Weekend of 3/27/09

Weekend was busy but very fun.

Friday: After work the Gardners came over for pizza and games. I won Scrabble and the first game of Shang Hai but lost the second. Good company, good times!

Saturday: Woke up earlier than I do for work to head out to West Chester for a big Mother’s Sale. Bought Nic and Chris each a bunch of clothes and Nicole a Fisher Price shopping cart (which was a big hit) for a grand total of $34.50. Realized again that I like two things too much – overalls on little boys and sun-dresses on little girls. Oh well, they’ll look the same every day….

After the sale I volunteered for two hours with Kids Against Hunger which I found immensely rewarding. I wouldn’t call it “fun” work but it wasn’t unpleasant or hard to do and at the end I felt like I really accomplished something.

That night Nicole and I visited my parents and Grandma who came for dinner and Jim and I started putting together Nicole’s big girl furniture. So far so good though we’re not done after about a 2.5 hour assembly investment.

Sunday: woke up too late for Church but enjoyed waffles and long baths/showers instead. Grocery shopped, bridal showered, made shrimp/pepper/asparagus stir-fry for dinner.

I'm feeling a fair bit of pressure in my “nether regions” but am not concerned enough to call the doctor before my Friday already-scheduled appointment.

A step below

I just finished a piece of Cheesecake Factory Snickers cheesecake.

It was better in real life with Sarah Ford. : (

Frickin' Allergies

I want to stick a spoon down my throat and scrape out all the phlegm that’s draining, getting stuck, and making me cough.

Nicole Update 3/26/09

Jim and Nicole have had quite a bit of bonding time lately as I’ve been out for a multitude of things- class on Monday, a business trip to Akron yesterday (that I didn’t get home until 9:30 from!), and an upcoming long Saturday of mother’s sale/volunteering/bridal showering. Not to mention I start all over next week with class and then cookie-making with Jenna that will keep me away on Wednesday. They’re managing very well though.

Nicole has a recent habit of recognizing colors. If you ask her what color anything is she’ll 95% of the time tell you “blue” at which point I remind her that “no, this is yellow” and she repeats “yellow”. Not sure how much it’s sinking in though… Anyway, what she DOES recognize is colors that are the same. On Monday she got excited because her yogurt cup matched her green and pink shirt and kept pointing back and forth between them showing the babysitter her discovery. Last night she was rifling through socks and found a pink pair. She held them up to her pink pants and got quite happy about them matching. Jim of course had to put them on her.

Count down to the daybed transition… 1 week. We want her to have a month of it before she moves to her new room (furniture coming in tonight!) where she’ll have time to adjust to a big girl bed and new setting before Chris arrives and takes the nursery over.

Not quite a house... maybe a trailer? ha!

I seem to have grown quite a bit lately... and people are commenting. My uncle said to me - "I'd forget you were pregnant before, but looking at you today, you're definitely pregnant." Uh, thanks? He didn't mean any harm and I realize each moring before I step into the shower that I definitely am very pregnant.


How or why then it was such a shock to realize on Friday that I still have 3 more months to go seems odd, even to me. But when I see myself as "very pregnant" and realize it's only going to get more (I don't want to use the word "worse") from here I shake my head in amazement. I'm losing the cute phase too quickly!


I don't think I look that big in real life but this picture was just taken 2 minutes ago....

and yes, that looks like a big tummy to me.

Chris is a very squirmy little guy and I don't mind a bit. Since I also don't mind people touching me several have gotten the chance to feel him in action. Their smiles at feeling him kick make me smile.

So far on a Saturday

I bought another gun today. Really I bought it but have no intention of using it. Jim couldn't buy it for himself because he has yet to get a new driver's license with current address information- therefore I was the only one who could legally buy it. For the record, this is the second gun I've bought [for him] and it was still pretty weird to be doing it. 8 minutes of a background check and no registry required in Ohio is a bit spooky....

After gun-buying we went to Chik-fil-A for lunch. Nicole climbed all the way to the top of the jungle gym and crawled through the tube by herself. Then, when done, came all the way down by herself the same way. This was pretty surpising as she was about 15 feet in the air. She's still a little nervous to go down the tube slide by herself though.

Deck Design

My brother burned a copy of Home Designer and gave it to us to help design our deck. Though our first ideas started on paper and were transferred to this program, this is what ultimately helped us put things together in the final design.

I took some screen shots of the mostly completed “decorated” version. I can’t yet figure out how to make a bar and some colors are off but it’s 90% there.

Jim’s working on the blueprints now to turn into the city and he’s doing a TREMENDOUS job.

Here's the overview of the entire deck (this shows it in scale to the size of the house. In reality our house is 1/2 brick on the sides and has tan siding on the top half and all on the back but you get the idea...)

Here's a shot of the octagon siting area. The real deck will have some sort of outdoor furniture like this but a fire table (coffee table with a fire pit in the center) in lieu of the general table you see pictured below.

This is the dining area. you can see the back-side of the grill we'll be permanately installing.




This view is as if you were standing in our back yard looking at the house. The dark brown square on the wall is the fireplace - in real life this is sided, not bricked but the program won't let me change it. Also, as previously mentioned there will be a bar area along the left side on the wall adjacent to the grill. This will have barstools and overlook the back yard where I'll be losing in cornhole.



Jim went to Home Depot this evening while Nicole and I played at the park and not only did they know him by name but they entered his phone number from memory into the system too. SCARY.

Good news – they took our plans to their “bid room” which is basically where they submit for special pricing from the powers that be in an attempt to secure your business. They lowered the material cost about 12% overall! Working with HD has been a really good experience so far. For being a “big box” they’ve really added the personal touch.

Life Documented

I posted the bedroom furniture we’re getting for Nicole earlier. I ordered this quilt set for her this weekend. The room is a pale yellow and I wanted a comforter that had enough colors that it could withstand redecorating and not have to be repurchased. I'm now debating hand-painting the Curious George stuff on the wall so that the hues match the bedspread versus just using the wall stickers I found online.

Vacation plans came, went, came again, went again. We’re actually back to Plan A. Hope to have this finalized in the next few days. Otherwise I might lose my sanity for good.

I haven’t mentioned it yet but class is going well this semester. Nothing out of the ordinary to report. Students turn things in late, make excuses, frown when I refer them to the syllabus that states 2X that no late assignments are accepted. Discussion is better than usual. Got my first call where a student used me as a job reference… would have been nice if she forewarned me so I didn’t totally blank on who she was when I was caught off-guard with the HR person on the other end…

I'm 2/3 in Facebook Scrabble (behind Lisa by 10 and ahead of Dan by 35ish). It’s addictive and frustrating. The application is in Beta and doesn’t work ½ the time which is annoying because I check back very frequently. Lisa’s words are pissing me off (she got like 30 points for “jin”- total bullshit). My pew of 1 point tiles for the last 5 rounds is pissing me off. I played “Careen” to try to dump quantity and pick up new, good ones. Didn’t work that round but just now I acquired not one but 2 good letters with my play of “dow”… if I can only find a place to use them…. I will admit that I feel a compelling need to win at scrabble with my degree and what I consider a large vocabulary. I’ll also freely admit that my brain has a hard time unscrambling words so finding goods ones takes a lot of concentration (which makes me annoying to play with in real life). If I have to lose though, and I'm not saying this just to suck up, losing to Lisa is acceptable because for the same reasons as me should be a good player. I still won’t be happy if I lose though.

Driving

I don’t know a kid out there who doesn’t like to drive. With all the video games out now, I suspect most youngsters first taste of driving is in the form of Mario Kart or maybe in a simulator at a Chuck E Cheese equivalent. Every few minutes at Kings Island this summer I bet there'll be some hopeful 6 year old standing with his back to Yogi Bear's raised arm to see if this year he can have his own bumper car instead of sitting alongside Mom or Dad.

When I was tall enough to drive the bumper cars I had absolutely no intention of bumping. My turn at driving wasn’t going to be spent jarring but getting the most time driving as possible. That involved avoiding all collisions and mostly sticking to the outer edge which was fine by me.

My favorite memories of driving are from grade school mostly when my dad would take me and my brothers up to Colerain High School on a Saturday afternoon so we could cruise around the parking lot. When we were little he’d let us sit on his lap and he’d control the pedals but even lack of full control didn’t matter – I was steering and to me that was the most important thing. Up past the baseball fields, across the front courtyard, swinging around the back entrance- we went everywhere about 8 times each.

Weight and height probably played a role in graduating us to drive the car ourselves versus sitting on Dad’s lap. Regardless, it was always a thing to do with Dad. Oh we’d gush to Mom about how well we did behind the wheel but the fact that he let us drive the real car before we were really allowed always made Dad cool

It was that same parking lot years later that Mark tried to teach me to drive a manual. After taking those same routes all over the school he suggested we head out on the real road, something Dad obviously never had the opportunity to do in our practice sessions. My heart raced and I prayed for continual green lights. Though I did stall his car more than once, Mark like Dad, was very patient and consistently encouraging.

I'm embarrassed to report that that was the first and last time I ever drove a stick shift. Call me blonde, call me unprepared for an emergency, but the thrill of driving is quite different in the parking lot of the high school compared to the real world. I like those memories better.

Though I’ll miss seeing it with my kids, I feel tradition must continue and Jim get some glory (whether he wants to or not!) for taking Nic and Chris up to that same lot. Though Nicole is so much fun at this age, this is one of those things I look forward to hearing about when she’s old enough to drive herself.

Rambling

This is going to be more of a journal entry than most – notes so I can document what’s going on in every-day life should I care to read it later.

I'm tired more mornings than most lately. We’ve had our share of stress and smiles lately at home and there’s no end in sight….

Vacation got changed a bit lately which was frustrating because of the hours and hours I put in researching accommodations and locations- all of which now is moot. Still waiting for some outstanding information before we can finalize plans. We’re all still going, that’s the good news.

Nicole has been singing more lately, especially when we put her to bed and turn off the lights. I sat outside her room the other night and listened to “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” about 6X through. She can’t pronounce all the words but she “uh uh”’s the right amount of syllables to fill in things like “the world so” and then concludes with a clear “high”. It’s really really cute. She was up singing until 9:05 last night (went down at 8:30 like normal).

Other thing she’s really into – pulling all of her bed items (2 blankets, 6 animals, 1 Curious George book) out, surrounding herself on the floor with them and laughing hysterically. We’re not sure what’s so fabulous about having your bed friends out of bed, but it never ceases to make her outright giddy.

In my toddler 1/week newsletter I get via email it gave a chart of what kids should and might be able to do in the months ahead. She can already do some of the things that are 24 month “shoulds” like name body parts, make 2-3 word sentences, etc. but can’t yet put on clothing (a “might” for 22 months). She does understand some non-physical concepts like “sorry”, “ready”, and “here” and “now” and uses those words correctly in everyday speech. Thanks to Sarah's zoo book she knows roughly 20 animals by sight now (walrus, penguin, lizard) and can say most of them like rhino, lion, frog, etc. too (though flamingo is still "pink bird").

Yesterday at daycare the sorries came out more than a few times as she bit another kid not once but twice. She was put on the time-out step after they explained why & she cried the whole time she sat. When I came at lunch to visit Marsha told me what happened and I sat her down and firmly explained that teeth are for food only. There’s no doubt she understood that – she burst into big tears as soon as I said the word “bite”.

Jim’s been spending hours drawing deck plans so that we can submit them to the county for approval. At Home Depot we’ve designed and refined the plans in their software system. More than one associate knows him and our plans now and when he comes they say “oh, you have the nice deck”. In fact, our plan is called “nice deck” in their system. We’re investigating hiring part of the building process out because of the ledger board primarily – hopefully we’ll know more by the end of the week on this front.

We bought a new Dell and sold our old one for about a third of the cost of the new. We still have to buy a monitor though (sold the old one with the computer) so as of yesterday we can't actually use our new toy...

We’re not going to NYC anymore but are going to do a popular “staycation” instead.

I think our bed is finally broken in – I'm more and more comfortable in it than ever before and don’t like to leave it if I don’t have to. :)

Operation: Relax is a go!

Vacation plans are made and hopefully by the end of the day will be set (as in deposits in). Miraculously ALL of my immediate family is going – parents, brothers, niece, everyone! This will be the first time in several (3?) years that we’ve all gone together. As a result we’re getting a house rather than a condo and it should be really nice – has 5 bedrooms (one for the girls!), foosball, air hockey, is 3 [long] blocks from the beach. With so many people the cost for us all is split and significantly reduced when it comes to lodging compared to when it was just Mom/Dad and my family. I'm already looking forward to it.

Random realization: Though some of her songs are catchy, I think I can safely blanket statement that I don’t like Gwen Stafani’s music.

Weekend of 3/6/09

This weekend was crazy busy. Some quick notes/observations:

1) What recession!? On Friday, Jim, Nicole and I met my parents at Graeter’s for ice cream and then came back to our house to play Scene It. When we arrived at Graeter’s, which for those of you out of town is $3.25/scoop premium ice cream, there was not a single table available and over a half dozen people waiting in line. Things didn’t slow down while we were there. If everyone’s so hurting in this economy why the heck are they eating expensive ice cream!? Even if you want a treat go to friggin’ Kroger and buy a HALF GALLON for $3 or Wendy’s and get a dollar Frosty. This leads me to believe that the recession is only real for those who don’t have a job and therefore don’t have an income. The rest of us employed folk are going on right as usual.

2) On Saturday I went to a mother’s sale which is essentially a big indoor garage sale where kids clothes, toys, shoes, and necessities like cribs, etc. are sold by moms in the area. I bought Nicole 5 things (3 dresses, 1 capri pant and 1 pair of shorts) and Chris 5 things (all overall sets & one set of PJ’s) and spent $23.50. I can’t resist a good deal ($4 sundress with the $22 tags still on!).

3) Immediately following I met Mike, Lindsay and Ryann up at the local elementary school for a carnival. I won’t go into long detail but I thought that it was a very very affordable event, well managed, and a good atmosphere. Nicole got a puffy headband with antennae that she adored and a recorder she can’t figure out how to blow in.

4) Bowling was not good due to below-average performances which lead to a 0/4 night. HOWEVER, because of our exceptional bowling last time we were one of the Top 10 teams in the entire center and therefore get to go to a special tournament where the minimum payout just for showing up is $25/person. Wahoo! We’re cool! There’s no cost to bowl as it’s an honor to have made it and our dues along the way pay for it. It’s based on how much over our average we bowl that afternoon. NYC just got bumped. We’re west siders….

The Day

Jenna and I went through a MOUNTAIN of clothes last night and discovered that

• Chris has more 0-3 month stuff than I thought (most of it green and yellow but that’s okay) as far as onsies go.
• Lisa’s comment to me in the car about little boys needing pants on is running through my mind. I let Nicole hang out in just a cute onsie (that was intended to stand alone as they’d have designs on the butt) but maybe that’s not how boys work? Maybe I need to buy him some shorts?
• My biggest clothes hole is 12 month spring/summer stuff
• Jenna kept saying that she thinks Chris will be long. I'm looking at these pants I bought for him and wondering if he’ll look dumb if they’re too short if she’s right…. Oh well! He’ll just be sitting/laying around anyway so you probably wont’ be able to tell.

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I went to a funeral of a life-long friend of mine – a neighbor, Bill Miller. It was a very Catholic service and had me wondering about some logic. According to the priest’s homily:

• He (the priest) feels that living life without a belief in a heaven would be a sad existence. Essentially knowing you were leading up to something better should inspire you to live happily and fully
• We (all people) weren’t created with this life in mind but our heavenly eternal life

What had me wondering then was why this guy kept pushing Bill through surgeries, painful medication, and a rough life because the sanctity of life was more important and letting yourself die is against God’s will.

Well, if I'm created for a heavenly life and I believe it’s waiting for me, why the hell do I need to be resuscitated 50 times + over the course of 20 years to stay on this Earth?

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I got a picture card of Max in the mail that had Jim and I laughing out loud. Only Lisa would use the word “sucks” on a baby card. Ha!

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Today over lunch Jim and I went to see Nicole. This was the first time we BOTH went to see her over lunch and it was nice it was warm and we could all play outside. She figured out how to push the button and drive the power wheel and was having a grand time zooming around the yard. She’s getting to be a big kid.

23 Weeks & Counting

Few folks were kind enough to ask how Chris and I are doing – so far so good. The day I was sick, Friday, must have been loud with my stomach churning – he was up ALL DAY squirming around. I didn’t mind a bit because I was so bored and it least it was entertaining waiting to see where his next kick would come from. Apparently that wore him out because he was really quiet the next two days.

I'm still in the “cute” stage of being pregnant – big enough that there’s no mistaking that I'm knocked up versus just fat, but not a house yet. Now, being cute pregnant is not the same as being cute. Whereas other women might “awww” at me, sexy is not an adjective I’d remotely use. Poor Jim. I think I am smaller than I was with Nicole and I'm hoping this continues.

I have a bigger sweet tooth than last time though and I really have to keep myself in check to not munch an entire row of girl scout cookies. I go to the doctor on Friday and unlike last time I could care less how much weight I'm gaining – if I'm at 20lbs. already so be it.

Again I find myself happy we know the gender. Partially because I'm a planner and partially because it’s nice to be able to refer to the baby by name. Nicole can say “baby brother” and “baby Chris” if you say it first but won’t answer questions about him without the answers directly prompted. For record, we'll probably call him Christopher, Chris or CJ interchangeably.

Jenna’s coming over tomorrow night to help Nicole and I sort which clothes are gender-neutral enough to re-use. I need a greater feel of how much more of what he needs before I head to the mother’s sale on 3/28. Searching my memory back 19 months ago, many of the newborn onesies Nic had were green/yellow/orange and will work but by the 6 month size her wardrobe turned sharply to teal and purple and I fear his pickins will be slim. Jenny, Mom, and my Aunt Mary bought me a few clearly boy items and I picked up about $40 worth of stuff at Old Navy but a lot of it was 6-12 month in size and I think, again if memory serves me, I’ll have a [hopefully small] hole in the 3-6 month clothing size and definitely 12+.

Uno

Not sure if you'll be able to view the video - it's about a minute so I started uploading it at home and am writing this at work (so I haven't closed my home browser).

Nicole has taken a renewed interest in her "counting crab" that she got for her first birthday. Funny thing is that she only says the spanish....

What we're up to - with pictures!

Well, after reading up a bit, I again agree with Martha – sounds like a food intolerance on Friday. I ended up getting sick again after I posted and reading the fine print of email was more than my stomach could handle (felt like car sickness) so I left at noon. Most of the afternoon was spent eating chicken noodle soup in shifts and laying in bed. Just like last time. :(

Next day though I was good as new which was helpful since we had things to do. Remember our list of goals for February? We’ve pseudo-accomplished all of them.

1) filled the settling cracks – this is 80% done – light plays a factor in our ability to finish it which means it’s a weekend project mostly.

2) The will – we picked a lawyer out, filled out a ridiculously comprehensive worksheet and are waiting on one final answer before our appointment on Wednesday

3) Nicole’s bed- selected after visiting several stores. We’re getting her a white, full-sized one from IKEA. Ignoring the price in the picture I stole from their website, she’s getting the bed, end table, dresser and mirror. Once we coordinate a truck we’ll pick it up

4) Deck design – as you know, we settled on a shape. Yesterday we spent several hours at the Home and Garden show where we got some ideas to refine the details a bit more (use of stone and permanently putting in a grill). There were so many outdoor chimneys there on display that it got my mind turning but they’re ridiculously expensive ($5K-15,000) so it’s not going to make the final plans.


Goals for March include:
1) Fixing my car from the accident

2) Having a final draft of the will in our safe

3) Buying Nicole’s furniture, linens, curtains & artwork (Curious George is going to be the theme I think) and I found these cute wall stickers, amongst others, to decorate!

4) Making decisions on the morning room furniture (found some on Saturday we liked, just have to measure the room)

5) Sorting Nicole’s clothes for Chris-usable items

6) Submit deck plans to the city for approval

7) More??

We’re (Jim and I only!) also trying to plan one last get-away to NYC for April. Need to get doctor’s approval at my appt. on Friday though.