still waiting...

Well, Rowan is still hanging out inside but he is showing signs that he might be thinking about wanting to start heading out soon. I've got to almost 2 cm dilated and 80% effaced (which I was a week ago) but as of my appointment yesterday afternoon in a week he's dropped from a negative three station to a negative two. So he's making his way, slowly but surely :) I suppose that means he'll be a laid back little guy. His dad and I have been using this time to get his room ready, we're going to be getting a sweet blue rocking chair from Logan's grandparents which I'm excited about. Here's a shot of it with Murphy rockin a bit of a Vanna White vibe ;) though not quite as smiley....

Aaaaand we just finished painting! ... almost, there are a couple spots I want to touch up on the blue and green but we could get by just fine if I don't get a chance. It still looks good :)Here the green look a bit more yellow than it actually is, this smaller picture is a bit more true to life. I think they're nice baby boy colors, they remind me of winnie the pooh.

Other than painting I've busied myself with washing and folding clothing and bedding. Even though I'm not up to much I feel like I'm going a bit nuts. The other day I started five or six different small jobs like washing dishes, cleaning off the coffee table, putting Rowan's stroller together and cooking a grilled cheese sandwich without finishing any and had two or three more things in my head that I wanted to start also. I feel scatterbrained :P (just incase you're wondering I only burnt the sandwich a little bit) I hope I have everything ready for this little guy when he decides it's time to come out. I wish I at least had a window of time...

a good start

I went to the doctor last week and inquired so the midwife checked and said that I was about 1 cm dilated and 75% effaced :D I know that I could stay that way for a while or even be more so and still wait days or weeks for my little guy to show his face but I'm still excited. That's 1 centimeter that I my body won't have to worry about during active labor and 75% of thinning that I'm already done with. A good start indeed.




Oh, and Aunty Kara needs to create a blog so she post comments to my face that I should update.
I love you Aunty Kara, we want to see pictures of you and yours!

running out of room

Someone please convince my son that it is quite impossible for him to stand up inside me... I don't think he believes me... With regard to my earlier post (below) I wonder who is rubbing off on whom the inclination to rebel against their physical situation... ;)

Of course I know he's not consciously defying the confines of the womb... it just makes everything a lot more fun and bearable to attribute motives and/or specific actions to his movements :) 'cause it seriously does feel like he's trying to do a handstand on my bladder sometimes :P and it's in those moments when a sense of humor really helps. I like to imagine being able to see in there with one of those xray screens from old cartoons that I could just step behind and see a silhouette of my body and Rowan inside a white oval doing gymnastics and p.t. with a boxer's robe and headphones on with some little Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee posters on the wall.

illogical

I should not get hungry before 6am... even if I have been not very asleep since around 4:30am


I tend to mentally rebel against my body at this time of the morning, not the best thing I'm sure but it just doesn't make any sense to me. I fell asleep later than usual and woke up early and felt hungry shortly thereafter, what's up with that? Logan does not agree that this is unusual or illogical claiming the apparently numerous times he has woken up hungry at very early hours. I pointed out that he most likely did not do so after eating a decent dinner the night before. All of his times were probably on the ground of the backside of some mountain in Georgia after hardly eating anything for more than a day, marching a lot and it was probably cold.

vacation

Well, it's been a fun week and a half. I got to visit Portland, then Sisters, then Portland again! :D Joylynn and I got a double baby shower in Portland last Tuesday. It got a little nutty around present time with two mamas opening gifts simultaneously while the big siblings/cousins helped to open a few presents and keep things interesting :) It was a great time, even if to Wyatt's disappointment though the party had balloons, cake and presents it wasn't anyone's birthday. After hanging out a bit more in Portland Logan's mum fetched me from Wilsonville and gave me a ride down to Sisters.

[I arranged this and a few other vases for the baby shower in Sisters which had a fall theme and was really pretty]

I love visiting central Oregon it's so beautiful and it's even better when I get to be spending time with Logan's family, they're awesome. It's also great to watch Max get to be a ranch dog he always looks so happy bounding around and playing with Murphy (Logan's parents' boston terrier). He had a bit of a close call this visit when he found himself in the middle of a group of alpacas who almost stomped him but Logan's dad plucked him from danger and tied him a safe distance away. No harm done and Max is a smarter dog for it so apart from being a nervous when it was happening it didn't really phase me. After a few days hanging around in Sisters Logan's parents, their dog Murphy, Max and me drove back up to Portland. I got to spend some more time with my family and I also got to meet Logan's uncle Steve who flew in from New Zealand for a visit.

[this was on the way to the pet store Harold is a sweet little kitty]

After a wonderful breakfast yesterday morning with Logan's parents and uncle I said bye to them and turned to the pressing matter of the cats that were still around and needing to find homes. My Mom called a pet store out in Beaverton and they accepted the three remaining kittens after they passed their health check with flying colors. It was a lovely large pet store with friendly employees that seemed very comfortable handling the kitties and I felt really good about leaving them there.

I'm confident they will find good homes. So now it's down to just the mamas and it's going to be a waiting game because the soonest appointment I could get for them at the humane society was October 29th. Since Rowan is due only two days before that the cats are being taken care of at my parents' house so I don't have to be cleaning any more cat boxes. It's really nice to have one less thing to stress about while preparing for a baby and a home coming. I'm very glad that my Mom, Dad and siblings like cats and can help me out with them :) Thanks guys!! You're totally BEST.

Now I am home and being pretty lazy today... but you know I won't have many more days when I can just sit around for very much longer so I think I'm not too upset with my slothful self ;)

overdue pictures

Hey guys, thanks for the reminder that I haven't actually put that many pictures on here. I look so much at my Mom's pictures on her blog and what she sends me on email that I forget sometimes that I don't put that many on my blog. So here you go, some pictures :)


My mom wanted me to stand next to a picture I made in a college color theory class, the theme of my project was "motherly love" and I was supposed to go through magazines and use only the color purple to communicate my theme.


Here I am at a coffee shop drinking an italian soda with cream :) yuuuuuummy


This is my Dad and me working on a fun home improvement project


Here's a shot of Rowan's room from the doorway, to the left (once we get everything we want and set it up) will be a changing table, a rocking chair and ottoman and perhaps a small lamp table as well.


This is a close up on most of the wonderful crib set I got off of craigslist and the little bear I bought for Rowan at Ikea because I thought it was freaking adorable :) I think it's a perfectly wonderful first teddy bear :) We're planning to paint the walls mostly light yellow with two horizontal stripes of color on the lower walls, one of green and one of blue. The shades of all three of those colors are pretty much what you see in the bedding I got. I'm excited to paint and nervous also thinking that we won't get everything ready and in place before he gets here. I'm sure we will but I'm also pretty sure that it's my job as the mother-to-be to fret from time to time about those things.



To all who may be curious I cannot say when the beloved kiwi whilst be home again. To be honest I don't even know when it's going to be. They usually don't let anyone know that sort of thing until very close to the date, probably not even the guys. But being army you just learn to deal with that sort of thing and settle with just being giddy that he'll be back soon :D which I am.

Hooray pregnant adventures!

Two weeks ago tomorrow I was driving to the post office to send Logan a box of goodies and love when a piece of my upper left wisdom tooth came off. I called my dentist and requested to get my tooth looked at. Since it was labor day weekend soonest they could get me in was the next Tuesday. Toughing out the weekend wasn't a bad since the tooth didn't hurt so I just went in on Tuesday. They agreed that it could be a problem if left alone, even though it wasn't hurting me. Well confusion and hesitation on my part as to who exactly I needed to get to sign my dental consent form caused the process to be delayed until my 33 week check up this past Monday.

In any case I got a consent form signed to bring to my dentist on Monday so I called in for an appointment. The soonest I could be seen was yesterday at 2:30 (which of course made Logan giggle when he heard because he could joke about my "tooth-hurty" appointment) so that's when I went in and everything went just about a perfect as could be. It went much faster than I had anticipated. One reason was that they wanted to pull only one of my teeth, the broken one, I only have two wisdom teeth that have erupted but they were concerned about the amount of anesthetic they would need to use and the time it would take for them to pull both teeth in one sitting. I suspect also that they didn't realize until I walked in that I was as far along in my pregnancy as I am since they seemed hesitant even to pull the one. The tooth came out quickly and in one piece, which I think was just the grace of God :) and I went on my merry way.

Merry that is until the anesthetic wore off ;) haha, it actually doesn't hurt that much. I've heard lower jaw extractions are worse, Logan was certainly put out by getting his lower wisdom teeth pulled a few months ago and my sister (who just had a baby) got one pulled not too long ago and she said her pain level was pretty bad. I was going to follow her suggestion to get some stronger meds for the pain just so it'd be on hand but I got all distracted yesterday and never called my dentist or OB clinic. Lucky for me that it isn't bad too because not only would she have quite a bit to say "I told you so" about ;) but her warnings about stressing out my baby and not being able to sleep well would have probably been ever so true. I've been doing alright on just generic tylenol-like non-aspirin pain relievers every six hours or so and pretty proud of myself :)

Of course I don't think myself a superhero or anything. I'm counting my blessings and thanking God for the wisdom of caution in my dentist, if it was up to me I would have tried to have both pulled yesterday and I don't think I would want to eat anything at all if I didn't have one side of my mouth to help chew soft food :) Speaking of which, it is time to find me some breakfast. I think microwaved (and cooled) toaster waffles and applesauce sound great :D

JOYLYNN!!!

Dear Joylynn, I don't have any pictures for you just now because I'm not at home but seeing as right now is your birthday and I've already confessed my true feelings for your farm equipment I thought I would simply serenade you. What song you ask? Well what more fitting song than Happy Birthday, and what better version than the beautiful crooning love-soaked version taught to me by your very own first daughter while she and I browsed the birthday cards at Fred Meyer?

*Alyssa composes herself on the stage next to the stool with the glass of water on it while the house lights dim and the spotlight operator tries to get his act together but still misses her by about five feet to the left before realizing he's illuminating the back of some guy's head and swinging over to the girl simply wishing to honor her lovely sister on her birthday*

This is for you oh my biggest and most 25 year old sister :)


Happy... happy... happy... happy... happy... happy... happy... happy... happy... happy... happy... happy... happy... happy... happy... happy... happy... happy...

twitchy belly

My little guy is pretty active nowadays but he seems to be camera shy. I've tried again and again to take a little video of my tummy bouncing around for Logan to see but everytime I point the camera down he either freezes or moves just enough that I can feel him but the camera can't see it.

I can't wait to see what Rowan will be into :) maybe art or bikes or skateboarding or animals (lately it seems like he wants to be Chuck Norris when he grows up) I can't wait to have him out so I can play with him :D Joylynn and Lalita are making me a little jealous, how come I have to be due after them?? I want to hold my baby! Though waiting and having a healthy baby is way better than having him now this early, premature labor is certainly not ideal.

I guess I can wait a little while more :) he's being a good boy and we're doing well. Our next appointment is on the 10th so we'll see if we're still right on with weight and size, I'm feeling pretty good so I think we will be. The only problem I've had in the last couple days is that he seems to have his Daddy's taste in TV shows and squirms his little body around more when I'm watching shows that Logan thinks are silly or dumb. I know that's not really why he's moving but it's fun to think that that's the reason he's kicking and punching me all up. When Logan has to be working and I have to just be sitting at home avoiding dish washing and folding laundry I need something interesting and preferably amusing to occupy my thoughts and time ;) I wanted to get a trampoline but apparently that's not good, Logan said not until after Rowan's born... but playing on a trampoline sounds like super fun! *sigh* Oh well, I guess that's one more thing I can wait for. Dinner however is not and I need to go figure out what I am going to eat tonight.

a couple of good guys

I was just browsing the vast picture archive here at my parents' house and I happened upon this one of two guys whom I happen to like a lot. My little brother and my husband both pretty much in their elements. Both headed to the woods behind my house it looks like Hayden toting a couple airsoft guns (in a cast no less) and Logan his bike, a shovel and an axe. Both with water and mud slowly engulfing their pants, aaah good times... goood times.


I do have one question though... where is Hayden's helmet?

YAY BIRTHDAY!!

Today is Rylan's birthday! Well... at least it is in the US and since that's where I am I say today HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO RYLAN! In honor of my brother I decided not to post pictures of him but of his passion and love

CATS! So without further ado, here are my kitties celebrating Rylan's birthday (when it actually was his birthday in Korea, I took all of these yesterday) in their regular fashion... which is running around, climbing on things, fighting each other and generally being cute.


Ruckus is ADORABLE isn't he?




















I don't know what was so fascinating to Peanut Butter (right) but it freaked Polar Bear out.






Ninja's eyes never do the red eye thing, just blue. Isn't it pretty?


Polar Bear on the attack!

Assessing the morning

Being woken up at 5:30, not so good.

Being woken up by noisy yet adorable kittens, not so bad.

Discovering a bug bite on the palm of my hand, really annoying.

Camp

This week I have been blessed to be able to go out to Solid Rock Camp in Tenino, WA with my church. I've been hanging out with the day campers and havin a blast. Not being in charge of anything and most of the time not even really knowing what's going on I almost feel like an extra wheel but my heart is really just to be there and available to help with whatever so it's been good. It's been a major blessing in my life right now, being able to get some exercise and hang out with cool people and just being part of a camp is super fun. I took a couple pictures of where my map ended up so you guys could see the final product.













Unfortunately I didn't get my camera out until right before I left today and the pavilion was inbetween things so there are tables up and also at some point yesterday I think the light sheer fabric that you see hanging down between the map and the screen was stapled above the screen. I don't know if it was in the way or if the wind knocked it off, it may have even been the older kids, oh well. Check it out.

woah

I just noticed guys... less than 100 days until Rowan's due date.

Infuriating

Hokay, so... I'm working on some artwork for a camp that my church is doing next week. This is just a piece of art that will hang in the meeting area where the kids will hear the lessons I'm guessing. Anyway the theme of the camp is treasure quest and the theme verse is Matthew 6:21 "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." So I was asked to draw some sort of map. I wanted to incorporate as much of the actual lessons as possible so I asked about what they were talking about and I found out that there will be five points taught over the week so I named little places on my island map and so far it's turned out pretty good.

EXCEPT my glaring mistake :P well... it maybe it's not that bad but it certainly glares at me.


Observe, if you will, the top right corner where in a moment of prideful arrogance I did not practice how big to make the letters with a pencil (which is almost invisible) and I ran the e of purpose into the outline of the island. The infuriating part is that I had SO much room in that corner to write! And this is all permanent marker so there's no going back. *sigh* I am disappointed in myself...

Of course I know it's not a big deal and it's supposed to look almost like a kid drew it so it's ok that it's not "perfect". Also we're planning to "age" it anyway so it's going to get paint all over it to make it look dirty and old. Tell me honestly though, are the crowded up letters above a huge space of nothingness distracting? I'm distracted, the composition is off! The balance is in shambles! I'm also a hungry and pregnant perfectionist....

Boys and Girls

Hokay so, we've got three boys and two girls. As of right now, if you include Rowan the boys are one up on the girls in numbers. Current totals are five girls (four cats and me) and six boys (three cats, Max, Terrance the turtle and Rowan) but Chaos has yet to reveal her hand so who knows, we just may pull ahead on this one.




Alrighty, this is Polar Bear he's a boy.

and a cutie :)

Here are Norman (left), Peanut Butter (right) and of course Max (far right).

Norman is a boy and Peanut's a girl.

This cutie baby is Ruckus, he's a boy and was sitting there staring at me as I took pictures of everyone else. The most adorable thing was since they're still just a bit unsteady on their feet he was rocking back and forth just a little, soooo cute!



Then there's ninja, the other girl baby kitty, she is the most active little bugger of them all.
As I was taking pictures sitting in the hall she was all over checkin out my belly, wandering a bit and puffing herself up at Max which was cute and hilarious at the same time because Max is pretty much scared of the kittens.


















I don't think he knows what they are or what to do with them, if they start coming near him he starts looking around nervously and eventually runs away. Mostly the kittens just stare at him, Ninja was trying to hiss last night but she's not very loud or intimidating... or at least I didn't think so, Max was petrified.

Cute and fun

Here they is! Five little kitties.

We don't know yet which are boys and which are girls but we named them anyway because they're just so darn cute how could we not? The one sitting up the tallest is Norman (after Norman Schwarzkopf, because its splotches of tan reminded Logan of desert cammo), Little Ninja is the black one looking sleepily at the camera, the other black one is actually black and white and looks a lot like Havoc and Chaos so we call it Ruckus. The other two look so much alike that I can't tell in this picture which is which, Polar Bear is one of them and has a little black spot on its nose and we call the other one Peanut Butter. Those two look like they'll be either mostly white or mostly tan, we'll just have to wait and see.



Here is Max with our new neighbor, we don't know his or her name yet but it looks like a young golden retriever. It didn't take too long for Max to start to try and teach the run-up-and-down-the-fence game he so enjoyed with his little white buddy who moved away. I have to say this bigger dog isn't as good at it though, instead of racing endlessly up and down it'll follow Max for a bit and then lope back into its own yard. It's pretty amusing to watch Max's little legs pounding away while is new loftier friend bounds along the other side.

'Twas grand

Here are some pictures of the adventure Logan and I had last weekend. We headed south "behind" (to the east of) Mount St. Helens to the Columbia gorge, it was a beautiful day.
This first shot is somewhere between Rainier and Helens, I don't recall where exactly.















We stopped for lunch at a boat launch on the northwest corner of Riffe lake.


















And here's St Helens from the west, it was so so pretty.

Logan took this flowery shot :) isn't it awesome?

When we got to the gorge we realized that is was Saturday and the great weather meant the old road with all the waterfalls was CRAZY busy so we only stopped at one (Bridal veil). That was special to me because it was one of the places we went on our honeymoon. And, of course, it was majestic and beautiful :D









Then we slept at Dad and Mom's house and headed home Sunday to see our kitties! Their eyes are opening up a bit more but I haven't taken a lot of pictures because I feel mean making flashes at them while they are just starting to see. Perhaps in a few more days (after Havoc stops moving them around) I'll take some so you can see how cute they are.

Say hello to Rowan!

Here he is, our little boy :)

I never did get around to scanning anything so they're just pictures of the pictures but they look alright.


If you can't quite make that one out it says "right foot" and his toes are to the left. He was squirming around so it looks like he's got about nine toes. Silly baby.

And here's his face shot, we had one other one that looked like he was pouting, I think it was because the ultrasound lady was shaking him around (he wasn't the most cooperative lad at times)

It was pretty cool to feel him moving and see him moving at the same time :) I think he's ADORABLE.

Tune in next time for the kitten adventures! Havoc gave birth to five little ones between Friday afternoon and Saturday evening I think they're pretty cute but not up to much yet. I'll update with pictures and everything once Chaos has hers. That's right they both got pregnant at the same time, I guess it's just a sister thing, eh Joylynn? The vet said we should have our second litter sometime this week or next. Max is so funny, I'm not sure he knows what to make of Havoc's babies he gets really concerned when they all start mewing at Havoc for milk and when he gets a chance to see them he stares but won't come very close. At least he isn't having kittens... I think that'd be one too many litters for me... not to mention creepy...

Yay hooray!

We had our ultrasound today and although at times our little one was a bit reluctant to cooperate we saw what we wanted to see :) arms, legs, hands, feet, face and all those other important bits. I haven't scanned anything yet so no pictures yet but I will. And since I know you're all wondering (if I didn't already tell you)

It's a boy!! :D

Ticker!

Thanks Linds! I went out and got myself a shiny new ticker! I'm trying to get it on here... If you don't see it hopefully sometime soon it will be over there on the right side of the screen with a cute little blue elephant in some grass. It wasn't exactly what I wanted to do but I don't know how to do HTML so I went with my second really cute choice. I'm glad I got the tip on where to find one of those because I wanted one but had only seen one website that had them and I didn't like any of them.

Anyway I hope you can see my new elephant countdown to our due date (Oct. 27th) and that my blog isn't stark white when you look at it, I tried also to add pretty colors. I guess we'll see if blogger is my friend or not...

good word

Besmirched has got to be one of the funniest words ever right now, I can't say it without at least smiling, it just sounds funny.

You'd be amused too if you could see me, sitting on my couch with the laptop muttering "besmirched" over and over and laughing to myself. I should probably be doing something productive...

Mice can't talk and they aren't my friends

My cats are great, they hunt and catch mice and moles... unfortunately my cats also think we'll be very impressed if they bring them inside and leave them laying around. We got home Sunday evening after running around a bit and settled in to watch our rented movie that's when we found two dead mice looking things (maybe moles?) under the coffee table! Fortunately Logan is big and brave and he threw them out and didn't even tease me for being really girly about it. Isn't he great?

The next morning we woke up to scratching noises in the corner of the bedroom which turned out to be Chaos. She had a live mouse in our room and she was playing with it! Logan threw it out the window. It wasn't moving much so he put on a glove and took care of it... and by that I mean he threw it against a tree. Later in the yard we found another dead small critter and also one in the bottom of the trash can (Gross eh? I think maybe it was just hiding from the cats.)

The WORST though was last night when I was walking to the bedroom and I saw Chaos calmly walking across the hall with a small animal in her mouth! I guessed a squirrel but when Logan went to check it out it turned out to be a little rabbit. It was pretty messed up and I wanted to just shoot it to put it out of its misery but we aren't really supposed to be shooting things in the city (even if it makes sense and isn't cruel) so Logan just put it back in the woods to die. I felt bad but I can understand not wanting to try and kill it with a shovel or something.

If my cats want to kill mice and moles I am all for it and we praise them for it... unless they bring them in the house. But catching a bunny just seems a little intense for a little cat to pull off... maybe she thinks she's a cougar or something.

The annoying thing to me is that I feel like I used to be a lot braver before I was pregnant. The cats at my parents' house used to kill things and I'd just grab a shovel and fling them off into the corner of the yard or whatever but now I don't even want to look at them. It's weird... maybe some psychological safeguard against any diseases I can get from handling dead things?

Oh! And we found out there are bats hiding behind our gutter and they don't like the heat from a grill. At least that solves the mystery of the weird droppings on the lid of the barbecue.

SOMETHING GOOD!!!

It's my Dad's birthday!!! Happy Birthday to my Dad!

Boo Cherise's impatience with my frequency of posting... Hooray Dad!

Something good?

Um... last night I watched Sabrina with my dad and my sister Cherise? Mom and Dad caught the basement squirrel? Logan built our bench? I just ate a cucumber?

Come on yourself Cherise... what do you want?

Mom... Courtney put real strawberries in my life!

The quote of the day! Cameron whined it this morning when without his consent, Courtney unceremoniously plopped slices and pieces of actual (not dried or candy) strawberries into his life cereal. Listening to the complaint from the other room before knowing what had happened was quite amusing.

I've been visiting my parents for a bit while Logan has been away at mountain warfare school. It's been a fun trip. I went out with Courtney today to practice driving which turned out to be less stressful than it may seem. We drove 'round and 'round the parking lots out at Jantzen Beach and only frustrated one motorist (who was driving like an idiot anyway) by driving a bit slow. All in all a good lesson we decided.

Yesterday I had an OB appointment which my mom accompanied me to. We drove my car from Portland up to Ft. Lewis and back, I was glad to have some company on the trip and she got to hear the baby's heartbeat! It was moving around a bit this time but we manage to catch up with it :) the growth of the baby and all that is just right but apparently I need to gain more weight. It's weird for me to get used to pregnant eating habits, I think I've been stuck in a pre-pregnancy mindset. Which is not the best when there is a small person inside of you who pretty much gets dibs on all the nutrients. The doctor was a good one and I think that her advice will really help me get on track with getting my body where it needs to be.

I'm super excited also because I just scheduled my ultrasound :D June 19th we should be able to find out if we'll be having a girl or a boy. Cross your fingers that the baby cooperates for us ;) I'm off to eat (good and healthy food of course) because that's what the doctor ordered!

a few more pictures

New car! yay!

Gas tank on the right ;)


roundy and cute, simple radio and a red button that I like to think would transform my car into a battle robot if the situation called for it. Though a small, cute battle robot won't be very intimidating... oh well, that'll be the enemy's downfall.

Fancy shifter eh? I only almost turned on the windshield wipers instead of shifting a couple times.

More roundy, manual locks, windows and a crazy little handle (the black circle).

There you go! All the pictures I told you I'd post

finally

PICTURES!!!

Here is our tree, it looks a little squirrelly but it's fun. The flowers are great anyway :)



Logan and one of his buddies worked for a few hours on the new laminate floor yesterday. I love it! Once we get the last bit in, in the closet and in the doorway, and the trim back on it's going to be amazing :D




car pictures after I get back from picking Logan up, gotta run.

Update

*see original post below*

I found the cord, now the camera is MIA. Maybe tonight, after I can ask Logan if he knows where it is, I'll be able to put some pictures on here. Right now I've got errands. I'm out.