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.

Happy high five day!

According to the Northwest Cable News channel today is "high five day"

The best part of today, so far, is that I got to high five the news guy. He put his hand up towards the camera and I put mine up too :) Long distance high fives are great!

So make sure you high five someone today, of course if you come across this news too late I'm sure belated high fives are always welcome.


... I also tried to high five my baby but seeing as I can't feel him/her yet I may have just smacked them in the head. Sorry baby...

hooray baby

Logan got to come with me to my first appointment today. It was all good news, the massive amounts of blood they took from me last time determined that I am healthy and that I am blood type AB positive, a rare type I'm told. Everything is the right size and looking good

AAAND

we got to hear the baby's heartbeat! :D That was exciting for us. It was really quick (160) but the midwife said that is just the way it's supposed to be with teeny babies. She said it was like a little bird, which I thought was pretty cute :) but I am pregnant and prone to sappy. No ultrasound this early, we're only about 12 weeks along, that will come in June :D yay.

I must have taken a wrong turn in Albuquerque...

I feel like I've been lost when it comes to blogging for that last long while. Our wireless internet went down, quite literally, I think one or both of our cats knocked the router from its perch atop the computer box. Logan smartly pointed out they were probably just trying to get warm, this revelation surely saved the kittens from a sound verbal lashing from me, how can you be mad at a little kitty for curling up somewhere warm?

This is the only conclusion I have drawn for our wireless router box has ceased its faithful functioning. Haha, I'm using fancy writing tonight. I think it's because I am subconsciously inspired to write better when I read good writing and tonight I read a short story written by Logan's mum which was wonderful :) If any of you can get your hands on a copy of a book called Chick Ink, a collection of short stories about women and their tattoos, be sure to read the one called Brothers in Arms. It's really neat :)

And now an important announcement:
For those who are finding out by reading this or heard through the grapevine, I am sorry, I wish I were able to travel all around and tell everyone in person. Of course, with regards to modern communication, I wish I were more inclined to use the telephone, cursed contraptions.... I'd say I am pretty good at chatting with my Mom and with Logan if we are apart but able to phone and perhaps my older sisters, but that's about it. It's a real stretch for me to call people up and talk, even with news as life changing as I have now. (So if I have ever chatted away with you on the phone for any length of time you're either so good at phone talking that you made me good or you should count yourself blessed because I really am horrible at phoning.) Anyone who hasn't heard has probably guessed by now that my big news, well... OUR big news (Logan's and mine) is that we are pregnant. :D :D :D :D :D Huzzah!

I haven't had any appointment with a doctor yet but I am off to the Army hospital on post to meet with a nurse to get all my paperwork and necessary blood work out of the way this Wednesday. We're about ten weeks along right now. So far I've been tired quite a bit, eating many small meals throughout the day, I've felt nauseous from time to time but haven't thrown up and I only almost fainted once. Apart from that I've been a bit moodier and my blood sugar levels seem to drop quicker. I would be most grateful, as would Logan I'm sure, for a healthy dose of prayer for patience and grace over the Godsiff home ;)

Again, I apologize for not being the messenger I feel I should be, hopefully this post reaches all those I didn't get to.
To all our friends and family I hope that you know you're in our hearts and thoughts and I hope that we will get to visit with all of you before our baby goes off to college ;) I'll try, now that the big news is out, to update this blog-thing more often, I'll also try to find our camera (which is MIA at the moment). Perhaps Cherise will post a couple pictures of the landscaping, eh? Cherise? She was here a couple weeks ago and took some nice shots of the yard. I guess we'll have to see if she can get a moment to do that between papers...

Until next time; stay clean, stay green and stray often. Goodnight.