everything into our house and had the truck back to UHaul by 12:30.

Now let's skip onto...Tuesday I believe...or Wednesday, I don't know; all the days this week are running together now! Let's see what could go wrong, lets pick the....water heater! Yes yes, the water heater means no hot water and of course means a nice luke warm shower? Oh no, a nice freezing cold shower is more like it. The best part is about working with contractors is that we have NO CLUE when they're coming to fix anything, not a problem for people who are able to stay at home huh!

So let's get onto some good things that happened this week! The renter we have been talking with through Craigslist has been approved and is saving us LOTS of money! Thanks to everyone again for helping out with the move and everything this past weekend. A shout out to Lanny for fixing so many things this weekend that we can't even list them all, 1 that sticks out is the fantastic job on the patio door lock! A thanks to my brother for coming up on Friday and finishing painting the kitchen, as I took the 2nd coat, I can understand why he was hating me as I gave him all the tough spots (behind the stove, between cabinet, etc), so thanks! Thanks and more thanks to Marlene & Jim, Christy, Ryan and Betsy for being awesome friends & family. And a final thanks to Emily (our realtor) for getting us into this beautiful house! Through all the crap that we dealt with, you stuck with us and have been amazing to us.

Alright, I think that's about it for now, so hopefully...I'll get some pictures posted for everyone soon.

Later! Think happy thoughts about getting the water heater fixed!!!!!!!!!

More updates...and photos on the way!

Hi everyone, sorry it's been spotty on the blogging lately, but understandably it's been pretty busy around here. That, and no one likes an angry blogger, right? Thankfully, both Brad and I have lots to finally be happy about with the house and have been spending the past couple of nights over there putting up curtains, blinds, etc. We'll officially move on Saturday.

Our plan tonight is to take some pictures and give you all a real update. Till then- we're both doing well, Mazy seems to like the new house, Nala still thinks we've adopted boxes and are merely keeping them in the apartment for her enjoyment and Stuffy is evidently taking after his Daddy with his sleeping habits! (very funny stuff to tell later!)

Thanks for all the happy thoughts and wishes...we're beaming with the pride of homeownership!

We didn't close on Friday...see below.

No, there was no house closing on Friday. Yes, we both resembled the lovely Hulk above from about 11:30am -7pm on Friday. We're okay now, and a new closing date has been set to Monday at 2:00pm. Here's hoping nothing else happens to prevent us from getting into the house finally.

In a nutshell, the "mortgage master" mortgage broker seriously dropped the ball. We're talking all capital letters SERIOUSLY dropped it. This is after the FEMA debacle of Thursday he was knee-deep in and a growing list of "oops" that you may expect from a rookie, but not from someone who claims to be a "master" (per his own blog). Granted, I'm sure that in other deals, he's been great. This being our first time buying a house, we're sorely disappointed in the gap of service and responsibility since first meeting him.

What did I learn from all of this? Trust that prickly feeling at the back of my neck the next time someone tells me they're in clown school. You, know that feeling that screams "something is not right!" I think you all know how I feel about clowns. What are the chances the guy whipping our first home loan up is for real, currently learning to be an official c.l.o.w.n. ?

You know what, though? As long as we get in that house on Monday and he follows through on his promise to make it up to us (we've asked for him to pay for a moving company this weekend to make up for the arrangements with friends and family from this past weekend) I'll be willing to let it go. If not... more people may be subject to my green tinted, and Brad's red-tinted anger.

In the meantime, Stuffy thinks it's just another reason to kick it up! The little guy is very much on the move, especially in the wee hours of the morning-- a sign of fun times, we're sure!

We'll keep you all in the loop and wish super duper crazy (clown-free) happy thoughts for a true, honest to goodness closing tomorrow.

The way I am...it's genetic.

See those happy, smiling people? That's me and my parents. I thought it'd be a nice reference of our smiling faces and provide context to what lies just beneath the surface when triggered. Oh, I know it appears that we're all extraordinarily happy folks-- and we genuinely are. But, those genes come with an asterisk * that should read something like this: " Danger! Happy, smiling face will be replaced with someone you don't want to mess with if triggered." Think Incredible Hulk but without the transformation into a green, muscle monster.

Not that I reached my absolute meltdown point this morning, but I got close. I'm sure it wasn't helped by the fact that I had just consumed a gigantic amount of sweet tea. Happy, smiling Heather was replaced by "Don't you dare mess with me right now-Hulk Heather" in the matter of one phone call. In a nutshell, it had to do with the house closing that's scheduled for tomorrow at noon and finding out that some "loose ends" hadn't been as quite tied up as we thought. They were also attached to us possibly paying about $2000 more than expected.

Hello, blood pressure, meet caffeine. Caffeine and blood pressure, meet angry pregnant lady!

I think I went on about 3 separate tirades to the involved parties. The good news is that by lunch time we got news that dropped my attitude from Hulk back to Heather and that $2000 is no longer an issue. Oy!

It just made me laugh a little to myself when I think about how I react to those "don't mess with me" moments, especially in relation to where on Earth I could possibly have picked up such habits. Someday, if you have the chance, ask my dad about the guy he made nervous at the hardware store and ask mom about the mall parking lot incident. Then, you should get a good idea of where my blend of crazy-eyed, yet scary-rational anger comes from!

Now...take all that and add it to Brad's genes, we're bound to have a crazy-eyed, rational, stubborn, red-faced hulk baby instead of the kind that turns green! :)

Slackin on the updates...

Hey everyone! Sorry we've been slacking on the updates lately, just been really hectic around and we're just overall...tired. First things first, Heather is doing great! The belly is growing and growing, but she still looks very good as always. She seems to be waking up in the middle of the night between 2 and 4, or waking up at 2 and staying up till 4. As she likes to describe it, as soon as she gets anything inside her bladder, it feels like stuffy takes his feet and pounces on it for her so she has to wake up and go to the bathroom. Other than that, she's doing very well, just tired. Her shoulder is doing a lot better than it was a few weeks ago, it's amazing how much better it feels when she actually stops and thinks before she uses it! Yes...she tries and sneaks in a few things while we've been packing up for the house, I'll give her credit, she does a great job in thinking of excuses and passing it off on our pets to give me a good laugh.

House update: We're about 95% positive that we're closing on our house on Friday (probably afternoon) and we'll be moving in on Saturday! There's not supposed to be any rain/snow this weekend either, so knock on wood for that. Our survey came back over the mark that we needed, so we don't have to pay the CRAZY $1900 in flood insurance, luckily our insurance guy gave us a great deal on some flood insurance with the elevation certificate that is only $200 a year...nothing like saving us $1700 a year. We have our living room and dining room full of boxes now and we're about 90% packed. My awesome brother is coming to help me out with some maintenance on the house this coming weekend to work on the very few things we need to. Notice I'm referring to him as awesome because we need his help this weekend! Heather is going to be pointing and telling everyone where things go and that's it! I think everyone is going to have to help me out with keeping her only doing that, but I think she'll do ok. We're just excited to get into our first house and get settled and have a great space for the baby to come home to. Mazy is going to the vet to get washed the day we move and then won't know what to do with her new backyard, everytime we let her out, she'll probably just stand there by the door until she really...really has to go to the bathroom, then she'll go and rush back to the door. Nala will hide out for a week because she doesn't like these kinds of things, this will be my first experience in moving with the cat (I have a feeling it will be like taking her to the vet).

I think that's about it, we forgot to take Heather's picture last night, so we'll do it tonight and get it posted!

I Don't Care what you get...As long as it has Pepperoni on it!!!

The title of this one is what I heard as we decided on what to have for dinner tonight...yes, yes...another night of us not cooking (shame on us). But Heather got her pizza with pepperoni tonight and she was a happy camper. So with the pizza we had, along came a new toy for our cat - the lid pulled off the box and bent in the shape of a tunnel. That has literally lasted her about an hour and a half of "trying to find the pizza" we said.

Today we went and met with our saving grace - our new babysitter for our baby boy. Kim, we're so happy to have met you and are looking forward to staying in touch in the next few months until stuffy arrives.

Yesterday we got some pretty good news about the house, the elevation is 797.2 compared to what we needed of 791.8...we're a very high 6 feet over where we need to be! So now our lender is waiting on the under writer but we all feel pretty good that it's going to come back and tell us 1. we don't have to pay the monster flood insurance bill and 2. we probably don't even need ANY flood insurance (yes we'll probably get some anyways just to be safe). They're also NOT looking at moving our closing date back any either, so we're still looking at March 13!

We'd still love to hear if anyone has any leads on someone needing a short term apartment lease...so let us know if you know anyone.

That's it for now...enjoy the new weekly picture of Heather!

Chicken McNuggets, here I come!

Monday morning, follow-up from the ER visit with my OB office:

Doctor: "this is SO not your gallbladder."
Heather: " really? "
(discussion ensues about the techniques of ultrasoundists and the cruelty of those hard plastic wands on the sensitive rib area)

Doctor: " Yep. Not your gallbladder, not even close. It's most likely your shoulder surgery, possibly some scar tissue causing issues because of all the changes in your body with the baby."
Heather: "That sounds like what my Physical Therapist friend in Italy said."
Doctor: "Italy? Cool. She's right, I think. I can't see how it's anything but."
Heather: " So.... no more bland diet restriction?"
Doctor: " Eat it up, whatever you want!"
Heather: "I'm so happy right now!"

He then did a "stuffy check" and laughed out loud when Stuffy tried to avoid having his heart listened to and told me "this one's gonna be a hand full!". Nice loud heartbeat -- so much that the woman in the next room commented on it in the lobby afterwards!

The doctor then told me this funny story. He said the last time he had heard a heart rate like that was at the end of last year with a woman who was in her last week or so and she had brought her 7 year old with her to the check up.

Dr. Wright made a comment like "Wow! Sounds like you're having a train!" He said they both kinda chuckled and the 7 year old looked a little confused. Dr. Wright then clarified by telling the kid, because it sounds like a choo-choo. Another minute passes and he sees that the kid is obviously still thinking this over and then the kid says... "So does that mean that steam will start coming out of my mom's vagina?"

First turtles, now trains! My doctor's office is always good for a story!

The shoulder bone's connected to the... gallbladder?

What the heck? That's what most of us have said when we've told this story, but it's true. Pain in your right shoulder is symptomatic of gallbladder issues. I've been having increasing pain in my right shoulder all week and Friday afternoon, I couldn't take it anymore. I thought I had re-hashed something from my shoulder surgery. I called the St. V.'s ask-a-nurse line since my OB's office was closed to ask about taking Tylenol. After 10 minutes on the phone she urged me to go to the ER because to her it could have been either my gallbladder or an anchor from my shoulder was coming loose (they put 2 in during the last surgery). EEEEk!

I felt a little dumb heading to the ER for this, but as Brad pointed out: 1. I was in pain, more than Tylenol was capable of handling and 2. I'm pregnant. We can't be too careful.

Away we went and the staff at the hospital was super great. Blood work, etc. then we got sent down to ultrasound. No biggie...until she finally found my gall bladder on top of my ribs -- After about 10-15 minutes of scanning (which entails her trying to push the ultrasound wand into my ribcage) I was crying. Not a lot of tears, but they were there. After all that, she said she didn't see any gall stones. Then, she was kind enough to move over the Stuffy-- guess who was sleeping while I was writhing in pain? Still sitting in the breech position and groovin' right along with his 160 bpm heartrate. It was comforting to see him and know at least he was doing alright.

They wheeled me back upstairs (Brad was with me the whole time, thankfully!) the last thing they could do was call my OB office on-call. The OB asked for them to do the heart rate, which they found quick and was the 160...very good. His suggestion for the ER doc was that even though there were no stones, I could be experiencing a "colicky gallbladder". We then were told that I need to switch to a bland diet, avoiding fats and spicy food. And to follow up with my OB on Monday morning, they'll be expecting me.

Ummm...by fatty and spicy foods, you mean the stuff I've been eating all week? -- let's review my menu of late:

1. Ham noodle casserole (take a stick of butter and throw some egg noodles and ham in there)
2. Tortellini soup (italian sausage, cheese tortellini and every spice I could find) - ate it every day for lunch last week, by the way.
3. Cheeseburgers and fries from Five Guys
4. LOTS of chicken mcnuggets with hot mustard sauce and fries
5. Steak basted in butter and loaded (and I mean loaded) baked potato
6. Vanilla ice cream with (insert cookies, fudge sauce, etc. here)
7. Tagalongs and Thin Mints
8. Sausage biscuit and hashbrowns

No, I can't imagine why my already hormone stressed gallbladder could be having trouble!?

I'm trying to be better this weekend, but it's hard. Hopefully I'll get some more definitive answers from Dr. Garrett tomorrow with a more detailed plan about what to do from here...maybe I'll be really lucky and it NOT be my gallbladder and we can have some of #4 and #6 for dinner tomorrow! :)

No new news on the house yet, still waiting for the elevation cert. to come back. Lots of happy thoughts, please!!!!!

Oh! And we may have found a great babysitter- more on that on Tuesday!

Have a cheeseburger day...I mean GOOD day everyone!

Wanted: Mary Poppins, please!

So with all the musical dance numbers and associating with chimney sweeps on the streets of London aside...what we really want these days is Mary Poppins. She was, in fact, practically perfect in every way, wasn't she? Is that why they NEVER mention paying her $400 a week in the movie?

I'm not kidding you...we've been quoted by one lady for $400 A WEEK! Um...no. Thankfully several of you have sent us your leads for child care options and here's where we cast our net even wider.

We need help. Finding child care is a priority for us now, even though you may think it's too early to start looking, you'd be mistaken. How do we know? Well, because we're on 5 different waiting lists already, with not much hope to be moved up the ladder.

I know this is torture for you mom, and it pains us to have to be looking for someone when we know the perfect person lives a measly 400 miles away, however, your option for you to take Stuffy during the week and "let us have him" during the weekend just won't cut it! As Brad put it last night...we need to "steal" someone's grandma here in town.

Really, we're looking for someone(s) that will provide tons of love and attention on our little guy when we're at work. Especially while he's just a little squirt, I don't need to know they have a fancy curriculum, etc. I just want someone who can give him the attention an infant deserves and requires. We're open to someone who can come to us, or us to them. And, sad to say, but money is a factor in this decision, so we need someone who is affordable (i.e. under the $400 a week mark).

If you know of someone who may be a good candidate for us starting care in September, let us know and we'll follow up with them.

Till then, it's a spoon full of sugar till we find that Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious person!

Belly Laughs

So... today is officially 21 weeks and 1 day. I wore a shirt to work today that I've had for about 2 years. It's NOT a maternity shirt, although, every time I've worn it in the past, I've asked Brad," does this make me look pregnant?"

This morning I didn't even have to ask. See why? And yes, I'm just now over the HALF WAY mark... (eeeek!)

I've only gained about 12 pounds since before I was pregnant (but it is coming on much quicker now than in the 1st trimester...can anyone say Tagalongs?)

We thought these pics were fun and showed off Mr. Stuffy in a glorious, all-belly sort of way!

ps... from Stuffy

So, Mom totally forgot to give everyone a Stuffy update, so here it goes.

1. I am about 7" tall right now. For those of you out there who like to measure in the way of real life objects : that's as tall as a beer bottle.

2. Based on the last doctor's visit, right now I weigh anywhere between 14-15 oz. Translated to Mom, that's about 5 pounds gained in the last 2 weeks (and she thought she was never going to gain after the "loss" of the first 3 months-- HA!)

3. I enjoy teasing Mom with movements that make her wonder if that was me or if it was something she ate. Although, I couldn't resist the other night doing a jig on top of her full bladder. It freaked her out, mission accomplished.

4. As of Friday night, Dad had a great idea for a name, Mom agreed, and I liked it because I did some sort of jab-kick-punch to cast my vote. I'm kinda excited to have another name to hear besides Stuffy. Although, don't get your hopes up that they'll give it up to you guys, they're afraid some of you will totally hate it and burst their bubble. So, for now, all you lucky folks get to call me Stuffy....or Mister Stuffy, if you like!

That's all from the womb for now! Later alligator!

House wishes and survey dreams

Sorry we fell off the blogging wagon till today, it's been a busy weekend that rolled right into a busy weekend. For perspective, I only got in about a 30 minute nap all weekend! :)

Most of our time has been consumed over obsessing about details of the new (hopeful) house. Now, we need something from all of you. On the count of 3, everyone reading this think super, crazy happy thoughts for us that the survey/ appraisal happening this week goes really, really well. This is one of those benchmark moments for us (as of Friday) that we need to go in our direction to keep things going smoothly. It's a long story, but we ordered an additional survey (that we don't have to pay for) to clear up a discrepancy that shows between the current owner and the owner before that's title inquiry. All I can say at this point without weighing you all down with the problem is the magic number is anything above 791.8. So ready? Get your happy thoughts ready to blast out there... 1....2.... 3!

In other Girton news, we enjoyed a great dinner out with Brian (it was his birthday on Friday!) and Marlene and Jim. Always fun to get us all together and it turns out that "The Trails" wasn't just for crashing weddings after all! (Though I wonder if we made into a few pictures of a family reunion that was going on in the background?)

Saturday brought snow to our neck of the woods and our good friend Jennifer! Jennifer, if many of you don't know, is quite skilled in the way of cabinet knob replacement. If you ever have a craving for Tagalongs and need to replace about 25 cabinet knobs in your apartment, Jennifer's great to have around! She's also incredibly good at making you feel great about your choice in baby clothes and even offers great advice on baby naming. Jen, maybe you should offer this as a service to the public? Thanks for coming over to help, keep me company and scoff at Brad's attempts to take over our little project! :)

Saturday evening I was lucky enough to not have to take a math quiz (like someone I'm married to...but he rocked it with another A !!!!) so I went to the O'Grady's for a Davis family February birthday celebration spectacular. It was a lot of fun to see everyone together and get caught up with that side of "my family" that I may not see as often.

Yesterday was a tasty breakfast at Brunchies with the Lewis family. Big news-- Abby is getting a new kitty cat today or tomorrow, so we're super happy for them. Here's hoping for many more breakfast get togethers and play dates once we get the house over in your new 'hood!

The rest of Sunday was spent doing "sunday things". Brad organized a little formula and diaper drive for the Perry Triplets- which meant we had a reason to go to Babies R Us and look at a few things for ourselves, too. It was CRAZY busy and to our credit, we ventured into the 6 aisles of "Infant Care" (there should be dramatic music playing for that part). Those aisles overwhelm me-- so much little stuff and things to put places I didn't think they made things to put in those places (really, why must we put our offspring through the rigors of that kind of thermometer?)

All in all, it was a good but busy weekend. Here's to a little quieter week, but with great news about the house survey and more opportunities for napping next weekend!

Baby 101 with the Perry 3

Last night, Brad and I had a chance to initiate ourselves into the world of newborns. Our friend from work, Sam and his wife Abby were kind enough to welcome us into their home and help out (although I think we got more help than we gave) with their new triplets. What did we learn?

1. Triplets are cute.
2. 6 pound babies are tiny, especially in Brad's arms.
3. Brad can change a diaper and feed -burp a baby very well.
4. Babies squirm and squeak and then squeak and squirm.
5. Dogs like babies and wish they could have their own Boppy Pillow. (we'll consider that for Mazy - it'd have to be a VERY LARGE one, though!)
6. Dr. Brown bottles may not be so great after all.
7. Something called a sleep sack could be one of the coolest things ever. (Do they make those in adult sizes?)
8. Babies fall asleep while eating. Just when you think they're done....NO!
9. Burping is an art form.
10. We hope we are as laid back and relaxed with our 1 baby as Sam and Abby are with their 3!

Sam & Abby - you guys rock! Thank you so much for letting us come and take a test drive with your munchkins. Whether you feel this way or not, your easy-going attitude and the fact that you genuinely seem to enjoy this crazy early part of babydom gives us huge hope that we'll feel the same way when it's our turn.

To Sam, from Brad : I got the impression that perhaps good fathering skills come with the beard...I think I'll keep mine for a while longer! I've been getting flack for mine because according to some, babies don't like it...I think not!

To Abby, from Heather: If I start dreaming about fruit, I'm blaming you.

To Milo, from Mazy (the pups): Sooo...this guy who came to prep you for the baby....did he respond well to belly-showing or should I play it tough?

To the triplets, from Brad & Heather: We SO know you guys were putting on a good show last night with your quiet, occasional squeaks and non-poopy diapers. Brad in particular appreciated his first go-around being an "easy" one. However, we're not fooled. Take it easy on your mom and dad, especially during those early am feedings! Keep up the good weight gain!

Busted!

Sooo....at 11:30am today, our Girl Scout cookie order arrived. It is now 2:46pm and I am eating the last Tagalong in a box that was opened at 12:15pm. To my credit Brad had about 2 of the cookies from the first row (and they are in short, horizontal rows, not tubes like Thin Mints).

At about 2:30pm I was hungry. I wanted cookies. I took my box of opened Tagalongs to two nearby co-workers and offered them some. They graciously declined. So, I did what any pregnant girl would do...I said, "okay, but do me a favor, if Brad asks you, tell him you had some because I'm about to finish this box!" While one co-worker said, "I'll say I had 2!" My other co-worker said "Uh-oh!" and pointed behind me.

Guess who was standing there while I was staging my cookie coup? ....

House inspection...check, check!

Hey everyone! We just came back from our house inspection this afternoon. It went great! The biggies that we were advised (by a lot of you, thank you!) to ask about were all affirmative. I.e. No aluminum wiring (common to that time of construction and the area), newer breaker box, furnace, a/c, etc. The inspector was very thorough, and took his time walking us through the key points of where everything was and how it worked and didn't seem bothered at all by me asking "what's that?" and "how old is that?" about 50 times. I was tempted to ask "Why?" and then make him show me the proof of what he was saying in an encyclopedia, but I stopped doing that somewhere in elementary school, after wearing mom and dad out with that practice for years!

The seller (investment company guy) and a few of his staff were there putting in some final smoke detectors, etc. The inspector guy was impressed with their work because they went above and beyond on a few pieces that according to him and our realtor most folks wouldn't have. The funniest thing was when he was going over the report details with us, the only thing that was left as a "needs fixing" was that the patio door deadbolt was listed as not extending fully. The investment guy laughed and didn't believe him. They placed a bet because the investment guy showed all of us that it turned to 90 degrees. Inspector guy said "yeah, but watch this" then pulled out a screwdriver and opened it from the inside buy prying it with the screwdriver. The hold for the bolt wasn't drilled far enough for the bolt to click locked. Five minutes later, one of the workmen brought over a drill and Inspector guy tried to break in from the inside again... it was secure!

Found out that our attic goes the length of the house and that in the storage area the previous homeowners left a few things for us...a rocking horse being one of them. Investment guy says he'll throw that in for us free of charge...hahahaha. I personally am just as weirded out by attics as basements, so Brad has attic duty from here on out.

On the Stuffy front, he's making his presence known a little bit more every day...either that or my stomach is cranking out some weird twitches and twinges (could be all the vanilla ice cream we've been consuming!) He's very excited by the house, we think.

Mazy and Nala on the other hand have no clue what's about to happen, although Nala's on high alert with the presence of boxes now in the apartment. That cat's been around the block to know what boxes and packing tape means. Thankfully she's taking it in stride for now.

Back to work tomorrow after a nice long weekend...these short weeks somehow always seem to be the longest, though. Hope everyone has a great week!!

A post from the Pops

18 Million commercials...tonight they seemed to have added a ton more commercials in between survivor scenes. Or....Heather just happened to have it on CSI. Now onto the real post...from the dad's side.

Since I'm in class right now (online for a Computer Information Systems degree), I thought I'd share some things as if I was a teacher. So first things first...whoever thought our baby would be a girl, you all were wrong...it's a boy and we decided to let everyone know the name we picked out and it is.............................................just kidding, you didn't think it would come that easy did you?

Lesson #2, 0 comments; this is what we've saw on every post but 1 (a huge shout out to Jennifer for showing the love). So here we go...Comment: com·ment - noun - meaning "A statement of fact or opinion, especially a remark that expresses a personal reaction or attitude". So feel free to show some love on our posts to let us know what you think, it won't harm anything or hurt our feelings...and if it does, we'll delete it!

Now enough of the studies. Heather is doing awesome, just very tired. We felt after this weekend that we were on a huge rush for so long, and after finding out we got the house and figured out we are having a baby boy, we just crashed and we still aren't up to par yet. So we're very glad the 3-day weekend is almost here so we can relax and do a little packing when we feel like it.

So I'm going to end on this note, as quite a few of you probably received Heather's e-mail, but if you didn't, let us know if you know of anyone who is in need of an apartment for a 6 month lease with an opportunity to extend after the 6 months. Feel free to e-mail us anyone you might think could take over our rent.

So I'm out of here for now, Survivor is almost over and it's about bed time for us...yes I know, 9:00 pm...we're pretty crazy!

Have a good weekend everyone and look forward to a new picture of Heather on Sunday!

Quick Post, Big News!

It's a BOY!!!! Here are the ultrasound pictures (there are tons, but these are pretty easy to see stuff without wondering too much what you're seeing!)

We'll post more about today's experience later, but the highlight had to be the ultrasoundist, after many tries finally saying... "And there's the turtle!"
Enjoy!

First set: nice profile shots.

Second set: Profile with a hand, two feet, on his belly showing off his nice backbone.
This set: Showing dad his future pitching arm, good face-front shot, the "turtle" shot (with arrow),
Last set: another shot of "the turtle", I think a foot (not sure), and a funny two elbows touching two knees (like he's doing a crunch)

This week, baby wanted ice cream and a house!

Yep, Stuffy was craving some vanilla ice cream this week, and oddly enough wanted a house. So, we did what any good parent does, we got the baby whatever it wanted and we went to the store to buy the ice cream and as of Saturday, we signed a agreement letter for a new house!!!!!

Here it is:

You can go to this website and see more pictures: http://c21scheetz.com/homesearch.htm?scope=ALL&id=34383804&action=detail

Of course, we are so excited to be moving into our first house and the next month (until closing) will be a hectic one while we go through our first buying experience (the paper work already is crazy!)

In other news since last week, I've been on the end of the "odd things people say and do when you're pregnant". I'm boggled by people who just randomly try to (and sometimes succeed)touch my stomach. Seriously? And, for those who know me well know there is a hula hoop size "personal space" force field around me that has been in place since I was a kid. I just stare in amazement and do my very best to keep myself from reaching over and rubbing the offender's (non-pregnant) belly and making many sarcastic comments. The other strange thing is people who are evidently former employees of the Psychic Network, because they enjoy making random statements about the gender and appearance of Stuffy. Like this stranger who just stared at my belly and looks at me and just says " Boy. Brown Hair." she repeated the three words about 4 times until I realized she was "prophecizing" about the baby. And, again, those of you who know me will not be surprised that I was 1 second away from saying "Girl. Blonde Hair." Unfortunately this conversation rolled into this same fortune teller letting me know that at least I'm as far along as I am because this is the month that I can buy things because the baby could die any time.

Seriously???????????? Who says this to someone who is as obviously with child as I am? (um..check out the belly pictures to see the beach ball that has lodged itself in my abdomen...4 more months and Brad's going to start selling ad space on my belly for extra money!)

My other vent from last week? People who do one or both of the following...and if you are one of the people who have done this already, I probably should apologize for complaining, but the truth is I'm cringing on the inside when it happens. 1. Being called "Little Mama" I am neither little or anyone's "mama" who is able to verbally express it yet. It's weird and somehow skews with the fact that when I was little I called my mom "momma" (I'm from Tennessee, so yes, I said y'all and momma a lot). It's a name that just seems to make the person saying it laugh to themselves and I don't get the joke.

2. People who have taken "ownership" of our child who have absolutely no family-friend connection. For instance...people who introduce conversations by critiquing what I'm eating because I need to take care of "our" baby...or "How is my grandbaby doing today"....Um, the last time I checked the only 3 people who have ANY right to say that sentence are 2 & 7 hours away and they have been on incredibly good behavior when I know that all they want to do is be nearer to us and share in every moment. I've always been a little quick to judge when people step over those "I know you" lines when they really don't...and I'll tell you what, this baby is making me crazy protective lately! The last person to exclaim concern over me traveling to work because of the weather possible harming "our baby" caused me to slam my hand on a table and the words "It's NOT..." actually came out of my mouth before my filter kicked in and I just stopped. The person didn't even notice I was about to finish what probably would have hurt their feelings. However, other people's feelings aside...I'm starting to feel like the people who make these comments aren't considering our feelings and honestly (even though they wouldn't know it) sort of rubs in the fact that all of our blood relatives are not near us.

That's when we're grateful for friends who are indeed family (shout out to the O'Grady, Davis, Shepherd and Noffze houses) and technology that lets us call Chattanooga, Winamac, Lafayette, Atlanta, Italy and others so we can feel connected. And, thank GOODNESS there are all sorts of crazy-good friends at work who help balance out those that make us want to spit nails.

Wow. I needed to vent! And, what I need now is another cup of ice cream and more staring at pictures of the new house!!!!

Oh, yeah...we find out if it's a boy or girl tomorrow morning, so tomorrow's blog post should be a good one!!!! Later everyone!

Something fun!

Today's highlights: 2 pieces of chocolate cake in 20 minutes, exciting resource found at work (made even more exciting by the sugar rush from the cake), toured a great house that would be our ideal first house, went to the hospital only to find out that the expo had been cancelled (not so great, but wasn't out of our way), and wrapped up the evening with some tasty Hamburger Helper and (hooray) leftover apple pie!

Since today wasn't incredibly eventful, we thought it would be fun for you guys to get a glimpse of what Stuffy may look like! Can you guess which of us is which (except for our moms, of course!) Have fun.

Apple pie caught my eye!

Not only did the idea of "needing" an apple pie come into my mind...I decided to do something about it. I made the apple pie you see below, entirely from scratch. Oh yeah, I said from scratch - even the crust. Holla at ya pregnant, baking girl!






What I really wanted was apples and marshmallows.... Go figure, I found a recipe at Allrecipes.com that was an apple pie topped with marshmallows. The crust recipe I found was the pie crust equivalent of a sugar cookie. When this baby wants sweets--it wants SWEETS! Even Brad liked the pie and he's not an apple pie guy.


This weekend was also a huge success because of Saturday's Once Upon a Child sale. (this is a second-hand kids clothes store) we found out last week that they were having a $15 all-you-can-fit-in-the-bag sale. Nothing like saving money and a pseudo challenge/ competition. Brad and I went with the strategy that he would be the muscle, if needed - though I was ready to throw some elbows if necessary. We'd been warned that it could get crowded and fierce. We got there in line about 10 minutes before they opened, started in on the first rounders we saw for "neutral" baby stuff. About 30 minutes later, thanks to Brad's tight rolling of tiny clothes in a pink plastic shopping bag, we walked out with 27 items--that would have been $117.00 if we'd paid the clearance price....for $15!!!!!! We were proud at another bargain for baby.


After all that competitive shopping, we spent the rest of the weekend milling about and resting in the apartment. Tomorrow we're looking at a house after work-- something that if it worked out would be a great find...but since we're not in a rush, there's no harm in looking and seeing what happens. And, we go to a maternity expo tomorrow night. Hopefully we'll get an idea of who could be Stuffy's future pediatrician and get some freebies!


I'm off for some more pie!

Snow Day!...and not so snow days.

Yesterday was a snow day! Hooray! Of course, we were already dressed and Brad had shoveled out half the Trailblazer from the over one foot of snow when they called to tell us. But, hey, better late than never, right? I was secretly hoping that today would be bad enough to keep us away, but that was wishful thinking.

Despite the giant snow, we did manage to break out into public and do a little baby browsing- cribs, gliders....plasma TVs, you know, all the baby "basics". I wonder if you can put a new tv on a baby gift registry? :)

Otherwise, it's been pretty quiet because of the weather around here. Brad got $10 from our neighbor from his shoveling efforts...and because he smells so good (this is the neighbor that loved him before I did). I think he should start making nice with all the other folks in the complex, too!

That's all for now from the Stuffy & Girton house.

Morning Milk Mayhem

Soooo.... baby doesn't share my enthusiasm for a nice glass of milk in the a.m.! We think we've pin-pointed that as the culprit for the most recent morning sickness triggers. Granted, I've been cutting back on the morning milk consumption, but someone brought me a giant Entenmann's cheese danish Sunday morning and yesterday, I was so blinded by the possibility of eating it straight out of the box, it didn't even occur to me to have anything else to drink besides milk. Can you blame me?

Well, Stuffy could, because within 15 minutes I said so long to the danish and milk that I had just eaten. Hmph. This kid is already calling the shots!

That was yesterday...today, I assert my motherly rights to eat what I want and dared the child to reject some yogurt and pop tart. One hour later, I have won this battle. However, I know it's not over yet...I know better (Stuffy is, after all, a combination of two of the most stubborn people ever!)

My saddest news on the food front is that the pickled sausages my parents worked so hard to bring from Tennessee at Thanksgiving are now utterly disgusting to me. How can this be? Can a child of mine truly not like this food only found in the south and next to the beer aisle? Say it isn't so! I've been rationing the three jars mom and dad brought, since I had scarfed down a jar and some change in the week after turkey day... maybe I waited too long? I was excited to have one with lunch on the weekend--- I didn't even get to swallow it before I had to eject it out of my mouth and into the sink. Now, I know some of you are thinking "it's about time you realized those things are gross"... and I know you only say that because you're not true southerners, so I forgive you.

Sorry, mom & dad...looks like we've got our work cut out for us to introduce some down-home food to this kiddo. I can't make any promises on taking part in any pintos and onions, though! :)

Brunchies, baby gear & cupcakes!

This weekend is already coming to an end and it feels like we just got started. This was a carb-loaded weekend for us...but in moderation! It all started with a new breakfast place we found Saturday morning called Brunchies -- YUM! Someone described it as a Waffle House, but friendlier and cleaner. I'd have to agree. It was super delish. Then, on a whim we decided to get cupcake mix at the store and oh darn, we now have cupcakes. We just finished making our famous (in this apartment, at least) spaghetti and meatballs and as a shout out to my late, great Aunt Nell - some homemade yeast rolls. I have to wonder though, what she'd think about the invention of bread makers and if they're cheating just a little? Either way, I'm pretty sure she'd be tickled that I think of her every time I make them now.

Our big adventure this weekend was Friday afternoon going to Cincinnati to buy our first Craigslist purchase. Stuffy is now equipped with a stroller and car seat. Not just any stroller-car seat...one that would have cost us about $350 at Babies r Us, but we paid HALF that price. Oh yeah, we saved half! More money to put towards freakishly expensive cribs! Those things are priced as if they're made out of gold...that is, the ones that aren't likely to be recalled or cause your baby's head or limb to get caught between the bars. Those of you who know us know that a child of ours is bound to be that kid at some point who can't resist the urge to see if it's head will really fit between those tempting spaces. Heck, Brad and I stand in the store thinking if we could fit ours in there!

Other than that, I'm just marveling at the fact that I look so very pregnant but haven't really gained tons of weight. Let's hope that stays true...then again, when tasty, fluffy cupcakes are floating around the house my chances do go down, right?

The ultrasound countdown has begun - two weeks from tomorrow, we'll get to see the next photos of Stuffy!!! Hooray!

Have a great week everyone!