Affirmation Of Smarts

My sister graduated from the University this past Saturday morning with a B.S. degree in Health Professions. I'm SO proud of her! She now wants a nursing degree, so she'll start more college classes next Monday. It's hard to believe that she's made it this far in her schooling...and that she wants to do MORE! I remember 7 years graduating from college...going back was the last thing I wanted to do.

Her open house was later that afternoon, and it was so nice to see pretty much all of my extended family again. (Yes, she wore her mortar board ALL afternoon! We convinced her to take it off at the restaurant later that evening.)

Congratulations!!

Having Fun!

W and I are sure having a great time at Grandpa and Grandma's house! The trip out here was a red-eye flight that went fairly well. After 45 minutes in the plane W finally settled down to sleep. It was a 4+ hour flight to CLE airport, then we had a 2.5 hour layover, then the flight to GRR. I was exhausted when we arrived, but very happy to see my folks and siblings again. Uncle Terry will be driving in from Chicago tonight for Lynnelle's graduation tomorrow morning.

The weather has been a tad brisk, but William doesn't seem to care. Grandma hauled out the toy lawn mower and riding tractor for him and he's been having maximum fun ever since! Today, however, it is sunny and about 80 degrees...a far cry from the 40 degrees just yesterday!

Tonight is a concert that Mom and I are going to go to, and Dad is going to take William to Jared's indoor soccer game. I'm sure he's going to have tons of fun there...and I'm going to relax at a concert! Yes!

I've taken a few pictures and will post soon.

Happy Easter!

I think we may have started a new family tradition - Easter egg hunting!



Well, it wasn't really a "hunt" per se, as all the eggs were out in the open, but it was probably a good thing, as William wasn't really sure why he was supposed to be picking them up. He just picked them up because Mom said to. He's really obedient like that.

Ah hem...ah yes...where was I?

Oh yes, the egg hunt. It was held at a local park, and the kids were divided up by ages. Good thing, too, because William was really slow at picking them up. But hey, I think that even though he really didn't get many eggs, he still had fun. And now I get to eat them!


Happy Easter!

Here Birdie, Birdie

We've been busy! After tubby time I promised W we'd go outside and play with his bubbles and lawnmower. He was ecstatic that I actually let him play with his toys instead of putting him in the car seat to go bye bye. He found a lizard on the porch that he was amazed with, then a mama bird and a little bird that either couldn't fly well or was just learning to fly. He chased those birds up and down the street! The mama bird didn't fly very far because she didn't want to leave her baby behind, so she was chirping like crazy at W to leave them alone! He thought the whole thing was a game and kept pointing and laughing and asking what it was. It reminded me of a book my mom read to us as kids where the characters were animals and the animals would be thinking things like "I wish the humans would just go away and let us live in peace". After awhile the mama bird's incessant chirping alerted other birds, who decided to join her in her mission of scaring away my son. We were soon surrounded by little birds, all trying to protect the baby bird, who was in the middle of the road, being chased down. (Diagram THAT!) I did eventually have pity on the birds, and pointed W in another direction, away from our feathery friends. It was cute, though, since this is sort of the first time he's noticed the birds and paid them any mind.

19 Weeks

Here's my "belly shot" at 19 weeks. Almost half way done!! Hard to believe it's gone by so fast. My pregnancy with William just seemed to drag by. Course I'm not to the uncomfortable phase quite yet...

China In Made, Obviously

What!?!Yes, obviously!

Patch Day 1

This morning we decided to start patching William's left eye. The patches came in yesterday's mail, but since it was such a busy day yesterday we waited until today to start them. I still am in a bit of shock, since I was expecting him to HATE wearing it, but he doesn't. He fussed a little when I put it on, but after I gave him milk he was completely fine. Unbelievable. He didn't tug or pull at it in the least. Neither of us made a big deal out of it, so neither did he. The only thing that he doesn't like is that he now bangs into things a LOT more. He's already nailed the side of the table, the vanity in his bathroom, and since he does a lot of running he sometimes doesn't navigate the corners too well. We've had a lot of tears this morning from him banging into things, but not from actually wearing the eye patch. I'm sure he'll start to accommodate for the patch soon enough.

I have to admit...he does look rather cute with it on! :-)

It's A Girl!

We had our ultrasound this morning and found out we're having a little girl! I'm so excited to be having a daughter, although another boy would have been just as wonderful. We're very thankful that the ultrasound showed no abnormalities - she looks perfect!

This picture is a 2D picture.


This picture is a 3D shot, although since I was having a contraction at the time the picture is a little blurry. That was really strange...I could feel a Braxton-Hicks contraction and could SEE it on the screen! Poor thing was getting squashed!

Since all looks good I won't be seeing the perinatologist again (at least for this pregnancy!). It seems like these days doctors are all about lots of ultrasounds, blood tests, etc. than they were say, 10-15 years ago. Every time I turn around I'm being offered another blood screening test. I simply don't know why I need to get them all done, since there really isn't anything that can be done, should a test come back positive for Down Syndrome or anything else. That being said, I did turn down the latest "required" blood test - an AFP test. I didn't make a big deal out of not getting it, since both my doctors were really pressuring me to get it done. Oh well...I'm sure over it!

New Sleeper

Our new sleeper sofa arrived today! It took a LOT of planning the existing furniture, lots of graph paper (for hubby, definitely not me!), and measuring to figure this out, but we made a couch fit in our little downstairs room. It's a sleeper couch, so we're hoping that when company comes over to sleep we'll be able to fold up the couch/sleeper part in the morning and still have some "living area" down there. Before we always used an aerobed, which slept pretty well, but was really inconvenient to deflate every morning...so we didn't. We really wanted a couch down there anyway, so we could enjoy the fireplace, read, or do whatever and still have a place to sit.


Photo taken from on top of the first stair landing.