We're A Pretty Big Deal

Frustrated DIYer

2010-03-19T09:41:00.003-04:00

From the previous post you picked up on the fact that we got a bunch of water in the basement for the first time. Well, last night I started to pull up the carpet and padding down there which was absolutely soaked. This, I am not frustrated with. Nature happens.

However, as I was pulling up the corner near the wall in the middle of the room I put my hand on the wall at one point and went right through it! Not only was this part of the wall like a sponge, it was covered in mold. Yuck! Turns out the previous homeowner must have run out of plastic to keep the moisture out, because they stopped about 18 inches shy of completing the job. So naturally, without that moisture barrier, mold had been growing there for quite some time.

Maybe it's just me, but when I do a project I feel like I can take more time than someone I hire to do it the right way. It just frustrates me to no end to see people take stupid short cuts like this.

I'll try to post some pictures over the weekend.

Flooded Basement

2010-03-15T10:37:00.002-04:00

Argh! That's not really a pirate "argh" but more of a frustrated "argh." We had about 7 inches of rain in the past two days and our basement, which has never been wet, is now flooded. Not terrible, the sump pump is doing a lot of work, but there is about an inch of standing water across the majority of the basement right now.

As far as casualties, I lost two speakers that were sitting on the floor, but nothing major. The bigger headache is the flooring. The finished part of our basement has carpet in it. I'm pretty sure it's all going to have to be pulled up.

So now the big question, what do I re-finish the floor with once the carpet is up? I was debating something like that garage floor paint with the flecks in it??? Then I could use area rugs or something like that, but if it ever floods again I'd be okay. Any ideas?

Can you hear me now?

2010-01-15T09:44:00.003-05:00

I have to start this post with a quote I saw the other day that I found funny:

"Driving is like dancing... some people just aren't very good at it."

Now that that's out of the way we can move on :)

The real reason for this post is to talk about Timmy's communication skills. In just the past few days things have really started to advance with him. Whenever V and I ask him to say a word, he genuinely tries to sound it out and say it himself. So cute!! I'll have to try to get it on video.

His vocabulary continues to blow me away too. I lost count of how many words he knows several months ago. It's funny, beings Timmy is our first, we really didn't think anything of it until the daycare started to tell us how impressed they were. So, of course, now we notice it everywhere we go... Timmy is doing a lot of talking for a kid his age. Go Timmy!

Some other updates of interest... He topped the 25 pound mark at his last doctors appointment. Unfortunately, that appointment was because he had an ear infection. It seems to have cleared up nicely though. I forget the official height, but he's now in the 80th percentile for height. He loves to sing and do the motions to a lot of songs now. As far as playing, he enjoys cars, books and anything that makes noise. He's taken quite a liking to Elmo and Mickey Mouse too. He's full of smiles and giggles, and loves to give quick hugs and kisses... but he's still not much of a cuddler.

We're headed to Jacksonville tomorrow morning for a 4 day weekend with our old friends. It should be a great time. Vic is pretty nervous about the flight, but I have a feeling she's going to be pleasantly surprised... he really is a good kid :)

It's a sign!

2009-11-30T12:06:00.002-05:00

Timmy has started to use sign language!! The sad part is, we have to keep looking them up online to see what he's telling us :)

The two we've caught onto are "more" and "hungry" which are quite appropriate for him. In case you didn't know it... this kid LOVES to eat!

A wise man once said...

2009-10-16T09:45:00.004-04:00

It seems Timmy is suddenly growing by leaps and bounds, especially mentally. I wanted to take a minute to jot down some of the "words" he's mastered already (keeping in mind, he uses these words correctly):

mama
dada
doggy
hi
ba ball = ball
buh buh buh buh bye = bye bye
ba ba = bottle
bounce
duck
kak, kak, kak = quack, quack, quack
mooooo
up
down
kick
apple
vroom vroom = car/truck
night night
no no (with the appropriate shaking of the finger)
eh-bo = Elmo
baby (see the cute video for this one!)

Other than some minor sleeping issues, Timmy continues to do great. He's eating like a champ (roast beef sandwiches, buffalo chicken, lima beans, cheese burgers). He's also walking everywhere now and trying to climb. He's still a very happy baby and gets tons of attention for his smashingly good looks (takes after his dad).

Adding a little 'splash' to the kitchen

2009-09-30T11:50:00.003-04:00

Since we moved in to this house, the kitchen is really the only room I don't feel "super" about. Every time I look in there it just seems to be lacking something. Now, it could be the 1970's cabinets next to my SS appliances... but since that's the most expensive fix, I've decided to try everything else.

So a few months back I replaced the handles and drawer pulls. That helped... but something still wasn't working for me. So a few weeks back I decided maybe a nice backsplash is what what the kitchen needs!! I'll take you through the progression of our kitchen in photos:

At move in

Post Paint

Post New Appliances

Hardware and Back Splash added

A pretty cool addition to the kitchen if you ask me. I think my next step is going to be making new cabinet doors. I'm going to "Shaker Style" and hopefully they'll end up looking something like this:

One Year Old Pictures

2009-09-07T10:05:00.003-04:00

So we finally took Timothy to have his pictures professionally taken. It's not an easy feat to get a one year old to cooperate! First we tried on a weeknight. We went to The Picture People in the mall. They told us to come back in 20 minutes, which we did. Then we proceeded to wait for about 40 minutes more. By that point it was after 8pm and Timmy had had it. We left right when they were about ready for us. I refused to go back there.

Sunday, we made an appointment at Sears. The appointment was for 3:30pm.. at 3:10pm he was sound asleep in the car. I ran in to see if we could push the appointment back and they said we couldn't. So we woke him up. Turns out that was not a good idea. He was sooooo cranky. The woman taking the pictures was great though. She tried to get us started, but when it became apparent he was having none of it she suggested taking her next appointment (which was there early) first, giving him a chance to wake up.

For the next half hour we entertained him. He was doing okay but still not thrilled. Then it was his turn. It didn't look like it was going to work at first, but we did manage to get some really good pictures.

Kevin was in charge of sitting right next to him to put him in a position. Then it was my job to jump up and down and go crazy, in the hopes that he stayed put for the 5 seconds it took to focus and take the picture. It was quite the aerobic exercise!

From Timmy's First Photo Shoot

In the end I'm very happy with how everything turned out. If you want to check them out just click on any of the pictures in this blog and go to our picassa page! Enjoy!

From Timmy's First Photo Shoot

One Year Later...

2009-08-14T09:01:00.002-04:00

I really can't believe Timothy is about to turn one. Everyone tells you it flies by, but it is still taking me by surprise. I am so happy and excited, yet I can't help feeling that the year did not go as I would have imagined it. That's not a bad thing, just something I'm reflecting on.
Today is the first of 3 parties our little boy is having! Kevin baked some cupcakes and we're bringing him to daycare. Then Sunday we're having a backyard party for friends and then next Saturday we're driving down to New Jersey for a party for family. Technically he's having 4 parties! He had his first party about a month ago when we visited Oregon. He LOVED his cake so I'm sure that part of the parties will go off without a hitch.
He is growing up so fast. You can really see his personality. He is determined and sometimes stubborn. He loves to laugh and giggle and make other people laugh as well (definitely gets that from Dad!). He is go go go all the time, never wanting to relax or just sit still. He's not much of a cuddler. He will quickly crawl over to you, want you to pick him up and hug and kiss him, but just for a second. Then he wants to go back down and continue exploring. He is very into everything that is happening around him and he's even a little nosy. He doesn't miss a person walking into a room or the littlest noise. It really amazes me now how much he can communicate with us even though he can't speak. His vocabulary in terms of what he understands is growing by the day. He knows who mommy and daddy are, lucy and doggy, he knows light, fan and yesterday we discovered he knows baby. oh yeah, he also knows no!
It will be a very busy week coming up with the parties and the travel, but I just wanted to take a second to reflect on the joy Timmy brings us each and every day and the adventure he leads us on, full steam ahead! We love you Timothy, Happy First Birthday!

Rough Night

2009-07-17T08:58:00.004-04:00

So, I've come to the conclusion that Victoria and I are definitely spoiled by our little angel. From about 4 months on, he's been an amazing sleeper. Put him down around 9, and waking up between 6 and 7. It's a rare night when he wakes up and needs our help falling back to sleep. Well, last night was one of those nights.

Round 1
11:30 he woke up screaming (typically if he wakes up it's a 'mini-cry'). Victoria went in to try to soothe him back to sleep, but he was not calming down. Hearing this from our room, I went in to see if I could help. He was kicking and screaming, and absolutely nothing that we were doing was helping what-so-ever.

Finally, we broke down. Victoria went downstairs and made a bottle spiked with Tylenol. He sucked the entire bottle down, no problem. He fell asleep in my arms, but as soon as I set him in the crib he was screaming again. It was so heartbreaking, neither of us knew what to do to help ease our little guy's pain. Finally, after about 20 more minutes of walking him around, bouncing up and down, swinging back and forth, and whatever else we could think of.. he fell asleep. In all, it took us about an hour to get him back down.

Round 2
Almost exactly four hours after taking the Tylenol, Timmy was up screaming again. You could tell by his cry that whatever was bothering him was back. Again, my amazing wife got out of bed first to go see if she could help soothe him. He was so tired that he fall into a light sleep, only to wake up again 20 seconds later. I came in and wasted no time grabbing the Tylenol. Oh yeah, to top things off, he hates medicine droppers. So here he is screaming, and I'm jamming this thing as far into his mouth as I can get it in the hopes that he doesn't just spit the medicine all over me. Luckily he swallowed the entire dose.

At this point he was pretty awake, so we changed his diaper and let him crawl around the room a little bit which seemed to make him happy. After about 20 minutes of this he was ready to be held again, so I started the process of rocking him back to sleep. It seems both times we gave him the Tylenol it took exactly 45 minutes to kick in. And once it kicked in, he relaxed and fell back to sleep.

Now, back to my original statement, Victoria and I are spoiled by our little boys great sleeping habits. A night like this really drives that point home. Both of us are exhausted today, and hoping we don't have another long night as we get ready to head to Oregon.

By the way... we're pretty sure it was his teeth that were bothering him. He's got 8 already, and didn't fuss too much over those. But the two that are coming in right now are much larger, and it feels like they're starting to cut through.

We love you Timothy Scott.

Let there be grass...

2009-07-13T16:24:00.003-04:00

Maybe if we're lucky, we'll start to manage more than one blog a month here... jeesh.

Anyway, I thought I would share a back yard update with you (since I finally uploaded some photos). About three weeks after the landscapers laid down the grass seed, a beautiful green lawn started to appear. Then, we were inundated with rain... the entire month of June!! So the lawn really got off to a great start. I've been able to mow 3 times already and it is looking good.

There are still a couple spots that need some attention, but I might just let is go this summer and try to do any patching in the fall, or even next spring.

Now I'm onto the fence. All our fences are in need of repair, so why not start with beautification, right? I can straighten the posts and repair some chain-link later :) This past weekend I borrowed a pressure washer from friend Bill, and went to work. It really is amazing the difference a good cleaning can do. Now I can lay some stain on there when we get home from vacation and it should be good to go.

I have to get something done with the garage before the summer is over. But I'm to the point where it's a big debate. Do I just repair the shingles that are damaged and paint it?? Or do I tear off all the shingles, and put some vinyl siding up to match the house???

Thank you!

2009-06-23T09:56:00.003-04:00

A big thank you to everyone who suported the Cancer Walk. We had a lot of fun, despite the rainy weather. A great way to spend our first Father's Day.
This past weekend was a busy one for us. We celebrated Kevin's birthday on Saturday. We went shopping and he picked out a new lawn mower. Timmy got him an ax and hatchet. Not exactly a "baby" gift but Dad seemed happy! We had a nice lunch at Cheesecake Factory and then decided to take it easy since we had to get up at 5:30 am for the Cancer Walk. Kevin and I both had a lot of responsibilities during the Walk. I was emceeing and doing live shots. Kevin was organizing and taking Team Photos. I am amazed at how many people participated! It was inspiring. After the walk we ordered pizza and thankfully EVERYONE took a nap. Timmy was beat. Not only did we get him up super early, but then he didn't take a morning nap. A friend of ours was watching him. The plan was she would walk the walk route with him in the stroller but it was raining and he hated the plastic covering. She ended up taking him to her sister's house. Our next big adventure: our vacation to Oregon in July!
Timothy is getting so big. He is now 10 months old. He crawls all over the place and loves to pull himself up. He now knows what the fan is. When you say "Where is the fan" he cranes his neck, looks up and points to the fan. He loves when we turn it on. Everyday is an adventure!

I hate cancer

2009-06-01T10:23:00.003-04:00

So you'll notice on the right hand side of the page, that there's a new little widget. Victoria, Timmy and I have decided to walk the NSMC Cancer Walk this year... and with good reason.

A couple weeks ago, our neighbor across the street was diagnosed with breast cancer. She is just over 3 months pregnant.

Her only option is to have a Mastectomy followed by Chemotherapy. At this point they aren't 100% sure how it will affect the baby. But I know from talking with so many cancer survivors that doing this, even not being pregnant, is an exhausting, painful, emotionally taxing experience.

It is once again a big reason for me to thank God for all he has given us, and the blessings in my life. Without going through it myself, I know I can't fully understand what our neighbors are going through, but my heart pours out to them. We have and awesome neighborhood full of caring and compassionate people who will do anything to support these awesome people.

All I'm asking is that you donate a couple bucks toward our goal. If you want to give more, great, but right now baby steps is what I'm all about.

Thank you to all our friends and family in advance. God Bless you all.

-Kevin

Backyard is done!

2009-05-27T10:47:00.002-04:00

Okay so we are horrible at updating our blog.. but I'm so excited at how great our backyard looks that I had to post something (and then hope that Kevin will post a picture!) We tore the pool out at the end of last summer and our backyard has looked horrible since then.

Well, last week the contractors showed up. They took all the mess out, leveled the backyard and then built a stone patio and fire pit.

They've planted grass seed and laid mulch. It looks fabulous! They finished last night. I can't wait until this Friday for the inaugural lighting of the fire pit.

In Timmy news.. he is a funny, funny little boy. He rolls and does a little army crawl now. He is soooo close to real crawling, but not quite there. His favorie food is sweet potato puffs and the doctor gave him the all clear to pretty much eat whatever we're eating. He has 3 more teeth, all on the top. That's in addition to his 2 on the bottom. He babbles non-stop and loves to smile. He is becoming extremely clingy though. Our little boy now has a tendency to cry whenever Kevin or I leave the room. Perhaps Kev will post some new pics??????

4:26 am and wide awake

2009-05-01T04:26:00.003-04:00

Apparently one of the side effects of Mucinex-D is restlessness, sleeplessness and anxiety. Who knew? Just one more thing to deal with during an unusally stressful week which has included 2 emergency room visits and two doctors office visits. It all started on Sunday. Timothy woke up with a fever. We gave him tylenol and motrin throughout the day. It didn't break and his eye got all goopy and he started throwing up. After calling the doctor we decided to bring him in to the hospital. They were concerned over his labored breathing and considered keeping him overnight. At 1 am they decided his breathing was good enough for us to go home and follow up with our doctor the next day. I took Monday off from work to care for him and we went to the doctor. He seemed to be getting better and our doctor said it was just a very bad viral cold. His fever seemed to be hovering around 100.5 so things seemed on the mend. Tuesday I went to work and Kevin stayed home. Timothy's fever spiked to 103.6. We called the doctor who assured us that this was normal. Wednesday I stayed home with Timothy.. which was a good thing because I felt myself coming down with whatever he had. Again his fever seemed to hover around the 100.5 mark and he seemed to be getting better. I on the other hand was in bad shape, fever, chills, coughing and a horrendous sore throat. Today I woke up and we decided to send Timmy to daycare so that I could get some rest. I woke up at 11 am and took one look at my throat and decided I had to go to the doctor. At this point I called the daycare to check on Timmy. They told me he wasn't eating but he didn't have a fever. An hour later they called to say his fever spiked again up over 103. I picked him up and decided to take him to the doctor with me. At the doctor's office they made me put on a mask because of the swine flu outbreak. The doc took one look at my throat and determined I didn't have the flu, but more likely I had strept throat. I was hoping she could check Timmy out, but apparently she wasn't trained in pediatrics so she suggested we go back to the E.R. I was a little annoyed at this. Our doctor was out and she was the fill in. I didn't understand why they had someone filling in at a family practice who wasn't able to do pediatrics. Anyway off to the E.R. we went. Thanks to Kevin, we had the chief of pediatrics at the hospital check out Timothy. It turns out his cold developed into a nasty ear infection. I feel so bad for the little guy, but I'm also relieved to learn why he wasn't getting better. We started him on antibiotics and hopefully in another day or two he'll feel better. As for me, no more mucinex, at least not at night. I'm going to be paying for this tomorrow, but luckily I'm not going to work. The doctor said no way, at least not until we get the strept test back. This has been an exhausting, worrisome week. I just hope we all get healthy soon.

Like a Champ...

2009-04-09T10:36:00.001-04:00

I don't want to jinx it but Timothy is sleeping like a champ lately without his swaddle. He's even putting himself to sleep some nights. Nap time is still another story but I think we're on the right path. Of course, I'm sure I'll be biting my tongue tonight!
We're heading to New Jersey for Easter this weekend. It should be a whirlwind weekend and we're hoping the baby does well during the long car ride. Wish us luck.. and then it's time for our next big adventure. We're flying to Jacksonville for a little vacation next week. I am more than ready to feel the warm sunshine again.
Happy Easter everyone.

Swaddle Me

2009-04-06T10:30:00.002-04:00

Timothy is almost 8 months old and he still needs us to swaddle him. I'm beginning to wonder if his future wife will have to mummy wrap him in blankets every night! We're trying to break him of the swaddling habit since he is now quite adept at breaking himself out of the swaddle. Believe it or not, getting him to sleep at night without a swaddle isn't that hard. He usually falls asleep during his last bottle.. but then we have to put him in his crib. That usually requires me holding his arms and legs down so that he doesn't kick/flail himself awake. After holding him down for a few minutes he calms down and falls into a deep sleep. Here's the problem: if he wakes up! We've found during the last week if he wakes up he will generally cry for a few minutes and then go back to sleep. But if he doesn't (last night he didn't!) then it's very hard to comfort him because he thrashes about so much. Last night we broke down and swaddled him.
The other big (bigger) problem is nap time. We have not successfully put him down for a nap without swaddling him. He'll nap well in his car seat, but if we want to put him down in his crib we have to swaddle him. I tried letting him cry in his crib for 10 minutes yesterday but he just started hyperventilating. Eventually I picked him up and swaddled him and he instantly passed out. Any tips for self soothing would be greatly appreciated!

Round Trip

2009-03-24T13:46:00.002-04:00

Four days, two time zones, a couple 7 hour plane rides, and a baby... what could possibly go wrong?? Surprisingly, the answer ended up being 'nothing.'

Over the past six week or so, my siblings and I planned a surprise 60th birthday celebration for my mom. The plan was to meet in Portland and have a double celebration; the first at Oaks Park to do some roller skating, and the second a pizza party for those who didn't feel comfortable on wheels.

Early on in the process (after lots of pressure from some unnamed people) I decided I couldn't go to this party without Timmy. Great grandmas hadn't met him, aunts and uncles hadn't met him, cousins hadn't met him... you get the idea. I couldn't show up in Oregon without the newest member of the family tree!

So this past weekend Timmy and I packed our bags and headed west. Flight number one left Boston at 6pm on Friday night. I picked up Timmy from daycare early, stopped by the house to make sure we had everything, and then headed to the airport. I was running a little late, but only by my own standards. I wanted to get there in plenty of time to feed Timmy and get him settled before getting on the plane. We parked in the "Economy Lot" ($16 a day) and I strapped Timmy onto me with the Baby Bjorn. Then, I started throwing all the bags over my shoulder. Wouldn't you know it, the strap to the 10 pound diaper bag broke clean off! I thought to myself, "Oh boy. So this is how things are going to be?" In case I forgot to mention it, I was extremely nervous about traveling this far just me and Timmy. Well, things got better, so it turns out the strap breaking was just an isolated incident.

Timmy and I checked in, made it through security, and sat down with plenty of time to eat our carrots and bottle at the gate. I gave him a quick diaper change afterward and we boarded our first flight. Once we on the plane Timmy was in heaven. He smiled and cooed at every passenger that walked by... and they all ate him up. I sat next to two really nice guys, and Indian guy with five kids and a Mormon with three. So needless today, any noise that Timmy would make was going to be tolerated. Much to my surprise, the noise from Timmy was very little. He started to cry during takeoff, but before the plane leveled out, he was out cold. He slept for about an hour, woke up and played for 45 minutes, ate again, and then just smiled at everyone the rest of the flight.

I had about half an hour to kill in Minneapolis before getting back on the plane, so I let Timmy roll around on the floor and play with his toys. We got back on the plane, and this time there was an open seat between me and the other nice man in my row. Timmy fell asleep in my arms before we even pulled away from the gate. Once we were airborne I laid him in that extra seat, and he slept the entire 3.5 hours. What an angel.

My mom was SUPER surprised... but I'll save the details of that stuff and the party for another blog with some photos. I'll focus on our travel adventure for this one. Let's skip ahead to Monday morning at 4 a.m.

Timmy woke up around 4 every day we were there because of the time change, so he was ready to get up with the alarm went off. Luckily, grandma and grandpa took care of the morning feeding/changing while I showered and finished packing. We said our goodbyes and headed to the airport. Timmy fell asleep in the car, so it was a quiet ride.

No problems checking in for our flight. At security they opened all his bottles and did some sort of test to make sure it was really formula. Then we were on our way to the gate. We got there with about an hour to spare before our flight, so I fed Timmy his cereal and bottle and made sure he had a nice full tummy before taking off. Three of four flights I was on were overbooked, so things this flight were a little cramped. We also got stuck with a window seat. Timmy was wide awake for this flight. He played with and giggled at the nice older lady who sat next to us, and after about an hour fell asleep. Unfortunately, the non-stop overhead announcements were so loud on this flight he only slept for about half an hour. He woke up and played for a while longer, and then got hungry again. The flight attendant gladly took the bottle to heat it for me, and then we waited... and waited... and waited. Of course, the more we waited, the fussier Timmy got. Finally, the lady behind me asked if she could go check on the status, which I was very appreciative of. Apparently he had forgotten, so now the bottle was the temperature of your morning coffee. Timmy was full on crying at this point, grabbing for the bottle, so I poured some bottled water in to cool it off and it seemed to work. Timmy didn't even mind his watered down formula.

Then, things got interesting. We started to hit a lot of turbulence. The pilot came on and asked everyone to sit down, including the staff. Of course, Timmy picked now to poop. The turbulence didn't stop until we landed... so Timmy was forced to sit in poop for about an hour. He didn't seem to mind, but I did. The smell was awful. I kept apologizing to the nice lady next to me who was being extremely patient.

We finally landed (about 30 minutes late) and it was a mad dash across the airport to connect with our last flight. Our itinerary only allowed us one hour between flights, and I had no idea how long it would take to get to the next terminal. Timmy, still full of poop, sat smiling in his umbrella stroller as a jogged through the airport. At this point I realized that my son is probably the coolest kid ever. We made it to our gate and luckily our next flight was delayed about 20 minutes. That gave me time to run back to the nearest restroom, slap a clean diaper on Timmy (and one on myself), and get back in time for boarding.

Poor Timmy just did not enjoy our last flight. I think he was tired of being forced to sit in my lap. The entire flight he was up, then down, the up again... grabbing at whatever he thought was close enough (sorry to the guy next to me whose newspaper, magazine, and computer time were all interrupted). The other weird thing on this flight was that not a single person on the plane acknowledged Timmy. It was driving him nuts! He just wanted somebody to smile at him, or give a little wave... he was trying so hard to get their attention. This was definitely the longest three hours of the entire trip, but we finally made it.

Mommy was waiting at the security checkpoint for us and greeted us both with big hugs and kisses. She's glad to have her baby home, and daddy's glad to have mommy's help again. We really to work as a great team, so having a missing teammate for something like this was challenging. Overall I have not complaints or regrets. Timmy was awesome, the trip was great... but no, I probably won't be traveling that far again just me and the boy. At least not for a while.

The way my family celebrates St. Patty's Day!

2009-03-17T10:33:00.001-04:00

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Timmy's Teeth

2009-02-26T11:01:00.002-05:00

To the moment you've all been waiting for... Timmy's teeth! He finally let me snap a quick photo of them last night. Such a cutie.

He's such a good boy

2009-02-18T10:16:00.002-05:00

I'm going to brag for a moment because we have such a good little boy. He is so much fun right now, it makes the difficult times when he was first born seem like such a distant memory. Timmy is very much a baby who likes to be on a schedule. He likes to wake up just about the same time every morning, he likes to eat and nap at the same time and do the same things. It makes taking care of him easier and somewhat predictable (he does still have his moments of course!)
He now has two teeth which are just so cute. He's also expanding his diet. He's tried sweet potatoes, green beans and prunes, in addition to his cereal. His favorite seems to be green beans. The prunes made a huge mess and seemed to upset his tummy, but last night when he ate his prunes he didn't get a stomach ache at all. I love feeding him. I'm not really sure why, but it's the highlight of my day. Of course with my schedule I don't get to feed him every day (Kev does it most nights and during the week he has his cereal at daycare).
This past weekend we had some visitors. My mom and my brother and his family all came to visit. It was so much fun. Isabella and Giancarlo are a riot. I am always amazed at how smart Isabella is. She's only 4 but because she is so intelligent she always seems older. Giancarlo is growing fast and he's starting to communicate. He still doesn't want me to hold him but at least I was getting smiles this weekend. We went to do Candlepin bowling and we also went to an indoor mini golf place that was filled with blacklights. Timmy loved the mini golf place! All in all it was a really nice weekend and fun to spend time with everyone. I loved watching my mom with Timmy - she's so good at getting him to laugh. Hopefully we'll post some pictures, though I think we kept forgetting to take them.

A night of firsts...

2009-02-04T21:53:00.006-05:00

Tonight started out like any other night, but it turned out to be a night of firsts for Timmy! Kevin went off to bowling and our good friend Stephanie came over to watch Timmy for the hour or so before I got off from work. I brought home takeout Mexican (yum) which Stephanie and I try to enjoy whenever the boys are out bowling. It turns out her husband doesn't like Mexican, which in a twist of irony, I feel is un-american. Apparently he's a meat and potatoes kind of guy. But I digress...
After we ate Timmy was a little fussy so I put him on the changing table. I let him suck on my finger (a favorite past time) and lo and behold I felt a tooth. It's just poking through a little, but it's there. He's 5 and 1/2 months old so it's a little early, but not too much. We suspected he was teething because he's had a few crabby nights and he is a drooool monster. I was pretty excited though to feel the actual tooth and quite proud of him. It's weird, as a parent you're proud of your child for things that are beyond their control (teething, pooping etc..)
After that big of excitement I thought I would let Timmy play on his mat for a little while. He promptly rolled over onto his tummy (he's been doing that for more than 2 months now). He generally doesn't like to be on his tummy but he didn't seem to mind it. He looked quite comfortable. He started to fuss so I went to pick him up and he surprised me by rolling back over onto his back. Neither Kevin or I have ever seen him do this before. Way to go Timmy!
In other baby news, we're trying to get him to sleep better at night. About 3 weeks ago he reverted and was only sleeping 2 1/2 hours at a time through the night. We've been trying to let him cry it out which is really hard to do. The good news, it seems to be working. Some nights he'll got a nice 6 or even 7 hour stretch. Most nights he's doing at least a 5 hour stretch. The sleep is making a world of difference to me.
He's also doing very well eating his cereal. He's had rice cereal and barley cereal. I think this weekend maybe we'll try some vegetables. We'll see though! He's eating only formula through the day and I'm still breastfeeding at night and in the morning. I'm happy to still be breastfeeding and I never thought I'd say this but I miss not being able to do it more often. When we go out in public breastfeeding is a lot easier than bottle feeding. What I don't miss - pumping at work. I feel like I am finally free to concentrate on work without having to stress out about pumping.
I know this is a long update.. but I figure since I am not updating as frequently as I would like to I should write as much as I can!!! I'll try to be better in the future.

It's the little things...

2009-01-27T09:11:00.003-05:00

Despite the fact that all our blogs seem to be about Timmy now, I am slowly getting small projects done around the house. It's a little different now, because I can't really dedicate an entire weekend, or even an entire day, to getting something done. So, no pun intended, I'm taking baby steps.

Sometimes it amazes me what a big difference 'the little things' can make in a room. For example, take a look at where our Master Bedroom started when we moved in:

We've discussed before how pink is really not our color, so the walls were the first thing to change:

But something still didn't feel right. The 'natural wood' trim around the room just wasn't working for me. So I decided white was the way to go. And what a dramatic difference in this room:

(pardon the mess in the background)

I also added a TV to the bedroom. I still need to paint over the wire covers though.

The basement bar is the other room that's been getting some work done every once in a while. The bar is really close to being finished, but I still need to build some shelves and run the electrical for the lighting.

My friend Rick and I were also able to get the 1960's shuffle bowling game into the basement. This was a bit more work that either of us had planned one. First, the thing weighed about 1,000,000 pounds. Luckily it split into two pieces, but that thing was still super heavy. The other problem we ran into was standing it up. I measured! However, I didn't account for the extra 3" it needed to tilt on the way up. So we ended up taking down some drywall, and giving it an extra little shove. Eventually we got it standing.

Now we're looking ahead to spring time. I've got three big projects I'd like to tackle: 1. Re-roof and add electric to the garage, 2. landscape the back yard, and 3. rebuild the deck on the side of the house. We'll see if time or budget allow for any of those, but I'm staying optimistic.

Sock it to me!

2009-01-21T10:41:00.003-05:00

Wow was I sick!!! It's been more than a week and I am finally feeling better. Let me start by saying that I have never been a good patient. Whenever I get sick I get very needy and really count on Kevin to take care of me. Well, apparently after you have a baby, becoming sick becomes even more of a problem! Poor Kevin was doing all he could for me, but the priority was of course Timmy because I couldn't do anything for the poor baby. It all started as a cold. I took one day off from work and felt a little better. I went back to work and by the afternoon I was so sick. I had a fever, chills and aches and then the vomiting started. I was down and out for the next two days. I didn't have the energy to feed the baby or even change a diaper. My husband though is a champ! I know it was rough on him as well and he never complained. I am finally feeling better but I still feel dehydrated and week. I thought I might have had Salmonella but in retrospect I think it was the flu. It seems every year that I get a flu shot, I get the flu! Go figure!

Lazy Bloggers

2009-01-20T10:01:00.002-05:00

Sorry we've been such lazy bloggers lately. I very much admire our good friend Karen for blogging as often as she did with the baby around. The days seem so much shorter now, and sleep seems so much more important.

I'll try to get back on track this week. Don't give up on us! :)

The one place a baby isn't cute....

2009-01-05T22:10:00.002-05:00

I have to say I've gotten spoiled by all of the attention Timothy gets. We go to a restaurant and the waitress oohhs and ahhs. We go to the grocery store and the sweet old lady tells us how precious he is. The regulars at church look forward to trying to make him smile. Well, we've met our match. I finally discovered the one place where people don't think your baby is cute - at the airport! Timmy had his first flight this past weekend. We went for a quick visit to New York and decided to fly to save time (which we really didn't save) and because Timmy doesn't like his car seat too much, so a 5 hour car ride wouldn't go so great. I have to say he did GREAT! Saturday morning's flight was fairly empty. He mostly slept, but did fuss a little bit on landing. I think he was just cranky and confused as to why we woke him up at 4:30am. Sunday night's flight he did really good - he slept the whole way. With that said it was like I was carrying the invisible baby. As we walked through the airport people wouldn't make eye contact with me. No one stopped to smile at us. As we approached our gate, I could see the apprehension in people's eyes. The silent pleading, "please don't be on my plane and if you are on my plane please sit as far away from me as possible." On board, the flight attendants did not acknowledge our little bundle of joy once. The only time anyone said anything to us was at the end of both flights. Both times someone made a comment about how good he was. It was like they were afraid to talk to us before that moment because they didn't want to jinx anything. I think the only exception was the security checkpoint - the tsa worker did get a kick out of Timmy, but he knew he did not have to fly anywhere near this baby! I do understand everyone's apprehension. I've been that passenger, eyeing the mother carrying the infant, with the Dad carrying more bags than you would think a small army would need. But now that I've been on the other side I'm determined to always smile at that family because I have to say, I really missed those moments where the world notices the little bit of joy that we get to experience every day!

Merry Christmas and a Silent Night

2008-12-30T10:32:00.002-05:00

So we are of course a few days late with our Merry Christmas wishes, but I hope everyone had a joyous holiday. Ours was hectic but wonderful. About a week ago I was so overwhelmed I was ready to cancel Christmas but I did take a deep breath and a moment to reflect on the many blessings this year. I did have to work but given the state of the economy it's a blessing that I have such a good job. We opened gifts Christmas morning before I went to work and then again when I came home. We had Christmas eve with our good friends Rick and Stephanie. We did all finger foods and it was a lot of fun. Then during the weekend my mom came to visit with a mountain of presents! We had a very nice, relaxing weekend..

Then last night we received the best gift of all... a silent night! Timothy slept through the entire night. I fed him at 10 pm and then I woke up at 6 am and had to think twice. Then it hit me, he slept the whole night through. When I fed him last night we did have to supplement the breast feeding with four ounces of formula because I just didn't have enough. While I'm so happy for the great night's sleep I feel a little guilty that I couldn't produce enough food for my son. I'm also worried that it will get harder to justify breast feeding if he sleeps so much better on formula. Those are worries for another day though, for now I'm just feeling rested!

In case we're late with our next post... HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!

Let is snow...

2008-12-22T10:07:00.002-05:00

So we got a little bit of snow this weekend.

All I have to say is that I was the envy of the neighborhood with my snow blower. Don't worry, once I was done with my driveway and sidewalk, I did help out three of the neighbors.

Timothy's Baptism

2008-12-16T09:56:00.003-05:00

This was such a special weekend. We baptised Timothy at St. Thomas' church. He was such a good boy through the whole thing.

Kevin's sister Kelly is his godmother and my brother Ben is his godfather. We had about 20 family members and friends there to share in the occasion.

The priest did a wonderful job. It wasn't our favorite priest, but I was still very impressed with the sermon. We chose to do the baptism as part of the Sunday mass. It was wonderful sharing it not just with family and friends, but with our whole parish community.

After the baptism we had a wonderful lunch at Victoria Station. That's the same restaurant we had our couple's baby shower at. The service and food was great, I think everyone had a good time.

Then, some family and friends came back to our house. It was so nice being able to host everyone. I miss not being able to do that more often. It really was a fantastic weekend and I hope to always raise my son to be mindful of his faith.

Santa's Little Helper

2008-12-09T08:33:00.003-05:00

We took Timmy to see Santa this weekend, and frankly, he was not impressed. Not really scared or anything, just seemed like he could care less. He'll learn...

What a week....

2008-12-05T15:43:00.001-05:00

This has to rank up there as one of the more stressful weeks we've had as parents. Timmy was pretty sick and had to go get tests done at the hospital. It started two weeks ago. He came down with a bad cold. It was getting better and then all of a sudden on Friday he had a high fever. We called the doctor who told us to monitor him and if the fever spiked again to take him to the hospital. On Saturday he had no fever and then on Sunday it was back, but not that high. It was gone Monday morning, but back Monday night. Tuesday morning we called the doctor and made an appointment for Wednesday. Timmy had no fever Tuesday and I thought we were over reacting a little bit, but on Wednesday he woke up with a high fever again. The doctor checked him and out and couldn't find anything wrong with him, but because his fever kept coming back he decided to send him to the hospital for tests. The first thing we did was get his blood drawn. Then the poor little baby had to have a catheter for a urine test. Kevin couldn't even watch so he left me in the room with him. Needless to say Timmy did not like it at all. After that test we went home, but as soon as we got home the doctor called. He said Timmy's white blood cell count was high which means he had an infection. We had to go back to the hospital for more tests while we were still waiting on the results of the urine sample. The nurse checked him out, then he had a chest x-ray. Then they took more blood. Then we had to wait.. and wait.. and wait. The poor little guy just crashed, but no sooner did he fall asleep than the doctor came in. I just have to say that I did NOT like the E-R doctor at all. She was rough and gruff and seemed annoyed at her job. I couldn't believe someone like that worked in the E-R of the children's hospital. She checked him out and told us that she could see nothing wrong with him, that we would have to wait 24-48 hours for the results of the last blood test. I seemed quite surprised and then she told me that she didn't think he needed a urine test. Apparently she had NO IDEA that he already had one. When I pointed this out to her she just shrugged her shoulders and said she'd go look up the results. Lo and behold when she comes into the room she told us Timmy has a urinary tract infection. Then he had to get a shot of antibiotics and then we had to wait a half hour to make sure he wasn't allergic. It was such a long day for both of us. I'm glad we finally know what's wrong with him, but I was definitely annoyed that the E-R doc almost made us wait 2 more days before starting treatment. The good news.. his fever hasn't come back. What a week!

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-30T21:12:00.003-05:00

It's late, but I wanted to wish everyone who reads this a Happy Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving even though I had to work. Kevin (with the help of our friend Stephanie) cooked a fabulous meal. We really have so much this year to be thankful for. We'll have to try to post a picture of Timmy in his Thanksgiving outfit. By the way.. he's STILL battling that cold. He just can't seem to shake it. I think it's time for another phone call to the doctor.

So much to blog.. so little time

2008-11-20T09:59:00.004-05:00

I have so much I want to update on the blog, but I pretty much live a life where the most free time I have is 5 minutes (if that)! In this quick update I'll start by saying poor little Timmy is sick this week. He started getting a little stuffed up on Tuesday morning. By Tuesday night his nose was running and he was sneezing and coughing. When he coughed you could hear all the congestion in his chest. At that point though, he didn't seem too bothered by the cold. Then overnight things got bad. When I got up to feed him I felt his forehead and he was burning up. I panicked and grabbed every thermometer I could fine (3 of them) and repeatedly took his temperature. It was about 100.4. I gave him some tylenol but there was nothing I could do for the congestion. He just kept screaming, not even crying. He was looking at me with this "help me" expression that just broke my heart. After about a half hour the tylenol must have kicked in because he fell back to sleep. Kev stayed home with him yesterday and last night he was still really congested. We called the doctor who just said to keep a close eye on him and make sure the temperature doesn't come back - so far it hasn't. He also suggested feeding him short meals often because he might get dehydrated. The good news this morning is that he seemed a little better. No more fever, but he still has his cough. We decided to send him to daycare today - I hope he does okay. I'll try and write more later, because I'm sure everyone is dying to know how breastfeeding and pumping is working out with my crazy job!!! Do stay tuned.....

Bar work in the final stages

2008-11-13T15:15:00.003-05:00

Hooray! So "The Gutter" as it has officially been named is super close to completion! Tuesday, I honored our Vets by working on something I know most of them would appreciate. This past weekend Rick and I finished up all the cutting and laid the hardwood top (which looked awesome). Then on Tuesday I stained all the pieces and attached them to the bar.

Ta da!!!!

I even found some really nice looking trim pieces for the actual 'gutter' on the bar. It looks really polished.

I still need to paint the very bottom black, and finish hanging a couple pieces of trim on the inside of the bar. I'd also like to hang some shelves at some point, but I figure we should have a grand opening party before that :)

Considering carpentry is not my forte, I'm pretty proud of how it turned out. What do you think?

Another Milestone, just shy of 3 Months

2008-11-13T09:50:00.001-05:00

I don't really have time to blog.. but I'm so excited to say Timmy rolled over for the first time yesterday! He went from his back to his stomach. I actually missed it - I was doing something in the kitchen while he played on his playmat, when I went back into the living room he was on his tummy. He did it again a little later on! He's been on the verge of rolling over for about 2 weeks, but last night he finally did it. Way to go Timmy!!!!

Back at work!

2008-11-12T10:01:00.002-05:00

So my leave is finally over. It was actually over 3 days ago, but I've been so busy this is the first chance I've had to blog about it. I thought life was crazy with the baby, well things just got kicked up a few notches!! It started Sunday night - it literally took me 5 hours to get myself and Timmy ready for Monday. My goal is to have everything ready the night before to make the mornings a little bit easier. Sunday night I had to pack his bags for daycare, get the breast pump ready and get all of my clothes and makeup ready and my work bag. All this and of course I still had to feed Timmy and tend to him when he was upset. Kevin was busy trying to get the laundry done since Timmy was out of pj's! That night Timmy didn't sleep that good (of course!) At 3:30 in the morning, after I fed him, he was wide awake!! That's pretty unusual for him. I just rocked him and fell asleep in the chair. Around 4:20 Kevin woke me up and I came to bed, Timmy had fallen asleep in my arms.
The morning actually went pretty smooth. I decided to go with Kev to daycare and in retrospect I think that might have been a mistake. Timothy was screaming because he was tired and all I could do was hand him over to complete strangers and say a little prayer that they take good care of him. I of course started crying. I cried halfway to work and then I pulled myself together. I kept telling myself that I am now working so that Timmy and our family can have a good life, and I found that thought comforting. That night Timmy was very happy and slept pretty good. Work has been another story, but I'll save that for another blog. Do stay tuned.

Almost back to work

2008-11-06T09:19:00.004-05:00

I'm going back to work on Monday. I can't believe how quickly the time has flown by. If you asked me a month ago if I was looking forward to going back to work I would have said "YES" - now though I feel very differently. Timmy is growing up so fast and it hit me hard last week that we will never have the same relationship again that we've been sharing the last 3 months. The thought makes me want to cry. We will never have that cloesness and I will never again be the one providing for his every need during the day. I won't even be the one dropping him off at daycare or taking him to his doctor's appointments. Because of schedules those responsibilites will fall on Kevin. I knew this day would come so in a way I am looking forward to getting a routine, but that won't make things much easier.
In preperation to go back to work I've been doing a lot of shopping. My mom actually came in this past weekend to help me because as you can imagine, running a lot of errands with a 2 1/2 month old is not easy. I got a haircut and bought a ton of clothes. Clothes shopping isn't as much fun as it used to be. I don't fit into my pre-pregnancy clothes yet and my maternity clothes are all too big. I essentially had to by a temporary wardrobe, but because of my job this wardrobe has to be quite extensive!! In addition to clothes I got new makeup and shoes. From that standpoint I am ready! The only other things we need to do.. this weekend we have to get Timmy ready for daycare. I've got to pack his bag and fill out all of his forms. I've been putting it off, but it must get done!

Halloween, Elections, and more...

2008-11-05T14:58:00.002-05:00

It's been a while since we've updated the old blog... my apologies. The good news is that Timmy is doing great! He's getting closer and closer to rolling over, smiles all the time now, and has really taken to playing with his toys. The sad news is that he starts daycare on Monday! I think it's gonna be hard for Victoria, because in the last few weeks he's really started to become a lot of fun. At the same time, getting into somewhat of a regular "routine" will be good for all of us.

Halloween was a lot of fun. Timmy dressed up as a toad this year, and was looking pretty darn good.

I dressed up as a bull rider, and that costume really got the attention of all the kids on the block.

It was a fun Halloween, even though we only ended up getting about 20 trick-or-treat seekers. We live in an awesome neighborhood now where everyone is overly friendly and outgoing, so I guess I was just surprised not to see more kids out. It's sad, but a lot of parents are no longer letting their kids go door to door, and just taking them to Halloween "gatherings" instead.

Tuesday night Vic and I stayed up watching the election results come in. Timmy even got into it at one point, but quickly fell asleep on the couch :)

What a strange election. I don't think either of us actually voted for who we thought we'd be voting for... but I think it was the right choice. I guess only time will tell. I was excited to see so many people out voting though. I'm sure living in New England makes a big difference on its own, but people here are really passionate about politics... and (coming from a guy who's not really into politics) its kind of contagious.

A special club

2008-10-30T20:25:00.002-04:00

Since Timothy was born I've been spending a lot of time with our neighbors. We live in a true neighborhood with GREAT neighbors. The block is filled with small children so we've done a few play dates. One thing I've learned (besides there are some VERY different parenting lifestyles) is that when you have a child you become part of a whole new club. There is really no other way to describe it - but just having a child buys you a membership to play dates or sharing a cup of coffee with a neighbor, or even just stopping by unexpectedly. I never would have gotten to know my neighbors so well if I didn't have a child and I'm really enjoying that part of it. I've learned so much just talking to these other moms, and they give the best pep talks that keep me from feeling like I'm crazy. I think this mom club extends beyond the neighbors too! Being a parent has completely changed my relationship with any other parent I know - from Karen to even my own sister-in-law. All of a sudden I can relate to these other women in ways I never even imagined! I'm glad to be part of this club.

Monkey see, monkey do

2008-10-28T14:05:00.001-04:00

Timmy is actually playing with us now! He responds to our faces and he has a favorite game. If you stick your tongue out at him, he'll stick his tongue out at you. Too cute!It's like we're having our first conversation. We'll try to capture it on video.

Shots!

2008-10-27T10:27:00.002-04:00

Timmy is two months old! Actually he's almost three months old now. Time is really flying by. Last week we had a very difficult doctor's visit. Timmy had to get his shots. He received 4 vaccines - 3 shots and one oral. It was so tough to have to be the one to hold him down while he was getting vaccinated. The only good thing is that at this age he will never remember any of it. There is so much controversy now days as to whether or not vaccines have anything to do with autism, but I can honestly say I didn't ever consider not vaccinating him. The articles I read didn't make a good argument for the link and I think the risks involved with not vaccinating are tremendous. Even still - hearing him scream when they poked him was heart-wrenching. The other really bad thing is that he was so unhappy for 3 days after getting his shots. Actually maybe even longer (if you judge by the mood he's in right now!)
While I was at the doctor's office I did have a very bittersweet moment. I realized that is quite possibly the last doctor's visit I will bring my son to in a very long time. I go back to work in two weeks, and we all know how unflexible my job is. That means Kevin will likely be the one taking him to his appointments. Kevin will also be the one dropping him off at daycare and picking him up. I feel sad about this. I'm going to go from spending all of my time with him, to spending just a few hours a day - and those few hours will be his bedtime! I know we will all adjust, but the reality of it is hitting me hard this week.
In other Timmy news - for those of you keeping track, he now weighs 10 lbs and he's 24 inches long! He is going to be tall and thin, just like his daddy.

Happy Birthday Giancarlo

2008-10-21T10:16:00.005-04:00

Well we made it! Timothy and I have returned from our first road trip. We spent the last week in New Jersey visiting with my mom. Kevin was a trooper.. driving down with us on Friday night, then flying back home Tuesday morning to work, and then flying back down on Friday to spend the following weekend with us. We had a great visit and some fantastic weather. While we were there we went apple picking and through a corn maze (not reccomended with a stroller!). I did a little back to work shopping (slightly depressing) and we got to spend a lot of time with Isabella and Giancarlo.

I love seeing my niece and nephew - Isabella is 4 now and quite the character. She is so intelligent it's easy to forget she's still just a baby. She tells crazy stories and makes up silly games. Giancarlo turned one. I got to actually be there on his birthday - we went out to Red Robin for lunch. At the lunch there was Isabella (4), Giancarlo (1), their cousin J.J. (10 months) and Timmy (2 months). I'm sure that waiter was less than thrilled with our table but I do have to say ALL of the kids were on their best behavior. Giancarlo is such a happy baby. I haven't gotten to see him too much this last year which has been tough because I'm his godmother. It was fun to get to know his personality - though he is quite timid and didn't want me to pick him up. The most I was allowed to do was hold his hand to help him cruise around.

Saturday was Giancarlo's birthday party. My brother rented a beautiful Victorian house in Ocean City, NJ to have the party at. They decorated their courtyard for fall and it was so pretty. The only problem: our great weather did not hold out for Saturday. It was cold!! Even still, the party was fun and there was enough room indoors for everyone.

As for the car ride - it's quite a challenge traveling with a two month old. It's amazing how much stuff you have to bring and how often you have to stop. We made it and Timmy was pretty good in the car. The only challenge was our last two hours coming back. He decided he didn't want to be in his car seat anymore and he screamed the whole way. We survived though.. and while it was a great week, it's nice to be home!

There's that smile!

2008-10-20T11:45:00.001-04:00

You gotta love this little guy... too cute.

Searching for a smile

2008-10-15T21:20:00.002-04:00

So for anyone reading this blog it will come as no surprise that we have a baby who is quite grumpy at times. Well instead of writing about how fussy he is, this blog is about something much more fun! Timothy is starting to smile. He is now 8 weeks old and it probably started sometime last week. Kevin first spotted it, but he wasn't sure. Then one morning I was changing him and I swear he smiled at me - but then he promptly spit up so I just attributed it to gas. Then slowly but surely a little smile became recognizable. The only problem - he was smiling only at toys, not at Kevin or I. Well all of a sudden in the last 3 days we have a smiling baby on our hands. Don't get me wrong, he's not hanging up the title of Mr. Fussypants, but at least I know he doesn't hate us! He tends to smile the most on his changing table in the morning. He likes when you stick your tongue out and he likes when you make the rattles go crazy. I think he's also ticklish. The next trick will be capturing one of these rare smiles in a photo! Do stay tuned.

Mr. Fussypants says good morning

2008-10-01T18:11:00.004-04:00

Timothy was being particularily cranky so I was sitting rocking him. He finally quieted down but had the grumpiest expression on his face so I snapped this picture on my cell phone.

I thought it was pretty cute so I decided to email it to my mom with the subject line "Mr. Fussypants says Good Morning." Well my mom gets the email and she's afraid to open it. Since it came from a cell phone she didn't know it was from me. She was at work and she thought Mr. Fussypants was a porn website that got through her work filter! She almost deleted the picture but luckily curiosity got the better of her. We had a good laugh over that one.

While we're on the subject of Mr. Fussypants, I've decided Timothy bears an uncanny resemblence to a grumpy old man. Perhaps it is because he always furrows his brow. I don't just think he looks like any grumpy old man, but one in particular: the puppet Walter from comedien Jeff Dunham's show. What do you think?

Big Progress on the Bowling Bar

2008-10-01T09:40:00.006-04:00

So a quick update for everyone on the basement bar. With the help of my good friend Rick, I was able to get a lot of work done over the weekend. He helped me cut all the plywood for the sides, and then I finished up the base for the bar top on Sunday. I was even able to lay the hardwood top in place... but there's still no glue yet holding it down. Here's the latest photos:

Meanwhile, the rest of my basement looks a little disheveled.

And then yesterday, I put one of the photos into Photoshop to show you what I'm hoping it looks like in the near future:

Have boobs, will travel

2008-09-26T17:32:00.003-04:00

Timothy and I are on the move! From the day he turned one month I decided I had enough of sitting around the house - so out into the real world we went. At first I was worried I would have to race home to feed him but then I realized that one benefit of breastfeeding is that his food is always there and always ready. Our first big adventure was to the drug store and to visit Kevin at work. I had to nurse Timmy in someone's office but the whole experience went surprisingly well. Then during the weekend we hit Costco and Babies R Us. I had to nurse him in the car in the parking lot of Costco - not the most comfortable but we survived. Then Monday we hit the mall. He was so good. He fussed a little bit at first but then he fell asleep and stayed asleep. He didn't wake up to eat so I just waited until we came home. Then Tuesday we hit a slight road block. I wanted to go to Target but I knew I couldn't push his stroller and a shopping cart so I decided to put him in his Baby Bjorn. BIG MISTAKE! We were in the store under one minute when he went into an absolute rage - screaming at the top of his lungs. We had no choice but to leave. I actually called Kevin in tears saying that the baby was holding me hostage! I didn't attempt going out anywhere again until today. It was pouring rain out and I didn't plan on going anywhere but he was really fussy this morning so I thought I would try Babies R Us and the Mall. This time I used his carrier and just placed it inside the shopping cart - it worked pretty well. At the mall I used the stroller and again he was fussy for a few minutes and then he fell asleep. All was going well until he got hungry inside Kohls. I decided to take him into a dressing room to nurse. We got all set up and then the lights went out! Apparently they were on a motion sensor and when I stopped moving around they went off because there was no one else in there! So now I'm nursing in the dark when all of a sudden his little butt erupts in a tell-tale sign that means only one thing! It crossed my mind that perhaps his diaper would leak but nothing prepared me for what happened! When I finished nursing him not only did he poop all over himself, but also all over me! I had brought a change of clothes for him but not for me so now I was left to use a wipe to try and clean my shirt up. Needless to say our shopping trip was over! Still I'm not discouraged - I actually really enjoy being out with him and he seems to like it too!

Crumbs on his head....

2008-09-22T13:32:00.003-04:00

I still can't figure out why sometimes Timothy cries for absolutely no reason! I guess the reason is that he is a baby, but like most of us I'm determined to find the answer or solution to any problem. Today I have tried everything. I've fed him (repeatedly), I've rocked him, I've placed him on his play mat and tried to play with him and I tried his bouncy chair. I even tried just carrying him in my arms everywhere I went. Nothing seems to work. Then I thought about trying the Baby Bjorn carrier. We've used it twice and both times he didn't like it at first. The second time he finally calmed down and went to sleep but it was a process. Well I figured I'd give it a shot today and like my friend Karen told me - even if he still cries at least this way he's crying with your hands free! So I strapped on the Baby Bjorn and he went into a total meltdown. He was screaming but there was really little I could do and it was nice to have my hands back. I decided to make myself some lunch (pasta leftovers and a chicken salad sandwich). I sat at the table to eat and I just had to laugh. When I looked down pour Timothy was still screaming, except now he had a glob of pasta sauce on his head and crumbs from my sandwich!! I've since cleaned him up and wouldn't you know it, now, about 20 minutes before his next feeding he finally fell asleep!

On a different note, we finally had our first "first" yesterday. Timothy found his thumb all on his own and started sucking it. It was adorable and only lasted about a minute. We tried to coax his thumb back into his mouth for a picture but he has a little stubborn streak!

Finally some video

2008-09-15T14:33:00.002-04:00

This was taken when Timmy was a little more than a week old. We couldn't believe how alert he was in his bouncy chair.

One day at a time..

2008-09-15T14:02:00.002-04:00

Slowly but surely we seem to be getting the hang of this parenting thing. Timothy really is a good little boy and he seems to be settling down into a schedule. He usually gets up for the day around 10am. He eats, and gets dressed and then he has his happy awake time. This is when we can put him on his play mat (which he loves!) or in his swing or bouncy chair. After that we go for a nice long walk - usually about 45 minutes to an hour. I try to walk at a brisk pace to melt some of the baby weight away.. so far it doesn't seem to be working. Then after he eats again he goes down for a nice long afternoon nap. That's when I can get things done (like writing this blog). He wakes up to eat and then Kevin comes home. Kevin has been great about taking care of Timmy in the early evening so that I can go to the gym or run some errands. By the time I get back from my errands it's time for him to eat again! Then we start the unhappy awake time. It's like clockwork, from about 7:30pm until he goes to bed (usually around 10:30pm or 11:00pm) he is NOT happy. He'll scream and cry and calm down for 5 minutes only to start screaming and crying again. The good news is this seems to thoroughly exhaust him so after the 11:00 feeding he falls into a deep sleep. Some nights he'll sleep for 4 hours straight!!! But most nights it's an hour to feed him, 2 hours of sleep, repeat. I think I should feel more exhausted than I do, but I'm hanging in there. The interesting thing about parenthood.. once you think you have it figured out then the next day he does something different. It truly is an amazing adventure!

So many projects, so little time

2008-09-15T10:32:00.005-04:00

I feel like I haven't been able to adequately update everyone on all the progress we've made around the house lately. With all the baby news and visitors, the blog updates have taken a back burner. So let me take a couple minutes now to give you the low down.

The first thing we did after painting the basement, was hang sheet rock on the ceiling. What a difference it makes.

Luckily, my dad was in town (all the way from Oregon), so I was able to elicit his help.

We did run into a few obstacles, like pipes, electrical wires, and other random things hanging down... it is a basement. But with some careful measuring and cutting, we managed to get around those.

My brother-in-law, Brian, came down after most of the drywall was up and cut all the holes for the recessed lighting.

Now all I have left to do is mud, tape and paint.

Next project... getting rid of the pool. The filter and pump went out just about the same time the baby was born, so instead of investing the $1,200+ to replace that, we decided to just get rid of it. Some of the supports were quite bent as well, so I have a feeling it had a long life. As a matter of fact, one of the neighbors told me they were very sad to see it go.

So Saturday I spent the day banging, smashing, unscrewing... until I was able to remove the whole thing.

Luckily, a guy up the street recycles metal, so I just left all the pieces by the curb and before I knew it everything was gone.

Now to a real project! Let's get going on the bar in the basement!! Saturday afternoon my good friend Rick came over and went to the Depot with me. We loaded up all the lumber and unloaded it into the basement. Then Sunday, I got to work.

First I built the frame for the bar. Note that we're working around a chimney, so the basic plans for an "L" shaped bar are now much different. A lot of the cuts I was making became custom cuts.

Next step was building the side supports. The original plans called for three of these, but because of the chimney I ended up building 5 of them!

After that, I added rails for the 'gutter' and exterior.

It's definitely starting to take shape. This week I'm going to try to get the vertical rails in place for both the gutter and the foot rests. Wish me luck!

More pictures and an update

2008-09-10T15:02:00.002-04:00

I've had so many requests for more pictures of Timmy, so here they are. Just click on the photo below and explore the Picasa album that it takes you to. You can see all of Timmy's recent visitors!

He did have another checkup this week and is doing quite well. He's gained almost an entire pound since he left the hospital, and he's already grown an entire inch! Most nights he is a pretty good sleeper, just waking up to eat. But every once in a while he just wants to be held all night... ugh. Last night was one of those nights, so I'm dragging just a bit today at work.

That's it for now. Thank you to everyone for all your attention and words of encouragement. Timmy can't wait to meet you all!

Help! I need your vote!

2008-09-08T15:37:00.001-04:00

Hello friends, family, and bloggers:

I’ve been selected as one of 20 Semi-Finalists in a True Value D.I.Y. All-Star Contest! Now I need your help. This stage is determined by the number of votes I get from people like you. So please, if you have the time, follow the link I’ve pasted below. The winner of this contest receives $5,000, and we all know baby Timmy could use some extra cash!!

http://www.startrightstarthere.com/contest_vote.aspx?entrantId=74

Thanks for you help,
-Kevin

P.S. – Please copy and re-post on your blog or forward this on to everyone in your address book!

Two Weeks Old

2008-08-31T12:19:00.002-04:00

So Mr. Timothy is now two weeks old and I decided it's time to finally post a blog. Don't worry, I won't gross you out with all the gory labor/delivery details but I will tell you this much.. I started the whole labor process by thinking I broke my water, only to learn I pee'd my pants. Enough said!!!

I can't believe two weeks have already passed. Timmy's actual due date was only yesterday. He's a pretty good baby so far. He lost a bit of weight in the hospital and was jaundice but now he seems to be eating like a champ. He even sleeps good stretches during the night which I can't believe! He gets into his little fits where he screams and nothing seems to comfort him but over all I think we're getting the hang of things.

We have had a steady stream of visitors. It's really nice that everyone is getting to meet our little boy. My mom flew in from her vacation and got to the hospital just a few hours after he was born. Then the first weekend my brother and my dad came for a visit. Then this week we're hosting Kevin's parents and brother T.J. His sister Kelly and her husband surprised us and came along as well. Then next weekend we can expect my dad, grandparents and aunt and uncle, followed by my brother and his family and my mom the following weekend. It is a bit tedious having houseguests but everyone has been so helpful so far, and so understanting that Timmy sets the schedule.

I've been trying to get out of the house for at least a half hour a day. Most days it's just pushing the stroller through the neighborhood and talking to neighbors but I have had two solo outings so far. The first place I went was to get my eyebrows waxed.. you have to have your priorities!

We'll try to post more pictures and get back in the swing of blogging. We may even try to post some video we took of Timmy in his bouncy chair.

Special Delivery!

2008-08-22T20:31:00.003-04:00

It's a boy! Sorry we've both been MIA recently, but that's because our little bundle of joy arrived a bit early! Timothy Scott was born Sunday, August 17 at 9:40am. He weighed in at 7 pounds 15 ounces and was 20.5 inches long. We'll get back into the swing of things soon, but for now we've got a little boy to love!

Bowling basement rolls forward

2008-08-13T09:08:00.002-04:00

So, after a long time working on other projects, I've finally started my work on the basement. It's gonna take some time, but my idea is to create a bowling themed bar/rec room. The basement is still a mess, but here's a look at what I got accomplished this weekend.

Let's start with what it looked like before we moved in...

Unfortunately, this is the only before picture I have.

Next, I had to cut a hole in the wall under the stairs to get the washer and dryer in and out, so I figured why not cut that hole to the size of a fridge...

And then I thought, "You know what would be great in that fridge? Cold draft beer!

Thanks to my good friend Rick for the awesome birthday gift of a conversion kit.

Painted the fridge black and added a little bowling "flare" to it.

And finally, Rick and I spent last Sunday painting and tearing down the fake drop ceiling. It's finally coming together.

This weekend I'm hoping to get the drywall for the ceiling and lumber for the bar. I can't give away the secret of the bar just yet, but trust me, it's gonna be cool.

What Baby?

2008-08-12T09:20:00.002-04:00

It seems I can get past no one without them asking me when I'm due. It's clearly obvious that the answer is soon! From co-workers to grocery store clerks it's everyone's favorite question. I'm thinking the next time someone asks me when I'm due, I'll just reply "what are you talking about? I'm not pregnant!" Though, I think I'll have a hard time convincing anyone of that. I really don't mind the question, it's just becoming comical. Some people get really pushy about it too. Take for instance the checkout lady in the grocery store this weekend.. here's how our conversation went:

Lady: "Oh, when are you due."
Me: "In a little less than 3 weeks."
Lady: "Do you know what you're having?"
Me: "The doctor's tell me it's a boy."
Lady: "Do you have a name picked out."
(aside - we do have a name picked out but it's top secret, so I gave the lady my standard 'stranger' reply.)
Me: "No, no name yet, we still have a few weeks."
Lady: "You only have 2 weeks, you must have something you like."
Me: "Well we do have a few favorite names, but nothing we decided on."
Lady: "Well, what are those names."
Me: "We're not telling anyone."

At which point the woman gives me an annoyed look. I was getting a little exaserbated because I had already paid the bill and now I'm standing there holding my packages, having to pee, and almost getting into an argument with a stranger who is insisting on knowing the name of the baby! At least it gave me something to laugh (and blog) about.

The Waiting Game

2008-08-11T09:36:00.002-04:00

So here we are.. week 37 and a few days. That means that baby boy is now full term. Of course that doesn't mean he's going to show his face anytime soon, we still have a little less than 3 weeks to the actual due date. What full term does mean is that he is fully developed and quite capable of living in the outside world, it's just a matter of him realizing it might be fun to go on a little trip. What that all means for us is that we've started the waiting game. I didn't think this part of the pregnancy would be as agonizing. I figured we'd get to this point and still have so much to do that it was a race against the clock, but the truth is we're ready for this baby - or as ready as we'll ever be. Healthwise the doctor's say me and the baby are doing great. I feel pretty good, just achy and not sleeping well but other than that I'm okay. I just didn't realize how heavy I would feel and how annoying it would be to have to go to the bathroom once an hour. The clock is ticking now.. it's just a matter of time.

What a wonderful weekend...

2008-08-04T09:48:00.005-04:00

Yet another reminder of how blessed Kevin and I are with a wonderful family and wonderful friends. My mom came up to Boston for the weekend to help us get last minute things in place for the baby and also to host a "couples shower" for our friends here in Boston. It was a wonderful success!

On Saturday we did a lot of shopping. We bought a beautiful receiving blanket and adorable shoes for our little boy to wear home from the hospital. We already had purchased an outfit online. Then we went out for lunch (TGI Fridays) and from there it was on to Michael's to finally get our wedding portrait framed. We then went to Babies R Us to pick up some last minute things (where we promptly tried to avoid bumping into anyone shopping for the baby shower. The one person we saw in the store we avoided, only to discover she parked her car right next to Kevin's!). After that it was a huge COSTCO trip. We stocked up on lots of essentials that we probably won't have time to shop for in the near future. The funniest thing happened at Costco. We picked up a huge box of baby wipes (containing about 850 wipes). I said out loud "looks like we'll never have to buy wipes again." At this point a guy pushing a shopping cart with two small children in it walks by, looks at me and laughs. He looks at the box and says "that will last you about a month!" So much for wishful thinking.

Saturday night me, Kevin and my mom went out for a wonderful dinner. We wanted to thank her for all of the support and gifts. The restaurant is called "Brendan Crocker's Wild Horse Cafe" and if anyone is ever in Beverly, MA I would highly reccomend it. The atmosphere was cozy and the food fantastic. We all shared fondue for an appetizer and then I had the lamb, and then even though we were stuffed my mom and I shared a dessert. It was a wood-roasted banana with vanilla ice cream. Delicious!

Sunday was the couples shower. My mom thought of everything, but nothing was overdone or so girly as to make any of the guys feel uncomfortable. It was a brunch buffet and there were 17 of us (mostly mine and Kev's co-workers). I was so happy to see everyone enjoying themselves and everyone (even the men) got into the games. The funniest game was probably the game where people cut ribbon and tried to guess how big around I was.

Our good friends Rick and Stephanie were a little off on the belly measurement!

Some of the ribbons went around me plus 2 other people and several of the ribbons were taller than I was!!! Crazy. We laughed a lot and our friends were overly generous with the gifts. We really are ready for baby boy now -thank you everyone!

I won!

2008-07-28T11:15:00.002-04:00

So, a couple of blogs down you'll see that I attached some links and it talks about how that particular blog was written for a contest... Well, I won! They contacted me today and let me know that I'm one of three $300 Amex gift card winners! How cool is this?

I also entered the baby's room into an essay and photo contest through True Value. The winner of that one gets $5,000. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

The kid's not even born yet and he's making daddy money!

My little (big) Melon

2008-07-27T16:45:00.002-04:00

So we're up to a honeydew melon! The picture looks so big! In reality the baby weighs about 5 pounds. For some reason this weekend I've been having anxiety that labor is eminent. I'm sure it's just jitters but all of a sudden I feel like he'll arrive before we're ready. Then again, are you every really ready?
Kevin and I went down to the Cape this weekend for a wedding. It was for my co-worker Neal and his now wife Erin. The wedding was beautiful. They got married right on the water with the beach and ocean as a backdrop. The reception was at the same location, Erin's uncle's house. They set up a tent and the grounds were absolutely beautiful. We had a lot of fun considering we didn't know a lot of people at the wedding. One funny note was that there were a lot of pregnant women! There's definitely something in the water.

This afternoon Kevin put the absolute finishing touches on the nursery. He had to touch up some paint and paint the closet doors. Then we started doing the baby's laundry. You have to wash everything before he can wear it. I'm just worried that if he's big we'll end up wasting all of the newborn clothes that only go up to 7 pounds! Oh well, we'll get through it.

I've got another week of work ahead of me. I'm taking things one step at a time but I really don't feel like working anymore. I'm tired and achy and it's hard to sit in the car for as long as my day requires, and then even more difficult to get in and out of the car. Then there's the fact that they sent me out to cover a tornado this week! A tornado! What are they thinking? I survived but it really reinforced for me the fact that right now I have physical limitations and climbing over debris and under tree limbs is one of them!!!

Just a little more than a month to go! (or less or more!)

About the enter the 9th month!

2008-07-24T10:11:00.002-04:00

What a myth some of this pregnancy stuff is! Your whole life you think about getting to the 9th month point of pregnancy and that being the finish line. Well for all my friends out there who have not had babies I would like to point out that when you hit the 9th month you still have at least 4 more weeks to go! In my case I still have 5 weeks to go. What they don't tell you until you are already pregnant is that a pregnancy is 40 weeks long. It doesn't take a mathmateican to realize that if there are 4 weeks in a month and 40 weeks in a pregnancy that you're carrying that baby for 10 months! Then when you get into the third trimester they tell you that you can actually be pregnant for 42 weeks! So for everyone who is anxiously awaiting the arrival of our baby boy, we'll keep you posted but we still have a little bit of a way to go.

As for how I'm holding up, I'd say I'm doing well. I am getting pretty big and pretty heavy but I am still working. I haven't made any adjustments to my schedule except to ask that they don't schedule me to work until midnight anymore. I may ask for light duty in a few weeks but we'll see how it goes. We'll soon be going to the doctor once a week so we'll let them make the tough decisions about whether or not I need to take it easy.

I think Kevin is doing great also. I can tell he's just excited to meet our baby. What is crazy is that I can really see the transformation in both of us where we now see the baby as a baby, a real living person. It's hard to describe but for the longest time I was just consumed with thinking about the pregnancy without much thought to the little person growing inside of me. I can say in the last few weeks those thoughts have shifted to the point where I'm not even THAT scared of the labor part anymore. So here's to 4 or 5 or even 7 weeks and counting!

Ready for Baby Boy

2008-07-16T09:53:00.002-04:00

I just need to agree with Kevin here for a second.. the nursery really is his crowning achievement (and for those of you who know him, you know he's capable of a lot!) When we moved the rocker/glider into the room last night it just felt so complete. The room is truly ready for our little boy right now. Kevin put so much hard work into the room and so much time and it has really paid off. You will all have to come and check it out in person because the pictures don't even do it justice!!!

My Masterpiece

2008-07-16T09:28:00.008-04:00

Houseblogs Feature Story Contest
http://www.startrightstarthere.com/

So, I'm calling the baby's room my masterpiece in the new house. It really has turned out great. I've put a lot of my time and effort into this room, making sure all the little details are just right. Now that all the furniture and decor is in there, the room looks spectacular. See what you think:

Remember where we started? Ugly ceiling fans, blue walls, funky window treatments...

And here we are today...

The construction process took a while, but it was well worth it. From the self-designed "paneling" (which was much easier than it looks), to the window trim, and even the new curtains, we couldn't be more pleased. Here's a look at what we did...

Painted the ceiling and primed the walls...

Tore up the old baseboards (which were 1" below the surface of the new floor).

Patched the hole I put in the wall while tearing up the baseboards :)

Painted the top half of the wall a cream color, and the bottom a glossy white.

Installed new baseboards, chair rail, and custom slats to create a paneled look. I also sanded, then painted the window trim a glossy white, and installed 2" wood blinds.

Finally, I replaced all the outlets, added window treatments and decor, and moved in the baby's new furniture.

“This post was written for Houseblogs.net as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by True Value.”

Nice Day for a White Wedding...

2008-07-15T13:58:00.002-04:00

Congrats to our friends Casey and Julio!! They tied the knot this weekend in New Hampshire. The ceremony was absolutely beautiful, outdoors in a garden that had a view of mountains. The weather was nice too, mid-80's with a light breeze.

Victoria and I had a blast, and we even got to show off some of our dance moves at the reception. Here's some pics:

Too Funny Not to Share...

2008-07-08T09:24:00.004-04:00

So Kevin told me I was crazy for wanting to blog about this but I quite possibly had the funniest dream of my life and I just knew everyone would get a kick out of it.

I've been told by a lot of people that pregnancy brings on all sorts of dreams. For the most part I haven't had too many weird ones. Here and there I'll have a scary dream, but I try to forget about those as soon as possible. This week I had a dream that kind of grossed me out but also made me laugh out loud.

Here's the dream: Our baby was born and we were home from the hospital. For some strange reason no one would let me breastfeed him. He was getting fed (I'm not quite sure how or by who - I actually think someone else was breastfeeding him), but no one would let me try. Finally after a week they handed the baby over to me. I started feeding him and when I looked down he had the body of a baby boy but Lucy's face! (For all of you who don't know, Lucy is our dog, a yellow lab/sharpei mix). I can't even begin to psycho-analyze this one, but I think it will make for a very funny story to someday tell our little boy.

By the way.. for everyone eagerly following the fruit/vegetable of the week club, we're up to a large jicama!

ETA... 7 Weeks

2008-07-07T10:37:00.004-04:00

Let the countdown begin. Our little guy should be about 7 weeks away now. He's still being very active, twisting, turning and kicking inside mommy's belly. It's really fun to watch at night. He seems to get very restless once Victoria lays down for the night.

Things are starting to get a bit uncomfortable for mom. This morning it was cute, Vic called me back upstairs to help her attach the straps on her shoes. I think we're really close to nothing but flip-flops.

It's amazing because Victoria really is all belly. She's so adorable right now. A lot of people who usually just see her on TV are amazed not just that she's pregnant... but that she's so far along. Most of them say they can't even tell.

My "birthday party" was awesome this weekend. Victoria planned the whole thing. We had about 30 people over, and had a classic New England Clam Bake. Lobster, clams, corn on the cob, clam chowder and watermelon! The food was soooo good. I even got my very own 6 pound lobster as a birthday gift from the caterer!!! I think everyone had a good time.

Eventually, a lot of us ended up playing cornhole, which was awesome. It's a fun party game. Even the guys who live across the street from me got into it, so hopefully they'll be coming over a bit more so we can get to know them.

MIA

2008-07-02T10:20:00.003-04:00

I know you think we're MIA, but really we're still around. We've just been super busy the past few weeks with the Health Expo, Cancer Walk, and life in general. Now we're getting ready for my big 30th birthday bash/4th of July party this weekend. I'll be sure to take some photos and get back to posting next week.

By the way... for those of you interested in the status of our good friends Rick and Stephanie, they're now officially married (yeah!) and are on their honeymoon in St. Lucia. When they come back on Saturday, they'll be heading to their new home... a really cute little house about 15 minutes down the road. Considering what they've been through, they're both handling it very well, and seem to be in good spirits.

2008-06-22T21:10:00.005-04:00

So this was our baby at 4 weeks.. a poppy seed.

Apparently we've now graduated to a regular cabbage compared to a Chinese Cabbage. It's amazing how big the baby is!

Someone's turning 30!!!

2008-06-20T15:37:00.003-04:00

Happy Birthday Kevin!! He's officially 30! Unfortunately I can't even really celebrate his birthday with him because of our work schedules. I did stay up late last night and put up some balloons - that was about as festive as I could get at 1:00 in the morning. Today we squeezed in a happy birthday breakfast at our new favorite breakfast place, Artie's. It's about 2 minutes from our house and it is a great, quick breakfast joint. I had pancakes stuffed with bananas.. delicious! Kevin had his favorite, 2 eggs sunnyside up, crispy bacon, home fries and grilled english muffins. It was a very nice breakfast but over way too soon. After that Kevin was off to the health expo and I'm working nightside. Hopefully we'll have a birthday dinner tomorrow after the expo.

I'm having a butternut Squash

2008-06-14T19:04:00.002-04:00

I just love all the websites and emails you can sign up for when you're pregnant. One of my favorite websites is babycenter.com. You can sign up to get a weekly email about what kinds of things you can expect that week from your pregnancy. By far my favorite thing is to see what kind of fruit/vegetable I'm having. During the first trimester I was having a lima bean and a small peach. I then progressed to cauliflower, a large mango, a rutabaga, chinese cabbage (how is that different from a regular cabbage?) and this week apparently I'm having a butternut squash. I guess the fruits and vegetables are nicer than when the ultrasound technician told us at 18 weeks we were having a coke can!

Nursery Update

2008-06-10T11:30:00.003-04:00

So I'm running a little bit behind schedule with the nursery, but the progress is finally starting to show. I'll give a quick pictorial update:

This is where we started...

The previous owners put new hardwood over the old hardwood, but didn't bother to pull up the baseboards. Getting them out was tough. And I accidentally put a hole in the wall... no worries, I patched it.

And the painting begins. We used Valspar paint (Lowe's) in the rest of the house, but Home Depot was running a sale on Baer when I got to this room, so we used that. The top is a soothing off white.

And the bottom is a glossy white.. in preparation for my "home-made" wainscoting.

And finally the finished product... well, almost finished. I still need to replace the outlets, and I'd like to put up some crown molding.

So here's what I did...
Painted the walls, replaced the base boards, added a chair rail, added decorative "slats" to make the bottom look like panels, painted all the trim and the windows and replace the blinds. I'm really pleased with the outcome.

A hot day for a Baby Shower!

2008-06-09T17:40:00.003-04:00

My mom and sister-in-law threw me the most wonderful baby shower this past weekend. The shower was on Staten Island at the Alice Austen House which offers beautiful views of the Hudson River, Verrazano Bridge and Manhatten Skyline. They thought of everything, from beautiful balloons to delicious food (the bacon wrapped scallops and baby lamb chops were the best) to some very fun games. The weather was hot, hot, hot! I think the temperature was about 95 degrees. We did have a tent and occasionally a breeze off the water but it was toasty. Everyone though seemed to enjoy themselves. I thought I held up remarkably well, I just made sure I drank a lot of water. Kevin and I received all sorts of wonderful gifts for the baby, from cute little outfits to car seats and playpens and high chairs. It's amazing how much stuff a little baby really needs. I feel overwhelmed by the love and support we constantly receive from our family and friends. We really couldn't make this journey without them.

This is a picture with my mom, you can see the Verrazano Bridge in the Background.

My little niece Isabella (she's 3) loved helping give out the gifts. Here she's climbing on the "tower" of presents. Perhaps the cutest thing she said was when I received a bathtime toy of whistling hippos. She said, "Aunt Vicki, maybe when I come to your house I can play with the hippos?" Then later she told me, "Hippos make me laugh, ha-ha-ha-ha." And she really said ha-ha! Too cute.

Kevin's Mom couldn't make it to the shower but she sent several really cute gifts, including a bank she made where the guests could put their wishes for the baby inside. She sent this onesy, I'm sure our little baby boy will definitely be on Dad's team!

3 Years Ago Today...

2008-06-04T08:44:00.003-04:00

I still remember waking up that morning with butterflies in my stomach. The rain was pouring down, yet everything seemed bright. My whole family was there, along with the friends I couldn't live without. It really was the greatest feeling ever that morning, and the day only got better.

As we put on our tuxedos, I remember laughing about all the good times together. We laughed again as we posed outside the hotel with our limo driver, and again after we got to the church and the crazy videographer had us doing all these corny things. I goofed off with my brother Ed, I chuckled with TJ about the ketchup incident, Joel reminded me of the infamous Halloween Party, Kevin and I caught up on KOBI gossip, and Mike and I will never forget taking all the seats out of his car and driving around K-Town.

As Joel and I waited in that little room in the back of the church, the nerves hit me. This was it... I was getting married in a matter of minutes. Not once did I ever question it. From our "not so romantic" lunches in Medford, to our drama in Omaha... I'd known Victoria was "the one" for a very long time.

I remember smiling as those doors at the end of the church opened. My heart was racing. When I saw Victoria, she looked like an angel, my heart swelled up. I felt a tear or two trying to sneak out, but told myself, "man up... why are you crying." I still don't fully understand why such an incredible amount of happiness brings tears.

Hands trembling I repeated the vows, never once taking my eyes off of hers. I couldn't wait for the priest to pronounce us husband and wife. What an incredible hour, definitely one I will never forget.

Now, three years later, we're even happier than day one. With a baby on the way, there's something very special about this anniversary. I'm definitely looking forward to the rest of my life.

I love you Victoria.

We keep going and going....

2008-06-03T00:43:00.002-04:00

As predicted life is picking up steam as the summer months hit. Can you believe our third anniversary is this week and we have to schedule in an hour to have lunch and celebrate.
Last week was really rough. Work was crazy and then to end the week with that fire was almost too much. Rick and Stephanie are doing alright, as good as can be expected. It is hard to imagine not having any of your personal belongings. They lost their wedding rings and passports for their honeymoon and of course their pictures and memories. But I've noticed what seems even more upsetting.. is the realization when they were going shopping that they needed everything from a toothbrush to socks and underwear. Those basic necessities really seemed to hit them hard. But on a positive not, the job where Rick and I work is really coming through big time. People just started donating money. Tragedy really does bring out the best in people.
This past weekend was my first summer whirlwind weekend. I went to my best friend Allie's bridal shower in Staten Island. It was so nice but a little bittersweet. I'm technically a "bridesmaid" in the wedding, but I likely won't be attending the wedding because it's the day before my due date.
Next weekend is whirlwind weekend number two, with another trip to New York planned. We also have doctor's visits, vet visits, daycare visits, birthdays, weddings, and extra shifts at work to add to all the madness. It's enough to make you go crazy.
On a much more positive note.. I had my 7 month checkup and it went MUCH better. The doctor I saw this time was very nice and attentive. She told me that it was totally normal to be on an emotional roller coaster and that my weight gain was fine. In fact, I actually lost 2 pounds this month but she wasn't concerned as long as I don't have a repeat performance next month. Here's to 12 weeks and counting!!

Tragedy Strikes Close to Home

2008-05-30T09:10:00.002-04:00

Some sad news today. Our very good friends Rick and Stephanie lost everything they owned last night in a huge fire that destroyed their entire apartment building. This, just three weeks before they're wedding and honeymoon. Their cat, Cosmo, was inside at the time and at this point it doesn't look like he made it either.

I think it's a reality check for all of us. What would you to if you woke up tomorrow and the only thing you had left was the clothes on your back??

There's so much I want to do to help. It definitely has put things in perspective for me. Please keep Rick and Steph in your prayers.

Another house update...

2008-05-20T10:35:00.005-04:00

I kind of left everyone hanging with some of the house projects too. So here are a couple more "completed" photos:

The office and the bookshelf in the office are done. What do you think of the black??We got some really cool new patio furniture to help complete the look outside... and no, the pool is not uncovered yet. It's still freezing here.
The guest bedroom is just about done. I think we're going to change the bedding and curtains... this was just something we already had.

And finally the dining room... This is one of my favorites as far as results are concerned.

I also had to include a quick shot of the work that's been going on in the man room (which isn't much). I cut a hole in the wall under the stairs and pushed the fridge into it. Once I do some finish work, it should look like that fridge is built into the wall. Sweet!
I'm hoping to get to work on the baby's room this weekend. I'll leave the details of that project a surprise for now.

Long overdue

2008-05-20T10:26:00.002-04:00

I know these are about 6 weeks late, but I finally got around to scanning in the latest ultrasound images. Enjoy!

Pregnant Forever

2008-05-20T09:40:00.002-04:00

I feel like I have been pregnant forever! In reality, it is only 26 weeks, but it seems that there is no end in sight. Don't get me wrong, I am having a wonderful pregnancy but no one tells you that 9 months (in reality 10 months) is actually a very long time. In some respects it absolutely flies by, but then in other respects it seems like the same thing, day in, day out. I am enjoying it for the most part but I miss being able to do whatever I want, whenever I want to. For example, I get tired easily so I'm often that one suggesting we call it a night, or we go out with friends and I can't have a drink. This all seems pretty selfish and petty considering what these small sacrifices lead to, but it does seem like a very long time. It's also a very long time of people constantly equating me with my pregnancy. I appreciate all the concern, but sometimes I just want to talk about last night's t.v. show, not the baby. I'm guessing all of this is normal and I hate to gripe because I really am enjoying myself. And, I'm REALLY REALLY looking forward to meeting our little boy. He's packing quite a punch now, one of his sudden movements actually woke me up a few nights ago. I felt like I had an alien inside of me who was trying to break out. I wonder if there has ever been a baby who has hurt himself in the womb for kicking or punching too hard! Who knows!! It will be fun to finally see him, I'm getting very curious about what he looks like.

Whatchyou got in there?

2008-05-14T09:26:00.001-04:00

I have heard from plenty of women that people say the craziest things to you when your pregnant. I kept waiting for my "crazy" comment and I finally got it the other day. I was done with work and at North Station waiting to catch my train home. As has become my daily ritual I was making a run for the ladies room. As I'm heading this way I hear this guy walking beside me say, "Hey, whatchyou got in there?" I honestly did not think he was talking to me but then it dawned on my he was. I turned to him, with my hand clutching my purse and I replied, "Do you mean in my bag or in my belly?" He started to laugh and said in my belly, to which I replied "I hope it's a baby," and then I told him it's a boy. It was a very funny conversation with a complete stranger, but it goes down as my weirdest pregnancy moment.

Things have been progressing very nicely. I have been a bit of an emotional wreck and my nerves are shot. That's my only complaint. I find myself getting very grumpy and upset for no apparent reason. My goal this week is to get a handle of it, and give myself a 5 minute time out if I start getting overwhelmed.
I also got in trouble with my doctor for gaining too much weight. If you can believe this I gained 10 pounds in one month!! Yikes. I thought my doctor was a little insensitive when he told me, "I can tell you it's NOT all baby," but I am looking at it as a wake up call to make sure I'm eating healthier with plenty of fruits, vegetables and proteins. Of course, there was one month where I only gained 1 pound, so I'm hoping this is all relative.
That's the pregnancy update for now. In non-pregnancy news, Kevin and I hosted a Cinco de Mayo party that was fabulous and we went to see my mom in New Jersey (she moved, I can't say NY anymore!) for mother's day. We had a very nice brunch at my brothers. He had a brunch spread that would rival any restaurant and he did all the food on the bbq (french toast, pancakes, hash browns and eggs!) My niece is getting go big and a little mischevious and my nephew is just a smiley, big baby!!! I love getting to see them all so much now.

Baby Bump

2008-04-28T11:48:00.002-04:00

By request... Here's the "baby bump" picture as we start our 6 month of pregnancy. "Ooooh... he's gonna be a soccer player."

Mary Tyler Moore Syndrome

2008-04-28T09:31:00.002-04:00

I have been feeling exceptionally overwhelmed lately. I'm sure the new house has a lot to do with it but I think on some level I'm getting very nervous that I won't be able to balance the whole parenting thing. I would get overwhelmed like this even before I was pregnant, but now it seems there's a lot more at stake.
This all started when I decided to look at my calendar. Well pretty much I am booked up until August!! I have no idea when we're going to do the nursery, take our parenting classes and prepare for the baby. I do know everything will get done and I know I have the most supportive husband in the world who will not only make all of this happen, but make it seem effortless. I guess I just feel like I couldn't do it on my own, but perhaps we're not supposed to do it on our own. Letting go of that "Mary Tyler Moore" syndrome is perhaps the last bit of childhood that I still cling to sometimes. I always thought that I was the kind of person who could do things all by myself, but I'm realizing now more than ever that it's not supposed to be that way. Either way, it's a bit much to see that calendar and see all the day's already filled in. Part of the problem is that they're filled in with fun stuff, so I feel guilty complaining. No one is forcing me to go to showers, birthday parties, weddings etc.... I think I'm just in one of those moods that is so easy to chalk up to pregnancy hormones, but I still feel like I should be able to keep them in check. I think I just need to take a deep breath and focus on one day at a time.

Bump and Grind

2008-04-23T10:01:00.002-04:00

So I can really feel the baby moving around A LOT! It's really cool and I'm glad that I can now recognize all the little bumps along the way. As I wrote in an earlier post I was disappointed that there wasn't an "aha" moment but I have to admit now that doesn't really matter. I think one of the best things so far is that the other night the baby kicked hard enough that even Kevin could feel him. I asked Kevin if he felt that, and he said "yeah, you just hiccuped." I had to let him know that it wasn't me who hiccuped, but rather the baby moving. Very cool.

Escape Dog

2008-04-18T15:58:00.002-04:00

Apparently our little Lucy has a bit of an independent streak since we moved into our new house. So far she has escaped three times. The first time was sort of my fault. I let her into the backyard shortly after the satellite tv guy left. What I didn't realize was that he left a gate open. I was standing on the deck and all of a sudden I realized I couldn't see Lucy. I figured she was hiding under the deck and when I went to look for her I saw the gate. My heart just dropped. I ran to the front yard to find Lucy aimlessly wandering, sniffing some bushes and looking to see where the satellite TV man went. I guess she was disappointed she didn't get to jump all over him!
The second time Lucy escaped was last night, around 1:00 in the morning. I worked late and was watching some TV and I let her out to do her business. When I opened to the door and called for her she didn't come. There was absolute silence. Usually you can at least here her collar jangling. I walked down the stairs and looked all over the backyard. Still no Lucy. I started getting a little frantic, I checked out front, I checked under the deck, I even checked in the swimming pool. Still nothing and she wasn't responding to my calling for her. At that point I had no choice but to wake Kevin. He got up and went into the backyard and called her. A few second later you could hear her and then we spotted her. She crawled under a gap in a chain link fence and was in the neighbors yard. The only problem was she couldn't get back into our yard. We had to literally pull her under the fence, and luckily we were able to get her back where she should be.
The third time was today. It was gorgeous out and I felt bad leaving her cooped up so I put her on the deck and lined the deck with bags thinking she couldn't get past them. Of course I was wrong and 10 minutes later when I looked out she was in the neighbors yard again. This time Kevin was at work so I had a little trouble getting her back under the fence myself, but I managed. The whole experience has just left me worried. I can't help thinking about how much more my heart will drop when I'm talking about our baby instead of our dog!

Special Delivery: Furniture and Lobster

2008-04-14T09:04:00.006-04:00

Once again, thanks to the help our awesome friends and Vic's mom, we're all moved in. Unpacking is another story...

The move was interesting. Our friends Rick and Stephanie we're moving to Peabody, so I decided it would be a good idea to do both moves at once. We had friends coming to help, so lets just use one of their weekend days. Well, it turned out to be a bit more work than I think anyone planned on.

Rick and I loaded up the first load Friday night after I got off work. We worked until about 10 o'clock, ate some dinner then went to bed. We got up at 6 the next morning to make the first trip, and Rick and I unloaded the truck and headed back to Cambridge for the second and final load there.

The forecast for the day was heavy rain in the morning, and overcast for the rest of the day with some sprinkles. Well... this would have been a tough one to predict. At about 10am, the sun came out the skies were clear and it felt like we were around 55 degrees. Beautiful moving weather. We unloaded the last truck full at Rick's new place and then it was off to mine.

Wouldn't you know, before long those clouds rolled back in and the skies opened up in a big way. We had lightning, thunder, and intermittent downpours for the rest of the day (we worked until about 10pm again). But I have to say, all our helpers were incredible. No one complained, they all just jumped in and worked all day long. HUGE!

Oh yeah... we moved all this stuff in a lobster truck. That's right, a lobster truck. The father of a girl I work with owns a catering business and has a big box truck that he wasn't using. He said we could use it and bring it back Sunday. Free truck, sweet! Well, there's a giant red lobster painted on the side which got us a lot of attention. Rick's new neighbor even asked, "Are you guys delivering furniture or lobster?"

All in all everything worked out. We're all tired and sore, but we're both moved in and will soon get life back to normal.

Thanks everyone!

Painting Perfection

2008-04-07T10:04:00.004-04:00

Wow! A huge thank you to Rick, Enza, Paco, Nick and Brad!! They all gave up a Saturday to come help me paint the new house, and it looks fabulous! We finished the entire house in just over 8 hours. You can check out the entire progress through my photo site, but here's some before and after pics:

Skewers and an Ice Cream Scoop

2008-04-07T09:19:00.003-04:00

Kevin and I have been hard at work on the new house. We're so lucky to be getting so much help from friends and family - we couldn't do this without them. When you have a big move like this you tend to try and cram housework into every waking free moment.

Well one night we had about 2 hours free in the evening, not a lot of time but Kevin figured he could work on a drywall project while I finished cleaning the kitchen cabinets. When I got home from work we hopped in the car and our first order of business was, of course, dinner.

We decided to try the chinese food restaurant down the block from us. I ordered Chicken and Broccoli, fried rice and an egg roll, Kevin got General's Chicken, fried rice and an eggroll. It smelled great and we were famished. We drove the two blocks to get home and sat down at the one clear patch of counter we could find and we got ready to dig in.

We pulled the food out and all of a sudden Kevin looked at me, and he had that "uh oh" expression in his eyes. He said, "Gee, I hope they included utensils." OOPS! They of course didn't, so we went scavaging.

We had a few boxes there that we had packed. Kevin opened one and came out with an ice cream scoop and a bag of thin, wooden skewers. We figured that would have to work so we tried using the skewers like chopsticks. That didn't work out quite so well, but we were able to spear our food.

Needless to say it was a memorable meal, and some much needed comic relief for all the hard work we were doing!

We're Home Owners!

2008-03-31T11:17:00.007-04:00

So we closed on our new home Friday!! Super exciting. We, of course, went right to work.

Victoria cleaned the kitchen cabinets and installed shelf liner. I ripped out a couple of cabinets...

Painted the ceilings...

And with the help of my good friend Rick, primed all the walls downstairs...

I'm hoping that through the week I can get the priming finished upstairs, so that next weekend the real painting can begin.

I'm in heaven right now :)

Baby Update

2008-03-31T11:15:00.002-04:00

Just a quick update... Vic and I had our "half way" ultrasound on Friday... it's a boy!!!

I've got some shots of the ultrasound that I'll post later this week. But everything is looking great so far, and Victoria is feeling great.

It's a......

2008-03-31T09:57:00.003-04:00

BOY!!!! Yes, Karen and Kristen, you're both right! Actually Kevin and I really thought it was going to be a boy as well. In the words of the ultra-sound technician, "there's no doubt about this one!." To which my husband replied, "well he is my son!" I'm sure ultra-sound technicians the world over never get tired of hearing that one!!!!! The ultrasound went great. We'll be posting some new pictures. He's about the size of a coke can right now and he really likes to dance around - Kevin says he has his moves! He was all kicking and waving his arms around.
I think I'm starting to feel him moving around. It's been happening for almost two weeks now and at first I wasn't sure what was going on. I actually thought it was just indigestion! The movements are very faint and the only way I can really describe it is as a fluttering, almost like your stomach goes upside down for a second. They last for a little while and then go away. Sometimes a few days will pass before I feel anything but then it's the same type of thing. I have to admit I was a little disappointed. I really expected the first movements to be this Zen moment that I would remember for the rest of my life. You know, I pictured I'd be sitting at work and just jump at the realization that a little someone was kicking me from the inside. Perhaps it evolves into that but at the beginning it's more like a "was that or wasn't that" situation. Either way, it's still very cool.

My big break (that wasn't)

2008-03-27T10:19:00.002-04:00

So I was asked to be in a movie. I received an email from a casting agent who wanted me to read for a part in an upcoming Bruce Willis film that's being made locally. It was for a small part, either a nurse or a lawyer but still it sounded very cool. Here's the catch, my current job does not allow me to be in any productions (even as an extra). So my hollywood career has ended even before it started.

Half Way Point

2008-03-26T09:26:00.003-04:00

Well here I am at the start of my 20th week. I can't believe I'm at the halfway point of the pregnancy. What's even crazier is that I hardly even feel pregnant yet! This is a really big week for Kevin and I. Friday we close on our house and then Friday afternoon we go in for our ultra-sound where we can potentially find out the sex of the baby. I had a dream last night (not a nightmare - thank god!) that Kevin was trying to convince me we were having a boy. We really don't have a preference one way of the other if we have a boy or a girl. We just want a healthy baby!
As for me, I'm feeling good. I'm still recovering from my cold. It's mostly just congestion right now and my voice seems to be coming and going. The pregnancy is going great! I did seem to be "back to my normal self " meaning normal hunger and relatively normal levels of exhaustion, but I think the baby is going through a growth spurt. I know when baby's are born they always say if they're very hungry they're going through a growth spurt so I wonder if the same could be said while the baby is still in the womb. All that I know is this week there doesn't seem to be enough food out there! I'll eat a normal meal, feel full, and then about an hour or so later feel very hungry again. It's tough with my job because eating "right" isn't always an option. Other than that there really isn't too much to complain about. I am starting to look pregnant. Lasagna belly is slowly becoming baby bump. We'll have to take a picture and post it!

Celebrity sighting...

2008-03-24T12:03:00.002-04:00

So I was hanging out with my buddy Tom Hanks the other day, and we ran into this gorgeous reporter from Boston!

Vegas Baby, and the sniffles

2008-03-20T09:20:00.002-04:00

So Kevin is letting it all hang out in Vegas this week. He flew out Wednesday morning for a bachelor party. Neither of us have ever been to Vegas before and while I have to admit I'm a little jealous that he gets to go, I'm also very excited for him. A lot of people have asked me if I mind my husband going to Vegas for a bachelor party, and the honest truth is I don't. I think they're mostly going to spend their days watching the NCAA basketball tournament and then their nights will probably be at the casinos. I'm sure they'll go out to the clubs a little bit, but I think it's healthy in any relationship for each partner to feel free to at least go out and have a good time on their own. There's definitely a strong element of trust.
As for me, things are good. I unfortunately am sick and as a pregnant woman there really isn't too much medicine I can take. I took yesterday off from work and slept. I really didn't want to take the day off but the way maternity leave works you're better off not using as much of your sick time as possible and saving it for when the baby is born. But, on the flip side I knew that if I didn't rest yesterday it could mean that I would get even more sick. So here I am, at work, trudging through one nasty cold. Oh well!! At least it's almost the weekend.

Pregnancy Dreams...

2008-03-11T09:38:00.003-04:00

So I've heard from other women that your dreams get really vivid during pregnancy (thanks Karen, for all the advice!) Well, I've definitely been experiencing this. The only problem is that the dreams are more like nightmares.
The first dream I had last week. I dreamed Kevin and I were on a cruise again, and we had our dog Lucy with us. We were approaching our final port when the captain anounced the ship was sinking. In our panic to get off the boat (which we successfully did) I forgot to get Lucy out of our cabin and she didn't make it. Needless to say I woke up crying and I couldn't help thinking Lucy symbolized our child and the whole dream was about my fears that I will fail this child. I'm sure these thoughts are normal for any parent-to-be but the dream really troubled me.
Then last night I had another dream. This time in my dream I woke up to realize that I was in labor. The only problem was that I was only 4 months along in the pregnancy. We went to the hospital and they kept making us fill out forms. I remember feeling a lot of pain during the labor process and the doctor trying to stop the labor because it was too early. Again, a dream that I'm sure is related to my own fears about the labor. In fact the worst part of the dream wasn't the fear of giving birth too early, but rather the pain that was associated with the labor.
I guess I should get used to these dreams, but I'm hoping for some happier dreams soon!

I hate Uncle Sam

2008-03-10T14:14:00.002-04:00

Tom Hanks

2008-03-09T16:37:00.002-04:00

I never write about famous people I get to meet but I do have to say I was a little star struck when I met Tom Hanks this week. He really is one of my favorite actors and I respect the work that he does. He was in Boston premiering his latest work John Adams, a 7 part HBO mini-series based on the book by David McCullough. I have not read the book but after reading the synopsis of the movie I plan to. I have to say that Tom Hanks seemed to genuinely be enjoying himself on the red carpet. I don't know if it's that he is that genuine, or if he's just that excited about his latest project, or perhaps he really is just that good of an actor! Either way he was all smiles, cracking jokes and taking time out to shake everyone's hand and say hello. I was overly impressed when some woman went up to him to ask for his autograph and proceeded to tell him all about the book John Adams. Obviously he knows what the book is about, but he just smiled and said something nice and signed his name. It was pretty cool. The first two parts of the mini series air on HBO on Sunday, March 16th!

Home Inspection

2008-03-04T11:38:00.001-05:00

We had the dreaded home inspection on Monday... it was fine. No major concerns other than the detached garage, which we already knew about. If you'd like to see more pictures of the house click here!

More Big News

2008-02-28T11:45:00.004-05:00

Well, the hits just keep on coming! It looks like we'll be home owners (again) soon. Last weekend we went to an open house about two miles from where we're living now, and absolutely fell in love with a cute little cape on a dead end street.

The house is perfect for us. Three bedrooms, two baths, two car garage, fenced back yard for Lucy, and some real character. Not to mention with the market the way it is right now, the price was right.

We have our home inspection on Monday, and then we're off to the bank for financing. If you have any advice, feel free to leave it here.

Also, you'll notice some rooms need painting. I'd like to thank Dave and Kristen for volunteering to come up from Florida and take care of all the painting for us... they're professionals. :)

First Look

2008-02-25T12:01:00.005-05:00

So we had our first ultrasound on Friday, and for the very first time got to see our little baby. It's still too early to determine the sex of the kid, but the images are pretty amazing. It looks like my little sister may finally have some competition in the thumb sucking arena.

One Size Fits All

2008-02-18T09:24:00.002-05:00

So I did, I went out this weekend and bought the first round of maternity clothes. I don't fully need them yet, but I'm close. The problem I'm having is that most of my current clothes are extermely tight and uncomfortable but most of the maternity clothes are still too big. I'm sure in another week or two it won't even be a dilemna anymore.
We went to 3 different stores, Target, Kohl's and Macy's. At Target I got a cute pair of jeans and a pair of light grey pants. The jeans are very cute and extremely comfortable. I have never tried on jeans before and found them comfortable so I'm pretty sure I'll be wearing maternity pants for the rest of my life.
At Kohl's we got a pair of black striped pants and a pair of black capris. I know summer is still a long way off, but the Capri's were only 3 dollars, how can you go wrong?
At Macy's we had the most luck. We found an incredibly helpful saleslady (which for Macy's is a feat!) and I ended up with 3 pairs of black pants, a pair of brown pants and a pair of jeans. I also got a cute top that Kevin really liked. Here's the crazy thing, the pants were all $25 or less. I have always heard how expensive maternity clothes were but I was very impressed with the prices. Macy's was the most reasonable, Kohl's was actually the most expensive. The black striped pants at Kohl's were originally $40, on sale for $25, but the pants at Macy's weren't on sale, they were originally priced at $25. Guess where I'll be going back!
I wore the Target jeans yesterday and while they were comfortable they were still too big so they kept falling down. Today, I'm wearing a pair of the black macy's pants and so far so good. I figure I'll get a few more weeks out of my shirts and then I'll have to go on another shopping spree.