Math Dojo

Happy New Year

2012-01-03T17:22:00.002-06:00

2012. It just keeps getting more futuristic sounding. But is it "twenty-twelve" or "two thousand twelve"?

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-28T13:22:00.003-06:00

I've had one of my two Christmases so far. Today we are going to open gifts with Rhonda and Shannon's family. :) Good times!

Sunday was Christmas at Mom's. We had a great time. Nice relaxing day with some good food and good laughs. Keagan is at a fun age. Although, she had two too many presents and just didn't want to open them. So, they are at Mom's. We'll go back for New Years and try again.

Crack

2011-10-20T10:36:00.000-05:00

My old calculus teacher at GCCC, Mrs. Crummet, used to have crackly joints. She'd teach at the white board and her ankles (?) would crack when we moved around.

Well, today, while teaching math at GCCC, I was walking around and my knee cracked. I immediately smiled and thought of my old teacher. :)

GC3

2011-09-28T23:21:00.001-05:00

It's been just over 2 months since we packed our first truck of belongings from Tulsa and moved to Garden. My first semester as a GCCC instructor is just about half way over already (C R Azy). It's been good. We still have a good deal of boxed items. It's been a challenge fitting all of our stuff into a house that already has all of what it needs. But it's working, everyone has been a big help in getting things as they currently are.

It's nice to live by family. We get to see Rhonda or Gary at least once a week. And Keagan gets to spend time with her second cousin (?) every few weeks too.

Etsy is going well still. It keeps me busy, in case prepping for two courses and teaching 18 hours a week isn't enough. But it's all good. We are happy and enjoying life.

Keagan has four molars, and has for about 2 weeks now. Her hair is getting long enough to get stuck under the neck of her shirt when we dress her. :) She will attempt to repeat words (finally), although it is usually just the first sound or two in a word. But it'll get there.

Repeating

2011-07-16T22:16:00.002-05:00

Keagan started to repeat things we do and sometimes say. When Maria was here a few weeks back we even caught it on video:

Back to where We started

2011-06-28T22:35:00.001-05:00

Shannon and I are moving back to the town we met it, Garden City. :) Most of you know already, and in case you don't, I took a job at GCCC as a full-time mathematics teacher starting this fall. :D

A Picture for You

2011-06-14T12:29:00.001-05:00

Taking a Break

2011-06-11T23:41:00.002-05:00

Etsy has been crazy busy this past month. There was one day I sold a ton, like 35 orders, most of which were for multiple items. :)

So, I'm pretty much caught up. I'm just working on orders from the past 3 days. Not to bad at all.

In other news (ie Keagan), she has 7 teeth (4 top, 3 bottom). Her bangs are quite long, but I don't wanna cut them, and they don't seem to bother her, so we are just letting them grow. :)

She walks great, and almost runs sometimes. She has recently been doing a lot of clap-walking. She opens her arms wide, then claps, and opens and claps, over and over as she walks. Pretty cute. It's like she's saying "I'm just chill with life."

She only says "moa, moa" for more, "this", and "ba, ba, baa" for book. Some other sounds that sometimes sound and match with banana, diaper, dog, and dad. But that's basically it.

I don't have room on my computer for pictures, I need to get a hard drive. Maybe this week...

Sorry about the Picture Tease

2011-04-11T17:18:00.003-05:00

For some reason my new phone won't send pics to blogger. So they just came up as a bunch of boxes (for me at least).

Here is what I meant to show you....

My 11lb nephew, Aliyasun Charles!

And one of Keagan, on the quilt I made him.

Playing Tacos

2011-03-27T00:27:00.004-05:00

Things have been going pretty good lately. Etsy is still doing well. I am working on an order of 19 plushies for Facebook now. :) Sweet huh!

Keagan is "walking." She doesn't really get very far yet, but she can travel about 1.5 feet. It's pretty cute. See?

She also started clapping today. We have it on video, but I haven't uploaded them yet. My computer is old and running out of room, so I'll have to fix that first.

Also, she spent the last two nights sleeping in her crib in her room instead of in the crib in our bedroom. It's MUCH further away, but she is more comfortable and slep through the night both nights, 9-10 hours. It's pretty sweet.

Keagan and Cassidy watching horses.

10 Months

2011-03-21T00:34:00.001-05:00

Keagan turned 10 months old Saturday. :) How cute.

She stands a lot. Has even taken a few steps, but maxes out at 3, usually 1.5.

She points at things.

She kind of says "more" but its more like mama then more.

Keagan Pic!

2011-03-02T02:34:00.001-06:00

She's a cutie with 4 teeth and working on some molars.

Happy Vappy Day!

2011-02-12T12:23:00.002-06:00

More Krispy Kreme's! Those doughnuts are actually good. :)

And cute Keagan! Hope you had a happy Valentine's Day!

Look Ma! No Hands!

2011-01-23T20:10:00.004-06:00

Keagan has taken to standing lately. I mean just on her own. She gets into a standing position while leaning on something, like me or Shannon, a box, couch, etc. Then just lets go and stands on her own for anywhere from 2-20 seconds. It's quite impressive. :)

She enjoys celery. Recently, tearing it to shreds in about 1 minute with her two little teeth.

And Parmesan chunk flavor didn't seem to bother her either.

January, the Slow Month?

2011-01-12T14:22:00.007-06:00

So, things calmed down a bit in Etsy land after Christmas. But I'm still selling about 2 items every 3 days, so plenty to do.

But an update on life outside of Etsy!

We spent Christmas in Garden, with a short Wichita Christmas on Christmas Eve morning. Keagan looked adorable in the dresses Mom bought her.

She and Cassidy had a swell time playing with boxes,

with corn, and with other random things,

including each other.

They even had a "sleep over" with Aunt Michelle.

We spent New Years in Wichita.

We watched K-State sadly lose the Pinstripe Bowl on the 30th (that was a crummy games, the refs sucked as did the field) with Andy, then we went to Cirque Du Soleil on New Years Eve. That was pretty neat. Not as good at Trans Siberian, but fun.

We partied with sick babies over New Years and just had a nice time with family.

Keagan has two bottom teeth, one cut before Christmas, the other about 3 days after Christmas. It's hard to see them though, that tongue likes to get in the way.

Old Things

2010-12-26T00:06:00.002-06:00

This is a crazy old cookie jar in Grandma Fuller's house. Thought it was worth a share/reminder.

Etsy and Crawling and Eating and...

2010-12-21T11:47:00.006-06:00

There are three major things that have been going on. One is Etsy.

That has pretty much taken up ALL of my time since 3 days after Thanksgiving. I've been sewing, embroidering, stuffing, cutting, soldering, foiling, mailing, and just doing stuff for Nausicaa Distribution almost non-stop. I've had about 5 nights of being up until 5am since then. And the rest the earliest I've gone to bed is midnight, but that only has happened about 3 times. Usually I'm up until about 2 or 3 am making things while Keagan and Shannon sleep. It's been crazy busy, but so awesome! Since 11/28/10, when things started getting busy, I've sold 204 items. Yes, 204. That means that over a span of 23 days I averaged 8.9 items a day. That is crazy! :)

During that time I've also been on the front page of Etsy (sweet), posted about on GeekMom, and featured in the ASA Holiday 2010 Gift Guide (super sweet!).

Okay, but on to things not Etsy (which doesn't happen much). Keagan. How's she been? Great! Since Thanksgiving she's totally mastered crawling. At Thanksgiving, she could rock like a pro. This video is from 1 week before Thanksgiving.

Now, well, she crawls like crazy. She goes from room to room, over carpet, tile, blocks, dad, anything in her way, if she see something she wants. She started to crawl about 1 week after Thanksgiving and has just gotten continually better. Yesterday she even balanced herself from crawl to a lean to a stand, for about .5 seconds she stood. :)

We've also been feeding her more foods. Instead of her reaction being *gag* its now *eat*. Much better.

Gag...

Eat...

And... the fourth thing... Keagan is getting teeth! You can feel two little fellas on the bottom and almost see white. :) She's been pretty good about it. A lot of chewing and drooling and fussing and waking up during the night. But she's been pretty happy still.

HOLIDAYS!! are coming.

2010-12-12T11:50:00.003-06:00

So, I've been super busy lately. But I'm not dead. :) Here is some Christmasy cocoa in a sweet mug from the grandparents in Lakewood and a banana browned butter muffin. Mmm. :)

Back from the 'Stan

2010-11-16T10:40:00.007-06:00

Aaron, a friend from college, joined the Army a few years back and has been in Hawaii and now in Afghanistan. We didn't get to see him before he left, we had just had Keagan and timing wasn't working. But last Wednesday we got news that he'd be in Manhattan for the weekend. So Shannon and I decided to go see him!

So we did. We went to Manhattan and hung out with Aaron, Jenette, Chris, Michelle, and Cassidy and also got to see Newgen and Kerri. It was a nice time.

Aaron bought Rock Band 3 and a Keyboard. So we played that lots on Saturday.

Keagan and Cassidy "played" too.

It's fun to see how Keagan and Cassidy are becoming unique people now. They look less alike and have different voices and different actions. It's pretty neat. One thing that happened lots was one would sleep and the other would be awake. Then they'd switch.

We went and did a geocache at the St. George cemetery at 9:30 Saturday night. It was cold and probably kind of odd for others to see 8 adults and 2 babies wandering around a cemetery. But we found the box and then went back to Jenette's for warm drinks.

On Sunday, Michelle and Jenette played with Cassidy and Keagan. They ate letters by the refrigerator together and took a bath. :)

They are just adorable. I love seeing them hang out together! And in 5 months, Jayme will have a little boy to add to Keagan's cousin mix!

We did some more chilling Sunday, and eventually we headed back home. I had a really good time and I'm glad we went. I just wish it was a shorter drive!

Thanks to Michelle for the pictures. I never take enough. :)

1 Week Shy of 6 Months

2010-11-12T09:36:00.006-06:00

I haven't just posted about Keagan recently. So I'll do that now. (And Etsy is still going well.)

She's great. (still.) She can roll over from front to back and back to front. She sits very well, and can almost move herself into a sitting position from laying down. She tries to stand herself up using things (laundry basket, box of blocks, etc.). She says "aaahh" a lot and when there are toys in her mouth she says "bababla" and other such sounds.

She likes getting snot sucked out of her nose. She uses her hands well, but sometimes she actually sees them. It's cute, she stops and just turns them around and moves her fingers. She may be teething. But still no teeth.

She get all jumpy/swimmy when she gets excited. This happens mainly when Shannon comes home or when she sees me.

She's a pleasure in the mornings. All chatty and cute. I love it.

She occasionally puts herself to sleep. Usually in a weird/cute position.

She likes her high chair. We can't use the Bumbo seat for her anymore. She requires constant attention in it because she almost gets out.

Happy Halloween, last week...

2010-11-04T13:05:00.003-05:00

I haven't gone trick-or-treating since about 10 years ago. Between hockey, game night, and growing up, I've not gone in a while. Well, this year I went! I didn't actually get candy, but I got dressed up with the family and we all walked around while Nikki and her friend got candy. It was great fun and I'm really glad we all did it.

Shannon and I were in Wichita for the weekend, Jayme played with the Wichita Symphony Orchestra (cool!). Shannon, Mom, Sandra, Charles, Nikki, and I went on Saturday night. Rhonda watched Keagan at Mom's house while we went. It was pretty good. I haven't been to a show like that before. I'm glad I got to go, and even glader that my little sister played in it.

For Halloween, Mom broke out her boxes of costumes from over the last 15+ years. She's still got so much! My mutant Rainbow Brite costume is there (I made in 1996), the hood from the radioactive green squirrel (I made in 1998), and dance costumes, and more! Mom wore her renaissance dress, Jayme dressed as a witch.

Shannon, Keagan, and I wore pirate gear.

Charles dressed as an out of work fairy. He wore random parts we found (zombie shirt, silver pants, and fairy wings).

Nikki was Clifford the big red dog. Jayme made her a cute costume and painted her face. It was fun to walk around.

One of Mom's neighbors goes all out for Halloween. Music, lights, decorations, the works. It's pretty cool.

A Visit from Family

2010-10-26T12:00:00.005-05:00

My grandpa and Aunt Diana came from NJ to meet Keagan. It was a great time! We did a lot of hanging out at the house, and eating too. :)

Mom came in Wednesday, Aunt Diana and Grandpa came in Thursday, then Maria, Jayme, Charles, and Nikki came in Friday. It was nice to see everyone and have Keagan get to meet Grandpa and Aunt Diana. Keagan was rather good the entire time. All smily and loving Nikki.

We went to a "pumpkin patch" Saturday.

They sold ridiculuously expensive pumpkins. They went up to 25$ for a large one. But we wanted to carve, so we went to Walmart and got huge ones for 3$ each. Yes, 3$ each.

We were gonna go to Livesay Orchards, about 1 hour away. But it was rainy and 1 hour away. We didn't figure it would be worth the drive. This place is less than 1 mile from out house.

Everyone still seemed to enjoy themselves. And we got a bunch of cute pictures.

That night we had chili and carved the pumpkins. It was fun. Aunt Diana said she hadn't carved before. Below are the finished products. Shannon carved a Halloween Powercat, I carved a normal distribution. Mom carved a witch, Jayme a crazy face. Maria made a snowboarder, and Aunt Diana a girly face.

My mom bought Grandpa a netbook for his birthday. We were worried he'd not like it at all. But quite the opposite! He loved it! The goal is to get him wireless at his house and then he can Skype with us and see us. So, hopefully that all works out.

Sunday Aunt Diana and Grandpa left in the morning, then Maria in the afternoon. We went to Hunter Park and Pei Wei before Jayme, Charles, and Nikki left in the evening.

Mom left Monday afternoon. Now it's back to just the 3 of us. I had an awesome weekend! It was so great to see family! And for my birthday, too!

:)

2010-10-23T00:00:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday to me! I'm a happy and lucky person. :)

Keagan Talks! Sorta.

2010-10-17T16:47:00.001-05:00

She can also sit up all by her self. :)

Yard Work

2010-10-13T14:29:00.006-05:00

Last weekend we invited my mom down. To help us with yard work. :) We got so much done! I didn't remember to take before pictures, but Shannon took some during pictures. Above my mom and I were trimming hedges and weeding. In the front we trimmed all the trees, flowers, hedges and wedded all the landscaping. The lawn was mowed and edged and we laid new wood chips out. We also painted our house numbers black and put up a new doorbell button. On the side of the house, we mended the gate and the fence and weeded along the house.

Keagan spent some time with us on the front stoop while we worked. She was very good (and cute).

In the back yard we weeded both corners and trimmed down the trees and bushes there. It looks so much cleaner.

We also put of the sunflower from Grandpa on the south side of the house.

It was a good weekend. Got lots done. Now when Aunt Diana and Grandpa come next week the outside of the house will look much better. I just need to find some time to clean up inside. :)

Ren Fest 2010

2010-10-06T15:08:00.009-05:00

This past weekend Shannon, Keagan, and I visited Jenette, Chris, Cassidy, and Michelle in Manhattan. Rhonda came up too. It was a fun time on Saturday. We went to Cox! They used to be the best bbq in Manhattan, their BBQ nachos were my favorite!

They left a few years back (looks like in 2005). And this summer they returned! So I was excited to go. It wasn't bad. I got bbq nachos again. They are basically as I remember them. Which is good.

But Billy Simms on Peoria her in Tulsa is still better. Their meats are amazing!

After that we traveled to Wamego for an hour of K-State Tap Ensemble, of which Michelle is a member.

It was an outdoor show.

The main attraction last weekend though, was the KC Ren Fest. We left Sunday and spent just about all day there. Mom and Maria joined us, too. Mom had been looking at houses with Maria in KC the day before. She's looking to buy! How fun.

So here are some pictures of our day.

Jenette and Chris got a tandem stroller for 15$ at a rummage sale. Sweet. So, they decorated it up to be a pirate ship for Cassidy and Keagan. It worked really well and got compliments. :)

Maria brought Hendrix with. He was pretty good. People like him, so even though he's still all pull-y on his leash, it was ok.

Here's our clan split in 2, minus Chris for some reason.

The grandma's and the granddaughters.

Chris and Shannon look Cassidy and Keagan to the petting zoo. Both babies just chewed on their costume the entire time in there.

Just a funny picture.

The two of them got along pretty well. There was some times when they just burped at each other.

Un gluu.

2010-10-01T17:34:00.003-05:00

Keagan makes all sorts of sounds when she's in the mood. Such as this:

It may appear cute, but it gets old pretty quick. And it's quite hard to get her to stay quiet. I don't think she fully understands yet. :) She also makes "g" sounds and "gl" sounds. Its pretty cute.

Bring on the Ren Fest!

2010-09-24T17:22:00.006-05:00

In a week that is.

I've been working on hats and shirts for Keagan and Cassidy. Not all of my attempts have been close.

But I've got down the patterns and I've got the shirts almost done and hats half cut out. :) Here she is practicing a pirate face (how horrible!) in one of the pre-hats.

I also made Keagan and crinkle toy shaped like a normal distribution.

I'd also like to point out Shannon's shirt in this picture. :)

And she just got her 4 month shots! Woo hoo! Way to celebrate the 4 month mark. :) She was pretty good with them. Cried for about 2 minutes, then calmed down and fell asleep. What a wonderful child. How lucky we are.

Football Season Begins

2010-09-10T17:12:00.004-05:00

Well, college started already, and K-State had a good win. And actually, NFL started last night, too. So Football Season is underway! Awesome!

Last weekend, we had a visit from Jenette, Chris, and Cassidy. That was fun. They spent the long weekend with us playing Necromunda, eating sushi, and hanging out.

We watched the K-State game on Saturday. Cassidy and Keagan (as well as the 4 adults) dressed in purple gear. It was quite cute.

We started a new Necromunda campaign, and played 10 games.

We played Wasabi, ate some sushi, ate some Siegi sausages, and split up the Just Between Friends sale clothing.

Keagan plays with her feet lots. She can get them to her mouth now, too. It's pretty cute. Sometimes she is able to roll her self onto her back in the morning and then she just plays with her feet, allowing us to sleep a little longer.

I've been doing Etsy stuff. I have about 1 sale every 2-3 days. Keagan has been getting extra upset at night again. She seems like her gums hurt, or her tummy sometimes. But she's been great still. What a cutie. She's good in her car seat, which makes trips to join Shannon for lunch even better.

Too Tired

2010-09-01T23:52:00.003-05:00

I'm too tired now to find pictures. But here is some updates.

You know Keagan uses her hands. I mentioned that last time.

Well, she now basically rolls over too. On Friday the 27th she rolled over very slowly from back to front once. Then Sunday the 29th she did it again. And since then she's done it multiple times every day. Gotten pretty good. She will turn her head as much as she possibly can and then her body eventually follows. It's kinda odd. She can kinda roll from front to back, she pushes off with her feet, but her arms usually stop her.

She also plays with her feet like mad-crazy and can almost get them to her mouth. That's where everything goes.

She drools ALL THE TIME! She makes such a mess of things.

No laughing yet, but she's gotten close a few times.

Hands and Splashes

2010-08-26T08:41:00.005-05:00

Last weekend my mom came down and spent some time with us. Also during that time, Keagan had her first official bath with splashing. She had a jolly time. Smiling and splashing around. It was quite cute.

Keagan also uses her hands now. Around the 15th, she would slowly move her hands toward objects, sometimes getting them, sometimes not. Then if she did get it, she'd try to put it in her mouth, but usually miss and get it in her eye. Since then, she's pounced on objects. She'll go real slow, then all of a sudden jerk both hands towards the object, almost always hitting it. And then she could move things to her mouth just about every time. But around last Friday she starting being successful in grasping something in front of her and then getting it to her mouth. Now she will even grasp for things not in front of her. She gets ambitious and leans towards things, staring with her little upper lip making a fish face as she tries to get the thing she wants.

We've also been working on teaching her a trick. But I'll wait until she can do it before I try to explain it.

Here she is entertained by a candle. It looked pretty neat flickering through the jar.

We also bought the game Wasabi. Its quite fun!

My Breakfast Adventure!

2010-08-16T12:55:00.006-05:00

Mix and Match cereal? I'm in.

Decided to go with Chocolate and Graham. I considered adding Marshmallow, but decided against it... for now?

I assembled my tools.

And dug in. How much graham should I use? About half a bowl.

I went with a little bit less chocolate then graham.

Add my milk, and viola! Custom breakfast. Sweet.

It was what you'd expect, chocolate and graham flavored, sugary cereal. I've been eating less sugar cereal and more less-sugary cereal recently. So, I didn't love this, but since I mixed it myself, I did like it!

Days at Home

2010-08-13T13:16:00.010-05:00

It still is weird to be home all day. It just feels like summer break or something. Maybe when school starts (next week I start teaching) things will feel different.

So, what has Keagan been up to? Well, she's still cute. :)

We've gotten her some new toys. Mostly to try and help us out. She LOVES to stand and well, we can't do anything else when we are holding her in standing position. So we tried a walker.

It's not bad, but even at it's shortest setting her feet still dangle. So, we put her on the carpet, so it doesn't move much and put a blanket under her feet. :) She can stand and squat and play with toys. It works pretty well. There is usually a pile of drool on the tray when we take her out.

We also got a carrier via Jenette and Chris. It's awkward for me to use, but Shannon has had some success. For example, they helped me cook the other day, while making something (can't recall what).

She sits much better now. Her core muscles can keep her upright instead of slouched over. She sits in her Bumbo seat (stupid name) a lot. That is handy. She also has a new play mat, and likes it quite a bit. Save for one toy it came with. There is a flower that plays music. She pouts and then cries every time it goes. So we don't make it play music anymore. She also has that jumpy seat, another good one that collects drool.

Keagan doesn't roll over yet, but yesterday she learned how to unfold her body.

She also talks more and makes lots of noises. It's pretty cute. She chats the most with Shannon.

And well, I just like this picture. It's a totally different kind of cute.

In not baby news, I cut my hair! It was this long:

Then I had Shannon cut off a foot to donate. I don't have a picture of it shorter, but just image what I normally look like. It's basically the same. No one can tell when I cut my hair because it's still long, just not as long.

Johnny Jump Up

2010-08-12T00:24:00.003-05:00

We got Keagan a jumpy seat that goes over the door frame. So far she just likes to suck on it. (surprise surprise). But we are hoping it helps fill her "stand me up" requirements some times.

My mom said that my Grandma Hoey said that when my dad was a baby, he had one and used to spend hours in it, bouncing off walls. :) That made me smile.

Sometimes I miss my dad a lot. :) It's too bad he never got to meet any of his grandkids.

I'm glad to have good memories of Dad.

Shimmy or Shuffle?

2010-08-09T21:51:00.004-05:00

On July 25th, Shannon and I were joined by Newgen and Michelle as we all went to a soccer game at Arrowhead. Manchester United's tour took them to Kansas City to play the Wizards. It was great fun (and hot). What made it even more fun is that KC won! Woot woot!

That trip started in Manhattan. Keagan and Cassidy dressed to match (sort of) and had fun playing on Cassidy's play mat. Keagan doesn't have one, but she really like Cassidy's! Mostly the mirror.

We also went to Manhattans' City Park. They recently redid it and added a water park you pay for with slides and wave pool and such. They also added a kiddie water park that is free. It has all sorts of sprinklers and water toys. Looks really fun. Keagan is a wee small to play there (and she was sleeping), but I did have Shannon put her feet in an old fountain. Keagan first yelled, then seemed to ... tolerate it?

Another thing worth mentioning... I need ideas for Halloween for Keagan. I am not good at remembering, so I'll use my blog and labels to help. Halloween idea for Keagan: MC Hammer (mostly cause it'd be fun to make baby parachute pants).

Drool

2010-08-05T13:50:00.006-05:00

Keagan is such a drooler! I can only imagine what its gonna be like when she starts teething.

Ga! This kid is cute! I know I'm biased, but still. Look at her!

The other day she put herself to sleep by placing her thumb inside of her pacifier and fell asleep.

She got her 2 month shots a few weeks back. She cried, as you'd expect. But recovered pretty quickly. By the time we left the doctors room she was almost asleep already. She wasn't really fussy that day either, and didn't get a fever. Excellent.

This is her Skyping with Grandma Fuller. It was pretty cute. Keagan would stare at the computer screen (which is normal for her) and then lean in and get closer (also normal). It was fun.

If someone in New Jersey is reading this and has a way to get Grandpa on Skype, then let me know and we'll set it up! It's free!

Happy Anniversary!

2010-08-04T15:30:00.003-05:00

Shannon and I were married 9 years ago today. :)

I love you like an octopus loves his glorious 9th arm.

Happy Birthday, Nikki!

2010-08-01T22:49:00.000-05:00

But I don't have any pictures from this weekend of her. :( Our camera's battery died and I didn't bring the back up. So, others have pictures, but not me.

Instead, I do have a description of what we did. Saturday was Nikki's 4th Birthday party. She had a beach theme and it was cute. There was 3 pools, the largest was 2.5' deep, the smallest was about 24" in diameter and about 4 inches deep. Guess what pool Keagan, Cassidy, and Raegen went in? :) Oh, I wish I had a picture of it.

Nikki got lots of gifts. Shannon, Jenette, Chris, and I got her Kids of Catan. I want to know how it works out. It looks pretty good.

Here are some pictures of Keagan, looking cute.

She's stylin' in a Student's t-rex onesie. :)

She likes to chew on things and drool and suck. Things like pacifiers, her hands, her clothes, Shannon's fingers. Like this:

Dominion or Small World

2010-07-12T17:16:00.006-05:00

I had my 6 week doctor check-up last week. And he said it looks like its healing well. I feel like its healing well, too. One spot on the incision did bleed a teeny bit on the 3rd, but it is all good.

Last week I worked on thing for my Etsy shop. I got some more things posted, but no other exciting news from there. If you haven't been in a while, you can go check out my goods for sale: Nausicaa Distribution.

We had a friend/coworker and his wife over for some games on Saturday! That was fun. We played Dominion and Small World. Keagan was pretty good during the time, too. It was nice to have some people over. :)

I also tried to make some apricot jam with the apricots we brought back from Jayme's house. I cooked it too much and it's very, very thick.

Holiday in Newton

2010-07-07T10:21:00.008-05:00

This past weekend was Independence Day. Shannon, Keagan, and I went to Newton to spend the holiday with family.

We arrived late Friday night and finally got to see Jayme and Charles' new house! It's going to be awesome! It has a good layout, a nice sized kitchen, 1.5 bathrooms, plenty of bedrooms, a big garage, and it's over 100 years old! Cool! They've got a LOT of work to do, but it's coming along. The wooden floors have been redone and look good. The bathroom tub has been tiled and looks awesome. I can't wait to see more!

Saturday we hung out and had some good food. They have an apricot tree in their back yard. So, Shannon recruited Nikki and Mom to help pick some apricots. They got out a ladder and picked pretty much the entire tree. It was a lot of apricots!

We froze 10 gallon sized bags of them and there were more than that!

That evening we went to a concert put on during the Chisholm Trail Festival. It was Keagan's first. :)

Afterwards, we went to Walmart and got some stuff, like ice cream. :) Keagan was in a light sleep cycle and I just love the faces she makes during them. The video below shows you how cute she looks.

Sunday, Jayme and Charles had a little party. Friends from Dodge came with two of their children (5 years and 2 years old). Some of Charles family came, including his parents and Trevon, his cousin with his wife and 11 week old baby boy.

We shot off some fireworks. It was fun to watch all the kids with the poppers and other explosives. All supervised by attentive adults of course. :)

It rained most of the weekend. But that just made for a safer yard. During the breaks we watched the mini-show in Jayme's front yard.

That night, we walked down to the creek and watched the city's show. Keagan was a bit fussy. It was so humid and warm. She ate pretty poorly and didn't really want to be outside anymore. But the fireworks, she enjoyed them. She'd quiet down and just watch them. Then when they would stop, she would make noises like, "hey, I want more. That isn't good enough!". It was petty cute. It's hard to see, but on the right in this picture Shannon is hold her.

Then Monday we went to a museum with Mom. It was Keagan's first museum trip, and to no surprise, she slept through most of it. :) Here she is with a real mummy.

And here she is with some other artifacts.

She's a cutie. :) Jayme, Charles, and Nikki came to town and we all ate lunch/dinner at Caffe Moderne in Old Town. They had some delicous panini's.

It was a pretty nice weekend! Lots of rain, fireworks, food, and family. :)

Recent Advances

2010-07-01T15:09:00.005-05:00

About 2 weeks ago, all Keagan did was eat, sleep, and dirtying diapers. Then last week she slept a lot less. But she also started smiling more and making all sorts of noises, and holding up her head pretty well.

Well, this week she is back to eating, sleeping, wetting diapers, and dirtying diapers. The wetting diapers is new. They used to all be poopy, but now there are a few just wet ones thrown in the mix.

Perhaps next week she will do less sleep and have some more advances, we will see.

Oh, she also has her tongue out slightly less. It's still out a lot though, like now, she's napping and its peeking out.

Sprinkles

2010-06-28T11:27:00.003-05:00

I've had 2 doughnuts covered in sprinkles over the last week or so. In the last 10 years I haven't had that many. :)

This past weekend, Shannon and I chilled at home, with no visitor and with no visiting. That was after our first week with Shannon back to work full time and me home alone with Keagan. Besides the obvious that I'd much prefer Shann to be home too, it went well. Keagan and I visited stores for food shopping, napped, ate, played, and watched World Cup soccer. By the way, it's too bad we lost to Ghana, but they played better than we did that game.

I haven't been taking many pictures this past week. But here is a decent one.

Keagan holds her head up pretty good now. Still wobbly, but there are times when it's very steady. She will turn her head when laying on her tummy. She makes more noises than crying now. And speaking of crying, that has gotten a lot less too. Although at 9:00 pm, she usually just cries, for no apparent reason, just to cry.

She is fun to hang out with. Smiling is becoming not only more common, but something I can cause now too. :)

Meeting 37 People

2010-06-21T13:47:00.012-05:00

Last Tuesday Shannon and I took Keagan on her first long trip. We drove through Wichita to Garden City. Driving time was about 7 hours. And she was good for all but 30 minutes of those 7 hours. She got hungry but we were close to my mom's so we just drove through.

So what did we do? Well, Tuesday we left around 3:00 and ate dinner with Mom, Jayme, Maria, Charles, and Nikki at Hanger One Steakhouse. It wasn't bad. The knives to cut the steak sucked a lot, though. After dinner, we headed to Garden City. We got there around 2:00 am and met Gary, Michelle, Jenette, Chris, and Cassidy at IHOP. That is significant because Michelle got back from England the day before. We hadn't seen her in about 6 months. And it was the first time we got to meet Cassidy! She is a cutie! (Number of people met: 4)

Wednesday we went to a funeral reception for one of Rhonda's friend's father. We knew him also from church and hockey. It was nice to see people we havn't seen in a long time (and some I've never met before). (Number of people met: 5 + 4 = 9)

We did a lot of hanging out. We had food, watched World Cup soccer, did some shopping at Sam's Club, played games, went on a walk to a garage sale, and other such things. My mom worked in Dodge City last week, but had a hotel in Garden City. So, she spent the evening hanging out with us too. :)

Friday, Grandma and Grandpa in Lakewood came down! They brought with Randy, Jonathan, and Major (Randy's beagle). That was awesome! So they ate dinner with us and and hung out on Friday too. (Number of people met: 4 + 9 = 13)

Then Saturday was the main event, Grandma Fuller's 91st birthday party. We went to her house around noon and were there till around 11:00pm.

There were a lot of people there! I'm not going to try listing them all, but Rhonda and all her kids and their families were there (1+1+3+3 = 8 people), Marsha and all of her kids and their families were there (2 + 6 + 3 + 10 = 21 people), Grandma Fuller, my Mom, some of the Dick family (3 + 1 + 1 = 5 people), and a bunch of Grandma's friends that I don't know! So, there were about 40-50 people? (Number of people met: 21 + random + 13 = 37)

We had lots of food and cake. More games were played. And I got to meet Mason! He is a cutie.

We put together the pirate kite that we got from Newgen a while ago and tried to fly that. The kite is sweet, but the wind was not good enough for us to fly it very well. Shannon got it up a few times, but it wouldn't stay up long.

We had a party of people go out to fly it and had some come out to Grandma's driveway to watch also.

Then Sunday (yesterday) we did our last day of hanging out. It was Father's Day and we had two first time dad's with us, Shannon and Chris, and 3 other father's too (Grandpa Dick, Gary, and Kevin). So we ate at Lone Star and they did a great job this time. Which means it will likely suck next time, that's how they roll. But it was really nice to eat a meal with everyone (there were 15 of us there).

I'm so glad that I am a part of two great families and that these two families basically act like one big family. I am very lucky to have been close to my mom's family growing up. It stinks that we are so far apart now, but I always feel loved by them and going back to see them never feels like I'm a foreigner. And now, I have Shannon's family to be a part of (and have for the last 9ish years). They are all great people, too!

I'm glad Keagan gets to have so many great family members!

The Beginning of the Aunts and Uncles

2010-06-13T17:28:00.005-05:00

Friday night Jayme, Charles, Maria, and Nikki came down from Wichita. We just hung out on Friday night, watched some Startles, or Star Worlds, or Star Wars. It was quite fun to watch with Nikki. She's now quite 4, and it was interesting to have her tell you about what was going on. :) She's such a fun kid and cute too!

Then Saturday we went to the Fox and Hound pub to watch the USA versus England World Cup game. It was packed and pretty fun. I'm glad we ended up tying instead of losing. :) Keagan was pretty good the whole time. Mostly just sleeping and then being in an alert wake state the rest of the time.

Saturday evening, me and my sisters went to Walmart to shop for dinner and Sunday's food. It was about 40$ for everything. So much cheaper to eat at home then eat out! We then came back and cooked some food, ate the food, and watched more Star Wars. Oh, and we went to the new prototype Quick Trip. Everyone got something fun. Shannon got me an iced hot cocoa and Maria got a horchata smoothie. :) Crazy.

Sunday (today), we made grilled fruit and waffles (just like with Mom). Yummy! It's so good. I didn't know that I'd enjoy grilled fruit as much as I do. Thanks Grill Masters cookbook! After some more Star Wars and some chillin', the siblings+ left. :( It was great to see them and spend some time with them. I wish we all lived closer, but maybe one day we will.

I had a nice time. Also, things are going smoother with Keagan. Each day we learn more about how to read her. And, she's getting SO much better at holding her head steady, especially when she's not sleepy.

Grandparents

2010-06-11T10:32:00.003-05:00

My blog (and just about all of my time) has revolved around Keagan for the last three weeks. Which I guess is to be expected since that's about when she was born.

She has now met all her grandparents (not great grandparents). My mom was here for her birth and her first 5 days. Most of what we did during that time was just take care of me and Keagan. A lot of cooking, cleaning, sleeping, and talking. No real adventures (outside of learning to breastfeed, but that wasn't a fun adventure). Well, I guess we grilled some fruit and waffles again. Delicious!

Then Shannon's mom and Dave came up. They helped out a bunch and were here for almost a week. Dave even mowed our lawn for us while he was here. :) But that trip also consisted of mostly just cooking, cleaning, eating, and taking care of Keagan (I didn't really need too much care by then).

I tried to find a picture of Keagan with Rhonda and/or Dave, but I don't have one! We'll have to fix that this coming week.

Then we had some time to ourselves before Shannon's dad came up. He got here last Saturday and left yesterday. We did some shopping, tried to go to a baseball game (but it got canceled), and still did the eating/cooking thing.

Now, she will start to meet her aunts and uncles! Today Jayme, Maria, Charles, and Nikki are coming. :) Then next week she will get to meet Jenette, Michelle, Chris, and a bunch of other people!

Keagan Lesson 1

2010-06-10T07:56:00.003-05:00

Lesson 1: Keagan grunts when she is pooping.

Funny story to go with lesson: The other day, she was grunting and pooping. You could hear the mustard squirting. I went to change her diaper when she was done. Only to be proved wrong. I undid the diaper just in time to hear a poo fart that was accompanied by, well, poo. It was projectile poo and I just happened to catch it in my hand!

Why Cry?

2010-06-09T23:49:00.005-05:00

It's really hard, almost impossible, to know why Keagan cries. She was so good today! She ate well, slept well, smiled a lot in her sleep. But around 9:00, she just started to cry. Really, really hard. Is she hungry? Well, she ate about 20 minutes before crying. Does her diaper need changing? We just changed it. It was super-poopy. Is she hot? We took her dress off. Is her diaper too tight? No. Checked that. Does she hurt inside? Well, I'm guessing not because you can calm her down, the crying isn't constant, just inconsistent and really hard.

:( Poor Keagan.

:( Poor us.

But she's a cutie!

My current family. :)
(My face looks fat.)

First pictures "with" Keagan and Cassidy.

Yaaawn.

First Day Alone

2010-06-04T12:16:00.004-05:00

And by alone I mean, just Keagan and I. I spent half a day yesterday with just the two of us, but today is my first full day with Shannon at work and Keagan and I home together.

It's been fine so far. I had a doctor appointment at 10:30, so most of the day has been spent getting ready for that and doing that. Plus I ran some other errands while we were out.

The doctor said everything is looking good so far. Asked how I was feeling, if I had any questions, and then I made an appointment for 4 weeks from now. I still am not supposed to do "bad" things for my incision for another 4 weeks, but that is fine. I don't want to cause more problems. As long as Keagan slows down on the weight gain (she was 8lb 13.5oz on Wednesday), then I shouldn't be lifting over 15 pounds. :)

She was crying a lot for a few days, and I know crying is normal, but I think a lot of it was gas. I've been making a better effort of burping and that seems to help. Also, I'm learning her "I'm hungry" hints. So instead of me waiting until she's crying hard, I can usually tell before she even starts crying. Which is much nicer. :)

I can not get this picture to turn!

How Baby's Go

2010-05-30T21:43:00.007-05:00

So far our days have been like this:

Midnight to about 10:00am:

Sleep in 3 hour or so long chunks.
In between sleep, I find myself feeding a baby for about 30 minutes (including burping), changing diapers, and eventually changing clothes because she either pees while I'm changing her diaper, or her diaper leaks and she gets pee all over her pj's. Keagan sleeps pretty good when she goes to sleep. Sometimes, after feeding, she just stays awake. Other times, she sleeps with Shannon.

10:00am to midnight:

This consists of more feedings every 3 hours or so. It's kind of difficult to plan events around feedings. She gets really fussy before feedings and lately has been pretty fussy after feedings too. I'm not sure if I'm eating something she doesn't like, or if she is eating too much too fast, or not enough, or if she's uncomfortable, or if something else, it's really difficult.
Shannon has been SO helpful in helping her calm down. And when Rhonda and Dave and my mom where here, that was super helpful also. Just knowing that there are more people who I trust around to help and who have experience was awesome!
I try to remember to eat enough. I don't think I am. Now that she's fussy, I'm afraid to eat things. I don't know if eggs bother her, or milk, or sausage, or spicy foods. :( It's quite difficult.
I took naps when Rhonda was here. Those were nice. :)
I cross-stitch and work on Etsy things. Those go MUCH slower now that my prime responsibility is Keagan.
Laundry. Jeepers. She goes through a lot of clothes and blankets and washclothes.
She pees and poos all the time. We probably change about 15 times a day, and half if not more of those have poop.

What we've found she likes:

Walking around. We hold her and just walk around the house. She just stares at things, including lights. She seems to like lights.
Sticking her tongue out. It's always out.
Eating. She is constantly rooting and looking like she wants to eat. That makes it quite difficult to know when she actually wants to eat.
Being swaddled. Although that seems to be wearing off.

And some more pictures. :)

They made me leave in a wheelchair. No complaints though. I got to be wheeled out while holding my new baby. :)

Here she is on her first car ride in our new car, which we basically bought for her. She slept the whole time.

For not going out of our way to get pink things, we sure do have a lot of pink for her.

Nap time with Daddy (crazy, Shannon is a daddy).

First trip to Panera. We met Shannon for lunch on Friday.

One Week

2010-05-27T12:47:00.006-05:00

It's been just over one week that Keagan's been out of the belly. :) Crazy.

It has been a very difficult week, trying to learn SO many new things. But last night was our best night yet. I think all parties got enough sleep (and to eat). Which makes things go much smoother.

When we got home on Friday, we were greeted by a happily decorated houses, from my mom. I cried (not a surprise) a happy cry.

She even found a swell make-your-own sign. Surprising it had enough N's. That letter is usually a challenge.

We gave her a bath on Sunday (I think). It was pretty cute. She is so tiny. :) Here she is getting ready for her bath.

And here she is post-bath in her cute, but big, Pooh towel from Jayme and Charles. :)

And getting her dressed in a cute little sleeper. :)

Oh, and Mom got the crib. Wow, that is a crummy story. I'll try to post about it later. But for now I will just say, never shop at Crib City in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The owner Randy is a horrible business man and a liar.

Overall, it's been pretty good. :) I'm happy to have a baby and I'm thrilled to have Shannon!

New Baby!!

2010-05-21T10:23:00.001-05:00

I don't plan on explaining everything now...maybe I'll post more about it later. But here are pictures with some explaination.

8lb and 3 oz, 21.25" long. It's Keagan!

This must be after I got the epidural because I'm smiling. That thing is like magic.

Here's how gorgeous I looked before surgery. :)

And how stunning Shannon looked. He got to be in there with me the entire time. Which is unusual. The anesthesiologist say that's only happened like 3 times since he's worked there (possible 32 years?).

Our first family picture, in the surgery room from the anesthesiologist! It's crazy. We have a daughter. :)

And one of the nurses took Shannon's first picture with Keagan in the baby-cleaning room.

Some of the first pictures of Keagan. Her little tounge sticks out a lot!

She didn't cry much at all when she first came out, enough, but not too much. But I think that may be because of Shannon. :) She would just stare at him and he just lovingly smiled back. :)

The first pictures of me and Keagan.

Three generations!

And just cuteness!

I made her a little hat a few months back. It's almost too small on her.

She enjoys sucking her thumb (or hand or arm...)

Mom with her new granddaughter.

:)

Happy family! I enjoy this photo.

Silly little face.

I'm a mom!

Timing

2010-05-18T09:26:00.002-05:00

Last night around 11:00pm one of my favorite things happened, Shannon said "Etsy transaction?!" from the bedroom. That means I sold something on Etsy! Woohoo!

What is it? Oh, 23$! What is it? A custom chi-square bookend. Great!

But that custom means I have to make it! She'd like it by Saturday. Hmm... probably the worst week it could have been. :) I had basically last night to do it. Because today there is not time*, Wednesday and Thursday I'll likely be in the hospital. And that doesn't leave me time to get it shipped to be there by Saturday.

But no worries. I'm a sewing master. I finished it all, from nothing to almost packaged in 1.5 hours! Happy birthday to a lucky statistician!

Then today, I promptly put up a message in my Etsy shop that I won't be able to make/ship things until next week.

*Tonight (Tuesday), Shannon and I go to the hospital at 8:00pm and start the induction. So, no, I won't have baby news today. But tomorrow something will happen.

Last Weekend Sans Baby

2010-05-15T20:07:00.004-05:00

So, this is it. This is my last weekend with my family consisting of two people, Shannon and I. Even if she doesn't come on her own, Tuesday night I will be induced and one way or another she'll probably be here on Wednesday the 19th. Crazy.

So what are we doing you ask?

Just chillin'.

So far I've taken a nap, wonderful. Played Gladius with Shannon, also wonderful*. I've made coffee cake muffins with coffee, yummy. I weeded and trimmed some of our backyard "landscaping," looks much better. We planted two blueberry plants, sweet. I've done some random cleaning and laundry as well.

And it's only 8pm on Saturday. :)

*This game, Gladius, is awesome! Probably my favorite video game ever. We have the Game Cube version. It was released in 2003, so it's 7 years old. I'm sure other people won't like it as much as we do, but it's really fun. The story is lame, which is fine, I don't play video games for the story (generally). But the way you battle is what is cool. Instead of both people fighting at once, or pushing a button to kick or what not, you have to push the right button at the right time. So in the picture below, the bar on the bottom is the attack bar. You want to time it just right so that you hit the A button when the little slider is in the red. The orange is okay, and the blue is a miss.

But there are more versions of the attack bar. Sometimes you have to hit 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 buttons one one bar like above. Sometimes you have to aim for a green section in the middle of an entire orange bar. Sometimes you have to match the order of buttons shown in a certain amount of time. And each type of character's bar moves at different speeds. It's fun. I like it. Shannon and I beat the game once a few years back in Jardine. Last week or so we decided to play it again. :)

Sirens

2010-05-13T12:05:00.003-05:00

This morning, a little before 5 am, Shannon and I were awoken. I thought I heard a door shut, but when I woke up, I realized that it was really really windy and raining out.

Shannon got up to see what the noise was and how it looked out side, then we realized we heard sirens.

Crap.

Shannon turned on the tv to see the radar and listen to the weather man. Since we don't have a basement (almost no one does in Tulsa), I started to gather important things (like purses, glasses, cell phones, etc) and place them in the utility room. I figure that is where we'd go. But then Shannon said the half-bath. So I started to place things there.

Then I went to see what the weather said. I was not extremely freaked out, but I was definitely very awake and intent on not being blown away by a tornado.

The weatherman said the sirens were being sounded because of 70 possibly up to 100 mph gusts of wind. Not tornadoes.

What?! How can you waste your sirens on wind gusts? Really? We happened to hear sounds, and decided to get up, just so we could know that it was really windy out and that we should stay inside. Really? So after making fun of Oklahoma for wasting its sirens, we laid on the couch and listened to Mike and Mike. Then decided to go back to bed. But not before we learned of my awesome skills in case of tornado.

What Nicole intended to do: get important things in one safe location.
What Nicole actually does: scatters Shannon's things about the house.

I had put his wallet and keys in the utility room. But then I put his cell phone in the half-bath. And his glasses? Well, I thought I put them in the utility room. But no. The bath? No? Left them where they were? No.

I had put them on my dresser.

Good news is there wasn't any damage (that I noticed) to the house or lot. The only knocked over plant pot was the one that we haven't planted anything in. And now we know, don't freak out in Tulsa when you hear sirens, just check the weather and you can probably go back to bed.

:)

2010-05-09T12:34:00.002-05:00

Here is the best picture I have of Cassidy so far. Rhonda has been taking plenty of real ones and I'm sure we'll get to see those soon too.

Last night on Skype, Shannon and I chatted with Jenette (and Rhonda and Cassidy) for about 2 hours.

She is so cute! She has dark hair and dark eyes and she folds her hands together on her own! I can't wait to meet her and see Jenette! FUN!

Niece #2: Cassidy

2010-05-07T10:19:00.004-05:00

Jenette had their baby girl last night, at 11:27pm! She was 7lb. 6oz (just like me) and 21" (I think, just like me too!).

Jenette is doing well, tired, but well. The baby is "very vocal," we are told. But I have yet to meet her (she is 5 hours away).

Frog Ham Strings

2010-05-06T09:21:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I had my week 39 (and 3 day) appointment. The doctor said I'm about 1 cm dilated (finally starting...). But he still thinks I'm going to go late. We "scheduled" an induction for the night of the 18th (so more like the 19th). I say "scheduled" because they have to call the hospital and make sure that is fine and if my body decides to go baby before then, then obviously I won't need to be induced. So, we shall see.

Not too much else going on. Lots of people at work keep saying "You're still here?" and the such. And yes, I am. I probably will be for a whole other week, if not two. But everyone has been really nice and giving advice that isn't annoying. They are good people. :)

I am almost done with teaching for this semester. I still need to finish up grades but that is about all.

Vicious Enthusiasm

2010-05-03T09:13:00.009-05:00

This weekend we got quite a few things accomplished.

I slept for about 10 hours on Friday night. And another 10 hours on Saturday night. :) And no regrets! Too often I have heard that I won't get much sleep after the baby is here. So, I had no problem taking advantage of my weekend with no plans.

And we still got stuff done!

We started making some Necromunda scenery. We now own a jigsaw, which has been very helpful in cutting pegboard. The things that look like marshmallows are PVC pipe sections. It works pretty good. We need more washers though, they only had 24 at Lowes, those ran out quickly.

We installed our car seat. That took like 5 minutes. We have the LATCH system in the Mazda and so we used that. It really was as simple as this lady makes it look. Okay, so that's done.

I finally finished the quilt! I am pretty lousy in the picture taking part of life. But hey, it's better than the none I often have. I have had everything done but the inside squares for about 2 weeks. Shannon and then decided on what to do. Nice and nerdy of us, we decided to do the Pythagorean Theorem. I found 6 different picture proofs and used those inside the squares. :) You can't tell very well from the first photo, but the second shows them a little bit better.

So that is done!

And I embroidered the first (and second) statosaurus! This is what I worked on the other day. I've actually drawn 5 statistical dinosaurs. This is only one of them. Its a stegonormalus (stegosaurus made out of a normal distribution). I think he's super cute and it embroidered really well on the fleece! It's 2.5" tall and about 3" wide. I didn't know what to do with this one, so I made it into a little pillow and I'm giving it for free to the person who purchased a large normal fleece pillow from my Etsy shop this weekend.

But I did embroider it onto one of the changing pad covers I made. I still want to embroider a second one on their, but I don't have it ready to go for the embroidery machine yet. So, just keep your eye out for more statosaurs!

I finished the curtains last week. They look pretty good. The room has a lot more purple to it now. It's nice.

And I called Crib City where Mom got our crib in February. They had to order the crib from NY, he ordered 2, but they only shipped one. So, he called us and explained the situation. We didn't need it right way, so instead of taking the one in mid-March, we said we'd wait till the end of April, early May, and let the other people have the one that was in. Well, I called Sunday, early May, and guess what? He's had our crib the whole time!! The other people decided to take a different crib, so the one from the order in March, ours, has been sitting there for over 6 weeks! No phone call, not nothing. I am pretty upset, not because we needed it, we still don't yet, but because we could have gotten it when Mom was here with her car, or Rhonda with her minivan. It won't fit in our Mazda5, the box is too big (51" by 58" by 9"). So now we have to wait, again, because he NEVER CALLED! And it's paid for! In full!

I don't know if it's just Oklahoma, or a big city, or the places we choose, or just dealing with life, but I'm pretty tired of this lack of good communication I've been dealing with recently. I don't like it.

Anyways, when someone with a car big enough is here, we can get our crib too. Then the nursery is almost done, save for some art we plan to put up in there.

9 Sleeps Left

2010-04-29T11:56:00.004-05:00

Wednesday I went in for my 38 week appointment. The doctor said I may have to be induced. But I know that he will let me go about 8 days past my due date before that becomes a plan of action, maybe more. We'll just have to wait and see. He said things look good still, my body just isn't getting things as ready at this point as he expects to see. I do tend to procrastinate. :)

Shannon and I recently visited Lowe's. We got a new curtain rod to replace the poorly measured and reported Walmart rod and when I got home, I put it up. Then finished the curtains. It's looking more and more like an organized room, which is unique for our house. :)

While at Lowe's we also devised a plan for a new set of Necromunda scenery. We are planning to use pegboard, dowels, and PVC pipe. But we need to buy a jigsaw (or something similar) to do it. Luckily, we can get a decent looking, small one, for about 50$.

Also, here is a more recent video of my big ol' belly. At about 16 seconds the right side of my belly goes bluub.

Freethrow Woos.

2010-04-28T08:44:00.001-05:00

Here are some pictures of what we've done in the nursery so far.

Last night we put together a bookcase we bought from Target using gift cards (thank you SO much to everyone!!). We put our books, and toys on it. Along with some pretty things and two fabric drawers we bought from Target as well.

And here are the curtains so far. We put up an under-rod and hung the green curtains from that. They still need to be hemmed, but we don't know how short we want them yet. The plan was then to put up a prettier second rod, the black one, and hang purple curtains from them. But Walmart products aren't measured very well. Instead of the under-rod projecting 2", it projects 2.25". So now the two rods are pretty much exactly the same distance out. This just won't do. So Shannon and I are going to look for longer braces to use for the black rod. If we can't find any, we have some alternate ideas. But you can still get to see what's going on so far.

Also, if you haven't seen it, that is the cradle that Randy made back in 1980. All 11 of the children on that side of the family used it! And now, Shannon and I get to. But since Jenette and I are having kids at the same time, we won't both be able to use it. :( We'll figure something out.

12 Sleeps

2010-04-27T10:31:00.002-05:00

Good news! I didn't kill the roses! They seem to be doing well. They are actually much larger than I thought. I was worried I'd pruned them too early or that I pruned them to much, but they look healthier than last year!

I'm still feeling well and my appointment that was supposed to be yesterday got moved (because the doctor had to go perform a c-section) to tomorrow morning. So, hopefully things have started to move along and all is looking good still. I'll give an update tomorrow. :)

And curtains are on their way. We hung the second rod yesterday, and it's too close to the wall. So now we have to find extenders.

Changing Pad Cover

2010-04-23T10:15:00.002-05:00

Here is a picture of the pad cover I mentioned last time. Not too exciting. But it does match nicely. I plan to make two more also. Just to have clean ones when needed. And I think I'll be embroidering some designs on the sides. This purple one was my test/pattern maker. Now I am ready to embellish. :)

I also have the quilt almost done. I just needs some type of quilted design in the middle of the 4" squares. Not totally sure what to do there.

Nursery Decor

2010-04-22T11:48:00.003-05:00

If you recall, at the end of February my mom came down and we worked on the nursery.

Well, not much has been done in there since then. :) I did make a changing pad cover that matches our colors very nicely, but I have no pictures of it here. We also found fabric we like for curtains, so we'll go buy that from JoAnn sometime.

But today, I'm working on our theme. I'm not ready to share it with you now, but it has to do with dinosaurs and statistics. It's pretty swell so far.

Recent Baby Pictures

2010-04-21T18:47:00.003-05:00

*Updated* I didn't say much with this last night, so here is some more. The doctor has been checking and I'm not dilated yet. I still have 17 days till my due date. The baby hasn't really dropped either. He said I may go a little late, but that makes sense. My original due date was May 16th, then he moved it up to May 9th. So, I wouldn't be surprised if I was "late." Also, he said she weighed about 6 lb. 14 oz. (which puts her around the 52nd percentile, right in the middle).

I'm still feeling well. Not too uncomfortable and basically sleeping through the night, save for the occasional trip to the potty.

In the picture above, you can see her little left hand in front of her face. That thing on the bottom is her arm, a little distorted, but it's still her arm.

This picture is a bit harder to see. But it is again her face (on the left). You can make out her nose and mouth, and sort of her eyes. :)

Deceiving Smiles

2010-04-20T10:24:00.003-05:00

The car time line and a little Nelson Mazda review from me.

Friday 4/9/10: We went to Nelson Mazda and test drove a Mazda5. Not bad (besides having the windows down in the back). We talked with the salesman and said we'd think about it some.
Saturday 4/10/10: After too many hours at the Mazda dealer talking with the salesman and with a finance guy, we were told about 5% interest, then actually given 5.49% so we were gonna walk out (about 11:30 pm now). But that made them lower it to 5%. Even though it was only about 4-5$ per month difference in payments, it is the principle. We were told it would be close to 5%, maybe +/- .2%. But 5.49% was not close. So we signed the papers and spent just under 19K for a 2010 Mazda5. We are getting a blue one, so they are driving it in from Norman, OK. Also, the salesman said he'd get us a cargo net for no charge.
Tuesday 4/13/10: Call from the salesman, the drivers are running late and the car won't be in until late Tuesday night. He'd rather not rush it, so we decide to wait until Wednesday to get it.
Wednesday 4/14/10: Call from the salesman. The car has a 1.5" scratch on the passenger sliding door. They are going to get it professionally fixed and it should be ready on Friday.
Friday 4/16/10: No call, but we go in after work. The scratch is completely gone and the outside of the car looks great. However, the inside is dirty. In some places (like the 2nd row passenger side seat), it's completely filthy. I mean, excessively dirty, even for a used car. And this one is brand new! So, they are going to clean it and then the salesman will drive it to us Saturday morning. Oh, and it has 189 miles, which was good (Norman is about 130 miles away).
Saturday 4/17/10: Around noon, the salesman calls and says he's on his way. When he gets to our place, the seats are MUCH cleaner, and we finally have our car*. Still a little spot, but I'll just get it out myself. We ask the keys to drive him back. But he's only got one of the two. The other one (with the manual) was sent to some other dealer by accident and it's being overnighted to Nelson Mazda. The salesman said he'd drop it by Monday. We drove him back, came home, parked in the garage, and noticed we had no temporary tag. Called the salesman again and he said he'd drop it by that day.

Monday 4/18/10: Still no key and still no temporary tag. I called Nelson Mazda, but our salesman was out. So, I spoke with his boss. Apparently the key had not been overnighted, because they didn't have it. So, it should be in Tuesday. He said they'd see about having someone bring it by our work. I finally got my tag (it still took about 15 minutes from when I walked it to when I left to get a sheet of paper that has a date that is over 1 week ago on it).

And that brings us to today. Still waiting for word on our other key and our manual and, well, that cargo net is probably never going to happen.

It has been 10 days since we signed the papers for our car and we still don't have everything taken care of. This has been a mess. Yes, I like the car (I've only driven it for about 12 miles so far, though) and it was a decent price (about MSRP, nothing special). But really, delivering a brand new car with a scratch and then a filthy interior and then not all the things it needs (like keys, manual, and tags) are not acceptable.

I've never bought a new car before, so I can't compare. But I would say that this experience has not been pleasant and I would not recommend going to Nelson Mazda.

*It was raining that day. When the water fell on the door arm rest it made a bunch of smiley faces.

Integration by Parts

2010-04-15T14:38:00.004-05:00

It's not very easy to see what's going in the picture, but I'm doing calculus! Integration by parts and tabular integration to be specific. I was really worried that I would have no idea of what I was doing (and I've had to look up some things, for sure), but overall, it's not too hard!

It's actually fun.

I am such a nerd.

Also, here is a video from Stand and Deliver where they are doing tabular integration as well.

Still Waiting

2010-04-15T09:16:00.002-05:00

No new car to pick up yet. Tuesday evening we were planning to go get it after work. But the salesman called and said it wouldn't be in till late and that they'd rather not rush it that night. Since I had to teach, it worked out okay. We only would have had from 6:00 to 6:30 to check it out and finish the deal.

So then Wednesday (yesterday) the salesman called again. "Good thing we didn't rush it last night" he says. "There's a 1.5" scratch in the passenger side sliding door." Great. They didn't want to fix it in house, because it wouldn't look good enough. They were getting it professionally done. So he estimated Friday evening. So again, we wait.

Hopefully when we actually get to see our car on Friday it is in better than great condition. It better be spotless inside and outside, have all the pieces in place, have a cargo net, and have low mileage. I keep asking him what the mileage is and he keeps forgetting to check. Good thing is, if it's too high, we can say "Nope, not new to us" and they have to get us a new one.

But really, buying a car should not be this hard. Stupid car dealers.

Another Lack of Pictures

2010-04-12T09:03:00.003-05:00

I really need to take more pictures. Dave and Rhonda were here this weekend, and I took not a single picture! Dave came and nothing to document it! But I can document my plants. I planted the seeds Monday the 5th and my Thursday, we had seedlings.

This is the basil and dill on Saturday. Below it is the tarragon. We planted basil, dill, tarragon, rosemary, thyme, and cilantro.

Dave and Rhonda arrived Friday and when we got home, they were milling around outside because we never gave Rhonda the key we thought we gave her. That evening we gave Dave a tour of the house (as he's never been before) and then we headed over to Nelson Mazda to check out the Mazda5.
After a test drive and some chatting with the salesman, we headed to Red Lobster for dinner and chatting. We ordered a lot of crab legs, 3.5 pounds I believe. We ate almost all of them too.

Saturday, Shannon's birthday, we hung around a little, starting drying some bananas in the food dehydrator and then eventually headed over to First Watch for brunch. Oh, but before that we stopped by the post office so I could mail 3 statistical distribution burp cloths off to Texas. Sweet!

Now, back to the Mazda dealer. We spent a lot of time there on Saturday, and it did end in us buying a new car. We will get it this week (they are driving it in from somewhere in the color we wanted, blue). It's a 2010 Mazda5. I'm pretty excited. :) No pictures yet, but they'll come later.

Sunday Dave and Rhonda left for GC. Shannon and I chilled around the house. I sewed some and Shannon played Civ IV some. Overall it was a nice lazy day. One of the things I sewed was this newborn dress using fabric I had lying around (from Nikki's 1st birthday dress) and a free internet pattern. I did make a few changes, but overall, it's basically the dress she made.

Hows it Going?

2010-04-08T14:54:00.003-05:00

I'm an optical illusion.

Not so much baby...

Much baby...

I have 31 days left til my due date. Wow. It goes so fast. She moves around a lot now. Her movements started getting much stronger about 3 weeks ago. Now they are starting to get more defined. I can feel a little thing (foot?) jabbing at my lower-right rib and then a big thing (butt) pushing just to the left of my belly button. Oh, and my belly button is still an innie. Its a rather deformed looking innie, but still an innie.

I haven't worked on anything baby in a while. No quilt work in about 3 weeks. No room work in about 4 weeks. I did knit her legwarmers about 2 weeks ago. But that was the most recent. Also, we still don't have a name picked out. Hopefully we have some spell of brilliance over the next few weeks and come up with a wonderful name.

Easter Weekend with Mom

2010-04-06T09:07:00.005-05:00

I never take enough pictures to actually show-off my weekends.

But this past weekend, my mom came down for Easter. We had fondue Friday night and then woke up around 11:00 on Saturday. That day was full of more food, looking at Lowes for grills, playing games, and dying Easter eggs.

In an effort to make a purple egg, we ended up making a crazy black egg. It turned to blue spotted as it dried.
The Sunday, we chilled and looked at bbq grill reviews. Shannon's birthday is this coming weekend, and Mom wanted to get him a gift. So, we were looking to get him a grill. We originally were considering this Char-Griller Duo but decided against it. Instead of spending 300$ on one grill that does charcoal and gas both at an average to below-average level, we decided to just get a better gas grill for less, and then invest in another charcoal grill later, if our little baby isn't good enough.

So we did some researching via Consumer Reports and watched some videos on fireboxes that melt down and delicious looking steaks. That was it, we decided to buy a Grill Master for 200$ and then get some steaks. And that made our Easter dinner! Steaks, potatoes, salad, and grilled veggies. Yummy.

An upgrade from last year

2010-04-01T08:49:00.004-05:00

Face-off. Shannon is the farthest purple player to the right.

Last year Shannon and I got snowed out of going to the K-State Hockey Alumni Game.

This year we had snow the weekend prior to, but the weekend of the hockey game, it started pretty nice. So, Thursday Shannon and I drove to Wichita, ate with Jayme, Charles, and Nikki and then used Mom's house as a hotel. She was up in Colorado while we were in town. After some stuff and lunch on Friday (at Doc Greens' which I really enjoyed), we drove up to Manhattan.

Rhonda was there already and we just hung out for a while. Friday was Chris' birthday so we at at Houlihan's to celebrate. Then Saturday morning was the game! It rained...and was windy...and was cold. But it wasn't snowy and icy. :)

Club players in between periods.

Jenette and I didn't play, but Shannon did. I did run the scoreboard though. The game was fun to watch. About 17 alumni players and another 20 or so current club members. It was a good time. It ended with the club winning over the alumni, 11-8.

Club players warming up goalie.

Afterwards, we went out to Milford Lake for a picnic. It was cold and wet. Jerry and Colette had set up some tarps to block the wind and rain. That helped a lot. Jerry also brought a generator and super heater. That also helped a lot. It was nice to sit and chat and eat with the players. :) The hockey team has always had some pretty good people on it. So we are able to sit and chat with them.

Can you spot Jeremiah?

Cleft Chin?

2010-03-31T08:47:00.002-05:00

Here is a picture from Monday that our doctor took. He said that the things you see on the top, by her forehead, are just interference, not a deformed hand.

So, what do you think? Cleft chin?

Our Crib

2010-03-23T12:04:00.003-05:00

When my mom was here the last weekend of February, she gifted us with not only her mad room re-doing skills, but also with our nursery furniture. She purchased a crib, a dresser, and a glider. The glider and the dresser (which we will use as a changing table) we already have in the room. But the crib had to be ordered.

Well, about 1.5 weeks ago, I received a call from the store we bought the crib from, Crib City. Apparently, when he ordered more than one crib, the warehouse in NY only sent one crib. And there were two people who ordered this one crib (us and another couple). We told him that we could wait for another shipment. His estimate was that it would be in late April. So, our baby is due May 9th, which does make it close. But we have the family cradle to use for the first few weeks (months?) anyway.

But, I found a picture of our crib. We are getting this crib, in this color even. It's all rounded on the top edges. So not as much chance for our baby to hurt herself. While this is usually something parents care about, and we aren't being much different in that sense, for those of you who know me it makes more sense. I am very prone to hurting myself on things. Especially my head. I've had a lot of damage to that part of the body. Round hard things will lead to less cuts than squared hard things.

It actually works out okay (or should). We can't take the crib home in our little car anyway. And later in April/early May we should have some family member with a larger car around to get it.

Marshmallows

2010-03-22T11:49:00.006-05:00

Marshmallows have been somewhat of a mystery to me. They have a crazy texture and are just sugary. How do they do it? How are they not super sticky on the outside to? Well, cooking has a lot of tricks, and I know about none of them.

So I decided to take the mystery out of marshmallows and make some at home.
Sunday afternoon, I assembled my ingredients (following the great Alton Brown's recipe). Then I started in on the cooking. I used our digital thermometer to get the sugary mixture up to 240 degrees F. Then poured it into the gelatin mixture. Set my stand mixer to high, and let her go for 12 minutes.

The stand mixer probably fought harder then it ever has before. But she made it through.

After it was all mixed, I used a greased spatula to get the marshmallow creme into a prepared 13x9 pan, dusted with more sugar/cornstarch and let it sit to dry for 4 hours.

Then Shannon helped me cut the marshmallows apart. We dusted with more sugar/corn starch and tasted!

They taste like marshmallows! Not too much different. But, they roast nicely. The insides get really gooey and it'd delicious. They also melt really nicely in hot cocoa (we tested both yesterday).

Since this was far from a failure, I will likely make more in the future. But, we'll try out some groovy flavors, not just vanilla.

Fun!

Roses and Snow

2010-03-19T10:44:00.002-05:00

Good news. Last night it was really nice out, like 66 degrees when we got home around 6pm.

So, I decided I should trim the roses. The bushes are getting very unruly and have started buds! I trimmed the one by the garage and started the one by the mail box. But then it got dark and I stopped.

Guess what we may have on Saturday? Snow.

I hope our roses don't die.

That Burning Sensation

2010-03-18T09:35:00.002-05:00

This is the first discomfort I've had to deal with in quite some time (due to pregnancy, not malt-o-meal). I have this really uncomfortable burning sensation on the top of my abdomen. I'm sure it's just due to my skin stretching, but it's no fun. It started about 1 week ago and I've grown quite a bit this past week.

She moves so much more defined now. Last night, I think I felt a hand/foot. Instead of just a general quick movement, or a all around push, there felt like a little nub in the middle of my tummy. I'm sure it was an appendage. :) How cute.

I've only got 52 sleeps left until my due date. Crazy. I can't believe how fast time is going.

Crazy Apple

2010-03-16T08:38:00.000-05:00

We did not purchase this apple. Although I'm down with the red stripe, I'm not down with the little tail.

The Biggest Gainer

2010-03-15T10:48:00.006-05:00

The title will be funny to about 6 people. Only 1 of which reads my blog. I would explain, but that just makes the joke less special. Trust me, it was funny.

This weekend (counting Friday) was a pretty good one. Friday at work, my manager and manager+ threw me a baby shower! It seemed to be quite a success. We had funfetti cake (sweet!) and punch.

My manager picked up 3 packs of onesies and some fabric markers. Then people decorated them! That was fun to watch/listen to and now to have!

There are some pretty good ones in there. 2 to mention... the 2nd down on the left-most column. It says "My parents are as normal as anyone" but instead of the word "normal" it has the equation for the normal distribution. Another good one is the top-most on the 2nd column from the left. It's a free-hand drawing of our company logo. Done quite well.

We got a lot more gifts than I expected! I work with some very generous people! Jennifer (a friend of Shannon's from grad school, she's basically the reason we applied here) got us a sweet K-State diaper bag, we got oodles of wipes and baby wash and baby lotion. And management got together to get us our travel crib! That was awesome!

Thanks everyone!

Then Saturday, we had our childbirth class. It was one class, from 10am to 3pm, and included breakfast and lunch. We watched some old VHS videos of various things. We learned about methods to help relax and things Shannon can do to help. Then a pediatrician came in and answered our questions for about 1 hour. At the end, we drove to the big hospital, St. Francis, and took a tour. Shannon and I plan on having the baby at St. Francis South. It's smaller and MUCH closer to our house. But still, the tour was nice. The room after delivery is freaking tiny! Both the ones in Wichita (where Jayme was) and Manhattan were really big compared to the ones here. But we'll see. Shannon and I will try to go to the hospital nearby and see their rooms. Maybe they are bigger.

There were 9 couples at the class. One of which has the same last name as us. Crazy.

Other than that, Gary was here and left Friday morning. It was good to see him some. I worked on the quilt and have the entire front done. But we don't have enough of the fabric left for the back, so I'll have to go back to JoAnn, darn it. :)

We also chatted about new Necromunda rules. :)

All the Blocks are Done

2010-03-12T12:14:00.004-06:00

Last night I finished piecing the blocks. There are 24 in total and I plan to lay them out like above. This weekend I'll probably work on it some more. Maybe sew the blocks together and even put the borders on. :)

P.S.

2010-03-11T11:08:00.000-06:00

I'm really excited about having a baby.

Our Quilt

2010-03-11T10:35:00.002-06:00

Here is a picture of what half of our squares will look like. I'm almost done with the other half of the squares. I'll show you my progress at a later date. So far I'm pleased (and so is Shannon).

More of the Moving Baby

2010-03-10T11:46:00.004-06:00

It's a been about three weeks. And she is moving a lot more now. Almost every time I just sit back for a minute, I can feel at least a little lump move or jab or something. It's pretty sweet.

This video happened to capture a lot of the moving.

In other news, I'm really tired.

The Weekly Weekend Report

2010-03-08T09:13:00.005-06:00

It's Monday, back to work and the dull-drums of money-making life. *sigh*

This past weekend was for sewing. I stitched up a lot of things. Shannon has been working a lot on making embroidery patterns for me. :) He's so sweet. I don't even ask him to do it. I think he kind of enjoys it. It's like graphic design, but for me to make things with. A lot of what we did was try something out, decided how to change it and go from there. The good things eventually make it to my Etsy shop, the Nausicaa Distribution. Such as this pi cozy, this Euler cozy, and these sold out pencil pouches. I'll keep putting new things up too. It's fun.

I also started on our quilt, finally! We decided on the "Quilt for Reb a" from mamanance.

I just really liked the way the quilt looked. She did an awesome job on colors and fabrics. Ours is more tan and less white, and there is less variety to the fabrics used, but so far I like the way it looks. This picture is hers, not ours. I finished sewing together half of the blocks and cut out the pieces for the other half last night. But I didn't take a picture, so I can't show you. Maybe tomorrow.

In other baby news, she is moving a lot still. Lots of pushing, not just random jabs. :) Last night was the first night in a long time (months) since I've been awoken not by a horrible leg cramp (which I've always gotten, now they are just much worse and more frequent), but by having to pee or because she was moving a lot. Usually I just sleep through them both (not wetting the bed, but just holding it till morning). But last night, I woke up and felt her moving and then was like, "huh, I have to pee." So, that.

But all seems well so far. The nursery paint and molding has been touched up. Our Necromunda campaign is finished, after 160 battles, a 3600+ rating gang, a 400+ experience leader, and over 1 year of work. (It was worth it!) And I made biscotti yesterday.

MDM4U1

2010-03-04T10:17:00.002-06:00

I haven't posted anything mathy in a while. So here is something.

http://mdm4u1.wetpaint.com/

Yesterday, my sister Jayme, whose taking a statistics course at Wichita State, asked about some of her homework problems. She's doing (too much) combinatorics in her stats class and I didn't really know the answers. So I searched the web-web and happened accross MDM4U1, a crappy name. But it's a pretty nice little place.

It's a wiki for mathematics and statistics topics. The entry I referred her to (about permutations with identical elements) was easy to follow and helpful. It seems like a good idea.

Home Organizing

2010-03-03T10:27:00.000-06:00

Last weekend my mom came down to Tulsa to work with Shannon and I on the nursery. It ended up being a project that affected 3 room, but not the 3 originally planned.
Originally we were going to move my sewing room and Shannon's office to our bedroom downstairs and then move our bedroom up to Shannon's office and make the sewing room a nursery. Well, we were thinking about it and realized that wasn't the best plan. Here's why.

The baby will be sleeping in our room for at least a few months, in the cradle from when Shannon was a baby (awesome huh? (Uncle) Randy made it back in 1980, all 11 of the Dick grandchildren used it). And we would like to stay in our room for some time and not have to start sleeping upstairs now (with still 2 months before she's born).So we decided to move most of Shannon's office down to our bedroom (it's a stupid big room anyways). Some of the book cases (and random stuff from the bedroom) was moved to the spare room. And we kept the sewing room as is. Now Shannon's old office is the nursery.

We did a lot this weekend. Here are some pictures to show it!

This is Shannon's office before we moved everything out. We moved Shannon's big desk to our bedroom, two of the book cases and their books to the spare room, the other two to our bedroom. We had to remove the door to fit the desk through it... jeepers.

In the spare room we added the two book cases and moved the small black computer desk from out bedroom up (with "computer" and all!). We also moved all the Fall and Christmas decoration boxes to the storage in the garage. That cleaned this room up.

Our bedroom lost one small black desk and gained one large desk and two bookcases. We also moved our bed a little.

After moving things, of which I did little to help. We got to the redecorating. This was only in the nursery. The other rooms still look the same, just with more stuff and eventually more organized. We puttied, sanded, and started to tape, but ran out.

So we took a break which involved SmashBurger for lunch, Target, Lowes, Babies-R-Us, Crib City, Baby Depot, and TGI Friday's for dinner. Then, back to the house for more work! We finished taping, then primed the walls and the chair rail, and watched some Olympics.

Sunday morning, Mom got up earlier than us and painted the whole ceiling and half of the brown walls, and some of the molding. :) Eventually we all helped and got the chair rail marked and the room painted. It's an oatmeal color on top and ceiling, with a gray-sage-green color below. The chair rail is painted white.

While we let that dry, we went out and spent some big monies on furniture. Well, Mom spent all the monies. It's her gift to us and the baby! Thanks Mom! We got a really nice crib for 330$, a nice big dresser for 350$, and a glider with ottoman for 270$. It's all a dark espresso color. The cushions on the glider and ottoman are a dark taupe color. The crib is the only thing we are waiting on. That should be here in about a month.

Then, when things were dry, we put up the chair rail. Shannon got to use his new miter saw! It made the job much easier. That and going to Lowes to buy a 10$ stud finder. All of the walls in our house are not square or straight. It was impossible to put up the molding nice without the stud finder, we tried. There were gaps all over the place where it wasn't against the wall. However, now it looks pretty good. It's all held on, puttied, and painted. Made the room look more fancy.

After that, we vacuumed and spot cleaned the carpet. Then moved the furniture we had into the room and enjoyed.

I still want to make at least one bookcase, too. But that will come later, probably after we get the crib so we know how much room we have, and where. We also put all the stuff we have gotten so far in the room too. I hung up pj's. :)

So, thanks to Mom for coming down and all of her help! There is NO way we could have done this without you. Not only was your manpower useful, but your knowledge and baby names were too!

:)

I'm pretty excited. I like the way things are going so far. :)

SnowBuffs

2010-03-02T08:59:00.000-06:00

I met a lot of important people in my life through the SnowBuffs. That is the roller hockey team that Shannon started before I even met him in Garden City. The summer before my senior year of high school, my best friend Julia and I started to play with them. That is when I met Shannon, and met his family and all of his friends (which are now may friends too).

So, now all the SnowBuff girls are having babies (girls in particular*) and I made a onesie for Autumn to celebrate!

Julia ordered some goods from my Etsy shop and Shannon and I decided we would send a bonus gift for Autumn. We wanted to try embroidering a onesie for a while and this was a good time to do it. So Shannon found an old Sabre's logo in vector form, pulled it into our digitizing program and after about 30 minutes, we had this, text and all. We put it all together on the machine, and let her go! Pretty pleased with the result. Hopefully it fits Autumn okay and the knit/embroidered combo doesn't stretch out too much.

*Somary had 2 girls already, Julia just had a girl, and Jenette and I are having girls.

10 weeks to go

2010-03-01T16:34:00.000-06:00

I'm 30 weeks pregnant now. Today Shannon and I went to another appointment (and paid for/registered for the option to get an epidural).

She's looking pretty good. Heart rate was about 120 bpm. I've gained about 20 lb so far. But he said her waist area is measuring a little small (33rd percentile), so he's going to have me go to the hospital for another ultrasound. He said that he isn't worried, but they can do a more detailed job of measuring her growth.

But I did get a new picture!

If you can't tell, its a profile of her face. Just that one. But it's a fun/creepy one. I guess until she is no longer in my belly they are all going to be creepy.

Only 73 Days

2010-02-25T09:15:00.000-06:00

73 days until my due date that is. I know that there is a good chance the baby will be born before or after that date, but it's the best thing I can count down to.

I update that little slideshow on my side bar every week. But the pics are pretty small and hard to see (unless you actually click to go to Photobucket). So here is a bonus shot of what I look like now. Well, yesterday actually.

I definitely feel big now. It doesn't really get in the way yet, save for when I wash dishes. Our sink is kinda big and the faucet is kinda small. So between those two and needing to stand about 4" further away, I feel like I'm hunching over when I wash dishes.

But I've been feeling good. Still no real cravings. Still trying to work things out with work. Still making stuff for my Etsy shop, Nausicaa Distribution.

I'm totally enjoying the embroidery machine! I've made and sold one thing with it for my shop already. And Shannon and I have been working on more stuff. And we made a gift for Autumn, Julia's 3 month old. It came out pretty good. I'll post about it later, after she has time to get it (I mailed it to her on Tuesday).

Girl Scout Cookies

2010-02-24T14:51:00.001-06:00

I haven't had me some girl scout cookies in quite some time. So when a coworkers daughter came around selling them about 1 month ago, Shannon and I bought three boxes. We got them today!

However, these three you see above weren't actually the correct ones. He accidentally gave us one wrong box. Guess what the only box we opened was...

Yeah, we should have had these three boxes. Luckily, the Dosidos were for his mom, and he said she bought like 20 boxes and wouldn't mind that 2 cookies were missing from one box. I still felt pretty crummy. How could we think we actually bought two boxes of peanut butter cookies... Odd.

Oh, and last night... another s'more. :) Gas ranges rock.

Indoor S'mores

2010-02-23T09:28:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, around 5:00pm, eating s'mores sounded really good. But, I was at work and no s'mores were to be had.

After work we went to Target to find a snack, as we were both hungry. We left spending over 70$ on food (don't shop while hungry...) including meat, snacks, and stuff for s'mores. Just in case I got the urge back.

And you know what happened? Around 11:30 pm, Shannon and I decided we wanted something sweet, like s'mores! So we roasted some marshmallows over our gas range, which worked out really well, and had so

Falling Apart

2010-02-22T09:01:00.001-06:00

My little lamp-shade smiley face at work was not looking to hot this morning when I came in. He's hanging on by the lamp shade rim and a piece of dust. Poor fella. Maybe it's for the better.

This weekend JoAnn started their new sale. Part of it included 1.49$/yard flannel instead of the regular price of 4.99$/yd. So, we bought a bunch. :) We bought about 45$ in flannel, instead of 150$ worth. :) How fun. Now I have a wonder 29 different colors to offer for custom plushies and bookends in my Etsy shop.

Speaking of which, I sold my first stained glass piece on Friday! Isn't that cool!

New Favorite Song?

2010-02-18T11:23:00.001-06:00

If you've been watching the Winter Olympics, I'm sure you've seen/heard this commercial. It is for Sprint and has Apolo Ohno skating fast enough to move the ice. I love the song in the background. It's by The Xx and called Intro. It's short (an intro), but wonderful. And other songs I've heard are pretty good by them too.

Baby Moving

2010-02-15T09:41:00.000-06:00

She moves around quite a bit now. I'm right around 28 weeks, about 3 months to go. :)

I get bored sometimes. And I've got a lot of family not in Tulsa (Shannon is the only one in Tulsa). So here is a video of her moving around. You can see the left side bubble a bit.

Sweet!! I've got an embroidery machine!!

2010-02-09T10:19:00.001-06:00

You may recall that for Christmas, Mom and Shannon combined forces to get me an embroidery machine. We did some browsing/learning and made a decision a month later (last Saturday).

Welcome to my table Brother PE-750D!

How cool is this! I have 3 machines!! You can't see the serger very well, but it's back there!

Of course I had to make something.

And what better something than Snotiva.

Dude, I'm gonna have so much fun with this bad boy. I'm probably going to get Embird so we can make whatever files we want for embroidery. :) Sweet!

Congratulations to the Saints

2010-02-08T10:06:00.000-06:00

I didn't think they'd do it. I thought the Colts would easily win. And besides that interception for a TD, I think the Colts probably would have won... but they didn't. Crazy!

I should have been going for the Saints. Some years back they were my second favorite team (behind the Denver Broncos). I had no reason to like them, I just did. And they were pretty bad back then. It was a pretty good game. We had a party at Andy's in Wichita. The party consisted of Andy, Rusty, Rhonda, Jenette, Chris, Mom, Maria, Jayme, Charles, Nikki, Shannon, Gary, and I. And a deep fat fryer! That deep fat fryer made some delicious hot wings!

Also in fun weekend news, I got an embroidery machine! Awesome!! And Jenette and I had a baby shower thrown by Jayme, Mom, and Rhonda, with help from Maria. :) It was a good weekend and I plan to post pictures later. I have some other things to do at the moment.

Also, it looks like quilt #5 is going to be the winner. Shannon and I like that one a bit more than the others, but no work has begun yet.

Another Quilt

2010-02-01T13:19:00.000-06:00

A while ago we bought fabric to make a quilt for our baby. And now I'm ready to start it. Problem is, we don't really know what design we want to use.

Our colors are beige/tan, lavendar, and sage, as shown below.

I've been hunting on the web-web for ideas and here is what I have so far. What do you think?

Some combination of our three colors instead of red, white, and blue.

I like the fact that the colored squares are made smaller colored squares. It looks pretty cool. Maybe go buy some plain beige fabric and do the squares in the three colors.

Pretty similar to our colors, but with more sage then light blue and beige not white.

Not so sure our colors work for this, but it looks neat.

This is pretty similar to our colors, but the purple is too dark. Anyway. I like the classic clean look of this one.
Probably replace brown with beige and then use sage and lavender for the diamonds.

Not so sure, but I enjoy the simplicity and traditional-ness. I wouldn't do stars...maybe dinosaurs or distributions...

I like this one. The quilting itself is fun. As are the colors. But we'd replace the blue with lavender and probably the white with beige.

So, yeah, pretty much not so sure what we like. But if you have an opinion/suggestion, let me know!

Another Productive Weekend

2010-02-01T09:40:00.000-06:00

Well, maybe not as productive as others have been, but I think we got lots done.

We played 10 games of Necromunda! Our campaign is up to 120 battles (we started it over a year ago). It is so nice to have a place that you can just set up the board and let it stay out without being in the way. At Jardine, if the board was up, then that was all we could do (basically). Now, we have an entire house to do things in, even with the board up! Awesome. I love having a game room.

We made bread and manicotti. Mmm. Pretty tasty. And we had enough leftovers for at least 2 meals. Wonderful! I am also pretty lame at kneading. I make super-sticky dough, then can't knead it well. Shannon though is a big help. :) So the bread came out fine.

We took pictures of the snow. Friday it took us 45 minutes to get home from work and there was no traffic. There was plenty of ice and snow. Luckily* work let us go home early at 4:15. So we left right away, knowing our car can be rather slippy in such conditions. Well, it looked really nice and Shannon drove well (as he always does). So after making into our driveway (a real bonus), we shut the garage door and left the snow to be photographed and shoveled the next day. Then Saturday Shannon shoveled the driveway (took about 10 minutes) and I took some pictures. Just about every house in our development has icicles. It's kind of fun.

Also, I finished some crafts and started planning some new ones. :)

This weekend we will go to Wichita for a baby shower for Jenette and I! :) And I should get my embroidery machine.

Holy Crap! This one lady in our office has been coughing all morning, seriously for 50 minutes she's been coughing the entire time! Her son has bronchitis and I'd much rather she be home healing herself and him! I would be so pissed if I got sick. Maybe I should take a sick day. :)

*That "Luckily" really was sarcastic. Shannon and I didn't take lunch so we could leave an hour early to avoid some bad weather. So, getting to leave at 4:15 let us leave a whopping 15 minutes early. That just mean that I went an afternoon without lunch, running on Goldfish, a fruit leather strip, and Clementine.

Skype and Ice

2010-01-29T10:45:00.000-06:00

Well, the ice storm hasn't been as bad as forecast. Everything is covered in ice, save the roads. They are slick, but not too bad. Now it is snowing... not sure if that will help much. But it looks nice.

Also, last night Shannon and I talked with Rhonda and Michelle on Skype, for free. :) Rhonda and Michelle planned on using Skype, but Shannon and I didn't have a webcam/mic that worked. So, we bought one and now we can chat with Michelle in England too!

Having Skype is easy, and I'm going to advocate having it for family members who want to see our baby but aren't in Tulsa (Mom and others). So, get yourself a webcam and a free Skype account and going the party!

January Ice Storm

2010-01-28T08:36:00.000-06:00

So, we are going to get some ice. Luckily* the drive to work was super-clear. Traffic and all were down to a minimum. But look at what we have coming.

At 7:15 this morning...
And an hour later at 8:15 it looks like this...
So pretty much any time now we are gonna start getting some nasty winter mix. Sounds crummy.

*It not a good thing that we made it to work. We knew that would happen. Going home is going to be the problem. And our car SUCKS on ice/snow. So we'll see. Roads aren't salted (not a surprise for Tulsa) so it should be guaranteed ice b 5:30. Awesome.

Fruit Snacks

2010-01-26T16:50:00.000-06:00

Mmm... how I love them!

Also, I wish I had more time to sew! I keep getting ideas and I have to wait to do them...by the time I'm home I'm tired/grouchy/hungry/out-of-time. Well, in about 4 months I will either have time to try or will have different excuses for not trying.

Also also, I had a dream about having an embroidery machine. I was going to do it but I needed a USB cord. While Shannon was getting it for me, I woke up. :( No dream-embroidery for me. But I am very excited to get me a machine in about 2 weeks! Woo hoo! (Mom I do plan on buying one next time I'm in Wichita).